Re: Smith and Jones science (Was: Doctor Who progressive or interlaced?)


"Astrobiochemist" <CCSBeyond@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:1175657366.838632.249450@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> > The problem with cutting out the beginning and ending scenes with
>> > Martha's family is you drop the put-upon aspect of her character. >> > If
>> > she doesn't have to deal with all her family annoyances, she >> > wouldn't
>> > be go traveling with the Doctor to get away from them.

>> She is going travelling because the Doctor's got a time machine, not
>> because
>> of her family.

> She is able to go traveling with the Doctor because he has a time
> machine. If it was only a spaceship, then she wouldn't be able to go
> traveling because she can't just leave her life behind. However, she
> does need a break and being able to go on an exotic trip and then come
> back exactly when she left is the perfect way to do it.

>> Otherwise show would not be abandoning becoming a doctor.

> I don't know what exactly you mean by that. I'm guessing you mean
> "she would not be abandoning becoming a doctor." Except she isn't
> abandoning her career. She's going on a trip and then she's going to
> come back as if no time has passed at all. That's the difference
> between Martha and Rose. Rose could leave everything behind (which
> Jackie and Mickey hated) but Martha is just taking a short trip before
> returning to her life, just as she left it.

And now you are contradiction yourself when you said "If she doesn't have to
deal with all her family annoyances, she wouldn't be go travelling with the
Doctor to get away from them." Now you are agreeing with me in that the only
reason she is going travelling with the Doctor is because she can always
return home therefore her so-called family annoyances are and irrelevant
part of her character since she obviously does not find her family annoying.

It's not contradictory. Martha is stressed out. She has to get
through medical school and on top of that, she has all of her family's
infighting. She needs a break. However, she can't take a break from
her classes without causing a massive disruption in her career and
even if she did take time off, she really wouldn't be able to get away
from her family. They would still need her to handle their problems.

She is not stressed out. The Indian medical student might have been, the one who was in tears, but not Martha. She does not need a break nor does she want one and she doesn't want to get away from her family and they are not asking her to solve their problems. Her entire family are totally irrelevant, and can be edited out of the episode without affecting the story at all or Martha's character. And decent script editor would have told RTD to get rid of them and use the time to develop a plot.


Here comes the Doctor with his time machine. She can take her
vacation, far away from her family and classes and yet, she won't have
problems with educational loans or missing class or falling o year
behind and she doesn't have to worry about her family falling apart
without her. She gets the best of both worlds, a vacation with no
worry's about what is going on at home and she can come pick things
right off where they left when she is done.

What a load of hogwash. If she wants a long vacation she can take a year out after her exams. Clearly the only reason why she went of with the Doctor is because he's got a time machine and she didn't want to miss the chance of a life time.


If the Doctor didn't have a time machine, she wouldn't go with. If
she didn't have family issues, she wouldn't need a vacation so she
wouldn't go with.

She does not need a vacation for the reasons explained above and she does not need the Doctor in order to take one. She only decided to got with him when he showed her he could travel through time.


>> >> I can also cut out the stuff with the X-Ray machine
>> >> since it is not scientifically accurate, he's only giving the >> >> henchman
>> >> the
>> >> does of 1/4 of a chest X-Ray.

>> > I'm claiming that the Doctor meant 5000 times, not 5000 percent.

>> Oh... is was 5000% was it. Right, I assumed 10,000. That's only 1/8 of >> a
>> chest X-Ray at the distance he was standing then and 100 times that is
>> 12.5
>> chest X-Rays which 8 times less than a CT head scan.

>> > Also, the henchmen's species is sensitive to X-rays, so the brief
>> > exposure will kill it.

>> There are more X-Ray's and Gamma rays coming from outer space and >> hitting
>> the moon because it does not have an atmosphere so how come it hasn't
>> died
>> from them?

> The henchmen are inside the forcefield, which can assume takes care of
> the radiation and even if it didn't, the henchmen are far inside the
> building so the many walls between them and the outside would protect
> them. So, the explanation that the henchmen are sensitive to x-ray
> radiation still works.

No it doesn't since the forcefield is only keeping in the atmosphere since
it is along in light from the sun and if it lets in light it is also letting
in other EM radiation including X-Rays. Also on top of that the henchmen are
walking past windows so they are not being protected by any walls and
further more Cosmic Radiation can travel through walls and through metal and
still be detected by spark detectors in the middle of concrete buildings.

Just because something lets in some parts of the EM spectrum doesn't
mean that it lets in other parts of the spectrum in as strongly. And
as I said, they could sensitive to X-rays. Specifically X-rays. If
they can handle most other forms of the EM spectrum but not X-rays,
then the amount of cosmic background radiation would be irrelevant.

What? X-Rays are part of the radiation coming directly from the sun. The cosmic background radiation is below infra red.


> There are plenty of examples of the Doctor being silly, such as just
> about all of the Tom Baker stories. If Tom Baker can be silly, why
> can't DT be silly? Of course, I still say the energy transfer
> explanation still works, even though it is a stretch.

When Tom Baker was being silly is was to emphasise a plot point and to
insult the villains. David Tennant is being silly for the sake of being
silly.


There were many occasions of TB just being silly. Of course, it's
fair to say that you prefer it when TB was being silly (I do,
oftentimes) but he was still sometimes just silly for the sake of it.

No he was not.


> Yes, that's true but as long as the energy source was more efficient
> than the sun, then it really isn't a problem. After all, if the

We are talking about something the power of a super nova which is as bright
as a whole galaxy. Now where is such a power source going to come from and
is she had such power she would not need and MRI scanner?

