2654 replies to this topic

[Chaac]

I'm not sure if I understand this correctly but did all the aventures with River supposedly happen in those 200 years?

I really need a River timeline now, I'm confused.

[Stefancos]

The thing is. To a time traveller, knowing you are going to die "tomorrow" would be meaningless.

[Chaac]

Yes, if it's tomorrow on Earth's timeline. Not if it's your tomorrow.

[Stefancos]

No mention of the Doctor's age.

The plot thickens.

[pixie_twinkle]

This is very true. SO, the Doctor only knows he will die "tomorrow". He doesn't know that when it happens he will physically be 200 years older. Only River, Amy and Rory know that. Therefore When the "current" Doctor goes to his place of death "tomorrow", he won't die, but will see his future self get shot. Those 200 years have yet to occur. This is very complicated and I really don't know how the Moff is going to get out of it. Unless it has something to do with the Flesh Doctor, which certainly seems possible. Hmm.

[Stefancos]

That's a very interesting possibility Pix.

The overall success of series 6 pretty much depends on how good next saturday's episode is going to be.
Overall's it's been a good one, with a few strong eps. But the series finale can either make or break it.

Any idea how long it's going to be?

[pixie_twinkle]

I'm sure that if the final episode is going to have an extended running time, it will be announced on http://www.doctorwhonews.net/ sometime early next week. You're right about the importance of this last episode. I'm a little nervous that it has so many questions to answer that it won't flow dramatically. Or worse, it'll flow beautifully but leave too many annoyingly persistent questions hanging for yet another season... Still, my reservations about season 6 have generally been softened by the last three superb episodes. Closing Time in particular is up there with the most entertaining episodes since the show's return in 2005.

[Wycket]

As for the episode length, I believe I saw that the episode is only going to be a little over 45 minutes (as per a pre-dvd release announcement). If true, that would be a serious bummer as it seems like the finale is quite messed up as Churchill is there so there's obviously some time hopping or something strange going on.

As for the Doctor's age, I severely doubt the Doctor has only aged 50 years since the show started in '63. The whole point of the Doctor's age is that its always changing and long periods can pass with relatively little wear. Don't forget, wasn't Hartnell supposed to be 450 or something when he regenerated? If that's the case, he looked pretty good for his age.
As for 200 years passing, I'm sure that's just an approximation he makes to Amy. All that traveling around being purposefully ridiculous happened during this time period for the Doctor and the Amy and Rory that the Doctor saw are just seeing all that stuff and have yet to get that letter. Hopefully Moffat will deliver in the finale, as his episodes have been disappointing me this year as they seemed jammed pack with ideas and little else. The Day of the Moon is a particular one as they seem to just be meandering about from piece to piece. All I hope is that the finale ends with a

[pixie_twinkle]

I don't think the Doctor is supposed to have aged much more than 50 years since the Hartnell years. Most of the time the continuity of overlapping companions prohibits the possibility of him going off on his own for great amounts of time. He's alone briefly between Sarah leaving and Leela arriving (after the events of The Deadly Assassin). Other than that, the only time he could have gone swanning off by himself for any great amount of time is the huge gap between Survival and Rose (the only adventure of which we see being The TV Movie). During this huge gap he parts company with Ace. Then, after his regeneration in the TV movie he presumably enjoys a full life as the 8th Doctor, culminating perhaps in the great Time War with the Daleks. Fans seem to think it could have been during the closing moments of the Time War that the 8th Doctor receives his fatal injuries that cause him to regenerate into the 9th Doctor.

The start of Rose is a little contradictory. On the one hand the Doctor checks out his "new" ears in the mirror or Rose's mum's house, implying that he only recently regenerated. However, we then see multiple pictures of the 9th Doctor throughout various points in the history of mankind, JFK assassination, Titanic, Indian reservation etc. Once Rose starts traveling with him he doesn't have time for these historical visits so they must have taken place before he comes to contemporary Earth to sort out the Nestene invasion.

