400: Voyage of the Damned

A snap from the season 4 teaser at the end of the Christmas special...

Spoiler:

Has anyone else noticed a slight lack of inventiveness when it come to new Doctor Who villains/characters?

The pig slaves were a lot like the Slitheen pig alien.

The Host reminded me of the Weeping Angels.

Max seemed a little Davros-ish.

Not a huge complaint, the show is still fantastic. It just seems like we haven't seen many REALLY imaginative creatures since season 1 (most of which showed up in episode 2).

Yeah CJSmidt...I thought the same about Max. I did not mind the Host because it was an nod to the Robots of Death.

As for Creatures the Beast and the Ood were top notch in series 2. The werewolf was great but saw way too little of the fella.

Series 3... the Family of Blood and the angels were awfully good villians. I also agree about the pig slaves...I would have rather seen the Ogrons from the past...they were scary!!!!

I kept thinking something is missing from this story, and after a bit it struck me EXACTLY what it was... The Robot 's!

They could have had a third design and been the 'hosts' it would have really brought Christmas more into the focus. The Angels really looked like they were from a High School production.

But that was just me. It would have been nice to show more of people running along the gangways that would be on the side of the ship with blue screen shots of the earth outside of them rather than constantly going through that paper mill that showed up enough times already last year. That place is quickly becoming the new quarry of Doctor Who.

One thing that bugs me...the midshipman- he was shot.
Well at the end of the episode he seemed his gun shot w. did not bother him.

I didnt notice that, but then again, I was watching it on Youtube and the video is weak so details I cant see.

Been busy going through the Blade Runner DVD's going to start watching the Final Cut tonight perhaps.

Great Unicorn Miniature they included with the case!

I thought that the sontarans looked brill in the preveiw, the episode looks a bit more fun than serious which I think there has been a lack of in recent Doctor Who episodes. It looks like UNIT or the British army will be prolific in that episode. I like that photo of the sontaran head, apparently there was to be an extended preveiw shown with the encore viewing of VOTD that aired a few days ago.

No it was the same trailer.

Rewatched VOTD for the thrill of it, and had a passing thought that I thought to..pass. Anyway, Astrid changed forms at the end and became a traveler. This form change got me thinking about the end of season 3 and gridlock.

We have the idea planted that Jack is the face of bo at the end of the season. Jack lives on unable to ever die, yet in gridlock the face of bo does die. Tying this together, the Astrid form change could be a set up for the return of the face of bo in another form, much like the watch in family of blood/human nature was a setup for Yana's watch. At any rate I think, we have a good chance of seeing the face of bo again, if not in season 4 then maybe in the specials or season 4.5 if you like.

hay.i wonder if the doctor will track astrid down in the void!!! NO!!! probbaly never happen it sounds to.....well...... i don't know.......it sounds a bit to likely.i don't think she will come back,anyway she's dead now she's just star dust.oh well i don't care,after all it's just kylie manoge.

Just a reminder: Voyage of the Damned (and season 4 in general) debuts on SciFi tonight! Weee!

yeah just watched on sci fi...just got a new hd t.v. woooo who!
A few cuts here and there but not bad. Did not like that they did not promote the next episode they chose to advertise series 3 dvd instead. Plus they promoted BSG about 14 times or so...but kudos to the scifi channel for promoting it during the week- did see a decent amount of the voyage ads.

Love Murray's cheeky 70's sci fi love boat music in the backdrop.
This is an either love it or hate it black and white type episode.
I thought the christmas invasion was the strongest of the holiday eps. but I would give this a 3 star out of 4. I grew up on the disaster films from the 70's so I did not mind the blatant posiden adventure rips. A few people from another forum were complaining about the lack of originality and I wanted to slap them...Doctor Who is notorious from ripping off classic horror stories and even from it's own history. As for Astrid I felt she was window dressing...the other characters basically upstaged her. Oh and not to give any spoilers away but keep an eye on the newspaper seller. He played Ian in the 60's dalek colour spectaculars! Oh Fridays are back may they long live! I can't remember the last time I have ever looked forward to t.v. Happily dancing now.

It's certainly an entertaining story, but not a classic by any means. Tennet was good, and the supporting players were fine, but the story was a trifle. It felt very much like an episode for the family, which a Christmas special should be.

As for the complaints that it's a less than subtle homage, I would love to see Who do some other genres every now and again to keep the show fresh. Solving alien problems all the time gets dull.

Why not do a straight historical? Why not a straight disaster? Just have the Doctor use his wits to help people survive and not have an opponent other than the situation? Better suited for the regular season, sure, but just a thought.