Doctor Who S5e13 "The Big Bang" [Spoilers]

[DaveJB]

According to rumour (and some fact, natch), all of the RTD-era crewmembers that were still on the show were either ditched completely at the end of the last season, or shuffled onto The Sarah-Jane Adventures. It may well be that S5 was seen as a kind of transitional season, and S6 is when Moffat Who really kicks into gear.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Most of the production staff are people Moffat uses for other projects, and early official Beeb documents list this past season as one, not thirty-one or five (although later ones do). It could be seen as a new era in ways.

[NecronLord]

DW Magazine had Moffat talking about the season naming, he generally says that it was "Season one for marketing" but considers all of those names valid. Thirty One is obviously the least confusing though.

[Big Orange]

It's hilarious how many people are coming out saying this will be the death blow to the series, when this finale just gone had an equal share (and during a World Cup, no less) compared to previous ones, and how season four was somehow not seen as blowing chunks.

As messy as "The Stolen Earth"-"Journey's End" was, it was a huge hit, with the latter epsisode having 10 million viewers, while "The Big Bang" had roughly 5 million views, though "The Parting of the Ways" had just over 6 million viewers, which demonstrates that Matt Smith's opening season was still a hit. And the reviewer is a bit dimb in accusing Steven Moffat of not having villains; sure his Angels and Nanogene Zombies are very abstract foes, however the reviewer missed out on the allusions to an unseen villain that was behind the events of Season Five.

Sure, there were some doozies, but overall I find the fresh new Doctor and companion selection and general feeling far better than the last two seasons.

Hmmm, Amy Pond and Rory were alright, they were slightly better than later Rose Tyler and Martha Jones, but I honestly feel Wilfred is the best NuWho companion to date and Pond's a bit bland in relation to Noble (though far, far, faaaar easier on the eyes). And while the visual look is glossier and the set/location lighting is more movie quality, some of the directing was decidedly staid and less dynamic in relation to the last few years (the crews were slowly getting used to their new cameras). I do not really think the budget cuts had a noticeable impact, although some of the CGI was more hit 'n miss (supposedly The Mill was less involved).

And as for production crew updates, Sanne Wohlenberg is going to be the new producer after Beth Willis got abrubtly dismissed (some skulduggery methinks) and Barbara Kidd (who did costumes for the original show).

[Captain Seafort]

Without going into specifics, I found that this season had some real stinkers, and I can't (aside maybe from the finale) think of anything as stand out awesome as Doctor Dances/Blink/Silence in the Library/Satan Pit etc.

I disagree with that - I'd count Amy's Choice among the best Who ever, along with those you mentioned and Utopia.

On the other hand, aside from going a little beyond my limited taste for British jingoism, it didn't have any diabolical clunkers either.

Not even Cold Blood?

[Admiral Valdemar]

"The Hungry Earth" was a fairly suitable set-up, but the second part was terrible. The only thing to take away from that episode was the last five minutes regarding the crack in the Silurian city. Otherwise, bleh.

[Crossroads Inc.]

Actually I quite liked much of The second part right up until the final five minutes. It was the first part that had me rolling my eyes every five minutes.

The only part of the second part I really couldn't stand was the Doctor so casually giving Amy and the other chick the roles of "Speaking for All Humanity" when in truth the Doctor has done such negotiations for earth before in the past, and with much better finesse.

[Big Orange]

I second Crossroad Inc. that the last ten minutes or so of "Cold Blood" made up for the preceeding 80 minutes that was a very mixed bag indeed: the plus points was the 1970s feel to everything and the general appearance of the Silurian's underground city, with the Doctor also not setting about to commit genocide (like he did with the Racnoss). The guest stars were a mixed bag as well - Meera Sya was simply awful (worse than James Corden), while Robert Pugh was a bit wasted, the female Silurians soldiers were interesting but their fierce fanaticism and wanton lust for violence was pretty OTT. I genuinely liked the ambigious, contradictory Silurian scientist and Silurian elder.

I get the impression the show was going through a big transition, things will not settle down properly until this year's Christmas Special, with severe time constraints and Moffat still learning the ropes as a show runner putting a dampener on things: "The Beast Below" and "Victory of Daleks" were obviously hamstrung by their running times.

[Hillary]

I second Crossroad Inc. that the last ten minutes or so of "Cold Blood" made up for the preceeding 80 minutes that was a very mixed bag indeed.

