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Tie-breaker for serial you'd most like to find an episode from This poll is closed. |
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| The Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Eve |
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33 | 44.59% |
| The Highlanders |
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41 | 55.41% |
| Total: | 74 votes | ||
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Moffat really should not have tackled this story I just This was really not enjoyable for me.
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Dec 26, 2016 02:01
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| # ? May 9, 2024 21:10 |
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I didn't HATE it, but yeah, you can tell the parts Moff cared about and it wasn't most of the main plot. In defence, Matt Lucas was very good and Nardole as a snarky manservant who won't put up with Twelve's poo poo is fun. Edit: "Where'd you get the robes?" "Twelfth century Constantinople. I ruled firmly but wisely.  "
Gaz-L fucked around with this message at 02:13 on Dec 26, 2016 |
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Dec 26, 2016 02:04
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That was loving amazing. Gonna have to redo my top ten list now.
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Dec 26, 2016 02:08
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It was alright post-christmas full up eating shovelling. It was obviously playing with the superman tropes a bit, and having fun at poking fun at itself. The brain guys never really felt like a threat, but then that's a problem with modern who anyway. He tells the bad guys that he's going to win, they act all "who the gently caress are you", we get a giggle because we know who he is, then he wins. This time he had a superhero on his side so it all seemed even less high stakes. The Doctor saying how he liked brainiens plans seemed more like moff congratulating himself on screen for his crazy ideas than making their threat seem threatening. I quite liked the nanny superhero comic pisstake though. The characters were overplayed stereotypes, but done in a deliberately fun way. Worst episode ever. 8/10
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Dec 26, 2016 02:13
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The thing is though that it really wasn't playing with the media at all It like, really wasn't This wasn't satire of Superman, this was some bloke going "here's my lovely rewrite of an excellent scene in cinema that was already pretty loving self aware and far better done and written and directed and acted, pointing out what was already pointed out in that same movie that I am very toothlessly mocking"
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Dec 26, 2016 02:16
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Yeah, the x-ray vision part had a couple of decent lines, but nothing as good as the actual film's take on it. (Helped by the fact that in the movie, Lois invites him to look before he does so, where as Moffat added that flashback scene so we know he's used his powers to see her naked)
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Dec 26, 2016 02:20
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Nah it's just brilliant. Fun. Nothing wrong with a good old super hero pastiche, you don't have to expect everything to be a self aware satire parody.
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Dec 26, 2016 02:22
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BSam posted:Nah it's just brilliant. Fun. Here's the problem https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Bb78jAYhcc That's the problem. It's a shameless copy of this scene but done worse in every way and not on purpose. Just, that entire thing is a thing of beauty. This might be my favorite scene in the movie and Moffat didn't do anything with it but copy it with a note of blandness. He didn't go far enough with growly voice to make that funny, he didn't push it further than what this already did It just exists and is inferior. I'd be just as annoyed if the next Christmas Special recreated the boat scene from Jaws, you know the one, but poorly.
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Dec 26, 2016 02:31
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Burkion posted:The thing is though that it really wasn't playing with the media at all I appreciated some of the more intersectional elements -- G-Man being her nanny is clearly a play to the feminist crowds, and one I liked because it shifted the relationship dynamics in odd ways -- and I really liked Justin Chatwin's performance. I've never liked Justin Chatwin's performance. What the hell happened to Charity Wakefield's accent, though? She was great in High Moon!
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Dec 26, 2016 02:33
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I think the greatest praise and worst criticism of this is "Moffat tries to write like Russell T. Davies", which kinda makes it a decent sendoff. This would have been a pretty good mid-season episode shaking up the format, but standing alone after a year off the screen it's... different.
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Dec 26, 2016 02:56
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Moffat still ran all of next year's episodes though, didn't he? Chibnall isn't in charge until '18?
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Dec 26, 2016 03:01
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I was a big fan of that one, actually. I feel like it wasn't a parody or anything, just a superhero story within Doctor Who. Came off a lot like the CW's superhero shows (particularly the Flash, I think), but those shows are good so I'm alright with it. The Ghost himself was pretty fun. I also liked the continuity of the villains being the same secondary foes from the last Christmas special, I feel like they'll probably wind up being the recurring figures of Capaldi Christmas specials. I'm alright with that. My dad and I were guessing when the Ghost will next be brought up. He thinks it'll be a cameo or reference in the next modern-day America episode a few years down, I think he'll be part of the same laundry list of referenced figures that Torchwood and Sarah-Jane are/were part of in the world-threatening finales.
