1195 replies to this topic

[cutecouple]

Got the go ahead from TWOP_Bayliss (thanks, Jacob), to do this. This is the Doctor Who Season 4 Unspoiled Thread at the UK pace, for those watching the show on the UK release schedule starting with the 16 November 2007 Children In Need Special "Time Crash".

I chose a quote that wouldn't spoil anything. The quote is from Season 2 Episode 13 "Doomsday":

CYBERMAN
You are proof.

THE DOCTOR
Of what?

CYBERMAN
That emotions destroy you.

THE DOCTOR
Yeah, I am. (glances to the side) Mind you, I quite like hope. Hope's a good emotion. And here it comes.

The Cyberman follows his gaze. A group of people dressed in black suits, wearing helmets and carrying guns appear out of thin air. One of them shouts to the others and they shoot at a row of Cybermen, immediately destroying them. The Doctor rolls out of the way and crouches in a corner of Yvonne's office as the last Cyberman has his head blown off. The man responsible speaks to the Doctor in a familiar voice.

Anyway, I had a chance to see the Children in Need Special, and it was quite fun. Nice to see Five again; cute that he knows LINDA too. I felt a bit of the School Reunion vibe and the Doctors were very much themselves.

Edited by TWoP Bayliss, Aug 1, 2008 @ 7:30 PM.

[aliengrace]

Awww, Time Crash was cute and clever. Completely silly and frenetic, but that is a fine fine quality that endears me to the show. Thanks Moffat and everyone!

Should we fans include Ten's joke about the Master's beard into canon with the reference to the Master being queer? *grin*

[Flaregun]

(Moved from the Media thread now that a proper home for this post exists)

Damm, sometimes I don't believe my luck. I swear to God, I haven't been in the Doctor Who forums in months, since the US pace Torchwood thread was banished to Sci-Fi & Adventure show forums, pretty much. Today, I decide on a whim to check back here, just for the hell of it, to make sure there's nothing really huge going on in Whoville I need to know about before the Christmas Special. So I check the media thread, and what do I find? that *this very day* a new Children In Need special aired in the UK which I *swear* I'd not heard anything about before, it's existence was completely unknown to me, but I just happen to check in here just in time to find a brand-spanking-new link to it on YouTube. Frickin' AWESOME!!!

I don't know about all you who have been waiting for this & building up your expectations, but I loved it. Offhand, I can only remember ever seeing two Five stories (The Five Doctors and the one with King John), and I only saw them within the last year, and yet somehow I got a huge kick out of seeing PD interacting with DT, and was getting strangely nostalgic for something that wasn't even really a part of my past. The whole thing was just one huge ball of wibbly-wobbly meta, but hey, this is meta done right. In addition to "You're a fan!" and the bit about the master's new "beard", I also loved "What have you done to the TARDIS, you've changed the desktop theme, haven't you? What's this one, Coral? And take a listen to the incidental music that plays during the piece; as I said, I'm no expert on Five's era, but is that just a bit of cheesy 80's synth I hear? Could some of the other odd-sounding incidental music be references back to the music of the show back then?

One thing I did think they kinda missed out on: when we saw Martha leave at the beginning, I was sort of thinking it was the *first* time she left, before she came back & told the story of her friend with the crush leading into the other reason she was leaving. I kind of wish that was where they placed this story, that in those few brief seconds before she turns around & goes back inside, the Doctor flies off and has this whole little mini-adventure, then comes back just in time to pick up the conversation with Martha right where he left off. I think it would have been a lot more seamless than the transition into the "Titanic" bursting through, which doesn't quite match up perfectly

[MarkC99]

Moved from the other thread:

Thank you so much for the Youtube! Sometimes I almost forget what huge fans of the old series David Tennant, RTD, etc. are. The last time I was so overwhelmed by their giddy love for old school Who was School Reunion. I was only expecting some laughs from this meeting, so when Ten started telling Five how important he was to the history of the Doctor and that he was Ten's Doctor, I found myself almost tearing up. Peter Davison and Colin Baker never received any of the respect they deserved, and this little meeting was obviously a way to finally, belatedly show Davison some respect.

"You're my Doctor." Every time I watch that part, I choke up. Silly, but I do.

