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It was okay - cast was pretty good, though the script could have been a bit tighter in places - another draft to smooth out some of the clunkier bits of dialogue. And while it's nice there were some stakes with people being killed, killing the nan felt unneeded. Liking where they're going with Whitaker - everything's all new and wonderful and vibrant and bouncy. Some good lines from her too.
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Oct 7, 2018 20:32
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I was hoping they'd be a bit more out there with it. But, eh. It might feel better with the title visuals.
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Oct 7, 2018 23:43
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CobiWann posted:Why am I drawing a blank as to who that is? Owner of the Braxiatel Collection mentioned in City of Death. He's voiced by Miles Richardson, and is the Doctor's Like, if the Master is the Doctor's Moriaty, Brax is Mycroft.
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Oct 9, 2018 21:58
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Managed to listen to the new Eighth Doctor boxset, Ravenous 2: Electric Boogaloo today. Sticking thoughts and feeling behind the SSLP for spoiler stuff. Also trying to do my bit and get this Romanian lass at work into Doctor Who. She's been wondering what all the fuss has been about 
Pesky Splinter fucked around with this message at 17:33 on Oct 12, 2018 |
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Oct 12, 2018 17:25
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Tried my best to watch it, but my stream kept cutting out, so I missed a few chunks.  Like the whole crystal console thing, and the entrance way from the 60's film, but the rest of the interior is far too dark, sparse and gloomy. Maybe they'll adjust the lighting in future episodes to make it more...cozy, for lack of a better word.
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Oct 14, 2018 19:47
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It did feel a bit rushed towards the end. And, like the last episode, it did feel like it need another go through the dialogue just to tighten it - I have a feeling this is going to be a recurring pet peeve of mine during Chibnal's stuff. The visuals are top notch - although some of the editing felt a bit sloppy in this, and it is nice to have a fuller TARDIS crew. Although, yeah, atm Yaz feels like a hanger-on, which they're hopefully going to improve upon. I like the new opening visuals - kinda miss that they haven't put Jodie's face in there somewhere - but a modern interpretation of the 60s kaleidoscope is fine. Still not digging the theme though. It just sounds like the least  remix they could have done. But that's just personal taste - maybe it's just Akinola playing it safe - the rest of the music is pretty good.Don't mind the weird tooth people becoming recurring villains, if they do something interesting with them, although "Timeless Child"...yeah. No thanks.
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Oct 14, 2018 20:06
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Here's a behind the scenes look at the new TARDIS look. It doesn't look so bad in some shots - pretty sure it's just how it's lit. But those hexagonal walls are super dark still. I think, if they had put the hexagonal walls as a divider, but more brightly lit behind, it wouldn't look so gloomy - I mean, that's what they're more or less doing with the little blue-light hexagons, backlit by soft orange lava-lamp things, and it works pretty well. Pesky Splinter fucked around with this message at 20:42 on Oct 14, 2018 |
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Oct 14, 2018 20:40
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Timby posted:That has all the hallmarks of 11's first set, being a massive headache to film in and needing an offseason redesign. This is true. I dunno, as I said, maybe they'll do something with the lighting in future episodes. Kinda like how they changed the lighting of 11's second set to help make it feel more inviting. Wheat Loaf posted:It's not very interesting to me. That said, I know one guy from work for whom the merest hint of some Vast Conspiracy Arc With Clues To Theorise About will have completely guaranteed he's on board for the rest of the season. I guess some people just like that stuff even if it doesn't really appeal to me. I mean recurring tooth people, as opposed to vague hints about the Doctor's past and the "Timeless Child". I don't mind an obvious recurring antagonist, or antagonistic species - like you I'm just not invested in yet another Vague Arc of Vagueness. I tried to get into X-files after finishing off Twin Peaks a few years ago, craving weird mystery stuff after hearing how great it was...just didn't click 
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Oct 14, 2018 21:47
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I was really worried about this episode - and yeah, it was a tad clumsy towards the middle with Ryan and Yaz laying out the core theme of the story - but I'll take something that's slightly clumsy, but tries to deal with racism frankly and unflinchingly - and I think they handled Rosa and the segregation pretty well. It does suffer from the usual psuedo-historical problem of stuffing a random space person in there though. A space racist with an interesting plan to fudge history, but still it's unneeded, and he's still completely flat as a character. It felt really rushed how they got rid of him as well, sending him through time - if he returns, I don't think anyone could care enough.
