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WAIT ARE YOU FUCKIN SERIOUS? REALLY? THAT'S THE FUCKIN...CHRIST
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Sep 13, 2014 23:31
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I do so very much hope this is a preview of things to come.
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Sep 13, 2014 23:34
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Toxxupation posted:WAIT ARE YOU FUCKIN SERIOUS? REALLY? THAT'S THE FUCKIN...CHRIST 
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Sep 13, 2014 23:47
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Toxxupation posted:WAIT ARE YOU FUCKIN SERIOUS? REALLY? THAT'S THE FUCKIN...CHRIST Welcome to season 3!
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Sep 13, 2014 23:50
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Tiggum posted:She later had a major role in Law & Order: UK and was so unbelievably awful that I'd actually forgotten she was ever good in Doctor Who. They made Chris loving Chibnall head writer on that, even after Torchwood made it horribly clear he had no business running a TV show. I just remember a scene where two Police Community Support Officers(basically the police equivalent of Teaching Assistants) approach a suspected explosive device and decide it's their duty to open it up to see what's inside, basically disregarding every rule that's ever been laid down about dealing with a suspect package. It was so utterly stupid it made me go "Oh, gently caress this" and turn it off immediately. I was quite surprised to discover it's been on the air for eight seasons.
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Sep 14, 2014 00:00
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Castle Radium posted:They made Chris loving Chibnall head writer on that, even after Torchwood made it horribly clear he had no business running a TV show. I just remember a scene where two Police Community Support Officers(basically the police equivalent of Teaching Assistants) approach a suspected explosive device and decide it's their duty to open it up to see what's inside, basically disregarding every rule that's ever been laid down about dealing with a suspect package. It was so utterly stupid it made me go "Oh, gently caress this" and turn it off immediately. I was quite surprised to discover it's been on the air for eight seasons. Broadchurch was good though.
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Sep 14, 2014 00:10
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Castle Radium posted:They made Chris loving Chibnall head writer on that, even after Torchwood made it horribly clear he had no business running a TV show. I just remember a scene where two Police Community Support Officers(basically the police equivalent of Teaching Assistants) approach a suspected explosive device and decide it's their duty to open it up to see what's inside, basically disregarding every rule that's ever been laid down about dealing with a suspect package. It was so utterly stupid it made me go "Oh, gently caress this" and turn it off immediately. I was quite surprised to discover it's been on the air for eight seasons. You know that L&O:UK is basically L&O Vanilla's Greatest Hits, right?
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Sep 14, 2014 00:44
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Castle Radium posted:I was quite surprised to discover it's been on the air for eight seasons. Actually, wait I glossed over that part. It's been going for eight series? I thought it was a flop that was cancelled after one.
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Sep 14, 2014 00:47
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Toxxupation posted:WAIT ARE YOU FUCKIN SERIOUS? REALLY? THAT'S THE FUCKIN...CHRIST ahahahahahha to the max
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Sep 14, 2014 00:51
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marktheando posted:Actually, wait I glossed over that part. It's been going for eight series? I thought it was a flop that was cancelled after one. It's only kind of being cancelled ("put on a rest") because Bradley Walsh is leaving. The ratings have been pretty solid the whole run, last I heard.
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Sep 14, 2014 00:52
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Gaz-L posted:It's only kind of being cancelled ("put on a rest") because Bradley Walsh is leaving. The ratings have been pretty solid the whole run. I guess it's easy to miss these things if you almost never watch ITV.
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Sep 14, 2014 00:54
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Toxxupation posted:WAIT ARE YOU FUCKIN SERIOUS? REALLY? THAT'S THE FUCKIN...CHRIST This almost makes me want to start a rewatch of season 3.
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Sep 14, 2014 01:19
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howe_sam posted:This almost makes me want to start a rewatch of season 3. Don't. Really don't. Really.
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Sep 14, 2014 01:20
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Oh, you guys watched The Shakespear Code, huh. Yeah, that one, well, gently caress.
