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Cleretic posted:I want more scenes of iconic, distinct Who aliens trying to talk poo poo to each other. Not even as a fanservice thing, it's just that Who aliens are generally so defined as characters (for good or bad) that there's a lot to work with on both sides. They'd clearly all have very clear opinions on what makes the other races good or bad, what they have over them and what they could take from them. Yep. I mean are there any classic Who aliens that aren't all clones or robots or otherwise identical? They are all so clearly defined any never deviate from it (save that on Sonatarian with the breasts  ) that having them encounter each other can always been enjoyable.
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Oct 12, 2015 07:36
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twistedmentat posted:Yep. I mean are there any classic Who aliens that aren't all clones or robots or otherwise identical? Yes, almost all of them (including the Daleks for most of their stories)
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Oct 12, 2015 07:45
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I always giggle when I remember the Dalek adding in that little addition of "inferior" when describing the Cybus Cybermen - just making sure it got in that little extra dig even though by default anything not Dalek is inferior in Dalek minds anyway. 
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Oct 12, 2015 07:58
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CobiWann posted:
Now he's just screwing them into consoles because of course that just works. God knows what he's going to do with them next. Good summary; I think the cold open makes sense best thought of as an attempt to approach how alien the Doctor's logic is. I think he understands perfectly well what the answer to the paradox is but it's not something a human mind can encompass. This makes the scene where he warns Clara that she can ever match his level make more sense; reinforced by Clara's insistence in the second part that what makes sense for her right now is the Doctor's survival. It contrasts a human's emotional logic verses a Time Lords unemotional logic. I've always thought Time Lords could live both sides of a time paradox anyway, and this is the best explanation for me of this admittedly clunky script. But Capaldi could talk all day to me like that as the Doctor, let's just have a whole episode of that instead.
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Oct 12, 2015 08:06
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MrL_JaKiri posted:Yes, almost all of them (including the Daleks for most of their stories) I think he means visually identical.
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Oct 12, 2015 08:17
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cargohills posted:I think he means visually identical. Basically the same answer, then. Although the daleks have loads of different looks nowadays 
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Oct 12, 2015 08:23
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misadventurous posted:O'Donnell was a fun and personable character who blatantly got stuffed in the refrigerator to fuel boring Bennett's boring angst, That's really not what happened there. Fridging is a process where-by a character (traditionally female) is killed in order to motivate a male character to action or emotion. And people find this a problem because it happens all the time, and suggests that the value of a female character lies in her death, and not in who she actually is -- female character as prop, basically. That's not what happened. The Doctor deliberately let the character die in order to provide his own motivation into action. Her love interest -- boring Bennet -- argued that what the Doctor did was loving monstrous, because she was far more than a prop -- that she was a living, breathing human being that didn't deserve to be killed for someone to get their arse into gear. So, in fact, it's more of a subversion of the idea. When you identify these things incorrectly, you really end up devaluing the usefulness of the term. quote:Are there actually people who thought this shite was better than Apprentice/Familiar? If you want to talk about sloppy plot holes and killing women to motivate men / drama, wtf was up with Clara's "death" in those episodes. The Doctor looks upset, is motivated into rage and despair, and then during the space of an end-credits sequence somehow gets over it. He spend the next episode acting like none of that ever happened -- just up until the moment when he's almost convinced to murder her. Oh, and he rips a disabled man out of a chair and throws him on the floor. Then he steals his wheelchair. So that's nice.
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Oct 12, 2015 11:41
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misadventurous posted:EDIT seriously the more I think about this episode the more pissed I get. What was the the point of the Doctor intruding on his own timeline? What was the point of him putting so much emphasis on Clara's phone if he never even called her back? Hell, much as I enjoyed it, what was the point of that cold open monologue? How did the Fisher King make the ghosts? Did Whithouse seriously pull a "lol it was just a hologram i wasn't dead" ending? Did the Doctor seriously beat the villain by just weakly bullshitting him? Was the villain an unused Torchwood enemy recycled for DW or what? Are there actually people who thought this shite was better than Apprentice/Familiar? I didn't see this post initially and it's hilarious because every complaint applies more to the story you claim was good (it wasn't, it was bad)
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Oct 12, 2015 11:44
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Bloody BBC. That Fisher King costume is just a rip off of Charn, from 80's BBC School's Look and Read story "Through the Dragon's Eye". loving terrifying as a 7 year old. Brilliant though. Teaching children through fear. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uz1pGlydYs0
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Oct 12, 2015 12:32
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Ben Soosneb posted:Bloody BBC. That Fisher King costume is just a rip off of Charn, from 80's BBC School's Look and Read story "Through the Dragon's Eye". I thought the Fisher King looked like General Grievous and the vampire thing from the first season of The Strain had a baby.
