Oh right it's THAT kind of thread is it. An opinions/questions not allowed thread. Fair enough then, it was excellent and made perfect sense, hence the 10/10 rating that I didn't give it.
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Oh right it's THAT kind of thread is it. An opinions/questions not allowed thread. Fair enough then, it was excellent and made perfect sense, hence the 10/10 rating that I didn't give it.
I think we all know that all opinions, positive and negative, are welcome here.
Si.
I must admit, I'm also not quite sure how "time is happening all at once" equates to flying cars. The other images (Dickens on TV, steamtrains in London today) more or less make sense, but not the cars.
The more I think about it, the less satisfying I've found it. Plus it makes it very difficult to discuss anything properly, when there's probably the "ah yes, but that hasn't been explained yet" card to be played. So why does the Doctor rush off at the end of AGMGTW? Or why is the young Melody in the spacesuit? Or Mels in Leadworth? Why did the TARDIS go loopy at the end of series 5? It's like getting to the end of a book, only to find it's actually the first in a three volume set, and nothing really makes sense yet.
I gave you your explanation, and then just added a bit on the end as a joke. I can see why you don't like the show though, thinking about it, as having a sense of humour is needed sometimes.Quote:
Originally Posted by Zbigniev Hamson
It was ok 7/10, but despite so much happening it never really gripped me on an emotional level, their were so many scenes that should of been moving but just left me feeling that it was all a bit silly.
Although it held my attention, I thought that was a very weak finale, frankly. It felt derivative and in some cases just plain silly, and whereas we have had massive emotional content before, here it just felt trowelled on and did not evoke any sympathetic feelings in me as a viewer at all.
I think I have now hit 'timey-wimey' saturation point. Moffatt can write some really good stuff, but his obsession with tying time up in knots has just worn too thin. But even accepting this, the episode itself was poor.
Firstly, as soon as the captain of the Teselecta said 'is there anything else we can do?' I figured it would be involved in the resolution. The Teselecta seems to have been improved a little since we last saw it, since everyone who was playing it last time was doing the exaggerated 'I'm a robot' acting, whereas this time it works so well it is indistinguishable from a real person with a full emotional range.
And speaking of emotions, this episode fell flatter than any other, at least for me. When did River fall in love with the Doctor? OK, she's a manufactured psychopath, but there really doesn't seem to have been time in her timestream for any kind of 'love' to have developed, much less one strong enough to make her not care that the Universe was falling to bits as long as he lived. And the moment where we find she's called on the Universe for help and the whole Universe has responded to say 'yes, we'll help the Doctor' should have been the emotional punch, but just felt overdone, crass and obvious. And how does he think no-one would care if sucha distress call was received? Wasn't this whole arc about him and his universal reputation? With several examples of his awareness of his own legendary status in the series, it seems weird to have him thinking no-one would care.
And in terms of plot? Why put River in the suit to kill the Doctor when the suit is controlling her actions anyway? Why, in fact, put her in a spacesuit at all? This series more than any other seems to be built around good images and ideas that don't actually have any sense in them narratively speaking. Another case in point: the alternative Amy and Rory. Heads in boxes? Appears to be no more than an excuse for some cheap gags. Moving skulls was just a little too silly for me, especially when a whole mass of them engulfed the chess playing Viking.
So, we still don't know who made the TARDIS explode last series, and we now have yet another setup for something else that is coming...
The best bit was the news of the Brigadier's death. A nice touch to remember Nick Courtney, and far more of an emotional hit than any of the overdone schmaltzy crap later on.
I'm sorry Alex, but I think that comment is antagonistic and really not helping anyone.Quote:
I can see why you don't like the show though, thinking about it, as having a sense of humour is needed sometimes.
A lot of people put a lot of effort into keeping this forum running and yet over the past few weeks dissapointingly discussion has spiralled into argument. I know sometimes that can't be helped, but comments like the above are typical of how massive rows are started.
PLEASE try and keep conversation on here civil, and restrain from barbed personal comments.
Now back to discussion on "The Wedding Of River Song" please.
Si.
(with moderators hat on)
Of course, the Doctor never ended up re-writing history because it's always been the Teselecta who was shot.
It might have saved some problems with time if he'd told Rvier that at that time she was supposed to be killing him at the lake.
I agree that we seem to have come out the other side of (gone full circle on) The River Arc, yet all the fabulous adventures and fun times we don't seem to have seen.
Si.
.. and of course we had a Dalek in the mix as well! Well okay, only for a few seconds, but it was appreciated :clap
I liked the 'Live Chess' gag.
And (although I'm less enamoured of this episode the more I think about it) I will say that it didn't feel rushed - I was worried, with all it had to pack in, that 45 minutes wouldn't be enough, but it fitted it's slot very well.
