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2house2fly
Nov 14, 2012

You did a super job wrapping things up! And I'm not just saying that because I have to!
He didn't say it was literally The Big Bang.

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Escobarbarian
Jun 18, 2004


Grimey Drawer
Have we already gone through Moffat's reasoning for calling the season 5 finale "The Big Bang"? Did I bring it up already? It's pretty freaking infantile.

2house2fly
Nov 14, 2012

You did a super job wrapping things up! And I'm not just saying that because I have to!
He later said it was because they have sex after the credits, but that seemed like it might be a joke given that the plot involves the actual big bang.

Escobarbarian
Jun 18, 2004


Grimey Drawer

quote:

"I used the name Pond for that reason, to create a link," Moffat told TV Guide. "[That reveal] was Plan A for a long time."

He added: "My favourite dirty joke in Doctor Who is the title of episode 13 in series 5, 'The Big Bang', [because it's] the night when River began. I laughed a lot when I thought of that."

Ok yeah maybe it's a joke. Could go either way in text form IMO

Linear Zoetrope
Nov 28, 2011

A hero must cook
Even if he's "serious", the entire thing is basically just a bad dumb dad joke anyway. Nothing I'd get too worked up over.

KOGAHAZAN!!
Apr 29, 2013

a miserable failure as a person

an incredible success as a magical murder spider

SirSamVimes posted:

Best Dalek episode since Dalek.

I think what I said at the time, and this is an opinion I stand by, that Into the Dalek straight up obsoletes Dalek. In that, it covers a lot of the same ground (distinctions between "you would be" and "you are" not withstanding), but the ancillary action in Into the Dalek is much better than that in Dalek. Dalek is, essentially, some really good scenes* involving Eccleston shouting at a pepper pot cyborg, wrapped inside a whole bunch of bland, poorly acted characters in dull grey corridors. And my personal television philosophy (a thing I apparently have now, god help me) is that, the fundamental atomic unit of television being the episode, that's the level you have to evaluate it on. One exceptional scene can't elevate an episode if everything around it is poo poo, and a poor season arc can't stop a good episode being good.

*(Eccleston-shouts-at-Dalek is, I have to admit, probably better stuff than Capaldi-shouts-at-Dalek, but I don't think that's necessarily a knock on Capaldi. Eccleston just got better material.)

e: Also, Into the Dalek gave us this, which I love

Forktoss posted:

The scenes in the Dalek mothership were great too, because I just can't get enough of Daleks talking to each other. One goes "WE FOUND THE THING WE WANT TO BLOW UP" and the other one goes "LET'S GO BLOW IT UP THEN" and a third one comes in "BLOW UP THE THING WE WANT TO BLOW UP" and the leader trundles up to a little podium and announces "INITIATE BLOWING UP OF THE THING WE WANT TO BLOW UP" and then everyone waves every extremity they've got and shouts "YEAH BLOW UP THE THING BLOW UP BLOW UP BLOW UP BLOW UP" just shaking with excitement because killing things is the one thing they live for and they're just so excited every time they get to do it. Love those shooty bucket things :allears:

:allears:

KOGAHAZAN!! fucked around with this message at 16:33 on Jul 12, 2015

Regy Rusty
Apr 26, 2010

I just watched this episode and I did not care for it, so far season 8 is 0 for 2

Now to watch the next one to actually get ahead of Occ again

Android Blues
Nov 22, 2008

Autonomous Monster posted:

I think what I said at the time, and this is an opinion I stand by, that Into the Dalek straight up obsoletes Dalek. In that, it covers a lot of the same ground (distinctions between "you would be" and "you are" not withstanding),

I'm not sure, you could be perfectly clear on this, but it seems like some people think it's just the same thing rephrased from future to present tense so it's worth just saying it out loud anyway: the dalek in Dalek is saying that Nine embodies the typical qualities of a dalek - hatred, violence, aggression, determination to wipe out his enemy, etc. The dalek in Into the Dalek is saying that Twelve is what a dalek would be like if a dalek, rather than being evil, was a virtuous actor.