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Oct 21, 2018 20:01
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Editing seemed a bit better this time - in the Ghost Monument it was all over the placeJerusalem posted:No it happened, he went back to try and change it, the Doctor and companions nudged things back as close to the original conditions as they could and happily did a good enough job that things went back along their original path. If the time-racist hadn't shown up and tried to change things, then the end result would have been the same: Rosa Parks refuses to move from her seat and gets arrested. Yeah, this. Jerusalem posted:My biggest concern going into the episode was that Rosa would only do these things because she was inspired or directed to by either the Doctor or her companions, so I was glad they were mostly just along for the ride trying to keep the obstacles out of her path so she could do what she was always going to do in the first place. That was my biggest worry as well - it was actually a relief to see Malorie Blackman's name appear in the opening writing credits - a black woman who's written works that deal with racism. I so glad they handled it the way they did. Also, unrelated, I'm coming round to the new theme - also Akinola's general music is pretty great - different, but good and fitting from Gold's - and the better sound mixing means it's not drowning out everything else.
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Oct 21, 2018 20:51
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Stabbatical posted:"Rosa Parks is a Rutan". This seat is SONTARAN ONLY.
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Oct 21, 2018 21:33
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seizure later posted:What was with the insane close up shots of the Doctor's and Time-Racists face, where it just went in and out of focus? I noticed that too  Some of the close-ups make sense, but that was pretty bad. Not as bad as the other week though - that was nice vistas ruined by choppy editing, uncomfortable close-ups, and IIRC they break the 180 rule a lot too. I'll have to rewatch it proper, as it kept cutting out. There are some nice shots in this - would be nice if they could pull the camera back a bit more though - best example is the TARDIS interior, which is huge, but the coverage makes it seem so claustrophobic. Pesky Splinter fucked around with this message at 22:01 on Oct 21, 2018 |
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Oct 21, 2018 21:59
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Jerusalem posted:That's right, wasn't the BBC guy all,"Big Finish? What the hell is tha-" and RTD just smoothly slid the papers over to his side and said,"Oh leave that to me to take care of"? Something like that apparently.  Relatedly, I think I may have got a work colleague hooked on Doctor Who - no previous knowledge or context to the show, just was curious about all the fuss being made about it in the news. Lent her Rose to watch, and the details to watch the current series on iplayer (as she's very curious), telling her as little about it as possible - nothing about regeneration, the TARDIS, just that it's a family-friendly sci-fi show. She loved Rose. Liked the quirkiness, the humour, the mystery, the creepy autons, and now wants to plough on with the rest of that series. She's going to give the newest series a watch, see if it clicks, and in the down time between new episodes go back to the Ecclestone episodes.
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Oct 26, 2018 13:18
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jivjov posted:I would be happier if the Dark Eyes/Doom Coalition/Ravenous stories had been released as monthly/bi monthly single releases (but otherwise completely unchanged) rather than big box sets. 1) more frequent doses of McGann, 2) there's not as much of an expectation for each set to be solely devoted to the big arc. Yeah, that's kind of the problem they've had with the Ravenous stuff - the presentation of it as an overarcing boxset like the previous boxsets, even though it's mostly one-shots, and then an episode dealing with the Ravenous. I mean, it's nice to get away from arc stuff with the Eighth Doctor, and just have him go on fun adventures, and not subject to absolute misery all the time - and that would be a pretty good idea, cheaper one-offs like they do with the Fourth Doctor stuff. BF also expanding its stable of writers would be welcome also - I enjoy most of its output, but some fresher names appearing with new ideas is never a bad thing.