She could have needed the MRI to act as a transducer. After all, she

So can a metal bar or a bucket of water. What is this MRI machine actually doing. Nothing.

may have the power of a supernova at her disposal but if the energy
isn't in the proper form then she's really in a bind.

If she's got the power of a super nova then there is only one form it can take. A supernova. And if you can control such an event then you don't need an MRI scanner. You've already got something like the Hand of Rasilon in your possession and that means you don't need to steal any Judoon space ships to sell on the black market. You can more or less control the universe.


> plasmavore provided the energy source for her weapon, then it's alien
> tech and you can always get away with things like that with alien
> tech.

Poppy***. The story failed to show any kind of power source whatsoever
therefore you cannot assume that there was one. Any decent script editor
would have thrown the script back in RTD's face for being totally plotless.

It seems like the inverse assumption works just as well. There HAD to
be a power source present for the story to work so obviously there was
one and why waste time mentioning it when it doesn't affect the story?

Rubbish. If there was a power source it should have formed part of the plot and been explained. But as we all know RTD cannot construct plots.


>> 3) If it was coming from the Judoon then they would have switched it >> off
>> when they left.

> Maybe they did. They switched it off when they left. Of course, they
> also teleported the building back when they left so no reason they
> couldn't do both at the same time.

In which case no one was ever at any risk and the Doctor would have known
that. And on top of that it was never shown that she tapped into a Judoon
power device (as powerful as a super nova) so you cannot assume that she did
this.

I never assumed she tapped into a Judoon device. I always thought she
brought her own.

In which case why would she want to steal a load of Judoon space ships when she has something which is far more valuable.


The plot should have explained this and it did not because the simply
was no plot whatsoever. If she used the devise to cripple the Judoon ships
which she wanted to steal then a) she would have destroyed the ships
computers in the process through the EMP burst making the ships worth
nothing more than scrap,

Alien tech, takes a licking a keeps on ticking.

Twaddle and nonsense.


b) she would have fried her own self without a
means of escape, which was never shown, therefore the script should have
been thrown back at RTD's face once again,

Considering how well she plans in every other regard, you have to

She hasn't planned anything in any regard. Not once were we shown her planning anything. Any decent writer would have included a scene to establish a plan was being formed. An decent writer would have revealed the plan first and then left it a mystery who was behind it for the protagonists to solve by themselves before the end of the story but with RTD he reveals the villain from the start and then 3 minutes before the climax a so-called "plan" is revealed out of nowhere out of the mouth of the villain saying I was planning to do this, and here everything is and you never spotted it and did not even suspect it because it was not even hinted at in the "plot" which of course was non existent.

assume that she had this taken care of as well. Of course, for the

No you do not, since not only were we not shown her planning anything but we were not even shown how she was going to escape either.

sake of the story, it doesn't matter because it didn't play a role in
the story development.

Because there is NO story development. Its a bloody soap opera. It's a load set piece comedy acts by Tennant played just for laughs that are totally irrelevant to any plot and people running around not discovering anything because the villain reveals it all at the end when she doesn't have to, and if she hadn't no one would have been any the wiser.


>> and if she had that much power at her disposal she would not need an
>> MRI machine anyway.

> Maybe she needed a foundation to build upon. After all, we've seen
> some weird alien tech in Doctor Who, both old and new.

Twaddle. The scanner could not have done the job and if it was one part she
needed from it to build a new device which didn't she buy it. In fact the
only parts that found on Earth would have been capable of functioning in a
new device would have only been the nuts and bolts holding it together. Show
what exactly did she need and what did it do? Davies, script, face!

So, you want more technobabble added for the sake of having

It is not technobabble I am asking for. ITS A BLOODY PLOT!

technobabble? While it might have worked for the original Star Trek,
by the time the sequel series were done, the shows had become overrun
with it. I'd prefer the series stayed away from Technobabble.

>> 5) This looked like a last gasp effort for revenge and was not
>> pre-planned,
>> since there are no scene establishing that she made prior >> modifications

> She did say that she chose the hospital because it provided blood and
> materials. Since she knew what was coming, it's quite likely that she
> would make prior preparations, which we saw her do.

Which we did not see her do. And she could just mug someone for blood. And
why was it human blood she needed. Why not animal blood which is 98%
identical, considering she was an alien anyway with a different blood
chemistry?

Considering the scanners picked up the remnants of a Timelord's kiss
on a human, using animal blood probably wouldn't have been enough.

What? Explain that to me again. Why didn't she just mug someone if she wanted blood to disguise her self. What was the point of her being in a hospital to obtain blood for the purpose of disguise?

Also, the human blood was available in nice little packages, walking
around the hospital so why not make use of them?

It was available from people walking around the streets in even more plentytude.


>> (since all the time that could have been devoted to such a build up >> wes
>> wasted by soap). She looked like she only came into hospital because >> she
>> was
>> feeling un-well and it was bad luck the Judoon has traced her by this
>> time.

> No, she specifically said she chose to hospital and had been there for
> a little while, in wait for someone to come after her.

Ridiculous. She could have built a machine in her back garden and waited and
it would have been far more effective and would have no required any
henchmen. Oh an how come she was she able to pay them and transport them
half way across the galaxy an not afford to buy her own MRI scanner?

eh, cheap labor. And just look at them, you throw some X-rays on them
and they're done for.

Cheap labour bull***. How much did it cost to bring them to Earth half way across the galaxy?

.