DW: Waters of Mars

[Bounty]

Hard to say what I thought of the episode. It was good, and comments like the "World State" and the Phillippines building a rocket to Mars are always nice.

What? Please expound, did I just hear you say that Doctor Who had Filipinos build Mars Rockets?!

The astronauts are trying to figure out where the Doctor came from, and one of them says he "must be Filipino" because they'd been working on a rocket.

[NecronLord]

As I recall, the Phillipine Hegemony is a great power on Earth in the 51st Century, according to Talons of Weng Chaing.

[Ryushikaze]

Technically, the Valeyard was between his 'twelfth and final', and I don't think they ever actually said '13th' when describing him.

In any case, this isn't darkness doctor so much as it is egomad doctor. 'I decide who lives, screw you, time!' was the general vibe, and while still bad, it didn't seem malicious.

I'm curious how SimmsMaster specifically pulled his fake death, but more importantly, why his skin suddenly vanishes in that one shot.

Y'know, you gotta wonder. Someone mentioned that the guy in Dalek had to be a damn idiot to want a Dalek. This makes you wonder- did the stories of infectious water somehow not get reported? Were they covered up? Not believed? We know Earth goes back to Mars, because of Warriors, you gotta wonder, did they think they'd gotten everything?

[Genii Lodus]

Technically, the Valeyard was between his 'twelfth and final', and I don't think they ever actually said '13th' when describing him.

I thought there could only be 13 incarnations (original + 12 regenerations). Excluding the inevitable renewal of the regeneration cycle I suppose if the BBC still wants to keep the franchise from ending.

[andrewgpaul]

I don't think they'd shy at retconning that if it becomes an issue. There's more than enough 11-year-olds to make up for the old geeks who might quit watching in protest.

Alternatively, the Master has cheated death at least once (twice, after Christmas) and then had his regenerations reset, so there's precedent.

I want to have a read at that "Space-Wikipedia" the Doctor kept picturing. As to the two survivors blabbing about the water, I suspect they'll end up in a Torchwood lab for a good long while, so they'll probably not spread too many stories to the papers. The implication is also that the Flood was destroyed by the bomb going off, so any future Mars colonies will be fine

[Drooling Iguana]

A bog standard zombies-in-space plot (which nuWho has already had a lot of) with gobs of trite melodrama. The ending would have presented some interesting possibilities had they had the balls to stick with it, but of course they had to negate everything in the last couple of seconds.

And why the hell would an Ood appear as if to judge the Doctor? What's so special about them?

[andrewgpaul]

You'll just have to wait until Christmas day like the rest of us. On the other hand, the chief Ood did tell him "your song is coming to an end" in Planet of the Ood, so they know something.

[Crazedwraith]

It comes to mind that this was almost exactly like the Discworld Novel "Night Watch" with The Doctor playing the role of Sam Vimes. The Doctor's resolution was pretty much the same as Vimes when he thinks something along these lines; "He wanted to go home but if the price of going to the future he remembered was filling those seven grave; if it meant not fighting with everything he had; then it was too much. What was it the monk had said? "History finds away"? Well it would have to come up with something good becuase it was up against Sam Vimes now"

[DaveJB]

You'll just have to wait until Christmas day like the rest of us. On the other hand, the chief Ood did tell him "your song is coming to an end" in Planet of the Ood, so they know something.

Even if the Ood do play a major part in Tennant's finale, that was just one line from a story transmitted 18 months ago. Personally I think it would have made more sense to have that psychic woman from "Planet of the Dead" there, as most viewers would have been more likely to remember that.

[Rye]

I liked it, but unfortunately, it now makes things a little stupid (or potentially interesting) as he should now go back to Pompei et al and make them right if he believes what he was saying. The Doctor goes Back To The Future!

[PREDATOR490]

I liked the overall setting and the story seemed ok up until the Doctor apparantly decides to say 'Fuck you' to time.


On the one hand, its nice to finally see a change from the emo whining Tennant has been doing since Rose left the scene but the rather unsubtle shift from that to borderline god-complex seems way out of line. The last humbling just felt like an obvious attempt to stop the obvious situation of the Doctor going back in time and nuking the Daleks to bring the Timelords back into existance or the dozen other things he could do. I suppose this episode is meant to instil old and new generations with the idea that time cant be changed so that the next time the Doctor has to walk away he dosent look like the bad guy to thousands of viewers going apeshit he isnt a pure 100% saint like your typical series would portray. To that I say fair enough but it would have been nice to play out this 'god' tangent and humble him later but I suppose this could still be the case with the Master returning.

