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Oxxidation posted:Prepare to be disappointed, we actually aren't sure either. I watched it yesterday to see if I could figure it out, and my best guess is that a bunch of Doctor Who fans somehow hate a Doctor Who episode for having the most Doctor Who ending of any Doctor Who episode ever. Doctor Who E: And I don't even really mean that as an insult to the show itself. The ending is just optimistic, bombastic, and a bit silly. Linear Zoetrope fucked around with this message at 02:41 on Sep 6, 2014 |
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Sep 6, 2014 02:37
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Fungah! posted:The last five minutes are pure, unadulterated dogshit. There you go. Oh haha, the fun we have here in the Doctor Who review thread, kidding each other and whatnot.
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Sep 6, 2014 02:40
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Regy Rusty posted:Finally someone will tell me exactly why this episode is infamous because I genuinely have no idea. RTD is racist for depicting a single mother household.
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Sep 6, 2014 02:44
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Jsor posted:I watched it yesterday to see if I could figure it out, and my best guess is that a bunch of Doctor Who fans somehow hate a Doctor Who episode for having the most Doctor Who ending of any Doctor Who episode ever. I prefer when the show stays a little closer to science-fiction vs fantasy/magic/nonsense. That's the only real complaint I had that I can remember.
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Sep 6, 2014 02:59
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Fine, have a Love And Monsters thought that I was thinking this afternoon. And I'll even spoiler block the titles of episodes to come where they are referenced. Concrete Blowjob Lady has gotta be one of the few points (the only point?) in the revival where someone gives, "well your life is completely hosed up to the point where you're simply a face on a slab, but at least you're living!" I almost feel that the horrible existence of that, if you think about it, is why RTD or somebody in production (TVTropes simply used their "word of god" tag) suggested the whole thing, along the Scooby Doo chase, is part of Elton's hyperactive imagination and can be discarded if you like. Doctor Who seems to consistently fall on the side of there being worse ways of living than simply being dead. Cassandra had to come to grips with the fact that she was hardly anything anymore, clinging to life. The Doctor won't kill, but knows some undesirable ways to live (Family of Blood). And while I've never watched the classic series beyond a few choice episodes, the Crypt Keeper that shows up between Delgado and Ainsley is another Cassandra style example of someone so desperate to live that they're barely anything anymore. gently caress, they're STILL doing variations of this. (Clockwork Man in Deep Breath) I've never been sure what to make of it, but given that the show's merch/toy audience is usually to the older kids who are in the process of realizing that they too are going to die sometime, the idea that in this existence there are a hell of a lot worse ways to exist is I suppose maybe a helpful coping mechanism? Because you could always be saved by a magical space wizard, only to live as a slab of a sidewalk sucking off a nerd, and who the gently caress wants that? Craptacular! fucked around with this message at 03:27 on Sep 6, 2014 |
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Sep 6, 2014 03:24
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Doctor Who "Fear Her" Series 2, Episode 11 ...That's it? That's the episode people were all up in arms about? Really? Even now, if I were to make a top ten of "Worst Episodes of Doctor Who Occupation Has Seen" list, it wouldn't even make that. I guess I should explain; I had this episode built up, long prior to watching it, of it being infamously terrible. This is one of only three episodes, in the entire run of NuWho, that Oxx has intentionally skipped; when we were talking about Who offhanded (ugh, gently caress you guys in this thread, I now do this unironically) a couple of weeks ago he mentioned that this episode was apparently voted the worst ever or something, even over an episode that has The Doctor beating the poo poo out of a woman or something, I'm sure he'll get more into it in his review. The point is, after all the mutterings, the rushed, breathless hopes that I would eventually reach this episode, the ill-concealed spoilers...I genuinely just don't loving get it. It's not a bad episode. I mean, it's not a good one, no sir, but it's so very...average