The mid-series finale of Doctor Who is on BBC America at 9pm EDT, 8pm CT.
I know there are a lot of you on here, although many of you may have seen the episode already through the magic of internet intellectual property theft, but just in case let’s give this a go.
No spoilers please, for those of us who have waited like good boys and girls.
nitpicker
Psyched.
Mjaum
I still find the concept of theft hard to apply to a situation where the “wronged” party still has, and makes money from, what the other party “stole”.
Seen it. Preferred the episode written by Neil Gaiman.
nitpicker
Ah, yes, Mjaum, but they make less money if their ratings are lowered because people who would’ve watched it don’t. And when you consider the correlation (that is a complete presumption on my part) between tech savvy and sci-fi fandom, then sci-fi fans may be killing their own shows by making them seem less popular.
mclaren
On the upside, at least we finally found out who River Song is, didn’t we?
MikeJ
@nitpicker: Auntie Beeb is making them less popular by putting in a delay between real world and merkin release dates.
guachi
All set to record it in four minutes on my computer cable tuning card, remove the commercials, compress it, and send it to my wife who is away in school and has no BBC. She is so excited.
Thanks to that wonderful Supreme Court decision (whatever it was called) ‘time shifting’ is totally legal. And BBC America has Doctor Who (and all its shows) listed as ‘copy freely’ so I can send it to my wife. They probably aren’t happy about me removing the commercials, but, whatever.
TooManyJens
@MikeJ: That’s a fine “thank you” from the BBC for BBCAmerica financing part of this season.
elmertfudd
Parts of the before-credits opening are brilliant!
zoidberg
Spoilers!
MikeJ
@TooManyJens: My BBCA viewing dropped precipitously when we lost the afternoon news. I enjoyed cursing that tory fuckwit Matt something. Jesus fuck, he’s worse than most american news people.
existential fish
Few minutes in, already we have a warmongering religious order which makes you lose your head in order to join it.
I appreciate the relative lack of subtlety.
wolverina
Watching Amy’s Choice right now. I have dvr’d season 5 and season 6. I loves me some Dr. Who. I am happy to see people I like to read… are Who fans too!
wolverina
jwb
@existential fish: So does this mean that they actually made this with the American audience in mind or that the British public is as dense as Americans?
guachi
What my wife and I were talking about yesterday was that she wished BBCA or some PBS network would run old episodes of PBS. BBCA seems to be only showing episodes from 2005 on. You’d think PBS might wish to take advantage of renewed popularity in America to get some new subscribers.
However, there is always NetFlix and my wife has put every available Doctor Who on our NetFlix list.
MikeJ
@guachi: PBS in Seattle runs the old ones (pre Baker even) Dr Who all the time. There’s a William Hartnell ep coming on at 7pm.
Bruuuuce
Why, oh why did The Powers That Be choose to add that ridiculous Quantum Leap-esque opening to the American version? I watch the BBC version (so know what’s happening) and there’s no such condescension there.
Will post more, after 10PM EDT (when spoilers might reasonably start being disclosed).
existential fish
@jwb:
This is a show mainly for British kids. Not super young kids, but it’s supposed to be kid friendly that adults can watch.
aliasofwestgate
Actually what they might lose in ratings, i’m pretty sure Auntie Beeb knows they make a mint on the DVDS at this point. But at this point? i REALLY need to catch up on episodes again!
burnspbesq
No teevee for me tonight. Just got my turntable back after three weeks away (had to buy a new cartridge, and Rega took two weeks to ship the vertical spacer needed to get all the angles right with the new cartridge). Binging on vinyl.
If you have a good stereo that still includes a turntable, and “Rumours” is one of your favorite records from when we were all much younger, you will want to invest in the two-disc, 45 rpm edition that Warners recently put out. Un. Flippin.’ Real.
jwb
@existential fish: I haven’t watched any of the new series at all, though I know the earlier series quite well.
Tiny Tim
2005 new series is mostly superior to old who while managing to channel its spirit to a surprising degree.
zzyzx
I couldn’t wait so I watched last week. It’s been an interesting half season to say the least.
