FTA-TV Doctor Who

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Just seen the episode that will air tonight on ABC1 via iView.

It's really, really bad. Heavy-handed on the symbolism, but still no logic or natural flow to the episode. Beats the viewer over the head with what it's meant to be about and now Moffat has doubled down with annoying and irritating companions for the Doctor to tote about. Capaldi gives a decent performance but then is kept off-screen for a good chunk of the episode to hammer home the point being made by the episode.
 
Thought it was the worst piece of sci-fi garbage since the movie "Gravity". So many scientific blunders & plot holes. Truly a train wreck episode.

First thing I noticed was that the inside of the space shuttle was about 3x larger than the real thing. OK, I this is a common enough device, often used by directors & producers when filming cramped spaces. They've never yet made a submarine movie with a control room that wasn't at least 5x larger than the real thing. I could live with that, if it was the only flaw...

Then there's the question of what the shuttle is doing landing on the moon? The shuttle is designed to operate in a near earth orbit, around 200-400km up. The moon is approximately 380,000km from the Earth. The shuttle simply isn't designed to get there and isn't capable of getting there. It doesn't have enough energy to escape the Earth's gravitational pull. Fail...

Then there was the shuttle's "landing" on the moon. The moon doesn't have any runways and the landing was clearly shown to be a crash landing.. but the shuttle showed no signs of damage. None whatsoever. Fail...

Then the 3rd (and staggeringly incompetent) member of the shuttle's crew has to ask how to detonate the nuclear bombs on board the shuttle. Wait a second here... they spent how long waiting for the shuttle to be brought back to flying condition (noting that it was found in a museum)? Detonating these bombs was the shuttle crew's primary mission, they'd had months (if not years) to prepare for it, yet he didn't know how to do this basic task? Epic fail on the biggest scale possible. This one's not a scientific flaw, more a major failure of the script writers to come up with something that makes sense on the most basic level.

This in turn raises the issue of the space program, with other major and irreconcilable inconsistencies within the script - none of which has anything to do with the science. On the one hand, we're led to believe that the Mexicans have set up a mining station on the moon. OK, that's vaguely plausible, even if Mexico doesn't currently have a space program, manned or unmanned. The only nations with a current manned space program are the USA, Russia, the European Union, China & India. The implication therefore is that manned space travel has become commonplace, however implausible that might be given that the episode is set only 35 years into the future. However, this implication leads to some massive contradictions further on..

On the one hand, we're told that Mexico has established a manned lunar mining station. On the other hand, we're told that there are no more manned space missions, basically cancelled due to a lack of interest - hence the need to get the shuttle from the museum. Does anyone else see the glaring contradiction right here? Once again, this is not a technical science flaw - it's a script writer's epic failure, an inability to come up with a story that is internally consistent. The person who wrote this dribbling pile of horse sh!t should be sent to the moon, in a rocket with only enough oxygen for a one-way trip.

Lastly, we come to the subject of gravity. So much epic fail that it's difficult to know where to start...

Firstly, the moon's gravity is normally (approximately) 1/6th that of the Earth. Even if the moon's mass was doubled (as stated in the episode), it would still only be 1/3 of the Earth's. Yet they were walking around with every indication that the Moon's gravity was the same as that on the surface of the Earth.

Then there was the question of how the moon's mass increased. Epic fail here. An egg is a closed system. It has the same mass when it hatches as it does when it is laid. How then does the moon's mass double, just because the creature inside the egg is approaching maturity?

I also laughed at the suggestion that the moon cracking up would result in gravity being reduced. The gravitational attraction between two objects is not dependent upon their structural integrity - only their masses. The moon could crack up completely, but its gravity is not going to change unless it actually breaks up and the pieces float away from each other.

Doctor Who is normally pretty good at the science. Sure, a lot of it relies upon technological wizardry and mumbo jumbo, but for the most part it's fairly plausible (though the sonic screwdriver's many uses do stretch the realms of credibility at times). Time travel is scientifically plausible, as is the TARDIS (bigger on the inside than the outside). Unfortunately, this episode failed badly on both a scientific level and a basic scripted story telling level. Worst episode in many, many years.
 

