The Next Doctor (2008)

[Pitry]

I loved it to bits. Evn the silly godzilla cyberking. David Morrissey and David Tennant are a joy to watch and I loved the Jackson Lake plot. A very weel done christmas special I thought, eaps ebtter than VotD! Wahey.

[Matt G]

Copied from the unnofficial thread:

1. Knew there was no way in hell the David Morrisey character could be anything to do with the real Doctor.

2. Jackson Lake was hit and miss as a character, but ultimately he was a Victorian! Would have been interesting to have him hang around longer but he certainly had his uses!

3. Miss Hartigan/Cyberking...I liked the idea.

4. Damn St Paul's came close to getting crunched! How the hell could that incident have been covered up?

[AvatarIII]

overall i enjoyed it. best christmas special so far. but i still don't understand the cyberyeti's i was hoping they'd be explained... but no

[Mousie]

4. Damn St Paul's came close to getting crunched! How the hell could that incident have been covered up?

I guess that's why at the end David M's character said "they will be talking about this for centuries" and the Dr replied "hmm you'd think"!

Overall I thought it was ok, I also figured out quite quickly what was going on with JAckson Lake.

[nich959]

Fantastic!

Loved almost all of it, the drama, the humor. the emotion, it was a beautifully written piece and David Morrisey was fabulous. The gal from the M&S adverts was great to.

It was a relief after the cgi filled bit of nothingness that was VOTD

[Sllimy]

I thought it wasn't bad, not the best, but definatley not the worst.
By the way, did anyone else think that the little boy at the end looked, 'peculiar'.

[nx01a]

The Good:
I thoroughly enjoyed the mystery Doctor and was open to the possibility that the Next Doctor really was the next Doctor, with the 10th Doctor getting involved in some temporal thing and having to save his future self who'd been mind-wiped by the Cybermen and had to find that one data recorder with his memories. The sad truth of the 'Doctor' really got me and made perfect sense. Well played, RTD. Everything about the 'Doctor' was great, from his reasoning for his 'sonic' screwdriver and TARDIS and companion.
>None wrote about the massive robot crushing London. Nice how RTD drew attention to the very problem most viewers had with it.
>Put British kids in rags and they're instantly Dickensian.
>I suppose it's good, but I'm ambivalent about the period racial harmony we see in Who. Were black and white people really living that happily together in London in the 1800s?
>The dialogue was brilliant.
The Doctor: What? Did you set your feet to silent?

Miss Hartigan: I doubt he's paying you to talk.

Miss Hartigan: But you promised me, you said I would never be converted!
Cyber Leader: That was designated a lie.

The Doctor: This is what you make me.

>The dimensional device. It looked like Dalek technology [bumps!] and fired a vortex at us. Loved it. The TARDIS SO needs to do that at an enemy!
>The montage of Doctors made me smile, and I did get a bit choked up when the Doctor's balloon TARDIS rose to confront the Cyberking.

The Bad:
>Evila, the Ultra-Feminist. The Hillary Clinton of the Industrial Revolution gets to have revenge on all the evil men in her life and impose her will on the world. Right.
>Cyberking? My God, seriously? That was so cheesy, and I actually thought the Slitheen were cute. And they needed kids to fire its starter motor? This thing looked very steampunk, which was good, but it just didn't work for me. Throne in the mouth? Sigh.
>More 'robots falling through time'? Sigh. Wonderful setup for all those Daleks from the Genesis Ark to return in the future.
>The kids. What was the point of this? I realize it's Xmas day and kids are watching with their families, but I really didn't see the point of them. Those memory nodes probably had more power in them than those kids could produce in an hour of manual labour. And the sweatshop set really looked cheap. For a stage play, that set would be spectacular. For a tv show... No.
>The 'Doctor' and his son. That kid was obviously in shock, cause I got nothing from him emotionally.
>The effects. The scenes with the Doctor being pulled upwards inside the Cyberking were poor, especially after Voyage of the Damned. The Cyberking and London looked far too shiny, not unlike some cgi in SGA.
>I found some of the editing a bit lacking and choppy, the example that stands out for me in the split between when our Doctor hits the floor before being pulled forward by the Cyber-dogcatyetithing.
>The Cyber-dogcatyetithing. What?! Cheesiest costume of New Who yet.
>Nursemaid?!

The Verdict:
>Sadly, this is my least favourite Xmas special. With this special, I understand why some people simply hate Doctor Who.

[Crazedwraith]

Sadly I think the best part of this was the montage of the previous Doctors.

The plot made no sense whatsoever. The cybermen came from the void? and built a scad load of stuff there? The void is a void; there's nothing there. That was the point. The evil woman had no discernible motivation what so ever. Why did they need to use kids as a work force when they have a bunch of cybermen standing around?

On first hearing the concept of Victorian cybermen I though it was an awesome idea. Saly the did not live up to the potential.

[Coco Pops]

Loved that...... I liked Ms Hartigan. Quite the feisty villain, and lovely too.

In case I may spoil anyone I shall insert spoiler space

Spoiler:

TARDIS = hot air balloon. Loved it.

Loved the steampunk Cyber King

Did not like the "oh I'm sorry, I'm so sorry" when the Doctor couldn't help that man regain his lost memories. I'm so sick of hearing that...

But overall that was fun, and brilliant.

[Replicator Todd]

Did not like the "oh I'm sorry, I'm so sorry" when the Doctor couldn't help that man regain his lost memories. I'm so sick of hearing that...

But that is his catchphrase! The 9th Doctor had "Fantastic!" I liked this episode more than Voyage of the Damned the mystery around this new "Doctor" and the Cybermen kept me watching, but the Cyberking being a woman was kinda odd. Cyberqueen?

[Coco Pops]

But that is his catchphrase! The 9th Doctor had "Fantastic!" I liked this episode more than Voyage of the Damned the mystery around this new "Doctor" and the Cybermen kept me watching, but the Cyberking being a woman was kinda odd. Cyberqueen?

Well the machine itself is the cyberking not her I think. She was quite pretty.. I liked her. Loved the steampunk cyberking

[Replicator Todd]

Yeah I believe the machine was actually the Cyberking, it was awesome though!

[huntress]

I re-watched the episode yesterday and my verdict from the first time around still stands - this was really one weak episode. There was also an inconsistency. The doctor should have felt that the other "doctor" wasn't one. After all timelords know when another one is around unless they use chameleon devices but when they do, then the one who use used it also doesn't know that he or she is a timelord. I thought it was rather obvious (after the fob watch) that David Morrisey coulnd't be a timelord but I was curious why he knew so much about the doctor in the first place.

[uknesvuinng]

I re-watched the episode yesterday and my verdict from the first time around still stands - this was really one weak episode. There was also an inconsistency. The doctor should have felt that the other "doctor" wasn't one. After all timelords know when another one is around unless they use chameleon devices but when they do, then the one who use used it also doesn't know that he or she is a timelord. I thought it was rather obvious (after the fob watch) that David Morrisey coulnd't be a timelord but I was curious why he knew so much about the doctor in the first place.

To be fair, in the Children in Need special before Voyage of the Damned, the 5th Doctor didn't realize the 10th was him in the future. Apparently, the Doctor can't sense himself as he does other Time Lords.

[gateship15]

this was a good episode. i liked the sonic screw driver being a screw driver and the tardis being a hot air balloon. i also like that in the end he gets to see the real tardis fantastic. i don't think the doctor can sence himself in the old episodes when the doctors were together the doctor only knew it was him once he met the other doctors (thro memory) and didn't know the others were there. (as in the Children in need special) and as for the how he knew so much about the doctor it was explained in the episode (the thing with memory's in it back fired)