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Forktoss posted:They do need stop going on constantly about her dad, though. It's got to the point where it feels like she's a fake moustache away from going full Norman Bates on him. "And then I turned around and they were all wearing eyepatches."
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Dec 28, 2014 19:36
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DoctorWhat posted:"And then I turned around and they were all wearing eyepatches." All Zygons should be forced to wear an eyepatch so we know who they are.
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Dec 28, 2014 19:38
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Rhyno posted:All Zygons should be forced to wear an eyepatch so we know who they are. Oh come on, Rhyno, can't we just let Zygons be bygones? I DID IT! I MADE THE JOKE! WHOOHOO! DoctorWhat fucked around with this message at 19:53 on Dec 28, 2014 |
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Dec 28, 2014 19:51
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DoctorWhat posted:Oh come on, Rhyno, can't we just let Zygons be bygones? Out.
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Dec 28, 2014 19:59
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DoctorWhat posted:Oh come on, Rhyno, can't we just let Zygons be bygones? I hope you bang your head and regenerate into a little Scottish man.
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Dec 28, 2014 20:00
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I thought this was a great callback to when they revealed Eleven constantly saw Amy as if she were still a kid.
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Dec 28, 2014 20:42
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Gordon Shumway posted:I thought this was a great callback to when they revealed Eleven constantly saw Amy as if she were still a kid. Certainly makes the scene where she tried to seduce him all the more awkward in retrospect.
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Dec 28, 2014 20:52
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Rhyno posted:I hope you bang your head and regenerate into a little Scottish man. That was, of course, his plan all along.
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Dec 28, 2014 20:53
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Well I've watched the revival all the way through twice now, and listened to ~30 hours of Big Finish, so I decided to take the plunge and hit up the the classic series... UNIT's weapon discipline is atrocious. My personal favorite is when they steady their weapon by holding the barrel WHILE FIRING! That there must be for EXTRA aiming. Also the Christmas Special was great. Love some St. Nicholas Frost.
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Dec 28, 2014 21:48
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RunAndGun posted:
Dogs also can't look up.
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Dec 28, 2014 21:50
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 "Last Christmas" is a song by British pop duo Wham!, released on Epic Records n 1984, on a double A-side with "Everything She Wants". Originally written and produced by George Michael, it has been covered by many artists since its original release... ...I'm sorry, I'll type that again.  As the Band Aid song nearly said: “It’s Christmas time, and there’s a need to be afraid…” In a house with a Christmas tree and a stairlift, Clara is in bed. She’s awoken by voices up on the roof, and discovers Santa Claus bickering with two elves: Ian and Wolf. Wolf has his name on the back of his jerkin. Ian does not. And nor does Santa. There’s a tense exchange, and a second magical figure arrives.. Meanwhile, on a remote base at the North Pole, Shona, one of a team of scientists, has a scary task. She has to make her way into their infirmary, past four sleepers. She’s not allowed to think about them or look at them... Peter Capaldi is the Doctor in Last Christmas X X X X X Cast Peter Capaldi (The Doctor) Jenna Coleman (Clara Oswald) Nick Frost (Santa Claus) Samuel Anderson (Danny Pink) Dan Starkey (Ian) Nathan McMullen (Wolf) Faye Marsay (Shona McCullough) Natalie Gumede (Ashley Carter) Maureen Beattie (Fiona Belllows) Michael Troughton (Albert Smithe) Written by – Steven Moffat Directed by – Paul Wilmshurst Trailer - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yge3X0HS6DE Gifs by J-Ru X X X X X Last Christmas continues the long line of Doctor Who holiday specials. Reuniting Peter Capaldi and Jenna Coleman, the story contains several familiar Steven Moffat tropes that weave together into a tense story featuring a new and sufficiently creepy alien threat and a memorable performance from none other than Saint Nick himself!  It's Christmas Eve at the North Pole, which means presents, elves, flying reindeer, and Santa Claus. What it shouldn't mean is an alien threat with the potential to kill all of humanity without them even knowing that they're dying. The Doctor and Clara find themselves, along with the scientific crew of an Arctic research station, at the mercy of creatures that only react when thought about or looked at. But is there more to the story? Is what they're seeing really reality? The answer lies in one simple fact. It's Christmas Eve at the North Pole, which means presents, elves, flying reindeer, and Santa Claus! The Doctor Who Christmas specials have become a British tradition since the show's revival and 2005's The Christmas Invasion that saw the proper introduction of David Tennant's Doctor...although, if one wants to get technical, 1965's The Feast of Steven was the very first Christmas episode for the show. In the past ten years, there have been some hits (The Runaway Bride, A Christmas Carol), some misses (Voyage of the Damned, The End of Time), and a personal favorite (The Next Doctor). Last Christmas fully embraces the holiday season, not just indirectly in terms of set design and decoration but in opening the episode with Clara and the Doctor encountering Santa Claus himself up on Clara's rooftop. When the Doctor turns to Santa Claus and addresses him directly, it sets helps set one of the major tones for the episode; a sense of whimsy. The episode delivers a lot of humor from multiple sources.  