42

[Craig @craig Emperor]

Kicking off our Chris Chibnall retrospective is ’42’, which obviously plays on the real-time drama of ’24’. The Doctor and Martha receive a distress signal from the SS Pentallian, a spacecraft that is hurtling towards the star of the Torajii system. After arriving they are separated from the TARDIS by the rising temperatures on the ship. The ship’s engines have failed and they have only 42 minutes left before the ship plunges into the star.

I really liked this. I thought it looks great, is not set on Earth, is action packed, has some fun moments, and real emotion at its core.

’42’ is on the Series 3 DVD which you can buy for £15.99 from the BBC shop here:

http://www.bbcshop.com/drama/doctor-who-series-3-dvd/invt/bbcdvd3967

[Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip]

@craig

Yes, I really liked this as well. The ‘real time’ experiment works better on a rewatch, but it makes the often over-rushed feel of Who-in-42-minute-episodes into an in-story problem instead of a scriptwriting problem.

The Doctor, Martha and the crew are trying to deal with a nightmarish series of self-created problems, which they don’t have time to deal with. The ‘Pub Quiz’ security questions probably seemed really funny when the crew thought them up – not so funny when it’s a race against time to get to the auxiliaries. Regeneration’s a great idea – not so much when you’re trying to get rid of an alien organism that’ll use you to murder lots of people and you can’t f**k**g die! And the free fuel seemed a really good idea at the time – not so much when you find out how much that ‘free’ fuel is really going to cost.

I like the ‘Alien’ style, battered, industrial, working spaceship. A tramp cargo-hauler, independently owned – which explains some of the problems, because that need to get by on minimal cost turns out to be the inciting incident. The Captain cuts a corner she should never have cut. Our ‘monsters’ are a living creature lashing out at its torturers, and a businesswoman breaking the law so that she and her husband can make a living. It’s a Who story where everyone is just trying to stay alive.

This story also moves Martha on quite a lot. She starts the story as a giddy new not-yet-companion, she ends it with the TARDIS key. In-between, she’s both realised emotionally that these adventures could kill her, and stepped up when she realises that her job can include saving the Doctor.

The two scenes I remember from this the most are Martha phoning her Mum when the pod’s been jettisoned, and the Doctor in a state of complete fear and panic as he’s having to go into the stasis chamber. Martha and her Mum is the most beautifully written scene; Martha trying to reconnect, her Mum’s desperate need to control her daughter driving Martha away. It’s kind of a little mini-explanation of Martha, really. The Doctor’s stasis chamber scene really feels like a brief look inside the Doctor. We’ve had him as the cheery Tennant Doctor, enjoying his travels, being stern and serious, always ‘in charge’, but now we get a glimpse of him starting to panic. The monsters are scared of the Doctor, but what’s the Doctor scared of?

Becoming the monster.

[Anonymous @]

I bloomin love it. “Recreational mathematics: happy Primes. “Don’t they teach it anymore?”

Son adored it.

It never stops: the fantastic, crazy arsed editing and the super-fast talking. Clara had nothing on our Doctor Tennant. Thought Harper’s directing was terrific.

And the rock music score -I’d forgotten that.

Love the opening: 42 by Chris Chibnall!  That’s its title!

Martha and the captain have this terrific deep voiced panic which skitters thru the whole thing -the ‘angry woman’s’ “kill me now” doesn’t come a second too late either.

The pub quiz questions and Martha’s call to her mum brings that part of the story forward -just how frustrated the Martha family is at the arrival of this strange ‘doctor’ which leads to Saxon and that story line. It’s a nice development.

I loved the old cranky ship -like Firefly only dirtier and without the muscle bound doods (I like muscle bound doods!).

Son was only about 5 1/2 so he remembers the Doctor fondly  “for his running” and the funny jokes -oh and the scary sun monster. That’s about it and that’s enough. On this alone, Chibnall gets my vote.

Chibnall: vote 1

Kindest, Puro.

[ichabod @ichabod]

Is fine — so far; only please, not so much *screaming* and screaming and screaming, all the time.  Please note: this ep passes the Bechtel Test: named female characters conversing with each other but not, for a good deal of the time (I think — too much screaming and shouting to be sure when, exactly, and how long), about the men.  More about somehow not dying, and what’s the secret crime that the ship is under attack by the “sun” for?

[winston @winston]

I just finished a rewatch of 42 and I enjoyed it more this time despite all the “screaming” @ichibod. Boy they really did scream alot. Besides that ,this episode was all about Martha and her place on the Tardis and in the Doctor’s life. Poor Martha is so transparent, she wears her emotions on her face and can’t hide her growing love for the Doctor. The guest cast were all great even if few of them survived the episode.

As I have mentioned before,the dark corridors, with monsters lurking around every corner , scare the bejeezus out of me. This one had me hiding behind the sofa. Did nobody ever teach those people how rude it is to scoop the heart out of living suns in order to make fuel? I mean really,what nerve.

All in all I liked this episode a lot better than I remember.

so @puroandson

Chibnall- vote 2

[winston @winston]

@ichabod    Sorry ,  I spelled your name wrong above.  I am screaming at my own lack of proof reading.

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @pedant]

@winston

she wears her emotions on her face and can’t hide her growing love for the Doctor

Which, alas, is how poorly served Martha was as a character (and Freema as an actor). The rebound girl cliché.

But that was RTD’s error not Chibnall’s

Haven’t rewatched yet, but recall finding it a bit of a hoot.

[ichabod @ichabod]

@winston   I am screaming at my own lack of proof reading.

Argh, no, no more screaming!  I’d rather have my name spelled wrong!  Seriously, I’m half deaf from all the screaming in that ep, and have ear-strain (or have invented the idea of ear-strain) because of having to try so hard to make out what anyone was actually saying under all that screaming.

@pedant  Well, yeah, the pell-mell yikes-what-now rush of it was fun.  I just had a hard time trying to grab hold of what was going on in the meantime.  I do like the idea of humans as ruthless vampires on the life-energy of anything we can get our claws into, because — well, that’s what we *are*.  Just look at the state of the place right now . . .

 

 

[winston @winston]

@pedant            I agree about Martha being the rebound girl. Many people enter a new relationship far too soon and it rarely ends well. On the other hand Martha is a strong indepedant young women with  plans on being a doctor. She doesn’t run away from her old life when she goes with the Doctor, rather she runs towards adventure and new experiences. When she realizes what travelling with the Doctor has done to her family ,she is strong enough to say her piece and walk away,  slightly bruised but still able to hold her head high.

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @pedant]

@winston

Oh, they handled the exit well enough. But there was scuttlebutt fairly early that the producers felt Freema “wasn’t working out”. She’s had enough regular gigs since to suggest that she is reasonably competent at this ‘acting’ lark, so I think that raises legitimate question as to whether it was the storyline that ‘was not working out’.

And the praise for her in this thread, about this episode, adds a little spice to that.

[Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip]

@pedant and @winston

I think that one of the reasons they very promptly re-employed her for one-offs on Torchwood and Series 4 was to make it absolutely clear that it was the character of Martha that hadn’t worked out, not Freema Agyeman.

[TheDentistOfDavros @thedentistofdavros]

42 was one of the first episodes I saw and I remember feeling very uneasy when the doctor became the monster. After rewatching it I definitely think it’s one of the better series 3 stories and probably chibnall’s finest story for doctor who. For me series 3 was quite a strong season overall and this was one of the highlights.

[Arbutus @arbutus]

I’ve now watched this with a lot more attention to detail than I ever did the first time around, and I still like it. I’m not sure what problem people would have with it as it feels like classic action Who to me, a straightforward but imaginative scenario that creates some excellent suspense.

Like @bluesqueakpip, I thought the scene with the Doctor going into stasis was a highlight. Not only did it give some insight into the Doctor, but I felt it showed us the Companion that Martha could have been, had RTD not made the (to me) inexplicable decision to include the whole “unrequited love” scenario. She was so calm as she manipulated the controls, seemingly impervious to the Doctor’s horrible screams- she is a would-be medical doctor and clearly has the temperament for it!

The scene in the jettisoned pod was great as well, in fact, Martha’s whole brief relationship with the crew member (I forget his name) was nicely done. I liked her phone interactions with her mother, and also liked the decision of the captain to die with her husband, to atone for her mistake and to repair some of the result.

@puroandson    “Don’t they teach recreational mathematics anymore?” I loved that line, too.  🙂

@ichabod   You’re certainly right about the screaming, but it bothered me less than the music, which I felt could have been toned down a bit. It was a problem for me throughout the Tennant era, that I felt they sometimes tried to ramp up the tension with an extra bombastic soundtrack. Unfortunately (for me), the arc-related ending served to remind me of where the series is ultimately headed, the final two-parter which I disliked about as much as I ever dislike DW!

But all in all, I think this episode worked pretty well, and certainly from the perspective of the writing, I had no problem with it.

[JimTheFish @jimthefish Time Lord]

Right >cracks knuckles<  (which is no mean feat for a fish)

Enjoyed watching this again. It’s actually been too long since I sat down and watched some Tennant-era Who. Must do a bit more of that. I’d downgraded Tennant in recent years as I think his performance sometimes pales compared to the nuance of Smith and now Capaldi but I really enjoyed his performance here. It’s also interesting to see now, as we reach the end of Moffat’s tenure, just how far the show has travelled away from the kinetic style of the RTD years.

Similarly, Michelle Collins did a great job. I think she often doesn’t get the credit she deserves because she’s largely considered a ‘soap actress’.

