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I have been absolutely loving the reviews! They're the most entertaining thing I've read in a while plus lots of excellent Who-nerding in the rest of the thread. Reading Occ's review of The Christmas Invasion after the earlier ones, I felt a sense of personal victory I would not have expected. Somebody going into the series with a complete disinterest in it enjoys Dr Who for exactly the same reasons as me.  I have a lot of friends who have never seen an episode and who I think would actually really get a kick out of it for similar reasons, but have refused to watch it because of whatever. I'm curious, out of the episodes you've seen, what would you recommend as the best episode to introduce somebody to the show? -- Also, all the gay agenda thing is dumb. Doctor Who is not really a subtle show except when it's pulling a twist on you and trying to trick you. I've never noticed any heavy-handedness on the sexuality that's more heavyhanded than anything else in the show. The "Oh no homophobia is presented as existing in the future, that's bad about this episode!" Is dumb. "People still have dumb hate/fear/cruelty in the future" is basically a key component of writing compelling characters in the future. I think the guy posting that might have been the one talking about being gay earlier in the thread though, in which case yeah, it's not pleasant to think about a way people are unreasonably terrible that effects you still being around in the future. Dr Who is all about the doctor coming in and slapping around the dumb bigots anyway though, and unlike being able to just throw an alien race in as a substitute for whatever race is being racist about, it's much more difficult to find a substitute for sexual discrimination that the people being represented won't find offensive. E: Also please change Toxxupation's name to Toxxidation for maximum confusion.
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Sep 15, 2014 17:23
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Regy Rusty posted:But seriously RIP in peace Face of Boe, my second favorite Doctor Who alien. Also love me some Boe, so Gridlock always hits me.
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Sep 15, 2014 17:29
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thexerox123 posted:It could be worse, just look at the main thread right now. I made this mistake yesterday, and now I feel less comfortable telling people I like Doctor Who. Thanks, terrible fandom.
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Sep 16, 2014 17:38
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DoctorWhat posted:I did not expect something so positive! Fan opinion on this one trends towards the decidedly mediocre. As somebody who's watched and loved the new Who series, but completely stayed away from the fans in all shapes and forms until this thread, this type of information is really interesting to me because this is one of the episodes I consider in the top tier of new Who. Is there a general consensus as to why it's mediocre?
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Sep 20, 2014 15:41
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Super jazzed about this livewatch  Oxxidation posted:I kinda liked Cassandra, m'self I actually re-watched the second cassandra episode like two days before the review of it in this thread completely accidentally, and totally disagreed with Occ's view of her as unsympathetic. I found her absolute narcissm to be super tragic. The most important thing to her to do before she dies is travel back in time to give her younger self a sincere compliment on her beauty while she's surrounded by a bunch of fawning yes-men and women, because the only thing she's ever really cared about is having other people think she's beautiful, and literally the only person who cares when she dies is herself. The doctor and rose just stare on impassively and then peace out, and the doctor mourns people way worse than her. Also that action figure of Cassandra is in my top 5 most hilarious things I've seen.
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Sep 27, 2014 01:49
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Irony Be My Shield posted:He privileges the only other member of the same species that exists in the entire universe (and possibly his last chance to not be alone), sure. I don't think that's overly strange, a situation as extreme as that is going to massively manipulate your emotions. I really don't get the people who think it's not in line with the doctor's character. Of course the doctor forgives the master. He's the only other time lord in existence. I mean, not that it's ever been hinted that the doctor might get lonely or anything.... Same thing with the homo-eroticism argument. Sure they act close, but it always seemed way more like a brotherly relationship. They grew up together and even though they disagree entirely on just about everything, they can't get rid of the connection, and underneath it all they love one another, and matter more than people outside their family do. The tone of Their fights always seemed more like brotherly fights than romantic tiff or whatnot too. 
