Doctor Who Club of Australia

[Theta Sigma]

Kylie Minogue is great as Astrid. It is too bad that she gets killed off.
Despite the name of the ship being called Titantic it felt more like The Poseidon Adventure (from what I read Russell T Davies in the podcast for this episode stated that The Poseidon Adventure was an influence on the general plot).
Also I found the episode to be like Robots of Death since both stories have robots killing off people.
Clive Swift is very good as Mr Copper certainly better than when he was Jobel in Revelation of the Daleks and also the Doctor's line about being himself.
Funny when Bannakaffalatta refused to be called Banna by the Doctor. Also funny when the Doctor squandered the number of questions that he asked the hosts and when Frame says his first name is Allonso. (Anyone remembers the dialogue in Army of Ghosts would know why this is funny.)
Quite surprised to see the teleport bracelets as they looked suspiciously like the ones in Blake's 7.
A very good dedication at the end to Verity Lambert.

[Scarecrow83]

The last comment really got me fired up. So I'll throw in my two cents:
1. Kylie was terrible. In this episode, she was a one-note actress, and somebody forgot to tune her beforehand. This was not a total disaster, as she was not there to act, but simply to APPEAR. Think Glenda Jackson with Morecambe and Wise( although Glenda was a much better actress). Christmas shows in Britain are famous for 'stunt' casting, so the publicity burst was achieved.
2. Yes, this story is a 'homage' to both The Poseidon Adventure and The Robots of Death. I would have thought that was obvious.
Overall, it did its job, which was to entertain the great British public after gorging themselves on Christmas meals. Think of it as Britain's equivalent to Thanksgiving Day and football in the United States of America.
Incidentally, was the title card to Verity at the start or at the end? I remember it at the start, but I am willing to be proved wrong.

[Theta Sigma]

[Sulp Niar]

Personally, I think Jobel is a far superior and interesting character than I-can't-even-remember-the-character's-name in 'Voyage of the Damned', who seemed a bit too likeable, for the hell of it. I'm all for likeable characters, but in comparison with Jobel at least, he falls flat.

[Miss Smith]

Thought I'd put in my two cents.

I thought Voyage of the Damned was ok, but then, being a Christmas Special I was already expecting that it would be a "Fluffier" than a regular episode. The Christmas special always has an "aimed at the kids" element to it. Like the Tardis car chase scene in Runaway Bride. (Which I thoroughly loved and the 8 year old inside me punched the air when Donna jumped to safety.) But the scene where the Doctor saves the Titanic from hitting Buckingham Palace and the queen waving was just a bit too contrived for me. There seemed to be a bit too many cliched/contrived type moments that made the story loose it's shine.

This is a link to cartoon a stumbled across that echos some of my sentiments.

http://www.webcomicsnation.com/pgadzikowski/3faces/series.php?view=single&ID=103586

It was a bit too Poseiden Adventure for me. A bit too Robots of Death for my other half. (He likes Robots of Death)
I agree with SharazJek when he said that it was a bit of a death feast. If it was Star Trek they would have all been wearing red shirts. I found it worrying that they were bumping off so many people. RTD said in an interview once that he was reluctant to kill off companions in the series because he knew it would be upsetting to kids watching. (and a Christmas special is supposed to have that "entertain the kids" element.) Well he certainly upped the body count in this one.
Doctor + losing people = doctor going to a dark place. OK, we get it now! Stop killing off everyone the Doctor meets. Who do you think you are RTD? Joss Whedon?

There is a tonne of criticism over the character Astrid and Kylie's acting. Yes. It was a, "Watch us! We have Kylie this Christmas." But that didn't bother me much - it is a Christmas Special after all. When watching Astrid I never thought once about whether her acting was good or bad. What I saw in the character Astrid Peth was Rose Tyler. And I don't just mean that they were both blonde.

I had heard the Murray Gold song for the VOTD special, "The Stowaway," ages before I had heard any rumours for season 4 casting/characters. And like many others I gathered the lyrics were hinting to us that Rose was going to be back in the story some next year. Later I read the casting news for season 4 that Bille Piper was back for the S4 finale confirming our thoughts. To me, Astrid seemed to be written to purposely mirror many parts of Rose Tyler's character. When Astrid's died, it was like a big neon sign flashing at me, "Rose Tyler is coming back."

