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Chokes McGee posted:Also timed it perfectly, the credits hit with 40 seconds to go before EST New Years. All the game, right here Actually the first time round you screwed up and missed New Years by 5 minutes. Luckily somehow everything got reset and finished correctly, but now you're missing a pair of shoes that fit perfectly.
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Jan 1, 2016 14:42
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pgroce posted:God bless your 80s PBS station for running five hours of Doctor Who, probably from 9pm-2am. I feel like that ought to be some sort of rite of passage. The real trial by fire was watching a PBS version of the War Games during a pledge drive.  WNJS, c. mid-1980s.
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Jan 1, 2016 15:35
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Happy New Year! And remember...
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Jan 1, 2016 16:05
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CobiWann posted:Happy New Year! And remember... In retrospect, why did the Daleks care about that? Do the mutants go skinny dipping in the Thames?
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Jan 1, 2016 17:05
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Gaz-L posted:In retrospect, why did the Daleks care about that? Do the mutants go skinny dipping in the Thames? They likely didn't put the sign up.
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Jan 1, 2016 17:39
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Burkion posted:They likely didn't put the sign up. Yeah, it would be in that Dalek font if they did.
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Jan 1, 2016 18:40
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Ms Boods posted:The real trial by fire was watching a PBS version of the War Games during a pledge drive. I remember during one PBS pledge drive in my city they had some guy dressed up Davros. I don't think it was actually Terry Molloy and he didn't say anything (since presumably PBS couldn't do the voice modulation), but he glared menacingly at the phone bank.
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Jan 1, 2016 19:06
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hey bros heres the series nine review thread http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3758362 that's the end of my self promotion *does complicated series of hand signals* disappear no jutsu! *is replaced by wooden log*
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Jan 1, 2016 19:20
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Jerusalem posted:Actually the first time round you screwed up and missed New Years by 5 minutes. Luckily somehow everything got reset and finished correctly, but now you're missing a pair of shoes that fit perfectly. I liked those shoes.  e: I also forgot how pretty Grace was, and the shots in the movie in general. Say what you want about the plot and Eric Roberts, but my gods the mise-en-scène of the movie was amazing. Chokes McGee fucked around with this message at 20:33 on Jan 1, 2016 |
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Jan 1, 2016 20:27
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 Big Finish attempts the difficult with The War Doctor Volume 1: Only the Monstrous by trying to tell a story set during the Time War involving a Doctor with a minimum amount of screen time and characterization. To that end, Only the Monstrous veers away from the cosmic spanning conflict for a relatively more intimate story that focuses on developing the War Doctor's character and personality. Big Finish's creative choice allows for a story that features a gruffer and more bitter Doctor that still portrays all the familiar mannerisms and trappings of his other incarnation while laying the seeds for future stories where the Doctor may truly become a monster. This decision however means that those expecting a slam-bang action packed tale might walk away disappointed. X X X X X Cast John Hurt (The War Doctor/John Smith) Jacqueline Pearce (Cardinal Ollistra) Lucy Briggs-Owen (The Nursemaid) Carolyn Seymour (The Slave) Beth Chalmers (Veklin) Alex Wyndham (Seratrix) Kieran Hodgson (Bennus) Barnaby Edwards (Arverton) Mark McDonnell (Traanus) John Banks (Garv) Nicholas Briggs (The Daleks) Written by: Nicholas Briggs Directed by: Nicholas Briggs Released: December 2015 Trailer - https://www.bigfinish.com/releases/popout/the-war-doctor-volume-01-only-the-monstrous-1380 X X X X X  As the Daleks mass their time fleet for a final assault on Gallifrey, something ancient is waiting for them at Omega One. And a sacrifice must be made. Arch-manipulator and Time Lord strategist, Cardinal Ollistra receives shock news of the Doctor’s death. Meanwhile, on the planet Keska, a parochial war has returned