MikeJ
@Tiny Tim: I’m with you. I was a high school geek when Baker aired on PBS in the US. All my geek friends liked it, and I hung out in bars watching shitty punk bands.
I much prefer the new Who.
jacy
Stupid significant other took stupid kid to stupid Virginia today for stupid Boy Scout camp, so in my house we will be forced to wait to see the mid-season finale until A WEEK FROM NEXT MONDAY. Because it is one of only three program we watch together as a family. Harrumph.
I’m quite jittery over the whole Amy/Flesh/River/baby thing, so I find this most inconvenient.
As punishment for leaving me to my own devices for 10 days with a bored 6-year-old, however, one of the boys (not ours, thank dog) threw up in the S/O’s car three times by the time they’d gotten two hours out of town. Hah.
El Cid
I prefer to think of it as the magic of internet sharing.
Tiny Tim
I was a big who fan back in the pbs airing episodes era. I think the first episode I saw was when baker turned into davison, and my local PBS had budget cuts (probably reagan related) and didn’t show any more for a few years. I was annoyed.
But really, while not perfect, the incredible thing about the new who is that it does manage to be true to the old show, to not really be something different, while mostly being a better product, and not simply because of bigger budgets.
existential fish
@jwb:
I’m exactly the opposite. I know of the old series, only watched the new.
OK, not sure what to make of that ending.
Spoilers!
Jewish Steel
I am playing a dirty, filthy rock n roll house show. Nerdy band dudes, drinky youth. Cute girls who like nery band dudes. I go on 2nd. The first band isn’t here yet.
The weather is beautiful and folks are cooking on the grill.
Gravenstone
I actually told myself that’s who River was, last season. Of course, I then immediately discounted the possibility. Interesting…
TooManyJens
My worry is that we already know that River was/is in prison for killing “the best man I’ve ever known.” Given how much this episode went out of its way to tell us that the Doctor is not a good man, I’m getting worried that she’ll end up killing Rory somehow (for good this time, not the usual way Rory gets killed).
stuckinred
Just finished “Another Year” another fine film by Mike Leigh.
N W Barcus
@MikeJ: I was just watching Grand Old Opry on Seattle’s PBS station, KCTS 9, and next up at 7 is some Rock, Pop, Doo Wop boomer bait show with pledge breaks.
You are no doubt referring to Tacoma’s KBTC 28, where they’ve been showing all (well nearly all) surviving episodes beginning with the very first, An Unearthly Child, for decades, the last PBS station to do so. The cycle takes about seven years, two episodes every Saturday evening, to get through the first seven Doctors.
You may be interested in knowing that for next week’s pledge drive on the 18th they will be running a Who marathon, two serials featuring beloved long-running and much-beloved characters the Brigadier and Sarah Jane Smith, whose players both died in the last few months
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
I know where the little girl is.
existential fish
@TooManyJens:
My worry is that River has spent EVERY EPISODE up until now choosing not to divulge “spoilers” even if they would be important but chooses now to tell everyone who she is?
Seems like something of a character misstep. I think someone should have figured it out without her basically prancing in all deus ex machina and announcing it.
Fax Paladin
@TooManyJens: I think that was actually BBC America’s call — they were showing it same day until Memorial Day weekend programming pre-empted “Almost People” a week, which in turn bumped “Good Man.”
I don’t have cable, so my Who comes from iTunes, available for download in the wee hours of Sunday morning. The two jobs I work Sunday (oh, fun!) mean I don’t usually actually get to watch it until after midnight Monday morning.
I torrented “Good Man” because I didn’t want to be off Twitter an entire week. As it was, I saw what turned out to be a spoiler for “Good Man” before I even got to see “Almost People.” I don’t feel guilty about the torrent because I’ve already paid for the iTunes ep.
Verdict after all that: Pretty good, though the cliffhanger struck me as not very cliffhangerish (partially deaf, I missed the bit of dialogue that explained where the Doctor was off to at the end, which was the main actual cliffhanger. I wish iTunes had captions).
Fax Paladin
@existential fish: It’s not really a spoiler anymore… although explaining why would be, and I don’t know whether I should do that yet. Suffice to say wibbly-wobbly-timey-wimey is involved.
