They were making 'factory' noises so that someone outside would think they were hearing a working factory
I thought it was going to be a sweet factory. You see, at 6:30 I was sitting in our local theatre watching a historical docu-drama about life in a local sweet factory. Then I come home to see what the Doctor had been doing at 6:30, and what do I find but a factory in Sweetville! Scary or what?
For me this was the best of the half-series. Matt was even better than usual, I loved the guests and especially Jenny (though I am finding Strax a bit tiresome), and the pacing was perfect until the kids at the end. So go on then, tell your dad your nanny is a time traveller - he'll never believe you. Nuh!
The Doctor was originally aiming for London 1893. Was that the year of the Snowmen? Surely he wasn't intending the two Claras to confront each other? That could be extremely dangerous, while he still doesn't know what she is.
Usually I read the thread before I post, but tonight's ep was so much fun for me that I just want to go "eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep" beofre I read the haters
"Brave heart" *swoon*
Mark Gatiss in his element writing Victorian cyberpunk horror - fabulous!
Strax, Madame Vastra and Jenny - fabulous!
Fifteen minutes toll we see the Doctor and then that fantasitc reveal
Victorian cinema flashback - woot!
Diana Rigg - genius actress. And her daughter too!
Some genuinely gruesome moments
Brilliant little in-jokes to Victorian values, decor and society
Loved Tom Tom the sat-nav boy, too
Brilliant ending - loads of potential there...
Each episode so far (apart from Bells) had had at least one oblique reference to classic series Doctors, sequentially:
Rings (Doc 1): Grandfather, mention of Susan
Cold War (Doc 2): HADS
Hide (Doc 3): blue crystal from Metebalis Three
Journey (Doc 4): swimming pool
Crimson Horror (Doc 5): Tegan
Fair enough but in my opinion that's where you get the ambiguity. Anyway I tend to vote excellent just to balance out these lower scores as my way of indicating my support for the show in general. As long as the top three poll ratings are well into the 60s I am happy.
See thats what I mean about all the excellent votes Do you always vote excellent even when its crap ? How many other people always vote excellent just out of loyalty ? To me an episode has to be perfect or almost perfect before I will vote excellent I would love to know how many posters always vote excellent even when the episode is not.
I applaud this poster for being honest as to his voting process.
I enjoyed this one. Clara was gorgeous in her victorian dress and hairdo.
Loved Ada squashing "Mr Sweets" with her cane taking revenge for what it and her mum had done to her.What was with 11 smooching everyone ?. Jenny is gay and married so what he's selling she's not buying.Ending was good is Clara really going to get the truth in the finale ?. Hope so or at least some of it. Next week hide behind the sofa time the cybermen are back!.
I voted average - it was a bit of a fun romp for me, but it almost felt as if it would have benefited from being broken up into a two parter. There was quite a lot that felt addressed, not plot holes as such, but rather things that really could have improved the episode or made it clearer. Diana Rigg's character's motivations seemed to be a bit Bond villain-esque, i.e. she was just evil/insane, which I didn't mind too much, but there no explanation of how she had amassed so many unquestioning followers. I agree a bit with Diana Rigg's character- but that was only a slight niggle in an otherwise great episode for me,
I never got the sense of fear of being 'behind enemy lines' that I was expecting when the characters were in Sweetville. Also some explanation of what the noise the gramophone-style speakers that Jenny found was emitting would have been nice, but I'm nitpicking a bit there.
Wasn't that bit obvious? People lining up to 'join' the sweet factory expect to hear machines making sweets. There are no machines, so they needed to make the noise of machines instead otherwise people will get suspicious. (Not just those queuing too).
Also, this is probably down to my lack of understanding, but what was the point of dipping the new residents in the venom? I get that it was to preserve them, but was that the same venom that was to be released in the rocket, or vaccine? And if it was a vaccine, why did those that survived then had to be placed in some sort of stasis in the glass domes as Clara was - surely they would just be immunised like Mrs Gillyflower, in which case why put them in the domes? There just seemed to be a bit of a logical inconsistency there.
They said this in the episode. The red goo was a very week strength and even then many became 'rejects' and died. It was just to test if they'd be ok with the low doses of the stuff in the air after the stuff had time to disperse after the bomb. It also seeemd to make them follow orders. The glass domes were to preserve them in stasis after the bomb went off. (also the reason why there weren't many henchmen around- because they'd all gone to ready themselves for the bomb exploding, leaving the boss to trigger it). Even they, exposed to the highly concentrated stuff, would probably die instantly. She also said that the beautiful people would wake up after some time and live happily in a world with only other beautiful people.
I'm a fan of Clara and Jenna (those eyes...) but I felt she was just a bit unnecessary in this one and she almost came across as two confident towards the finale.