to plague a peaceful civilisation after decades of tranquillity. But how can such a war have any connection with the great Time War which, at any one moment in the whole of eternity, could threaten to tear the universe apart? If only the Doctor were still alive. The Innocent takes an unexpected turn to start off the first War Doctor box set. The story itself opens with the Doctor (who refuses to acknowledge that title, preferring to be called “John Smith” when forced to provide a name) turning a Dalek superweapon against them to wipe out a massive fleet, saving the lives of two Time Lords who had volunteered for the suicide mission. The resulting temporal explosion knocks the TARDIS through the Time Vortex to the planet of Keska. Upon landing the Doctor is found by a young woman named Rejoice, who acts as his nursemaid as he convalesces over the course of six months, both physically (his body healing back to normal) and mentally (taking the time to enjoy a brief trip away from the Time War. The Innocent is a story that focuses much more on dialogue and characterization than action and war. With this narrative choice, Nicholas Briggs (who wrote and directed all three stories in this box set) allows listeners to ease into this incarnation of the Doctor. We've been told time and time again that the Doctor was not the Time Lord we knew during the Time War, and that he did monstrous, horrible things in order to fight the Daleks. Instead of dropping listeners into a situation with a Doctor who might be unrecognizable to them, Briggs instead gives us snippets of one particular moment where the Doctor tells the commander of a Time Lord battle TARDIS that the Daleks are using civilian ships as cover because they believe the Time Lords won't open fire and risk hitting them, but that the commander should consider firing anyway. It's a moment told through dreams and quiet murmurs without a proper conclusion, but it's something against the Doctor's very nature as he would never risk an innocent life if there was another way, including letting the Dalek fleet escape. Instead of giving us some big moment involving the Nightmare Child or the King-Who-Never-Was, Briggs gives us a smaller moment in the Time War that is much easier to relate to. But when the moment calls for action, in this case the arrival of an alien race hell bent on committing genocide upon the people of Keska, the true flashes of the Doctor are still there – chatty, inquisitive, and utterly brilliant in helping Rejoice save the day. This incarnation is still the Doctor but one where we get to see the emotional and mental scarring, but not the injuries that created them. Being a bit slower and “talky,” I feel that this story would have worked better as the second-story in a four-story box set, but is still works as an introduction to the War Doctor. Rejoice, played by Lucy Briggs-Owen acts as nursemaid to the Doctor, so much that she's actually listed as “Nursemaid” in the credits. Rejoice is played and written as a character who in any other story would have a very good chance of becoming a temporary companion – smart, quick with a word, and willing to call John Smith out when need be. Briggs-Owen does a fine job here, but doesn't really stand out as anyone special. Aside from taking care of the Doctor and asking him about himself time and again, there's little development given to Rejoice. This is evident during a key scene where the Doctor and Rejoice are in a rowboat on the lake and the Doctor roars at her about how he's a true monster and will be happy to show her...and she gets dumped in the lake or dives in to escape his wrath. Aside from being poorly directed (for a moment I thought the Doctor was hitting her with how it sounded) there's just no meat to it other than “the Doctor complains, Rejoice brushes it off,” which makes their separation at the end of the story comes off as a bit less dramatic than Briggs might have meant it to.  With the high-ranking Time Lord Seratrix behind enemy lines, the War Doctor finds himself assigned to a rescue mission. But any room for manoeuvre is severely restricted by an area of space known as the Null Zone. Times have changed on Keska, and a countdown to destruction is beginning. But who are the Taalyens and what is their part in the great and terrifying Dalek plan? The Thousand Worlds is comprised of talking, sneaking, and running about. It would make a good opening if combined solely with The He art of Battle as a two-part story but as a middle story it provide a bit of a lull. The Doctor is tasked by Cardinal Ollistra to lead a covert mission into the heart of the Null Zone, an area of space where time travel is impossible. It's here that the Daleks along with their new allies the Taalyens are enslaving over a thousand worlds. And it's here that a Time Lord named Seratrix has been taken by the Daleks. Ollistra