Incidentally, I wish they would decide how easy the TARDIS is to fly. We got told it takes six people to operate properly and it shakes all over the place but apparantly a robot can pilot just fine on remote. I find that Dalek part completely retarded since they were supposedly going to nuke the universe(s), why the hell do they need to spare anyone because of their future 'destiny' ?

That aside, I felt it was at least an entertaining waste of time compared to the eye rolling stuff of Journey's End so I'm more open to ignoring the flaws. Hopefully the next episode wont be another botched mess like Journey's End but it already has indications of trying to over-hype itself.

[NecronLord]

I liked it, but unfortunately, it now makes things a little stupid (or potentially interesting) as he should now go back to Pompei et al and make them right if he believes what he was saying. The Doctor goes Back To The Future!

Last time he crossed his own personal timeline, big monsters materialised out of the ether and killed him. He's not the Time Lords, he can't do that.

[NecronLord]

Incidentally, I wish they would decide how easy the TARDIS is to fly. We got told it takes six people to operate properly and it shakes all over the place but apparantly a robot can pilot just fine on remote.

A short hop, while said to be quite hard, isn't the same as flying across the universe pulling the Earth behind you.

As for the Daleks, presumably a degree of caution isn't unknown to them, they're evil, not stupid. Why bother to kill her immediately? She was a small child, the worst she could do to it would be to bleed on it.

[dragon]

I liked it, but unfortunately, it now makes things a little stupid (or potentially interesting) as he should now go back to Pompei et al and make them right if he believes what he was saying. The Doctor goes Back To The Future!

Last time he crossed his own personal timeline, big monsters materialised out of the ether and killed him. He's not the Time Lords, he can't do that.

Actually it's not that he crossed his time line but the fact that his companion created a paradox.

[NecronLord]

Actually it's not that he crossed his time line but the fact that his companion created a paradox.

Which would be what he happened, last time he crossed his own timeline (willingly).

Undoing his own previous actions would also be creating a paradox, thus big scary monsters.

[Ryushikaze]

Technically, the Valeyard was between his 'twelfth and final', and I don't think they ever actually said '13th' when describing him.

I thought there could only be 13 incarnations (original + 12 regenerations). Excluding the inevitable renewal of the regeneration cycle I suppose if the BBC still wants to keep the franchise from ending.

In the regular scheme, yes, his final would be his 13th, my point was that it was not actually said to be his 13th, but 'final' regeneration, allowing them some fudge room from the start.

As for the flood being wiped out, that's likely, I'm just wondering why Torchwood et. al didn't take the threat more seriously. Then again, the hubris of Torchwood and Unit has gotten in their way before, so...

[Gilthan]

In any case, this isn't darkness doctor so much as it is egomad doctor. 'I decide who lives, screw you, time!' was the general vibe, and while still bad, it didn't seem malicious.

I was essentially cheering there. Since for most of the episode I was thinking "why not do the obvious solution of sending them elsewhere and like a million years into the future moments before Spoiler

the nuke goes off, since earth back home would just assume they died"

seeing him Spoiler

finally save them (aside from the commander foolishly suiciding, who could have just immediately left the country to get an unrelated new life and identity if so concerned)

was the most satisfying part of the episode. His mistake under the stress just seemed to be Spoiler

(1) the delay which resulted in unneeded extra deaths before then (2) bringing them to earth in the same year and changing the timeline unnecessarily.

[Stark]

NL highlights why I think this is stupid. I'm not the sort of person who gets excited when a fictional character acts macho (probably why I didn't like nBSG, lol) and this simply confirms that RTD is set on breaking everything that worked in the series.

As NL says, in S1 we were shown that without the TL around to do their thing, paradoxes, crossing one's timeline, and changing history can be bad, and the Doctor was shitting his pants just thinking about it. In S2, we discovered leaving the universe is now near-impossible without TL oversight; the universe is a meaner and (to the Doctor) less interesting place without the special powers they possessed through their technology and not their innate super-powers.

Even in Pompeii (which I hate), all the super power comicbook nonsense about 'time locks' really boiled down to 'I see it as time locked because I do it myself later', a consequence of crossing timelines being bad, especially nowadays.