She was a little underused I guess, but she was there because the other gang knew the previous Clara and needed to see his one. The doctor wanted to go to London ( possibly to show the gang Clara?) but ended up in Yorkshire- where I'm guessing, the Tardis knew the gang would be at some point. At the end though he did sort of rush off quickly without giving any answers to them. Maybe he just wanted to check it wasn't all in his own head, and that the gang would believe she WAS Clara too. Which happened, so he got excited and flew off again at the end? It's getting more interesting with the Clara mystery- teasing us like that:)
Finally, I'm really not a fan of the Vastra/Jenny/Drax triumvirate. Drax was played for cheap laughs which felt a bit forced, and also having a fully armed Sontaran there just eliminated the danger for me when he was clearly capable of just storming the place, had he conveniently been forbidden from doing so.
Yes, but he would probably have just killed all the henchmen too- but the rest wanted to reverse the process and make them all proper humans again.
I love Strax:p
I hope I have given some decent answers to those questions.
Another final thought- who took those pictures and who let the Children see them? ( the GI?)
At last! an excellent episode and back to form. Written by Gatiss.
Thats the first one this season Ive really enjoyed...but next weeks looks like a return to the usual stuff for this season.
At least this episode gave Matt Smith a chance to change behaviour. It came as a real shock to see him like that.Loved it.
See thats what I mean about all the excellent votes Do you always vote excellent even when its crap ? How many other people always vote excellent just out of loyalty ? To me an episode has to be perfect or almost perfect before I will vote excellent I would love to know how many posters always vote excellent even when the episode is not.
I applaud this poster for being honest as to his voting process.
It will be about the same number of people who just come on to vote the worst option every week, sometimes saying something like
"the whole series is crap. Moffat needs to be sacked and we need Tennant back. I'm not watching next week"
(yet they still come back every week just to click the lowest poll option and say how crap it is- funny that)
I have given every 7b episode an excellent rating becaue I think they are. There was a couple in 7a that fell short of that mark for me, and I voted accordingly. Most people do.
I don't think there will be more than 10% of people just voting the top or bottom automatically. It will be the same in every poll and balances itself out anyway.
I just vote with a quick reaction to how I feel having just seen it. I'll vote good or excellent if I'm happy enough. Worse of I'm not. Power of Three wasn't excellent, for example. I might rethink on later reflection or second viewing, and might comment. Last night just left me with such a glowing feel of proper Doctor Who that I really thought it was excellent. Regardless of how many flaws I might think about later.
Not particularly surprising that Doctor Who fans tend to enjoy Doctor Who more often than not.
Colt started knocking out Cap & Ball revolvers in 1836 but that carried carried on until the 1860s, when they started converting them into cartridge revolvers, which were pretty large pistols.
The first cartridge revolver Colt designed was, of course, the famous Colt SAA, which was released in 1873, but was still considerably larger than a "pocket" pistol.
Webley, in the UK were making a couple of smallish cartridge revolvers back in the 1860s, in their RIC and British Bulldog models.
Neither of them looked like the pistol in DW (which looked a bit like a shrunken Webley Mk IV IIRC) though, so it'll be interesting to see if some genius can positively identify it.
I knew we were getting lots of past references, but I hadn't noticed they were going in numerological order until your post! However with the fact they didn't start with Bells, I think it might be all just a coincidence though.
And I think it's more:
Rings (Doc 1): Susan
Cold War (Doc 2): HADS (and Ice Warriors!)
Hide (Doc 3): Metebalis Three Crystal
Journey (Doc 4): The Eye of Harmony
Crimson Horror (Doc 5): Tegan
I did say "at least one" - someone like Gatiss will have packed them in without most of us noticing!
Given the funfair in the preview for next week, the Sixth Doctor reference might well be "I know: I'll take you to B--" :eek:
Invasion of Time had a swimming pool. Doc 4 also had the Eye of Harmony reference as So 3008 noted. And add "Brave heart, Clara" to the Doc 5 references (it's what he used to say to Tegan (the "gobby Australian").
Someone with an eye to detail, start making a list please...
I thought the individual elements of this story were good, but it ended up being a bit of a mess because there were too many ideas competing for attention.
D'you know what? That's been my problem with most of the episodes this series - APART from this one! This was the first episode of this run where I felt the story thread was very clear from start to finish and didn't become too complicated by the amount of ideas competing for attention.
Comments
Bad Wolf reference for nine and the return of Tennant for ten? Just surmising; I could be wrong!
Brilliant episode tonight; fun yet scary, decently paced and advanced Clara's story. Loved it.
