The time war

[Prydonian]

I think the series as I have known it no longer exists, and the current run has very little to interest me. I felt this way when Tennant was still the Doctor, towards the end of his run, actually when he erased Donna Noble's memory. I felt the series had deviated from what it used to be, and was no logner fun, exciting or enjoyable.
I have also so far found little of interest with Matt Smith and Karen Gillan, even if she is a looker. Looks seldom interest me in favor of a good story and plot. The same with these endless season-long arcs that are unneeded and keep fans from being able to tune in on the random. This has been proven by how many posts on online message boards ask questions endlessly about the plot and arcs of the day.

[tch]

I'm mixed on Donnas leaving. I think it's a testament to what a good character she was that fans get so upset about what happened to her, but at the same time, with the Doctor now in control of the Tardis, we are stuck for how to get rid of companions, and things like that will happen.
My wife loves Donna and would knee Russell Davies in the groin if she ever met him for what he did to her.

Not the first ( or even the worst) example of a companion leaving under bad/dark circumstances, and we kicked Rose out of the universe and she came back, so maybe, thirty yeas from now, they'll bring Donna back and we can watch the 'Donna Noble Adventures'.

I'm still not seeing the season story arcs as that horrible or convoluted or inpeneratable to new viewers. 'Heroes' is a worse offender, in my mind.

Are we still talking series 6, or were people having trouble with earlier series? What arcs are considered offenders?

[Prydonian]

Perhaps I am just betraying my age as a classic Who viewer who feels the series has simply progressed in a direction he would have not chosen had he the power. I just feel the season long arcs like Bad Wolf and Rose's return ended on less than a steller note, and the Master storylines have been written as if the Master and the Doctor once shared a relationship instead of classic series implications that they were merely friends who became enemies. I also feel Martha Jones was a wasted potential, and I hate how they wrote Rose out only to bring her back then get rid of her conveniently again once the story was done. Now, I loved the Master and loved Rose as characters in the beginning, but feel their latter-day adventures were simply not worthy of the actors involved.
I still think the Master in The End of Time was sort of acceptable, compared to the Harold Saxon plotline, but still nowhere as great as Delgado or Ainley in their heyday.


The new series with Matt Smith I have seen only a little, and that not including his current run, but I feel letdown by his Doctor. I wanted someone older than David Tennant to take over. At least the companions have stayed on longer than one season's engagement but I just am not that into Amy and Rory.

[tch]

No argument that new series Master was a let down. One of the few bits, where I won't defend the new show.
If they'd kept Derrick Jacobi as the Master, I might have cut them some slack, but John Simms was a pale shadow of what the Master should be.

and why Russell thought giving him super powers and a hoodie would make it better still baffles me.

On the rest, we'll have to agree to disagree, as I thought Bad Wolf was brilliant and have generally enjoyed the big finale stories.
There are some ideas I'd debate and some bits that didn't click for me, but on a sheer fanboy level it's hard for me to knock them, when we got a Cyberman vs Dalek fight and a companion team up to fight Davros.

[The Cloaked One]

I have some beef with Rose Tyler and the actress for a few reasons. The first being her first episode with the attack of the autons immediately followed by the End of the World. Unlike Pertwee or Baker, Eccleston did not give off a secure and safe atmosphere. I did not understand why Rose even joined the Doctor because there was no fun in the first few episodes, only horror. It might have been more appropriate for the Ninth to have done what the first did and just kidnap Rose, but her wanting to travel with him was not well written.

Second, her relationship with the tenth. Don't need to go into details. To me, the Doctor is platonic. True Susan came from somewhere, and the 'romance' in the Aztecs, but still, the Doctor is platonic.

Third, Billie Piper wanted to be the eleventh doctor. Nothing more to say on that.

Bad Wolf was more or less the BBC trying once more to be 'hip and cool' by connecting with younger audiences through graffiti. All the password stuff on the website, the whole nine yards... yeah, I didn't care for any of it.

The Dalek vs. The Cybermen was nothing special. This was the moment so many Doctor Who fans have been waiting for, the first encounter between the two and it... it... did not match expectations. A bit of good humor, but did not match expectations.

In fact, the Daleks should have won so many times now. It's ridiculous. The older Doctor's rarely fought against large groups of Daleks, ie Planet of the Daleks, but more often fought tiny bits of them like in Death to the Daleks or the Chase. As soon as there are hundreds of thousands of millions of them flying through space, the series is over. The Daleks have won. The fact that they keep all loosing somehow via self destruct buttons (Kudos to Destiny of the Daleks, but that was a few Daleks now millions) or void material, or Bad Wolf, etc seems in utter contradiction to what they were supposed to be. Their ability for horror has been replaced with a weird sort of slapstick due to a new Achilles Heel every appearance. Very reminiscent of the Cybermen. The Cybermen were given a new weakness virtually every appearance, up to three weaknesses a shot (radiation rods, their own weapons (surprising light since companions can easily pull them off the Cybermen, also very simple to use, point and click), emotion, gold dust, spray plastic, cold, etc).

The eleventh should by this point be like "Oh no, Daleks! Good thing I got my Anti Dalek ring. One push sends out a wave that blows em all sky high!"
Rory "How does that work Doctor? That makes no sense!"
Doctor "I'll explain later" *click* *Booom*
Davros "I name you Destroyer of the Daleeeeeeeeks!" *Boom*

Not to mention, oops, you touched a Dalek, now it's fully healed and more powerful than ever before!

