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COLBY: Did you say that about twelve million years ago, on a nameless planet which no longer exists, evolution went up a blind alley? DOCTOR: Yes. COLBY: Natural selection turned back on itself and a creature evolved which prospered by absorbing the energy wavelengths of life itself? DOCTOR: Mmm. COLBY: It ate life? All life, including that of its own kind? DOCTOR: Yes. In other words, the Something Awful Doctor Who thread. KELNER: They're just human. DOCTOR: Mmm. Disappointing, aren't they. Nice to see you again.
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Dec 26, 2020 05:01
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| # ¿ May 21, 2024 06:35 |
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ConanThe3rd posted:And in the end Ryan still fell off his bike because the writers, absent a clue on what to do with ether him or Graham, couldn’t even give him that one. I really liked that bit. Speaking as someone with both first and second-hand knowledge of chronic medical problems, traveling with the Doctor and being determined is NOT what it takes to solve all your problems, and I was greatly relieved at the end when Ryan fell down again. The point isn't that he's suddenly physically healthy after traveling with the Doctor. It's the difference in his attitude between when we first saw him on his bike and now. Making the moral "if you aren't afraid and really want to, you can do anything" effectively blames anyone facing physical challenges for failing, implying that they just aren't trying hard enough. There was a lot to complain about in that episode, but this moment isn't part of it. HelleSpud posted:They have a scene of Yaz getting a sample of the nutrient in order to analyze it and then just have the Dalek state it. Egregious doesn't even begin to cover it. I still love Yaz, and her scene with Jack was wonderful, but let's summarize her part of the story: 1. Insists the Doctor is in trouble and needs help (correctly). Seems to be obsessive to a concerning degree. None of the work she's done over ten months turns out to mean anything and Jack saves the Doctor without knowing Yaz exists. 2. Shoves the Doctor and has a nice chat with Jack. This was the good bit. 3. Insists on collecting a sample of the nutrient, but that doesn't matter either. 4. Gets saved by Jack from being Dalek-ridden or killed. Maybe saves Jack first: that wasn't entirely clear. 5. Sidelined so Graham and Ryan can have a nice scene on the Dalek ship. 6. Insists on staying with the Doctor, who is delighted and also saddened. While this was also a nice scene, it was again Graham and Ryan focused. 'Cause it's their last show and God forbid Yaz gets more than one focus episode per season. 7. Immediately upstaged by the next companion announcement. Oh, good, another character who will get to be effective while Chibnall sets up Yaz to be the Doctor's creepy stalker. And as has been observed, how the hell did the Dalek arrange for the workers to get rendered into nutrient fluid? Did it pay other people to do that? Because that might have underlined a political or social message, but there's no sign Chibnall even thought of that. Overall, this was not just a remarkably timid episode, it indulged a whole set of Chibnall's specific sins: rapidly developing characters by giving them either meaningless background elements ("I have a mom") or extremely plot-specific traits ("I am corrupt and want to be Prime Minister") with nothing in-between; establishing a potentially powerful metaphor or allegory and then bobbling it because he doesn't understand that you can't just assert a metaphor ("Hey, the Daleks represent hate, just like all those hate groups right now") without developing it; crafting a plot where it feels like none of our main characters actually do anything; ignoring Yaz. He also only seems to have two modes for subtext: so subtextual that it's unstated until a character later blurts something out and makes it retroactively text (without any prior evidence of that), or barely subtextual. Fixes for the episode: 1. We briefly see the Doctor's daily routine in prison. Maybe we see what we got, but we also hear the Doctor identifying ways to escape in a quiet and disinterested way. We also see evidence that she's thinking about what she learned about herself: she hasn't escaped because she's taking advantage of the time to try to process what happened to her. 2. We do NOT get the opening scenes with the Dalek and with the Tech minister and Robertson. This is the one time that having a title "X of the Daleks" could play up the mystery. Make us think that they're Daleks, then reveal that they aren't! 3. Yaz has had a breakthrough and summons Graham and Ryan to the house-TARDIS. She's identified a time-trace that she believes to be the Doctor and wants to try to pilot the TARDIS to it. They show her some Dalek footage dated 11 months ago and insist on investigating. She responds that if the Dalek is back, they really need the Doctor. There's an argument, they tell Yaz she has to let the Doctor go, she refuses, they leave, she's in tears but she flips the switches and they see the house dematerialize. 