I thought Crossroads was saying that the END of Cold Bood was the bit he didn't like.

Actually I quite liked much of The second part right up until the final five minutes.

Can't say I enjoyed any of it to be honest. One of Amy's worst acting performances I thought, the dialogue for the negotiations was appalling and the elevation of the Silurian doctor from "nutter performing autopies on live people" to "progressive-thinking hero" was bizarre. As was the "Ah, the half dozen humans we met don't like us. OK, we'll go back to sleep for 1000 years then" resolution. Tack on the appallingly handled death of Rory, which should have been so, so powerful but was just horrible and you have the ingredients for a really naff show, putting it mildly.

[Big Orange]

I second Crossroad Inc. that the last ten minutes or so of "Cold Blood" made up for the preceeding 80 minutes that was a very mixed bag indeed.

I thought Crossroads was saying that the END of Cold Bood was the bit he didn't like.

Actually I quite liked much of The second part right up until the final five minutes.

Oops, sorry, in that case I've got an opposite opinion of the last ten minutes to Crossroad and that sometimes makes me wonder if I'm watching the same show as some people here. Judging by the mixed reactions to "The Hungary Earth"-"Cold Blood" Chris Chibnall is pretty much the Kenneth Biller of NuWho, with most of his output ranging from fairly average ("42") to complete shit ("Cyberwoman"). The Silurian episodes were a passable romp, I didn't dislike them quite as much as the genuinely dreadful "Cyberwoman" and "Countrycide" in Torchwood's ropey opening season overseen by Chibnall, but in comparative terms they were the weakest set of episodes of the overall pretty even, sometimes fresh feeling Season Five.

I felt Rory's death was good on paper, but mixed in execution; him getting shot by a raygun was perhaps unintentionally funny, but however that said I was genuinely spooked by seeing Rory's corpse getting systematically swallowed up by a Crack (a Crack ominously containing a piece of the TARDIS) and then afterwards Amy seeing her future self on her own (with future Rory missing). Karen Gillan seems a bit "off", she's feisty but almost seems like a product with her oval, doll-faced visage, though it's just the first season and with her finally being married her Amy character could branch off into another direction. Also I wonder if we could see Annette Crosbie again and her character gets developed in a similar way to Bernard Cribbin's Wilfred?

Here's an interesting review on "The Pandorica Opens"-"The Big Bang" by a YouTube reviewer, he's not quite Chuck, but it's an informative, fair review:

[Patrick Degan]

Just got finished watching this one on BBC America. Sure, the time travel mechanics are utterly goofy and the whole thing ultimately turns on Believing in Tinkerbelle, but Matt Smith's kinetic weirdness helps pull the thing through. He is turning out to be a different and interesting incarnation of the Doctor. BTW, I really hope he keeps the tux. Looks good on him.

And we get a season finale that did NOT have shit like Reality Bombs, Ostrahagen Keys, Immortality Gates, Final Sanctions, Jesus Doctor or the Master Race. Dumping the huge warfleet of Allied Enemies of the Doctor, Inc. to make the story focussed on Earth and the last people who can help restore everything as it was in the second part was why this story succeeded for me where RTD's last three season finales failed miserably. At least I wasn't rolling my eyes back in my sockets the way I was with "The End Of Time" or "Stolen Earth/Journey's End".

[Temujin]

Saw it yesterday. As others have said, despite the time wackiness, it was pleasantly surprising.

I really like the way Moffat has handled Amy and Rory. As companions they both already seem a lot more useful than all of the others, Capt Jack being the obvious exception.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Just got finished watching this one on BBC America. Sure, the time travel mechanics are utterly goofy and the whole thing ultimately turns on Believing in Tinkerbelle, but Matt Smith's kinetic weirdness helps pull the thing through. He is turning out to be a different and interesting incarnation of the Doctor. BTW, I really hope he keeps the tux. Looks good on him.

And we get a season finale that did NOT have shit like Reality Bombs, Ostrahagen Keys, Immortality Gates, Final Sanctions, Jesus Doctor or the Master Race. Dumping the huge warfleet of Allied Enemies of the Doctor, Inc. to make the story focussed on Earth and the last people who can help restore everything as it was in the second part was why this story succeeded for me where RTD's last three season finales failed miserably. At least I wasn't rolling my eyes back in my sockets the way I was with "The End Of Time" or "Stolen Earth/Journey's End".

