Jerusalem posted:

That said, didn't he take a writer's room approach so while every episode might have an individual writer's name on it, there will be some uniformity to the episodes as everybody was pitching in, working on ideas, adding dialogue/coming up with alternate views on stuff?

Jerusalem posted:

That said, didn't he take a writer's room approach so while every episode might have an individual writer's name on it, there will be some uniformity to the episodes as everybody was pitching in, working on ideas, adding dialogue/coming up with alternate views on stuff?

Davros1 posted:

Looking at BF's Torchwood page, and it looks like they're bumping the standalone stories up from 6 releases to 12 next year.

dsub posted:

The writing in this series is getting to me. The main cast are excellent and give it a real boost, but it feels like it's written for the radio, and not well. I could follow it perfectly without the pictures because everything happening is so painstakingly explained, and all I'd really be missing is a few visual gags. It wouldn't need so much exposition if what was actually happening made any kind of sense, but unfortunately the writer is real smart and wants to subvert our expectations all the time at the expense of making an entertaining, rewarding show.

For example in this episode you have a climactic scene where everyone's tooled up like Ghost Busters to take out a spider monster in the ballroom of a hotel. You've been built up to expect the final showdown, some danger, protagonists in peril and a lucky escape. You're keen for this poo poo now. What you're given instead is a spider dry-humping a wall while the cast stand by looking bewildered. It's then explained to us that the spider is too big and will die anyway, even though it was just as big before when it was literally running around murdering everyone. It's a colossal bait-and-switch and an utter disappointment.

Or, when they go down into the tunnels it's revealed that the spiders are cocooning people for... no reason. We were led to believe that they were eating people, but now we're told they can't, and they're just confused, and "just as scared of us as we are of them," which is deeply unsatisfying. I get that it's a funny line because parents say that to kids all the time, but that line would have worked so much better had it been delivered by not-Trump to his bodyguard just before he went into the bathroom, here it just undermines the threat the whole show has been selling us on up until now.

I love all of the character stuff they're doing with Ryan and Graham, I love Jodie Whittaker's Doctor. A great deal of the asides are fantastic, but the structure seems like a hatchet job.

Narsham posted:

I'm not saying your take is completely wrong, but I am interested in how you can complain that the new series explains everything too much while at the same time not identifying that the monster wasn't suffocating on the wall, it was what fired a gun. And he is set up as such from the very beginning. The giant mutant spiders were restricted to Sheffield, meaning that they aren't the titular Arachnids in the UK. It's becoming increasingly clear why we won't have Daleks this series: They'd distract from the profile of real monstrosity being constructed.

dsub posted:

"The real monster is us" is a more tired trope than the Daleks, and not nearly as fun.

dsub posted:

I understand that but I think it's quite a charitable reading if you don't mind me saying so. That guy was an rear end in a top hat and a scaredy-cat, but a monster? The spiders are literally murdering people. He doesn't get his comeuppance,

Whybird posted:

It could just be that a theme of this season is "assholes get away with it". We're out of the Moffat years now, not everything is part of a convoluted puzzlebox.

Astroman posted:

Actually so far this is a theme isn't it?

Tim Shaw: zapped back to his home planet

Ilin the Race Guy: swans off, no consequences for being a dick

Krasko: sent to the past or something

President Bigly: goes on with his businesses and presidential campaign

It seems a bit much to assume Chibnall is having every single rear end in a top hat get away with it at the end of each episode without setting something up for later in the season.

Whybird posted:

It could just be that a theme of this season is "assholes get away with it". We're out of the Moffat years now, not everything is part of a convoluted puzzlebox.

Spatula City posted:

I sure hope so, it would be kind of cool if in lieu of a series arc, the finale ties a bunch of disparate threads together. It's just hard to imagine Chibnall isn't doing this on purpose. alternately, he could deliberately be characterizing the Doctor as still finding her footing, and there's finally a big moment where the Doctor definitively handles an antagonist. The Doctor hasn't yet met with serious sexist treatment in Earth's past, so that's going to be very interesting, too.

It's weird because I don't think the writing is BAD, but it's lacking structure and polish in the way a lot of Moffat episodes have. on my wishlist for next season I'd like to see Chibnall hand more episodes off to guests, and also not frontload the episodes written by him.

also I haven't seen much yet to justify why the Doctor should have three companions. I defended the move before the season because I saw potential, but it's creating some weird problems I didn't anticipate.

