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Then they need novocaine for their soul.
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Jan 31, 2016 21:30
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Eels: good for sushi, bad for Doctor Who
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Jan 31, 2016 21:50
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I guess I missed something. What specifically was great about the electric eels?
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Jan 31, 2016 21:54
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The funny bits were great, the serious bits were not.
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Jan 31, 2016 22:08
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EEEEEEEEEELS!
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Jan 31, 2016 22:23
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I think the idea is that it's so absurd it becomes great just on that basis. Imagine instead that the Doctor realized he had a bunch of chewing gum in his pocket due to their previous stop being the Chewing Gum Planet. So he pulls out like a hundred pounds of chewing gum (his pocket is bigger on the inside than the outside) and sets all the vikings to furiously chewing on it. Then, when the bad guys arrive, they fall into a giant pit-trap filled with chewed gum and are unable to escape. It would be utterly stupid and ridiculous, but that very quality would make it amazing. For some people, the eels approach this.
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Feb 1, 2016 03:17
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hey remember how forums poster mraristocrates toxxed to watch and review all of the newsroom like, a year and a half ago? he finally finished give that thread a read friends
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Feb 1, 2016 04:49
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ashpanash posted:Then they need novocaine for their soul. It's cool, they're going over to Susan's house. You know, his granddaughter?
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Feb 1, 2016 18:01
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Jesus Christ One Punch Man was amazing, thanks for the recommendation.Toxxupation posted:give that thread a read friends I watched 7 episodes of the first season of The Newsroom and if the decline in quality continued to gather momentum the way it had over those episodes then your post may be tantamount to a war crime 
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Feb 1, 2016 21:51
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Doctor Who "The Girl Who Died" Series 9, Episode 5 By constantly reminding viewers of other, far better episodes of Doctor Who, "The Girl Who Died" ends up all the worse in comparison. Not that "The Girl Who Died" is good otherwise, because it most certainly isn't. From an empirical standpoint, "Girl" ends up a muddled, tedious mess of an episode built entirely around a bad piece of stunt casting in Maisie Williams' Ashildr. The episode also can't pick a tone and stick to it; the first two acts imply it's meant to be a sort of trifle. One of those vaguely comedic, utterly disposable "town in conflict that Twelve goes to and fixes" hours. The jokes fall flat and every scene runs for minutes too long, with boring and one-note characters comprising the entirety of the ensemble cast, but the intention is clear. The direction is coherent. Which makes the weird, quote-unquote "serious" asides that Twelve engages in during the show's first half all the more difficult to swallow. "Girl Who Died" opens with Twelve and Clara being kidnapped by Vikings, only to be saved by a space cyber-Viking doing his best Monty Python impression as he spirits all the warriors away, which he then boils down to make Hi-C Ecto Cooler. This is the level of silliness that "The Girl Who Died" starts with, and then expects the audience to treat stuff like Peter Capaldi reading baby poetry (as in, poetry written by a baby) with the level of gravitas it deserves. Not to mention how jarring of a shift that is, within an episode that treats a man fainting at the sight of blood as a running gag. Just think about how much hubris and lack of self-awareness there must have been to allow for a script to honestly argue that bad Middle Ages spoken word written by newborns isn't as stupid, if not stupider, than anything else in "Girl". That this is the Serious Time, the strong emotional bedrock upon which the narrative relies. The atonality of "Girl Who Died" is only rivalled by its Maisie Williams fixation. Now, I get why the program pushed Maisie's character as hard as it did; she's the arguably best part of a Genuinely Great TV show that's a current cultural touchstone. The problem lies in that she's given little to no acting direction besides "ham it up" and the script just flatly isn't there. Her role's paper-thin, the "insufferably earnest and overly helpful episode-specific character" archetype that DW so loves to employ whenever they land a big fish for a guest role. It's just weird, because "Girl" is so transparent in its Maisie Williams fandom; every event that happens in the plot demands at least one shot of Ashildr's specific reaction to it. Williams is framed in most shots and placed in most scenes to draw the viewer's eye (she's usually at or near center and at or near the front). Her character's competence is immediately bought by both main characters, which is all the weirder when one of them is Twelve, who's defined as being a misanthropic boor. There's never any adequate explanation for why everyone on the show immediately buys Ashildr as competent and worth listening to, and this problem is compounded by Ashildr's awful writing. Why would you push Williams to the forefront in an hour like this, then give her no direction or decent lines? Who does it serve? If you're so intent on placing Williams as this central