What If...The Doctor had never met Rose Tyler? (Series 1, Part 1)

Hello everybody!

I thought I'd try something new and see what people thought of it. Now, I'm sure you've all been very diligently reading my Doctor Who reviews and know that, by the time of this writing, we are well into Series 2 as far as reviews go. I'm honestly shocked I made it all the way through Series 1, considering all of the really terrible moments in it. However, one of the aspects that I absolutely loved in it was Christopher Eccelston as the Doctor. He was my first Doctor and the only thing I really dislike about him is that he didn't get enough time to really materialize it fully onscreen. If he'd had more time, I think he would have been - if you'll pardon the quip - fantastic.

So, I had a thought about what might have happened if a single important moment had not happened in the Doctor's life - meeting Rose Tyler. Now, my hatred of Rose Tyler is well documented by this point. As of my review of The Girl in the Fireplace we're up to 5,055,636,223 on my Rose Tyler is Awful Count gag. However, this isn't going to be a What If to continue my sane and rational disparaging of a fictional character. Despite my many, many issues with the character, Rose Tyler did change the Ninth Doctor for the better...and then proceeded to make the Tenth insufferable at points.

However I got to thinking...what if that change had never happened? What if, in trying to combat the Nestene Consciousness in London in the year 2005, the Doctor had never met Rose Tyler in the basement of that shop and did not eventually take her off into time and space?

From MadCap's Couch - "Doctor Who: The Girl in the Fireplace"

Tough toenails, Georgia Moffett beat you to him.

Pre-Revolutionary France? You mean somewhere that isn't Victorian London or the 51st century? Moffat, you spoil us!

...and you won't be spoiling us again for several seasons. For better or for worse.

Actually, I tell a lie. This episode is partially set on a spaceship in the 51st century, but it actually has to do with the plot so I'm willing to let it slide. This once. It won't make the complaining about it I'll be doing any less annoying later.

MadCap's Mod Mondays - "Moon and Star"

I think it's time to let everyone know what a big fan I am of Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind.

...yes, I'll give you a moment to recover from that shocking revelation. After all, I've been incredibly subtle about it.

From MadCap's Couch - "Doctor Who: School Reunion"

"Fan girls...please see Mr. Hartnell after class. No, you don't get me."

So, in the cold open for this episode, Giles goes full Ripper on a kid. Having returned to his native England after the events of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Giles has taken a position as Head Master (which is why I assume people thought he'd be the Master?) and, meeting a child outside of his office who was sent by the nurse - and finding out she has no family - Giles invites the child into his office...and then eats her.

And somewhere, Ethan Rayne giggles and he doesn't know why.

And no, that won't be a joke through this entire review. Anthony Head is in here, but this is where the Buffy jokes stop.

From MadCap's Couch - "Doctor Who: Tooth and Claw"

Seriously. Why? Why is this here?

Kung fu monks for no reason that are never utilized again! A werewolf! Queen Victoria!

Sounds like a recipe for success, right?

Kinda, actually.

MadCap's Mod Mondays - "Live Another Life as An Infinity Gauntlet Wearing Thor Odinson"

So...as anyone who follows me on Twitter knows, it finally happened. Called by the sweet whistling of the piper known as Todd Howard, I picked up Skyrim on Xbox One for a simple reason - mod support. I've never been a big fan of mods in the past, and I honestly think that just stems from not having had them to use. While I hold that a game should still be able to hold up entirely on its own (and I mean single player, multiplayer games do not count unless they have a story mode), mods can add quite a bit to the experience. And as I said way back in my Hearthfire review, modders will always manage to create things the developers didn't think of.

That being said, not all mods are created equal - as I discovered through a rather embarrassing stint sifting through what scant mods that Sony allowed through for the PS4 edition. So, after picking up a new copy for twenty bucks, I have managed to enter the world of modding proper. Was it worth it? Let's find out in my new segment - MadCap's Mod Mondays!

...don't worry, Reel Thoughts will still be going just as inconsistently as ever for you movie lovers out there!

...sorry, guys.

MadCap At The Movies - "Spider-Man: Far From Home"

HEY! HEY! HEY, EVERYBODY! DID YOU KNOW THAT IRON MAN DIED IN AVENGERS: ENDGAME?! IT'S REALLY IMPORTANT THAT YOU KNOW THAT IRON MAN DIED IN AVENGERS: ENDGAME! HEY! HEY HEY!

...this is pretty much the entire first half hour of the film.

