Doctor Who S30E11 "Turn Left" (Spoilers)

[NecronLord]

Ghetto edit: I wonder what the hell is up with Rose. Dimension hopping, knowing about future events, pushing UNIT around, and somehow doing her Bad Wolf shtick again. Eh?

She's working for you-know-who! That's how she got all that knowledge.

Incidentally, if they do that, I will cheer quite loudly.

[Lord Woodlouse]

Dude, it was TERRIBLE.

Oh, shit!

*decides he didn't like the episode after all*

Thanks, Stark.

*shrug* I liked it. Donna doesn't bother me that much so she wasn't a huge turn-off for me (and yeah, she called the Italian guy mussolini but that's hardly indicative of her being some kind of awful person, she'd just had her home, friends and family nuked for fuck's sake). I found it interesting seeing how history might have played out without the Doctor.

...and I'm looking forward to the finale. It's probably not going to be the best written piece in history, but fuckit, I enjoy the explosive stuff.

[Stark]

It would've helped it being 'how history would've played out without the Doctor' if it'd made a tiny bit more sense and hadn't focused on a self-obsessed ignorant bitch. The whole episode hinges on sympathising with Donna and the sacrifice she needs to make... but she's a horrible bitch who needs a punch upside the face, so it fails.

Oh, and the absolutely, offensively laughably bad insect prop... dear lord. Is it 2008? I'm just checking. I think I saw it in the clockwork insect aisle at the shop on Saturday! I should do a re-enactment!

[Bounty]

The whole episode hinges on sympathising with Donna and the sacrifice she needs to make...

Urmphf? You missed everyone telling Donna that she's useless and a disappointment? You missed the whole "sacrifice" angle not coming into play until the last five minutes? The whole episode was basically about showing that Donna sans Doctor is society's flotsam, a loud and useless secretary who lives with her mom and gets shoved around by life because she can't get her act together. Like she said herself, the only "sacrifice" she makes is wiping out her craptastic life in her craptastic universe so another version of her can be useful... somehow.

Oh, and the absolutely, offensively laughably bad insect prop...

"This is our time machine. Please ignore the fact that it's just stage lights and bedroom mirrors taped together."

[Lord Woodlouse]

It would've helped it being 'how history would've played out without the Doctor' if it'd made a tiny bit more sense and hadn't focused on a self-obsessed ignorant bitch. The whole episode hinges on sympathising with Donna and the sacrifice she needs to make... but she's a horrible bitch who needs a punch upside the face, so it fails.

Oh, and the absolutely, offensively laughably bad insect prop... dear lord. Is it 2008? I'm just checking. I think I saw it in the clockwork insect aisle at the shop on Saturday! I should do a re-enactment!

Self-obsessed? She spends most of her time fending off attacks from her offensively mean mother and telling anyone who thinks she has any value whatsoever that she's worthless.

How is she a horrible bitch? Because she snapped at some Italian guy?

[NecronLord]

New trailers.

Trailer #1 Oooh, Davros. Biiig mystery. Apparently one that knows the Doctor, too. But look at the side... Shadow Proclamation?

On the down side, it seriously does look like that dalek saucer is firing TV-pyrotechnics-charge blasts at London.


Trailer #2 Red Dalek. While this one has its own batch code, I think the other daleks are using the regular ones from season one...

Notably, it's probably not Caan, as it doesn't have his batch recognition code.

[Lord Woodlouse]

New trailers.

Trailer #1 Oooh, Davros. Biiig mystery. Apparently one that knows the Doctor, too. But look at the side... Shadow Proclamation?

On the down side, it seriously does look like that dalek saucer is firing TV-pyrotechnics-charge blasts at London.


Trailer #2 Red Dalek. While this one has its own batch code, I think the other daleks are using the regular ones from season one...

Notably, it's probably not Caan, as it doesn't have his batch recognition code.

If you don't mind a spoiler, I have Dalek Caan right here.

[His Divine Shadow]

She's really Ace Rimmer.

Thats an insult to Ace Rimmer

[The Grim Squeaker]

eeesh, what a load of stuff in the trailer.
I really hope they'll kill of Dona, I seriously dislike her, and when I think of all the people who harped on about how she'd be an amazing Dr.Who companion .

I'm looking forward to the finale, even if it will probably be balls with just 2 episodes and the amount of stuff they seem intent on doing, what with The Great and Terrible Darkness probably being the "Greater threat than even the" Daleks.

I KNEW The Toclofane weren't just talking about Heat death!

[Bounty]

I still don't understand where the vitriol against Donna comes from. She can be annoying, but really, wanting her to die?

[NecronLord]

Personally, I like Donna. She's the best companion - save Mickey - in the new series. By miles.

There, I've said it.

[Admiral Valdemar]

It would've helped it being 'how history would've played out without the Doctor' if it'd made a tiny bit more sense and hadn't focused on a self-obsessed ignorant bitch. The whole episode hinges on sympathising with Donna and the sacrifice she needs to make... but she's a horrible bitch who needs a punch upside the face, so it fails.

Oh, and the absolutely, offensively laughably bad insect prop... dear lord. Is it 2008? I'm just checking. I think I saw it in the clockwork insect aisle at the shop on Saturday! I should do a re-enactment!

Hilariously, I half expected the Doctor to pick it up and open it like some clockwork contraption akin to the clockwork androids in a certain season two episode. But, eh, it was a real time eating bug. Real as polycarbonate can make it, that is.

[Zixinus]

I actually enjoyed this episode. Sure, it had some silly ideas but they were executed more-or-less well-enough to be enjoyable.

[SylasGaunt]

Fucking country restrictions.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Fucking country restrictions.

Rejoin the Commonwealth then, colonial.