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This doctor season is killing my interest.
First we have a doctor who is bumbling about like an old fool and hates everyone except Clara.
Then we have Clara who tells him off every episode like she is the time lord. And he just stands there and takes it. Ffs drop the bitch off on a remote planet 6 million years in the past and leave her there.
The story lines are so bad and unbelievable it reminds me of a goodies episode.
Waiting to see capaldi without Clara next week and see what happens. She is apparently out at the end if the season so it might be her that is wrecking it.
Tom baker and Tennant were the best doctors, all you Tennant haters can go to the daleks.
 
I don't mind Peter Capaldi as the new Doctor - and having him clashing with Clara is a refreshing change, given that we have to go all the way back to Romana to find one who wasn't fawning over him and/or falling in love with him.

What I object to are the craptacular stories that the new Doctor has been given, the tokenistic approach to racial casting, Clara's godawful boyfriend, and the fact that the new writers clearly have no knowledge whatsoever of science (which underlies all good science fiction).
 
I didn't mind the first few episodes of this series, but the last two episodes have been dreadful.

I don't mind Capaldi, but as others have said the script writing is poor.

Aside from the absurd idea of an isolated system gaining mass, what did the mining survey have to do with it? It was mentioned that "the trouble started" when the Mexican surveyors arrived, but I don't follow how mineral exploration causes the moon to gain mass.

Add all the other plot flaws & fallacies previously mentioned it was a disappointing episode.

Having said all of that, I'm eager to see how Capaldi fairs in an episode without Clara (I didn't see her on the preview, so I'm assuming she won't be there).
 
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Vader said:
Thought it was the worst piece of sci-fi garbage since the movie "Gravity". So many scientific blunders & plot holes. Truly a train wreck episode.

.
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Totally agree, it really lost me when they got out of the shuttle and it had flames and smoke coming out of it (no air or atmosphere, impossible to happen) and then when the so called shuttle commander said (in regards to the nuclear weapons), "I just have to fiddle with this thing".

Either the show producer are still drunk after the success of the 50th birthday episode and don't care what crap they write about or a couple of pre teen kids have taken over the writing and trying to make it a space version of neighbours.

Also please, please kill the boyfriend and the obnoxious token black kid.
 
Seems like a lot of reviewers and viewers enjoyed tonight's episode. I thought it was somewhat boring. The show runners need to let Clara and Pink go and let Capaldi start fresh with his own companions.

The episode had potential but it lacked something in the execution. The reveal was too rushed to make it properly dramatic. Skinner was average in his role.
 
Kinda strange that Clara is sitting in judgement on the Doctor. Why even write that into the episodes.
Was a decent episode but still lacks that defining quality of Doctor who.
Why is he so angry?
 
Smotie said:
Kinda strange that Clara is sitting in judgement on the Doctor. Why even write that into the episodes.
Was a decent episode but still lacks that defining quality of Doctor who.
Why is he so angry?
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Because he's surrounded by stupid monkeys, who do stupid things!
 
So much negativity in this thread, the consensus from many people (including the likes of professional fans like Paul Cornell) is they this is the best and most consistent season of the 'new' era of Doctor Who.

God knows there was a load of badly written/acted tosh in the RTD/Tennant era.

Capaldi's Doctor is channelling the very best alien qualities of Hartnell and Tom Baker's incarnations, with a bit of Pertwee's dandy thrown in.

God knows the show has moved on from such shitty concepts from farting aliens, concrete slabs that give BJs or human women that give birth to kittens FFS.

I also love the dysfunctional relationship between 12 and Clara (love Sixie and Peri's bickering)

The 10th Dpctor and Rose team just made me want to vomit, that wasn't Dr Who, that was Twilight
 

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DaVillaBlues said:
So much negativity in this thread, the consensus from many people (including the likes of professional fans like Paul Cornell) is they this is the best and most consistent season of the 'new' era of Doctor Who.

God knows there was a load of badly written/acted tosh in the RTD/Tennant era.

Capaldi's Doctor is channelling the very best alien qualities of Hartnell and Tom Baker's incarnations, with a bit of Pertwee's dandy thrown in.

