|
death .cab for qt posted:This episode was another one that I couldn't do in one sitting. I paused it right at the football match and walked away for three months i'm sorry, but eleven's leitmotif playing while Matt Smith plays football is  Matt Smith only became an actor due to a back injury - he was going to be a pro footballer.
|
#
?
Feb 8, 2015 09:24
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 16, 2024 02:49 |
|
|
DoctorWhat posted:[Basically every single man in Britain] only became a [career] due to a [body part] injury - he was going to be a pro footballer.
|
|
#
?
Feb 8, 2015 10:10
|
|
|
But he actually played for several youth teams of football clubs, not just having kickabouts in the park with his mates.
|
|
#
?
Feb 8, 2015 10:50
|
|
|
If it wasn't for my injury of being poo poo and hating sports I would too
|
|
#
?
Feb 8, 2015 10:56
|
|
|
I'm surprised at the reaction to this episode, the majority of classic fans I know simply despise it for various reasons, most if which have to do with all these moments that could truly be called OOC for the Doctor as an overall meta-character. Most of all I think it's because they made the episode so sitcom-like. It's like you expect a laugh track at times, and Doctor Who shouldn't be a sitcom. Ever. I think this one is dumb and if you think it's good you're wrong, BUT, I think it has more of the same kind of self awareness about it Occ likes, so if I played the game I probably would have given it a high grade. But then again, every time I thought "Occ liked The Christmas Invasion and that had a loving tree go rogue and spin like a top and wreck through a WALL, so he'll like this comic weirdness" I've been wrong.
|
|
#
?
Feb 8, 2015 16:08
|
|
|
I'm not super-into the whole "Doctor doesn't ~get~ human customs" stuff, but when it's sufficiently funny I just don't mind. This episode is Sufficiently Funny and then some.
|
|
#
?
Feb 8, 2015 16:12
|
|
|
A lot of fans just seem to hate it when Doctor Who tries to be lighthearted. See the crowd who hate The Unicorn and the Wasp, for example...
|
|
#
?
Feb 8, 2015 16:32
|
|
|
Random Stranger posted:A lot of fans just seem to hate it when Doctor Who tries to be lighthearted. See the crowd who hate The Unicorn and the Wasp, for example... I hate the Unicorn and the Wasp because it does Doctor Who being lighthearted really badly, and also because most of the episode was super boring. Writing a lighthearted episode's actually really hard and a lot of writers on DW look at a goofy episode and decide to phone it in. Chibnall didn't phone it in on this one (man does that feel weird to say) and it's actually very good, with a lot of capital-F Funny Bits
|
|
#
?
Feb 8, 2015 17:25
|
|
|
Craptacular! posted:I'm surprised at the reaction to this episode, the majority of classic fans I know simply despise it for various reasons, most if which have to do with all these moments that could truly be called OOC for the Doctor as an overall meta-character. Most of all I think it's because they made the episode so sitcom-like. It's like you expect a laugh track at times, and Doctor Who shouldn't be a sitcom. Ever. I think its good
|
|
#
?
Feb 8, 2015 17:36
|
|
|
I think politics are dumb, but I'm great.
|
|
#
?
Feb 8, 2015 17:40
|
|
|
This episode is good, but it does unfortunately have that fat gently caress James Corden in it. But Doctor Who does have a strange ability of featuring horrendously unfunny terrible comedians and making them tolerable (see Catherine Tate) so he isn't actually that bad here.Random Stranger posted:A lot of fans just seem to hate it when Doctor Who tries to be lighthearted. See the crowd who hate The Unicorn and the Wasp, for example... Yeah the problem with that episode is that it is really poo poo, not that it's light hearted.
|
|
#
?
Feb 8, 2015 17:41
|
|
|
Craptacular! posted:I'm surprised at the reaction to this episode, the majority of classic fans I know simply despise it for various reasons, most if which have to do with all these moments that could truly be called OOC for the Doctor as an overall meta-character. Most of all I think it's because they made the episode so sitcom-like. It's like you expect a laugh track at times, and Doctor Who shouldn't be a sitcom. Ever.
|
|
#
?
Feb 8, 2015 17:45
|
|
|
I don't really see how this is out of character since Matt Smith being a goof is his character, to me at least.
|
|
#
?