KOGAHAZAN!!
Apr 29, 2013

a miserable failure as a person

an incredible success as a magical murder spider

Android Blues posted:

I'm not sure, you could be perfectly clear on this, but it seems like some people think it's just the same thing rephrased from future to present tense so it's worth just saying it out loud anyway: the dalek in Dalek is saying that Nine embodies the typical qualities of a dalek - hatred, violence, aggression, determination to wipe out his enemy, etc. The dalek in Into the Dalek is saying that Twelve is what a dalek would be like if a dalek, rather than being evil, was a virtuous actor.

Well, if I'm remembering this correctly, one of the big debates in the thread after the episode aired was over which sense of "good" was intended- moral or competent. I don't think we ever found a consensus? I don't much care, I think it works either way. "Moral" is the more interesting and novel interpretation, to be sure.

(Actually, I'm not sure there's much difference between a competent dalek and just a plain dalek. What defines the daleks, thematically, is that they are really, really good at killing things. An incompetent dalek... wouldn't really be a dalek.)

Bicyclops
Aug 27, 2004

Autonomous Monster posted:


e: Also, Into the Dalek gave us this, which I love


:allears:

Hahahaha yeah. They speak with utter disgust and hatred about everything else they have to do and every person or alien they have to interact with, and they just get so joyful about murder. I love when the building EXTERMINATE! chant is through excitement rather than a panicked reaction to one of the Doctor's plans. It's like someone has just told a second grader that school is canceled, and the rest of the year will be spent testing water slides and roller coasters.

Pocky In My Pocket
Jan 27, 2005

Giant robots shouldn't fight!






Still deciding which team Bicyclops?

Spatula City
Oct 21, 2010

LET ME EXPLAIN TO YOU WHY YOU ARE WRONG ABOUT EVERYTHING
I am never intimidated or scared by Daleks because I've always found them weirdly cute, and they're especially so in Into the Dalek, for some reason. :3:

Jerusalem
May 20, 2004

Would you be my new best friends?

I come down on the competence side of things - the big thing in this story is that the Doctor is convinced to attempt to change the nature of something he believes to be inherently/unalterably "evil", and much to his horror he discovers that the best he can achieve is a Dalek that hates all other Daleks . The Dalek realized the futility of the Dalek cause (life prevails), looked into the Doctor's "heart" and saw a purity of hatred that it decided to aspire to instead. When it says,"You ARE a good Dalek", it's saying that the Doctor represents the highest form of what it believes to have meaning in life, and this is what it aspires to be, and what the other Daleks cannot live up to. It's a twisted perversion of the Daleks' already twisted obsession with superiority.

It's an indictment of the Doctor at a time when he's soul-searching and trying to figure out if he's a good person or not, and it hits him pretty hard - but that is softened at the end when Clara tells him she may not be sure if he's a good man or not, but she thinks he is at least still trying to be and that is what is really important.

SirSamVimes
Jul 21, 2008

~* Challenge *~


Echoing the love of the Daleks being so excited about murder. Nick Briggs is amazing.

Craptacular!
Jul 9, 2001

Fuck the DH

Toxxupation posted:

weird question - i reread my old "midnight" review, and

1) how many of you people were chuckling at my assertion that it was a moffat script in disguise which i felt super clever about outing Oxx for that since it's p much literally the pandorica opens

or how it deals with themes that moffat exclusively traded in when he was running eleven's arc and aren't really indicative of how ten approaches problems outside of that specific episode

I repeat everything I said before: Midnight is a deconstruction of an RTD episode more than it is an imitation of Moffat. It's not about Moff's "mystery of the unknown! It could be anything, and that makes it scary!" It's about the fact that the Doctor is surrounded with people that are much more rational than the people he's usually surrounded with, and don't buy into the bullshit that you normally have to shrug your shoulders and accept because it's a TV show.

That you don't see the evil thing and see it go thorough all these phases is cool, but it's really about The Doctor not being able to garner the kind of trust he takes for granted and the audience is accustomed to accepting as a plot convenience. He can't just loving say he's a space alien who deals with this kind of thing all the time, and every way he tries to gab his way around his identity, his credentials, or why anyone would automatically nominate him as Survival Party Leader (in the midst of seasons that seem to be packed with Survival Party episodes, including really lovely ones like Voyage of the Damned.)

