Series 3;Episode 2:The verdict

[Nick]

Cliched shite

[RitaLittlewood]

I was bored before the opening titles. All the way through, apart from wondering when Shakespeare spoke modern vernacular and since when did black women walk the streets like everyone else in this PC claptrap, I kept thinking I've been here before. And are these Eternals any relation to those in Enlightenment?

Gareth Roberts has written some good Big Finish stories, like Mark Gatiss, but his DW TV efforts (like Mark Gatiss apart from his first one) have been bollocks. Next week's with the Daleks looks dire.

Patsy

[sallywebster]

I havent seen it yet but I was just reading TV Forum and someone on there said it was the best episode since the comeback of Doctor Who

[RitaLittlewood]

That person must be simple then not to notice everything in tonight's has been done in this revival already.

Patsy

[sallywebster]

LOL!

I will probabaly catch it tommorow and let you know what I think.

[RitaLittlewood]

Okey doke.

The Eccleston series was the best of the revival because it was fresh. Everything afterwards is repetitive and dull.

Patsy

[sallywebster]

I watched it this morning. It was ok but like you said a bit repetitive. Im sure they have done an episode from this era before since it came back in 2005?

[sootycat]

It wasn't one of my favourite episode.

[RitaLittlewood]

Charles Dickens springs to mind with the theatre. And they do love their flying beasties.

And I'm sorry but in 1599 they would not have readily accepted black people as anything other than slaves. Martha wouldn't have been treated the way they did any more than Shakespeare would use modern terms. Can't change history. They're running out of ideas.

Patsy

[sallywebster]

Martha was worried she would be treated like a slave though and the Doctor told her not to worry (or something). I agree that they are running out of ideas, but like the soaps it pulls in the viewers.

[RitaLittlewood]

Yeah then pointed to two black women in the street like it was normal.

Will it though? The last series dropped and I still think it's no coincidence they announced Billie's departure immediately after getting the lowest ratings to that point.

Patsy

[Deleted]

Well I enjoyed it, but maybe I'm not as hyper-critical as some?

OK, it wasn't the best, but there were some great lines, Martha is really becoming an excellent companion (already), and it made for good easy-to-watch teatime viewing, which I thought was the whole point of Doctor Who?

I really feel that people have made DW into such a cult thing that they will accept nothing but the very, very best, and forget how absolutely shite DW was in many of it's earlier guises.

[RitaLittlewood]

80s it certainly was but before then you had the odd duff story pre-JNT (or all in 1979). They knew how to tell stories then. The companions were proper characters without the need for all the family crap to prop them up. And the Doctor was a better character. I liked more of Eccleston's series than anything since. It was new, fresh and exciting, despite being The Rose Show. Now it's become stale and repetitive and still obsessed with the Doctor snogging.

Patsy

[sallywebster]

At least we didnt see Martha's family this week.

[Nick]

Have just copied and pasted this info from a website


The merchant John Lok brought five black men from Ghana to London in 1555, though three were returned some months later. The adventurer and slave trader John Hawkins incorporated three black men shackled with slave collars into his coat of arms in 1564. Black people were brought to England from the 1570s onwards and lived in London as household servants, courtesans or as court entertainers. Black slaves were fashionable by the end of the 16th century and some aristocratic families had one or two slaves among their servants.

There was a royal proclamation in 1596 ordering that all black people in the country be deported, but it was evidently not successful as a further order was made in 1601 and there would have been a small number of black people living in or near to London. Four were recorded in the parish of All Hallows in 1598.


So it seems Black People wouldn't have been a common site and certainly not enjoying a night at the theatre in fine clothes

[RitaLittlewood]

Or walking about the streets like everyone else. Very interesting piece. At least originally DW set out to educate. This isn't educating. It's giving a false impression of what times past were like.

Patsy

[RitaLittlewood]

According to Media Guardian this averaged 6.8 million. Quite a drop from 8.2 the week before.

Patsy

[eithne]

This was the worst episode of the third series so far. It was pointless, and was a really wasted opportunity. Shakespeare himself wasn't too bad, and I liked the idea of setting it around the lost play and in the Globe - but everything else I more or less hated.

They had a real opportunity here with Shakespeare to do a really good story, but sadly it didn't happen. Also, totally agree with the Martha issue. There is no way a black girl would have been accepted like that - especially one in a red leather jacket. At least when Rose was in it, they had her change clothing most of the time to fit in with the time period. That made much more sense, and looked a lot better.

[Lane Kent]

I've still not seen this episode but I must admit I'm not really looking forward to it. I don't usually like it when historical beings and factual things are incorperated into Sci-Fi. I've still not seen the Queen Victoria one (which was episode two of the last season). One of the few exceptions to me not liking such things was H.G. Wells in Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman. I guess because they didn't really lose sight of the goal of the novel of "The Time Machine" and twisted it into facts about HG Wells. So for me it sort of worked and also I'm a sucker for any time-travel stories as a rule.

I always hated Star Trek: The Next Generation when they went onto the holodec to bring into some story some real life historical character.

I will try and watch this Shakespeare one soon as I want to start on episodes 3 and 4.

[RitaLittlewood]

Someone said on Ceefax or Teletext they should have known Shakespeare came from Warwickshire not Nottinghamshire. LOL!

I noticed that about the clothes and it happened again this time. In the past (pre-JNT) they often would change to blend in with their surroundings or (and in JNT's era) disguise themselves.

Patsy