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I figured it couldn't quite manage an A because of 1) Rose and 2) how ridiculous the Adipose were. I suspect this is the last time I'll be right this season.
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Oct 6, 2014 02:30
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howe_sam posted:And yet at the start of the episode she did everything the Doctor did, but without the psychic paper, or sonic screwdriver. Donna is the best Seriously. While I agree with the notion that Donna is stuck in a state of arrested development as she attempts to reconnect with the Doctor, she is actually proactively getting things done and accomplishing rather remarkable things even if for entirely the "wrong" reasons. This episode is actually pretty poor in my opinion, in terms of story and threat and resolution and soforth. But I still love it because the Doctor/Donna interactions are amazing, the chemistry that the two had in The Runaway Bride is still going strong. I also love that the journalist character is seemingly the perfect template for an idealized companion - inquisitive, asks intelligent questions, makes connections etc - and yet she basically falls apart the moment things get weird while Donna is just having the time of her life. Also it may have been cheap but I laughed so much at: Doctor: The last time, with Martha, like I said it... it got complicated. And that was all my fault. I just want a mate. Donna: You just want TO MATE???  Doctor: I just want a mate! Donna: You're not mating with me, sunshine!  Doctor: A mate, I want a mate! Donna: .... oh.... well.... just as well, because I'm not having any of that nonsense. I mean you're just a long streak of... nothing. You know, alien nothing. "I'm not having any of that nonsense." A-loving-men.
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Oct 6, 2014 02:36
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To be fair once you've travelled through time and seen the formation of the Earth and majesty of the cosmos, going to modern day Egypt etc is going to be a bit of a let down.
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Oct 6, 2014 02:45
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Random Stranger posted:I remember back when Donna was becoming the regular companion there were a lot of people not happy about it because they didn't like Catherine Tate. To be honest I haven't liked anything else Catherine Tate has done, including her work on the US Office, but gently caress if she did not kill it as Donna.
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Oct 6, 2014 02:46
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I was looking forward to this review for your reaction to the return of Best Companion Donna, but I was also morbidly curious how you'd react to Rose. Guess you just blocked it out?
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Oct 6, 2014 02:47
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Yeah, Donna is a great character. The Adipose thing is very silly, but you end up with a million adorable alien babies at the end so I can forgive it. Also I read somewhere that only the front ones were individually animated, the rest were all done with some AI thingamabob. That sort of thing always impresses me. Maybe it's just some completely mundane thing to people in the industry, but it just amazes me for some reason. Also also I want to see the Planet of the Hats.
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Oct 6, 2014 02:49
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Senor Tron posted:I was looking forward to this review for your reaction to the return of Best Companion Donna, but I was also morbidly curious how you'd react to Rose. Guess you just blocked it out? Toxxupation posted:But then I think about Martha saying the exact same thing in her first episode, or I see that ghost Rose is now a character in Series 4, or I think about the utter, utter wretchedness of "Voyage of the Damned", or I think about the fact that Donna herself as a Companion is Davies gravitating back to the safety of a Companion who worked over introducing a new one with his or her (almost definitely her) own motivations and personality, and I'm ultimately left wondering- Can people change?
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Oct 6, 2014 02:50
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This episode is obviously silly, but I think it maintains that tone well and has a lot of genuinely funny moments. Now that Occ mentions it I guess the adipose also fit into the overall theme, with people opting to take a dodgy miracle pill instead of changing their habits.
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Oct 6, 2014 02:51
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Hi, so now that Donna's in, I wanted to talk about something I wanted to mention after The Runaway Bride, which is that Tennant's & Tate's chemistry probably has a lot to do with the fact that they're good friends off-screen too. I think that the Catherine Tate Show video hinted at this, but here's an awesome BBC radio thing of Tate interviewing Tennant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBXB49zublM I don't have any clue if that contains spoilers, so please occ don't watch it until the end of the season or something if you're interested? Or I guess someone else could watch it & say whether it has any.
