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Patticus

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Elaborating on a few of the above points:

The Hostile Action Displacement System has been used before, but not, as far as I'm aware, to disperse the TARDIS in this way.  Because of that, I agree that it feels like a bit of a cheat; I'd have been fine with it if that particular application had been introduced in the past, but whoever introduced it would always have been responsible for designing something just a bit overpowered.  (Edit: I've since heard that the dispersal might have been used in a Fifth Doctor story, Frontios.)

Regarding continuing series 9 arcs, Missy mentions having a daughter offhand, and I actually missed the exact context so I'm not sure quite what she said, but there's speculation that the daughter might be Clara, or alternatively might be the mother of Susan, the Doctor's grandchild, making Susan the grandchild of both the Doctor and the Master.  It's not at all clear that she's important, though.

As for the Hybrid Warrior, my recollection is that the original prophecy seems not to have mentioned the warrior races involved; Davros merely inferred that it was a Dalek and a Time Lord, but it didn't need to be.  Again, there's speculation that it could be Clara, or something like that.  I'm kind of expecting some sort of Moffat twist that turns the whole concept on its head, though.

Edited by FFWF
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Breaking news: There's a new Doctor Who spin-off coming next year.  It's called "Class," and it's a YA thriller airing on BBC3 - sounds like it's about alien terrors attacking Coal Hill School.  Eight episodes of forty-five minutes, airing 2016, written by Patrick Ness.

(Edit: Incidentally, this announcement kind of came out of the blue and without that much accompanying information.  I wonder if they rushed it out because they suspected it was going to be leaked?)

Edited by FFWF
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Corr!

A series set I'm the school where Clara and Danny Pink worked! Where some of the most boring and dragged out stories originated and still continue to this day!

What could possibly go wrong!?

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Breaking news: There's a new Doctor Who spin-off coming next year.  It's called "Class," and it's a YA thriller airing on BBC3 - sounds like it's about alien terrors attacking Coal Hill School.  Eight episodes of forty-five minutes, airing 2016, written by Patrick Ness.

(Edit: Incidentally, this announcement kind of came out of the blue and without that much accompanying information.  I wonder if they rushed it out because they suspected it was going to be leaked?)

This sounds fucking awful

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Why is it so hard to get a Doctor Who spin-off right? All you need to do is copy Sherlock's format - few episodes, big budgets and top tier writing.

Place the focus on an interesting character set (ideally not schoolchildren) and plop them in a malfunctioning old Tardis hopping randomly across time and space. I know that the Doctor's one does that too, but take the Time Lord out and replace him with a person who has no idea what to do, maybe a handful and maybe make their seasons-long quest finding out what they're traveling in and who made it, where they are now, how to fix it and go home etc. Farscape, sort of.

Or something.

Less of this school crap. Kids don't act well.

 

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I'm pretty sure it's going to be teenagers, really, which means that they don't even have to hire teenagers at all, just people who can pass for them.  I agree that the series will live or die on its acting, though, perhaps even more so than on its writing, for a good cast can save even a bad script.  Although Patrick Ness should know what he's doing.

Honestly, I think they should have held off on announcing this until they were ready to actually announce something about what the premise really is, as what they've given us was ripe for ungenerous interpretations.  I'm envisaging a bit more of a hard-edged continuous miniseries about a single specific alien threat which just happens to hit a known location but could really be anywhere so long as the protagonists would be teenagers.  I wonder if Ness pitched the concept and it ended up becoming DW, or if the DW team came to him?

But since we're on the pessimism train, I'll thrown this in: It has been rumoured lately, with little evidence but increasing plausibility, that there is not going to be a full series in 2016, but rather specials or another split season or something of that nature.  The present thinking is that Class exists to fill the gap formed by the relative dearth of DW in that year.  (Might even be getting some of the budget, as the theory goes that it's time pressures on Sherlock keeping Moffat away rather than budgetary pressures on DW.)

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I didn't mind Tennant's year of specials, in fact I thought that the episodes spawned were at times among his best. Although I did miss having a proper series, and will again if that rumor is true, I am hopeful that it should generate great television.

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Corr!

A series set in the school where Ian Chesterton, the greatest companion ever, worked. And one of the earliest aspects of the DW mythos.