Why is one of the scientists dancing through an infirmary with her eyes closed and “Merry Xmas Everyone” by Slade blaring through her headphones? Why is one of the scientists tearing into a turkey leg like there's no tomorrow? My first thought while watching this episode was that the whole story and everything in it was so drat ridiculous, it was amazing. One of the scientists, Shona, spent a scene trying to scientifically debunk Santa's existence, who calmly replied to her that reindeer couldn't fly. Which is why, he replies in the straightest manner possible he fed them magic carrots. And perhaps one of the best lines in the history of show's revival (or at least one of my favorite lines from the show's revival... quote:“There's a horror movie called Alien? That's really offensive. No wonder everyone keeps invading you.” To balance out the humor, writer Steven Moffat and director Paul Wilmshurst (Mummy on the Orient Express, Kill the Moon) inject the Christmas special with an appropriate level of horror. The script borrows very heavily from several other sources. The isolation of the Arctic base reminds viewers of The Thing From Another World, while the design and attack method of the dream crabs draw from the facehuggers from Alien and the headcrabs from Half-Life. Even one unnerving death scene seems to have come directly out of Videodrome. The story doesn't rest solely on these sources, however. Instead, the influences are woven into the plot of Last Christmas, paired up with many of Moffat's standard episode tropes. We have a quirky and standout female character in Shona, we have a phrase that becomes creepy by its repetition with “it's a long story,” and we have creatures that can't be dealt with directly in the dream crabs, all mixed in with the classic “base under siege” plot that's been a staple of Doctor Who. What could have been just a jumbled mish-mash of horror movie cliches instead comes together in a story with plenty of creepy images such as the dream crabs descending from the ceiling or the “mouths” of the victims opening up during their attack.  What elevates the story are the concepts taken from movies such as Dreamscape and Inception. By their very nature, the dream crabs put their victims into a deep sleep, a blissful state of unawareness so the crabs can slowly digest their brains. This serves to highlight what seem to be several of the story's flaws and instead turn them around to establish that the science crew, the Doctor, and Clara are all sharing the same dream, with none of them quite knowing why they're there or why they have very little backstory or character development outside of Shona (played by Faye Marsay, an inquisitive and brave “scientist” who knows she shouldn't be a scientist, filling the “quasi-companion” role for the story in such a way that, should she have become a full-blown companion at the end of this story or become one down the line, I would be very pleased). The concept of a “dream within a dream” establishes a strong sense of tension. Do any of us know when we're truly awake or dreaming? How far “up” would you go before you establish you're truly awake and safe? And while dreams have their own define set of rules, so do nightmares...  Moffat also injects a nice sense of drama into the holiday special. Aside from the ending sleigh ride once everyone is safe and waking up back to reality, Samuel Anderson makes a return as Danny Pink inside Clara's “dream.” His presence isn't a surprise, but Moffat doesn't overplay his sudden appearance. The scene where Clara realizes she needs to wake up is quiet, understated and sad, with Clara's subconscious admitting that Danny isn't real and she will miss him even as she moves on with her life, all done via Danny himself. It's a great coda to Danny Pink's time on the show (I'm sure we'll see Orson in the future in some way) and to me does a lot more to show just how close Clara and Danny were than most of their previous scenes together. As usual, Peter Capaldi and Jenna Coleman were absolutely fantastic in this episode. Clara's confusion and eventual joy as seeing the Doctor and hearing the TARDIS again was mixed with the Doctor simply treating Clara like she never left, keeping her in his memory. The pair played off each other as they always do, in both manic times, tense times, and even the quiet times as the Doctor tries to convince Clara she's dreaming of Danny. By this point, Twelve has become my favorite post-revival Doctor because Capaldi does such a wonderful job of showing both the alien side of the Doctor and his kinder, almost grandfather side. He's a jerk, but he has the best interests of everyone at heart even if his idea of best interests don't quite jibe with the best interests of someone else. And Coleman just works so wonderfully with Capaldi. The moment where she says to him “Doctor, give me something to do” is a statement on their entire relationship. She might not always understand what he's thinking (heck, sometimes HE doesn't understand what he's thinking), but Clara knows that it will work out for the best thanks to his efforts.  