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Rochallor posted:I love that the Doctor is kind of wrong-footed because the proper answers to how his companions are actually all right then are just so long and convoluted that he has to give these mealy-mouthed replies. I just don't buy that Bill is actually alright tbh. She got eaten by a thing, and based on that other girl who got eaten by the same thing there's not gonna be a whole lot of Bill left anymore.
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Dec 22, 2023 03:52
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I think that was part of the reason for having her back for Twice Upon a Time, so the Doctor could both learn that she survived the final Cybermen assault albeit in a different form, but also that her place in the Testimony is an acknowledgement for the audience as well that the Bill from the end of the previous episode was still the original Bill. Even if that somewhat clashes with the Pilot herself being so clearly different from the original person. I guess you could argue there that the pilot had enough control at that point to ensure Bill's consciousness was retained, but then you're kind of getting into the weeds with stuff like the Star Trek "the teleporters just make a copy" argument. Moffat clearly wrote it as an intended happy ending, not a kind of dark "the Pilot just hoovered up some of her memories to make a facsimile" twist.
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Dec 22, 2023 04:04
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PriorMarcus posted:I don't think this was ever a necessary part of their relationship. They are meeting out of order, sure, and the start and ends of their relationship is reversed, but for their relationship to really blossom into what it's implied to be in Silence In the Library you really have to have a period where they are on equal footing more or less. Matinee posted:What I never liked was the Doctor’s plan to defeat them by splicing in the “you should kill us all on sight” clip. Like, well done, Doctor, you’ve just weaponised every human born after 1969 to become unthinking and unwitting murderers of a sentient species, willing to pull a gun without a second’s thought. “The Man Who Never Would”, huh? The basic problem is that it's still genocide. Zohar posted:Also decided to spend an evening watching The War Games, which is an interesting contrast -- a setting that's fleshed out really well within the bumper 10 episodes spent on it. Hopefully we'll get more multi-parters in future. Got to The Doctor's Wife in my watchthrough and I dig how the little message cubes are kind of like a callback to the message cube the Second Doctor creates in that (and I love how the serial makes use of the War Chief to sell what a big deal calling in the Time Lords is - "hahaha Doctor the only way you can beat me is to use your nuclear option and I know full well you won't OH poo poo WAIT ARE THOSE THE LAUNCH CODES?").
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Dec 22, 2023 04:08
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Updog Scully posted:They did this in Season 7 and it sucked. They also did this in Season 11 and it sucked there as well. It turns out that when you don't connect each episode by a story through-line, they all end up feeling like filler. The counterexample I will give: if you trim the RTD season finales from Series 1-4, you basically end up with a string of self-contained stories in each season (because he really only brings the season arcs to the fore right at the end) and also you by and large end up with better seasons. I'll give you Parting of the Ways/Bad Wolf, but Army of Ghosts/Doomsday? Can't stand it, it's an exercise in mashing action figures together, it's the Picard season 3 of Doctor Who. Utopia/The Sound of Drums/Last of the Time Lords? Can't stand it, hate how they wasted Jacobi, think the flying aircraft carrier is Marvel-tier rubbish, don't like Simms' take on the Master, thought the Dragonball Z Spirit Bomb ending was not only risible, but risible in a way that sabotaged Martha's one major chance in her season to be the big hero because it made that moment which should, by rights, have been all about her and made it all about the Doctor. Stolen Earth/Journey's End? Awful, a tedious cavalcade of way too many cameo appearances capped off with a finale for Donna which was so awful that RTD devoted his first full episode back in the job to fixing it. The basic reason I don't like the Moffat era as much is that he feels obliged to foreground the season arc plot stuff more. This is, to be fair to Moffat, actually what you want to do if you consider the season arc to be the point of the exercise. I don't, though. I spit on the season arc. I cross the season arc off my Christmas list. I snub the season arc.
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Dec 22, 2023 04:17
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The real issue isn't the season arc itself. The issue is we haven't had any good season arcs except for 5 and maybe 9. The finale to Season 10 is fantastic, but it was the one season finale that was hurt by a lack of build up. We see the Doctor lulled into a false sense of security in flashbacks after Bill gets blasted, but Missy is never really let loose before the finale. I think it would have been more effective if the arc was more fleshed out, with the Doctor gradually putting down his guard and trusting Missy more over the season. She could have even joined Team TARDIS for a few episodes, would have been fun given what we saw in WE&T.