What starts out as a fitting and rather well-done tribute to those lost during Endgame (weirdly set to Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You") in the first few minutes turns into a film that spends a third of its run time praising a man who destroyed all of his company's weapons in order to build a bigger, more more destructive one and then about forty-seven variations of that, created an artificial intelligence that nearly ended the world as well as killed several thousand people and received no blame for it, willingly handed control over his team to a government that could still be crawling with HYDRA agents for all he knew, then fought and criminalized many of his friends when they didn't want to go along with it, manipulated a teenage boy from Queens into being his own personal soldier, and was apologetic for literally none of it before doing what was literally the least he could have done and sacrificing himself for the greater good.

So. CAN WE PLEASE STOP TRYING TO PASS OFF MCU TONY AS A GOOD GUY ALREADY?!

HE REALLY, REALLY WASN'T!

From MadCap's Couch - "Doctor Who: New Earth"

"It's only a model!"
"SHHH!"

Alright, so. In the (at the time of this episode's airing) forty-three year history of Doctor Who, the TARDIS has taken the Doctor and his companions to fantastic locations all around the cosmos. From the planet Skaro to the desert planet of Uxarieus to other planes of existence entirely like the Land of Fiction. Want to know what the all those places have in common? None of them are Earth. Want to know my main problem with all of Series 1 of this show? Everything is either on or orbiting Earth. I'm aware the show had just come back and they were limited by budget and such, but for every story to be set on Earth is just really, really boring when you have a time machine that can go to literally anywhere in time and space.

When the show revamped in the 1970's, there was at least a logical reason that Jon Pertwee couldn't hop into his TARDIS and leave - the Time Lords had wrecked it. The revived series has no such excuse. That's not to say they don't mention other planets, they do, but we never see any of them in Series 1 and it's really a bit annoying. While this might leave the doors open for missing adventures to be made into novels and audio dramas, the constant returning to Earth is just a reminder that I could be watching other parts of the show that are far more interesting.

And I know the Doctor likes to pick up his/her/their humans from Earth, I do, but I'd rather Earth have far less appearances when the Doctor has a time machine that can go anywhere in time and space.

So let's get on to the Doctor and Rose actually going to an alien planet onscreen. New Earth.

New Earth.

Neeeeeeeeeeeeeew Earth.

Really just whetting out appetites for adventure there, aren't you, Russell?

MadCap's Fiction Corner - "Minos Mayhem, Chapter 7"

His unconscious state was no longer troubled by the disturbing dreams of Ijo Critus and the banquets with incredibly poor health care standards. In fact, his state was no longer troubled by anything at all until he woke up to the feeling of his head being split open as if by a massive hammer. It was the clear result of being stunned so many times over the last few hours, though Calen more acutely remembered it as the same feeling he’d had the morning after he’d spent a night out with his classmates upon their graduation from the Academy.

He did his best to force the feeling from his mind and focus more on figuring out where he was. The blinding light made that difficult by sight, so he tried by hearing...and was treated with a vast, empty void. Feeling, too, was restricted as he seemed to be unable to move his hands. A weight was pressing down on them at the wrists, yet his arms ached with the soreness of strain. His arms were being forced above his head. Again. His vision finally began to clear, and he soon realized the truth of his surroundings - an Imperial interrogation chamber. ‘So, not dead. Still in Hell, though.’ Calen thought. It didn’t look like the ship, so it was likely he’d been transported from there to...somewhere else.

The doors as the far end of the room unlocked and a hissing followed as they slid open, revealing to him a man in an Imperial uniform. Calen recognized the swatches and code cylinders that signified the rank of a High Admiral. The man himself was clearly one who had seen his younger days some time ago, his hair was gray and his eyes a black that peered from sunken sockets. They reminded him of Ordos’, but they were an absence of something rather than its presence. The man stood there for the longest moment, appraising him. After a few moments of neither of them speaking, he began to click his tongue.

“Y’know, you can stop that whenever you like.” Calen groaned out. “The reverberation off the walls is terrible. Seriously, if you’ve never been stunned, I wouldn’t reco-”

“Do you ever stop talking?” The man asked. His tongue clicked. Calen’s brow quirked with the irritation and pain.

MadCap's Mad Rantings - "Avengers #20 and #MakeShulkyHotAgain"

...you fucked up, Jason Aaron. You fucked up hard.

Sorry for the immediate dropping into expletives, but this comic really did manage to piss me off quite a bit.

From MadCap's Couch - "Doctor Who: The Christmas Invasion"

"Okay, gang! We need to figure out how to get out of the RTD era. Thoughts?"

Get it? Because it's July?

Christmas in July?

No? No. I guess it's not that funny. Oh, well. Let's get on with it.