Jason's post has actually reminded me of two things I didn't quite get - a) what was the point of all that 'the universe answering' business, it didn't seem to move the plot on at all? and more significantly b) River refers to those replies as coming from outside their bubble (or words to that effect) which surely suggests, despite what the Doctor's spent the episode claiming, all of time & space isn't splintering, just some tiny parallel/alternate part of it.
I think it's time we admit to ourselves that Mr Moffat doesn't really plot everything out as tightly and completely as he'd like us to think. We're not going to get most of the answers we're looking for.
His Tardis was in their so I presume he saved them.Quote:
Originally Posted by Simon R
I really liked it, so much better than last years Pandorica nonsense. I think this series worked because we got the ending in the first episode and it's made me get forensic on each subsequent episode trying to spot clues. Confidential did a really useful piece on the whole Melody/River Song timeline.
Maybe it's a sign of our times, but one of the ethos' of Russell's era was that it's all about how you enjoy it on the night, and everything after is "up for the taking". So you can say that Rose is gone, Donna will never remember and so on, and for that night it's true. But you've had those emotions, you've let people enjoy that episode. Six months later it's different, a new lot of viewers, and so Rose can be back, Donna can remember, and so on.
One wonders if Moffat is playing a similar game. Okay, he's obviously continuously setting up questions and if none of them make any kind of story he's going to get it in the neck. But after a year, why the TARDIS blew up seems to matter less and less to fewer people, and one wonders if he ever needs to fully explain everything. He's almost set himself up so much as the king of long term arcs, that he never needs to answer them all because, theoretically, we could always be waiting for the future story that explains it.
Si.
I asked myself that question too, I think the suit was some kind of backup incase things went wrong, ideally train Pond to kill the Dr as she tried to in Berlin but as she subsequently sided with him the suit would have been required.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jason Thompson
As happened in the orphanage taken over by the silence, she was shoved in the suit in 1969 to try and kill the Dr then as he'd ventured back.
Again I'm guessing, it had to be Pond that killed the Dr as it was a fixed point, anybody else and it wouldn't have happened. The suit was the thing that really threw me.
Oh, and marks off for yet another publicity-hungry/fan baiting yet totally irrelevent story title. The wedding took up a very small fraction of the episode, like Hitler in "Let's Kill Hitler", so the title seemed there simply to cause a bit of a stir. In fact one might almost think the title came first and the scene was shoe-horned in to justify it.
Si.
4 out of 10
An underwhelming end to a dismal series. Most of the holes and contradictions have been picked up on by other people and I really can't be bothered.
Okay one question, What would have happened if the Tesselecta had regenerated?
How could it regenerate, surely it only mimics the person's appearance not their physical biology?
That's two questions then.
Where shall I start? Well overall 8/10 I think. My fave for the series I think is still last week's but still enjoyed this more than The God Paradox so has to get higher than 7.
Lots of clever stuff I suspect if there'd been a big screen showing of this I'd have loved it even more than I did the first time I saw Let's Kill Hitler.
As it's quite late I'll cut to the chase with my one difficult area with this episode (I actually thought more people would have responded similarly)
Basically agree. It did feel rather out of the blue. If they really felt they had to kill the Brig off couldn't we have had a couple of flashback images. SJA has proved that flashbacks from the classic series can be integrated without seeming too out of place but I guess it would have over-egged the pudding in the context of this story. However this leaves me feeling, if you're going to do it in such a small way that only people who are really paying attention notice it then why bother at all. Sadly it's done now although now that his death is established as canon there's nothing stopping the Doctor visit his grave sometime.Quote:
Originally Posted by Si Hunt
Just a note on the wedding. The choice of wording used suggested that the ceremony was based on Gallifreyan tradition which wouldn't necessarily require a registrar, of course whether marrying a robot disguised as the person you think you're marrying actually counts as "legal" remains to be seen.
Yes, sorry about that Si, and sorry Zbigniev, I crossed a line there and I apologise for it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Si Hunt
Moving on - Ain't It Cool News have posted a review which is surprisingly well written (for that site at least!), and which I largely agree with:
Quote:
Considering the tenor of many Docbacks across the last few weeks, I'm betting this episode will not be many viewers are expecting.
By this I mean: those searching for resolution to S6's grand mysteries may well find their curiosity partially satiated. But, like myself, a number of WHOvians may also be surprised to learn that "Wedding" is more of a pit-stop than an actual climax or finale. Many "answers" here point toward further questions. Resolutions have important consequences which ripple into the current mythology's future, and so on. We quickly learn that we've yet to see the whole of Steven Moffat's gloriously demented puzzle laid out for us - a gutsy move at this point in the show, and a notion to which it took me a while to adapt.