Or maybe I'm over-thinking all this and should just have a nice cup of tea. Yes. That's probably best.

[Wycket]

No reason to think the 50 years at all.

The Doctor is a time traveler. We don't see all of his adventures (especially considering the wealth of novels and Big Finish material). Plus, even the Doctor takes vacations so there's no need to squeeze the Doctor's time into such a small window from his point of view.

Plus about 9, why couldn't him and Rose have traveled around and taken those pictures on adventures. Time isn't linear,especially for the Doctor, and his adventures off screen are probably far more numerous than on screen. Him and Rose even mentioned I believe a diamond planet to Jack showing that they had a great amount of adventures. Either way there's no reason for either of us to toil on the subject so its probably best to all have a cup of tea and enjoy the show.

[pixie_twinkle]

Agreed!

[Stefancos]

I'll take Earl Grey, 2 sugars a dash of cream...

[pixie_twinkle]

Twinings English Breakfast for me. That stuff is the instant cure for all life's woes. No matter how bad your day is, a piping hot cup of Twinings English Breakfast puts things to right. If you have any Bourbon biscuits then your recovery will be complete.

[ashinyobject]

I really hope the Stetson and jacket stay next year. I think it's really iconic.

[pixie_twinkle]

It's a great image, but I think it defines this season specifically, not the 11th Doctor in general. Strangely, I think the Fez defines the 11th Doctor more than the stetson, even though he only wore it once before it got blasted into atoms.

[Stefancos]

And the bow tie!

Bow ties are cool.

[Wycket]

It's a great image, but I think it defines this season specifically, not the 11th Doctor in general. Strangely, I think the Fez defines the 11th Doctor more than the stetson, even though he only wore it once before it got blasted into atoms.

Actually twice if you count that special that those kids wrote that's supposed to air.

[davros72]

BBC axes Doctor Who Confidential...

link

Can't say I'm surprised, and I don't think I'm too upset about it. Though I will miss all the extra footage of Karen Gillan (who has claimed to be back next series in some capacity...).

[Chaac]

It's a great image, but I think it defines this season specifically, not the 11th Doctor in general. Strangely, I think the Fez defines the 11th Doctor more than the stetson, even though he only wore it once before it got blasted into atoms.

Actually twice if you count that special that those kids wrote that's supposed to air.

And The Impossible Astronaut.

I love when he puts on the astronaut helmet in that episode.

[davros72]

It's a great image, but I think it defines this season specifically, not the 11th Doctor in general. Strangely, I think the Fez defines the 11th Doctor more than the stetson, even though he only wore it once before it got blasted into atoms.

Actually twice if you count that special that those kids wrote that's supposed to air.

And The Impossible Astronaut.

I love when he puts on the astronaut helmet in that episode.

(And Silver Nemesis. But that doesn't count, does it? Even though he's holding a mop at the same time... )

[pixie_twinkle]

Silver Nemesis NEVER counts

Anyone who ever complained about the OTT bombast of RTD season-finale episodes and the equally bombastic music scores for said episodes needs to check out Silver Nemesis to find out the true, terrible meaning of OTT, misplaced bombast!

[pixie_twinkle]

SPOILERS!!!!!!! (Obviously)


The Wedding of River Song... Whaaat? I'm VERY confused.

1) It's never explained why the Doctor on the beach is 200 years older.

2) It's never explained why he suddenly decided to marry River. Are they now married? What the hell's that all about?

3) We STILL don't know what caused the TARDIS to explode at the end of season 5. In fact it wasn't ever even mentioned this season. Has that particular plotline just been left to die. I mean it was a pretty big part of season 5! Without explaining that season 5 kind of makes no sense.

This season finale was a HUGE amount of fun. I loved every minute, except for the pointless wedding scene which kind of pissed me off. BUT, it just left waaay to many questions not even remotely answered. In fact it left so many unanswered questions that it made season 6 extremely unsatisfying overall, despite a few terrific episodes. Don't get me wrong, I still think this show is the most entertaining thing on TV by a long shot. BUT, did it have to be such a muddled mess this year?

