The Waters of Mars is the next Doctor Who special from Russell T Davies, due in November this year: David Tennant’s last before his big two-parter finale. But, as you can see from this trailer, there are many signs that the end is nigh. In this story, Tennant is joined by Lindsay Duncan, who plays Adelaide, the one-off companion for this episode: I think that, like all of RTD’s female companions, she will be quite the Hoyden. 🙂
Transcript under the fold:
(At the end, I also give away a minor spoiler for Torchwood: Children of Earth — but nothing that wasn’t revealed in the trailers.)
The Doctor: Certain moments in time are fixed.
Man in Spaceship (hereafter MiS): All systems online, 100%, not a single delay.
The Doctor: Everything else is in flux, anything can happen, but those certain moments, they have to stand.
MiS: Don’t you worry, Captain, we are gonna fly!
The Doctor: This base, on Mars, what happens here must always happen.
Adelaide: Which is what?
A female scream.
Another Man: Mrs [Seckway?], we have a situation.
Adelaide: Don’t drink the water. Don’t even touch it. Not one drop.
The Doctor: This thing, whatever it is, doesn’t just hide in water. It creates water.
More screaming.
Adelaide: Any one of us could already be infected.
The Doctor: …and if you take that back to earth. One drop…
Adelaide: Damn you.
The Doctor: They said I was going to die. They said he will knock four times, and I think I know what that means, and it doesn’t mean right here, right now, ‘cause I don’t hear anyone knocking, do you?
SOMETHING KNOCKS FOUR TIMES.
Some fangirl speculation: This episode takes place at the same time as Children of Earth, which is why the Doctor couldn’t be there. I don’t really buy Gwen’s theory that he turned away in shame.
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*happy dancing at sight of Lindsay Duncan*
This looks intriguing. Some of the imagery reminds me strongly of David Lynch’s Dune (which is not hugely surprising in an environment requiring protection suits where water is a major plot element) – when do the Bene Gesserit appear?
I’m all EXCITED! 😀 How gorgeously dramatic! Thank you for sharing, Beppie.
Drama! Danger! Narrowly averted apocalypse! Whee! (I always look forward to Doctor specials, no matter how cheesy they’re going to be.)
I guess RTD has a whole nother double standard when it comes to women. Eschewing Madonna/whore, he instead categorises us into Hoydens (his companions) and hysterical women (Who/TW fans). He’s such an arse. (Link – with giant huge massive Children of Earth spoilers.)
And I might note that those “hysterical women” have currently raised £4,696 for Children in Need, as a form of peaceful protest to events in Torchwood: Children of Earth. (Again, link contains BIG HUGE spoilers.)
In general, I understand RTD’s perspective in terms of not writing to cater to fandom opinions, because he’d never be able to please everybody; fandom is hardly a monolith. But I do feel that it’s a bit unfair of him to write something that he KNOWS will provoke an emotional response, which is intensified by the five-day format, and then when that emotional response occurs, he dismisses that response as “hysterical”. (And there’s also the other matter of the way that The Powers that Be seem to have rather cynically misled the fandom regarding the way that certain things were going to be developed in CoE, though I don’t think that can all be laid at Rusty’s feet.)
(Perhaps I should do a Whoydensday post at some point about women as fans of Who/TW, esp. with regard to issues raised in the response to CoE. I’ve been avoiding doing so here at HAT because my own response to CoE has been rather intense, and it can be hard to parse all issues in the midst of all of that sort of reaction. But in a couple of weeks maybe?)
Wow, that’s awesome work. As I said in the CoE thread, I don’t feel aggravated enough about those events to complain myself, but I’m impressed with the work and commitment shown by those who are aggravated, and if it gets results I certainly wouldn’t mind a retconning that reversed those events one little bit.
Adelaide looks awesome.
I’ve assumed the “knock four times” was that the Doctor would start to hear the Drums, you know?
Yes, Anna, I think that sounds quite likely. 🙂
Oooo, thanks Beppie, looks good! The baddies look much scarier than the flying stingrays in Planet of the Dead. And the link at the end to the Comic Con trailer for The End of Time is hilarious – grainy, shaky footage, but worth it for the audience reaction.
Yeah. In spite of my own displeasure with events of CoE, I wasn’t planning to take part in any of the protests (aside from yelling into certain corners of the internet), because I figured that ultimately, it’s probably not going to sway RTD at all — as I said above, he does have good reasons for not listening to fandom (and if he had done so lots of good things never would have happened — Donna in DW S4 for instance), and secondly RTD does have a habit of saying that he absolutely will not never ever do a certain thing, and then going and doing it anyway. But that effort, it’s kind of inspiring — I might give a small donation now, just because raising that money is an awesome achievement in and of itself, and I’m pretty impressed that these women have channelled their grief into something so productive — may as well make it as productive as possible.
I’ve assumed the “knock four times” was that the Doctor would start to hear the Drums, you know?
I concur. But I’ll be interested to find out what the Doctor is thinking when he says he thinks he knows.
I have to confess though, as far as antagonistic Time Lords go, I wouldn’t mind seeing Omega again.
I’ve assumed the “knock four times†was that the Doctor would start to hear the Drums, you know?
I concur. But I’ll be interested to find out what the Doctor is thinking when he says he thinks he knows.
I have to confess though, as far as antagonistic Time Lords go, I wouldn’t mind seeing Omega again.