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The best part is the Master was Secretary of Defense/Prime Minister. He could get C4 or whatever if he wanted, big cartoony sticks of dynamite are just more his style.
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Sep 29, 2014 23:26
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 gently caress, I forgot about that part entirely, and it's GLORIOUS.
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Sep 29, 2014 23:29
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Toxxupation posted:OH GOD I CAN'T STOP LAUGHING I DUNNO IF I CAN GO ON THAT'S THE MOST INCREDIBLE loving THING I'VE EVER SEEN Welcome to the Master - the most glorious troll in the universe. Everything he does is so petty and stupid and obnoxious 
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Sep 29, 2014 23:30
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The good bits of this episode are so, so good. Oh, forget it, I'm going to go watch it myself.Xenoborg posted:Its worth mentioning that the studio and most of the filming takes place in Cardiff so they like to use it when they can. Even when an episode takes place in "London" you can sometimes tell it's Cardiff by landmarks, similar to so many American TV shows being shot in Vancouver. Oh yeah, "Spot Cardiff" has been great fun for me since the revival started.
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Sep 29, 2014 23:42
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Someone remind me what the dynamite thing was, I'm drawing a complete blank
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Sep 30, 2014 00:10
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Soothing Vapors posted:Someone remind me what the dynamite thing was, I'm drawing a complete blank The Master strapped a cartoonish bundle of TNT, complete with dramatic timer, to the back of Martha's TV in her apartment.
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Sep 30, 2014 00:14
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Soothing Vapors posted:Someone remind me what the dynamite thing was, I'm drawing a complete blank OK, seeing as Occ has clearly seen it: When the Master is giving his address about first contact and talks about how 'every lorry driver, every secretary, every... medical student?' will have their lives changed, the Doctor realises he knows they're watching, and turns Martha's big ol' CRT TV around, to reveal Elmer Fudd style TNT sticks rigged to it, in order to explode them.
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Sep 30, 2014 00:15
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Random Stranger posted:Oh, there's one thing that hasn't been brought up yet (for good reason): this episode is a crossover. There has been an spin-off series starring the undying Captain Jack having X-Files style adventures around Cardiff that when this aired had one complete season. They have a secret base below that plaza where the episode starts. Please don't spoil Torchwood, Occupation might want to see it some day.
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Sep 30, 2014 00:32
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DoctorWhat posted:The Master strapped a cartoonish bundle of TNT, complete with dramatic timer, to the back of Martha's TV in her apartment. It is easily one of my favorite parts of the new series
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Sep 30, 2014 00:37
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Toxxupation posted:OH GOD I CAN'T STOP LAUGHING I DUNNO IF I CAN GO ON THAT'S THE MOST INCREDIBLE loving THING I'VE EVER SEEN Rusty understands that The Master is basically a Pantomime character at this point and that concept of his character is probably the best part of this two parter.
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Sep 30, 2014 00:37
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Time for me to draw attention to another piece of amazing music, possibly my favourite in the entire series. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-SBNgu1hO4 Just listen to that.
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Sep 30, 2014 01:01
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I can't imagine this episode without the absurd musical interlude.
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Sep 30, 2014 01:11
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Oh poo poo how did I forget about that, that was the greatest thing I've ever seen
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Sep 30, 2014 01:17
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I'm going to have to rewatch this, because I don't remember the cartoon dynamite. I probably hated it at the time, and at this point, I think it would crack me up.
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Sep 30, 2014 01:27
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Well, finished watching the two-parter (three?). Can't wait for the review now.
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Sep 30, 2014 01:28
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egon_beeblebrox posted:I'm going to have to rewatch this, because I don't remember the cartoon dynamite. I probably hated it at the time, and at this point, I think it would crack me up. 
NieR Occomata fucked around with this message at 01:43 on Sep 30, 2014 |
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Sep 30, 2014 01:37
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This is your review isn't it?
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Sep 30, 2014 01:38
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It'll take a lot more gifs than that. Good start though.
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Sep 30, 2014 01:54
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Best post in the thread.
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Sep 30, 2014 01:55
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I love how playful the show got with the Master. It didn't necessarily hit every time, but there were a lot of great moments.