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Oct 12, 2015 12:36
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Ben Soosneb posted:Bloody BBC. That Fisher King costume is just a rip off of Charn, from 80's BBC School's Look and Read story "Through the Dragon's Eye". Oh poo poo, it's Faction Paradox. 
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Oct 12, 2015 13:07
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Open Source Idiom posted:That's really not what happened there. Fridging is a process where-by a character (traditionally female) is killed in order to motivate a male character to action or emotion. quote:That's not what happened. The Doctor deliberately let the character die in order to provide his own motivation into action. ok quote:When you identify these things incorrectly, you really end up devaluing the usefulness of the term I'll keep this in mind if such a thing ever happens quote:Her love interest -- boring Bennet -- argued that what the Doctor did was loving monstrous, because she was far more than a prop -- that she was a living, breathing human being that didn't deserve to be killed for someone to get their arse into gear. So, in fact, it's more of a subversion of the idea. Doing the groanworthy cliche thing then half-assedly critiquing it is not subversive. What would have been subversive would have been letting Bennett die and validating O'Donnell's choice to not stay in the TARDIS. She gets punished for trying to be proactive and adventurous and not listening to the man who tells her to stay. MrL_JaKiri posted:I didn't see this post initially and it's hilarious because every complaint applies more to the story you claim was good (it wasn't, it was bad) I didn't say the Moffat two-parter was "good". I said it was a hot mess. But at least seemed to be trying! It had moments of charm and there was some kind of energy to it. If anything UtL/BtF repeated the same mistakes only with generic nobody alien instead of iconic Davros to debate with and no Missy rubbing Dalek bumps and pushing Clara into holes and being fun to watch. Just felt listless.
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Oct 12, 2015 13:42
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misadventurous posted:Doing the groanworthy cliche thing then half-assedly critiquing it is not subversive. What would have been subversive would have been letting Bennett die and validating O'Donnell's choice to not stay in the TARDIS. She gets punished for trying to be proactive and adventurous and not listening to the man who tells her to stay. Meanwhile Cass does exactly the same thing and proves herself to be completely competent -- so there's not really a punishment narrative in this case. Instead, the episode is suggesting that if you have the capacity to fully inform someone of the danger they're in, and you choose not to because you want something out of their death, you're actually a big loving jerk who sacrifices people on half-informed guesswork. Letting someone die in order to provide some sort of utility content is incredibly hosed up, and this episode speaks to the emotional manipulation and dehumanisation inherent to that action. Hell, the central conflict is all about that kind of thing. Does it also commit that action? Sure, the critique's not perfect. But it's still a subversive choice, because, crucially, the ostensible hero intended it to happen. And it's far more honest about the Doctor's bloodlessness than the last five episodes or so, because, I think, it's meant to feel ugly. He's the monster in the box, not the Fisher King, sending out his corruption and sickening the people around him. It's not like the episode was exactly subtle about this. But I've no interest in dragging this thread any further in this direction, so this is all I've got to say on the matter.
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Oct 12, 2015 14:57
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Agreed, no thematic critique of the episode allowed
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Oct 12, 2015 15:06
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I guess I slightly object that the Doctor sets out to have O'Donnell die. He suspects she will, based on what his ghost is saying, but then he does try to get her to stay in the TARDIS, where she'd probably be safe. It was more than a little half-hearted, but I read that as his fatalism about not being able to avoid the future (and I think at that point he thinks *he's* going to die as well) rather than (in this case) not giving a poo poo. Now I think Bennett *was* right in pointing out that the Doctor is willing to tolerate O'Donnell's death in a way that he won't put up with the idea of himself or Clara dying.
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Oct 12, 2015 15:08
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Most minor characters in Base Under Siege episodes are going to get killed.
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Oct 12, 2015 15:27
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I was just happy we were given time to actually get to know the minor characters somewhat, rather than the cardboard placeholders we got most of the past two series.
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Oct 12, 2015 15:32
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evenworse username posted:Now I think Bennett *was* right in pointing out that the Doctor is willing to tolerate O'Donnell's death in a way that he won't put up with the idea of himself or Clara dying. Bennett is right, but given that the show is incapable of following through on the concept of the Doctor being actually morally poo poo it just goes nowhere, and the implication is you're meant to forget it, and by extension O'Donnell. It's poorly done and out of place.
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Oct 12, 2015 15:46
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HD DAD posted:I was just happy we were given time to actually get to know the minor characters somewhat, rather than the cardboard placeholders we got most of the past two series. Yeah. I'm glad Moffat has realised that 100 minutes is around the perfect length for a Doctor Who story, and that multi part stories are good. Hope they don't blame the poo poo ratings this series on all the two parters.