is afraid of vital military secrets being spilled under interrogation and wants the Doctor, along with a Time Lord operative named Veklin, to retrieve him. But the Doctor doesn't work well with others. While Veklin and her team infiltrate the Dalek base, the Doctor has gone right to the heart of the Dalek's war machine on the familiar planet of Keska, where he finds out that there's much more to the thousand worlds and Seratrix than he could possibly imagine... The Thousand Worlds feels like one long setup for The Heart of Battle. There's a lot of planning, exposition, pretending to be slaves, crawling through fuel pipes, tricking the alien overlords – all things that make up a fine story, but it doesn't feel like a story that could only take place during the Time War. Any other Doctor could have been mixed up in this mess, especially since the Dalek's plan to drill into the core of Keska goes all the way back to the First Doctor story The Dalek Invasion of Earth. It's far from a bad story, it's just one that feels just a bit off and a little slower than listeners would expect. It's in this story where the central cast for Only the Monstrous begin to interact with each other. Big Finish stalwart Barnaby Edwards and Kieran Hodgson play Arverton and Bennus, the two Time Lord soldiers who are sent along with Veklin and the Doctor into the Null Zone. The actors play the archetypical “soldiers who are just a bit over their heads on this assignment” role and do so in an enjoyable manner. Mark McDonnell is Traanus, the leader of the Taalyens who made an alliance with the Daleks to help enslave Keska, and he covers the “loud alien with just enough honor to be hypocritical” role with enough of an over-the-top air to his performance. The standout here is Beth Chalmers, another Big Finish veteran, who handles the role of Veklin with arrogance and determination. Veklin is the experienced covert operative who will drag Arverton and Bennus to the completion of their mission no matter what she has to do, managing to get off a few good lines along the way. And in a nice twist, the Doctor runs into Rejoice again, but a much older Rejoice who is now a slave under the Dalek administration, now voiced by Carolyn Seymour. Instead of bitterness and anger towards John Smith, she takes his reappearance decades after his departure as a sign of hope for her people that the Daleks might truly be defeated.  Trapped in a citadel swarming with Daleks, the Time Lord rescue force must find a way to overcome insurmountable odds. With the Daleks apparently planning to rule the Null Zone, perhaps their thirst for universal conquest and victory has been quenched… The War Doctor doesn’t believe so — but how can he prove it without destroying any chance of peace? As the countdown to the destruction of Keska proceeds, a deadly choice must be made... A choice that will define this Doctor, and perhaps forever cast him in the role of ‘monster’. The Heart of Battle is easily the best out of the three episodes in this box set as it pays off the events in the previous episode. The Doctor discovers that Seratrix isn't a prisoner of the Daleks – he's a diplomat who has been sent by Cardinal Ollistra to make peace with them! The Time War will never be won, and the only chance for the Time Lords to survive is to convince the Daleks to sign a treaty. The Thousand Worlds, as well as the creation of the Null Zone, are gifts from the Time Lords as a sign that they're negotiating in good faith. The fact that the Time Lords would sell billions of sentient beings into Dalek captivity on the impossible hope of signing a peace treaty is absolutely anathema, and it's up to him to prove to Seratrix just how wrong he is... There's still a lot of running around and talking with this story, but it's all handled in a much quicker and flashier style than it was in The Thousand Worlds. Briggs keeps the story moving by switching back and forth between the Doctor's group and Veklin's team, with brief asides to Traanus, as well as finally throwing in the Daleks. As usual Briggs does a superb job in voicing the menacing monsters, anger mixed in with every sentence they scream be it a command or a question. Alex Wyndham does a fine job as Seratrix, who goes from the deluded belief that the Daleks COULD be negotiated with to broken despair once the Doctor shows him otherwise. The standout performance here comes at the end via Jacqueline Pearce's turn as Cardinal Ollistra. Known for her role as the cold but charming villain Servalan from Blake's 7, Pearce plays Ollistra as a morally gray character. Listeners know there's much more to what she is saying every time she opens her mouth and that she's someone who will do anything, anything, to win the Time War. I'm hoping that there's a long-term story arc across the War Doctor box sets for this character, if only to hear Pearce