In general, it zips along quite nicely and some of the visuals are terrific and still stand up well. Graeme Harper is a terrific director for this kind of thing and it’s something of a shame that the show stopped using him.

However…

The episode is also a good showcase for Chibnall’s main flaws as a writer. First off, there’s character. The characterisation is just awful. Beyond flat. Collins manages to breathe a bit of life into Kath but the rest are little more than exposition-monkeys that even actors of the calibre of Anthony Flanagan can’t do much with.

The key question is ‘do I believe that these are real, living, breathing people?’ and the answer here is ‘no, I don’t’. And this is a pretty fundamental thing in that Who staple the ‘base under siege’ story. Look at the real classics of the genre in Who — Robots of Death, say, or The Moonbase. We absolutely believe in Hobson and Benoit as characters and we worry for their survival. Same with Poul and Uvanov — and it’s a testament to Chris Boucher’s script for that story that even a dodgy old ham like Russell Hunter can coax out a character that we actually become invested in. Similarly, Cass and Lunn in Under the Lake or Journey and Morgan in Into the Dalek or Adelaide in Waters of Mars. They all convince as characters.

I just don’t feel that here. When they’re not mechanically advancing the plot, the attempts to inject some life into them doesn’t really succeed. Their dialogue strikes me as ‘box set banter’ — a conception of character gleaned from watching other TV series rather than first-hand observation of people. It’s like looking at photograph that’s been photocopied a dozen times. All the vividity, all the detail, has been muddled out. (It’s worth pointing out that there’s no one better at this stuff than RTD. He strikes me as someone who has a genuine interest in and love for people and it shines through in his writing. Rose is almost certainly the best drawn character in Who’s 50-year history. Which makes it odd, I suppose, that he failed so manifestly with Martha. I suspect it was because he still wasn’t quite ‘over’ Rose and didn’t really want to write Martha at all.)

I suspect this is a general CC trait. There’s an opener to a Torchwood episode (I think it might even be the dreaded Cyberwoman) where the regulars are seen playing a game (football maybe?). Aside from being shamelessly pinched from the Firefly episode Bushwhacked, I always got the impression that it had been shoe-horned in to kickstart what had already been perceived as a flaw in the show — the same lacking sense of character — but it didn’t really work.

I spent last night rewatching the first three episodes of Broadchurch s1 just to be sure and I think it’s borne out there too. The real impact comes from a couple of performances — notably Jodie Whitaker as Beth and David Bradley as Jack — who were clearly the characters who interested CC and much of the rest are merely there to service the plot.

Part of the problem is that I think CC is too enamoured of the set piece, the big moment, that he tends to overlook the process of getting there. The impression I get that the momentum of Broadchurch was in its big moments — Danny’s body on the beach, Jack’s suicide, getting Ellie in the interview room with her husband — and that there is a sense of impatience about the actual getting there.

It kind of reminds me of this:

Similarly, 42 strikes me as starting off as a shopping list of ‘cool stuff’ that he wanted to get in and all that character and plot stuff was just a means of getting one from Moment to the next. Thus we get recently corporeal sun monsters who feel the need to don welding helmets. Why? Charitably, you could perhaps argue because they had to keep their eyes shielded for their human bodies to get about. But mostly I get the sense it was because it ‘looked cool’ and Who (and cut down on the VFX bill). And then it’s ‘we have to see Martha drifting in space away from the Doc, the Doctor possessed and the Captain falling into the sun’ with some stuff in between to make those things happen. Particularly interminable in this regard was the ‘pub quiz’ protocols, which struck as particularly ‘filler-ey’.

The episode is basically a mash-up. It’s largely a remake of Planet of Evil with bits of Alien, Event Horizon, Sunshine bolted on. This seems to be both his strength and weakness and often what he seems to be hired for, to create stuff that’s ‘like’ something else. Thus Broadchurch is basically The Killing filtered through a Cracker sensibility. And he adapts the Law and Order franchise to a UK sensibility. He’s writer as remix DJ, as ventriloquist.

Not that I’m saying this is necessarily a bad thing. He’s quite probably just what Who needs at the moment. Moffat has probably taken the show as far in the ‘tricky dicky, timey-wimey’ direction as it can go. I get the impression that CC was perhaps hired to provide a counterpoint to that.

[Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip]

@jimthefish

Okay, now take a deep breath.

There is a reason I haven’t really posted much on Hell Bent, and that’s because it would have consisted of ‘Yes, it’s a really good episode, and I have to admit that it’s a really good episode, and I also have to admit that it’s very well acted but now I’m going to do a detailed, blow-by-blow explanation of why I don’t like Peter Capaldi as the Doctor’.

And I think you’ve just done that with Chris Chibnall for 42.

At least, I personally started to get the impression that you were actively looking for faults when you complained about the welding helmets. The diagram was also a bit of a giveaway. Saying that a Doctor Who episode was a ‘mashup’ that borrowed (off the back of a lorry, no questions asked) from other stories gave me a few hints as well. 😀

Why are the welding helmets there? They’re functional. The alternative is having a bunch of actors trying to look like scary possessed monsters while they’re wandering around the set with their eyes closed, trying not to bump into stuff.

Why do the Vashta Nerada use space suits in Silence in the Library/Forest of the dead? This is for exactly the same ‘it looked cool’ and ‘we need to cut down on the VFX’ reasons. In-story for 42, the welding helmets are there so that the sun-people destroy what they want to destroy, and don’t accidentally melt their feet or burn off a hand. In-story for Silence, the spacesuits are there because the team are trying to protect themselves from contamination and the Vashta Nerada … err … well, maybe it’s just that they like lurching? (Actually, I think it’s some gumph about using them to communicate with the humans, but you get the point).

Complaints about the characterisation – well, a number of people on here are saying what a wonderful character Martha could have been, judging by this story. So we absolutely believed in Martha? Freema Agyeman gave a good performance? A few people have also mentioned that the Doctor becoming the monster was seriously scary – so a decent role for David Tennant, perhaps?

Personally, I also wanted Riley to survive – and you seem to like Michelle Collins. But you keep suggesting that these great performances are entirely down to the actors, and missing the point that Chibnall’s scripts consistently produce those good performances.

I suspect you’re pretty close to the truth with Chibnall being ‘what Who needs’ right now. The problem the BBC have got right now is very simple: they handed Who over to a writer (Moffat) that they knew was brilliant. And then they discovered that the ‘brilliant’ writer was in fact a f*ck*ng genius.

A full scale, experimental, push the envelope, genius. The past few years have seen Moffat give us (with both Who and Sherlock) some of the best and most original television on TV. But there is one big problem with that, and that is that Doctor Who is a successful continuing drama.

Somebody has to take over from Steven Moffat. And Steven Moffat has just given us a ‘Follow that!’ era.

That someone has to be able to write scripts that the Doctor Who audience (general audience, not just ‘fans’) like, they have to have Head Writer/Producer on their CV, ideally they should have helmed something high-profile. They should be a ‘safe pair of hands’ while we move into post-Moffat Who.

And Chibnall not only ticks all those boxes, he’s a big enough fan himself that he’s prepared to take the job.

[Kharis @kharis]

Well, you all make good points and it does take some of my fear away that I will never have another visceral episode of Doctor Who in my lifetime after reading the news that the author of 42 took the helm.  42 still bores me, and as a science teacher I could be a troll and go on for days, but it would make me a hypocrite since I forgive Moffat every fanciful inaccuracy.  Of course, as @bluesqueakpip pointed out, Moffat was a f***ing genius, so I forgive all kinds of things I would go postal on if another writer tried it.  The writer’s of a The Doctor’s Wife and Vincent and the Doctor were also incredible, yet the BBC choose the writer of 42, but I will not start a rant, I will just chew on all the positive points made above and hope that Chibnall surprises me with an episode or two that can draw me in.  I honestly have learned to appreciate 42 a little, completely based on all of the comments above.

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @pedant]

@kharis

It is unlikely either Neil Gaiman or Richard Curtis would have time to do the job!

I suspect Toby Whithouse was only other viable “in-house” alternative.

 

[Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip]

@pedant

I think Toby Whithouse was preferred by fans – but when you look at his CV, his hits broadcast on BBC3 and Channel 4, with niche audiences of two million viewers or so (less than that for Being Human).

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @pedant]

@bluesqueakpip

Yeah, but he has a multi-season TV show under his belt, with the BBC and knows how it works. And Being Human is pretty much the same niche as Dr Who.

[Anonymous @]

@kharis

I loved the Doctor’s Wife too but I found -here actually, but on another thread, some active dislike of it. That’s fine but I was surprised: that the Tardis, named hopefully by Eleven as “sexy,” was disliked because it was no longer a vehicle. Apparently it should have stayed that way. By giving the Tardis a personality with the ‘she’ (a “sexy old gal”) it’s more than a ordinary vehicle.

I don’t hold with that argument: I liked that episode very much including the funny one liners and the fantastic use of the Tardis as a completely discrete element needing ‘images’ and ideas as passcodes to retrieve the older consoles: “petrichor, the smell of dust after rain” (sic) and so on.

But I also liked that the Tardis, an object that was always more than just an ordinary or pedestrian vehicle became a person -one who confuses tense and sees traces of the future ahead:

“the only water in the forest is a river.”