In the season prior to this, you just watched The Doctor live an entire life as "John Smith", a pseudonym that is generic and non-effort as all hell.
And here he actually tries to call himself John Smith and people right away see through it and how it obviously isn't real and begin doubting the poo poo out of him for it.

It's the RTD version of The Pandorica Opens, but it's specific to RTD's own writing. The Doctor just can't buy the plot conveniences that RTD allows him to have in almost every episode. Namely, the "he seems smart, we know nothing about him but I think he should lead us and we should lay our lives down for him" contrivance.

If you didn't watch the previous season, The Pandorica Opens just looks like a bunch of rubber monsters stuffing a man in a box and it's kind of dumb. Likewise, Midnight really requires you to understand just how loving naive people are in RTD's fiction 99% of the time. If you haven't seen how many stupid sheeple populate RTD's world, you don't get excited when they suddenly find their goddamn brain and start applying skeptical logic.

Craptacular! fucked around with this message at 03:35 on Jul 13, 2015

Doctor Spaceman
Jul 6, 2010

"Everyone's entitled to their point of view, but that's seriously a weird one."
Midnight is about how the Doctor appears to the people he tries to help, while The Pandorica Opens is about how he appears to the people he's trying to stop (with a lot of additional stuff thrown in).

Jerusalem
May 20, 2004

Would you be my new best friends?

SirSamVimes posted:

Echoing the love of the Daleks being so excited about murder. Nick Briggs is amazing.

It's part of the reason the Dalek Parliament is so great. They leave WWII-era London after working closely with Winston Churchill and apparently they decide their new power hierarchy should be based on Westminster Democracy as opposed to Imperial Rome.... but their idea of Parliament is hilariously backwards. There's no debate, no disagreements or honorable opposition, no backroom deals or endless introspection over the minutaie of proposed legislation. The Parliament is there as a giant shouting box of agreement - the Dalek Prime Minister comes up with a plan (99% of the time it is,"EXTERMINATE ALL NON-DALEKS!") and then the entire Parliament without exception enthusiastically agrees :3:

The Dalek Chief Whip must be soooooo bored.

NieR Occomata
Jan 18, 2009

Glory to Mankind.

Doctor Who
"Into the Dalek"
Series 8, Episode 2

Dalek episodes of the Doctor Who revival are variously successful, to say the least. Bad ones are bad for a variety of reasons - the Daleks have to be included at least once within every season, so many of their appearances boil down to glorified cameos. The Dalek episodes that don't have Daleks in the guest star role end up being "normal" episodes of Who that inexplicably have the Daleks show up at the twenty-minute mark to wave their eggbeaters "killer laser beams" around and shout. In other words, most Dalek episodes so far have had the Daleks as the generic, find/replaceable Monster of the Weektm.

Now. Why is that bad. Because - and I cannot loving stress this enough - as I said way, way back in the "Dalek" review, Daleks are stupid as gently caress enemies. They look like idiots, have plungers for hands, and generally behave like insipid morons. On every surface level, Daleks shouldn't work, and they don't. They're not threatening, they're comical. They don't look and don't act like the Doctor's greatest enemy.

Daleks excel as antagonists in one specific way; by exposing the deeper hypocrisy and greater moral shading of The Doctor. They work, and work fantastically, as symbolism; when they're genocide, hatred, and intolerance manifested, they're threatening. When they're a reflection of The Doctor's personal demons, they're spellbinding. When they're examined via their specific relationship with The Doctor, they're thought-provoking. As actual physical beings, they're big dumb idiots; as analogies, they're pitch-perfect.

Which brings me to "Into the Dalek" the best Dalek episode since "Dalek" itself, way back in Series One. As Oxx noted in his writeup for that episode, "Dalek", although good, ended up wrecking the curve on every subsequent Dalek episode since then. Partially because it was such a strong debut for the Daleks, so every episode after "Dalek" ends up falling short in the comparison.

