3 weeks till new Who!

[Nellisir]

Yeah, but _why_ does the TARDIS so dislike Clara? I've never noticed the TARDIS taking that active a role. I'd assume there's a reason, and that little dig ties into it.

Well, crap. I was trying to merge these "threads" - the Doctor's family, Clara's reappearance, her kissing 11 on the lips, and the TARDIS's dislike/jealousy, and all I can come up with is the Doctor's (first) wife.

 

[Morrus]

Well, crap. I was trying to merge these "threads" - the Doctor's family, Clara's reappearance, her kissing 11 on the lips, and the TARDIS's dislike/jealousy, and all I can come up with is the Doctor's (first) wife.

I dunno. She's definitely human. And how does her dying twice fit into that? No, I think it's something weirder than that.

 

[Nellisir]

I dunno. She's definitely human. And how does her dying twice fit into that? No, I think it's something weirder than that.

Yeah, I don't pretend to know how that would work. Although who says the Doctor's first wife was a Time Lord? I dunno.

 

[Morrus]

Yeah, I don't pretend to know how that would work. Although who says the Doctor's first wife was a Time Lord? I dunno.

True; though Susan is (wherever she

 

[JustinAlexander]

Anyone have a good explanation as to why originally the Tardis couldn't go into the pocket universe without loosing all its power but could suddenly make not one, but two trips into the pocket universe?

I'm afraid the explanation is really bad writing.

"he has ice in his heart"

Well, the Great Intelligence has a history of using ice-based stuff. There might be something actually wrong with the Doctor.

 

[Mallus]

I'm afraid the explanation is really bad writing.

So risky maneuvers that turn out to be not-so-risky when the protagonists try them is a sign of bad writing? I have to ask: do you even *like* genre fiction (err, television)?

The odds Han Solo will successfully navigate the asteroid field are actually 1 in 1, despite what C3PO calculated. Terry Pratchett also had a few (really smart & funny) things to say about this...

 

[Herschel]

There's a reason the TARDIS didn't "land" in the pocket dimension, they had to grab on as it passed as it could only be there a few seconds.

 

[Bagpuss]

Also, doesn't the Tardis have inertial dampeners some some such? Not sure why Clara had to hand on like that.

So did the Enterprise but when things get hairy they never seem to keep up.

 

[Bagpuss]

It's going to be interesting to see how Clara and the Tardis interact next week (NB has the Tardis used holograms to communicate before?)

In Let's Kill Hitler where the Doctor is pisoned and too weak to reach the console he activates the TARDIS voice interface and it appears as several characters all of which the Doctor feels guilt over until it eventually settles on Amelia the young Amy Pond.

 

[JustinAlexander]

The odds Han Solo will successfully navigate the asteroid field are actually 1 in 1, despite what C3PO calculated.

That's not the same thing.

If we want to talk about an applicable example from Star Wars, let's consider the end of the first movie: It establishes a specific rule ("the only way to destroy this thing is to fire a photon torpedo into the exhaust port") and then structures the end of the film around it.

Now, let's imagine that instead of the movie we actually saw Lucas had delivered a different movie: Luke's attack run fails. Oh no! C3-PO turns to Princess Leia and says, "You have to help him you stupid cow!" And then Princess Leia says, "Wait!" She types furiously for a few seconds and then the Death Star blows up. Leia smiles, "I just suddenly realized I could reverse the polarity of the shield generators!"

Ta-da!

That's writing. And it's still not as bad as the ending in "Hide", because at least it doesn't explicitly rule out reversing the polarity of the shield generators (not once, but twice) only to present that as the solution (not once, but twice) without any justification for how the situation has changed beyond Clara calling the TARDIS a cow.

The equivalent to the "Han Solo in the asteroid field" moment would have been something like:

Doctor: We'll use the TARDIS to go pick her up!
Clara: Is that dangerous?
Doctor: Well... if we stay there longer than 10 seconds the TARDIS might blow up. But I'm pretty sure if we'll be fine... I mean, we'll be fine. I'm sure we'll be fine. Fine-ish.
Clara: Next time, just say "no".

It's a dialogue that just says "this will be really dangerous, so appreciate how nifty I am".

Having re-skimmed the episode, I think the intention may have been that the psychic's efforts somehow made it possible for the TARDIS to go to the pocket dimension and safely return. But if that's the case, the writer completely failed to deliver it in a coherent fashion.