|
I thought that was completely fine, glad to see Graham avenge Grace's death and save the planet, proving pissed off old bus drivers are the real heroes.
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2018 22:25
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 1, 2024 11:47 |
|
|
Yeah, I thought that was a perfectly fine sci fi episode of Who tbh. Didnt post during like I usually do because I didnt check the time and it started about half an hour before I thought it was going to. Not a great season finale, but a decent enough episode.
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2018 22:40
|
|
|
SiKboy posted:Not a great season finale, but a decent enough episode. That puts it above most season finals tbh
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2018 23:07
|
|
|
I honestly wonder if the show would be better off doing a Year of Specials format permanently. Just do 2-3 feature-length episodes each year instead of 10-13 45 minute episodes. I’d rather have less Who each year than long year+ gaps between seasons. Not to mention how gaps like this just destroy any momentum and enthusiasm you’ve gained among the fanbase.
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2018 23:22
|
|
|
It didn’t feel anything like a season finale, just part 2 of the season opener.
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2018 23:23
|
|
|
"The planet's attacking us psychically, by 'eck I have a headache" I was all gearing up for some frog-verse level crazyness, instead I got a mild hangover. Completely wasted opportunity for some good old sci-fi trippiness. Graham's understated seriousness about his plan to kill Tim Shaw was pretty great though. I'm still not yet at the point where I'm not surprised by Bradley Walsh.
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2018 23:34
|
|
|
Didn't they specifically deny the 2020 rumor a couple weeks ago? Or am I going crazy?
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2018 00:02
|
|
|
See I liked it. I'm typically pretty hostile to apocalyptic episodes and omnipotent beings - the lackthereof is one of the things I enjoyed about eps 1-9. But the weird dance around the fringes of coherence really appealed to me. The climactic scene where the good alien guy was all like JIGGAWATTS, I was like "hm I don't quite get what's happening here, but that's kind of the idea and I'm ok with that." I guess what I'm saying is that imo if a story is going to be apocalyptic, it should be weird, which this was. I also felt as if it was a good cap to Graham and Ryan's series-long character arcs, but Yaz was sorta left out.
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2018 00:02
|
|
|
Diabolik900 posted:Didn't they specifically deny the 2020 rumor a couple weeks ago? Or am I going crazy? I remember that too.
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2018 00:04
|
|
|
That didn't feel like a season finale. But looking forward to the New Years Day episode.
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2018 00:10
|
|
|
gently caress off Chibnall, seriously. Now if Jodie had some other film commitments or something, that's fine. This just seems like bad management. Filming internationally is fun, and helps build the brand to a degree, but at this stage, I'd be more than happy with more UK quarries and a Tardis centered bottle episode to help cut down on time and budget. Basically it just amounts to... TRY HARDER. Don't be afraid to stretch your brains a bit. Stick all four cast members in a plain white room with a loving classic monster. That'd be a hell of an episode to possibly explore their dynamics and flesh out one of the monsters. Or hell, stick with just the four of them and make it a Zygon episode. Teek fucked around with this message at 01:46 on Dec 10, 2018 |
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2018 01:33
|
|
|
Jodie is absolutely wonderful as The Doctor, and Graham is a super fun character, but I'm not fond of this Chibnall fellow. Going through the revival series, Doctor Who always felt ambitious. It'd fall flat on its face sometimes, but at least it was trying. I'm even the rare sort who enjoyed the hell out of Matt's second season even if the third was blah. But it was doing something. This is just kinda'... there. It's fine. I'll keep watching. But it feels like we're on cruise control. Edit: Also, play 13's theme when she's being clever at the episode's climax, you cowards! 
LividLiquid fucked around with this message at 01:52 on Dec 10, 2018 |
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2018 01:41
|
|
|
The really bizarre thing to me is that while I appreciate Chibnall trying to strip things back and not be so focused on big overarching stories.... the very best thing he has ever written (starring David Tennant and Jodie Whittaker no less!) was the first season of Broadchurch, which was focused on a big overarching story! I agree that last week's episode would have worked better as a season finale than this one (outside of some of the Graham/Ryan stuff this week). Tim Shaw I like the idea of on paper - a cheating loser who thinks he is supercool but gets trounced, undercut and mocked whenever he has to actually face somebody on an even footing - but as a returning ultimate bad guy for the season he was a big letdown. That said, I was a big fan of Ryan and Graham standing together in judgement of Tim Shaw and really dug the line,"We sentence you.... to life." The New Years Special looks like it is going to be the "real" finale of this season, I really hope it is good because it's going to be a LOOOOOONG year+ wait after that for a new episode. Jerusalem fucked around with this message at 02:14 on Dec 10, 2018 |
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2018 01:53
|
|
|
I'm hoping they will at least use the extra time to assess fan reaction to this series and correct some of the egregious stuff like forgetting to write endings. It really felt like they were super rushed this season and didn't get to give any of the scripts as many rewrites as they should have.
