Doctor Who

[DontCallMeFrothyDragon]

Just catching up on the new series, when I noticed The (gorgeous) Doctor had to ask Rory for permission to hug Amy.

A bit of a WTF moment.

Anyone know how this came about? Or thoughts on this?

Wanky was the best I could think of to describe it...

I haven't seen any Torchwood yet. Still pretty new to the Doc, but will catch up soon...

Oh ... that's odd, I thought this would be about something else. I don't mind the permission thing too much - I thought it was meant to be a pisstake of the whole idea.

What jumped out at me was when they were talking about River Song being a psychopath the Dr made a comment along the lines of 'and she is a woman'. I thought that was really out of character and shit. But then I thought this whole episode was pretty rubbish and I didn't like River Song in it at all. She was so much better in the other episodes, I was really disappointed.

DH heard that next year there isn't going to be full series of Dr Who, just some specials, and people are saying it might not get recommissioned after that. So maybe Moffat knows that and is frantically trying to finish off his pet storylines ... it felt like a huge, unnecessary information-dump, that episode.

Lost my post, but it said what LRD did. Except that I do mind the permission thing. The Doctor has asked Rory before - when they met up in America? At the wedding? - can't remember when but it grated that time too.

I was also that when Amy asks the Doctor if he's found their baby yet, Rory wanders off to read the paper, seemingly more interested in photos of crop circles than the whereabouts of his own newborn.

I know they had a plot to develop, but could he not have just noticed the picture while the Doctor was waving the newpaper around while explaining?

I think in previous episodes Rory was insecure/unhappy about Amy's relationship with theDr, so he's making sure Rory is aware of their relationship and including him in it by giving him the power to decline his request to hug her.

I loved the relationship between Donna Noble and the Tenth, they were obviously best mates and the script poked fun at the 'assistant being in love' thing.

And it's very, very clear that Amy wouldn't stand for any nonsense about actually needing permission. It's not meant to be taken seriously.

I'm finding it all a bit weird and disconnected so far, to be honest. It almost comes across like they are finishing the scripts on the way to the studio or something. The special effects are great. The characters are great. The sets are great, but some of the things the characters say and do, just don't really make sense. I watch, then I scratch my head trying to work out what it was all about.

I mean what's with Amy's best friend Melody turning up in the last episode? To my knowledge, she's never mentioned having this best life-long friend (which you'd think she would have done at some point,) nor even referring to having named her baby after her. I also felt a bit uneasy with casting a mixed heritage actor to play the rebellious young woman in a kind of "Scary Spice" sort of tradition - you know, the back-chatting, bad influence, bad Black girl.

Oh, and forgot to mention "sexually voracious" Black woman - she kept going on about how "hot" the Doctor was. Yada yada.

CRI that is spot on. I found that uncomfortable too. And not great that she 'changes' to River Song and burbles on about how sexy she now is and how she has to go weigh herself ... WTF? She seemed like a totally different character.

Agree about Mels, the sexually vocarious black woman always in trouble with the law...

I must get round to catching up on these, really.

If the Doctor asking permission for hugs is a nod to Rory being silly, I can take that. Guess it's my fault for missing so much

And UMS, hush... I do have a little bit of a crush on Matt Smith... Please don't hold that against me

I think that Mels is always in trouble with the law/authority in the same way as River Song is. Also River has always been very flirty/teasing with the doctor and other men e.g. the hallucinogenic lipstick. I thought that they were putting River's character in another actor's body which must be very difficult to pull off, which is perhaps why Mels came across as being sexually voracious.

Hmm. I thought Alex whatesface was acting River Song as a totally different character, though. I didn't like it. She just came across as a bit of a wanker, tbh.

They didn't have to cast a mixed-race girl to be 'in trouble with the law', did they? I'm all for more non-white actors but not if you're just going to use them lazily.

but the character of both Mels/River has been conditioned to murder at that point in her timeline.

Alex Kingston was acting River in a completely different manner.

Also seems odd that the only non-white human character I remember seeing (this series) wasn't even in an entire episode before shifting into a white character.

Even so, she still acted completely out of character; That wasn't River conditioned to murder, that was someone completely different

yes she was acting out of character - although she reminded me of River in the episode when she was in the Louboutins.

DontCall - yes, I think that was poor (non-white shifting to white ... and then finding herself very attractive).

I don't disagree it's plausible within the storyline that young River/Mel would be quite different from older River that we've already met ... but I found the way she was different very disappointing. She kicked ass when we first met her; she really didn't here. And I'm not sure (while I am moaning! ) about her getting Nazi'd up a la Prince Harry.

Oh, you're not getting it!!

Or I'm not.

Best friend Mel has appeared before. Some episodes about Amy's childhood; Mel was quite prickly but they became besties.

The vain River Song is the first incarnation of that body. She's a baddie (Melody, who's been conditioned to murder the Doctor) but turns into a goodie after Doc whispers the magic word. She then used up all her regenerations on bringing him back to life, which is why she's River Song throughout all other parts of the story - past and present. I love that character! In fact an a little bit in lurve with her

The Doctor and Amy had a very long hug during the Roman bit. Rory, who'd been waitning centuries for Amy to come back, was a bit pissed off that she hugged the Doc more than him. Hence the hug permission business.

Do keep up - or down, backwards, forwards, whatever it is