DW: Voyage Of The Damned (Spoilers)

[Stark]

It's like he's a non sequitur machine or something.

[Majin Gojira]

The new metal-sounding theme sounds a bit odd, but I could get used to it.

I really wish the Doctor would stop lying about his age, though. He can't be 903 years old. He was already 953 years old three regenerations ago. He's got to be over 1000 by now.

Ya know, given the time war, his personal history could have been altered regarding such things.

'least that's my explination.

[Lord Woodlouse]

C&P from SB:

I still think the Christmas Invasion was my favourite christmas ep. This was better than last year's though, I thought.

It was fun, but it didn't quite gel right for me. The bit where they had the "OMG he's dead!" moments about three or four times in a row got annoying, lessening the impact of their deaths. It would be fine to kill that many, but trying to pull at our heart strings with full force everytime gets jarring.

I loved Bernard Cribbin's news vendor character (and the open admission that aliens are effing invading all the time, rather than some dumb hand wave explanation). I'm glad to hear he's set to return in future episodes.

Liked most of the CGI, Starship Titanic looked pretty neat. Hope they show some spaceships next season with that same dedication.

Liked the season preview, I've heard UNIT plays a strong role in the coming season (which seems to be true from watching) which makes me giddy.

[brianeyci]

I knew the Queen was shit but at that point I honestly didn't care. It wasn't an episode that demanded super realism. It did have super tension though, and they did it without grit and without the threat of world invasion.

Christmas invasion was good but let's face it, you can't have aliens invading Earth every Christmas. The Doctor walking out like an advert wasn't annoying to me, because I knew he would put the snob in his place the moment he questioned Doctor. In fact, I predicted almost everything that would happen just seconds or minutes before it did. Didn't you guys? You guys didn't know Max would be on the ship? (I wrote off him being on the ship as him planning a fake death, goddamn!) You guys didn't know the ship would dive down onto the Palace and the Queen would make a cheesy cameo? You guys didn't know the cyborg would shit out a piece of his chest to take out the Host? The thing is, even though I knew what would happen, it was how it happened which was... fantastic. Lines matter, delivery matters, sacrifice matters, plot matters.

I'm going to be a heretic and say, it was better than Christmas invasion. Christmas invasion had the stupid Torchwood particle beam, Doctor in a swordfight, and stupid blood control. Christmas invasion only compares because it's #10's first outing. Another thing with Christmas invasion is it ties in to the regular series -- I have nothing against that, but personally I think specials should be stand alone adventures, and Voyage of the Damned is about as stand alone as you get, no stupid foreshadowing of a MIB wannabe or a clumsy "Mr. Saxon says fire" bullshit. A complete story on its own.

[brianeyci]

ghetto edit: Oh yeah, one more food for thought if you aren't convinced about Voyage > Invasion. What would you rather watch? Government and Prime Ministers get their panties wet in a war room, or a small group of adventurers, inspired and armed by The Doctor make their way through the wreck of a ship?

The more I think about it the more Christmas invasion sucks compared to Voyage. Doctor was unconscious for half the invasion, what the fuck is that? Plus, Voyage was hilarious.

[Admiral Valdemar]

I liked it and while it was a blatant rip-off of a certain '70s disaster movie, it still kept together with a plot that wasn't "RAR! ALIENS KILL PUNY HUMANS!" but a simple to understand insurance grab (though Max being on the Titanic was a bit strange. Maybe he just wanted to make sure no hiccups happened). The comedy was good too, from the no doubt intentional Passenger 57 reference to the total bullshittery of the tour guide's degree in "Earthology" and that damn shining tooth.

I preferred it over last year's by any stretch. I just didn't buy the "We created Earth to do some evil scheme that's foiled so easily nearly 5 billion years later. We suck" plan.

The not clipping Buck House thing was grating. One is not amused by QE2 appearances.

[FaxModem1]

I saw it, don't ask me how. I loved it, but I thought the deaths of everyone was a little grating, we didn't need a slowmo for every single fall.

I loved the line from the tour guide. "If you could control who lived, that would make you a monster." Which made me laugh, cause I was hoping some of the others would live instead of the rich guy.

The war with turkey and eating them like savages was also funny.

Did anyone see the preview for season 4?

Sarah Jane Smith and gang are going to be in it and we also get the ood YAY

[Manus Celer Dei]

Not as teeth grindingly awful as Queen Liz the Second's unconvincing stand in.

I was reffering to that.

The funny thing is that the Queen doesn't even spend christmas at Buckingham Palace

I really liked the new theme music; hope they use that for next season.