[ashinyobject]

SPOILERS!!!!!!! (Obviously)


The Wedding of River Song... Whaaat? I'm VERY confused.

1) It's never explained why the Doctor on the beach is 200 years older.

2) It's never explained why he suddenly decided to marry River. Are they now married? What the hell's that all about?

3) We STILL don't know what caused the TARDIS to explode at the end of season 5. In fact it wasn't ever even mentioned this season. Has that particular plotline just been left to die. I mean it was a pretty big part of season 5! Without explaining that season 5 kind of makes no sense.

This season finale was a HUGE amount of fun. I loved every minute, except for the pointless wedding scene which kind of pissed me off. BUT, it just left waaay to many questions not even remotely answered. In fact it left so many unanswered questions that it made season 6 extremely unsatisfying overall, despite a few terrific episodes. Don't get me wrong, I still think this show is the most entertaining thing on TV by a long shot. BUT, did it have to be such a muddled mess this year?

*SPOILERS*

1) Maybe the 200 years happens while on his "Farewell Tour". The Jim the Fish story and etc. must have happened during that.

2) I think he married her because he knows that he will eventually tell her his name. In Forest of the Dead, The Doctor says that there's only one reason he would tell someone his name.

3) Maybe Moffat is saving that for the next series, along with the new prophecies, or for the 50th anniversary.

[pixie_twinkle]

I just think that the TARDIS exploding at the end of season 5 is made to seem unimportant by this season's ignoring of it. It's either important or it isn't. If it is supposed to be important (and the climactic episodes of season 5 make it out to be VERY important) then it should have been on the Doctor's mind a lot more in season 6. In fact it should have been his raison d'etre. Instead I think it's mentioned once in a throwaway line in season 6. The trouble is, that by practically ignoring that point throughout season 6 the viewers have pretty much forgotten about it by now. Or they just don't care. And why should they? If the show itself isn't making it out to be important, why should viewers make the effort to remember it at all? Fans of the show are therefore probably getting a little worried that it will never be addressed, and if it is addressed the general public will have moved so far beyond that storyline they won't even remember it. If the Moff plans on completing the whole TARDIS exploding storyline next year then he really should have kept it alive in the minds of the viewers throughout this season. Include it in the plot of at least one story, and mention it in a few more. Otherwise it's a bit much to expect everyone to suddenly think it's no longer important (or worse, to let everyone forget all about it!) when it was such a huge deal influencing the events of season 5.

Besides, how can anyone really be expected to forget Amy's crack?

[Chaac]

Cool episode.

I don't think the silents have been used to maximun effect though. In the first two episodes we shouldn't have seen them until their defeat. Maybe same here.

My other problem is that I think the strusture of this series hasn't been very satisfying. Look at series 5. Lots of independent episodes, but every one added something to the one before that, stablishing a huge build up to two very satisfying episodes that only left two mysteries for next season. In this the not so good independent episodes feel like filler and the arc episodes seem to be very compressed and don't breath very well.

I like the paralells between The Wedding of River Song and The Big Bang.

Spoiler

We've got a wedding, either space or time being disintegrated because something happened to the Doctor or the TARDIS, and the Doctor managing to survive when he was supposed to die. And the weird worlds: the world without stars, and the world with all of history at once.

. I like all of the multiple patterns that go in Moffat's writing. Of course the alternate worlds are very cool.

As I understand it, if the Doctor went to the Library and looked up himself,

Spoiler

he would appear to have died on 22 april 2011 in Utah. But who would know that besides the Silence? Or did the Silence spread the word?

[pixie_twinkle]

No one else have any comments on this episode? I'm dying to see what everyone thought of it.