lynchpin upon which the episode as a whole revolves, why wouldn't you as the writer or the director make sure her dialog and performance is at that standard? It's this weirdly half-assed measure that ends up displeasing the viewing audience as a whole, especially diehard Maisie Williams fans like myself. Both problems, the tonal issues and the Ashildr focus, come to a head in the scene right before the third act and climax between Twelve and Ashildr. Taken by itself, removed from any greater context, this is a great scene of Doctor Who. Both Peter Capaldi and Maisie Williams bring the heat to a genuinely well-written scene, the reasoned optimism of Ashildr butting naturally against the realist pragmatism of Twelve. It's a confrontation of equals, two people who respect the other even as they disagree. Nobody raises their voice, there's no shouting, because there's no need to. It's a scene that presents two differing, but equally valid viewpoints to an especially thorny problem. "The man who fights and runs away lives to fight another day", Twelve essentially argues. "If you don't have things you're willing to stand up and even die for, then what's the point of living?" Ashildr counters. Both and neither are right, and "Girl" recognizes this. The problem is that this scene is totally, completely unearned. It's not earned in "The Girl Who Died", in general, considering it had been a campy episode with periodic and fruitless attempts at "depth" in the 24 minutes prior to this scene airing. It's not earned as a character beat for Ashildr, considering that every scene with her prior to this one was poorly written dross. This single, two-minute scene is great, but in being great it emphasizes how bad everything before it was. If the screenwriters actually took the care they applied to this sequence in how they wrote a nuanced and sympathetic Ashildr and blew it out to every other scene she was in, this would've been an all-time classic. If the director captured that same essence that Williams brought to Ashildr during this moment and had her mine that note for the rest of "The Girl Who Died"'s runtime, it would've been an all-time classic. Neither screenwriters nor director did their jobs and as a result this scene comes across as downright insulting, a ghost of the fantastic episode this could've been. It's infuriating for me to think about, to be honest; all the wasted potential of "The Girl Who Died" is expressed most simply in that barely two-minute sequence. If the tone, or the pacing, or the dialog, or the acting, was as good and controlled as that for the rest of the episode...just, man. gently caress. After this we hit the climax. In my first viewing, I loved it. Not really on an executional level, since it's mediocre-at-best, but I loved it in the same way that I loved and love the climax to "The Christmas Invasion". It's so insane and over-the-top, a moment where Doctor Who really goes for it, that my freshman viewing was just me laughing delightedly at the utter absurdity of what was on screen. I love that dumb poo poo, remember, and the apex of "The Girl Who Died" is dumb as HELL. Maisie Williams controlling a CGI eel that's, in actuality, a hologram displayed over a Trojan Horse? That Twelve and Clara then videotape and threaten to put up on Space Youtube if the bad guy doesn't leave? Yes please! But even moreso than that I appreciated how conceptually speaking, the climax was deserved payoff to the running plotline and themes of the episode. The episode had made a specific point of both being stylistically referential to The Magnificient Seven and impressed how important The Mire view things like honor, so the resolution being one long prestige (a la Magnificient Seven) which the protagonists then reveal to be a falsity for the sole purpose of humiliating the Big Bad made sense. It's a clever way to resolve the episode's narrative, and intuitive and non-stereotypical solution to an otherwise very-stereotypical episode. But, just like with every other positive I can foist on this episode, there's a but. This is an awesome climax that only works once. By my second viewing, I found pretty much everything about it to be tedious and unearned (much like, well, virtually everything else in "The Girl Who Waited"). It speaks to the larger problems "Girl" has; it's a good idea (have the episode be resolved via deception and a threat of humiliation to a problem that was only initiated via a slight against the antagonist's honor) that's choked out by all the dumb bullshit surrounding it. I've spoken at length about my appreciation for Dumb poo poo, but for it to have any permanence it needs to be cleverly dumb, that Metal Gear Rising-esque bedrock of internal coherency and foundational clarity that makes the insanity of watching a cyborg cut a Metal Gear in half with a sword feel earned. The giant hologram eel needs to be a natural endpoint to a solid buildup, and it's just not. It's this crazy nonsense that comes after bad beat poetry giving Twelve the idea to use electric eels in the most roundabout way possible, piloted by an underwritten and overacted character, as the resolution to a dumb and pointless story that fluctuates all over the map. It's not earned on any level and as a result comes across as only good in the moment, and barely just. Any greater catharsis gained disappears like so much smoke once you think about "Girl" for any significant length of time. Grade: D Random Thoughts:
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Feb 6, 2016 16:00
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Woman_Who_Lived In which...ugh Really oxx? Really, dude? Fuckin' fine In which... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLJf9qJHR3E
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Feb 6, 2016 17:06
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I thought Girl who Died was more interesting than Woman who Lived, so I'm not optimistic about the next review.