in all aspects of Doctor Who that the amount of nerd rage devoted to it is genuinely befuddling. "Love and Monsters", that I get; it's a misogynist pile of garbage centered around an actor who turns in a terrible performance as the most oblivious, sexist idiot in recorded history. That, I understand. The episode opens on Chloe (Abisola Agbaje), a young child living in the London suburbs. It's apparently 2012, literally the day of the opening ceremonies to the London Olympics, and Chloe has apparently gained the powers to suck up the people she sketches and imprint them in the drawings. The episode then continues as The Doctor and Rose arrive, try and puzzle out where all the local children have disappeared to, figure out that Chloe has been infected by a psychic plant thing named Isolus that needs love in order to live (which is why it's trapping all the children (and why it eventually tries to trap the world itself)), with the denouement of the world being saved (by Rose this time!) and everything working out absolutely fine. Abisola Agbaje might be the single worst child actor I have ever seen, and her performance as Chloe and especially as Isolus-Possessed Chloe is atrocious, her breathy spin on the Isolus lines so notably terrible that it just looks like Chloe is in the middle of an asthma attack during those scenes. Also, can I just mention that it weirds me out to see a child with sideburns? Because Abisola Agbaje has some ludicrous sideburns in this episode, and it was distressingly bizarre. The other major problem in this episode, even beyond the terribleness of Agbaje's acting, is how languid it is. Despite the very real threat of missing children, which even if it had a completely non-extraterrestrial explanation would still be quite troubling, everyone involved in the episode, even the parents of the missing children themselves, seem to treat the problem as "kind of upsetting" at the very worst. They hang signs, and walk quickly to and from their houses; but beyond that, they seem overall unaffected by the existence of a serial child snatcher on their streets. I mean I've heard of stiff upper lip and British tendencies for a lack of emotionality, but this is ridiculous. This overall malaise infects The Doctor and Rose's general viewpoint throughout the episode, as they nearly mosey from scene to scene, merely content to crack wise and just have the plot happen to and around them for the first...oh let's say 35ish minutes. It makes for an episode that's just, well, boring. It's not bad; there's funny quips that Tennant throws, Billie Piper is fun and adorable onscreen, it's all just so...formless that it barely leaves an impression at all, neither positive nor negative. Again, it's an episode that I'm just so utterly confused has so much vitriol flung at it; it's too dull to warrant strong emotion. I mean, the antagonist is kind of really stupid- again, a psychic plant that needs love in order to live stretches it in the monster department, but Who has never exactly been strong at effective enemies. I mean, heck, they made the baddie, instead of a generic-evil-of-the-week, relateable, as Isolus is essentially a lost toddler who is throwing a temper tantrum (as Rose notes). There's even an angle of Isolus and The Doctor being directly equivalent to each other that the episode, unfortunately, fails to explore- The Doctor desperately needs companionship in order to function, and could easily have become someone or something like Isolus without it. But the issues I had with the beginning of the episode (which were mostly minor in the grand scheme of things anyways; I get more pissed off when the show lies to us, like in "Boom Town", or makes a terrible statement, like in "Love and Monsters", over it just being boring) were offset by several scenes at the end, which were so incredibly dumb that I loved them. I mean...Rose throwing Isolus' spaceship, complete with slo-mo and a zoom-in tracking shot, into the Olympic flame! The Doctor picking up the torch after the runner suffers a terrible fall, as the announcer breathlessly announces that he's the avatar of HOPE, COURAGE, AND LOVE! The fact that Chloe and her mom are being chased down by an evil drawing of her abusive dad, which they defeat by singing a nursery rhyme at it! This poo poo is so loving dumb, and it rules. There's two kinds of stupid in the world: there's good stupid, and there's bad stupid. I've talked about Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance before, but let's contrast one of my most favorite video games with one of my least favorite: DmC. Revengeance is "good" stupid: It has insane, ridiculous, stupid sequences that are so incredibly dumb that they are amazing. For instance, there's a character your main character, Raiden, fights, who is essentially a