|
Which season of Doctor Who should get a Blu-ray set next? This poll is closed. |
|||
|---|---|---|---|
| One of the black-and-white seasons |
|
16 | 29.63% |
| Season 7 |
|
7 | 12.96% |
| Season 11 |
|
1 | 1.85% |
| Season 13 |
|
0 | 0% |
| Season 15 |
|
2 | 3.70% |
| The Key to Time |
|
21 | 38.89% |
| Season 21 |
|
0 | 0% |
| Season 25 |
|
7 | 12.96% |
| Total: | 54 votes | ||
|
McGann posted:Looks like we've got a big 7th Doctor release: I'm an episode in, and I'm mostly being annoyed with how mediocre Joe Kraemer's score and sound design is. I'm used to him self-plagiarizing, I'm used to him ripping off John Williams, but the bit where the newscast jingle comes on made me do a double take. It's the opening to the DS9 theme.
|
#
¿
Dec 30, 2023 17:54
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 9, 2024 22:03 |
|
|
McGann posted:Well, I'm having phone issues that are preventing me from listening at the moment. So this is now on hold while I perform tech support. Yeah like I'm one episode in it's okay so far. They're basically doing Infinity War, as far as I can tell, which is fair enough. But they're also trying to stitch together the work of a bunch of different recording sessions and unfortunately BF have sent their worst director and sound guy to solve the problem. There's cool stuff, like some of the structural cleverness in the first episode -- I'm a fan of how the first episode basically explains exactly what's going on without anyone actually being told anything -- but, on the other hand, I'm also pretty sure Bonnie Langford has no idea what's going on either. It's the kind of story where you actually need a director who's got a strong handle on the material because the plot relies on a bunch of references to other stories, it's being relayed to us via implication, it's jumping around all over the place, it's being recorded without actors being anywhere near each other (seven recording sessions for something that would normally take three)... and Samuel Clemens is just not up to that IMO. So, you end up with a reliable actor like Langford actively struggling to track her character's emotional state from scene to scene. Feels like a bit of a mixed bag.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 30, 2023 18:15
|
|
|
Warthur posted:I just got to The Day of the Doctor on my rewatch and my main thought was "Wow, this really doesn't fit with The End of Time at all", but equally I can sort of understand Grand Moff Steven's impulse to overlook it. (Hell, he already retconned Stolen Earth/Journey's End out of existence with some throwaway lines in Victory of the Daleks). Isn't End of Time happening simultaneously? I swear they reference Rassilon hanging out with his forces doing a hail mary.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 31, 2023 03:42
|
|
|
Warthur posted:They do mention it in passing. What isn't clear is how Gallifrey being locked a little spacetime pocket per Rassilon's plan in that materially differs from Gallifrey being locked in a little spacetime pocket per the gambit the Doctors pull off in Day of the Doctor. I think it's different. Rassilon's plan in The End of Time is that he jump Gallifrey forwards past the end of the war, where as the Doctor's plan in Day Of The Doctor is that Gallifrey get banned to an alternate universe. Warthur posted:And even if that's not the case, you still have a setup where "actually, the time colonialists were bad, we should probably keep them in the cupboard" has this tension with "but think of the time colonialists' children, maybe we should let them out of the cupboard" and I am not sure I wholly trust Moffat to handle that (I've only just started on 12th Doctor stuff, which I had seen none of before bar Twice Upon a Time). I've always thought this was dumb. The Doctor wouldn't ever kill kids but apparently absolutely would exile them to an empty universe populated by fascist death cult with no one around to target except the weakest of their own herd. Ahuh. I think there's a FP short story collection that suggests the Doctor's "will nobody think of the children" moment was actually a Gallifreyian psyop lmao.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 31, 2023 04:16
|
|
|
2house2fly posted:But not the salt of the earth common folk. Not the janitors, the shopkeepers, the Shabogans. I just don't think these people exist on Time War Gallifrey. Gallifrey doesn't have janitors, shopkeepers, etc. and the Shabogans would be rounded up into reeducation camps, and either conscripted or slaughtered. So I think it's a problem of Moffat's imagination, rather than Clara's, in that he has to assume such people would exist for any place to function. It's like the Daleks. They've got slaves because slaves serve a purpose for Dalek recreation, but they don't actually need them for anything else. Open Source Idiom fucked around with this message at 05:52 on Dec 31, 2023 |
|
#
¿
Dec 31, 2023 05:50
|
|
|
Warthur posted:But actually, gently caress you, it's not my fault: when the story at hand is specifically obsessed with continuity, I am going to pay attention to continuity, and when you have two stories explaining their concepts in as hurried and technobabble-filled manner as those two confusion is inevitable. Yeah no, Moffat does a lot of big continuity stories and they're usually a huge mess with a lot of off-screen heavy lifting. But that mostly turns up again in the Ninth Series.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 31, 2023 07:14
