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The_Doctor posted:I felt like Glenister was channeling Trump when portraying Edison. Something about the way he’d make his face sit. My wife made the same comparison.
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Jan 21, 2020 04:19
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The_Doctor posted:I felt like Glenister was channeling Trump when portraying Edison. Something about the way he’d make his face sit. Same
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Jan 21, 2020 04:35
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Jerusalem posted:Hey as least nothing is quite as bad as The Unicorn and the Wasp, where the Doctor declares,"Only Agathie Christie can solve this mystery!" and then practically shoves her out of the way to solve the mystery himself instead. I love how folks complain when the show is ham-fistedly delivering a message and then complain when it’s more subtle that it doesn’t have one. Edison was clearly an evil bastard but not murderous. But the episode kept drawing huge pointy lines of comparison. The not-too-bright laser-scorpions appear like workers for Edison; they steal other people’s inventions (and inventors) instead of coming up with their own; they justify their cruelty and exploitative natures by claiming not to be as bad as they are, as when the queen stressed that they’d intended to just grab Tesla and go instead of ransacking the whole planet but would do that now because the Doctor tried to mess with them. See, they’re not terrible unless provoked. And the whole species, despite supposedly being hive creatures, aren’t self-sacrificing worker bees but rather vicious and selfish. Lab scorpion interrupts the queen? He dies. Scorpions supposed to pursue Yaz and Edison run into each other at a corner? Fight each other. They were each clearly trying to get those two themselves and screw the others out of that success in the process. Short of having the queen’s name strung in electric lights inside their ship, I’m not sure how much more on the nose the episode could have been, though I do agree it wasn’t quite as consistent as it might have been in driving home the difference between an inventor driven to create the future and someone trying to scavenge whatever he can of the future to make money.
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Jan 21, 2020 04:55
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I watched episode 2 of Dracula and it was pretty good! Was a pleasant surprise to see the actor I presume JacquelineDempsey was talking about too. Then the last second twist happened.  Narsham posted:And the whole species, despite supposedly being hive creatures, aren’t self-sacrificing worker bees but rather vicious and selfish. Lab scorpion interrupts the queen? He dies. Scorpions supposed to pursue Yaz and Edison run into each other at a corner? Fight each other. They were each clearly trying to get those two themselves and screw the others out of that success in the process. I loved that whole section, the scorpions slamming into each other, hissing and fighting and loving everything up for themselves. It's a shame the Queen's make-up was so awful because they were a pretty neat concept for an alien race.
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Jan 21, 2020 12:52
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Alright, this episode and the last one were decent enough that I'll keep watching. I'll just skip any of the Chibnall ones from now on. It feels pointless to even complain about the Doctor saying that Telsa should have been the first billionaire because that's just how this show works now. But hey, they remembered to have a scene where the Doctor and the bad guy talk about stuff, the design of the queen was neat (I liked that she was wearing tires on her shoulders like a Mad Max character), and there was setup and payoff with the teleporter thingy. It's achieved a basic level of competency and even gone somewhat beyond that. Having three companions just doesn't work, I think. It was alright in the '60s where there were like 50 episodes a year and they weren't expected to have things like 'arcs' or 'growth,' but these three have barely any personality. In the last two series it seems like the Doctor has grown in importance to plot and amount of screentime over the Davies and Moffat eras, so you've got three characters splitting that remainder into even smaller percentages of importance. They should really ditch the whole crew when the next series comes out in 2023 or whenever.
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Jan 21, 2020 13:20
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I think Ryan and Graham have plenty of personality, but Yaz unfortunately tends to get relegated to just "the nice one". It's cool they have her demonstrate the type of everyday police skills you normally don't see on television, but those skills also mean she tends to get relegated to just being in scenes with other people who are given more interesting things to do. I don't think it's an issue with the 3 Companions so much, but rather that they're not making use of the episodes they have to choose when to focus on one more than the other. Ryan and Graham get plenty of stuff to play with thanks to their initially strained relationship and their shared grief over Grace/the tension with Ryan's dad etc, but Yaz still hasn't really had an episode where she gets to shine: Demons of the Punjab should have been that, but while it's a great episode she's again largely reduced to a passive role in it.
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Jan 21, 2020 13:28
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Graham and Ryan have good chemistry but I still don't know how much I could tell you about them as individuals. I do like that Graham is solidly working class in a way that we haven't seen since Rose probably, and I've liked some bits of Ryan's, but they all seen rather thin character-wise, and docile story-wise.
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Jan 21, 2020 13:43
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When Rose was stuck and trying to figure out what the Doctor would do, she walked up to the biggest alien she could find and started bullshitting it to its face. When these three were doing the same, the plot conveniently showed up so they could run from it.
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Jan 21, 2020 15:26
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I have a slight nit pick. How did Tesla and companion go from their workshop to the orient express? That part was a bit wonky for me. "We're here now". I thought they had just shortcutted TARDIS travelling but then it later shows Tesla going into the TARDIS for the first time.
