Yeah, I think it's a bit crap, TBH. Rose left in such a heart-wrenching manner. that for her to pop up and say 'Yoo-hoo!' a couple of series later seems really pointless and cynical. I wasn't impressed, which is a shame, because I liked the character.

Yes, this is really is hugely disappointing. The only interesting thing that I can see is that her first episode seems to be the Doctor light one, as the photos of her filming are with Harper, who's directing that episode at the moment. This COULD be done superbly, but I'm not holding my breath.

Still, with Rose, Martha AND Captain Jack coming back next year, the BBC certainly seem to have a a lot of faith in Catherine Tate to keep the viewers(!)

Amusingly, my title bar on Firefox now reads 'Noise To Signal: RUBBISH'.

We're going to get loads of inter-companion jealousy, aren't we? That's going to be boring! It lends credence to the rumour that the series finale involves Dr Who amassing the whole gang to batter Davros, which does sound pretty coool.

I'm... reserving judgement like a cunt, as usual. Can't see how it would work... but then, if anyone *can* make it work it's the people running Who at the moment.

Still, with Rose, Martha AND Captain Jack coming back next year, the BBC certainly seem to have a a lot of faith in Catherine Tate to keep the viewers(!)

I very much doubt it's anything to do with the BBC. It'll be a RTD choice. And he's always said how he likes mixing up the companions, rather than having just one through an entire series.

At this rate I bet Matthew Waterhouse is waiting by the phone with his coat on.

I think John's got it, really - it's about Davies and his love of companions.

Many of us would like to see a multi-Doctor story (and with Moffat and Time Crash, it might be 'good' as opposed to 'a daft stunt'), but this is the companion equivalent. Which, for me, in an absolutely valid angle to take.

I really enjoyed School Reunion, I've no problem with Dona at all, and if Cappsy's right and this'll kick off in the trick Doctor-Lite ep...count me in. Tennant's Doctor needs new emotional triggers to work as its best, and this offers us that in spades.

(Also, the fuss over multi-companions means there'll be plenty to market the season finale without the publicity department making other twists the worst kept secrets in tabloids.)

I think the clues have always been there that we would get a Rose return. Not even at the end of series 3 could the Doctor get over her. He'd just be pining after her forever unless there was some sort of closure, and now we can assume it will happen. I've got this mad feeling that RTD is SOMEHOW going to let the Doctor go off and live happily ever after with Rose. A parallel Doctor or something. Fuck only knows.

It makes me think more and more that the 2009 specials will be standalone adventures featuring Tennant's Doctor at random times during his incarnation rather than actually following on from series 4. Regeneration at the end of series 4.

> I'm... reserving judgement like a cunt, as usual. Can't see how it would work... but then, if anyone *can* make it work it's the people running Who at the moment.

The same ones who completely blew the setup from Utopia in the FRANKLY AWFUL Sound of Drums/Last of the Time Lords?

I loved both those eps, I'm afraid! Sure, they had their faults - the Doctor being revived by the power of belief is a bit much - but I thought they were generally brilliant.

What didn't you like about them?

I have to say, while I was underwhelmed by LOTTL on original broadcast, watching the three-part finale again, it's easily my favourite of the three so far. The "power of belief" thing undermines it a bit, but aside from that, it's brilliant stuff. Utopia, as we all know, is the greatest piece of fanservice in the history of Who; The Sound of Drums is staggeringly great, easily feeling bigger and more epic than the previous two finales, and with three utterly magnificent set-pieces (the shot of Gallifrey, the airbase - though a model of that would have been nice - and Martha on Primrose Hill); and LOTTL is brilliantly dark with its surprising (if not exactly original) "One Year Later" jump.

Series three is so much better than series two it's not even funny, and the finale just caps that off, really.

Series three is so much better than series two it's not even funny

Undoubtedly. I'd even go so far to say that it's better than Series 1, I think...

> I have to say, while I was underwhelmed by LOTTL on original broadcast, watching the three-part finale again, it's easily my favourite of the three so far

While I wouldn't go that far, the DVD release has really turned me around on a lot of it. Enough that I'm not longer disappointed.