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Dec 26, 2016 03:19
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Gaz-L posted:Moffat still ran all of next year's episodes though, didn't he? Chibnall isn't in charge until '18? Yeah, that's right. Xmas next year will be his send off.
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Dec 26, 2016 03:25
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That ending really seemed like a hook for the next UNIT box set. Glad they're starting to tie in a lot more with the audios. The early release of Diary of River Song Part 2 was probably more exciting for me than her namedrop here. I did like the meta explanation for why we haven't seen the Doctor in a while.
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Dec 26, 2016 04:24
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I wish they gave a more concrete reason for the guy to retire from superheroing at the end, like UNIT trying to catch him or him losing his powers or something. There was some dialogue about him having a rough schedule but there were never any scenes to show that it was a big problem, especially since he no longer has to conceal his double life from his sweetheart/stalkee. I guess maybe he didn't actually give a poo poo about saving anyone and just used it as a vehicle to get the girl? Anyway it'd be nice to have closed it off so there aren't any dumb questions about why an invulnerable superhero can't fix things instead of the doctor, or even worse having this goofy rear end character actually return and do just that
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Dec 26, 2016 04:31
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Ah I liked that Christmas Special and I think I'll really enjoy Nardole as Twelves second companion. The two of them have great chemistry.
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Dec 26, 2016 04:32
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Really surprised at all of the haters. As Christmas episodes go, it was one of the better ones IMO (though there wasn't much Christmassy about it).' The Superman pastiches were homages and funny/clever for what they were supposed to be.
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Dec 26, 2016 04:56
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My mom and dad loved this episode, and that's what a Doctor Who Christmas special is all about.
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Dec 26, 2016 04:56
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There was a moment after he caught the spaceship that I thought he was about to dramatically start losing his powers while trying to safely dispose of the ship, because he fumbled and twitched a bit and I thought that was going to lead into the Doctor going "he had to lose them now?" thing.
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Dec 26, 2016 04:58
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This sounds so terrible I don't think I want to watch it.
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Dec 26, 2016 06:49
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My sister enjoyed the episode, and that's the most important thing with Christmas episodes.
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Dec 26, 2016 06:50
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Well Manicured Man posted:My mom and dad loved this episode, and that's what a Doctor Who Christmas special is all about. This guy gets it. It was light, mostly fun, I enjoyed it, and that was all I was looking for.
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Dec 26, 2016 06:57
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I liked that he was doing a bad Batman impression as Superman and a bad Christian Slater as Clark Kent. Was fun enough, thought the River callback at the end was a bit unnecessary, both because it was obvious and didn't need stating out loud and also because it was literally the last thing we saw on Doctor Who before this.
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Dec 26, 2016 07:42
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The episode was very slight and inconsequential, but at the end I thought "aww, that was sweet", so I'm counting it as a good 'un. Didn't have much to say about "superheroes" (I don't think Moffat was really trying to take them down or anything- at the end they say they'll keep the costume around) but the characters were engaging enough for me to root for them. Liked Charity Wakefield as Lucy especially. Had a lot of fun with her character.
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Dec 26, 2016 08:09
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Open Source Idiom posted:I appreciated some of the more intersectional elements -- G-Man being her nanny is clearly a play to the feminist crowds, and one I liked because it shifted the relationship dynamics in odd ways -- and I really liked Justin Chatwin's performance. As much as I find Those red pill/PUA gusy annoying they basically took a dude who had super powers and made him a beta. It really was two episodes smashed together do the whole Doctor makes a super hero and has to deal with or do the whole alien brain suckers.
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Dec 26, 2016 08:15
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I dunno, even the episodes with Me have an overt threat-of-the-week to be dealt with. It possibly could have been integrated better with the superhero stuff (maybe make the brains connected to the crystal somehow), but a superhero does need villains.
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Dec 26, 2016 08:28
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Doctor... WHAT?
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Dec 26, 2016 08:39
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DoctorWhat posted:Doctor... WHAT? LoL.
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Dec 26, 2016 08:45
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Maxwell Lord posted:The episode was very slight and inconsequential, but at the end I thought "aww, that was sweet", so I'm counting it as a good 'un. Didn't have much to say about "superheroes" (I don't think Moffat was really trying to take them down or anything- at the end they say they'll keep the costume around) but the characters were engaging enough for me to root for them. For what it's worth, the Doctor Who Extra for this episode went a lot into the superhero side of it, and it's definitely a love letter to the silver age and accompanying live-action stuff, especially (unsurprisingly) the Christopher Reeve Superman movies. Adorably, this carried over into the actual production. They used Reeve's Superman as reference to how to shoot a lot of the Ghost's scenes and handle a cape, and they figured out how to do the Empire State Building scene in a closed studio by imitating the classic Adam West Batman wall-climbing.