[Ransom]

Loved the little special but wouldn't be a fan if I didn't point out that, given what Ten told Five, this now means that all through the last 3 series the Doctor always knew the Master would show up again, and that therefore he wasn't the last Time Lord. All that angst was faked!

[Doctor Quist]

Just going to repeat what I siad, I thought it was a lovely little scene, brimming over with fanlove and good jokes. Plus I got a little misty eyed when Ten said Five was his Doctor.

It's doubly sad because Five started out such a carefree Doctor but at the end was knee deep in bodies and had his companions leave in painful ways so when Ten delivered his little speech all I could think of was Nyssa, Tegan, Adrci and Turlough's leaving scenes and the body counts of his later stories. But somehow fitting that a Time War scarred Doctor like Ten would reach back and try and channel some of the carefreeness of Fives attitude. Five was the most human Doctor of the Classic series by a long way, and when Ten isn't doing his Lonely God bit I can see flashes of Five all over the place in his portrayal now. Right down to the much closer than normal relationships with his companions.

Ah... so much food for though in one tiny little scene. :D

[Goldrush Girl]

I laughed for many minutes after this exchange about the Master:

5: Does he still have that rubbish beard?
10: No. No beard this time. Well, a wife.

Thank God also that I tuned into Children In Need just in time, and didn't have to watch any more of it.

[Zippix]

Hee. That was so awesome.

I had to rewind and watch about three times before I felt like I'd got it all, because the pace was just dizzying.

At first I was a bit disappointed they were doing this as a CiN special, because it makes it less likely we get an episode with another Doctor any time soon. But then I watched some of the multi-Doctor episodes, and maybe keeping it to a sketch is a good thing after all.

It was a clearly a case, at the end, that the character faded and the actor/writer spoke instead. Which was fine. At least, I was grinning like an idiot the whole time.

I can't really claim Five to have been "my" Doctor, as I was not quite three when he left, but I'm convinced I have this early, distant memory (possibly my earliest?) of seeing Five stepping out of the TARDIS on our crummy old TV.

I was only expecting some laughs from this meeting, so when Ten started telling Five how important he was to the history of the Doctor and that he was Ten's Doctor, I found myself almost tearing up.

I might be in a minority here, but I've always found Ten quite similar to Five, in a number of ways. If Ten only gets to meet one of his past selves, I'm glad it was Five.

I don't know about all you who have been waiting for this & building up your expectations, but I loved it.

I loved it, too. So much it took a good few hours for the dust to settle and to think "now what am I going to look forward to?"

The whole thing was just one huge ball of wibbly-wobbly meta, but hey, this is meta done right.

I thought that, too. Perhaps because it was in a "sketch" rather than an episode, it wasn't done to death, either.

In addition to "You're a fan!"

That was brilliant. Not original, but perfect in context, and delivered superbly.

And, carried on from the S4 Spec thread:

The celery is actually cool in another way -- it's illusory celery. Kind of. Five actually picks it up in a town called Castrovalva shortly after his regeneration but it turns out that Castrovalva doesn't exist except as a physical expression of the Master's will. But when Five leaves the celery continues to exist. Later, he swaps it with a stick of celery he finds on a sailing ship. But that ship turns out to be a vessel of the Eternals (referenced in a few new series episodes) and the ship and everything aboard it is merely a translation of a higher-dimensional concept that mortals from within the universe can't comprehend. Yet, again, when Five leaves the celery continues to exist.

Doctor Who - the show that brought you existential celery. – Nuallain

D'you know, I watched Castrovalva for the first time a few weeks ago, and, of course, it's all an illusion. But I never twigged that the celery shouldn't have continued to exist. Thanks for pointing that out! The whole exchange with the celery here was brilliant.

"Does he still have that beard?"
"No beard this time...oh well a wife"

Did no one else spot that? - BristolBoy

Oh, yes. I'm sad, but that was probably my favourite part. I did a double take when I heard it.

to see it made canon :D

My thoughts exactly, although I'm not sure the phone call didn't do that ...

Loved the little special but wouldn't be a fan if I didn't point out that, given what Ten told Five, this now means that all through the last 3 series the Doctor always knew the Master would show up again, and that therefore he wasn't the last Time Lord. All that angst was faked!