There was a lot of speculation about Last Christmas being Jenna Coleman's last appearance show, but the ending (even if it went on a little too long – maybe Moffat borrowed from The Return of the King as well?) saw Clara and the Doctor, after admitting each lied to the other so they could both attempt to move on with their separate lives, departing in the TARDIS for a future adventure (The Magician's Apprentice, which is a great name for an episode). On one hand, I'm a little way about Clara staying on because I believe companions such eventually leave. On the other hand, Coleman and Capaldi have had such great chemistry together during this season that I'm excited to see what Season 9 brings us. The Twelve/Clara pairing has been so instrumental to developing the Doctor's personality. I've mentioned before that I feel the Twelfth Doctor is free of the baggage of the Time War, having regenerated from the more humanistic Eleven into a more socially harsh Doctor. Without the baggage of being “The Impossible Girl” and attempting to manage her grief over Danny, the Doctor and Clara can now travel without worrying about past baggage and instead focusing on gathering a whole new set of emotional luggage.  For the first time, someone gets third billing behind Capaldi and Coleman in the opening credits, and it's well deserved. Alongside his bickering elves (Nathan McMullen and Dan “Strax and various other Sontarans” Starkey”), Nick Frost absolutely steals the episode as Santa Claus. Best known for the Blood and Ice Cream trilogy of movies (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, The World's End), Frost IS Santa Claus in this story. Frost doesn't walk the line between “is Santa real or isn't he” so much as hop back and forth over it with a big jolly smile on his face. In the middle of an episode tinged with horror, his presence didn't break the tension so much as it added to the mystery of it, with the teasing of Shona as she tried to apply science to him and his wagging of “it's bigger on the inside” to the Doctor about his sleigh. Even his big speech to the dreamers didn't come off as a lecture or smug, but as Santa delivering just the presents they needed to save themselves. I really can't praise Frost enough, as he took the last moment from Death in Heaven and turned it into a wonderful performance that will stand the rest of time. More than anything, Last Christmas is the true finale for Season 8 as it brings the Doctor and Clara back together (thanks to Santa Claus) in an episode that just might be the best Christmas episode of the revival (the best Christmas episode ever being The Chimes of Midnight, of course). Mixing terror and humor with a touch of drama and wrapping it all up with some absolutely fine performances, Last Christmas ends a successful first year for Peter Capaldi's Twelfth Doctor and a successful realigning for Clara Oswald. For the Time Lord and companion, the new year looks bright indeed! 
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Dec 28, 2014 22:17
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I just gotta say, CobiWann, I always love your reviews. 
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Dec 28, 2014 23:15
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Very good review CobiWann, and I agree that this Christmas Special really does feel like the "true" ending to season 8. Seeing Clara happily hug the Doctor as he's driving the sleigh, and the Doctor going from,"Oh come on I told you about the hugging!" to,"Actually this is pretty nice  " was really sweet. Seeing them excitedly rush into the TARDIS to start up a new series of journeys was really lovely too, reminded me of the end of season 5 where Amy and Rory happily abandon their wedding reception and head off for new adventures with the Doctor.Rhyno posted:Certainly makes the scene where she tried to seduce him all the more awkward in retrospect. Smith's angry and slighty-accusing delivery of,"You were a little girl!  " to Amy during that scene is fantastic.
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Dec 28, 2014 23:23
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Myrddin_Emrys posted:Not everyone's voice changes when they get old. Sorry but its true. Also just listen to some audios with Maureen O'Brien or Wendy Padbury to hear people in their late 60s sound like they are 20, for example. Republican Vampire posted:Considering that we've just seen a couple series that seemed to revolve around the idea that the day-tripper lifestyle that the Ponds and Clara adopted is toxic, what are the odds of Moffat reverting to that dynamic in the pursuit of drama next series? I still think that it's a narrative problem. It's a function of the fact that the Doctor can land the TARDIS anywhere, any time, with precision. There's no more "oh, I'm trying to get home but can't!" and they want to avoid the trope of "I'VE JUST MET THIS AWESOME GUY IN THIS EPISODE OK I GUESS I'M GOING TO MARRY HIM BYE!"Now the companion can just day travel and go back home whenever. There's no reason why they can't just travel with the Doctor for their whole lives. It's also even better as an audience surrogate, since we just see the Doctor once a week for an hour. That could be the reason Moffat is afraid to break the mold and go back to a full time companion.
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Dec 29, 2014 00:32
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DoctorWhat posted:Oh come on, Rhyno, can't we just let Zygons be bygones? As soon as I saw the post, I was thinking "Oh, God, I hope DoctorWhat makes it in time!"
