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Android Blues
Nov 22, 2008

You have to pronounce it "planet'ry" and it just about works.

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MrL_JaKiri
Sep 23, 2003

A bracing glass of carrot juice!

Android Blues posted:

You have to pronounce it "planet'ry" and it just about works.

It's the second half of that one that I can't make scan

DoctorWhat
Nov 18, 2011

A little privacy, please?

MrL_JaKiri posted:

It's the second half of that one that I can't make scan



Does this help any?

MrL_JaKiri
Sep 23, 2003

A bracing glass of carrot juice!
Assuming that's you, you sing pretty well

CobiWann
Oct 21, 2009

Have fun!
I've been asked to play a loud, brash, bombastic Broadway Producer for our church's kids Christmas pageant.

Pretty much, I'm channeling old Sixie.

DoctorWhat
Nov 18, 2011

A little privacy, please?

MrL_JaKiri posted:

Assuming that's you, you sing pretty well

Yeah that's me. I have a pretty limited vocal range, sadly, but I have niches in which I'm fairly capable.

Trin Tragula
Apr 22, 2005

docbeard posted:

While I absolutely agree that this would make for more satisfying storytelling in some respects, the environment in which people watch television, and the culture that's grown up around it, is vastly different than it was in ol' Terrance's day. That story that aired five years ago is readily available to people in ways that it wouldn't have been in the '70s and '80s, and may well have "happened" two weeks (or two days or two hours) ago for a significant portion of your audience. Entertainment, for better or worse, isn't disposable any more.

I'd love to see some research done on how much of the current audience ever goes back to re-watch anything, and what they're watching when they do. My suspicion is that it's way less of a segment of the audience than you think it is, but we could go back and forth on this basically forever. (Annoyingly, I can't even find some DVD sales to do some blue-sky extrapolating from.)

Senor Tron
May 26, 2006


It's also worth considering that Doctor Who is marketed as a family show. There are kids watching the show now who weren't born when the revival started.

Jerusalem
May 20, 2004

Would you be my new best friends?

Metal Loaf posted:

As others have often remarked, Amy and Rory had a perfectly good send-off (I believe it was in the epilogue of "The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe") where they simply "outgrew" the Doctor and moved on with their lives. I think that demonstrated that the older style of "the companion says goodbye and leaves" exist can conceivably work; if nothing else, it is at least a happy ending.

There were two fantastic ending points for their adventures together and I'm still sad that neither of them "stuck". In the first, they learn the Doctor faked his death and the Pond family celebrates together as a family. In the next, the Doctor shows up timidly on their doorstep at Christmas and learns he is always welcome and goes inside to have dinner with the happy Amy and Rory. If it had ended there, I'd have said that Amy and Rory got the best send-off for regular companions that the revival had done.

Toph Bei Fong
Feb 29, 2008



Trin Tragula posted:

I'd love to see some research done on how much of the current audience ever goes back to re-watch anything, and what they're watching when they do. My suspicion is that it's way less of a segment of the audience than you think it is, but we could go back and forth on this basically forever. (Annoyingly, I can't even find some DVD sales to do some blue-sky extrapolating from.)

Anecdotally, my Pop, who's a huge Who fan dating back to the PBS days rarely re-watches anything unless he happens to catch a re-run on TV in between watching tennis matches or something. He only ever goes out of his way to watch it on DVD if I'm home for the holidays and brought one along with me. I end up correcting him on minor continuity bits all the time, but he seems to find it funny rather than annoying, with one of those "Why do you know that? I'm proud you can remember things, but why do you know that?" looks.

He's been watching the show for 40 years now, has a Dr Who t-shirt he wears to the gym sometimes, clears out his Saturday nights to watch the new broadcasts, etc. He's the guy who gave me the Virgin paperbacks to read. We waited with anticipation for the 1996 TV movie premier. I'd be hard pressed to say he loves the show any less than I do. He just doesn't care as much to re-watch and re-watch. He's already seen it, and re-watching is a novelty to do with friends and family who are also into it. He was the same way about Star Trek.