Peanutcat
@existential fish: What, no fussing about the Fat Thin Gay Angelican Soldiers?
scav
@existential fish: But, now she’s definitely got a time head (over and beyond being essentially from the future and possibly living backwards in some more outre interpretations) and can thus probably see the whole space timey-wimey vortex in more of a Doctorish way, she’d have a grip like him on things that have to be, things that might be and things that can not be — and presumably a similar grip on information that should be known and should not be known (’cause this last is also a big theme this go-round no?). So, I can at least see a bit of a reason for this switch in behavior. The thing about this last River and the original River is their entirely different takes on the Doctor being able to tell entire armies to run and snap open the Tardis, etc. In the Library, she seemed quite nostalgic for that Doctor as her Doctor: now she’s telling him off for the same reason. Both satisfying speeches in their place but a bit of a disconnect. I guess love is just like that.
I’ve got a bad feeling for poor old Rory too. And River didn’t tell him that things would be all right: just Amy.
middlewest
Did the American version leave in the naughty bits with Vastra and Jenny? Neil Gaiman and Steven Moffat were making jokes on twitter about giving them a spinoff last week.
Jules
Yeah, I would be one of those folks, there was no way I could wait a week to find out who River was. would have had to avoided both Twitter, Tumbler and Facebook all week.
Screw BBC America and their bone headed idea to push the shows back a week because of Memorial Day. Most folks have these things called DVRs and “video tape machines” so no audience would have been lost.
I did watch it again tonight.
Good episode, I feel the need to watch the episode’s in the library again.
I think “The Doctor’s Wife” was the best show this season.
scav
@Jules: As though slightly dodgy digital activities weren’t as much catnip for nerds as the Doctor is.
Jay in Oregon
There have been so many theories as to who River Song is that one of them was bound to be correct. I liked the red herring they added to this episode; it actually made me do a double-take.
On a meta level, I’m sure that some of how River acts around the Doctor and others has to do with the fact the writers and actors don’t know everything about River’s character. So there are going to be discrepancies as we continue to see more about her.
Within the fiction, I suspect that River plays her cards as close to the vest as the Doctor does. Sure, she teases the Doctor about “spoilers” but there’s so much more to her life that we haven’t seen; I liked the part of the first episode where the Doctor had about 200 years’ worth of adventures without Rory and Amy and gives the Doctor and River’s relationship more depth.
I loved Rory in this episode; I don’t think that Amy needs to be the helpless victim in every episode, but I don’t think her husband does either. And the Doctor’s allies were a nice mix of people we’ve seen before (the pirate and his son, “Danny Boy” and wingman, and the blue guy) and new arrivals. I dunno if Vastra and Jenny need their own spinoff, but I would not mind seeing more of the Doctor’s past with Vastra.
MikeJ
@N W Barcus: KBTC, channel 12.I wish I knew where it was from but even after going to their web site I have no idea. Pity nobody knows how to build web sites any more.
TooManyJens
Why exactly *did* the Doctor tell Rory to wear his Roman kit, anyway? His puckish sense of humor? Trying to invoke Rory’s role as Amy’s protector? Something I missed?
I have a bad feeling that it was done only to set up Amy calling him “The Last Centurion”, and that that in turn was done only so Amy could talk to Melody about her father in such as way as to obscure his identity as long as possible. Since I’m really, really tired of them playing coy about how Amy-might-be-in-love-with-the-Doctor-except-not-really!, I’d be annoyed if that were the reason.
MikeJ
@TooManyJens: Playing coy about it? Did you miss the snogging in her bedroom? Denial is not just a river in Utah.
TooManyJens
@MikeJ: Oh, I think she’d happily shag him given half a chance, but I think it would be more of a friends with benefits thing than Twu Wuv.
Citizen Alan
My theory is that Rory normally keeps 2000 years of memories, much of them involving combat, locked away behind a door in his head. By getting him to put on the suit, the Doctor forced Rory to open that door and let out a mythic warrior. I desperately hope that the “good man” is neither the Doctor nor Rory but someone completely different. At this point, I love Rory’s character better than anyone else on the show, and since I love all of them (even the Sontaran nurse!), that’s saying something.