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Oct 6, 2014 02:52
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Doctor Who "Partners in Crime" Series 4, Episode 1 Guess who's back? A NEW COMPANION APPROACHES: DONNA NOBLE I said in my review for "The Runaway Bride" that Donna Noble was so loved by the fandom because she was a brisk, no-nonsense, and most importantly, one-off character who provided a refreshing change of pace and attitude after a double-season overdose of Vitamin Rose. As everyone except Occupation knew, that was the carefully constructed facade of a house of lies built upon a foundation of deceit in the heart of the Chicanery District. Donna is Season 4's primary Companion, and like Martha before her, also represents the season as a whole in several ways. At the time of "The Runaway Bride," Donna really was intended to be a one-off, and it shows here in several places. Donna's sudden about-face from her initial attitude towards the Doctor is a little jarring despite the convincing justification for her change in attitude, and even that justification raises several depressing implications about the fate of people who spent any length of time with the Doctor - that after seeing the universe with a gangly space-dork, everyday life feels hollow and grey in comparison no matter how much you try to punch it up. In addition, Howard Attfield, the actor for Donna's father, passed away shortly before the airing of "Partners In Crime," and his role was hastily cut-and-swapped a different character entirely. Fortunately for the audience, that character turned out to be Wilfred "Wilf" Mott, played by Bernard Cribbins (and referred to by Occ and I as "old man yells at cloud" for our entire viewing of this episode), who expands his original bit part with a patient, slightly desperate concern for Donna's well-being. Wilf's new role also papers yet another layer of bizarre almost-met coincidence between the Doctor and Donna, which can be a positive or a negative depending on your tolerance for schtick. The first fifteen minutes of "Partners in Crime" are a somewhat wearying parade of gags that wouldn't have looked out of place in a Warner Bros. cartoon, though there's still some interesting information to be gleaned from the routine (not even mentioning that amazing charades payoff). In her infiltration of Adipose, Donna not only matches the Doctor step-for-step, but even surpasses him in several respects; lacking the Doctor's psychic, sonic, or personal TARDIS weirdness detector, she strides right through the front door with an expired ID card she acquired especially for the occasion and then parks herself in the audience, while the Doctor skulks around the back doors and maintenance halls, sonic'ing everything he can find. Her subsequent scene with the hapless Stacey Campbell shows that Donna still hasn't lost her sympathetic core, and the scene after that, with her mother Sylvia (who resembles Jackie's evil twin in some respects; Sylvia is the same excruciatingly mundane busybody Jackie was, but she's legitimately emotionally abusive instead of just shrill) takes all that competence and sends it crashing down to earth, emphasizing that Donna's infiltration skills are being wasted on a search for a man who can literally exist anywhere in four dimensions. And yet, for all her wistful determination, Donna only wastes a few hilarious minutes with a joyful reunion when she and the Doctor finally converge. Once that's over with, she's back to what she was like in "The Runaway Bride" - unstoppably forward, level-headed if somewhat incredulous at the nonsense that always follows in the Doctor's wake, and faintly contemptuous of the Doctor himself, despite her earlier conversation with Wilf about how amazing he was. She'll happily go along with his plans and impromptu comedy bits (as when they remarked on the lovely sleekness of Foster's pen), but she cuts him off at the knees whenever he seems to be getting full of himself ("[Martha] fancied me," the Doctor says. "Mad Martha, that one," Donna replies, not unkindly. "Blind Martha. Charity Martha"). First impressions mean a lot when it comes to Companions. Rose and Martha were introduced to the Doctor as a whirlwind force of otherworldly charisma spiced to taste with dorky, childish good humor; a mad man with a wooden time machine who took them on adventures after, only after, they had proved themselves good enough to travel with him. With Donna, that power dynamic was reversed in "The Runaway Bride." She'd popped into the TARDIS through no merit, or fault, of her own, and the Doctor was this jabbering twit in ratty sneakers who literally put her under a microscope and later committed genocide with the Thames River without batting an eye. Donna is still impressed, respectful, in awe of the Doctor - how could she not be, he's brilliant - but that first encounter is always there beneath the surface, and she's ever-ready to give the Doctor a good sharp yank on his ankle to drag him down to earth if his ego or hubris gets the better of him. And no, she does not want to jump his bones. The Doctor's bones lie neglected. Those bones are in a pile in the middle of the sidewalk while Donna crosses over to the other side of the street. "You're not matin' with me, sunshine," Donna says, aghast, at the mere mention of it. "You're just a long streak of nothing. Alien...nothing!" Donna blipped into the Doctor's life about thirty seconds before getting married herself, and that would put a bit of a crimp in any amorous advances even if the Doctor weren't such a bipolar spaz. It's the adventure Donna cares about, and it's for the adventure that she all but drags the Doctor into his own spaceship - but not before taking a moment to say goodbye to Wilf, which is one more departure from Rose and Martha, who neglected their families and paid for it. I said in my last writeup that Season 4 in many ways feels like a last-ditch attempt by Davies to fix his most egregious faults, and if you're going to throw a Hail Mary like that in your last stretch, a character like Donna is a godsend. The lack of any romantic subtext between her and the Doctor seems like it was a key factor in bringing her back - and