Doctor Who Series 6 part 2 - the ganger thread

[RustyBear]

Old thread's getting full, so here's a nice new acid-resistant one...

[Alibabaandthe80nappies]

yy I thought there was something in the 'flesh' comment at the end, just the way he said it.

I think the storyline around them looking for Melody is believable enough. As someone else said, they didn't know Amy was pregnant and then Melody was taken away from them straight away. They also know that she is River, and that would add to the feeling that she wasn't really their baby at all.
The alternative is that Rory and Amy are rushing about sobbing and tearing their hair in every episode, which doesn't leave much room for a Dr Who story!

I really liked last night's. It was a proper old-school episode. Simple, scary. Loved it.

[MigratingCoconuts]

Did anyone see the series trailer - River with the Madam Kovorian eye-patch? Any theories? yes Sarah, we noticed that too!

My immediate thought was how does this link Kovorian and River? Can't be yet another generation, can it? especially as they have effectively ended that little route. But I decided that it just getting silly

btw, what happens when the Doctor runs out of regenerations? have they suggested what they'll do if they want to keep it all going?

[SarahBumBarer]

Coconuts I don't watch the Sarah Jane Adventures but during an ep guest starring Matt Smith, the Doctor said either that he has unlimited regenerations or 507 regenerations depending upon what you read - anyone actually seen it?

[huffythethreadslayer]

I always suspend expectation before an episode...try not to think too much about the overarcing story line. It means I miss some subtler/cleverer nuances, but I tend to enjoy each episode for itself.

I have an existing fear of dolls thanks to 5 older siblings who shoved a curly haired, 4ft doll with holes carved out of its face into my pram as a babe!! So this really scared me and my girl. I loved it :)

Looking fwd to the next one. Love the way they've aged Amy. Can't wait to see it.

[HarrietJones]

I think the eye patch helps you see something. Silence?

There's also the running theme of different Amys.

[RustyBear]

There are lots of possibilities for getting over the 'limited regeneration' thing. Two off the top of my head:

• that as River has just given him all her remaining regenerations, he now has several more
  
• that 12 was an arbitrary limit imposed by the Time Lords to prevent stagnation in Time Lord Society. The real limit may be much more, or it may not be an actual number of regenerations, but an 'amount' of regeneration energy

[SoupDragon]

"Why do you think that they are not still looking for melody? I thought that this week, they were responding to a distress message from the boy..."

Well, at the end of the episode they were deciding where to go sight seeing, not "where shall we look for Baby Melody next?"

[MigratingCoconuts]

ok, missed that line at the end!

If the know they don't find Melody, having met the future Melody/River...does that mean they might as well stop looking for her?

I get the impression that in Dr Who time lines are something that can be changed but generally best not to!

[SoupDragon]

yes, I'm horribly confused as it should be clear to them from last week that they never find her. Unless they change the timeine

Anyhow, DS2 has just come back downstairs having changed out of his rugby gear and handed me a wooden doll with the accompanying line "would you care to explain this?" I think he has dealt with his fears :o

[teejwood]

aitch the line near the end was the doctor going over to rory and amy before they all go back into the tardis, saying something along the lines of "isn't it great to all be back together again, in the flesh"

now obviously that is a perfectly understandable comment, given that amy had just been a wooden dolly. and yet..... it seemed such a clunky comment - could it also be a clue or a massive red herring to the story arc?!

re rory and amy no longer looking for melody - as others have said, there was an implicit message in "hitler" that a) rory and amy had effectively brought up their own daughter through their friendship with Mels and b) they know she is River now, so it is kind of too late. i may be wrong, but i don't know that a female scriptwriter would feel that this is a credible storyline....

[MurielTheActor]

Oh teej and all the rest of you, I'm sorry but I really do not feel it remotely appropriate to judge Amy and Rory's emotional responses by what would be credible to us.
1 They have a time traveling Time Lord for a best friend
2 They live in a space which is bigger on the inside than the outside
3 Rory sat around for 1000 years dressed as a centurion
Not to mention all the scrapes young Amy has got caught up in.
I'm thinking that maybe the parameters of their existence being so so much wider than those of our own small worlds may mean they see things a little differently...
Oh and it's a science fiction television show - a young couple searching the universe for their abducted baby is an altogether different sort of tv show.

