Voyage of the Damned

Post by **Captain Seafort** » Tue Dec 25, 2007 12:46 pm

Starts 18:50 GMT, BBC 1 for those in the UK. Expect spoilers for discussion once it's been on.

Minnsky · Post by **Minnsky** » Tue Dec 25, 2007 4:04 pm

Any one here plan on taping it and putting on there PC for p2p or Torrent? if so PLEASE hook me up. that of if you know a channel here in the US that has it, or a web channel. i have not been able to find any. USA tv sucks. lol

Post by **Captain Seafort** » Tue Dec 25, 2007 8:37 pm

Hmm. Not bad at all, though not as good as "The Chrsimas Invasion" or "The Runaway Bride". I'm not keen on the new music though - too fast and too cluttered. On the plus side, after a couple of years of chaos it's about time London cottoned on to the fact that Christmas tends to coincide with large-scale alien trouble.

Enkidu · Post by **Enkidu** » Tue Dec 25, 2007 9:40 pm

It was OK, but rather style over substance. Something that I couldn't work out was the fat couple had spent 5000 credits on the phone line competition, and they would never be able to pay it back. But the doctor tells Clive Swift that a million pounds is worth fifty million credits - that would mean that 5000 is worth Â£100.
There was a sprinkling of references, so I don't know if it is a coincidence that the Doctor called himself Passenger 57: I can't think of any reason to reference a bad and largely forgotten second string action film from the mid 'nineties.
Anybody have any hopes that the series will survive Catherine Tate?

Post by **Captain Seafort** » Tue Dec 25, 2007 9:46 pm

Tate, while insufferably irritating on her own show, didn't do too badly last year - and was a refreshing change after a couple of years of Billie Piper. Hopefully she'll make season 4 a bit different, with a companion doing something other than "yes Doctor, no Doctor, three bags full Doctor".

colmquinn · Post by **colmquinn** » Wed Dec 26, 2007 2:50 pm

It killed an hour of christmas day but overall I thought it wasn't too great. I know it was on early and would have lots of kids watching but could've done with better enemies.
Tate should be ok for future episodes but I've been waiting on a really good episode in the later series and so far haven't found it I'm afraid.

Enkidu · Post by **Enkidu** » Wed Dec 26, 2007 3:55 pm

I must confess I didn't watch the Runaway Bride last year. I was stretched out on the sofa trying to digest my vast Christmas dinner and realized I had missed the first five minutes. I thought "Catherine Tate - fuck it" and went to sleep.
I think it's on in the next couple of days so I'll have another chance, If I can get past my hatred of the Tate.

colmquinn · Post by **colmquinn** » Thu Dec 27, 2007 5:16 am

Catheryne Tate isn't in this years one, she'll be back for series 4 I believe. Don't let my less than enthusiastic responce put you off the Voyage of the Damned.

Sionnach Glic · Post by **Sionnach Glic** » Thu Dec 27, 2007 3:45 pm

Douglass Adams called. He wants the Starship Titanic back.

I thought it was a nice enough episode. Nothing great, but it was pretty good and put in an hour or so pretty well.

Post by **Graham Kennedy** » Thu Dec 27, 2007 7:28 pm

Overall I thought it was a bit "meh".

The idea of a spaceship called Titanic I thought was quite cool. I like the justification of it being basically a spacegoing theme bar, too.

Kylie was great, I thought.

Like some of the humour. London being deserted... the queen in her slippers... the professor of Earthonomics...

Things I didn't like....

The bad guy's whole plan was horrible. Okay he wants to sabotage the ship to damage the company... and he wants to destroy Earth to utterly destroy it. Makes sense, I like it. But... why program the robots to go and kill everybody? From the bad guy's point of view what does it accomplish to have most of the people killed by robots half an hour before the ship crashes? Nothing.

And then the bad guy arranges that he will be on board? What the hell?! Okay he thinks he will be safe inside his whatsit chamber, but what if it malfunctions? What if he gets stuck outside and can't get in? What if he's killed while he is outside? May seem like small risks, but why take any risk at all? And let's not forget that this is exactly what DID happen to him.

If his presence was vital for some aspect of the plan I can see it... but it sure didn't seem to be. What did his presence accomplish? At most, he issued the order "kill everybody" to the robots. Which surely could have been programmed into them before the journey started.

But of course if he wasn't on board then they couldn't have had a satisfying "kill the bad guy" climax. Bad, bad writing.

Sionnach Glic · Post by **Sionnach Glic** » Thu Dec 27, 2007 7:34 pm

One thing I forgot to mention; the new theme music sucks.

But... why program the robots to go and kill everybody? From the bad guy's point of view what does it accomplish to have most of the people killed by robots half an hour before the ship crashes? Nothing.

I think he had a line about not wanting any survivors, but I've no idea how there could be any survivors on a ship slamming into a planet with enough force to kill all life on Earth.
I suppose it's possible he simply didn't want any of the passengers interfering with his attempts to crash the ship.

As for why he was there himself, maybe he wanted everyone to think he was killed? But then why didn't anyone seem to know he was on board? If he wanted people to think he had died, wouldn't he at least need people to know he was there?
Basicaly; bad writing.

Post by **Captain Seafort** » Thu Dec 27, 2007 7:44 pm

Rochey wrote:I think he had a line about not wanting any survivors, but I've no idea how there could be any survivors on a ship slamming into a planet with enough force to kill all life on Earth.
I suppose it's possible he simply didn't want any of the passengers interfering with his attempts to crash the ship.

Probably just that - it's unlikely that anyone would be able to bugger up his plans, but he was playing safe.

As for why he was there himself, maybe he wanted everyone to think he was killed? But then why didn't anyone seem to know he was on board? If he wanted people to think he had died, wouldn't he at least need people to know he was there?
Basicaly; bad writing.

Bad writing or bad editing - they may have had a line in there to tha effect but it got cut out out some point without anyone realising. Certainly, the assumption that everyone would believe him to be lost with the ship is the only logical reason for his presence.