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2018 02:04
|
|
|
Honestly, if I had known they weren't going to do another year I'd have just waited to watch series 11 until next year- if nobody can keep this show running for 2 consecutive years, there is something seriously wrong with how it is produced. The previous gaps made it easier to skip all of Capaldi until it was done so I could finally catch up, but everyone else I used to watch this show with stopped even trying. At least it was a great viewing run when it was time to catch up. (plus being forewarned about Kill the Moon helped a ton.)
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2018 02:42
|
|
|
This feels weird because I really like this Doctor, I like all the companions, but I don't find myself wanting to watch any of these episodes again.
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2018 03:05
|
|
|
Moffat spoke in an interview earlier this year about how the production budget that Doctor Who gets isn't - in his opinion - in line with how much money it generates for the BBC, and that the show runs a risk of being outshone by the quality of premium television being produced all over the world now. Others have spoken before about how it is a genuinely good thing that Doctor Who profits feed back into the production of other BBC shows (it's how they could afford to relaunch Doctor Who in the first place, from memory?) but now that Moffat is gone, Chibnall has produced a season with only ten episodes AND we're still getting a one-year production gap anyway, I am more convinced that a big part of the problem is outside of the showrunner's hands. RTD was able to reliably produce a full season each year, but the show also looked a lot cheaper and hasn't aged well in a lot of ways, and I think we'd be likely to see these same issues if he was still the showrunner now. It also sucks that this conversation is dominating talk so soon after the airing of the final, and I wouldn't be surprised if that is going on all over the internet. It does seem like the BBC tried to hide the announcement behind advertising the New Year's Special, and I don't think that has worked at all.
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2018 03:06
|
|
|
The worst part of the terrible attempt at finale greater stakes was there was already better stakes established with the Stenza. The Doctor stops their would-be king. Will the his people be upset for him? A whole warrior clan attacking? Ties into the seasons family theme even. Well, he hasn't actually spoken to them, and doesn't seem to care. It was established there's people (dead dude's sister) trapped on the Stenza world, we should get around to saving them. Then here "oh, people trapped in stasis by the Stenza!" but it's new people with no emotional connection. There was the lady whose wife was killed and her people are being ethnically cleansed by the Stenza. Okay, so now the Doctor is going to take on an entire planet cleansing army. A grand scale and we already don't like them. Or we could introduce different planets and a halfheartedly mention a different threat that never actually gets established as a real threat except for saying it's supposed to be a threat (like most of them this season). Edit: Also, 1) the Earth was in and out so quick did anyone even notice there was peril? 2) Yaz's total contribution to the episode was Neural Blocker carrying case. She was a pocket. Like, one of those little Fob pockets inside your other pocket that are only there because of tradition, because people don't carry fob watches anymore. Which, incidentally, might be the only way to retroactively characterize her. 3) It the first time they've had a police officer in the police box and they forgot characterize her so hard that they forgot that too. HelleSpud fucked around with this message at 03:28 on Dec 10, 2018 |
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2018 03:15
|
|
|
Also are there other Stenza? The way Tim Shaw talks about wanting to be their leader indicates there are, but he spends 3400 years on bad memory planet with the powers of a God but never calls them up? Plus the way he talks about being the repository of all their knowledge and achievements makes it seem like he is the only one left ala the assassins from Ghosts in the Punjab - did his species get wiped out in his 3400 year absence? Was that what the coalition of species that sent the ships to the planet was built out of originally? Overthrowing the Stenza occupation mentioned in The Ghost Monument? Which is why Tim Shaw turned those planets into crystal trophies to lord it up over those who defeated his people? But I don't think that ever gets mentioned outside of,"I want revenge on those who wronged me"? The show this season was at its best with character interactions and building relationships/bonds, but it really suffered from leaving so much unsaid or unexplored. A lot is implied or can be insinuated from things said and done, but like