|
|
|
I reckon Chibnall's just a slow moving dag, so it makes sense he's just late to the party.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 2, 2024 15:21
|
|
|
McGann posted:re: The Last Day/BF chat She's the same species as the aliens from The Quantum Possibility Engine, though it doesn't really matter. It's not even a cameo really, it's just a reference, like the Macra in New Earth. Also I'm not willing to put money on this but I suspect they edited in the temp track during Vienna's scene, and not Chase Masterson's pickups. Or Masterson's completely changed her voice since she turned up in Lower Decks three months ago.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 3, 2024 04:00
|
|
|
Barry the Sprout posted:Actually betting it's the rumoured and heavily hinted at UNIT spin off It's this.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 4, 2024 11:21
|
|
|
Boxturret posted:Honestly I really liked the whole rope hacking thing. I like it conceptually, but I think the production didn't (couldn't?) go the full Jim Henson to make that subplot sing. There's a few other moments in throughout where I kept thinking that the production needed to be more cramped, more chaotic, etc. All the different gobbos and their designs looked sick, but I wanted more of that all over the place, e.g. the Sunday attic apartment set.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 5, 2024 01:31
|
|
|
LividLiquid posted:Did people really not like 12 here? I remember those years being quite well-liked, if nitpicked a bit for funsies. I found the initial character actively repellent in a way his character arc didn't fully address, so I've never gotten fully on board with the guy.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 6, 2024 03:04
|
|
|
I think Moffat kinda sucks, but less than I used to. His characterization is frequently quite weak, and I think a lot of arcs are hodgepodges of ideas that he's not super disciplined about handling. He's got fewer big ideas than he needed to in his role, and you can sense them running out as early as his second season in charge, but his stories tend to be vivid even when the hang a lot of weight on deliberately unsatisfying gotchas, or descend into disappointing neoliberal political manifestos. I also used to feel more strongly about the ways he thought about sex and gender, but those feelings have mellowed with time too. They're still bad, but I feel less intensely than I used to I guess. (Probably a good thing.) Fil5000 posted:Moffat will always exist in my head as both the guy that gave us the 50th anniversary that the show deserved, but he's still the guy that gave us two Doctor's final episodes that were kinda poo poo. Like, why would you have your final episode as show runner be that bloody dreadful Christmas special when you'd written The Doctor Falls? To be fair, there were extenuating circumstances there.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 7, 2024 10:09
|
|
|
I wish Whithouse had run the show for a bit instead of Chibnall. He's got his flaws, and he mostly writes kitchen sink dramas and morality plays so he might have run out of ideas fairly quickly, but he's a funny guy with a strong sense of how to construct a narrative. I'd liked to have seen what he'd have done, though I know in my heart it would have 10000% been a one season arc about the companion becoming slowly corrupted and unlikable thanks to the Doctor making them an offer to travel that they couldn't possibly have refused. McGann posted:I still laugh at the American and Japanese UNIT characters though, just the laziest shorthand in accent use 😂. "my wife, who is at home right now being pregnant, would be very sad if anything happened to me, so I hope nothing bad happens to me because of my pregnant, pregnant wife"
|
|
#
¿
Jan 7, 2024 12:44
|
|
|
Sam Sanskrit posted:I think if Shona was going to be companion she was going to be played by someone else. If it was happening during the read through then in all likelihood someone was cast in that role, even if it wasn't Faye Marsay.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 8, 2024 06:24
|
|
|
PriorMarcus posted:Jenna Coleman somehow managed to be in the unique position of having single season contracts, so every season was her last whilst she played hardball over the money. She's even worse at accents than Gillen, I dunno if she'd have much success doing American franchise stuff tbh.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 8, 2024 11:01
|
|
|
OldMemes posted:Peter Calapdi was so good as The Doctor. Twelve is one of the best. I liked this decently enough, it's well paced, conceptually very funny, and some of the villain voices are the best the company's put together. Particularly the evil valet and his dommy car mommy. But I thought the politics were neoliberal garbage and Ace's role -- if companions have hats, like "programmer" or "doctor", hers is "terrorist" -- to be completely unbelievable. She'd never be caught dead saying that "violence isn't the answer".
