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Myrddin_Emrys posted:I think I could perhaps get to like the new Doctor and the interesting new angle he's going if the stories were not so loving retarded. This season in a nutshell. There's certainly poo poo that's worked this season and all, but man none of it seems to use Capaldi to its advantage.
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# ? Oct 5, 2014 14:22 |
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# ? Jun 3, 2024 10:05 |
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Barry Foster posted:You know what my other beef with this episode is? The Doctor's shirt. Good God, that's a hideous shirt. THANK YOU. It looked like a blouse, and made him look like an old woman. Thank goodness he was in a space suit for the rest of the episode. ewe2 posted:In the BF audios his character hasn't that triumphant moment either really. But that's not the point, we were never given the idea that there would be one and I'm wondering why people are expecting it now. Listen to Robophobia.
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# ? Oct 5, 2014 14:52 |
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Lumberjack Bonanza posted:This season in a nutshell. What would that entail?
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# ? Oct 5, 2014 15:31 |
Plavski posted:What would that entail? Episodes that matched the pacing of his performance would be a nice step. Everything is still super fast and flashy while Capaldi is playing a slower more calculating Doctor. The clash just makes him seem old and fragile though. At the start of the season Capaldi said this season would see the Doctor examine his moral code and wether adherence to it really matches the spirit of it. It's it wrong to wipe out the Dalek's and become like them in doing so? Etc. But we've none of that really, just the Doctor being an old angry man while his grand daughter tells him it's not PC to call black people PE teachers. How loving interesting Doctor Who.
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# ? Oct 5, 2014 16:04 |
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^ This guy's also totally on the mark.Plavski posted:What would that entail? Well I'm not going to pretend that I'm a showrunner in any form, but I think I would leverage his talent for confrontation and black humor. He's certainly gotten to flex those muscles in this season, but he's able to do far more. Surely everyone's familiar with The Thick of It, so there's no reason to say more there. This season has been full of gleaming lights where Capaldi has been let loose to add his own uniqueness to the character of The Doctor, but I feel a lot of other places he's been a square peg which Moffat has tried his damnedest to pound into a round hole (just look at the Robin Hood episode). I'm already a bit sick of Moffat to begin with, and I really don't think he's all that willing to adjust to the actor they've signed on for the new Doctor. That's just my interpretation, though. Frankly, I think every new Doctor should come with a new showrunner, because every new incarnation is really a new interpretation of this, quite literally, timeless character.
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# ? Oct 5, 2014 16:04 |
Lumberjack Bonanza posted:Frankly, I think every new Doctor should come with a new showrunner, because every new incarnation is really a new interpretation of this, quite literally, timeless character. Sadly he's going to be around here for years yet. He's already planned the on going story until the end of next year at least. Honestly I can't see him stepping down until Capaldi does. Also, for all the talk of Capaldi being a more alien, darker Doctor he just comes across like a racist grandad. Smith on the other hand actually was a more alien, darker Doctor. PriorMarcus fucked around with this message at 16:09 on Oct 5, 2014 |
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# ? Oct 5, 2014 16:06 |
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PriorMarcus posted:Sadly he's going to be around here for years yet. He's already planned the on going story until the end of next year at least. Honestly I can't see him stepping down until Capaldi does. This is the sad truth of it, but I'd like to hold on to hope. At the very least, it might free up his schedule to do more with Sherlock. I know a lot of people despised that last season but I was okay with it. PriorMarcus posted:Also, for all the talk of Capaldi being a more alien, darker Doctor he just comes across like a racist grandad. Smith on the other hand actually was a more alien, darker Doctor. Yeah, I'm not all about that either, but I do find the idea of a bitter, angry Doctor intriguing. It only makes sense that, after all of his time and all of his experience, he's grown to be a bit racist. It surely hasn't come up naturally, though, and that makes it quite awkward. Arsonist Daria fucked around with this message at 16:13 on Oct 5, 2014 |
# ? Oct 5, 2014 16:10 |
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Plavski posted:He would have materialised the tardis around them at the split second before detonation. Yep, in true The Parting of the Ways tradition. Neddy Seagoon posted:I'm honestly amazed how much mileage they've gotten out of that drat spacesuit, though I thought having two more pop up just for "Kid" sized, no less. Cliff Racer posted:The Doctor wasn't respecting humanity's right at all. He dropped two time travelers in on the expedition which had already made its decision, when they failed to get their way they had the entire Earth vote and when Earth voted against them Clara said gently caress that and overruled them anyway. Then the Doctor showed up and congratulated everyone on making their decision. The smart decision would have been killing the space dragon and thats what I wished would have happened. I was kind of surprised that there wasn't more said about Humanity making one decision, and the 2 time travelers saying "gently caress it" to Humanity's deicion and doing their own thing anyway. Just a fast "Well there you go" line. (Almost as if they were trying to rush the episode?)