[BurgaFlippinMan]

i found it to be entertaining, but underwhelming as a series finale. the finale really should have been a meaty two parter.

[pixie_twinkle]

I agree. Although that might have seemed a little disproportionate given the short 6-episode span of this half-season, in the long run it might have been a lot more fitting. I for one could have used a little more breathing room, and a little more dialogue explaining the rationale behind certain characters' bizarre actions. The wedding in particular.

[BurgaFlippinMan]

I dont know what I think of Series 6 in relation to 5 yet. I think 6 has greater individual episodes, or individual moments...but 5's sum of its parts is greater than 6's sum of its parts.

[Docteur Qui]

I really enjoyed it, but it didn't really feel like a season finale. In fact, the entire season didn't feel very coherent. It had some outstanding episodes - more than any other season of the revival in fact - but ironically I thought the arc episodes were some of the weakest. I just didn't find the Doctor's death that interesting, particularly as it was never going to be permanent, nor was it leading to a regeneration. "Let's Kill Hitler" was a massive let-down after the great "Good Man Goes To War", the finale was similar but at least it was engaging. I love the portrayal of the outside-Earth Universe that Moffat has created, with interstellar bars and "live chess" matches and ancient tombs with cannibalistic skulls. I can't help but feel there were some missed opportunities and plot threads. Madame Kovarian and her entire cause fizzled out with a vague mention of their motives, which are, once again, set for a future storyline.

For such a bizarrely convoluted season, it still has some of the best of the revival. "The Doctor's Wife" and "The Girl Who Waited" were both perfect episodes for me, and "A Good Man Goes To War" was packed with a lot of fun and emotion (despite the less-than-shocking revelation about River). As a whole though, season 5 remains the best.

EDIT: My understanding of the wedding was that it was a way for the Doctor to calm River down and get her to look in his eyes so she could see the real Doctor and TARDIS inside the spaceship. She would otherwise be unlikely to touch the Doctor and let him die, even if it meant saving the rest of the universe. (How awful does that sentence sound? A woman would rather reality collapse than let her man die. That's not romantic, it's psychotic).

[Thor]

I'm not a fan of Moffat's WHO style (I far preferred Davies) and didn't much care for the finale either. Too many unresolved points, and it didn't go full circle the way it was set up. Too confusing, too many references to things you've forgotten about or haven't been told properly.

If it was just the Who "robot" being killed, then why did it spew out his life force? If his death was a fixed point in time, then how come it was sufficient to kill a robot bearing his resemblance? How did he escape from a "dead robot" afterwards? How could a wedding between him and River fix things? etc. ,etc.

[Stefancos]

Very entertaining, also very confusing.

Plotwise it sort of works if you don't mull over it for too long.

The final scene seems to announce a change. The Doctor has been to visible, made too many enemies. Does this mean the next season he will go into undercover mode?

I disagree with Thor and think that the arc episodes of this season are too much RTD.

Amy killing eye-patch lady was good. Amy imagining her Rory as a hot stud was good. Seeing a cameo from Dickens was fun.

The big arc this season never really got it's feet on the ground properly.

First Amy and Rory knew The Doctor was dying and did not want to tell him. Then the Doctor found out by accident when Amy thought she was talking to the Flesh version of him, and he barely seemed to respond. Then finally he found out the exact circumstances of his death in "Let's Kill Hitler" and actually hid that fact from Amy and Rory, who no longer seemed troubled by his impending death even though it had greatly troubled them at the beginning of the season.

In this finale The Doctor starts out wanting to fight his odds, then he calls for The Brigadier from the old show, finds out that he's no longer alive and he seems to resign to his fate. (maybe for long-time Whovians this is a poignant moment, but for others it's just confusing)

How did The Doctor find himself to be imprisoned by Caesar/Winston?

After a full season The Silence return, but we still don't know what exactly their motivation is. The thing is, I don't think we ever will. Like we will never know why the Tardis exploded. It's been glossed over and Moffat is already working on his new Arc for next year. Who is the Doctor?