But on 42 I guess I didn’t notice the problems with characterisation. I just enjoyed the ride. The panicked behaviour of the quickly diminishing crew blends well with the ‘Serenity’ style, hastily put- together interior of the ship -it’s all quite unstable which creates an atmospheric, off balance feel. With excellent directing by Graeme Harper (well thought out shots which probably come from the horror trope, as a guess) the episode jettisons the level and generously expanding characterisations you get with two parters like Under the Lake and Before the Flood because there’s so little time.

Still, @jimthefish has a point with the Waters of Mars and the development of the character, Adelaide. I wonder if the female captain in 42, with more experience and gravitas could have been developed with substance. Certainly, young Ashildr was more rounded within twenty minutes  compared with Kath, the wife of (as Son calls him) the Zombie Sun Man -I think he alludes to the slow, fitful gait that accompanies cybermen, and some other ‘possessed’ individuals in Doctor Who and zombie programmes (I don’t think he’d necessarily want me to place zombies and Doctor Who in one sentence).

Still, he be at school. 🙂

Kindest, Puro

Kindest,

Puro

[Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip]

@pedant

Yes, but in a choice between two Doctor Who writers who have good viewing figures and good AIs for their scripts, which one is the ‘safe’ choice for the BBC?

The writer with two successful niche series on the smaller channels?

Or the writer with the successful BBC1 Sunday teatime series, two successful ITV1 drama series, AND the successful SF niche series?

[Kharis @kharis]

@pedant  I didn’t realise the two authors were so notable until I looked them up,.  Now that I know the authors’ history I am sure you are right.  On the other hand, after having a peer of equal talent proceed, one could almost expect a higher calibre of writers looking to take on the challenge.

@puroandson Yes, I could see why some old fans would be annoyed with the liberties took in the Doctor’s Wife.

After comparing the ship on 42 to Serenity, you leave me little choice but to give it even more points.  🙂

 

[ichabod @ichabod]

@bluesqueakpip  they handed Who over to a writer (Moffat) that they knew was brilliant. And then they discovered that the ‘brilliant’ writer was in fact a f*ck*ng genius.

Nail; head.  Whatever Moffat was before, DW brought his amazing capacities to the fore, and gave him the scope he needed to bring those capacities fully on-line for a show that he’d loved as a fan (there was a good article somewhere by someone who carps a lot about what Moffat’s done, explaining the realization that every long-time fan has their own cherished ideas of what they would do with DW if *they* were show-runner, and of course in every case it’s different — so whoever actually has the job of doing that is going to be snarl-bait for all the ones who can’t — particularly, I would add, when he, Moffat in this case, has done such a smashing job of realizing his own complex and bravura goals for the Doctor, with S10 still to come).

A “safe pair of hands” is probably the best way to move the show back into the realms of reliably good, fun stuff that doesn’t *require* the guiding hand of genius.  My concern is that after Moffat, Capaldi might well feel that he’d rather move on than work with (talented) non-geniuses on the same show.  And that might be just right, in terms of his own career.  Gulp.

[JimTheFish @jimthefish Time Lord]

@bluepipsqueak–

I personally started to get the impression that you were actively looking for faults

I hope not. Merely trying to quantify why CC’s writing always leaves me feeling a bit like Gru’s mother.

Why are the welding helmets there? They’re functional. The alternative is having a bunch of actors trying to look like scary possessed monsters while they’re wandering around the set with their eyes closed, trying not to bump into stuff

Yeah, I get the functional argument and did indeed acknowledge it. And, yes, it’s done for largely the same reason as the Vashta Nerada wear spacesuits in SitL, as you say. But the key difference is that its addressed in the narrative. It’s an acceptable part of the story logic. For one thing the consumed astronauts are already wearing the suits when they meet their demise. For another, the Vashta Nerada use the suits’ visors as a tactic for picking off the other archaeologists. (And that’s leaving aside the narrative significance of the suits’ data ghosting functionality.) But that’s all addressed in the narrative because SM knows that he has to if he’s going to do his job properly. (And avoid giving the BTLers on the Graun a stick to beat him with.)

Now CC doesn’t do that here. There’s lots of ways he could have — you, yourself have suggested a couple. That the possessed sun-monsters need some kind of protection to avoid destroying themselves or just getting about in general. But he just doesn’t even make that effort. Now, either he thinks he doesn’t need to bother (which is just technically bad writing and something that RTD should have addressed if CC wasn’t going to bother himself) or he just forgot in the rush to get to his next ‘exciting bit’. As it stands, in terms of the narrative logic of the story, the creatures don those helmets for no given reason (other than CC has seen Quatermass/Ambassadors of Death/The Invisible Enemy and thought it was a cool idea) and we have to fill in those gaps ourselves.

saying that a Doctor Who episode was a ‘mashup’ that borrowed (off the back of a lorry, no questions asked) from other stories gave me a few hints as well

The expression was used quite deliberately and with its very specific meaning in mind. 42 is very much a mash-up. It’s a collage of different cinematic and TV sources. Just as most of his Torchwood episodes were. Just as, when you get down to it, Broadchurch is. Come on, is there a single narrative beat, a single concept contained in this episode that you haven’t seen somewhere else before?

Not that this is necessarily a bad thing. This is something of a tradition in Who — the Holmes/Hinchcliffe era is pretty much a shameless recycling of Hammer tropes and is all the better for it. The first Daleks story owes more than a bit to the Dan Dare Voyage to Venus story. Same goes for stories by RTD and SM. It just seems to me that CC ends up doing a little too artlessly, almost as if he doesn’t know quite why he’s including those elements, other than he’s seen them in something else and he wants to bung them in, whether the story requires them or not.

you seem to like Michelle Collins

I thought she did a good job, partially because she was given a little more to work with than the rest of the guest cast and also, I suspect, that her years on soaps has made her adept at making rushed, not-quite-there-yet scripts work.

and missing the point that Chibnall’s scripts consistently produce those good performances

Except he doesn’t. Not even remotely. What he does do is put a little more effort into maybe one or two characters in a script, presumably the ones he’s interested in. The rest he just leaves dangling in the wind. Compare that with Midnight or Silence in the Library (or Robots of Death or Moonbase) where just about every character is rounded, has some work put into them and that makes them, strong, finished scripts. A CC script almost always seems to (and I’d say the Silurian two-parter being the honourable exception) have holes in it where characters should be. I’m not saying he’s a bad writer, just an undisciplined one. And consistent is the last adjective I’d use.

Somebody has to take over from Steven Moffat. And Steven Moffat has just given us a ‘Follow that!’ era.

Yes, I’d agree. As I said before, CC has the opposite problem to Moffat. SM was the guy who wrote Blink. He had a lot of good will to bank on for a few episodes. (The converse of that, of course, was when people realised that he wasn’t going to deliver 13 Blinks every year, a lot of so-called fans turned on him.) CC has the opposite problem. He’s the bloke who wrote Cyberwoman and this. He’s facing a lot of metaphorical folded arms, saying: ‘here we are now, entertain us’. The upside there is that if he does knock it out the park — and, frankly, I think and hope he might — then he stands to secure himself a far smoother ride than SM could ever have hoped for.

Yes, but in a choice between two Doctor Who writers who have good viewing figures and good AIs for their scripts, which one is the ‘safe’ choice for the BBC?

I’d agree with @pedant that in some ways it is surprising that Whithouse wasn’t chosen and I guess we’ll never know if he was even asked or not. Let’s face it running Nu-Who is a tough room to work (where you have to deal with die-hards on Twitter, the Graun and, well, here). I wouldn’t be at all surprised if TB turned it down for that reason. And as Pip says, Chibbers has bona fide hits in Broadchurch and Law and Order — and perhaps proved he can take media pressure after the shit he (frankly deservedly) caught for Broadchurch 2. I also suspect it’s his track record as a ventrilo-writer (mash-ups a specialty 😉 ) that attracted the suits to him, no doubt with the idea of saying ‘make it more like it was in the RTD years when everyone loved it’. However, I suspect when he’s been given the keys to the TARDIS, Chibbers will actually have some very firm and individual ideas about what he’ll want to do.

That’s what I’m hoping anyway.

[Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip]

@ichabod

I’m hoping, since I think Peter Capaldi has mentioned that there is a little ‘Doctor’s Club’, that Capaldi’s going to have a chat with David Tennant. Because David Tennant can not just give him some advice on what discussions to have with the new producer, he’s also worked a lot with Chris Chibnall.

David, I think, might well have most informed viewpoint on the pros and cons of staying on. Or not.

[Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip]

@jimthefish

Merely trying to quantify why CC’s writing always leaves me feeling a bit like Gru’s mother.

Because you don’t like it. 🙂

Okay, rather than go through ‘what Jim thinks is wrong with Chris Chibnall’s writing/what Pip thinks is right’, let’s talk about Thomas Hardy.

Because personally, I think life is too short to read Thomas Hardy. I have read Jude the Obscure, I’ve read Mayor of Casterbridge – and it was at a couple of chapters into Tess of the Durbervilles that I realised that I didn’t care how many ‘Great Works of English Literature’ lists Hardy was on, he wasn’t on mine.

If I felt I needed to quantify this dislike by explaining his faults as a writer, I’d go through his novels in detail – because no writer is perfect. As the cliche goes, even Homer nods, and even Great Authors have faults. But truthfully, what interests Hardy as a writer isn’t what interests me as a reader, his worldview and mine are very different – and I don’t like his novels.

Now:

Silence in the Library (or Robots of Death or Moonbase) where just about every character is rounded

Okay. Tell me about Proper Dave and Other Dave. Beyond the fact that they are Proper Dave and Other Dave and one’s a bit accident prone. Anita? She’s nice, and she’s scared. Anything else? I’ll give you a pass on CAL’s father, because he’s a functional character in-story as well as in the script.

