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Doctor Who TV Show • Page 15

Discussion in 'Entertainment Forum' started by clockwise, Apr 2, 2016.

  1. Rowan5215

    An inconsequential shift as the continents drift.

    that was a stone-cold, classic, 10/10, absolute romp
     
  2. awakeohsleeper

    I do not exist.

    Agreed.
     
    Rowan5215 likes this.
  3. Rowan5215

    An inconsequential shift as the continents drift.

    this reminded me of the best of the RTD era in a lot of ways. genuinely funny, had a point to make without beating you over the head with it, and best of all, a great guest cast who let all the characters have their own interior lives and weirdly specific traits that added to the episode too (like Kira's love of the one gift she'd ever got.... ouch)

    other small stuff that pushed it from great episode to classic:

    - The Doctor's reaction when she was told no climbing on the conveyors was my favourite funny Jodie moment thus far

    - I can't believe this was a first-time writer for the show, not only was it such a confident script but the continuity callbacks were brilliant and didn't feel at all forced (I had to be reminded of Eleven saying "I can buy a fez" in The Big Bang)

    - Yaz was great this episode, and she's really developed into a fantastic companion the last two weeks

    - Twirly is my favourite comic relief robot for quite some time on any show, and his blood pressure line is just one of this show's greatest ever

    - Doctor: "can you believe how stupid I am?"
    Graham: "is that a rhetorical question?"

    - also Graham (I love this guy): "Kerblam's tryina kill its own customers? that's the worst business plan I ever heard"

    - I absolutely did not see that twist coming, and the actor played both likable and crazy villain very well (though his villain brought out a kind of Tennant lookalike that was pretty unnerving)
     
  4. mattfreaksmeout

    Trusted Supporter

    Wow yea that was a fantastic episode. Easily the best this season (and I've enjoyed this season). Definitely agree that it reminded me of the best of the RTD era. This is how fully standalone episodes of Doctor Who should be. I did not see the twist AT ALL. Even when Ryan was like "You knew something was going to happen" I thought it was going to be more like he knew this was going on but didn't know how to stop it or something like that. They set up the romance between him and Kira so well that I really trusted him. This episode was everything good about this show.

    The callbacks were amazing too. Such a classic Doctor move to order a fez and forget about it for a couple hundred years. And I know there was another callback that I really liked but it's escaping me right now.
     
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  5. Rowan5215

    An inconsequential shift as the continents drift.

    "Speaking of wasps... did I ever tell you about me and Agatha Christie?"
     
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  6. mattfreaksmeout

    Trusted Supporter

    Yea that was it!
     
  7. Rowan5215

    An inconsequential shift as the continents drift.

    watching this week's episode and Suspiria in the same day. made for an incredibly witchy experience all round. might as well throw on Radiohead's Burn the Witch to round out the day before I sleep
     
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  8. Rowan5215

    An inconsequential shift as the continents drift.

    It Takes You Away was incredible. actually it might be my favourite episode since Heaven Sent
     
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  9. mattfreaksmeout

    Trusted Supporter

    I agree, it was really awesome. The whole conscious universe thing actually made me really sad, and it was nice to have Nan back for a little, even though I think it's a little weird they never had Ryan interact with her. I get they wanted to have him stay with the girl to like turn her perception of him around, but Yaz didn't really do much in the alternate universe so I feel like they could've had Ryan and Graham there together instead. Minor complaint though. This season has really picked up in the second half, the last few have been really good.
     