Utopia still feels half-arsed to me - lame baddies, a main plot with zero twistyness ("Fix the machine"), all just background for so-so tying up of lose ends - and LOTTL is painfully Doctor-lite...but the one thing I originally hated, the Tinkerbell finale, now works much better for me.

It makes the same mistake as many other Who resolutions - the bits are all established, but it fumbles over one bit of logic (An aged Doctor 'tuning in' to the satellite signal?!). Still, the bits ARE there, and I can't help by say the magic word when that scene rolls around.

> Series three is so much better than series two it's not even funny

I was surprised by how this group concurred so fully around Series 3's quality over 2, if only because I disagree so completely. While 3 has New Who's best stuff to date - Blink, Human Nature/FoB - I find 2 far, far more consistant.

Which boils down to a huge conflict in taste surrounding the 'middling' episodes: I can't stand Gridlock, but like Tooth and Claw. I throughly enjoyed School Reunion and Love & Monsters.

Meanwhile series 3 has, for me, a huge a five-episode gulf where all the scripts are a bit duff: from Gridlock, through Daleks in Manhattan/Evolution of the Daleks to Lazarus and 42. (Mind you, I hated the series 2 Rise of the Cyberman/Age of Steel story and still do. But that's just one two-parter. A far less painful run of 'average'.)

With the exception of Gridlock - which I dislike for story reasons - those five are scuppered by dreadfully generic concepts and execution. Quick doodles with none of the substance that's made the best of the new series work.

Not really a fan of Rose and hated the way the relationship with The Doctor became so smug. Martha is more interesting (and sexier, incidentally) so I'm annoyed that her return will be overshadowed by Piper's. Three (four?) companions is probably overdoing it especially when one of them is called Catherine Tate.

Of the finales, I think series one was the best. Series 3 should have been awesome. Utopia wasn't great...until the last ten minutes when it was awesome. The trilogy just fell apart after that. Simm, legend that he is, was occasionally "too much", The Doctor being played by Dobby, the skybase, the 'reset' button...)

The sheer awesomeness of Blink elevates series 3 above the others. Simply one of the best things I've ever seen. The rest verged from very good (Family of Blood 2 parter) to diabolical (Daleks in Manhattan 2 parter), but I've always found the show very inconsistent.

> the Doctor being revived by the power of belief is a bit much

The worst moment in new Who. The part that makes me want to cry due to its terribleness is when the says the technobabble exposition line as he's transforming and the music's swelling - 'I've had a year to patch into the defense network and integrate with its matrices' or whatever it is. Pur-lease! What's happening onscreen is so fucking ridiculous and confusing that they need that line shoehorned in to give the idea at least SOME credence.

We're to believe that Martha, who NEVER turned out to be the character she was promised to be from Smith & Jones, went around the world telling everyone to think 'Doctor' at a specific time. Easily the most stupid idea Russell ever thought of.

Looking back on series 2 and 3, which I've done recently, you realise just how much of it is total dross dressed up in a glossy package. Tennant doing his Doctor act doesn't excuse the shite dialogue, although at the time of broadcast it does a good job of masking it. Series 1 was better, not because of Eccleston but because the episodes were far better written. RTD's series 1 finale is way way better than his future efforts. The Parting Of The Ways is probably still his best episode. If you haven't seen it for a while please do go and watch it, seeing as the BBC only want to repeat from The Christmas Invasion now.

I was surprised by how this group concurred so fully around Series 3's quality over 2, if only because I disagree so completely. While 3 has New Who's best stuff to date - Blink, Human Nature/FoB - I find 2 far, far more consistant.

Which boils down to a huge conflict in taste surrounding the 'middling' episodes: I can't stand Gridlock, but like Tooth and Claw. I throughly enjoyed School Reunion and Love & Monsters.

You're probably right - it's just that I think 2 has far, far more dross in it. New Earth, Tooth and Claw, Idiot's Lantern, the Cyber two-parter, Fear Her. All incredibly lacklustre. 3, by comparison, falters only (for me) during the latter-half of the Dalek two-parter, plus Lazarus (which is still at least better than any of those s2 ones I've listed), and 42 (which, admittedly, only has New Earth and Fear Her below it in the "worst of all" for me).

