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My main hope is that Jodie gets her own equivalent of Heaven Sent, Midnight or Dalek. Something to really sink her teeth into and show how good an actor she is. While she did a respectable job last series, it's a shame she didn't get to absolutely smash it and silence the critics.CommonShore posted:I could go for something really weird this time, though. My attitude to pretty much all art now is "if it can't be good, it can at least be weird." I'd also vote for this. I'll take weird over boring any day.
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Dec 31, 2019 19:35
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Yeah, overall I felt that was fun and engaging, but had weird choppy structure from scene-to-scene. It also still had problems of telling instead of showing, or at least constantly describing what was already happening onscreen (ex: "oh crap, nobody's driving the car!") But that reveal got an actual out-loud  from me which is more of a reaction than S11 ever managed.Also, tissue compression got a smile and the little matchbox figure was the right kind of silly.
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Jan 1, 2020 21:13
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For some reason I'd had it in mind (at least until the Doctor didn't recognise them) that the aliens might be the Voord, since their shape was sort-of similar and the company is called VOR. From what happened with Yaz, I'd expected a twist that her DNA had been overwritten or whatever and she'd been turned into a double agent - obviously that could still happen. I wasn't expecting a reveal about O at all until it happened. marktheando posted:Oh poo poo, of course. I knew he looked familiar but couldn't place him in a Doctor Who episode. I hope that at most we just get a handwave explanation. The Doctor wasn't aware of how Missy died, so from an in-universe perspective there isn't actually a need for the Master to give a technobabble excuse for surviving.
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Jan 1, 2020 21:35
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Gaz-L posted:Minor point, but I sort of wish they hadn't had the line about UNIT and Torchwood in the episode. If you want the story to have Earth's governments being sceptical of aliens, fine, just don't mention it and let fans grumble online. This infection of checking off every possible thing that will have an incel nerd going "Um, actually..." has to stop. It basically killed Star Wars, I don't need it killing Who. It would be much more realistic to just go with different security branches not telling each other what's going on. Offhandedly saying that UNIT and Torchwood are gone will trigger far more nerd outrage. That's also reminded me that they finally pulled the "Graham gets mistaken for the Doctor" gag. Part of me is surprised it took that long, but I also would have liked if they'd never bothered going there.
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Jan 1, 2020 22:06
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evenworse username posted:I know it was a throwaway but - the Master's naughty little smile when asking if Graham wanted to look at his shelf of files on the Doctor makes me wonder what was in there. I wish that scene had cut away so it was left ambiguous whether Graham did go through them.
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Jan 4, 2020 00:54
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Really, all it takes for Chibnall or the next showrunner to bring UNIT back is a brief "UNIT got re-instated yay!" line and the status quo is restored. They'll be back at whatever point it's narratively useful to have them around.
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Jan 4, 2020 17:00
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Lampsacus posted:Did the Master mention i he was the 'latest' iteration or one before the last master (cause he killed himself right?)? I'm confused about this Masters place in the timeline. No specific indication, but he's only had 5 minutes of screentime so far. Confused is how we're supposed to be feeling. My working assumption is that he's the iteration after Missy and survived through *mumbles*, but there's plenty of speculation that he could actually be in between Simm and Gomez. His line about the flying house being "a bit Wicked Witch of the West" could be taken either as him making a deliberate callback to Missy or ironic foreshadowing of his future.
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Jan 5, 2020 11:46
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I hope the explanation is that Missy turned into a CGI snake.
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Jan 5, 2020 13:15
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Wow, that was a lot to process. It felt a little Moffat-lite and I'm not entirely sure I understood all of what was going on, but I enjoyed the experience and I'll put it down as the best episodes that Chibnall's written so far. I'm surprised to see Chibnall lurching back so hard into deep continuity and I'm not sure how it'll go down with the general audience. I enjoyed it though and expect it'll play well with fans who criticised last series for being too simple. Jerusalem posted:Contact! When was the last time they used that? 3rd Doctor? I watched the Three Doctors not too long ago, so I was very happy to have got that reference. "You're not the only one who can do Classic" was a terrible pun, but I kind of love it.