Here's the biggest - other than the premiere, so far nothing's been particularly fatal in consequence. With four characters with plot armor, who all need moments, it's difficult to also develop guest characters doomed to die. so nobody dies in Ghost Monument despite the stated risks. Rosa obviously isn't one of those "risk of terrible death" episodes, but Arachnids in the UK is, and of the three confirmed deaths, only one is a speaking character, and none of the victims ever meet the Doctor and companions. Once the group gets together, nobody dies, nobody's even injured.

Strom Cuzewon posted:

You should probably see a doctor if you're growing cock(s) in unwanted places.

Senor Tron posted:

Anyone else think the Doctor was a little bit tone deaf, emphasizing to them that she couldn't protect them. Pretty obvious when the first time they met ended with the companions wife/grandmother dying.

Bicyclops posted:

"The real monster is us" is trope that can be updated to show what about us, specifically, is being criticized as monstrous, though (e.g. the timely white supremacist time traveler and the corporation that cuts corners to meet quarterly profits). I'd agree they didn't necessarily stick the landing with the spider episode, but making the humans the bad guys is something that still has a lot of mileage in it.

Box of Bunnies posted:

Torchwood will be taking on some returning Who monsters in their monthly range next year, including the Big Finish debut of...

jivjov posted:

The slitheen have been in BF stuff before. Specifically the Lady Christina Box

Timby posted:

The_Doctor posted:

Yeah, I think Moffat ‘ruined’ us as viewers. We’re all expecting another ‘wait, he wasn’t wearing a jacket a second ago, was he?’ type mystery and that’s probably not going to happen.

jivjov posted:

A) swept off without knowing that's what's gonna happen (see: Ian and Barbara for the earliest examples)

Fair Bear Maiden posted:

I feel like I'm the only person who watched Daleks in Manhatthan and didn't think "those are penises!"

Though it was a bad practical effect, yes.

Bicyclops posted:

I've been rewatching the Davies years, and one thing Moffat was good at (when he was good) was structure. His episodes tend to have bookends and repeating phrases that come back with new, sometimes horrible meaning. Sometimes, though, his characters felt like props as vehicles to tell that story.

I think Chibnalls is better with character. It feels like he'd rather spend a little quiet time with real conversation at, sometimes, the expense of a good punctuation mark at the end of a story.

I think the former has more dramatic payoff when it works, but the latter makes for more even writing, and let's the companions grow into people we like more naturally.

jivjov posted:

The Radio Free Skaro guys made a really good observation that it's really a good thing for the Doctor to hammer that point home. It's letting the companions give informed consent to the hazards of traveling. The Tim Shaw situation happened such that the companions (and Grace) just got swept up in the middle of things, and the events of Ghost Monument and Rosa (the former very heavily so) were not adventures embarked on by choice; the scene at the end of Arachnids, on the other hand, is the companions proactively saying "yes, let's keep traveling together"

Contrast this to the end of Rose where the Doctor just says "hey this ship goes anywhere....and anywhen" and off Rose goes into mortal peril. Companions are frequently either A) swept off without knowing that's what's gonna happen (see: Ian and Barbara for the earliest examples), or B) promised "let's go see the universe, it'll be fun!"

Scenario B is usually justified by way of saying the Doctor and co. have plenty of non hazardous adventures between televised episodes...but that's not what we see on TV. The stories we actually see are almost universally fraught with mortal peril. It's honestly kinda refreshing to have the Doctor really solidly emphasize that.

To your specific point, yeah this group of companions probably knows the risks better than others would...but it's still nice to know the companions have been able to offer informed consent to the dangers of being Team TARDIS.

dsub posted:

I understand that but I think it's quite a charitable reading if you don't mind me saying so. That guy was an rear end in a top hat and a scaredy-cat, but a monster? The spiders are literally murdering people. He doesn't get his comeuppance, either, which is disappointing, and as others have pointed out shooting the spider was probably the humane thing to do despite the show awkwardly trying to suggest it wasn't. It was also a mercy not enjoyed by the victims of the spiders, who were all suffocated in cocoons.

dsub posted:

"The real monster is us" is a more tired trope than the Daleks, and not nearly as fun.

Narsham posted:

So you bought the line of bullshit Robertson offered? His company, his decisions, entirely his responsibility that these mutant spiders came into being and then killed people. And his concern is covering it all up, not making certain that similar things aren't happening at his other properties, looking to provide survivor's benefits for the relatives of those the spiders killed, or doing anything much at all that involves ethical behavior or caring about other people.

He's worse than the spiders. They killed because they were hungry and confused and scared. He just wants to cut corners to make as much money as possible and deliberately ignores corrupt practices or "outsources" his responsibilities to others.