play her in this manner again. Of course, it all boils down to Sir John Hurt. Landing an actor of his caliber for a series of audio adventures is one of the biggest coups in the history of Big Finish. While I feel it took a bit for Hurt to get used to the audio play format (there's JUST long enough of a pause between the speaker before him and Hurt to become noticeable as opposed to, say, when Peter Davison and Paul McGann speak), listeners can tell Hurt is enjoying himself during the recording. Really all I need to say about John Hurt's turn as the War Doctor is, “it's John Hurt.” But to go further, Hurt (with Briggs' scripts) seems to be taking the War Doctor in the direction of “crotchety grandfather” and I mean this in the best way possible. Imagine your grandfather, a man who's seen so many decades and so many events and has become just a bit burned out and bitter towards it all. He's grumpy, he's not in the mood to take anyone's gruff, and when you touch upon a subject very close to his heart(s), he WILL let you know about it. But put him in the same room as the engine block to a '57 Chevy and he'll light up, putting that sucker back together with the smallest of grins and ignoring everything else in the room until that piece of Detroit iron is purring like a kitten. The scene where John Smith is slowly going through the Dalek files, ignoring the screams of the Prime Dalek to stop by just casually and accidentally going along pulling up record after record, is a delight. I mentioned earlier in the review that the Doctor really doesn't do anything “monstrous” in this story. There are snippets of him telling a Time Lord commander that the Daleks don't think he'll open fire through a series of human shields, and at the end there's an impossible choice that the Doctor makes – it's the only choice that could be made in that situation, but it's a very difficult one. A lot of people have said that Only the Monstrous doesn't really show the War Doctor doing anything that would make him a monster. Thinking about it for a bit, this is probably for the best. A Doctor who does monstrous things to win a war isn't a Doctor. He's a Valeyard. The overall theme to this box set, to me at least, seems to be a discussion between peace vs war. When does one fight for peace, when does one realize war is inevitable, and what's acceptable in both at any given point? The Doctor, a man who will grab onto the thinnest threads of hope and pull for all they're worth, knowing that war against the Daleks is the only option, and responds by doing whatever he can to keep it under control. I don't think we're ever going to get a moment where the Doctor goes “screw it, put the villagers inside the church, lock the doors and burn the place down.” At that moment, he's NOT the Doctor anymore. The entire point of The Day of the Doctor was that the War Doctor was STILL the Doctor. All it took was ONE time for the War Doctor to make the decision to kill millions to save billions to give him the trauma and survivor's guilt that defined the Ninth Doctor... quote:
I think, and this is just my prediction, what we're going to get out of the War Doctor stories is a Doctor that takes things much harder than previous incarnations, especially when told by Velkin that the first shots of the Time War were indeed fired by him all the way back in Genesis of the Daleks. He'll have a level of guilt and despair in his soul that will drive him to make incredibly difficult decisions down the line. Not amoral or monstrous decisions, but decisions where it's nearly impossible to get it right. And the fact that he's feeling this grief, this angst, about what he has to do gives him...pause? Justification? Acceptance? By beating himself up, John Smith is allowing himself to do the horrible. Perhaps he'll be taking the burden of those decisions off of other people and placing them on his own shoulders, being the one to push the button/flip the switch/give the order instead of them? While Only the Monstrous wasn't what I expected, it is a box set that sets up a lot of potential in future stories involving the War Doctor. Nicholas Briggs and John Hurt give us a Doctor who is still familiar to listeners, but is just different enough to give them pause, with a series of stories that show a Doctor who is already wounded and scarred. In the long term, the success of Only the Monstrous depends on how well the next three box sets play out, and I will state my cautious optimism that they will turn out well depending on how they build off of this series. Cobi's Synopsis – Only the Monstrous isn't the slam-bang Time War epic that one might expect, but John Hurt gives an exceptional turn as the War Doctor in a slower and introspective three-part story that shows where the War Doctor has come from and where he might be heading while still featuring a good bit of action and intrigue.
