Anyone else get a bit sad and go 'aw man' when people diss the show? :v:
[QUOTE=Grizz;43368013]But I thought all of Moffat's female characters were independent and feisty, able to save the day without The Doctor's help because 'they don't need him.'
I get so confused by all the conflicting statements on how Moffat writes characters.[/QUOTE]
then look at it this way.
compare donna from the start of her series to the end. what a change! going from 'supertemp' to supertemp, actually believing in herself and being proud of her self. that's why it was so bittersweet when the doctor saved her. she survived, but she was sent right back to square one.
compare martha from the start of her series to the end. going from a doctor in training (and a very competent one), unafraid to prove herself to other people on her own merits, to a rather more militant person, working for UNIT and travelling the world for a year, spreading the word of the Doctor, developing on her own.
amy and clara? amy has some character development, but both of them are very much in the same state they were at the start. [I]rory[/I] had more development than amy.
independent, feisty and...
what else? there's not much else to them. amy's parents were brought up and then completely ignored. clara's dad doesn't even look the same.
i can't really say that there's anything under the surface.
I somewhat agree with that, I felt more emotion towards Claras gran when she said about her husband than anything I've felt towards Clara. But that's just me
Did we ever find out who gave clara the phone number to the tardis
Not yet, but it's probably River.
or rose
or someone new!
It's barnable
I can't work out what was answered that nobody questioned.
[QUOTE=lintz;43368100]amy and clara? amy has some character development, but both of them are very much in the same state they were at the start. [I]rory[/I] had more development than amy.
independent, feisty and...
what else? there's not much else to them. amy's parents were brought up and then completely ignored. clara's dad doesn't even look the same.
i can't really say that there's anything under the surface.[/QUOTE]
First of all. I doubt Moffat wrote in the script "Enter CLARAS DAD who doesn't even look the same". You can't blame him for actor availability.
Amy: Amy became a deconstruction of the modern companion. To start off with she was completely and utterly in love with her imaginary friend The Doctor. She was irresponsible and independent, look how she snogged the Doctor's face off on the eve of her wedding! She treated Rory like a second class citizen. But she changed dramatically. In Day of the Moon Amy talks about a great man she loves and the audience expects she's talking about The Doctor. It's what we come to expect from female companions. But she was talking about Rory. Later in the same episode Amy keeps a secret from the Rory but tells The Doctor, the audience expects this cause a bit of a love triangle. But she knew Rory was secretly listening the whole time. She talks about a great man in the mid-series finale which once again turns out to be Rory despite us expecting it to be The Doctor.
Amy is not reliant on The Doctor. The Doctor relies on her. She's the first modern companion to [I]want[/I] a mundane life over life with The Doctor. She just wants to be with Rory. To the extent she willingly walks into her certain death to be with him. This breaks The Doctor, not the other way around. She comes from being irresponsible to the most responsible companion The Doctor has ever had in the TARDIS; a mother and a wife determined to do anything to save her family.
Clara: Perhaps the most selfless person in the TARDIS yet. Clara is a nanny for a family she won't leave because she's worried it'll upset them. She won't even stay away from them to travel with The Doctor. Throughout the series Clara puts others before herself. Not just The Doctor. Everybody. She makes the war torn HurtDoctor soup. It's constant nurturing of everybody around her. She eventually gets her own apartment, she invites her family over and cooks them dinner. She's willing to stay with The Doctor even at the risk she'll die and he won't. Just so he isn't alone. How will she develop when we get what is said to be a harder darker Doctor? That's where her character development will come from
[QUOTE=Lexinator;43368195]Did we ever find out who gave clara the phone number to the tardis[/QUOTE]
Handles clearly gave her the number
I fully expect that particular question will be answered when Clara leaves.
[QUOTE=Dan2593;43367971]Ooh when Gallifrey comes back couldn't a freshly regenerated Romana end up being a companion again? That would be an interesting dynamic. A returning companion who's completely new at the same time.
I just really love Romana <3[/QUOTE]
It'd be great to see her back, (scripting issues about how she'd work into plot aside) though it would have to be explained how she's on Gallifrey and not E-Space. Moffat may've firmly connected Big Finish lore with the main show, but not every viewer has followed the EU enough to know Romana was able to get back home. The BBC material hasn't acknowledged it beyond the Eighth Doctor Shada webcast, and even then [url=http://www.doctorwho.tv/50-years/companions/romana-2] their official sites haven't recognized it either.[/url]
Also of note that Big Finish got [url=http://bigfinish.com/releases/v/luna-romana-758]a future (not officially third, I guess BF doesn't want to completely tread on the novels' toes in that department) Romana regeneration kicking around.[/url] Doesn't seem like a bad casting.
Moffat acknowledged "all" of 8th's Big Finish as canon during [I]Night of the Doctor[/I], so that's got it going for itself, and by virtue, the BBC should have as well, right?
It's debatable isn't it.