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Sep 30, 2014 01:58
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Toxxupation posted:Mr. Saxon and his goons are so clearly evil that everyone mine as well be wearing goatees So I guess now we can talk about the fact that a good portion of the thread had to stifle themselves when Occ said this? 
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Sep 30, 2014 01:58
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I really wish we could watch part 2 live. Words aren't going to do it justice. 
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Sep 30, 2014 02:21
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Holy poo poo. Martha's apartment is so loving mid-2000's. That paint, those shelves... and can you believe that we all used to have gigantic bombs strapped to the back of our CRT televisions? Jeez. What a world.
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Sep 30, 2014 02:39
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thexerox123 posted:So I guess now we can talk about the fact that a good portion of the thread had to stifle themselves when Occ said this? Yeah, that was hard not to talk about. Good accidental prediction. 
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Sep 30, 2014 02:54
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kant posted:I really wish we could watch part 2 live. Words aren't going to do it justice. Yeah, had any of the other episodes after "Blink" been chosen, I'd have chatted about it. Nothing to say about the quality of each, but it would have been more interesting. "Blink" is great, but not much fun to talk about, since pretty much everyone has said pretty much everything about it. egon_beeblebrox fucked around with this message at 03:20 on Sep 30, 2014 |
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Sep 30, 2014 03:12
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Doctor Who "The Sound of Drums" Series 3, Episode 12 Doctor Who, at least when showrun by Russell T. Davies, is an incredibly silly show about an incredibly silly shouty British man with a time travelling phonebox, his attractive female Companion who is variously competent, and their incredibly silly sci-fi adventures. Sometimes, and pretty much always accidentally, this blueprint of nonsense coalesces into emotive, emotionally affecting hours of television; sometimes it coalesces into an hour of unwatchable garbage. Either way, it's always at least memorable. The most irritating thing about Doctor Who is when it has pretensions to be greater than it is; it's a show that so rarely recognizes its inherent silliness in favor of trying to be, at various points, some dark character drama or showy period piece or a narrative-driven program. Even when episodes like that work, which is rare, they overall lose the spirit of the thing; The Doctor is absurd, and the show works best and is AT its best when it embraces how absurd the premise is. This show will never be Breaking Bad, it will never be The Sopranos, it will never be Game of Thrones. It just isn't those shows, and although I've previously condemned Who for falling short, especially in comparison to those shows that are clearly on a different narrative and executional level, I was ultimately wrong. Doctor Who, in general, sucks when it tries to be something less than absurd comedy genre television. Even when the tonal shift works it feels like either an accident or Moffat putting in the effort to make the tonal shift work, and in either case it's rare enough to feel not repeatable. What's most striking is that working in the model of understanding that Doctor Who is a absurdist comedy with a thin veneer of respectability solely from how goddamn long its run means that, if you're writing the show in that mode, you can still have those moments of big, swooping, affecting emotionality and plotting and even darkness, it just takes an understanding touch and game actors. It's why "The Sound of Drums" is so incredible. In many ways, this is "The Christmas Invasion", Mark II; an episode that is built around understanding what Doctor Who fundamentally is: a 60s Sci-fi show that has inexplicably stayed around for fifty goddamn years, a relic of a time when "Science Fiction" was synonymous with "camp", when it was virtually indistinguishable than any other Cool Guy Action piece of media, only this time everyone shoots lasers instead of real guns. But, unlike "The Christmas Invasion", which was ultimately a light bit of fluff (an incredible light bit of fluff, but fluffy all the same), "The Sound of Drums" is even better than that because it, bizarrely, has an emotionally resonant and honest edge that makes it more permanent and memorable than the former, even when still sticking to the tone of humor throughout. The fact that "Sound of Drums" is such a knowingly dumb episode of television is what keeps its worst offenses at bay; its plot is downright incoherent at times: The Master, having stolen the TARDIS at the end of "Utopia", unfortunately is only able to travel to London in the mid 2000s due to some Shenanigans The Doctor pulls. He then