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Oct 2, 2014 22:47
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So is the official new update schedule friday/Monday, or am I misremembering? RodShaft posted:One of my favorite games is to Google translate phrases back and forth until they no longer make sense. I like that game a lot too, but in this case it doesn't work so well because it's just as valid a phrase in english as the referenced "god from the machine", we just all know the context for god from the machine, and have no context for that phrase. "As I realized RTD let that get past editing, tears poured down my face like blue from the ark of God."
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Oct 9, 2014 22:24
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Bicyclops posted:
The difference is that this thread has a schedule now, so there's only like a 50/50 chance of opening it up to people making GBS threads themselves in rage about how wrong somebody's opinion is!  I also actually disagree that they're the same. I read this thread from the start and it took until close to season 3 for the thread to really ramp into people slapfighting over things. Most of the posts were excited discussions of Oxx's opinions and thoughts, and people's own thoughts/critiques of the episode. It's only as he's settled into it and the reviews have been comparing Doctor who to previous Doctor Who rather than other series that the side conversation has turned away from his reviews and into the weird little hate-filled circlejerk or whatever it is you guys like about the other threads. I tried to read the main thread twice and just gave up, because both times there were people getting way too mad about other people disagreeing with them. I'd rather enjoy Who and not have a place I can discuss it than get all twisted up over it. I'm loving classic who by the way, about to start in on season 2. 
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Oct 21, 2014 23:25
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that people still believe any of the three Doctor Who threads on this forum aren't almost exactly the loving same and that the one they post in is somehow superior to the other. It's mostly the same posters in all of them with exactly the same discussions. Toxx's reviews honestly read like most of the ones in the main thread except that they're normally longer. None of the threads even have an overwhelming consensus on things. You get a bit more Big Finish in the main thread, a bit more hatred for the current season in the spoiler thread, and a few more people pretending really hard not to like Doctor Who in this thread, that's really about it.
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Soothing Vapors posted:Actually you raise a fair point, I have not yet fallen so far that I can stomach the hilarious production values of old Who. There is still hope I grew up on a steady diet of mst3k, godzilla, and the old 60s black and white Addams family sitcom. Taking the plunge into classic Who was like striking gold for me. It just keeps going... and going... and going...
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Oct 30, 2014 22:35
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Nov 5, 2014 23:24
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Doctor Spaceman posted:Cool, AI was pretty interesting and I liked it. Trigger warning that! 
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Nov 8, 2014 21:05
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MikeJF posted:Just because something is sad does not excuse it from having to be narratively satisfying. So you're saying it's badly written because of the fact that... you didn't like it? As a response to somebody pointing out that the writer's goal (It's sad what's happening to donna, feel sad about it) seemed to have been pretty much exactly achieved?
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Nov 13, 2014 22:53
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Tempo 119 posted:No, that's definitely not what anybody's saying. Cool, thanks MikeJF. I'm glad you could clear up your point for me. I mean, can you imagine if somebody had jumped in to put words in your mouth instead of letting you respond and actually clarify what you were saying with that statement?  "Narratively Satisfying" can range from being a complete bullshit phrase meaning "I didn't like it", to being intended as all hyper-academic-look-at-us-critique-this-art (It's still a bullshit phrase though  ). MikeJF responded to a post which basically said "A lot of people seem to miss that this was intended to be sad" which was in response to a lot of people saying it was a bad ending because it was so unfair what happened to Donna. In MikeJF's response, he said that being sad doesn't mean it doesn't have to be narratively satisfying. In the context of the post he was responding to and the ones *that* post was responding to, it seemed like he might imply that the original people complaining were right instead of the person defending the story/writing was right, and that it's bad because it's unfair what happens to Donna. I totally disagree with that point, and if in fact MikeJF was saying "They're right, and it's a lovely ending by virtue of being sad", I think that is a dumb thing to say. If it is not what he meant, I would be interested in hearing what he actually meant.Which is why I asked him, and not you.