But also, and more importantly, "Dalek" was so powerful because it was singular. "Dalek" works as the only Dalek episode ever, because it's an episode about the last Dalek and how The Doctor relates to it. The instant that Doctor Who was renewed for a second season, "Dalek"'s power was blunted, its impact negated. "Dalek" turned from a contained meditation on the nature of The Doctor and how he relates to his greatest foe into the start of a series of episodes where evil pepper pots shout four syllable words at goofy British aliens. The texture that made "Dalek" appealing in the first place was diluted by the requirement to include them in all subsequent seasons

Again, until "Into the Dalek". I think everyone who viewed it can agree that "Deep Breath" is a terrible introduction to Twelve; the script is overlong, it has very little to no idea how to write Capaldi's version of The Doctor, and worst of all he's upstaged by Matt Smith. In a cameo.

In contrast, "Into the Dalek" is an excellent presentation of the Twelfth Doctor - his likes, his dislikes, his positive qualities, his flaws. "Into" places Twelve front and center and structures its narrative around examining this version of The Doctor. Essentially, "Into" is the regeneration episode that should have happened last episode, because it deals so directly with illustrating all aspects of The Doctor's personality while initiating his own character arc for the season.

The most important scene of "Into the Dalek" is when Twelve asks Clara, plainly, "Am I a good man?" The single scene, which kicks off the thrust of the main plot - The Doctor and Clara journey into a suspiciously moral Dalek and attempt to fix it - expresses more about Twelve than the entire seventy-five minute runtime of "Deep Breath". Twelve is a Doctor defined by his confusion, whether it being his inability to remember names, faces, or entire people ("This is Gun Girl, she's got a gun and she's a girl. This is her sort of boss man, are you the same one as before?") or whether it's when he has no idea what his moral character is. "Am I a good man?" is as much a central tenet of Twelve as his sarcasm and bitterness.

Being a character study of Twelve allows "Into the Dalek" to be a Dalek episode that rivals the quality of "Dalek", the previous gold standard. And the similarities don't just stop there, "Dalek" and "Into the Dalek" are very closely related in format, tone, plot progression, and theme.

"Dalek" was an effective episode because it was written specifically to Nine. Nine was a Doctor riddled by guilt and PTSD - he was the war veteran Doctor. "Dalek" came around and was the right episode at the right time, midway through Nine's first (and only) season, after his personality was well-defined for the viewing audience.

The first five episodes of Series One were pure loving poo poo, but the one thing they did well as a collective whole was establish that Nine was tortured by his decisions, so when "Dalek" happened, it was a resonant and particularly affecting hour. "Dalek" worked because it took Nine's specific character and contrasted his own pain, self-loathing, and internal confusion with his interactions with the titular Dalek. The Dalek of "Dalek" becomes, essentially, a stand-in for Nine himself, and interacting with it allows him to come to a greater emotional truth. This is most clearly, and effectively, proven in the scene between Nine and the Dalek - the singular line of "YOU WOULD MAKE A GOOD DALEK." calcifies the message the episode is attempting to send. Nine is afraid of his own capacity for horror and genocide, and in that moment the Dalek validates his own worst fears - that's he no different, and arguably even worse, than the monsters he's destroyed.

In contrast, "Into the Dalek" arrived incredibly early in Twelve's run on Who. "Dalek" worked because it operated as the thematic low point of Nine's character arc, when his personality and dominating themes were well-established; "Into the Dalek" works because nothing is established.

Twelve is brand-new, he's appeared in a grand total of one episode before this. His confusion over who he is and what his place in the world is more pure than Nine's. If Nine asked Rose "Am I a good man?", the question would be more rooted in his underlying guilt he feels. It would have been a moral rhetorical question, reflective of the moral crises he regularly suffered during his tenure. When Twelve asks "Am I a good man," it's a sincere question, because he truly doesn't know. And neither do the audience, to be honest, because there hasn't been enough time spent with Twelve to form an adequate opinion as to his morality. This ambiguity is central to Twelve, but also the backbone of the episode in which it occurs.

In the process of being an episode that analyzes The Doctor, just like with "Dalek", "Into the Dalek" ends up almost accidentally being an excellent Dalek episode. The episode recognizes and reinforces the fact that the similarities between The Doctor and The Daleks are legion, and subsequently deepens and makes more interesting the latter as a natural byproduct of examining the former. Dalek Rusty itself receives a full arc just by the fact of existing as a Doctor analog, and Nicholas Briggs does some of his best voice work yet in presenting Rusty as a confused and even morally sympathetic Dalek.

