Doctor Who

[Colly]

I liked the bit after the first meeting with Maestro where he just stared off into the middle distance with hand raised stressing over the current peril. I'm no classic Who expert but it felt very Tom Baker, slightly absurd but great on camera.

Genuinely even if these scripts end up being guff Ncuti will elevate them, he's just that charismatic.

[Benji]

Watched Space Babies...

Spoiler

Was alright, I guess. Nothing offensively bad, but a very standard RTD episode. Not really feeling Ruby yet, but Gatwa is showing great flashes as The Doctor. Didn't expect much from the first episode as it's largely setting the picture for new viewers, and I think it did okay at that.

 

[Benji]

Devils Chords...

Spoiler

That was a better episode. Love the concept of this whole pantheon breaking free by The Doctor doing what he did at the edge of the universe.

Maestro was a delightful villain in all the rights ways, and is arguably the most charismatic villain the show has had since the revival without being actively likeable (though I anticipate that would change with more appearances).

Hated basically everything involving the use of those awful versions of The Beatles so much I was just feeling Mr Burns coursing through my veins to have The Rolling Stones killed. Also @Skummy is on the nose about the "Twist" song, couldn't have been more blatant.

 

[GhostMachine]

On 13/05/2024 at 04:41, Skummy said:

I don't like the musical number - and it's one of the most glaring "we didn't pay for the music" moments that the set-up is the word "Twist", in a Beatles episode, and they don't play "Twist & Shout" - but I kind of allow it in terms of what the point of this series is; there are these powerful reality-bending entities breaking through into our universe, and it's thrown everything off, and one of the ways that manifests is these fourth wall breaking moments.

Mostly, this was just two episodes that reminded me how much I dislike RTD. He's remembered fondly for broad strokes storytelling, but his individual episodes are badly written, and generally rely on inventing a new magic power for the Doctor, or using some hitherto unmentioned in-universe bit of magic to resolve everything, and then tricking viewers into thinking that's everything more connected than it is just by seeding phrases through the other episodes. "Bad Wolf" syndrome.

 

The musical number was dumb, and you're right about the "we didn't pay for the music", but what I did like? Murray Gold was there at a piano in a blink and miss it moment, and the dance they were doing for part of it was The Twist. Chubby Checker would be happy.

I'm liking Gatwa so far, and he has set a few firsts: 

First non-caucasian Doctor

First Doctor with facial hair

First Doctor who doesn't wear a coat or jacket all the damn time

He's a `fun' Doctor like Tom Baker and David Tennant (10, that is), and those happen to be my two favorites. 

[Benji]

15 hours ago, GhostMachine said:

First Doctor with facial hair

First Doctor who doesn't wear a coat or jacket all the damn time

Nah mate, he's the Fourteenth.

[TheWho87]

1 hour ago, Benji said:

Nah mate, he's the Fourteenth.

You just need to find the right episode

[DFF]

Boom was great! 

[theshadow]

Huge improvement this week that was fantastic

[Daniel Bryan]

I thought it was dumb as hell. 

Spoiler

The whole thing relies on you accepting the concept of a landmine that will explode if there's any slight change (and first off all, the Doctor's clearly wavering around and shifting his weight the whole time, but okay), then it brings in that it can detect changes in adrenaline and the like -- but that's a cheat, because it only happens when it suits the plot, and not, for example, when the Doctor is being shot. Then finally, as an added diabolus ex machina, it turns out that after a certain amount of time, it will explode anyway... so what would be the point of trying to detect a living being? Just a high concept that wasn't thought through and was ignored whenever it was inconvenient. I'm not asking for hard sci-fi, but when you want emotional investment, you can't just change the story's rules whenever it suits you.

And the rest of it was just schmaltz.

Edited May 18 by Daniel Bryan

[TheWho87]

3 hours ago, Daniel Bryan said:

I thought it was dumb as hell. 