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Nov 14, 2014 17:04
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MrL_JaKiri posted:If only there was a bit of commentary on this above the post you did your really needlessly condescending reply to, wouldn't that be something ya jackass  Tempo 119 posted:The answer to "So What You're Saying Is...? I'm a snarky guy, and I think saying "narratively satisfying" is generally a way to say "I didn't like it" but sound more credible and avoid having to give specific reasons, which certainly is why I took the tone I did. I was actually looking for clarification as to what MikeJF meant though, and was hoping he would write some (probably with responsive levels of snark) post explaining in more detail either the reasons he didn't like it, or clarifying that he meant something other than what I thought by narratively satisfying. Also in support of 1-2-2 although it looks like it's already set that way.
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Nov 14, 2014 20:23
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" is always the same. I was just trying to save time (like my hero Doctor Who).
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Grouchio posted:Gimme a high five. Homestuck is internet Game of Thrones. In that its fans don't know how to not oversell it. EXACTLY!
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Nov 19, 2014 23:32
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Burkion posted:And here's another thing  Also sometimes stories people consider full of "Padding" are actually full of "Pacing". Taking time to more slowly develop elements of a story and develop tension is cool sometimes too, guys.
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Dec 5, 2014 23:42
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EvilTobaccoExec posted:Actually don't like Terminator 2 that much either. Cameron goin' on expanding things that work better on their own again. Sorry, T2 is actually the best Terminator movie
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Dec 6, 2014 16:41
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Arsenic Lupin posted:
Except that he didn't really change the tone of the writing or anything, it was the shift from Eccleston's "serious mode" doctor, to Tennants "serious mode" doctor that made the biggest difference (in my opinion). The story actually follows very similar tones in terms of the writing, it's just that the difference in performance results in a totally different scene while going for similar things. To me I think the big reason I like 10 more than 9 comes down to Eccleston's doctor is awesome in an already established doctor who universe. If that season had come out now? I'd be super about *why* this doctor was like this. As an introduction without an established universe with history I know about, I didn't give a flying gently caress about the doctors past or pain or whatever, and while it was technically explained, the doctor's tragicness/the time war wasn't really *gone into* in a way that made me feel like it explained his actions until probably around the first Master episode in Tennants' run. E: Oh hey Practical Demon, guess we're "season 2 didn't change the tone that much" buddies. surc fucked around with this message at 22:55 on Dec 18, 2014 |
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Dec 18, 2014 22:51
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MrL_JaKiri posted:... so when it came to Doctor Who he probably decided that - in subsequent series, this is less true for series 1 which is probably connected to Oxx's dislike - he would just throw absolutely everything at it in every episode. Comedy, drama, science fiction, soap, everything. That's actually really interesting, and shines a totally different light on all of the problems in S1. I am just going to go ahead and take that as the truth, because it will make re-watching S1 way more interesting!
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Dec 18, 2014 22:57
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Jerusalem posted:...his marriage to Martha (which comes absolutely out of nowhere) is just a waste, and makes me think that the character arc he had happened more by coincidence than design. I keep trying to give them the benefit of the doubt on this scene, but I just can't do it. On the one hand, I assume they were trying to cram all the Tennant side-characters they could into the end, and so sure throw mickey into whatever of the shots you can, and make up some reason for him to be there. On the other hand, it makes no loving sense whatsoever for them to be together (Pretty sure they've never even met before on camera? ), and no matter what the intent of the scene may or may not have been, having the two black characters on the show with basically nothing else in common and no chemistry end up married is pretty loving racist. Daviessssssssssssss! 
