Rate and Discuss: Dinosaurs on a Spaceship

[Perry Vale]

I'm not really here...

The only minor niggle was the scenelet with the Doctor and Amy discussing his increasing absences. It felt shoehorned in (by SM probably) and slowed the pace a bit.

But did include a very important piece of dialogue.

Were the robots played by Mitchell & Webb then?

[Jon Masters]

Were the robots played by Mitchell & Webb then?

They did the voices (though it took me a lot longer to recognise David Mitchell's )

[Perry Vale]

Thanks. I had absolutely no idea!

Oh, I do have one major gripe about this week's episode.....with the BBC themselves. My HD recording started about 30 seconds in, which means the Beeb didn't send out the signal on time. In 7 or 8 years, I've never recorded one single BBC programme that didn't start recording correctly on time.

With the poor Bluray sales of S5, and the removal of the HD repeats for S6, the conspiracist in me can't help thinking it was deliberate...

[Simon R]

I thought the voices were the Doctor and Rory! I assumed I'd missed a line where it was explained that they'd copied their voices for some reason.

[egdcltd]

They did the voices (though it took me a lot longer to recognise David Mitchell's )

Other way around for me, but I've seen Mitchell in more things than Webb.

[Alex]

I thought the voices were the Doctor and Rory! I assumed I'd missed a line where it was explained that they'd copied their voices for some reason.

I thought the same thing, and presumed there was going to be some twist where it was revealed that the Doctor had reprogrammed them somehow to his advantage, I was really quite surprised when I read here that it was Mitchell and Webb.

[Stuart Wallis]

Pretty average, but slightly better than expected. The dinosaurs were excellent; the story was a bit meh, though the Silurian ark was a good idea in principal; no reason to have Nefertiti and Indiana Podmore in it, other than to make the numbers up; Soloman, also meh; Mitchell and Webb - well I don't like them anyway...

6/10, which is mostly for the dinosaurs.

[Jon Masters]

BTW, out of interest, when Soloman said that his scan of the ship had found somethig unique of immense value, how many other PSers thought he was going to say the TARDIS ?

[Si Hunt]

I did!

Also I found the bit where Amy says "I'm a Queen!" really odd. It was put at the end of the scene and scored really dramatically like it was a plot point. I thought ooh! What's she been up to? Has she been having secret adventures in history? Is it an Amy FROM THE FUTURE? Turns out she just meant she was Rory's "Queen" which doesn't actually make any sense. Did she just mean "wife"? Weird thing to say.

I liked the little tease with the Doctor revealing his star sign.... then saying "Probably!"

Si.

[brandynigma]

I did!

Also I found the bit where Amy says "I'm a Queen!" really odd. It was put at the end of the scene and scored really dramatically like it was a plot point. I thought ooh! What's she been up to? Has she been having secret adventures in history? Is it an Amy FROM THE FUTURE? Turns out she just meant she was Rory's "Queen" which doesn't actually make any sense. Did she just mean "wife"? Weird thing to say.

I liked the little tease with the Doctor revealing his star sign.... then saying "Probably!"

Si.

The 23rd of November is the cusp of Scorpio and Sagittarius.

[Dino]

The BBC have made a poll of the last episode. You've all seen it, so nothing's being spoilt.
Scroll down and it's on the right.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006q2x0

And now for the choruses of "Yes... We know!" from PS!

[Anthony Williams]

Turns out she just meant she was Rory's "Queen" which doesn't actually make any sense. Did she just mean "wife"? Weird thing to say.

Not that weird - Whitney and I call each other "my King" and "my Queen", respectively!

[Richard Brinck-Johnsen]

To be fair she did correct herself back to just being his wife and even said "Don't tell Rory I said I was his queen!" which made me chuckle.