assumes the title of Harold Saxon (called it), which he then uses to launch an incredibly successful political campaign that allows him to be elected Prime Minister. As The Doctor, Jack, and Martha escape the events of "Utopia", they arrive in a post-Saxon London; from there, they spend the majority of the episode trying to track The Master down and stop him, dodging the various impendiments in their way. As an episode of televison, the plotting could charitably be described as "problematic". The resolution for the "Utopia" cliffhanger is lovely even by Doctor Who's standards, with The Doctor et al blinking into existence in London via Jack's time transporter...thing. It's such a lazy and half-assed payoff it almost defies belief, with the episode essentially throwing its hands up and going "Yeah, that cliffhanger was some forced narrative shite, huh?" There's a huge scene early in the episode between a reporter (who seems both completely oblivious to the imminent danger she is in and way too smart for what the script demands she be, especially when it's revealed that Saxon was able to hypnotize the entire world into trusting him) trying to convince Saxon's wife Lucy (Alexandra Moen) that he's not who he says in it that ends in her predictable death that has no real point to the episode. And at about halfway through the episode, our trio all get branded terrorists, which seems to serve absolutely zero narrative impact on the episode beyond giving the script an excuse to film Tennant, Agyeman, and Barrowman under an overpass; at no point does "Sound of Drums" feel like an episode that has the sense of being hunted, pursued, and constantly in danger of being found or identified that being framed as a terrorist would demand the episode thematically treat such an event as. "Sound of Drums", though, is ultimately about the relationship between The Master and The Doctor. John Simm plays The Master exquisitely, with all the evil glee he can muster; just as Tennant in "The Christmas Invasion", he cavorts through every single one of his scenes with a focus and over-the-top drive that makes him fascinating to watch. The very first extended scene the audience sees with The Master, he as Harold Saxon has just been seated as Prime Minister, and immediately goes on the offensive with his staff, declaring "Before we start all that, I just want to say...Thank you. Thank you, one and all. You ugly, fat-faced bunch of wet, snivelling, traitors." And then he gasses them to death via hidden jets in the speakerphones, smirking the entire time! It's a strong, incredibly hilarious first impression, one that ultimately has no real effect on the episode's climax; all it seeks to impress is that The Master is ultimately a psychopathic dick who takes a perverse glee in ruining people's lives in the same and opposite direction that The Doctor enjoys saving them. It's what makes the episode so great and so silly; Simm is the source of some of the episode's best lines and gags, as he plays The Master as an agent of chaos who barely has any real interest in anything beyond causing the maximum amount of misery, to the maximum amount of people, at any given time. The sheer relish The Master has for anything that could result in another person's suffering is the source of the best moments in the episode; he even redeems some of its more bizarre plotting choices, as the physical sight gag of The Master slowly opening the door and closing it again to the reporter's bloodcurdling screams as she's eviscerated by the "Toclafane" (which is ultimately what Saxon was trying to accomplish as Prime Minister; creating a situation where he'd have enough cachet and goodwill built up to introduce an alien race that would destroy humanity as "peace-loving", so Earth would welcome them with open arms) is one of the best moments in the episode, especially when Saxon looks on in mock horror and barely-concealed glee before looking away. Basically, Simm is fantastic as The Master. He's the nega-Tennant; the same level of commitment and hamminess when viewed onscreen, but to the end of being an evil psychopath who delights in others' suffering over even the barest pretense of altruism that The Doctor exhibits. He's both an amazing, hilarious dick and genuinely menacing as the script demands, and because of the balancing act he's able to strike he's the connective tissue that keeps this episode together. Simm's great as Saxon, as well; although I feel like the arc words of "Mr. Saxon" were worthless garbage that was incredibly poorly narratively structured, Simm is able to sell the narrative reveal of how The Master attained the prime minister job via a cult of personality incredibly well. Saxon is a genial, likable guy, and one can see people voting for him even if The Master didn't have the ability to hypnotize people; he might not have any policy positions, but as even Martha notes, "I dunno, he always sounded good. That you could trust him. Just nice. He spoke about...I can't really remember, but it was good. Just the sound of his voice..." Simm is also the driving force behind the episode's weirdly emotionally affecting moments, as