Oh, yeah. Hadn't thought of that. I suppose you could fanwank something about Five forgetting all or part of it afterwards.

[Doctor Quist]

Five was MY Doctor. I became a fan when Four regenerated into Five, as a seven year old who started to enjoy this weird Sci-Fi show it blew my mind to see the main character die then change into someone new. So, I'm so pleased Five was able to crop up in the new series. The 1980's Who era still gets bashed SO much online still due to blind hate for everything JNT did. I'm doing the happy validation dance for MY Doctor as we speak!

Now lets have Eight return and show us how he regenerated!

[jtr1812]

I posted this link in the Spoilers&Specualtion Thread but I though I should re-post it hear:

http://www.youtube.c...h?v=tCX96utSGFQ

It the mini confidential. Lots of fanboys squeeing!!

[Mozo Zierski]

Re: fanwanking about Ten mentioning the Master to Five -

I always imagined the Time War as this huge event that spanned time and space. When Five - now Eight/Nine - got through it, he might have assumed time lines could have been slightly confused. After an event that huge and traumatic, he might have assumed the timeline where the Master was still around was destroyed - remember, he couldn't sense the Master's presence anywhere, I doubt it would have occurred to him he could be hiding with a YANA watch. Also, Ten was so damn cheery, I don't think Nine could imagine being that cheery and goofy after the Time War (until after some rehab time with Saint Rose)

I personally love the mention, not just because of the beard comment, but because it also adds more to Ten's profoundly scared reaction to Martha saying Professor Yana had a Time Lord watch. Suddenly his words to himself come flooding back, and he remembers who's supposed to be coming back again some time in this regeneration... not to mention Yana's lack of a beard...

[Zippix]

Now lets have Eight return and show us how he regenerated!

Oh, don't tease. This may now be at the top of my wish list. It's at least in the top five. Giving us these things doesn't pacify us, it makes us want more!

I tune out technobabble anyway

I wish I could do that. I spend all my focus trying to understand, and failing, and then realise I've missed something more important (and that I probably could have understood, if I'd been listening properly).

I personally love the mention, not just because of the beard comment, but because it also adds more to Ten's profoundly scared reaction to Martha saying Professor Yana had a Time Lord watch. Suddenly his words to himself come flooding back, and he remembers who's supposed to be coming back again some time in this regeneration... not to mention Yana's lack of a beard...

Oh, I like this! It gives even more weight to that long shot of Ten's face as he realises what's going on. Good work!

[Nuallain]

And yes, very meta - isn't Tennant on record as saying Five is the doctor he remembers best? Or something?

It was Tennant's idea to get Davison back for this so I think that's fair to say. I've seen some fans respond to the "You're a FAN" stuff as an 'attack of the fans' but really it's a different type of meta - it's riffing on the fact that Tennant is the first Doctor to actually be a fan of the series growing up and that Davison really is his Doctor. The fact that the elements Ten points out as coming from Five - the squeaky shouty voice (and isn't it nice for Ten to acknowledge that he does that?); the trainers; the glasses - are all things that weren't on the page but which *Tennant* had specifically requested, or done, as part of his performance says a lot, I think.

But the thing I love the most is that my wife had my son stay up late to watch it and he asked "Who's the man in the white coat next to Doctor Who?" and got the answer "That's my Doctor!"

[Gwendy]

I found the "All my love to long ago line" even more moving than "You were my doctor." It's maybe a more universal sentiment and very poignant in that moment. And David Tennant delivers it beautifully.

And yes, very meta - isn't Tennant on record as saying Five is the doctor he remembers best? Or something?

Tennant always name-checks Tom Baker as his Doctor, but also speaks highly of Davison. He tends to be very diplomatic when talking all past doctors (I've heard him defend McCoy to an interviewer who tried to run him down, for instance), but definitely gives props to those two in particular. I think that the more meta stuff at the end was more about Moffat than DT. But I do think that the two conspired together over the idea, per the latest issue of Doctor Who Magazine (which I haven't read, myself).

