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marktheando posted:2. While the confrontation between the Doctor and Clara was very well done, it was overshadowed by the ridiculousness of the moon egg thing. ...why? I mean, seriously. Why was the moon egg thing so important to you? I really want to know how you went into this episode. Because the way I approached it was this: "Okay, we're starting off with the Doctor & Co. in the orange space suits in a situation that feels way too much like 'Waters of Mars' or 'Midnight.' Either this is going to be a terrible episode, or, more likely, it's going to be making a big, important point about the nature of the Doctor and his relationship with Clara/humanity." To me, every bit of the sci-fi story was window dressing for that central point. I admit I snickered a bit at the end when the newborn space-butterfly laid an egg exactly the size as the one it hatched from, but you know what I was really focusing on in that scene? Whether or not Clara would forgive him for this poo poo, or let it slide. Whether or not this was going to be the breaking point between the two of them.
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Oct 5, 2014 20:21
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I think Doctor Who is pretty good and I liked this episode.
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Oct 5, 2014 20:23
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Majorian posted:...why? The dilemma at the heart of the episode was so clumsily designed to initiate that confrontation that the entire thing rang hollow. Much like the Doctors convenient hatred of soldiers it doesn't come from any interesting character progression but rather the plainly evident whim of a writer. It's chess pieces moving on a board with nothing but minimal effort made to disguise the hand moving the pieces. That's the real difference between RTD and Moffat. Even when RTD wrote a bad character their actions and reactions felt natural, and built off events we had seen before, Moffat can't manage that for poo poo, and it makes all drama that does arise seem like pointless noise. "What point should I pick to make about the Doctor this week?"
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Oct 5, 2014 20:26
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DoctorWhat posted:Sure! Critique it from THAT angle! Go hog wild! That's totally valid as a critique and could have been readily avoided at the directorial stage (which, as you may recall, is where I previously indicated most of my complaints lay). Complaining about two or three lines of dialogue: totaly valid. Complaining about a decent chunk of what was aired: dumb sci-fi-fandom myopia. Got it.
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Oct 5, 2014 20:27
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Majorian posted:...why? I don't think I can explain why I find some weird or silly things acceptable and some things so silly that they take me out of the episode. You've never had a moment in this show where you thought something was so stupid that it dragged down the rest of the episode? Dobby Doctor? Jesus Doctor? Farting aliens? Pavement blowjobs? And I went into this episode thinking it could be a classic, based on a few things I had heard before it aired.
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Oct 5, 2014 20:29
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PriorMarcus posted:I don't really feel like I know this Doctor enough to find the character dynamic of him letting humanity decide to be at all interesting. What's to know? This is the same Doctor that we've seen since the first episode in 1963. He's letting humanity decide for the same reason that he's forced humans to make difficult decisions time and time again in the past: because he thinks it's a growing moment for them. The problem is, in doing so this time around, he was a lovely friend to them. He abandoned them when they needed his guidance. He put Clara in a position that she in no ways deserved to be in. For all his talk about a teacher, an astronaut, and a teenager being all that they needed to make a proper decision, he allowed himself to be blinded by the fact that, compared to him and most other alien races he's encountered, humankind is basically the teenager in that equation. Clara made him promise that he would protect Courtney. And that's his number one responsibility to humanity, ultimately: he's supposed to protect them. For all his bullshit about this being a fixed time in history where his temporal knowledge is clouded, this was an instance in which he let humanity down. He should not have put Clara into that position - if humanity had to make the decision for themselves, he should have at least stuck around to offer guidance. And worst of all, when he endangered the race that he's sworn to protect, he did it for ideological reasons. That's a scary thing. marktheando posted:I don't think I can explain why I find some weird or silly things acceptable and some things so silly that they take me out of the episode. You've never had a moment in this show where you thought something was so stupid that it dragged down the rest of the episode? Dobby Doctor? Jesus Doctor? Farting aliens? Pavement blowjobs? Sure, but I don't see why this should qualify, given the magnitude of the underlying point to the episode. The difference between the examples you mentioned and this one is, there wasn't much of a deeper point lying beneath the farting aliens episode. Majorian fucked around with this message at 20:33 on Oct 5, 2014 |
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Oct 5, 2014 20:29
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PriorMarcus posted:Even when RTD wrote a bad character their actions and reactions felt natural, and built off events we had seen before, I feel like you need to rewatch the RTD era. Seriously, saying that his bad characters felt "natural"?
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Oct 5, 2014 20:30
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thexerox123 posted:I feel like you need to rewatch the RTD era. Seriously, saying that his bad characters felt "natural"? That's not what I said. I said that there actions and reactions felt natural. Unlike when the Ponds forget about their kid to have more wacky adventures or when Clara goes on a date wet because she can't ask the Doctor to drop her off later when she has dried out.