Steven Moffat has a real gift, almost Christie-like, for giving us one line introductions that make us think a character is rounded. They’re as flat as a pancake when you prod the script a bit, but you can’t help liking characters who introduce themselves as the Thin/Fat Gay Married Anglican Marines. And then give us a scriptwriter’s joke of ‘why would we need names?’

I would say that most of the things you’re picking apart in 42 are things you would give a pass on if the script had been written by Steven Moffat. And that your real problem with Chris Chibnall is that he isn’t Steven Moffat. He’s a scriptwriter of genuine talent, but he’s no genius.

He’s facing a lot of metaphorical folded arms, saying: ‘here we are now, entertain us’.

Yes, and there’s an acronym for that. Because the wider audience, the ones who don’t contribute to fora such as these, watched his Who scripts and liked them (judging by audience numbers and the AI figures). The people complaining about Cyberwoman are, by and large, active fans. Even at the time, the reviews were mixed, not universally negative. Same with Broadchurch 2: you may have hated it – the reviews were mixed, with a fair amount of verdicts on the lines of ‘went a bit wobbly in the middle’. The viewing figures for Series 2 were actually very slightly better than for Series 1.

I’d agree with @pedant that in some ways it is surprising that Whithouse wasn’t chosen

Only if you’re a fan.

Toby Whithouse might possibly have been a genuine contender after RTD, or if Moffat hadn’t taken Who to the massive, massive worldwide audience it currently enjoys. I’m sure the BBC will be delighted if Chris Chibnall asks him to continue as a Who writer. But a Head Writer who’s never had a mainstream hit when there’s a candidate with two in entirely different genres? No way.

[ichabod @ichabod]

@bluesqueakpip  About Capaldi consulting with that very exclusive club, specifically Tennant — good points; and thanks. And I like your longer view on Chibnall/Whithouse.  There are the viewers-at-large, a (probably) small percentage of them hardcore fans, of whom and even smaller percentage are aware of and fully invested in genius-level work that provides so much to think and talk about.

And it’s not hard to guess who BBC admin is most likely to be committed to pleasing.

 

[JimTheFish @jimthefish Time Lord]

@bluesqueakpip–

Because you don’t like it.

No, not really. I don’t think you can write it off as personal prejudice or dare I say it ‘angst’ — it’s not that I’m against Chibnall becoming showrunner — I’m not and am in fact looking forward to him taking the helm, seeing what he does with the show. Nor am I particularly unhappy that Moffat is leaving — I think it’s time he did. He’s probably just at the cusp of over-staying his welcome and despite the strength of s9, I’m sure he’s the last person who would want the show to stagnate or fall into a rut.

But to say that I’m riding Chibnall hard for things that I’d give Moffat a free pass for I think is presumptious and a little unfair. The reasons I’ve taken some time and effort to spell out are valid I think.

And we’re not talking about writers being perfect. Moffat over his tenure has screwed up lots, dropped plot threads, created bad or lacking characters, written episodes that were below par. Same with RTD. And while we’re at it I hold no particular candle for Toby Whithouse either. I was only ever really lukewarm about Being Human and I find his Who episodes middling, with a couple of exceptions. But for all that, they were solid. Structurally and technically, everything is in place, even if the end result is not a piece of work that personally blew me away — that’s the point where personal liking or disliking comes in.

For me, there are points in this episode, and in others, where Chibnall doesn’t even get that far. He fails to establish plot points. His supporting characters are beyond flat. (I disagree about the characters in SitL etc. No, they’re not fully rounded, yes, they are thumbnail characterisations but they still have enough work put into them that the actors can breathe life into them, give us the suggestion that they actually had a life before the beginning of the story. Compare that to Anthony Flanagan’s character here. Flanagan is a terrific actor and I can think offhand of half a dozen excellent performances from him but does he say anything here that isn’t exposition-bollocks? Anything that successfully suggests that he and the captain have the long-standing friendship that he keeps saying they have. There’s just nothing there. Similarly, look at the criminal waste of Vicky McClure in Broadchurch playing the most prosaic, central-casting Bad Journalist that you could imagine. And it didn’t have to be that way. If he’d just put a fraction of the work into the character that he did to Ellie, Beth or Jack.

It’s not that I’m castigating Chibnall for not being ‘a genius’ of Moffat levels (and I’d probably say that’s edging towards hyperbole a bit anyway. Let’s just say he’s very, very good). And I don’t dispute for a moment that he’s a writer of genuine talent. But I would say there are far too many examples in his CV where he hasn’t even employed that talent, where he’s been shoddy, careless or lazy, where his work has just been lacking in fundamental issues of craft. There are many writers of Who — e.g. Whithouse, Graham — whose work hasn’t particularly enthused me but whom I can nonetheless recognise as being masters of their trade. But all too often in a Chibnall script, there’s a point where you’re saying ‘WTF?? What about….?’

It’s not that I have a personal dislike for his work, as such — I like the general ideas by and large — it’s more that his execution of those ideas is often so careless that he sabotages his own work. I’m always left with the impression that I’m being assailed with the Big Moments, with the spectacle, to distract me from the blatant cracks in the fundamental structure of the episode. But to repeat, it’s not that I don’t think he’s not capable of sitting down and creating this structure and more that he doesn’t seem to have the will or the patience to do so and prefers to fly by the seat of his pants and rely on the spectacle. Like someone trying to blag their way into a nightclub by walking really fast and cocky past the bouncers.

But you’re right that for the casual viewer, Chibnall is probably the right choice. For the people who won’t buy box sets or series record but just watch it the once and who get caught up in the kinetic rush of the episode then he’s probably going to create crowd-pleasing, RTD-esque romps. And that’s pretty much why he was hired, I suspect.

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @pedant]

@bluesqueakpip @jimthefish

At the beginning of Grapes of Wrath, Tom Joad stops off at a diner to blag a ride. He doesn’t even go into the diner and yet Steinbeck brings the waitress, who we never meet again, completely to life through the simple device of having her inspect a lump under her ear, while talking to a trucker (who we, again, don’t meet after he drops Joad off, but who is similarly and economically fleshed out).

Moffat’s gift is similar economy. We feel for Anita and both the Dave’s because he has used enough craft to make the entire Song team feel like a group of people, not a group of plot devices.

In 42 all of the crew are pretty much interchangeable (and the two survivors even looked too much alike – a basic casting error) and felt a lot more red-shirty – although this didn’t bother me as much as it does Jim.

But also, that was in 2007, the fat end of a decade ago, and one would hope CC has developed as a writer. There is sufficient evidence that he has, within Who, but cause for concern in the Show that May Not Be Named where two key new characters were 100 degrees proof spirit plot device, and a waste of fine actors and a cancer on the story. His downright petulant response probably didn’t help perceptions, though.

(Whithouse has 5 seasons of Being Human (and a format sale to the US) under his belt and had to manage massive cast changes as people got big job offers, and has a Who portfolio of highly-regarded character-driven stories – while the most recent experience of CC is the shoeing he got for TSTMNBN. It is simply not as clear-cut as you assert, pip – but also entirely moot)

[Mudlark @mudlark]

This is the first time that I have watched 42 since it originally aired. Beforehand, the fact that I could recall very little about the episode and had never previously bothered to re-watch it seemed ominous, but in the event I was pleasantly surprised – which I suppose is the right order of things ;  ‘Blessed are they who expect nothing’  and so forth 🙂

There is little subtlety at any level, but if you don’t examine or analyse it too closely, and ignore a few highly implausible elements, it is a pretty taut piece of story-telling, pacey and exciting enough to have kept me engrossed and on the edge of my seat, at any rate.  It is also visually impressive and conveyed very vividly to me the heat and the grungy, sweaty interior of that inter-stellar equivalent of an ageing and run-down container ship.

If this is indicative of what is to come we will probably be well entertained, but I fear that we may not find so much meat for dissection and discussion on these boards.  We’ll see, and perhaps C C will surprise us by taking the show forward rather than back to old ground.

[blenkinsopthebrave @blenkinsopthebrave]

Well, it took me a while to get around to seeing it, and (I should confess) seeing it for the very first time, as I tended to let a lot of the RTD years pass me by. I really only came back to Who in earnest with SM and Matt Smith, after years in the wilderness (somewhere during Peter Davison’s tenure). True, I have subsequently picked up some of those years, but in a very selective way. Anyway…42:

A roller coaster of an episode, which was both exciting, but just a tiny bit one note. I actually enjoyed it a lot, particularly the personal interactions between Martha and the lonely guy in the life pod, and the captain and her doomed husband. And the pacing and tension  was satisfyingly nail-biting. On the other hand, there was an awful lot of shouting…still.

Having seen “Broadchurch” (only the first series), bits of “Torchwood”, the two-part Silurian story (my personal favourite of Chibnall’s Who stories and one of my personal favourite Who stories), I suspect that the wise @danmartinuk is spot on when he suggested over on the Graun that Chibnall’s Who is likely to be a bit more gritty.

Of course I may revise that when we watch “Dinosaurs on a Spaceship”…

Oh, and it was nice to see Vinette Robinson (the acerbic Sgt Donovan from “Sherlock”) playing the ship’s doctor.

