2008 Christmas Special: The Next Doctor [spoilers]

[Captain Seafort]

6 pm tomorrow - 28 hours to go.

[colmquinn]

Is it written by RTD?

[Captain Seafort]

It is - hopefully this will turn out as one of his better efforts.

[Sionnach Glic]

Somehow I doubt it. The premise of Cybermen yet again, this time in Victorian England doesn't really interest me that much. I think we've had a bit too much of that already.

[Aaron]

I'm going to cross my fingers and hope for a return of the Ninth Doctor.

[Captain Seafort]

Well that was pretty cool. An interesting way to make him the Doctor, but not the Doctor. It was a bit of a rip-off of Journey's End, but in the end much better done than then. The giant steampuck Cyberman was barmy, but also very cool, and we finally got to see all the Doctors.

On the downside, why do Cybermen, with superhuman strength, need children to wind their machinery for them?

[colmquinn]

I liked the bit when it showed images of all the doctor's previous selves.
I'll not say any more so I won't spoil it for people who haven't seen it but my vote shows my opinion of it.

[Sionnach Glic]

Some thoughts:

I liked it. Me and my brother hijacked the TV during the family get-together to watch it. Upon seeing the super-Cyberman, my brother called out "it's a titan!"

The Cyberman plot was total "meh". What saved it was the guy who thought he was the Doctor, and the way he tried to replicate all the real Doctor's equipment.
"How exactly is that screwdriver sonic?"
"Well, it makes noise, doesn't it? That's sonic."

In addition, the fact that they used kids to wind up their clockwork robot rather than just doing it themselves or, you know, building a machine to wind it for them and thus not draw attention to themseves it would have been better.

The woman-villain was bland and uninteresting, IMO. I can't even remember her motive for trying to take over London, let alone her name.

I liked the mention to the Cybermen in the Void, and the fact that they used a Dalek technology to get back out. But when was this war, or whatever, that went on in the Void mentioned before? That made me go "huh?"

I think if they'd replaced the Cyberman plot with just an alien-of-the-week running around the place killing people, and focused more on the interplay between the two Doctors it would have been far better.

Also, I think it would have been better if the false-Doctor had saved his son, rather than the real-Doctor.

Despite those gripes, I'll give it a solid 4.

Oh, and I think I noticed a continuity error. When the info-soda-can-thing is displaying the pictures of the different Doctors, it shows the ninth one. Yet he never ran into the Cybermen. I suppose he could have off-screen, but I just found that odd.

[Captain Seafort]

I liked the mention to the Cybermen in the Void, and the fact that they used a Dalek technology to get back out. But when was this war, or whatever, that went on in the Void mentioned before? That made me go "huh?"

I think that was referring either to the Battle of Canary Wharf, or to a subsequent continuation of that battle inside the void (although how the Cybermen were meant to be able to take on millions of Daleks when they had trouble dealing with four of them I'm not sure.

Oh, and I think I noticed a continuity error. When the info-soda-can-thing is displaying the pictures of the different Doctors, it shows the ninth one. Yet he never ran into the Cybermen. I suppose he could have off-screen, but I just found that odd.

It wouldn't be the first time - the Third Doctor showed up both here and in Attack of the Cybermen (I think), and he never faced them on screen either.

[colmquinn]

The third doctor did meet the cybermen in the 5 doctors episode (and they tried to kill him and his assistant but were saved when the fast little killer robot thingy killed a squad of the cybermen) though I thought that the cybermen in that episode were all killed. Not sure how they managed to have the memories of the two universes cybermen be transfered between each other but it happened obviously.

[Sionnach Glic]

I think that was referring either to the Battle of Canary Wharf, or to a subsequent continuation of that battle inside the void (although how the Cybermen were meant to be able to take on millions of Daleks when they had trouble dealing with four of them I'm not sure.

Ah, okay.

[Graham Kennedy]

I voted "Meh", and was tempted to go for less than that.

SPOILERS!!!!!


Entirely forgettable. The "new doctor" was a funny moment, but I worked out the basics of what had happened about ten seconds after I saw his sonic screwdriver, and the details as soon as I saw him with the memory stick thing in a flashback. It's NOT a good sign when the audience works something out faster than the Doctor himself does.

The giant Cyberman... WTF was that about? Why not build a cyber conversion factory instead and just make a new army of cybermen, it would be far more effective than that stupid thing. And dammit, how deep is the Thames meant to be anyway?

I did quite like the female baddie. My kind of woman. But she was way more interesting as a Human who had sided with the cybermen out of disgust for the society around her than she was as a semi-converted cyberqueen.

Letdown all around, I'm afraid.

[kostmayer]

I think the Giant Cyberman was a standard Dreadnought design - though why they don't just have giant ships I can't say.

And the Thames was pretty deep

I'm suprised xmas hasn't been banned in London by now.