|
The Silurian two-parter is a blight on how incredible Season 5 is.
|
#
?
Jan 20, 2015 05:23
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 6, 2024 20:31 |
|
|
I thought the vampire episode was also a blight originally, but it was better when I rewatched it. Don't know if I can be bothered rewatching the silurian one because it's poor across two whole episodes.
|
|
#
?
Jan 20, 2015 05:25
|
|
|
2house2fly posted:I thought the vampire episode was also a blight originally, but it was better when I rewatched it. Don't know if I can be bothered rewatching the silurian one because it's poor across two whole episodes. Vampires of Venice is fluff. Inoffensive, bog standard Doctor Who fluff that is elevated by the presence of Rory. The Silurian story thinks it's a deep, meaningful story while being blandly generic. Even Rory can't do anything with an episode that wants to give you an important moral with the cleverness and subtlety of an afterschool special. Random Stranger fucked around with this message at 05:32 on Jan 20, 2015 |
|
#
?
Jan 20, 2015 05:30
|
|
|
I'll likely repeat this in the review thread but Anyone who says that the Old series is superior to the New series is talking out of their rear end. The New Series is better in just about every way if only because it was made more recently. Better writing, better effects, better pacing. What you prefer, what you LIKE, does not change what is technically superior. And I mean that in a literal way. Dr. Who and the Silurians is one of the very rare times where the Old Who is across the board superior to the New. More creative monsters, better designs, better COSTUMES, better characters, better writing, better pacing, the Doctor doesn't want to make out with a man who experiments on living human beings, better moral grayness. One thing I was amazed about the Silurian costumes from the old serial was that they actually had working mouths, which was astounding to me. And then we get to the new ones and they're just poo poo. The entire thing is just poo poo. Even for dumb fun bullshit the old wins out! The Doctor is attacked by a goddamn Dinosaur!
|
|
#
?
Jan 20, 2015 05:51
|
|
|
The silurian two-parter also commits the cardinal sin of wasting Meera Syal. Although if we really lived in a just world she would be playing the Doctor...
|
|
#
?
Jan 20, 2015 05:58
|
|
|
Dabir posted:Someone brought up Rory's name badge in the simulwatch, though. I could never figure the exact significance of it being issued in 1990? Crack related? Secretly centurian Rory? Also, Oxxidation posted:Forget that, what about the fact that "The Wedding of River Song" prevented River from learning the Doctor's name, which was the entire basis of their trust for the Doctor's initial meeting with her? Or the complete non-existence of Madame Kovarian? Or the fact that, thanks to time bullshit, the Kovarian Faction's first attempt to silence the Doctor (exploding the whole universe with the TARDIS) was probably, in fact, the back-up plan for their actual first attempt (just having River shoot him)? I saw this, was confused, and started clicking the next buttons... I'm even more confused now. Then I pressed the start over button. Guess I am reading homestruck? And I didn't even know that was homestruck. All I knew of homestruck was of it getting mentioned in the review thread. I can't even.
|
|
#
?
Jan 20, 2015 06:43
|
|
|
M_Gargantua posted:I could never figure the exact significance of it being issued in 1990? Crack related? Secretly centurian Rory?
|
|
#
?
Jan 20, 2015 06:46
|
|
|
M_Gargantua posted:I could never figure the exact significance of it being issued in 1990? Crack related? Secretly centurian Rory? Welcome to the Homestuck. First Act is hilarious but slowly paced. Gets better after that and then the time bullshit kicks in
|
|
#
?
Jan 20, 2015 06:53
|
|
|
Read Homestuck, enjoy it, give up as soon as you're tired of it.
|
|
#
?
Jan 20, 2015 06:57
|
|
|
M_Gargantua posted:Also, YOU BELONG TO USSZZZZZZ YOU SHALL BE LIKE USSSZZZZ
|
|
#
?
Jan 20, 2015 06:59
|
|
|
Finally got caught up with season 8 (excluding the Christmas special which is up next) in like a week and goddamn if the last two episodes were the darkest I've seen on NuWho Missy must have watched her some Return of the Living Dead...
|
|
#
?