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Dec 19, 2014 00:36
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DoctorWhat posted:The intent of the scene was to make one last "Smith and Jones" joke. Sadly still overpowered by race, but at least the goal was noble 
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Dec 19, 2014 01:14
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Soothing Vapors posted:Yeah, I feel like that scene gets too much attention for what it is. For all its thousands of failings, this is a show that is pretty progressive about interracial exchanges of bodily slopfluids, they weren't just slapping the two black characters together because RTD secretly thinks that is the natural order This is actually a key point to clarify, because so many people either don't get it, or just hand-wave it away as being overly-pc. You can create something that contributes to racism without intending for it to be racist. White people often get super obsessed over not being called racist, and as a result are basically unwilling to look at the ways that things we just view as "normal" or "not a big deal" contribute to the institutionalized racism we live in, in gigantic ways. It's an especially huge problem with the media-heavy way society is now, because media travels so far so fast, and people create whole personas based on the media they consume. Please do not lose sight of the importance of this in a rush to defend a show you like against being criticized, or fall into a "well it doesn't seem racist to me, so it's not racist!" way of thinking. 
surc fucked around with this message at 23:07 on Dec 19, 2014 |
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Dec 19, 2014 23:04
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Irony Be My Shield posted:It was just RTD clumsily throwing together the only two ex-"companions" who were still on present-day earth and not memory-wiped (this is a pretty big thing they have in common btw). I think reading some kind of anti-miscegeny message into it is absurd when Donna was shown marrying a black person in the same episode. This is the line I'm trying to dice, and a lot of it has to do with colorblindness by individuals not actually changing the imbalance in the way our society is structured (which is pretty racistly), and in fact how it can lead to resentment about things like Affirmative Action in the U.S. due to a lack of understanding of how uneven our society actually is. Republican Vampire's post is kind of what I'm getting at. Because RTD so clearly is *going* for one thing, when you see something where it's thrown in, and it clashes with the overall message he's going for, and it seems to basically come down to thoughtlessness on his part, it's really frustrating. Both because he's so clearly trying and here's a glaring problem with his attempt, and because it reflects the kind of thoughtlessness that typifies "new" racism to me. Republican Vampire posted:This is the central issue with Rusty's run on the show in my opinion. He had a very distinct political agenda going and it was a laudable one because he made a point of having more women, people of colour, and queer characters who actually had agency and personality. But sometimes he shat the bed in ways that are weirdly off-putting if you pay attention because he was more interested in these big broad strokes or funny in-jokes than in actually following through on that agenda. I also feel like it's an issue of creator intention vs audience interpretation. Things Rusty might go "Ah, this is a tip of the hat to the X community!" will in fact also send some type of message to the rest of the audience. The biggest example of this type of problem in media that comes to mind is Chappelle's Show, where Dave Chappelle was making jokes that went from being a sharp parody of racism in america into a bunch of white guys quoting that "parody" racism in every day life to the point where it basically was expanding the very thing he was trying to criticize across the country. Anecdotally, I also met a guy from Europe while travelling who would sing Cartman's "Mexican" song loudly throughout the day, and find it hilarious, thinking that the humor was in the making fun of the mexicans instead of the humor being how horrible a person Cartman is. You have to be very conscious when you start getting near issues of race/gender/sexuality, because what you're trying to say and what people hear might be wildly different. I mean, I still love that ending because I'm all about the high emotion and the doctor going around to see all his pals one last time and do them all a solid, it's just that every time the line about "well you shouldn't have married me!" or whatever makes me wince. (To be fair, I'd probably wince even if I didn't see it as having a racial undertone, because wtf why are you marrying two random companions that have never met, offscreen, right before they go away forever?)
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Dec 20, 2014 03:52
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Oxxidation posted:Martha and Mickey hooked up in the conclusion of Journey's End, and it was suggested that Jack was going to bring them both into the Torchwood unit. It's a thirty-second scene, but there you go. You are completely right, and I had totally forgotten that happened. I still think the underlying issue exists in RTD's run on Doctor Who, and is generally important to keep in mind when watching things, but you have now preserved the end of Tennant as the doctor for me, thanks!
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Dec 20, 2014 04:58
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Gonna be smug as hell when I win by a landslide, FYI.
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Dec 22, 2014 23:19
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Stormgale, as the starter of this event in the thread, you knead to stop these half-baked puns before they enter into completely naan-amusing territory. Each one is like a needle jabbing into a different pita my heart. 
