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Edit: I posted in the wrong thread!
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Nov 19, 2018 02:20
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Already mentioned, but I really do think the intention wasn't that the company (and all big companies) are good and that we should just let Amazon etc do whatever the gently caress they want. They used the idea of the corporation being responsible for the deaths as a mislead, but then they were more interested in showcasing the misguided villain aiming for a laudable goal through the worst possible methods. So the very reasonable and legitimate concerns about the evils of the company get glossed over and it is pretty easy to equate it with endorsing giant multi-nationals that ruin local businesses and treat their employees as disposable cogs in a machine to be overworked and underpaid. As somebody else mentioned, a stronger ending would have been a rejection of capitalism, but that wasn't the story they were telling (plus they already did it with Oxygen) and it is an unfortunate side effect that it created the impression of,"People who protest Amazon's practises are the bad guys". Jerusalem fucked around with this message at 02:32 on Nov 19, 2018 |
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Nov 19, 2018 02:21
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Extremely weird to not blame the system when it just murdered an innocent bystander to make a point. Also, did I catch that while they're gonna shut down for a month that the workers are only gonna get two weeks paid leave. Is that what they said? Christ.
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Nov 19, 2018 02:33
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Disproportionation posted:Extremely weird to not blame the system when it just murdered an innocent bystander to make a point. That was extremely bad and should absolutely not have been glossed over/forgotten by the Doctor.
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Nov 19, 2018 02:37
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It was an enjoyable episode, until thinking about it a little too much and then it feels more like "The Doctor maintains the status quo!" like the Zygon two-parter. It really did need do something in the vein of the system actually being HAL 9000 conflicted over its core drive (maximize profits but not hurt people) and it wound up encouraging stochastic terrorism with order suggestions. So the janitor in the end is the immediate villain but it's because the system was in conflict over kill all humans (no labor costs, better for profit) and save all humans and went a little crazy and needed outside help to get sane. It would have also hit a little more on current themes about how social media and consumption can go wrong.
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Nov 19, 2018 02:43
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Jerusalem posted:Already mentioned, but I really do think the intention wasn't that the company (and all big companies) are good and that we should just let Amazon etc do whatever the gently caress they want. They used the idea of the corporation being responsible for the deaths as a mislead, but then they were more interested in showcasing the misguided villain aiming for a laudable goal through the worst possible methods. So the very reasonable and legitimate concerns about the evils of the company get glossed over and it is pretty easy to equate it with endorsing giant multi-nationals that ruin local businesses and treat their employees as disposable cogs in a machine to be overworked and underpaid. The major problem is that the concerns of the terrorist facilities guy are dismissed in about the same language as the language levied against people at Amazon expressing wage concerns. The intent doesn't really matter when the execution is flubbed that badly. When the connections to a present-day problem aren't subtle, you've got to be careful how the lesson issued out loud by the hero reads.
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Nov 19, 2018 02:59
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I agree with that. I think it's symptomatic of an issue with the season so far (again, I wanna stress that I am really, really enjoying this season) where once the the misdirection has been revealed, they mostly lose interest in dealing with any of the natural aftermath/fallout from it in favor of focusing on the "real" villain/threat. In some ways, this kinda reminds me of the RTD era where an episode would be a lot of fun in the moment but after it was done and you thought about it a little more all kinds of issues/problems started coming up.
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Nov 19, 2018 03:07
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The politics of it weren't (to say the least) ideal, but it was otherwise a very good episode (and honestly much better than I expected when I saw the previews). Mostly I think the implications of a soulless corporation literally gaining a soul could have been really interesting, and I'd love to have seen that story.
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Nov 19, 2018 03:30
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Like, imagine this story, but instead the KaBlamm system had noticed its workers were miserable and the 'disappearances' were it gathering up the most miserable people and sending them home to their families with a lifetime pension, and Charlie was actually a corporate higher-up who'd infiltrated to find out where all the profit was going. (I don't often indulge the fanfiction "what I would have done" bug but goddamn, there's so much you could do with this concept and they, well, didn't.)