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Sep 14, 2014 01:22
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I remember one really great line from the episode, and there's a quirk that Tennant had throughout it that I found amusing. The Martha stuff, though. Jeez.
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Sep 14, 2014 01:25
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I've argued for years that The Shakespeare Code is the worst DW episode. Eat it, Love and Monsters.
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Sep 14, 2014 01:33
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Toxxupation posted:WAIT ARE YOU FUCKIN SERIOUS? REALLY? THAT'S THE FUCKIN...CHRIST And here. we. go. 
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Sep 14, 2014 01:35
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FactsAreUseless posted:I've argued for years that The Shakespeare Code is the worst DW episode. Eat it, Love and Monsters. It is really bad, but I guess it doesn't have anything as horrifying as pavement blowjobs so I tend to forget about it.
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Sep 14, 2014 01:35
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drat what even happens in this episode? I barely remember it.
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Sep 14, 2014 01:35
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A friend of mine loves The Shakespeare Code, and I've never understood why.
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Sep 14, 2014 01:35
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Regy Rusty posted:drat what even happens in this episode? I barely remember it. Edit: Interesting fact - the reason Earth is so special is that humans are considered extremely delicious, which is why everything in Doctor Who wants to eat them, and also why the Doctor can't stop kissing people.
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Sep 14, 2014 01:36
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I'll wait for your review to see if I'm right, but without an episode guide in front of me I managed to remember what episode was next, and I think guess what scene you're reacting to, purely from that pained post. This is the best thread.
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Sep 14, 2014 01:38
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thexerox123 posted:A friend of mine loves The Shakespeare Code, and I've never understood why. It's probably remembered more fondly for concept than the execution.
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Sep 14, 2014 01:41
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Regy Rusty posted:drat what even happens in this episode? I barely remember it. It's pretty inoffensively forgettable in a lot of ways except that the way it handles Martha is bad and a lot of people (I think they're done watching, but just in case) really dislike the way that it concludes. I don't have as many problems with the latter thing. It's downright silly, but who cares?
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Sep 14, 2014 01:42
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FactsAreUseless posted:Standard Doctor Who episode (bad thing eats humans). What really brings the pain is the dialogue, which I believe to be part of a For nationality and (rough) period appropriateness.
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Sep 14, 2014 01:56
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thexerox123 posted:A friend of mine loves The Shakespeare Code, and I've never understood why. It's The most gratuitous example of rampant fandom fetishization to date, complete with equating Harry Potter to Shakespeare. It is a bad episode.
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Sep 14, 2014 01:59
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Doctor Who "The Shakespeare Code" Series 3, Episode 2 Ugh. Ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. UGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. I'm just fuckin' tired of Russell T. Davies. I'm tired of his bullshit quirks, I'm tired of his obsession with Rose that borders on mania, I'm tired of the fact that he'll sell out his characters at the drop of a hat to suit his whims, I'm just tired. I'm tired of his insistence that the world must somehow hang in the balance at the climax of every episode, I'm tired of his insistence that every single enemy must be some sort of alien even when the explanation sounds completely forced and honestly, outright worse then just going "it's fuckin' magic, fuckin' deal". I just...I dunno if I can loving handle any more of RTD's bullshit. His plots are so formulaic and he's so obsessive about his own little pet causes and characters that he's willing