That ability on Briggs' part to paint Rusty as relatable is what makes the third act climax, with Twelve confronting Rusty, resonate as well as it does. The audience hopes against hope that The Doctor succeeds in his mission to save this Dalek's "soul", not only because it'd prove The Doctor right but because of the specific attachment that they've formed to Rusty. And it's that attachment that gives the climax its punch, since The Doctor ends up both succeeding and failing - sure, he turns that Dalek to morality, but only by sharing with it the wells of hatred and rage against Daleks that he feels. "There must be more than that," Twelve begs, and it's in that moment that Dalek and Doctor are one and the same - dominated by their desire to destroy all the Daleks. It's a depressing end to the story, and only works as well as it does because the episode built the Doctor/Dalek relationship so heavily and placed it so central to the narrative being expressed.

The denouement merely strengthens an already dark episode - Rusty's line of "YOU ARE A GOOD DALEK." is obviously a callback to the most memorable line from "Dalek", but in this episode the context is completely different. In "Dalek", the point was that Nine would be an excellent Dalek. Here, the point is Rusty is trying to tell The Doctor that he's a Dalek, but moral. That natural dichotomy is absolutely emblematic of Twelve as a character- his confusion is rooted in how he can be both the personification of Ultimate Evil and Hatred and Genocide, but also be utterly just and righteous. Such conflicting aims makes an utterly conflicted character, and having Rusty characterize him as such a contradiction as a "good Dalek" speaks to that.

The ambiguity is further consolidated by the fact that, to the audience, Rusty's intention is clear, but to Twelve himself, Rusty could not be more opaque. As far as Twelve knows, Rusty could be saying that he's either a "good Dalek" or a "Dalek, but good". He doesn't know. Nobody knows.

Is the Doctor a good man? Ultimately, nobody knows - not even Clara, whose main responsibility is to be his moral rudder. But Clara says he's trying, and all he can do is continue to try, learning more about himself along the way. Now that we've finally gotten away from Matt Smith and egregious lesbianism, maybe we can start learning alongside him.

Grade: A

Random Thoughts:
  • Also, Missy shows up again. I like the little Missy interludes that occur once an episode - it helps that Michelle Gomez plays slightly schizophrenic very well, and that there's something clearly wrong about the Paradise that dead people get sent to. I'm normally pretty hit-or-miss on the serialized elements of a season of Who but the Missy stuff engrosses me.
  • I really, really liked the character of Danny Pink (Samuel Anderson) this episode. Like, a lot. A lot a lot. I haven't liked a character this strongly in their initial characterization since, like, Rory.
  • Part of why this episode worked as well as it did was due to the fact that Twelve is the first Doctor since Nine to be strongly defined as "war veteran". Ten and Eleven dealt with the Time War and their Time War actions in various ways - Ten by shouting and Eleven by lying - but outside of specific personality quirks they don't seem haunted by their decisions in the way that Nine or Twelve were and are. Twelve really does feel like a disaffected, PTSD-suffering war veteran (honestly, there was a strong underlying theme this episode of war veterans suffering PTSD in various ways) in a way that we haven't seen since the Eccleston year.
  • In that same vein, there was also a strong undercurrent of how soldiers are viewed, both by themselves and by others - Clara and Danny, The Doctor and Journey (Zawe Ashton). There's a sense that part of why Twelve is so unsure of who he is is because the specific actions that he took in the Time War ruining his character permanently - turning him into a monster worse than any Dalek. That flat rejection of Journey at "Into the Dalek"'s end could then be an externalization of his own self-hatred.
  • The great thing about Capaldi is that even if you don't like the episode that he's in, Twelve is such a tremendous, unbelievable, amazing oval office of a Doctor that he makes the episode hilarious just from the various one-liners he spews. Twelve is basically a "memorable scene" generator, character depth aside.
  • I have to admit, I actually fell for it. Although, in retrospect, the revelation that the Dalek was experiencing a malfunction that, once corrected, would reinstate its usual "EXTERMINATE" operating protocols was obviously where the episode was going, in the moment I actually believed that Rusty was somehow moral, which made his second-act betrayal something that caught me as by surprise as it did Twelve.
  • The Doctor: "I materialized the time capsule exactly around you and saved your life one second before your ship exploded. But do please keep crying." Journey (sobbing): "My brother just died!" The Doctor (dismissive): "His sister didn't. You're very welcome."
  • Clara: "Where the hell have you been?" The Doctor: "You sent me for coffee." Clara: "Three weeks ago. In Glasgow." The Doctor: "A few weeks? That's a long time." Clara: "In Glasgow? That's - dead in a ditch."
  • The Doctor: "This is Gun Girl, she's got a gun and she's a girl. This is her sort of boss man, are you the same one as before?" Colonel Blue (offended): "Yes." The Doctor: "I think he's probably her uncle, but I may have made that up to pass the time while we were talking. (to Colonel and Journey) This is Clara, not my...assistant. She's uh, some other word." Clara: "I'm his carer." The Doctor: "Yeah. My carer. She cares so I don't have to."
  • Clara: "Any remarks about my hips will not be appreciated." The Doctor: "Ah, your hips are fine, you're built like a man."
  • The Doctor: "The Dalek will be suggestible to new ideas. It will be open again. And I will show it something that will change its mind forever." Journey(skeptical): "What?" The Doctor: "Not a clue."

