Author Archive for Jon

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Doomsday: Void Material

Published by Jon on 8 February 2010 in Cybermen, Daleks, Deus Ex Machina, Doomsday, Episodes, Russell T Davies and The Tenth Doctor.

This is the first in a number of posts about the disastrous climax of series two of the new Doctor Who, the episode in question – Doomsday – contains what is possibly the worst dialogue ever broadcast. Not only that but some of the ideas it contains, and the implementation of those ideas, are beyond ridicule.

Enough of all this spiel, let’s get on with the curious case of Void material…

In Doomsday we discover that anyone that’s been in the Void gets covered in Void Material. The longer you’re in, the more gets stuck to you. Simple. How do you detect if you have any of this Void material on you though?

Well the only way to detect Void material is by the use of a complex series of detectors that unravel all the tightly knotted dimensions of space that surround the target and count the number of positive hits from the particles of Void material as they struggle to return to their own dimension.

Either that or just put on a pair of cheap 3D glasses.

Void material detection for the unimaginative.

This is yet another example of Davies’ piss-poor writing for Doctor Who and his lack of imagination. He just goes for a very cheap and unsatisfying gimmick that runs the length of the show until the disappointing reveal at the end.

It’s as if we’re supposed to sit there watching The Doctor running about in 3D specs and think that it’s just The Doctor being all whacky and out-there.

The problem with that is that we always know that if The Doctor is doing something whacky and out-there, sooner or later it’s going to become a plot point. It never actually is The Doctor being a little eccentric, every time he does it, it’s being done with a higher – albeit entirely unfathomable – purpose.

Remember when he used to eat Jelly Babies? There was no particular reason for that other than plain old eccentricity. Continue reading ‘Doomsday: Void Material’

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Selling Doctor Who By The Pound

Published by Jon on 7 February 2010 in Announcements.

The BBC in their usual short sighted, money grubbing manner have decided to auction off a number of old props. Another brilliant idea from the same company that decided to destroy old episodes of Doctor Who to make way for more Last Of The Summer Wine.

It goes without saying that it will have been difficult for them to have come to this decision, what with Doctor Who being at its most popular in thirty years and the BBC’s licence fee under constant threat.

The auction takes place on the 24th of February at Bonhams, admission is by programme only and a program costs £15. There’s some guff about a portion of the programme cost going to Children In Need but really, who gives a shit?

Some of the classic props – that should obviously have been gifted to The National Media Museum – can be seen over at io9.

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Delusions Of Grandeur

Published by Jon on 16 January 2010 in Russell T Davies.

As if any more evidence were needed that Russell T Davies is suffering from some form of mental illness that convinces him that he’s The World’s Best Writer this is it:

Writing isn’t just a job that stops at six-thirty… It’s a mad, sexy, sad, scary, obsessive, ruthless, joyful, and utterly, utterly personal thing. There’s not the writer and then me; there’s just me. All of my life connects to the writing. All of it.

First off Russell you’re British – unless living in Los Angeles has made you forget where you’re from – and we British don’t put commas before the and at the end of a list. Oh, and one more thing, enough with the adjectives, there are only so many we can process.

Still, looking at him I doubt he’s that bothered.

Russell T Davies

Really though what an atrocious piece of self aggrandization!

It was culled from The Writer’s Tale, where by the grace of Davies himself you can download copies of the Doctor Who scripts. We can see us having some fun with those.

The thing is, paragraphs like that are usually reserved for septuagenarian stage actors or authors on the South Bank Show. Not deluded Welsh homosexuals with messiah complexes.

If his writing was really that important to him, you’d think he’d actually have spent some time learning to do it properly, wouldn’t you?

Or is that just us?

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