|
|
#
¿
Jan 9, 2024 01:59
|
|
|
Warthur posted:I kind of wonder whether Whithouse delivered Lie of the Land first, then Moffat decided to bulk out the running order by writing prequels. I dunno the exact story behind the four stories being woven together, but I gather that it wasn't intended from the start, no e.g. the Doctor's blindness being a late (and fairly random if I'm honest) addition to the mix. I remember there being a few strange artefacts in Lie, like the way the Monks can suddenly extrude flesh lightning and the "pyramids" randomly getting renamed as "temples" or whatever. Since I gather that the Monks originally came from Harness's initial Pyramid At The End Of The World treatment (the one that included Donald Trump) part of me wonders if -- and this is pure speculation on my part -- whether Lie Of The Land originally featured the Silents.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 9, 2024 05:47
|
|
|
I'm with Ofaloaf, in that Clara never felt particularly accessible as a character from the off. Add in the shifting background elements (the recast dad, whatever was going on with her grandma, the jobs) and the lack of insight into that background, and she never felt believable to me. I don't buy her as being the lead character of the show, definitely not with Matt Smith. I think she was just an amorphous blob that eventually settled into something during the 12th Doctor's era... but I was put off by him and all so it was just very distant. Better than the characterization that immediately followed Moffat, though.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 10, 2024 11:09
|
|
|
It shouldn't bother me, but it annoys me that one of Bill's primary character notes in The Pilot is that she's a scifi nerd, and then this never comes up again. Her very next episode has the Doctor explaining cryosleep to her.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 10, 2024 11:38
|
|
|
Cleretic posted:In fairness, 'sci-fi nerd' might be one of the hardest things to write in a sci-fi show, especially one like Doctor Who with a legacy. It'd only be a matter of time until you accidentally hit an 'Einstein exists in the Starfox universe' problem, where she references something that in part exists because of Doctor Who. I dunno if this matters so much tbh, since it's such an academic edge case that its ability to deflate the believability of the setting doesn't strike me as overly concerning. But beyond that: * Doctor Who already exists within itself (in the form of "Professor X") so there's an explanation for where the cyborg idea comes from if it must come from Doctor Who -- though, tbh, I think the idea of cold metal replacing warm flesh, in a horror context, is older than Doctor Who. The term "cyborg" certainly is. * Doctor Who has this kind of paradox all the time -- and not just because Alien was probably influenced by The Ark In Space. e.g. Mary Shelly running into Cybermen, or putting Agatha Christie in an ITV Agatha Christie pastiche. * My read on Moffat's take on Cybermen is that their creation is inevitable i.e. that any human society left alone long enough with technology will eventually cyberise themselves anyway, hence the situation in World Enough And Time. Which I guess is his explanation for all the different variations in design over the years. All human or humanish cultures inevitably develop the idea regardless of the form it takes, even in cultures where Professor X doesn't exist.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 10, 2024 12:46
|
|
|
Infinitum posted:I think there's a good episode to be written, where you'd have an entity that keeps eating memories/resetting things back to Regular Earth Standard to explain how people never seem to recall any of the alien events that occur. I find it kind of funny and charming that Moffat went to the effort to explain away some of Davies' bigger choices (CyberKINGGGG) and now Davies is back it's just like, nah, everyone knows. Back to RTD status quo.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 10, 2024 12:52
|
|
|
He's quit the role to focus on acting acting, which is probably for the best. The Netflix algorithm seems to like him and he's getting cast in a lot of live action stuff now (e.g. Seven Kings Must Die). The arc for that series has actually been fairly tight and has a lot of energy to it (despite a dud story or two), and the actor they got to play Valarie (Saifyya Ingar) is also really really good. They have insanely good chemistry with Dudman, and the season's tendency to put the character through the ringer means that they get a lot of chances to give really, really great performances. They're a really good team.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 11, 2024 15:30