What we get here is juvenile nonsense, existing SOLELY to set up the imminent return of the Fail Lords. I can't wait to see how long it takes the TL to meet their IoT incompetence and laughingstock levels; but hey, they fans want it to happen so it must be the right decision.

[Patrick Degan]

Just got finished watching this.

For the first 40 minutes or so, this was classic Doctor Who. Had it had the guts to actually follow through on the theme that had been set up and put in motion through the main part of the story, it really would have been a classic, seeing the Doctor having to live through a moment he cannot alter. "You cannot rewrite history, Miss Wright. NOT ONE LINE!" We could have seen the Doctor having to deal with that from his side of the glass, watch him having to shoulder the burden of being a Time Lord with all it implies.

Instead, he acts macho, pulls a last minute hat trick out of his ass, then turns megalomaniac on us. He changes history, declares himself god, but then instantly repents because one little person decided to say "fuck you" to him by shooting herself. If the Doctor were really that far gone, as we're seeing here in the last five minutes, he'd no longer care what anybody thought, or he'd fly into a rage that one of the "little people" dared alter his verdict on history.

Or, he'd somehow, someway, rewrite Adelade's timeline so she doesn't get to kill herself. Because he can. Because there's nobody to stop him now.

RTD and his pet cowriter, in a few keyboard strokes, tossed out everything that makes the Doctor what he is. I don't mind a Doctor who doesn't exactly have our same morality, which does make for an interesting character who's a bit unpredictable. I do mind, though, a writer who gleefully turns the character into a monster then very clumsily handwaves it away.

Maybe RTD could have actually run with this, and the last Tennant special would be the story of somebody rising to stop the monster the Doctor has become, which would make for some very tense viewing as we see whether or not the Doctor can be salvaged. It could have been the story of how he manages to regain enough of his sanity, just enough, to see that he must destroy himself to save himself and all he ever cared about. Which of course leads us metaphorically then literally to his regeneration as he becomes the new man.

But we're not going to get that either. We're going to get emo-Tennant in another dreary runaround with the Master; lots of hallucinations, and of course the now stock RTD character reunion rumpus on top of it all. The consequences of "Waters Of Mars" will be brushed aside and everything ends in smiles.

And we will watch, in morbid fascination, as the trainwreck that is the Russell Davies era of Doctor Who unfolds to its conclusion.

[NecronLord]

Just got finished watching this.

For the first 40 minutes or so, this was classic Doctor Who. Had it had the guts to actually follow through on the theme that had been set up and put in motion through the main part of the story, it really would have been a classic, seeing the Doctor having to live through a moment he cannot alter. "You cannot rewrite history, Miss Wright. NOT ONE LINE!" We could have seen the Doctor having to deal with that from his side of the glass, watch him having to shoulder the burden of being a Time Lord with all it implies.

Classic Dr Who my foot. If you want to see him angst about how he can't change things, go watch Fires of Pompeii, or some of the BBC books. A child audience will not accept him being so completely unheroic as to not even try. Even in Pompeii he saved some.

Instead, he acts macho, pulls a last minute hat trick out of his ass, then turns megalomaniac on us. He changes history, declares himself god, but then instantly repents because one little person decided to say "fuck you" to him by shooting herself. If the Doctor were really that far gone, as we're seeing here in the last five minutes, he'd no longer care what anybody thought, or he'd fly into a rage that one of the "little people" dared alter his verdict on history.

I disagree, he is consistantly about the little people. Declaring himself superman or 'The Time Lord Victorious' doesn't abrogate that he cares about people. He saved them because he liked them, not because he could. Why should her not wanting to live with it not affect him?

Or, he'd somehow, someway, rewrite Adelade's timeline so she doesn't get to kill herself. Because he can. Because there's nobody to stop him now.

RTD and his pet cowriter, in a few keyboard strokes, tossed out everything that makes the Doctor what he is. I don't mind a Doctor who doesn't exactly have our same morality, which does make for an interesting character who's a bit unpredictable. I do mind, though, a writer who gleefully turns the character into a monster then very clumsily handwaves it away.

