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I just didn't feel anything for anyone who died. The "annoying person starts making a bunch of noise when they all know they need to be quiet so they don't die" trope is too played out.
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Jan 13, 2020 03:47
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| # ? Jun 3, 2024 11:43 |
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I was ready to come in here and talk about how much I really enjoyed the episode despite its flaws and how it felt Third Doctor as all get out... ...and I'm...wrong? 
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Jan 13, 2020 03:50
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So they teleported away, leaving behind the terrorist and her evil corporate mother to face the hoard of mutants all by themselves. Boy, wouldn't it be real handy if the Doctor had a means to travel through space and time to save them right before they get killed wouldn't it?  What a first draft of an episode.
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Jan 13, 2020 03:58
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Earth has been destroyed more times than Gallifrey!  Also Squirrel Girl's makeup job was straight outta 80s Doctor Who.
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Jan 13, 2020 04:04
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CobiWann posted:...and I'm...wrong? If you liked it then you liked it, you don't have to dislike something if everybody else did! Remember the first rule of Doctor Who fandom: We can't agree on anything!
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Jan 13, 2020 04:12
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I'm going to say that he was hallucinating that entire story so I don't have to come to grips with the fact that that episode happened.
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Jan 13, 2020 04:15
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Jerusalem posted:If you liked it then you liked it, you don't have to dislike something if everybody else did! Remember the first rule of Doctor Who fandom: We can't agree on anything! that's the SECOND rule
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Jan 13, 2020 04:19
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This episode reminded me of the Concepts! song from MST3K. Why be coherent when you can throw something else in?
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Jan 13, 2020 04:58
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Hoo boy that was a real stinker.
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Jan 13, 2020 06:45
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The whole episode reminded me of a bunch of Davison and C.Bakes stories all thrown together, both visually and story-wise. But I’m honestly just going to join the ‘what an absolute mess’ chorus.  There’s base under siege, and scraps of Alien/Aliens in there, and literally the Mysterious Planet twist again (if this is Siberia, is there still a giant robot pottering about in London’s underground remains?). Lots of pointless back and forthing, along with the worst sin of writing: I Don’t Care What Happens To These People. Plus it’s topped off with one of the most cringey CLIMATE CHANGE BAD messages at the end.
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Jan 13, 2020 07:17
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It was... an episode. But it makes me want to rant a moment - As an American, when I have to wait more than a year for a piddly half-season of a show, it's maddening. We used to get 26 episodes of ST:TNG every year like clockwork. Matt Smith, my personal favorite, lost a whole season because of that nonsense, what was it, 16 months total wasted with all the delays? This was another several-month slip in scheduling, if you count first episodes of each season. On top of that, now we have only 10 episodes + maybe special a season (nice way to cheat out of it this time), instead of 13 + definite special. That's less than 1 per month. If you have to release like that, make drat sure you pick the best, tightest, most highly polished scripts, and then go over them and beat them into submission until they become even better and more highly polished. There is NO room or excuse for fluff or episodes you may go "meh" about.
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Jan 13, 2020 10:37
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So why couldn't they read russian? I didn't mind it, a filler episode on par with that P'ting one, and I'm looking forward to the reaction to that POLITICS THEY PUT IN MY DR WHO SHOW!
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Jan 13, 2020 10:44
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There were a few tiddly tiny bits I really liked : "such your thumb til you stop hallucinatinf, and don't worry, they're not real bats" is a great line, and the idea of a virus with a bizarre yet very specific progression is pretty funny. I also liked old guys "I've got two questions.... Sorry to ask them together" bit. It's earnest and genuine, but also dark as gently caress. Just a shame that there was nothing actually in the episode that had anything to do with either of these, and the dude's horrible torture and merciful death happens entirely offscreen.
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Jan 13, 2020 11:52
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That was horrifyingly bad.