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# ? Oct 5, 2014 16:12 |
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I don't really want Moffat to leave so much as I want him to be good again. His first series was better than any of RTD's, and whatever the hell happened that made that one so good as opposed to a constant downward slide in quality like the following two, I want that to happen again. Maybe with a female script editor to take out lines like "a mystery shrouded in an enigma wrapped in a skirt that's too tight" or whatever the gently caressLumberjack Bonanza posted:Moffat has tried his damnedest to pound into a round hole
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# ? Oct 5, 2014 16:19 |
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RunAndGun posted:I was kind of surprised that there wasn't more said about Humanity making one decision, and the 2 time travelers saying "gently caress it" to Humanity's deicion and doing their own thing anyway. One decision? Humanity decided to refurbish the Space Shuttles and 100 nukes and send some geriatric astronauts on a one way mission to nuke the moon. That's not something you do on a whim. THEN when more information came to light (the moon is an egg), they held course. Not just a few, but an entire loving continent or two. I was expecting to see a bit of back and forth. A few lights going back on. But no, nothing. But I had a bigger problem with the episode. There was some argument as to which decision they should make on the moon, but they didn't really explain how the decision worked. Would the nukes have split the moon into tiny chunks? If so, how does that even help? You'd just get the same old Dinosaur-Killer rocks raining down. Capaldi said you'd have a giant corpse orbiting the earth. What's the point in that? Usually the science doesn't matter too much. You can handwave a lot of stuff with a sonic screwdriver, but this time it mattered. The whole decision hinged upon elementary physics, which were pretty much loving absent.
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# ? Oct 5, 2014 16:24 |
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2house2fly posted:
And the last time he tried it, Caroline Skinner left!
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# ? Oct 5, 2014 16:25 |
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2house2fly posted:Whatever the hell happened that made that one so good as opposed to a constant downward slide in quality like the following two, I want that to happen again. 30 years of prep. [img-childmoffatreadingadrwhobook]
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# ? Oct 5, 2014 16:27 |
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Somehow the nukes were supposed to kill the alien and cause everything to collapse back down to normal.
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# ? Oct 5, 2014 16:28 |
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Stonefish posted:
Your problem: The moon is too big (massive). Your options: do nothing (which you know causes Bad Things to happen), or try to blow it apart (which will probably cause Bad Things to happen but it's not certain). I mean, confronted with those two options, wouldn't you at least try the option that might not kill you? Or is there another option you can think of?
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# ? Oct 5, 2014 16:29 |
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Lumberjack Bonanza posted:Well I'm not going to pretend that I'm a showrunner in any form, but I think I would leverage his talent for confrontation and black humor. He's certainly gotten to flex those muscles in this season, but he's able to do far more. Surely everyone's familiar with The Thick of It, so there's no reason to say more there. It's no coincidence that the best moments of this season have been those tense, discussion-heavy confrontations. Coleman's good at them too, so I'd really love to see more episodes like these last two where it's built so heavily around those confrontational scenes.
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# ? Oct 5, 2014 16:29 |
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Cojawfee posted:Somehow the nukes were supposed to kill the alien and cause everything to collapse back down to normal. Didn't they only find out there was an alien when they arrived?
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# ? Oct 5, 2014 16:31 |
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2house2fly posted:I don't really want Moffat to leave so much as I want him to be good again. His first series was better than any of RTD's, and whatever the hell happened that made that one so good as opposed to a constant downward slide in quality like the following two, I want that to happen again. See, I think this is debatable. I've loved a lot of what Moffat's done with the series, but I think that Davies kind of struck more to the core of what the character of the Doctor is about. I know they haven't been the most popular episodes (especially for new viewers), but for me The Impossible Planet and The Satan Pit have both resonated with me as quintessential Doctor Who episodes. I think Moffat has been way more beholden to the lore of the series, less willing to take chances, and overall less interesting than Davies. That isn't to say Davies didn't put out some boring poo poo, it's just that he was more willing to take chances.
