Doctor Who -- The Sound Of Drums

[hattertim]

Excellent episode...can't see where this is leading up to next week, even with the preview at the end of tonights episode!

Thought John Simm was great in the role...trod a nice line between charming, sympathetic, psychotic and sinister. And isn't the Master meant to be a broken, twisted version of the Doctor after all? His Moriarty, if you will?

Also had a gander at the Doctor Who Confidential straight after as well...nice to see some old clips of the previous Masters Delgado and Ainley...even Eric Roberts got some screen time as well, even after a lot of people probably wouldn't even consider the 1996 movie part of the official history of the show...

Can't wait for next week!

By the way Wayne...if you don't like it, why watch it? And Ned, I assume you're comparing tonight's episodes to past ones you have liked?

[magoonigal]

Hi Fraser, Like the Doctor, You are not alone. I remember watching the first One as well.

Mag. !oldie!

[wayne]

Well ive only watched a handful and thats only because of the total lack of decent TV at that time, but i have watched the previous 3-4 episodes which were actually good (blink, more human?) Funny thing is im not a old time fan of Who but im someone who enjoys well writen and intelligent shows and the nu who just seems to sum up what i dont like about programming at present.

When they brought this program back they could have done something wonderful with it in the same way that they did for another icon of cheesy/pop corn sci fi battlestar galactica .But we got was sub rate hollyoaks with a never ending stream advertising/hype targeted at children which i find to be worrying as the beeb is not meant to be a commercial station.

I dont think you will find people watching this prog in years to come when its on uk gold unlike the original as its going age so badly as tries to be so achingly hip but without any charm or wit.

[scotslad]

well last nights episode was good but not really a classic to be honest.
does anyone else think that the writings been a bit hit and miss this year? gridlock especially wasnt a great episode,but i loved the one with the angel statues who came to life.
Like john simm as the master and great to get some background on his character,but hopefully the finale next week will give a good ending to this story.
i think the idea is for martha to be the hero of the episode so that fans will grow to accept her.
wasnt so keen on how jacks torchwood team is just dismissed as being 'in the himilayas' so conveniently out of the way,seemed a bit of a easy optout for the writers.
so all in all what im trying to say is that not a classic series,but still good,and hopefully next week will be a cracker

[Pervert]

In fairness, the Being Human episode was slow in its build-up, and needed it second part, The Family Of Blood, to make it into a classic. Once the credits roll after Last Of The Time Lords we'll be in a better position to comment on how good, bad or indifferent this finale has been.

By the way, if Martha's sister is looking for a new job, I'm sure I could come up with some work for her

[mrchapel]

The follow on from last weeks seemed a bit rushed. Liked the Gallifrey flashbacks and the masters backstory and that they`ve done away with the master trying to steal the doctors regenerations as he was resurrected. And you can`t tell me that no one didn`t laugh when the President came in to take things over and got killed.

[Ned]

I'm not a fan of RTD's episodes and after the two-parter we had recently, Human Nature and Family of Blood, his stuff is even more of a letdown than usual. I don't think he knows how to write this stuff at all.

Most of his episodes follow the same formula - crap invasion, camp humour, over acting and ideas that are so "grand" they need to swallow huge swathes of budget with effects, so the episodes look cheaper than everything else.

He's written three series climaxes now and we've had three vast armies invading Earth, with huge amounts of CGI and the rest of the episode settings looking like they've been cobbled together because the budget ran out.

In series one we had a reused set from The Long Game and even that looked like they could only afford to rebuild half of it, to allow him to spend his episode budget on a Dalek army. In series two we had a vast Cyberman/Dalek army and Torchwood Tower looked like the BBC newsroom with a bit more glass added and the walls painted white. Last night we had another army of millions, coming through another rift (another expensive CGI effect) with a mobile phone network used to control the populace (shades of last year's headsets again) and Cloudbase (oops, sorry, The Valiant) interior looked like they'd nipped down to MFI on a lunch break to spend what was left of their cash.

Compare that nonsense to the wonderful Human Nature two-parter and that's why I am disappointed to see Davies giving himself the big finale. And coming up with pretty much the same story three years in a row. His episodes are all the same and have as much soul as Bruce Forsyth covering James Brown's "Sex Machine". !wink!

[wayne]

I totally agree with you, but who else would have the "fine writing skills" to place their anti blair / USA/ war on terror stuff in the program, of course i never saw but had to read about because it was so well done and unblatant.

John simms was very tiresome as well being the exactly the same as tenants tiresome doctor except his deux ex machina was laser not sonic.

[wayne]

Machina is exactly what i meant.