I mentioned earlier in the thread I think the show has suffered from building up stuff only to twist it around to something else, but then largely forgetting about all the unanswered questions generated by the decoy storyline. I am going to be pretty irritated if the answer to the question at the end of the trailer for the New Year's Special is,"Yes they have a name, it's the Jurgh-hada-ba'reen, an ancient predator creature we must now stop! I must have mentioned it to you before, right?" instead of the very obvious Edit: HelleSpud posted:2) Yaz's total contribution to the episode was Neural Blocker carrying case. She was a pocket. Like, one of those little Fob pockets inside your other pocket that are only there because of tradition, because people don't carry fob watches anymore. Which, incidentally, might be the only way to retroactively characterize her. As somebody who has lamented Yaz getting the short end of the stick characterization-wise often during this season, I do want to defend her (not so much in this episode) in that they have done something somewhat refreshing this season by making her a police officer who gets to showcase a lot of the skills police officers have to (or should) develop outside of the typical,"Well then well then well then"/twirling nightstick stuff they normally get. She calms down the distressed, puts people at ease, talks to them to get information about a situation useful for its resolution etc. Jerusalem fucked around with this message at 03:32 on Dec 10, 2018 |
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2018 03:28
|
|
|
Which would be fine police characterizing if it wasn't already the generic companion trait suite
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2018 03:37
|
|
|
I agree that 13 should pick Ace back up so she and Yaz can get into heated arguments about authoritarianism, while Yaz's mom hopes that perhaps they're dating  Also Jamie is there too, hanging out with Ryan and Graham and just generally being great.
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2018 03:42
|
|
|
Big Mean Jerk posted:I honestly wonder if the show would be better off doing a Year of Specials format permanently. Just do 2-3 feature-length episodes each year instead of 10-13 45 minute episodes. I’d rather have less Who each year than long year+ gaps between seasons. The last time we did that, all the episodes were bad! Honestly, thinking back to Chibnall's silurians episode in Season 5, that had more going on in terms of stakes and escalation than this episode did. I was actually really, really hoping Graham would double cross the team and kill Tim Shaw, because at least it'd be something!
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2018 03:45
|
|
|
There were a lot of interesting concepts that never really got fleshed out for that episode. Tim Shaw was weirdly one of the weakest parts of the premiere, so the revelation that he's been sitting around for thousands of years trying to get direct revenge on the Doctor kind of fell flat. It would be sort of like if the Mox of Balhoon had tried to deliver some kind of Davros-esque monologue about his dastardly plans at the end of a Russell T. Davies season. His whole "It's your fault! You created me! I destroyed all these civilizations just to get at you!" didn't make a lot of sense, because it was the most convoluted plan in the Universe.Jerusalem posted:
Yeah. It's kind of cool to watch the Doctor slowly admit that she needs friends, to watch Graham and Ryan discover that they can still be a family together, and that they have more in common than just a shared grief. Meanwhile, Yas is coming to terms with her own family, finding a place for her good skills that her crummy police department has rejected, and and connecting with an schoolmate of hers. It often doesn't matter that they don't stick the landing or that some of the details don't add up, but boy, it's hard to get past this one. "It was me, the Tooth Monster with a joke name, the whole time! I'm uh....... pulling a The Pirate Planet... kind of... I think? And it's also a weapon, maybe? Also I've trapped some people, and tricked some guys who are sort of Anthony Fremont from The Twilight Zone, or like, maybe Jace from Magic cards into crashing all these ships into my cornfield and then erasing their brains... and... gently caress, man, I don't know. I'm super high, lol"
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2018 03:48
|
|
|
Jerusalem posted:
Jaime just wanders back onto the TARDIS when the team lands in his era. "Oh, hey, Doctor. Ah, you're a lass now, that's fine. Can we go and pick up Zoe ?"
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2018 03:52
|
|
|
I enjoyed the season finale quite a bit, even if the end got a little handwavey. It was the kind of goofy space opera I was in the mood for. That said, yeah, 2020 is some bullshit. It's a hard show to produce, I get that, really I do, but something's really jamming the pipeline at this point.
