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2house2fly posted:Someone having form means they've got a criminal record, so just like a prior history. MrL_JaKiri posted:The first episode of series 3 of Sherlock had an extended sequence that mocked people that liked Sherlock sufficiently to try and work out how the cliffhanger (Sherlock throwing himself off a building) would be resolved. Well, I was totally wrong then I guess! Thanks. (Also, I enjoy Moffat poking at the fans. Especially that bit in Sherlock, because I only really have one super-out-there Doctor Who friend, but had to listen to so many people spew crazy about Sherlock that I laughed out loud for a good minute the first time I saw that episode)
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Sep 2, 2015 16:41
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| # ? Apr 25, 2024 06:08 |
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2house2fly posted:A Kojima Hole...? 
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Sep 3, 2015 00:31
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Shouldn't it be FOX hole
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Sep 3, 2015 01:59
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Toxx? Toxx!? TOXXXXXXXX!!!
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Sep 3, 2015 02:33
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Wait, Last Christmas isn't on Netflix?
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Sep 3, 2015 02:43
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No, I presume they license out the Christmas specials separately, since the BBC is run by hosed up psychos.
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Sep 3, 2015 08:58
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howe_sam posted:Wait, Last Christmas isn't on Netflix? No worries, it is on youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8gmARGvPlI
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Sep 3, 2015 18:48
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Incorrect link, this one works better.
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Sep 3, 2015 19:28
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Monagle posted:Shouldn't it be FOX hole I think you mean a TOXX hole.
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Sep 3, 2015 23:19
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There are no Whovians in Toxxholes
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Sep 3, 2015 23:21
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Jsor posted:There are no Whovians in Toxxholes How quickly they forget... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8EnzY6wWWWs
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Sep 4, 2015 01:05
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Sounds like we need high tech, special forces unit TOXX-HOUND on the case. Psycho What, with his powerful lunatic abilities Sniper Bicyclops, a beautiful and deadly message board debater Decoy Bown, master of derails Vulcan Jerusalem, not a fan of The Shamen and Revolver JaKiri, a specialist in interrogation and a formidable oarsman And finally, in charge of them, TOXX-HOUND's Squad Leader: Liquid Oxx...
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Sep 5, 2015 14:17
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I'm embarassed to have posted in the same thread as that
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Sep 5, 2015 14:21
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Sentinel Red posted:Revolver JaKiri Revolver JaKiri Revolver JaKiri
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Sep 5, 2015 14:25
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Reminder that if you don't like this one episode I like you're a stupid idiot! Anyone?
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Sep 5, 2015 15:37
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Toxxupation posted:Review's going up tonight It's fitting that this thread will die as it lived: waiting interminably for Occ to tear himself away from bad video games long enough to bang out a review
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Sep 5, 2015 15:58
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CobiWann posted:Revolver JaKiri 
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Sep 5, 2015 16:20
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Escobarbarian posted:Reminder that if you don't like this one episode I like you're a stupid idiot! Anyone? *takes your post unironically, shouts at you*
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Sep 5, 2015 16:20
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Nick Frost was so drat good in this episode.
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Sep 5, 2015 17:37
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CobiWann posted:Revolver JaKiri Look at my tufted ears!