There's a lot of contradictions within Big Finish. All Night of the Doctor did was confirm the 8th Doctor's companions. Not all the 8th Doctor stories are now automatically canon though. The TV series at any point is allowed to contradict anything in those stories. But it's nice to know that Eight had those companions. I think one or two had been mentioned in the odd Tenth Doctor comic anyway.
[img]https://24.media.tumblr.com/d1e42ca197d0f3f4ad2c939512c3baca/tumblr_mynelhu0Po1t6yrbzo1_500.jpg[/img]
bbc cleared some things up
Moffat must have known he was going to cause so much confusion as to the numbering despite what he says
[B]Top 5 Doctor Who Moments of 2013 - go![/B]
"No, sir. All Thirteen!"
[img]http://i.imgur.com/E8oraVG.gif[/img]
[QUOTE=Grizz;43371443][B]Top 5 Doctor Who Moments of 2013 - go![/B][/QUOTE]
[B]McGann[/B]
[IMG]http://24.media.tumblr.com/39d765bfdfea2e623c2ebc485c76edd6/tumblr_mw9gudP52X1qa3x03o1_250.gif[/IMG]
In no order:
[B]1.[/B] "No, sir. All thirteen!" - that entire scene was excellent
[B]2.[/B] Tom Baker
[B]3.[/B] An Adventure in Time and Space
[B]4.[/B] Matt Smith and David Tennant on screen together as The Doctor!!
[B]5.[/B] Night of the Doctor
[QUOTE=Dan2593;43371537]In no order:
[B]1.[/B] "No, sir. All thirteen!" - that entire scene was excellent
[B]2.[/B] Tom Baker
[B]3.[/B] An Adventure in Time and Space
[B]4.[/B] Matt Smith and David Tennant on screen together as The Doctor!!
[B]5.[/B] Night of the Doctor[/QUOTE]
No Capaldi? You were the one flipping out about him the most, Dan.
[QUOTE=mphayes97;43371564]No Capaldi? You were the one flipping out about him the most, Dan.[/QUOTE]
"All thirteen" IS Capaldi. It was the first time he was in the show. I screamed.
All 5 of those were things I wanted from the 50th year and have wanted for years. Even "All thirteen", because I've always thought it would be cool to have a future Doctor present in a Multi-Doctor.
The fact that Doctor ended up being Peter Capaldi is just perfection.
[QUOTE=Grizz;43371619][media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxmXrOPYirI[/media][/QUOTE]
Some of those adverts I didn't know existed. Like the 25th one.
Also I'm now suddenly aware that the last time Eccleston played The Doctor was on Blue Peter. Wow.
[QUOTE]My opinion of Clara has wavered a fair bit since she was introduced. At first I enjoyed her simply because she felt fresh after too long of the Ponds (who I initially liked. Loved, in Amy's case) and I enjoyed the return to a two-person dynamic (the Doctor plus one). But pretty quickly I began to regret she wasn't Oswin. Then I grew bored of her, culminating in Day of the Doctor, where she looked worryingly like going the same way as Amy Pond - her story completed but just hanging around for the sake of it.
After 'The Time of the Doctor' however I've come back around to the character and here's why I like her:
She's a 'good girl'. An old style 'Doctor's girl' type companion if you like, and therefore the antithesis of the other modern companions since Rose, and particularly the usual Moffat 'bad girl' type exemplified by Amy Pond, River Song and Oswin. She doesn't give the Doctor grief, she isn't argumentative or bolshy or excessively wilful. She's a little sassy but not to the same degree as the aforementioned characters. And generally she does what she's told, but not the extent of becoming the old-style 'assistant'.
This first clicked with me when it came to her reactions to the 'nudity' thing in Time of the Doctor. It occurred to me that Amy and River would have had very different responses to the whole thing. Then, more seriously, when the Doctor deceived her twice, having the TARDIS return her home, she basically accepted it, and seemed to come to the conclusion second time round that that is what the Doctor does and it is his prerogative. In a nutshell, she generally trusts the Doctor's decisions. She doesn't have this factor of needing to be the Doctor's 'equal' in all things that other companions since Rose have had to exemplify.
Away from the Doctor she seems as if she would be a quiet, reserved person, something you can't say of any of the other modern companions, except for Martha.
And she truly seems to appreciate this experience she has with the Doctor, without being presumptuous of owning it or him. Previous companions have either been very glib about it or had a strong sense of entitlement to it. I got quite irritated towards the end of the Ponds era that far from being 'equals', as the modern companions supposedly are, they almost seemed condescending towards the doctor.
Moffat has also made it clear with a number of references that Clara is attracted to the Doctor, but it doesn't come across in any way like a Martha-style infatuation or a presumptuous Rose-like situation: it's more of a far-off thing, like fancying a celebrity. It's not something she realistically thinks about or considers could actually happen, nor, deep-down, would really want to. She has no pretensions of ever having a romantic involvement. It's a child-like kind of love, of the type we saw with Amy in her first season, until it got buried beneath the Rory romance and her and the Doctor became 'best friends'.