talking cybernetic dog/panther with, like, fifteen different chainsaws on its body. You beat it, and then it turns out that the AI was rewritten and "controlled" by the bad guys, so it then spends the entire rest of the game being your best friend. But that's not the best part. The best part is that it's essentially the straight man, so you get cutscenes of this, again, robot cyber dog being all no-nonsense as Raiden says and does amazingly stupid poo poo, the Abbott to your main character Costello. It's absolutely incredible, and makes the entire game a treat. Why does this work? Because it's innocent. It's not offensive, or malicious, it's just loving weird. I mean, it's funny as hell (intentionally so), and clever to boot, but the reason why it works is even beyond it knowing what it's doing and being smart enough to pull it off, it's that there's a level of sincerity to the whole exercise, a level of innocence, that makes it fun. It makes it pure. Even if you don't like it (and I don't know how you can't; Blade Wolf is one of the best characters in the game), you can at least objectively appreciate it for its sincerity. Contrast to DmC, an overall trying-too-hard exercise in forced "edginess" and being-shocking-for-being-shocking's-sake. In a mountain of poor storytelling decisions- the game is a really bad political/social unrest metaphor balanced with a completely insincere, corporate "nihilistic" edge that reeks of design-by-boardroom, it also lifts two plot points directly from Futurama and literally ends on a twitter hashtag -the crown jewel of poo poo in the turdpile that is DmC is a scene wherein one of the protagonists has to execute a demon lady who's pregnant with like, the supreme devil child or something. So here's how he does it: He shoots her, in the loving stomach, with a motherfucking sniper rifle. Especially the way the cutscene is framed- with slo-mos and pans in on her pregnant stomach, with the devil lady wandering around and moaning in pain before she's shot...I mean, it's graphic, and it's just...it's loving disgusting. Worse, too, is that the dude shoots her in the head, killing her, right after abortion-by-sniper-rifle, so it makes the time spent shooting her in the stomach even more nonsensical and disgusting. It's just a misogynist garbage scene that was played up to be edgy and "real", and is all the worse because of how pointless it all is- even though the guy who does the sniper rifle abortion ends up being the final boss, it's for reasons completely disconnected to this scene, and even worse, the scene as a whole is never commented on again. That, that is what "bad" stupid is. It's a nasty, unpleasant little scene made to shock and titillate. It expresses some horrible, woman-hating viewpoint on the part of its creator(s) and is ultimately pointless to the work as a whole. That's what "bad" stupid is. It's what the end of "Love and Monsters" inhabits- it, as I have mentioned and screamed angrily about before, literally reduces the main female protagonist to a sex object, even beyond the fact that it condemns her to a fate worse than death. In contrast, every single idiotic sequence- and boy, there were a lot of them - at the end of "Fear Her" is "good" stupid. It's meant to be joyous and insane and even if you, the viewer, personally didn't like those episodes, you can at least respect them for being well-intentioned. I mean, come on, that torch running sequence with the Doctor- that's literally what he is on the show. He's an avatar of all of our best intentions, while also being a loving God (for all intents and purposes) who has saved the world many, many times over. If anyone deserves the completely bombastic way the announcer describes him for helping out a dude with a twisted ankle, it's the loving Doctor. I mean...seriously, dudes. So yeah, I don't get Who fans. How anyone on this Earth can look at "Love and Monsters" and "Fear Her", two episodes that are completely different in the ways they are bad, and the messages they are sending, and consider the latter worse...and in such great numbers that "Fear Her" is considered the worst episode of all time...Yeah, y'all are weird. Real weird. Grade: C Random Thoughts:
NieR Occomata fucked around with this message at 04:09 on Sep 6, 2014 |
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Sep 6, 2014 04:01
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There are some great gags in this episode, too. The Doctor "parks" the Tardis between two blue garbage bins that have just enough room to fit a police box--but parks it the wrong way, and has to exit and reenter the timespace continuum so he can turn the drat thing 90 degrees clockwise. Also Rose: Look at you, you beautiful boy! *pets cat* Tennant: Thanks, I've been experimenting with backcombin--oh. 