A monster? How is 'The Time Lord Victorious' a monster? Dangerous and fearsome, certainly, but all he did was save people. As he says, she would still inspire her granddaughter (and even if she didn't, someone else would pilot the thing) to greatness. He may have become a monster in time, but by that standard, the Doctor saving anyone would also be monstrous, to a lesser degree. I cannot accept such a notion, that is the morality of the Time Lords, not mine, and I should hope, not yours.

All he did was decide to use his power more freely to accomplish his usual goals, he didn't decide to go around shooting people in the face because they're ants compared to his glory, or something.

[Patrick Degan]

Just got finished watching this.

For the first 40 minutes or so, this was classic Doctor Who. Had it had the guts to actually follow through on the theme that had been set up and put in motion through the main part of the story, it really would have been a classic, seeing the Doctor having to live through a moment he cannot alter. "You cannot rewrite history, Miss Wright. NOT ONE LINE!" We could have seen the Doctor having to deal with that from his side of the glass, watch him having to shoulder the burden of being a Time Lord with all it implies.

Classic Dr Who my foot. If you want to see him angst about how he can't change things, go watch Fires of Pompeii, or some of the BBC books. A child audience will not accept him being so completely unheroic as to not even try. Even in Pompeii he saved some.

Yes classic. It goes right back to that point the Doctor made to Barbara in "The Aztecs" about how history cannot be changed. Also, it was a standard base-under-siege story. And as for the child audience... well, perhaps it would do for them to see, just once at least, that there are some situations which cannot be undone. Besides which, Doctor Who hasn't been strictly a children's programme since 1975.

Instead, he acts macho, pulls a last minute hat trick out of his ass, then turns megalomaniac on us. He changes history, declares himself god, but then instantly repents because one little person decided to say "fuck you" to him by shooting herself. If the Doctor were really that far gone, as we're seeing here in the last five minutes, he'd no longer care what anybody thought, or he'd fly into a rage that one of the "little people" dared alter his verdict on history.

I disagree, he is consistantly about the little people. Declaring himself superman or 'The Time Lord Victorious' doesn't abrogate that he cares about people. He saved them because he liked them, not because he could. Why should her not wanting to live with it not affect him?

Yes, but he never was so dismissive about "the little people" (as opposed to the "important" people), nor did he ever proclaim himself above the laws of time or fate or that they were his to do with as he pleased outside of his one tiny moment of megalomania when the power of the Key to Time was briefly in his grasp.

RTD and his pet cowriter, in a few keyboard strokes, tossed out everything that makes the Doctor what he is. I don't mind a Doctor who doesn't exactly have our same morality, which does make for an interesting character who's a bit unpredictable. I do mind, though, a writer who gleefully turns the character into a monster then very clumsily handwaves it away.

A monster? How is 'The Time Lord Victorious' a monster? Dangerous and fearsome, certainly, but all he did was save people. As he says, she would still inspire her granddaughter (and even if she didn't, someone else would pilot the thing) to greatness. He may have become a monster in time, but by that standard, the Doctor saving anyone would also be monstrous, to a lesser degree. I cannot accept such a notion, that is the morality of the Time Lords, not mine, and I should hope, not yours.

This was not him simply saving people, this was his pissing all over the laws of time, altering a focal point in history, and engaging in an action which, as we once saw, brings forth all sorts of eldritch monstrosities from the shadows —and not even thinking about the consequences. Furthermore, he didn't bother to check whether any of the three remaining survivors weren't infected by whatever agent was acting on Mars and what if that got brought back to the Earth? The script just glossed over that bit but it was still massively irresponsible of him. We're also seeing the Doctor starting to slip into megalomania, or did you not pay attention to that whole scene with Adelade? So no, the Doctor saving people as he usually can do does not make him a monster. What we saw of him just before Adelade shot herself, though, was a hint of that.

All he did was decide to use his power more freely to accomplish his usual goals, he didn't decide to go around shooting people in the face because they're ants compared to his glory, or something.

And all power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

[NecronLord]

And "corruption" isn't 'bam, you're the Valeyard, time to destroy Earth.' The message is that what he's doing is dangerous and not necesserily right, but his actual actions here are not evil.

As for checking to see if they're infected, you may perhaps note that none of them tried to prevent the destruction of the Mars habitat, and that an undisclosed period passed between their leaving mars and arrival on Earth - long enough for him to get changed, at any rate.

Incidentally, he already has absolute power; nothing stops him doing what the Master did in Sound of Drums except his own standards.

