Really? Clara (at least, this incarnation of her) is the first female companion since Donna who hasn't seemed to be in love with the Doctor to me.

Edit: to be fair, I don't think Amy was in love with him, at least once Rory joined the gang. Attracted to him, yes, but maybe not full-on in love.

 

Yeah, gotta go with Shiny on this one.

It's more of a friendship thing, than a love thing. Which I really do like quite a lot more.

Regardless, the episode was interesting... but nothing special really. I did like the zombie!Clara thing, but then they both forgot about it which was disappointing.

 

Love might've been a strong choice of word, perhaps it's more the over-arching plot for this series that's getting to me. Earlier on I was reading comments regarding the latest episode on another forum and one of the posts there summed it up perfectly regarding my views, that being mostly that;

- I'm not really fussed why Clara's so special/interesting to the Doctor, thus far we've had a ton of questions with no real answers outside the fact she keeps dying and re-appearing throughout history. That's great, but we already had Rory with his 9 lives, sort of.
- Entirely possible that they'd naturally want to build all this up to tie in with the Anniversary special/end of the season but it just feels like it's going nowhere fast with only a couple of episodes left.
- As a whole, this series has just felt rather lacklustre since Clara's introduction - which was fantastic, but since then the writing seems to have taken a knock or two. I wasn't an overly large fan of the Silence but we'll be returning to that plotline in the anniversary special I feel, at least it didn't seem like they wrapped everything up with the Silence when the Doctor still had the Ponds around.

I probably need to go back and re-watch Saturday's episode as I kind of phased out in the final 10 minutes which probably was the entire point of it all, just lost interest. Still, I wouldn't class myself as an ardent Whovian given I skipped the majority of Tennant's run after Rose left given my strong dislike of Catherine Tate as an actress, only really braving The Master episodes. I'll watch them over the summer no doubt, but just some kind of minor annoyances of mine with this season. That & I've never seen any of the originals prior to the rebirth of the show under Eccleston, somewhat heathen I imagine.

 

So we have confirmation that only Tennant will be returning for the 50th anniversary episode.

As for Eccleston reprising his role they simply say he was unable to do so.

Speaking of

I started really paying attention to Who during Tennant's airtime though I did start from the 9th, can anyone tell me why his incarnation was so short comparatively or why he seems reluctant to go back?

 

Think Eccleston just wanted to do the one season as he feared getting stuck with it for a while. No real sources to go on but, s'what I remember hearing when it started back up.

 

INCORRECT.

Eccleston and RTD wanted two different things for the Doctor. Eccleston wanted a more serious, more adult role for the Doctor and RTD wanted "allons-y" and 3-D glasses and bullshit plotlines. Guess who won out.

It wasn't the guy who was the antagonist in the first G.I. Joe movie, that's for sure.

 

So... bad news AND a shitty episode.

Spoiler

I mean... a leech? Is that really the best we can do?

 

Yeah this was easily the worst episode I've seen in a long time. I think half the problem for me was I just watched Diane Rigg playing Olenna Tyrell in GoT where she's absolutely hilarious. Seeing her hamming up the crazy cult leader character wasn't even amusing, it was just sad.

 

:facepalm

That last scene.

 

Fair enough, makes sense given Eccleston's history of acting, never really could decide if I enjoyed him as the Doctor or not.

Last night was... Rather weak again. I never understand the plotlines when you have one crazy person ranting on about wiping out humanity for reason XYZ, but I guess that's the point, we're supposed to view them as simply off their rocker.

Strax couldn't really save anything despite the writers best efforts, it feels like they just rushed out writing all the episodes in this half of the season to focus on the Anniversary and it really seems to show.

Given the Cybermen are back there has to be some scrap of hope for next week but given the ending scene of this week, well, I think we're hitting new lows.

 

Bit frustrated by tonight's episode. Was interesting, but...damn. What was the point of having Strax in to save the day when Madam Vastra could've done her tongue whip thing to put the crazy old lady down?

Next episode looks alright though. The Doctor being responsible for the continued existence of yet another species of his enemies will be interesting. I'm just hoping the little kid doesn't spend all episode doing stupid shit for the sake of the plot.

 

I quite enjoyed it - I thought it toed the line between classic if humorous gothic horror and parody of the same rather well. It wasn't a subtle episode, it wasn't a classic, and it wasn't terribly ambitious, but it was fun.

Although the Thomas Thomas bit was an absolutely textbook example of a WTF moment, and had no business in the episode at all.

Anyway, next week should be promising. Neil Gaiman and Cybermen, and while two kids makes me a little dubious, if anyone's going to do it well it'll be Gaiman.

 

Personally i have been a bit disappointed with this series so far. To me it just feels like the episodes just don't have enough content to them, the threats are contrived and solved in seconds via dues ex machina after a load of posturing and it irritates me a bit.

I was hoping for a couple of 2 part episodes that are a bit more horror based with a bit more mystery, or really just a bit more suspense, like the library episode a few seasons back.

But then i am quite interested in what the overarching plot-line involving Clara is all about so that's a plus.

 

I'm with you so far on this series, its just been a bit meh... especially compared to the episode in which we meet Clara. So far the episodes just feel a bit rushed except The Bells of Saint John, that was good.

 

The report I read at the time said that Eccleston looked at the script before declining, which seems to imply that he might have been open to it if he'd thought the script was good. Make of that what you will.

 

The (blind) cane lady was hilarious (when she was using the cane...)

I like how the doctor is actually trying to solve the mystery of Clara. I recall the first season with Amy where you had these extremely obvious cracks that the doctor noticed and then did.. nothing. Here we have the doctor going to someone who is an empath to try to learn more about Clara. Then he tries to go back to Victorian London shortly after the other Clara's death (although he misses and doesn't seem to actually accomplish anything concerning Clara).

It was mentioned that the doctor has already met Clara more than three times. This is interesting because I doubt that this actor for Clara has appeared in any of the previous episodes prior to the Asylum of the Darleks.

 

Yeah, I did not enjoy this episode that much. It was just rather weak overall.


The DoctorxClara is my OTP though.

 

Please Wheezybaby, please don't mean what I think you mean...

I seem to have a problem with any companion that is romantically in love/attracted to the doctor.

Rose (turned into) (She's coming back for the special... )
Martha
Donna
Amy
Clara

So I'll take your 'OTP' to mean favourite combination of characters rather than romantic pairing and remain hopeful for the future.