Dr. WHO: Aliens in London/World War III

[SuccubusYuri]

Chuck, having seen WW3 now, I must congratulate you on being a bigger person than I and avoiding any variation on "Davies loving the smell of his own farts" anywhere in the review.

I actually forgot about that bit about the U.N. having the keys to the cookie jar. The only way this makes any kind of sense, to me, is hindsight, and giving it much broader power than is laid out. Though between the Osterhagen device and "President of the Earth" thing, UNIT and the UN in the Whoniverse are set up as much more influential and powerful, and even in classic UNIT runs around with so much impudence you pretty much need more latitude to begin with compared to what it can do in ours.

Speaking of hindsight, should have given control of the weapons to the EU, then you could have an in-universe Brexit with zero questions asked because then it would be pretty obvious xD Albeit it at least would make more sense since the EU is a regional body with multiple nuclear states and not one where Russia has a veto.

[Jonathan101]

Incidentally, in real life British nuclear submarine captains have autonomy in firing nukes themselves if the situation is dire enough- never mind the UN, not even the British government itself necessarily needs to be consulted before a weapon is fired. The logic for this is that the most likely culprit of a nuclear attack is of course Russia (or those bastards in France of course), and it would not take long at all for a missile fired from Russia to hit the UK (not even counting Russian subs or anything nearer), so unlike the United States (where the President has the sole authority...according to the end of the movie Crimson Tide at least <_<) this type of freedom is (if you're not anti-nuke of course) somewhat warranted.

Not sure how living in a world where the threat of aliens invading is a real and frequent reality would affect things mind- safer in some ways (relatively easy for hostile extra-terrestials to get their hands on a nuclear sub I would imagine), more dangerous in others (those nukes might actually be needed and making them harder to get a hold of might be a problem...though, I guess in Doctor Who, nukes are almost always bad so...).

[Paul Walker]

Harriet Jones is (probably) the only good thing about this two-parter, which makes her next appearance so gut-wrenching. Not going to say anything since it's not been reviewed yet, but, yeah, screw you 10th Doctor.
Not being familiar with earlier seasons, this episode marked the beginning of alien invasions conveniently forgotten later on as well. Which I found a particular annoyance.

Yes.

I did like that Moffat tried to address the forgotten invasions with the cracks in time. Wasn't ideal, but at least he tried.

Unlike RTD with the ridiculous position that people just "missed" what was happening (a la Donna).

[Sir Will]

Incidentally, in real life British nuclear submarine captains have autonomy in firing nukes themselves if the situation is dire enough- never mind the UN, not even the British government itself necessarily needs to be consulted before a weapon is fired. The logic for this is that the most likely culprit of a nuclear attack is of course Russia (or those bastards in France of course), and it would not take long at all for a missile fired from Russia to hit the UK (not even counting Russian subs or anything nearer), so unlike the United States (where the President has the sole authority...according to the end of the movie Crimson Tide at least <_<) this type of freedom is (if you're not anti-nuke of course) somewhat warranted.

Seriously!? That is messed up.

[CrypticMirror]

Incidentally, in real life British nuclear submarine captains have autonomy in firing nukes themselves if the situation is dire enough- never mind the UN, not even the British government itself necessarily needs to be consulted before a weapon is fired. The logic for this is that the most likely culprit of a nuclear attack is of course Russia (or those bastards in France of course), and it would not take long at all for a missile fired from Russia to hit the UK (not even counting Russian subs or anything nearer), so unlike the United States (where the President has the sole authority...according to the end of the movie Crimson Tide at least <_<) this type of freedom is (if you're not anti-nuke of course) somewhat warranted.

Seriously!? That is messed up.

One of the checks on that is they have standing orders not to fire if the BBC Today Show is still broadcasting.
https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk ... ar-1157478

This is still a step up from the level of a security from when the RAF kept the bombs. They secured them using a bike lock.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7097101.stm

[RobbyB1982]

Ugh. This two parter.