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Sep 6, 2014 04:10
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When I think of this episode I remember a mostly unremarkable, fairly dull episode (something that's not exactly rare in these early seasons) with that one hilarious scene where the Doctor carries the torch. I kinda think it must have become some kind of Who fandom meme that this episode is particularly terrible and everyone started believing it because it was repeated so often.
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Sep 6, 2014 04:16
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I already gave my opinion of this episode on the last page, so all I can say is that I laugh at you for being upset with DmC for story reasons. I can sorta get the gameplay criticisms from combat gods, who got mad that somebody made a game for people who didn't previously like that line of games. But the story has that South Park thing going on where it's so gross about every kind of sacred subject one could think of that any ability to be offended wears off. Thankfully, things are about to pick up. I look forward to the other review.
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Sep 6, 2014 04:19
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Also because I know you nerds will ask about it, personal top ten worst episodes occupation has seen thus far: 10. "Rise of the Cybermen" 9. "School Reunion" 8. "Rose" 7. "Aliens of London" 6. "World War Three" 5. "New Earth" 4. "The End of the World" 3. "Boom Town" 2. "Love and Monsters" 1. "The Parting of the Ways"
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Sep 6, 2014 04:19
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Pretty much. I never liked the episode for the same reasons as you Regy, but then I get to the fandom and somehow it's one of "the" bad episodes. I mean it's down there in my opinion, but more because it's just dull and incredibly stupid, not because of anything particularly egregious it does. Sure the torch sequence is utterly terrible but whatever it's not like there aren't loads of similar sequences in the RTD-era.
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Sep 6, 2014 04:19
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mind the walrus posted:Sure the torch sequence is utterly terrible I was trying to remember why people hated the episode so much and then you mentioned the Olympic Torch. Ugh. Kill it with fire. quote:but whatever it's not like there aren't loads of similar sequences in the RTD-era. However, it's caught up in L&M's wake and is an absolutely horrible part of an absolutely unremarkable episode. There's a lot of stupid from RTD's era but usually each episode had a part that makes it worth watching. Fear Her has none of that.
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Sep 6, 2014 04:23
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Just so we're clear: I love the torch sequence, it owns.
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Sep 6, 2014 04:23
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I don't think you really gave the stupidity of the last scene justice in describing why it's really stupid. I won't go into detail because I really hope Oxx does, but holy poo poo is it a next-level stupid for Dr Who. That being said, this episode is really more benign than anything, and the fact that it gets poo poo on while we have some much worse poo poo this same season says a lot about Doctor Who fans in general
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Sep 6, 2014 04:25
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All right, here I go. This is why Fear Her - or, rather, the last 5 minutes of Fear Her (the rest I, unfortunately, really rather like) - disgusts me. gently caress the London Olympics. gently caress the disgusting police state they created. gently caress the corporate pandering and the Coca-Cola cops and the destruction of public housing and the appropriation of public funds in honor of capitalist hegemony. The Olympics are an abomination. "Ceasefire Magazine posted:This highly profitable, publicly subsidised, sporting event always attracts the major, and wannabe major, cities of the world, using any and all methods to entice an unaccountable Olympic committee, each flexing their political muscle to ensure theirs is the next chosen location. The Olympics take billions of pounds, yen, dollars of their host countries’ tax revenue to build magnificent stadiums and housing facilities, militarise the city, trample civil liberties and construct elaborate installations with shelf lives of a few weeks. Is this a strictly fair criticism to make of an episode that aired 6 years before the London Olympics? Maybe not. But it sure as hell soils it now. The "torch sequence" is impossible to separate from the real meaning of the Olympic Torch today: worldwide, massive, totalitarian capitalist destruction. DoctorWhat fucked around with this message at 04:29 on Sep 6, 2014 |
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Sep 6, 2014 04:26
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I still think the funniest part of the London Olympics is that missile shield they spent billions on installing in London that totally didn't fuckin work, whenever the bugle talked about that back in early-mid 2012 I always chuckled profusely As an aside
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Sep 6, 2014 04:28
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I mean, for gently caress's sake - the London Olympics are/were the exactsort of cultural cancer that the Doctor ought to be dismantling, like in Paradise Towers, The Happiness Patrol, or State of Decay. Watching the Doctor carry the Olympic Torch is one of the most wretched perversions I've ever observed.