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Oct 5, 2014 20:33
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The science in this episode is not the most ludicrous thing that Doctor Who has ever done (let's start with loving time travel and work our way forward from there, shall we?), though I'll grant that it's somewhere up near the top. But what the episode really needed was an unambiguous moral dilemma, a situation where everyone involved understood that if we do this monstrous thing, everything else will be okay, and if we don't, it won't. Without that, you don't have any of the character dynamics that were so crucial to the episode. You don't have Astronaut Lady's angry advocacy for the truth that life sucks sometimes, you don't have the Doctor's 'sort it out yourselves' moment, and you don't have Clara being the one to champion the moral position of "gently caress the lesser of two evils" that the Doctor has sort of made into his battle cry over the years. And most importantly, you don't have Clara tearing the Doctor a very justified new one for his behavior. That's clearly what the episode was trying to do. I don't think it quite succeeded in making that happen, and maybe that's down to the dodgy science, though I think it's just clumsy writing. I still think it's a strong episode, but it's strong in spite of that rather serious flaw, and pretending the flaw isn't a flaw does no one any favors.
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Oct 5, 2014 20:34
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PriorMarcus posted:That's not what I said. I said that there actions and reactions felt natural. Give us some examples please. I don't remember too many character actions and reactions performed by Donna Noble or Martha Jones that struck me as "natural."
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Oct 5, 2014 20:34
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Talking about RTD I can't wait until the guy in the other thread reaches The Stolen Earth/Journey's End. He hates Rose and loves Donna. It's going to be magical. And yeah the dilemma in this episode rang false because I never for a moment bought that the earth was ever in any real danger.
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Oct 5, 2014 20:36
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PriorMarcus posted:That's not what I said. I said that there actions and reactions felt natural. There is no difference in meaning there. Actions and reactions define characters.
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Oct 5, 2014 20:36
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Majorian posted:Give us some examples please. I don't remember too many character actions and reactions performed by Donna Noble or Martha Jones that struck me as "natural." Donna is one of the most naturalisticly-written and -portrayed characters in DW history, to be frank. The convo at the end of Midnight; Turn Left; her outrage in Planet of the Ood; it's just incredibly well-done.
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Oct 5, 2014 20:37
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marktheando posted:Talking about RTD I can't wait until the guy in the other thread reaches The Stolen Earth/Journey's End. He hates Rose and loves Donna. It's going to be magical. You've completely redeemed yourself in my eyes for your otherwise incorrect opinions by bringing this to my attention.  quote:And yeah the dilemma in this episode rang false because I never for a moment bought that the earth was ever in any real danger. Well, but I think for the audience, what was supposed to be at stake was never Earth's survival. It was Clara's relationship with the Doctor that was on the line. The big worry isn't supposed to be "Will humanity be wiped out?", but rather, "Why would the Doctor abandon humanity when it needs him?" DoctorWhat posted:Donna is one of the most naturalisticly-written and -portrayed characters in DW history, to be frank. The convo at the end of Midnight; Turn Left; her outrage in Planet of the Ood; it's just incredibly well-done. Ugh, I see her as way too much of a caricature. I did actually like her in "Planet of the Ood," though, although a big part of that is probably because I liked the music so much. Majorian fucked around with this message at 20:43 on Oct 5, 2014 |
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Oct 5, 2014 20:40
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I'm really enjoying 12's new theme, and will hopefully continue to do so until it gets as overused as 'I Am The Doctor' was.
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Oct 5, 2014 20:41
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Majorian posted:Sure, but I don't see why this should qualify, given the magnitude of the underlying point to the episode. The difference between the examples you mentioned and this one is, there wasn't much of a deeper point lying beneath the farting aliens episode. The farting aliens represented capitalism.
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Oct 5, 2014 20:44
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I really liked the bit at the end where he does the dramatic head lift and his theme suddenly amps up. A little cheesy, but I liked it.
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Oct 5, 2014 20:44
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Majorian posted:Sure, but I don't see why this should qualify, given the magnitude of the underlying point to the episode. The difference between the examples you mentioned and this one is, there wasn't much of a deeper point lying beneath the farting aliens episode. I've heard it was meant to be about Iraq or something.
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Oct 5, 2014 20:46
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Majorian posted:Ugh, I see her as way too much of a caricature. I did actually like her in "Planet of the Ood," though, although a big part of that is probably because I liked the music so much. The brilliance of Donna Noble lies in her transformation from a Catherine Tate Show character into a fully-realized human being and progressive social actor.
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Oct 5, 2014 20:46
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DoctorWhat posted:The brilliance of Donna Noble lies in her transformation from a Catherine Tate Show character into a fully-realized human being and progressive social actor. You know, I just realized I've never actually watched her episodes in order. I'll bet that would help me appreciate her more.