Of course, the plural of anecdote isn't data, but I'd imagine there's at least a portion of the viewing demographic like my dad. /Dadchat

DoctorWhat
Nov 18, 2011

A little privacy, please?
I got my mom listening to Big Finish. That's my Great Accomplishment.

My great shame was when Peter Davison said ":krad:" because of my carelessness at NYCC 2012

Pwnstar
Dec 9, 2007

Who wants some waffles?

I was reading the wiki to remind myself of some stuff and apparently when Amy and Rory where having their own lives and only hanging out with the Doctor occasionally he accidentally left an Ood at their house for a month and it became their butler. Thats amazing.

The_Doctor
Mar 29, 2007

"The entire history of this incarnation is one of temporal orbits, retcons, paradoxes, parallel time lines, reiterations, and divergences. How anyone can make head or tail of all this chaos, I don't know."


Pwnstar posted:

I was reading the wiki to remind myself of some stuff and apparently when Amy and Rory where having their own lives and only hanging out with the Doctor occasionally he accidentally left an Ood at their house for a month and it became their butler. Thats amazing.

That's a sitcom.

MikeJF
Dec 20, 2003




Pwnstar posted:

I was reading the wiki to remind myself of some stuff and apparently when Amy and Rory where having their own lives and only hanging out with the Doctor occasionally he accidentally left an Ood at their house for a month and it became their butler. Thats amazing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ikv0QbubV7Y

The Eleventh Doctor had a seriously ridiculous number of mini episodes on the web or DVD extras. There's the two in-between-episodes bits from Series 5, the five-part Pond Life series, prequels minisodes to about a dozen episodes in series 6 and 7, several pieces leading into The Snowmen, several different standalone Comic Relief specials like the one where they accidentally park the TARDIS inside itself, the animated storyboard one where Amy and Rory's son introduces himself to Rory's dad, a bunch of random ones like Clara and the TARDIS fighting or The Doctor's deleting himself from databases, a five-episode series about the doctor having adventures with River whilst Rory and Amy sleep, a bunch of lead ins to the anniversary/regeneration specials...

MikeJF fucked around with this message at 10:02 on Nov 17, 2014

Tim Burns Effect
Apr 1, 2011

I can't remember in which thread it was posted, but somebody linked to a video where Nicholas Briggs would bring his ring modulator and a little speaker to do the Dalek voices at the pre-season table reads, and I immediately recognized his set up as a Moog MF-102 Ring Modulator. So you too can emulate the galaxy's most sinister trash cans (for whatever reason) for 300 bucks.

e: confirmed by the man himself:

Tim Burns Effect fucked around with this message at 13:09 on Nov 17, 2014

The_Doctor
Mar 29, 2007

"The entire history of this incarnation is one of temporal orbits, retcons, paradoxes, parallel time lines, reiterations, and divergences. How anyone can make head or tail of all this chaos, I don't know."
I'm permanently grateful to the mini-episodes for this great explanation of the TARDIS' chameleon circuit:

quote:

It’s camouflaged. It’s disguised as a police telephone box from 1963. Every time the TARDIS materialises in a new location, within the first nanosecond of landing, it analyses its surroundings, calculates a twelve-dimensional data map of everything within a thousand-mile radius and then determines which outer shell would blend in best with the environment... and then it disguises itself as a police telephone box from 1963.

Here it is! Smith's delivery of "...and then it disguises itself." is so wonderfully exasperated.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8tuI38ChUI

The_Doctor fucked around with this message at 13:14 on Nov 17, 2014

Daedleh
Aug 25, 2008

What shall we do with a catnipped kitty?
"Oh... why?"
"It's probably a bit of a fault actually - I've been meaning to check."

