Dr. Who season 2 starts tonight on Sci-Fi

Azazal · Post by **Azazal** » 2006-09-29 01:31pm

Didn't see this posted, just a reminder that Sci-Fi starts up with CHRISTMAS INVASION tonight at 8:00 EST followed by NEW EARTH at 10:30

Tychu · Post by **Tychu** » 2006-09-29 01:36pm

wooo Tennant Who
and yes i knew as you can see in my post for the StarGate season finales thread
http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic.php?t=98176

good ol Who

Parallax · Post by **Parallax** » 2006-09-29 06:54pm

For those americans who haven't seen it yet, here's a quick run down:

Christmas Invasion- not enough Doctor but second half is awesome
New Earth - Kind of silly
Tooth and Claw - great action based story
School Reunion - possibly best ep of the season. Excellent stuff
The girl in the fireplace - Rather mediocre until the very final scene, then it all makes sense.
Rise of the Cybermen - It has Cybermen, it's good
The age of steel - the Cybermen goodness continues
The Idiots Lantern - very ho hum episode, far from the best
The Impossible Planet - Great stuff, some outstanding Who.
The Satan Pit - Even better than the previous ep
Love and Monsters - complete crap. Avoid like leperous jehovah's witnesses
Fear Her - Better than Love and Monsters but not by much. Avoid.
Army of Ghosts/Doomsday - Awesome season finale. Two lots of villains face off!

Zac Naloen · Post by **Zac Naloen** » 2006-09-29 06:58pm

Parallax wrote:For those americans who haven't seen it yet, here's a quick run down:

Christmas Invasion- not enough Doctor but second half is awesome
New Earth - Kind of silly
Tooth and Claw - great action based story
School Reunion - possibly best ep of the season. Excellent stuff
The girl in the fireplace - Rather mediocre until the very final scene, then it all makes sense.
Rise of the Cybermen - It has Cybermen, it's good
The age of steel - the Cybermen goodness continues
The Idiots Lantern - very ho hum episode, far from the best
The Impossible Planet - Great stuff, some outstanding Who.
The Satan Pit - Even better than the previous ep
Love and Monsters - complete crap. Avoid like leperous jehovah's witnesses
Fear Her - Better than Love and Monsters but not by much. Avoid.
Army of Ghosts/Doomsday - Awesome season finale. Two lots of villains face off!

I have to disagree, Love and Monsters was good fun. An episode to lighten thiongs up considering the dark turn it had taken. Just a little something different and Fear her was another good epsode that was a little different than the run of the mill.

andrewgpaul · Post by **andrewgpaul** » 2006-09-29 07:06pm

Indeed; I felt Love And Monsters was better than School Reunion, personally.

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2006-09-29 07:15pm

andrewgpaul wrote:Indeed; I felt Love And Monsters was better than School Reunion, personally.

Deffo. I was really unimpressed with "School Reunion" to be honest. If anything, the 2 two-parters have the best eps.

mr friendly guy · Post by **mr friendly guy** » 2006-09-29 07:59pm

I liked school reunion. The return of K-9 and Sarah Jane Smith will generally be good unless someone botches it up completely.

My favourite episodes were the last two parter, Army of Ghosts / Doomsday.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2006-09-29 08:57pm

Anyone who can miss the subtext in Love and Monsters is retarded. However, Fear Her is a bunch of standing around talking about boring lame shit - I dropped it from the ep list to fit them all on a DVD, and nobody noticed.[/i]

Tychu · Post by **Tychu** » 2006-09-30 12:57am

I have to say i like David Tennant, not as good as my fav. Eccelston but you British SDneters. know thats only cause hes the first doctor ive seen.

You know he kinda reminds me of Mike Meyers playing Austin powers (the voice is similar as well as his facial expressions) while his sense of humor and how he feels about life and what not he reminds me of Eccelston. All around and overall hes a good pic for the 10th doctor.

truthfully i found the Christmas Invasion funny, good but silly
While New Earth was a good connection for the Eccelston -- Tennant Series with Cassandra and the face of Bog? Boh? (I figure it out with the English acents) for 2 series and i cant figure it out, oh well.

Actually seeing the Doctor actually as a Doctor was pretty cool

All and all this series with Tennant looks good

Dartzap · Post by **Dartzap** » 2006-09-30 04:31am

The Face of Boe, not bog which is slang for toilet

SylasGaunt · Post by **SylasGaunt** » 2006-09-30 05:31am

A caution for those of you who haven't seen the whole season already.. avoid sci-fi's commercials for it if possible. Last season they were really careless about tossing around major spoilers, like playing a commercial showing off the big surprise of the season finale before it had been revealed in the episode.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2006-09-30 05:55am

The first season was bad in that way because of the BBC, but I've heard the American stations slap together promotional material from anything that 'looks cool', thus messing it up.

FaxModem1 · Post by **FaxModem1** » 2006-09-30 05:42pm

Wow, they made Harriet Jones into a killer, I was surprised by that, especially since I really liked her character.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2006-09-30 06:39pm

What she did wasn't wrong. Tenth Doctor's just uncompromising.

Ford Prefect · Post by **Ford Prefect** » 2006-09-30 07:10pm

Stark wrote:What she did wasn't wrong. Tenth Doctor's just uncompromising.

Ain't no higher authority.