KOGAHAZAN!!
Apr 29, 2013

a miserable failure as a person

an incredible success as a magical murder spider

"I see... beauty... I see... DIVINTY... I see... HAAAAAATTTTRRRRRRRRED!"

Actually, the best line of the episode has to go to "Under attack? By a Dalek?!"

Bicyclops
Aug 27, 2004

Toxxupation posted:


  • I really, really liked the character of Danny Pink (Samuel Anderson) this episode. Like, a lot. A lot a lot. I haven't liked a character this strongly in their initial characterization since, like, Rory.

I really like Danny. Samuel Anderson also does a really good job of portraying everything about the character: his patience with some things, his quick frustration with others, the teacher, the veteran. Danny is good.

Gaz-L
Jan 28, 2009
^ I also really like Danny. Not every actor could pull off the damaged veteran thing AND still make the dorky romcom 'redo the scene in his head' bit work.

Toxxupation posted:

Doctor Who
"Into the Dalek"
Series 8, Episode 2

[...]

That ability on Briggs' part to paint Rusty as relatable is what makes the third act climax, with Twelve confronting Rusty, resonate as well as it does. The audience hopes against hope that The Doctor succeeds in his mission to save this Dalek's "soul", not only because it'd prove The Doctor right but because of the specific attachment that they've formed to Rusty. And it's that attachment that gives the climax its punch, since The Doctor ends up both succeeding and failing - sure, he turns that Dalek to morality, but only by sharing with it the wells of hatred and rage against Daleks that he feels. "There must be more than that," Twelve begs, and it's in that moment that Dalek and Doctor are one and the same - dominated by their desire to destroy all the Daleks. It's a depressing end to the story, and only works as well as it does because the episode built the Doctor/Dalek relationship so heavily and placed it so central to the narrative being expressed.

The denouement merely strengthens an already dark episode - Rusty's line of "YOU ARE A GOOD DALEK." is obviously a callback to the most memorable line from "Dalek", but in this episode the context is completely different. In "Dalek", the point was that Nine would be an excellent Dalek. Here, the point is Rusty is trying to tell The Doctor that he's a Dalek, but moral. That natural dichotomy is absolutely emblematic of Twelve as a character- his confusion is rooted in how he can be both the personification of Ultimate Evil and Hatred and Genocide, but also be utterly just and righteous. Such conflicting aims makes an utterly conflicted character, and having Rusty characterize him as such a contradiction as a "good Dalek" speaks to that.

Grade: A

Random Thoughts:[list]
[*] The Doctor: "I materialized the time capsule exactly around you and saved your life one second before your ship exploded. But do please keep crying." Journey (sobbing): "My brother just died!" The Doctor (dismissive): "His sister didn't. You're very welcome."