The sets were beautiful. I loved Banakafalata. I'm Sorry! But I did. (Especially the eight year old part of me) I even enjoyed a lot of the Poseiden Adventure action. But there was something too Hollywood fluff, than Doctor Who, in the whole thing. I enjoyed a good part of it all but it was less shiny than it could have been.

Hi, I'm new. Please be nice

[Sulp Niar]

[Sulp Niar]

EDIT: And it seems we double post, in a very senile way. Ohh I feel old.

[Greg]

I think it was a special system feature, to stop you having 666 posts...

[Sulp Niar]

Hahaa, my god. How did I miss that?

Ah well. I suppose, in a way, that proves how nice a forum we are, that we simply cannot be devillish. Even for the duration of one post.


...

[FredDag]

After moving house and waiting forever (well it seemed like it) I finally have an internet connection. So I'm finally commenting on Voyage of the Damned.

I thought it was a bit like Christmas actually, a lot of tinsel, glitter but nothing really lasting. I came away from special feeling let down and a bit empty. The plot which was so simple had hardly anything in it. I didn't mind the Characters RTD always writes great characters. I thought Kylie was a fine as an actor and she even kept her Aussie Accent, I wondered if that was going to be explained in the story but alas no.

There was heaps of special effects, beautiful sets, great looking monsters but it was so boring and empty. I look at last year's Chrissy special and think it's so good now, compared to this one. Still nothing beats the first special, great plot, fantastic story, great pacing and great characters. That's what we need.

Hope next year all the specials have a bit more teeth to them.

[Theta Sigma]

Voyage of the Damned to broadcast on ABC1 on Sunday June 29 7:30pm.

It has been reviewed by Greg Hassall from the Sydney Morning Herald Guide and gets the "SHOW OF THE WEEK" label.

His review include many spoilers so beware if you are about to look at the SMH Guide.

In the last paragraph he writes:
"The script bubbles with wit and verve but doesn't ask a lot of Minogue. Nevertheless, she acquits herself well, bringing to the role her trademark blend of sass and girl-next-door naivete. Tennant is superb as ever as the Doctor - funny, bristling with confidence but strangely vulnerable at the same time. Highly recommended."

[montypython]

[Theta Sigma]

[Dougy]

I thought it was fantastic, easily the best of the Christmas specials thus far. Kylie was great and I was very sad to see her die (or, you know, get ripped into atoms).

There were brilliant lines throughout, such as the Doctors speech and I really loved how events talked to things that had previously happened in the series, such as London being deserted because everyone wanted to get away from the aliens.

Quite like the new theme too. The trailer for the season looked awesome and my disappointment at Tate being in the series is fading slowly. Looking forward to Sunday!

[nzfiona]

I thought that it wasn't as good as 2005 & 2006 Xmas Specials, although watching Astrid make a good impression of a shop mannequin that can talk rather than shoot was better than watching Donna shriek about the place. It's not as if Neighbours is a platform for award-winning acting performances, yet there was a tad of nostalgia in seeing Kylie on the small screen again.

Ballakavvalatta's death was unnecessary, IMHO. His was a great character; perhaps he'll be resurrected somehow in a future series, considering he was a cyborg and some other- future-world cloning will be possible in some way. After all, in a sci-fi show, ANYthing is possible, so long as the physics SEEM plausible.

All in all, average to me, but it's simply great to have that "Doctor Who night" feeling once again.

Fiona

[Ickabod]

I enjoyed it.....I loved the Queen and her slippers.....a nice bit of fluff IMHO

[charlie]

Critics called this the best who ever by far. I watched it at one of the day events and yeah it was good but it wasn't the best ever. I watched it again on Sun and found myself flicking between channels because I was so bored with it. Seemed almost exactly like End of the world come to think of it.

[Speckled Jim]

[Garret]

As I've finaly remembered what my log in is (only two years after I joined the forum!) I'll toss in my thoughts.

David was his usual excellent self, the new theme music is great (love the Peter Howel rif). Clive Swift was good, the production values were they're usual up to standard. But I still think it's been the worst episode of the new series yet. It was boring.

I was watching it with my girlfriend (who's not a fan) and she enjoyed it. Maybe it's one for the casual viewer and not diehards like me?

[Dougy]