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Jan 21, 2020 16:06
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An Ounce of Gold posted:I have a slight nit pick. How did Tesla and companion go from their workshop to the orient express? That part was a bit wonky for me. "We're here now". I think that was just a normal train
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Jan 21, 2020 16:09
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Narsham posted:I love how folks complain when the show is ham-fistedly delivering a message and then complain when it’s more subtle that it doesn’t have one. I think evil is a stretch, selfish arsehole always looking for a way to make money certainly but not evil. When he sees the dead in his workshop his first thought is about the worker he recently had dinner with and how he was going to have to explain to his children that their father was dead. The Skithra are certainly meant to portray a worst version of Edison but the episode does point out the differences between them. Dabir posted:When Rose was stuck and trying to figure out what the Doctor would do, she walked up to the biggest alien she could find and started bullshitting it to its face. When these three were doing the same, the plot conveniently showed up so they could run from it. To be fair both of those kind of apply as 'what would the Doctor do?'
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Jan 21, 2020 16:09
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I'm happy for two things. One is that they're continuing with Thirteen being a steampunk inventor. Two is that they're leaning hard into rubber alien of the week.
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Jan 22, 2020 02:09
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TheKirbs posted:I think evil is a stretch, selfish arsehole always looking for a way to make money certainly but not evil. When he sees the dead in his workshop his first thought is about the worker he recently had dinner with and how he was going to have to explain to his children that their father was dead. Not mass murderer evil, but human yet pretty awful. Both the Doctor and Tesla love invention for its own sake and are fixated on the future. Edison loved the money (well, and the authority and prestige) and wanted to improve his own future and screw everyone else. There were glimpses of the inventor he either once was, or could have been if he weren’t a miserable rear end in a top hat. But the episode did a great job, I think, inviting us to draw connections between the attitudes of the two inventors and the future we saw in the last episode. Tesla is the sort of scientist who would be warning people and trying to invent something to save Earth until he dies. Edison would have been with the other rich people evacuating. He’s not a monster. He sort of cares about people. He sort of loves invention. He just loves himself more.
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Jan 22, 2020 02:25
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marktheando posted:I think that was just a normal train I was out Graham'd!
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Jan 22, 2020 02:25
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Cleretic posted:I can sorta justify this in a couple of ways. "We've seen too much, we know, but we'll get there in the end." One of them was begging The Doctor to stop! Holy poo poo, that was gross.
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Jan 22, 2020 04:23
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Thankfully now that there has been a non consenting mind wipe in Doctor Who, nobody would ever be stupid enough to do it again.
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Jan 22, 2020 04:31
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Still find myself thinking every so often about : Doctor: Wilf, Donna can NEVER remember me or our adventures. EVER! If she remembers for even a second she will die. She can't remember, Wilf. EVER! Wilf: Very well, Doctor  Donna walks in Doctor: Hi Donna, I'm the Doctor. Do you remember me or anything we might have done together!?!
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Jan 22, 2020 06:21
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 No, not the mind probe.
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Jan 22, 2020 09:15
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WSAENOTSOCK posted:"We've seen too much, we know, but we'll get there in the end." One of them was begging The Doctor to stop! Holy poo poo, that was gross. I’m imagining that seconds before that scene, the Doctor gave Khan a speech about how the future has a united Europe, working for the betterment of them and the world, and that no matter how bad it gets, she can take comfort in knowing that the light will prevail over the dark. Then Khan asks about that Brexit thing everyone was talking about in the future and the Doctor has to wipe it out of her mind. This is my head cannon, you can’t take it away from me. Ubik_Lives fucked around with this message at 16:03 on Jan 22, 2020 |
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Jan 22, 2020 09:34
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Ubik_Lives posted:I’m imagining that seconds before that scene, the Doctor gave Kahn a speech about how the future has a united Europe, working for the betterment of them and the world, and that no matter how bad it gets, she can take comfort in knowing that the light will prevail over the dark. Misinterpreted this to be about Ghengis Khan, and now I'm sad that something that batshit and hilarious didn't happen.
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Jan 22, 2020 10:46
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I'm a tiny bit behind, but good Lord was Orphan 55 a goddamn trainwreck. A messy, incoherent trainwreck that was like four different trains all piled up together. And it was good because of how bad it was, in my opinion. Orphan 55 was ludicrously, objectively terrible in pretty much every metric, but hell at least that meant things were happening. With no connective tissue, mind, and the ending monologue of "actually it was all about climate change" was so absurdly stupid and out of nowhere that I enjoyed it. It's the kinda episode I can see myself rewatching at some point, just to show people how bad it is. I sure wouldn't want to watch it on my own ever again, mind. Is it the worst episode under Chibnall so far? Oh, easily. But I'd still say it's preferable to The Tsuranga Conundrum or The Witchfinders. Which were... fine I suppose, but really kinda eh, overall. That it was penned by the same writer as It Takes You Away is all the more impressive, really. it's like he had a bunch of ideas for potentially good episodes, but was only allowed to write one, so he just threw 'em all in a blender and went with what came out.