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Oct 12, 2015 15:58
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Fun fact: ratings are significantly up this past week thanks to England being bad at rugby or something.
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Oct 12, 2015 16:08
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HD DAD posted:Fun fact: ratings are significantly up this past week thanks to England being bad at rugby or something. I'm glad. That ratings are up. And also that England lost in the rugby.
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Oct 12, 2015 16:12
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Irony Be My Shield posted:Most minor characters in Base Under Siege episodes are going to get killed. See also the platonic ideal "Base Under Siege" stories, Alien and Aliens. And The Ark in Space for completeness.
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Oct 12, 2015 17:29
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But not the director's cut of Aliens because James Cameron doesn't know the meaning of understatement, and stopped making good films when he stopped working with Gale Anne Hurd, his by then ex-wife. Well, True Lies is good fun I guess.
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Oct 12, 2015 17:39
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MrL_JaKiri posted:But not the director's cut of Aliens because James Cameron doesn't know the meaning of understatement, and stopped making good films when he stopped working with Gale Anne Hurd, his by then ex-wife. Well, True Lies is good fun I guess. Terminator 2 is pretty good. Not as good as the first but you know.
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Oct 12, 2015 17:41
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MrL_JaKiri posted:But not the director's cut of Aliens because James Cameron doesn't know the meaning of understatement, and stopped making good films when he stopped working with Gale Anne Hurd, his by then ex-wife. Well, True Lies is good fun I guess. The director's cut of Aliens is amazing, assuming you want a lesson in how to turn a great film into a shite one.
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Oct 12, 2015 17:43
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Burkion posted:Terminator 2 is pretty good. She wasn't his wife at that point, but was still executive producer (and indeed produced Terminator 3, so she isn't free from sin either) [edit] I don't want to undermine Ray Lovejoy's work on Aliens by letting Hurd take the credit, as his work was generally exceptional
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Oct 12, 2015 17:55
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Just wanted to chime in that O'Donnell was a great fan girl insert
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Oct 12, 2015 18:10
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HD DAD posted:I was just happy we were given time to actually get to know the minor characters somewhat, rather than the cardboard placeholders we got most of the past two series. I feel like the whole two parter was an ideological rebuke of the standard base under siege narrative of people getting picked off one by one while the Doctor fails to do enough to save lives/actively puts people in harm's way. It's like Mummy on the Orient Express but without the end where the Doctor lays his own life on the line. If Whithouse were running the show, we probably wouldn't see a traditional base under siege type of episode during the whole run, and we'd get a LOT more "the Doctor is kinda a giant amoral rear end in a top hat" moments.
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Oct 12, 2015 20:06
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The weirdest thing about these last two episodes was that, for me, I liked the characters but didn't give a rat's rear end about the setting, the events in motion, etc. Like, if they had this crew in anything else, I'dve been a lot more engaged with the episodes than I ultimately wound up being. And good Lord, I liked the sniveling dude from the other episode he was in, over this one.
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Oct 12, 2015 20:18
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I saw the Doctor treating O'Donnell death more as "she was going to die and I know I couldn't do anything about it, so I'm not going to waste time with the emotional after effects." Kind of like the one soldier's death during Into the Dalek. The Doctor won't let people die, but if they do die, the situation is still dire for the survivors so on with the show.
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Oct 12, 2015 21:22
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The use of the electric guitar in Before the Flood and The Magician's Apprentice just seems like a ham-fisted attempt to inject youth and vitality into an older character actor. Especially when you throw those sunglasses into the bargain. They didn't need it last season, and I don't think they need it now. Maybe they will thread all of this into a mid-life crisis for the Doctor this season? Both two-part episodes have addressed the Doctor's death, so who knows. A lot of people are giving this two-parter a free pass. Before the Flood suffers from dragging a weak plot out for too long. The two parts had very different vibes and pacing to them. A single-episode Under the Lake would've worked better. I don't know about you guys, but for me a lot of what made the first part interesting had come and gone by this week. By the end of this two-parter, I was exhausted from seeing people running away from ghosts, I was tired of them hiding in the Faraday Cage, and I was tired of the mystery of the ghosts' speech and the ship's writing (which, as it turns out, wasn't very remarkable. In fact, it made no sense. Why did the villain not just fly that interstellar "hearse" back to its planet?). The villain was a lot of work put to strangely little use. I won't even touch on the hackneyed moralizing and cheap sentimentality — let's face it, that's the cost of doing business with this show. But doing away with it certainly would've chopped off even more of the runtime fluff. In short, a single episode would've maintained the tension more effectively, would've kept the convoluted writing more restrained, and would've provided us with an overall better and more memorable experience. The best Who episodes are ones I can look back on and describe fairly quickly. They also tend to be well-paced. This wasn't one of them. I know I come across as a crotchety old man, so I will say I liked a lot about their work on these two episodes. It's just a shame it didn't come together. The underwater base was a great setting, and a nice deviation from the "space platform" we get so often. The ghost effects were nicely done. The character actors included the guy who played the mayor in the Batman movies, which I thought was cool (being a movie geek). The monologue intro had tons of energy to it (my comments on the guitar notwithstanding). The villain's costume and voice acting, as well as the cinematography with the shadows, were nicely done. M_Gargantua posted:My biggest issue was with O'Donnell's death. It was so hacky. Unknown baddie sneaks up behind her, slow turn, gets shot with an alien space gun. Fast forward to the Doctor finding her dying, no blood, somehow surviving space gun for a minute. I was not a fan of it, either. Everything about it was quick, lazy, and stupid. Don't forget the "let's split up!" moment.