[teejwood]

muriel you don't watch dr who for an extended period without being able to suspend reality but i do feel in this day and age it is not too much to ask for a degree of continuity in what is supposed to be high quality drama.

[teejwood]

also - many other sci fi shows are written in such a way that their "universe" and storyline is consistent and credible - within that "universe".
imho this series has ideas that are bigger than the allocated timeslots/budgets, so what we see isn't necessarily doing justice to the storyline.
fwiw - while my character of the series would have to be river, my ep of the series so far is the doctor's wife. just loved it so much - it was a fantastic standalone ep.

[AitchTwoOh]

bollocks, Muriel.

are you really an actor?

[teejwood]

ohhh aitch while you're here - where are you up to now? Have you seen "god complex"?

[AitchTwoOh]

dunno the name, but have seen the aged amy one. pretty good i thought.

[AitchTwoOh]

oh, that's 'the girl who waited'. what's god complex?

[SarahBumBarer]

"Oh and it's a science fiction television show - a young couple searching the universe for their abducted baby is an altogether different sort of tv show."

I think "searching the universe" would always be within the realms of science fiction.

Also the point of having the human companions in Doctor Who is to enable us see these extraordinary sights, events and experiences through their eyes. So it all becomes a bit pointless if and when those experiences cause the human companions to become devoid of all natural human emotion.

That said, I am over the searching for Melody thing. As I've said, I think that aspects (ie them no longer looking for her) makes more sense than much of it. I just want to know when baby Melody supposedly slept in the Doctors cot. For some reason that issue is bugging me!

[AitchTwoOh]

i just think it's kinda nonsensical that they absolutely 100% plumb KNOW that time can be re-written, but on this one occasion they will just let it all slide and go sight-seeing. Amy and Rory have never been written like that before.

[teejwood]

aitch god complex is the one after girl who waited.

sarah i agree, i don't think they should be searching the universe for young melody, but neither do i think it entirely consistent that the woman who called the doctor pretty much in tears asking "have you found her yet?" would leave river in the hospital (even if it is the best one in the universe) without some sort of reason - and much though travelling with the doctor is magnificent and wonderful maybe looking after your own daughter for a bit - even if she is a grown woman - might be your priority for a short while?

now i am NOT the type of viewer who wants it all spelt out and in a nice neat order BUT i do think this is a bit inconsistent. even a couple of lines of dialogue at the end of "hitler" might have made amy and rory's actions more credible.

of course - the characters all acting in inconsistent ways (the doctor trying to get everyone's attention throughout history at the start of Impossible Astronaut, anyone?!) might point to everyone not being who they seem. in terms of a restart button that goes way beyond anything rtd dared press!

[SoupDragon]

"Oh and it's a science fiction television show - a young couple searching the universe for their abducted baby is an altogether different sort of tv show."

Which is why I think it was a mistake to push the story in this direction. I think there are plenty of other credible (in the terms of science fiction) ways for the plot to have gone. With all the other strange things, like Rory the centurion, it has at least been plausible within the context of a SciFi programme.

[teejwood]

right - i missed the start of the ep last week so i rewatched with the kids this evening. when the doctor goes into the flat and starts talking to George's daddy - did anyone hear a faint tardis-like vroop vroop in the background for a few seconds?

[HerdOfTinyElephants]

I thought that was very good. We were all blubbing away on the sofa towards the end.

[huffythethreadslayer]

DH says it's his favourite so far. I loved Rory in this one. Rory the devoted husband. He didn't seem to blink at having a 60 year old wife. Mind you, she was a bit gorgeous for 60 odd in my opinion. Nice make up!

[SESthebrave]

Loved it! It was the best one for Amy/KG by a mile. I did think they could have done a bit more with the 60yr old Amy - her hair and also the way they'd changed her face was a bit too obvious where KG started and the prosthetics began.
The garden scenery was fantastic and felt a bit like Alice in Wonderland.