DW 30x12: The Stolen Earth

[kostmayer]

As much as I went pooh at the return of the Daleks, I have to say Davros was great

And Jack was right, Sarah Jane still looks good.

[Sionnach Glic]

That was pretty cool, despite my expectations. My thoughts on the episode:
The Daleks: they're getting a bit overdone at this point, I think. Still, Davros was cool to see back again, and it's nice to see them kicking the crap out of stuff.
All the companions back together again. Pretty good.
Looks like the Valient went down hard. A pity, that thing was cool.
So Project Indigo just turned out to be a transporter that brought Martha back home? How disapointing. With all the build up around it I though it'd be some uber-weapon.
Torchwood is about to get their asses kicked. Please, put Gwen out of our misery!
And the Doctor's been shot and is regenerating again. But who's going to be playing him from now on? Everywhere I've looked still has David Tennent listed as playing the Doctor for the next episode.
Where's K-9? I thought he was hanging around with Sarah Jane?

[Captain Seafort]

The good:
The pepperpots are back, kicking tens kinds of hell out of all and sundry. 8)
Davros! Michael Wisher-esque Davros, not the-Daleks-couldn't-find-their-own-arses-without-him Davros.
Sarah Jane's expression whe she heard a) the Daleks and b) Davros - should be interesting to see if they use the fact that she was there right back at the begining.
Harriet Jones vs. Dalek: "Yes, we know who you are. Exterminate!"
Torchwood vs. Daleks - this looks very promising. Come on Daleks!
The Dalek's shot at the end - I was expecting it to get Rose. Nice effect as well - a graze is far more believably survivable (even temporarily) than a full hit.

The bad:
The Shadow Proclamation. Can anyone say filler?
The regeneration. Not showing the new Doctor stinks of hijinks.
Harriet Jones. That woman was irritating to start with, was only slightly better in "Christmas Invasion", and went downhill again here.
I smell another reset button/deus ex ending - how exactly are they going to get rid of that many pepperpots otherwise

[Sionnach Glic]

The Shadow Proclamation. Can anyone say filler?

Indeed. That was very disapointing. Given how much we've heard about it, I was expecting something.....I dunno...spectacular. Instead, we get the Doctor standing around solving everything himself with the Shadow Proclamation doing.....absolutely nothing.
And are the TARDIS's translation circuits not working again? Why did we hear the Jidoon and the Doctor speaking Jidoon-ish?

I smell another reset button/deus ex ending - how exactly are they going to get rid of that many pepperpots otherwise

I suppose it'd be too much to see the Shadow Proclamation fleet engaging the Daleks in a spectacular battle?

[Captain Seafort]

Oh, and another entry under "bad". I am getting sick and tired of this repetetive , RTD approved, standard regeneration pose. The old series acknowleged that every regeneration was different, because every regeneration was happening to a different person and due to a different cause of death. Moreover, how the hell does a man who's just had to be carried into the Tardis manage to get up and strike the aformentioned pose?

[Sionnach Glic]

Quantum.


Oh, wait, this isn't Trek.....well, I'm out of ideas.

[Graham Kennedy]

My first impression was that it was incredibly frantic. I know modern Who does tend to be rather fast paced, but there were times that I just could not follow what the hell the Doctor was saying. And following all the different groups... chaos.

I thought it was good how the different groups got to provide different parts of the solution, from Sarah's computer using the phone network to Torchwood powering it and Martha's phone making the call and Donna remembering about the missing planets and all that.

Harriet Jones... I find her annoying, somewhat, but bearable. She's a caricature of Thatcher... but she's a mean spirited caricature, and she'd work better as one done by somebody who actually liked Thatcher. I did love her line about "you know nothing of any human, and that will be your downfall" to the Daleks though, that was cool.

They had an insane Dalek that gibbers to itself all the time. How odd.

The Shadow Proclamation... what was the point of that except to fill ten minutes of an already overcrowded episode? Why didn't the Tardis translate the Judoon speech for us like always? I am hoping that the SP forces will turn up and battle the Daleks in a big FX heavy battle next week... otherwise what was the point of them?

27 missing planets and the whole galaxy wants to go to war? I would have thought 27 missing planets would barely be noticed in our galaxy. And since a lot of those planets are obviously only ever going to feature as background that take no part in the story, why not say 27,000? Or 27,000,000 for that matter?

Why are the walls between realities breaking down? The Doctor said this was literally the end of the universe... but then they never mentioned it again. Is it a side effect of whatever the Daleks/Davros did to steal the planets?

I don't think the Doc is going to regenerate. If they were changing actors again we'd have been spoiled to death on it by now. I think he'll come out of the glowy thing as the same person, with some excuse as to how it fixed him without changing him this time or something.

Have to say, it did leave me wanting to know how this is gonna turn out...

[Sionnach Glic]

27 missing planets and the whole galaxy wants to go to war?

Worse than that: the Doctor said that some of the planets weren't even populated (So what the point in stealing them was, I've no idea. Maybe they're rich in resources?). So the entire galaxy wants to go to war over some missing people and some missing balls of rock.

[Reliant121]

I missed it. I can watch it on catch up on demand at some point today.

[kostmayer]

So far as why the planets were stolen - including the uninhabited ones.

Didn't the Doctor show that due to their size (and preusmably) gravity, they would all arrange themselves into a certain configuration an make some kind of giant gear. Have no idea what its supposed to do though.

The shadow proclomation was a bit of a let down though. And the Tardis Ships - whilst impressive in outerspace - looked a bit "Mars Attacks" when flying round Earth shooting.

[Sionnach Glic]

Oh, yeah, the Doctor said they'd make a giant engine, or something.

[Reliant121]

Oh, yeah, the Doctor said they'd make a giant engine, or something.

i watched it. I believe it was something about it providing a huge amount of gravitional power.

[Nutso]

There were a lot of rumors I read a while back concerning this season's finale. Some concerning the return of Gallifrey. Some saying Christopher Eccleston was coming back for a brief stint. I think I read these things on IMDB. Well, they were right about the Doctor's companions playing a major role in the finale. The IMDB guys even have a great theory on Donna Noble's importance.

[Captain Seafort]

If it turns out the Doctor's regeneration goes backwards, I'd rather it skipped one - Eccelston was good, but McGann could do with a bit more screentime. Plus, since Caan broke the time lock on the war, we might see a few incarnations turning up in the traditional way.

[colmquinn]

The stuff I've read all point to a botched regen but there is also a picture of sylvester macoy floating about dressed as the doctor so lord knows whats going to happen.
I prefer the planet gallifrey site for links to blogs etc but its still all only guesswork till sat night.