As an aside, the final screens here (Tasmania) next week. I'm really looking forward to it. As a whole I found this series very good (though I missed a few eps). The two parters were uniformly excellent; the Impossible Planet/Satan Pit two parter was freaking awesome.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2006-09-30 07:12pm

I still need to make a 'Doctor says every time we use one of these things it damages the whole world' banner with Pete holding a condom.

The season set comes out in november, and I want a fricking Cyberman head.

FaxModem1 · Post by **FaxModem1** » 2006-09-30 07:31pm

Harriet Jones did something soldiers and cops aren't supposed to do, shot someone in the back, or more specifically, obliterated a retreating enemy. I personally view that as wrong, even though they were invading assholes who didn't deserve better.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2006-09-30 07:34pm

I don't consider Earth having defences and destroying threats particularly odious. It's war, and in war you *DO* in fact destroy fleeing enemies - that's where most of the casualties occur. How many alien invasions can be easily neutralised now that Earth has a spacegun? Just because the Doctor is a moralist doesn't mean everything he says is right.

mr friendly guy · Post by **mr friendly guy** » 2006-09-30 08:27pm

I want to see ramifications for Harriet's actions later on in series, maybe in the next season. While I generally don't have a problem shooting retreating enemies, it seems for all intents and purposes Earth had a formal ceasefire with the Sycorax at that point. Thus Harriet was purposely breaking a ceasefire on an enemy which at that point was keeping its side of the bargain, and withdrawing.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2006-09-30 08:35pm

Nobody would even have heard about it. The ship was totally destroyed while leaving orbit. The Sycorax tried to conquer, enslave and stripmine Earth and were totally destroyed. That's what everyone else in the galaxy will think, and it's what happened. Rogue aliens aside, Earth needs to defend itself instead of relying on maniac moralist Time Lords, and the Sycorax were scum. The Doctor's reverence for life is fine and dandy, but it's not particularly realistic from a security standpoint.

mr friendly guy · Post by **mr friendly guy** » 2006-09-30 08:51pm

The thing is, I find the gains from Harriets actions somewhat dubious considering the enemy was already beaten at this point.

The leader who made the invasion decision and who killed prisoners (which would no doubt be a war crime) had already been killed by the Doctor.

The Sycorax (if they kept their end of the bargain) would have spread the word that Earth is protected. Now that they are dead, other potential hostile races may interpret that Earth destroyed them. But then for all they know the Sycorax ship was destroyed by something else, like another ship. They won't know this unless they were actively observing Earth, and won't know Earth isn't easy pickings if the Sycorax aren't alive to tell it.

They also pissed off Earth's only ally , the Doctor, which strikes me as a diplomatic mistake (although hard for Harriet to forsee the Doctor will react this way).

The benefits on the other hand are 1) they killed those sycorax ensuring this particular group won't threaten earth again (again dubious if they had kept their end of the bargain) 2) Confirming the torchwood energy weapon works.

Now I am not sure if the Doctor came to his conclusion because he is a moralist or he considered the cost vs benefits (minus the con of Earth pissed him off) in the same way I did, but there is something to the Doctor's stance that it was unnecessary.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2006-09-30 09:02pm

I think it's pretty clear that the Doctors reaction was almost entirely one of moral outrage. He doesn't like killing, and they killed people. The PM didn't make the decision cackling like a madman - she did what she thought was right. By crossing the line, she became a villian from the Doctor's point of view.

Frankly, having people drive around talking about how they got kicked by some alien attacking Earth is bad. They'd also mention the utter lack of coordinated defence, poor technology, etc. Without the Doctor Earth is defenceless. While the Doctor might consider it his personal mission to protect Earth, humans want repliable security of their own. My only complaint is that this tension wasn't used more (since they dropped the PMs character) between the Doctor and practical considerations. It's nothing but good drama to have two 'heroes' with different approaches and attitudes, which is why it worked.

Think about this. The Doctor destroyed a government because it dared defend itself by means he didn't like. That's massive interference in the government of a planet he claims to 'protect'. What does that say about him? How is that morally sound? How would the world react if it knew? Would anyone condemn the PM? Would anyone agree with the Doctors interference? Remember, for all his character shields the invasion of Earth nearly succeeded and it touched the lives of everyone on Earth.

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2006-09-30 09:10pm

I'm with Stark on this. The events of "The Christmas Invasion" show quite clearly who the aggressor was. While it'd be more honourable to let them run, tails between their legs, you couldn't take the chance that they might not just go and regroup with some more of their kind. Annihilating them was a show of force, maybe not morally right, but the reaction from the Doctor was more down to his diplomatic attitude to confrontation rather than shooting an unarmed man kind of thing.

With the public unveiling of Torchwood's powers, any other locals would be smart to not assume Terra is a pushover anymore. Gone are the days of UNIT barely fighting off minor annoyances and succumbing to decent invasions.

Tychu · Post by **Tychu** » 2006-09-30 09:15pm

At first i kinda agreed with the doctor. Then after they were talking i kinda saw what the PM did was right. ah well

anyways yes in America the preivews are the cool action sceens and what not now for the next episode "Tooth and Claw" i dont know what it really turns out to be but the coming atraction for it kinda reminds me of Tom Bakers: Horror of Fang Rock. It seems the director (sofar from preview shots) used the same style of shooting the faces close up, the same costume disign (sp?) and overall it looks like the same feel

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2006-09-30 09:17pm

I liked that the situation is basically the same as that in WWIII. Jones is an elected representative - the Doctor is a hobo. It's her decision, not his, and his concerns aren't as important as he might think.