[Melewen]

Doctor Who - the show that brought you existential celery. – Nuallain

Man, that just makes me look at the celery in the Battlestar Galactica webisodes much differently now. I'm not that familiar with Davison's Doctor, but now it's no wonder it was so important a vegetable.

[WAnglais1]

"I'm very welcome."

I seriously had to get a tissue.

I started watching DW in the early 80s on UNC Public TV. Four and Five were my Doctors. Then, tPtB at PBS looped back and got Three in the mix. Later on Six and Seven. Like some others have mentioned, it was nice to see Ten mention what he took from Five. If you watch closely, there's a little of every Doctor in his performance. It's always nice when you read in DW Magazine about Five or Six or whoever from the classic show coming for a set visit.

Squee...and <sniff>.

Thank you for making me feel 23 years younger for just a short bit.

[March301]

You know, I was just reading a scan of the DWM issue where they talked about all that, and I read the part where Peter and David were talking about where in Five's timeline this was supposed to be... "Is Adric already dead? What's going on? Has he met the Daleks yet?" And it cracked me up because I spent most of the (little) spare time I've had today doing the same thing. ::Headdesk:: I am such a geek. *g*

Loved it, so very much. I didn't grow up on the Doctor, but about a year ago I checked out The Five Doctors from my local library and came rushing into my sister's room, saying, "Okay, I really like Number Five. Possibly more than Number Four." As I watched more, I decided that I really liked Number Five. So it was exciting to hear they were going to do it. I'm amazed how quickly Peter was able to slip back into character; it was almost as if he'd never left it. :)

And yes, I got really misty eyed at the end. David's delivery on that monologue there was exquisite. You know it's his inner fanboy coming out, but it makes it even more beautiful that way.

[Adararose]

Five was my Doctor. Almost exclusively. I think I started watching at "Castrovalva." I compared all the other Doctors to him -- which was really kind of funny, because I knew everyone had been comparing him to Four. And yet (when I finally saw Four), I was doing the comparison in reverse. As Five was my first Doctor, he definitely defined it for me.

It took until about the third time I watched "Time Crash" for me to realize that the "special effect" for the simultaneous supernova and black hole was ... pretty much the TARDIS just tooling along through space and time as per usual. And I didn't care. Just like Classic Who.

[Flaregun]

About the Ten remembering that he would someday run into the Master ever since he was Five: I do like the idea of the added weight it gives Ten's reaction to hearing that there could be another Time Lord after all, but on the other had we do see that Ten doesn't exactly seem to remember everything about the encounter. There's none of the "Ah, I knew you were going to say that!" you would have expected from him if this were all familiar to him (and which would have gotten annoying real fast), and he seems genuinely taken aback when Five mistakes him for "a fan".

So I'm thinking that once Five got back, he decided that to avoid any residual danger of creating a paradox that would rip a Belgium-sized hole in the Universe (which I suppose would be sort of a bad thing), he decided to wipe his memory of much of the encounter, just retaining that one important bit.

Otherwise, it is sort of fun to speculate how much of Ten's tenure should have been different, starting off right at the beginning in The Christmas Invasion:

(Ten, fully awake & recovered for the first time, confronting the Sycorax): "...Well, that's the question, innit? 'What sort of man am I?' That's the thing, I have no idea. It's all so new, I have absolu-" (catches a reflection of himself in a shinny surface) "...Oh dear, I'm that overcaffinated, ADD, fanboyish git who can't remember to put his shields up. Rose? I'm sorry, I am so sorry."

Edited by Flaregun, Nov 17, 2007 @ 12:56 PM.

[darkestboy]

It was fun enough. Not amazing but diverting and some good lines. I loved Ten deconstructing Five and the latter thinking he was an idiot. The Master beard/wife thing raised a smile. Perhaps they know something of our psycho Time Lord, then been pretty obvious all this time. And it did tie in nice enough to the VOTD thing.

Which btw is only at least five and a half weeks to go.

[EricJon Waugh]

I don't know if memory wiping is necessary. Keep in mind the several hundred years between Five and Ten, the Doctor's already-selective memory, and the way that memory works in general: by association. Memories get subsumed, and only rise when triggered the right way; when something clicks the right link.

