Doctor Who 3x03: Gridlock

Seeing as the footie doesn't look like running over due to Wayne "Monkey Boy" Rooney, I'll set up the latest Who thread now. I'm actually out tonight so won't see the ep until I can check the DVR tomorrow, so comments will have to wait.

A return to New Earth and the city of New New York (or New new new new new... you get the picture). The Face of Boe's secret revealed at last (if it's "I use L'Oreal Elvive" I'll shoot the TV), Martha confronting the Doctor about his past, a massive jam on the motorway and something is lurking at the heart of it all, causing cars to disappear...

Plus, as I mentioned, Father Dougal dressed as a cat. That's never getting old.

Lots of nice touches in it.

They could've at least made the effort to spell "center" properly.

Macra!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Excellent episode!

Definitely very fun and entertaining...

Just seen it. Very good ep! The motorway FX were superb and there was something very disturbing about the idea of traffic jams that last 23 years - and people who are cheerfully resigned to that concept!

Good that Novice Hame wasn't quite what the story seemed to be making her out to be, and Boe's fate was a nice touch, sacrificing himself for a whole city.

Martha got a bit more to do in this one - liked her angrily ripping the emo-drug patch off the girl's neck with "you're pregnant and you're wearing this?!" and figuring out how to buy time against the Macra. Interesting that they made the Macra devolved versions rather than orchestrating the whole thing.

As for the Doctor, even traffic can't stop him! I'm with Brannigan: "He's utterly insane... and just a bit magnificent!".

Extremely poignant to hear him actually describe Gallifrey for the first time since the '96 movie. Burnt orange skies and silver leaves on the trees... ah...

Boe's message: Predictable, but worth it for the Doc's reaction. Was it me, or was there a brief look on his face that said "If there is another survivor, I know exactly who it is!"?

And he got that coat from Janis Joplin?

Russell really has attitudes, dialogue, characters and pacing down, and it's incedible how he can make me feel for a bunch of idiots locked in a generation-long traffic jam...

But by God, he could do with someone coming in to fix his plots! Last time with the cats, we had the Doctor saving the day by indiscriminantly squirting pink germs at zombies. This time we have the Face waiting 24 years for the Doctor to throw a bloody switch, AND it turns out to be the wrong switch, so that the Face has to save the day... as he could have all along.

And what does FoB gain by doing the whole mysterious "See me next time, I'll deliver one line of exposition so isolated it will be useless to you!" stunt?

That was addressed in the 'Confidential' that followed the ep. Boe was originally going to die in the last series, but apparently RTD decided that having him and Cassandra snuff it in the same ep would be too much of a downer, so he rewrote it...
Daughter immediately leapt to the wrong conclusion as to what the last words meant when she saw the trailer for next week's ep, but then she was too busy trying to work out what Ric Griffin was doing in 1930s New York...

Oh, and I loved the ep. Especially the chase through the cars - the naturist woman grabbing a magazine, surely she wouldn't care?

Actually, they did - the TARDIS translates alien languages, and presumably the main language in the Year 5 Billion isn't actually English, so it translates it for Martha who - being British - would use the proper English spelling.

Side note: Anyone else think there's something strange going on with these constant reminders by the show announcers to "hit your record buttons now" before each episode?

Someone suggested there will be a lot of little things going on in the background that you'll want to go back and check when the big surprise of the series is revealed...

i posted links to some of the breadcrumb sites a couple of weeks back, perhaps they'll have some pointers?

another 50 mins and i can watch this - curiously this is the first season of the new who thats actually really grabbed me to the point i'm look forward to the next ep.

until then its the krypton factor, with gordon burns who for some reason resembled a defective relative of gordon browns back in the 80's...

Um... I decided to read a few light spoilers because I know that they usually don;t actually release any of the really juicy ones too far ahead of time and I read that...

It's nothing new.

^ Let's assume I haven't read that.

^i have... and i can't remember a damn thing about it

Ok, let's.

Thought I'd get that.

I'm not sure what to tell you. If you don't like the idea of... well... the thing you spoiler tagged, then all I have to say is that for the sake of your enjoyment I hope the writer does it in such an intelligent and interesting manner that it makes you overcome your apprehension. And failing that, I hope the rest of the season is so good that you can overlook the two-parter in question.

^ well I was rather wondering broadly what they did in the book you mentioned and what the possible motivation for such a thing would be.

info about the novel

possibly contains spoilers for the ep.

It had talking baby kittens. We finally have the most adorable moment in Doctor Who history.

Also the Doctor talking about Gallifrey at the end almost made me cry. You could see the pain on his face.

WARNING!! If anyone is trying to avoid spoilers, do not for f**k's sake buy or look at a copy of the Radio Times this week, as there's a f**king massive one on the front cover!

David Tennant shown playing with the kittens in Doctor Who Confidential was cuter though.

I'm finding the number of people at Outpost Gallifrey who have a thing for Novice Hame the cat nun mildly disturbing...

Same here, I was hoping the furries would stay away from Doctor Who.

Having seen the actress without the makeup, I can honestly say I would plow it until winter, but not with the whiskers, ohnonononono.

Have you seen the thread about the kittens on OG yet? Several pages of why they didn't use some CGI thing and the idea of human/cat person sex.