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Sep 5, 2015 17:41
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Doctor Who "Last Christmas" Series 8, Episode 13 The End Is never the end. I've devoted much effort to watching and reviewing Doctor Who. Over a year of my life; in absolute terms, the amount of time I've spent engaged in the show totals at least a couple of weeks. 117 episodes means 117 hours spent watching DW, triple that spent in writeups. Considering there's only 168 hours a week, "two weeks" seems like a very conservative estimate for how long I've spent on this endeavor. Looking back through my reviews, I've changed. In the year-plus I've spent on this project, my writing has improved; in certain aspects, drastically so. As I noted in "Mummy on the Orient Express", the way I consume and digest television has fundamentally changed due to this project. In all honesty, I owe Doctor Who a lot. I found something I truly love to do; writing about and analyzing television on an episodic basis via long-form essays. If I may be so bold, it's something I'm also quite decent at. Last Man Standing was the first show that I've done this treatment to, but Doctor Who was both far more popular and far more interesting of a subject than a mostly-bad, deeply conservative ABC sitcom. I like being a critic. I like analysis. I like writing deep, overlong treatises focusing on why a certain episode of a British children's TV show did or didn't work for me. Even when the episodes were bad (often, especially when the episodes were bad), I still had fun writing about them. I still had fun talking about why an episode was successful. Or why it wasn't. Or discussing with Oxxidation the themes that I had missed, that he had missed. Or pontificating on an episode's objective strengths and weaknesses. Or noting clever performances or lines of dialog. Or arguing for or against the quality of a certain hour. Even the parts that sucked about writing these reviews - namely, the entire process of writing these reviews - was fun in its own way. The attempts to figure out what I was going to say. The constant references to the thesaurus for word differentiation. The struggle to figure out the pacing, the structure of these analyses. And the rewrites. Oh, good lord in heaven the rewrites. There was a version of "The Caretaker" commentary where I spent most of it talking about how the hour in question was a secret paean to Danny's struggles with PTSD, and how they related to my own. It was overly personal, fundamentally faulty, and deeply, deeply embarrassing, based on the most suspect of premises. Oh, and it was terrible. So I killed it and rewrote the whole thing, despite being something like two thousand words in. I struggled with my feelings on "Kill the Moon", so the first writeup was much more positive. I remember initially taking a tack very similar to the "Journey's End" appraisal, based on the fact that I so loved the denouement. It was only after a couple of paragraphs in that I decided to actually rewatch the hour in question. I found it nigh-intolerable, so scrapped the original and went with a more sarcastic approach. The initial "In the Forest of the Night" review had its first three paragraphs as one ultra-long opening paragraph, because I wanted to detail all the objective criticism first and felt like placing them all in one giant batch would impress upon the reader how slipshod that installment actually is. It was a nigh-unreadable mess that was almost a thousand words long, so Oxx helped me edit the whole thing down. In the process, I found that using a neutral, disassociated tone made the critique hit harder. There have been ups and downs over the year-plus I've been doing this. Most of my writeups, I reread with a certain level of chagrin - my summaries were overlong and some of the worst writing I've ever done, so if I peruse a pre-Series Six review I skip about half of it. I used too many adverbs early on. My run-on sentences were wandering, my prose was a mess. The stream-of-conscientiousness tone I initially took before I started outlining was charming in its own way, but to me gives the written piece a really disjointed feel. My word variation was nonexistent. I switched status too often, and often within the same article; I'd argue both from the perspective of audience surrogate with friendly, simple, coarse language and from "television critic" with highfalutin phrases and statements. And then there's the bad reviews, like "Planet of the Dead", something so faulty and poorly executed I can't even read it to this day. Or "A Town Called Mercy", which might as well be a case study in how not to write criticism. It's boring, spineless, and without perspective. I flaccidly injected a two-paragraph closing statement at the end of it in an attempt at sophistication and profundity. I knew it was terrible when I wrote it, and posted it anyways because I was on a schedule and had already stressed about how much of a piece of poo poo it was for four hours. It's awful and it's what Oxx uses as a point of comparison when I try to be "deep". Just wretched. The highs have been pretty high, though. Oxx's thinkpiece