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Dec 22, 2023 05:39
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Warthur posted:To give it the most generous reading possible, I think the idea is that the Doctor has weaponised the Silence's very method of control against them. The message is as gruesomely effective as it is because the Silence did such a good job of conditioning humanity to obey the Silence's subliminal directives to forget and whatnot. There's a poetic justice in it because it's the Silence's own words and own assessment of what humanity ought to be doing used against them using their own infrastructure of power. Were they not heartless turbo-assholes who assumed any rational species would use the most violent means possible to destroy its enemies as a matter of course, they wouldn't have been in such deep poo poo. I will defend the trick used to defeat The Silence as it being a matter of the Doctor knowing they were capable of leaving the planet, and thus using their own trick against them to put them into a situation where they had no choice but to go. They were controlling and manipulating the human race for their own ends, and the Doctor turned that ability against them to put them into a position where they'd no longer be able to do that. If the Silence had been stuck on Earth with no way out, then the Doctor basically turning them into a hunted species with no possibility of escape would definitely be a cruel thing to do regardless of the Silence's abuse of their power, but they could go at any point and the Doctor set things up so they had to do so. They were free to travel the whole universe after that, they just couldn't go after humans again without it leading to a bloodbath. Still involves a lot more death than I'd like, but of Smith's whole run I'd say the murder of Solomon in Dinosaurs on a Spaceship was by the far the more cold-blooded/bloodthirsty. Which shouldn't come as too much of a surprise because look who wrote that episode!
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Dec 22, 2023 06:10
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I reckon Missy was a really hard character to write. The conception that Moffat settled on for Missy is this character who's forever approaching some sort of redemption but is fundamentally alien to the idea of actually being anything but evil. Pretty much every time Moff used the character he pushed her further and further along a short path -- astraversed by xeno's paradox. That's what makes the character fascinating, and not just the (admittedly quite good) zingers she gets. All of Gomez's twitches and improvised experiments are her way of depicting this shift from bad to good, like she's experimenting with the idea of "performing" good and is sort of copying the Doctor to do so -- she even permanently changes her character's accent from RP to Scottish after encountering Capaldi. She's also a character that always goes form zero to a thousand in about three seconds, so I think that accelerated character arc was always going to be a thing. If the universe and morality could survive even one trip in the TARDIS then that means she's capable of true redemption. And she almost does before she commits the ultimate in self-sabotages.
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Dec 22, 2023 06:10
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I think my favorite part of the Toymaker's little puppet show (besides WELL THAT'S ALL RIGHT, THEN!) is immediately after when the Doctor challenges him to a game and they both sit down, and Donna tries to talk the Doctor out of it, saying that the Toymaker will try to cheat, and after both of them respond that he won't, the Toymaker gives her a highly indignant look and tells her, "Shame!" The idea of this nigh-omnipotent being getting genuinely offended at the mere thought that he might cheat, and shaming Donna for even mentioning the possibility just really tickles me for some reason.
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Dec 22, 2023 06:40
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W.T. Fits posted:I think my favorite part of the Toymaker's little puppet show (besides WELL THAT'S ALL RIGHT, THEN!) is immediately after when the Doctor challenges him to a game and they both sit down, and Donna tries to talk the Doctor out of it, saying that the Toymaker will try to cheat, and after both of them respond that he won't, the Toymaker gives her a highly indignant look and tells her, "Shame!" There is something genuinely pleasing about characters with rock solid standards especially when they are otherwise wholly immoral monsters. Same reason Jason from Friday the 13th is better than his contemporaries because he will do unspeakable things to just about anyone, whether they mean him harm or not, but he will never harm a child or animal.
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Dec 22, 2023 07:52
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The Toymaker: Also The Toymaker: quote:Kate: "The beam had a pilot and the armourer and the ground staff. Where are they?"
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Dec 22, 2023 08:01
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Warthur posted:To give it the most generous reading possible, I think the idea is that the Doctor has weaponised the Silence's very method of control against them. The message is as gruesomely effective as it is because the Silence did such a good job of conditioning humanity to obey the Silence's subliminal directives to forget and whatnot. There's a poetic justice in it because it's the Silence's own words and own assessment of what humanity ought to be doing used against them using their own infrastructure of power. Were they not heartless turbo-assholes who assumed any rational species would use the most violent means possible to destroy its enemies as a matter of course, they wouldn't have been in such deep poo poo. It kinda makes me think of the Deep Space Nine episode For The Uniform, where Sisko performs a straight-up war crime to stop an asymmetrical guerilla war. Both of them basically just use their opponent's tactic against them, it's not escalation so much as just meeting them where they set their bar. Still bad, but it's being forced to fight on their level rather than find some theoretical high road. And in both cases, the show just doesn't really grapple with what they did afterwards, although it does recognize the reality of 'he's done it before and he'll do it again'. DS9 does make the actual moment a lot heavier, though, as I recall that scene has a real awareness of what they're doing that the Doctor Who scene just doesn't. Cleretic fucked around with this message at 09:06 on Dec 22, 2023 |
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Dec 22, 2023 09:01
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Yeah, in DS9 Sisko realises that he's dealing with a massive drama queen who explicitly sees himself as a hero, and sets out to play the villain to make giving himself up the heroic option. And when the moment itself comes, it's acknowledged as a bad thing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GutX8BThM74 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=getXciK0nXo
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Dec 22, 2023 11:07
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Dabir posted:Yeah, in DS9 Sisko realises that he's dealing with a massive drama queen who explicitly sees himself as a hero, and sets out to play the villain to make giving himself up the heroic option. And when the moment itself comes, it's acknowledged as a bad thing. Avery Brooks was so bloody good as Sisko, you don't know how much of that fury in the second clip there is Sisko playing the villain or Sisko being absolutely determined that Eddington is going to pay.