to destroy whatever semblance of good characterization he had built to that point just to spread his own message. It's a despicable way to write. I mean it, it's fuckin' offensive to me how he treats his characters, especially Martha, in season 3. He's so broken up about the departure of Rose that he's poisoned every script with his clear pining for the character, and RTD seems to either not know or not care about how it ruins Martha's character by having The Doctor spend so much time whining about Rose around her. He's reached the limit of my goodwill, I think. The episode deals with The Doctor bringing Martha back in time to London 1699, to meet The Bard himself, William Shakespeare (Dean Lennox Kelly). Shakespeare (and his acting troupe) has just put on a successful production of Love's Labour's Lost, and in the middle of his ovation ol' Billy Shakes promises to put on the sequel, Love's Labour's Won, the very next night. The Doctor and Martha both decide to stay in 17th-century London for another day, to watch Shakespeare's great lost play. Simultaneously, a group of three "witches", led by Lilith (Christina Cole), put their evil plan into motion: they mind-control Shakespeare and force him to write in what is essentially a "summoning spell" into the end of the monologue for the main character of Love's Labour's Won, which will open up a summoning portal allowing for their "witch" comrades to enter and subsequently destroy humanity/take over the Earth. The Doctor soon catches wind of their plans, while also learning that the "witches" are, in fact, Carrionites, aliens that are able to accomplish things via the power of verbal speech (which isn't magic, as the episode strenuously notes). Thus, as the main actor summons the rest of the Carrionites into the world via his speech, The Doctor urges Shakespeare to close the portal via the power of his own words- which he does, admirably. Mission accomplished, the three Carrionites that started this whole mess get imprisoned in their own crystal ball...thing, world saved. Hooray! The main issue this episode is Rose. She's not even on this show any more, hasn't been for three fuckin' episodes, and she just hangs around like a loving specter and taints all of The Doctor's interactions this story. The Doctor just cannot loving get over Rose. In two separate scenes this episode, two crucial sequences, The Doctor's obsession and heartbreak over losing Rose is overtly referenced, and both scenes are incredibly poorly handled and just, well...just terrible. Like...The Doctor literally lays in bed next to Martha, and as she makes explicitly clear that she wants to jump his bones (as an aside, ugh, really, Doctor Who? This isn't even subtle "will they/won't they", this is Martha literally presenting herself to The Doctor. But you know what, gently caress it, whatever, there's too much else bad to complain about that intolerable little sequence), The Doctor commiserates about how he just can't figure out how those supposed "witches" are able to cast their quote-on-quote "magic" spells when he knows, he just knows that it's actually science. Which leads him to say, to Martha's face, as she's staring at him with, well, "gently caress me" eyes, about how Rose would totally figure it out. It's a pathetic and stupid scene, perhaps the worst of the episode. Another one that rivals it in stupidity is when Lilith says that The Doctor has "Rose" in his heart as the one name he treasures or whatever, but at least Martha's asleep during that little scene so she doesn't have to suffer the humiliation a second time around. It just...it cheapens and ruins every single aspect of both Martha and The Doctor. It makes Martha pathetic and awful; She's defined so explicitly for Not Being Rose, and The Doctor seems almost pissed off about that fact, as if not being Rose is somehow in any way Martha's fault. Further, it makes Martha inherently less capable; despite being shown as extremely intelligent and quick on the uptake, all The Doctor does is rave about how Rose would know what to do. And by doing so, the show is overtly implying that Martha is a less skilled character than it first appeared, through no action of her own. Thirdly, it cheapens Martha by having The Doctor reject her sexual advances in favor of more wistful remembering of his totally awesome totally-not-girlfriend Rose. It makes Martha's offer (as terrible and out of character for her it was) all the more humiliating because The Doctor didn't even notice what he was doing, so obsessed with talking about, thinking about Rose over regarding Martha as her own person. Finally, it makes The Doctor into a selfish, somewhat autistic rear end in a top hat- I kind of refuse to believe that he would be genuinely unable to interpret the social