Even when it comes to the best stuff, 2 doesn't hit the heights as frequently as 1 and 3 (although it does come close). 1 has Rose, Dalek, Moffat and the finale. 3 has Smith and Jones, Gridlock, Human Nature, Moffat and the finale. 2 only really has Moffat and the Ood. School Reunion, Love & Monsters and the finale are all very good, but all firmly in "four star" rather than "five star" territory in my book (whereas everything else I've mentioned in this paragraph WOULD be five starrers).

None of the series are in any way consistent, I don't think. But I tend to judge them by "how much would I want to go back and watch the whole thing, start to finish?" - and 2 suffers because it contains almost all of the new series' lowest points. I doubt I will ever, ever watch New Earth or Fear Her again, unless I'm very deliberately watching EVERYTHING in sequence for a reason.

I may be the only person in the world who puts Daleks in Manhattan/Evolution of the Daleks above School Reunion. But for me, despite the missteps, the Dalek two-parter is good, old fashioned, old school Who fun. Wheras School Reunion - whilst it's got some admittedly excellent bits ("I'm the tin dog") - just feels... trite, to me. All the companion stuff feels painfully obvious and one-note. I maintain that the Loch Ness Monster bit is some of the most embarassing dialogue in New Who so far.

And hell, I'd stick Gridlock up there as being one of the best "standard" (as opposed to season openers, or multi-part stories) scripts RTD has ever written. I find it a damn sight more entertaining than Tooth and Claw.

So when do we all start posting our "Three Years of Who" top to bottom star-rating lists...?

> 2 only really has Moffat and the Ood.

See, I can't imagine Smith and Jones or Gridlock on any four- OR five-star list, while I rate the two-part finale of 2 a lot, certainly over the climax of 3. Which is how the lists start to balance out.

> the Dalek two-parter is good, old fashioned, old school Who fun.

If you mean "It's like the old episodes that left the Daleks no longer scary in the first place" then I agree. :-)

I hope Rose turns out to be a fembot.

Also, Gridlock was a brilliant episode with great ideas and wonderful visuals. It also had an impressive epic scope for a single episode.

Series 3 was definitely the best series so far in my opinion. It has the best series opener, The Shakespeare Code is the best historical romp, Blink was inspired, the finale was again suitably epic (and while the way the story concluded was far-fetched it wasn't quite as unbelievable 'CANARY WHARF?!?! in the Series 2 finale), the ending of Utopia was incredible and Human Nature/Family of Blood was utterly perfect. 42 was rubbish but the Dalek two parter was great fun when all those plot threads finally came together in Part Two.

As for Series 2, the Cybermen were a huge let-down. As was the tired two-parter. For all its great moments (The Girl in the Fireplace, Impossible Planet) Series 2 is probably my least favourite series.

Series 2 is the worst because RTD totally dropped the ball (his input on the Impossible Planet 2-parter aside, although we may never know exactly how much of it he wrote). New Earth was an embarrassment, with the Face's appearance the only saving grace. He even had the cheek to try and rip off Moffat with the 'everybody lives' style ending. Tooth & Claw was almost ruined by the dialogue, the continued Rose/Doctor smugness which I hate with a passion. He would have been far more suited to writing School Reunion which was just crap apart from the fact that Sarah Jane was in it. Love & Monsters, while not being bad IMO, was very self-indulgent for a second series of a show, and his finale episodes weren't up to scratch.

I firmly believe that RTD realised he needed to get his act together which resulted in a better series 3. Smith & Jones was great. Gridlock inspiring. Both his Christmas episodes have been solid.

If you mean "It's like the old episodes that left the Daleks no longer scary in the first place" then I agree. :-)

Yeah, that's definitely a problem with the episode. Although the bit that bugs me most is still the climbing the Empire State Building action sequence being exactly like the climax to The Idiot's Lantern - down to the same camera angles, and even being shot in the same place!

I still think there's a lot more enjoyable elements in there than School Reunion, though. The song and dance number, for one. It all beats a load of tedious running about in a school, with companion stuff that is far, far too obvious. And I like the companion stuff most of the time in New Who...

>So when do we all start posting our "Three Years of Who" top to bottom star-rating lists...?

