Doctor Who's Under the Lake splits Reg scribes: This Alien homage thing – good or bad? Readers please note: THIS IS A POST-UK BROADCAST REVIEW – THERE WILL BE SPOILERS! Gavin says: I know there's something wrong with Doctor Who – Under the Lake, but it hits me only at the end. It isn’t the standard sci-fi set up of humans stranded in isolated and hostile setting – scientific/industrial/military facility/hotel/ …
The suckertron was on full blast for this soggy old bilgewoggle.
At first, a nearly 'Quatermass and the Pit' feel. You Millenials go look that up. Then ended up feeling more like an episode of Stingray. In fact I wondered when there would be a talking dolphin and Roy Scheider taking the helm á la seaQuest DSV.
Then oh dear back to nutty old Doctor who is trying ever so desperately to be cool and funny. The suckertron is set to full power. Why couldn't Clara die again? It was fun the first time. Couldn't she keep dying until she leaves? That would be fun. Like she's indestructible - like Captain Scarlet. Millennials - go look that up.
Alien? Don't make me laugh. This is embarrassing. You can't compare this to Alien. That's like comparing an episode of Geordie Shore to The Breakfast Club. Millenials - oh off you go.
First time I see a post mentioning both Captain Scarlet and Stingray but more to the point you reminded me why I never watch TV these days*. 99 percent has been done before - old episodes of Kojak, Bonanza, Pathfinders in Space, Get Smart etc etc. But then 99 percent could probably be found in Aesop and Homer. That's why Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings is for Millennials and proto-Millenials whereas I cannot watch such stuff without feeling I've seen it all before.
*although I did enjoy Fargo.
"The Abyssmal"
I was surprised that The Abyss escaped the roll-call of SF films in the articles - underwater base, alien, even the shot from above of the base all lit up, like the fleet.
Mind you, at least The Abyss was set at sea. This base appears to be submerged in a reservoir. Why do you need an underwater base and a trillion dollars of drilling kit to drill under a reservoir? Rather a bit too much SF running down corridors as well.
"soggy old bilgewoggle"
An inadequate description: I think 'excrement' comes a little closer. The level of 'sci' in this sci-fi/sci-fantasy story barely approaches the level of astrology. We have an environmental management system that checks the integrity of door locks every minute during the day cycle but not at all during the night cycle - wtf? A nuclear reactor designed not to SCRAM in an emergency but to open its core to the outside environment i.e. the lake, but via the living quarters, rendering both the entire station (or at least the bits left after the inevitable ruptures in the pressure hull due to the water entering the core flashing to steam) and the lake highly radioactive - another wtf? That's just two examples: there were many more.
First rule of sci-fi/sci-fantasy writing: ensure you have at least some modicum of understanding of the science you're going to be using in your story. If you don't you'll end up with sci-farce, which is what Who has become.
A E Van Vogt included the original in his compilation of novellas "The Voyage of the Space Beagle" in 1950. He had in fact already written the novella concerned, "Discord in Scarlet", for the Dec 1939 edition of "Astounding Magasine". I fear that both the Alien and Dr Who franchises were well and truly beaten to the punch by one of the greats from Sci-fi's "golden age".
The thing that bothered me about the glasses, is that they continued to work in the Faraday cage.
Why shouldn't they? A Faraday cage electrically isolates the inside from the outside, an electronic item will work as well inside as outside if it is self-contained and does not need any signals from external systems.
If electrical systems failed inside a Faraday cage them people would die on entry as life is basically an electrical system.
EDIT: If he was broadcasting WiFi or similar from inside the cage then that is silly and would plainly not work.
They're all two partners in this series.
I'm quite liking the slow burner thing. Not quite so much the sudden cliffhanger at the end of part one though, but I suppose they have to have one.
But broadcasting over WiFi with sonic glasses live from a Faraday cage? Let's just say that could have been safely dropped.
This is the trouble with watching these things as an adult. I watched in the company of 3 under 9s: 1 fled to his bed as soon as the first ghost was revealed, 1 had her head tucked under a rug any time an eyeless spook appeared, and the other was sent to bed, filled with concern over The Doctor's fate ("He's not really a ghost, is he Daddy? Why hasn't he regenerated?"). I'd say this hit just the right note of terror for the kids (Daleks and Cybermen will never be scary to today's kids, but that's not to say that they can't enjoy seeing The Doctor defeat them time and again).