Jan 20, 2015 08:21
|
|
|
M_Gargantua posted:I could never figure the exact significance of it being issued in 1990? Crack related? Secretly centurian Rory? It's a production error, like several other ones that series 5 had - which made it so ludicrous to have something that looks like a minor continuity error be plot important. It's like the acting in a bad detective programme - do they look like they're lying because the character is supposed to be lying, or because they can't act? Burkion posted:I'll likely repeat this in the review thread but Obviously it has better effects, and a lot of Doctor Who everywhere is bad, but the writing and the pacing that you think are "better" are because you like them better, not because they're necessarily technically superior. The revival has a lot of horrific pacing that just happens to be faster.
|
|
#
?
Jan 20, 2015 10:12
|
|
|
MrL_JaKiri posted:The revival has a lot of horrific pacing that just happens to be faster. what I've seen of old who had some really bad pacing too, but at least it took its time to tell a story. New Who is mostly running and shouting exposition for 45 minutes then done. It's the biggest flaw of the show.
|
|
#
?
Jan 20, 2015 10:17
|
|
|
Old Who's pacing suffers a bit from the way it's generally watched nowadays, since marathoning through a story makes it painfully obvious when stuff has been added just to provide a cliffhanger.
|
|
#
?
Jan 20, 2015 11:22
|
|
|
Sushi in Yiddish posted:Finally got caught up with season 8 (excluding the Christmas special which is up next) in like a week and goddamn if the last two episodes were the darkest I've seen on NuWho I never made that connection. "Rotting hurts" vs "don't cremate me."
|
|
#
?
Jan 20, 2015 11:40
|
|
|
Attitude Indicator posted:what I've seen of old who had some really bad pacing too, but at least it took its time to tell a story. New Who is mostly running and shouting exposition for 45 minutes then done. It's the biggest flaw of the show. Some of the original run's pacing was really really awful, too. Some of it was really good (even watching the episodes back to back)
|
|
#
?
Jan 20, 2015 11:41
|
|
|
I wonder why they particularly wouldn't want to be cremated? The few hours of being in a really hot place would suck, but once your body is reduced to ash it shouldn't cause you anymore trouble, right? In the long run not much worse than being buried and maybe feeling your body slowly rot or turn to soap or whatever happens in modern sealed caskets. All of the options other than being sealed in one of those nice climate controlled water tombs are pretty terrible.
|
|
#
?
Jan 20, 2015 11:58
|
|
|
Angela Christine posted:I wonder why they particularly wouldn't want to be cremated? The few hours of being in a really hot place would suck, but once your body is reduced to ash it shouldn't cause you anymore trouble, right? In the long run not much worse than being buried and maybe feeling your body slowly rot or turn to soap or whatever happens in modern sealed caskets. All of the options other than being sealed in one of those nice climate controlled water tombs are pretty terrible. Presumably because then you'd be dead and gone. It's not a body anymore, it's just ash.
|
|
#
?
Jan 20, 2015 13:23
|
|
|
Humans aren't known for thinking straight, especially in events as stressful as I imagine finding out you're dead and can feel what happens to your body would be. Yes, rotting probably is more painful overall, but it's gonna take a fair while for that to start kicking in. Cremation on the other hand is going to hurt a lot, really soon. Then again, we're trying to think through a message that's almost definitely falsified by the Master. Probably specifically to aid her plan, too; can't necro-convert a pile of ash and bone, can you?
|
|
#
?
Jan 20, 2015 13:41
|
|
|
It's always really problematic to make generalizations about old Who because it varied so much from era to era. I think it was MrL_JaKiri who said that the series today is a lot closer to the Doctor Who of 1989 than the 1989 show was to the 1963 version. For every stretched out Pertwee story, there's a McCoy serial that badly needed another 25 minutes. (Okay, so it's not one-to-one, but you get the idea.) The writing is even trickier, partly because one of the purposes it served was to make up for concepts beyond their capacity to create visually - which itself varied depending on the technology/budget of the time. I really can't think of another series like that, before or since. It's unique, and that's one of the reasons creators keep coming back to this particular series rather than creating new ones from scratch.
|
|
#
?
Jan 20, 2015 14:50
|
|
|
Doctor Who is rare in that it's a series that, especially historically, has always had a reach that exceeded its grasp, and yet which was allowed to continue reaching beyond its capabilities.
|
|
#
?