on "Journey's End" might be one of the best things I've ever read, review or otherwise, even if I disagree with every single word of it. For my part I've improved drastically this season, critically and writing-wise. The stretch of writeups from "Kill the Moon" to "Dark Water" are all very solid and, most importantly, unique. I was tired of "here's what was good, here's what was bad, here's my input" checkbox assessment, so intentionally tried to subvert that structure every chance I could. But it wasn't just the big moments that stuck with me, it was the little ones too. There was a certain joy in spending hours and hours and hours writing up a four-thousand-word essay about "Blink" and publishing it. In seeing people respond to and discuss that review. In realizing that I had, in some small way, created entertainment of my own, even in the context of piggybacking off of someone else's. The simple pleasure that was coming to grips with the idea that maybe this is something I could do professionally. Not only that, but something I'm both good at and enjoy doing. And I do have DW to thank for that. It started as a joke, a dare. If you read that first post I was being completely honest; I hated everything to do with Doctor Who. There was no overstatement. Oxxidation committed to the bit partially because he has a good sense of humor, partially to mess with me, and partially because he genuinely wanted me to like something he loved. Neither of us expected that I would be here, a year and a month later, writing the Series Eight finale review. It was too absurd to fathom. We both expected the thread to peter out, due to a combination of indifference on the readers' part and a lack of interest on the writers'. I remember Oxxidation said something like "the Doctor Who thread posters will stay in their own little hive" when I asked him if anyone there would care. For my part I expected the thread to be dominated by people who read the LMS thread and jumped ship to here. We were both wrong. It turned from a farce that we both overcommitted to into an Actual Thing. Something we had to spend serious time and attention writing about, because there was this comparatively huge audience that cared in a way we didn't. We were both shocked by the groundswell of interest, and that meant distancing ourselves from the previous tone we set. After the first season I abandoned the hatewatching "gimmick", although - to be clear - it never was one. Nothing I ever wrote about Doctor Who, from the first sentence of "Rose" to the words you're reading right now, was ever dishonest or even really that exaggerated. I really did hate DW, to the point where it was a verboten topic of discussion between Oxx and I. It was so toxic a subject it only produced genuinely hurt feelings when we, ahem, "discussed" it. I was incorrect in my appraisal of Doctor Who. Paradoxically, though, I wasn't wrong. From the episodes I had seen (the first four of Series One), I was totally justified in thinking that the show was valueless tripe. And that's what makes DW so interesting to write about. To think about. To talk about. Because, yeah, I love Doctor Who now, but I don't much like it. What makes it such a fascinating subject of review is that it's not good. And it's that constant disparity in quality, on an episode to episode and even scene to scene basis, that makes it so enticing a topic of discussion. It's why this thread ended up as successful as it is; I'm under no delusions that it's due to my efforts. Something that's always dogged me, however, is the self-doubt. The attention is nice, and I genuinely like writing about and analyzing television. After a certain point, that isn't enough to continue the joke that this project started as. And it's made me wonder what I'm doing with my life. Television criticism is something I enjoy doing, but it doesn't pay the bills and at this point I treat it like a second job. The subject matter, too, is frustrating- why do I spend so much time and effort reviewing a show I don't even like? Who is this for? What I'm doing, does it have any value whatsoever? One of my favorite films is Ratatouille. At the end of the movie, Anton Ego, the food critic and ostensible "villain" of the movie, publishes a review for Remy the rat's food. One particular section of it has always resonated with me: "In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little, yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and theirselves to our judgement. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face, is that in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is probably more meaningful than our criticism designating it so." Doctor Who is a show for children. Even the worst episode of DW has achieved an important and valuable thing: at least one child, somewhere, was made happy as a result. "Voyage of the Damned" might be homophobic wandering nonsense, "Love and Monsters" an unfocused regressive mess, but they have more inherent value than either of my reviews for the same. On some level, what I do is easy, as Ego noted; "Why don't you do better" is an argumentative fallacy, but it reinforces the underlying, true point that criticizing something is not a difficult action. I may spend and have spent hundreds of real-world hours so far on this process, but it was behind a computer screen, appraising someone else's work, while not even attaching my real name. Creating fiction for public consumption, putting yourself out there for the faceless legions of the internet at large, is bold, and requires a strength of will that I will never deride. Chibnall and Raynor are brave souls, even if their work is subpar. Which creates a problem, when something is time-consuming but comparatively effortless, that makes one word if the effort spent was even worth it. Obviously not to the level of an existentialist crisis or something, but it's something that's always been there, in the back of my mind. Was this worth it? Did you do a good job? Does anybody really care? But Ego continues: "But there are times a critic truly risks something, and that is in the discovery, and the defense, of the new." There are so many problems with Doctor Who. The writing is slipshod. The acting, often weak. The plotting, subpar. The pacing, incongruous. Not to mention stuff like the SFX or score or dialog, which are hit-or-miss at best. When I started this I hated DW for all of those faults. I was right to hate them. But what I didn't understand then, what I understand now is that DW has something that very little else in fiction has: uniqueness. It's new, every time. Good or bad doesn't matter, DW radiates this aura of singularity. It's impossible to define and even somewhat contradictory to try and determine, but DW does feel innovative nearly every episode. And it's that single trait DW has that makes this thread valuable. It's not the posters here, it's not the gimmick that I'm going in blind as everyone else already knows what's going to happen. It's not Oxxidation. It's not even me; it's all due to the show. DW validates my efforts by trying to be different every time, and it's that shared experience and discovery of the new that makes what I do here matter. It's an original program, somehow, in it's fifty-years plus running. It's that fascination it has with originality that makes it beautiful. I love Doctor Who, but I don't like it. So why do I watch it? Why do I write about it endlessly, three hundred thousand words or more? Because it's new! The great thing about DW is that it's not a show I have to like to find it appealing! When DW is bad, it's capital letter, italicized, joyously BAD! It's cleverly bad! It's bad in a way that nobody has ever seen before! It's the kind of bad that can only exist when people try to make something unfamiliar, something alien. The fact that DW is so imaginative, so strident in its attempts to break convention, that's why it attracts. That newness turns what should be objective weaknesses into strengths. It turns what should've been a hatewatching bitchfest of a thread into whatever magnificient disaster this is. And it turns my criticism and breaks it out of the "internet opinion on media" box that such people as Yahtzee, Nostalgia Critic etc. inhabit into a discovery of the unique. Doctor Who made all of this possible. I started this project hating it with every fiber of my being. I end it, here and now, a year later, loving it. I made be annoyed with it at times, but I am and will continue to be a lifelong fan. DW did that, and it did it by embracing the new. It's not a good show, in many ways. In most ways. But it always ends up surprising, and there's very few pieces of media that can do that. Even fewer that have as rich and as wide a legacy as this. There's always something else to watch, something that will end up blowing your mind or breaking your spirit. That's why DW is special; it never ends, it always continues on, from every highest high to lowest low. It persists, and constantly attempts to reinvent itself. Essentially, the end...is never the end. Not with Doctor Who. Not ever. I've forgiven its transgressions and come to embrace it for what it is, for what it tries to be, and what it's been before. Some of my fondest memories of TV are watching DW; the joy of experiencing "The Eleventh Hour" for the first time to the hilarity of witnessing Oxxidation's meltdown about "Evolution of the Daleks", and everything in between. It's not a good show. But it tries to be. What more can you reasonably ask for? And it's with all that said about the show in general - reconciliation, redemption, originality, and above all, persistence - that brings me to "Last Christmas" in specific. I can think of no more fitting end to this year-long journey than "Last Christmas", which takes all of those themes and crystallizes them within a single, bewitching hour. "The end is never the end" is the operating coda of video game The Stanley Parable, a line Oxxidation said in jest to mock me in the "End of the World" review. From there, it took on a life of its own - something both he and I used as a summation of the nihilistic contempt we would feel at certain low points. Ironically though, in the final-ever episode this venture will cover, it's a perfect one-line synopsis of "Last Christmas". "Last Christmas" deals chiefly with the concept of