Feb 8, 2015 17:48
|
|
|
Fungah! posted:I hate the Unicorn and the Wasp because it does Doctor Who being lighthearted really badly, and also because most of the episode was super boring. Writing a lighthearted episode's actually really hard and a lot of writers on DW look at a goofy episode and decide to phone it in. Chibnall didn't phone it in on this one (man does that feel weird to say) and it's actually very good, with a lot of capital-F Funny Bits Why are you mentioning Chibnall?
|
|
#
?
Feb 8, 2015 17:56
|
|
|
Monagle posted:Why are you mentioning Chibnall? Yeah, this was written by Gareth Roberts, who also wrote...Unicorn & The Wasp, how about that Sorry about the writeup delay, everybody, we'll get it taken care of today hopefully.
|
|
#
?
Feb 8, 2015 18:04
|
|
|
forbidden lesbian posted:I don't really see how this is out of character since Matt Smith being a goof is his character, to me at least. Agreed. This episode was perfect for Smith and it's one of the best of this season. This is coming from someone who still prefers the classic series overall.
|
|
#
?
Feb 8, 2015 18:53
|
|
|
Are we not supposed to like Corden now? I never watched Gavin and Stacey but I thought The Wrong Mans was really good.
|
|
#
?
Feb 8, 2015 18:58
|
|
|
Blasmeister posted:Are we not supposed to like Corden now? I never watched Gavin and Stacey but I thought The Wrong Mans was really good. He said something mean to Patrick Stuart so geek opinion turned against him, I don't remember the particulars.
|
|
#
?
Feb 8, 2015 19:03
|
|
|
death .cab for qt posted:This episode was another one that I couldn't do in one sitting. I paused it right at the football match and walked away for three months Sorry that you are broken. 
|
|
#
?
Feb 8, 2015 19:04
|
|
|
PriorMarcus posted:He said something mean to Patrick Stuart so geek opinion turned against him, I don't remember the particulars. He was unfunny long before that. Horne and Corden is one of the worst things, perhaps ever.
|
|
#
?
Feb 8, 2015 19:09
|
|
|
This one is okay. I agree with the sitcom comment (the characters in it have some hackey sitcom characterization), but the acting makes up for it, as does Matt Smith's goofy attempts to fit in. I don't know anything about Corden, but he does a very good job considering how little he has to work with. A lot of people really hate the resolution of the room upstairs part, but that I actually don't mind so much. It's not impressive, I guess, but it works, which is all I wanted from it. I give it a B.
|
|
#
?
Feb 8, 2015 19:21
|
|
|
marktheando posted:He was unfunny long before that. Horne and Corden is one of the worst things, perhaps ever. Don't forget lesbian vampire killers.
|
|
#
?
Feb 8, 2015 19:23
|
|
|
whoa he had something to do with buffy? cool
|
|
#
?
Feb 8, 2015 19:30
|
|
|
forbidden lesbian posted:whoa he had something to do with buffy? cool http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lesbian_Vampire_Killers I forgot paul McGann is also in this.
|
|
#
?
Feb 8, 2015 19:56
|
|
|
Fil5000 posted:Don't forget lesbian vampire killers. My friends and I must be the only people in the world who actually liked that movie. 
|
|
#
?
Feb 8, 2015 19:58
|
|
|
Do they specialize in killing lesbian vampires, or are they vampire killers who are themselves lesbians?
|
|
#
?
Feb 8, 2015 19:59
|
|
|
Lycus posted:Do they specialize in killing lesbian vampires, or are they vampire killers who are themselves lesbians?
|
|
#
?
Feb 8, 2015 20:01
|
|
|
Monagle posted:Why are you mentioning Chibnall? Because I thought Chibnall wrote it and was too lazy to go look it up. Point stands, Gareth Roberts is also pretty much always a hack
|
|
#
?