[bilateralrope]

Also, did anyone notice the screw up over exchange rates? £1 million = 50 million credits, that meant the 5000 credits the black couple seemed to think was a small fortune came out at around £100...

Well there wouldn't be any official exchange rate so I think the Doctor made a quick estimate to give the guy some idea how well he could live.

Though I'm sure I heard that he was looking forwards to having a kitchen with plates. So who knows how poor they really were.

As for Max being on the ship, note how after he died that the hosts considered the Doctor (a stowaway) as the next highest source of authority, not the surviving crewman. To me this suggests that in an emergency the hosts will take orders from the highest source of authority they can communicate with meaning that Max either needed to be on the ship, or communicating over the FTL comms.

But using the FTL comms runs the risk of the plan falling apart if they are disabled, along with the risk of Max getting caught if there is any logging of the communication.

[General Zod]

The more I think about it the more Christmas invasion sucks compared to Voyage. Doctor was unconscious for half the invasion, what the fuck is that? Plus, Voyage was hilarious.

Troublesome regenerations aren't without precedent. When he regenerated from the 4th to the 5th doctor he was out for the better part of one or two episodes and barely conscious, though it took quite a bit more to get him back to normal than going from the 9th to the 10th.

[brianeyci]

Troublesome regenerations aren't without precedent. When he regenerated from the 4th to the 5th doctor he was out for the better part of one or two episodes and barely conscious, though it took quite a bit more to get him back to normal than going from the 9th to the 10th.

Well whatever the reason, it makes for a shitty storytelling device. The idea is the protagonist is unavailable for most of the story, and his friends go around trying to find him and doing most of the dirty work. Then right at the crucial moment, the hero steps out and WOW. It almost never works in fiction and usually means a terrible story. It worked in Christmas Invasion, and only barely, because the Doctor himself is such a wow in the first place. If it was any other story, with a different protagonist, it would've been a bomb.

[Stark]

Well whatever the reason, it makes for a shitty storytelling device. The idea is the protagonist is unavailable for most of the story, and his friends go around trying to find him and doing most of the dirty work. Then right at the crucial moment, the hero steps out and WOW. It almost never works in fiction and usually means a terrible story. It worked in Christmas Invasion, and only barely, because the Doctor himself is such a wow in the first place. If it was any other story, with a different protagonist, it would've been a bomb.

The drama of a friend being replaced by a complete stranger and your immediate family being targeted by aliens while the whole world looks for your lost friend to save the day = lame, I agree. Needed moar jesus doctor lol.

[brianeyci]

The drama of a friend being replaced by a complete stranger and your immediate family being targeted by aliens while the whole world looks for your lost friend to save the day = lame, I agree. Needed moar jesus doctor lol.

That's the thing. At the end they were all praying for Jesus, aka Doctor. He should've been around from the start, and then it wouldn't have been a Jesus answer. Doctor would've been doing stuff from the start, but instead he's trotted out right at the end like a silver bullet. Lameo.

Sorry, I watch Dr. Who for... Dr. Who.

[Stark]

Yeah, and you're one of 'those people', as already established. You even inappropriately abbreviate like all true retards.

The entire drama is ABOUT the Doctor, but because he isn't actually onscreen, it sucks? Doubtless, as one of 'those people', you consider Love and Monsters a worthless filler episode! What is the appreciation of drama for $200? Must have 75% Doctor onscreen or instant fail lolz.

PS did it fly over your head that I was referring to the actual worst shit ever, jesus doctor? When he's literally jesus? Flying and all? Haven't you seen it yet? It's *retarded*.

[Hillary]

Thought it was OK, nowhere near as good as the Christmas Invasion, probably better than the giant spider one.

The reason for Max HAVING to be on board rather escaped me too - it would have worked better without that and it wasn't even necessary for him to be there.

What made it for me (as always in the best DW) were the strong characters. Kylie was surprisingly good - her chemistry with Tennant was a million times better than Martha's. There is an obvious open door for her character to return as well. Good.

Geoffrey Palmer as the captain was a great choice. He is a superb actor and actually made you sympathise with him, despite the fact that he had made a horribly reprehensible deal with Max.

I did like that the tour guide survived and prospered. Very nicely played by the guy from "Keeping Up Appearances".

The arrogant money-man was a bit of a cliche character, as were the prize-winning couple, but again they were well acted and added important drama and emotion to the episode. Nice, for once, that the bad character survives rather than the good ones (and a great line about being able to choose who lives making one a monster).

Also loved the cute cyborg guy (although his electromagnetic trick did rather make for a easy get-out clause).

The information angels going bad reminded me of the old Tom Baker story "Robots of Death", but not in a bad way.

Overall, 3 or 4 out of 5.