The Doctor and The Master share a long phone conversation about the third of the way through it that helps establish The Doctor's character and humanity especially in contrast to the amoral monster on the other end of the line. I've criticized The Doctor for, often times, being a sociopath who delights in the suffering of others; however, viewing The Doctor and The Master in the same scenes together puts an even finer point on the fact that regardless of how bad, at times, The Doctor can be, he's still the hero of the show. He's still, ultimately, a Force for Good, and nowhere is that more evident than when he engages The Master. As The Master contemptuously says, "'The man who makes people better.' How sanctimonious is that?", it illustrates just how much disrespect The Master has for The Doctor's life choices, and affirms The Doctor's base humanity in a way that's subtle and affecting. In that same vein, The Doctor eventually has to explain to The Master the events of the Time War, and his ultimate role in it, which leads to this exchange: The Master: "What did it feel like, though? Two almighty civilizations, burning? Ohhhhh, tell me how did that feel?" The Doctor: "Stop it!" The Master: "You must've been like...God." The Doctor is heartbroken, clearly wracked with guilt and overwhelming sadness over his role in a genocide that ultimately destroyed his home planet. In contrast, The Master is hearing about the destruction of Gallifrey for the first time but bears no malice or ill will towards The Doctor for what he did; if anything, the only reaction that The Master has is wonder at the thought of his home planet being destroyed. The Master is, ultimately, a man who wants to watch the world burn, no matter what world it is and who it affects; The Doctor might do some surprisingly amoral things, but it's scenes like this that sell the fact that The Doctor's defining motivation is Goodness. There's other incredible moments throughout the episode- I loved the constant refrain of drumming, that sort of visual callback that's able to make The Master's constant complaints about the drumming in his head give the episode a threatening edge. There's a sinister edge to how often it pops up, and watching random people (including Martha herself) inadvertently repeat the drum beat creates a sinister, disturbing edge to "The Sound of Drums" that works. Martha, too, is utterly fantastic this episode, barely tolerating The Doctor's poo poo and, rightly so, throwing shade on the fact that most to all of this is his fault in one way or another. But what ties this episode together is its silliness. At no point does it every take itself seriously, even if it has emotionally affecting moments, and it's why it's so great. Watching The Master reveal his plot to blow up Martha, The Doctor, and Jack while in the middle of a televised speech leading to The Doctor dramatically turning the TV they're watching the broadcast around, with a cartoonishly large bundle of dynamite taped to the back- well, that might be the single funniest loving thing I've seen this year. Watching The Master cavort around, at the end of the episode, when he reveals he has a laser screwdriver- "Who'd have sonic?" he condescendingly asks -is amazing too. It's an episode that, as I've mentioned at the very beginning, recognizes what Doctor Who is- a silly science fiction show -and because of it works to have those moments of character symbolism and emotionality within the context of being a silly science fiction show over trying to turn it into something it's not. It's why it works so well, and why the bad parts- like its various plot issues I've mentioned before, or how "Mr. Saxon" as arc words was ultimately completely pointless in Series 3, or the godawful scene at the end of the episode set to "Here Come the Drums", or the stupid Martha's family subplot -are ultimately ignorable because, well, it's a silly science fiction show. It's expected. Martha ultimately escapes the ship that an aged-one-hundred-years Doctor and incapacitated Jack are imprisoned on, and as she looks on a ruined, destroyed London- The Master sicced his "Toclafane" buddies on it and the rest of the world -she resolutely promises, "I'm coming back". It's every stereotypical moment of forced bravado and big, heroic moments that's ultimately a byproduct of Doctor Who's DNA, and it's a fist-pumpingly great scene that makes you want to come back for the finale, because it's emblematic of what "The Sound of Drums" is- an episode that recognizes the show's roots and decides to go back to them, over pretending it's something that it's not. Grade: A Random Thoughts:
NieR Occomata fucked around with this message at 01:40 on Oct 1, 2014 |
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Sep 30, 2014 03:36
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DoctorWhat fucked around with this message at 04:00 on Sep 30, 2014 |
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Sep 30, 2014 03:54
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The little dance that the Master's "wife" is doing in the background during the music scene made me laugh a little.
