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I personally think that labelling each instance of nonviolent ethos in the TV show Doctor Who as "centrist" is truly unhinged, to be honest. Orphan 55 feels like a forgettable throw-away episode. Ker-Blam! does a really great job of setting up how creepy and dystopian the whole corporation is and then presents an argument in its favor, which, regardless on where you land for the politics of Amazon, is an absolutely bizarre choice. It'd be like if, at the end of that first Davies Cyberman two-parter, they decided at the end that the twist was Cybermen are good, actually.
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Dec 4, 2023 21:56
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Decided to catch up on the stuff I missed since dropping off after Hell Bent, was thinking series 10 actually slaps until I got to the end of the Monk invasion three parter lmao Ah well, rest of it has been good so far
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Dec 4, 2023 22:07
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Zohar posted:Decided to catch up on the stuff I missed since dropping off after Hell Bent, was thinking series 10 actually slaps until I got to the end of the Monk invasion three parter lmao Yeah, the first Monk ep is fine, but the back 2 eps are the low point of S10. It's all great from then on, though.
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Dec 4, 2023 22:16
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LividLiquid posted:I liked both, but vastly improved the latter. He *really* came into his own in his second season. Riding a tank into an axe fight playing a bitchin' solo. Aging rock star fit twelve so well it's hard to imagine why they even tried anything else. "Anyone for Dodgems?" is one of the greatest Doctor entrances ever put to screen.
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Dec 4, 2023 22:31
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TheBigBudgetSequel posted:"Anyone for Dodgems?" is one of the greatest Doctor entrances ever put to screen.
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Dec 4, 2023 22:49
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I adored 12’s sympathy flashcards in Under the Lake/Before the Flood.
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Dec 4, 2023 22:52
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I’m not sure if I want Eccleston or Capaldi to come back for a potential special more, just because I feel like there’s so much fertile ground for their Doctors interacting with other Doctors, and for entirely different reasons. Eccleston for a pseudo War Doc redemption thing and Capaldi just to see how irritated he is by his successors.
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Dec 4, 2023 23:06
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Capaldi's wild Pertwee-esque hair by the time he finished up his run was glorious 
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Dec 4, 2023 23:22
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The_Doctor posted:Yeah, the first Monk ep is fine, but the back 2 eps are the low point of S10. It's all great from then on, though. They weren't even especially bad in isolation. It's just Extremis did such a job of setting up this awesome new enemy and everyone got excited it was just some monster of the week killed with the power of love. 'When I'm on a date. Do not. Put. The Pope. In my Bedroom' was a great line though. LividLiquid posted:I liked both, but vastly improved the latter. He *really* came into his own in his second season. Riding a tank into an axe fight playing a bitchin' solo. Aging rock star fit twelve so well it's hard to imagine why they even tried anything else. One thing I really liked about Capaldi's run is he is really the only doctor who had a character arc. Every other one was pretty much the same character in their last episode than they were in their first, but 12 started being unsure about whether he's even still a good man at the start to giving monologues about the importance of kindness in the end, and that evolution never at any point felt jarring or that his character had been retconned. Slyphic posted:The only bit that didn't fit right was Tennant raging in the corridor, but maybe that's him trying to play up that he's not just 10-again, but a new '14th' doctor with a familiar face? But seriously minor quibble in an otherwise delightful good time. I read this as RTD trying to retroactively fix the absolute mess that is the Flux and all the Timeless Child poo poo. At least, fix in terms of how RTD see's writing. The plot itself is whatever, but one of the most damning things about that whole arc is The Doctor watched half the universe get destroyed and she didn't seem to give a poo poo. I bet RTD, a man far more interested in character arcs and emotional storytelling than tight plots, found that maddening. And it was. RTD did more in a 2 minute scene to sell the ramifications of The Flux than Chibnall ever did. And now we can move on. Sorta like how the first thing Moffatt, a guy more interested in tight plots than RTD was did was write in a bunch of event eating time cracks to explain away all the sloppy plot threads with giant Cybermen stomping Victorian London that RTD left him saddled with.