For me this was the best of the half-series. Matt was even better than usual, I loved the guests and especially Jenny (though I am finding Strax a bit tiresome), and the pacing was perfect until the kids at the end. So go on then, tell your dad your nanny is a time traveller - he'll never believe you. Nuh!
The Doctor was originally aiming for London 1893. Was that the year of the Snowmen? Surely he wasn't intending the two Claras to confront each other? That could be extremely dangerous, while he still doesn't know what she is.
"gobby australian!"
wonder who can could be
There's something quite funny about that.
The only thing I wasn't keen on was the ending, it was corny.
Yes, I loved that little reference.
It's very subjective.
Episode was better than I thought it was going to be, so yay for that.
"Brave heart" *swoon*
Mark Gatiss in his element writing Victorian cyberpunk horror - fabulous!
Strax, Madame Vastra and Jenny - fabulous!
Fifteen minutes toll we see the Doctor and then that fantasitc reveal
Victorian cinema flashback - woot!
Diana Rigg - genius actress. And her daughter too!
Some genuinely gruesome moments
Brilliant little in-jokes to Victorian values, decor and society
Loved Tom Tom the sat-nav boy, too
Brilliant ending - loads of potential there...
*happy sigh*
Doctor in a Victorian onesie
Doctor using his sonic screwdriver as a phallic representation when Jenny stripped to reveal her Peel-esque leather catsuit.
Down boy.
Doctor kissing 3 women - is this a record for an episode?
Did they have handguns like the one Mrs Gillyflower was wielding in 1893?
Clara gets on my nerves and I didn't particularly enjoy the episode.
Yep, Samuel Colt invented them in 1836.
What was the swimming pool from Tom Baker?
See thats what I mean about all the excellent votes Do you always vote excellent even when its crap ? How many other people always vote excellent just out of loyalty ? To me an episode has to be perfect or almost perfect before I will vote excellent I would love to know how many posters always vote excellent even when the episode is not.
I applaud this poster for being honest as to his voting process.
Loved Ada squashing "Mr Sweets" with her cane taking revenge for what it and her mum had done to her.What was with 11 smooching everyone ?. Jenny is gay and married so what he's selling she's not buying.Ending was good is Clara really going to get the truth in the finale ?. Hope so or at least some of it. Next week hide behind the sofa time the cybermen are back!.
Yes, but he would probably have just killed all the henchmen too- but the rest wanted to reverse the process and make them all proper humans again.
I love Strax:p
I hope I have given some decent answers to those questions.
Another final thought- who took those pictures and who let the Children see them? ( the GI?)
Thats the first one this season Ive really enjoyed...but next weeks looks like a return to the usual stuff for this season.
At least this episode gave Matt Smith a chance to change behaviour. It came as a real shock to see him like that.Loved it.
It will be about the same number of people who just come on to vote the worst option every week, sometimes saying something like
"the whole series is crap. Moffat needs to be sacked and we need Tennant back. I'm not watching next week"
(yet they still come back every week just to click the lowest poll option and say how crap it is- funny that)
I have given every 7b episode an excellent rating becaue I think they are. There was a couple in 7a that fell short of that mark for me, and I voted accordingly. Most people do.
I don't think there will be more than 10% of people just voting the top or bottom automatically. It will be the same in every poll and balances itself out anyway.
Not particularly surprising that Doctor Who fans tend to enjoy Doctor Who more often than not.
Not completely sure about that...
Colt started knocking out Cap & Ball revolvers in 1836 but that carried carried on until the 1860s, when they started converting them into cartridge revolvers, which were pretty large pistols.
The first cartridge revolver Colt designed was, of course, the famous Colt SAA, which was released in 1873, but was still considerably larger than a "pocket" pistol.
Webley, in the UK were making a couple of smallish cartridge revolvers back in the 1860s, in their RIC and British Bulldog models.
Neither of them looked like the pistol in DW (which looked a bit like a shrunken Webley Mk IV IIRC) though, so it'll be interesting to see if some genius can positively identify it.
I did say "at least one" - someone like Gatiss will have packed them in without most of us noticing!
Given the funfair in the preview for next week, the Sixth Doctor reference might well be "I know: I'll take you to B--" :eek:
Gary
Invasion of Time had a swimming pool. Doc 4 also had the Eye of Harmony reference as So 3008 noted. And add "Brave heart, Clara" to the Doc 5 references (it's what he used to say to Tegan (the "gobby Australian").
Someone with an eye to detail, start making a list please...
Gary
Now give us the Victorian Avengers please.
How did I miss this?! I saw what he was doing with the SS, but I didn't think of it like that I need to watch this ep again.
D'you know what? That's been my problem with most of the episodes this series - APART from this one! This was the first episode of this run where I felt the story thread was very clear from start to finish and didn't become too complicated by the amount of ideas competing for attention.