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Jan 5, 2020 21:20
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Goddamn that was a bad episode of Doctor Who. Probably the worst of the Chibnall era so far. There were a few ideas that could have made for a decent episode - like when it turned into Metro 2033 for a couple of minutes - but it was just a total jumble of random events, plot twists, bad effects and characters I either didn't care about or actively disliked. At least the awful squirrel(?) woman died early. One part I will say nice things about is that I'm liking the running narrative of the Doctor not telling companions things, and them noticing and getting pissy about it. It adds some texture to Thirteen's character and gives me some Seven vibes. I hope that goes somewhere. Voting Floater fucked around with this message at 22:04 on Jan 12, 2020 |
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Jan 12, 2020 21:47
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Jerusalem posted:For a show that has really done a great job on its visual look since Chibnal took over, that sure is a... uhh... costume I guess It's a classic example of a costume that looked perfectly good when hunched over in brief close-ups, shadows and blurry motion, but then they made the rookie mistake of showing it standing up straight in middle distance and daylight.
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Jan 13, 2020 19:46
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It's weird that the Skithra seemed clearly related to the Racnoss, but the episode never made any nod to that. I'd also expected the Tesla episode to be the one with the cybermen. Overall, I'm in agreement with the rest of the thread: a perfectly solid bit of Doctor Who that mostly hit the right beats, but not one that'll particularly stick in my memory.
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Jan 19, 2020 21:40
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CommonShore posted:I'm sick of looking at ... quarry settings. This, uh, may not be the show for you.
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Jan 20, 2020 20:28
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Goddamn. This episode was hyped up as having some huge twist and I was sure it wouldn't live up to it, but how wrong I was. I'd thought just bringing Jack back would be enough to satisfy that, but it kept on ramping up. I was guessing Ruth would be the Master too, naturally, and thought having multiple different Masters piling up in a season would be a fun idea. Since her name began with R and she had a necklace with R on it, I'd also guessed the Rani or Romana as possibilities. I would have preferred any of those options to where it actually went, but hopefully this'll pay off... I don't think a pre-Hartnell iteration seems likely, given the Doctor had no idea what was going on. Although I did flash back to Capaldi's passing line in World Enough and Time about "the Master was a man back then, and I think I was too" as a possible thing Chibnall might be running with. The warlike Time Lords and the medal business made me think Time War, but I can't imagine we'd get something so derivative as another super-secret War Doctor regeneration. I'm guessing it's something involving alternate potential timelines smashing together; maybe specifically to do with the "timeless" part of the Timeless Child. I also want to say that Jodie was giving some top-tier Doctoring throughout the episode. She's been smashing it all series.
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Jan 27, 2020 01:08
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Jenna Coleman was a solid actor, which made up for Clara being a bit bland and lacking in clear motivation. I liked her well enough in series 7b, enjoyed her the most in series 8 (despite the anemic Danny Pink plotline), but she stuck around too long and had too many false exits. Agreed on Bill being the superior companion though. She's probably my second-favourite revival-era companion after Donna.
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Jan 30, 2020 22:07
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The_Doctor posted:Look at this gorgeous shot. My new phone lock screen. It's a little on the dark side, but that's presumably deliberate to suit Doctor Ruth's character. Turn up the dimmer switch and I'd be happy if Jodie ended up with it. I'll admit that the re-dress of Thirteen's TARDIS has been kind of alright. Parts of it still look like a prison set from Farscape and the columns still look like a dead spider, but there have been several shots where I've thought it looked half-decent. The one of Tesla standing by the console at the climax of ep 4 for example.
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Jan 30, 2020 22:47
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SiKboy posted:Sadly as soon as anyone in anything says "I go by many names" I jump straight to The Mighty Boosh. Glad I'm not the only one. Jerusalem posted:That was good but the main plot/threat kinda just got wrapped up abruptly and the girl from Aleppo's arc all got resolved off-screen including an outright voice-over like they realized in the edit they'd forgotten to film it. Yeah, I enjoyed all the set-up of that (dodgy CGI monster aside) but the resolution was weirdly quick for what seemed like a colossal threat. I'm sure the bogeyman with creepy fingers will scare the bejeezus out of kids though. It was also weirdly nice that Ryan's nightmare was Orphan 55 of all episodes.
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Feb 9, 2020 21:22
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To be honest, all the episodes so far having primarily taken place on Earth is something I'd not noticed until people started pointing it out. Orphan 55 is essentially an alien world episode, it's just that the Planet of the Apes twist means it actually technically isn't. I'm assuming Gallifrey is going to play some kind of significant role in the finale.