I think Moffat has pretty much made a point of avoiding DEM finales that resort to just finding a bigger bad to jam in to a story that actually goes nowhere. "Doomsday" was the last decent RTD finale that delivered, after that he set-up and couldn't knock it down. Poor form, which is not the case here given "The Big Bang" was thoroughly enjoyable and the only iffy part of the final two-parter was the first twenty minutes or so. After that, it's pure awesome.

[Big Orange]

I really like the way Moffat has handled Amy and Rory. As companions they both already seem a lot more useful than all of the others, Capt Jack being the obvious exception.

Hmmmm, how? In "Turn Left" alone the repercussions of Donna Noble not snapping the Doctor out his kill frenzy were catastrophic. Of course Rory as an Auton showed his mettle by dragging an entomed Amy around for two millennia straight but until then he seemed like a bland retread of Mickey and Amy sometimes came across as a clumsy giraffe. I liked how River Song developed in this season though and she's pretty much Moffat's Capt. Jack.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Captain Jack was Moffat's Captain Jack. He created the character.

[Big Orange]

Um, no, Captain Jack was ultimately incepted by RTD and he also created the very basic outline to "The Empty Child"-"The Doctor Dances" (with the entire thing brought into sharp focus by Steven Moffat of course).

[Stark]

Could you be any more anal? I think what Vald says is substantially correct and you don't need to say hilarious shit like 'sharp focus'.

[Temujin]

I really like the way Moffat has handled Amy and Rory. As companions they both already seem a lot more useful than all of the others, Capt Jack being the obvious exception.

Hmmmm, how? In "Turn Left" alone the repercussions of Donna Noble not snapping the Doctor out his kill frenzy were catastrophic. Of course Rory as an Auton showed his mettle by dragging an entomed Amy around for two millennia straight but until then he seemed like a bland retread of Mickey and Amy sometimes came across as a clumsy giraffe. I liked how River Song developed in this season though and she's pretty much Moffat's Capt. Jack.

Useful more in a general sense than a specific one.

And I actually think Rory is an improvement over Mickey. I could only stand Rose and Mickey in Season 1.

[Lord Woodlouse]

Could you be any more anal? I think what Vald says is substantially correct and you don't need to say hilarious shit like 'sharp focus'.

His phrasing might be daft but he's pretty much right. Moffat introduced Captain Jack but he certainly didn't create the character.

[Big Orange]

Useful more in a general sense than a specific one.

And I actually think Rory is an improvement over Mickey. I could only stand Rose and Mickey in Season 1.

I would agree that Mickey was a bit shite in early part of S1, but got much better by the end of S2, while Rose more or less went in the opposite direction. Although it makes a change that we've got a proper young male companion after the female dominated companions of the RTD era.

Matt Smith and Moffat was a necessary shot in the arm for keeping NuWho fresh, but the only RTD finale that I deem genuinely "bad" as such was "The Stolen Earth"-"Journey's End" and that was largely down to the Daleks being used as primary antagonists for a 3rd time. In "Last of Time Lords" the Jesus Doctor actually made a bit more sense than the Doctor coming back after Amy made a wish, since there was the Archangel Network that was tapped into a few billion downtrodden brains given a spark of hope by Martha's tales about the Doctor, as naff as it was.

And with "The End of Time" I didn't really mind antagonistic Time Lords (or more accurately the evil Lord President Rassilon) and the Immortality Gate, despite the pretentious name, wasn't any worse as a plot McGuffin than the Pandorica, it was really just a large replicator and transmatt unit that could carry out medical duties on a planetary scale. What I disliked most about the "The End of Time" was the rather flat secondary bad guy played by David Harewood, making you wonder where he got his massive mansion and personal army from.

Either way Russell T. Davies is laughing to the bank and can buy half of Wales.

And the revitalising of the show has not gone down well with everybody:

Russell T Davies "regenerated" Doctor Who in 2005 and made the show a hit once again with The Doctor being played by Christopher Eccleston before the Time Lord changed into David Tennant. The only thing about the RTD years that was milked to death was Rose, Rose this, Rose that... Last years specials didn't live up to the hype but were a lot better than Steven Moffat's vision of the show.

Moffat has managed to turn Doctor Who into a boring joke. He changed the look of the Daleks and made them look like plastic toys, tried to make out that the sound of the TARDIS was the Doctor flying it with the brakes on, funny the Master's TARDIS also made the same noise.

