it's all part of the mystery... the doctor is simply just that... the Doctor... but the people he meets probe further and want to know Dr. Who?

e.g.

C.E - "hello, i'm the Doctor"

BP - Doctor what? (big pun... she was supposed to say Doctor Who?...)

geddit?

I agree with you Deaddog....you can't please all of your audience all of the time. I thoroughly enjoyed The Unquiet Dead but I am sure there are a few out there who didn't as much. Swings and roundabouts. It is still finding it's feet but I think in respect of the past two episodes..Aliens Of London and World War Three they needed to employ a better director to execute a script which had so much potential.

The character of Rose's mother is unconvincing. It's as if she isn't really that arsed about her daughter's safety, but sometimes pretends she is. She goes on about how she doesn't want Rose to be with the Doctor one minute, and is quite happy to let her go again the next.

BTW, just had a quick look on the Celebrity Wrestling thread. I did not see the show but it seems to have got a general thumbs down, which can only be good news for the Whoniverse.

Nah ... the youngsters probably don't geddit ...

much like the humour - as there is no canned laughter, they are not really sure what is funny either ... I kid you not ... I've spent the evening with a niece/nephew - who've had to have the basics explained

I gave up with them .... eddercation is summat alien

I've always thought the phrase 'Doctor Who' was supposed to be a reply to being asked who he is:--

"Hello, I'm The Doctor"

"Doctor Who?"

or as Rose says in Ep. 1 "Doctor What?"

Edit: Ah, in fact exactly what smashmouth said 5 posts ago! I really must read all of these before I type...

I was rather hoping that after this series we might see less of Mickey and Jackie who are rather poorly acted by the two actors but I hear they are returning for the second season...

I guess she doesn't want Rose to go, but would rather give her blessing cos she realises Rose is going to go whatever she says.

Jacqui / Jackie is brilliant!!!

She's like a typical mum.

I'm not sure why Mickey attracts so much vitriol, but there you go. Can't wait to see them again.

Well, my 7 Year old did get some of the jokes, but not all, like you say.. some of it had to be explained but otherwise she completly enjoyed the "Doctors" sense of humor (in a fashion).

Is it my imagination, or is there more in this series of what The Doctor would call 'domestication' than in previous years?

I don't recall any other assistant coming home and chatting with their parent[s] about the whole business. Maybe that's what RTD is bringing to the table - soap opera storylines. Maybe we'll see an EastEnd gangster soon, or a Brookie-style episode

You can almost hear the creaking of the wood when they are in a scene.

Not so much wooden as MDF - as they say.

oh yeah, I thought the funniest part of tonights ep was the London SWAT Team sounding like they came from the valleys

What did the rest of you think of the Slitheen remark to the Doctor that he is trapped in his box ie the TARDIS in tonights ep?

Why is he trapped in hix box then theoretically he can go anywhere in space and time unless they meant something else....?
Last edited by Black Guardian : 24-04-2005 at 02:12

I don't think that's entirely the case with Mickey.
I always thought a lot had to do with what the director required him to do.
I think Noel Clarke does okay.
There are moments when I think his character is very real.
I did feel that he really loved Rose in the last episode. his acting made me feel a bit sory for him.
It's only when he's told to do things like run into a wall and swing his legs upo ove rhis head in an unrealistic way that it doesn't feel right.

For example, I think Noel did a good job of portraying the feeling to the viewer whether he had done the right thing or not when the Doc offered for him to travel with him.

I often see more moments of real behaviour from the portrayal of Mickey, and sense his anger at always having previously been seen as a fool.

I have no problems if Mickey comes back. A lot depends on who is directing at the time.
I quite like the character in some ways, and in other ways I dislike the Doctor.

Compromise then...lose Jackie and keep Mickey?

Wouldn't mind seeing a return of Penelope Wiltons character at some point in the future....

Not a review of Aliens of London/World War Three, but one from the William Hartnell era story The Web Planet!






OK, my ten bob's worth about AOL/WW3:

The Slitheen must be one of the daftest sets of aliens ever to grace DW. Childish, inept, greedy, argumentative - they were like the Three Stooges from space.



Except that there were more than three of them.

And the Three Stooges never had advanced technology

A small child is just a small child, until you introduce it to a magnifying glass and an ant hill. Then the small child becomes the slaughterer of thousands.

The Slitheen with their spaceships and fart jokes were never (IMHO) meant to be taken seriously on a large scale. I still feel that there is a far darker genius behind all this.



It very sad that the creatures were not as well realised as we would have hoped, but putting that to one side for just a moment, what else did the story offer us?

An insight into Rose's background, her family, friends and Mickey. Jackie is not all bad, but she will never be awarded Mother of the Year will she? Mickey has finally admitted that he is a coward and he and the Doctor have reached an uneasy truce.

A snapshot of the world we live in - paranoid, shallow and materialistic. A world where the one who shouts the loudest is the one who is believed.

The Doctor struggling with a moral dilemma. We also find out that he has been back in Earth action between 1989 & 2000.

He apologises to the dead PA - another needless death in his book.

At last we see his vast knowledge of alien life forms in action. The method he uses still indicates (to me) that his memory is not fully in sync.

All in all the story left me feeling a little empty. It wasn't the overtly juvenile nature of he aliens or the wobbly suits - it was just an indefinable something that was missing.

At least next week's episode won't be an anticlimax!

BTW:

Someone complained about all the contemporary commentary - it has always happened in Doctor Who: from Jo Grant banging on about the age of Aquarius to Ace's ghetto blaster.

Do lots of planets have a Wales?

Ann Robinson should be warned!

I thought we were promised a pretty neat cgi of the "bad wolf" grafitti being left behind as the TARDIS dematerlised. Instead we got the kid with a bucket of water. Last time I read the spoliers

Plothole or plot...? How did the Doctor know who the kid was to get him to wash it off in the first place?

I took the 'box' to be a reference to the Cabinet Room...

Does anybody know how it did in the ratings last night?

What time do the ratings normally get posted?

Possible new Auton attack in Australia, or has Mickey got an Aussie cousin ?

That was a very good episode. I found last weeks too light in almost every sense except funny, this episode made up for it tenfold. Like a few other people in this thread, The Unquiet Dead is my favorite so far.

I agree with the comments about the switches between CGI and costumes being way too noticable. Why can Farscape do that so well and why is it being shown directly after confidential on 3? To rub it in? This is where the lack of budget shows through, I guess.

Yeah, Mickey is now shown in a somewhat better light. He does run away when he has a chance but he didn't shirk from taking charge when needed. It's nice when a 2d character is fleshed out over time. I'm glad I haven't read any spoilers for the series because I didn't know how he would answer the Doctor's offer of a companion slot .

This series is managing the relationships between characters very well and you feel sometimes that RTD is maybe being marked down for his scripts, as opposed to the single Gatis script, because the emotional development is coming in them and this takes time. You just have to look at Queer as Folk to see the way that RTD can take you through a whole set of emotions without advancing plot. I guess that is something he learned on Coronation Street?

I'm thoroughly enjoying it.