Doctor Who ep 2 : Dinosaurs on a spaceship

SF: discuss futuristic sci-fi series, ideas, and crossovers.

Moderator: NecronLord

How do you rate the episode

0. This show is becoming extinct like the dinosaurs
3
7%
1. Whatever the production team is smoking, I want some
0
No votes
2. Doctor Who?
3
7%
3. Decent try.
13
30%
4. Season looks promising
15
34%
5. Dinosaurs are cool. Like Fezes.
10
23%
 
Total votes: 44

Crazedwraith
Emperor's Hand
Posts: 11949
Joined: 2003-04-10 03:45pm
Location: Cheshire, England

Re: Doctor Who ep 2 : Dinosaurs on a spaceship

Post by Crazedwraith »

Themightytom wrote:2. The doctor doesn't exist anywhere in the database, and yet CLEOPATRA Nefertiti is the valuable one?

I guess if neffi has an entry in the database. Then he knows he can get the cash for her. A totally unknown item may potentially be much more valuble but also much more uncertain and a harder sell.

Plus he wanted Neffi's body, apparently. The episode did go out of it way to show this guy was scum in as many ways as possible so we don't mind when the Doctor murders him.

Yeah, I know the Doctor's killed, even genocided before. It still seemed out of the norm to me. Most of the time he's kills people there's a lot more necessity involved. Except for the Family of Blood but that was weird as well.

And as to the genocide. Nine's entire arc was about turning is back on doing that sort of thing.
User avatar
Themightytom
Sith Devotee
Posts: 2818
Joined: 2007-12-22 11:11am
Location: United States

Re: Doctor Who ep 2 : Dinosaurs on a spaceship

Post by Themightytom »

Broomstick wrote:Not Cleopatra. She's Nefertiti.
Thanks I rushed my post, I was thinking of River Song.

Anyway, I didn't care for all of the Instant Companion that went into this episode, like "oh hey, here's these two people who clearly have complicated stories, and they are coming with the Ponds as well. the Doctor even goes out of his way to say "Eh these schlobs aren't as important as you Amy, I'd never tell them if I was going to die or not."

Wow man, River, your wife, Sarah and Rose say thank you Doctor. Also Susan, who was your fricking grand daughter.

I wouldn't necessarily mind this kind of chaos if it were like a special or something, like waters of Mars, but this is the regular season, you had time to introduce these people, either to the episode or in other episodes leading up to this one, instead it's a jumble.

What I liked about Blink, was that the events took place from an outside perspective, not in chronological order, but rather in the events in which they happened from the character's entry point, deftly introducing characters of surprising depth. The police officer we JUST met suddenly an old man at the end of his life. The friend we JUST saw suddenly dozens of years gone living a full life.

That wasn't well replicated here with "Cliche big game hunter re-enacting Jurassic Park" and "Neffie, queen of egyptians chewing up screen like she belongs there, even though she's new."

I know we're going to see them again. I understood that to be the case based on last season where we saw characters say goodbye to the doctor before we met him. But doing it over and over again is old hat. Fine I'll wait the WHOLE fricking season to see why those two robots were cross with the doctor, and I'll hope to god we'll ever see how the doctor hooks up with Neferteri but honestly, we just came back from break, starting out like this is just exhausting, and on the heels of last week's episode, it didn't seem so much planned and organized as much as "God damnit, another look into the doctor's world as he rapidly descends into senility"

We're getting less and less apologetic about shoehorning the Ponds in., though I did like the bi play of the incredibly rickety ladder, Rory for god knows what reason not being able to screw in a light bulb, his dad doting on Amy and the general scene that literally answers the question "How many companions does it take to screw in a light bulb. none the doctor showed up and it never gets done."