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Jan 1, 2016 21:41
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Chokes McGee posted:e: I also forgot how pretty Grace was, and the shots in the movie in general. Say what you want about the plot and Eric Roberts, but my gods the mise-en-scène of the movie was amazing. I still have no idea what the hell was going on in that corridor during the storm scene though. I mean, it looked fantastic but it made no sense at all as to why all those windows would be left open and all that furniture/incredibly expensive equipment would have been left just lying on the floor like that. CobiWann posted:Cobi's Synopsis – Only the Monstrous isn't the slam-bang Time War epic that one might expect, but John Hurt gives an exceptional turn as the War Doctor in a slower and introspective three-part story that shows where the War Doctor has come from and where he might be heading while still featuring a good bit of action and intrigue. Yeah, for any issues I might have had with the story, John Hurt sure as hell wasn't one of them. Jerusalem fucked around with this message at 01:33 on Jan 3, 2016 |
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Jan 2, 2016 12:05
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Jerusalem posted:I still have no idea what the hell was going on in that corridor during the storm scene though. I mean, it looked [i]fantastic[/b] but it made no sense at all as to why all those windows would be left open and all that furniture/incredibly expensive equipment would have been left just lying on the floor like that. There's apparently a deleted bit in the script about how the hospital was dealing with cutbacks and parts were being shut down, hence the director being willing to sweep a John Doe under the rug to avoid any bad publicity.
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Jan 2, 2016 19:49
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Chokes McGee posted:
I can't believe it took me until watching with the commentary on last night that her brother is the guy who plays Bobby Briggs in "Twin Peaks"
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Jan 2, 2016 20:01
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Finished up Big Finish's Diary of River Song today. Overall I liked it...but River really did feel like a reskinned Doctor for a lot of it. She gets a couple moments where she feels distinct in that she, for example, tells a captive that she would have been justified in the murder of her kidnapper, had she actually been the one to do it, but otherwise she just problem solves exactly like the Doctor would, including a timey-wimey scene reminiscent of Matt Smith in The Big Bang. Unlike the War Doctor set, each episode feels really distinct from each other...but the first one in particular feels completely disconnected from the arc that plays out in 2-4. Not the most damning criticism...there's nothing wrong with a story standing apart, but it struck me as odd. And like the War Doctor set, I like the theme they composed for River, but it feels just a hair too bombastic.
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Jan 3, 2016 02:34
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jivjov posted:Finished up Big Finish's Diary of River Song today. Overall I liked it...but River really did feel like a reskinned Doctor for a lot of it. She gets a couple moments where she feels distinct in that she, for example, tells a captive that she would have been justified in the murder of her kidnapper, had she actually been the one to do it, but otherwise she just problem solves exactly like the Doctor would, including a timey-wimey scene reminiscent of Matt Smith in The Big Bang. Unlike the War Doctor set, each episode feels really distinct from each other...but the first one in particular feels completely disconnected from the arc that plays out in 2-4. Not the most damning criticism...there's nothing wrong with a story standing apart, but it struck me as odd. And like the War Doctor set, I like the theme they composed for River, but it feels just a hair too bombastic. Yeah, that was definitely my impression too, although I felt the timey-wimey stuff was the one part that was definitely River rather than Doctor. Assuming you're talking about the bit where she goes back on her own timeline multiple times to blow up the ship, anyway. To me that stood out as something the Doctor would never do whereas River's life is such a pretzel that pulling off poo poo like that is nothing to her. In the Big Bang, the Doctor kind of stumbles into screwing with the timeline due to knowing it's already happened whereas this is River actively deciding to be in multiple places at once to pull off something she doesn't have time to do otherwise. Personally, I really dislike her theme song. It feels like the opening theme of a soap opera as opposed to Indiana Jones in space.
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Jan 3, 2016 11:46
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If you can get access to the iPlayer, the BBC have for some reason decided to put The Face of Evil up. Been meaning to get into the classic show for a while and not got round to it? Need to re-acquaint yourself with why Tom Baker will always be the Doctor? He's just left Sarah-Jane behind on Earth and foiled the Tautological Assassin, and I believe he's also using the swag-as-hell secondary control room at this point. Get stuck in.