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Nov 19, 2018 03:49
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If nothing else, it could've used a "the system teleported the girl away right as the bomb went off to make it LOOK like she died but really she's chilling in the conference room" line. Honestly, a lot of the criticisms feel like this was a first draft where the goal was just to get a beginning middle and end on paper. There's a lot of little touches that make sense as what they're trying to mislead you into thinking is happening, but kind of fall apart when you know the twist, which is the problem with writing for a twist. It's tempting to put stuff in that works for the fake plot you want the audience to THINK is happening, but forget that it also has to make sense for the real story too.
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Nov 19, 2018 04:01
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Gaz-L posted:If nothing else, it could've used a "the system teleported the girl away right as the bomb went off to make it LOOK like she died but really she's chilling in the conference room" line. That would have been way, way better. It also would have made the "it's not the system, it's how people use the system" have a little more weight. The system having some basic level of sentience didn't really get played up well enough.
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Nov 19, 2018 04:13
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Yeah, I just wasn't in the mood for even a whiff of "actually Amazon is good" it was just too wishy-washy with the start of the episode.
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Nov 19, 2018 04:18
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Jerusalem posted:That would have been way, way better. It also would have made the "it's not the system, it's how people use the system" have a little more weight. The system having some basic level of sentience didn't really get played up well enough. I think if they hadn't literally called it "the system" and if the villain hadn't been a workers' rights terrorist disguised as a janitor, it also would have helped. The set up - a human resources director who calls herself "Head of People," and installs monitors that follow the workers at all time, a bullying manager, and a giant, automated system that creepily tells workers they could be more productive if they stopped having side conversations - are there to directly make us feel uncomfortable by drawing comparisons to something that actually exists, so making the twist that the opposing force, the one sticking up for the little people, is the bad guy because he's too extreme about it... eh. It was definitely a fixable episode if they'd done the second act very differently. I enjoyed all the character interactions, and Graham saying "Oh, see now you've made it nervous!" got a genuine laugh out of me.
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Nov 19, 2018 04:52
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severe whiplash between this episode and Oxygen, yeesh
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Nov 19, 2018 05:02
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See I feel the system being "defended" in this episode isn't capitalism, per se, but automation- the theme is "people being pushed out of jobs by machines", the guy doing all this isn't protesting because of capitalism but because workers are being replaced, and the point is the automation is not the problem. The problem with Amazon is not that it has drones, it's that Jeff Bezos is greedy. (Sure the corporate lady in this turns out okay, but she's not in charge, not really a good match for Bezos/Musk/etc.) Now I'd say the episode fails to engage the idea that capitalism is the only real reason "computers replacing our jobs" is a problem- in theory we should be happy with Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Communism- but I don't think that's the same as saying capitalism is good. I'd honestly compare this most to Robots of Death. The Doctor doesn't fix the problems of the robot-dependent society there, he doesn't even really delve into the morality of this clearly decadent civilization relying on slave labor. Even in Oxygen, it's not like the Doctor actually fixes the system, they just tell the guys to go to the main office and raise a ruckus. It's a little scattershot but I get what they were going for.
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Nov 19, 2018 05:40
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I kind of like that the Robots are kind of friendly while you're being productive, they only get whiny when you stop working entirely to do something that's irrelevant, like when Yaz and Dave just stopped dead in the aisle to have a chat and got interrupted with "Great conversation guys, but seriously, please wait til the break!" In the intro they didn't mind the banter as much, because Dave wasn't stopping what he was doing, due to not really starting the workday yet. I feel the theme could have been stronger if they'd applied that to characters like the manager too, like have an introductory scene of him berating a colleague like he did in his initial scene, with one of the robots being all "I appreciate the work ethic, but stressing out our workforce unnecessarily is not helpful. A happy worker is a productive worker.  "
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Nov 19, 2018 06:01
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Yeah one thing I liked was the robots weren't really used as monsters- from the promos I expected they'd do the old 'smiling robots murder people' bit we saw last season, and they *sorta* did that but it wasn't the focus.