implications of laying next to someone in bed who is clearly romantically interested in you as you talk about someone else, but that's what the show demands I buy, and on top of that his constant trumping up of Rose as a character (and backhandedly implying Martha's shortcomings) is just a dick thing to do even if he were the spergiest sperg to ever sperg. It's a bad scene. A terrible scene. An episode-ruining scene. A scene that refuses to understand that even though yes, Rose was an important character, and yes, it would make sense that even after her scenes of closure with The Doctor he'd still carry some pain about leaving Rose if he had at all any sort of emotional connection with her, much less romantic, that this scene is the exact wrong way to externalize that. It turns the second overall episode we've had with Martha as a Companion, a character we barely know but would like to know better, and forcibly makes her less important to the overall plot than a woman who doesn't even exist in this reality. Just...ugh. Also, it turns The Doctor from one of the most powerful and intelligent beings in the universe, an almost literal god, into a creepy, pathetically obsessive ex-boyfriend who still hasn't gotten over the break-up. What the gently caress, Russell T. Davies. There's actually quite a lot about this episode that's great- Shakespeare is wonderfully played by Dean Lennox Kelly, and his romantic chemistry with Martha works despite himself. Watching the consummate ladies' man try to smooth-talk his way into her pants, especially when considering he'd have more...let's say "old-fashioned" views on race, euphemistically speaking, than Martha is used to, is delightful, and Shakespeare's interactions with The Doctor is also an utter delight, especially the running gag of The Doctor saying one of The Bard's most famous lines with Shakespeare responding that he "should use that". Shakespeare, whenever he's onscreen, but especially when he's onscreen with our two mains is just great, and in those specific circumstances it even exceeds the Dickens scenes in "The Unquiet Dead", which this episode clearly cribs from in the sense of its generalized plot. The Shakespeare-Doctor-Martha trio is an especially strong one that feels fresh and dynamic, especially when considering the fact that The Doctor considers Shakespeare his mental equal, and William ably rises to that bar set in a way that feels earned. It's especially interesting that Shakespeare, overall, is the one who "saves" the episode- at The Doctor's urging, sure, but the final verse that seals the portal is Shakespeare's through and through. For employing one of the greatest, perhaps the greatest, writers who ever lived as a guest character on a television program, Doctor Who treats Shakespeare with the respect that is deserved in a way that doesn't feel overtly hagiographic or too reverent, but also not insulting; the show treads that specific line well. But all that doesn't make up for the fundamental issues this episode contains, which are most apparent with the Rose stuff but filter across to most everything else too. Something I realized before is that for "Shakespeare Code" and "Unquiet Dead", two episodes that have hugely popular writers as guest characters, the format for the episodes themselves are homages to that writer's oeuvre: in "Unquiet Dead", we essentially get a Christmas Carol, but all Who-d up (bitter old man encounters mysterious otherworldly being who shows him the error of his ways- I mean, the episode even ends on a "God bless us, every one!"), and this feels like a mix of Hamlet and most of Shakespeare's work in general- It's an episode about a play (so it has its own metanarrative), there's magic, some voodoo, witches with ugly faces committing evil, and the episode ends on a monologue. I mean, for gently caress's sake, it's even in iambic pentameter. So it's all the more frustrating when it's revealed that the "witches" are, in fact, aliens. It feels, well, it feels fuckin' disrespectful. I mean, it's not surprising- RTD so adores showing the audience stupid bullshit that looks and acts totally like magic but actually isn't magic it's science! Magic is stupid!