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Jan 13, 2020 12:27
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Orphan 55 gifs:          For a show that has really done a great job on its visual look since Chibnal took over, that sure is a... uhh... costume I guess 
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Jan 13, 2020 12:44
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CobiWann posted:I was ready to come in here and talk about how much I really enjoyed the episode despite its flaws and how it felt Third Doctor as all get out... I also loved the episode, let us be "wrong" together 
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Jan 13, 2020 13:15
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CobiWann posted:I was ready to come in here and talk about how much I really enjoyed the episode despite its flaws and how it felt Third Doctor as all get out... I enjoyed it too! So that's 2 of us (on the entire internet)! The ending went "CLANGGGGGG" but I liked everything else and even found the old couple endearing.
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Jan 13, 2020 13:20
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GargleBlaster posted:I enjoyed it too! So that's 2 of us (on the entire internet)! FreezingInferno posted:I also loved the episode, let us be "wrong" together From such small beginnings... This was by no means a perfect episode, however I enjoyed the way it was directed (the cuts at the beginning showing just brief flashes of the creatures and the attack on the guests), the throwback to the "quarry years," the reuse of sets (start at the hotel/end at the hotel, just trash it along the way, and I swear the tunnel and nest were from the climax of Flatline)...it felt like a classic episode to me. After sleeping on it, I think the part I liked the most is waking up to see all the people complaining about the last scene being "one big lecture," to which I was like "do you not recognize a Doctor Speech when you hear one?"
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Jan 13, 2020 14:35
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Hmmm, there were parts about it that I liked! I liked the it had the correct feeling of a Doctor Who episode at the start, but then... it all goes to poo poo. Hey, is anyone else bothered by the end when the Doctor said that this was just one possibility for Earth? I haven't see every single episode of classic who, but hasn't Nuwho established that when the Doctor visits a place it pretty much makes that a fixed point in time? Wasn't the old Time Lord Victorius madness in reference to trying to change timelines? I feeeeeeeeeeel like that was a huge mistake. Doesn't that imply that every adventure and every thing that the Doctor has fixed in the show ever is just one possibility for that time/place?  Doctor Who isn't Avengers.Did anyone else take issue with that? It really seems to cheapen the experiences they have if it's just one possibility. I mean if Earth avoids Orphan 55 then does that mean that the episode we just watched wouldn't happen because there is no Orphan 55? Doctor Who has gone complete Austin Powers now. I need Basil to look me in the eyes and tell me that I shouldn't worry about it. Edit: There were so many stupid moments, but that sucking thumb thing at the end was insanely bad. "REMEMBER THE THUMB SUCKING THEY SHARED! FEEL SOMETHING!" waaaaa waaaaaa An Ounce of Gold fucked around with this message at 14:42 on Jan 13, 2020 |
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Jan 13, 2020 14:40
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A mess, but not an unpleasant mess, just something that moves from one scene from another. about the only things I'll take away from it is that Ryan's still consistently great and I love him, and Whittaker really is settling into the role, and playing the Doctor as visibly agitated and moodier following what went down with the Master. but I feel like things just did not come together on any level for this. conceptually it's fine, and it's actually decent until they leave the resort in the truck, and then it just falls apart. it feels like a couple drafts away, wherein the writer relates the broader concept in some way, in ANY way to the characters. as it is it just devolves into a lecture directly at the audience at the end, like the author read the IPCC report the night before submitting his final draft to Chibnall, and got deep mad. I mean, fair, but it's not dramatically effective, and therefore also not effective as agitprop. if they wanted me to be glad only the mechanic and his dad (lol) survived, congratulations, I liked them and hated all the others.
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Jan 13, 2020 15:08
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An Ounce of Gold posted:Hey, is anyone else bothered by the end when the Doctor said that this was just one possibility for Earth? Not really, because at that point the Doctor is actually talking to us, the audience about what could happen to our Earth, and not the Fam about what will happen to theirs. So for the sake of the message I'm willing to overlook a little continuity wobble like that.