|
|
|
PriorMarcus posted:I knew he was leaving (and good on him for finding success, maybe he can be the next live action Doctor) but isn't there still more to be released with him and Valarie? Yeah, there's one more boxset left (though that was recorded a while ago). Covok posted:Yeah, Valerie Lockwood might be the best companion that 11th ever had, if we're being honest. I like Valerie better than Amy or Clara. And, honestly, this audio drama series of far has been just as good, if not a little better than Series 5. It might ironically end up being the best Matt Smith season...without Matt Smith. Really depends how they stick the landing in the last volume. Moffat's biggest stumbling block was always his ending. Let's see if Alwfie Shaw can avoid that problem. Alfie Shaw's also leaving (has left?) the company. Apparently Tim Folely's getting an elevated role there, working on some other non-Doctor Who series (Omega Factor, I'm guessing) but there's been a significant exodus these last few years and it's a shame. Scott Handcock went to work with RTD on Series 15/1, James Goss relocated to a cave in Turkey and is more handsoff, David Llewellyn's walked away because he couldn't make a living, and I think Guy Adams has mental health issues.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 12, 2024 03:16
|
|
|
Veeta posted:Calling a money-grubbing alien race the "Usurians" feels like the sort of thing that would be described as typical RTD haminess if it were done today! I think the Pluto setting is also meant to be a pun, based around a common confusion between the roman gods Pluto (AKA Hades, god of the dead and the underworld) and Plutus (god of wealth).
|
|
#
¿
Jan 12, 2024 11:34
|
|
|
McGann posted:Sorry, can you elaborate? I read through his Twitter and there seems to be a lot more interesting tidbits here than I even expected. Arrested? Fined for desecration of a monument? I can't quite remember all the details very well but James Goss lives in a Turkish cave now. It almost exploded because it was full of bird poop but he fixed that and then he discovered a second cave under his cave which meant he almost went to prison for some reason. Cave law. Also one time he dressed as a Cyberman and that was hot. Okay okay okay technically it's a house with an extensive cave system populated by roughly twenty cats. But the rest is accurate.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 12, 2024 15:55
|
|
|
Edit: I'm a moron who can't read the time, never mind.
Open Source Idiom fucked around with this message at 16:21 on Jan 12, 2024 |
|
#
¿
Jan 12, 2024 16:12
|
|
|
Bicyclops posted:It's baffling watching people continue to blame somebody else when it happens to literally every show he touches besides Hannibal. Like, yeah, he has a unique style, his shows would all be good if he could keep them on the air, but it's pretty clear that he's the problem! Uhhh when what happens? When they get cancelled for low ratings?
|
|
#
¿
Jan 15, 2024 00:13
|
|
|
Nikumatic posted:When he leaves or gets fired for "creative differences". He's left three shows. Dead Like Me was a homophobic workplace where an actress was fired for not being attractive enough (or whatever that actually means) and he left in protest along with her. Wrote her final episode and they both left. And American Gods and Star Trek Discovery were clearly horrible places to work given all the other stories that have come out about them from the years after he left. And maybe he contributed to the culture there, who knows, there's that sexual assault accusation that's come out recently and who knows how that's going to shake out. I'm not gonna defend him on that, who would. However, that said, I think it was pretty clear that Fremantle used him as a scapegoat with American Gods. That second season was hilariously incompetent, and Fuller had nothing to do with it. Gaiman, however, was pretty heavily involved.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 15, 2024 00:27
|
|
|
TheBigBudgetSequel posted:Gaiman has stated (and it could be untrue, of course) that apart from writing the first episode of Season 2, his involvement was minimal because the new showrunner decided to do his own thing with it and didn't really follow Gaiman's plot. Gaiman was briefly installed as showrunner during early development of the second season and then moved out of the role after the first script was completed, forcing one of the other writers to step up last minute.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 15, 2024 00:35
|
|
|
Speaking of dumb plans. I feel like 90% of the Master's plans are: 1. Team up with a group of aliens 2. Do something dumb that gets my space/time boyfriend/girlfriend to notice me 2. Oh whoops we don't have a real stage three those aliens have betrayed me help help 3. My space/time boyfriend/girlfriend saves me.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 17, 2024 14:24