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# ? Oct 5, 2014 16:31 |
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I don't think Capaldi is really "darker". Morally he's in about the same place as previous Doctors. The difference is that he's frank and honest about what he's thinking and feeling. I disagree that they haven't been examining The Doctor well this season - every episode so far has explored an aspect of his personality or worldview, and I've found those elements quite interesting. The bigger issue for me is that several of the threats have been pretty weak.
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# ? Oct 5, 2014 16:32 |
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Doctor Spaceman posted:Didn't they only find out there was an alien when they arrived? Yes, the plan up till then seems to have been "blow up part of the moon".
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# ? Oct 5, 2014 16:32 |
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Doctor Spaceman posted:Didn't they only find out there was an alien when they arrived? Yeah, they had no idea what was going on. They just sent some old folks and a hundred nukes to the Moon in the hopes that maybe that could fix the problem.
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# ? Oct 5, 2014 16:33 |
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computer parts posted:Your options: do nothing (which you know causes Bad Things to happen) They did nothing. A bad thing didn't happen. The audience couldn't gauge the decision or understand the actual physical consequences, only the "killing is bad/sometimes you must kill" consequences. The theme, but not the plot. Or something.
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# ? Oct 5, 2014 16:34 |
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Shugojin posted:Yeah, they had no idea what was going on. They just sent some old folks and a hundred nukes to the Moon in the hopes that maybe that could fix the problem. It is an approach that could solve a lot of moon-related problems.
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# ? Oct 5, 2014 16:34 |
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Cleretic posted:It's no coincidence that the best moments of this season have been those tense, discussion-heavy confrontations. Coleman's good at them too, so I'd really love to see more episodes like these last two where it's built so heavily around those confrontational scenes. Absolutely. Some of the best moments of this season have been from this episode and from Listen. It's just a shame that they can't channel that reliably. Irony Be My Shield posted:I don't think Capaldi is really "darker". Morally he's in about the same place as previous Doctors. The difference is that he's frank and honest about what he's thinking and feeling. I can't agree with this more. They've done a lot exploring the overall character of The Doctor during this season, but none of it seems to amount to much. None of the stakes are there. It just seems like Capaldi is whining while tossing jabs at paper tigers. Arsonist Daria fucked around with this message at 16:37 on Oct 5, 2014 |
# ? Oct 5, 2014 16:35 |
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Doctor Spaceman posted:Didn't they only find out there was an alien when they arrived? It's what the Doctor said would happen or something.
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# ? Oct 5, 2014 16:36 |
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I think they should have made it clear that the "shell" would be harmless from the start, so that the question becomes "is it OK to pre-emptively kill the creature in case it wants to attack us". That would have made the theme more coherent, since that's basically the decision they were discussing.
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# ? Oct 5, 2014 16:42 |
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Irony Be My Shield posted:I think they should have made it clear that the "shell" would be harmless from the start, so that the question becomes "is it OK to pre-emptively kill the creature in case it wants to attack us". That would have made the theme more coherent, since that's basically the decision they were discussing. No it wouldn't. A major part of the discussion was whether or not the shell fragments were going to come crashing down and kick off an impact event bigger than the one that killed the dinosaurs. It's not just about if the creature wanted to attack them, but if even letting it be born at all would kill them.
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# ? Oct 5, 2014 16:44 |
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Irony Be My Shield posted:I think they should have made it clear that the "shell" would be harmless from the start, so that the question becomes "is it OK to pre-emptively kill the creature in case it wants to attack us". That would have made the theme more coherent, since that's basically the decision they were discussing. I don't think that's really the point, actually. It seemed more to me like either they could destroy this thing and stop the moon from shattering, or let it hatch and risk it inadvertently loving up the Earth with giant chunks of space rock. Not that either seemed to be true or indeed coherent. It was a pretty weird bit of the episode.
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# ? Oct 5, 2014 16:46 |
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I know it was in the show. I guess I mean that having it being about the creature's motives would have emphasized the (interesting) subjective moral aspect of the decision and sidelined the (rather distracting and unrealistic) objective physics aspect.
