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Nov 30, 2023 14:02
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| # ¿ May 21, 2024 03:29 |
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When your predecessor was cool as a cucumber while sword-battling the Master and eating a sandwich, that's how you act when you meet him.
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Nov 30, 2023 21:58
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DoctorWhat posted:The jingling keys criticism has never made any sense to me. Maybe a stage magician distracting you with confetti while he sneaks a prop into your pocket would be more apt. I think Clara's character arc is more believable in the toxic co-dependency narrative, it's severely under-baked before that. I think Capaldi's first season is about interrogating the premise of Doctor Who - he does a lot of things that Four or Ten would have done and his companion screams at him for it. The problem is that presenting your show's protagonist as a vaguely abusive, absent-minded God and devoting time to dissecting it isn't really great for this kind of show. "These two people love each other so drat much that they're going to break space-time" is a better hook for Doctor Who than "the companion has to remind the Doctor he's an rear end in a top hat so much that she finally says she's leaving." It's why I also have issues with Tegan. She reacts the way a real person would, but her anger feels so real that you kind of start to hate Five a little. If you're going to have a character who openly seems to hate the premise of the show, you need a dynamic more like Donna and Ten or (to a lesser extent) Leela and Four, where it feels a little like the ancient god is learning almost as much from this curious primitive human he's dragged ong with him. The other thing that assassinates Moffat's character arcs sometimes is that he very clearly gets horny for his characters and will let that be an interruption. Davies has his moments of this (particularly with Captain Jack), but most of it feels more like Yaz/Thirteen thing, where it's more about a sort of achey longing instead of just shouting "Yowza!" I keep saying it but I think Davies, while often a total trainwreck, has a charm that if it catches you once is likely to catch you again, once in awhile. It's that Roger Ebert thing about Casablanca being a huge party with all the cliches, and they know your name and what drink you want, etc. Moffat has stronger writing if you look at any individual episode, but his flaws grate on you as he repeats them and his strengths start to wear thin.
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Dec 2, 2023 17:11
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I think a random two-parter from him has a chance of being good, but after watching some of his other stuff, I'm frustrated with him. He was given a huge opportunity with Inside Man and he used it to do a really bad version of the already pretty tired "One Bad Day" hypothesis that sacrificed any good will it could have earned by ending on a cliffhanger to try to force a season 2 on something that shouldn't have had one. He can't move past his bad habits.
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Dec 4, 2023 20:25
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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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Senor Tron posted:Is that dude who had the "new to Doctor Who I hate that I'm being made to watch this wait I'm three series in and this is the most batshit and best thing ever" watch threads still around? I believe he either stopped watching or stopped posting, or both. I can't remember his user anymore because the two of them changed it so that they sounded almost exactly the same, lol. Toxxupation or something.
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Dec 5, 2023 13:58
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mycelia posted:I see Oxx around ADTRW pretty regularly. No idea about Occ. I really enjoyed those threads, but I can see how it'd get old. The guy who slowly realized that he was enjoying himself was fun but the guy who continuously posted about how much he hated everybody, accusing anyone who disagreed with him as coming from a hive mind, etc. was annoying and he moved on to doomposting in politics threads, I think.
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Dec 6, 2023 14:51
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lmfao at the Toymaker going through all the Moffat companion "died, but lived forever!" endings. I hope Russell Davies sticks around writing therapy for himself for another five years. Also, I hope Ncuti actually has a proper run, with a new season every year. His version of the Doctor already looks like fun.
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Dec 10, 2023 15:59
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Astroman posted:Unless there are some production notes or stories from the 60s that prove otherwise, I still think they meant "celestial" as in space. lmao
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Dec 10, 2023 16:50
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Bicyclops posted:lmao I'm still loving reeling. Michael Gough does an accent during the trilogic game, lmao. "Unless there's something in the production notes," Jesus Christ. In a level above the Astroman assessment, I agree with earlier posters that the implications that the Toymaker as an entity delights in using racism as part of his "game" works. If they were going to bring him back, they had to at least acknowledge it, and having him do exaggerated German, RP and cowboy American accents works. I think having The Doctor give a big dramatic pause and say "We could be... celestial" was a mistake, though. "Let's imagine why this out-of-time villain may have been garbed in racist curios and TRY to deal with it tastefully, while making it clear that he was a villain" is good, but doing a winking nod to the term during a dramatic moment was too much.