|
|
|
Lord Ludikrous posted:The Hinchliffe and Holmes era is the high mark of the classic series. Pyramids of Mars is brilliant. I kinda hate to admit it but it's true. There are heaps of great stories all over the place, and the Cartmnem era and First Doctor era are both very impressive in their own ways but that two and a half series period is the peak of those peaks. I reckon there were periods in the books and BF plays, mostly during the wilderness period, that are on god just as good as any other period
|
|
#
¿
Jan 17, 2024 14:40
|
|
|
The climax is some fine fine stuff. Excellent excellent villain. I've always wanted more Krynoid stories, but writers have generally struggled with them for whatever reason.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 18, 2024 06:20
|
|
|
Speaking of scary, this month's Torchwood is a banger. I like how Countrycide is just... what if an Italian cannibal flick, but instead of visiting the Global South we're just hanging out in the British South. I have no idea where Chibnall came up with it, that kind of story feels completely out of either his or RTD's wheelhouse. That first season is so loving wild in tone, but between Countrycide and that fairy one it opened the show up to being able to tell random stories about the leads wandering into Welsh horror as a valid story type and that kind of owns. Particularly when you get good freaky stuff out of it, like this play. Recommended.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 19, 2024 08:08
|
|
|
It is a beautiful beautiful joke.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 19, 2024 10:31
|
|
|
SirSamVimes posted:So I've got my girlfriend into nuWho and we've been having so much of a blast that she's mentioned wanting to see the old era. Is there a list of recommended episodes from each Doctor that are at least watchable in some form? I don't think there's a definitive list. That said if any list doesn't have Snakedance or Warrior's Gate on then it's wrong.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 20, 2024 06:43
|
|
|
Reccs: All of the first season Time Meddler Enemy Of The World The Mind Robber The Silurians The Mind Of Evil The Curse Of Peladon (that's the first one ay? Anyway, the first one.) The Ark In Space The Brain Of Morris Seeds of Doom The Ribos Operation Warrior's Gate Kinda Snakedance Mebbe Frontios/The Awakening (underrated) Caves of Androzani Vengeance on Varos Terror Of The Vervoids (for real, this story owns) The Happiness Patrol Greatest Show In The Galaxy Ghost Light Jerusalem posted:Oh I'm the wrong person to ask then, I'd just give you the entire list of complete Doctor Who episodes except for Delta and the Bannermen, and Time and the Rani This is some real life homophobia in action.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 20, 2024 12:33
|
|
|
MrL_JaKiri posted:Including The Sensorites and not, say, The Curse of Fenric, Genesis of the Daleks/another 70 stories? Madness Sensorites 4 life Anyway, the last list didn't have Deadly Assassin or Paradise Towers in it though so it's trash.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 20, 2024 13:20
|
|
|
Sydney Bottocks posted:A far simpler and more sensible explanation would be that the Time Lords just developed weapons that can kill other Time Lords permanently, by inhibiting their ability to regenerate. That was the assumption I had when I watched The Deadly Assassin, Arc of Infinity, The Five Doctors, etc. Yeah, this might be EU stuff (but I think it's one of those things that filtered back into the show itself) but a timelord can be killed outright by decapitation, disintegration or the destruction of both their hearts. Maybe those guards were being staser shot through both hearts at once?
|
|
#
¿
Jan 21, 2024 05:24
|
|
|
Narsham posted:When Doctor Who gets itself into trouble in this way, it’s often a pairing between casual racist depictions and imperialism. Talons suffers from this, both in Litefoot’s backstory and in the decision to make Greel a fascist imperialist (and the “deformed because he’s evil” thing, while a Who trope, is just icing on that cake). Then the only character who in any way challenges the racist stereotypes is played by a man in yellowface. I agree with a lot of this, but I'm not sure how making Magnus a fascist or imperialist is problematic. He's a white dude.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 22, 2024 17:19
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 9, 2024 22:03 |
|
|
Leela owns. Also the character's named after Leila Khaled
|
|
#
¿
Jan 23, 2024 02:03
|
|