Doctor Who SE30E08: "Silence in the Library"

Bedlam · Post by **Bedlam** » 2008-05-31 03:23pm

Very Creepy

The Ghosting but was horrible (in a good way) but would anyone regularly use such technology? We didn't see any use of the telepathic e-mails so how useful are they. Couldn't they just put in some sort of fail safe that deletes your mental record if you die rather than let it remain sentient and slowly feel itself fade away (One character mentioned it look up to a day).

andrewgpaul · Post by **andrewgpaul** » 2008-05-31 04:11pm

They didn't really seem that bothered, except Donna. I mean, they simply seemed to treat it as something normal. No worse than watching someone's last moments.

Oh, and a Squareness Gun? I like.

Bedlam · Post by **Bedlam** » 2008-05-31 04:15pm

andrewgpaul wrote:They didn't really seem that bothered, except Donna. I mean, they simply seemed to treat it as something normal. No worse than watching someone's last moments.

Oh, and a Squareness Gun? I like.

Last used by Captain Jack in "The Doctor Dances" another story by Moffatt and Jacks from the same time period as this story is set.

Lord Woodlouse · Post by **Lord Woodlouse** » 2008-05-31 05:23pm

I wonder if the Vashta Narada are linked with The Darkness?

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2008-05-31 05:31pm

Which tasteless dipshit voted one star?

Post by **NecronLord** » 2008-05-31 06:03pm

Admiral Valdemar wrote:The "ghosting" was quite an effective way of adding tension and emotion, even if it seems useless compared to, say, a soulkeeper like the Culture uses for saving mental engrams.

Well, that's hardly the point of it. Though one supposes that someone might manage to find a way to use those things to ressurect people. It would seem to be something they'd put in failsafes for. I assume the device's function was either translation or telepathy (notably, Magnus Greel {former minister of Justice for the 51st Century Supreme Alliance, a war criminal} had fairly substantial mental powers and was able to give these to a C19th human) but even so, safety standards in consumer products have really slipped.

Right off the bat, my assumption was that mystery woman may be the Doctor's Daughter, though that's a bit inconsistant with 'I've never seen you look so young' but she may just be mistaken.

Was the squareness gun part of the sonic screwdriver, or was it a different device?

Amusingly, we know that the 4th Doctor or earlier was in the C51st at some point: this one isn't nearly the ealiest she could have got.

Big Orange · Post by **Big Orange** » 2008-05-31 06:17pm

NecronLord wrote:Was the squareness gun part of the sonic screwdriver, or was it a different device?

It looked like the same sort of sonic weapon used by Captain Jack way back in "The Doctor Dances" (and factory making was blown up by the Doctor then replaced by a banana plantation).

Post by **NecronLord** » 2008-05-31 06:23pm

Big Orange wrote:It looked like the same sort of sonic weapon used by Captain Jack way back in "The Doctor Dances" (and factory making was blown up by the Doctor then replaced by a banana plantation).

Yeah. Was it a different device, or was it in the future Doctor's screwdriver? I want at least one doctor to carry a weapon!

Big Orange · Post by **Big Orange** » 2008-05-31 06:42pm

NecronLord wrote:
Big Orange wrote:It looked like the same sort of sonic weapon used by Captain Jack way back in "The Doctor Dances" (and factory making was blown up by the Doctor then replaced by a banana plantation).
Yeah. Was it a different device, or was it in the future Doctor's screwdriver? I want at least one doctor to carry a weapon!

I'll have to see that segment again on iPlayer (poor me

) to see if that was a screwdriver or a pistol shaped device similar to one used by Jack.

The future screwdriver looked much more stubby looking as well as much more worn, but I'm puzzled why the Doctor would infest so much into one expendable tool (he pranged one in "Smith & Jones" and likely got hundreds of spares or versions), unless he entrusted it to that future companion as some kind valuable heirloom (I noticed the 'Spoiler' book was fashioned like the TARDIS' exterior).

Post by **NecronLord** » 2008-05-31 07:00pm

For a start, his own sonic screwdrivers are partially able to remote control TARDIS systems... Good enough reason not to give them away.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2008-05-31 07:32pm

Well, that's like saying a radio transciever can partially control my car so don't give anyone a radio. Without foreknowledge of the signals required, it's hardly dangerous (hilariously insecure central locking signals aside). It'd be more serious if it could open the door, but it can't, and I believe he's let people leave while taking a key before.

Big Orange · Post by **Big Orange** » 2008-05-31 07:39pm

NecronLord wrote:For a start, his own sonic screwdrivers are partially able to remote control TARDIS systems... Good enough reason not to give them away.

Well he can't give them away to anybody (just like the keys) but he can't always rely on having one screwdriver still intact after rough usage, his screwdriver devices are not unique (with villains having their own sonic devices or equivalents anyway) and he likely has security protocols in case of theft (although his sonic screwdrivers seem too complicated to be properly used by most random mooks without presumably backfiring on them horribly. Like scrambling their brains for example).

And what was the point of the creepy memory/personality devices in the collars of the spacesuits? Shouldn't they have acted more like Chelgrian Soulkeepers and properly downloaded the brain patterns safely to a ship mainframe, instead of merely giving spacesuit wearers a very lonely and needlessly prolonged death?

