• Welcome! The TrekBBS is the number one place to chat about Star Trek with like-minded fans.
    If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

A Christmas Carol discussion and grading thread

How do you rate A Christmas Carol?


  • Total voters
    183
Not the greatest thing since sliced bread but I voted "Very Good". I enjoyed it quite a lot. My girlfriend loathed it. Ah well. I swear she only watches DW to humour me anyhow.
 
Loved it. The previews for the new series look fascinating too.

Moffat's probably the best writer they've ever had. And oddly enough, the better this show gets under him the less interesting the Doctor himself becomes - the characters and situations around him are so much more vividly written and performed. At this rate he's going to wind up as the Cryptkeeper. :lol:

Oh, the spaceship was cool. :techman:
 
Firstly, was anyone else disturbed at the notion of the Doctor rewriting someone's life, I mean even though he wasn't a nice man, that just feels wrong, and how can the Doctor rewrite history in that way, yet not do something like hop back in time and tell the Captain to change course earlier?
Yes, I found that disturbing as well. What I also found weird is Karzan knew his memories had been changed, and remembered his life before the Doctor meddled. Shouldn't the old memories have been wiped away, like Jackie's memory of Pete dying alone?
 
You know, Moffat's treatment of the Doctor's time travel continues to be somewhat more comic than past writers and once again veers close to Bill-and-Ted territory at least once this time out - where the access code was concerned.
 
I like that he kept a light touch in this, and I can accept that the "rules" of time travel, memories, etc aren't the same as they've been in other stories. This is Doctor Who, after all. The next time they're consistent will be the first time they're consistent.

Really fun story that I might rewatch soon. I didn't catch a lot of the stuff that I've seen written about here, and it'd be fun to see some of it.

Still chuckling over those isomorphic controls.

And while we're on the subject of lens flares, did anyone else wish that Taran Fahir was cast as the starship captain?

Or would that be taking it too far?
 
Moffat's probably the best writer they've ever had. And oddly enough, the better this show gets under him the less interesting the Doctor himself becomes - the characters and situations around him are so much more vividly written and performed. At this rate he's going to wind up as the Cryptkeeper. :lol

Interestingly, I've had the exact opposite reaction to Moffat's writing. Matt Smith is about the only thing I like about this era of the Doctor Who. The stories are either really boring or completely nonsensical, and Amy is a selfish bitch. River was written so over-the-top in the Weeping Angel two-parter that I didn't even believe it was the same character that we had met in "Silence in the Library."

And I really didn't like the Doctor re-writing history the way he did. I know they had set it up with Amy last season, when she was able to bring back her parents. However, she was able to do that because the Pandorica was still doing its thing.

I just hope they don't make a habit of re-writing history the way they did in this special. It's way too easy.
 
Amy is a selfish bitch.
Granted, but there are still people who miss that terrible Rose, so this may be pandering to that segment of fandom.
River was written so over-the-top in the Weeping Angel two-parter that I didn't even believe it was the same character that we had met in "Silence in the Library."
Perhaps, but at the same time, the River was saw in the library was at the end of her life, and she had spent years, perhaps decades with various Doctors. The River we saw with the Angels is a much younger version of the same character. Perhaps this is her "wild and crazy youth" era? Since they have a relationship that's outside the normal timeline - for both - who can say?




Now, to the "Father's Day" comments, it's been a while since I saw that episode, but one thing I do remember is that there were two sets of the Doctor and Rose, along with baby Rose. There was the original set who came along and witnessed Pete's death (weakening the timelines by doing so), and then the second set who came along later to visit the exact same time, weakening the walls even more. When Rose finally touched herself (what is this, a Divinyls song?), there were three of her wondering around and it was enough to let the Reapers (or whatever the heck they were called) through.

In this case, it was sort of the same person, but by the time the two met, they were clearly different. Partial evidence of this is the machine that would no longer recognize the older man, because he wasn't the same anymore.

The Father's Day circumstance wasn't repeated. So no Reapers.


Edit to add ...

From http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Father's_Day ...

