Doctor Who - Discussions on Season 5 onwards

As much as I enjoy the programme, something is destroying it for me, and it's not the gay characters, or Catherine Tate - I think both are great.

The 'alien wasp' in the Christie episode totally ruined that episode. It was such a nice concept to go back in time and find out why Christie went missing; but why rely on a flimsy plot about some random alien with a magical thought storing pendant?

Doctor Who is supposed to be about time travel - not necessarily about aliens all the time. They could have written a fantastic episode where time was in flux, without bringing in alien wasps.

I keep seeing on message boards, especially here, people saying "they need to bring back the Rani/Master/Rose/etc" or "we need to see what happened to Gallifrey" and so on.

Why?

There are endless points in history, and in the future, where the doctor could visit. That concept alone can fill hundreds of episodes, and I'd rather watch that, than watch the series stray into some plot about Gallifrey and evil time-lords like the Master.

I just think the writing needs some more imagination. Yes, this is meant to be sci-fi. But the very fact that he can travel in time is sci-fi. It doesn't need monsters and aliens to be sci-fi. It just needs to have something in time that has gone wrong, which the Doctor needs to fix.

Yes I see what you mean about the alien wasp - except my mother had the book (with the wasp on the cover) that featured in the end of the episode, so to me it was an inspired choice.

Similar, I suppose, to those who were taught Latin and knew all about the family in the Pompei story from a text from their childhood.

Its the clever fusing of things we know with a dramatic narrative and explanation we didn't that makes this show such a triumph.

And you've got to have a few monsters

Only a few stories have actually been pure historicals without any aliens. They did it once for Peter Davison, in Black Orchid, but I don't think it's got great reviews.

That doesn't mean it couldn't work though. The fact it's just this one example makes your argument weak.

Long before Davison the pure historicals always got the lower figures, The Gunfighters had one of the lowest of the Hartnell years (perhaps the lowest). When Troughton took over there was only one historical, The Highlanders, as he didn't like them. I believe also it was one of his lowest viewed stories.

However in this day & age that may be different.

Exactly, therefore I don't think they should be afraid to experiment.

Well under the mighty Moff that may happen, I predict great things for his era.

We've had "great things". Its the best sci-fi programme since Star Trek: TNG. That's no small compliment.

I think all the hard work to date should at least be acknowledged on forums rather than all this sniffy hyper-critical nonsense that gets written.

Woah, perhaps this is the time to point out that I have been a big fan of RTD era & I get pissed off myself at the "it isn't Genesis Of The Daleks so it's crap" brigade.

The fact is RTD has cast not only one but two great Doctors, I have liked all companions that both Doctors have had (although Rose got really annoying by the end of her second series) and I can only name a very small handful of stories I really dislike from the modern run (Love & Monsters, Fear Her & Last of The Timelords (Part 3 only that whole Doctor as the Messiah was bloody stupid and ruined an otherwise good story although Simm is no Delgado/Ainley, even though he is a great actor.)

To me RTD is the Barry Letts of the current run (who was great in his own right) however I can see Moffatt be the Hinchcliffe of the current series (Hinchcliffe built on Letts success & made the series even better) however Moffatt won't have Mary Whitehouse on his tail this time if the series gets to dark, thankfully.

It wasn't an argument, just a statement.

A great episode from Steven Moffat playing on the darkness. The cliffhanger was good, and there's quite a few loose ends and unexplained bits which hopefully will be resolved next week.

I'm just curious as to how she knows the Doctor... my friend feels it is him from a future regeneration, but that was squashed by me going "how would he take himself on picnics?!"

Well it's someone he's never met, therefore someone we've never met... however, it could be Rose's daughter or someone?

Suggestions anyone?