I get the impression that Donna and the several thousand other people being transformed into information terminals is going to be the key to their salvation from the shadow monsters, while the girl and the people around her in the home is probably the simulation of the Culture Min- eh, Library hard drive at the core of the planet working out how to solve the situation with the Library's catastrophe.

andrewgpaul · Post by **andrewgpaul** » 2008-05-31 08:01pm

If you'd actually been paying attention, they never said those things were personality capture devices. They were basically telepathy devices. The ghosting was merely a side effect of dying while online.

Minischoles · Post by **Minischoles** » 2008-05-31 08:11pm

5/5 all the way, awesome episode and damn Moffat for ending it on such a great cliffhanger, it'll be doing my head in all week waiting to watch that now.

I do like the whole crossing timeline things, she knows him but on his personal time line he doesn't know her. Also like how the spine of her diary had been extended a couple of times as well and it looked like extra pages had been put in.

mr friendly guy · Post by **mr friendly guy** » 2008-05-31 09:09pm

Any one else catch "The Tomb of the Cybermen" homage?

Big Orange · Post by **Big Orange** » 2008-05-31 10:15pm

andrewgpaul wrote:
If you'd actually been paying attention, they never said those things were personality capture devices. They were basically telepathy devices. The ghosting was merely a side effect of dying while online.

Looking through the episode again River Song said it was a "freak of technology" but if the telepthy communication devices keeping physically destroyed people alive in 'digital' form before fading away was such an infamous occurance, they would've eventually learned to use it to bring people back from the dead (like get downloaded into a cloned body). Oh and River Song split the wall open using a Sonica Blaster pistol, just as I imagined.

mr friendly guy wrote:Any one else catch "The Tomb of the Cybermen" homage?

No, what was it?

General Zod · Post by **General Zod** » 2008-05-31 10:21pm

Big Orange wrote: Looking through the episode again River Song said it was a "freak of technology" but if the telepthy communication devices keeping physically destroyed people alive in 'digital' form before fading away was such an infamous occurance, they would've eventually learned to use it to bring people back from the dead (like get downloaded into a cloned body). Oh and River Song split the wall open using a Sonica Blaster pistol, just as I imagined.

Where are you getting this from? They explicitly said the only thing that was left were 'fragments' of a personality. Not enough to bring someone back from death in any meaningful sense of the word.

Big Orange · Post by **Big Orange** » 2008-05-31 10:27pm

General Zod wrote: Where are you getting this from? They explicitly said the only thing that was left were 'fragments' of a personality. Not enough to bring someone back from death in any meaningful sense of the word.

I get the impression the devices capture the person's essence for a few seconds and then it rapidly fades away forever, but why does the device allow it to happen, allowing such a nasty lingering death?

General Zod · Post by **General Zod** » 2008-05-31 10:32pm

Big Orange wrote: I get the impression the devices capture the person's essence for a few seconds and then it rapidly fades away forever, but why does the device allow it to happen, allowing such a nasty lingering death?

Your impression would be wrong considering everything they say about it in the episode. It's probably some sort of psychic feedback, where a few mental impressions get left in the device. Enough for a few personality ticks to remained but the bigger part of everything that makes up a person gone forever.

Straha · Post by **Straha** » 2008-05-31 11:36pm

FINALLY! SOMETHING WORTHWHILE!

Awesome episode.

Straha · Post by **Straha** » 2008-05-31 11:37pm

Straha wrote:FINALLY! SOMETHING WORTHWHILE!

Awesome episode.

Ghetto edit: Hit submit too early. Very good episode, love how it's going. Only issues I have are with the soundtrack (BLARGLE!), and the mystery woman being entirely too cheeky about her future with the Doctor. Other than that, love it. 5/5.

Bedlam · Post by **Bedlam** » 2008-06-01 04:25am

A bit Worryingly Donna doesn't appear at all in the next week on Doctor Who segment.

Does this indiciate that whe might not be with us any more or did someone just design the trailer to keep up the tension?

El Moose Monstero · Post by **El Moose Monstero** » 2008-06-01 05:49am

Bedlam wrote:A bit Worryingly Donna doesn't appear at all in the next week on Doctor Who segment.

Does this indiciate that whe might not be with us any more or did someone just design the trailer to keep up the tension?

A look at the mid season trailer thread will tell you that the answer to that. There's no way they'd just kill off Donna randomly at this stage in the series.

I really didn't like the statues; found them a bit too surreal for the 'old world library' setting; they reminded me a bit too much of that talking box from TNG. I would have preferred holograms, because then the Doctor could have tried talking to her thinking she was alright, and then found her to be a hologram.

Old Peculier · Post by **Old Peculier** » 2008-06-01 05:59am

El Moose Monstero wrote: Major complaints: the soundtrack - it might be excellent music, but they just keep blaring it out constantly so that you can't really hear whats being said. The scene with the books flying around was a prime example; the music was screaming 'OMG! Horror and tension', but the scene on its own was whispering 'minor action occurring'.

The scene with the books flying around was obviously not at all an example of music trying to scream 'horror and tension'. Listen to it again (iPlayer 00:21:45). It was obviously light-hearted music for an amusing 'wow look at what the kid is doing' scene. They even end on a DING!

That said, it was a brilliant episode, and the creepiest of the lot along with Blink. 5/5

Bounty · Post by **Bounty** » 2008-06-01 06:14am

Was the squareness gun part of the sonic screwdriver, or was it a different device?

A different device:

StarDestroyer.Net BBS

Doctor Who SE30E08: "Silence in the Library"

Episode rating