perseverance. From all surface appearances, Moffat crafted a horror-filled, mind-bendy Christmas fable dealing with the concept of dreams - Inception by way of Alien. And on that level, "Last Christmas" is a clear success; the antagonist for the episode, the The chapter is paced extremely well, moving from scene to scene with a laser focus not often seen in Doctor Who, especially hourlong specials. It helps that it doesn't have a B-plot. DW usually runs into trouble when trying to service more than one narrative at a time within the bounds of a single story, so "Last Christmas"'s singular focus on Clara's, Twelve's, and the rest of the cast's adventure on the unnamed Arctic station this episode is set strengthens the storytelling naturally. With no random or disconnected asides and no attempts to split the group up into two distinct parties, as most DW episodes are wont to do, the tale is able to breathe and really dig deep into its own premise. Moffat does here what the very best genre writers are able to do (and, sadly, what DW is often unable to do) and use the premise as more than just a premise. Very often on Who, a fantastical concept or narrative is backgrounded in service of telling a simplistic story. Not so, here; Moffat really digs deep and takes the concept of the paralyzing uncertainty between what is real and what isn't to its logical extreme. Dreaming is a common narrative device, but dream logic is sadly missing in fiction. Very often, dreams operate in the same way they do in the real world, when the opposite is often the case. Dreams are atonal; they operate by their own internal rationale that, while cohesive, is often unknowable. Dreams shift, and often the participants in dreams don't acknowledge that anything is off. That's why the adjective "dreamlike" exists, it attempts to sum up the surreal nature of dreaming. Here, though, Moffat leans into the surreality inherent to the premise. A common refrain from Arctic station members Shona (Faye Marsay), Ashley (Natalie Gumede), and Bellows (Maureen Beattie), when asked how they were placed into the life-or-death situation they are currently in is a pat "It's a long story", referencing how dreams can make the incredible seem commonplace. There are numerous time and location skips throughout the runtime of "Last Christmas", which aren't even noticed until Twelve points out that they're still within a dream in the climax. There's moments of comedic slapstick, mostly involving Santa Claus (Nick Frost) or his elves. This isn't unusual, but for once the break in tone is part of the point; the "jokes" gain a sinister edge when it's clear that it's a function of the participants' collective subconscious, a desperate psychic plea for help. It all just works, and the absurdity of the situation is a reinforcement of its darker intentions over a discordant shift. The cast is all fantastic. The focus on a single plot gives the episode-specific characters time to breathe, and the performances of Marsay, Gumede, and Beattie all rise to the occasion. Marsay, especially, is a standout as Shona, a crude and streetwise blonde who somehow steals the show every moment she's onscreen. It's not unusual for "The Doctor/Companion visit a remote science station, bad horror things happen" to be the plot of a Doctor Who episode (it's happened at least three times before), but the cast is so enjoyable to watch onscreen that it doesn't much matter. Nick Frost, especially, deserves a standing ovation for his portrayal of Santa Claus. I mean, he's a jolly fat man with the first name of Nick and the last name of Frost, but he plays the role with such skill it's like he wasn't born to play the part. Frost is able to bring levity and even a certain measure of pathos to the role of fantastical holiday do-gooder, taking what could've been a totally obnoxious character (Santa Claus? Really, DW?) and making him an onscreen joy. Yes, on an empirical level everything about this episode is fantastic, one of the best-crafted single hours this show has seen. Up there with "Blink" and "The Eleventh Hour", for sure. There's little stuff that illustrates how well Moffat understands the nature of dreams, like how Twelve uses the manuals as his test for reality - reading is almost always broken in dreams. There's even some fantastic shot direction, as seen most easily during Clara's little Danny intermission. The out-of-focus framing of the chalkboard as Clara is wandering around is both reflective of how danger is processed in dream states and terrifying in and of itself, a neat bit where symbolism and execution work as one to accomplish an effective scene. It's the symbolic, the thematic of "Last Christmas" that interests me, though. "Last Christmas" is essentially about how endings are not endings. Danny literally says as much himself: "Every Christmas is last Christmas", he gently points out to Clara, giving us the name of the episode and the ethos that guides it. So many things have ended, going into "Last Christmas". Danny and Clara's relationship, due to the former's death. Clara and The Doctor's, having lied to each other and split apart in "Death in Heaven". Clara's, and the audience by