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Oct 5, 2014 20:47
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Majorian posted:You know, I just realized I've never actually watched her episodes in order. I'll bet that would help me appreciate her more. YES, DO THAT. That's kinda critical for Donna.
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Oct 5, 2014 20:48
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Okay, you're on! By this time tomorrow there's a good chance I won't hate Donna!
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Oct 5, 2014 20:50
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Aliens of London begins with a scene that deals with the actual real world ramifications of a young woman running off to travel in space and time that was unprecedented in the show; it's possibly the worst episode to argue for not having a deeper point than Kill the Moon where human-Doctor relations are concerned.
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Oct 5, 2014 20:51
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vegetables posted:Aliens of London begins with a scene that deals with the actual real world ramifications of a young woman running off to travel in space and time that was unprecedented in the show; it's possibly the worst episode to argue for not having a deeper point than Kill the Moon where human-Doctor relations are concerned. If memory serves, they didn't examine that theme all that deeply...
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Oct 5, 2014 20:55
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While I have a massive tolerance for bullshit (Moon egg? Sure. Bacteria spiders? I'll roll with it), how on earth could they gently caress up the age of the moon that badly? That's a simple google search. I state that this in no way affected my enjoyment of the episode, but goddamn.
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Oct 5, 2014 20:55
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HD DAD posted:While I have a massive tolerance for bullshit (Moon egg? Sure. Bacteria spiders? I'll roll with it), how on earth could they gently caress up the age of the moon that badly? That's a simple google search. See, this is a fair critique! I agree with you here. I also agree with everyone that the space-butterfly hatchling laying an egg the same size as the one it hatched from is kind of dumb. But to let that minutiae overshadow the much wider, deeper, more interesting character points is...amazing.
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Oct 5, 2014 21:03
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Majorian posted:Sure, but I don't see why this should qualify, given the magnitude of the underlying point to the episode. The difference between the examples you mentioned and this one is, there wasn't much of a deeper point lying beneath the farting aliens episode. I think a lot of the problem is that the episode invites- no, demands- you approach it in that terms. As soon as they get to the Moon the episode starts screaming, "HEY, THIS IS A PROBLEM ABOUT MASS. MASS AND GRAVITY. THERE'S TOO MUCH MASS AND THE GRAVITY IS TEARING THE WORLD TO PIECES." Mass mass mass. It legitimises the scientific nitpicking because it constructs its threat in very specific, very hard scientific terms- and then fails to adequately put that genie back in the bottle once it's done its job. Even once we switch into the moral dilemma (which comes pretty late in the episode, another contributing factor) we carry that framing with us. The baby needs to be killed- because its mass, the moon's mass, is damaging the Earth. The show can't escape the trap it itself has constructed. Someone called this a fantasy story (and so spawned a strange and pointless discussion about the nature of sci fi and God, guys, obviously Mary Shelley is the mother of sci fi), which I think is insightful. I also said, earlier, that I could have sworn that moon = egg was a common mythological theme (it turns out I might just have been thinking of The Light Fantastic)- and that's a perfectly legitimate place for Doctor Who to go. The show's sci fi is about as hard as a runny yolk, and if it wants to invoke the fantastical that's fine, really, that's well within its remit. What it can't, in all good conscience, get away with is telling a fantasy story in the language of sci fi. Fantasy, good fantasy at least, is as much an aesthetic mode as anything else (and this is where the post really goes off the rails). It invokes a sense of the numinous- the imminent presence of the divine- which elevates the whole affair, turns the plastic monster into a fire breathing dragon. This episode was all plastic monster and no dragon. Which leads me to my next point: suspension of disbelief is a lot like momentum. Imagine, say, trying to roll a boulder down a road. If you've managed to get it up to a fair clip, it's probably not going to give a gently caress about any small hindrances that gets in its way- it's just going to roll over them. But if something's managed to stop it in its tracks, then every little pebble and pothole is going to seem like a big deal. The egg thing, though, that was just so cheap and lazy you're disinclined to let it get away with anything.
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Oct 5, 2014 21:05
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Majorian posted:Okay, but why are you focusing on that anyway, instead of the deconstruction of the Doctor as a character, and his relationship with humanity? Which is the freaking point of the episode.