[Si Hunt]

What my friend at work has thought of the new series so far, in a nutshell:

(11:35) Harriet: yeah. we wern't too impressed with the first one. but we liked the dinosaurs on a spaceship
(11:35) Harriet: i thought it was against his rules though to kill people
(11:35) Harriet: and he just blew up that guy

Si.

[Antony Cox]

Much better than last week IMHO, albeit not as serious. Great fun, and I didn't fall asleep once!

7/10

[Dave Tudor]

CHRIS CHIBNALL IN DECENT EPISODE SHOCKER!!!

A fun, comic, adventure with touches of pathos (the poor Triceratops!), a chilling villain (why has David Bradley not appeared in Who until now?), some fine guest appearances, great ideas (the Silurian Ark, the Indian Space Agency), 'Dinosaurs on a Spaceship' had everything AND the kitchen sink (well, a dodgy light fitting, at least) thrown in. Personally I would have preferred a bit more dinosaur action, with maybe a stegosaurus or diplodocus included, but Chibnall finally seems to have delivered on his promise and demonstrated why RTD and Moffat have shown such faith in him. 8 out of 10 from me.

[Si Hunt]

It was very emotive this one wasn't it. The death of the Triceratops was just WRONG!

Si.

[Jeff]

I find it slightly amusing that so many people have an issue with the convenient plot device where Rory's Dad is present when they need related people to fly the spaceship, but none of them mention the convenient plot device where Brian happens to be carrying a trowel when they need to dig.

As far as the Doctor's darker side, besides the previously mentioned examples, there is the fate of the Family of Blood where the Doctor directly punishes several beings with eternal torture, a fate surely much worse than death. And in The Runaway Bride he pretty much drowns children in front of their mother, and wants to stick around to enjoy watching the mother suffer, only leaving at Donna's protests.

[Si Hunt]

That's because you've missed the joke I'm afraid Jeff! Anyone British with a Dad like Brian, that age, would know that it's absolutely likely that he'd have something stupid like a trowel in his pocket.

Without a shadow of a doubt, my Dad would be carrying a trowel.

Note that there was no actual need for the trowel, they could have dug down that far with their hands, or discovered the steel floor any number of other ways. The gag was the trowel itself, it wasn't a plot device.

Si.

[Zbigniev Hamson]

As far as the Doctor's darker side, besides the previously mentioned examples, there is the fate of the Family of Blood where the Doctor directly punishes several beings with eternal torture, a fate surely much worse than death. And in The Runaway Bride he pretty much drowns children in front of their mother, and wants to stick around to enjoy watching the mother suffer, only leaving at Donna's protests.

The first one was just some weird, fantasy-esque ending that I had just as much of a problem with.

The second... well it was nasty, but it was played as being nasty, and Donna was outraged by it all. That was the point. Whereas this time it just seemed to be played as a jolly "wahey! The Doctor killed the bad guy!" moment that we were meant to applaud.

[Jon Masters]

I'm not understanding the apparent furore across fandom about the Doctor causing Soloman's death. There are, I suspect, very few stories across the whole history of DW that don't have either

• the Doctor directly causing the demise, in some fashion, of the villain or monster or
• the Doctor rendering the villain open to defeat and death by someone else's hand

The difference between this and going out of your way to kill people (like many other 'action heroes') is that in the vast majority of cases he gives them an opportunity to get out first.

[egdcltd]

Do we actually know for certain Solomon is dead? Didn't we only see his spaceship blow up, and that's it? Maybe he escaped, to return at a later date. Escape Pod? Just a thought.

[Si Hunt]

Revealed: how they afforded those robots!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbbc/shows/mission-2110

Hilar.

Si.

[Simon R]

Diabolical ingenuity.

[Rob McCow]

That was so much better!

The second half sagged a bit, but I had a huge grin on my face for most of the episode.

I loved the Indian Space Agency, but I REALLY loved the 'concerned face acting' as the missiles approached the spaceship. The lady on the left of this still has absolutely nailed it - A star of tomorrow, today!