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Dec 29, 2014 00:48
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Chokes McGee posted:As the Valeyard. Robert Holmes' eyes snap open. He blinks, shakes his head, and sits up but is unable to shake the nightmare that had gripped him. He dreamed that he had died, and the final part of Trial of a Time Lord, what could be the very final moments of Doctor Who ever, had been rendered as utter incomprehensible gibberish. Thank God that didn't happen, he thinks, and closes his eyes again to begin imagining what he could achieve over the course of Season 24...
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Dec 29, 2014 01:07
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Spatula City posted:I just gotta say, CobiWann, I always love your reviews. Thank you both! The level of discourse in this thread is above and beyond the best for this show anywhere online, and I'm happy to contribute in a positive manner! (and I love your user name - my stepdaughter and her stepsister got me spatulas for Christmas based on that commercial!)
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Dec 29, 2014 01:15
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CobiWann posted:Thank you both! The level of discourse in this thread is above and beyond the best for this show anywhere online, and I'm happy to contribute in a positive manner! I'll probably include a review section on the Doctor Who wiki, and I love your reviews, so hopefully you'll be okay with me archiving them/contributing.
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Dec 29, 2014 01:34
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PriorMarcus posted:I'll probably include a review section on the Doctor Who wiki, and I love your reviews, so hopefully you'll be okay with me archiving them/contributing. Not at all, as long as I don't have to include stuff for the "sex" and "goats" wiki entries.
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Dec 29, 2014 01:41
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CobiWann posted:Not at all, as long as I don't have to include stuff for the "sex" and "goats" wiki entries. But they will be our most popular sections!!!
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Dec 29, 2014 01:44
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I look forward to the moment when the Stephen Moffat article gets made on the goon wiki and its contributors tear themselves (and the website) apart arguing over what to include in the "critical reception" section. Please note that when this happens, no matter what the results are, it will still be better than the TARDIS data core wiki page.
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Dec 29, 2014 04:02
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PriorMarcus posted:I'll probably include a review section on the Doctor Who wiki, and I love your reviews, so hopefully you'll be okay with me archiving them/contributing. You know, in PSP we had created a Wiki that was just fun, goofy stuff . . . until a bunch of non SA people overwhelmed the whole thing and ruined it. .
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Dec 29, 2014 11:06
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Davros1 posted:You know, in PSP we had created a Wiki that was just fun, goofy stuff . . . until a bunch of non SA people overwhelmed the whole thing and ruined it. . So, make people pay  for editing rights?
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Dec 29, 2014 11:55
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One thing I cant quite figure out, and there is probably a really easy answer, but I'd need to rewatch the end of the season 8 finale to double check, which I cant actually do just now, but... When exactly did the doctor get taken by the dream crabs? Because Santa was a function of the dream*, but Santa turned up at the end of season 8 to say to the doctor "You cant leave Clara like this" or similar. So presumably he must have already been asleep by then? If he had woken up in the TARDIS it wouldnt be an issue because I'd assume that he entered the TARDIS and was immediately dream crabbed, and then Santa shows up, but he woke up on a set which looked similar to the volcano where Clara had her key throwing tantrum (which, its worth mentioning was also a dream**). So, how much of the end of the last episode was actually a dream? Or am I misremembering really badly? *Or was the real Santa who was projecting himself into the dream to save them, but for my question there is no functional difference. **Edit to Add: I'm not sure that the volcano set has any significance, its probably just a case of set reuse because they wanted him waking up somewhere alien so they just reused that floor covering or whatever. But then again, why make the deliberate choice to have him wake up outside the TARDIS? SiKboy fucked around with this message at 15:15 on Dec 29, 2014 |
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Dec 29, 2014 15:11
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Not finding Gallifrey's got to be real, though, right? If it was a dream crab he'd have dreamed himself Gallifrey and got lost there forever.
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Dec 29, 2014 15:18
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Dabir posted:Not finding Gallifrey's got to be real, though, right? If it was a dream crab he'd have dreamed himself Gallifrey and got lost there forever. I think so? This is what I mean about needing to watch the last 5 minutes of that episode again, my recollection is that he doesnt find gallifrey, then returns to talk to clara, then we see him not finding gallifrey in flashback, then he leaves, then Santa. So he has to be asleep at some point before he gets in the TARDIS and sees Santa, so did their conversation where they lie to each other about Danny/Gallifrey only happen in a dream then?
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Dec 29, 2014 15:31
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The scene with Santa doesn't necessarily take place immediately after the last scene with Clara, they're separated by the beginning of the credits.
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Dec 29, 2014 16:22
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So where/when was the volcano and initial dream crab attack on The Doctor?