*That point of the Doctor begging the Dalek to see more is amazing, partly from the writing, where it's unclear if the Doctor just needs the Dalek to be able to grow, to prove himself wrong and Clara right, or if he's terrified that that's all it's seeing because that's all he is now. But mostly from Capaldi. For all that's made of how great he is at playing Twelve's taciturn, bitter, sarcastic side, and of course, he is... He's almost better at showing the Doctor underneath: The wounded man who snaps and keeps others at a distance because otherwise it'd hurt too much when he does what has to be done, like letting Private Expendable get vaporised.

*However, he's also able to use that shield to great effect even with lines that another Doctor would read very differently. Eight or Eleven would use that "His sister didn't" line to comfort Journey, in a "I'm sorry I couldn't save him, but he'd prefer it if you survived, right?" kinda way. Twelve either knows she's a soldier and that he dislikes that, or he knows enough to go through the motions but not enough to go the extra mile, or maybe he just doesn't care at all and it's not clear which yet.

Escobarbarian
Jun 18, 2004


Grimey Drawer
Good review. I agree, Twelve is awesome. And Danny is also real good. I wish I had remembered this episode better before I guessed at my rating, and also watched the actual finished episode when it aired.

also I told you he got it DoctorWhat :)

howe_sam
Mar 7, 2013

Creepy little garbage eaters

The thing that struck me when I rewatched Into The Dalek last week, was how cool the episode looked. I'm blanking on specifics, but there were a bunch of shots that did not look like a flat tv show.

CobiWann
Oct 21, 2009

Have fun!
:hf:

Great episode, one of my favorites.

As where two people I know called Into The Dalek "the worst episode of science fiction ever. Even worse than Threshold from Star Trek: Voyager."

CobiWann fucked around with this message at 19:52 on Jul 13, 2015

Escobarbarian
Jun 18, 2004


Grimey Drawer

howe_sam posted:

The thing that struck me when I rewatched Into The Dalek last week, was how cool the episode looked. I'm blanking on specifics, but there were a bunch of shots that did not look like a flat tv show.

Ben Wheatley again. Watch Kill List, y'all!

Bicyclops
Aug 27, 2004

CobiWann posted:

the worst episode of science fiction ever.

I've seen all of Doctor Who and all of Star Trek and I am willing to bet I still haven't seen this, and I hope that I never do.

Gaz-L
Jan 28, 2009
I also wager that the people that said that haven't actually watched Threshold.

Bicyclops
Aug 27, 2004

Threshold isn't even the worst episode of Voyager, probably, but it's the kind of show where it's hard to pick the worst episode, even when one of them is the weird lizard sex episode.

Gaz-L
Jan 28, 2009

Bicyclops posted:

Threshold isn't even the worst episode of Voyager, probably, but it's the kind of show where it's hard to pick the worst episode, even when one of them is the weird lizard sex episode.

Threshold is kind of the ur-example though. It has ALL of the poo poo that Voyager does wrong. Made-up science that doesn't even vaguely make sense. Banal scenes that are the TV version of elevator music. Budget saving tactics that make the show look cheaper than just doing the effects cheaply would manage. Plot holes big enough to drive a bus through.

Bicyclops
Aug 27, 2004

Gaz-L posted:

Threshold is kind of the ur-example though. It has ALL of the poo poo that Voyager does wrong. Made-up science that doesn't even vaguely make sense. Banal scenes that are the TV version of elevator music. Budget saving tactics that make the show look cheaper than just doing the effects cheaply would manage. Plot holes big enough to drive a bus through.

Plus its biggest offense: so much of it is so very obviously rejected Next Generation scripts where they did a find and replace for the names.

There's got to be something worse out there, though. The Twin Dilemma, probably.

DoctorWhat
Nov 18, 2011

A little privacy, please?

Bown posted:

also I told you he got it DoctorWhat :)

saves me the trouble

mind the walrus
Sep 22, 2006

CobiWann posted:

As where two people I know called Into The Dalek "the worst episode of science fiction ever. Even worse than Threshold from Star Trek: Voyager."

Wow. I really didn't like Into the Dalek on my first pass but there's no reason to go overboard.

That's for a different episode this season. :v:

I'm only half-joking.

Jerusalem
May 20, 2004

Would you be my new best friends?

I love the disastrously awkward flirting between Danny and Clara, it works really well.



Autonomous Monster posted:

Actually, the best line of the episode has to go to "Under attack? By a Dalek?!"

