Doctor Who S30E12 "The Stolen Earth" (Spoilers)

[Big Orange]

I don't think the Time War has been ruined, since all the Daleks present are going to be wiped out anyway with Davros going back into hiding. The Time War in the last three years has obviously been used as an convenient plot generator for Dalek and Time Lord villains, except RTD has been a little more clumsy and repetative about it in the last two season finals.

We don't know much more about the Time War except that Davros was involved, the whole conflict was 'time locked', the Nightmare Child was involved and that Davros' group of Daleks brought back the 'Crucible' - let's see how this potential mess plays out (although it would've been better if Davros was merely trapped on Earth in realtime since 1963).

There there is also still bags of room to rehabilitate them from just being albino priestesses and rhino guards in a Cardiff hotel lobby who don't do much apart from info dumping and acting as somewhat inept, generic authority figures for the maverick Doctor to stick his middle finger up to (they were running out of budget so they couldn't depict the Shadow Proclamation as originally intended).

[Big Orange]

Ghetto Edit: "rehabilitate the Shadow Proclamation"

[petesampras]

If they are gonna keep bringing the Daleks back so frequently, it would be good to let the win occasionally. It is hard to view the Daleks as the Doctors greatest foe when he kicks their butts every season.

You can make the argument that in the older Dr Whos, he kicked their butts regulary. However, they didn't appear in every season and the Daleks weren't left on the verge of extinction after each and every encounter.

[TC Pilot]

That's sort of the problem now that the Time Lords are all killed off. After the neccesary uber-wank the Daleks had to go through to get to the point where they had to be killed only at the cost of the entire Time Lord civilization (although I'm only guessing, since I've only seen the nWho), they're unstoppable unless you pull off some ludicrously powerful stuff (like God Rose and super-suction hole), which invariably ends up wiping them all out.

They either need to bring back the Time Lords to act as a counterbalance, or introduce a new group (like beefing up the Shadow Proclamation into a considerable force) to keep them in check.

[Stark]

There there is also still bags of room to rehabilitate them from just being albino priestesses and rhino guards in a Cardiff hotel lobby who don't do much apart from info dumping and acting as somewhat inept, generic authority figures for the maverick Doctor to stick his middle finger up to (they were running out of budget so they couldn't depict the Shadow Proclamation as originally intended).

This is what's wrong with fanboys.

It's utterly irrelevant that some part of DW can be 'rehabilitated' or upgraded to 'original' intention. What's relevant is that the writers and producers gave us what they did, which stands on it's own. I find it frankly absurd to say 'oh, they might have totally boned the SP and spent ten whole dollars on an exposition sounding board, but it's okay because they can wank them out later'. How about, I dunno, being quality to start with? Whinging 'budget' is just soft-cock copouts when you've blown so much of your budget on useless crap and unnecessary crossovers for the 'glory'.

In short, make excuses, dream about how it'll be 'fixed' later, and never just say 'wow that was shit, you guys really fucked it up'. Refuse the reality, hold on to the dream! It'll get better next season!

[TC Pilot]

Besides, it's not as if any of the decades-old Who episodes (from the brief snippets I've seen) look particularly high budget. And they at least tried to make things as best they could (like, how about not having the TARDIS appear in front of a damn brick wall). Honestly, how much money could they possibly have lost from making the SP HQ bigger, or have a few ships buzzing around the background, or guys in rubber alien costumes walking around the back, or add a line like "Sorry this isn't quite what you expected, but that's what you get when you come to a measely outpost in such a backwater quadrant, and not the main base."

Hell, just look at Mystery Science Theater. Their prop budget was pennies with maybe two score workers on the entire staff. Even that looked more like a space station than the one cobbled together for this episode.

[Stark]

Or even - call me nuts - NOT MAKE IT A SERIES OF SCENES THAT DO NOTHING. The SP were shoehorned in as part of RTD's glorious plan - even if they're required in the next episode, there is no reason why the only way to do it was a) huge budget extranaganza or b) completely ballsed up. Shit, the old series had the Time Lords called in by a house of cards and some meditation. They shot for a powerful effect, and the terrible CG and poor writing of those scenes killed it. Unnecessary and bad, and people say 'oh they'll power them up later'? Pfft.

As you say, it'd take as little as a line or a simple rework of the 'introduction' to make the problems go away. Instead we got nigh content-free, pace-ruining muddled scenes on a set from Miami Vice and CG from Master of Orion.