4. Graham and Ryan start investigating and get caught by Robertson and the prototype Dalek-drone. They try to run, and we see the Dalek raise its gun... 5. Yaz materializes. But she hasn't found the Doctor, she's found Jack. He has much less trouble with the TARDIS controls and quickly identifies where the Doctor is. 6. Prison break. We should expect a big long bit, but it's simple except that Yaz and Jack have to shake the Doctor out of her introspective episode. The word "Dalek" does the trick. 7. Cut back to Graham and Ryan. We see the drone zap them with an electric shock while chanting "Non-lethal restraint deployed. Do not resist." They are surprised. They identify the thing as a "Dalek" and Robertson has no idea what that means, but like any well-written human character would in response they explain that a Dalek is a killing machine with a blobbly octopus-like thing inside. Robertson says that this is no such thing, and opens it up to show them. The innards are not a vacant cavity (who the hell leaves a vacant cavity for an occupant in a device that isn't intended to ever have one?), but full of tech. He tells them there's a sophisticated AI controlling it. They say it's based on alien technology, and he blabs the name of the inventor, then lets them go saying he'll use footage of their capture as part of the drone's next demo reel. 7.5? Maybe keep the Doctor reunited with the TARDIS scene, with Yaz and Jack looking on? But play up the distinction between the Doctor's companions, who will all be left behind, and her TARDIS, which won't be. 8. Reunion scene. Have Jack enter separately if you want to account for the other TARDIS. Maybe he suggests to the Doctor that she should unlock the controls so he can have his own TARDIS, she says "If you're good" and he says "I'm always good." But later changes to the story will make the second TARDIS superfluous. The PM's reveal is on the telly at this stage, and she stresses that thousands of these drones have been deployed all over the UK. Can pretty much keep the speech from the episode, which was on-point. The Doctor gets a nice "this is very bad" moment and they split up: the Doctor notes the design is based on the GCHQ Dalek. She, Ryan, and Graham will check out the scientist who "created" the drones, while Jack and Yaz try to track the GCHQ Dalek. (Note that we never saw it abducted at the beginning in this version of the story.) 9. We get a montage of the drones at work. 10. Jack's Torchwood credentials are still good. They've already confirmed that the remains of the Dalek were shipped out from GCHQ. He and Yaz talk about the Doctor; Yaz manages to find highway-camera footage of the driver getting drugged and the truck stolen. She suggests tracing to see who owns the E.T. Tea truck: they learn it's a company owned by Robertson. Jack: "I think I wanna have a talk with this guy." 11. The others meet the scientist. He admits that he reverse-engineered the Dalek shell, but volunteers that there's no organic components, it's run entirely by a massively networked AI. There's some back & forth on the ethics of duplicating alien technology, making it clear the scientist isn't especially ethical. Ryan might actually point that out, to which Graham responds "Yeah, well, he was willing to work for Robertson, right?" Jack calls in and reports; the Doctor says to use his Vortex Manipulator to bring Robertson to her, because she's convinced something fishy is going on. We cut to an angle showing the security cameras monitoring the lab. 12. Brief scene with Jack, Yaz, and Robertson. Maybe Jack gets to punch someone. Robertson would make a good choice. They grab Robertson and Vortex Manipulator to the lab before a drone can stop them. 13. At the lab, the Doctor is thinking in the background as the Fam harangues Robertson. He first insists industrial espionage is perfectly normal, then reveals that he was tipped off by the Technology Minister who wanted plausible deniability. Jack asks who that is, and Graham identifies the new PM. Then the Doctor narrows her eyes and asks the scientist why he mentioned there were no organic components to the drones. He admits finding traces, and cultivating some of the cells, which revealed alien DNA. Robertson protests at this point, saying he never authorized or paid for that. Under duress, the scientist admits that much of the budget for the AI got redirected to that work instead, and finally admits that they couldn't get the AI control scheme to work on Robertson's time-table, but that he identified traces of a neural network in the cultivated cells, so they used that instead. On the look of horror, cut to 13. Three drones, closing in on the Fam. One says "Stay where you are. Do not resist. You are under arrest." When they start to scatter, the three say "Lethal restraint deployed. EXTERMINATE!" and start shooting lethal electric shocks. (These are not normal Dalek weapons: you can't 3-D print a Dalek gun or the power source needed to fire it. But they can still kill.) They escape but the scientist is cornered. He insists that they constructed an organic neural network. The Dalek says "You do not even know the difference between a neural network and a brain," he says "I'm not a geneticist, I just employ them" and the Dalek says "The geneticists are useful. You are not. EXTERMINATE!" 