Jan 20, 2015 14:54
|
|
|
DoctorWhat posted:Doctor Who is rare in that it's a series that, especially historically, has always had a reach that exceeded its grasp, and yet which was allowed to continue reaching beyond its capabilities. It's more that when they nearly managed to grasp something, the powers that be thought they were spending too much on grasping and so cut them back.
|
|
#
?
Jan 20, 2015 14:57
|
|
|
I meant in a more thematic sense. The Ace seasons in particular were clearly trying to be far more than just another children's programme, despite being relegated to that role.
|
|
#
?
Jan 20, 2015 14:59
|
|
|
It's a coincidence that everyone was just talking about Valhalla because I just finished it last week. I agree that it wasn't particularly good. It felt a bit drawn out. I think Frozen Time is the better of the two "Sylvester McCoy without a companion, purely because he asked Nick Briggs for it while Nick was interviewing him that one time" stories. Not that it's fantastic, but Valhalla is either boring or unpleasant, depending on which part of it you're hearing.
|
|
#
?
Jan 20, 2015 15:41
|
|
|
Bicyclops posted:It's a coincidence that everyone was just talking about Valhalla because I just finished it last week. I agree that it wasn't particularly good. It felt a bit drawn out. I think Frozen Time is the better of the two "Sylvester McCoy without a companion, purely because he asked Nick Briggs for it while Nick was interviewing him that one time" stories. Not that it's fantastic, but Valhalla is either boring or unpleasant, depending on which part of it you're hearing. I briefly thought this was the Trek thread and was about to fight you.
|
|
#
?
Jan 20, 2015 15:45
|
|
|
Doctor Spaceman posted:Old Who's pacing suffers a bit from the way it's generally watched nowadays, since marathoning through a story makes it painfully obvious when stuff has been added just to provide a cliffhanger. A lot of the old stories don't seem to land cleanly on 25 minute story beats and the writers went back to certain tricks way too much (end of episode 1, reveal this story's villain monster!). It gave a lot of individual episodes a herky-jerky feeling to their pacing: hurry through the plot points they have outlined then fluff up the rest to fill out the time. Also, it resulted in moments like this: 
|
|
#
?
Jan 20, 2015 15:57
|
|
|
The new series is definitely closer to the 1996 movie than the 1996 movie is to the old series, mainly in terms of how much television technology (and the budget, as small as the growth was) advanced in that time. But I think it’s also that the old series was shot to be digested over a week, with cliffhangers and padding, and the new series (and the movie) is made to be digested over 44 minutes. When I show the kiddo old episodes (so far, The Ark in Space and Warriors of the Deep), she gets upset because I always make her wait between episodes. Of course, she also gets upset that I’m showing her old episodes, but drat it, I suffered through Arc of Infinity without having a DS to play Pokemon on, she’s going to watch it sans electronics too! Of course, I WAS drunk off my rear end when I suffered through Arc of Infinity…
|
|
#
?
Jan 20, 2015 15:57
|
|
|
Rob Shearman described to me his fury and frustration at Arc of Infinity in lurid detail, so I do not envy the kiddo, Cobi. Also why the gently caress would you make them watch Warriors on the Cheap?
|
|
#
?
Jan 20, 2015 15:59
|
|
|
armoredgorilla posted:I briefly thought this was the Trek thread and was about to fight you. I haven't posted there since I finally finished my quest to finish all of the Star Treks, I think. The thread was a very good support mechanism during that turbulent time, and there was a really good post about Data trying to learn comedy and accidentally murdering people.
|
|
#
?
Jan 20, 2015 16:03
|
|
|
DoctorWhat posted:Also why the gently caress would you make them watch Warriors on the Cheap? Well, the rule in our house is that the kiddo can’t get out of bed on the weekends until her mom or I is out of bed. On weekends, I get up around 7 am and stumble into my home office. She’s in the office five minutes later with juice for her and coffee for me, and we’ll sit down and have breakfast for a bit before I sit down in front of my computer. While I write, she’ll pop on Netflix and binge watch shows. Lately, it’s been a whole lot of Disney sitcoms – Jessie, Good Luck Charlie, Lab Rats, Dog with a Blog… This led to a conversation about the concept of something being “so bad, it’s good.” I actually don’t mind when she watches Dog with a Blog over the other three because the kids on that sitcom have great comedic timing and can actually ACT. So we talked about one person making a show or movie good, or a movie just being so absolutely horrible you stop thinking about it being horrible and start making fun of it. She asked me for an example we could watch together. One look at the Myrka and she absolutely lost it.
|
|
#
?