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Sep 6, 2014 04:29
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I can agree with most of this review. It really doesn't deserve its rap, and I especially like that the monster is an innocent child and not evil. Also, I just remembered it has one of my favorite silly lines:quote:You just stole a Council axe from a Council van and now you're tearing up a Council road! I'm reporting you to the Council! I don't know, there's sort of a Buffy the Vampire Slayer vibe to it, how people ignore the insanity and danger in the world and obsess over maintaining their little fiefdoms. Doctor What, that's an interesting point about the Olympics. I don't know, I guess they just weren't thinking too hard about the implications. Come to think of it, a monster has to be stopped by showing a massive population a symbol that will inspire feelings of love and good will- isn't that the ending of Ghostbusters 2? Jurgan fucked around with this message at 04:35 on Sep 6, 2014 |
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Sep 6, 2014 04:31
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What's the third episode Oxx always skips?
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Sep 6, 2014 04:33
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Toxxupation posted:...That's it? I've never quite been able to grasp the sheer hatred this episode frequently gets either. Yes I do absolutely hate the Torch sequence at the end, but the rest of the episode is just mostly bland with the odd moments of quality shining through here and there (I really like that Rose has to get proactive and try and figure things out for herself). I thought Love and Monsters was far worse even if I've mellowed on it somewhat over the years, and apart from airing the week after it, I still don't understand why people lump Fear Her in with that episode as being anywhere near equal on the shittiness scale. There are actually a couple of other episodes I now dislike more than either L&M or this one, but discussing them now would be utterly irrelevant since you haven't gotten to those yet. I do wish people would stop saying,"X coming up soon is great/terrible!" since - like it did with this story - it ends up creating an expectation in your head of what is to come, and I'd much rather just see your blind reactions to each individual episode, as opposed to having preconceived notions of whether you're supposed to like or dislike it in advance.
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Sep 6, 2014 04:35
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Toxxupation posted:I still think the funniest part of the London Olympics is that missile shield they spent billions on installing in London that totally didn't fuckin work, whenever the bugle talked about that back in early-mid 2012 I always chuckled profusely Incidentally, I wish Doctor Who would cast Andy Zaltzman as a monster that thrives on puns.
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Sep 6, 2014 04:38
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Jerusalem posted:I've never quite been able to grasp the sheer hatred this episode frequently gets either. Yes I do absolutely hate the Torch sequence at the end, but the rest of the episode is just mostly bland with the odd moments of quality shining through here and there (I really like that Rose has to get proactive and try and figure things out for herself). I thought Love and Monsters was far worse even if I've mellowed on it somewhat over the years, and apart from airing the week after it, I still don't understand why people lump Fear Her in with that episode as being anywhere near equal on the shittiness scale. But... but I made this chart, you see, that easily tells Occ how he's supposed to feel about each episode. A chart, man!
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Sep 6, 2014 04:39
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Well DoctorWhat, that's a better explanation than I was expecting for why (that aspect of) this episode is so hated. I can't share that strong of a reaction to it, but I understand where you're coming from.
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Sep 6, 2014 04:47
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I think what bugged me most about Fear Her, beyond the Torch thing which is just Rusty being Rusty roll your eyes and move on, is the vanishing of the entire stadium of people. There was something about that sequence that really annoyed me when I watched the episode, it was just too big for the stakes of the episode.