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Oct 5, 2014 21:13
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For me, this episode is rather frustratingly not-quite-there. There's a lot going on, and it doesn't all fit - and this applies to the themes just as much as the pacing. Above all, this is an episode which is deeply engaged with the past of the show, though largely by implication. There are few continuity callbacks, but plenty of things that resonate with past episodes. In this season I think we've seen a lot of Moffat trying to "correct" other new-series episodes, or at least to revisit their basic premises in the 2014 mode. Here, we get The Waters of Mars tangled up with The Beast Below. In The Waters of Mars, the Doctor says: quote:Imagine it, Adelaide, if you began a journey that takes the human race all the way out to the stars. It begins with you, and then your granddaughter, you inspire her, so that in thirty years Susie Fontana Brooke is the pilot of the first lightspeed ship to Proxima Centauri. And then everywhere, with her children, and her children's children forging the way. To the Dragon Star, the Celestial Belt of the Winter Queen, the Map of the Watersnake Wormholes. One day a Brooke will even fall in love with a Tandonian prince, that's the start of a whole new species. But everything starts with you, Adelaide. From fifty years ago to right here, today. Imagine. The Beast Below parallel to the starwhale is obvious. But also in that episode, we get: quote:You knew if we stayed here, I'd be faced with an impossible choice. Humanity or the alien. You took it upon yourself to save me from that. And that was wrong. You don't ever decide what I need to know. As far as the eggmoon, it would have helped the script immensely had we replaced "the moon is changing mass" with "the moon is changing orbit". The consequences can be just as catastrophic, and the nuclear bombs make ever-so-slightly more sense as a response. Of course, this places the Threat a bit more obviously in the line of "gigantic mysterious thing comes to Earth" stories, of which there are many.
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Oct 5, 2014 21:19
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HD DAD posted:While I have a massive tolerance for bullshit (Moon egg? Sure. Bacteria spiders? I'll roll with it), how on earth could they gently caress up the age of the moon that badly? That's a simple google search. Carbon dioxide posted:No, no, no. The Doctor said '100 million years', right? That means the previous moon hatched 100 million years ago and laid a new one. We now know that doesn't have any lasting effects. Nobody will remember that happening, except maybe the Silurians. And as Carbon dioxide then quoted, the Silurians went into hibernation just before the moon was pulled into the Earth's orbit. So I don't think it went by the same timeframe as the moon in the real world.
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Oct 5, 2014 21:20
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I think the reason why "the butterfly laid an egg that is too big" feels like a problem and, say, "it's very convenient how the gravity on the Moon is now exactly the same as Earth's" does not is that the first violates folk logic as well as scientific logic. It's fine for Doctor Who to do things that can't actually happen, but they always have to feel like they can. If they don't then it feels wrong to the audience, and it seems perfectly legitimate to call that a flaw. Arguing otherwise is pretending folk logic isn't a thing: you can violate the laws of hard science fiction, but you should never violate the laws of fantasy.
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Oct 5, 2014 21:22
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The Astronauts went to the moon because the increased mass of the moon was causing havoc on Earth, right? How would blowing it up help at all? That doesn't magically decrease the mass of the moon-debris unless there's enough force to knock chunks of the moon far away from orbit, in which case there would probably be a lot of moon chunks heading towards Earth.
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Oct 5, 2014 21:22
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I don't think they were planning to blow up the moon, they were just supposed to find whatever aliens were screwing with the moon and kill them.
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Oct 5, 2014 21:25
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I liked Doctor Who before I posted in this thread and now I kind of hate it thanks?
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Oct 5, 2014 21:27
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Lumberjack Bonanza posted:I liked Doctor Who before I posted in this thread and now I kind of hate it thanks? You're welcome
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Oct 5, 2014 21:33
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I think I get it now. The true demographic of Doctor Who is retarded babies who don't care if the Doctor is stuck in a scary castle and gets away by simply shifting his race car into high gear and flying through the time vortex behind Jupiter into a larger egg castle.
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Oct 5, 2014 21:33
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Cojawfee posted:I think I get it now. The true demographic of Doctor Who is retarded babies who don't care if the Doctor is stuck in a scary castle and gets away by simply shifting his race car into high gear and flying through the time vortex behind Jupiter into a larger egg castle. I want this to happen now. Thanks.
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Oct 5, 2014 21:35
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I also want to see the Doctor fly a race car through the time vortex. That was a terrible example, Cojawfee.
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Oct 5, 2014 21:36
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In the end, I found myself siding more with The Doctor than Clara. I guess I just couldn't get behind her reasoning. I understand the Doctor was being a dick, but what you're essentially saying is I'm mad because you wouldn't "save the day" for you, even though I do it all the time. I clearly care about Earth. But no, I made you mad, and now I'm not allowed back here ever again. Sorry no. And I was kind of getting vibes that Danny came to that same conclusion but wanted her to make up her own mind and let her vent, but that could just be because of the actor's great acting and allowing the audience to project their own feelings into his motives.
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Oct 5, 2014 21:42
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Lumberjack Bonanza posted:I liked Doctor Who before I posted in this thread and now I kind of hate it thanks? You can still like Doctor Who while questioning or complaining about or outright detesting particular facets of it - whether that be in the story, the writing, the casting, the set design etc. It doesn't have to be a binary choice of love/hate.
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Oct 5, 2014 21:44
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