Jan 20, 2015 16:09
|
|
|
Oh okay. I was afraid I'd have to call CPS.
|
|
#
?
Jan 20, 2015 16:17
|
|
|
DoctorWhat posted:Rob Shearman described to me his fury and frustration at Arc of Infinity in lurid detail, so I do not envy the kiddo, Cobi. I want to hear more about this.
|
|
#
?
Jan 20, 2015 16:19
|
|
|
CobiWann posted:Lately, it’s been a whole lot of Disney sitcoms – Jessie, Good Luck Charlie, Lab Rats, Dog with a Blog… Brother, I feel your pain... quote:I actually don’t mind when she watches Dog with a Blog over the other three because the kids on that sitcom have great comedic timing and can actually ACT. ... uh-HUH.
|
|
#
?
Jan 20, 2015 16:22
|
|
|
FreezingInferno posted:I want to hear more about this. I'm sure I've blogged about it or something. but basically Rob hated Arc so much that he re-watched it several times out of sheer spite.
|
|
#
?
Jan 20, 2015 16:23
|
|
|
Bicyclops posted:It's a coincidence that everyone was just talking about Valhalla because I just finished it last week. I agree that it wasn't particularly good. It felt a bit drawn out. I think Frozen Time is the better of the two "Sylvester McCoy without a companion, purely because he asked Nick Briggs for it while Nick was interviewing him that one time" stories. Not that it's fantastic, but Valhalla is either boring or unpleasant, depending on which part of it you're hearing. Frozen Time is pretty good, but are you not counting Robophobia as a "Sly without companion" audio? Because that one's pretty great.
|
|
#
?
Jan 20, 2015 16:28
|
|
|
MrL_JaKiri posted:Some of the original run's pacing was really really awful, too. Some of it was really good (even watching the episodes back to back) I know with Ambassadors OF DEATH I breezed through the first three episodes without realizing I had just watched three episodes. It was just really, really loving well done and super engaging. *TWANG*
|
|
#
?
Jan 20, 2015 16:30
|
|
|
Fil5000 posted:Frozen Time is pretty good, but are you not counting Robophobia as a "Sly without companion" audio? Because that one's pretty great. Robophobia is part of a trilogy of non-companion audios released about 4 years after Valhalla and Frozen Time. Also Liv Chenka's a weird case.
|
|
#
?
Jan 20, 2015 16:35
|
|
|
PantsOptional posted:... uh-HUH. When you're drowning, you grab onto any branch you can get a hold of. I'm trying to get her into other non-cartoon/Disney sitcom shows besides Who, but at her age (ten in March), my options are limited. I think something like Constantine or Hannibal might be the right step in a VERY wrong direction.
|
|
#
?
Jan 20, 2015 16:36
|
|
|
Fil5000 posted:Frozen Time is pretty good, but are you not counting Robophobia as a "Sly without companion" audio? Because that one's pretty great. I haven't gotten nearly as far as Robophobia, yet but with both Frozen Time and Valhalla, it's just kind of funny. Nicholas Briggs was asking Sylvester McCoy perfectly normal interview questions about working in the medium, and McCoy had this hilarious tangent answer about he had never really been in one in which he was alone, and that the writers should work on that. He suggested that the writers should do one based around a silent movie in which he meets Buster Keaton. It was like right after the interview that they gave McCoy two stories without a companion (except for the traditional, one-off sorts that come with those kinds of stories).
|
|
#
?
Jan 20, 2015 16:37
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 6, 2024 20:31 |
|
|
Ah, yes, the infamous Silent Movie Audio Pitch. Nick Briggs still makes fun of that one at conventions.
|
|
#
?
Jan 20, 2015 16:38
|
|