"Since when is "the west" a nation?"-Styphon
"ACORN= Cobra obviously." AMT
This topic is... oh Village Idiot. Carry on then.--Havok
User avatar
Broomstick
Emperor's Hand
Posts: 28846
Joined: 2004-01-02 07:04pm
Location: Industrial armpit of the US Midwest

Re: Doctor Who ep 2 : Dinosaurs on a spaceship

Post by Broomstick »

Themightytom wrote:I know we're going to see them again. I understood that to be the case based on last season where we saw characters say goodbye to the doctor before we met him. But doing it over and over again is old hat.
Actually... given how full of noodle incidents Doctor Who as whole is no, we might never get the backstory or see any of those people again. Or we might have to wait 20-30 years in real time to find out more - such as the Third Doctor mentioning the Brigadier gaining the gratitude of a woman named "Doris", and in the era of the Seventh Doctor finding out the Brigadier married Doris. Or, yes, we might see them again next episode (though probably not).

It is both a charm and a frustration that this show is nearly 50 years old - the backstories, dropped threads, resumed narratives, and references are endless.
A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. Leonard Nimoy.

Now I did a job. I got nothing but trouble since I did it, not to mention more than a few unkind words as regard to my character so let me make this abundantly clear. I do the job. And then I get paid.- Malcolm Reynolds, Captain of Serenity, which sums up my feelings regarding the lawsuit discussed here.

If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich. - John F. Kennedy

Sam Vimes Theory of Economic Injustice
User avatar
Manus Celer Dei
Jedi Master
Posts: 1486
Joined: 2005-01-01 06:30pm
Location: I need you to relax your anus.

Re: Doctor Who ep 2 : Dinosaurs on a spaceship

Post by Manus Celer Dei »

This episode could have done with some more Snakes on a Plane jokes.

I've had it with these motherfucking dinosaurs on this motherfucking spaceship!
Image
"We will build cities in a day!"
"Man would cower at the sight!"
"We will build towers to the heavens!"
"Man was not built for such a height!"
"We will be heroes!"
"We will BUILD heroes!"
[/size][/i]
User avatar
Captain Seafort
Jedi Council Member
Posts: 1750
Joined: 2008-10-10 11:52am
Location: Blighty

Re: Doctor Who ep 2 : Dinosaurs on a spaceship

Post by Captain Seafort »

Manus Celer Dei wrote:This episode could have done with some more Snakes on a Plane jokes.

I've had it with these motherfucking dinosaurs on this motherfucking spaceship!
It could also have done with at least a passing tip of the hat to the last time the Doctor was on an alien spacecraft about to ram Earth and kill a bunch of dinosaurs.
User avatar
Parallax
Jedi Knight
Posts: 855
Joined: 2002-10-06 04:34am
Contact:

Re: Doctor Who ep 2 : Dinosaurs on a spaceship

Post by Parallax »

Captain Seafort wrote:
Manus Celer Dei wrote:This episode could have done with some more Snakes on a Plane jokes.

I've had it with these motherfucking dinosaurs on this motherfucking spaceship!
It could also have done with at least a passing tip of the hat to the last time the Doctor was on an alien spacecraft about to ram Earth and kill a bunch of dinosaurs.
"Now before I do something brilliant and save us all ... does anyone here think they're good at maths? No? Good. Never mind, long story."
Scrib
Jedi Knight
Posts: 966
Joined: 2011-11-19 11:59pm

Re: Doctor Who ep 2 : Dinosaurs on a spaceship

Post by Scrib »

mr friendly guy wrote:
Scrib wrote:
Also, how is the Doctor unidentifiable? That's ridiculous. He's dead not destroyed. Is everyone connected to the Dalek mainframe now? It was silly enough that a race like the Daleks had no backups or anything but the implications would be fucking stupid. And it's not like we can say that people in the future don't know the Doctor because there's the Tesselactor (which was the whole problem with that thing in the first place, even if they can only go back in time, everyone thinks that the Doctor is dead until they start creating time machines and we have no indication that it's one way).
He was already difficult to identify in episode two of season 1 back in RTD's day. The computer initially refused to identify him. It seemed only a small group know of him anyway, eg UNIT, Daleks, Time Lords and Silence in the present era. In the future he would become legendary to humans, but at the present he is most probably anonymous except to the Silence. UNIT . And the latter groups are unlikely to make their information available on a device where a space rogue could get hold of.
Pretty sure that this episode is set in the future.
User avatar
mr friendly guy
The Doctor
Posts: 11235
Joined: 2004-12-12 10:55pm
Location: In a 1960s police telephone box somewhere in Australia