Kicking myself for not spotting the glasses/wifi/farady goof, but I was too busy enjoying the episode to notice! Enjoying an episode of Doctor Who? Not something I got to do during the previous series, so I hope the current one can keep it up.
No, Sir.
Alien is, purely and simply, a strike of genius. Imagery, cinematography, music, special effects, script, pace, buildup.
Event Horizon? Don't know, really. I was never able to watch it from beginning to end. I probably watched many times over by accidentally watching fragments here and there over the span of a few years.
It's not that they aren't in the same league. They aren't even playing the same sport.
It was amazingly good for B-grade horror. Like "The Shining" in space. With a core. And more random camp horror vision eyeless flashback terror shocks. And discordant horror-clockwork-in-accelerated-motion music by "Orbital". And lightning, ffs. In space!
And the logbook on a CD-RW. Which, entirely predictably, gets stuck in the drive in a dark cellarbridge. One would imagine that an industry that can build enormous ships clearly not built from lowest-bidder preassembled kit fired into space piece-by-piece would be able to manage the "stuck CD drive" problem.
Hold on there, as a fan of Alien I agree with you about watchability, but that is only because I am absolutely terrified of watching Event Horizon again. That flic gave me nightmares for weeks such is its genius - and I'm in my 40's FFS.
They are totally different movies and cannot be compared.
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I'm now on episode three of The Register's weekly fawning over this asinine and un-watchable BBC politically correct homage to what used to be a bloody good TV program.
Your misguided and child-like unwavering belief that this trashy bollocks is worth so much effort and page space is nothing short of spectacular.
Your authority on other things (normally held in high regard) are diminished by this fervent and all-consuming crush on a kid's TV show which has been raped, then murdered and then horribly mutilated since it's disastrous reboot at the turn of the century.
If you are going to advertise at least be honest about it and stick a label at the top of the page.
Oops. Would have up voted but the language is a tad emotional. Maybe it's one of those programmes that does that to you. For my money the real Doctor is William Hartnell. All the others are pretenders. The right style, and the only bloke back then with shoulder length hair.
Not to be picky (oh, OK then) but mid-season cliff-hanger episodes are *not* 'new' for 'new Who'. They've been part of the series since it returned in 2005 — The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances being the first.
There have been numerous since. Series two had Rise of the Cyberman/The Age of Steel. Series three had *two* mid-season two-parters, as did series four and series five. Series six had one, plus two linked episodes which fell over the mid-season break (ok, the latter two arguably being mini finale/openers). It's only series seven and series eight that didn't until now.
:-)
Yeah... just to get started
Empty Child / Doctor Dances (May 21, May 28)
Rise Of The Cybermen / Age Of Steel (May 13, 20 May)
Impossible Planet / Satan Pit (Jun 3, Jun 10)
Daleks In Manhattan / Evolution Of The Daleks (Apr 21, Apr 28)
Human Nature / Family Of Blood (May 26, Jun 2)
and so on. Plenty of two-parters in the middle of a run.
No complaint if so. That list of two-parters contains some of the highlights of the programme since its restart; although yes, there were some duds that got stretched out to two episodes as well.
40 minutes of screen time is too little to resolve some of the overly complex setups of the recent series (plural). My big complaint with Moffat's era in charge is that the script runs out of run-time at about Minute 30, so the only way to finish things is with an enormously unsatisfying Deus ex Machina ending. Giving another 40 minutes to properly fix things has to be an improvement.
Personally I found the "read the cards" gag to be jarringly out of character - but its a while since such a small thing has been my only complaint after watching an episode of this programme..
Okay, I can't let this one lie, Cass lip-reading from a video feed coming over wi-fi from the Sonic Sunglasses...
...in a Faraday Cage ? A LEAD-LINED Faraday Cage that the Doctor has ALREADY SAID BLOCKS ALL RADIO WAVES ?
This show needs a Science Advisor again. It's like the BBC have gone back to the bad old days of hi-tech mumbo-jumbo that descended to its nadir with "BUGS" back in the 90's... Jaye Griffiths was wooden in that too. (She played "Jac", the UNIT geek in "The Magician's Apprentice")
Yes, yes, I know it's not supposed to be realistic, but there's a difference between suspension of disbelief and totally making it up as you go along.
...in a Faraday Cage ?
I thought that for a second then I realised that a Faraday cage wouldn't block sound. Sonic Sunglasses - the hint's in the name.