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Feb 6, 2016 17:46
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I think the tone is a bit better in this one, the angst about immortality is quite mild and worked in decently to the main plot about the ridiculous lion(?) invasion(?). I don't remember too much about it and don't really care to watch it again (which was the case for most of this series really) but I liked the big climax involving an attempt at stand up comedy.
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Feb 6, 2016 18:02
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Real talk this season sounds boring as poo poo so far
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Feb 6, 2016 18:30
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Escobarbarian posted:Real talk this season sounds boring as poo poo so far It is
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Feb 6, 2016 18:35
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Escobarbarian posted:Real talk this season sounds boring as poo poo so far
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Feb 6, 2016 18:43
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Escobarbarian posted:Real talk this season sounds boring as poo poo so far
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Feb 6, 2016 18:43
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The Girl Who Died Doctor Who has always been about the confluence of incredibly campy poo poo and philosophical sci-fi. But doing both in the same episode requires skill and craft; it is not easy, and the consequences of failure are dire. A Angela Christine BSam DoctorWhat Organza Quiz B 2house2fly Ajax 99 Alkarl AndwhatIseeisme Enourmo Howe_sam jng2058 Mind the Walrus mycelia NeuroticLich Paul.Power Red Metal ThNextGreenLantern Xenoborg C And More blasmeister cargohills Lottery of Babylon onetruepurple D Jet Jaguar Weird Sandwich F Regy Rusty Overall Average Guess: 2.5 Standard Deviation: 1.1 Current rankings: Weird Sandwich: 0 And More: 2 Jet Jaguar: 2 blasmeister: 3 Enourmo: 3 Mind the Walrus: 3 mycelia: 3 onetruepurple: 3 Red Metal: 3 Xenoborg: 3 Ajax 99: 4 Alkarl: 4 cargohills: 4 Lottery of Babylon: 4 Paul.Power: 4 Regy Rusty: 4 Sinestro: 4 2house2fly: 5 AndwhatIseeisme: 5 Howe_sam: 5 jng2058: 5 Organza Quiz: 5 ThNextGreenLantern: 5 DoctorWhat: 6 NeuroticLich: 7 Angela Christine: 8 BSam: 8 The most divisive episode so far; we've got people in every grade here for the first time this season. Weird Sandwich retains the lead with a perfect score! It's actually kind of disturbing! Get something wrong next time, okay? Anywhay, there's still plenty of time left in the season, so we'll see where things go.
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Feb 6, 2016 18:43
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Escobarbarian posted:Real talk this season sounds boring as poo poo so far
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Feb 6, 2016 18:44
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Toxxupation posted:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Woman_Who_Lived Ashildr makes bad choices. That's her character now. Also has a habit of doubling down on them. What a winning character who we should be interested in following. I don't even think this is the second half of a two-parter as much as it is a sequel episode to the previous ep. On one hand the repercussions of a poorly planned immortality are kind of interesting to speculate about, on the other locking a clever teenager down in dumbass mode forever is a bad idea for everyone. On the gripping hand, this is basically another goddamn Robin Hood episode and I didn't like the other one. Meh.
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Feb 6, 2016 20:58
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I thought Girl Who Died was messy but passable. The Woman Who Lived is a loving embarrassment on the level of the first two series.
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Feb 6, 2016 21:39
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The first two series are good though???
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Feb 6, 2016 21:52
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The Girl Who Died is a weird episode where it never seems to get the tone right. That said, what always stands out to me is the scene right at the end with the camera panning around Ashildr - I love that scene so much that it kind of lets me forgive a lot of the episodes sins. I think it does a really great job of both getting across the timespan Ashildr now suffers through (I'm reminded of the Green Mile line "He infected you... with life?") and the personal changes she experiences across that time period. From wonder and joy to concern/horror to just empty, dull indifference. http://i.imgur.com/kOHMJbD.gifv It's not enough to forgive the sins of the episode itself, but as its own thing it really stands out strongly to me.
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Feb 6, 2016 22:05
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Escobarbarian posted:Real talk this season sounds boring as poo poo so far Oh just you wait. The hate will start soon.