Detective No. 27
Jun 7, 2006

Dark Eyes 3 has been released! Now the two week psychological torture of waiting for it to get here while the mp3 version taunts me.

qntm
Jun 17, 2009
My favourite is

Amy: "How long's it being doing that?"
Doctor: "Oh! Not long..."

You can almost see the thought bubble above his head saying "Nine hundred years"

DoctorWhat
Nov 18, 2011

A little privacy, please?

Detective No. 27 posted:

Dark Eyes 3 has been released! Now the two week psychological torture of waiting for it to get here while the mp3 version taunts me.

AAAAAAAAAAAAH DARK EYES 3 IS OUT

DETECTIVE JUST FUCKIGN DOWNLOAD IT LIKE A NORMAL PERSON

WHOOOOP!!!!

McGann
May 19, 2003

Get up you son of a bitch! 'Cause Mickey loves you!

DoctorWhat posted:

AAAAAAAAAAAAH DARK EYES 3 IS OUT

DETECTIVE JUST FUCKIGN DOWNLOAD IT LIKE A NORMAL PERSON

WHOOOOP!!!!

ALL HANDS ON DECK!

Man, they tricked me. I've been checking every morning but today figured "Eh, not on a Monday..."

I am so excited.

edit: And Looks like ol' Rusty wrote a Big Finish episode for the 7th Doctor. Hmmm...Not sure if I should be excited or worried.

McGann fucked around with this message at 17:27 on Nov 17, 2014

Davros1
Jul 19, 2007

You've got to admit, you are kind of implausible



McGann posted:

ALL HANDS ON DECK!

Man, they tricked me. I've been checking every morning but today figured "Eh, not on a Monday..."

I am so excited.

edit: And Looks like ol' Rusty wrote a Big Finish episode for the 7th Doctor. Hmmm...Not sure if I should be excited or worried.

It's actually an adaptation of a New Adventures novel he wrote in the 90's. And like with all NAs, you should be worried.

MrL_JaKiri
Sep 23, 2003

A bracing glass of carrot juice!
Meanwhile, one of the members of our maths department (ie one of the teaching/research staff) just referenced the Celestial Toymaker when talking about the Tower of Hanoi to me. "Back when the stories used to be based on mathematical puzzles" he described it as.

Burkion
May 10, 2012

by Fluffdaddy

MrL_JaKiri posted:

Meanwhile, one of the members of our maths department (ie one of the teaching/research staff) just referenced the Celestial Toymaker when talking about the Tower of Hanoi to me. "Back when the stories used to be based on mathematical puzzles" he described it as.

That's not exactly...inaccurate? I guess

Depends on the tone he meant that to be

howe_sam
Mar 7, 2013

Creepy little garbage eaters

The_Doctor posted:

Here it is! Smith's delivery of "...and then it disguises itself." is so wonderfully exasperated.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8tuI38ChUI

Smith and Gillan really were fantastic together :allears:

DoctorWhat
Nov 18, 2011

A little privacy, please?

MrL_JaKiri posted:

Meanwhile, one of the members of our maths department (ie one of the teaching/research staff) just referenced the Celestial Toymaker when talking about the Tower of Hanoi to me. "Back when the stories used to be based on mathematical puzzles" he described it as.

Well, ONE childishly-simple mechanical puzzle that played itself half the time but still took four episodes to end, while nothing else happened at all and the drop the n-word all casual-like.

MrL_JaKiri
Sep 23, 2003

A bracing glass of carrot juice!

DoctorWhat posted:

Well, ONE childishly-simple mechanical puzzle that played itself half the time but still took four episodes to end, while nothing else happened at all and the drop the n-word all casual-like.

But enough about [Your favourite episodes of Doctor Who],

Chokes McGee
Aug 7, 2008

This is Urotsuki.

Bicyclops posted:

Yeah, I think so too. The show's been back for 8 seasons and ten years, really.