The question is Doctor Who? What can that mean?
If It's about The Doctor's name, which really is not very interesting. And I fail to see why answering that question would cause the Silence to fall.

We finally know the enigma of River Song, and it really isn't all that stunning. It was brilliant in Silence In The Library/Forest Of The Dead, a mysterious women who knew more about The Doctor then he himself did. It was milked effectively in season 5, and Alex Kingston made a great addition to the cast.
The current status between her and The Doctor is that they are somehow married and are having adventures together. Maybe in the next season we shall see their goodbye scene were she accepts the assignment to explore the Library. We strictly don't need to see it, since we know what is going to happen anyway.

I've been reading that the production was having issues this year. Piers Morgan....eeehhh Wenger had to leave due to allegations of excessive spending. Maybe the budget ran out and they could not do a 2 parter for the finale.

Has anyone noticed that Moffat only wrote 2 episodes in the second part of this season, and they are the 2 least satisfying ones?

[edit]

Writer Gareth Roberts confirmed in an interview that this is indeed two hundred years after The God Complex for the Doctor, and that he spent these years "waving" at Amy and Rory through history books.

Two hundred years of the Doctors personal time must have passed from The God Complex to Closing Time, right?

Now he has not aged (even though Amy makes a reference his him looking older). Of course this really is not that much of a flaw since we don't really know much about how a Time-Lord ages physically.

It does beg the question what exactly The Doctor has been doing for 200 years? Has he taken no companions until Craig (seems out of character) Has he had no mad, bold adventures (again, seems out of character)

[Chaac]

If it was just the Who "robot" being killed, then why did it spew out his life force?

To simulate the regeneration. It was all prepared.

If his death was a fixed point in time, then how come it was sufficient to kill a robot bearing his resemblance? How did he escape from a "dead robot" afterwards?

Because the death of the robot was the fized point in time, and the public death of the Doctor. Everyone expected some sort of fantasy/sci-fi solution but Moffat got philosophical: what is History?

The Doctor escaped in the TARDIS, he had landed in the eye of the robot.

How could a wedding between him and River fix things? etc. ,etc.

This was explained in the episode but I lost track of things. Apparently them touching returned things to normal for soem reason I can't remember. There's two things going on: the Doctor avoiding his death and cleaning up the mess of River breaking some sort of causality. River not killing the Doctor is the equivalent of the TARDIS exploding that creates the mad world that must be averted. But to avert it, she's got to kill him and make the fixed point and the whole causality happen, but she doesn't want to because she loves him and she's all psychotic. So the Doctor uses the wedding to let her know that he's going to survive to let the event happen, so they kiss and the everything is fixed and we think the Doctor is dead but actually we know he isn't. Same as the Big Bang, Doctor dying fixes things, Doctor manages to survive with River's help.

This should have seriously been in two episodes...

[pixie_twinkle]

Writer Gareth Roberts confirmed in an interview that this is indeed two hundred years after The God Complex for the Doctor, and that he spent these years "waving" at Amy and Rory through history books.

Two hundred years of the Doctors personal time must have passed from The God Complex to Closing Time, right?

Now he has not aged (even though Amy makes a reference his him looking older). Of course this really is not that much of a flaw since we don't really know much about how a Time-Lord ages physically.

It does beg the question what exactly The Doctor has been doing for 200 years? Has he taken no companions until Craig (seems out of character) Has he had no mad, bold adventures (again, seems out of character)

We do know a little about how timelords age. The first Doctor aged gracefully for 500 years or so, gradually becoming the silver-haired William Hartnell by the time we meet him in "An Unearthly Child". We know Timelords begin life as babies, then grow into children like humans (we saw the Doctor's crib in "A Good Man Goes To War", and then see The Master as a child looking into the abyss in "Last of the Timelords"). Once they become adults I think we're supposed to believe that they stop aging like humans and instead age very slowly, each regeneration having the ability to reach over 500 years old before dying of old-age and regenerating into the next. However, there's an anomaly here. In The Sound of Drums, the Master artificially ages David Tennent's Doctor by 100 years, making Tennent appear extremely ancient and wrinkly. However, the first Doctor was about 500 throughout his tenure and didn't look all that ancient, so I'm not sure about that. Conversely, Matt Smith's Doctor looks no different after he's aged 200 years, when surely he should have started looking grey and Hartnell-esque. It's all very confusing and contradictory.