I really like this change of tack. She's actually, without being fleshed out very much in terms of back-story (which isn't Moffat's style anyway), very different to Moffat's usual female characters, whilst maintaining a few of the traits to a limited degree, like the sassiness. In short, a small change in dynamic. I appreciate it.[/QUOTE]
[img]http://25.media.tumblr.com/0c96c5705287b5c6844e1cb6bcb417b6/tumblr_mydxd7ga9D1qcgogyo1_500.gif[/img]
You never gave your own top 5!
5."No Sir. All Thirteen"
4. The Round Things
3. Tennant and Smith on screen together
2. "Do you happen to know how to fly this thing?"
1. "I will always remember when the Doctor was me"
[QUOTE=Dan2593;43371582]"All thirteen" IS Capaldi. It was the first time he was in the show. I screamed.
All 5 of those were things I wanted from the 50th year and have wanted for years. Even "All thirteen", because I've always thought it would be cool to have a future Doctor present in a Multi-Doctor.
The fact that Doctor ended up being Peter Capaldi is just perfection.[/QUOTE]
The "All Thirteen" thing was so unexpected and awesome.
[B]I would have loved it so much if that was the way they had revelead that Capaldi was going to be the new Doctor.[/B]
[QUOTE=Kendra;43373068]The "All Thirteen" thing was so unexpected and awesome.
[B]I would have loved it so much if that was the way they had revelead that Capaldi was going to be the new Doctor.[/B][/QUOTE]
I think Doctor Who fans would have collectively shit themselves.
[QUOTE=Kendra;43373068]The "All Thirteen" thing was so unexpected and awesome.
[B]I would have loved it so much if that was the way they had revelead that Capaldi was going to be the new Doctor.[/B][/QUOTE]
Probably would've gotten away with it too as filming is so far off. Could've kept the whole regeneration a secret.
But anticipation > surprise when it comes to fiction. Here quotes of great writers to explain why:
[QUOTE=Alfred Hitchcock]Let us suppose that there is a bomb underneath this table between us. Nothing happens, and then all of a sudden, “Boom!” There is an explosion. The public is surprised, but prior to this surprise, it has seen an absolutely ordinary scene, of no special consequence. Now, let us take a suspense situation. The bomb is underneath the table and the public knows it…In these conditions this same innocuous conversation becomes fascinating because the public is participating in the secret.[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=Roger Rosenblatt]Why, for example, do the great writers use anticipation instead of surprise? Because surprise is merely an instrument of the unusual, whereas anticipation of a consequence enlarges our understanding of what is happening. Look at a point of land over which the sun is certain to rise, Coleridge said. If the moon rises there, so what? The senses are startled, that’s all. But if we know the point where the sun will rise as it has always risen and as it will rise tomorrow and the next day too, well, well! At the beginning of “Hamlet” there can be no doubt that by the play’s end, the prince will buy it. Between start and finish, then, we may concentrate on what he says and who he is, matters made more intense by our knowing he is doomed. In every piece of work, at one juncture or another, a writer has the choice of doing something weird or something true. The lesser writer will haul up the moon.[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=John Green]There seems to be a feeling among readers these days that if they see an event coming, the [story] is less than it might’ve been. I couldn’t disagree more.
I stand with Rosenblatt in celebrating anticipation over surprise. Even when reading mystery novels, the pleasure for me is never in the feeling of, oh I didn’t see THAT coming. The pleasure is living with another’s dread and pain and yearning and hope. All of that is a hell of a lot more fulfilling than being surprised by the killer’s identity.
[/QUOTE]
That's why I feel that while it would be nice to be surprised by The Doctor suddenly going down in a blast of golden light, it's nothing compared to anticipation. When you know you're watching a regeneration story you suddenly pay more attention to The Doctor and his actions than ever before. You're anticipating the moment he dies as the episode draws to the end. You feel the dread felt by the companion and those around him. Without that anticipation it would feel like any other episode where The Doctor looks like he's in danger and then pulls it off at the last minute, even worse not-we might skip it thinking it's just another episode!
So you'd always have to announce The Doctor is dying. Maybe it would be nice to keep the incoming Doctor a surprise, but it's also nice to have a face you can research and become familiar with before he becomes The Doctor. It's good to see Capaldi come on TV and talk about Doctor Who and how excited he is to be the new Doctor, because you get to be a bit like an overprotective parent who's judging his daughter's new boyfriend. You want to make sure things are in safe hands. The focus of the regeneration-story should be the outgoing Doctors last moments, not sitting there hoping the new guy is right and then instantly trying to remember where you've seen him before once he appears. It's horribly distracting. I think Matt's regeneration was handled well, smoother and fairer to Peter than David's was to Matt.
HAPPY CAPALD-er... YEAR!
happy capaldyear.... sorry it didn't work.
I got my Sonic today.
[t]http://puu.sh/655Jo.jpg[/t]
Giddy Flak.
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