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Jan 3, 2016 15:43
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If I remember correctly, that story has the incredibly disturbing,"THEN WHO AM I!?!" cliffhanger to one of the episodes. That poo poo haunted me as a kid. Also I think it has that wonderful understated moment when a guy trying to chase Leela and the Doctor is climbing out of a tent and Leela takes the opportunity to kill him. The Doctor observes this, and quietly comments to her that if she ever does anything like that again she won't be welcome in his company. It's incredibly good stuff from Baker.
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Jan 3, 2016 15:45
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When I realized that they had done up an idol to look like the Doctor, scarf and all, I was legit surprised. It just seemed like a level of self-awarenees you don't really expect for the old series. Of course, this is the same episode where Leela's father dies and she literally doesn't give a poo poo. So, we'll call it even.
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Jan 3, 2016 15:58
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Rochallor posted:When I realized that they had done up an idol to look like the Doctor, scarf and all, I was legit surprised. It just seemed like a level of self-awarenees you don't really expect for the old series. Well, I'm not sure that's true. When her father says he'll take the trial for her, she immediately, desperately, tries to recant all her beliefs rather than let him go through with it. She doesn't spend the rest of the episode crying or anything but that wouldn't be very Leela. Four and Leela are my favorite pairing and there's a lot to like about Face of Evil. I especially like that at the end Leela asks to travel with the Doctor, he says 'well, thanks but no' and she just jumps in the TARDIS anyway.
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Jan 3, 2016 16:26
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Trin Tragula posted:If you can get access to the iPlayer, the BBC have for some reason decided to put The Face of Evil up. Been meaning to get into the classic show for a while and not got round to it? Need to re-acquaint yourself with why Tom Baker will always be the Doctor? He's just left Sarah-Jane behind on Earth and foiled the Tautological Assassin, and I believe he's also using the swag-as-hell secondary control room at this point. Get stuck in. And yet she kept doing stuff like that all throughout her term on the show. I know that some of the people involved in the show weren't happy about that either, including Tom Baker. Which is, of course, dumb as the easiest way to get her to stop was to just have her not do that stuff anymore but the writers kept writing in "and then Leela shoots one of the guards" and other similar things.
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Jan 3, 2016 17:32
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Jerusalem posted:If I remember correctly, that story has the incredibly disturbing,"THEN WHO AM I!?!" cliffhanger to one of the episodes. That poo poo haunted me as a kid. Tom Baker in...Les Miserables!
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Jan 3, 2016 18:20
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"Now drop your weapons or I'll kill him with this deadly jellybaby!"
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Jan 4, 2016 05:25
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I listened to Jubilee and it was pretty good! There were two quotes that stood out to me as funny: Dalek will you marry me? and DALEKS. DO. NOT. SING. Spoilered only because someone may want to hear them "fresh". I think I prefer the Daleks in audio form as they feel more threatening and I enjoy hearing in their voices almost break whenever they get excited about killing.
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Jan 5, 2016 06:59
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saucerman posted:I listened to Jubilee and it was pretty good! There were two quotes that stood out to me as funny: Dalek will you marry me? and DALEKS. DO. NOT. SING. Spoilered only because someone may want to hear them "fresh". Yeah, for his flaws as a writer Briggs does do some drat good voices. Every time his Daleks you can hear the insane anger, even if they're asking a simple question. And I think the opening "trailer" to the story was a great quote as well. So to get some discussion going, what did you guys think of the season in terms of two-parters? We had a bunch of them this time out (nearly every story save one, with the final three episodes one big long story in my mind) and I think the only one that really worked in terms of "old school" cliffhangers was Under the Lake/Before the Flood with the Doctor-ghost. CobiWann fucked around with this message at 07:29 on Jan 5, 2016 |
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Jan 5, 2016 07:26
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CobiWann posted:So to get some discussion going, what did you guys think of the season in terms of two-parters? We had a bunch of them this time out (nearly every story save one, with the final three episodes one big long story in my mind) and I think the only one that really worked in terms of "old school" cliffhangers was Under the Lake/Before the Flood with the Doctor-ghost. I like two parters in general; it can give the story time to breath, and gives time to establish little details about whatever weird and wonderful situation the Doctor has got himself into.
