DW: Waters of Mars

[Captain Seafort]

Starts in half an hour.

[Crazedwraith]

I was just about to start this thread. No poll? Not well verse enough in Doctor Who quotes to do a NL style poll?

[Lost Soal]

And its on

[Bounty]

Spoiler

The Ice Warriors! Nice continuity nod there.

[Lost Soal]

John Simm's Master, once again

[Manus Celer Dei]

Was that the cloister bell at the end? GONG!

[Bounty]

Well that was disturbing. Two suicides, the Doctor going mad, and the Cloister Bell - let's hope this time the build-up doesn't deflate in the next episode.

[Crazedwraith]

Well that was all right. It seemed long on set up and the climax was rushed. The solution was similar to what i was expecting; he TARDISes everyone off. Except I was expecting him to just not teleport them back to Earth; take them anywhere else, anytime and people never hear of them again and all the news will be the same as if They actually died.

Still isn't their an evil future version of The Doctor? The Valeyard? Tennat was getting pretty dark and close to that at the end.

The End Of Time Preview looked naff to me. Donna and the Master return. Bleh.

[Enigma]

Does anyone know when it'll broadcast over here in the U.S.?

[Bedlam]

My thoughts: -
Spoiler

I liked the look of the base itself, it seemed realistic to my Amatour eyes.

Gadget, I didn't like the look of the little robot. They noted in universe that it was rather silly really. I dont know why they had to put sparking effects on it, what was that supposed to mean?

The 'wet' monsters, not a bad effect not as scary as some of the previous ones but still rather striking and strange looking at times.

The Dalek section seemed a bit unnessicery to me but I suppose it provided the motivation for the commander.

I liked the Ice Warriors reference I was sort of hoping they would make a physical appearance but I guess it was not to be.

My favorite part was the doctor walking away from the base with the cuts back to show the crew being taken over one at a time. To a wonderful ending would be the doctor to keep walking and the commander to blow the base at the end and then have the doctor just collapsing under the weight of what he had to do and then cut away to the first interstellar flight.

Yes a very dark ending and yep it looks like the master for the next story I wonder if he survived under his own power or if the Doctors messing with the web of time has somehow summoned him back. And a two brained Ood apparently.

As stated above, yes it would have made sense to take them all to another planet or the far future or something which would have preserved the web of time.

Not a spectacular episode but not a terrible one I'd give it 7.5 / 10.

Edited to try and fix spoiler tags

[Captain Seafort]

Pretty good one that - especially given that it was made pretty clear early on that the Flood were only a backdrop to the real story. As for the end, it was a bit rushed, but it also demonstrated how easy things are for the Doctor if he's got the Tardis on hand - load everyone on, hop back to Earth, job done. That, along with his attitude to "lesser beings" also hammered home the point (in a similar way to the ending of "Family of Blood") who (or what) he is and what he's capable of when he throws the rulebook out the window.

No poll? Not well verse enough in Doctor Who quotes to do a NL style poll?

Heh, I'd rather leave polls to the experts, especially when the experts in question have got a magic button to do so.

[Glimmervoid]

I liked it for the most part. I liked that the Doctor went against the Time Lock (a concept I was never very fond of) and I thought the monsters were genially unnerving. Also I thought ‘Time Lord Victorious’ sounded incredibly cool, it has an almost Latin flair to it.

The robots were what I liked the least. The feedback when the Doctor took over the first one was, quite frankly, stupid. The jet boosters, the flaming tire tracks and the Tardis retrieval were also parts I disliked.

[Ford Prefect]

Still isn't their an evil future version of The Doctor? The Valeyard?

From between the Doctor's twelfth and thirteenth incarnations, if I recall Trial of a Time Lord correctly.

[NecronLord]

Well that was disturbing. Two suicides, the Doctor going mad, and the Cloister Bell - let's hope this time the build-up doesn't deflate in the next episode.

I don't think he went mad. I think he just went proud. "I am not just 'the last Time Lord' I am The Time Lord Victorious."

Personally, I'd have liked to see more of that before he got humbled, instead of it happening straight away.

[NecronLord]

No poll? Not well verse enough in Doctor Who quotes to do a NL style poll?

Heh, I'd rather leave polls to the experts, especially when the experts in question have got a magic button to do so.

Very well, done. Unfortunately, I have less transcripts on hand for Dr Who, so it's harder to rummage up quotes, or I'd have used different ones from 'Pyramids of Mars' and such, hence why three out of five are from the regenerated series.