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Sep 6, 2014 05:00
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thexerox123 posted:Incidentally, I wish Doctor Who would cast Andy Zaltzman as a monster that thrives on puns. TOP STORY THIS WEEK! YOUR DOOM
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Sep 6, 2014 05:00
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Zaggitz posted:What's the third episode Oxx always skips? I hope we never find out. A thread this great needs its mysteries.
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Sep 6, 2014 05:04
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I'll take a pm if i have to. I can't think of an upcoming single part ep that's as bad as L&M and Fear Her. EDIT: I loving take it back I think I know exactly which one it is. Easter was rough that year.
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Sep 6, 2014 05:05
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Toxxupation posted:TOP STORY THIS WEEK! YOUR DOOM Special guest John Oliver hides behind his sofa as the ominous dings from the pun bell get closer and closer...
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Sep 6, 2014 05:06
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howe_sam posted:I think what bugged me most about Fear Her, beyond the Torch thing which is just Rusty being Rusty roll your eyes and move on, is the vanishing of the entire stadium of people. There was something about that sequence that really annoyed me when I watched the episode, it was just too big for the stakes of the episode. Yeah, the idea that an entire stadium of people would disappear live on television and that everybody would just go,"Huh, that's weird.... well let's just have the opening ceremony anyway!" was really silly. I think maybe the show might have been concerned with the stakes somehow not being high enough - even in something like Father's Day where the real core of the story is the intimate story about Rose never knowing her father and not wanting him to die they had to throw in some earth-threatening stakes. Same with this one, I think maintaining the focus on the scared little girl or even just the street in general would have worked better than trying to artificially up the stakes to include the entire world - it kind of suggests that the individual plights of the "little people" aren't actually worthy of our attention unless it's symptomatic of some greater threat to the world itself.
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Sep 6, 2014 05:08
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From a... generous metaphorical perspective you could say that making them about the world is actually a stand-in for how these "little" problems feel to the people experiencing them. Namely: that they feel like they are the end of the world. And no matter how much you know, intellectually, that there are children starving in Africa and you're better off than the people who horribly died in 1930s-1940s Germany, your little problem with your kid having PTSD about her deceased abusive father may as well be the end of the world to you. That's twisting things a bit, and I think the more correct interpretation was just that they needed to up the stakes for ratings, but if you wanted to I think you could make a valid interpretation along those lines.
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Sep 6, 2014 05:14
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Fear Her is one of those episodes I can't remember save one or two things, those being bad child acting and CGI squiggles. When people talk to me about how horrible it is, I just agree because I can't be bothered to watch it again.
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Sep 6, 2014 05:19
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My big beef with this episode is similar to, but distinct from, DoctorWhat's. Not so much that the very idea of the Olympics is, at this point, risible. (Though the IOC seems to be trying to get it there.) More that the show becomes a straight-up commercial/PR for this upcoming sporting event, one which has, itself, become notable since at least 1996 for putting money before principle at every opportunity. Instead of a big dumb spectacle, I see someone trying to sell me something, using the Doctor no less, a character whose ideals I generally aspire to. (When I had a kid, I discovered the Sesame Street gang were all over sugary snack foods in the grocery. I loved Sesame Street as a kid; it felt like a betrayal. How do I let my toddler form a trust relationship with Grover when he's teaching about feelings, then tell her not to listen when he's hawking cookies or sugar water?) That sort of thing builds cynicism, and Doctor Who, as Craig Ferguson puts beautifully, is about the triumph of intellect and hope over brute force and cynicism. Now, having said all that, was it as awful as L&M? No, no it wasn't. But The problems with that last scene were viscerally apparent to Doctor Who fans in a way that misogyny (sadly) wasn't. They aren't necessarily alert to the sexist world they live in, but they're very attuned to the Doctor as a champion of the little guy over totalitarian and corporate interests. That's what I think, anyway. Personally: Over time, I've come to appreciate that L&M's defects were considerably greater than those of Fear Her. OTOH, I'd get more fun out of watching the best bits of L&M (Mr. Blue Sky!!) than I would watching the best bits of Fear Her (David Tennant eating jam from a jar). I wouldn't watch either all the way through if I had any say in the matter, but at least it's worth talking about L&M's problems, where any thought given to Fear Her is mostly a waste of attention. (He said, looking at the walk or text he just wrote about it.)