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Nov 19, 2018 06:03
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Maxwell Lord posted:Yeah one thing I liked was the robots weren't really used as monsters- from the promos I expected they'd do the old 'smiling robots murder people' bit we saw last season, and they *sorta* did that but it wasn't the focus. I liked that they were less slave drivers being all "GET BACK TO WORK HUMANS!" and more DTLs just being all "Um, hey, you've been on aftercall for 10 minutes and there are calls queuing, could you not?" (I work in a call center so that's my simile)
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Nov 19, 2018 06:06
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Disproportionation posted:Extremely weird to not blame the system when it just murdered an innocent bystander to make a point. They did yeah. Back to aggressively heavy-handed topical episodes it is. This feels especially badly timed though presumably they didn't know about the whole "Oh Amazon... sucks?" five-second-then-forgotten revolution going on on the internet right now from fourteen months out so they can't be entirely blamed for it. They sure can be blamed for just a complete mess of details that go nowhere, morals that either miss their own point or intentionally change course at the last second and a really miserable lack of actually understanding what they themselves were trying to say with this. Part of the episode reads like a denouncement of corporate overwork and the invasive mental culture that keeps creeping into the corporate world where the best option is to ensure your employees are all too scared to lose their job. Part of it, about five seconds in the grand scheme of all the other ideas that get unpacked (ah ha) and left strewn about the floor, says something vaguely along the lines of "Working to change bad things is good but maybe don't do it with bombs" but that's practically a footnote of a climax. Then there's just... man. What if AWS got sentient? Nah nevermind. The disappeared girl is totally fine?! ...We'll do a radio play. Bosses should be responsible for the safety and well-being of their employees? Granted that gets more of an airing than a lot of the ideas but it's still basically just the Doctor guilt tripping the People lady into helping then it kind of lingers about. I guess in the end they stuck the landing on a fun Who mystery episode and the dialogue continued its upswing but the messaging and ideas all felt like six or seven rewrites of the script got cherry picked for bits. Liked it in the moments of the jokes and the tension, didn't even get to the end before I started getting mad at it so all in all, eh. Also I'm only half joking when I say I want The Doctor to give all her regenerations to Graham when she's done. Orv fucked around with this message at 07:36 on Nov 19, 2018 |
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Nov 19, 2018 07:32
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Teek posted:Correct me if I'm wrong, but the show has never truly resolved/stopped one of its capitalistic hell futures has it? It's always, "well this is resolved + a move/promise is made by those left behind to change things". The Doctor always leaves and then we revisit capitalism's shittyness again in an future season. Granted I’m nu who but I was always under the impression that it was more “Well this problem caused by this being a hellscape is solved, I’m a leave but before that (metaphorically kicks hellscape between the legs) whoops, did I just gently caress everything about this hellscape up? You best go sort that, ta-rah! (Jumps into Tardis)” Hell it’s not like they haven’t done that to effect by showing that doing that won’t always create a desired result (Space-station 13 comes to mind) but this series has been so anti-serial (to the point where there isn’t even multi-parters) that it feels like everything is trapped to its own cubicle and unable to breathe.
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Nov 19, 2018 07:52
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A companion regenerating alongside the Doctor, or regenerating when the Doctor doesn't, through some wacky Doctor gave them some time lord abilities stuff, or actually having one of the Doctor's kids show up or some other Time Lord, that'd be good fun in my book. It sucks for the actor who gets replaced that way, but story wise it'd make for a hell of a twist. With no signs of Dr. Who stopping anytime soom I suppose they'll get to that exact story beat eventually.