Feb 8, 2015 20:04
|
|
|
Doctor Who "The Lodger" Series 5, Episode 11 It's hard to remember that Matt Smith is a genuinely, truly, sincerely incredible actor. I feel like I've failed to adequately emphasize how great of an actor he has been over the Series Five writeups; he's always so fantastic that he makes even the worst episodes of the season- aka the Silurian two-parter -at least somewhat entertaining solely from his presence on the show. It's sort of the same situation that Christopher Eccleston was in during Series One, where the actor playing The Doctor is lights-out fantastic at his job, except oftentimes in Series One Eccleston was the only consistently positive aspect of the show. In Series Five, so much else is good that the fact that the actor playing The Doctor is unbelievably skilled at his job has been pushed into the background over the storytelling, dialog, other characters on the show...the list goes on. But then "The Lodger" comes along and reminds the audience how great Matt Smith truly is. "The Lodger" opens to The Doctor accidentally disembarking in Essex, before being unceremoniously thrown from the TARDIS, which refuses to land. To make matters worse, Amy is accidentally stuck inside of it. A quick cut to a day later, and a teenaged boy is lured into a second-floor walkup by a man desperately crying for help. On the first floor of the flat, Craig (James Corden) and Sophie (Daisy Haggard), two close friends with a clear hidden romantic affection for each other, are about to settle down for a night of "pizza-booze-telly" when Sophie gets a call and has to leave suddenly. Craig, kicking himself over not confessing his feelings to Sophie, goes to answer the door- when who should appear but The Doctor, Craig's new lodger for the room he's renting out on the first floor. The conceit of the episode, from The Doctor's point of view, is him trying to puzzle out why the TARDIS is unable to land- he knows that it has something to do with the man on the second floor, but can't confront the man directly- The Doctor has absolutely zero of his usual tools at his disposal and assumes that if the thing on the second floor is preventing his TARDIS from landing then it might be searching for him, so he can't let the second floor person see him. What this means, however, is that most of the episode is spent on The Doctor trying, and completely failing, at being a decent tenant to Craig- he completely upends every aspect of Craig's personal life in the process of staying whatever the hell Eleven's definition of "undercover" is. For you see, Craig is desperately trying to relay his feelings about Sophie to Sophie during the events of "The Lodger", and Craig and Sophie's will-they-won't-they is the real narrative backbone of the episode- The Doctor's attempts to figure out what's going on (with periodic check-ins with the stranded and increasingly aggravated Amy) is pushed into the background and consumes very little overall screentime. Confessing affection is awkward and hazardous at the best of times, but when you have The Doctor as a roommate it turns downright lethal, as Craig's life is thrown into complete disarray by The Doctor. This all comes to a head, as Craig, at the end of his rope about all of Eleven's absolute weirdness, tries to throw The Doctor out of his flat. The Doctor, seeing no other solution to the immediate problem, quickly informs Craig what's going on- via a series of psychic headbutts, because, well, this episode is loving incredible. Unfortunately, at that exact moment Sophie is lured upstairs by the second-floor resident. The Doctor and Craig are forced to barge their way into the second floor apartment, wherein they learn that it's, in fact, a time engine that has attached itself to the, in fact, one story flat and is attempting to find a suitable operator- people who want to leave their current situation, for whatever reason. Unfortunately, the technology is too sophisticated for humans and has been summarily killing every single human that's been forced to try to operate it, and Sophie is about to be the latest victim. (Un)luckily, she's let go due to the hologram that lured her up to the second floor noticing that The Doctor is much more suitable- what it's not aware of, though, is that if The Doctor is assigned as operator the engine will self-destruct, destroying the solar system in the process. The Doctor quickly puzzles out that Craig has to override the system as an operator- he was never lured upstairs in the first place because he was comfortable with his life, and his desire for normalcy and repetition is anthetical to the engine's needs. Craig shuts down the engine, confessing his love to Sophie in the process, and the day is saved. The first, most important, and virtually sole reason "The Lodger" is so fantastic is Matt Smith. The conceit of this episode is entirely built around watching The Doctor's ill-advised and hilarious attempts to "fit in" with modern 21st century British society, and Smith takes that concept and runs as far and as fast as he can with it. Matt is so often hilarious as Eleven throughout this episode that singling any one moment out- the psychic headbutt, his awkward intrusion onto Craig and Sophie's private