Rate "The Eleventh Hour"

Dave Webb wrote:

warped wrote:I suppose any regeneration story will have a dash of Spearhead, but what were you specifically thinking of?

The hospital that Rory works at bears a bit of a resemblance to the one UNIT took the comatose 3rd Doctor to, and the Doctor steals his clothes from the hospital locker room, which is what Doctors 3 and 8 did. You even get a topless Doctor, a trend started by Pertwee in Spearhead.

I certainly got the Spearhead vibe, too, but I also noted that's how McGann's Doctor got his clothes, too.

Cracking! Matt is utterly wonderful. Really enjoyed that. Not sure about that theme music or those titles but I think we've all been there before with the C Baker and McCoy versions. Might grow on me eventually.

Full review as ever my pretties is right here:
http://cathoderaytube.blogspot.com/2010/04/doctor-who-series-5-eleventh-hour.html

Patrick wrote:I've now gone back and watched it a second time, and a feeling I had upon first viewing has only increased: was anyone else struck by how this episode seemed to have been informed (if that's the right word to use) by The Prisoner?

The Atraxi eye, very like the eye No. 2 used to spy on The Village. The prisoner himself didn't have a name, but a number that became very important to the story. Even Amy's village bore a bit of a resemblance to The Village, where everyone knew her, and knew all about her delusion (the ragged Doctor.) All of this while the Doctor was attempting to establish himself as "who da man", rather like No. 6 was constantly attempting in The Prisoner.

One of the things I liked about The Prisoner was its surreal presentation. If the Moff has decided to employ The Prisoner as a sort of metaphor, I'm all in on that idea.

Liking that analysis, Patrick. I was concentrating so much on Matt and Karen that the whole Village milieu of The Avengers and The Prisoner slipped by me.

Frank wrote:

Patrick wrote:I've now gone back and watched it a second time, and a feeling I had upon first viewing has only increased: was anyone else struck by how this episode seemed to have been informed (if that's the right word to use) by The Prisoner?

The Atraxi eye, very like the eye No. 2 used to spy on The Village. The prisoner himself didn't have a name, but a number that became very important to the story. Even Amy's village bore a bit of a resemblance to The Village, where everyone knew her, and knew all about her delusion (the ragged Doctor.) All of this while the Doctor was attempting to establish himself as "who da man", rather like No. 6 was constantly attempting in The Prisoner.

One of the things I liked about The Prisoner was its surreal presentation. If the Moff has decided to employ The Prisoner as a sort of metaphor, I'm all in on that idea.

Liking that analysis, Patrick. I was concentrating so much on Matt and Karen that the whole Village milieu of The Avengers and The Prisoner slipped by me.

Thank you, Frank. Inspired by the insights you present in your excellent blog, I try to look for how the story gets told on more than one level.

Me too, Patrick. Give me the subtexts and a fair and balanced view every time!

So, it's agreed: it's The Avengers crossed with The Prisoner with large helpings of Spearhead added to a rewrite of Smith and Jones and The Girl in the Fireplace.

And an interior that's paradoxically so large that it looks smaller than it used to be!

Rich Flair wrote:So, it's agreed: it's The Avengers crossed with The Prisoner with large helpings of Spearhead added to a rewrite of Smith and Jones and The Girl in the Fireplace.

And an interior that's paradoxically so large that it looks smaller than it used to be!

And the problem with that is.....?

4/5 from me - would have got a 5 except for the horrid travesty proporting to be the Dr who theme and the low budget horror movie vortex thingy - really hated the clouds

Nice companion/- Doctor interactions - I like a companion who stands up to the Doctor.

Matt Smith was really good once he got past the comedy spitting.

Nice scary alien and pretty eye in the sky

Missed the Prisoner parallels - however loved the Prisoner and looks like I'm really going to enjoy this series - It's nice to get out into the country and away from relentless city scapes.

I also really liked the new Tardis interior - didn't look cramped to me - I watched the behind the scenes stuff this morning where the designer gave a tour round.

And yes Karen is lovely and redheaded (pleased daughter of mine) and a Scot and Matt Smith looked nice in Tenny's trousers from behind

Frank wrote:

Rich Flair wrote:So, it's agreed: it's The Avengers crossed with The Prisoner with large helpings of Spearhead added to a rewrite of Smith and Jones and The Girl in the Fireplace.