Dogsbody
SPOILER ALERT:
River Song is the daughter of Ford Prefect and Barbarella!!
scav
@Dogsbody: in which case the Melody in the forest is clearly Bee-Bop-a-Rella, she’s my baby!
lol
@Jay in Oregon:
Moffatt has apparently briefed Alex Kingston on River’s entire story so she can react appropriately.
He’s also said she keeps information to herself and knows what has happened. I suspect for the sake of continuity with her and the Doctor’s timelines, she simply has to play along to a certain extent.
Why did she finally tell him who she was at Demon’s Run?Because that’s the day he found out who she was.
@TooManyJens:
To make him remember how he was a bad-ass Roman soldier for millenia and feel more confident?
N W Barcus
MikeJ: Yes, that’s a translator for the original signal from 28.
For more local Who info read the Emerald City Androgums, they’re the ones who man the pledge phones every six months.
As for the current series, though the non-Moffat episodes get a little iffy (exceptional exception: Neil Gaiman’s The Doctor’s Wife) the revival is in good hands.
Jay in Oregon
@lol:
I’m thinking about the little inconsistencies, not necessarily the big parts. River acted like she didn’t know who Rory was in The Pandorica Opens and The Big Bang, when it was obvious that the two knew each other in later episodes.
She could have been playing it safe because she didn’t know if they had met each other yet from Rory’s frame of reference; being a time traveler and interacting with the Doctor out of order must give her a GREAT poker face…
Seanly
So, is the thought that the little girl from the America episodes is Melody/River Song?
But then wouldn’t River have recognized the spacesuit? Unless she couldn’t remember her past lives very well.
Bruuuuce
@Seanly: I believe she is. I also believe that she knows that the Doctor who gets shot is the Flesh Doctor, whom we saw last ep. I’m not sure if shooting him (as a young girl) is the crime she’s in jail for, though she’s certainly implied it in the past. (And if it is, can she get out as easily as she does because of her genes, or because the actual Doctor has cut a deal with the authorities?)
She may well have recognized the spacesuit, but for some reason has decided that she can’t simply change the event (for example, because if she did, the Silence would continue to run Earth). That being the case, she has to ensure that events that she knows happened, come true (a la the Doctor’s running around at the end of last season, leaving Amelia a note and bringing the mop when he goes to Rory).
Bruuuuce
I’ve said before, and I’ll say again: Please, Moffat, feel free to concentrate exclusively on Sherlock It could use more episodes, and Doctor Who can use someone else at the helm. Someone who doesn’t sacrifice character development, continuity, and writing quality for drama.
I wouldn’t mind regenerating Matt Smith (though I understand that he’s just signed on for 14 more eps); he isn’t a terrible Doctor, just missing one essential element. I call it gravitas, but it’s more than that: it’s the ability to sell me on his being the Grand Manipulator that the Doctor is, making things happen behind all the clowning (which he does very well). It’s not that he can’t do that: he did it perfectly in The Doctor’s Wife. It’s just that he usually doesn’t; I put it down to the writing, but I suspect that it’s partly that he’s just so young and focused on the lulz.
Could be worse. We could be stuck with Peter Davison or Colin Baker.
::BIG SPOILER NEXT. DO NOT FOLLOW UP UNLESS YOU WANT SPOILERAGE.::
Someone did a look-ahead on IMDB, and what they saw in the cast list for the last ep this year (not this one; the one in October) is Very Interesting Indeed.
Lurleen
Your writing is just like Hunter Thompson’s!!!!!!
Royston Vasey
Good to see some fellow Who fans at this site.
Watched the BBC version last Monday.
Way cool!
rikyrah
this isn’t about Doctor Who, but a friend just told me last night that Torchwood was going to STARZ…and I don’t have Starz…:(
El Cid
Those who like the music composed for Doctor Who by Murray should really check out his “I Am The Doctor”, available by iTunes.
The short version of it is called “Onward”.