14. Conversation on the run. Ryan and Graham are briefly baffled about how these can be Daleks with electronic bits, but the Doctor says that there's only the one Dalek, networked to all the drones, and that that's the one weakness. She also says, ominously, that they don't have much time, because if that facility can clone one Dalek it can clone more. "We need to split up: run a distraction, and go after the Dalek's weakness." 15. Montage of drones killing some people, taking others as prisoners. They threaten the PM and end up shooting her when she refuses to order the government to obey them. 16. Robertson, Ryan, Graham, and Jack are sneaking back into the lab building. They ask Robertson where the control center is, and he says he has no idea. He's complaining about the liability risk; the others are disgusted. They avoid some patrolling drones and find their way to the control center, where the Dalek is in a glass container wired into an elaborate system. Robertson pulls the gun he used on the giant spider in his previous episode and empties it into the forcefield around the Dalek, to no effect. Both it and the wiring are protected. Drones show up: one shoots and shorts out the Vortex Manipulator. One drone identifies Robertson, tells him he is responsible for the enslavement and eventual extermination of all his species. He seems shaken for the first time. It then identifies the others as friends of the Doctor. "If you are threatened, she will come to save you." 17. Cut to a general broadcast, by the Dalek, threatening the Fam and insisting that the Doctor turn herself in. 18. The Doctor cuts into one of the monitors at the control center. We can see Yaz working in the background; the Doctor is clearly fiddling with some equipment as well. There's some banter; the Dalek threatens the Fam; the Doctor says that there's still only one Dalek, and that's the weakness in this scheme. The Dalek responds that it has used its drones to construct forcefields around itself and the broadcast system: it cannot be jammed without disabling all human electronic equipment, killing anyone with a pacemaker or on life-support or the like. The Doctor says she doesn't plan to jam it, she plans to give the Dalek more access, worldwide access. The Dalek responds that even one Dalek has sufficient neural strength to process signals from such an insignificant planet. The Doctor agrees, but says that she doubts the cut-rate electronic equipment Robertson purchased can manage the same. We zoom out to see that she and Yaz are back in GCHQ. The Doctor flips some switches, the control room equipment starts sparking, as do the drones. We see the electronic systems in the drones start shorting. The Fam and Robertson take cover, as we see the Dalek electrocuted and the equipment in the drones starts exploding. 19. Cut to Robertson on TV taking credit for "failsafes" in the drones that caused them to self-destruct. Yaz points out that in a way, Robertson does deserve the credit; Ryan notes that it's because he's such a cheap bastard. The end scenes that we got should work OK from there. If you want to be really cheeky, cut to a facility with Robertson's name on it and zoom inside to reveal vats with Dalek clones gestating. There's still some plot holes, but you can land the #alldronesarebad metaphor more effectively, make Robertson crucial to the solution, and actually have characters do things, come to realizations, notice clues, that sort of thing. Everyone gets a couple good scenes, and the parallel between Yaz and Graham/Ryan in the opening and ending works better if they have an argument about saving the Doctor and it is consequential. That took under an hour to work out. Chibnall had a lot longer than that. The basic structure of the story has some promise, but it needed work.
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Jan 2, 2021 05:53
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Vinylshadow posted:The scene with them at the house-TARDIS was the setup, since Ryan was reluctant there too, and it was obvious he'd moved on with his life "I gotta help me mates now, but we don't have the budget to show any of 'em." And on another subject: Old series "GRENDEL? You forgot your loving hat!" New series "Geronimo!" "Allons y!" "Oh, for God's sake. Gallifrey loving stands!"