time, his attempts at healing Craig involving punching him in the stomach and force-feeding him garbage tea (as in, tea brewed from stuff in the garbage) -feels like a disservice, because everything that Eleven does in this episode, without fail, is amazing and wonderful to see. "The Lodger" is kind of a strange episode, because The Doctor is clearly the focus of it, and yet the central plot isn't his attempts to figure out what's going on- it's Craig and Sophie's little love story. Although introduced eye-rollingly stereotypically- two best friends, with the male having a secret crush on the female but is unable to express his feelings! -"Lodger" dimensionalizes both Craig and Sophie well enough so that the climax of the episode both lands and is bizarrely touching in a sense. I seriously thought I was gonna hate Craig, especially when his intro seemed to make him into the epitome of the Nice Guy, "Lodger" quickly changed that interpretation by making it clear that the affections were mutual, and that Craig and Sophie were both so unbelievably awkward and oblivious that that was the only thing preventing them from getting together, as opposed to Craig desperately and pointlessly pining after Sophie who somehow magically realizes that he was the perfect man all along in the climax. It also helped that putting Craig's life as the focus of the episode- especially his relationship with Sophie -created sympathy just by juxtaposing that journey with The Doctor's intrusion into it. A common theme of Doctor Who is The Doctor being a great man, but not necessarily a good one, and nowhere is this more evident than in his interactions and effects on Craig's story. Because, let's face it, The Doctor's an absolutely terrible person to live with, despite all of his good intentions; he wrecks nearly everything that Craig attempts to accomplish, mostly of the time by accident. He's a weird dork with no sense of personal space or how to function within society; he's a great friend to have around but you'd never want to room with him, because he'd mess up every aspect of your personal and professional life- as he does with Craig's. Making The Doctor into the unwitting antagonist of Craig's plot was a really smart move. Because, when you think about it, The Doctor's essentially the cause of the climax- his whole being The Doctor-ness and his moody inability to ever be satisfied with his life is what influences Sophie to pursue her dreams- and is what causes the hologram to lure her, because she was someone comfortable with her current situation and was upended into wanting more by The Doctor (and then got noticed by the time engine as a result). Having the climax of the episode resolved with Craig being the one to destroy the time engine, via his desire for stability and normalcy, plays into that theme- sometime, The Doctor's loner streak and inability to settle down is a huge negative trait, and Craig, being content with where he is and what he wants to be, is the unwitting hero of "The Lodger". "The Lodger" is a funny, hilarious episode of Who, but it's also a very subtle, understated, affectionate critique of The Doctor: the implication is is that without The Doctor having been there to mess everything up, Craig would've confessed his feelings to Sophie and they would've started dating anyways, The Doctor merely calcified her and his's feelings for each other via a dangerously lethal situation. If anything, The Doctor delays the inevitable due to his own carelessness- at numerous times Craig is on the cusp of revealing his feelings only for The Doctor to blunder into the situation and accidentally gently caress it all up. It's part of a clever inversion of the traditional "Companion has to prove herself in some definitive way to The Doctor to earn her key to the TARDIS" episode- instead, The Doctor is the flat-footed one out of his element, trying desperately to ingratiate himself with Craig and is eventually forced to extreme measures just to stay in the flat- which is what makes the post climax scene so smart and weirdly affecting -The Doctor, for once, has had to earn someone else's respect and does, and gets rewarded with a key for it. "The Lodger" is a great episode and one of my favorites of the season, but it's an episode that's very hard to quantify why I enjoy it as much as I do beyond the very short and non-descriptive "It's really funny." Sure, the symbolism was good, the plot was decent enough, the climax was weirdly emotional and even more weirdly landed with me, Craig and Sophie were fine as one-episode characters, but the reason why it's so great is because "The Lodger" is an incredibly breezy, hilarious episode of Who. By being so intentionally fluffy, so intentionally a sitcom-ish episode of Who, it's a difficult episode to write up; there's so very little there that isn't self-evident and isn't repetitive- Matt Smith is an incredible comedic actor and this episode is hilarious -that one quickly runs out things to write about in this episode, despite it being such an utter joy to watch. But maybe that is "The Lodger"'s greatest strength; it's so good it doesn't need explanation or justification of its quality, the quality is self-evident. Grade: A Random Thoughts:
|
|
#
?