[Flagg]

Or even - call me nuts - NOT MAKE IT A SERIES OF SCENES THAT DO NOTHING. The SP were shoehorned in as part of RTD's glorious plan - even if they're required in the next episode, there is no reason why the only way to do it was a) huge budget extranaganza or b) completely ballsed up. Shit, the old series had the Time Lords called in by a house of cards and some meditation. They shot for a powerful effect, and the terrible CG and poor writing of those scenes killed it. Unnecessary and bad, and people say 'oh they'll power them up later'? Pfft.

As you say, it'd take as little as a line or a simple rework of the 'introduction' to make the problems go away. Instead we got nigh content-free, pace-ruining muddled scenes on a set from Miami Vice and CG from Master of Orion.

Exactly. It would have been far more effective and believable if he had just... Called them.

[Straha]

You may not be aware of this, but some people watch TV for pure entertainment. Doctor Who has not been and has never claimed to be Citizen Kane. It is a soft sci-fi entertainment show. And it's great fun. Occasionally it comes up with a stunning piece of dramatic television (Blink, Human Nature, Dalek) but these will always be the exception rather than the rule.

A lot of you remind me of pretentious music fans, who complain about the lack of depth in pop music. Totally missing the point.

The difference is that people who listen to Avril Lavigne don't claim it's the equal of, say, Philip Glass or, to aim much lower, the Flaming Lips, Tuxedomoon, or -fill-in-blank-'profound'-musical-group-or-musician-of-your-choice. But by the voting you'd guess that Stolen Earth was equal, or perhaps better, than quite a few past Who episodes that were considered quite excellent. And that's what the people who vote that this was 5/5 are essentially saying.

It may annoy the hell out of me, but I'm not going to say you can't like shit like this for an hour's worth of entertainment. That's your perogative, and much as I would like to see this shit expunged from television I know that and will respect that. But for someone to give off the idea that this is equal to Family of Blood, Midnight, Dalek, etc. etc. etc. is preposterous and I will give it no respect.

Besides, it's not as if any of the decades-old Who episodes (from the brief snippets I've seen) look particularly high budget. And they at least tried to make things as best they could (like, how about not having the TARDIS appear in front of a damn brick wall). Honestly, how much money could they possibly have lost from making the SP HQ bigger, or have a few ships buzzing around the background, or guys in rubber alien costumes walking around the back, or add a line like "Sorry this isn't quite what you expected, but that's what you get when you come to a measely outpost in such a backwater quadrant, and not the main base."

Here's a simple way to make not only the SP HQ seem huge but to give a true sense of grandiosity to them: Doctor shows up in a "docking bay which can look like crap and is greeted by armed guards. He demands that they take him, say, "Chancellor Daffat." We cut to a ornate office with a computer terminal and a middle aged man behind a desk who, it is revealed, is an old friend of the Doctor. We get exposition to the effect that 21 planets have gone missing and that this is nothing new. The Doctor then demands why the Shadow Proclamation hasn't done anything and the Chancellor says that 21 planets is nothing, a drop in the bucket for all the galaxies they have to police and watch for and, in the grand scheme of things, it means nothing. He then says that the Shadow Proclamation will not do anything for these planets, but as a kindness to the Doctor and as thanks for what he has done for them in the past he will help the Doctor track down Earth with all the resources he can, but the SP wont do anything to help him beyond that.

A cheap cost effective way not only to use the Shadow Proclamation in actual footage but to give them a sense of true power while showing very little at all.

[Straha]

Ghetto edit: Would some kindly passing mod fix my quote tags in the first half of my post please?

[Patrick Degan]

The Twilight Zone did convey the impression of such vast spaces very effectively on a thin budget when needed —"A Nice Place To Visit" and "The Obsolete Man" being two examples that spring immediately to mind.

[ThatGuyFromThatPlace]

ow the Dalek shot that hit the doctor didn't do the negative effect over his whole body, just about half of it? I thought he might only need a partial regeneration from it, but everybody was all 'oh-noing' and then he went a started what looks like a full regeneration.

There's no such thing as partial regeneration, that we've seen.

The Doctor grew his hand back in The Christmas Invasion (or afterwards or w/e).

[General Zod]

The Doctor grew his hand back in The Christmas Invasion (or afterwards or w/e).

That wasn't really a partial regeneration though. He was still in the middle of his full regeneration cycle and had energy to spare to heal it back.