I was a fan of Who since I was a kid. ANd I was thrilled when I heard it was coming back. Wasn't impressed by the first three episodes, and these two were enough to make me go "Well, I guess I've outgrown this series. Shame." And I stopped watching.

I got dragged back in a couple years later when I ended up catching the first part of Silence in the Library on Sci-Fi... and that was really solid and then was a cliffhanger... which dragged me back the next week and then wowed me with the River payoff. So I looked up a few things and heard good things about Blink and hunted down that episode... and it was great.... and so then I hunted down the rest of the Mofatt episodes and went "this is really good! Wow!"

I then decided to give it all a chance again and well... ugh. This two parter. But I reminded myself that the two parter I had already seen that was good was also in that season, so I trudged on, but... blech. Also doesn't help that as things went on I came to really despise Rose. So, that didn't help either.

I eventually did go back and watch the first four seasons. Tennant is okay. but I just despiiiiiise Rose and the bad comedy and the seasons are just impossible for me to like as a whole.

[Rocketboy1313]

Fun fact. The passwords for most nukes are simple things like 12345 or 11111. Because in the event of a nuclear war (stressful situation) you don't want to be hard pressed to remember your password.

The reason hackers don't access these sorts of things is because nuclear codes are not hooked into the internet.
When tech security people are employed to test how easy it is to get passwords they typically find it to be comically easy, because most of the time you just have to call around and ask people for their clearance thru fishing scams... AND IT WORKS.

Ironically, things like the private email servers used by many members of Presidential cabinets are MORE SECURE than those used by the government. More often than not because people don't know to look for them, they are not well organized, and are protected by substantive passwords.

[Sir Will]

Incidentally, in real life British nuclear submarine captains have autonomy in firing nukes themselves if the situation is dire enough- never mind the UN, not even the British government itself necessarily needs to be consulted before a weapon is fired. The logic for this is that the most likely culprit of a nuclear attack is of course Russia (or those bastards in France of course), and it would not take long at all for a missile fired from Russia to hit the UK (not even counting Russian subs or anything nearer), so unlike the United States (where the President has the sole authority...according to the end of the movie Crimson Tide at least <_<) this type of freedom is (if you're not anti-nuke of course) somewhat warranted.

Seriously!? That is messed up.

One of the checks on that is they have standing orders not to fire if the BBC Today Show is still broadcasting.
https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk ... ar-1157478

This is still a step up from the level of a security from when the RAF kept the bombs. They secured them using a bike lock.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7097101.stm

I... I... I... what the hell is wrong with the UK?

[Deledrius]

Ironically, things like the private email servers used by many members of Presidential cabinets are MORE SECURE than those used by the government. More often than not because people don't know to look for them, they are not well organized, and are protected by substantive passwords.

[citation needed]
This is a bold claim that defies the factual evidence I'm aware of. Do you have any sources for this assertion?

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

Incidentally, in real life British nuclear submarine captains have autonomy in firing nukes themselves if the situation is dire enough- never mind the UN, not even the British government itself necessarily needs to be consulted before a weapon is fired. The logic for this is that the most likely culprit of a nuclear attack is of course Russia (or those bastards in France of course), and it would not take long at all for a missile fired from Russia to hit the UK (not even counting Russian subs or anything nearer), so unlike the United States (where the President has the sole authority...according to the end of the movie Crimson Tide at least <_<) this type of freedom is (if you're not anti-nuke of course) somewhat warranted.

Seriously!? That is messed up.

One of the checks on that is they have standing orders not to fire if the BBC Today Show is still broadcasting.
https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk ... ar-1157478

This is still a step up from the level of a security from when the RAF kept the bombs. They secured them using a bike lock.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7097101.stm

...well that is TERRIFYING. As an American Citizen, living under the heel of president 45, I'm honestly shocked by this level of government incompetence. o_o


aaaanyway, this review reminded me of how hot Jacky Tyler is, at least, as far as mainstream actors go. Why don't we have a heart-eyes smiley?