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Sep 6, 2014 05:19
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Very well said pgroce.
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Sep 6, 2014 05:23
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pgroce posted:My big beef with this episode is similar to, but distinct from, DoctorWhat's. Not so much that the very idea of the Olympics is, at this point, risible. (Though the IOC seems to be trying to get it there.) More that the show becomes a straight-up commercial/PR for this upcoming sporting event, one which has, itself, become notable since at least 1996 for putting money before principle at every opportunity. Instead of a big dumb spectacle, I see someone trying to sell me something, using the Doctor no less, a character whose ideals I generally aspire to. (When I had a kid, I discovered the Sesame Street gang were all over sugary snack foods in the grocery. I loved Sesame Street as a kid; it felt like a betrayal. How do I let my toddler form a trust relationship with Grover when he's teaching about feelings, then tell her not to listen when he's hawking cookies or sugar water?) This is a p pro post, that was real cool and I enjoyed it thanks duders
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Sep 6, 2014 05:24
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I don't think Fear Her's TERRIBLE like some people do, but that olympics ending is atrocious. And the setting's really boring, reeking of serious budget issues necessitating driving out to the suburbs to film rather than any interesting location, or even a friggin' quarry. Plus, there's an episode in Moffat's run that essentially remakes this, but WAY better. Weirdly, people largely dislike it. Doctor Who fans have weird taste. I'm not sure what the third episode Oxx skipped could be. If...if it was four episodes I'd understand. There's a two-parter that's...yeah, I've just plain blanked it out of my memory. I didn't actually hate Love & Monsters until later, but that one I hated AS I WATCHED IT. That almost never happens with Dr. Who. Oh, is it one of the specials? I myself have never seen three of them (they weren't on Netflix when I was binging the show).
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Sep 6, 2014 05:26
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Craptacular! posted:Next season has a whole 90 seconds of silliness (I Can't Decide) removed on Netflix and home video internationally Okay not saying anything about it, just that you better drat well review the originals.
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Sep 6, 2014 05:30
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MikeJF posted:Okay not saying anything about it, just that you better drat well review the originals. Seconding this. Make every effort possible to make sure all episodes going forward are completely uncut relative to the original UK premiere broadcast.