 

 

[Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip]

@pedant

(Whithouse has 5 seasons of Being Human (and a format sale to the US) under his belt and had to manage massive cast changes as people got big job offers, and has a Who portfolio of highly-regarded character-driven stories – while the most recent experience of CC is the shoeing he got for TSTMNBN. It is simply not as clear-cut as you assert, pip – but also entirely moot)

Let us imagine a TV executive who has to consider two possible writers for the post of Head Writer on a popular, long running, family-friendly drama series on BBC1.

Let us further imagine that there are two main contenders, Writer A and Writer B.

1. Previously written for this series? Yes, both A and B.
2. Got an ‘Excellent’ on the Audience Appreciation Index? Yes, both A and B.
3. Previous showrunning experience? Yes, both A and B.
4. Longest running series? Writer A: 4 years. Writer B: 5 years.
5. Handled a major cast change? Yes, both A and B.
6. Children’s television or ‘family-friendly’ showrunning experience? Writer A: Yes. Writer B: No.
7. What channels has their work broadcast on? Writer A: BBC1, ITV1, BBC2, BBC3. Writer B: BBC2, Channel 4, BBC3.
8. What is their biggest average audience? Writer A: 9.62 million, Writer B: 2 million.
9. Did their shows win any awards?

Writer A – BAFTAs for Best Drama Series, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor. A second show won BAFTA Cymru for Best Drama Series, Best Actress, also other genre and BAFTA nominations.

Writer B: Writers Guild Awards (Best Drama Series, 3 times), other genre and BAFTA nominations.

You’ll notice that until point 5, Writer A and Writer B are neck-and-neck. But once you get onto point 6-9, Writer A starts pulling ahead. They have main channel, family-friendly, audience and award winning experience that Writer B simply doesn’t have.

Which is what the fans aren’t noticing, and that’s why they’re (and you’re) so surprised. They’re impressed by Writer B’s great genre writing, didn’t like Writer A’s last series, and they’re not noticing a few things.

They’re not noticing that:

• RTD, Moffat and Chibnall all have family friendly or children’s TV experience as showrunners.
• RTD, Moffat and Chibnall all have either BBC1 or ITV1 experience as showrunners.
• RTD, Moffat and Chibnall had all received BAFTA’s for their shows (Moffat and RTD for their children’s TV work).

And Toby Whithouse hasn’t done any of those things.

[blenkinsopthebrave @blenkinsopthebrave]

@bluesqueakpip

Let us imagine

Could you do that as a diagram?

[Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip]

@blenkinsopthebrave

Writer A: 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

Writer B: 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

😀

[Missy @missy]

For my part I enyed 42, but don’t consider it as good as Midnight.

Yes, i kow that Russell T. Davies wrote this, but it was as odd as 42.

Cheers,

Missy

[JimTheFish @jimthefish Time Lord]

Just wanted to add that I watched The Hungry Earth recently which I thought was tip-top and it’s been making me feel the guilts for giving Chibbers such a kicking on this one. Hoping we can get around to a forum viewing of it soon.

[winston @winston]

@jimthefish       I really liked that one too and look forward to a forum viewing.

[SeverusOswald @severusoswald]

I love this episode. I know lots of people dislike Martha as a companion but I really enjoyed her as a character, and I thought she was brilliant in<i> 42. </i>All of the characters are fun and have a great personality. It’s funny yet dramatic and thought-provoking. I like that it plays off the much used idea of the Doctor and his companion being on a remote base or ship and being attacked by an unknown monster, but it puts a new twist on it with the whole ‘sun being alive thing’, which is a really good idea.

[Missy @missy]

I didn’t actually dislike her, she just didn’t ring true to me. that doesn’t mean that she couldn’t act.

Missy

[TARDISIsaac @isaacthestar]

Decent episode actually but STOP THAT SNOGGING! I know it’s Tennant’s era but HOLY JESUS!

 

TARDISIsaac

[Rewvian @rewvian]

I just rewatched 42.  I wasn’t aware of “24” being the inspiration for the episode.

This episode felt kind of like The Impossible Planet and The Satan Pit, but I didn’t enjoy it as much as those two.  I wonder if the space suit worn in this episode was the same as the one from those, maybe with a few cosmetic tweaks.

Doctor climbing out of the airlock to press buttons and flip a switch caused a lot of anxiety, as did the escape pod being launched with Martha and the crewmate inside.  The woman choosing to jump out of the air lock with her possessed (?) husband also seemed like a death that didn’t have to happen, but did anyway.

I sort of liked the idea of this living sun, and the leader of the group being responsible for irritating it because she never scanned for signs of life before I guess using the sun’s energy to fuel up.  All of those doors being passcode locked on the way to the main control room seemed really inconvenient for anyone on this ship, and was most definitely a writer’s plot to make resolving the situation more dicey.

The kiss scene was a bit out of left-field, but I guess makes sense since both of them were trapped in a launched space pod and were recovered just in time.  The kiss happening while they were in the escape pod might have been more believable.

I walked away from the episode feeling like it was filler, but ambitious filler.

[Oochillyo @oochillyo]

hey everyone 🙂 how are you all 🙂

I re watched this ep a while back, it was better than I used to think, however watching a review about the episode today I have one question/mystery ;

If Martha and Riley are going through the 29 locked doors to reach the front of the ship that I assume has the engine bay to restart the ship, how does the ending work ?

Martha and Riley didn’t complete their mission or use any software to reset the ship, The Doctor then saves the escape pod at such point The Doctor becomes infected, and Martha works out the solution (which I’m perfectly fine with) however when she orders the crew dump the fuel what does that do ?

I know they took out the fuel which had the particles in, but I thought the engine was broken which is why they had to jump start it from the other side of the ship, what is this massive block of wires and metal in the middle of the floor, it’s the engine ? if so how did they restart that without using whatever systems are at the front of the ship ?

I can think of it like when you put the wrong fuel in a car, depending on the fuel it will break the car engine, but the engine doesn’t suddenly work again by dumping the fuel if it’s become broken, the way to save it is you quickly realise and quickly dump the fuel and the car engine might survive without too much harm.

I know its all rush rush rush and maybe Chibnall didn’t notice but I did ha 🙂 the whole point of the locked doors is to reach the engine control room to re start the ship, that’s never achieved yet the thing in the floor is fixed when the fuel is removed from it, yes it could have be struggling like the example of the car but if its ‘broken’ how does it work again by removing fuel, I saw the review and heard someone had hacked the engines but just checking now it turns out that happens later haha so big problem again.

So 1 , we have Martha and Riley not reach the engine bay therefore they dont re start the ship’s engine , 2 later on someone i.e. the sun zombies I guess have hacked the system so the generators don work therefore the engine can’t be jump started, ooo 3 how does dumping all the fuel solve the problem if the previous 2 are problems in conjunction how does the ship fly away if all the fuel is dumped is it just reserves or enough left to go on ? like if I dump my car’s fuel the car doesn’t get moving hahaha 🙂

Yeah I remember afterwards they said they barley have enough fuel to go on since they dumped soo much of it haha 🙂

I understand this looks like small issues but this is the whole point of the ep, the ship is crashing into the Sun with no engine power to save it, and yes its ever since they synthon the fuel and got all the Sun particles which ruined the engine like bad fuel but that has broken the engine which was further hacked by the Sun zombies to shut the crew out from jump starting the ship soo how will this ship ever work again given the limited time they have to save it and all the reasons it shouldn’t move just by dumping the fuel.

If your gear box or engine is broken putting fuel in or bad fuel out isn’t going to fix anything, wonder if it’s all a ‘spaceship type systems’ doesn’t have this problem ?

Maybe it was the Sun 🙂 given the particles back it helped push them away or even restart the engine the fire to go you know 🙂

I am glad I wrote that a while back in this review cause its the only reason left haha yes fuel dump takes out the bad particles that’s ruining the engine but A its already broke and B it wasn’t fixed at the engine bay and C the crew’s attempts where further stopped by the hacking zombies hahaha who knew they could be soo smart 🙂 and D they are running out of fuel, so 4 big reasons the engine is ruined, their escapes has all gotta be the Sun 🙂

Riley say they sent out a distress signal so I guess they are just waiting in Space and can’t move that makes more sense I do sometimes have to remember they dumped all the fuel right so that’s the distress signal explained, umm the ship moved far away I hope far enough that by the time the rescue party arrives the ship has just drifted back into the path of the Sun hahahaha 🙂 I really do hope Space AA isnt delayed hahahah 🙂

I love this who knew such disaster could be overlooked until a spark goes off in my head similar to a car engine and I ref into – stop its question time haha 🙂

Take care everyone and be careful which fuel you use stay positive hugs 🙂

Regards – Declan Sargent

 

[Rewvian @rewvian]

@oochillyo It has been too many episodes and too much time now for me to remember the specifics of this episode, but it sounds like they had to release the fuel storage on the ship.  I don’t know if that was to like push them away from the sun or to make the ship less heavy or what.  If the engine was broken then I don’t know how it would have done anything, and if the ship could barely go on without the fuel I guess they took some serious liberties with plot holes.

It has been too long since I watched it now though.

[Missy @missy]

@rewvian

They released the fuel, back to the sun because they had stolen it. Only then would the sun release them from its grip.

The fuel was cargo, they had their own fuel. Think that’s correct? 🙂

Missy

 

[Dentarthurdent @dentarthurdent]

@missy I think your recollection is correct. (And I just scanned tardis.fandom.com to prompt my memory). When they vented the fuel back to the sun, it somehow released them and the auxiliary engines started up.

But the whole episode was very – loose. The ship had been mining the sun for fuel – but how could they do that without coming into contact with the sun? The whole point of the episode was to not crash into the sun and burn up, so how could they ever have mined it? And in reality, I think any ship would get fried or vaporised by radiant heat many hours before it reached the sun’s surface.