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  10. Rowan5215

    An inconsequential shift as the continents drift.

    a sentient, lonely universe which just wants to interact with the main universe but can't is one of the most ridiculously Doctor Who things to ever Doctor Who, I love it. it was also the first time this season that I felt everything clicked and I found myself thinking this is such a Thirteen episode, her reaction to the frog was so sentimental and genuinely heartfelt. the entire final 20 or so minutes of this episode was incredible, her speech to get the universe to take her instead of Erik was really in the top tier of beautiful speeches on this show
     
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  11. Rowan5215

    An inconsequential shift as the continents drift.

    also: in yet another episode where the threatening villain turned out to be misunderstood and/or on the right side, it was nice to have a bit of old-school nastiness with Ribbons and the flesh moths, but there was a Twitter post teasing an awesome Pan's Labyrinth-looking monster for this episode which was entirely gone in the final cut, I wonder what happened there? a bit more horror in the middle section would not have been bad at all
     
  12. mattfreaksmeout

    Trusted Supporter

    Yea I've really been enjoying that a lot of these episodes don't really have "villains". Like there was not really a bad guy here except Ribbons but he was obviously not the main focus. I've been enjoying the unpredictability of this season.

    And actually now that you say that about how this felt like a true "Thirteen" episode, you're right. She is really developing an identity now. I like how rejuvenated she is after almost giving up at the end of twelve's life. She's remembering why she still keeps going this season and it's great to watch.

    I can't believe the season is almost over already.
     
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  13. Rowan5215

    An inconsequential shift as the continents drift.

    there's a very fine line between "life lover who sees the best in everything" and "passive to the point of inactive", the first half of this season ended up on the wrong side of that but it's gradually been figuring out how to write her properly. it really helps that they're giving Jodie some really good stuff to work with, first with the "mysteries of the heart" speech last week and then pretty much the whole of this episode
     
  14. awakeohsleeper

    I do not exist.

    Loved this final episode - up there with Rosa as my favourite of this series. It felt like a proper Doctor Who episode (not necessarily a Doctor Who finale, but definitely upped the stakes).

    Disappointed that outside the New Years Day episode we're not getting another new series 2020.
     
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  15. Rowan5215

    An inconsequential shift as the continents drift.

    didn't hate it, didn't love it. same strengths as pretty much every other episode (gorgeous cinematography, great turns from all the actors, some lovely emotional moments) and same weaknesses as every other Chibnall script (ideas like the nine distress calls/planet that messes with your mind/monk-like race who can change the universe with their minds are brought up one after the other then just dropped; weird lack of agency for the Doctor and a weird belief that condemning the villain to eternal conscious stasis is somehow morally acceptable but just killing him isn't; the problems get handwaved away with vague sci-fi nonsense and Graham just shooting the villain in the foot). Yaz had absolutely nothing to do again, Graham's decision not to kill Tim Shaw was pretty out-of-nowhere and unearned, Ryan telling him he loved him was sweet but weirdly anticlimactic. he has great ideas as a writer but no idea how to develop them or give them the space they need to develop
     
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  16. Rowan5215

    An inconsequential shift as the continents drift.

    like "former bounty hunter becomes hubristic false god by hijacking the faith of monks who can actually create reality with their minds" is enough for an entire episode by itself, instead there's weird planets in crystals and a planet that's not the one from The Ghost Monument but also pretty much is and none of them turn out as exciting as they could be
     
  17. Matt

    Living with the land Supporter

    It was a fine episode and I like T'zim-Sha as a villain, but I agree with most of that. I figured that the Doctor would have her mind messed with by the planet even somewhat...
     
  18. mattfreaksmeout

    Trusted Supporter

    I don't know I've seen your points in the past on Chibnall, but I disagree with a lot of this. The nine distress calls wasn't dropped, it was all the ships & people in stasis and whatnot. The planet that messes with your mind was a plot device for why Paltriak (or whatshisname) didn't remember what was going on, and it was also the reason the doctor had the device to create a neural blocker to stop the Uz. It also gave Yaz a moment to show her courage because she was taking a chance by taking hers off, but she didn't care because she wanted to save the plane.t I don't think the monks changing the universe was dropped either: that's why they were able to put entire planets in stasis. I agree on the eternal conscious stasis bit that's a weird work around for not killing him - but I also believe this was to allow him to come back as a villain later on.

