Re: New Series: Re-watchability?

On Sat, 19 Jul 2008 08:58:51 -0700 (PDT), "pbowles@xxxxxxx"
<pbowles@xxxxxxx> wrote:

On 19 Jul, 00:38, Ignis Fatuus <Ig...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Fri, 18 Jul 2008 14:54:40 -0700 (PDT), "pbow...@xxxxxxx"





<pbow...@xxxxxxx> wrote:
Given their level of sophistication, and rapid breeding cycle, the Doctor's
strategy seems ridiculous in that context. They simply WONT DIE AWAY
because a new generation will replace them.

You can say that about any monster the Doctor has ever fought (aside
from all the "last of their kind"). That doesn't stop him trying to
defeat and often kill them. This speciic group had the particular
limitation that they were a single family, that couldn't reproduce
without aborting the hunt and losing the Doctor's scent. Nothing about
their level of sophistication alters that.

And maybe that sophistication isn't innate. Plainly they had 'shapes'
when they started chasing the Doctor - at least one of them was firing
a ray gun. If they had a Time Agent ship, is it a stretch to suppose
at least one of those shapes was the former owner? They were able to
access memories of their hosts, so maybe their use of the time machine
was just a matter of extracting host memories. There's much less
stretching involved to accept the premise as plausible than to find
objection after objection to it.

But I don't find any of that implausible. What I find implausible - or at
least objectionable - is that given the nature of the beast, and the
Doctor's understanding of that nature, He should lead them to Earth and
hide, leaving others at their mercy. Their first act was to kill several
Humans in order to take shapes. are you really suggesting that this was an
acceptable risk when all he needed to do was park up on Midnight or
somewhere similar, for three months, and let nature tale it's course ?

True, there might have been alternatives - but what would sitting on
Midnight for three months be like for the Doctor? He wanted to be kind
to them, but at the expense of imprisoning himself and Martha for that
length of time? Maybe if he was on his own, but I don't think it would
have been very responsible of him to condemn his companion to three
momths in prison for the sake of letting a few aliens die of old age.

But you think he acted responsibly in leading these aliens to a society
which was defenseless against them, and which they could simply use and
discard in pursuit of their aims. At the very least he could have chosen a
refuge with adequate defenses against the threat - and kept his wits about
him to combat that threat.

He KNEW in advance what they were capable of; this is spelled out in the
script. Their weapons were demonstrated in the opening scene. His decision
to embark on a ridiculous charade in order to put them off the scent is
contrived and implausible. It's there to justify the contrived and
implausible story of his romance with a human woman. That story is fleshed
out with a jumble of propaganda movie cliches more fitting to Women's
romantic Potboilers than Dr. Who. Bolted together with plodding direction
and wooden acting, the whole thing is an unmitigated mess.

I still think you're expecting the Doctor to display greater
prescience than is reasonable in context. And as for judging an
acceptable risk, that has to be seen from the perspective of the
Doctor, someone who is used to having people killed all around him,
quite often as a direct result of his actions (hence his being
overjoyed on those rare occasions when "everybody lives").

That's why it's so implausible that he would deliberately expose
defenseless people to a risk that didn't already exist. The unique feature
of this story is that he personally brings the threat to Earth, and then
abandons the people to their own devices. Usually he becomes involved in a
situation that's not of his making. I could accept him doing this
inadvertently - in The Chase or master Plan for example - but this doctor
is in control of the Tardis and his own destiny. Considering the numerous
options that were open to him, I can't accept one line of this story.

The Doctor
is used to considering courses of action which may endanger people,
but where that risk is either small or the payoff is worth the risk.
And his village was hardly defenceless - the Doctor selected a job and
a time period which stuck him in the midst of the only building in the
area likely to have a large stockpile of weapons and people trained to
use them. Even once the Family had 'shapes', they were only human
bodies - the girl wouldn't have lasted more than a few seconds if the
headmaster hadn't intervened. And they couldn't bombard the school
for risk of killing him as long as he was inside - notwithstanding the
scarecrows he didn't know about, it was a sound plan, and yes I would
have called it an acceptable risk.

Phil

= IF
.

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