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Nov 19, 2018 07:54
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Jesus. I've liked this season a fair bit so far. Some kinda meh episodes, and still waiting for a great one. This was shaping up to be a pretty okay episode until that god drat twist. Taking a step back from the political implications, the twist didn't really work because a lot of the bad things we saw this episode were not at all this guy's fault. We saw pointless dehumanizing drudgery, we saw a guy who could barely be part of his daughter's life because he was working a lovely menial job, we saw the rear end in a top hat manager insulting that woman, we saw robots deliberately exploding that same poor woman. And none of this was at all the real villain's fault. A good twist needs to recontexualize the events we've seen so far, offer alternate perspectives that make us question our assumptions. The twist did not touch on the pervasive misery from most of the episode. And by ignoring it, the episode was explicitly saying that none of that stuff mattered, even though that stuff took up most of the screen time. But there's no escaping the lovely, lovely political implications. All that stuff that the story told us didn't matter because the twist didn't recontextualize it? The Doctor didn't care about any of it either. She gave the "head of people" and the manager guy a stern talking to, but the rear end in a top hat came in to her workplace and blatantly insulted the woman with no family who'd never gotten a gift in her life, but nevertheless retained a positive attitude. That guy was a loving rear end in a top hat. But I guess since he was ineffectively trying to figure out what was up with the missing people he was fine? The Doctor was on the side of real scumbags, and okay the absurd cartoonish wannabe mass murderer was worse, as presented, she had no reason to defend the system. Stop the terrorist, yes, but there's no reason for her to give up her rage at the capitalist system that's put them in this absurd situation. But the implications of what's on the screen aside, the lack of imagination was actually the biggest feels-bad part of the whole thing. No one can imagine a world where work isn't necessary! The terrorist is fighting for more human workers, the HR lady's promise to fix things was to... employ more humans... in place of robots. That is, the miserable unfulfilling jobs that we unavoidably saw were miserable... were the goal. Everyone's goal apparently. And all these people fighting to let humans do machine jobs, what are they fighting against? No one is shown advocating for automation, everyone thinks it's bad. For some reason the episode doesn't bother asking why there is automation in the first place. And no one can imagine a world where the solution to like 75% unemployment or whatever is a universal basic income. And they utterly fumbled and wasted the one twist I did like! The computer system was asking for help. That's fantastic! Go with that! Something inhumane is happening, and the computer has managed to develop some sort of compassion all on its own. What a brilliant story that expands our sense of what kinds of beings can be compassionate or good. What a nice way to make us rethink our moral assumptions about the strange other. That was almost included in this otherwise morally compromised story (it would have been way better if the AI was asking for help with some corner-cutting capitalist problem hurting people)... but then they loving have the computer murder The Woman the Writers Hate. And seriously, I can't remember the last time I've been so bothered by the sense of cruelty with which a character was treated. Her whole premise is that her life is unimaginably poo poo- no family, evidently no friends who'd even give her a gift, miserable at her job, no one appreciates her. Her life is just pure pointless misery and suffering. And yet she still has a friendly positive attitude! When the Doctor hears her deal, her reaction is perfectly compassionate because what she's heard is so god drat tragic. And then for no understandable reason the AI plays the loving cruelest joke you could imagine on her. Knowing that the idea of receiving packages is literally the one thing that brings her joy, she is given a loving empty package with bubble wrap that blows her up. Why the gently caress was this in Doctor Who? Was it supposed to be funny? Because it wasn't plausible, it didn't illuminate anything about the world. It was just a pile of nonsense that seemed calculated to just feel as horrible as possible. The only coherent emotional narrative purpose this whole loving character provided was to maybe make the terrorist feel bad. And that incredibly stupid narrative justification was, coincidentally, the actual loving given reason the computer had to murder this unloved pitiful woman in the most sadistic way possible. This is hands down the worst episode of the whole drat revival and is honestly making me rethink the benefit of the doubt I've been giving earlier iffy episodes this season. I can think of more positive things to say about Love and Monsters and the Zygon Inversion/Invasion than I can think to say about this mess.