  Reveal hidden contents

The whole thing relies on you accepting the concept of a landmine that will explode if there's any slight change (and first off all, the Doctor's clearly wavering around and shifting his weight the whole time, but okay), then it brings in that it can detect changes in adrenaline and the like -- but that's a cheat, because it only happens when it suits the plot, and not, for example, when the Doctor is being shot. Then finally, as an added diabolus ex machina, it turns out that after a certain amount of time, it will explode anyway... so what would be the point of trying to detect a living being? Just a high concept that wasn't thought through and was ignored whenever it was inconvenient. I'm not asking for hard sci-fi, but when you want emotional investment, you can't just change the story's rules whenever it suits you.

And the rest of it was just schmaltz.

Spoiler

If you wish to be that pedantic, it's fully dependent on the firing mechanism, and there are landmines today that are activated by being stepped on and triggered by being stepped off, this is also evident in Genesis of the Daleks, where the Doctor also steps on a landmine but it is not triggered until he steps off of it.

 

[Daniel Bryan]

9 minutes ago, TheWho87 said:

  Hide contents

If you wish to be that pedantic, it's fully dependent on the firing mechanism, and there are landmines today that are activated by being stepped on and triggered by being stepped off, this is also evident in Genesis of the Daleks, where the Doctor also steps on a landmine but it is not triggered until he steps off of it.

 

But this wasn't a landmine that triggers when you step off. It was all that other stuff I said.

[TheWho87]

It was a "smart" landmine that would check what stepped on it to then trigger, my point was that there are already landmines in existence with various triggers, it's not just step on and boom, in this case it would be to check for certain responses that someone on a battlefield would have, heightened adrenaline, anxiety, stress that kind of thing, and it's been proven before that the Doctor is able to regulate their bodily functions.

I will agree the "fail safe" was a bit dumb and something you'd expect from a Chibnall episode (that guy loves adding forced time frames to his episodes).

[TheWho87]

So Ian Levine is having a meltdown because he did some episode recreations using AI and put them on the internet and now they are leaking out of his Facebook group and implementing new rules to watch his AI butchery of BBC content.

I hope somebody doesn't post the YouTube links....

Spoiler

 

 

 

Edited May 20 by TheWho87

[theshadow]

This week another interesting concept well acted by all in all poorly executed

[Colly]

Good concept, great first half hour, lazy ending with no explanation. I'm fine with ambiguity sometimes, but it just left me a bit cold.

Spoiler

I also found the baddie a bit confusing, it was semi implied he was a spooky thing, but was that just a red herring and he was just a bad man? It felt like it would all be linked and end when he was resolved, but presumably the episode would have ended the same (nuclear war notwithstanding) even if she hadn't done the Cardiff bit?

 

[Benji]

That was the episode I needed to embrace Ruby as a companion. Good stuff.

[TheWho87]

Something interesting I saw someone mention on Twitter, when they brought in Kate Stewart in 2013, she mentions that she dropped the Lethbridge part of her name so she didn't get any favors because of who she was, since RTD came back she has now been written to have no issue being Kate Lethbridge-Stewart.

[Vamp]

17 hours ago, TheWho87 said:

Something interesting I saw someone mention on Twitter, when they brought in Kate Stewart in 2013, she mentions that she dropped the Lethbridge part of her name so she didn't get any favors because of who she was, since RTD came back she has now been written to have no issue being Kate Lethbridge-Stewart.

Not that weird is it? 

She's changed her mind over 11 years near the top of UNIT. 

[Benji]

At least three times someone has trodden where they shouldn't. Ruby steps on a butterfly, The Doctor steps on a bomb, and The Doctor steps on a Fae circle.

[TheWho87]

5 hours ago, Vamp said:

Not that weird is it? 

She's changed her mind over 11 years near the top of UNIT. 

That she changed her name, nope, that it coinsideds with RTD taking over, as the character was fine as Kate Stewart during their last appearances in Flux and The Power of the Doctor, a little.