extension's, belief in Santa Claus, having grown on from such childish things. Old Clara and The Doctor in the episode's denouement, with The Doctor yet again missing the mark and arriving too late. Heck, even on a metanarrative level, the show has ended: "Last Christmas" aired a month after the season proper was over. And that's what makes "Last Christmas" as effective an hour as it is. It illustrates how no matter how dark things seem, that the end is never the end. Every Christmas is last Christmas, as Danny pointed out to Clara. But he and Clara got to experience one more Christmas together, even after he died. That's powerful. So everyone makes it out alive, but it works, not just because it's a Christmas episode, but because the entirety of Doctor Who has always, centrally, been about continuation, about the prevention of finales. On a character level, it works as well. From a season where Twelve and Clara have ruined everyone else's and each other's lives by lying, "Last Christmas" gets its happy ending earned via the truth and reconciliation. Peace on earth, good will towards men and all that. We even see Twelve holding hands, a rare event to be sure. Yes, "Last Christmas" is a triumph of an episode, not just as a capper to a season, but as an expression of Doctor Who's essential qualities, of its permanence. I can think of no better way to end a year-long rewatch of this wonderful mess of a program than this. This is the ending of Series Eight that this show needed, and this is coming from a guy who was really irritated by the fact that the original, fantastic diner goodbye for Twelve and Clara in "Death in Heaven" was sold out in the moment by knowing they'd be back together in time for Series Nine. "Last Christmas" was able to make their reunion feel appropriate and earned within an hour, an impressive feat to be sure. But The irony is, I...don't really love "Last Christmas". I mean, I like it. It's good. But it's not my favorite episode of Who, not even my favorite Christmas episode. It occupies the corner of my mind that "Blink" does, where I can appreciate that it's a superbly written and executed episode that I have no real desire to rewatch. Outside of the Danny reunion intermission, there's nothing that really affected me. The "TV reviewer" half of my brain is the half that was pleased by this episode. Everything else sorta shrugs, says, "That was good," then goes to rewatch "The Eleventh Hour" for like the twentieth loving time. "Last Christmas" is, to me, the mission statement of Doctor Who personified. And yes, Doctor Who is a show that I love but don't like. So it's pretty hilarious, at least in my opinion, that "Last Christmas" is an hour I like but don't love. But that's why Doctor Who is so appealing in the first place! As "Last Christmas" so aptly argues, there's always going to be more DW. There's always something new. Maybe in Series Nine there'll be an episode that'll be my new favorite of all time. I mean, they got Maisie Williams, and they're bringing River Song - the objective best female character this show has ever had - back, so it's quite possible to even likely! It doesn't matter whether or not DW is good or bad. Opinion is divided so regularly on the stated quality of any given episode, so on some level such a determination is by default a quixotic endeavor. But even if the fanbase and critical establishment were in lockstep on what showrunners, seasons, episodes, characters, scenes, lines of dialog were incredible or the worst ever, DW is too inherently inconsistent for it to even matter. To be a Doctor Who fan is to recognize that you appreciate a fundamentally flawed program, and to appreciate over deride it for being that way. Every episode of Doctor Who is a present: sometimes it's the toy you always needed, but never knew you even wanted. Sometimes it's a flaming turd. Sometimes it's a flaming turd on top of the toy you never knew you wanted. And sometimes it's a blender. But it's that feeling of not knowing, the moments before you unwrap that gift (or "gift") that is the essence of being a Doctor Who fan. Oxxidation posted:Charlie Brooker, an O.G. among misanthropes and cynics everywhere, has always made an exception for Doctor Who. In Screenwipe, he said, “I love that it’s a big, populist drama based on ideas.” And that’s a lovely, succinct way to put it – for all its behind-the-scenes drama and slipshod production and flabbergasting moments of ineptitude and stupidity, Doctor Who stands tall as a work that refuses to stagnate. Between episodes, actors, showrunners, and entire generations, the show empties the tank in its effort to explore new territory, every time. And that, I think, is why it’s held onto its audience more than anything – regardless of your feelings towards writing or acting or TV or the entire stupid human race, if you take the plunge on this show and are willing to trawl its silly British depths, odds are you’ll dredge up a pearl or two, and keep coming back for more. Grade: A Random Thoughts:
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Sep 5, 2015 19:21