I think it's very important to mention this because, when I first saw "Wedding," I was underwhelmed and frustrated. But then I started thinking about the matter with a clear head, and realized that…at no point (that I'm aware of, at least)…have The Moff, or BBC, or anyone involved with the show promised the level of resolution I, myself, was craving. That's baggage I brought to the table.
Revisiting "Wedding" again with this filter firmly in place, I found myself enjoying the episode quite a bit. Despite a few annoyingly slapdash moments (there are several references to off-screen events which could've been presented more effectively), "Wedding" is fast, clever, bouncy, whimsical, dopey, and sweet - and offers one of the most kick-ass transitions from "Previously On…" into the episode itself that I've ever seen.
"Wedding" lacks the conceptual/emotional punch of last Season's "The Pandorica Opens" and "The Big Bang" - but I'd argue that it's in no way trying to equal or best either of those installments, nor should it. Because, again, the endgame here is not the "resolution/conclusion" those titles were striving for…rather a transition into the next phase of the show.
Based on the final moments of this story, my strong hunch...about which I may well be proven wrong...is that S7 will utilize more standalone episodes - with a particular event referenced in "Wedding" becoming the crux of a 50th Anniversary blow-out of some sort (will 2013 be promoted with the phrase "Happy WHO Year!")? You'll quickly be able to piece together what I mean when you encounter said references, and I'm pretty sure more than one of you may end up agreeing with my theory.
For my money, DOCTOR WHO is still the best show on television. It flagrantly shuns conventional storytelling conceits in a number of ways, and possesses an alchemistic capacity for transforming potentially hackneyed notions into conceptual gold. It isn't afraid to be a little silly from time to time, but also reciprocates by taking intrinsically goofy concepts and inflating them to operatic and emotionally resonant levels. That's madness…glorious, enviable, compelling madness. As imperfect as it can sometimes be, current DOCTOR WHO is still bold, it is still ballsy, and remains steadfastly determined to keep audiences on their feet.
When shows are structured like current DW, it's hard not to harbor concerns that the current Powers That Be might someday take the same misstep as, say, BATTLESTAR GALACTICA and LOST - both of which flagrantly demonstrated that advancing spectacular ideas is far less challenging than growing them to rewarding fruition. But I don't think that'll be the case here. With "The Wedding of River Song," my sense of the matter is that Moffat & Co. have locked a strong "macro" destination firmly into their nav systems. Now all we have to do is sit back, breathe deeply, and let them carry us to their payoff.
Even if doing so may sometimes tax the patience of a schmuck like me...
Hmmmm....the Tesselecta can't regenerate and didn't regenerate, that's why the Dr died.Quote:
Originally Posted by Darren
Oh so by using his pseudonym from the Big Finish play Sympathy of the Devil I managed to let that little casting spoiler out without spoiling. (Those who are wondering what I'm on about please see the "How's he going to get away with it" thread) That's good to know.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rob McCow
Just checked the end credits of TWoRS and he's going under the name "Rondo Haxton". If you google Rondo Hatton you'll understand the significance. :)
Interesting, very enjoyable with some great moments, but ultimately lacking the punch of last year's finale. I'll comment further when it's all sunk in.
For me this is the best finale with season one being the next best. The Tennant ones always seemed to be overhyped and a bit corny and I will never forgive the "get out of the Pandorica free" card from last year.
Plots aside I must give a massive thumbs-up to Murray Gold, Every Star Every Planet is simply the best Tv/film theme/incidental music ever ever ever....full stop. Love it.
I may be wrong, but wasn't Darren's point that the 'Doctor' gets shot once, then starts to regenerate, then is shot again mid-regen' to make sure he's dead. But how could the Tesselecta machine even start to regenerate?Quote:
Hmmmm....the Tesselecta can't regenerate and didn't regenerate, that's why the Dr died.
I have to admit, as sad as it is, I've had a semi-sleepless night wrestling with this episode. Because, as I say, I really, really enjoyed it while it was on. And if I was 8 or 9, I'm certain those ideas would stay with me forever - so just as, in 1979, my imagination was fired by concepts like the perpetual stalemate of Destiny, or the CET machine, or the thought of a being living 12 separate but linked lives in 12 different times... so the kids of now will be blown away, but never forget, the image of skulls that are alive, or even more brain-frying, it always being 5:02 and time all happening at once. And just as I can't see a picture of the Mona Lisa without thinking about her eyebrows, I guess the 10 year olds now won't be able to see the pyramids without thinking of Area 52.
One more question though.... I thought River was taken back to Stormcage at the end of the Angel story, so how did she manage to drop in on Amy & Rory for a boozy evening?