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# ? Oct 5, 2014 16:50 |
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Oh, and what the gently caress was with the student suddenly floating in zero-G? The yo-yo was a nice Doctorish way to get out out of that scenario, but how the gently caress did she get into it?Lumberjack Bonanza posted:It was a pretty weird core of the episode. ftfy
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# ? Oct 5, 2014 16:50 |
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Stonefish posted:Oh, and what the gently caress was with the student suddenly floating in zero-G? The yo-yo was a nice Doctorish way to get out out of that scenario, but how the gently caress did she get into it? Yeah, that was just weird. I'm pretty sure they mumbled out the explanation for it too.
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# ? Oct 5, 2014 16:51 |
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Lumberjack Bonanza posted:I don't think that's really the point, actually. It seemed more to me like either they could destroy this thing and stop the moon from shattering, or let it hatch and risk it inadvertently loving up the Earth with giant chunks of space rock. Not that either seemed to be true or indeed coherent. It was a pretty weird bit of the episode. I'm pretty sure the point was, "Is it OK to destroy an unborn being if it could possibly And the answer given was "Of course not, the unborn innocent must never be harmed, and P.S. women can't be trusted with that choice", so gently caress this episode.
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# ? Oct 5, 2014 16:51 |
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Stonefish posted:ftfy Yeah, that's totally fair. Unkempt posted:I'm pretty sure the point was, "Is it OK to destroy an unborn being if it could possibly I'm not happy with the conclusion either. I certainly would have blown the fucker up, and that's to say nothing of the implications you brought forward. Clara attacking the Doctor over it seemed to be an afterthought, though I did appreciate how pissed she was about the whole thing. I still think it was ultimately the wrong message, though. gently caress, this episode had so much going for it but the execution was just hosed up.
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# ? Oct 5, 2014 16:57 |
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Stonefish posted:They did nothing. A bad thing didn't happen. A bad thing *was* happening when the episode began (huge tides killing cities).
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# ? Oct 5, 2014 16:59 |
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Clara: "Oh Doctor, I think I'm pregnant! What should we do?" Doctor: "It's not my responsibility." (Runs to the Tardis and escapes) No wonder She was angry at the end!
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# ? Oct 5, 2014 17:00 |
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Unkempt posted:I'm pretty sure the point was, "Is it OK to destroy an unborn being if it could possibly Do you think The Impossible Planet was primarily about the virtues of capital punishment too?
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# ? Oct 5, 2014 17:02 |
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Unkempt posted:I'm pretty sure the point was, "Is it OK to destroy an unborn being if it could possibly This would only really work if it was the Moon itself making the decision, wouldn't it? I'd say the point was "the decision that seems less cruel on the surface is the right decision!", which if anything is even worse. I'm not a fan of stories where the moral is dictated by the plot; real life doesn't have a plot, and in real life doing what Clara did would be stupid and terrible. I'm sure lots of anti-abortion people will read that message into this episode, though, which I suppose matters more than whether I think it's particularly sound as a reading. So you're right, I guess, and I am flapping around.
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# ? Oct 5, 2014 17:06 |
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computer parts posted:Do you think The Impossible Planet was primarily about the virtues of capital punishment too? Well given that I just referenced this as one of my favorite episodes, let me explain how totally off-base you are. The Impossible Planet was really all about a mystery that The Doctor and Rose got thrown into. No one involved was doomed to capital punishment. Closest to this argument was that the dude who called himself Satan was meant to dwell there forever, which is way more about indefinite detention than capital punishment. This episode literally had three women arguing over whether a fetus has a right to exist even if it might harm its host (the Earth in this case). This is way stupider than real life arguments about abortion because Moffat is asking us to risk ALL LIFE ON EARTH over a stupid space butterfly.
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# ? Oct 5, 2014 17:07 |
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I don't think it's an abortion analogy, and in any case women did get to make the decision. Like I guess that's there on a superficial level, but the whole "pre-emptively strike an unknown target with nukes" element and the overall themes of the series makes me think it's more of a military thing.
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# ? Oct 5, 2014 17:08 |
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Lumberjack Bonanza posted:This episode literally had three women arguing over whether a fetus has a right to exist even if it might harm its host (the Earth in this case). I don't think it's the only way to read the episode but it doesn't require a great leap to see how the analogy works.
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# ? Oct 5, 2014 17:10 |
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# ? Jun 3, 2024 10:05 |
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Lumberjack Bonanza posted:
And then the Doctor threw him into a Black Hole at the end for daring to escape.
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# ? Oct 5, 2014 17:10 |