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Feb 11, 2020 20:06
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Really enjoyed that. Reminded me of Hide a lot, but with much better pacing so it didn't run out of steam halfway through. I'm curious if the ghosts Graham saw will turn out to be relevant. It seemed too big a part of the episode to just be a "maybe magic is real after all!" moment. Jerusalem posted:I was thinking that maybe the psychic paper didn't work because Shelley's filter was over-riding anything else, but then I realized it's far simpler (and funnier) if just getting wet was enough to make it fizzle out Didn't Shakespeare see through it too back in series 3? I assumed it was calling back to that, but it is funnier if it was just that getting wet broke it.
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Feb 16, 2020 22:31
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I've only seen bits of Torchwood, but that's absolutely by choice based on the shittiness of what I have seen. I might actually bite the bullet though and take the chance to watch it all. I mean, it can't all be tacky gore and swears and shagging... right?
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Feb 21, 2020 21:49
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marktheando posted:Just watch Children of Earth, it's the only good Torchwood. CommonShore posted:Then be like the rest of us and watch the rest because you're sad lonely and bored Goddammit, this is actually what I'm going to do isn't it. Suppose I've gotta watch something once series 12 ends and we have to wait 4 years for the next one.
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Feb 21, 2020 23:29
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Chuff McNothing posted:To confirm what thought it was: retired cop was the kid and the dad hadn't aged? Yes. My guess was the whole Irish village part was some kind of dream state for the dormant cybermen, then the bit with the retirement was the cyberman getting forcibly activated. I could be way off-base though.
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Feb 23, 2020 21:33
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Jerusalem posted:Yeah I assumed it was some mental conditioning thing to prep for conversion, and that we're seeing the Last Cyberman caught in a kind of loop because his conversion never actually completed. Could be waaaay off and it has nothing to do with it at all, but the headphones they put on him did give him a proto-Cyberman look. Yeah, the kid's name wasn't given for a while and I was expecting a dramatic reveal that it was Ashad.
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Feb 23, 2020 21:58
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Good on the whole. There's been one glaring stinker and a few so-so episodes, but that's kind of typical for any series. Whittaker's grown into the role and been given a chance to show more range. I'd say it's mostly addressed the common complaints about series 11, but there are still issues with clunky, overly expository dialogue and trouble juggling the three companions. There's a lot riding on the finale and the potential for a Hell Bent level of making GBS threads the bed. I've definitely felt the low episode count this time round. I was OK with Series 11 only being 10 episodes, since they were all standalone and the new year's special wasn't long after the regular finale. This time though, the multi-parters make the series seem really short.
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Feb 23, 2020 23:08
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Open Source Idiom posted:Also how dead is Julie Graham? Are we taking bets? I'm betting "very dead". Was she the one I kept thinking was called Ravioli?
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Feb 24, 2020 00:06
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The_Doctor posted:So this episode established the following: Pretty much. But hey, it's fixed that one ambiguous scene from 40 years ago! And none of it matters anyway because the Doctor's already over it! Willing to bet The Division is the next series arc, which is also the part I don't give the slightest poo poo about and expect I'll actively hate once we learn more.
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Mar 1, 2020 22:32
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marktheando posted:I was waiting for two episodes for old guy to be revealed as a secret Time Lord or something, but he was just there to do the heroic sacrifice. When he turned up at the end, I briefly hoped he was going to reveal that he was Rassilon or whoever and he'd give the REAL explanation. But nope.
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Mar 2, 2020 00:09
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For the first two thirds I didn't really know what to make of it, since it was mostly executed really well (with minor quibbles like the Cybermen not being able to hit anything and the corny use of the theme tune in the memory sequence). Dhawan and Whittaker in particular were both excellent. The problem was that the story it was telling was one I fundamentally didn't want to happen. Take out the Timeless Child part and it would've been perfectly fine. It was kind of a relief when the CyberLords turned up with their stupid  faces and gave me something firmly bad to point to.
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Mar 2, 2020 00:38
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Sieje posted:Well, at least this means that Rowan Atkins and all of the others from Curse of the Fatal Death are now canon Doctors, right? Also Shalka Doctor and Peter Cushing.
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Mar 2, 2020 21:41
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