How come the Doctor and Christina were able to run so easily on dry sand, and yet the bus sank? Why did he leave the 'good' aliens to be massacred, having stolen the power source from their vessel?

I'm glad that Christina isn't going to be in the other specials - she really grated on me. When the opening sequence started I thought it was going to be a Tom Cruise moment...

Loving the anagram of the next episode.

Anagram?

Oooh, you can make 'The Master' out of the letters, can't be arsed to try the other letters though, ha.

The Master of Wars? Which makes sense since it's set on Mars...

Because a bus has a lot more mass for its footprint compared to a person. Also spinning wheels are going to get stuck in sand far more easily than feet are. As for the aliens I thought the point was that he tried to save them, but after one of them got eaten the other one decided to try and shoot the flying manta ray thing and got itself eaten in the process.

I've been meaning to mention that since last year.


Anyone else feel that the music in the series is taking over a bit? Obviously the music by Murray Gold has been a strong feature since its return, spawning not one but two special nights as part of the BBC Proms to hear it in full splendor. But the last 2 series have seen almost every scene have these sweeping pieces of music and I can't help but feel it's starting to get a little overwhelming.


Every now and then I'd actually like to watch a scene that's completely carried by the acting and dialogue and not an orchestra.

I thought it was just a mediocre episode, made worse by having it be longer.

And Michelle Ryan began to annoy me after about five minutes, and therefore am very glad she won't be back for the rest of the specials, but I just know she'll be back eventually.

I'm with you on this. I love the scoring, but there's simply too much of it. As the Emperor allegedly said to Mozart, there are too many notes.

The music's been misfiring since Ecclestone. A handful of episodes have had fantastic scores but they've been the exceptions.

And it's far. Too. LOUD!

RTD has always professed to be making cinema for the small screen, and Murray Gold's scores fit in with that.

Personally, I've liked a lot of the music in New Who, but there have been times when I thought it worked better than others.

I did find myself thinking, on Saturday, "that's another sweeping score", perhaps it was more noticeable this time out because of the story was so flat.

Don't get me wrong, I like the music, it's just often a lot louder than the dialogue.

Even Dead Ringers commented on it...

I didn't mind it although Michelle Ryan really shouldn't have looked like she wanted to rape Tennant at all times. Yes we know he is lovely and you would love to rub your norks in his lanky Scottish sexyhotface but it's VERY ANNOYING and SPOILS THINGS IN GENERAL! At least she isn't Kylie Minogue.

Also - music - very bad at times and disruptive. When Zoe Slater was driving the bus we got these orchestral swells. Not good. Oh well.

Although I did like some of it - the fly boys, the locations and Lee Evans who was OTT but made a great nutty professor. Another Welsh character to flesh out the Universe for us.

Did anyone else think Stingray! Stingray!!!

They played that on Doctor Who Confidential afterwards.

What a load of old guff.

Absolutely zip of a spark out of Michelle Ryan who, saddled with an awful Lara Croft facsimile and woeful dialogue ("I like extreme", "Can you detect me yadda-yadda?"), was left to just smile a lot. But frankly the best piece of acting came from one of the flies shrugging their shoulders, with the UNIT Captain especially terrible, sleep-walking into each shot with a dazed expression and delivery and zero authority. The story itself was of little interest, the flying bus finale cloying and the plotting very poor - you could explain them away, but in the context of the show stuck out big time (Why did she zip-line out of the museum after snatching the artifact only for the next shot to have her back inside? And the reasoning behind the use of the cup in their getaway plan muddled and silly. Plus, why did the fly-things have little ear-piece communicators on hand when they had no ears?).

Oh, and NO MORE FUGGIN' PSYCHICS! THEY OFFER NO USEFUL EXPOSITION AND STIR UP AS MUCH DREAD AS A SQUEAKY FART!! AND NOT JUST IN DOCTOR WHO - IN ANY MEDIUM WHATSOEVER!!!!

Nice setting though.

In excellent news I have it on good authority from someone who knows that the currently completed scripts for the new Doctor are darker, scarier, meaner and funnier, all make perfect sense (no more magic story solutions) and are more than likely to alienate more than a few million viewers. Didn't think I'd say this but I'm quite eager for Tennant and Davies to fuck off now. Had enough.

This is very very very exciting news.

All hugging, kissing and telling humans they are brilliant/fantastic should be banned. I'd like to see more alien indifference please.

The Waters of Mars trailer they showed at the end of Planet of the Dead did have more of a Midnight vibe to it than Voyage of the Damned, which can only be a good thing.

I don't dislike some of the lighter episodes, I still enjoy The Runaway Bride hugely, but it's when "fun" becomes "silly" (aka Cyber Kings and Potteresque flying buses) that I lose interest.

