7X02 Dinosaurs On A Spaceship (Grading/Discussion) (SPOILERS!)

[OmahaStar]

And tumblr explodes

Shiny! Where did that come from?

Have you not seen Dinosaurs on a Spaceship yet? Looks like they added an extra loop in before the Doctor pulled off Rory's face, but, it's definitely there in the episode

I didn't notice that. How in the world did I miss it? Because yum. lol

 

[wamdue]

Question for the classic series fans, what did cause the extension of the dinosaurs in the Whoverse? it seems like something the Doctor may have had a hand in at some point.

Also is the planet Siluria, a suggestion of some sort of a Planet of the Dinosaurs?

 

[Psion]

Blech.

There were a few good parts, but the episode was filled with the NuWho equivalent of pointless running scenes.

On the Silurians:
This race is a hopeless muddle of references that could have been fixed with a quick trip to the library (old series) or Wikipedia (today). Just when does homo reptilia originate? The Silurian was too long ago for a species as advanced as h. reptilia, but it's the best offered so far for a species fleeing the "capture" of the moon (formed pre-Silurian). The Eocene works a little better, but they wouldn't know what an ape was since those didn't evolve until about 30 million years ago -- and the moon was by then a long-established part of the earth-moon system. Of course, more recent origins give us a problem with this week's Silurian Arc Ship which was stocked with species that went extinct at the end of the Cretaceous Period (assuming the "velociraptors" were really just a mis-identified species of dromaeosaurs).

So, to recap, if the Silurians are too old, there's no way they'd even know what an ape was, let alone consider it a way to pejoratively refer to humans. If the Silurians are too young, they'd not be able to rescue any dinosaurs. And all of that is tied in hopelessly with fleeing the formation of the moon which occurred well before there was life on earth!

Question for the classic series fans, what did cause the extension of the dinosaurs in the Whoverse? it seems like something the Doctor may have had a hand in at some point.

He did! In fact, one of his companions was part of the splatter.

 

[DWF]

Question for the classic series fans, what did cause the extension of the dinosaurs in the Whoverse? it seems like something the Doctor may have had a hand in at some point.

Also is the planet Siluria, a suggestion of some sort of a Planet of the Dinosaurs?

Well in a way the Doctor was involved in the extiction of the dinosaurs in the Cyberman story called Earthhock one ofthe Doctor's companions was on a ship that crashed into the earth the resulting explosion caused an ice age which took out the dinosaurs.

 

[Count Zero]

Well, the origin story of the Silurians was already messed up the first time they appeared (in the era of the Third Doctor). The thing with the moon is from their first appearance and I think the Doctor names them Silurians then. The ape thing could also be from that episode but I'm less sure about that right now.
So, actually, it's the Doctor who doesn't have any clue about Earth's prehistory.

 

[Guy Gardener]

No, it was the Moon not the dinokiller.

Although if all of the stasis pods, billions of pods in thousands of installations across the... Oh god.

DinoY2K

maybe they didn't run into y2k when they past the threshold of triple digits into a new century?

What if because how they kept dates it wasn't till they hit the same problem a thousand, or 10 thousand years after they invented computers when they were all already sleeping?

or mybe the moon, or the dino killer presented such catastrophe that the snooze buttons went into overload, for gods sake what's the simple AI at work there going to think about an ice age just popping up?

What abotu a doomsday cult that sabotaged all the sleeping pods? Doomsday preppers get really pissed off that some assholes continue to ignore revelations rousing up all around them.

 

[Marc]

one bit I liked was the Rory the nurse both with his dad and the dying tricerotops - don't think this has been really touched on since his very earliest appearance.

 

[The Wormhole]

A pretty decent episode. Riddell and Nefertiti were fun characters, even if their love affair was obvious as far back as the trailers. Rory's dad was amsuing, and the scene where Rory has to treat his wound was a pretty good character moment. Future India's space military service was a cool idea which I hope gets revisited. Solomon and his robot goons seemed a bit forced. It's as though they wanted a nasty douche with comedy relief lackeys and didn't really think things through beyond that. Sometimes they took things a bit too seriously, like when the triceratops had a moving death scene, but for the most part the episode lived up to the claim of being "light hearted fun." The scene with Amy and Riddell taking on velociraptors with stun guns was pure awesome.