Can the show live up to that!?

FTFY.

Though honestly, I'll see how the show is when it comes out, but as far as it being a spin-off goes, it just seems so tangential it might as well have been its own show. I have been missing SJA though (even if this is going after an older audience) and this will likely use DW enemies so hoping it's worthwhile.

 

Why is it so hard to get a Doctor Who spin-off right?

Eh dunno about that. I loved SJA and Torchwood was... well, it had a great s2 and s3, less said about the rest the better.

Less of this school crap. Kids don't act well.

As pointed out, it's really unlikely it's going to be kids. It's going after a late teen audience, will likely be late teen characters, and those are almost always early 20s adults that play them in these kinds of shows. Hell even some of the "kids" in SJA were in their early 20s.

But since we're on the pessimism train, I'll thrown this in: It has been rumoured lately, with little evidence but increasing plausibility, that there is not going to be a full series in 2016, but rather specials or another split season or something of that nature.

Extremely unlikely, especially given a s10 was renewed before s9 had even aired. And given this is a separate show airing on a separate channel it's very unlikely the budget is being shared. More likely it's a similar situation to what SJA was, where BBC Three hassled Moffat for a spin-off idea so they could put on a new show just like CBBC did to RTD. We'll see, but given all the rumours I've seen on DW that never come to anything (in fact almost exclusively never come to anything), I'm really putting no stock in this.

 

 

Edited by ZERO_ninja
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Just wondering, will it be online since that's where BBC3 is moving? I don't really know what to make of the news yet. I really don't think I can see this spin off becoming as successful as The Sarah Jane Adventures or even the early Torchwood for that matter. It just doesn't sound interesting at the moment. I personally loved SJA and Torchwood (S2 and S3 only) so I might give it a chance if my curiosity heightens. Can't say that I'm interested yet though. 

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FTFY.

Hogfathred post which I edited to try and make a point.

Who is Ian Chesterton? Early mythos?  I don't care about that I started watching in 2005...

Which is what the vast majority of people will say.

Furtremore everything you described is decades old. We have moved on since then and everything that the current writing direction and production direction is going in suggests that this will be god awful.

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Who is Ian Chesterton? Early mythos?  I don't care about that I started watching in 2005...

Which is what the vast majority of people will say.

Furtremore everything you described is decades old. We have moved on since then and everything that the current writing direction and production direction is going in suggests that this will be god awful.

The current writing that just gave us a great opening 2 parter and isn't even the same people who'll be running Class? SJA and Torchwood had separate writing staff from Doctor Who with occasional overlap and their quality was completely independent of what Who was at in the time, there's no reason to assume Class won't be different, we already know the showrunner is someone picked for his acclaimed work reflecting what they're looking for in the show rather than someone already on staff. It's a separate project and really we have nothing to suggest how it will or won't be right now.

The TARDIS is decades old, the Doctor is decades old, Davros is decades old, the Master is decades old should all these elements be dropped from the show just because they're old? I mean they've said they want to capture the Buffy audience, the show will likely be somewhat like that, there's likely nothing in s8 that's even going to translate other than school setting (other than potentially Clara, but even that I don't think will), so unless you think a school setting is just definitively bad for a show and no way a show like Buffy set at a school can be good, then I don't see the problem here other than you dislike the name of the school by association of a couple of episodes.

I mean I've already said I agree with the thoughts of "why is this show a spin-off of Doctor Who?", but beyond that we really have nothing right now to gauge quality.

Edited by ZERO_ninja
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The question of why the show is a Doctor Who spin-off is definitely one I think is important.  If Patrick Ness came up with the concept and pitched it and it just wound up being set in the Doctor Who universe - and I genuinely think that's as far as it's going to go, no Clara or Doctor or anything like that - then that is a very good sign, but if it was, on the other hand, Moffat's idea and he then went to Patrick Ness to execute it, that's a very different matter.

I think the best-case scenario is that it's a Patrick Ness original idea that didn't have to be a Doctor Who spin-off, but made sense to be.  That would give me the most confidence.  Although of course speaking of confidence or despair at the moment is absolutely absurd since we know essentially nothing about the show except for the very broadest strokes that could mean anything.