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Dec 22, 2023 13:00
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My hot take on the question earlier of season-long arcs vs. completely standalone episodes is that either one can be done well, and one being done poorly doesn’t prove that the other is the way to go. That being said, audiences these days expect some amount of serialization in their TV. The prominence of the story arcs can vary, but realistically you’re not getting a season of completely standalone stories like (most of) classic Who any time soon.
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Dec 22, 2023 13:28
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Rochallor posted:I love that the Doctor is kind of wrong-footed because the proper answers to how his companions are actually all right then are just so long and convoluted that he has to give these mealy-mouthed replies. Alternatively: The Doctor: It makes sense in context!
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Dec 22, 2023 13:31
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Mooseontheloose posted:Alternatively: "Oh really? The manifestation of a force from beyond our universe who is obsessed with games is going to give me poo poo about how complicated the life of a time traveller can be?
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Dec 22, 2023 13:57
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Fil5000 posted:"Oh really? The manifestation of a force from beyond our universe who is obsessed with games is going to give me poo poo about how complicated the life of a time traveller can be? No, no, that's if Twelve was there instead
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Dec 22, 2023 14:19
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Cleretic posted:It kinda makes me think of the Deep Space Nine episode For The Uniform, where Sisko performs a straight-up war crime to stop an asymmetrical guerilla war. Both of them basically just use their opponent's tactic against them, it's not escalation so much as just meeting them where they set their bar. Still bad, but it's being forced to fight on their level rather than find some theoretical high road. Haven't watched Deep Space 9 but the Maquis seem to be a terrorist/militant group like Al Qaeda. The Silence are an alien occupation force, maybe more comparable to something like the British Raj except none of the oppressed know they exist. Like if after centuries of occupation the occupied people just kind of got on with their lives and determinedly never acknowledged the pale men in suits who rule them. Someone who knows more about history could probably come up with a better example, the Raj was just on my mind because I watched RRR the other day and started imagining the Doctor expelling the Silence with kickflips and dance battles
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Dec 22, 2023 14:42
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HD DAD posted:That has me thinking, I wonder which episode of modern Who cost the least. I’m sure it’s something like Midnight. Blink, Midnight, and Heaven Sent were on the lower side Can't find any actual hard numbers though
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Dec 22, 2023 15:19
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Vinylshadow posted:Blink, Midnight, and Heaven Sent were on the lower side Heaven Sent has some location shooting and a fair amount of CGI; I don't know how much that compares to one set and a half dozen actors for Midnight, though, given how cheap CGI is. I'd be surprised if it was Blink, although I don't know exactly how much of a haircut Tennant and Agyeman were taking for only appearing for like 5 minutes.
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Dec 22, 2023 15:35
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Open Source Idiom posted:I just don't buy that Bill is actually alright tbh. She got eaten by a thing, and based on that other girl who got eaten by the same thing there's not gonna be a whole lot of Bill left anymore. Then there's that decade long experimental cyber conversion process. That had to be an unbroken chain of tortures and mind rape. They clearly established that all of those patients were screaming all the time.
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Dec 22, 2023 15:35
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She got better. Well, wetter.
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Dec 22, 2023 16:09
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Huh. Why didn't Clara immediately go on a psychotic murder spree when The Doctor took her onto the church ship thingy and she saw the Silence priest guys. I assume she had seen the space landing at some point in her life. She shoulda just frothy mouthed just ripping and tearing like loving Doom guy on there.
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Dec 22, 2023 16:10
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Diabolik900 posted:My hot take on the question earlier of season-long arcs vs. completely standalone episodes is that either one can be done well, and one being done poorly doesn’t prove that the other is the way to go. Which is why, though I accept that in the current market you can't dial the season arc score down to zero, I still think it's better in the long run - from the perspective of making something people can revisit later on and will therefore have lasting cultural impact rather than being fire-and-forget streaming dross - to dial it back to minimum. The less impact the season arc stuff has on the preceding episodes in the season, the better it is for posterity: it's easier to hop in and just revisit favourite episodes if they're primarily focused on telling self-contained stories and the season arc stuff is relegated to a passing mention in dialogue. (Again, Star Trek: Picard is quite bad at this - there aren't really any episodes you can just dip in and watch in isolation.) Even if the season arc is good, it's still beneficial to have plenty of episodes you can just watch by themselves without needing to keep track of the season arc; if it's bad, then any reminder of it is going to be an albatross around the neck of preceding episodes on a rewatch, and the lighter and smaller the albatross is the better. Warthur fucked around with this message at 16:21 on Dec 22, 2023 |
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Dec 22, 2023 16:17
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DavidCameronsPig posted:Huh. And that's why the death of physical media is bad.