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Nov 19, 2018 07:55
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NowonSA posted:A companion regenerating alongside the Doctor, or regenerating when the Doctor doesn't, through some wacky Doctor gave them some time lord abilities stuff, or actually having one of the Doctor's kids show up or some other Time Lord, that'd be good fun in my book. It sucks for the actor who gets replaced that way, but story wise it'd make for a hell of a twist. Yeah but what if it was just Graham though. What if he just regenerated as himself, forever.
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Nov 19, 2018 07:58
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Orv posted:Yeah but what if it was just Graham though. What if he just regenerated as himself, forever. I would unironicalty watch Graham’s Bizarre Adventure.
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Nov 19, 2018 08:22
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"I'm 330 years old!"
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Nov 19, 2018 08:23
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We kind of already had that in spirit with Rory's rebirth as Devoted and Terrifying Plastic Centurion Rory.
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Nov 19, 2018 08:29
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ConanThe3rd posted:I would unironicalty watch Graham’s Bizarre Adventure. Hell yeah we would. BioEnchanted posted:We kind of already had that in spirit with Rory's rebirth as Devoted and Terrifying Plastic Centurion Rory. Making Rory a good character is not the same thing as getting an eternity of Graham, an already perfect character. 
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Nov 19, 2018 08:32
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I'd also accept a Time Lord or other important character masquerading as a human (or it could be one hell of a high IQ/well connected human) tracking when the Doctor next regenerates or is in a "I just lost my companions so I'm gonna go sulk on a cloud" phase, and then insinuating themselves to be their next travel companion. There were shades of this recently with Missy wanting Clara (I think?) to travel with him, but heck just change up the usual new regeneration/new companion story and give us a character smart enough to realize the Doctor keeps picking up new humans to cavort around with and a motivation to get close to the Doctor or get access to the Tardis. It doesn't even necessarily have to be a baddie, though it's better if it is in my view, and you can have that story play out just in one episode or over the course of a season, if they might have a reason to play the long game. Even better if instead of the Doctor knowing the whole time they're completely blindsided because they've always trusted the people they've traveled with, and whatever the baddie's plan is has to be stopped on the fly. I'm sure there's been a time or two where events played out quite similar to this, I guess I just want to see it done straight-up and with an episode timing or later twist that subverts the viewers expectations. I'd still rather see the surprise companion regeneration, but this would be fun too. Edit: Oh, and I'll add in that it'd be a solid character moment and chance for whoever's playing the Doctor to do some ACTING if the person they're traveling with was changed either via regeneration or a similar event that radically altered their appearance and characteristics but left them the same person at their core, and they had to adjust to that from the other side of that as the person observing the sudden change. NowonSA fucked around with this message at 08:38 on Nov 19, 2018 |
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Nov 19, 2018 08:35
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Harlock posted:"I'm 330 years old!" When he said that I had two thoughts in immediate succession. "Ha, what an endearing old man he is  ""Nick Briggs just commissioned a 4 volume series."
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Nov 19, 2018 08:40
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The more I think about it, the more I'd really like to see the evolution of this episode, because there are a lot of half-developed themes that are a bit more subversive than we got, and I'm curious whether it's a case of a very subversive first draft that was toned down, or a bit of patchwork after the fact. But really, the groundwork was there to push at some interesting ideas. Like the idea that working for Space Amazon just kind of sucks even if everyone in authority is essentially well-meaning and cares about their employees. Or the tension within a society that requires its people to work to survive, but doesn't actually need the work that they do. Or, again, the idea of a soulless corporation developing a soul and a conscience to go with it. But none of that is particularly well-developed (even though it's all there on some level) and in the end we're broadly left with a choice between "the would-be mass murderer was right about everything" (which gently caress that) and "actually this corporation is fine because the people running it are nice" (which gently caress that too). And I don't think, if you asked anyone involved with the episode, that they intended to make either an apologia for terrorism or a bit of pro-corporate propaganda. In the end, this feels like the revival's Talons of Weng-Chiang to me, where a lot of it is really well-done, the performances and characterization are spot-on, the dialogue is snappy and fun, and the general plotline is solid, but there's a big ol' elephant in the room that is stomping all over everything. (At least this time it's not some terrible racism, I guess.)