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Sep 6, 2014 05:33
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Doctor Who "Fear Her" Series 2, Episode 11 I would say that you have disappointed me, Doctor Who fans, but that would imply any of you were capable of something besides disappointment. "Fear Her" may not have moments of infamy quite on the level of Happy Ending Paving Stone, but it's often mentioned in the same breath as "Love & Monsters" - sometimes even more often. Never anything specific, besides the Olympic Torch bit, but still enough for me to have passed it over in my first viewing right alongside its dark cousin. Even Wikipedia can't quite whitewash the negativity this episode engenders, citing that Doctor Who magazine voted it the second-worst episode of all time (barely squeaking past an old serial where the Sixth Doctor commits a grievous breach of Time Lord etiquette and chokes the poo poo out of his Companion without taking her to lunch first). But you want to know a secret? I realized, as I was watching this with Occ, that "Fear Her" was, in fact, the first episode of Doctor Who I ever saw. A moment, please. Yes, at some point, I can't even remember when, I decided to see what all this "Doctor Who" fuss was about and found myself watching some clips of a little black girl with an absolutely godawful, incomprehensibly raspy voice yelling at some other people from her bed. "Boring," thought I, and got back to punching the face of the T-Rex that had abducted the mayor. The fact that I recognized that girl from the trailer for "Fear Her" did nothing to encourage me to watch the episode in full. But here we are full circle, and my verdict is, Jesus Christ you people are a bunch of loving whiners. I mean, make no mistake, this is a dire 45 minutes of televised entertainment. Literally half of it consists of the Doctor and Rose walking befuddled down a single street. Its "mystery" is solved within the first five minutes of viewing for everyone but the characters. The side cast is utterly inane and I think that the old woman who's constantly warning the children to stay indoors is secretly capable of teleportation. The mix of saccharine Olympics jubilation, alien children, and child abuse is a queasy mish-mash even by Who's standards, and at no point is there a single coherent theme or throughline for all these different elements. Several moments near the end, and I don't just mean the torch sequence, are so spectacularly retarded that I just sat there with a haunted expression on my face as Occupation cackled like a loving hyena through the chat window. The episode wasn't even made with the Olympics in mind; it was a last-minute stand-in for a canceled script by Stephen Fry (and oh, how magical that would have been) handed off to some dingbat soap-opera director with a budget Davies had stolen from the tip jar at a lemonade stand. We could have just as well had the evil-plant-drawing-girl subplot without the TORCH OF LOVE at all, which raises questions, to me, as to what this episode's writer and director thought it was trying to say. That love is good? Oh, you Socrates. Mind you, there are a few amusing bits buried in the dross - Competent Rose once again manifests, there's some amusing physical humor between Piper and Tennant (the bit where Rose points at the TARDIS monitor only for the Doctor to reach over and hold her hand was legit cute, even for me), and the concept of the evil alien as a pissy little toddler who wants to see its friends is decent even through Chloe's god-awful acting. And yes, some of it was so stupid as to be moderately amusing, but I don't have Occ's sense of "ironic" fun, so most of it was just a vast, mushy sea of tedium, waiting for something to happen so this 45 minute chunk of my life would feel less interminable. A very boring episode with some very stupid parts - hell, that's practically a whole category of Doctor Who in itself. But to hear it said in this thread, and to match it up with the trends of those who strongly disliked it, the reason "Fear Her" is so widely reviled isn't because of the tedium, or the stupidity, or the ham-fisted child abuse subtext. No, it's because, are you ready, here we go: lots of people don't like the Olympics very much. Really? loving really? loving really. I don't like the Olympics, I've never liked the Olympics, I didn't like the Olympics even before I learned it transmogrified its every venue into capitalist Thunderdome, and I am still bewildered, befuddled, utterly flummoxed by the idea of so many people dragging that grudge around that it drops this one harmless, moronic bit of television right down to the inky depths where Colin Baker gives a woman a very firm neck-massage. I don't exactly have reams of evidence that the Olympics bit is what put the stake in this episode's heart, but I have absolutely nothing else to grab onto in "Fear Her" that can't be found in at least 20% of most other seasons of Who. Such high expectations for things to go wrong during this viewing, a long-avoided circle that finally closes, and I learn that its bad reputation has the exact same source as so many other so-called "controversial" elements of Doctor Who and beyond - a bunch of aging nerds desperate to show each other that they care about something important. Ridiculous. So that was the one-two punch from hell. One of them genuinely, transcendentally awful, and the other a mere fata morgana propped up by, if anything, the social-justice gibberings of its fanbase. Further rough spots lie ahead, but at least I can be confident that those'll be genuinely terrible. Speaking of terrible, let's see what the Cybermen are up to.
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Sep 6, 2014 06:10
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Oxxidation posted:Speaking of terrible, let's see what the Cybermen are up to. Probably watching Mean Girls.
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Sep 6, 2014 06:17
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Jsor posted:Probably watching Mean Girls. Saving this for later.
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Sep 6, 2014 06:21
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