NOTE: Spoiler Free Zone for later episodes of the Doctor Who 2008 Season – Australia has only just seen the Sontaran Double Episodes 4.04 The Sontaran Stratagem and 4.05 The Poison Sky. Everything prior to that is fair game. Torchwood Season 2 is entirely off limits for spoilers here too, please (We can always have another fans attack edition later in the year) – we do have a thoroughly spoiled Season 4 Finale thread still open though – feel free.
So, it keeps on happening (the image below recurs in various adaptations all over the ihasatardis LJ community):
What’s been your most jarring WTF moments? Conversely, what’s only crept up on you later, upon reflection or reading someone else’s take? On the gripping hand, what fan-attacks have struck you as totally unwarranted?
This is a very minor one, but in The Poison Sky, I couldn’t help wondering what all the people on Earth were breathing when the atmosphere was ignited to get rid of the toxic Sontaran gases. Anyone got a good old sci-fi-pseudoscience explanation for that?
Anyway, it inspired me to what I am sure will only be my first Cluedo crossover macro in a long line:
Who is currently demanding an explanation for this bullshit?
Or, proving that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,
Who do you think it should be? Suggestions for further examples that would fit the theme will be gratefully considered.
Also, a shout-out to Catriona who is live-blogging Doctor Who as each episode is shown here in Oz.
Image Credits: screen captures from time-and-space.co.uk
Categories: arts & entertainment
In memoriam: Diana Rigg 
#AWW2017 – non-fiction – six reviews 
Otterday! And Open Thread 
Wonder Woman movie marketing machine tied up in knots 
Hoyden About Town 
I rationalise it by telling myself it was special alien fire that didn’t use oxygen.
My WTF moment was seeing the perfect cloud systems that ‘reappeared’ as the gas was burnt away. Surely you’d just have a completely empty sky until the atmosphere readjusted itself?
Assuming we can spoil in this thread (and trying black-on-black spoilerconcealer) – mine was when the Tardis towed the Earth back into place, and the Moon was still there.
Ha, aren’t you a cleverclogs?
Yes, that was a good one.
Edited for second-thots: although wouldn’t the Moon have still orbited the Sun and not drifted too far in a day or two? Couldn’t they just use it as a marker for deciding where to put the Earth back? What am I missing?
This is a bit of a “you must be THIS MUCH of a geek to post spoilers to this thread”, isn’t it?
I’m happy to share the code – it’s just
[span style=”background:black;color:black;”]
before the spoiler text, then
[/span]
after. But change the square brackets to angle brackets.
Of course, it doesn’t work in people’s email notifications! But it’s quicker to read than un-13ing rot-13, so I figure it could be kinda useful.
I think the Moon would have drifted much further than that, when the Earth’s gravity disappeared. I have no numerical calculations, but I think I know where to find them…
If anyone’s hating having browser-camouflaged spoilers turn up in email notifications for this thread, let us know and we’ll go back to only having them in the acknowledged Spoiled threads.
LOGICZ: IN UR SHOW, DESTROYIN UR REZOLUSHUN.
😉
BTW, for those who aren’t already addicted to the LJ LOLDoctor community ihasatardis and who might be a bit wary of spoilers there, here’s a Monty Python’s Holy Grail crossover that’s spoiler free (there are spoiler warnings on them because they contain a few images that come from later in Season 4, but they don’t give anything away). Lots of images though, so no good for dialup.
Monty Python and the Holy TARDIS
The Tale of
Sir GalahadCaptain Jack, the PurePart 1, Part 2 and Part 3.
The Space 1999 fansite?
[spoiler background activated ~ tigtog] If the Earth vanished, the Moon should be released like a slingshot (think spinning a ball around on a string and suddenly letting the string go). It definitely wouldn’t be hanging around. Definite WTF moment (but the whole finale was really).
Yeah, the atmosphere burning up thing was a really BIG moment of WTFery. (Hey, maybe it was somehow reacting with nitrogen not oxygen??) Or you know, it only used a bit of oxygen.
My rule with this show is generally Just Go With It. 🙂
When fans attack… um, I thought the attack on the Doctor’s anti-gun stance in the Sontaran two-parter was a bit full-on from some Americans who felt it was a radical opinion being shoved down their throat. (People from other countries pointed out that anti-gun views are pretty mainstream elsewhere.) I think though, that if you look at it, the anti-gun thing is being deliberately complicated by the writers. As Martha says to the Doctor, it’s okay for you, you can get away from Earth, we have to stay and fight. There isn’t easy answers on this show in regards to the ethics of violence (more open questions) but I think some fans are looking for a black-and-white message.
Oh and RANT: I got shy of the TWOP Dr Who forums after the (otherwise awesome but straight male) mod got pissy with the new thread on gender and threatened to close it. “Talk about gender in the show. Not how wounded you are…” Well excuse us for having a feminist discussion about the show where we dare to get annoyed about it!
Just remembered one strand of fan attack that I don’t actually agree with: the idea that “every time you see an older woman actor she turns out to be a villain”.
Apart from the fact that I can think of several exceptions of the top of my head, it’s taking no notice of the fact that most older male actors end up being villains as well. And the horrible nefarious reason?
Older actors are better at playing villains, they just are (not least because they’ve got over the whole younger actor thing of needing to be liked by everybody). They enjoy it, too – it’s much more fun to do a bit of scenery-chewing than just being a supportive sidekick (or worse, a noble red-shirted sacrifice). Obviously when they get the chance to be an awesome secondary character that’s great, but the opportunities for such are limited with most of the awesomeness doled out to the Doctor and Companions.
So yeah, I thought the whole ageism critiques were off on the wrong foot entirely.
Mark Strickson as the bootylicious Turlough to Peter Davidson’s doctor was pretty evil even after his deal with the Black Guardian fell through. AND he was a young’un.
(After Dr Who, Strickson went to Australia to study biology at the University of Armidale. My favourite story is of him spending at afternoon with an elderly aunt in Sydney where the ‘traditional topiary designs’ carved into her hedges by the gardener turned out to be Daleks!)