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Jan 22, 2020 14:19
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It could be worse, it could be episode 3 of Dracula which I just finished watching and oh my loving God what the gently caress was that? It wasn't quite as bad as the last episode of Sherlock but it got close.
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Jan 22, 2020 14:23
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I'm still slightly tempted to watch Dracula even though I've read the spoilers about how terrible it is, and I've seen how bad Moffat can get with both Doctor Who and Sherlock. Can it really be as bad as it sounds?
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Jan 22, 2020 15:12
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There's a part in episode 3 where I was just sitting gaping at the screen because I literally could not believe how bad the writing was. It is astonishing. First spoiler for end of episode 2/start of episode 3 Dracula gets trapped underwater for a century and only gets out and walks onto land in the year 2020, second spoiler for the bit mentioned above A weird medical research facility using armed mercenaries funded by a shadowy organization captures Dracula and puts him in an inescapable cage. He proceeds to figure out what wifi is and breaks the password (it's "dracula") and skypes with a lawyer who shows up and... they just let him in and he tells them to let Dracula go or he'll call the police so they.... just let him go and then gently caress off and play no further part in the entire story and Dracula just casually sets up an apartment and starts hanging out in London. What I wrote in the above doesn't even come close to how loving stupid it is seeing it happen. Like, they legit have the following conversation: Lawyer: Has Count Dracula committed any crimes? Shadowy Research Lab Lady: None we can admit to. Lawyer: Then you gotta let him out. You gotta. Jerusalem fucked around with this message at 15:22 on Jan 22, 2020 |
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Jan 22, 2020 15:20
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Jerusalem posted:There's a part in episode 3 where I was just sitting gaping at the screen because I literally could not believe how bad the writing was. It is astonishing. Incredible.
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Jan 22, 2020 15:35
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Jerusalem posted:There's a part in episode 3 where I was just sitting gaping at the screen because I literally could not believe how bad the writing was. It is astonishing. Like that could be good if they played it as absurdist comedy, but I get the feeling they’re going for full earnestness.
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Jan 22, 2020 15:41
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Cleretic posted:Okay, that episode was fun as hell. Not perfect, but I enjoyed every bit of it, and really that's all I can ask for. That is default "pack of large fast things can't catch up with humans" behaviour - used all over the place so much is pretty much a trope now.
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Jan 22, 2020 15:58
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The Doctor going from "Don't kill them, we need to know what they are" to "we're going to blow them all up" was a bit of a trip
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Jan 22, 2020 17:12
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I tried, this episode was boring 10 minutes in. I'll have to give it a shot later.
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Jan 22, 2020 17:16
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Vinylshadow posted:The Doctor going from "Don't kill them, we need to know what they are" to "we're going to blow them all up" was a bit of a trip How so? By the time the plan becomes 'blow them all up' I think the Doctor had given them enough of a chance.
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Jan 22, 2020 17:42
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she says Tesla should have been the first billionaire one scene after going "the gilded age, the beginning of modern whatever, more billionaires than ever, and even more poor," pretty quickly establishing that she thinks it sucks "Tesla should've been the first billionaire" [edit: it's said sarcastically, or cynically, even!] is supporting, accessory evidence for why the social fabric of the time was (lol, "was") unjust and bad. it was also, iirc, a transition to the next whizbang thing, and so that kind of gets lost in the pacing Trying to get away with, in one and a half lines, naming a complex huge topic, opining on it, and setting it on the shelf because it's not terribly relevant to the story we're rushing through — that pretty much sums up my issues with what i keep noticing in Chibnall episodes; writing credit, producer, or both edit: i could've quoted Rochallor posted:It feels pointless to even complain about the Doctor saying that Telsa should have been the first billionaire because that's just how this show works now. juche avocado fucked around with this message at 18:18 on Jan 22, 2020 |
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Jan 22, 2020 18:10
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https://twitter.com/DrNeilMatthews/status/1220034040356655104 hah
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Jan 22, 2020 19:47
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Oh no, that’s terrible. But then I’m not in favour of any fan group names (Whovians, Trekkies, etc).
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Jan 22, 2020 19:51
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I voted for BFFs
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Jan 23, 2020 00:36
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Yeah, that's genuinely terrible. No one's actually gonna use that, right?
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Jan 23, 2020 01:39
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Open Source Bigadier posted:Yeah, that's genuinely terrible. No one's actually gonna use that, right?
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Jan 23, 2020 02:58
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I'm a steadfast (and only) supporter of Wholigans. Largely because it only works in print.
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Jan 23, 2020 08:08
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I've literally told people to shut up when they've called me a "Whovian."
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Jan 23, 2020 17:06
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Now the Time Lords have gone too far ... They've called up Susan Foreman to fight in the Time War: https://www.bigfinish.com/news/v/ca...tm_content=news
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Jan 23, 2020 17:33
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Rochallor posted:I'm a steadfast (and only) supporter of Wholigans. Largely because it only works in print. Wholigadier  
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Jan 23, 2020 19:19
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