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I know it's not Doctor Who directly, but just saw Terminator: Genisys and was shocked seeing Matt Smith was there doing the bad guy (Skynet), but he should have been given some more time, in my opinion. About Matt, I wish him returns for a special in DW or something, sometime. I'm starting to miss him, despite a David fanboy. 

Edited by David Tennant
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Dude has literally been gone like 5 minutes. He's my second favourite Doctor of all 13, but I'd rather he was away for long enough to give any return some meaning. Plus considering we're just about to get more War and 10 with Hurt and Tennant, we're getting plenty content for nuWho Doctors (not to mention the ongoing comics for 10 and 11). Now I just need Eccleston to return for Big Finish too and all my dreams will have come true.

Edited by ZERO_ninja
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That episode was really cool! Before the Flood gets my thumbs up. The deaf sections sent chills down me and I have to say, Clara is adorable wearing the Specs. Here for your entertainment is the special intro!

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I just realised I didn't post my thoughts on last week's episode here - time to remedy that now, and all the better for having this week's second part to add into the verdict as well!

Initially I was a little underwhelmed by Under The Lake following the grand opening story of The Magician's Apprentice/The Witch's Familiar. It wasn't bad, by any stretch of the imagination - it was atmospheric with a very classic Doctor Who base-under-siege setting, there were some wonderful character moments, and the ghosts were a terrifyingly genius creation - but it just felt like it plodded a long for the most part, 45 minutes of build-up with not a lot actually happening. Which I suppose is what the first half of a two-parter tends to be, it just felt lacking compared with the galaxy-hopping antics in the first episode of the series. However, after a second viewing and some reconsideration, I definitely warmed up to the story and was eager to see how they'd resolve the exceptionally good cliffhanger of Ghost Capaldi.

That's not to say I wasn't a bit apprehensive about tonight's episode though because, having read a few spoiler-free previews beforehand, a few people seemed to think it was a step backwards from last week and a bit of a messy conclusion. I'm pleased to say that I don't agree with that assessment, thankfully - in my opinion, Before The Flood was a great episode and it's bumped up my perspective on the two-parter as a whole - it's gone from "potentially run-of-the-mill" to "pretty darn good". For those who are yet to see it, I'll keep the specifics in spoilers...

Okay, I'll admit, the opening with the Doctor breaking the fourth wall (or was he talking to an off-screen Clara after the end of the episode...?) was a little bit jarring at first, but it was an interesting set-up that introduced a core mechanic to the story that I would never have imagined would have been involved otherwise. Capaldi manages to completely captivate when it's just him speaking aloud in the TARDIS (like in the opening scene of 

Listen), so more of that was welcome enough - and will be welcome again come the penultimate episode of this series, Heaven Sent. And of course, we got that version of the theme music... finally, we get a Doctor actually playing the Doctor Who theme! I really hope they stick that version on the inevitable Series 9 soundtrack, I simply must have it in my collection!

As for the story, I enjoyed the timey-wimey twists - having The Doctor and Clara separated by 150 years (and yet still having the action in sync with one another) was great, and this was definitely a far more action-packed episode with lots going on at every turn. The Fisher King was a beautifully designed monster (well, in an artistic sense anyway, it's hardly "beautiful" by any other definition) even if it didn't get an awful lot of screen time or an awful lot of explanation on why or what it was doing. In fact, that's probably my biggest disappointment with tonight's episode - somehow, even having two parts didn't feel enough to cram all of the necessary resolutions in. If they'd spread it out a bit better across the two, or heck even had a three-parter for this story, I feel it could have been even stronger - but as it stands, it's still a perfectly good example of why Doctor Who works best when it's given room to breathe, and that two-parters for Series 9 are the right choice. No way in heck would this story have worked had it only been a one-parter, it would have crumbled under its own ambition.

So yeah, to sum up, another solid two-parter and the strong start for Capaldi's second series continues. I still rank The Magician's Apprentice/The Witch's Familiar higher than Under The Lake/Before The Flood, but I'm yet to be left disappointed by anything Series 9 has to offer.