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Feb 6, 2016 22:28
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The character concept is interesting, but the writing was terrible and I don't think Maisie Williams is the brilliant actor the Internet thinks she is.
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Feb 6, 2016 22:30
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Big Mean Jerk posted:The character concept is interesting, but the writing was terrible and I don't think Maisie Williams is the brilliant actor the Internet thinks she is. She's not. She just happens to fit the most lovable role in Game of Thrones like a glove.
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Feb 6, 2016 22:47
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Dabir posted:The first two series are good though??? They have some episodes that are beyond poo poo, though. Why did he have to be a lion man? Just, why? They make a big deal out of him looking like a lion, but it has no narrative or thematic bearing. It's like they had an extra costume and makeup design sitting around they needed to cram in somewhere. Poor Miserable Gurgi fucked around with this message at 23:06 on Feb 6, 2016 |
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Feb 6, 2016 23:04
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mind the walrus posted:She's not. She just happens to fit the most lovable role in Game of Thrones like a glove. Oh, this explains why I've never heard of her. Game Of Thrones has it's own, uhh, genre of actors or something that people love but who have never been in anything else; and when one of them DOES escape into another show they're given Instant Celebrity status while I scratch my head wondering who they are.
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Feb 6, 2016 23:39
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Craptacular! posted:Oh, this explains why I've never heard of her. But... Charles Dance! Julian Glover! Sean Bean!
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Feb 6, 2016 23:44
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Craptacular! posted:
uh if you were to take a cross-section of game of thrones actors that have been in both game of thrones and doctor who i would not be surprised if it exceeds 50%
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Feb 6, 2016 23:54
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Craptacular! posted:Game Of Thrones has it's own, uhh, genre of actors or something that people love but who have never been in anything else I don't think this is true
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Feb 6, 2016 23:57
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Nah a surprisingly low number of GoT have shown up on Doctor Who, but if you watch enough UK TV/Movies you'll run into most of the cast.
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Feb 6, 2016 23:57
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Craptacular! posted:Oh, this explains why I've never heard of her. 
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Feb 7, 2016 00:01
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Regy Rusty posted:I don't think this is true It's kinda true for the youngsters, which are like half the cast. None of the characters who started the show as children or teens were famous before the show, because there just aren't a lot of famous child actors.
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Feb 7, 2016 02:34
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Angela Christine posted:It's kinda true for the youngsters, which are like half the cast. None of the characters who started the show as children or teens were famous before the show, because there just aren't a lot of famous child actors. Exactly. The reason he hasn't heard of her isn't because of some weird Game of Thrones genre of actor, but rather because she was a child actress who got her start on that show and hasn't been in a ton of other things yet.
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Feb 7, 2016 02:39
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I see. This was basically a general commentary on the state of television, which is that if you're like me and have watched zero episodes of GoT it seems like there's a whole stable of actors that are highly-recognized by the general public for that show but not for much of anything else. The same thing was the case with Captain Phasma in Star Wars, who was sort of directionless but apparently just an avenue to get a well-liked GoT actress in there. With Doctor Who, it's easier to not recognize who the guest actors are because I'm an ignorant American who doesn't watch much else in British TV.
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Feb 7, 2016 03:31
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cargohills posted:But... Charles Dance! Julian Glover! Sean Bean! Diana Rigg motherfucker
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Feb 7, 2016 06:38
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I think it's kinda weird how much of a stink was raised about Maisie being on the show. Or well, not weird because of course that would happen, but. If I didn't know she was [an actress from a popular show] I don' think I'd notice anything particularly exceptional about her on DW. I'd she does a fine job and is about on par with the acting quality on the show, and it doesn't feel like there were scenes where the notes read "alright here Maisie Williams will be on screen and say something and it'll be a good scene" which it sometimes feels like when a Big Actor is cast. If there are problems with the episodes with her in them I don't think they have anything to do with her, basically.
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Feb 7, 2016 09:19
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mind the walrus posted:Nah a surprisingly low number of GoT have shown up on Doctor Who I can think of seven right off the bat... Liam Cunningham, Maisie Williams, Iain Glen, Harry Lloyd, David Bradley, Tobias Menzies, Thomas Brodie-Sangster. Edit: oh, and Mark Gatiss! Double edit: I had forgotten about Diana Rigg, and didn't see episodes which had Joe Dempsie and Ian Hanmore
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Feb 7, 2016 19:37
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Let's not forget Julian Glover. Because you can name basically any genre work and be assured that Julian Glover was in it.
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Feb 7, 2016 19:49
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