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Dec 29, 2014 16:30
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The initial dreamcrab attack took place during the unspecified amount of time covered by the first section of the credits before Santa started knocking on the Tardis door. As for where, it was a place with a volcano.
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Dec 29, 2014 16:37
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I don't know, I saw the volcano and thought The Fires of Pompeii was about to take a REALLY strange turn...
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Dec 29, 2014 16:52
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So somewhere in time and space the Dr gets Dream Headcrabbed. So it reads his thoughts, tells other Dream Crabs about them. Other Dream Crabs travel in space and time and find those 5 other people (Clara + 4). Dr and Clara share a dream about Santa on the roof. Dr and Clara dream about going to the North Pole, and now share a 6 way dream. Its too late for turkey leg guy who dies. (Assuming its Dream Crab Attach + X Time = Death, does that mean he was attacked first?) Everyone else wakes up (Dream Crabs go dormant again? Where did they go?) It takes the Dr a couple of nested dreams to get out of it. (I'll qualify this by saying I'm NOT trying to nitpick the plot, I'm trying to understand it. I have a hellava time fully understanding the new Who's, after watching since the 3rd Doctor). Oh yeah, in the Meta Plot: Danny still dead of car crash, Dr still did not fine Gallifrey, Clara again companion for next season.
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Dec 29, 2014 17:50
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When they wake up the dream crabs die. Turkey leg guy died because the zombie dreamcrab clones getting you symbolises your brain giving up and no longer being able to fight back. Edit: Doctor and Clara needing an extra dream to get out kind of makes sense because it was just them at the start of the episode as well. 2house2fly fucked around with this message at 18:30 on Dec 29, 2014 |
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Dec 29, 2014 18:22
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2house2fly posted:When they wake up the dream crabs die. Turkey leg guy died because the zombie dreamcrab clones getting you symbolises your brain giving up and no longer being able to fight back. Though he didn't really die, since he was never real in the first place. Spoooooky
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Dec 29, 2014 18:28
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Yeah, the crabs are pretty clearly dead when they wake up, they crumble into crab dust. Anything that takes place inside the dream you can take as the brain trying to process what's actually happening. This is Doctor Who, so they usually explained it pretty explicitly within the episode (dying within the dream symbolizes the brain giving up, etc), but you can even figure that what the guy who's dying saw might be different than what the group saw. It's possible his mind was starting to fade and all he saw was something pleasant, or unpleasant, or an abstract idea of pleasantness or unpleasantness that he was no longer able to fully process because his mind was so far eaten.
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Dec 29, 2014 18:31
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Since Clara had to wake up one more time after waking from the sled, does this go for the other three women as well? Did they stay in the dream thinking they'd woken up proper until their brains were liquid?
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Dec 29, 2014 18:50
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Maybe, and maybe the Doctor and Clara never woke up either. Tangerine on the windowsill at the end!
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Dec 29, 2014 18:53
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Listen, how much more obvious do I have to be here? A television show about a time traveling spaceman in a blue box that lasts for 50 years. A bunch of people talking up a set of radio dramas. A poster who actually dresses in the colored coat from the show. People who write hundreds of words about reviews for the show, every episode. A guy with an Oscar the Grouch avatar that hates Moffat so much, he may actually be on fire. You think that's air you're breathing? The top is still spinning, and apparently I'm the only construct friendly enough to just tell you: you have to wake up before it's too late.
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Dec 29, 2014 19:08
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Bicyclops posted:Listen, how much more obvious do I have to be here? A television show about a time traveling spaceman in a blue box that lasts for 50 years. A bunch of people talking up a set of radio dramas. A poster who actually dresses in the colored coat from the show. People who write hundreds of words about reviews for the show, every episode. A guy with an Oscar the Grouch avatar that hates Moffat so much, he may actually be on fire. You think that's air you're breathing? The top is still spinning, and apparently I'm the only construct friendly enough to just tell you: you have to wake up before it's too late. There are about a dozen pics of a young Nicola Bryant I could post right here as a rebuttal to your post as a counterargument to stay asleep, but no, I shall refrain. CobiWann fucked around with this message at 19:31 on Dec 29, 2014 |
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Dec 29, 2014 19:28
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CobiWann posted:There are about a dozen pics of a young Nicola Bryant I could post right here as a rebuttal to your post as a counterargument to stay asleep, but no, I shall refrain. No, please do.
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Dec 29, 2014 19:52
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| # ? Jun 7, 2024 05:04 |
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Sydney Bottocks posted:No, please do. Just go watch Planet of Fire and become a bit more sexually open minded at the sight of Turlough in short shorts like the rest of did!
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Dec 29, 2014 20:20
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