- that as soon as I saw Lilith messing with a voodoo doll I was like "Oh she's an alien, actually, and the explanation for this is gonna be nonsensical scifi jargon that will sound really loving stupid", and guess loving what I was right. But it feels disrespectful, in this specific instance, because the explanation is so forced and so bad (oh, the voodoo doll is a DNA replication module? Are you loving serious, RTD?) that it insults the homage the episode is clearly forming. Like, if you're gonna make an episode that's clearly meant to be a tribute to, some would say, the greatest playwright of all time and then you punk out on the clearly magical witches that are the bad guys, you're disrespecting Shakespeare's memory. I mean, Shakespeare is a dude who loved using magical resolutions and general Deus Ex Machinas to resolve his plots, why not just have it happen this once, if only to keep the tone of the episode consistent? And if not, if you're gonna make it an alien explanation, why make it so half-assed and generally nonsensical? The show, in general, has built up enough goodwill and enough of a base of being generally pseudo-scientific that I'd give it some slack if it explained some of the enemies with "They're loving magic, loving deal with it", especially when the alternative is "They're beings from another dimension who snuck in via the words of Shakespeare's grief that have DNA replication modules that can replicate everything a voodoo doll does and can manipulate events via spoken words that sound exactly like the magic spells that Shakespeare wrote in his play and they can use those words to open a space portal because they mind-controlled an architect to build a resonance chamber that doubled as a theatre to their exact specifications and also they fly on broomsticks and have boils and look like loving witches because gently caress you, that's why". This is why I'm just loving fed up with RTD at this point. At this point, he has a blueprint for every episode and every script that he cannot deviate from, and it makes every episode of every season he showruns tedious nonsense. I knew that once Lilith did magic poo poo that it would be actually some pseudoscience nonsense, so the rest of the episode was me impatiently waiting until the Carrionite reveal. RTD loves Rose, so he tainted all of the Martha/Doctor scenes by pushing Rose front and center in them as opposed to, you know, investing the time into making Martha her own distinct character. I rolled my eyes once it was revealed that the Carrionites were gonna destroy the world after they were summoned because, well, now it's just RTD checking his own box of making the stakes for every episode always global no matter what. I've "solved" RTD, and because of it outside of all the stuff that wasn't vintage RTD nonsense- which was coincidentally, the best parts of the episodes -it's a loving slog. His plots are all samey and as a result tedious and desperately boring to watch, because it's the exact same notes played over and over and over, with a heaping helping of ruining much of the stuff I actually like about Doctor Who. This episode isn't the worst episode I've seen, it actually has a lot to recommend it- probably, if I were to guess, almost half of it. It's not the worst F episode I've seen, and probably better than many D and even C episodes I've seen. But at this point, I'm just loving tired of Russell T. loving Davies. I'm tired of his formula and his staunch refusal to change it or ever, ever abandon his obsession with Rose, and I'm reaching the end of my rope when it comes to my patience with his idiosyncracies. It's just exasperating at this point. Grade: F Random Thoughts:
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Sep 14, 2014 02:11
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Regy Rusty posted:drat what even happens in this episode? I barely remember it. Your brain repressed it to protect you. It might not have anything quite as singularly bad as the blowjob cinderblock, but it is more continuously, amazingly awful.
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Sep 14, 2014 02:15
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It's really just the awful bed scene. Martha tediously lusting after the Doctor while he shuts her down and moans about how much he loved Rose sells short both characters (but especially Martha), and makes the show feel like it's haunted by Billie Piper's ghost at a time when we're supposed to be excited to learn about a new companion and - you know, ideally! - have the Doctor be excited to learn about her too.
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Sep 14, 2014 02:20
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Doctor: "We can all have a good flirt later." Shakespeare: "Is that a promise, Doctor?" Doctor: "...57 academics just punched the air."
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Sep 14, 2014 02:28
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MikeJF posted:Doctor: "We can all have a good flirt later." Shakespeare: "Is that a promise, Doctor?" Doctor: "...57 academics just punched the air." I can't beliiieeeeve Occ ignored that.
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Sep 14, 2014 02:32
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Man, how about that Third Series you guys, I'm sure it's not as bad as I remembered! Oh. 