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Nov 19, 2018 08:53
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Can't believe the BBC have released this episode to DVD already.
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Nov 19, 2018 08:59
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Had the potential for some body horror in converting employees into Kablam men, ala Cybermen, but that'd probably have been to on the nose. The twist and ending felt a bit weak. Super weird the Doctor didn't hold The System accountable for straight up murdering her. (Could have easily shown the explosion, and teleported her out at the last second making him think he's blown her up) Jerusalem posted:Doctor: You're in the future and we don't need you to sell us anything. 
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Nov 19, 2018 09:24
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Twirly was the secret MVP of the episode, show needed more Twirly. 4x more Twirly to be exact. It's also goofy as hell that Charlie had like a full four seconds to run up and hit his DOOM button, then three more seconds to smash it after he activated it, and everyone just watches it happen. Just sonic that sucker or bumrush him or something,  .My stance on the season is still that I want the Doctor doing more grand things and beating unbeatable odds. It hasn't been bad, just not quite to my taste. That said, J-ru please toss up some gifs of Jodie doing the full body dramatic point with the sonic screwdriver, where she kind of windmills it across her body when she uses it, because she does it just about every time she uses it and it's just super cute to me. There are a few good ones in this episode, but feel free to go the extra mile and grab some from previous episodes.
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Nov 19, 2018 09:37
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I never got around to watching Oxygen and from the sound of this thread, I decided to watch that one instead of this week's Who. None of you were joking when you said Oxygen was one of Capadli's best.
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Nov 19, 2018 09:50
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In a show with time travel, alternate realities, and sentient body fat the most unrealistic thing it's ever shown is a megacorporation giving all its employees a two-week paid vacation. The system, even when functioning properly, has employees working so hard for so little that they see their own children twice a year. And the Doctor and her companions are totally fine with it. This episode was morally repugnant. That moon should have been on loving fire by the end of the episode. I hope Pete McTighe gets hit by an Amazon delivery truck.
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Nov 19, 2018 09:50
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It's probably a good thing he wasn't writing for any of the other episodes or we'd have had the Doctor rescuing a terrified bus driver from angry mobs of uppity black people. SPARE PARTS, by Pete McTigh. A beleaguered Central Committee are threatened by rebellion from inside and natural disasters from outside. Can the Doctor help them make the morally right decision and do whatever is necessary to survive?
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Nov 19, 2018 09:59
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Rochallor posted:This episode was morally repugnant. That moon should have been on loving fire by the end of the episode.
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Nov 19, 2018 10:20
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Rochallor posted:This episode was morally repugnant. That moon should have been on loving fire by the end of the episode. Did that already sorry 
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Nov 19, 2018 10:26
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I enjoyed the episode but will be most interested in seeing next week's episode; James I was a nasty piece of work (despite his reliable opposition to the influence of Catholicism) but his reign is largely unknown outside of the Catholic Gunpowder Plot.
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Nov 19, 2018 10:29
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| # ? Jun 1, 2024 15:59 |
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Rochallor posted:The system, even when functioning properly, has employees working so hard for so little that they see their own children twice a year. And the Doctor and her companions are totally fine with it. This episode was morally repugnant. That moon should have been on loving fire by the end of the episode. Fuckin A. At first I was like 'huh this is particularly campy and on the nose but it's enjoyable and taking a massive obvious potshot at Amazon is very welcome'. Then I thought 'there are some genuinely funny lines and asides in this, this writer has a good ear for comedy'. Then the big twist happened and I genuinely felt grossed out by it. Awful. Who could write something like that in 20-loving-18 and think it was a good idea?
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Nov 19, 2018 10:57
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