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Jan 5, 2016 07:43
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CobiWann posted:
I think they erred on the side of too many two parters, but they were pretty good. Although a couple weren't really two parters - The Woman who Lived is a continuation of The Girl Who Died, but it could've been put anywhere before Face the Raven and it would've been about as meaningful. Likewise, Heaven Sent and Hell Bent are mostly independent of each other, at least moreso than the Dalek or Zygon two parters.
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Jan 5, 2016 07:54
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I liked the concept of having the two parters but not the execution. It really stuck out that most of them were just barely connected. The ones that were more traditional tended to all suck (openner stunk, Zygons weren't good though for different reasons than most people in this thread thing, Under the Lake/Before the Flood fell apart in the second half) but that had nothing to do with those episodes being two parters, it was bad plotting and lovely writing that was to blame. If anything the two part nature was a saving grace in many cases with it giving you at least a little reason to care about some of the non-Doctor and Clara characters.
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Jan 5, 2016 08:06
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He to my secret Santa, should I be expecting something soon? Nothing is arrived yet. Sad face
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Jan 5, 2016 11:39
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BSam posted:He to my secret Santa, should I be expecting something soon? Nothing is arrived yet. Sad face It is en route, by all accounts.
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Jan 5, 2016 12:06
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Cliff Racer posted:I liked the concept of having the two parters but not the execution. It really stuck out that most of them were just barely connected. The ones that were more traditional tended to all suck (openner stunk, Zygons weren't good though for different reasons than most people in this thread thing, Under the Lake/Before the Flood fell apart in the second half) but that had nothing to do with those episodes being two parters, it was bad plotting and lovely writing that was to blame. If anything the two part nature was a saving grace in many cases with it giving you at least a little reason to care about some of the non-Doctor and Clara characters. The Dalek two parter suffered from being two episodes instead of a feature film. The first ten minutes after the opening are basically a gigantic (albeit entertaining) waste of time that makes the episode feel unfocused. If you skipped straight to the plaza scene after kid Davros, nothing of importance would be lost. Before the Flood really only fell apart because it was too short. There was so much plot in the last twenty minutes that the whole thing started feeling a bit empty. The last four episodes of the series were great. They built on one another, and came together beautifully. I agree, though: that doesn't really have anything to do with Heaven Sent/Hell Bent being a two parter.
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Jan 5, 2016 12:22
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The_Doctor posted:It is en route, by all accounts. Thanks for the reassurance. Will keep you updated.
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Jan 5, 2016 12:27
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It was good they tried to vary up the formula with the two-parters, and psuedo two-parters, but I don't think they managed to use the time well. The first and second episodes are a good example; the first hurtles along at a frantic pace...but bar 10 minutes, it's wasted padding, full of poo poo that doesn't go anywhere. And then in the second episode, the plot feels rushed to draw to a conclusion because they wasted so much time in the previous episode. Under the Lake was probably the best of the 2-parters in pace, and the time it took to set up everything, but Before the Flood (again) felt like it was rushing to a conclusion because they ran out of time. Masie William's psuedo 2-parter would have proably been more effective if there had been a delay of an episode (or episodes) between seeing the character. Maybe? The Zygon two...I thought it was structured okay, but the actual narrative was poo poo-tastic. I don't think it could be condensed into a single episode without feeling rushed, my opinions of the story, aside. And since Face the Raven, Heaven Sent, and Hell Bent form a 3-parter...it was nice that they had time to build upon the overall story arc, but of the three, only Heaven Sent felt like everything was perfectly paced and that everything worked within the 50 minute time-frame. Face the Raven seems to derail once Masie Williams is brought in - though whatever, a self-indugent goodbye to a companion. Okay, I can dig that. Hell Bent was loving garbage though - completely parallel to how this season started; poo poo that doesn't go anywhere, and then a rushed conclusion because they spent so long on a build-up that doesn't amount to anything.