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Dec 10, 2023 19:09
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I hope that Murray Gold song at the end is Fifteen's theme, I want to hear it slowly build while he gives some dramatic speech about stopping the bad guys from outlawing dance.
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Dec 10, 2023 19:10
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One wakes up, glances around for a minute and says "No, thanks, I was tired."
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Dec 11, 2023 20:02
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The game of catch definitely just felt like they ran out of time and wanted to make some ball jokes. I've always wanted the Toymaker to end up challenging the Doctor to some kind of Magic card pastiche or a competitive online video game, it feels like a good way to comment on some of the toxicity that can pop up in those communities.
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Dec 11, 2023 20:10
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Also Ten already basically beat the bad guy with a ball at the end of his first episode when he tossed the satsuma at the blood control guys. Get a new gimmick, David Tennant!
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Dec 11, 2023 20:17
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I don't think Davies did the "Every Doctor is also out there" thing to be the coolest or whatever. I think he was just trying to open the door wide open for prior Doctors and companions to do televised adventures and not have to care about their age, because a huge corporation drove a dumptruck full of money up to Cardiff, he's as much of a Doctor Who nerd as some of us are, and he wants to see Colin Baker yell a monologue at a sun if the revival is popular enough to warrant some kind of "prior Doctors" anthology spin-off.
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Dec 12, 2023 14:06
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Detective No. 27 posted:I think they could get a wax Capaldi in there. Four camera sitcom comedy in which wax Tom Baker and wax Peter Capaldi have after hours adventures at Madam Toussad's as the Fauxrth and Doesn'th Doctors. Dylan Moran as the hapless security guard, unless he turned out to be terrible or whatever.
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Dec 12, 2023 15:19
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If they ever get a simple majority, England becomes a province of Scotland.
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Dec 12, 2023 19:53
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Khanstant posted:Typically I don't go out of my way to watch people die or be born, let alone both, but I wouldn't want to be rude and would go and be supportive if invited. It depends. For someone like the Doctor, you visit as soon as the TARDIS is ready, but for, say, the Meddling Monk, they're lucky if I even send a card for their latest regeneration's First Communion.
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Dec 12, 2023 21:25
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I think they probably should have given him pants, personally. Just give him David Tennant's outfit so that when he starts properly, we can see him all starry-eyed in the closet choosing his outfit.
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Dec 13, 2023 14:11
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Fil5000 posted:As a kid I was confused by Ghost Light. Now even knowing what's supposed to be happening I'm confused and delighted. Every time I forget about the two insect monsters in the basement and why they're there EVEN THOUGH I KNOW. This is the werewolf episode for me. I've seen it a whole bunch of times watching through the early seasons but I can never remember why he's a werewolf or what he's trying to do, why the cult is helping him. I always zone out when he makes his little speech in the cave.
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Dec 13, 2023 14:25
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A lot of the serials that work in Seven's era sort of work accidentally IMO. The Happiness Patrol is another one that falls into this weird mixture of very 80s dystopian, overtly political commentary (with vague fairytale elements), delivered via the JNT Flourescent Fun Show with money they got from a bake sale. I think some of it is that it's less noticeable that a few things may have gotten lost in the translation. Not that I didn't enjoy season 26, but because it takes itself a bit more seriously and tries to create a vague direction for both the story and art direction, you can tell how much better those stories could have been if they'd been given the time and resources to reach their full potential. They suffer a lot more when there are cuts, production interference, or a disconnect between the writing and the direction. Survival is the best example, probably, just because if they'd gone with Rona Munro's approach instead of making muppet masks, it would have been a very different feel.