I have not been putting one of these together recently AT ALL.

Can't agree with any of the Monkey talk, unsurprigingly. All the eps you mentioned I LIKED.

Also:

> Gridlock inspiring.

Gah. Y'see, this I'm never going to get. I'll take all the zomie showers and werewolves you like over the episode where the Doctor saves an entire population by...working out how to open a door. Where an entire population has apparently lost the ability to free-think - there's not even any road rage! Nobody elects to try to sneak by on the hard shoulder, despite there being LOADS of space to do so between lanes. Not only does the main conceit not hold water (when did the Macra arrive?), but the main story is as plodding, linear and half-arsed as anything in New Who.

But I get it - it's just me. It's a wonderful episode, apparently, and I'm stuck in a soulless wilderness.

I agree that bringing Rose back so early is a baaad idea. It cheapens the emotional send-off the series gave her only last year. I'm worried that, only a few series in and as popular as ever, "Doctor Who" is resorting to what strikes me as the sort of gimmicks usually used when a series is on the wane.

Regarding the "favourite series" debate going on above, personally I think series three clinches it for me with series two being the poorest of the new run. Overall, all three series have their strengths and weaknesses but series two had more poor episodes (notably the opener and the very disappointing and shoddily-written Cyberman two-parter). It also suffered from feeling a bit dumbed-down, which I suspect was due to the production team deciding to tilt the series more towards the lower end of the viewerships' age-range (particularly notable in the Cybermen bollocks where the plotting and dialogue belonged in one of those CBBC dramas where kids save the world - all that was missing was the Preachers all being played by 14-year-olds), something that was thankfully rectified in series three.

Oh, and I really really hope Davros is evil, malevolent and wholly beyong "saving" in series four. Given that the Doctor has been bleating "I forgive you" at the Master and trying to "help" the irretrievably Nazi daleks I'm worried at the inherent softheadedness the series is showing. I miss the ninth Doctor and his "I hate these evil fucking daleks!" attitude.

> "I hate these evil fucking daleks!"

I believe it was Pertwee's Doctor that said this, actually.

Actually, I think it might have been the name of an eight-part story from the Pertwee years.

We are both correct. This was the era when the Doctor said the title of each story "in context" at some point during one of the episodes.

Gah. Y'see, this I'm never going to get. I'll take all the zomie showers and werewolves you like over the episode where the Doctor saves an entire population by...working out how to open a door. Where an entire population has apparently lost the ability to free-think - there's not even any road rage! Nobody elects to try to sneak by on the hard shoulder, despite there being LOADS of space to do so between lanes. Not only does the main conceit not hold water (when did the Macra arrive?), but the main story is as plodding, linear and half-arsed as anything in New Who.

But I get it - it's just me. It's a wonderful episode, apparently, and I'm stuck in a soulless wilderness.

You're looking at it too literally - the episode is all about dramatic reversal:

Everything that happens in this story is thematically related: this is a story about revelations and reversals. The Doctor lies to Martha about his planet, then reverses it with the revelation that his planet is gone. The setup tells us that the Macra are the Terror and the Subway is a prison, the reversal reveals that the Macra are, essentially, a natural hazard and the subway is a lifeboat. The nurse's introduction implies she's a villain looking to kill the Doctor, the reversal reveals that she's a hero looking for help from the Doctor. The series tells us the Doctor is alone. The Face's revelation tells us that he is not.

Everything in this story is an example of the reversal, and, because of that, a metaphor for the final revelation: that the Doctor is not the last of the time lords.

(Nicked from http://groups.google.co.uk/group/rec.arts.drwho/msg/1f9d8daca78ff093 , which goes into more detail than the above quote.)

Mm-hmm. I think that one aired between "Goddamnit, Not The Fucking Autons Again!" and "Well, The Silurians Can Suck My Big Fat Hairy Balls".

I knew I should have quoted the posts I was replying to. Now my post just looks stupid.