The science is still bollocks of course but then it always has been. Unless you know a way to "reverse the polarity in the neutron flow"?
He said it was WiFi. Putting aside whether there'll be WiFi 100 years from now, soundwaves don't magically convert into radio waves when they leave a Faraday cage. They should have brought her down to look through the window.
No pass from me. Bah, humbug.
Oh. BUGS.
I think I actually did wet myself laughing when what's his name off Neighbours finally got the really important piece of hardware and...
...holds up an Astec UHF modulator.
Wow, that show could really repurpose mundane electronics things into the epic. It's not a soldering iron it's a mumble mumble red button reset device mumble!!!
And this is why I like reading El Reg, we all focus on the tech side of things and seemingly overlook the rest. I mean: forget about those radio waves getting out: what about the doctor?
Several 'ghosts' which can outrun humans, all banded together in the faraday cage and the doctor decides to join them. We see that they quickly gather around him and continue to repeat their message. We also learn that the 'ghosts' realize their predicament; otherwise they wouldn't try to tamper with the computers again later on.
So how did the doctor get out of there? That's the part which irked me. Maybe he told them a joke and mentioned something in the likes of "Look behind you!" while he quickly slipped out?
It's like I mentioned some weeks ago; this series will most likely become massively entertaining but the quality is bound to drop a bit. Which I think is just what happened here.
That's odd, 'cos I saw it as a means for the relationship between the Doctor and the companion to be considered. The way Clara/Missy act is a parallel to Clara/Doctor but with added psychotic verve.
It also stops the episode being an Eastenders style two-hander Davros and the Doctor talking in a room which people would definitely complain about. And unless they go in the sewers and also someone into the Dalek the story doesn't play out and wrap up tidily.
Whenever I see those virtual reality controlling things with outstretched arms, I know I'm in the realm of clueless arts graduates without an ounce of engineering knowhow amongst them. Try doing that for more than two minutes, it will feel like your arms are dropping off. You need to be comfortably sat down with your arms resting on a surface just in front of you. Isaac Asimov got this right with the VR controlled spaceship in the later Foundation novels.
I did think that - for people who are whining about how Dr Who is bad sci-fi etc, the amount of time it took for someone to point that little factoid out is, at best, worrying.
FWIW I thought it was a decent homage and twist on it. And if all the rest of the series will be two parters, at least it'll mean that they might get a chance to write something meaty and not have silly 'kiddy' episodes like that bloody Robin Hood thing last year.
You might not think Alien 3 is all that, but that aforementioned episode makes Alien 3 look like fucking Shakespeare.
Steven R
You lot are miserable, we're rather enjoying this series. Some good dialogue, blink and you'll miss it references, Capaldi no longer worrying about whether he's allowed to be Doctor Who and at last stories long enough to catch breath.
Sure, it's not as good as a classic film with a million times the budget (let's just ignore how bad the rest of the Alien franchise got, and the dozens of other films of the time that tried and failed to go there), but it plays with some nice ideas and still brings the occasional surprise. Maybe I'm just not cynical/smug/self referential enough to see through this dumb kiddies programme, but on a Saturday evening, it goes down rather well.
He can say 'fuck' all he likes for all I care. Depending on the incarnation. Nine it would fit fine. Ten or Five, it really wouldn't. The wording that bothered me this episode was when he said "Oh god!" seemed pretty out of character for him. I mean he's met a few and they'd hardly inspire devotion in him. Usually he kills them or banishes them to some outer dimension.
"This is a first for a regular, non-series opener or final or special since Doctor Who rebooted in 2005 with the ninth Time Lord."
No. There have been previous two parters that weren't season openers or finales. The three that spring immediately to mind were from the RTD era, but written by Moffat. There's a thing.
A certain American blogger (who often points out "racist" elements in Doctor Who) recently complained about Captain Moran being the first to die, claiming that it was another unfortunate case of killing the black character first. However it could be seen as an example of the far more powerful trope of "killing the Captain first", and I wonder if Colin McFarlane had been cast as anyone other than the Captain then he would have complained that once more a black character is not portrayed as being in charge.
In terms of screen time Moran may well have been killed first, but rather than just remaining a corpse it actually made him one of the most important (and scary!) characters for the next 45 minutes. But I guess you sees what you wants to see.