[Lord Woodlouse]

l liked the episode, but felt the transformation of the Doctor a little sudden. l too would have liked to have seen this darker side to the Doctor explored a little more.

Still very interested to see where the final two parter is going to take us. l kinda want to see the Master on the Doctor's side, somehow.

[TC Pilot]

Hard to say what I thought of the episode. It was good, and comments like the "World State" and the Phillippines building a rocket to Mars are always nice. I was watching a poor-quality version of the episode, so the Doctor's face looked like a skull as he walked away from the base, which oddly enough I think worked better for it. Good to see them maintain some continuity between episodes, though you have to wonder how dense Van Stanton has to be in "Dalek" now.

The robot could have used some work. When I first saw it, the sparking made me think it was damaged/robot-gone-berzerk. I think I would have preferred it if the Doctor actually ended up killing them all to maintain the timeline, or for his "conversion" to have lasted longer than a couple seconds and carried over into the next episode.

[Parallax]

Still isn't their an evil future version of The Doctor? The Valeyard?

From between the Doctor's twelfth and thirteenth incarnations, if I recall Trial of a Time Lord correctly.

That is correct.
Though the novels had it so the 7th Doctor essentially killed the 6th Doctor to stop the Valeyard ever coming about.

[Ford Prefect]

"World State"

Do they, by chance, mention a 'Salamander'?

[Bedlam]

"World State"

Do they, by chance, mention a 'Salamander'?

No they didn't but wouldn't it have been great to have had a little picture of Patrick Troughton around the set someone with our illustrious leader written under it or something?

[dragon]

Not bad ending was definitely to rushed though, it's a shame so many people thought that she was going to be his companion for the next season but with her committing suicide kind of nips that in the bud.

[dragon]

I also love how when they're running down the hall it's like they're running in earth normal gravity. But then maybe they artificial gravity by then but that would defeat the purpose of the experiment.

Also we know know it's possible to change fixed points in time without to much difficulty.

Question though on the trailer for the next one did the master say something about the darkness being the end of time?

[NecronLord]

I also love how when they're running down the hall it's like they're running in earth normal gravity. But then maybe they artificial gravity by then but that would defeat the purpose of the experiment.

Mars Surface gravity is 0.4 G. With that, an upper end average mass male would weigh about as much as a younger end teenager on Earth. You won't be bouncing up and down like it's the Moon.

Question though on the trailer for the next one did the master say something about the darkness being the end of time?

I forget who, but yes. That is of course, the episode title, anyway.

[dragon]

I also love how when they're running down the hall it's like they're running in earth normal gravity. But then maybe they artificial gravity by then but that would defeat the purpose of the experiment.

Mars Surface gravity is 0.4 G. With that, an upper end average mass male would weigh about as much as a younger end teenager on Earth. You won't be bouncing up and down like it's the Moon.

Question though on the trailer for the next one did the master say something about the darkness being the end of time?

I forget who, but yes. That is of course, the episode title, anyway.

Nah but the running style would look a bit different,

2. A harder question. Running speed is a complex combination of muscle power
and gravity and timing. Running in low gravity would take some training
(like the old Skylab astronauts had to train to jog in zero-g back in the
1970's), and over time people's muscles might get less powerful on Mars
because you don't need to be as strong to lift and move things (including
our bodies) in the lower gravity. With training, because of the lower
gravity someone might be able to beat the Earth 100 m record by making
longer, lower strides. But it would probably look nothing like a 100 m dash
event on Earth! Atmospheric drag is probably not a concern because the event
would have to occur inside a habitat of some kind with an Earth-like
atmosphere; I doubt a runner in a space suit could even come close because
of all the cumbersome breathing and heating hardware you have to wear.

link

While the lady muscles had a chance to adapt the Doctors would still be fully used to the which ever gravity the Tardis is set to.

A little bit more on how different it would look.

The data collected using the simulator show that mean stride frequencies at running speeds at lunar and Martian gravity levels are 12 percent less than those at Earth gravity. The data also show that foot/ground reaction forces at lunar and Martian gravity are, respectively, 62 percent and 51 percent less than those on Earth

link

So it would look like there running slower but they still would be covering a large amount of ground.

[Shroom Man 777]

Hard to say what I thought of the episode. It was good, and comments like the "World State" and the Phillippines building a rocket to Mars are always nice.

What? Please expound, did I just hear you say that Doctor Who had Filipinos build Mars Rockets?!