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Last Christmas A 2house2fly Alkarl And More AndwhatIseeisme Bicyclops blasmeister BSam cargohills DoctorWhat egon_beeblebrox Gandalf21 Howe_sam jng2058 JoltSpree Jsor Lipset and Rock On MikeJF Ohtsam onetruepurple Organza Quiz Paul.Power Rat Flavoured Rats Sinestro Weird Sandwich Xenoborg B Barometz Bown Colonel Cool death .cab for qt DetoxP ewe2 fatherboxx Labratio LabyaMynora Mo0 Senerio thexerox123 C Andrew_1985 Attitude Indicator Grouchio D Haha. F No. Overall Average Guess: A-. Right around the same as the last two. Final rankings: Lipset and Rock On: 6 onetruepurple: 7 blasmeister: 8 Howe_sam: 8 MikeJF: 8 thexerox123: 8 2house2fly: 9 fatherboxx: 9 Gandalf21: 9 jng2058: 9 Organza Quiz: 9 Attitude Indicator: 10 Sinestro: 10 AndwhatIseeisme: 11 DetoxP: 11 DoctorWhat: 11 Labratio: 11 Paul.Power: 11 Weird Sandwich: 11 Bown: 12 cargohills: 12 JoltSpree: 12 Ohtsam: 12 Alkarl: 14 Barometz: 14 Grouchio: 14 Jsor: 14 Rat Flavoured Rats: 14 Xenoborg: 14 And More: 15 Andrew_1985: 15 Bicyclops: 15 Mo0: 15 LabyaMynora: 16 Senerio: 16 Colonel Cool: 17 death .cab for qt: 17 ewe2: 17 BSam: 18 egon_beeblebrox: 25 Congratulations to Lipset and Rock On! Truly you have read Toxx's mind or, at least, randomly guessed your way to victory. We can hash out prizes later, but for now, enjoy your moment in the sun. EDIT: A few other stats about this season: Overall average grade: B Toxx's average grade: C+ Highest-ranked episodes, overall: top spot was a tie between Mummy on the Orient Express and Flatline. Last Christmas was just barely behind those two. Lowest-ranked episodes, overall: In the Forest of the Night with a ridiculous D-, followed by Kill the Moon and The Caretaker. Almost nobody did the "all grade X" strategy this time. Only one person took advantage of my offer to send grades episode-by-episode. idonotlikepeas fucked around with this message at 20:03 on Sep 5, 2015 |
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Sep 5, 2015 19:31
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The one thing is that the added on ending of Clara being further in the dream adds a subtext that everyone else is also still stuck with the facehuggers, but that's a plot hole you can safely push away if you like. It's an unfortunate side effect of wanting the finale with Clara, the actress wanting to stay, and changing things to accommodate that. I guess having a small moment where the Doctor goes "So I guess this is the last time I see you." with Clara laughing at him "Oh please, we had way more adventures." And him just gleefully going back to the right timeframe wasn't dramatic enough.
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Sep 5, 2015 19:42
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Thanks for spending all this time and effort, Toxx and Oxx. It's been a fun thread.
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Sep 5, 2015 20:12
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Bad in a way nobody has ever seen before. I like it.
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Sep 5, 2015 20:13
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 I'm sort of shocked you got through all of this without watching "An Adventure in Space and Time", given that it's a pretty decent made-for-TV movie about the actual creation/production and earliest behind the scenes stuff in Doctor Who's earliest years. This run of recaps has made it a little obvious that you're sort of an armchair director/scriptwriter with an interest in how people would produce a thing, and that movie makes a pretty good run at it. As for Last Christmas, Moffat Who so frequently dances around the button that turns the show into a surreal Kubrick horror, teasing a push but eventually going off and doing it's own thing. So the "YOU ARE DYING" scene slams the button down and always pleases for me for being so uncomfortable, right down to using the Vertigo zoom to suddenly expand a familiar homey looking interior into being disturbingly larger than most appointed rooms would be.
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Sep 5, 2015 20:20
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I love this episode for doubling down on the horror element by suggesting that either the Doctor might still be dreaming by the end of the episode, and simply ignoring that the ending makes no sense ("Second chances. I never get a second chance."), or that the viewer is dreaming themselves (because you can never be sure). It's really hosed up. Thank you Occ, for the reviews that guided me through series 1-4 for the first time, and the ones from series 5-8 that made me re-examine why I liked or didn't like certain episodes. The Kill the Moon review in particular was absolutely eye-opening. Few reviews have made me change my mind so radically on something I liked. And More fucked around with this message at 20:53 on Sep 5, 2015 |
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Sep 5, 2015 20:33
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I've mostly just been lurking this thread, but all the way through I've appreciated the thoughtful commentary on this weird weird show that can be so many things. So thank you, Toxx (and all the other posters too) for the journey.