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2018 04:04
|
|
|
I cannot possibly take Tim Shaw seriously as a compelling supervillain and I don't think Chris Chibnall quite knows what to do with Yaz as a character (it's very telling that her best moments were in episodes written by other people) but I enjoyed that. Goofball plotting with complex and interesting characters appears to be the order of the day right now, and I know that's not satisfying for some but I couldn't be happier. That 2020 announcement had better have just accidentally left off "er after we bring you another full season in 2019 of course!" though.
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2018 04:18
|
|
|
HelleSpud posted:2) Yaz's total contribution to the episode was Neural Blocker carrying case. She was a pocket. Like, one of those little Fob pockets inside your other pocket that are only there because of tradition, because people don't carry fob watches anymore. Which, incidentally, might be the only way to retroactively characterize her. It's even worse than that, because the Doctor and Yaz don't seem to suffer any ill effects from taking the blockers off. Like, the Doctor gets a headache and then them put them back on. It was built up like there would be some sort of stakes or consequences to removing them, but... And there was a whole scene to introduce the neck communicators. The neck communicators that are used once. In a scene where the Doctor is using a control panel that probably has some sort of space PA system. Another classic episode, right up there with the one from Series 3 with the Olympics and the one where Amy turns into a doll. At least we got Graham shutting down the Doctor's "if you try to kill him you'll be just as bad as him, a weird tooth monster and committer of multiple genocides who's killed like hundreds of people" nonsense. As someone who basically hated this season, I would like to propose something called the "Colony Sarff Test." For those of you who don't remember, Colony Sarff was a very minor bad guy in the Series 9 premiere, coming some distance after Davros, the Master, and the Daleks. He basically had two things going for him: a fairly cool effect where he turns into a bunch of snakes, and an off-hand bit of dialogue that mentions that said bunch of snakes function as a democracy, which has fascinating implications. My argument is that most things in a series of Doctor Who should be more interesting that the quarternary villian in a middling Moffat script. So here, by my reckoning, are the things in Series 11 that are better than Colony Sarff: -the music -all of Demons of the Punjab -all of It Takes You Away -perhaps half of Rose before it turns into detective work about bus routes -mayyybe bits of The Tsuranga Conundrum if I'm squinting and in a good move -Graham, in general, as a character -Grace, minus her dying -Alan Cumming -the scene between Whitaker and Cumming in the Witchfinders Which puts at least 6 full episodes, Ryan, Yaz, and frankly the Doctor this season behind a snakes-man from like the sixth-best episode from two seasons ago. I've no doubt that they're all fine actors, and they have shone a bit from time to time, but they're given nothing to work with. Absolutely nothing. Literally the only thing Doctor Who can do well is stick the Doctor and a bad guy in a room and have them argue with each other. That happened, what, twice? It's good and it's cheap, and they do it twice. I mean, this series was loving terrible so I honestly don't care if it's a year til the next one, but Chibnall, if you want to save money, find an old building, put a guy in a rubber suit and have him argue with the Doctor. How do you gently caress that up? Christ, I almost wish Gatiss was in charge of this show.
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2018 04:26
|
|
|
Waiting until 2020 for new Doctor Who is garbage and if it means sacrificing some of the film quality to produce more of them, they should. One of the control consoles had some kind of spinning thing that was like, obviously weird paperweight someone had bought at a Spencer's Gifts, and it probably would have been less noticeable if the rest of the set hadn't looked so nice. Puppet frogs all the way down.
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2018 05:00
|
|
|
I felt a little guilty for hoping during the "use the TARDIS to materialize the uncompressed planets" bit that all the sparks and explosions was their way of doing a big refurbish of the console set. Maybe it's 2020 because they want to spend all that time making a 21st Century version of 8's console room so Graham can put his feet up and watch some telly between adventures?
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2018 05:22
|
|
|
I just realized that Restoration England was less racist than the American South. This season was good with character stuff but the stories themselves were kinda just there. Though weren't people saying they didn't want long, season arcs anymore, more episode by episode stories?
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2018 06:10
|
|
|
twistedmentat posted:This season was good with character stuff but the stories themselves were kinda just there. Though weren't people saying they didn't want long, season arcs anymore, more episode by episode stories? The Monkey's Paw is terrible.
