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Ahhh, Oxxidation, stop with the thrusting, STOP WITH THE THRUSTING! We've seen the Doctor, time and time again, stop the Daleks to the point that his nicknames during the Time War were "The Oncoming Storm" and "The Predator." He's the one being who has earned the Daleks' fear. River? We haven't seen her do anything to the Daleks, or anywhere, to earn that fear. If anything, the Dalek should have mocked her and shot at her as a nuscience. The writing just doesn't back up the scene. CobiWann fucked around with this message at 00:06 on Feb 15, 2015 |
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Feb 15, 2015 00:01
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Burkion posted:See, the problem with this? Burkion posted:With River it's just an echo without the meaning. "She's so badass she can make a Dalek beg for mercy!" It's not a flaw, it's a feature.
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Feb 15, 2015 00:03
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Father Octavian: Don't trust her. She killed a man. A good man. A hero to many. Doctor Who Viewer: Ugh, River is such a Mary Sue even the other characters keep praising her!
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Feb 15, 2015 00:06
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EDIT: I'm sorry for having a meltdown about the Dalek scene in your thread, Occupation!
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Feb 15, 2015 00:10
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2house2fly posted:Her whole thing is that we have seen the end of her story but not her beginning! We know her future but not her past! What she will do but not what she did! Is this some kind of prank everyone is in on? You're just seeing the River-effect. She has lot of haters, but also lot of lovers. 
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Feb 15, 2015 00:14
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2house2fly posted:Her whole thing is that we have seen the end of her story but not her beginning! We know her future but not her past! What she will do but not what she did! Is this some kind of prank everyone is in on? That sort of doesn't matter, though, particularly when the development of her character is working the other way round. If she becomes progressively more like a superhero, but we are mostly supposed to take it on faith that she is one, her superhero-ness is overwritten. To be clear, I do not hate River as a character. I am not slobbering at the mouth calling for her death. i just think she was more interesting in her first couple of episodes and that they tried to juggle a little too much with her later and dropped the ball as a result. I don't think she detracts from this two-parter much, I'm just not terribly interested in her role in it, but very interested in everyone else's. adhuin posted:You're just seeing the River-effect. She has lot of haters, but also lot of lovers. I'm not either. I really liked her at the beginning and became lukewarm later.
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Feb 15, 2015 00:15
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Paul.Power posted:Incidentally, Vincent and the Doctor got nominations for both a Bradbury Award ("Outstanding Dramatic Presentation") and a Hugo Award ("Best Dramatic Presentation (Short Form)"). I know that was probably part of the reason (doing my research for the guessing game) that I guessed A for it. Yep, The Pandorica Opens/Big Bang two-parter.
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Feb 15, 2015 00:16
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Bicyclops posted:I'm not either. I really liked her at the beginning and became lukewarm later. Of course not everyone. She is just a very polarizing character. Edit: For the Record. I'm very much in Lover category.
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Feb 15, 2015 00:18
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Bicyclops posted:I am not slobbering at the mouth calling for her death. Well I mean, if you want that, I have a two parter I can point you to. And I am not saying River is a Mary Sue or whatever nonsense for the Dalek scene- I'm not even saying I CARE that much about it. But it isn't that good of a scene and automatically discounting anyone who doesn't like it is kind of silly.
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Feb 15, 2015 00:19
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Burkion posted:
Yeah, same here.
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Feb 15, 2015 00:22
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Obviously you don't have to like the scene, but whether you like the scene or not it's a sinister foreshadowing scene and not a demonstration of awesomeness.
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Feb 15, 2015 00:27
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Am I misremembering the scene? From what I remember it runs "Beg for mercy" "You are a companion of the doc-torrr, so you wont execture me" "I'm river song, check your records" <dalek checks records, find out that river in fact DOES have a record of killing things, doesnt want to die> "Mer-cy!". It would have said the same thing if it was Ace, or the Brig, or any companion of the doctor who it has records that show they would in fact kill an unarmed dalek. The only difference is that most of them wouldnt have waited for it to check and beg before kiling it, but that speaks more to the person River is than to anything else.
