So, who wants to talk about new Doctor Who (spoilers likely)

[horacethegrey]

Sure the Daleks are racist and xenophobic, but they're also survivors. Yeah, maybe assimilating humans isn't their standard MO, but they've been known to compromise their admittedly twisted standards if it means the survival of their race. And they've come close to extinction many times what with the Doctor being very good at what he does.

Perhaps that makes them a bit hypocritical, but would they care if people thought them as such? These are Daleks after all. They don't give a damn what people think of them.

 

[Fast Learner]

Unless I misunderstood something, it was Daleks in the Dalek insane asylum that turned a human into a Dalek. Pretty sure all bets are off in terms of "what Daleks do".

 

[lin_fusan]

I think my point was that throughout the history of both old and new Doctor Who, the Daleks have been attempting to merge human material and Dalek material.

Ah! Another episode! In the 2nd Doctor's The Evil of the Daleks, they are actually attempting to isolate the "Human Factor" to combine with the "Dalek Factor" to improve the Dalek race.

In that 7th Doctor ep I mentioned, there are actually two factions of Daleks fighting each other, both convinced of their own superiority, one made from dead human genetic material from the 6th Doctor ep, and the other made from the original genetic stock from Skaro.

I know way too much about Doctor Who...

 

[Felon]

Amy, Martha, Donna, and Rose seem like minor variations on the same companion. Pert, sassy, and full of chutzpah one minute, then scared and vulnerable the next. That's the spirit of the show now and I'm kind of desensitized to it, mercifully.

The twist with Oswin seemed heavily telegraphed. Are we still actually supposed to be scared of Daleks? I mean, they still have toilet-bowl plungers sticking out of them. Maybe they're scary to younger kids, who don't have our tendency to over-analyze. As for Oswin, I saw that twist coming from miles away. "Egg-sterminate" indeed.

Enjoyed the show though. Still nothing really like it on TV anywhere else.

 

[Nellisir]

I think you are misusing Chekhov's Gun.

It's a metaphor.

But if you mean the central conceit of their divorce completely 180s two seasons of constant reinforcing that Amy and Rory will go through anything, even the end of the universe and the end of time, in order to be together and thus prove their undying love, then I totally agree.

I would have been fine with them fighting or hitting a rough patch, but to have fallen so out of love to file for divorce stuck me as a little ham-handed.

Rory & Amy are getting a divorce! Bang, that's a shooting.
Amy forced Rory away because she can't have kids! Bang, that's a shooting. (and...wtf? My wife & I have done the infertility diagnosis & treatment thing. They test both of you, and it's not like a 5-minute finger-prick, either - she's had to have been sneaking off for a long time and a lot of appointments to be that certain of it. Plus, wtf is wrong with adoption?)

Rory and Amy are getting back together after 8 scintillating seconds of therapy! Bang, that's a shooting.

No lead up, no hints, just bang, bang, bang. Shooting, no gun. Ham-handed is perhaps the most gentle way one could put it.

 

[RangerWickett]

Yeah, it could have been handled better. I mean, I would have understood it if she'd been unwilling to have kids after what happened to Melody, and they were living apart because she was stressed. But an actual divorce seems too big of a stretch.

I'll ignore it for now, though, because it's a fun show.

 

[RangerWickett]

Oh, and the Daleks have been around for a long long time, right? Think of how much human civilization has changed in just a hundred years. I'm okay with Daleks having different motivations and opinions on the world in different episodes. I mean, they can apparently show up at both ancient Stonehenge and WW2 London and whenever the end of Eccleston's season took place.

 

[Iosue]

One thing about the Amy and Rory story, it would probably not be wise to assume that this was a self-contained storyline for this episode. More likely it's setting up things to come later in the series.

 

[Mallus]

No lead up, no hints, just bang, bang, bang.

I'd argue that Amy and Rory's breakup --particularly Rory's flat-out stating he's always loved her more-- has been sufficiently led up to by their entire on-screen relationship.

Amy *did* forgive him for that line a little quickly, though. We'll see how it all plays out.

BTW, I liked the episode. Not my favorite Moffat script, but clever, well-acted, and well-directed. Also, Oswin was great (though sad).

 

[lt_murgen]

Amy forced Rory away because she can't have kids! Bang, that's a shooting. (and...wtf? My wife & I have done the infertility diagnosis & treatment thing. They test both of you, and it's not like a 5-minute finger-prick, either - she's had to have been sneaking off for a long time and a lot of appointments to be that certain of it.

THat bothered me more than most. Say you are Amy, and you just get the news from your fertility doctor that you cannot have children. Do you convienently forget that you have this real close friend with a machine that can take you anywhere in time and space? Maybe 21st century medicine says you cannot have children, but what about 10,000th century medicine? Heck, you watched them create entire people out of goo.

Also, how did both Skaro and the insane asylum planet escape the time war? I could buy Amy being partially responsible for re-booting the daleks from memory when she rebooted the universe, but not necesarily Skaro or a planet she had never heard of. If her re-boot brought Skaro back, why not Gallifrey?