And how could the sun ‘release’ them? Could it control its own gravity? Just trying to work out the logic of this episode raises more questions than it answers.

As Rewvian noted, those code-locked doors just scream ‘plot device’. Why did they exist?

[Rewvian @rewvian]

@missy You’re right, because the sun was like an entity on the ship trying to punish them for stealing from the sun.  I kind of remember now.

@dentarthurdent A little off-topic, but I wonder if a day will come where we make ships that can come into contact with a sun.

[Oochillyo @oochillyo]

hey everyone 🙂 how are you all 🙂

I’m not sure if the Sun actually is holding them just think its gravity pulling them in but when they get rid of a lot of fuel just wonder how they get away, hope they just tipped out enough to clear the particles, but you still wonder can that ship really escape a Sun as close as it is mmm hopefully and hope they have enough fuel to escape till the recuse team arrives.

Making a Dyson sphere is possible and future generations will likely build one just would take a lot of money and effort, we also have what’s it called satellites ? that can travel through space cause of Solar light 🙂 like a ship’s sails on the wind, and I am sure I’ve heard of something we put near or into the Sun, it was strong enough to survive the heat and get near the surface of the sun just think its destroyed by gravity ect

So there is many possibilities @rewvian 🙂 and we have man made carbon nano tubes which are incredibly strong the strongest material we right now unless something newer has been discovered 🙂 so one day we could have spaceships powered by the Sun as seen in the video I sent you as well as strong enough and heat proof enough to get super smokingly close haha 🙂

Parker Solar Probe – Wikipedia

Solar sail – Wikipedia

(128349) How to Build a Dyson Sphere – The Ultimate Megastructure – YouTube

The spaceship in 42 is not designed to survive the heat ect caused when getting too close to the Sun, some call it a cargo ship, I think they just scooped the Sun’s power of some kind which means they got close enough to do that but the Sun particles ruined the engines and now they are drifting into it like having an anchor on a ship near a waterfall or a in a storm if the anchor breaks your gonna get dragged around.

The spaceship in 42 while very heat proof (given the situation) isn’t protected enough, its literally bubbling and blowing, in the very opening of the ep The Doctor says the venting systems are working on full power and we are told the temperature of the room the Doctor arrived in has jumped 3000 degrees in 10 second let alone what it was before the additional 3000 degrees very hot haha 🙂

The Doctor then opens this door and nobody dies hahahaha have any of you seen the film Volcano 🙂 it used to scare me soo much, I missed the beginning when I was a kid so it was all the night scenes of the Volcano moving and the train and just makes you nervous like with sink holes could happen anywhere any time you know.

I recently saw that film on T.V. again, it’s funny I miss the start as a kid watch all the way, then as a grown up 🙂 I see the beginning and miss the rest 🙂 so I have seen it fully just in two orders haha 🙂 timey wimey 🙂 and literally opening the steaming door in that film kills someone just steam and even the characters in heat proof things you wear when standing next to a volcano are steaming up like woah, I am gonna post after this how hot is lava cause I know which video will tell me (Vsauce) and compare the spaceship in 42 and I bet you I am gonna laugh 🙂 this was said at 17:22 🙂

I’m looking at it all, I think they are in the back or middle of the ship and they need to go through the doors behind them I think to reach the front of the ship as the ones in front of them are locking down for some reason maybe it’s hot tech ha or the Sun’s direct influence just not sure if they open those locked doors again ?

let’s say here is the back of the ship <E-E-E-E-E-P and the E’s are the doors between rooms 🙂

I reckon if they don’t open those locked doors again (I have to check the ep) they are like at E 2 (left) and P is the front of the ship which would make sense with the small useless venting room at the back, so must be other doors behind them also the Doctor’s landing room becomes the hottest room hahaha didnt think I would say that in a review 🙂 and it seems like a small room which would heat up quicker and retain more heat like insulation since its small 🙂

I re watched the opening as I write this, turns out the engine has been sabotaged and the 4 main people didn’t know, that’s ok the engine just broke 4 mins ago but here’s what I dont understand as the Doctor would say haha 🙂 is how is it broken but fine at the end again this goes to the is it The Sun that pushed them away, how does dumping fuel fix it ect

I just watched the scene to get the temperature and they all walk under neath the floor which is I guess where they went with all the locked doors in front of them and being near the back of the ship I reckon 🙂 just walk underneath haha 🙂 and all the main crew are shocked to see the engine in ruins so it doesn’t normally look like that, and I was thinking mmm the mechanic might of broken the engine but what’s the point if he is going to crash into you know the Sun by doing this, and I think he tried to get tools to fix it before being turned into a sun Zombie soooo who broken then engine if its #been tampered with hahaha 🙂

The Sun hasn’t even fully infected Corwin yet and someone has smashed up the engine like physically not bad fuel or burnt it there’s pieces falling off so who broke it ??? and how was it fixed at the end if it really is broken like I said in my previous comments, its actually even worse now as its physically broken so what is dumping fuel gonna do ? in addition to my points before about how can they move ect in previous messages 🙂

I watched the ending scene to see how close the ship got to the sun and someone in the ep says ocellary reserves in reference to the engine with the lines so they have back up engines or generators to fly them away, how does dumping fuel fix this why haven’t they melted or been tampered with ?

I think looking at the bars in the scene when the engine starts ect reckon these engines are like sci fi power of some kind of electricity you know like hover boards but this ship as fuel too, how do I say these back ups are not liquid power they are like force power not joking, its like a Maglev train floats through electricity pushing it up , its something like a force powering these engines dont know what word or example I am looking for but to me in that scene its like Gridlock or something a car that uses fuel but can hover and rise up 🙂

Maybe it is the Sun pulling them in, breaking them ect, why is the engine smashed before any space zombies are walking around unless its the mechanic smashing an engine that’s gonna result in the spaceship you’re in crashing into the Sun and then why help to fix it ? hahaha 🙂

It’s literally a oh whoops I can’t teleport away better fix this situation haha 🙂

Its literally the show case of what the 9th Doctor said to Casandra 🙂 , crashing a ship while your still on it, how stupid is that ? hahahaha 🙂

Who else would wreck the ship unless Corwin got infected, then smashed the engine before being taken over fully ?

That could make sense, maybe the alien was like ah if I break their engine, they are gonna fall into me ha 🙂 and then realized people are gonna try and fix it and The Doctor also arrives and he is genius he would know what to do with his super ship 🙂 so the Sun fully infects Corwin and then he places his suit on and goes round burning people 🙂

You know like Midnight it’s like checking things out looking for the weakness then acting and trying to destroy the crew 🙂

Martha doesn’t become infected looking through the window ?? so maybe the Sun picked one person to mess up the ship and then smarty Doctor is there the Sun is thinking if I take him over I’ve won 🙂 didn’t think Marath was important or clever enough to find a solution and beat the Sun haha 🙂 , yeah I beat the Slitheen Rose says to Sarah Jane Smith 🙂 well Martha beat a living Sun and with no Doctor help on her own 🙂

I wonder it could be the ship runs on these forces like a type of ray and that’s how the Sun attacks it and stops all the engines working or the particles mess up something – this cargo ship collects fuel I guess maybe it’s like an electric car doesn’t need fuel but you can collect fuel from the petrol station but maybe it all got mixed by accident if these super engines didn’t work till the fuel was gone, so it could be the engines have a similar kind of engine power source as The Millennium Falcon or even The Delorian some kind of sci fi juice 🙂

Why else say these fancy words and show power levels, you don’t have power levels in a car I guess they both show how the engine is working but they are different types of power and different types of engines one where the bars go up like little energy packs when the ship is moving 🙂 but picking up this fuel as wrecked them somehow, who knows if the storage bay and engine got mixed, I don’t know it’s not like a Waters of Mars thing where the filtration broke down which lead to infected water getting in, it’s never explained what the sun particles actually did that stopped, or if they just scoop fuel straight into the engines them ? where is the part for storing fuel and like the exhaust system ?

Your telling me in 4 minutes of collecting this fuel, the amount of tiny sun particles (which didn’t look like a lot in the dumping scene ha 🙂 ) inside the fuel compared with the amount of fuel needed for this miles long spaceship to move which I hope they have enough of left by the way has been scooped up, found its way to the engine all along the miles of spaceship and broken the engine already what is it direct syphon ??

Another question – How did the sun particles infected others when it was in the fuel section, The Doctor has to look at the Sun for a long time to get infected, why is Corwin infected ? maybe he did the same it’s just annoying that it’s never explained and dumping the fuel takes it out the Doctor I like the scene with his eyes returning but wouldn’t it be inside him maybe they should have drained it out of him like bad blood, is it the alien letting go or losing its strength on him now there is no more sun particles ?

I do enjoy all common sense is melting away I don’t understand how I can see this all and none of the producers for the episode noticed.

I do enjoy this ep more though pretty much the only thing to pick apart is the biggest thing starting you and The Doctor’s lovely eyes 🙂 haha in the face – The Sun * I understand the crew ect aren’t meant to be in this situation but how has the ship managed, it’s like a cargo ship and maybe this used to be what it was designed for Sun scooping to sell the fuel and McDonnell the Captain still practices that on her ship even when it’s out lawed.