God knows the show has moved on from such shitty concepts from farting aliens, concrete slabs that give BJs or human women that give birth to kittens FFS.

I also love the dysfunctional relationship between 12 and Clara (love Sixie and Peri's bickering)

The 10th Dpctor and Rose team just made me want to vomit, that wasn't Dr Who, that was Twilight
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God knows a lot about doctor who it seems.
 
Smotie said:
God knows a lot about doctor who it seems.
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The Doctor tried to smash in an injured Caveman's skull in the first series back in 1963 ..
The Doctor has already had a dark, angry alien quality to him, something forgotten in the soft as butter, goody two shoes Tennant Doctor, but hinted at during Matt Smith's Doctor (ie dispatching Solomon to his death)Glad its now back in force with Peter Capaldi, The Doctor is much more interesting when he is an amoral, alien arseh*le, rather then just making googly eyes at common chav companions like Rose ...

Moffat is really putting traditional story telling and gravitas back in the show, Doctor Who really has never looked better or in safer hands, hope he stays as show runner for another 10 years.
 
DaVillaBlues said:
The Doctor tried to smash in an injured Caveman's skull in the first series back in 1963 ..
The Doctor has already had a dark, angry alien quality to him, something forgotten in the soft as butter, goody two shoes Tennant Doctor, but hinted at during Matt Smith's Doctor (ie dispatching Solomon to his death)Glad its now back in force with Peter Capaldi, The Doctor is much more interesting when he is an amoral, alien arseh*le, rather then just making googly eyes at common chav companions like Rose ...

Moffat is really putting traditional story telling and gravitas back in the show, Doctor Who really has never looked better or in safer hands, hope he stays as show runner for another 10 years.
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So did you like ecclestons doctor?
 
Personally, I thought Eccleston's portrayal of the Doctor had a lot of potential. I find it difficult to grade the eighth Doctor because the first season of the new Who was about re-establishing the Doctor, trying to introduce the character and the series to people who hadn't ever watched it before while simultaneously trying to recapture at least part of the magic for those people who had watched the original series. Episodes like Father's Day and The Empty Child were really good episodes, IMO.

It's unfortunate that Eccleston decided, for whatever reason, that he didn't wish to continue in the role after the first season.

I read that a lot of people think Tennant's ninth Doctor is their preferred of the four Doctors in the new series but I personally thought he was the poorest. All his "timey-wimey" mawking for the camera irritated me and yes, as DaVillaBlues notes, he was a goody-two-shoes for most of his run (although I'd argue that was because he was trying to get as far away from his persona as the "War Doctor"). I personally enjoyed Matt Smith's slightly manic version of the Doctor, but thought he was horribly let down by the companions he was lumbered with. At times it was really the Amy Pond show featuring the Doctor and then when you throw in Alex Kingston as River Song, and at times, Smith had third billing on the series when he was meant to be the principal character.
 
Dixie Flatline said:
Personally, I thought Eccleston's portrayal of the Doctor had a lot of potential. I find it difficult to grade the eighth Doctor because the first season of the new Who was about re-establishing the Doctor, trying to introduce the character and the series to people who hadn't ever watched it before while simultaneously trying to recapture at least part of the magic for those people who had watched the original series. Episodes like Father's Day and The Empty Child were really good episodes, IMO.

It's unfortunate that Eccleston decided, for whatever reason, that he didn't wish to continue in the role after the first season.

I read that a lot of people think Tennant's ninth Doctor is their preferred of the four Doctors in the new series but I personally thought he was the poorest. All his "timey-wimey" mawking for the camera irritated me and yes, as DaVillaBlues notes, he was a goody-two-shoes for most of his run (although I'd argue that was because he was trying to get as far away from his persona as the "War Doctor"). I personally enjoyed Matt Smith's slightly manic version of the Doctor, but thought he was horribly let down by the companions he was lumbered with. At times it was really the Amy Pond show featuring the Doctor and then when you throw in Alex Kingston as River Song, and at times, Smith had third billing on the series when he was meant to be the principal character.
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Eccleston was Nine.
Tennant was Ten.
 

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FTA-TV Doctor Who

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