Ten years?! :stonk:

Holy butt I've gotten old.

CobiWann
Oct 21, 2009

Have fun!
My stepdaughter wasn't even born when Rose was broadcast. Wow.

NarkyBark
Dec 7, 2003

one funky chicken
UK figures are in, apparently season 8 maintained the same viewership that Smith's seasons had, and the US viewership went up 23% since season 7.

And Capaldi wants a new tardis look (from doctorwhotv):
Speaking at An Afternoon with Mark Gatiss and Friends about the prop reuse including the Sonic Screwdriver: “I have to say, the BBC are very responsible with license payer’s money. So they feel if they’ve spent a certain amount of money on a certain amount of props, then they won’t get rid of those props until they’ve been used. This applies equally to the TARDIS. It’s essentially Matt’s.”

Capaldi’s preference is for a more retro flavoured design: “Roundels. I like the old Sixties roundels. That was the coolest look and I think it’s also appropriate for the way this Doctor dresses. It’s got a sort of Edwardian look about it – not the actual console – it’s the bits and pieces lying around. Cricket bats, maps and odds and ends and things. There’s a Jules Verne quality to it – I would like to make it more Bauhaus.”

Fender Anarchist
May 20, 2009

Fender Anarchist

NarkyBark posted:

Capaldi’s preference is for a more retro flavoured design: “Roundels. I like the old Sixties roundels. That was the coolest look and I think it’s also appropriate for the way this Doctor dresses. It’s got a sort of Edwardian look about it – not the actual console – it’s the bits and pieces lying around. Cricket bats, maps and odds and ends and things. There’s a Jules Verne quality to it – I would like to make it more Bauhaus.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aC3Ar5fvOk

All I could think of.

DoctorWhat
Nov 18, 2011

A little privacy, please?
I love the round things.

We all love the round things.

McGann
May 19, 2003

Get up you son of a bitch! 'Cause Mickey loves you!

NarkyBark posted:

Capaldi’s preference is for a more retro flavoured design: “Roundels. I like the old Sixties roundels. That was the coolest look and I think it’s also appropriate for the way this Doctor dresses. It’s got a sort of Edwardian look about it – not the actual console – it’s the bits and pieces lying around. Cricket bats, maps and odds and ends and things. There’s a Jules Verne quality to it – I would like to make it more Bauhaus.”

As much as I adore the 'round things', I'm more excited for another opportunity to make the "You've redecorated" joke.

Will anyone EVER like it when the Tardis gets a new desktop? Tune in next season to find out!

Jerusalem
May 20, 2004

Would you be my new best friends?



Live 34 is an experimental piece from Big Finish, one that commits fully to its gimmick even if it doesn't quite pull it off as well as it could have. I can't deny that they went all in though, and I appreciate the effort, which extends so far as to remove all the usual trappings of the episode format, including discarding the opening and closing theme music. The entire content of the audio is played out as a realtime radio broadcast on four specific days, though within those broadcasts it does contain edited "pre-recorded" events, little programs-within-programs that further the narrative. Unfortunately the point the story seems to be trying to make is muddled, as well as being hampered slightly by falling back on one particular crutch of 7th Doctor stories, a crutch that works well in most cases but takes away from the verisimilitude in this instance. Whether the narrative is taken at face value as a tale of a corrupt regime or you dig a little deeper to the underlying issues of the complicity of the "regular" people in their Government's crimes, it doesn't quite manage to pull off what it is going for. It's a hell of a try though, and after listening to a number of what felt like "standard" audios that were scared to experiment, it's nice to see Big Finish stretching themselves a little further once more.