isn't that kind of pathetic in its own way, that Davies is so bad at keeping his lovey-dovey peccadilloes in check that he needs to rifle through his old character roster to find one who doesn't allow for it - but Donna's maturity, competence, and borderline-exasperation with the Doctor is also a welcome departure. As Occ put it in his "Runaway Bride" review, Donna is a woman, not a girl, and brings a little maturity to match even when her episode deals with adorable fat-babies and the main antagonist meeting her demise in a way that would make Wile E. Coyote sue. Maybe with her around, we can finally advance this series a bit and get away from Rose- oh gently caress me she's standing right there. Occ barely mentioned the Rose cameo in "Partners in Crime," possibly because he wanted to believe it was a hallucination, but no, Billie Piper did indeed strut back on-camera, as though during all of his pining for her in Season 3 the Doctor accidentally wished upon a star and dragged her blonde butt back into our lives. However, even then, Rose's appearance feels like a departure from Season 3. The Doctor's constant yearning for her then was sincerely (and insufferably) portrayed as sympathetic and emotional, but when Rose about-faces into the camera here, the tone of the episode immediately darkens. The music shifts to a low, menacing bass-beat, Piper's expression is thoughtful and faintly bemused, and most importantly, she makes no effort to inquire or seek out the Doctor despite being less than a block away - all of this adds up to an unsettling picture even before she turns around and walks out of creation. It took two universes nearly collapsing together just to make Rose go the gently caress away for a little while; what the hell is happening to make her come back? So here comes Season 4, the Year of Donna, Davies' final grasp for something that a sixth-grader wouldn't find a little juvenile. Donna is more than enough to keep the Doctor's more irritating excesses in check, but whether she's enough for Davies himself remains to be seen - because the shadow of Rose looms, and whenever that girl appears it's rarely for the better. Let's see how these characters, and this showrunner, fare as the time of Ten draws to a close. Oxxidation fucked around with this message at 03:03 on Oct 6, 2014 |
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Oct 6, 2014 02:59
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The thing that always got me about the adipose is that theres no real menace there. The host only dies if they get really stressed out. It's basically a win/win proposition. You lose a shitload of weight and cuddlesome toyetic-as-gently caress babies appear. It's basically the best possible circumstances for first-contact as far as the bloated, doughy middle class is concerned. Also Donna Noble is the motherfucking best. She comes correct and she does not gently caress around. She's the best companion of the revival and probably the best TV companion since Romana 1. Anyone who disagrees is just plain loving wrong.
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Oct 6, 2014 03:26
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Republican Vampire posted:Also Donna Noble is the motherfucking best. She comes correct and she does not gently caress around. She's the best companion of the revival and probably the best TV companion since Romana 1. Anyone who disagrees is just plain loving wrong. Well, Ace...
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Oct 6, 2014 03:28
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Republican Vampire posted:The thing that always got me about the adipose is that theres no real menace there. The host only dies if they get really stressed out. It's basically a win/win proposition. You lose a shitload of weight and cuddlesome toyetic-as-gently caress babies appear. It's basically the best possible circumstances for first-contact as far as the bloated, doughy middle class is concerned. Even the Doctor admits they'd be totally harmless if it weren't for Space Poppins' decision to crank their production up to 11 and explode everyone for the sake of getting a few more babies out of them.
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Oct 6, 2014 03:30
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Space Poppins would make a great band name.
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Oct 6, 2014 03:36
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Oxxidation posted:Even the Doctor admits they'd be totally harmless if it weren't for Space Poppins' decision to crank their production up to 11 and explode everyone for the sake of getting a few more babies out of them. Doesn't he also get cranky about the Shadow Proclamation? But yeah. There's no real reason it should've escalated. I mean if I could drop twenty pounds and have a cute li'l pilsbury dough boy to watch until pickup time I'd totally do it. DoctorWhat posted:Well, Ace... Ace is pretty cool, but Donna is just like... She's like Teagan but physically substantial enough to stand up to the Doctor.
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Oct 6, 2014 03:39
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30.5 Days posted:Hi, so now that Donna's in, I wanted to talk about something I wanted to mention after The Runaway Bride, which is that Tennant's & Tate's chemistry probably has a lot to do with the fact that they're good friends off-screen too. I think that the Catherine Tate Show video hinted at this, but here's an awesome BBC radio thing of Tate interviewing Tennant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBXB49zublM I listened to it. There's no spoilers at all. Indeed, since they don't mention Tate being on the show, it's probably from during Season Two. I recommend it for general acting geekery, with relatively little Doctor Who stuff, maybe five minutes out of thirty? What I did get from the interview was an appreciation for how talented a voice actress Catherine Tate is. She switches instantly and without pause in the middle of conversations in and out of completely different voices. It's amazing. It's also pretty funny. I'd recommend it to anyone in this thread as a fun listen.
