Good show I thought
Though the Doctor was a bit on his high horse over Harriet Jones - what did he think the syracrax were going to do? Go off and find an empty planet to settle & farm or go back to enslaving pre space flight civilizations?
Here's hoping she survives her vote of no confidence - unless Anthony Head is the next PM?

You don't shoot a surrendered enemy in the back. Whatever threat they might have posed, that was the wrong thing to do.

The "baddies" might slaughter a surrendered enemy.

But the "good guys" never do.

However, should make the morality of Torchwood pretty interesting if Harriet is still Prime Minister.

Am I the only one not to have heard about the Torchwood spin-off?

Anyway I enjoyed the ep, Tennant's going to be a great Doc. Hated Rose's Mum, was egging-on the Killer Christmas Tree...not often you get to say that...should probably have been egg-nogging it on...

Couldn't quite work out why none of the aliens shot the Doc, and why they allowed the whole thing to be settled over a sword fight. It's stupid things like that that destroy the "suspension of disbelief". Liked the "No second chances" line though, the Doc still has a dark side

Although killing someone without breaking his stride didn't quite ring true...

quote:

Originally posted by Mickey:
You don't shoot a surrendered enemy in the back. Whatever threat they might have posed, that was the wrong thing to do.

I've been thinking about this.
You're quite right that it would be wrong for the Doctor to do so, but the Prime Minister is supposed to protect her electorate from possible threats. So for her to simply accept the word of a race that killed two of her aids with no more compunction than you would a fly would be reckless in the extreme.
Difficult moral point though - wonder if there will be more of this?

It was very similar to Mrs Thatcher ordering the Belgrano to be sunk when it was sailing away from our ships. I like all the political bits they put in.
I think Harriet Jones was right. She'd just been told Earth faced many more similar threats. What she did was a way of deterring others from coming. How was she to know the Sycorax wouldn't just come back otherwise ? It's easy to be an armchair General.

If I remember correctly the problem with the Belgrano was that it was outside the exclusion zone when it was sunk.
But you could argue that sinking it kept the rest of the Argentine fleet in port, so may have saved lives over all.
Now I'm no fan of Thatch but an awful lot of the fuss kicked up over the sinking was purely political and I hope RTD isn't going down that route...

dr sued 4 peace with honour, now the universe thinks mankind not 2 b trusted. since they hid xistence of torchwood, mayb true.

I don't think Harriet Jones, Prime Minister was quite concerned with trust at that very moment.

quote:

Originally posted by verno:
I don't think Harriet Jones, Prime Minister was quite concerned with trust at that very moment.

she should have looked 2 the future. the dr always does.

It will be interesting to see how they develop the Harriot Jones storyline in the next series (if she's in it at all) or in the Torchwood series. Will she still be PM, for example.

quote:

Originally posted by antonyD:
she should have looked 2 the future. the dr always does.

She isn't the doctor though is she.

Congrats to Doctor Who for winning the 2005 award earlier on in the evening. Beating the Soaps once again.

Also saw lots of little tiny clips of David Tennant. Not only from Doctor Who but from "Casanova", and that programme from earlier this month where he played an evil rapist, and a glimpse of "Blackpool".

I was kicking about on ebay earler this evening, and there are people auctioning of copies of The Christmas Invasion.

is that legal?

No, not remotely. American fans are desperate to see it, though, and they'll take what they can get. The Beeb have put a downloadable audio commentary on their website, and clever clogses will be putting that on their DVD recordings too, and probably charging the Earth at E-Bay.

Personally I shall wait for a nice shiny professional version, but then I've seen it once, have it on tape, and will probably watch it again tomorrow courtesy of BBC3. I can understand the Americans' desperation!

Can't understand why the Brits are buying it too, though. Berks. Why pay for something that we get free?!

I wondered where the audio commentry had come from.

I'm being a good girl and reporting any illegal copies I spot to Ebay. I have also informed the BBC. Can't get all of them, but a number have been taken off the listings.

I see it as; it's one thing to do a copy for a friend ( I got 'Legend of the Rangers' sent from Hawaii), it's another thing entirely to make money out of it.

quote:

I see it as; it's one thing to do a copy for a friend ( I got 'Legend of the Rangers' sent from Hawaii), it's another thing entirely to make money out of it.

I agree, for the most part.

However, there are a lot of "old" stuff that went out on the TV that have never made it to video or dvd. I`m finding quite a few items for auction on ebay that I`m never going to be able to get legally, so I`m quite prepared to pay. I will, should these items eventually make their way onto the legal DVD market, buy legal copies. Companies that own the copywrites only seem to want to sell series, and not one-off TV dramas.

Oooh. Did anyone catch John Barrowman on the BBC New Year's coverage last night? He mentioned *whispers* a spin-off?

Well, it looks like the MP for Flydale North is battling on for the moment:
Press release by Harriet Jones, Prime Minister

(Mind you I'm sure Thatch did something similar before her final fall)...

quote:

Originally posted by MacBecky:
Oooh. Did anyone catch John Barrowman on the BBC New Year's coverage last night? He mentioned *whispers* a spin-off?

Caught the bit just as they were saying goodbye. Did they interview him much?

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Jim G:
Well, it looks like the MP for Flydale North is battling on for the moment:
Press release by Harriet Jones, Prime MinisterQUOTE]

Bah! She's got to win the confidence vote before she can go making any plans for the future. *Waves "Down With Harriet" banners*

I wonder if she'll be in Torchwood at all.

I just watched it. My, oh my!

Okay, so the first 30 minutes I was, I have to be honest, bored. It just wasn't doing it for me; the plot was mediocre and it had nothing particularly dazzling about it. Then...then it all changed. Those first two minutes of David Tennant as the Doctor made it all worth watching, even just those first two minutes when he was jumpin around and pulling faces! It was great, it was amusing, it had character! I am a very happy Becky.

"Waves "Ignore Mental Mickey" banner*

Harriet's cool. She's not just the Doctor's stooge, she makes her own decisions. The Doc had the chance to stop the Daleks before they even got started and he didn't. How many trillions died as a result, including his own race? The Doc has no right to castigate her because she can make the decisions he can't!

Discuss..

The entire Sycorax race didn't kill anyone. Only one Sycorax killed people.

The entire Sycorax crew had surrendered. They were leaving.

The one Sycorax who had killed, had been killed.

The Doctor had made a deal with the Sycorax.

Killing them was wrong, and unacceptable. I liked Harriet a lot in AOL/WWIII. I still like her now. But I'm on the Doctor's side totally, and she made a bad decision. She made a wrong decision, and committed mass murder. What happens now to her career is her own damn fault.

Glad you've finally seen it Becks. Tenny's going to be wonderful! Did you play Attack of The Graske? Did he tell you that you're brilliant?!

They were all accomplices to the murders. They're a bunch of slavers, and for all we know if the blood-control had failed to elicit a surrender then they'd have resorted to more bloody methods.

Their leader was beaten and surrendered. The moment the Doc's back was turned he charged and tried to kill the Doc. This was their leader! You'd honestly trust them not to come back?