McDonnell has become soo used to scooping she doesn’t check for life which causes the particles to get in and I bet it was like a fuel stop, and when they went to re start the engines to fly away they soon found out its not working and now they are drifting to disaster like that show countdown to disaster, (in the opening they do say the engines stopped 4 mins ago so its likely they did mean to move and just recently its stopped) the temperature while looking like something 40’c with the actors, you could say both in Doctor Who and parallel Universe haha 🙂 the Ship is shielding them from the worst but what about the outside how come nothing is melting away and seals cracking letting out oxygen, if I was on this boiling ship which is 40 mins before boom I would be thinking is this wall gonna hold or the engine gonna explode and random fires, and in the ep they fall 40mins worth of time closer to the Sun soo much so the back of the ship is nearly in the Sun at the end where is more bang for my buck haha 🙂

I know its all Spacy ect but couldn’t we see more effects of the ship melting away would add more tension and visible effects of rooms melting ect ect , no wonder the engine is nackerd its properly overheating.

Even in the episode with the questions Riley says ‘this ship is soo cheap’ this isn’t a Starline Cruiser, even the flying Titanic was doing better after meteorites hit through it, this piece of old junk is coping against the heat and gravitational pull of the sun not crushing it or anything literally it’s like upside down ice-cream shape, bulking at the engine end and then long and narrow through the rest, and its spinning slowly which probs would be quicker in real life like in Interstellar movie and how things orbit round planets, the ship in 42 is just spinning in one spot not orbiting even still under all the pressure of gravity and melting this narrow strip should have snapped in addition to the forces of spinning, you think if I spin you around while pulling your arm, your arm is gonna break there is 2 direction of pull  – how is this junk ship perfectly fine whilst this is going on apart from a few steamy pipes blowing and a nacked engine which the episode tells us is broken cause of the alien particles its all pretty fine and structurally strong  – though I know now whilst still writing my review at 17:11 the engine has been sabotaged so how does it ever work again ? must have those fancy back up engines haha wonder how the heat didn’t kill the engine and the super fancy one too it’s still made out of components that can melt and over heat breaking both power sources of the engines 🙂

I know budget and not to waste time but to have the threat even better apart from some steamy faces and smoke which is a good start there should have been the space zombies melting parts of the ship like the engine that would be scary for the audience, the space engine is gone like in Midnight 🙂 so you know they zombies should be doing actual damage to the ship like the tiny spider robots in The End of The World which has the threat of the tiny robots have borken the shileds and the Sun in front of us is gonna explode ta da thats your threat for the epidose 🙂 so the Doctor , Martha and crew cant stop the zombies (a bit like Pa Ting 🙂 ) cause they would melt them alive so The Doctor has to find a way of stopping them like the ice pipe we see that guy use to freeze them 🙂 would have been cool the ship is crashing people trying to fix it so space zombie fights back, infects some crew they you got melty hands ect taking junks out the ship ect 🙂 and you cant face them down or your toast haha 🙂

Really should have been more evidence of the heat affecting the ship 🙂 the engine is already gone when we have the episdo we dont see it break or someone wreck it and the ep tells us its not cause the sun or heat that it broke really ha ? bit more like waters of mars but heat, the space zombies melting doors after you try and lock them out of the control room and they could melt the engine and we see it and then the ship losses power 🙂 or they melt the control room you know things like this I know its just fire but you could use it well like Waters of Mars did 🙂

Literally the whole ep is the heat the heat, what does it do nothing really apart from lock the Tardis away in the hottest room possible and cause a few steam explosions, you have the space zombies but they dont melt anything apart from people and its still not great they get picked off one by one ha where is the tension and race thats the whole point of 42 being 42 mins of real time, I know waters of Mars is not on the same level but you have the infection attack people and try and throw water at them, the women melts the ice at the top of the roof, the whole base is going down, people are turning, and so at the end when the Doctor goes back its incredible he saved them in the worst possible situation 🙂 I dont mind Martha saving the Doctor but where was the addition stakes

The heat does nothing to the ship so the sun is pointless till the spaceship crashes into it

The Space zombies were placed to add more tension and a monster of the week which some people think is pointless as in 42 mins the Sun would have got all the crew and the fuel anyway but even with the zombies what do they do apart from take out a few people we dont know about, mostly in off screen ways apart from Baldi who we see’s brains fry as he gets turned

You know its like Scooby Doo (which is amazing 🙂 ) if they all stuck together they would have been fine 🙂 what are the zombies gonna do they never melt any doors ect, yes can vaporize you but if you are between them and a door what they gonna do and you could have frozen the one kept it all under control I know for plot it doesn’t happen but they needed to show they were stronger, you can just wrap your arms around them and punch them in the tummy and they cant do anything, if you could tie up their hands they cant open their visor unless their while body starts to get hot and glow which would be another cool we are safe now oh wait whopps they can do that but it would make sense 🙂

Like Vote Saxon 07 said we should have seen the space zombies melt the door or the controls of the escape pod Martha was in that’s the whole point of them being flams and heat walkers not just a glow of they eyes which is nice but where is the melting of the ship ect, corning someone and melting them or the person shuts the door and we all think ah they survived maybe even the Doctor dead lock seals the door or something and you think wow I love that characters its good they are safe, like with Lynda with a y in the Parting of The Ways 🙂 and then snap spoilers the Daleks get her a different way by shooting the glass and throwing her into the vacuum of space and that was good 🙂 and you miss her, then in 42 you could have the safe room ah then the zombies start their powers and heat up the room, the characters says its like a Sauna in her classic movie line (if they don’t know the space zombie is attacking them) slowly getting hotter or they could know the zombie was right there, how can they get out the zombie is in front of the door and the room is boiling and the Doctor could try rushing through the ship to save them even with a bucket of water at a nod to Love and Monsters haha 🙂 but cant save them in time and they are gone cause of too much heat

The potential of the villains and situation is good but wasted at the same could all be cooler well hotter 🙂

Where is the potential haha 🙂 I should be the show runner 🙂 a hot success haha 🙂

This all could have been soo much tighter written and better 🙂

You know a lot of people me too are scared of drowning , and we got the threat of the Waters of Mars people not cause drowning but cause it was an infection more of us are scared of infection and death right a plague, zombies ect and an infection with the water element meaning it can get through anything and 1 drop your finished is super scary and mixes both threats which actually is real mixing most fears together logical ones like graveyard at night can make the fear worse thats what Waters of Mars did 🙂

(128732) What Is The Scariest Thing? – YouTube

Now I am scared of drowning and sharks you know but on land ah nothing can happen unless its the Carionights haha 🙂 but fire, anyone’s house could burn down, lighting, global warming, risk of burns how it feels ect the film volcano was soo scary to me as I said lava didn’t stop just kept going through everything till the end of the film that’s what we needed that’s what was missing the fear in fire what can it do, you cant touch hot or you get pain or death what can it do to your surroundings you know it needed a jump on the fear level and what was occurring in the ep i.e melting the ship apart no room is safe from heat ect 🙂

The episode needs to show more damage to the ship, proper danger of heat and the villains used better, I am not trying to make a horror but surely something I said would have worked better right ? melt the doors, the ship is on the verge of blowing up cause of the heat and pressure as well as gravitational pressure, certain parts should have been explained better and smoothened out like how we got the engine working if it was wrecked and who did that and so on 🙂

I did enjoy this ep more as I said in my good review ha 🙂 and probs gave lots of things I like but I would like this more 🙂

Sun scooping is out lawed in the galaxy, I reckon cause A in case some Sun’s are alive and B the danger of getting too close like seen here cause the Sun’s particles ruin the engine. I wrote this a while back and the top levels about heat and underneath later on 🙂

I do like this ep more than I used to but since watch a review of it yesterday and having a news flash along with the other this doesn’t make sense I have notice this ep is crazily bonkers about how everything wasn’t a disaster and turned out well, I know its Sci Fi and some say don’t care about it, I will still like this ep but if I am re viewing it and see this massive solar sized issue I wanna mention it I even tried to work out how they ship escaped at the end in my last review I said it could be the Sun forgiving them and helping them out though it does kill people with the space zombies soo not sure how forgiving it is, I’m gonna kill off your crew and I have my soul back now I’ll give you a push to fly away hahaha 🙂

I know the whole ep is about rushing around to fix the situation, but it seems like Chibnall rushed around when writing this all, this episode has soo many leaky plot points and mystery about the engine dilemma let alone anything else I found/will find that this ship would be leaking fuel everywhere when I am done with it haha 🙂

19:15 I think I am happy with this 🙂 its good ep I did enjoy but recently found a major problem and would like it more if the concept was utilized better especially given the aim to add tension and speed with the 42 minute countdown 🙂

Take care everyone hugs 🙂

Regards – Declan Sargent

[Oochillyo @oochillyo]

hey everyone 🙂 how are you all 🙂

I really enjoyed that review ha I actually enjoy stripping it all out and being like ah that eps done got my thoughts on it and now I know what I used to know and think 🙂

So temperature of lava (fresh out the ground it says in the video) is – 1090 degrees C sorry for not putting c before I am just used to degrees c so that what I mean in all my other degrees measurements 🙂

(128817) How Hot Can It Get? – YouTube

I dont know if I already put the link down but please watch this video and then look back at 42 have a good laugh 🙂

hahahaha it got worse 🙂 someone has some super glass which he uses to focuses the Sun’s rays enough to melt Obsidene glass making actually lava 🙂 and then Vscause says the Sun is having that affect – 149,600,000km away or in other terms 93 million miles away from Earth 🙂 soooooo 1 Doctor and crew should have died from the 3000 degrees C door if lava is only 1090 degrees c 🙂