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Jan 3, 2021 04:54
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Jodie regenerates, there's a huge flash... and two people are standing there, one of whom is played by Jo Martin. The other Doctor is extremely confused. Jo Doctor: "Now listen carefully, because this is where it gets complicated..." Cut to end card, "The Doctors will return in 2023." (Because of course we won't get the next series any sooner.) Thirteen has plenty of character traits: enthusiasm, politeness/social awareness, generosity. I think she's very Five with touches of all the newer Doctors added in. I'm sorry we didn't get as many "steampunk engineer" scenes with her as her opening episode promised. She's pretty forward, too, in a Four mixed with Five kind of way: she'd stride up to a stranger and start up a conversation. Chibnall isn't great with subtext, but the otherwise-baffling "I'm not good in social situations" moments hint at the possibility that Thirteen is still as awkward as Twelve but covering it up. They probably can't get someone like Gwendoline Christie, but I'd really like another female Doctor, preferably one who can be physically intimidating and terrify the baddies.
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Jan 4, 2021 01:44
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Barry Foster posted:Chibnall's run is definitely the Hillary Clinton of Doctor Who tenures (no, not because the lead is now a lady), and that's the reason I can't really watch it anymore (I got to the Master revealing he'd destroyed Gallifrey again and that was the final straw). At this point, I think it's pretty clear that there's a door on Gallifrey leading to an alternate dimension where a bunch of Time Lords are standing next to a switch labeled "Gallifrey Stands" and "Gallifrey Falls" and just flipping it one way or the other from time to time and giggling. I'm not going to get mad at Chibnall for that after Moffat's "Gallifrey Stands, now go look for it" got followed by several seasons of not looking for it, stumbling across it anyway, and another "is it going to be destroyed, or not" plotline, although to give Hell Bent its due, it cares a lot more about Clara and the Doctor than about Gallifrey. For all the faults of The Timeless Children, it represented an attempt to make Gallifrey and the Time Lords interesting again (although it didn't, you know, actually make them interesting yet, it just offered the possibility). And if the Master's latest "I destroyed Gallifrey" is just "I destroyed it after point X in time, but there's still plenty of Time Lords running around to judge from Fugitive of the Judoon" then I'm not really sure it matters much. Although I would love for the Master to be in league with an unknown alien species, open a path for them to enter the universe, and then find out that he's helped restore the Time Lords like the big dope he is.
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Jan 4, 2021 20:21
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Timby posted:While I agree, generally, that some of it has to do with uncertainty over the spelling of her surname (God kills a puppy every time someone types "Ecclestone"), I fear that the use of her first name is also rooted in paternalism. Don't discount triskaidekaphobia.
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Jan 5, 2021 05:15
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In the realm of me feeling very stupid: the Fam had to wait 10 months before the Doctor came back into their lives. Revolution of the Daleks aired 10 months after the last episode of the previous season.
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Jan 6, 2021 18:31
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Crosspeice posted:Still thinking the Master is the Timeless Child and he was having a laugh with the Doctor, as he wants to do. It would be Chibnall trying to make his mark on the show by having a still terrible retcon, but one that doesn't nearly ruin the main character's entire legacy. Like I'm fine with them loving with stuff, wibbly wobbly, etc, but there are some things you just don't change, and the 1st Doctor nicking a time machine, with or without Clara's interference, and enjoying some peace and quiet in a 1960s junkyard is how the character starts. You don't need to really know anything further back than that. Maybe the Master gets infinite regenerations, dies, gets shoved through a portal and has his memories erased, and ends up as the Timeless Child, eventually becoming the Doctor. I'm not saying it's a good story, just that it isn't necessarily inconsistent with the current evidence.
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Jan 7, 2021 04:24
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| # ¿ May 21, 2024 06:35 |
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ConanThe3rd posted:It works a lot more if one just assumes the last three or so minutes were him being so off his block with grief that he made it up. If you stop watching Kablaam! ten minutes before the end of the episode, you’d think it was a great episode. There’s no ten minute chunk you can remove from Fear Her that leads to any meaningful improvement. And if the BBC wants to go Doctor Who trad to improve the ratings, the next showrunner should be a woman. Verity Lambert made the show a success the first time, after all.
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Jan 8, 2021 16:09
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