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Jan 13, 2020 15:22
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Well I think it's horrible. I don't think the message the Doctor gives should overwrite what others have written about how time travel works... It was such a shoe horned message that absolutely failed to carry any weight for the audience watching. It was heavy handed without any emotional stakes attached. She was just talking at us and at the same time breaking the convention of time travel within the show. As a joke I now want to see an entire episode and then the Doctor looks a the screen at the end and says "It was about abortion". An Ounce of Gold fucked around with this message at 15:51 on Jan 13, 2020 |
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Jan 13, 2020 15:48
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For all its faults, Kerblam! at least knew what message it wanted to deliver and laid groundwork for it even as it also seemed to be laying groundwork for a criticism that got entirely undercut. The off-screen “Earth goes to poo poo and only the wealthy escape” might have landed if there had been any connection between what we saw on screen with the characters and the larger message of arguing while your house is on fire. We have a mechanic and his son, an unemployed woman who could afford viruses and bombs but who certainly does not come across as a member of the 1% (or the 10%), and an owner-operator who doesn’t come across as rich but rather as a Classic Who base commander under siege. We have a single character who displays any signs of conspicuous wealth and she is largely played for sympathy and without the slightest sense of conspicuous consumption. Despite her offer of jewelry, nobody actually seems to care about the valuable necklace beyond it being an excuse to extend Act 2 a little. How exactly is this place going to produce enough money to terraform the planet? The fam get a free two-week stay there, and it appears the place takes 20 guests at a time or so. How many are paying? Is this place a tragic failure, because that doesn’t land or relate to the larger theme. You want a really quick improvement to the story? The Doctor realizes the dregs breathe carbon dioxide and that the oxygen inside Tranquility is poisonous to them. So why are they attacking? Food can’t be that scarce given how many dregs there seem to be. So have her find out that the resort was producing oxygen via tech and then dumping the waste-products outside. They showed up for trash and CO2 and thought there’d be more inside, then got violent when the place turned out poisonous and full of people who shot at them. Make the attacks somebody’s fault for being heedless in the way humanity is heedless of global warming. Mother-daughter angst isn’t thematically meaningful!
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Jan 13, 2020 15:52
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An Ounce of Gold posted:Well I think it's horrible. congratulations on managing to forget kill the moon
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Jan 13, 2020 15:55
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Kill the moon was so fantastically stupid it looped back around to being great
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Jan 13, 2020 15:58
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I also thought it was super weird to be like "this is only one possibility for Earth" given that the show (as far as I'm aware anyway) has never once ever indicated that the places and times they're visiting might actually be retconned, except when the retcons are used to indicate something is Very Wrong in the universe. It would have made more sense for the companions to find out the planet was hosed over by the elite and left, express disbelief that such a thing could happen, then have the Doctor comment that in their time Earth is heading in that direction or something, while leaving it open what actually happens to Earth. Having said that it struck me as really odd that two young people from 2020 reacted to "the Earth was destroyed by the elite loving it over" with anything other than "yep, sounds about right" but maybe that's just me. Other than that this was such a nothing episode. Did Yaz do one single solitary thing the entire episode except for rib Ryan slightly about his love interest? Or was that supposed to be jealousy?? Who knows?
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Jan 13, 2020 16:00
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Time travel has never really been coherent in the series anyway, that's what Steven Moffat's "big ball of timey wimey stuff" line was all about. Sometimes it's all an unchangeable loop like in Blink, sometimes you aren't allowed to change the future despite prior knowledge like in Pompeii, sometimes you change the future just by being there like in The Long Game>Bad Wolf. If you're a Doylist you'd say the rules of time travel are whatever the plot needs them to be, if you're a Watsonian you could say there are no rules to time travel because time isn't expecting you to travel through it and doesn't know how to handle it
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Jan 13, 2020 16:03
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That felt like an episode with a couple of okay ideas, none of which worked together and none of them enough to carry a story by itself, but all of them desperately working together to fill a full episode. I think I do know what happened with Benni, though. It might be almost foreshadowing, except that it doesn't really provide enough information: The Dregs need carbon dioxide like humans need oxygen, so it might be that they're holding him as a pretty safe and clean source of carbon dioxide. Meanwhile, he's feeling pretty good because around them, he can finally breathe without the oxygen tank.
