It certainly is! I'm just not sure it's as integral or significant as some are making out. I hope I'm proved wrong

I can ony assume that Rose's dad does something hugely significant if he lives. Or rather, if he dies, Rose grows up to be an independent and adventurous person. Maybe if he'd been around, she would have a different personality entirely. But yes, we'll have to wait until next week for a proper answer

The Doctor is a professional and so doesn't make the sort of mistakes that Rose makes.

It's like plumbing or wiring - have a go yourself and the reapers will destroy your pipework and fusebox.

I expect the Doctor will look at Rose and make lots of tutting noises about how he hasn't seen one like this before, how it'll cost a lot to fix and how they don't make the parts for this time line anymore...

I'm with you on the greed theme. Episode 1 had to set things up so it was probably not a good place to introduce this theme!

You have just reminded me of a couple of points from past eps. If the Slitheen wanted to sell off bits of planet, why didn't they chose somewhere unhinhabited such as Mars?

And where did the Dalek get the automatic Brasso from? I could do with some!

If The Face of Boe is the financier of various 'projects', then perhaps he just puts the money up front to whoever approaches him with a proposition or invests in something which a good return is promised. I can't help thinking they (the production team) have deliberately pointed the Face out to us again but there is still someone else involved...could they be part of the consortium?

I bloody hope it does - you can't get much lower than we have now, and CW confirms this.

Dr Who is fundamentally in a bit of difficulty which is not at all its own fault. The problem is that Dr Who has to maintain continuity with its past, which started in 1963. Since then we have discovered chaos theory which demonstrates that even the slightest change in the the input to a system often results in total diverence of outcomes. This messes up the whole premise of Dr Who, which is that time travel is possible and does not mess future events up unless you do something serious like kill or save somebody. It also messes up the idea that if The Doctor more or less patches up the timeline that is good enough for history to continue as it should. We simply have to suspend disbelief and assume that there is a mechanism in operation which causes timelines to reconverge after minor changes.

Maybe I was being too simple, but I assumed that she was referring to herself - after all she was just a face herself! I shall have to rewatch that episode - what a chore!

Once the final figures were in, Doctor Who beat Ant and Dec every week it was up against it, even the final episode of A&D.

Apologies if this has already been addressed - I'm still playing catch-up.

Indeed. I think he makes much grander mistakes.

I think that what Rose does next week will lead into the revelation that The Doctor has broken the rules on a much wider scale and that is why so many historical situations are not as they should be.

Sorry if someone's already answered this, but it's just an in-joke reference to Evil Of The Daleks, which featured characters called Maxtible and Waterfield and the line "Do not feed the flying pests." Nothing to do with the new series at all.

I think that's what I meant though - Ant & Dec is ITV's big ratings winner, and DW did well enough to beat it. I think Alrightmate was pondering about ITV putting something on that would take viewers away, and I was saying (albeit in a really awkward way) that it wasn't likely.

It had to be radioactive to be worth selling for use as economy grade fuel. That is why they needed it nuked. Of course, they could have just nuked an uninhabited planet themselves but perhaps the cost of the nukes would have made it uneconomic to do so.

Absolutely!

As you say, there is absolutely no need for the BBC to become complacent over this series. I agree the BBC/RTD have done wonders, with some very good episodes, but it has had some bad episodes too.

As RTD himself said, he will be monitoring reaction to the episodes very closely - and I'm sure he is.

I wonder what his forum name is?

Yep - I think that sums it up perfectly. All praise and more for getting Doctor Who back, but perhaps he could stick more to developing the overall storylines and take a bit more of back seat in the actual writing stakes. I am a bit sad to say that as I think Queer as Folk and The Second Coming have been some of the absolute best writing on television in recent years. In his defence, though, I have to say, "The Long Game" was still far better than "Rose" and "AoL/WW3" so I think director Keith Boak has to take a large part of the blame.


On rewatching this morning, the sound we're assuming is Rose's alarm clock happened whenever a tannoy announcement was made (like the opening bing-bong you get in supermarkets and the like when announcing this week's special offers) so I think it's just an unfortunate coincidence that the same sound effect was used. Unless of course, someone's noticed it in other episodes...?


Dunno about the Master, but it's certainly intriguing...

I just think that next weeks story could open up a whole can of worms by deliberately raising the issue of paradoxes. You can suspend belief, with the justification that the program is just fiction.

However, when that fiction tries to explain itself and set rules, I feel it ought to be sensible and consistant. Not to mention the potential problems it could pose future writers.

As far as the old series is concerned I treat this new series as a re-imagining rather than as a continuation. So I'm not too bothered if new series events don't mesh with the old series.

It would be amusing to find out he had posted on this forum but I reckon he must look at the comments on here at the very least.

It was interesting in DW Confidential that RTD didn't rule out a return for The Master...

Thankyou - I'm famous for pointing out the 'bleeding obvious'

Indeed, what ITV needs in this slot is a popular program with an audience which does not cross over too much with Dr Who. Both Ant and Dec and Celebrity Wrestling fall into this category (except that CW forgot to be popular).

If ITV ever gets any decent sci-fi (which I doubt) it will not cripple its ratings by putting it on opposite Dr Who. If it was clever (which it isn't) it would wait until Dr Who finishes for the season and then put a sci-fi programme in the same slot in order to grab the Dr Who audience.

The BBC also has a problem. The new Dr Who is a major production effort. They can't knock out more than one series a year. They need something else good if they are going to remain the kings of Saturday evening TV after it finishes.

Hmmm OK - so how radioactive would the Earth be after a nuclear war? Surely only parts of the surface! And without a magnetic field to protect it, how radioactive is the surface of Mars? Do any of you know?

ITV and the BBC tend not to worry too much about the summer schedules are they know most people will either be out and about if the weather is good or on holiday..hence we get more repeats in the summer months.

I didn't see Dr Who confidential so I don't know if this was indeed the inspiration for the Jagrafess but as soon as I saw it it reminded me of the hairy angler fish last seen on The Blue Planet - compare!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/galle...ery/800/22.jpg

http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/blueplan...r_fish_2.shtml



Has anyone else noticed that on the UNIT press pages
"Number Ten Pays Tribute to UNIT" points to the same page as "UNIT’s Position on The London Incident"? I assume it should point to a page relating the world war three episode, since on the secure pages http://www.unit.org.uk/secure/ten.shtml works.

In fact, by making an educated guess, it should probably point to http://www.unit.org.uk/press/ten.shtml

Apologies if I missed a reference to this in this or an earlier thread.

<cough> <splutter>
You owe me a new keyboard!

I thought it was very good actually- the best RTD episode so far.

He also confessed to making up the entries for listings in the Radio Times years ago when he had that job. That was in the RTD:Unscripted programme.