Also, kudos to Toby Whithouse for really making good use of Cass being deaf, she was a crucial plot device rather than a novelty or a gimmick. In Under The Lake her lip-reading skills enabled her to decode the ghosts' message, and in Before The Flood she got one of the creepiest scenes of all, with Moran and the axe pursuing her in the (to her, anyway) silence. Brilliant stuff.

Next week we meet some Vikings, and finally discover the identity of The Girl Who Died... oh, and there's the little matter of where The Doctor's face comes from to be resolved, too!

 

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Now that was how you do a two-part episode right. Absolutely great - although yes, I too felt like the first episode plodded a bit. Still though, I actually kinda liked that it did, building up a kind of creeping tension throughout, which you don't get in more tightly packed episodes where events happen at a faster pace. Anyway, I thought that the writing was pretty good, the acting also was pretty good, and the Bootstrap Paradox explanation at the beginning on Part 2 brings us to 2 for 2 for great Capaldi episodes beginning with a question or explanation of some kind aimed at the audience.

I'm not saying that they should all start that way, far from it, but it seems to be a mark of quality for an episode to have one right now.

I wonder if we'll ever see the Fisher King or his kind again? I know that we've at least heard of the Tivolians before, so who knows, maybe?

Edited by Patticus
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Okay, I'll admit, the opening with the Doctor breaking the fourth wall was a little bit jarring at first

Personally I thought that was fine, 1 and 10 have broken the fourth wall (and you can sorta say 4 did too), not something the series should do regularly, but once every now and then is fine.

 

As for the episodes part 1 was great, really atmospheric, lots of great character moments, though a few pacing lulls. Part 2 wasn't as good but a solid ep and again had some nice character moments.  Overall I think its a solid 8/10 two-parter. Now bring on Jamie Mathieson's ep, really excited after Mummy and Flatline. (Plus I've avoid the spoilers for Maisie William's identity after an upcoming book synopsis of all things gave it away).

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Personally I thought that was fine, 1 and 10 have broken the fourth wall (and you can sorta say 4 did too), not something the series should do regularly, but once every now and then is fine.

 

As for the episodes part 1 was great, really atmospheric, lots of great character moments, though a few pacing lulls. Part 2 wasn't as good but a solid ep and again had some nice character moments.  Overall I think its a solid 8/10 two-parter. Now bring on Jamie Mathieson's ep, really excited after Mummy and Flatline. (Plus I've avoid the spoilers for Maisie William's identity after an upcoming book synopsis of all things gave it away).

Oh don't get me wrong, it only felt a little jarring because of the initial shock of "oh, wait, he's on his own and he's talking to the audience?!", whereas I was expecting it to jump straight into the continuation of the story - it wasn't the actual fourth-wall breaking I had an issue with. But as you say, in its own context, it worked fine, and it's probably one of my favourite and most memorable scenes from the episode. I loved the opening to Listen with Capaldi wandering around in a contemplative mood, and I enjoyed it again here too. It just wasn't what I expected, that's all!

I agree that next week has a lot of promise following Jamie Mathieson's work in Series 8, and Vikings are a subject that I can't believe Doctor Who has never really dared to tackle on screen before - but as it's our first one-parter of the series (yeah I know, The Woman Who Lived could technically be counted as part two but they're more 'linked' episodes with different plots than a direct two-part story) it'll be intriguing to see how it stacks up now that we're used to stories that have 90 minutes to breathe and develop rather than the usual 45...

Edited by Doctor MK
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Yeah that's fair enough. I do feel Capaldi was especially captivating at it too. I wonder how well the other Doctors would have done a scene like that.

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Preview clips for The Girl Who Died, including what appears to be the first minute and a half of the episode...

 

EDIT: And here's another one, showing a particularly touching Doctor/Clara moment...

 

Edited by Doctor MK
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This was a huge disappointment. 

That's it. The reason he has Capaldi's face is to remind him to save one person. Really? That's a cop out and a half. Not to mention the episode was incredibly bad. Really bad effects, dumb story and characters I didn't give a hoot about. Also GOT girl is the hybrid. Augh, worst of the series so far. 

 

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This was a huge disappointment. 

 

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Summed it up perfectly.  In a matter of minutes, most of my family legged it and I was left hardly that interested in watching it any more.  What's worse is that because the next episode continues from this I'm not very sure that one will be good either.

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