    I also disagree that Graham's decision to not kill him was out of nowhere. The whole season has had a focus on the Doctor trying to convince the people around her that killing is never the way. Another focus was the growing relationship between Graham and Ryan. Those two converged when Ryan told Graham he loved him, which maybe was anticlimatic, but I think that was also the point because A) it was already obvious at this point B) Ryan is kind of (awkward?) for lack of better word - it was in character to not make a big scene about it. Then that got in Graham's head, as well as the Doctor, and so when the time came to kill Tim Shaw, he couldn't.

    I guess overall I just thought this was a much better job from Chibnall than any of the earlier season episodes. I'm just bummed we won't be getting a new series until 2020, but hopefully it'll be the early part of the year. I guess in the meantime I will just rewatch it from series 1, cus it's really been too long.
     
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  19. Rowan5215

    An inconsequential shift as the continents drift.

    you have fair points about them all at least impacting the narrative (which is more than we can say about, like, the flesh eating water in The Ghost Monument - no reason for that line to even exist in the final episode lol) but it feels like a checklist of plot points to move things forward and not organic storytelling. Yes, the distress calls get our characters to the planet and starts the action, but they answer one and then the rest are briefly explained in a line of dialogue - change it to one distress call from the commander guy and you've lost nothing. Like you said the planet's power gives a convenient reason for the commander to not explain the mystery straight away, but that's also all it does - we expect throughout the whole episode that this Chekhov's Gun will go off and the Doctor or a companion will be affected by this threat that's been built up so much, then Yaz and The Doctor get a bit headachey from it and it's completely dropped. So much build-up and it just drops off the face of the episode like deadweight.

    I actually won't mind Tim Shaw coming back again - I think the actor is pretty menacing, his design is appropriately gross, and he's infinitely more interesting as a deluded wannabe God with a 3000year grudge against our protagonist than where he started this season. Still, it's that issue of anticlimactic writing again, he's been built up the entire episode and he has essentially infinite power at his disposal, so he... gets up and wanders over to our companions, who shoot him in the foot and defeat him. This is our big season villain?

    Another thing that really bothers me with Chibs' scripts, and I'm sorry for the long rant here, but he seems vehemently opposed to actually building up tension through mystery for any long period of time. Imagine if we hadn't had it immediately explained to us that the ghost monument was the TARDIS, so there's actually a gratifying surprise at the end of that episode and the Doctor's brief loss of faith moment actually makes some kind of sense. There's nothing that bad this week but it still tips it's hand about Tim Shaw way too early for no real reason... Imagine what a great scene you could write if The Doctor doesn't know who's behind it all until they meet face to face in that shrine. It's such a bizarre, obvious missed opportunity and without that tension these episodes feel weirdly empty, almost... rote?

    At this point I think delaying another season until 2020 was the worst possible choice. There's groundwork this season you could build into a truly great new era, if you follow the examples of Demons/Kerblam/It Takes You Away, and the ratings will certainly take a big hit after more than 12 months with no new episodes. I know it's likely a BBC thing and not the showrunner's decision, but combine a fairly anticlimactic finale with bad news like this and you have a pretty disheartening day for your fandom (the ones who feel how I feel about the episode, anyway). If the New Year's special isn't an improvement I don't have a good feeling about the show's future at all, to be honest
     
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  20. mattfreaksmeout

    Trusted Supporter

    Lol ok you are definitely right about him getting shot in the foot. I guess for a Doctor Who season finale big bad villain, that is very anticlimatic. And I also agree about finding out it was Tim Shaw right away. I see a lot of your points here. I think Chibnall is almost intentionally trying to write different than Moffat (all the big mysteries and plot twists and interlinking season threads) and maybe he's focusing too much on that and it's making his stories not as effective as they could be. I enjoyed the episode, but I do see your points. I'm not quite as concerned about waiting until 2020. I still guess it'll be an early 2020 premiere, so I mean really we're only talking about a few months after October. i think the show has enough of a dedicated fan base that they'll be back regardless.
     