The guys in Volcano film yes a film but probs quite factual or realistic died from stream that was super-hot cause of the volcano so mmm even the steam around the ship let alone that room should have killed them all let alone the temperature being nearly 3 times as hot as fresh lava 🙂 really I know its Who but guys you messed up a bit by saying this door is 3000 degrees up then proceeding to show the Doctor opening it 🙂

2 mmm the Sun’ rays were very powerful enough through that glass to melt obsidian the material they teach you is indestructible on Minecraft for instance I reckon its more resistant than diamonds real world I mean, yes the ray is  concentrated focused to a point but well you get my point , the spaceship is like mmm couple miles at best away, it would take us through our current space tech which looks more ero dynamic and more powerful than this space junk like 3 months was it to reach the Sun from Earth at which point however far Mercury right is from the Sun that planet is pretty much burning check it out its one of the hottest planets if I’ve got that right and its not even 42 spaceship levels of close to the Sun 🙂 so as we approach the sun unless we are robots we would likely be gone by the range of Mercury if we are not in spaceships that protect us enough not some ‘cheap’ spaceship where people just open doors and stare right at the sun which is like a tennis ball throw away hahahhaha 🙂

Sun Temperature – 5500.C or 10 thousand degrees Fahrenheit 🙂

It looks like our Sun and yes there are bigger and smaller sizes of Sun’s just watch the video and the other link but lets say in 42 its an Earth like Sun same mass ect 🙂

So the very hot room on the ship that should of killed them is well over 2000.C less than the Sun they are right next to and open the door too 🙂 you know I understand only the Doctor opened the door and somehow survived, but if you open a door of a car on a hot day the whole car will get hotter 🙂 and yes its a mile long spaceship but its not hot air ha its the Sun next to them 🙂 I think we better call the Slitheen to switch off the Sun dont want to get sunburned to smithereens haahahha 🙂 one of my fav jokes wow 🙂

hahahaha I was just checking the temperature video for information isn’t this perfect – 42 degrees is almost always fatal not to laugh about fatal but how great they match maybe that what Chibnall was trying to teach us the temperature at which you likely die how amazing just finished my 42 review look for the info on lave and I thought mmm check the part about human temperature and just see 42 pop up in screen as dangerous temperature ha 🙂

(128870) What’s The Brightest Thing In the Universe? – YouTube

(128870) The Largest Star in the Universe – Size Comparison – YouTube

This might have some more temperature examples cause bright = heat thats why some things can glow so just wanna include this and think how come none of them are blinded by the Sun haha 🙂

So it could be even worse if Chibnall didn’t go for Classic Sun – if it was massive it would have been even hotter/brighter ect ect and woah that would be a hot episode 🙂

Lucky there wasnt a Solar Storm too or worse like a Quazar, Blazar , a Neutron Star, got hit by a Gamma Ray Burst or even a Stange Star syphoning the fuel of that would mmm be a disaster think Flux cloud all over again 🙂

I understand this is Who and often Doctor and friends win but lucky it was a normal bog standard living star, if I was a living star wouldn’t I throw solar storms at my opponent that could have been another element like the dodging Millses scene in the End Of Time , really lots of potential here and the narrowness of the ship maybe could have fixed the engine and then tried to dodge solar waves ect as the Sun fights back trying to get its fuel or revenge 🙂

(128877) Neutron Stars – The Most Extreme Things that are not Black Holes – YouTube

(128877) Death From Space — Gamma-Ray Bursts Explained – YouTube

(128877) Extinction by Gamma-Ray Burst – YouTube

(128877) The Most Dangerous Stuff in the Universe – Strange Stars Explained – YouTube

 

I also forgot to mention cause I have like 5 ideas running throw my head like checking the lava temperature ect had to go to corner shop and saved this in case and then got the Scooby Doo idea in the loo haha 🙂 what I wanted to say before and maybe it’s nonsense, I thought about the spaceship is broken cause the Sun’s Particles and yes the Doctor says should have scanned for life, maybe a hint of pregnancy sorry if I’ve upset anyone , and also since its November you always hear check your leave and wood piles for hedgehogs 🙂 before you burn them, just be cautions where life could be and keep it safe 🙂

The particles in the fuel apparently wreck the engine yes I said many times about mixing the fuel ect but maybe its a small message about how we are dependent on fuel, don’t even think about what you putting in when your at the petrol station you know what’s it made out of ect, we hear about fossil fuels a lot but when your at the station  you just want fuel and sometimes you can get it mixed wrong fuel in the car but I think it’s about how the fuel and holding onto it is bad.

I know but the particles wreck the ship leaving the people hurtling towards the Sun, and at the end they ditch the fuel I say ditch now cause its important, they do that and their special super engines work and they escape isn’t it neat 🙂 I know all about global warming how we all hear about it ect (back in 2007 less soo thought it was important then as is now) but it’s like hey look what happens using the conventional fuel the ship often scoops fuel, it’s a routine, you think it’s good but you didn’t bother to look at the bad the risk to life, cause you think it will always stay the same, no it will lead to a disaster if you’re not careful if you dont check and look around look at life and what’s there.

You know they are all stuck and drifting till they lose the fuel, the greed the pollution, they find a better source give a living being backs its heart and they get to leave maybe the Sun was holding them after all till they did the right thing and let them go, they could have not listened not acted quick enough and lost, the Doctor was there to save them and showed them the way and fast, think of us now we see it on the news Cop 27 highway to disaster and we are not fixing it quick enough.

The people of 42 gave back the fuel, ditched it cause it was hurting a living creature and risking their lives, their blindness not to check for live nearly got them killed, look around and see global warming and what can you do to help and look for nature and give it a home 🙂 help it :), its amazing just soo subbtual about greed and the pollution in the fuel that drives our society and its literally a Sun, they are falling into the Sun cause of that fuel, like greenhouse gases we have trapped our Sun’s rays on our planet in the atmosphere like these people in 42 trapped the particles in their engine the heart of their ship, home and business and now they are trapped being drawn into disaster till they were saved, what are we doing, we are still holding the fuel and waiting for what till we run out of time when global warming is too server, isn’t it crazy too I know it’s based on thunderbirds and the film 24 about the Sun (both have the sun as the threat the literally fire that will burn us and our planet if we trap it) but to me the tittle especially now with all this Cop climate talks it makes me think of how long we have left to fix our world when is it too late cop 42 would be a too late situation and 2042 if we don’t fix our ways or 42 years from 2007 when the ep was made = 2049 which is close to the middle of the century all would be too late and at points in our world where if not fixed and reversed we will fall off the climate change cliff like in that film 2012 and fall into the lava at the volcano, we see it and we hear it in these Cop summits too 🙂 I really like that main guy the head of something he really does seem to care and is worried we are on doom yes I don’t wanna hurt people or upset people about this but I appreciate he is not a big business or anything hiding his head in the hot sand he is in charge of something big that could help and he really wants to it seems 🙂

Are we all drifting to a hot planet no escape from the particles/rays of the sun, do we have a Doctor or are we Martha and dumped our greed and did something to save us all 🙂

Take care everyone please look after each other and our Planet while we still can 🙂 even little steps is a step in the right direction 🙂

Regads – Declan Sargent

[Dentarthurdent @dentarthurdent]

@rewvian Could we ever make ships that could come into contact with the sun?

Trivial answer – sure we could, but they’d just melt fairly promptly. I’d guess a few space probes may have ended up there by now.

But I think you mean, could we make a ship that could do something useful? I think probably not (outside of sci-fi). Temperature of surface of sun 5500 deg C. Melting point of tungsten 3400 deg C. Tantalum carbide (Google says, highest known material) 3997 deg C.

Even if we could find an ‘un-meltable’ substance, there would be no way to deal with the heat, the contents would soon rise to surrounding temperature.

Incidentally, I’ve had temperatures hotter than the sun in my garage. No kidding, my little arc welder produces 6500 deg C – in the arc itself. But that’s a tiny bit of plasma, the metal it’s melting doesn’t reach more than a third of that.

[VickyMallard @vickymallard]

And another great episode! The beginning reminds me a bit of that episode with the Ood in series 2 – The Impossible Planet? Okay, that ship was falling into a black hole, not the sun. Do I assume correctly that this emergency lockdown mode means the Doctor can’t get back to the Tardis? I hope it’s heatproof… but if it survives on that impossible planet, I’m sure it survives impossible heat as well. And once again a nicely creepy episode with crew members being killed off one after the other. And an interesting concept that a sun can be a living being – at least for me that was a new one!

And the Doctor is finally warming up towards Martha. Although a part of me wished she had simply stayed with her “No” – just to underline that No means No, even if you’re a charming timelord. And Mum now has visitors from “Mr Saxon”, whoever he may be, who try to backtrace the universal roaming to find the Doctor. I’m curious to see where that will lead us.

And there were so many nice bits in this episode. I loved the “pub quiz” bit… “Don’t they teach happy primes anymore?!” (Or whatever that was – I admit I have no idea what a happy prime is, it certainly wasn’t taught in my classes at school 😉 )

For this episode, my favourite bits were Martha and the other guy in the escape pod, the Doctor climbing out of the airlock – although when the pod came back, for a minute I thought it would be docking to the same airlock, squashing the Doctor in the process – and then of course that whole scene in sickbay when the Doctor is burning up. Screaming in agony, scared of what he might become if that sun thing in him is winning the battle, trying to explain regeneration in between but not getting a word in, and facing being frozen to -200 degrees. That was right up my street…

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