[Prozac the Robert]

A little plot hole someone pointed out to me today:- without the doctor Pompei wouldn't have been destroyed and the lava monsters would have taken over the world. A bit of a continuity problem really.

[NecronLord]

I assume the time-bug's power to create (or digest) an alternate timeline only extended into the early C21st.

Yeah. Silly, no?

Alternately, it could just be that the Pyrovale plan was a pile of crap anyway.

[Lord Woodlouse]

Fucking country restrictions.

There are ways around them, old boy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dD1Yr-9O3w

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cdadevp3kjs

[speaker-to-trolls]

I found that to be very mixed between the very good and the very annoying. While the performances were good and the apocalypse montage and mounting sense of dread were pretty well done all around the details were really annoying. For example, when it's revealed that the government is going the V for Vendetta route the actual performances from Donnas grandad and the Italian guy are great and it's pretty effective (even if arguably cheap and obnoxious). But it hinges on the fact that the oceans have been closed off, hence Britain going for a final solution to its surplus population. Really? The ocean has been closed off, the entire ocean, thus destroying all intercontinental trade in a time of global crisis? Clever (actually with that situation in mind I think it's probably much more likely that they would be labour camps, not that that's much consolation as it'd probably be slave labour). Then there's the adipose, who actually would have been completely harmless had the Doctor not bumbled into the middle of their operation. And of course there's "you are the chosen one, Donna Noble", which is very annoying for reasons which Stark has earlier elaborated on. And the time beetle, oh god, the time beetle.

Here's something to think about, had the Doctor died on Christmas 2006 he wouldn't have gone back in time and stopped the Pyrovilii in Pompeii. Or the Carrionites in 16th century London, for that matter, not that there would have been a London, because the Pyrovilii would have melted the world. Ah, paradoxes are fun.

Finale could be great, but probably won't be since it looks like RTD is trying the technique of throwing absolutely everything into the mix and putting the fate of the whole multiverse (or omni-mega-hyper-multi-ulti-ultiverse or whatever they want to call it) on the line to make it Bigger And Better than all the others. Hoorah.

[speaker-to-trolls]

A little plot hole someone pointed out to me today:- without the doctor Pompei wouldn't have been destroyed and the lava monsters would have taken over the world. A bit of a continuity problem really.

Damnation! You beat me to it, sir.

Incedentally, Necronlord, who is the You-Know-Who you hope Rose is working for?

[Lord Woodlouse]

I found that to be very mixed between the very good and the very annoying. While the performances were good and the apocalypse montage and mounting sense of dread were pretty well done all around the details were really annoying. For example, when it's revealed that the government is going the V for Vendetta route the actual performances from Donnas grandad and the Italian guy are great and it's pretty effective (even if arguably cheap and obnoxious). But it hinges on the fact that the oceans have been closed off, hence Britain going for a final solution to its surplus population. Really? The ocean has been closed off, the entire ocean, thus destroying all intercontinental trade in a time of global crisis? Clever (actually with that situation in mind I think it's probably much more likely that they would be labour camps, not that that's much consolation as it'd probably be slave labour). Then there's the adipose, who actually would have been completely harmless had the Doctor not bumbled into the middle of their operation. And of course there's "you are the chosen one, Donna Noble", which is very annoying for reasons which Stark has earlier elaborated on. And the time beetle, oh god, the time beetle.

Here's something to think about, had the Doctor died on Christmas 2006 he wouldn't have gone back in time and stopped the Pyrovilii in Pompeii. Or the Carrionites in 16th century London, for that matter, not that there would have been a London, because the Pyrovilii would have melted the world. Ah, paradoxes are fun.

Finale could be great, but probably won't be since it looks like RTD is trying the technique of throwing absolutely everything into the mix and putting the fate of the whole multiverse (or omni-mega-hyper-multi-ulti-ultiverse or whatever they want to call it) on the line to make it Bigger And Better than all the others. Hoorah.

I don't think they said trade didn't exist, just that movement of people had been closed.

[Soontir C'boath]

Here's something to think about, had the Doctor died on Christmas 2006 he wouldn't have gone back in time and stopped the Pyrovilii in Pompeii. Or the Carrionites in 16th century London, for that matter, not that there would have been a London, because the Pyrovilii would have melted the world. Ah, paradoxes are fun.

Well other people/things could have stepped in to stop those from happening just as Torchwood prevented the Sontarans from completely fucking Earth over in the Doctor's place.

Watching the end again to make sure, the Doctor said a parallel was created around Donna (as had Rose IIRC), so things could have its differences such as perhaps not even having those monsters in Pompeii or those Carionites in the first place. It's not like it has to be an exact copy minus the Doctor there.

Trailer:
Davros' voice seems a bit off.

They're even shoving Sarah Jane in there. Are the Judoon going to act as a hired defense force? Hmmm. My, it's going to get crowded.

[Manus Celer Dei]

Was that the cloister bell at the end? GONG!

The fact that everything turned into Bad Wolf at the end makes me think Rose has somehow mucked about the translation ability of the Tardis.

the government is going the V for Vendetta route

I thought that was kind of funny, actually. It seems like every single British dystopia has to be some variation on the theme of "Facist bastards".

[Vaporous]

This was Blink with beetles and Rose. How many time eating monsters are there?

This was also the entire Donna in The Computer World Being Lectured By Mysterious Woman story from the Library two parter, only longer and worse.

All in all, the only really good moment in the episode is the Italian and Donna's grandfathers farewell.

[NecronLord]

If you don't mind a spoiler, I have Dalek Caan right here.

Wow! Hope is kindled...

I wish I hadn't seen it, but for a number of reasons, it makes me think next week might not be so bad.