Feb 8, 2015 21:10
|
|
|
marktheando posted:This episode is good, but it does unfortunately have that fat gently caress James Corden in it. But Doctor Who does have a strange ability of featuring horrendously unfunny terrible comedians and making them tolerable (see Catherine Tate) so he isn't actually that bad here. Terrible comedians aren't necessarily bad actors. Isn't it generally accepted wisdom that comedy is harder to pull off than drama, anyway?
|
|
#
?
Feb 8, 2015 21:11
|
|
|
Fungah! posted:Because I thought Chibnall wrote it and was too lazy to go look it up. Point stands, Gareth Roberts is also pretty much always a hack Except both this episode and The Unicorn & The Wasp are funny, and good, so you're wrong. QED
|
|
#
?
Feb 8, 2015 21:14
|
|
|
Toxxupation posted:Holy poo poo the portrait that hangs right outside Craig's door is loving horrifying. So many people were sure this was A Clue at the time. Surely a guy can't just have ugly art, it must be some sort of plot by the Master or something. The Curse of the Interior Decorator . . . of Death!
|
|
#
?
Feb 8, 2015 21:23
|
|
|
quote:Holy poo poo the portrait that hangs right outside Craig's door is loving horrifying. I can see a new avatar in the future
|
|
#
?
Feb 8, 2015 21:27
|
|
|
I was rewatching this and I forgot this episode had an "over 9000" reference
|
|
#
?
Feb 8, 2015 21:29
|
|
|
It's funny to remember how crazy a bunch of people went trying to find puzzle pieces in an actually quite straightforward and simple series. *giant crack with white light spilling out of it appears behind Craig's fridge and Amy holds up her engagement ring as creepy music plays* Viewer: wait a minute that painting... Right at the start of The Eleventh Hour when Matt Smith is hanging out the Tardis there's a frown on his face for a split second and I saw some Youtube video where that's a sign he saw something at that moment that he never told anyone about afterwards and was a part of some Moffat masterplan.
|
|
#
?
Feb 8, 2015 21:29
|
|
|
Oxxidation posted:Except both this episode and The Unicorn & The Wasp are funny, and good, so you're wrong. QED This one's great, Unicorn and the Wasp sucks rear end, and Gareth Roberts wrote half of Planet of the Dead which is practically an international crime, so I'm right, just like always Toxxupation posted:[*] Holy poo poo the portrait that hangs right outside Craig's door is loving horrifying. I'm so glad that you caught that
|
|
#
?
Feb 8, 2015 21:33
|
|
|
Fungah! posted:I'm so glad that you caught that Same
|
|
#
?
Feb 8, 2015 21:34
|
|
|
Angela Christine posted:Sorry that you are broken. It was a really boring slog through the same "the doctor is an alien and doesn't quite understand humanity" joke for fifteen minutes while Craig the Nice Guy fumbles his non-relationship. Then it turned into Matt Smith: Alien Sportsman and I had enough. I watched it again in one setting, and it's just weak as gently caress. The jokes fall flat, 11's obliviousness gets played up far too heavily, the monster at the top of the stairs was a wet fart, and Amy is barely in the episode because we need to stare at Craig's dumb face. The one objectively good part was 11 Headbutting knowledge into him, repeatedly. That was solid gold. Everything else was hamfisted as gently caress, this coming from somebody that genuinely enjoys the Agatha Christie episode
|
|
#
?
Feb 8, 2015 21:35
|
|
|
I love The Lodger, and while I always say that there is no such thing as a consensus opinion about Who, I'm still surprised to hear people talk about how disliked the episode was by such a number of other people, because I really don't recall anybody doing anything but waxing lyrical about how much fun it was and how much they enjoyed it. Which is good, because it was great! Angela Christine posted:So many people were sure this was A Clue at the time. Surely a guy can't just have ugly art, it must be some sort of plot by the Master or something. The Curse of the Interior Decorator . . . of Death! Everybody was just excited that Nick Cave was going to be in the show
|
|
#
?
Feb 8, 2015 21:39
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 16, 2024 02:49 |
|
|
 What is that thing? Is a clown? Why does that black part seem to be trying to escape the picture? 
|
|
#
?
Feb 8, 2015 21:41
|
|