I just find fault with The Wedding of River Song for essentially jumping the shark about 5 times in the same episode. The Doctor gets married!!! The Doctor ages 200 years!!! The Doctor's death becomes a focal point of the entire universe, and without his death the universe ends!!! This is all sooo bleeding over the top that it's a bit stupid, isn't it? The original series managed to tell good, solid sci-fi tales without having to resort to such ridiculously OTT plot points and revelations. Much as I hate to say it, Moffatt really seems to have forgotten that complexity is NOT a substitute for sophistication. Please PLEASE can we get back to good, solid stories next year, and stop filling each episode with new tanks of sharks to jump?

[Stefancos]

I just find fault with The Wedding of River Song for essentially jumping the shark about 5 times in the same episode. The Doctor gets married!!! The Doctor ages 200 years!!!

Actually the Doctor was already 200 years older in Closing Time.

[Wycket]

I guess I'm in the minority but I thought the episode was perfectly fine and a satisfying conclusion to a jumbled season.

Would I have liked at least 5 more minutes to let the episode breath? Yes, but I felt the episode moved at a good consistent paced and felt the most cinematic of any Who story yet (and not just forced cinematic like RTD tried to do in the End of Time). I had no problems understanding the episode and was actually surprised that the Tessalector was the resolution, as I completely let it slip my mind. I think that everyone was expecting some kind of big technobabble explanation, but Moffat took the simple route which I felt really worked. As for the marriage, the Doctor clearly cares for River and he realized that she really wanted to be closer to the Doctor so he put his trust in her hands. Let's not forget, he married Marilyn Monroe in A Christmas Carol so obviously marriage isn't exactly a big deal to the doc.

Overall, I really liked the conclusion as he was likely giving more hints to Smith's run and eventual regeneration, which likely won't take place until 2013 (Smith doesn't seem dumb enough to leave before the massive exposure the show will get in the anniversary season). As for the TARDIS exploding, I've just assumed that it was The Silence, hence the whole "Silence Will Fall" bit. They've been tied to 11 since the Eleventh Hour so I think that we'll learn everything about them and their role in 11's life by his regeneration. They seem inexplicably tied to his Doctor so I have no problem waiting to find out more about them.

And just a quick check on something pixie said, but I believe that The Master aged 10 to his "real age", not simply a hundred years. If Hartnell was 450-500 years old at his regeneration, I see nothing wrong with Smith not noticeably aging in 200 years, as Hartnell wasn't that old when he was on the show. He was in his 50s I believe and just looked older likely due more to the b&w and his bumbling more than anything. Since Timelords age very slowly over their adult years, there's nothing to say that they don't age rapidly over their elderly years.

[Stefancos]

Oh I agree that is was a very enjoyable episode.

You just have to gloss past rather a lot.

And 200 years on a farewell tour just seems out of character.

[Chaac]

Who says it's 200 years of farewell tour. It's 200 years of his regular life or whatever. We just don't know about it.

[pixie_twinkle]

Since when has the Doctor had a regular life? Everywhere he lands he has a whopping great adventure and saves people/species.

Wycket, good points about the Doctor's aging. I could live with the Master aging the Doctor to his "real" age, ie over 700 years. As if all those years plus the extra hundred were suddenly heaped onto the 10th body. Yeah, that works I guess.

[Richard Penna]

I have plenty of thoughts, but need time to get it on screen. My latest editing project means it might take a while...