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Dec 13, 2023 18:11
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Harlock posted:With how far in advance they're banging these future seasons out, hope there's no leaks of who the next Doctor is when they're filming Season 4 and Season 2 is barely airing It's infinitely preferable to filming like two episodes every five years or whatever they've been doing since that split-season happened, at least.
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Dec 13, 2023 18:23
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elf help book posted:If only the we got two more episodes of the flux it would all make sense Nick Briggs: Have you considered two hundred more episodes of the Flux, though? Classic Doctors, brand new stories.
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Dec 13, 2023 20:13
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Fil5000 posted:I have a ton of respect for Eccleston and the fact he was so disappointed by the treatment of other people that he both tried to use his influence to fix it and then quit, but he had like a decade where none of those people were involved and didn't come back then either. From all accounts, he was ready to come back for the 50th and then that "You are erased from Doctor Who!" thing happened and, reading between the lines, he seems to have decided that it would be another toxic work environment.
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Dec 13, 2023 20:37
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Sydney Bottocks posted:He was asked back for the 50th, ultimately decided that the script wasn't right for the character of Nine, and declined. I don't believe he received any subsequent offers to return, and personally after what he apparently had to deal with working for RTD and co., I don't blame him for being reluctant to even be associated with the show. If he needed to take a route similar to Tom and disassociate himself from anything DW related for a good long while after his experience on the show to preserve his health (mental and physical), then that's what he needed to do. He doesn't owe us anything. Also this. It's a job. He'll come back to it if the conditions and the pay are right for him. I don't begrudge him doing a bit of the convention circuit and being honest in the meantime.
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Dec 13, 2023 20:43
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LividLiquid posted:Even 14 didn't seem too interested in why he had 10's face again. The way Davies's writing works, I think if a character you're supposed to trust says "Do you know what I think?" and Murray Gold's music gets a little sentimental, you can take that as the explanation. What Donna says about him regressing to process trauma or whatever is why, as far as the show is concerned. It definitely feels like RTD processing some stuff through the show he manages, but I actually think that's part of his charm. What I could do without, and where I think he hasn't grown, is punctuating any bizarre but enjoyable polarity reversal like that with his weird parentheses. There's always a five minute wind-up of whoever is explaining the twist getting more and more excited and saying "Oh, hold on! Just you wait!" and then afterwards, someone always says something like "Oh, that is textbook enigmatic!" or "Absolutely bonkers!" or whatever. It feels self-conscious and, oddly, it worked a little better with his old writing on the show than with his new writing.
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Dec 13, 2023 21:07
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LividLiquid posted:I wasn't talking about getting an explanation. We did. But Fourteen didn't seem to be trying to figure it out even slightly. Ah, yeah, gotcha. Fourteen was definitely more reactive than curious for whatever reason. One thing that I sort of don't love about the Timeless Child thing is that I always kind of figured most Time Lords can actually just pick how they regenerate, like Romana does when she decides she wants to look like a previous cast member, (and the Master implies when he regenerates) and the Doctor just never got interested in it/doesn't understand it, so instead he's stuck looking like some guy he doesn't even remember from Pompei, asking "Who frowned me this face?" or subconsciously reverting to his glory years upon hearing Murray Gold.
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Dec 13, 2023 21:22
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Time Lords as a concept wear out their welcome periodically, because the two ways to write them are as incompetent, cruel traditionalists or as incredibly powerful god-like beings. I hope Davies only brings them back piecemeal, if that. The Master is definitely going to be around next season though, lol
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Dec 14, 2023 18:56
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It's extremely funny that there was a magic number the first time because most things that ask you to think too hard about the concept make it seem silly. But they really did double-down on that for awhile in the classic series, so they had to explain it away.
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Dec 14, 2023 20:23
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Every time Rassilon's spittle touches you, you get a new regeneration cycle. Just this once, everybody lives, forever!