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Dec 4, 2023 23:24
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LividLiquid posted:I liked both, but vastly improved the latter. He *really* came into his own in his second season. Riding a tank into an axe fight playing a bitchin' solo. Aging rock star fit twelve so well it's hard to imagine why they even tried anything else. There's people who hate this. I am not among them. Tbh, I find Capaldi such a charismatic presence he can do whatever fourth wall breaking insanity he wants, it doesn't matter to me.
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Dec 4, 2023 23:32
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Pyramid at the End of the World was a loving awful episode of television in isolation. 45 minutes of television driven entirely by people consistently making the dumbest decisions possible in order to contrive the ridiculous dilemma for Bill at the end.
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Dec 4, 2023 23:35
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Slyphic posted:055 broke me. My wife and I were just outright shouting scorn at the screen like some MST3K silhouettes and the episode just kept giving us more to bitch about by the bucketload. I've skimmed bits since, mostly waiting for it to get good again while she's been entirely done with "that jump-sharked kindle-unlimited dumpster fire", and this last episode is finally a show we can watch together again. "BENNY!"
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Dec 4, 2023 23:49
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The thing about Chibnall's era is, the badness wasn't always the same. There were episodes that were uniquely bad. Orphan 55 and Kerblam! are the exact opposite in terms of storytelling, and they're both crap!
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Dec 5, 2023 00:12
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DavidCameronsPig posted:Sorta like how the first thing Moffatt, a guy more interested in tight plots than RTD was did was write in a bunch of event eating time cracks to explain away all the sloppy plot threads with giant Cybermen stomping Victorian London that RTD left him saddled with. I loved that Moffat did this and I think season 5 remains the best season of the revival so far, but also even though at the time I knew the Giant Cyberman stomping around Victorian London made absolutely zero sense I didn't give a gently caress because it was so loving wild and crazy and I love RTD for doing poo poo like that 
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Dec 5, 2023 00:23
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Rochallor posted:Hell, Ker-blam's message basically boils down to, "Amazon is awesome, but maybe they go a little bit too far sometimes?" which is a line in a speech Joe Biden will give within one month of this post. By that standard, it's positively left of center for the Chibnall era. As much as I don't like Kerblam, I think its message is positively salvageable compared to the worst of Capaldi. The best you can do with Kerblam is to find a message against corporate overreach that's not really as angry as it should be. The best you can do with Kill the Moon and In the Forest of the Night is claim that they don't have a message because the one that's there is too awful.
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Dec 5, 2023 00:35
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TheBigBudgetSequel posted:"Anyone for Dodgems?" is one of the greatest Doctor entrances ever put to screen. "Of course the real question is: Where did he get the cup of tea?"
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Dec 5, 2023 01:04
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Cleretic posted:As much as I don't like Kerblam, I think its message is positively salvageable compared to the worst of Capaldi. Honestly, I know it's unpopular, but Peter Harness might be a worse writer for Who than Chibnall. I know people love the Zygon two parter for some reason but I kind of hate the ending? The whole monologue that amounts to the most wishy-washy 'why can't we get along' without actually thinking about any of the underlying reasons for conflict.
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Dec 5, 2023 01:07
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Gaz-L posted:Honestly, I know it's unpopular, but Peter Harness might be a worse writer for Who than Chibnall. I know people love the Zygon two parter for some reason but I kind of hate the ending? The whole monologue that amounts to the most wishy-washy 'why can't we get along' without actually thinking about any of the underlying reasons for conflict. It's very obvious that Moffat wrote the parts of Inversion that were the least bad after saying to Harness "look, the moon abortion episode was pants, but this would get us loving canned".
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Dec 5, 2023 01:24
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Clouseau posted:There's people who hate this. I am not among them. It's an overused expression, but I'd watch twelve read the phone book provided he got to say something about every name.