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Oct 27, 2018 18:54
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Pretty enjoyable, but yeah did fizzle out at the end, and the poo poo-head CEO just walking away felt wrong. Pretty much every episode thus far has ended with an antagonist (or vaguely antagonistic in Ghost Monument), teleporting or walking away. Nice to see a bit of development for Yaz, and Whitaker seems more comfortable in the role. Probably the best performances from the main cast so far. Editing and camera work seems better than the previous episodes as well, a real nice flow between everything, and even the TARDIS as the end seemed to be framed a bit better.
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Oct 28, 2018 21:01
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Nice set design, bog-standard run around plot though. Nice CG work on the nibbler-thing. The writing of the Doctor's wonder with mankind making that antimatter engine was a nice moment for her, but it completely stops the momentum and threat in its tracks. That would have been better placed when she was exploring the ship earlier, before the nibbler monster got onboard, IMO. Same again for Ryan and Yaz having their little chat - I didn't have a problem with the similar one in Rosa - heavy handed as that might have been, I'll glady take them hammering the point of "racism is still a thing, still affects people and is still bad" over "Backstory exposition." "Backstory exposition?" "Backstory exposition". You can feel the writer going "well this is the scene where the characters have to say this", and feels so inorganic. Inelegant and perfunctory is probably the best way I feel to describe the Chibnall's writing. Still, it was an okay episode, with some good Doctor moments, and some of the jokes made me laugh. I'm hoping the next episode with Yaz's Nan will bring Yaz into focus more - even the Arachnids in the UK was more interested in her mum and family than her - and give her something to do other than be a fourth wheel.
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Nov 4, 2018 21:27
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Wheat Loaf posted:My surmise from back when it was announced was that it will be called "Drac", it will star somebody like Alexander Vlahos as Dracula and Van Helsing will be reimagined as a woman who is secretly in love with Dracula and cries every time she sees him because of how awesome he is. Oh god I can see it 
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Nov 7, 2018 22:18
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No Doctor Who Xmas Special [e]: It's a joke video  VVV Pesky Splinter fucked around with this message at 17:38 on Nov 20, 2018 |
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Nov 20, 2018 16:04
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Crusader posted:what was the last pure historical btw? does the crimson horror count since the monster was technically not an alien? Technically Blake Orchid, although that's a strange one. The previous historicals were the Doctor travelling to an historically important event, and/or meeting historically important people. Blake Orchid is just the Doctor going to a 1920s garden party which doesn't feature anyone of importance, nor is an important event - just him chilling, and engaging in a weird family drama that doesn't really resolve itself too well. The last "traditional" pure historical was The Highlanders - the one that introduced Jamie during Two's run. And the last historical audio was October 2017's The Behemoth
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Nov 26, 2018 09:26
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Edward Mass posted:This series hasn’t been bad, but it sure as hell has been OK. Yeah, it's just been OK. So far it hasn't touched the highs of Moffat's stuff, but it's also not hit the rock-bottom nadirs either. On the one hand it's been what I've wanted from Doctor Who in a while; just a set of adventures in time and space, no puzzle boxes and a break from arcs. Whittaker is great as the Doctor, it's nice to have a full TARDIS crew (even if it suffers from the 5th Doctor problem of not really knowing what to do with juggling so many companions), the cinematography is great, Akinola's music is great, and the series as a whole is approachable to my family in a way that it hasn't been since RTD's era. And on the other it feels so constrained by Chibnall's painfully mediocre writing and his whole, "Well, I don't know how to end this story, so it just ends abruptly." approach, or just ends in an emotionally unsatisfying way (arsehole antagonist just saunters/teleported away, plot resolutions happen off screen), and something just seems oddly cold and clinical about the series, despite the fact that Whittaker is one of the warmest Doctors in a while. I dunno  Anyway, just a heads-up for everyone, there's murmerings that the BBC might be holding a Brexit debate thing (don't ask - save your sanity) on the sunday evening of the series finale which might affect the timetables. Pesky Splinter fucked around with this message at 17:10 on Nov 29, 2018 |
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Nov 29, 2018 16:49
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Pushed through a dimensional barrier by an abstract consciousness of a thinking universe in the form of a rubber frog. Brilliant *Whittaker Grin* Enjoyable enough - bit of a breakneck pace, but that's preferable to something glacially slow, and I can't hate something as weird as what it's attempting.