This is the music played usually when they’re about to head right for trouble, usually when the Doctor is promising adventure and saving the world. And during those action-filled trailers for next episode.
It’s just great.
Woodrow/asim Jarvis Hill
@Bruuuuce: IMDB has a history of inaccurate spoilers/future production information for everything, including WHO. I would take anything they say with huge heaps of salt, and/or look for one of the Who spoiler websites, which generally do a good job of documenting where they get their info from.
Litlebritdifrnt
@Seanly: geek theory is that she could not remember any of her time under the control of the silence because nobody could. As soon as she broke free from the silence her memories began.
Litlebritdifrnt
@El Cid:
Did you see that absolutely and utterly fantastic BBC Symphony Concert broadcast from the Albert Hall last Christmas? It was truly wonderful, and an absolute joy to see so many children’s faces in the audience having the time of their lives listening to what was bascially classical music with a twist.
Litlebritdifrnt
@Bruuuuce:
That pisses me off to no end too. Are Americans so dense that they need to be reminded week after week that the Doctor “comes from somewhere else, he has a box that is bigger on the inside” I mean come on. It is absolutely painful.
Brachiator
Just finished watching the episode after having avoided all the spoilers. So nice to find this thread here. I really like the way that the season is going, and Moffat and Math Smith’s take on the Doctor.
With all the twists and turns and the variations on people who turn out not to be who we thought they were, I was afraid that Moffat might finally trip up, but this episode turned out to be solid.
From a narrative and dramatic standpoint, the final revelations gave Amy something to feel hopeful about. And (timey wimey) it makes for an interesting reconsideration of the way that she and River have interacted in past episodes.
I am sorry that they did not do more with the woman soldier. There may even be a slightly ominous note here, since now we know that not everyone the doctor meets when they are a child goes on to have a happy life. And there is also a sense that the Doctor met her deliberately so that she would be a part of this future.
Comrade Mary
While in some ways this episode was a little like watching a Mary Sue get bitch-slapped, I floved it. Just utterly floved it, especially the way Rory (rarrwwr!) got his props. I was in tears during the pre-credits opening, sniffy in other parts, then barked with delighted laughter with the teaser for the next episode.
But I suspect there are more shenanigans upcoming with Lorna Bucket. It’s not just that she has a Scottish first name and a last name that is the word for what you use to carry water (as pointed out by someone else on the intertubes), but Christina Chong looks enough like Amy to be her sister (well, half-sister).
And yes, that BBCAmerica (and BBC Canada) intro with Amy infuriates me. Thankfully, the version I bought off iTunes doesn’t use it.
mclaren
@burnspbesq:
Yes, nothing like those glorious clicks and pops and surface noise. And the inner groove distortion adds to much to the music.
Idiot.
David Brooks (not that one) is a richardhead.
Just got in from playing a Pops concert…
My son just created a ten-Doctor tribute vid: check it out here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HT9zDf8wclM&feature=channel_video_title
It runs in the family. I well remember the first episode, An Unearthly Child, shown the day after the Kennedy assassination. My memory tells me that it was repeated the following week (the BBC never changes its schedules like that) because of the intense interest it generated. May be remembeing that wrong; I can’t find a reference to it.
Agoraphobic Kleptomaniac
So far, I’ve really enjoyed the entire arc since the re-launch, and “good Man” was a good turning point for the arc. I’ve enjoyed Smith as the doctor, and think he’s scarier than Tennant ever was, because he’s always menacing with a smile, while Tennant would just yell a lot. I mean, Tennant was great, but the Doctor staring you down, telling you that you will be known as Captain Runaway was a good example of his menace.
I’m missing the slow burn horror stories though this season. IIRC, every episode this season has been flashy fairly early, and then the rest of the episode is explaining the holes. Written more like mysteries than anything else. I appreciate the stories that have more of the horror build, where things get increasingly more dangerous and weird the longer the story goes on.
However, I don’t get all the squabbling over minor plot holes and how Amy sucks this season or any other complaints really. It’s a lighthearted show with pretty good production values that occasionally has really awesome episodes, and the rest of the time is entertaining as long as you aren’t taking the series to seriously.