My main problem with this episode is that the ship itself seems too advanced to be a Silurian ship. Specifically, it has never been indicated that the Silurians were capable of creating artificial environments. Not only that, but creating a realistic artificial environment and utilizing it as a ship's engine room? Sorry, that's a bit too impressive. Don't get me wrong, I'm not accusing the concept of being implausible, since similar ideas have been done in before in Doctor Who and sci-fi in general. My problem is that I can't see the Silurians being capable of such an accomplishment.

So, I guess Rory's dad wasn't at the wedding? After all, if he were he would likely have recognized the Doctor and the TARDIS given how they did just drop in on the reception. Yet they give no explanation for why he wasn't at the wedding. There seem to be no issues between him and Rory, so why wouldn't he be at his son's wedding.

Also, Rory gives his age as 31. I was under the impression that Amy and Rory were supposed to be the same age, even though in RL there is a six year difference between Gillan(24) and Darvill(30). Certainly, they both seemed to be around the same age in the flashback in Let's Kill Hitler. However, by my estimates, Amy should now be 26. No, I'm not really sure what point I'm trying to make, but this is something I felt should be pointed out.

Finally, now that the Doctor has kissed Rory, I guess that means that nuWho has featured the Doctor kissing all his companions except for Mickey. Mickey really does get left out a lot, he's also the only character in the first season Jack never flirted with.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

So, to recap, if the Silurians are too old, there's no way they'd even know what an ape was, let alone consider it a way to pejoratively refer to humans. If the Silurians are too young, they'd not be able to rescue any dinosaurs.

I think they're aware of humans and human history so they call them apes. It doesn't have to do with them going into hiding specifically when humans were Australopithecus.

 

[Similitude]

Does anyone know if they got a budget bump the past season or so? SFX seem much, much improved, I guess since Moffat took over.

 

[Samurai8472]

Quite the opposite. They're doing all this on a trimmed down budget.

I would have thought the dinosaurs would have suffered but they looked as good as any other recent CGI monster(Jenny ganger)

 

[Cutter John]

Well, the origin story of the Silurians was already messed up the first time they appeared (in the era of the Third Doctor). The thing with the moon is from their first appearance and I think the Doctor names them Silurians then. The ape thing could also be from that episode but I'm less sure about that right now.
So, actually, it's the Doctor who doesn't have any clue about Earth's prehistory.

Actually he go the name 'Silurians' from a professors notes. He actually corrected himself in The Sea Devils, saying that they should more accurately be called Eocenes.

And yes, the approach of the Moon, caused the reptilian races to go into hibernation to survive a planetary collision that never came. Then along came the space freighter and actually did kill off the dinosaurs.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Every show in Britain last year got a budget reduction of 1/4 or cancelled.

It was grim.

Just something I heard, no idea how true it is.

 

[Saul]

Does anyone know if they got a budget bump the past season or so? SFX seem much, much improved, I guess since Moffat took over.

But we're only getting half the episodes this year that we usually do so some extra money might be going into those.

 

[Orac Zen]

Entertaining fluff for the most part. I wasn't entirely sold on the Doctor killing off Filch - err, Solomon. Yes, Solomon was a homicidal lunatic who spaced a (presumably large) number of Silurians and was prepared to sell a person (along with some rare animals), but I can't immediately recall the Doctor acting as judge, jury and executioner with quite that degree of ruthlessness. It was also a jarring contrast to the sheer silliness and childlike joy the Doctor showed in the rest of the episode. I enjoyed the hell out of that; I'm completely sold on Smith's Doctor. I'm also apparently one of the few people who'll really miss the Ponds. Can't blame the Doctor for wanting to hang out with his in-laws, all things considered.