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Dec 2, 2018 20:26
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Cleretic posted:It's one of those moments that would be done different by every Doctor. Tom Baker (cheerfully) "Your father's probably dead." *manic grin, before dropping down to a serious tone* "But this mirror..."
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Dec 3, 2018 13:56
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BBC backed out of that Brexit debate (again don't ask, although if you're following British politics things have been pretty wild the last few days), so the finale should be at it's normal time 
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Dec 5, 2018 13:04
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In some ways it's what I've been wanting from Who in a long time, but in others it's just falling short. It's so refreshing to have a break from arc heavy stories, and just have random adventures in time and space - no recurring enemies, just new poo poo. Everything is pretty great - acting, set design, cinematography, Akinola's music - it's just the writing that's letting it down for me. It feels bad to lable it at the feet of just Chibnall, but every episode where he has sole writing credit feels constantly like the actors are straining against the writing. Or the story itself will be constrained by the writing - there's some cool and interesting poo poo in there, but it's struggling to burst out. He can write - he seems to be better at writing grief, or misery than he is more cheery scenes - but the flow is turgid, his antagonists are boring as sin, and the resolutions never feel like they're building up to it. It feels like he ran out of time, and then just ends the episode, with none of the proper emotional climax that we should get. It feels so much better when there's a co-writer, or another writer entirely, because they mitigate some his failings, and I hope he takes on a more producer role, rather than writing most of the stories. On the positives, my family is actually engaging with the show in a way they haven't really since the RTD era; Whittaker is great, Walsh is great, Sharon D. Clarke as Grace is great (to the point I wish it had been Graham & Grace as the companions), Tosin Cole, and Mandip Gill are great (very underutilised properly though), and the presentation is top-notch. Also you take that back, Astroman, that talking rubber frog is the kind of poo poo we need.  [e]: Also, have been listening to that latest War Master boxset - it's a bit of false advertising in that it's only peripherally related to the Time War, and spends the whole runtime on the planet Callous, where the protagonists trying to mine a pyschic mineral that has a use in spaceship interfaces but drives you insane in its raw state. I don't rate it as highly as the first one; Jacobi is great as always, and the set up is interesting enough - I guess, I did get a bit sick of focusing soley on the one planet - Silas Carson is great as the assorted Oods (including one called "Gertrood" and "Dood"), with that wonderfully soothing voice saying menacing/ominous things. And while the third episode is filler, it's the surreal mind-fuckery filler I can enjoy. Short version; Best way I can describe the boxset is that it's a extended Master story, that is only (barely) incidentally related to the Time War, rather than what the first was - a War Master directly in the heart of the War. It's a one-and-done from me.