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Oct 6, 2014 04:30
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Yeah the Tate/Tennant pairing is super strong both on and off the show, and if they're working together I'll always at least give it a look.
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Oct 6, 2014 04:39
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Best Tennant series here we loving god. Donna for best NuWho companion. Are we allowed to say what our prediction for an ep was once its aired?
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Oct 6, 2014 04:55
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poo poo, I forgot to send in my guesses. I would've been wrong about this one anyway, so  I'm so glad the surprise wasn't spoiled for you, Occ. You're in for a treat. I never have watched Voyage, though. One of the reasons I love his thread is that Occ and I were both introduced to the show through persistent nagging from a good friend, but mine was kind enough to let me skip Love and Monsters and Voyage of the Damned. Otherwise it's super fun reading the reactions of someone learning all this stuff, brings back memories~ e: Seriously though let the man skip the garbage
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Oct 6, 2014 05:03
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Mo0 posted:e: Seriously though let the man skip the garbage
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Oct 6, 2014 05:12
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DoctorWhat posted:Well, Ace... Really? But her catch phrase is her own name. I just find that unacceptable.
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Oct 6, 2014 05:13
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Mo0 posted:e: Seriously though let the man skip the garbage Hahahahaha
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Oct 6, 2014 05:15
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Random Stranger posted:I remember back when Donna was becoming the regular companion there were a lot of people not happy about it because they didn't like Catherine Tate. kant posted:Really? But her catch phrase is her own name. I just find that unacceptable.
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Oct 6, 2014 05:29
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kant posted:Really? But her catch phrase is her own name. I just find that unacceptable. "Would anyone like Tea again?" "Stop it Tegan!" Yeah, companions probably shouldn't do that.
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Oct 6, 2014 05:58
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Mo0 posted:e: Seriously though let the man skip the garbage No two people can agree which episodes are garbage and which aren't though! Case in point, over in the general discussion thread there's been a discussion going back and forth over whether the latest episode of the 8th season of the show is one of the greatest the show has ever done or the absolute worst.
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Oct 6, 2014 06:02
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kant posted:Really? But her catch phrase is her own name. I just find that unacceptable. She beat up a dalek with a baseball bat and flirted with commies in WW2, she's earned "Ace" and she kicks rear end 
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Oct 6, 2014 06:37
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Tiggum posted:I really can't understand how anyone can like Catherine Tate. Donna's far from the worst character in this show, but I just can't stand her. I don't think I liked any episode she's in. I really didn't like Donna in The Runaway Bride, but they toned down a lot of the original Catherine Tate Show irritating over-the-top farcical aspects of the character as of Partners in Crime and I really liked her there.
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Oct 6, 2014 06:40
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Tate has incredible comedic timing and a remarkable emotional range. There are moments to come where by any dramatic metric she thoroughly out-acts Tennant.
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Oct 6, 2014 06:42
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DoctorWhat posted:She beat up a dalek with a baseball bat and flirted with commies in WW2, she's earned "Ace" and she kicks rear end Ace is great, but Donna is better v  vThat's just my opinion of course, but pretty much only Sarah-Jane and Jamie beat Donna in terms of my favorite companions.
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Oct 6, 2014 06:54
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Toxxupation posted:So it, fundamentally, reveals the mirage that's the audience belief that Rose and Martha are off doing great and having become better people in the process of hanging out with The Doctor for what it is- a mirage. They're certainly better endings than a lot of the old Who companions got. Peri got either killed/married to Brian Blessed, Sarah Jane got abandoned in the wrong country because the Doctor told her that humans weren't allowed on Gallifrey*, Adric died, and perhaps worst of all** Jamie got his memory erased, left unable to remember most of his adventures in time and space. Davies might not care about his one-off characters at all, but at least he treats ex-companions better than that. *a blatant lie, his very next companion was a human who eventually married a Time Lord and settled down on Gallifrey. **Ok, technically this isn't worse than death, it's just a personal thing. The idea of losing parts of my memory, of losing some of the experiences which define 'me' really bothers me.