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Dec 24, 2014 17:58
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Stormgale posted:I honestly just really like lovely puns, it's the yeast I could do. I imagine the life of a bread punner. Loafing around all day all crusty, never leavening the house. Dollar bills all sitting in your sweaty pockets so that when you go to the store they won't accept your sour dough. Disgusting.
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Dec 25, 2014 06:50
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marktheando posted:She's really bad. And very stupid as well, as you will see if you ever see her being interviewed out of character. You're ugly and you smell terrible.
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Jan 2, 2015 21:22
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 Genre Discussion and this episode getting an A. Worst thread-reading ever. surc fucked around with this message at 22:18 on Jan 7, 2015 |
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Jan 7, 2015 22:13
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Tiggum posted:Astonished is the wrong word, but yeah, the TARDIS makes sense in the context of the show and the phone doesn't.  "Oh yes, we built a way to travel through space and time at will, but nope, we can't transmit voice through it." Do carphones blow your mind? (I mean, if that's your thoughts on the show, power to you, but you're talking as though these are objective impossibilities in the universe of doctor who and everybody else is dumb for not getting it, which is kind of an insane concept on its own)
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Jan 12, 2015 23:18
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Tiggum posted:It's not the concept of the phone itself, it's how it's supposed to work in terms of the timing of the two sides of the phone call. Bigger-on-the-inside time-travelling box makes more sense than that to you, really? What about the sonic screwdriver? They're basically running around with magic already, how is the phone harder to accept? Also oh ok you're one of the people who doesn't get the distinction's importance. "I think that this fictional time travel works like this" and "This fictional time travel works like this" are two very different statements. You basically made the second one regarding the phone, on a show that is set up to be interpreted however an individual fan sees it at any given moment during any given episode in any given series. This turns your statement from an opinion, or your your suspension of disbelief being broken, into a declaration of "this is how the fiction somebody else writes is supposed to be" which is a crazy and dumb statement to make, especially in a show which contradicts itself all the time. surc fucked around with this message at 15:53 on Jan 13, 2015 |
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Jan 13, 2015 15:50
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Tiggum posted:The TARDIS is one of the central premises of the show. Things have to work around it, not the other way around. The sonic screwdriver, on the other hand, is the worst thing in the show. It is and always has been a terrible idea, since it's a crutch for the worst kind of lazy writing, and practically mandates plot holes and inconsistencies. The phone isn't "harder to accept", it's just dumb. I'm totally with you on the sonic screwdriver actually, I just don't worry about it unless the writer's specifically focusing on it because I put Doctor Who into a "purely for entertainment" zone where I don't want to think about whether or not the science would actually work, I just want to be carried off into escapist fantasy and maybe have a nice moral or emotional punch or "oh holy poo poo" moment. That second paragraph though, not so much. It is not always implied, and that's kind of how language works because people use language totally differently from one another all of the goddamn time. This is especially a problem in print. You need to say things explicitly when arguing that something is true, because you don't have a tone (or with a forum post, more than limited context), and it's not implied because why the gently caress would I assume you mean something you're not saying? If I had talked to you for a while and knew that yes, when you make an objective statement about something you have imperfect knowledge of you are not attempting to imply you have perfect knowledge, it would be different story. I mean, you can keep not actually saying the things you mean to say, but generally the point of language is communicating, and you are not actually conveying the thing you wanted to convey, otherwise I wouldn't have responded the way I do. Sorry, if you don't say things explicitly, you don't get to choose what people hear.
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Jan 13, 2015 17:48
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Toxxupation posted:Take a shot every time I write "conceptually speaking it's x but executionally speaking it's y" Good lord, are you trying to kill him?