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Sep 30, 2014 03:58
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I'm rather surprised Occ didn't notice that The Doctor is responsible for Saxon, but maybe it's because he isn't familiar enough with Parliamentary politics: The Doctor brought down Harriet Jones in "The Christmas Invasion" with a one-line remark that leads to her facing a confidence vote by the end of the episode (which she ultimately lost, paving the way for Saxon.) Did I mention how much work Martha goes through for The Doctor relative to most (revival) companions? . Craptacular! fucked around with this message at 04:06 on Sep 30, 2014 |
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Sep 30, 2014 04:01
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Lycus posted:the Master's "wife" Speaking of this, Occ should watch Time Crash when the time comes, if only for the line about the Master. thexerox123 fucked around with this message at 04:07 on Sep 30, 2014 |
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Sep 30, 2014 04:02
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Toxxupation posted:Watching The Master cavort around, at the end of the episode, when he reveals he has a laser screwdriver- "Who'd have sonic?" he condescendingly asks -is amazing too. Apparently the original line here was "my screwdriver is bigger than yours". I almost wish they'd kept it.
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Sep 30, 2014 04:03
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Oxxidation posted:Watching you hyperventilate over this has amused and entertained, but I'll cut the fun short and say he's got the uncut versions. how about we don't post youtube clips from upcoming episodes. don't worry, he will see that part.
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Sep 30, 2014 04:04
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BSam posted:how about we don't post youtube clips from upcoming episodes. don't worry, he will see that part. Fair enough, got it.
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Sep 30, 2014 04:06
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quote:Uh don't you vote for parties in the British MP elections over individual people? Like isn't that like, The Big Difference between how Americans are elected into political office versus how British people are elected into political office? Yeah, that's a bit troublesome. I handwave it away by saying that Saxon allied himself with one of the parties and used his force of personality to get people to vote for his party, with the understanding that they'd elect him prime minister if they got a majority. Similarly, the American president introducing himself as "president-elect" was an embarrassing gaffe- I'm guessing he meant "duly elected president" or something. quote:The Mr. Saxon stuff was stupid and pointless this season and had literally no effect or point on this episode in any way; why was there so much time spent on Martha's boring-rear end family being spied on, again? Why was The Master doing all this? I suppose because he saw Martha with the Doctor in the distant future, and then was sent back to before they met. He wanted to find the Doctor again, and he knew he and Martha eventually crossed paths, so he kept an eye on her until they did. quote:Speaking of this, Occ should watch Time Crash when the time comes, if only for the line about the Master. Seconded.
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Sep 30, 2014 04:08
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Doctor Who "The Sound of Drums" Series 3, Episode 12 I didn't know much about the Master besides the bullet points when watching this series for the first time - "evil Time Lord who's also a recurring villain" was about the long and short of it. This thread's enlightened me a bit on what he was in the old serials, and honestly, he sounds amazing, a malevolent comedy-partner to the Doctor whose constant meddling in the Doctor's do-goodery was as cute and cheesy as it was singularly murderous. It's easy to see why the Doctor would eventually develop such ambivalent feelings for the guy; whereas the Doctor can normally pop in his TARDIS and jettison away from the consequences of his actions after he's cleaned up the latest universal mess, the Master can throw those tricks right back at him, pursuing him through that all-concealing fourth dimension to gently caress with him another day, often wearing a silly mustache. It sounds like something that'd be right up Davies' alley. But if that's the case, then maybe I just like the Master in theory rather than practice, because I don't like this two-parter and never did. At this point in my rewatch (as with my original watch), Davies' asinine quirks have gone from amusing to just wearying, and this is a Davies episode all over. It has an enormous, nation-setting plot that's hamstrung into a series of barren little London sets due to the show's budget, it has a cast of side-characters that do nothing (besides die) and go nowhere (unless you count their ashes settling into the carpet), it has ludicrously high stakes, tons of meaningless techno-jargon babble, more than a few cartoonishly