Take into account the way that time can be rewritten in a snap (Harriet Jones, yo), meaning the future is always uncertain until it's become your past, and... well! It's not too big a stretch to imagine that, should the Doctor even recall an offhanded comment he made to himself under otherwise-distracting circumstances several hundred years earlier, he might not put too much stock into it.

Edited by EricJon Waugh, Nov 17, 2007 @ 3:57 PM.

[Cygnia]

I think the line that kind of struck me was (paraphrasing probably) "...back when I was starting out, when I was being all old and grumpy and important --like you do when you were young..." Because if you think about it, that's an interesting turn of phrases and events.

When we were young, we'd tried to be grown up right away. It's only when we're older, we appreciate the balance of time and maturity.

[Doctor Quist]

Although I have to be slightly picky about it. Two was very similar to Five in outlook (Davison based his performance on Troughton who was his Doctor), and he's probably the only other time that the Doctor didn't had a streak of pomposity and grumpiness, and that was rather early on in the shows history.

But I carp needlessly. It was still lovely having Davison validated by the New Series. As I said up thread, there are many in fandom who believe real Doctor Who ended with "The Horns of Nimon" and bash all that came after, until the new series. So it's nice to see it appreciated!

[zombygirl]

THAT WAS FREAKING AWESOME!!!!

I am so a five fangirl. I first saw DW on PBS starting in the early 90's and even though four was the first Doctor for me, five was always my favorite. PD is so cool. OMG supersqeeee!

Sorry, just had to get that off my chest to people who will get it. :)

[Promethea]

When we were young, we'd tried to be grown up right away. It's only when we're older, we appreciate the balance of time and maturity.

CS Lewis quoted Saint Paul "When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child. When I became a man, I put away childish things," and added "including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up."

[D.C.]

It was a clearly a case, at the end, that the character faded and the actor/writer spoke instead. Which was fine.

What made it fine was that the sketch was only seven minutes. I can't believe how much they were able to pack in to that short a time, including the sentimentality of the final monologue. It hit all the right buttons, but a whole episode of being self-referential and fan-boyish would be too much.

And people have really been put out by the "Oh! You're a fan!" line? That's insane! One thing I like about the folks here is the ability to laugh at our excesses--and, let's face it, Doctor Who has some excessive fans. I kind of forget that there are people out there who can't do that. Who can't even recognized the concept of excessive fanness, for that matter.

[Heatherbelle]

CS Lewis quoted Saint Paul "When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child. When I became a man, I put away childish things," and added "including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up."

I like that. Why should we have to be grown up all the time?

[aliengrace]

That CS Lewis rejigging of the quote is awesome. I've always resented that St Paul quote mightily, and thought that its attitude reflects & imparts something very grey and sick about society, and the way people grow up. There are so many wonderful things about what we call "childishness", open-mindedness, creativity, fantasy, a willingness to change, simple pleasures and joie de vivre, a shimmering transcendental glow about ordinary life... (I think DW has all these things... and I am sad seeing old old mega-grumpy fans - not on TWoP, we tend to be a gleeful lot - who seem to have lost this appreciation since they all growed up.)

I also like the retcon in Ten's comment about his young self. (In those early days of the show, society only really tended to accept/believe older men as authority/knowledge figures.)

(Edit:) I also think that the episode makes us think about the dialogue we have with our imagined younger and older selves. Has anyone thought this very strongly when leafing back through past journals we've written? What we didn't know, what we know now, what we want or don't want to become. What we could have been. Old regrets & embarrasments, old loves and nostalgia.

Edited by aliengrace, Nov 17, 2007 @ 8:31 PM.

[JennaH]

My first episode of Doctor Who was The Happiness Patrol with the seventh Doctor so he will always have a spot as a favorite even though many people disliked him. I couldn't have been more then six or seven when I stumbled onto the pbs showing of Who and had no idea what I was watching but it scared me and I was hooked.

The fifth Doctor became my favorite as an adult because of how human and hurt he seemed to be sometimes by things. I think it was a direct contrast to the darkness that Seven showed often in his last season and it's probably why I love Ten because he is both of them. The hurt and innocent but yet he has such a dark side to him at times.

Now if only we could have Ace back once more I would be totally happy.