I'm a little baffled at all the backlash against Moffat lately. I've been enjoying his tenure immensely. Ah well. Different strokes I suppose.

I know I'm enjoying Moffat Who a very great deal. At the absolute least it's watchable, which is infinitely more than I can say for the Tennant / RTD combo. But to each their own.

 

[Methos]

agreed... every episode from Moffat so far has been a hundred times better than the abomination that was End of Time...

M

 

[Starkers]

Are you talking about me and not the show again? You can't help yourself can you.

Ok then, we'll talk the show. Unless I've missed it can you explain why 11 killing soloman is any different to 6 killing shockeye? Simple, show related question there.

With you level of grumpiness, I'd have guessed 83.

What in blazes makes you think I'm grumpy?

Because your avatar is so negative?

Guy, I think you just won teh interwebz...

 

[Guy Gardener]

"You get one chance, that's the sort of man I am."

Of course, that was a different man.

 

[Ghost Bones]

Are you talking about me and not the show again? You can't help yourself can you.

Ok then, we'll talk the show.

Well done, we're finally learning.

Unless I've missed it can you explain why 11 killing soloman is any different to 6 killing shockeye? Simple, show related question there.

Do you really need me to explain? Either you're just being difficult, or else you've got little idea what happened to Shockeye and so you...well, you're being difficult by not checking that way.

When the Doctor killed Shockeye, Shockeye was chasing after him with a knife to kill him, having already slashed his leg. It's not murder to kill someone who's injured you and is chasing you with a knife to finish the job. Solomon was locked inside a ship about to be blown up which the Doctor actively caused the missiles to target and then actively did not save Solomon by helping him out of the ship, rather locking him in - and considering Solomon easily had his gammy leg kicked out from under him just before, it's not as if he was a physical threat.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

I don't care that this episode was over the top. It was too damn fun! I mean, it's got a great cast of Mark Williams, David Bradley, and Rupert Graves, features people plucked out of time like Nefertiti, a good use of the Silurians, and above all else, dinosaurs on spaceship! Silly, yes? Does it really matter, not at all!

Best of all, the episode not only featured but opened up with my favorite dinosaur, the ankylosaurus! You have no idea how thrilled I was by that. Rarely are they featured in any kind of television or film production involving dinosaurs. It's always the tyrannosaurus, triceratops, stegosaurus, velociraptors, apatosaurus, and so on. At long last, proper recognition for ankylosaurus!

Seriously, I can see how some people might not like this episode but I think it's good for the show to let loose like this now and then.

As for Amy and Rory, I'm still loving them both individually and as a couple, but I think it'll be good when they finally move on. I realized during Amy's conversation with The Doctor towards the end when he's making small talk while panicking that Amy and Rory of become so much more than just two individuals. They're truly a couple and not two characters together with The Doctor in the middle and I think that's awesome. It's what I've wanted since "The Eleventh Doctor" I will really miss them when they conclusively depart.

One final note. This is probably just me (and I'm not familiar with Mitchell and Webb), but I thought the two robots were rather Douglas Adams-esque. Not like Marvin, but just his type of humor.

Next week: Ben Browder! I can't wait!

Wish they could have kept the triceratops as a companion - how cool would that have been?

Pretty damn cool, that's for certain.

And did the Doctor outright murder that guy or what? And quite gleefully, too.

I didn't have a problem with this because I immediately thought back to "The Family of Blood." Solomon committed genocide. The Doctor showed restraint.

That was pretty damn good. Who would have imagined we'd say that about a Chris Chibnall script? Kudos, that man.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Chris Chibnall is perfectly capable of writing good scripts as evidenced by Life on Mars, Law & Order: UK, and Torchwood. I am, however, glad he finally was able to do it for Doctor Who.

And the show answers the mystery of Nefertiti's fate in Ancient Egypt.

Yup, for once meddling with time was beneficial.

I want Rory's dad and Wilf together for an episode.

That would be hilarious.

This. Must. Happen!

...having someone besides America or England running Earth in the future.

That was definitely a nice touch.