[tch]

Wow, so much to sort through. Let me roll up my 'metaphorical) sleeves and away we go:

Rose joined the 9th because she was living in a mind numbingly dead end trap of a life and would have taken any offer to get away.
Also, I didn't see 'End of the World' as horror, but big, cosmic awe. If 'Unquiet Dead' had been the second story, I could see her saying 'Um...thanks, but I think I hear my mom calling me. Gotta go."
With 'End' it was 'here's the big wide world and a look at how history works' and after a break for chips it was 'Okay, what's next?"
and the idea of the Doctor being safe: Liz Shaw thought Pertwee was crazy, both Jo and Sarah got kidnapped ( Jo to another planet, Sarah to the dark ages. Most new companions started out in a scary place and the trust grows over time, which is what Eccelstions first episodes are about.

If any actress from the new show was going to be cast as the first female Doctor, I don't think Billie would be on my list. The woman who played Captain Adele from 'Waters of Mars' I'd buy though.

Can't argue the romance in Tennant's era. That was overdone and hardly ever felt like a natural part of the story. When it was just Rose, it was nice, but when it became anything with estrogen, it felt really forced and pointless.

See, I like Bad Wolf, because if you see the clues, it's a bonus, but if you don't it doesn't hurt the story. The episodes hold up, on their own.
At the end when all is revealed, you can then go 'Ah, that's clever.' and move on to the army of Daleks.

a bad, convoluted story arc is 'Trial of a Time lord' ( sorry Colin) the others I liked. The Master season was really good, until John Simms showed. I liked the 'you are not alone' stuff.

I agree that the Daleks have been overused and need to be saved for special occasions, but the Cyberman vs Daleks was cool. Love that wonderfully bitchy dialogue when they first meet and enjoyed the fight scenes. I do wish there had been more, but BBC budget and I got enough to keep my inner fan boy happy.

[The Cloaked One]

Ack, it's fun talking to you all even when we don't always agree, but this thread has seemed to turn into the Nu Who Ranters thread. At least I was ranting. XD
So, the Time war. What do you think happened during the war beyond what has been stated (I.e. the Fourth might've led to the war, etc). When was the Master brought back during the war? What battle did the Davros get the crucible? What were the Star of Degradations, the Horde of Travesties, the Nightmare Child, the Could-Have-Been King with his army of Meanwhile's and Neverwere's? Who was president of Gallifrey before Rassilon was brought back? When did the Eighth die? Did he loose his regeneration after the war, or on his escape? What were the roles of the renegades?
I'll hold onto my version of events for now. XD

[tch]

I do feel that I've turned into the guy that defends the New show, which is a shame as I love all Who. Give me a mad man with a box and I'm a happy guy.
but there seems to be a trend in Who fandom where you need to pick the old/new show and then wail on the one you didn't pick.
The people who say new who doesn't get it drives me nuts, because all I see is Russell and Moffat borrowing from the old show, and then all the new fans act like they did it first.

Anyway, rant aside:
The Time War: I hope they never show it to us, because there is no way they can do justice to the epic battle I see in my mind. Tardis, transformed into warships shooting it out with massive Dalek fleets, Rommana struggling to save a Galifry under siege, and planets melting away as Time is twisted like taffy.

The Eighth Doctor regenerated in the last great battle ( and I want to cry, thinking of that beautiful control room getting trashed)
In fact, as he regenerated, he set something in motion that would need to be dealt with by his future selves and that's how we start the big Doctor team up I want to see them do for the 50th aniversary.
A hologram/time ghost of McGann that sends the three new Doctors on a quest that will result in their meeting and will feature as many new series companions as we can get and most likely a scene where Rose and Amy have to jello wrestle for the fate of the universe.

I wish the Doctor Who book series was more active, because a series of 'lost Tales' set during the time war would be great. The renagades banding together, like the Dirty Dozen, to go on a mission, K-9 fighting Daleks, the Eighth Doctor in his Tardis zooming around in the middle of a huge space battle and missing adventures of Past Doctors being nudged along on adventures, being unaware they are being used by the Time Lords to affect the course of the war in the past.

[Clara Listensprechen]

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[The Cloaked One]

Whoa, whoa, end of the war here. I do agree that Doctor Who never has been the same, for me once Baker left and a second time starting with the reboot, and from what I hear, a third time with the current season, but I want to try and call an end to this for three reasons.
None of us can impact/change the series.
All of this anger is only going to breed more anger and make enemies at the dinner table. We're all here for Tom Baker and each other, so its best to have tolerance of each other and at some points agree to disagree.
Third, this topic is called the 'time war' so it'd be best to focus more on the topic at hand.
Besides, whether or not we agree with each other today or tomorrow, we've all seen at least parts of the old show and the new show and have been impacted by it. Don't feel you have to be the lone defender of the new series TCH.

For the Time war, let's just be creative, you don't have to stick with what the novels stated unless you feel like it. No worries that the BBC will try and touch the time war with a ten foot pole, they intentionally avoided it. This is just for idle speculation, and fan drooling, how would you if you were in charge shape the events?