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Oct 13, 2015 01:33
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I'm pretty sure Peter Capaldi probably asked to play the guitar because he plays the guitar and thought it would be cool if his Doctor could play guitar.
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Oct 13, 2015 02:36
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GonSmithe posted:I'm pretty sure Peter Capaldi probably asked to play the guitar because he plays the guitar and thought it would be cool if his Doctor could play guitar. no, see, somethingsomething moffat somethingsomething kids somethingsomething tumblr fangirls somethingsomething RUINED FOREVER
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Oct 13, 2015 02:46
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SICK TO HIS STOMACH
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Oct 13, 2015 03:15
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GonSmithe posted:I'm pretty sure Peter Capaldi probably asked to play the guitar because he plays the guitar and thought it would be cool if his Doctor could play guitar. No, you see, the Doctor playing the spoons is clearly a clumsy attempt to appeal to the massive spoon-playing demographic...
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Oct 13, 2015 03:29
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Besides if they were trying to appeal to the younger demographic, Capaldi would be loving around in Ableton or something.
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Oct 13, 2015 03:48
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I wasn't sure about it at first, but my god does Capaldi pull off the sunglasses and guitar. It actually does really well at pulling together that last season, while generally consistent and high-quality, didn't quite 'click' with everyone. Like some people, both in the audience and in the writing staff, weren't quite sure how Capaldi's Doctor works. But now that he's got those, suddenly it all sits perfectly. It's not a change to the character so much as giving a focus and label to who he was in the first place. Suddenly Twelve is an aging rock star, his days of youthful rebellion past him but still with that same spirit. He's gotten on in years, so he's stopped caring about how he comes across, but that doesn't mean he's not a genuine person deep down. None of that is different to how he was played last season, but the guitar and sunglasses give it a context that helps ground it all. And I love it SO MUCH.
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Oct 13, 2015 04:03
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Cleretic posted:I wasn't sure about it at first, but my god does Capaldi pull off the sunglasses and guitar. It actually does really well at pulling together that last season, while generally consistent and high-quality, didn't quite 'click' with everyone. Like some people, both in the audience and in the writing staff, weren't quite sure how Capaldi's Doctor works. A thousand times this. New Doctors always need a season under their belt to get a grip on the character. It makes sense from a storypoint standpoint as well, because the Doctor himself is trying to figure out who he is this time around---but usually by about season 2, they become The Doctor instead of A Guy Who Always Wanted to Be the Doctor. (Even with Six, he was finally starting to go in that direction, i.e. his furious speeches during "Trial," before they cut out C-Bakes' legs out from under him.) It's a big part, sometimes you need time to nail it down. That's why it's doubly impressive when you get a guy like Smith, who basically pseudo-regenerated after Eleven lost Amy, going from a happy-go-lucky dork in a bowtie to a cranky old young man in a Joker waistcoat. I think the only one who really nailed it start to finish was Pertwee; even Baker needed some time to get going, if only to get his stories out of UNIT and back into the wild. So yes, I'm really happy Capaldi's finally got a handle on his Doctor-ness. It's effortless now, let the good times roll
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Oct 13, 2015 07:51
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LLCoolJD posted:The character actors included the guy who played the mayor in the Batman movies, which I thought was cool (being a movie geek) Then go watch The Celestial Toymaker or The Arc of Infinity
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Oct 13, 2015 08:34
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MrL_JaKiri posted:Duane Benzie Fil5000 posted:"Tim. Hi." Oh god, someone please dub Duane Benzie's lines over The Fisher King. "And that is why I sleep in the arms of a beautiful woman and you spend your evenings alone in your bedsit. With cheap porn"
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Oct 13, 2015 08:59
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