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Feb 15, 2015 00:41
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CobiWann posted:River? We haven't seen her do anything to the Daleks, or anywhere, to earn that fear. If anything, the Dalek should have mocked her and shot at her as a nuscience. The writing just doesn't back up the scene. That's the whole point. She's a mystery, The Doctor doesn't know her, she won't spoil anything, and as viewers we've seen very little about who she really is. So, the only option left is for us to learn about her through characters like the Dalek and Octavian.
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Feb 15, 2015 00:51
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Transcript of the scene btw: Dalek: Records indicate you will show mercy. You are an associate of the Doctor's. River: I'm River Song. Check your records again. [brief pause while the Dalek accesses its records and shits what might be, since it's currently made out of stone, a literal brick] Dalek: Mercy. River: Say it again. Dalek: Mercy! River: One more time. Dalek: MERCYYYYY!
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Feb 15, 2015 01:01
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Craptacular! posted:At first, all her confidence comes from having a magic book, and in Time Of Angels the script in the book wasn't followed correctly (the ship wasn't supposed to crash, the whole thing wasn't supposed to be filled with super angels that break the rules of angels) When she meets 10 in the Library and tries to sync diaries the first thing she mentions is "the crash of the Byzantium".
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Feb 15, 2015 01:27
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2house2fly posted:Obviously you don't have to like the scene, but whether you like the scene or not it's a sinister foreshadowing scene and not a demonstration of awesomeness. I do not think that it is sinister foreshadowing at all.
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Feb 15, 2015 02:20
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Bicyclops posted:If she becomes progressively more like a superhero, but we are mostly supposed to take it on faith that she is one, her superhero-ness is overwritten. Her escape to kick off the Angel episode was the second most superhero thing I've seen in Doctor Who. At least if we're defining superhero as someone pulling off ridiculous feats like it ain't no thang. She does do that a lot, mind you. But she's with Eleven, who does it so constantly.
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Feb 15, 2015 02:58
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I think River is fine is in the Angels two-parter. I don't like her in the season 5 finale.
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Feb 15, 2015 03:02
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Oxx pretty much nailed why I love the Eleventh Doctor so much. He's the magician. All his plans and schemes are lies and misdirections, until the time for the big reveal and then suddenly there's a tiger wearing a fez where the TARDIS used to be. It's not enough to save the day, it has to be quiet, right up until curtain time, then it's the biggest show of them all.
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Feb 15, 2015 03:25
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I like River pretty much all the time and I'm glad all the haters have to deal with the reviews in this thread being written by people who like her too.
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Feb 15, 2015 05:08
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Organza Quiz posted:I like River pretty much all the time and I'm glad all the haters have to deal with the reviews in this thread being written by people who like her too. Such a cross I bear
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Feb 15, 2015 07:36
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Like all of Moffat's pet characters, River is terrible.
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Feb 15, 2015 07:47
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Most of Moffat's stuff, especially River and the Weeping Angels, goes like this: I loved them on their first appearance. I still mostly liked them through series 5, but I started to see problems. For fear of spoilers, I won't say any more, but I will have Strong Opinions next series. Basically, series five was very good on its own, but in hindsight I see the seeds of problems that will become much more pronounced in the future.
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Feb 15, 2015 08:02
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Then again, since we're going backwards through River's story (for the most part), you can argue that reverse character development is her whole deal: we're gradually seeing all of her rough edges unpolished back on.
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Feb 15, 2015 08:29
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I feel like if the internet and our understanding of writer crutches existed decades ago, you'd see similar stuff about The Master. "Why does this character fail yet always keep coming back? What is the long plan here?" "Credit to Delgado for trying his best, but this character gets on my nerves and not in a good way." Not to say any of Moffat's introductory characters are going to be in that pantheon, but you can't keep going to the nostalgia well forever, otherwise you end up with "an episode that reintroduces that one Fifth Doctor villain played by a man wearing a cloak with a paper mache mask." (Note to serious historians: this is an imagined exaggeration, but I know you probably have thought of a monster or three that might fit the bill.) Both show runners do it a lot because it's easy to remaster something and get acclaim for simply having tried, but at the end of the day I'm not as irritated by Moffat's "pet characters" as much as I am by farting aliens and "The Doctor's Daughter."