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2018 06:13
|
|
|
Gravastars posted:The last time we did that, all the episodes were bad! Sure, but it was Tennant and RTD running on fumes, the format was schedule-mandated instead of purpose built, and nearly everyone was just tired of 10, RTD, and Murray Gold at that point. If you knew well in advance that you’d be writing for that format and schedule and built your “season” around it the result would be much better. Also,  is solid if you turn the tv off with 30 seconds left.
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2018 06:47
|
|
|
Shorter Doctor Who fandom: most of these episodes desperately needed some extra thought and a few more drafts and rewrites. Also, we are outraged that the next series won't air until 2020.
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2018 07:05
|
|
|
twistedmentat posted:Though weren't people saying they didn't want long, season arcs anymore, more episode by episode stories? A lot of the complaints weren't about the fact it was just a series of mostly unconnected stories, but that some found the stories we did get lacked strong resolutions or abandoned story ideas. Personally I don't think there was a really bad episode all season (Kerblam! has a horrible, hopefully completely unintended message/moral) but even the stories I thought were the best (The Woman Who Fell To Earth, Demons of the Punjab, and It Takes You Away) had some pretty glaring third act problems. Of the three I listed, I think that It Takes You Away is the most "complete" story and would have fit in nicely with the best stuff of the RTD or Moffat era. More like that, please.
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2018 07:37
|
|
|
Narsham posted:Shorter Doctor Who fandom: most of these episodes desperately needed some extra thought and a few more drafts and rewrites. Also, we are outraged that the next series won't air until 2020. See, this is what the fans would like to communicate to the producers. But the producers need to be lucky or dig real deep to pick up this view from among the hundreds of twitters still complaining about how a  Doctor ruined the show.
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2018 08:14
|
|
|
The best thing about this episode for me was the production design; It all looked really good. Mark Addy’s ship, the ship graveyard, on the edifice itself. There’s a shot where they’re looking under the edifice, and just for a moment, it looks really unknowable and alien, and it’s great. But the story itself was incredibly slow and just not very interesting. Re-using a major plot point from The Pirate Planet, it managed to make it dull. If Tim Shaw was so hell bent on squishing Earth small, why not start there? Why do the other 6 first? The plot point about the planet giving you headaches or something seems to just get forgotten, and it seems to only be setup so the Doctor and Yaz can take the metal plaster off for 30 seconds, after that it’s forgotten (see all the people getting released at the end). The Doctor knows the Ux are dimensional engineers, why would she even need to explain the TARDIS being bigger on the inside to them? It’s not even messy, it’s just... eh. It exists, but barely.
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2018 10:39
|
|
|
twistedmentat posted:I just realized that Restoration England was less racist than the American South. This is probably accurate though. Not that they weren't racist, but it was a less virulent type of racism. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/what-to-read/hundreds-africans-tudor-england-none-slaves-black-tudors-miranda/
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2018 11:05
|
|
|
I thought Yaz was going to get some character development for a second when the neural blockers came off, in fact that would have been the perfect time to give her something interesting to do. The script seems to be heading that way: Yaz bravely accepts that taking off the blockers is necessary and is prepared for what might happen... and then nothing. Absolutely nothing. She has been shamefully underserved this season. I could go on and on about how poor last night's episode was as a season climax, but to be honest, once the title came onscreen and announced this had been written by Chibnall, I knew what was coming, and I wasn't surprised.
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2018 11:15
|
|
|
Honestly I feel like what this series needed was a bit more of a shake-up of the now quite old formula for Doctor Who that's been around since the show came back. There are a lot of things that the show still does that started in the RTD era and never really went away, like always having modern-day companions, having the "Modern Day, Future Story, Historical Story" pattern to start the series, and having most historical stories be focused around meeting a specific historical figure. I wish the show would get away from some - if not all - of that stuff, but instead it feels like it's almost trapped by it now. We get things like historical episodes that could have worked with no science fiction element, and a returning villain for the finale for no other reason than that's what you do in a Doctor Who series finale. The elements where they have changed things up - no two-parters and not focusing on a series-long arc - only seem to have made things worse. I was hoping that Chibnall would really shake up the formula when he took over, but it really does feel like he's playing it safe in a lot of ways.
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2018 11:18
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 1, 2024 11:47 |
|
|
Narsham posted:Shorter Doctor Who fandom: most of these episodes desperately needed some extra thought and a few more drafts and rewrites. Also, we are outraged that the next series won't air until 2020. Amazing.
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2018 12:22
|
|