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  21. Rowan5215

    An inconsequential shift as the continents drift.

    for sure, there's a dedicated fanbase that will always come back to this show no matter how the quality changes (I know - I'm one of them!). but the numbers for Whittaker's first episode were so good it seemed like we were on the verge of DW breaking into the proper mainstream again, the way it hasn't been since Tennant's last season even. and then the numbers just dropped and dropped each week (I understand this is pretty normal for a genre show, and a bunch of people would have just tuned in to see the first female Doctor, but to my memory there is a pretty substantial and not-encouraging drop around Arachnids that never really bounced back from). having a whole year with no episodes is never good for attracting viewers, we found that out in 2016... it's just a shame, is all, we're probably destined for more middling viewer turnouts in 2020.

    anyway, I'm just here to plug Andrew Ellard's notes on the episodes again, he articulates so much of the stuff that bothers me with them so much better than I can -

     
  22. awakeohsleeper

    I do not exist.

    I agree with a lot of your points @Rowan5215 and I'm definitely concerned by the writing. However, I think there was enough for me in this episode to keep me going and to just enjoy the ride rather than get exasperated like I have earlier on in the series.

    One thing I did appreciate in this episode was that there were finally consequences to the Doctor's previous actions. This Doctor doesn't throw out the punishments and a lot of things are left unresolved. However, here it kind of comes back to haunt her. She had simply teleported Tim Shaw 'back to where he was from' but basically there was an error and that had caused problems for this alien race. I'm not sure what the 'moral' or 'message' was (in fact, I don't think there was one), but it was good there was finally a consequence (rather than letting the spiders starve themselves to death or that American chap walking away free.)

    I don't know if I'm articulating my thoughts precisely but would love to hear what others feel or think about that. Interesting that it was Graham and Ryan that are essentially giving the punishment at the end of this one rather than the Doctor (which makes me think my point wasn't intentional and just necessary for a series finale plot - the Doctor, of course, isn't given much screen time to reflect on how she has been conducting herself and whether she may have been error once or twice in this series.)

    Looking forward to reading the Andrew Ellard tweets now.
     
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  23. MrCon

    I was trying to describe myself to someone

    Unsure if it's clear to you US folks, but there is going to be another episode on New Year's Day here. So, while the season has ended without anything which actually feels like a finale, we will get one more episode before it hibernates for a year.

    The timing is a bit of a shame though. I expect that the special will have been made before the season went out, which means that they probably didn't get any chance to look at the feedback and tweak things before shutting down until 2020.

    Also, this huge gap thing is becoming a bit of a BBC trope. I think Sherlock, Peaky Blinders and Luther have all had these huge gaps between series. Not entirely sure why they do it. It's something which is very high risk/reward, because if they get the new series of something right, then you forget how long its been away and it becomes really exciting. When they get it wrong though (later episodes of Sherlock were awful for it), it's really disappointing.
     
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  24. awakeohsleeper

    I do not exist.

    I'm Sheffield and I'm aware of the New Year episode. Others have mentioned it in the discussion above too: "If the New Year's special isn't an improvement I don't have a good feeling about the show's future at all, to be honest" from @Rowan5215.

    Totally agree about the annoying long gaps and your particular point about Sherlock. I'd argue that Luther has been a bit different in that they did the original series 2010/2011/2013, but then decided to bring it back in 2015. I'm pretty sure that was considered the final series as Elba had moved on to other things so this new series is a nice surprise.

    Anyway, having said that, it's very unnecessary for a show like Doctor Who in particular. Not having Doctor Who for a whole year is not a good idea after this average series and after a reboot with a female Doctor.

    It's funny that they've talked about making Doctor Who for the streaming era yet they don't understand that most successful streaming series on Netflix are pretty much pumping one high quality season out every year.
     
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  25. MrCon

    I was trying to describe myself to someone

    I missed that. Just saw a few people commenting about it being a bit damp as a finale, so i wasn't sure if everyone knew there is actually another one coming.

    I wonder if the BBC just can't afford to make that many high budget shows in a calendar year? Or, perhaps, they only have a finite number of slots they want to put a big title in, so they don't want to cannibalise their own viewership by pumping it all out at once.