stupid moments that stick in the mind. People here have already had a good laugh over Martha's personalized Looney Tunes bomb, but I didn't even crack a smile when that thing entered the camera; mostly I was wondering if Davies legitimately thought bombs still looked like that. But above all, I dislike these episodes because of the Master. Now, I do like the Master in principle. His name suggests a dark mirror to the Doctor and his whole personality follows from there, and it's an idea to which Davies adheres with varying levels of subtlety. The Doctor heals or betters people; the Master dominates them. The Doctor goes into joy-seizures over humanity; the Master sees them as a tedious, contemptible joke whose only punchline is murder. The Doctor is, or at least attempts to be, a pacifist; the Master is so gleefully, irrationally violent that he often has precious few people left to rule by the time he's done breaking them. Then you have the blue TARDIS versus the red spacetime-shredding Paradox Machine, the all-repairing Sonic Screwdriver versus the "totally not a Dalek beam" Laser Screwdriver, et cetera, et cetera. These divides will continue to present themselves, in more interesting ways, throughout the rest of the two-parter, and overall I don't have much trouble with the Master as he's scripted out. So why does he rub me the wrong way so much? A lot of it is John Simm. I didn't like this guy from the moment he replaced Jacobi, and he did precious little to lift that impression during "The Sound of Drums." Simm is clearly an attempt to have the Master mimic the Doctor right down to his mannerisms - he's a skinny, manic man-child who giggles and cavorts amidst the destruction he causes, often failing to restrain himself from taking the piss out of people even when the situation calls for seriousness. The problem is that this reversal doesn't work from a villainous angle. The Doctor's sunshiney cheer is fun when he's a hero and often becomes deeply unsettling when he casually massacres his enemy and goes back to smiling minutes later; in contrast, the fact that the Master never turns the Evil off makes him just obnoxious, a caffeinated grade-schooler who murders anyone who doesn't laugh hard enough at his bad jokes and still fails to impress in spite of that. And while Tennant's energy seems to permeate his performance so completely that he sometimes looks like an incredibly lifelike Saturday morning cartoon, Simm's never feels like anything more than a performance; when Tennant shouts and mugs the camera it feels like he's incapable of doing anything else, but Simm shouts and mugs the camera because the script tells him to shout and mug the camera. The way the camera work hops and skitters around Simm, as it does during his phone call with the Doctor or the "Here Come the Drums" sequence, almost feels like it's compensating for his comparatively weak performance, which is a mistake, because the guy is a legitimately excellent physical actor. Just look at his now-legendary thumbs-up after gassing the Cabinet, or his theatrical cringing during the otherwise-painful scene when the Toclafane murder the journalist, or his disco-esque posturing as the Toclafane decimate (literally) the planet below. Though even his physique bugs me - Simm is a ridiculous tiny man with a tiny adorable head (seriously, it's like a loving casaba melon, I want to grab it and knead it between my palms), and the fact that all his suits look one size too big for him doesn't help his already-lacking sense of menace. There's another opinion I have on this two-parter, and it might be a wee bit controversial. Most of what I've said during this thread has pretty much stuck to the craft and context of each episode, with the more hot-button issues largely untouched, but this has bugged me and I want to rip the band-aid off: the relationship between the Master and the Doctor, during these episodes, is, in my opinion, too gay. I could use other words - too romantic, too sexual, too amorous - but the glib way seems to sum it up best. As Occ said during "Gridlock," I never gave much of a thought to Davies' clear focus on same-sex relationships, to the point where I didn't even think it was relevant to bring it up, but this is the first time that particular quirk started to grate on me. It's best illustrated during that phone call - even beyond flirty little jabs from Simm like "are you asking me out on a date" or his semi-orgasmic "ooohhh, I love it when you use my name," the Doctor's endless babbling to both the Master and everyone in earshot about how he has to save the Master, to fix the Master, to keep the Master with him, makes him sound like a cheated boyfriend who hasn't gotten over his breakup, and it's all the more pathetic because the Master never actually seems to reciprocate this beyond the occasional taunt, making the Doctor sound desperate and ineffectual. "The Sound of Drums" isn't the long-awaited reunion of two diametrically opposed nemeses, it's Sex and the City with British aliens, and it sucks the tension right out of their conflict, because you have one guy who's merrily burning the planet down and the other who's not sure if he wants to stop that guy or embrace him on