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Dec 5, 2023 01:27
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I really hated zygon inversion at the time for feeling centrist and wishy-washy but right now "the only way conflict ends is when people talk to each other" feels more radical than the status quo, where the entire global political establishment thinks it can be solved by bombing people into glass
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Dec 5, 2023 01:32
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Kerblam! is dumb and internally contradictory, but it's definitely pro capitalist and basically pro Amazon. Or, at least, the "I can fix him" abused partner version of being pro Amazon. The Doctor spends the opening talking about how awesome she thinks the Kerblam Man is, painting her as a stan from the start of the thing and she never changes her mind. She thinks Kerblam is awesome and good, so it's awesome and good. It's not that complicated. There are reads of the episode that try and redeem it by making it out to be a bit more ironic than it is, but I think the read is ultimately a very straightforward one. When Julie Hesmondhalgh talks about there being a minimum percent of human jobs, we're meant to think she's a goodun who's fighting for human rights, rather than a person who's so inducted into the system that she's mistaken Amazon fulfillment processing for a life affirming job. This is (apparently) more obvious in McTighe's novelization though I've not read it, where the author (reportedly) talks about how working for Kerblam is good for the human spirit -- despite a complete lack of safety systems, lovely oppressive workspaces, constant monitoring, etc. etc. etc. It's also just cackheaded nonsense. A fully automated system should provide a way to get humans out of soul sucking manual labour and into self-determining goals that actually bring meaning to their lives. Former workers could choose to pursue their own goals that would be otherwise considered unproductive under a capital system e.g. art, or spending time with their families. But instead the solution is uhh slightly better working conditions and the slow march of internal change vs the only form of radical action presented which is self-destructive violence. If the episode really wanted to say something it'd have the characters go on strike at the end, but instead they get partly paid forced leave. And the Doctor goes on loving Kerblam. TinTower posted:It's very obvious that Moffat wrote the parts of Inversion that were the least bad after saying to Harness "look, the moon abortion episode was pants, but this would get us loving canned". That speech in part two is peak Moffat and it's terrible. I also don't believe that Moffat really had a problem with Harness's writing. Or else he wouldn't have asked him back multiple times, and he definitely wouldn't have given him a significant two parter with a lot of returning characters and situations from his own scripts (and he probably wouldn't have used his two part opening that season to introduce a character from that two parter). Open Source Idiom fucked around with this message at 01:54 on Dec 5, 2023 |
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Dec 5, 2023 01:51
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To me, the absolute low point of NuWho was the Doctor saying it was wrong to put kids suffering with mental health issues on medication. Anything and everything they’ve done poorly pales compared to that.
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Dec 5, 2023 02:04
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TL posted:To me, the absolute low point of NuWho was the Doctor saying it was wrong to put kids suffering with mental health issues on medication. Anything and everything they’ve done poorly pales compared to that. I think that script's making a misdiagnosis argument.
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Dec 5, 2023 02:11
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TL posted:To me, the absolute low point of NuWho was the Doctor saying it was wrong to put kids suffering with mental health issues on medication. Anything and everything they’ve done poorly pales compared to that. It was completely hosed and I'm still angry about it.
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Dec 5, 2023 02:13
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Open Source Idiom posted:I think that script's making a misdiagnosis argument. It's making it really loving poorly, and given the guy's other scripts I'm not inclined to give the benefit of the doubt. (My least favorite part of the Twelfth/Thirteenth Doctor MtG deck is that Forest of the Night is the reference for several cards, but they're all land and land management cards, so they basically only torment me; at least the Lunar Hatchling is a problem for everyone else.)
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Dec 5, 2023 02:17
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I mean, like, it's been a while but Maehb's not actually sick in Forests Of The Night, she's being provided with useless medication to compensate for the trauma resulting around her sister's disappearance. So she's definitely, textually, being misdiagnosed like. The moral isn't to drop medication, it's that we need to listen to distressed kids instead of just doping them and thinking that's the solution when it blatantly isn't working. It's one of those things where representations of psychic powers abutt against real world issues in ways that are confusing, because psychic powers aren't real but schizophrenia is, but the takeaway isn't that psychic powers are real any more than the takeaway from Dalek is that the Internet is controlled by a secret cabal of Utah based bunker soldiers. It's a SFnal device that gets you yo the story. Edit: if you think about it, there's a level of crossover with Cottrell-Boyce's Smile, where individuals are forced to effect a society approved affect or else be forcibly removed from the polis (and also life). Open Source Idiom fucked around with this message at 02:59 on Dec 5, 2023 |
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Dec 5, 2023 02:48
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Open Source Idiom posted:I mean, like, it's been a while but Maehb's not actually sick in Forests Of The Night, she's being provided with useless medication to compensate for the trauma resulting around her sister's disappearance. So she's definitely, textually, being misdiagnosed like. The moral isn't to drop medication, it's that we need to listen to distressed kids instead of just doping them and thinking that's the solution when it blatantly isn't working. The problem is that spiritual, woo-woo, and pseudoscientific rhetoric is constantly deployed to undermine the utility, necessity, and availability of antipsychotics and ADHD medication in the real world. It's not just science fictional characters in a science fictional universe who diagnose children with neurodivergence and mental health issues as being psychic or magical or indigo children. It fails to function as a metaphor because it depicts very literally a real delusion as true - and I'm not talking about Maehb's hallucinations.