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Jan 27, 2015 18:10
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It's just dumb that we have to worry that a poorly written female doctor would kill the idea. I mean, there have been plenty of poorly written male doctor who stories, and Weird societal gender problemsssssssss! Cialis Railman posted:
Cool, thanks. surc fucked around with this message at 22:25 on Jan 30, 2015 |
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Jan 30, 2015 22:22
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Oxxidation posted:Baseball is the sporting equivalent of waiting for a bus. Much like writing novels or TV/Movies, sports should entertain me by constantly being cranked to 11. Which is why I like to combine the best of writing with the best of sporting, and I now watch Professional Wrestling 24/7. Toxxupation posted:The real best baseball movie is moneyball, since it's sorkin finally writing about something where his sexist crotchety old man praising of the way things were actually makes sense This is a confusing post for me, because Moneyball is about a dude that is all about moving away from "the way things were" with his whole actually-going-off-stats thing, and there wasn't really a lot of room for misogyny or anything, he's too busy ignoring everything for baseball the whole time. I guess I'm missing something about how the movie was received? Unless you're hating on Billy Beane, in which case we're gonna have a problem. (LET'S GO OAKLAND!) surc fucked around with this message at 23:02 on Feb 2, 2015 |
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Feb 2, 2015 23:00
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Gaz-L posted:I realise this might be a joke, but you... kinda nailed why people like wrestling when it's done well. That's actually what makes my joke extra awesome Bicyclops posted:Sorkin Ah, ok. I actually have only seen Moneyball and like the first 4 seasons of The West Wing, so while I could totally see how that would be the case, I didn't have the exposure to really have it stand out. P.S. The Red Sox are actually just as evil as the Yankees, sorry guys
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Feb 3, 2015 23:00
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ThNextGreenLantern posted:Yeah, I thought it was an odd artistic choice to have Bill Nighy spend 5 minutes giving Van Gogh a sloppy blowjob, but I guess that's why I'm not working in show business. You're evaluating the "Artistic choices of Doctor Who" while finding it dumb because of the writer's opinion on art/an artist being expressed. Just in case you didn't catch that.
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Feb 4, 2015 22:57
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Random Stranger posted:What's wrong with that? Using a character as a mouthpiece for boringly stated personal views in an out of place fashion is one of the grand traditions of terrible writing. It's also completely different from someone giving their own opinions on it. Another grand tradition of terrible writing is stating subjective opinions as objective facts, never bothering to back them up, and attempting to discredit anybody who disagrees with you because "everybody knows that doing this thing is bad/good, who needs explanations or reasons?" A terribly written post accusing doctor who of being terribly written/not having "artistic merit" because of the opinions on art which are expressed within it. You don't get why I might want to point that out to the dude?
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Feb 5, 2015 00:45
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I feel like people who think this episode is somehow more sitcom-y than other doctor who episodes either don't watch other doctor who, or don't watch sitcoms. Yes, it takes place on earth, and the doctor is staying in one general area. Other than that, this is basically just Matt Smith being a goof like he has most of the time until now. And... uh, "nice guy with relationship drama" is pretty much the entire reason Rory got on the TARDIS.
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Feb 10, 2015 00:20
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Bicyclops posted:I watch both pretty extensively, surc, and I feel like the characterization is pretty sitcom-y, and Rory's is not. I don't think this guy is a Nice Guy in the full Ross and Rachel way, it just has the will-they/won't-they of every one-off sitcom couple. I think my B indicates it doesn't ruin the episode for me, but it's there. howe_sam posted:I think it's fair to say the way the Doctor comes in and lives Craig's life "better" than Craig does comes off as very sitcom'ish. The football and then the later scene at the call center are both incredibly broad. Regarding the Rory comparison, obviously they're written very differently, but people were throwing out the "nice guy with romantic drama" as a reason why craig was a bad character, and my point is that it's not having a nice guy with romantic drama be a main focus of the episode that's the problem. My previous point still stands on the sitcom thing though. That's a wide net being thrown, and a lot of the time, Doctor who IS a sitcom, it just happens to be a scifi sitcom with more out-there situations for the moral and light-hearted banter to be set against. surc fucked around with this message at 19:09 on Feb 10, 2015 |
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Feb 10, 2015 18:57
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