h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Shall we build a big tree house and write 'No Grown Ups' on the door?
YAY!!

I dunno what has happened to me recently. When it came to TV, I used to be a sneering misanthrope in the Charlie Brooker mould. Yet now I seem to just get child like enthusiasm for TV and any sense of quality control seems to go out of the window. At least compared to other hootooizens. (from reading this, the BSG and the Heroes threads anyhow).

But strangely I am still a sneering misanthrope when it comes to films....

Don't worry, you're not in the minority, I quite liked it too. I thought they were all really good in this ep, DT always suprises and CT especially had some good one liners.
I have to say I much prefer Donna to Martha's character. It is a shame, I never felt Martha's character had enough depth to it compared to Donna or Rose. It needed more backstory to it to work, but that's just my opinion. Donna's character works because little snippets of backstory have built up, like her Grandad being in the previous xmas special and setting up her home situation properly so you could see the reason she wanted to get away. You didn't get that with Martha.

I have to agree actually, not for the first time. There was much condemnation of the daeleks vs cybermen episode but I loved. Nuts to it, I don't care, I could watch David Tennant all day.

Has the central theme, that of a generations-old war actually only being 7 days old, been used before in sci-fi?

Rings a bell but not sure why. Well, there are no new stories!

I liked the theme a lot.
The actual production wasn't very riveting though.

I'm fed up with the 'wallowing in sentimentality' bits we have to endure.

There wasn't much wallowing really. I thought it was sweet, something I'm not normally a big fan of but I just liked the tone.
She's just delightful.

"Has the central theme, that of a generations-old war actually only being 7 days old, been used before in sci-fi?"

It sounds a bit like something from a Philip K Dick or Arthur C Clarke short story; wouldn't be surprised if it was pinched from an old forgotten sci-fi tale.

There have to be so many threads and themes that are in all sci-fi, like robots, cyborgs, time-travel, huge wars, etc.

There is a lot of marching in the new Dr Who. The Hath were doing it last episode, and lots of other 'baddies' do it too, like the Cybermen. They never used to march, they would 'lumber' around, zombie-like.

Marching gives a sense of military standards.

It helps make the threat look more genuine...

I think it looks a bit silly. Why would aliens march? It's a human thing.

Are you saying aliens cant march cos they'd be copying us?

Obviously efficient flocking would be better..

I always thought aliens should hover or teleport somehow. Because I think they'd have more efficient ways of getting about than us

Hmmm... Military operations would require co-ordinated movement of large numbers of individuals in any culture. Although that doesn't necessarily mean moving 'arms' and 'legs' at exactly the same time (which is to say "marching"), it does make sense as a way to instil the right sense of discipline and unity.
Also, for villains, simultaneous movement en masse brings over a sense of lack of individuality, which has a certain creepiness of its own.

"Are you saying aliens cant march cos they'd be copying us?

Obviously efficient flocking would be better.."

Not flocking. But to move like a like coordinated predatory animals would give such a sense of genuine threat it would scare the kids and make the adults doubt that even the Doctor could escape.

Oh and in my opinion the second part of the Sontaran tale sucked.

I could kind of forgive that the making something common place into a threat didn't really work in the tradition of either genuine horoor or Who silliness.

But the second part built into a crescendo of failure to to build on the expectation imparted in the first half.


The less said about the Doctors Daughter episode the better. It's failings in terms of scripting, storytelling and direction as TV are legion.


btw she is not the Master. The Master was true Timelord who known to the Doctor as child. so it would take some revising of new Who lore to make that one work.

Surely Who villains march because all the best Who villains are Fascists in disguise?

Gif

"Oh and in my opinion the second part of the Sontaran tale sucked."

That's a common problem with two-parters. I assume they want to put as much of the interesting stuff as possible into the first part, to make us want to watch the second. So often the second part will simply involve lots of running around, explosions, and insulting script deficiencies. And lots of people do indeed seem to like that sort of thing.