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Oct 6, 2014 06:55
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I dunno, I think Martha's exit was pretty hosed up. A year of her entire family being enslaved by the Master, horribly traumatised. And she herself spent more time roaming master-enslaved Earth than she did travelling with The Doctor, probably.g0del posted:and perhaps worst of all** Jamie got his memory erased, left unable to remember most of his adventures in time and space. At least it was implied that it stayed with him on some level; that he got to keep the character growth and confidence he experienced even if he didn't retain the specific memories that lead to it. MikeJF fucked around with this message at 07:08 on Oct 6, 2014 |
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Oct 6, 2014 07:02
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MikeJF posted:I dunno, I think Martha's exit was pretty hosed up. A year of her entire family being enslaved by the Master, horribly traumatised. And she herself spent more time roaming master-enslaved Earth than she did travelling with The Doctor, probably.
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Oct 6, 2014 07:07
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g0del posted:Didn't they reset button that? It's been awhile since I've seen that episode and I don't have a burning desire to watch it again just to check. Even so, it's still better than crashing into prehistoric earth or getting mind-wiped. Earth got reset but anyone on the Valiant, including Martha and her family, didn't get reset. (Except for her brother Leo, who will presumably spend the rest of his life wondering why his sisters and parents all suddenly got totally hosed up overnight)
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Oct 6, 2014 07:09
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Toxxupation posted:Can people change? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yADrtfAmLTo People can change, ehh? I wouldn't be so sure~  Anyways what did you think of the Rose cameo? Grouchio fucked around with this message at 08:12 on Oct 6, 2014 |
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Oct 6, 2014 08:08
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Noble Effort! Would watch again! And Again!:       
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Oct 6, 2014 08:43
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Good morning thread! Episode 1 The Result is in so lets look at how everyone did. This episode's guesses were relatively focused, with everyone expecting at least vaguely positive reviews, we had a fairly close spread to open things out. A BSam Soothing Vapors adhuin Ohtsam Jsor Random Stranger Fucknag Xenoborg FreezingInferno One Swell Foop B Zaggitz NeuroticLich Adder Moray M_Gargantua jng2058 Senerio idonotlikepeas Andwhatiseeisme Regy Rusty thexerox123 Rarity C legoman727 Sighence Go RV! Overmayor Evil Sagan Weird Sandwich Which puts the scores after one episode at: Zaggitz -0 NeuroticLich -0 Adder Moray -0 M_Gargantua -0 jng2058 -0 Senerio -0 idonotlikepeas -0 Andwhatiseeisme -0 Regy Rusty -0 thexerox123 -0 Rarity -0 BSam -1 Soothing Vapors -1 adhuin -1 Ohtsam -1 Jsor -1 Random Stranger -1 Fucknag -1 Xenoborg -1 FreezingInferno -1 One Swell Foop -1 legoman727 -1 Sighence -1 Go RV! -1 Overmayor -1 Evil Sagan -1 Weird Sandwich -1
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Oct 6, 2014 08:47
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Aw yiss, top of the list. 
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Oct 6, 2014 09:09
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g0del posted:and perhaps worst of all** Jamie got his memory erased, left unable to remember most of his adventures in time and space.
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Oct 6, 2014 09:11
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g0del posted:They're certainly better endings than a lot of the old Who companions got. Peri got either killed/married to Brian Blessed, Sarah Jane got abandoned in the wrong country because the Doctor told her that humans weren't allowed on Gallifrey*, Adric died, and perhaps worst of all** Jamie got his memory erased, left unable to remember most of his adventures in time and space. Davies might not care about his one-off characters at all, but at least he treats ex-companions better than that. Hey, Zoe got her mind wiped too! How can you forget the third part of the Best Team TARDIS?* *I say this having only watched The Invasion with them in it. Packer! Tiggum posted:Didn't he get his memories back though? He's in The Two Doctors, which is somehow set between The War Games and Spearhead from Space. I guess Zoe may have lost her memories permanently though. That was Series 6B, which is a whole different kettle of fish. Not sure why they picked up Victoria (who I believe left the TARDIS of her own volition) instead of Zoe as the companion they chose to name-drop who was away in that episode.
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Oct 6, 2014 09:24
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Tiggum posted:Didn't he get his memories back though? He's in The Two Doctors, which is somehow set between The War Games and Spearhead from Space. I guess Zoe may have lost her memories permanently though. The fan idea is that the Doctor and Jamie had more adventures before they were sent to Earth by the Time Lords, not that they changed the Doctor's appearance back and reverted Jamie's memories for one story. Random Stranger posted:and then the lack of anything really wrong with it. Hmmm kant posted:Really? But her catch phrase is her own name. I just find that unacceptable. Her catchphrase is Dorothy? Random Stranger posted:Best companion is obviously K9. How many other companions have had two spin-offs? Sarah Jane
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Oct 6, 2014 09:30
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