The TARDIS materialises in 1987 on the street where Pete died. They stand on the pavement, Rose describing what happened as they watch it. Pete was late getting the wedding gift, and when he stepped out of his car to cross the road, an oncoming car ran into him, killing him almost instantly. When this happens, the Doctor tells Rose to go to Pete, but she is unable to go to her father's fallen body. By the time she recovers, the ambulance has arrived and he is already dead. She asks the Doctor if she can try again, and while the Doctor looks doubtful, he agrees.
Travelling back to the same moment, they wait around the corner from their earlier selves. The Doctor warns Rose to wait until her earlier self has left before going to see her father, or else it will create a paradox. However, as Pete steps out of his car and the other car comes hurtling around the corner, Rose pulls away from the Doctor, passing their startled earlier selves and knocking Pete out of the way. The earlier Doctor and Rose vanish, and while Rose is overjoyed at having actually succeeded in saving her father, the Doctor looks on aghast.

Yep, that's what I remembered. At that instant, there were three Roses and two Doctors in the immediate vicinity, big old paradox (that is entirely Rose's fault) and that's what let the Reapers come through.
 
Perhaps this is her "wild and crazy youth" era? Since they have a relationship that's outside the normal timeline - for both - who can say?

I thought of that, but then she showed up in "The Pandorica Opens," and I found her a lot MORE mature and "in character" in that episode, which takes place when she is even younger.
 
Amy often seems smarter than the Doctor, and I've grown to really like Rory...rather despite myself. He's not nearly as impressed with the Doctor as the Doctor would like, which makes for a more interesting dynamic between them.

Smith can only really play the comic beats - he never comes across as someone any older than the actor. That said, of course he nailed the "Marilyn" gag. :lol:
 
I loved the part at the end where Amy hugged the Doctor, then Rory made like he was going to hung the Doctor and stopped when it became apparent the Doctor wasn't up for it. And Rory's my second-favorite secondary companion, after Wilf. But it's a very close second.
 
I haven't seen "FATHER'S DAY" for a while, but didn't the reaper/raptors break thru, because Pete didn't die as he was supposed to, not because of multi-Rose? When teen Rose touched Baby Rose, that just weakened the barrier (or strengthened the reapers).
 
I haven't seen "FATHER'S DAY" for a while, but didn't the reaper/raptors break thru, because Pete didn't die as he was supposed to, not because of multi-Rose?

Yep - they were supposedly like antibodies "healing time" because Rose rescued her father.

Oh, the "Rose and Rory have dress-up sex" as a running joke was so Moffat. :lol:
 
Just finished watching it and voted the second option. It wasn't as good as I thought it could be but it was really fun. I thought Michael Gambon and Katherine Jenkins were great in it. As mentioned before the bridge of the ship did indeed resemble the "Star Trek" bridge even right down to the sound effects I thought. Matt seems to have a boundless amount of energy that he brings to the role that never ceases to amaze me. He brings so much dimension to this incarnation of the Doctor, David and Chris were fantastic, but Matt is proving he is well worthy of the role. Looking forward to series six.
 
If that's JFK's White House...

"Who the HELL are you?"

"Me!? I'm the man who's wife you are shtupping!"

(The more I see of this show the more sure I am that Amy Pond is River Song... but we're not going to be sure until Rory is Dying, bleeding out, just all screaming and panicky, and River Kisses him goodbye saying something like "I'd never have been with him if you didn't die, because I loved you so much more." )
 
^ No, Amy isn't River.

To add: I cheered when I saw Arthur's name in the credits. :) My son thought I was weird.
 
Heh, just realised how much this episode retconned Father's Day out of existence.

;)

I was thinking exactly the same thing. I was looking for the time-reaping dragons to come through the clouds....

Sorry, but time was not changed in the same way whatsoever. The Doctor did not use the TARDIS to bring back from the dead someone who had already died in his timeline (this would be more akin to him saving Adric or something).

He did not prevent anyone from dying who already had. He went back and tried to brighten the personality of someone by bringing out an innocence and heart that was already there.

In a way, this was in no way whatsoever about rewriting time, just rewriting people enough to give them one last chance at happiness. One last day.

Am I missing something because I thought the Doctor couldn't rewrite history, as shown in the Tennant late specials.

Again, he didn't rewrite history. Just one man.

I haven't seen "FATHER'S DAY" for a while, but didn't the reaper/raptors break thru, because Pete didn't die as he was supposed to, not because of multi-Rose? When teen Rose touched Baby Rose, that just weakened the barrier (or strengthened the reapers).

People need to rewatch Father's Day. The Doctor even says that IF he had wanted to, and IF he had prepared properly, THEN he could have saved Rase's dad, but the way Rose did so...with there being two Doctors and two Roses and several rewritten timelines was a complete screw-up of such proportions that the reapers came through. You'll notice the Doctor has never gone back in time to look at himself from a distance since.
 
If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Sign up / Register


Back
Top