Pesky Splinter fucked around with this message at 21:55 on Dec 11, 2018 |
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Dec 11, 2018 21:37
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I always put the movie's problems down to being structural/narrative, rather than having an American creative team, looking at it from the perspective of 2018 - although I imagine in 1996 it was probably at lot of "YANKS CAN'T DO WHO  HALF-HUMAN DOCTOR KISSING! "Like, as an episode bridge from the Classic series to the Revival, it's an okay episode that works, I guess - McGann is great, Roberts is great and there's some nice scenes and character moments. I do enjoy it - and it's probably the first Who media I ever watched - even if I was young enough and probably didn't realise what it was at the time. As a pilot to introduce the show to a new American audience with zero context, it doesn't do a very good job. It tries to explain and introduce too many concepts in such a short run-time, while not explaining the important things enough, while also trying to do its own little story about time melting or something. It's too continuity heavy, while also wanting to be a break from Classic show, and structurely doesn't really work. McGann doesn't show up until about 1/3rd of the way through the film, has amnesia for a bit, and then has to exposit his way through the rest of it. To compare it with how they handle stuff in the revival, over the course of 13 episodes, the core conceit of the show is shown, and the concepts are drip-fed to the audience - there's a mystery around the Doctor - his TARDIS is explained, the Daleks are explained, the Time War and the Time Lords are explained, and Regeneration is explained. To be fair that is over 8 or so hours compared to the 2 hour(?) film length, and the film is still a guilty pleasure, and it apparently did help RTD with a clear list of Do's/Don'ts with the Revival. [e]: Yvonmukluk posted:Speaking of the movie, SFDebris did an episode on it, with some very interesting background details. I had no idea Steven Spielburg was attached at one point, for example. Or for that matter, Leonard Nimoy. The conception of how the film came about, and the ideas passed around for a potential series are probably more interesting than the final result of the film itself. The Daleks being reimagined as pepperpots that could form into a spider shape, or the cybermen being Mad Max interspacial scavengers. Pesky Splinter fucked around with this message at 11:20 on Dec 15, 2018 |
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Dec 15, 2018 11:14
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Jerusalem posted:Phew, lucky he got over that! Amnesia, Charley, C'rizz, Lucie, Tamsin, Molly,: Friends, companions I've known, I salute you.
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Dec 15, 2018 11:22
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Christmas just wouldn't be Christmas without Chimes of Midnight!
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Dec 24, 2018 15:40
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That was one of Chibnall's better ones, I felt. Neat idea with the dalek, Whittaker was excellent, and everyone got something to do (apart from Yaz) - capped off Ryan's thing with his dad (bit forced, but eh, only got an hour). CGI was pretty fantastic too - on the squid and space effects, anyway. While the jokes were okay, they felt very jarringly placed and stopped some of the momentum. And while I liked the editing, labelling all the locations was completely unnecessary, and that GCHQ text transition from the full name to abbreviation was so ridonkulous it made me laugh.
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Jan 1, 2019 21:32
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docbeard posted:Yeah, I think the elements are there (and Mandip Gill is doing a great job with the material she has) but she's just constantly being, I don't know, is upstaged the word I want? Overshadowed, maybe, by the more developed story beats for, say, Ryan and Graham and their tense-at-first relationship. Being the person who is broadly there to be compassionate and patient and keep a cool head in a crisis is a great role for a character, but isn't necessarily someone it's easy to hang story beats on. She'd be almost ideal for (particularly a Davies-era) sole companion to the Doctor, but in a more crowded TARDIS, there basically needs to be more conflict (in the story sense, not necessarily that she needs to be at odds with the other regulars) involving her. The crowded but friendly dynamic of the TARDIS crew is one of the issues, yeah. It worked with Barbara, Ian and Susan, because there was that conflict between themselves and the Doctor - with Susan being a go-between - which even when they resolved it there was still a different dynamic at work. It can work, they just need to rejig it a bit for the current crew. As is it, Yaz is basically the Nyssa of the crew - she's present and useful, but basically given no focus because they don't really know what to do with her. Even more so when the focus has been primarily the relationship between Graham and Ryan over Grace's death - which she's distanced from. And even when the episode is supposed to focus on Yaz it tends to be about her family more than her. I just hope in the next series they do something more with her. Unrelated, the Series 11 soundtrack is coming out the 11th of this month
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Jan 3, 2019 01:23
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