And an interior that's paradoxically so large that it looks smaller than it used to be!

And the problem with that is.....?

Nothing, but I hope he writes an original story next, patch-working together a load of earlier stuff can't work as well as this every time.

So, it opened with The Girl in the Fireplace.
Then went into Smith and Jones.
Big webcam meeting from The Stolen Earth.
All the people on the Earth get together to project one word as they did in Last of the Time Lords.
The Doctor stole his clothes a la Spearhead.
He reminded the aliens that the earth is protected while high up, as in The Christmas Invasion. (also, fruit in pocket)
He told them to look him up then they scarpered as in The Forest of the Dead.
And an ominous but vague prophecy that something might happen. (Planet of the Ood, and others).

Next week: The End of the World - The Sequel!

Frank wrote:And the problem with that is.....?

Well...

...for one thing, it plays to the world's view of England as being London and then a series of surrounding villages (with a bizzarely high murder rate) and ancient monuments. Yes, we recognize that one urban landscape looks very much like another and once you've done one you've prettty much done them all. Even so, not everything outside The Smoke is a rural idyll.

I tend to think that, what with Moffat's statement that the other quintessentially English location is the village, the show is playing on well worn location cliches in an attempt to do something different from the last few years, which paradoxically rubberbands it back to the Pertwee and Baker eras. There's a playful comment from the Doctor about the village not having even a small nuclear powerplant, but we are definitely looking back at a time when the typical location was a manor house and some greenery.

Even though we're never likely to see the Tardis in Milton Keynes or Utoxeter, does it have to be a village?

Oh, and I think the Avengers and the Prisoner links are over-thinking. The Prisoner wasn't set in a village, it was set in a surreal location as a deliberate piece of mindjiggery-pokery. It was just called The Village. And The Avengers was as much a victim of the need to have a fantasy Britain to sell abroad as any other series.

I think linking the atraxi eyeball to The Prisoner is also over-reaching. The eyeball through the crack in the wall was pure Twilight Zone.

Frank wrote:Full review as ever my pretties is right here:
http://cathoderaytube.blogspot.com/2010/04/doctor-who-series-5-eleventh-hour.html

Hullo Frank!

Off on a tangential question here -

Are you happy with your blog host, and would you go with them again? I'm considering a blog thing. (I'm on LiveJournal but it's not really working for my style.) Any suggestions/hints?

Question for Warped - were there any snatches of Murray Gold's earlier themes or was it all new stuff? I thought I heard a snatch of All The Strange Creatures, but my ears aren't as good as yours.

Have no problems with a story set in a small village instead of a modern metropolis, primarily because this is the first example of that since the series returned in 2005.

As to why not set a story in Milton Keynes, I'd have to ask, why? Firstly, it's a bit of a dump. Secondly, it has nothing special about it, and if you're going to spend money on a location, why waste it on something as generic as Milton Keynes, instead of going somewhere that either has recognisable landmarks, or can be used as a fictitious location.

I also have no problems with Moffat reusing ideas that have previously appeared in the programme. It's not as if Dr Who hasn't a history of doing so in the past, and Moffat put a nice spin on the ideas he reused (especially the way he reused the time displacement plot from Girl In the Fireplace, but this time showed how it had such an effect on the little girl involved in shaping her life).

Oh, and someone on GB has posted their version of the opening credits spliced with the series four theme, and it is, suffice to say, far better. The reworking lacks momentum, and generates a lack of urgency that damages the credit sequence.

Anyway, rewatched, and definitely a 4 out of 5. It's good as a season opener, but still not as good as Rose.

Dave Webb wrote:
...for one thing, it plays to the world's view of England as being London and then a series of surrounding villages (with a bizzarely high murder rate) and ancient monuments. Yes, we recognize that one urban landscape looks very much like another and once you've done one you've prettty much done them all. Even so, not everything outside The Smoke is a rural idyll.

Then again the 'virus' that the Doctor wrote and sent wasn't a virus it was a Time Bomb and this plays to the misconceptions surrounding Malware. If I'm honest as Malware is such an expensive problem to combat I have more of a problem with the misnaming of all Malware as viruses than England being London and a few other villages...