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Sep 14, 2014 02:34
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Toxxupation posted:I'm just fuckin' tired of Russell T. Davies. I'm tired of his bullshit quirks, I'm tired of his obsession with Rose that borders on mania, I'm tired of the fact that he'll sell out his characters at the drop of a hat to suit his whims, I'm just tired. I'm tired of his insistence that the world must somehow hang in the balance at the climax of every episode, I'm tired of his insistence that every single enemy must be some sort of alien even when the explanation sounds completely forced and honestly, outright worse then just going "it's fuckin' magic, fuckin' deal". Yeah but you're forgetting the Trump Card. The absolute last line of defense that RTD fans will always have and we can never truly circumvent. He's the man who brought it back. Without him, no new Doctor Who. The formula is simple and as irrevocable as that. Without his efforts and his specific pitch at the right place and at the right time not a single one of us would be here. There would be at most one thread petering around SA known colloquially as "the place where the Babylon 5 and Stargate nerds go to punch down" filled with ancient fans trying desperately to get us to watch blurry dailymotion footage from a pre-Internet age. Half of tumblr would be purposeless monsters, either clinging to the last vestiges of their misspent Harry Potter and Twilight-fueled youth or glomming desperately onto Adventure Time and True Blood with an even greater fervor than today in defiance of their waning adolescence. Billie Piper might still be singing, without RTD's hand. Sure there were others who attempted to get Doctor Who back off the ground. There was that TV Movie of course. And eventually someone was bound to puncture through the BBC's wall and convince someone high up to allocate a fund to gently caress around in rock quarries with a handheld and call it Doctor Who, and there's a fair chance that it even would have caught on in a big way like Doctor Who today, but that didn't happen. RTD happened. And we are forever obligated to be grateful. So this is the tax we as fans have agreed to pay since the show was brought back, a compact we all have to adhere to no matter how many Blowjob Cinderblocks and Rose-petting occurs. We will take what RTD feeds us and we will smile and say we want seconds. We will praise his LGBT-pandering and we will champion his predilection to camp. We will make note of all his cliches and call them endearing instead of abrasive. We will feast like ravenous hyenas raised on a diet of septic carrion whenever quality bursts through the shroud of each episode, even if half the time we're sure it's just RTD-as-Satan giving us false hope so the torture remains ever fresh. Because he's the man who brought it back, and we will let him gently caress us until the sun dies out and the sky itself swallows our little mold spore because goddammit we owe him.
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Sep 14, 2014 02:45
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MikeJF posted:Doctor: "We can all have a good flirt later." Shakespeare: "Is that a promise, Doctor?" Doctor: "...57 academics just punched the air." This is the one line that I remembered really really liking, now that I know he's definitely seen it.
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Sep 14, 2014 02:49
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mind the walrus posted:Yeah but you're forgetting the Trump Card. The absolute last line of defense that RTD fans will always have and we can never truly circumvent. This post is fuckin incredible
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Sep 14, 2014 03:01
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RTDdidnothingwrong.txt
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Sep 14, 2014 03:43
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Zaggitz posted:RTDdidnothingwrong.txt there exists even now a poster on THESE VERY FORUMS who once likened David Tennant to a Nazi who was "just following orders" because Tennant was "complicit" in RTD's scripts ironically, David Tennant actually did play a Nazi in a Big Finish audio! 
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Sep 14, 2014 03:49
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Honestly, I think "took a franchise choking to death and made it into an enormously popular show" is, indeed, at least a minor accomplishment, but it of course does not excuse RTD's irritating quirks.
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Sep 14, 2014 03:49
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Uh, dude, Doctor Who was for all intents and purposes dead. It was comatose and had been hooked up to life support for nearly a decade before RTD got a hold of it. Sure it had the Big Finish stuff and books going on, but that's like saying lung function and circulation make a person truly alive and kicking. Like I said eventually someone would have gotten Doctor Who back on the air. It was too big in the formative years of creative types working in TV nowadays to truly die off, but again that didn't happen. RTD happened. He's the reason the franchise is back and he was the one who guided its hand in many crucial ways we're never even going to know about, and while I personally don't think it excuses his flaws for poo poo we--as appreciative fans--are always going to have to give him his due. It's like Gene Roddenberry and Star Trek-- every Trekkie worth his salt knows that Star Trek was good in spite of Roddenberry, but dammit we still owe the man a debt of gratitude because without him none of it would have happened.
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Sep 14, 2014 03:54
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Republican Vampire posted:It's The most gratuitous example of rampant fandom fetishization to date, complete with equating Harry Potter to Shakespeare. Ok I remember this episode now and it wasn't very good but the Harry Potter bit is great, get lost.
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Sep 14, 2014 04:08
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