Watched the repeat of New Earth (series 2.1) on freeview the other night MMMhh sexy Billie Piper !!

I saw that as well, DT looks a helluva lot younger - working on Who has aged him.

Who knows, Matt Smith might look like a twenty year old by the time he finishes!

I'm still not sure about this Matt Smith geezer but hopefully my trepidation shall be dashed on the rocks of ' OOh he's rather good actually' nes like when Tenant took over, we shall see.

I'm only joking above, I don't really see the "12-year-old" in him that others seem to.

I think he could be a very good Doctor.

Watch (Formerly UK Gold) are showing a season of Who eps next week in tribute to his 'greates companion'.



Yep, that's right. Rose.

Hmmm... I've stayed away from The Dr since his last series. I think the Pompeii episode wast he last one that I actually sat down to watch, and I missed the first 15 minutes.

Have I missed much? Noit really by the sounds of it.

The Planet of The Dead has me hoping for a mass zombie outbreak type scenario but then there was all this guff about busses and sand so there you go. I'm sure that David Tennant was as energetic as ever.

RTD had been using zombie-like characters too often in New-Who, so I was relieved that he didn't use them for this one.

Kev W

That's true, it's just i'd rather see a propper bonafide zombie rather than some squid-headed mutes sucking on light bulbs.

But face it, that's because you have a more than slightly worrying zombie obsession.

It's not an obsession, it's a phobia .

I enjoy my zombies,what can I say?

Lee Evans was funny - and Michelle Ryan wasn't bad at all, although she didn't get much to do other than be a Mission Impossible/Lara Croft amalgamation. I liked the psychic lady's performance too.

Doctor Who theme wins sci-fi vote - though it is a bit of an odd list:

1) Doctor Who
2) Red Dwarf
3) The X-Files
4) Buffy the Vampire Slayer
5) Star Trek
6) Thunderbirds
7) The Twilight Zone
8) Battlestar Galactica
9) Quantum Leap
10) The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy

I'm assuming that the Battlestar music is the score from the 70's version, although it's not bad, I can't really see people voting for the new series theme.

If you're in the Cov area...

All this bothered me too, then i kept thinking of the Simpsons.

Frink: "Yes, over here, m-hay, m-hayven... in Episode BF12, you were battling barbarians while riding a winged Appaloosa, yet in the very next scene my dear, you're clearly atop a winged Arabian! Please do explain it!"


Lucy Lawless: "Uh, yeah, well, whenever you notice something like that... a wizard did it."

Frink: "Yes, alright, yes, in episode AG04—"

Lucy Lawless: "Wizard!"

Frink: "Oh, for glavin out loud..."



WIZARD!

Comedy Gold.

More cast rumours for the final Tennant specials - WARNING, THIS CARRIES A POTENTIALLY HUGE SPOILER IF TRUE!

That should send various forums into melt-down!

Neil Gaiman on 'Dr Who' - he's not saying no!

Pictures from the finale containing spoilers

I'm happy; but please no more snogging

Inevitable, but I'm not complaining, as I like Rose. Rather her back than Martha. I did like Martha but prefer Donna and Rose.

Barry Howard's in it? Jesus, I haven't seen him in a long time.

It's gone now, but this was apparently listed on RTD's online CV earlier today:

Film

DR WHO (BBC Films/BBC Worldwide) Current

Easy now Glenn, it may just be a typo!

Or they may be classing David Tennant's final episode as a film. Do we know how long the episode will be?

It's supposed to be 60 minutes, but that is already listed separately on his CV (it's possible that was corrected when they removed the above, and it's also possible that the specials will be longer than that – knowing RTD and Co. I wouldn't be surprised).

He's probably re-making the Cushing ones.

Tennant to appear in 'Sarah Jane Adventures'.

Sounds interesting!

Harry Hill did a great Doctor Who reference on You've Been Framed at the weekend. A clip came up of a kid wearing a gas mask and he said, 'Are you my mummy?'

The line had no relevance to the rest of the clip and would've gone completely over the heads of anyone who doesn't watch Doctor Who. A big chuckle for the geeks.

More Animated Who on the Way.

Even more Tennant, they really are trying to get their money's worth out of him before he goes - at this rate he may as well have filmed a full series.

Doctor Who movie "confirmed"

That article isn't entirely accurate. The original BBC article does mention that work is underway on a script, but that is far from it being a confirmed project - there many hurdles they have yet to clear.

Hense the inverted commas. A cinema release seems way off.

Yeah, it wasn't a comment on your post, my remark was about DS being "flexible" with the facts.

New assistant revealed. Sorry Zoe, it isn't you.

Another in-house bit of casting then...?

Kev W