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Dec 26, 2016 09:03
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Maxwell Lord posted:The episode was very slight and inconsequential, but at the end I thought "aww, that was sweet", so I'm counting it as a good 'un. Didn't have much to say about "superheroes" (I don't think Moffat was really trying to take them down or anything- at the end they say they'll keep the costume around) but the characters were engaging enough for me to root for them. Yeah, that's pretty much where I landed too. Can't see myself rewatching it but it was the kind of breezy fun that a Christmas episode should be. Matt Lucas' character was so much less annoying than I was expecting too, which bodes well.
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Dec 26, 2016 10:44
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The villains' plot was literally just the Slitheen except for their endgame, right?
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Dec 26, 2016 12:56
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Dabir posted:The villains' plot was literally just the Slitheen except for their endgame, right? Broadly, although the goal for the brains was to infiltrate the governments whereas the Slitheen did it as part of the plan.
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Dec 26, 2016 13:35
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Wow, that was just poo poo. You know what scene summed up the problems with this special perfectly for me? In the opening, they actually used a Superman issue from the 80s or 90s, which I thought was a nice touch. Except as it went on, it became pretty clear had no real knowledge or affection for the superhero genre. It was a bit like someone trying to recreate the Donner Superman film based on watered four decades of watered down parodies and homages. Nothing new or interesting, and nothing resembling either competent homage or criticism.
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Dec 26, 2016 13:52
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Gaz-L posted:I didn't HATE it, but yeah, you can tell the parts Moff cared about and it wasn't most of the main plot. Matt Lucas was a solid companion, and it was nice having one who could do a bit more independently than just cause trouble and follow along. I'm glad it looks like he'll be in at least some of the next season too. Mind Loving Owl posted:Wow, that was just poo poo. You know what scene summed up the problems with this special perfectly for me? In the opening, they actually used a Superman issue from the 80s or 90s, which I thought was a nice touch. Except as it went on, it became pretty clear had no real knowledge or affection for the superhero genre. It was a bit like someone trying to recreate the Donner Superman film based on watered four decades of watered down parodies and homages. Nothing new or interesting, and nothing resembling either competent homage or criticism. It draaaaaagged too just for the sake of Superman moments. There's no reason it couldn't have been shaved down into a regular 45-minute job, and it had almost zero relevance to Christmas. Kinda surprised at the licensing they managed to swing for the episode too; I chuckled at "I distracted them. I flooded the upper floors with Pokemon"  .
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Dec 26, 2016 14:19
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Neddy Seagoon posted:Matt Lucas was a solid companion, and it was nice having one who could do a bit more independently than just cause trouble and follow along. I'm glad it looks like he'll be in at least some of the next season too. Matt Lucas was indeed one of the story's saving graces, which is lucky, since the whole little boy's room sequence primed me for pain. And why did Grant act like the a version of Silver Age Superman that only really existed in the minds of hacky parodists? Kid grew up on 90s comics. If anything, he should be acting the part of a grim and gritty antihero! Incidentally, the Ghost taking more cues from the "real" Silver Age Superman would've made for a much more amusing story, and justified Twelve's weird hostility to Grant using his powers. If he had broadly sketched psychic powers that could be mistaken for badly written dementia or autism, I bet he would've been all for it!
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Dec 26, 2016 14:37
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Yvonmukluk posted:
Is that what the Doctor was fixing with his machine on the rooftop?
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Dec 26, 2016 16:07
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Senor Tron posted:Is that what the Doctor was fixing with his machine on the rooftop? Yeah, I can't remember the exact explanation but he said he was fixing something that was his fault.
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Dec 26, 2016 16:24
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Well Manicured Man posted:My mom and dad loved this episode, and that's what a Doctor Who Christmas special is all about. Amen. It didn't blow me away, but it was a perfectly adequate christmas special. How long is it to the next episode?
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Dec 26, 2016 16:24
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To be fair, the Ghost catching the spaceship with his right hand even though he's left-handed so as not to drop the baby monitor was very in keeping with Superman. And the Doctor being the last person in the universe to put together that Superman is Clark Kent was pretty good too.
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Dec 26, 2016 16:41
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| # ? May 9, 2024 21:10 |
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That felt like an RTD episode
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Dec 26, 2016 17:30
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