Anyhoo I didn't get the feeling it was a village just outside of London, it was just a village to me that could have been anywhere in the UK.

Lee Carey wrote:Have no problems with a story set in a small village instead of a modern metropolis, primarily because this is the first example of that since the series returned in 2005.

As to why not set a story in Milton Keynes, I'd have to ask, why? Firstly, it's a bit of a dump. Secondly, it has nothing special about it, and if you're going to spend money on a location, why waste it on something as generic as Milton Keynes, instead of going somewhere that either has recognisable landmarks, or can be used as a fictitious location.

I also have no problems with Moffat reusing ideas that have previously appeared in the programme. It's not as if Dr Who hasn't a history of doing so in the past, and Moffat put a nice spin on the ideas he reused (especially the way he reused the time displacement plot from Girl In the Fireplace, but this time showed how it had such an effect on the little girl involved in shaping her life).

Oh, and someone on GB has posted their version of the opening credits spliced with the series four theme, and it is, suffice to say, far better. The reworking lacks momentum, and generates a lack of urgency that damages the credit sequence.

Anyway, rewatched, and definitely a 4 out of 5. It's good as a season opener, but still not as good as Rose.

What he said!

warped wrote:

Frank wrote:Full review as ever my pretties is right here:
http://cathoderaytube.blogspot.com/2010/04/doctor-who-series-5-eleventh-hour.html

Hullo Frank!

Off on a tangential question here -

Are you happy with your blog host, and would you go with them again? I'm considering a blog thing. (I'm on LiveJournal but it's not really working for my style.) Any suggestions/hints?

Hello tangential question!

I have been blogging with Blogger for nearly three years and I'm pretty happy. Wordpress is probably cooler than Blogger and I have been looking at moving to Wordpress but I gots all confusled by it and huffed and puffed a bit and did nothing about it. Blogger is so, so easy to use and they've just added or are about to add a whole raft of new design templates. There are loads of templates out there and uploading one is easy as is the addition all sorts of widgets because the template more or less does it for you. So, I guess I'm going to recommend Blogger... (large donation arrives in bank account - kerching)

Probably in a minority of one, but I've now decided that I definitely like the new theme and opening credits. The first 8 bars in particular.

The Co=Ordinator wrote:Probably in a minority of one, but I've now decided that I definitely like the new theme and opening credits. The first 8 bars in particular.

Nooooooooooooo! The bit after the classic scream is awful! It isn't even the bloody Doctor Who theme!

Oh, just heard a lovely summing up of the new title sequence. The 'Gaviscon' titles! That is going to stay with me now. Love it!

I like being different from everyone else!

The Co=Ordinator wrote:I like being different from everyone else!

Really, I hadn't noticed...

I don't think the theme is too bad, but it's certainly more big Hollywood action-adventure than classic behind-the-sofa nastiness. And I prefer that. From '63-79, and 2005-08 the theme basically said "PREPARE TO BE SCARED!"

stanmore wrote:I don't think the theme is too bad, but it's certainly more big Hollywood action-adventure than classic behind-the-sofa nastiness. And I prefer that. From '63-79, and 2005-08 the theme basically said "PREPARE TO BE SCARED!"

Yeah, give me behind the sofa nastiness any day!

i wasn't sure about matt smith but he did a really good job. looking forward to the rest of it.

not too sure about the theme/credits but they're not really very important are they?

Mrs Lee wrote:
Anyhoo I didn't get the feeling it was a village just outside of London, it was just a village to me that could have been anywhere in the UK.

What I was getting at was that in TV land, England consists of London and the rest of the country is populated by places like Midsomer and St. Mary Mead. Entirely. Whereas in the real world, it's just as heavily populated with Runcorn, or Harlow.

I was pleased to see the Doctor engineering a virus using human tools that would then affect human technology instead of thrashing out a virus on a macbook and uploading it to the Atraxi. I'm assuming he deploys the virus using something like Van Eyck radiation (how else does it get to the clock)?

Lee - Milton Keynes can be a useful spot for adventure, if you've got the right sort of mind. Charles Stross managed it, even playing off the concrete cows. I understand the need to use a bit of visual shorthand to set the location, and I know that the country is dappled with picturesque villages that make for neat locations. It's just a cliche. It doesn't detract from anything in particular in regards to the story.