Re: Doctor Who ep 2 : Dinosaurs on a spaceship

Post by mr friendly guy »

Yeah, you are right. My bad.
Never apologise for being a geek, because they won't apologise to you for being an arsehole. John Barrowman - 22 June 2014 Perth Supernova.

Countries I have been to - 14.
Australia, Canada, China, Colombia, Denmark, Ecuador, Finland, Germany, Malaysia, Netherlands, Norway, Singapore, Sweden, USA.
Always on the lookout for more nice places to visit.
Blayne
On Probation
Posts: 882
Joined: 2009-11-19 09:39pm

Re: Doctor Who ep 2 : Dinosaurs on a spaceship

Post by Blayne »

It was, but I think mr friendly guy is still right; I'm pretty sure we saw plenty of previous episodes where in the future, sometimes extremely far in the future only Torchwood and a select few entities and organizations seemed to know what he was at first glance; such as the tree lady in the episode after "Rose"(?) in season one. The Time Lords are near mythical as it was, The Doctor even more so.
User avatar
Broomstick
Emperor's Hand
Posts: 28846
Joined: 2004-01-02 07:04pm
Location: Industrial armpit of the US Midwest

Re: Doctor Who ep 2 : Dinosaurs on a spaceship

Post by Broomstick »

Regarding the Doctor not being in the database: it's not the first time a computer failed to identify him. For example, in "The Long Game" (Ninth Doctor). It did strike me as a bit odd (what? The Dalek wipe worm affected human databases, too?) but not as outrageous. The Doctor did, after all, intend to disappear from space-time after his "death" so I just chalked it up to something of that sort.
A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. Leonard Nimoy.

Now I did a job. I got nothing but trouble since I did it, not to mention more than a few unkind words as regard to my character so let me make this abundantly clear. I do the job. And then I get paid.- Malcolm Reynolds, Captain of Serenity, which sums up my feelings regarding the lawsuit discussed here.

If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich. - John F. Kennedy

Sam Vimes Theory of Economic Injustice
User avatar
LadyTevar
White Mage
White Mage
Posts: 23439
Joined: 2003-02-12 10:59pm

Re: Doctor Who ep 2 : Dinosaurs on a spaceship

Post by LadyTevar »

I will point out for a moment the Doctor was worried. He was very relieved to find it had no clue.
Image
Nitram, slightly high on cough syrup: Do you know you're beautiful?
Me: Nope, that's why I have you around to tell me.
Nitram: You -are- beautiful. Anyone tries to tell you otherwise kill them.

"A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. LLAP" -- Leonard Nimoy, last Tweet
User avatar
Bedlam
Jedi Council Member
Posts: 1509
Joined: 2006-09-23 11:12am
Location: Edinburgh, UK

Re: Doctor Who ep 2 : Dinosaurs on a spaceship

Post by Bedlam »

Broomstick wrote:Regarding the Doctor not being in the database: it's not the first time a computer failed to identify him. For example, in "The Long Game" (Ninth Doctor). It did strike me as a bit odd (what? The Dalek wipe worm affected human databases, too?) but not as outrageous. The Doctor did, after all, intend to disappear from space-time after his "death" so I just chalked it up to something of that sort.
Its not been stated but it might be that since his 'death' the doctor has been flitting around specifically trying to erase himself as much as he can. If I remember from the first? (second?) season he gave Micky a virus to wipe himself from the internet, if he wanted to he could probably do it again at various times and places to try and stop the silence from finding out much more about him.
Post Reply