a sun-soaked beach. It's one more sour note in a whole symphony of them, and by this point it's a little tiresome how Davies seems to have serious trouble writing any characters in relation to the Doctor without some kind of sexual undercurrent. Take a cold shower, dude, sheesh. Oh, and one other thing that, checking back on the thread, has just been mentioned. Yup, the Doctor is responsible for the Master thanks to his little stunt in "The Christmas Invasion" leaving the PM seat wide open, and this is never given a mention. Davies is on record as saying that he thought about calling out the Doctor on this little world-ruining boo-boo, but decided it would be "too cruel." Lovingly depicting the massacre of 1/10 of the human race, though? A-OK! It's one more of Rusty's infuriating little affectations, a habit of playing the nice guy to the characters he likes and endlessly making GBS threads on everything and everyone else, and has always struck me as deeply incongruous given his public perception as a big goofy Welsh teddy bear. The same thing happened with the casual destruction of Earth is "Parting of the Ways," and anything that reminds me of that mess cannot be good. The world burns, the Master dances, the Doctor spazzed himself into his geriatric years, and horrible pop music blares from the UN's inexplicable sky fortress - yup, we're in the middle of a Davies finale. Occupation seems to revel in Davies' demented flights of fancy for now; let's see how long that lasts. Oxxidation fucked around with this message at 14:47 on Sep 30, 2014 |
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Sep 30, 2014 04:10
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Craptacular! posted:I'm rather surprised Occ didn't notice that The Doctor is responsible for Saxon, but maybe it's because he isn't familiar enough with Parliamentary politics: The Doctor brought down Harriet Jones in "The Christmas Invasion" with a one-line remark that leads to her facing a confidence vote by the end of the episode (which she ultimately lost, paving the way for Saxon.) Oxxidation has already mentioned that he made sure it was the version with that scene that he's watching. Edit: Corrected the name. SirSamVimes fucked around with this message at 04:27 on Sep 30, 2014 |
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Sep 30, 2014 04:13
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Oxxidation posted:There's another opinion I have on this two-parter, and it might be a wee bit controversial. Most of what I've said during this thread has pretty much stuck to the craft and context of each episode, with the more hot-button issues largely untouched, but this has bugged me and I want to rip the band-aid off: the relationship between the Master and the Doctor, during these episodes, is, in my opinion, too gay. Trust me - looking at the Classic Series, the Doctor/Master dynamic has always been incredibly homoerotic. NOT addressing it would have almost been awkward in-and-of itself.
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Sep 30, 2014 04:17
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SirSamVimes posted:Occupation has already mentioned that he made sure it was the version with that scene that he's watching. I've seen THAT SCENE on youtube, but apparently there was seven minutes worth of material cut from the Netflix version? What else is missing? For spoilers sake, probably no one should answer this until after the next review, but I am curious if there's anything near as glorious cut out.
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Sep 30, 2014 04:20
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I bet if we got him to rewatch love and monsters he'd be telling us that though the concrete blowjob was silly, it felt campy, but earnestly heartfelt What have we done to this wretch
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Sep 30, 2014 04:20
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| # ? Apr 26, 2024 08:20 |
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Oxxidation posted:the relationship between the Master and the Doctor, during these episodes, is, in my opinion, too gay. I was going to bring this up if no one did. Well, not "too gay", but "the Master is totally gay for the Doctor and always has been". It's been subtext almost from the beginning and becomes just about crossed to literal text by the time you reach the end of the original series. Now, it can come back to RTD being really heavy handed, but the interactions in this episode aren't out of line for the history of the show. So, on the Saxon thing. I mentioned before that by season three the Master was notably absent from the show. Everyone with even a bit of knowledge about the old series was going, "So where's the Master?" The moment it became clear that Saxon was a running thread for the season (which was mostly by the end of episode one), we had all caught on that he was the Master and were waiting for the reveal. Which actually made the reveal in Utopia interesting because it came an episode early and with the wrong character.
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Sep 30, 2014 04:24
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