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Feb 15, 2015 08:56
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I bet if Jack Harkness did everything River did then people would be loving every minute of it.
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Feb 15, 2015 10:26
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Pwnstar posted:I bet if Jack Harkness did everything River did then people would be loving every minute of it. If that was true, Torchwood would be talked about as a beloved show in Doctor Who threads.
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Feb 15, 2015 12:47
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Jerusalem posted:If that was true, Torchwood would be talked about as a beloved show in Doctor Who threads. That's disingenuous. People dislike Torchwood because it's an awful, awful show, not because they dislike Jack Harkness as a character.
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Feb 15, 2015 13:49
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Organza Quiz posted:That's disingenuous. People dislike Torchwood because it's an awful, awful show, not because they dislike Jack Harkness as a character. I've read more than a few complaints about Torchwood Jack being not nearly as enjoyable to watch as Doctor Who Jack.
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Feb 15, 2015 14:02
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I think that's inevitable when the whole show is written to be slow and boring as gently caress.
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Feb 15, 2015 14:06
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Lycus posted:I think that's inevitable when the whole show is written to be slow and boring as gently caress. Mature and sexy!
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Feb 15, 2015 14:11
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The Sarah Jane Adventures had more respect for the intelligence of its audience than Torchwood did.
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Feb 15, 2015 14:18
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Doctor Spaceman posted:I've read more than a few complaints about Torchwood Jack being not nearly as enjoyable to watch as Doctor Who Jack. It's true, Jack's the sort of character that's great to have as a supporting character within the confines of someone else's story, but one about them just isn't going to be as good. The same goes with Jack Sparrow, Deadpool, arguably Wolverine and the Hulk (at least in the movies); all great ancillary characters, but they can't carry a story by themselves. The resulting story will either make that character far less interesting to watch by giving them the duties and arc required of a protagonist (or prove they aren't that interesting in the first place), or make the story itself unappealing by trying to build it around this B-side character. Although strangely, I think if you tried to codify the sort of characters that get treated like this, the Doctor would fit a lot of the criteria. With him it's different, because he's always been intended as the central character, but he's definitely the same sort of figure as characters like Jack Sparrow. Perhaps it's because, despite the name of the show and the central character, very rarely is a story actually about him. He's usually intruding on other people's stories, stepping in to solve somebody else's problem, with either story-specific characters or the companion taking the role of the 'emotional lead'.
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Feb 15, 2015 14:45
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Well originally that was exactly what he was- the engmatic third party that was NOT the focus of the series. That fell more on Ian, Barbra and Susan, his granddaughter. The Doctor was too aloof, too alien, and too disinterested to really be the focus. Then as the series went on, and his companions one by one left, he stepped up and developed into what we have today.
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Feb 15, 2015 17:12
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Organza Quiz posted:I like River pretty much all the time and I'm glad all the haters have to deal with the reviews in this thread being written by people who like her too. This is an example of the absurd polarizing that happens when some people have mild criticism for the way a character is written.
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Feb 15, 2015 18:45
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Pwnstar posted:I bet if Jack Harkness did everything River did then people would be loving every minute of it. Honestly, Jack has done more to earn it, not even counting Torchwood, just for surviving the early RTD era with his popularity intact.
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Feb 15, 2015 20:47
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I never watched Torchwood, but Jack Harkness in Doctor Who was a competent roguish adventurer whose biggest talent was making people want to have sex with him. If they had later decided that Daleks were terrified of him enough to call out for mercy and that he was in a high security prison he could escape from whenever he wanted, I would not have liked this addition, and would have considered it a little silly. I am not sure why he is being brought up at all in the context of River, as they have very little to do with each other.
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Feb 15, 2015 21:02
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Jack Harkness is a benign swashbuckling space adventurer and taunting and murdering a powerless opponent in cold blood would be a disservice to his character 
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Feb 15, 2015 22:09
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2house2fly posted:Jack Harkness is a benign swashbuckling space adventurer and taunting and murdering a powerless opponent in cold blood would be a disservice to his character Someone needs to watch more Torchwood. 
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Feb 15, 2015 22:12
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Never watch Torchwood Don't ever suggest watching Torchwood even as some twisted punishment
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Feb 15, 2015 22:17
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