The Cream -

Dalek
Father's Day
The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances
The Parting Of The Ways
The Girl In The Fireplace
The Impossible Planet
Human Nature/The Family Of Blood
Blink

Very Good -

Rose
The End Of The World
Bad Wolf
The Christmas Invasion
The Satan Pit
The Runaway Bride
Smith & Jones
Gridlock
Utopia

Average -

The Unquiet Dead
Boomtown
School Reunion (only for Sarah Jane)
Love & Monsters
Army Of Ghosts/Doomsday
The Shakespeare Code
Daleks In Manhatten/Evolution Of Helen Raynor
The Sound Of Drums

Plain Bad -

Aliens Of London/WW3
The Long Game
New Earth
Rise Of The Cybermen/Age Of Steel
The Idiot's Lantern
Fear Her
The Lazarus Experiment
42
Last Of The Time Lords (what a monumental fuckup of what could have been the greatest episode in all 30 seasons)

I know most people would put the Shakespeare Code higher than that but I just do NOT like it. It's a piece of fanwank both for Who and Shakespeare. Like an excited child wrote it.

> You're looking at it too literally - the episode is all about dramatic reversal:

Interesting piece, thanks for that.

Still, "You're thinking about it all wrong" is a response that can be applied to anything two people might disagree on, isn't it? "Right thinking" is a worrying term...

(And when New Earth gets criticised for using IV drugs in a shower - a complaint *I* find too literal - I don't think it's too much to apply the same criteria here.)

Regardless, I didn't say Gridlock was shallow or pointless, but I think it has dramatic problems. If a thing tries to do something and fails, it still fails, regardless of other successes. It tries to make the saving of the drivers a dramatic climax. For me, it doesn't achieve it. It tries to put us in a 'What would you do?' position - one of the points of a companion is to enable this - and only succeeds in drawing attention to the flaws.

(Blade Runner, if you like, does the same thing - it plays brilliantly on a metaphorical level, but is pretty much a failure as the conventional detective movie and action picture it often tries to be. A bad example, BR, because it's a great movie. But playing on many levels doesn't mean you get to ignore the top level completely.)

I don't have a problem understanding the levels of Gridlock. I'm just left unsatisfied by the whole thing. Dialogue, characters...but why go through it again when we can just go here:

http://www.noisetosignal.org/tv/2007/04/doctor-who-gridlock.php

...and read the whole "Andrew Thinking About Gridlock Wrong" as it happened the first time.

Also, 'a series of dramatic reversals' is a nice way of saying 'the same trick over and over again'... :-)

> Mm-hmm. I think that one aired between "Goddamnit, Not The Fucking Autons Again!" and "Well, The Silurians Can Suck My Big Fat Hairy Balls".

They weren't all in the same season I think. After "Goddamnit, Not the Fucking Autons Again!" there was a two-episode TARDIS -oriented filler piece called "Did You See Where I Left My Sonic Cunting Screwdriver, Jo?" and then there were some episodes with new villains which were pretty exciting but the titles escape me. I'm pretty sure "I Hate These Evil Fucking Daleks!" and "Well, The Silurians Can Suck My Big Fat Hairy Balls" started the next season.

> Also, 'a series of dramatic reversals' is a nice way of saying 'the same trick over and over again'... :-)

My, I can be a convincing bastard sometimes.

Torchwood Trailer on BBC America - selling the show better than the UK Beeb are managing so far:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NKw0WKoMtQ

I know, I know, I'm being sucked in all over again, but...Captain Jack dying loads, big fucking explosions, and James Masters looking soooooo cool.

Christ, here we go again.

The trailer *does* look good but then trailers always do. You can make any old shit look exciting with plenty of quick edits and some dramatic music.

"Torchwood" series two is only going to be good if it deals with all the problems the first series had - weak characterisation, derivative writing, frequent insulting of the audiences intelligence, mistaking "adult" for "blood and shagging" and allowing anything as utterly shit as "Random Shoes" to be broadcast. I was also really disappointed that the fact that Torchwood is a secretive organisation with over 100 years of history behind it was an idea not explored in the first series. I hope that'll be rectified in series two - I'm interested in Torchwood's past and what it did during WWI, WWII, the Cold War etc etc.

Holes aplenty, flaws aplenty, and yet I can't give up on it yet. I'm rewatching the DVDs right now and the faults remain huge. (And, oddly, disappointing when the 'stacks of shagging' is actually pretty tame stuff...)