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Dec 22, 2023 16:21
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I don't think I've ever seen the moon landing footage and assuming Clara is supposed to be the same age as Jenna, I'm only 7 years younger than her.
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Dec 22, 2023 17:02
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Dabir posted:I don't think I've ever seen the moon landing footage and assuming Clara is supposed to be the same age as Jenna, I'm only 7 years younger than her.
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Dec 22, 2023 17:06
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I fell off of Who back during season 11, decided I'm gonna watch flux then try and catch up over the weekend. I've heard flux isn't great, but five minutes in I love the new tardis at least
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Dec 22, 2023 17:16
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DavidCameronsPig posted:Huh. She didn't have a weapon, probably ran into Tasha's room to get one
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Dec 22, 2023 17:33
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Pocky In My Pocket posted:I fell off of Who back during season 11, decided I'm gonna watch flux then try and catch up over the weekend. I've heard flux isn't great, but five minutes in I love the new tardis at least Honestly I’ve enjoyed catching up on Whittaker’s run. It’s a very different take on Who with different sensibilities. I can absolutely see how a lot of people bounced hard off of it (like me initially), and there are some big dumb swings in there…but I don't think it's awful. If RTD and Moffat's quality swung between a 3/10 and an 11/10, Chibnall just seems to be happy with a consistent 6 or 7.
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Dec 22, 2023 17:41
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RTD and Moffat swung the full dial for me, 1-11. But Chibs plumbed new depths with O-55 and couldn't get it above a 6 no matter how good the premise and previews looked.
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Dec 22, 2023 18:38
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Is anyone else a little disappointed they are using the old Diamond logo for the new stuff, but the time vortex in the opening sequence doesn't take the diamond shape like it did with Pertwee/Baker? Insanely niche nitpick
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Dec 22, 2023 18:44
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TheBigBudgetSequel posted:Is anyone else a little disappointed they are using the old Diamond logo for the new stuff, but the time vortex in the opening sequence doesn't take the diamond shape like it did with Pertwee/Baker? Is it even in the vortex or is the TARDIS just having fun in a nebula?
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Dec 22, 2023 19:00
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MikeJF posted:Is it even in the vortex or is the TARDIS just having fun in a nebula? I mean, that is fair. Although when the logo shows up it gets a bit vortexy
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Dec 22, 2023 19:03
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This might've been mentioned but apparently Rusty really wanted a shot in the intro where you can see the Doctor and his companion with the door open leaning out and admiring the view while the TARDIS flies along, and they shot it, but he got talked out of it.
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Dec 22, 2023 19:14
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The one thing I don't like about the intro is the shaky cam zoom in when it's flying across the cloudscape. It implies that that point of view belongs to someone suddenly.
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Dec 22, 2023 19:25
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TheBigBudgetSequel posted:Is anyone else a little disappointed they are using the old Diamond logo for the new stuff, but the time vortex in the opening sequence doesn't take the diamond shape like it did with Pertwee/Baker? No Who intro can rise above a 7/10 quality unless we see the Doctor's face during the intro. Sorry, but that's just the rules. (Yes, this means that the Hartnell era intro was only a B- grade intro. Again, I don't make the rules. For similar reasons, none of the cliffhangers of the 1960s could possibly achieve top marks, because the synthesiser sting didn't show up until The Ambassadors... SYNTHESISER STING ...of Death!)
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Dec 22, 2023 19:37
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Dabir posted:The one thing I don't like about the intro is the shaky cam zoom in when it's flying across the cloudscape. It implies that that point of view belongs to someone suddenly. Salamander, he's still floating out there in the time vortex.
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Dec 22, 2023 19:39
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The Who intro should be more like SNL intro. Introduce us to everyone, don't make me wait to see who is playing the Absorbagriff
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Dec 22, 2023 19:50
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MikeJF posted:This might've been mentioned but apparently Rusty really wanted a shot in the intro where you can see the Doctor and his companion with the door open leaning out and admiring the view while the TARDIS flies along, and they shot it, but he got talked out of it. I think that could have worked, but I get why they'd decide against it. But no matter how ugly it turned out, it wouldn't have been worse than the clock opening. That one was just bland.
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Dec 22, 2023 19:55
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