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Dec 5, 2023 02:54
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Open Source Idiom posted:I mean, like, it's been a while but Maehb's not actually sick in Forests Of The Night, she's being provided with useless medication to compensate for the trauma resulting around her sister's disappearance. So she's definitely, textually, being misdiagnosed like. The moral isn't to drop medication, it's that we need to listen to distressed kids instead of just doping them and thinking that's the solution when it blatantly isn't working. I'm a sympathetic to the argument that it may be making a different argument poorly (which I am skeptical of to be honest but I think it ~could~ be true) but I don't buy the back half at all. It definitely has the tone of a "very important message" in the bits dealing with it. Also Sci-fi generally but Doctor Who almost always is using Sci-fi to express an opinion about how the world works (or would work if x thing comes to pass). I think saying psychics are not real is that helpful because I don't really think the episode is making an argument about psychics. Which like is not always true! A lot older sci-fi works use psychic characters to state the way they think human development might go. Sometimes as a metaphor for progressivism (the children will be better then us) but a lot of the time as just a straight up expression of some new age beliefs they have about how they think ESP is like real in real life. Sam Sanskrit fucked around with this message at 03:09 on Dec 5, 2023 |
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Dec 5, 2023 03:03
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Sure, but misdiagnosis is also a real danger. Maybe this is TMI, but I once spent a very rough evening trying to convince several hospital staff that I wasn't schizophrenic, because I happened to have a tic where I'd wave my hands around my face when I get agitated -- just like the kid does in this story. People with PTSD get misdiagnosed all the time, and that poo poo is genuinely scary. I just don't think your read is necessarily the correct one. I mean, sure, you can read the story your way and it'd suck, and it'snot like the story isn't basically a but awkward and mediocre. However, I don't think that was the intention, and I don't think that the presence of another read inherently invaldiates my one. Sam Sanskrit posted:I think saying psychics are not real is that helpful because I don't really think the episode is making an argument about psychics.. I'm reading psychics here as a metaphor for, like, awkward, imaginative, traumatised, non conforming kids. Not necessarily kids who need medication (or, at least, the medication they're prescribed with), but who do need attention and support from parents and carers givers that the system isn't necessarily equipped to provide. E.g. Danny and Clara forgetting about a child, her parents ignoring her. Open Source Idiom fucked around with this message at 03:13 on Dec 5, 2023 |
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Dec 5, 2023 03:10
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I think this thread (or, at least, another permutation of it) is the only place I've heard online with that criticism of In the Forest of the Night. Granted, that episode is nine years old and I could be forgetting things (although I went back to the then-current review from Radio Free Skaro and no mention of medication was discussed).
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Dec 5, 2023 03:14
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The magic plants that will just make a shield around the earth if there's a solar flare overwrote everything else from that episode in my mind, I don't recall any of this other stuff, thought it was a different episode I didn't watch until I looked it up lol. I was getting pretty checked out by that point though.
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Dec 5, 2023 03:20
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Gaz-L posted:"Of course the real question is: Where did he get the cup of tea?" "Conclusion: "I'm definitely having his chair!"