The delivery on that line is amazing :allears:

Issaries
Sep 15, 2008

"Negotiations were going well. They were very impressed by my hat." -Issaries the Concilliator"
I like how they made Daleks actually dangerous again.
The Doctor Might have stopped the small attack on the Medical Ship, but Future-humans are still threatened by the powerful Dalek Empire out there.

When the Dalek Story is about modern/past day earth, we know the Dalek threat is just temporary thing.
In the far future setting, they can as menacing as needed, without needing to remove their overall threat at the end.

Sinestro
Oct 31, 2010

The perfect day needs the perfect set of wheels.

mind the walrus posted:

Wow. I really didn't like Into the Dalek on my first pass but there's no reason to go overboard.

That's for a different episode this season. :v:

I'm only half-joking.

Yeah, there's an episode later this season that is my least favorite episode of Doctor Who, and possibly of all the sci-fi I've watched. Emancipation from SG-1 probably beats it, but it's pretty hard.

BSam
Nov 24, 2012

I liked the episode I assume you are talking about.

Rod Hoofhearted
Jun 18, 2000

I am a ghost




Sinestro posted:

Yeah, there's an episode later this season that is my least favorite episode of Doctor Who, and possibly of all the sci-fi I've watched. Emancipation from SG-1 probably beats it, but it's pretty hard.

If everyone's talking about the same episode, I hated it too, but I hated Rings of Akhaten way more. And Fear Her. And Love and Monsters.

SirSamVimes
Jul 21, 2008

~* Challenge *~



While the first bit with Danny frustrated me (we didn't need to see him shed a SINGLE MANLY TEAR to know that he was traumatised), this scene immediately redeemed the character.

idonotlikepeas
May 29, 2010

This reasoning is possible for forums user idonotlikepeas!
Into the Dalek

I liked this one, too, although honestly Dalek still ruined it for me a little. I credit Capaldi with a lot of it; many of the things he said could have sounded ridiculous, with only minor variations. Clara is good, too, though. That slap really was the moment I decided I wouldn't mind seeing a whole season with her as the companion.

A

Alkarl
Attitude Indicator
blasmeister
BSam
Colonel Cool
death .cab for qt
DetoxP
DoctorWhat
Gandalf21
Grouchio
Howe_sam
JoltSpree
Labratio
Ohtsam
onetruepurple
Organza Quiz
thexerox123


B

2house2fly
AndwhatIseeisme
Barometz
Bicyclops
cargohills
egon_beeblebrox
ewe2
fatherboxx
jng2058
Jsor
LabyaMynora
Lipset and Rock On
MikeJF
Mo0
Paul.Power
Rat Flavoured Rats
Senerio
Sinestro
Xenoborg


C

And More
Andrew_1985
Bown
Weird Sandwich


D

EXTERMINATE


F

EXTERMINATE


Overall Average Guess: B+. Overall, pretty good!

Current rankings:

Labratio: 0
Alkarl: 1
blasmeister: 1
Organza Quiz: 1
Attitude Indicator: 2
Colonel Cool: 2
death .cab for qt: 2
DetoxP: 2
DoctorWhat: 2
fatherboxx: 2
Gandalf21: 2
Howe_sam: 2
JoltSpree: 2
Lipset and Rock On: 2
Ohtsam: 2
onetruepurple: 2
Sinestro: 2
thexerox123: 2
2house2fly: 3
Andrew_1985: 3
AndwhatIseeisme: 3
Barometz: 3
BSam: 3
cargohills: 3
Grouchio: 3
jng2058: 3
Jsor: 3
LabyaMynora: 3
MikeJF: 3
Paul.Power: 3
Rat Flavoured Rats: 3
Senerio: 3
Weird Sandwich: 3
Xenoborg: 3
And More: 4
Bicyclops: 4
Bown: 4
egon_beeblebrox: 4
ewe2: 4
Mo0: 5

Labratio is off to a very good start with two dead on in a row. Mo0 is in last, but only because of missing the first episode - still plenty of time to come back from that, after all, we're only two in; it's still anyone's game for now.

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Sinestro
Oct 31, 2010

The perfect day needs the perfect set of wheels.
My caution is costing me. :ohdear:

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