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Dec 14, 2023 20:56
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Fil5000 posted:I wish they'd had him go as full camp as he did in Hot Fuzz. I mean...... didn't he? lol
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Dec 15, 2023 01:53
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I sort of like Doctor Who name-checking Rassilon periodically as some bozo in charge because once the Time Lords became what they were for the Fourth Doctor, it only makes sense that Rassilon is built up in a "Founding Father" sort of way and that bringing him back makes him look like your average Steven Moffat overconfident bad guy.
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Dec 15, 2023 19:02
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Jerusalem posted:The Rutans were in the revival! One was a companion for all of season 3! lol but if they ever want to do a "This is a silly episode ACTUALLY IT'S NOT" the Rutans are probably the best. Paging early Big Finish, from the sandwich days.
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Dec 15, 2023 23:49
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Deeply upset about the sandwiches. Like 80 percent of Charles Martinet not being Mario upset.
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Dec 15, 2023 23:51
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I think the arc of Amy's recovery is her choosing Rory over the Doctor, which in terms of the metaphor means that she chose to live in the real world rather than chase the fantasy that got her through her childhood. The problem with interrogating that too much is that the Doctor doesn't end up looking very good, which is sort of explored more intentionally with Clara.
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Dec 18, 2023 14:58
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PriorMarcus posted:I can't remember where I read this but I think at one point the plan was for an entire season to take place on Trenzalore. Not so much like the Flux, but just having stand alone stories taking place on one planet that the Doctor has sworn to protect, him unable to leave whilst all the side characters grow up and change around him. That's actually not a bad idea, as far as seasons of Doctor Who go. It's unique enough not to be a retread of Three being trapped on Earth and it's not really a "bottle" season because there's a whole alien planet to work with, so they can still pull out all the rubber masks and green screen backdrops, lol. You can maintain the sense of wonder and discovery while still having the Doctor "stay behind for once."
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Dec 18, 2023 15:59
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Moffat desperately needing some kind of a domme or whatever and it constantly coming out through his writing is like everything else about his writing where like, at first you can be like "Well, it's low-key enough, that guy forgot to put his pants on, they sure did dwell on it for a weirdly long time, but overall this is a good episode," and by the time it's happened on multiple shows, you're like "Jesus Christ, Steven, save it for the apps." Like you could do the John Irving chart that has stuff like "contains bears" or "features wrestling" but for seasons of television written by Steven Moffat. The man is more compulsive about his calling cards than Marv from the Wet Bandits.
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Dec 18, 2023 16:12
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It was hilarious in classic Who that most companions basically just leave whenever their actor decides that they're done, so it varies between "I think I found my home here in this bold space future" to "I think I'll just stay in ancient Greece and get married for some reason" to "Dodo says she's not coming back because we forgot to write her an ending after she fainted."
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Dec 18, 2023 17:28
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It's probably a good idea to keep the companion deaths to a minimum because otherwise when the monologuing villains start talking about the trail of corpses the Doctor leaves behind, you start to sort of agree with them. "Oh, hier ist poor Adric, a nice little kiddie who just wanted to be good at the maths, and he sploded himself in a dimension strange to him to take out some of the wimpy 'excellent!' Cybermenschen." "He was an irritating little brat and you know it." "WELL THAT'S ALRIGHT THEN!"
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Dec 18, 2023 18:03
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| # ¿ May 21, 2024 03:29 |
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It's particularly weird to think that Clara should be punished for hubris during that era because of how much it's emphasized that the Doctor is just like... a guy who stole a time machine. What makes him different and "better" than other Time Lords (well, before the Timeless Child stuff, I guess) is that he went out into the Universe and got enough perspective to always try to make sure that empathy and curiosity win out over tyranny and suppression. "Anyone can be the Doctor" is a better message than "leave the big stuff to the space wizards or you'll die" IMO.
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Dec 18, 2023 18:18
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