Matt Smith hasn't lived upto the hype and to be honest seems to be out of his depth. Amy Pond is too OTT and is more like a bad tempered version of Rose complete with a clueless boyfriend/husband. The BBC should replace Moffat and his team before they manage to to destroy the show. Non of the episodes made me want to watch to the end, even the bad episodes from the Peter Davison run were more entertaining. The Beeb should tempt RTD back to undo the damage. My children have watched every episode since 2005 but gave up after episode six of this years run.

This years series has been a complete flop from beginning to end, 13 episodes of boredom, and as for episodes 12 & 13 my children could have come up with a better plot, a thing that they didn't have.

I couldn't make my mind up about the series. Some of it was great (like Vincent and the Doctor) some of it was the worst ever. When I say 'worst' i include Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy. Matt Smith does well but unfortunately the writing and production standards have made him look an amateur Doctor. No better to the fan productions that can be seen on You Tube.

I was so looking forward to seeing this series but feel we've all been let down.

There needs to be better writing and an older cast. I can see history repeating itself if improvements are not made. I for one don't want to see a long gap before Dr Who hits the screen again.

My wife and I have tried to get into the new series but we have watched each episode with less and less interest. It's difficult to say what element of the new series we dislike the most - Matt Smith's woeful Doctor, the irritating Amy Pond (sure she's got great legs but there's nothing else attractive about the character whatsoever) or the promise of great Moffatt stories that have not materialised and which we expected in view of the great stories Moffatt wrote for Tennant's doctor. Sadly, there is not one aspect of the new series that reaches the level of quality that we enjoyed with the previous series produced by RTD.

Watching the new series has been hardwork and unenjoyable and we are left with the feeling that the programme has been taken away from us.

We shall watch the new Doctor until the end of this series but we shall not be tuning in for the next series if it is going to be more of the same. This view is shared with every other adult viewer we have met when the subject is mentioned.

Link

[Crossroads Inc.]

Sadly, there is not one aspect of the new series that reaches the level of quality that we enjoyed with the previous series produced by RTD.

We shall watch the new Doctor until the end of this series but we shall not be tuning in for the next series if it is going to be more of the same. This view is shared with every other adult viewer we have met when the subject is mentioned.

Hur.. Geh..Fla.. (Bllaarrrgggg)

Who the flarg is THIS nutter? 13 epasodes of Bordom with no redeeming qualities? Is this just some mindles RTD fanboy? Don't tell me others in the UK actually AGREE with the insian view that the new season was WORSE then the tripe of RTD???

[Darksider]

I do agree that the new Daleks look silly, although that's more the color-coding than the actual design itself. I can't stop thinking of them as the Skaro Power Rangers.

[Big Orange]

Hur.. Geh..Fla.. (Bllaarrrgggg)

Who the flarg is THIS nutter? 13 epasodes of Bordom with no redeeming qualities? Is this just some mindles RTD fanboy? Don't tell me others in the UK actually AGREE with the insian view that the new season was WORSE then the tripe of RTD???

Under RTD and Gardener NuWho has been the most popular and mainstream sci-fi (that's a rarity) show since Star Trek: The Next Generation, but we've had RTD for a long time and Doctor Who is a show known for routinely cleaning house to keep things fresh - it died in popularity back in the late 80s partially because Jonathan Nathan Turner stayed on for too long ala Rick Berman - which is why I'm taken aback by most of the negative comments in that RT blog. Although I partially agree that Steven Moffat has not been completely amazing as a show-runner (as opposed to a script writer) and a few production problems/transitions hamstrung S5, but I wholly disagree that Matt Smith is too young (especially after that scene where he's wounded and strapped into the Pandorica).

[Hillary]

Sadly, there is not one aspect of the new series that reaches the level of quality that we enjoyed with the previous series produced by RTD.

We shall watch the new Doctor until the end of this series but we shall not be tuning in for the next series if it is going to be more of the same. This view is shared with every other adult viewer we have met when the subject is mentioned.

Hur.. Geh..Fla.. (Bllaarrrgggg)

Who the flarg is THIS nutter? 13 epasodes of Bordom with no redeeming qualities? Is this just some mindles RTD fanboy? Don't tell me others in the UK actually AGREE with the insian view that the new season was WORSE then the tripe of RTD???

It's the sort of stuff I'd expect to see on the BBC's "Have Your Say" page. To be honest, Orange, you can find postings on the net to support pretty much any point of view, regardless how bizarre.

EDIT - I see they're from the Radio Times blog - so much the same thing.