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Jan 13, 2020 16:16
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My favourite time travel nonsense in the show is the completely unmentioned stuff in the Capaldi era. Basically, by the end of Twice Upon A Time, the entire series of Doctor Who turns out to have been a self-causation loop of such audacious scale that it somehow incorporates three separate timelines. Just entirely offscreen, maybe not even intentional.
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Jan 13, 2020 16:21
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I just want an episode where the Doctor, instead of dumbing down time and space into a few funny phrases, briefly shows existence for what it really is to his companions. And it’s just a screaming void of horrific noise shifting between existence and non-existence, leaving everyone thoroughly traumatized aside from the Doctor, who just shrugs or whatever.
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Jan 13, 2020 16:30
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HD DAD posted:I just want an episode where the Doctor, instead of dumbing down time and space into a few funny phrases, briefly shows existence for what it really is to his companions. And it’s just a screaming void of horrific noise shifting between existence and non-existence, leaving everyone thoroughly traumatized aside from the Doctor, who just shrugs or whatever. "Yaz sees the time knife"
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Jan 13, 2020 16:39
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Azhais posted:"Yaz sees the time knife" Yeah yeah, we've all seen it
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Jan 13, 2020 16:51
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I enjoyed that while I was watching, and was waiting for all the disparate plot points to come together, but they never did. A mess. Not a good episode.An Ounce of Gold posted:Well I think it's horrible. This show has three different versions of the fate of Atlantis, time travel works the way it needs to work for the story. It doesn't matter. Dabir posted:congratulations on managing to forget kill the moon Kill the moon was never about abortion lol. Abortion is not a big political issue in the UK like it is in the states, only a small minority of fringe religious nuts want to change abortion laws.
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Jan 13, 2020 17:27
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I'm aware, I live there. Nevertheless, that's what Kill the Moon was about.
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Jan 13, 2020 19:24
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Sorry paradox demon things from Father's Day. The show doesn't work that way anymore... It just seemed way off base for her to just throw out a multiverse idea with divergent timelines. I guess people are ok with it here so I'll just let it be, but I am still maintaining that it was a dumb, poorly thought out statement.  Also I know Kill the Moon may have been about abortion but the Doctor didn't look at the screen and say "it was about abortion" which was the point I was making.
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Jan 13, 2020 19:31
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marktheando posted:
It might not have been intentionally about abortion, but none the less it was very much about abortion.
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Jan 13, 2020 19:40
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Jerusalem posted:For a show that has really done a great job on its visual look since Chibnal took over, that sure is a... uhh... costume I guess It's a classic example of a costume that looked perfectly good when hunched over in brief close-ups, shadows and blurry motion, but then they made the rookie mistake of showing it standing up straight in middle distance and daylight.
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Jan 13, 2020 19:46
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Jerusalem posted:
I noticed this shot when watching and there something really ropey looking about it. I think the Dreg was filmed separately from the shot of the truck? And there's a vague whiff of CGI about it too.
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Jan 13, 2020 19:50
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Well at least Laura Fraser is getting work.
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Jan 13, 2020 19:53
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| # ? Jun 3, 2024 11:43 |
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Cleretic posted:That felt like an episode with a couple of okay ideas, none of which worked together and none of them enough to carry a story by itself, but all of them desperately working together to fill a full episode. Huh, I was wondering about that part and well that's just a good of an explanation as any. Now I'm picturing a Dreg walking around with Benni strapped to his back like some kind of breathing tank. Jerusalem posted:
I know I'm in the minority here but I don't think the creature sfx looks all that horrible in daylight in that particular scene to be honest. I feel like it holds up pretty well while still obviously being a dude in a molded rubber suit.
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Jan 13, 2020 20:27
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