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Dec 5, 2023 03:42
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Rewatched Star Beast and I think I misread the unit scienist. She's mirroring and emulating the Doctor's nonchalance and witty banter, but she's not quite selling it like he does. It comes off like a slightly socially awkward scientist trying to impress someone famous and coming off a smidge tryhard and THAT I can totally believe. Especially if after she says 'off you pop' she wheels around the corner and starts hyperventilating and going "oh god, did I just say that? Off you pop? Really" and vomits a little in her mouth. That would be if anything, too relatable. Conversely, I think I gave the ending 'just let the metacrisis go you silly man' thing too much credit. It was just such a weight lifted off the plot, such a relief and recognition that it's time to drop the baggage and go have cool space adventures, that I overlooked how clunky it was. The male doctors have IIRC quite literally done things like effortlessly let go of cosmic power and authority, and 13 wasn't some notable superlative in that vein.
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Dec 5, 2023 04:18
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DoctorWhat posted:The problem is that spiritual, woo-woo, and pseudoscientific rhetoric is constantly deployed to undermine the utility, necessity, and availability of antipsychotics and ADHD medication in the real world. "Nobody actually needs psych meds" is a really common sentiment in real life. My own father was a great parent for the most part, but he was that type of person largely because he almost certainly needed them too and had absorbed the same bullshit he was parroting to me, and he convinced me to go off mine more than once, to disastrous effect. He called them Dumbo's Magic Feather. Any piece of art that lends credence to that point of view is doing something very, very dangerous.
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Dec 5, 2023 04:21
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I should add that psychiatric medication literally saved my life, so anything that, even accidentally, might imply it’s not necessary will severely trigger me, regardless of intent. And I think what upset me is that I would have hoped Doctor Who would be beyond that sort of thing.
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Dec 5, 2023 04:46
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Open Source Idiom posted:And the Doctor goes on loving Kerblam. The thing that really gets to me is that the Doctor doesn't just excuse the System literally murdering a completely innocent person, she uses it as an example that proves why the System is.... good? I don't think she quite endorses it as a necessary action but given that was even a potential interpretation of something the Doctor does is madness to me.
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Dec 5, 2023 05:08
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What makes Orphan 55 stand out is not even the messaging being a little clumsy, it’s just very sloppily put together. It has the air of one of those episodes TV shows sometimes have where they didn’t quite have the story cracked and a good sense of what they were doing but the deadlines are looming and they can’t all be bangers. Except that this season only had 10 episodes and so to still have a clunker like that is especially egregious. Like it’s clearly a story that needed more time in the oven. And you seemed to see more of that in Chibnall’s time.
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Dec 5, 2023 05:54
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Kerblam was clearly trying to make the point that *technology* isn’t inherently good or bad, it’s just what it is, that’s what the Doctor is saying, but it confuses things by also having the story be someone rebelling against a bad system the wrong way and going too far and any actual attempt to make the system better is handled in like a couple of lines. Again it’s another story which needed some real rethinking and didn’t get it. I legit feel Chibnall’s faults were more as showrunner than as writer. Even accepting that COVID wreaked unprecedented havoc on Flux and the specials, it really feels like he wasn’t able to pull things together as well as other producers. (See the Sea Devils where FX and filming issues result in a story that is… really not coherent.)
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Dec 5, 2023 06:01
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Maxwell Lord posted:See the Sea Devils where FX and filming issues result in a story that is… really not coherent. A lot of this was reshoots and edits too. It was a very troubled production. Pretty much all of the asian actors had to have their lines redubbed, which is why you rarely see their mouths move on camera.
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Dec 5, 2023 06:06
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Open Source Idiom posted:I'm reading psychics here as a metaphor for, like, awkward, imaginative, traumatised, non conforming kids. Not necessarily kids who need medication (or, at least, the medication they're prescribed with), but who do need attention and support from parents and carers givers that the system isn't necessarily equipped to provide. E.g. Danny and Clara forgetting about a child, her parents ignoring her. I actually totally buy this and think it is a good read. I think in that case I would still say that they episodes poor and unspecific writing leaves a really unfortunate opening where a far worse message could (perhaps even more easily) be taken as The Message. And, as others have said, I think the ease with which it can be interpreted that way is that it is an opinion I think too many of us have had to hear from lovely people IRL.
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Dec 5, 2023 06:27
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