I keeping thinking 'Angel', though. The first series of that is dreadfully patchy, often derivative, and often VERY fan-fic-y. They took a while to find their feet, and I'm praying Torchwood's the same.

See you in three months for a great big bout of me being let down. Again.

Interestingly, RTD claims in this month's SFX that Rose was always intended to come back - that they basically said to Bille "See you in two years!".

Now, we know RTD is a serial liar - although the truth usually comes out in the end, and he generally lies to keep plot developments secret. I see no reason to really doubt him here.

Mind you, he does also slag off THE ENTIRE INTERNET in the same interview, which seems slightly harsh...

The crap he's had to put up with from Outpost Gallifrey (and I know he reads it, because he mentioned it by name in an interview with Word mag once), I don't blame him for being disenchanted with the internet, to be honest.

> they basically said to Bille "See you in two years!".

I have no problem believing that. When she's around and organising her departure, a character so popular and successful, how do you NOT say "Hey, fancy coming back when you've had a chance to do some other stuff?"

The crazy thing would be to assume that it was never considered or mooted...

Despite knowing she was coming back, Davies was still bound to write her departure with as much oomph as possible. (BUFFY SPOILER) Whedon let Buffy die with absolute power, despite knowing she'd be back next season. That's not unfair, or a cheat. We crave the drama, we enjoy it, and if you can play it to the hilt, go ahead.

> The crap he's had to put up with from Outpost Gallifrey (and I know he reads it, because he mentioned it by name in an interview with Word mag once), I don't blame him for being disenchanted with the internet, to be honest.

But you can't blame the internet, you have to blame stupid people. The medium's made the feedback more immediate, less thought-through (on average), and massively increased the volume...but you can't make a movie, TV show, book or even DVD now without those comments appearing. Unless the opinion spreads beyond the bacterial breeding ground of talkback and forums (such as the Daniel Craig is Not Bond nonsense), you just have to put it down to the nature of the beast. Blame The Internet and you run the risk of ignoring useful feedback...

He was VERY specific in the big post-series two interview he did with DWM that "There's no Rose Tyler in Series Three", so I'd agree that there's no reason not to believe him here. It also explains why Piper hasn't made any real effort to bugger off to the US.

>Blame The Internet and you run the risk of ignoring useful feedback...

Exactly. There's much fanboy wah-it-isn't-the-show-I-want bile online but there's also a lot of careful, considered and intelligent criticism. Attacking the internet in general is throwing the baby out with the bathwater; additionally, despite all the nonsense from the Beeb and RTD about how they know what the public wants, it's the only real feedback from fans they're likely to get.

>There's much fanboy wah-it-isn't-the-show-I-want bile online but there's also a lot of careful, considered and intelligent criticism.

But if the majority of what you initially encounter is the bile - and, given that OG is by far the highest-profile and most populous fan centre online, the bile is going to be encountered pretty quickly - then why would you stick around to dig for the intelligent criticism?

>despite all the nonsense from the Beeb and RTD about how they know what the public wants, it's the only real feedback from fans they're likely to get.

But "the fans" =\= "the public". The only feedback that matters to the Beeb are ratings, audience appreciation indices and merchandise sales. All of which are sky high. When the show started, it needed to be able to fall back on the support of the old-school fans. It doesn't any more, though.

> But "the fans" =\= "the public". The only feedback that matters to the Beeb are ratings, audience appreciation indices and merchandise sales. All of which are sky high. When the show started, it needed to be able to fall back on the support of the old-school fans. It doesn't any more, though.

Absolutely.

Still, if, as a creative, Davies also wants feedback on what's working and what isn't, there are places to go - places online - where intelligent reviews are being put together. This site is one such place.

Ignore the bulk of the talkback and forums if you like - you're quite right, it's a lot to wade through when people will generally post anger and disappointment much easier than they they will praise - but the net does give you the chance to get useful response.

There's no obligation to do this, of course. Kubrick seemed to work in a vacuum, it's an artistically valid way to carry on. But if you go looking, it suggests you want to know - 'What could we be doing even better? What's working for people?' If that's the case, aim for the reviews.

Torchwood, for sure, would be better for listening to some of the positively -intended crit...