Note: Happy icon to express my enjoyment of the episode!
what I don't understand is how Colin McFarlane's character is still alive a few hundred years after the events of "Children of Earth".......and seems to have been demoted in the process
are the BBC running out of continuity staff? or out of actors?
There are plenty of real life examples to allow this. There was a story just this year of 2 totally unrelated people who actually lived in the same town and went to the same school but who look like twins. And then you get all the people who actually make a living impersonating famous people. So getting away with having the same actor play 2 different characters in a series isn't that far fetched (and not the first time either in Dr Who, at least 2 companions have started out as secondary characters before becoming companions, and that's just since 2005)
"Not to mention a minor character who went on to become the Doctor"
thinking about it he actually played two characters........the civil servant in CofE (Frobisher???), and also the chap in Pompeii
but in the case of the Pompeii episode there may be an excuse.....somewhere along the line there was an episode which seemed to indicate that the Doctor on regeneration could only copy the faces of people he'd met....
Just read that next year's series may actually get cancelled (it's speculation, but given who's in charge it's not far fetched speculation) to be replaced by 3 or 4 "specials" similar to Sherlock. The other option is to completely reboot the series from scratch the following year. The big issue for me with this is Dr Who seems to have become a poisoned chalice where no actor remains long enough to really make their mark in the way the first 4 did. The only one to do that since the reboot was David Tennant. Add to this the ridiculous scheduling, you don't know from one week to the next when it's going to air, it's no wonder they can't maintain viewing figures if no one even knows when to watch it.
It's been speculation for a while that there might be a "year off" to avoid viewer fatigue.
The announcement of the BBC3/teenager-targeted "Class" series which looks to occupy part of the usual Doctor Who production schedule seems be fuelling this.
Alternatively it may be more a case of displacing the run of Doctor Who to a different part of the year when scheduling will not be affected by Strictly. (because Strictly has to be filmed entirely in one evening, results show included it's start time is inflexible )
A year of specials was done before, at the tail end of Tennants run and that was to give time for Moffat Matt Smith and the rest of the incoming team to get up to speed for Series 7. As yet there is no expectation of a suitable successor to Moffat available though I did hear one commentator suggest Anthony Horowitz.
The Specials year certainly did combat "Viewer fatigue", garnering "New" Who's highest viewing figures from 2005 to date (the only one that dipped below 10 million was "Planet of the Dead").
It's possible that viewer fatigue had set in by Patrick Troughton's era, with Season 6 being watched by an average of 6 million. When Jon Pertwee came along, the show was reduced from 44 episodes a year to 27, and by the time of his 4th year was back up to almost 9 million viewers.
Of course by the time it was cancelled in 1989 it was just 14 weeks long with an average figure of 4 million, so what do I know...
Well "Planet of the Dead" pulled 9.7 million on Easter Saturday, while "Waters of Mars" pulled 10.3 on a non-holiday Saturday in November. Both "End of Time" episodes beat 12 million and they were over Christmas. However "Last Christmas" was also over...well Christmas...and that only pulled 8 million, scarcely more than an ordinary episode.
That does add credence to the idea that Specials in a year with very little Who do far better than one that comes just over a month after a complete 12-week series.
Doctor Who tends to pull in viewers if there's something unusual happening (new Doctor, new companion) or if it hasn't been on for a while (season openers always seem to add an extra million).
"'reboot' in this context would be new actor playing the Doctor, new companion(s), and a new production team/showrunner"
so nothing new then.....
though I can't help feeling a real total clear-the-decks reboot would help, with nothing left from the current team at all - not like the baton-passing which handed the show to Muffit
I'm actually extremely happy with this season's Clara.
Last season, all she did was waffle about which man she wanted to submit her will to. Boo! Blech! Heroes don't behave that way.
This season, she's much more the self-assured, bright, adventurous heroine that Companions are supposed to be. I think the episodes so far move much more smoothly, and are much more fun to watch because of the change.
"...This season, she's much more the self-assured, bright, adventurous heroine that Companions are supposed to be...."
Almost to the point of cocky at times. This seems to be a recurring characteristic of at least 3 of the new series companions now - hubris and a touch of arrogance. Both Rose Tyler and Amy Pond were guilty of this is some stories, ending up having to be rescued by the Doctor. I'm thinking of Rose losing her face in "The Idiot's Lantern" and Pond walking into the clutches of the fish vampires in "Vampires of Venice".
I'm not objecting you understand. Just pointing it out. They are after all not Real People.
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