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Jan 5, 2016 13:40
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Pesky Splinter posted:Hell Bent was loving garbage though - completely parallel to how this season started; poo poo that doesn't go anywhere, and then a rushed conclusion because they spent so long on a build-up that doesn't amount to anything. The first 8 minutes after the opening are wasted (much like in The Magician's Apprentice), but once Rassilon is dealt with it's basically all in place. The hybrid story arc is concluded by subverting the expected "It's Me." plot twist, and that can really throw you for a loop. Leaving the solution up for interpretation is really clever, though. I thought it was a great send off to one of the best companions of the revival.
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Jan 5, 2016 14:28
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Strapped in for Robots of Death, 2 good moments so far: I recognized the great Russell Hunter when he says Nooo to his robot opponent, it's pure Lonely (for the kids, there was this amazing show called Callan back in tv prehistory, and Lonely was the sidekick). And the way Louise Jameson delivers the line "that's silly" - I had to stop and laugh my head off. Re the 2-parters, I'm with the great idea, poor execution crowd. It doesn't excuse the self-indulgent ideas and poor plots. No amount of build up excuses Hell Bent. I keep flashing back to that most useless of characters, the High Priestess whinging how the Doctor is always running away, and who wouldn't from that crackpot, which makes the whole point of the line redundant, much like half the episode.
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Jan 5, 2016 15:28
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Overall I think the season is strong but the individual parts that made it up were at their best pretty good and at their worst just okay, the two exceptions being Heaven Sent and Sleep No More which went to the extremes of great and awful. As an experiment, primarily making up the season of two-parters was an interesting idea I don't think they quite managed to pull off. Or rather it felt like the two parters weren't there because the stories needed two parts, but just to further the overall season narrative (the Doctor and Clara's relationship drives them both to extremes that are psychologically AND physically dangerous) as well as hammer home again and again that things weren't as they seemed, that every time it looked like you were getting the fully story something would come along to turn everything on its ear. Sleep No More at least tried to do that same thing in one single episode, not that it ended up working particularly well.
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Jan 5, 2016 15:29
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Jerusalem posted:Overall I think the season is strong but the individual parts that made it up were at their best pretty good and at their worst just okay, the two exceptions being Heaven Sent and Sleep No More which went to the extremes of great and awful. I can't hate Sleep No More, because it at least had a decent idea that it didn't manage to quite land properly. The Zygon Invasion is the real low-point of the season, because it was largely superfluous to The Zygon Inversion, along with the oft-pointed-out hamfisted immigration metaphor that really should never have left the drawing board with how tense the issue is in the EU. Even if Before the Flood wasn't that great, it at least had a good costume for the Fisher King and felt like a classic Who episode combined with Under the Sea. Hell Bent really needed more work, possibly even at the expense of removing the amazingly good Heaven Sent, because all that badly needed a second episode to pace things properly. It did have some great moments though, like the Doctor just stepping out the barn and going back inside as increasingly-important people turned up  .
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Jan 5, 2016 16:38
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I feel The Girl Who Died is a bit underappreciated here as far as terrible moments go. That episode had the Doctor translate for a baby for like three minutes, after all. The Woman Who Lived also had "Purple - colour of death." which is hilarious.Neddy Seagoon posted:Even if Before the Flood wasn't that great, it at least had a good costume for the Fisher King and felt like a classic Who episode combined with Under the Sea. Under the Sea would be one hell of a follow-up to that two-parter.
And More fucked around with this message at 17:04 on Jan 5, 2016 |
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Jan 5, 2016 17:00
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And More posted:I feel The Girl Who Died is a bit underappreciated here as far as terrible moments go. That episode had the Doctor translate for a baby for like three minutes, after all. The Woman Who Lived also had "Purple - colour of death." which is hilarious. Whoops. 
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Jan 5, 2016 17:20
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They mean Beyond the Sea.
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Jan 5, 2016 17:27
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Neddy Seagoon posted:Whoops. I think it could work.
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Jan 5, 2016 17:39
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