[Gemini-Preserver]

—and not even thinking about the consequences. Furthermore, he didn't bother to check whether any of the three remaining survivors weren't infected by whatever agent was acting on Mars and what if that got brought back to the Earth? The script just glossed over that bit but it was still massively irresponsible of him.

I think this point was cleared up to some exstent. When the Doctor and Adelade check the ice field logs it says the filter gave out the day before and Adelade says the water they had been drinking was safe as it was old filterd water. Hence why they attempt to return to earth. Futhermore how do we know he didnt bother? Surely its at least a possiblity that he scanned them whilst he was changing into his big coat?

When they were arguing about the 'little people' why didnt the Doctor point out he towed the dam Earth back after the Dalek incident and saved them all when they were kids/glints in there parents eyes.
My take on what happened to him whilst on Mars was along the lines of that, the Doctor was fed up listning to the sound of death wherever he went. This casued him to have a mental snap and do what the 4th Doctor once mentioned 'Whats the point in being grown up if you cant be childish once in awhile' He acts like a spoilt powercrazed child who wants to get his own way and will kick or break anything that gets in his way. The real child element is when there on Earth and he just stands there mentioning how he loves snow and he gets the whole 'yeah im cool smugness' right up till the point Adelade shoots herself and then his sensible selves clicks back in a little.
I end this little ramble with a quote from the 5th Doctor which I'd of liked to have been used

"Why do i always let my curiosity get the better of me?"

[Patrick Degan]

And "corruption" isn't 'bam, you're the Valeyard, time to destroy Earth.' The message is that what he's doing is dangerous and not necesserily right, but his actual actions here are not evil.

As for checking to see if they're infected, you may perhaps note that none of them tried to prevent the destruction of the Mars habitat, and that an undisclosed period passed between their leaving mars and arrival on Earth - long enough for him to get changed, at any rate.

Incidentally, he already has absolute power; nothing stops him doing what the Master did in Sound of Drums except his own standards.

Not saying that the Doctor had turned into the Valeyard. What we're seeing, however, is a Doctor who's beginning to sound an awful lot like the Master did before he really went bonkers. And the whole problem with your objection is that the Doctor's standards are now shifting, at least as what we're seeing in the last ten minutes.

Further, the script does a really lousy job handling the whole infection issue WRT the last three survivors of the base being conveyed to Earth.

When they were arguing about the 'little people' why didn't the Doctor point out he towed the damn Earth back after the Dalek incident and saved them all when they were kids/glints in there parents eyes.

Wouldn't really have made much of a difference given the context of the argument.

My take on what happened to him whilst on Mars was along the lines of that, the Doctor was fed up listning to the sound of death wherever he went. This casued him to have a mental snap and do what the 4th Doctor once mentioned 'Whats the point in being grown up if you cant be childish once in awhile' He acts like a spoilt powercrazed child who wants to get his own way and will kick or break anything that gets in his way. The real child element is when there on Earth and he just stands there mentioning how he loves snow and he gets the whole 'yeah im cool smugness' right up till the point Adelade shoots herself and then his sensible selves clicks back in a little.

I'm afraid it was a lot further than acting like a child here. While you can accept the idea that the Doctor has watched too many people die in the course of his lives, it's a lot more difficult to explain away his essentially breaking the universe just to have his own way for once, then declaring that the laws of time are his to do with as he pleases since there is now nobody to stop him. That's not a child, or a childish adult, that's a megalomaniac.

[Big Orange]

"Waters of Mars" was a generally good episode, better than "The Planet of the Dead", but not as good as Torchwood's "Children of Earth", I'll give it a score of 8/10. As soon as the Doctor was ranting away about doing anything he liked, while saving three of the mission to Mars crew, I was already going 'ohhhhh deaaar...' before his genuinely terrifying "Time Lord: Victorious" rant, and I wouldn't say it was completely out of the blue and out of character - in the 2nd Christmas Special the Doctor was going over the edge in a similar fashion when he was drowning the Racnoss and if Donna had not snapped the Doctor out of his kill frenzy he would've drowned. Since the Doctor is on the knife edge between genius and insanity, he needs a grounded and longterm companion to reign him in. The Doctor can scare us with his intense sadism towards villains in "The Runaway Bride" and "The Family of Blood", but now he can also scare us when he does the "appropriate" thing and save good people from a disaster.