I saw a couple of episodes of Torchwood and they were truly abysmal. Kudos to you for slogging all the way to S2. But I watched Children of Earth on its own, without bothering with everything that had led up to it, and I wasn't particularly lost. And yes, it was surprisingly good, considering everything that had led…

Nitpick that always bothered me: in the early going, it's clear that Frink has a wife and son. I believe that's her in the "Buddy Love" scene of "Simpson and Son". Then later the writers seem to forget about this and make Frink a mad scientist loner.

Russell Davies was really frustrating, because he clearly had it in him to be a really good writer, but he was obviously half-assing it through most of his run (and, apparently, at times, deliberately doing stuff to piss off the fans who were complaining). Towards the end there were definitely some really solid…

Steve, Re: Doctor Who
The thing about Doctor Who (the new version, I mean—can't speak to the classic show) is that it's weirdly fun and watchable, but it's mostly pretty bad. It's not until the current season, with Matt Smith, that it gets to be a genuinely good show. And yet there *are* a handful of episodes before…

I call Batroc the leaper!

Star Trek? The hell?

"The Christmas Invasion" sort of illustrates everything both good and bad about Russell T. Davies' writing. He's got a charming actor who kicks ass once he finally shows up…and Davies decides for his debut he needs to keep him passed out in a bed for most of the episode. It's like he thinks if he keeps us waiting to…

The early going
The first few episodes of B:TAS were definitely still finding their footing. I feel like some of the writers started out thinking of it as a typical Saturday morning cartoon with really amazing visuals. Once Paul Dini pushed it to the next level in terms of story sophistication, the others seemed to…

I've seen very little of classic Who and I agree, the current show veers off into sappiness way too often. It has gotten a lot better under Moffat, I think, since his stories actually contain ideas, unlike Davies', which were just a big soap opera.

"The ship can't land! It's going to crash!"
"Well, that's a kidn of landing, isn't it?"

Am I imagining things, though, or was that design highly reminiscent of some of the spaceships and so on from the Tom Baker era?

Yeesh, no kidding. I can't believe *I'm* saying this, but lighten the hell up. And I even agree with some of your points.

Davies could have been a great writer of Doctor Who if he'd had any ability to take criticism whatsoever. As it is, he banged out a series of first drafts, shitted them onto cellulite, and called it a TV show. And the various Christmas specials are indeed the worst offenders.

And this episode was pretty much automatically the best post-2005 Who Christmas special, because the others sucked SO HARD. Seriously, I can't believe Keith has nice things to say about "Voyage of the Damned". What a massive shit-pile.

I think the biggest problem with the magic-as-drugs metaphor is that the magic doesn't fucking DO anything in this storyline. It's just another kind of drug. Willow might as well have literally taken up crack. If the magic had had some other purpose besides making Willow get high, it would have shifted the dynamic in…

Well, like I say, I'm rewatching it, so I'll see how it holds up, but I really do think it fits, thematically. One of my favourite things about Whedon's shows is his willingness to shake things up, and I think this is a case where he, or the other writers who seemed to be running the show at this point, went for…

@Rowan: but simply falling back on a string of eeeeevil suits as villains is a bit too easy for me. Having the real villain (?) turn out to be someone we like, and who we even think of as the most moral character on the show (aside from Ballard), is a much more impactful choice, one that brings it closer to home. It's…

I actually disagree. I liked the big twist, partly because it made a rather boring character retroactively more interesting, and partly because, well, SOMEONE had to turn out to be the shadowy puppet master.

Dollhouse was a desperately underrated show which was sabotaged in most people's estimation because the first half of the first season was so limp. But it was clear from the second season that the writers had completely thought through the ramifications of their premise, and the dark places to which they were willing…

GracieLaw: it does actually make sense that they'd do a new Tron, because it COULD have been good. It's got great visuals and a unique world, it's still got a certain amount of cultural cachet (people know it exists, at least) and Disney owns it outright (there's going to be a bunch of these, remember, including The…