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Sep 5, 2015 21:23
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Craptacular! posted:As for Last Christmas, Moffat Who so frequently dances around the button that turns the show into a surreal Kubrick horror, teasing a push but eventually going off and doing it's own thing. So the "YOU ARE DYING" scene slams the button down and always pleases for me for being so uncomfortable, right down to using the Vertigo zoom to suddenly expand a familiar homey looking interior into being disturbingly larger than most appointed rooms would be. See, to my mind the "you are dying" bit makes the episode is as much a homage to Better Than Life from Red Dwarf as it is to Inception. Of course, now that I go back and check, the similar bit isn't in the TV episode but only in the novel which takes the idea much further. In the novel, Lister is unaware he's playing Better Than Life but keeps getting pains on his arm spelling out DYING and BTL. This is Kryten's attempt to communicate with him from outside the game by burning the message into his real arm. To avoid just making a rambling post on an obscure bit of Red Dwarf trivia, I'll ask if there is any more direct reference to Dwarf on Doctor Who?
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Sep 5, 2015 21:37
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And More posted:I love this episode for doubling down on the horror element by suggesting that either the Doctor might still be dreaming by the end of the episode, and simply ignoring that the ending makes no sense ("Second chances. I never get a second chance."), or that the viewer is dreaming themselves (because you can never be sure). It's really hosed up. Eh, I like to joke that the tangerine at the end is a dark hint that they're still dreaming but I'm 99% certain Moffat's intention with that was "Santa Claus is real, kiddies!"
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Sep 5, 2015 21:49
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2house2fly posted:Eh, I like to joke that the tangerine at the end is a dark hint that they're still dreaming but I'm 99% certain Moffat's intention with that was "Santa Claus is real, kiddies!" Well, DW likes to gloss over the more disturbing concepts because it's still a family show somehow. They have to give you a family friendly ending for a Christmas episode. That doesn't stop it from having a second, darker reading. Here is another thing like that: Why does the Doctor wake up in the middle of the volcano from Dark Water? In previous episodes, he would sometimes hang out on exotic planets on his own, but before the start of this episode he somehow decided to go to a place that isn't good for much else than destroying rings of power and tardis keys instead.
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Sep 5, 2015 22:22
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And More posted:Here is another thing like that: Why does the Doctor wake up in the middle of the volcano from Dark Water? Because the events of Dark Water/Death in Heaven were just dream crab hallucinations!
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Sep 5, 2015 22:55
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CobiWann posted:Because the events of Dark Water/Death in Heaven were just dream crab hallucinations! Because he was going to kill himself.  He got a second chance, though.
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Sep 5, 2015 22:58
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Now let's go watch Game of Thrones! 
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Sep 5, 2015 23:13
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 Thank you for the thread. I enjoyed it and vicariously reliving the ups and  of this weird rear end show quite a bit. Also your effortposts are appreciated.And the extended break from the insanity in the regular Who thread was also good for me. My advice- don't go in there. That's batshit country.
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Sep 5, 2015 23:40
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I really enjoyed this thread, though it was more fun when you outright hated the show and everything about it. Thanks for all the effort you put into it.
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Sep 5, 2015 23:41
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And More posted:Here is another thing like that: Why does the Doctor wake up in the middle of the volcano from Dark Water? In previous episodes, he would sometimes hang out on exotic planets on his own, but before the start of this episode he somehow decided to go to a place that isn't good for much else than destroying rings of power and tardis keys instead. Actual (probably) answer: it was the only set left over from Series 8 they hadn't gotten around to tearing down yet.
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Sep 5, 2015 23:42
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ThaGhettoJew posted:And the extended break from the insanity in the regular Who thread was also good for me. My advice- don't go in there. That's batshit country. Agreed, people talk about the audios far too much
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Sep 5, 2015 23:47
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Simple reason to never go to the Who thread: This thread is tame compared to the Who thread.
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Sep 6, 2015 00:09
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Thanks Toxx, it was a lot of fun reading these and seeing how your opinion shifted/adapted over the run of the show to date. Last Christmas really was a great place for you to get caught up.MrL_JaKiri posted:Agreed, people talk about the audios far too much Two weeks till new television episodes!
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Sep 6, 2015 00:30
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