Drew Shahan is the host of Live 34, an "independent" newsradio station on Earth Colony 34. The colony's leader, Premier Jaeger, suspended elections 5 years earlier for security reasons, stating that the colony needed firm leadership and couldn't afford the risk of uncertainty as politicians squabbled and debated while real action needed to take place. Of course at first it all seemed entirely reasonable, but over the years more and more liberties have been removed. All this has to be read between the lines at first, as Shahan is clearly being extremely careful to come across as unbiased and objective as possible. A recent series of bombings in Government buildings has been linked by the Government to a political group called the FDP, which is attempting to get the off-world Central Colonies Authority to force an election to take place. The leader of the FDP, "Resident Doctor", is on his way to an interview at Live 34 but has been caught in traffic, and gives the interview from his transport when an explosion at a nearby factory interrupts them. Live 34's roving reporter, Charlotte Singh, covers the story for Live 34 and is joined by the FDP leader where he ends up giving his interview anyway.

The first thing that stands out is, of course, the fact that FDP's Leader is the 7th Doctor. He admits to having taken the job reluctantly following the "accidental" deaths of the last two leaders of the party, and is quick to point out to both Drew and Charlotte the rather obvious abuses of the Government. This is where the audio runs into its first problem, one that remains present for most of the rest of the story. In a usual 7th Doctor story, one of the highlights is listening to the Doctor smoothly disarm or unsettle his opponent verbally, pointing out the flaws in their plans or making them question what they are doing and why. But given the radio format of this story, having the Doctor as a politician ignoring questions and being given free range to just talk at length about what HE wants to talk about feels completely unrealistic. Either Drew or Charlotte should be interrupting constantly to try and keep him on track, any politician will always try to turn a question back onto a subject that THEY want to talk about, and any journalist should be doing their utmost not to let the interview turn into a prepared speech from a soapbox. But the Doctor is allowed to ignore or fudge pointed questions on particular subjects to just talk about whatever he feels like, and the journalists simply allow him to do so. As a result, putting myself into the shoes of a regular Colony 34 listener, I'd be inclined to think,"Why is he avoiding the question?" as opposed to,"Hmm he raises a good point."

This is a four-part story and is structured so that the first episode focuses on the Doctor, the second on Ace, the third on Hex, and the fourth brings all of them together. It's no surprise that the Doctor and Ace are both easily able to carry their episodes, but Hex's suffers somewhat. This isn't due to a lack of talent by Philip Olivier or anything like that, it's just that his character is still fairly new and being developed so there isn't much to hang on the episode beyond,"Hex is a nice guy thrown in at the deep end, oh also he has medical training." Part of the issue is also that the bulk of Ace's episode is in the format of a pre-recorded, edited piece that felt to me like it was aping the style of Whicker's World, while Hex's is "live" and thus doesn't quite flow as well. Hex at least gets to make a big presentation towards the end of episode 4, which almost feels like the Doctor forcing a schoolkid to stand up and do a talk to help him gain confidence and experience.

Because of the way the story is presented, with an "independent" radio station that is desperately trying to appear objective so they don't get openly taken over by the Government (which does happen at the end of episode 3), there is a lot of having to read between the lines. While Ace outright states a few things, the Doctor has to be more circumspect in his accusations and Hex is discovering things "live" and is as confused by them as the listener. The radio broadcasts are being sent out to an audience that is already well aware of the history of their colony, and so the story has to walk a fine line between giving us that history without coming across as an exposition dump that would be utterly extraneous to their in-world listeners. As a result, you have to pick up through context the backstory of the colony, and a lot of information is kept back till the final episode reveal. It isn't helped by the fact that the Doctor and Ace are both clearly holding back information that the in-world listeners aren't privy too but that we the real world listeners are. So when they won't say where they come from, or get cute about condemning the bombings or whether there is a link between the FDP and the Rebels etc.... well it would have to come across as suspicious to the in-world listeners. The Doctor in particular is clearly hiding things, though at least the story makes it clear that he is failing to get traction in the polls as he is jeered and even attacked by a great deal of the citizens he is attempting to get votes from.

It all comes to a head in the final episode with the election results. This is where the story is at its most contrived for me, sadly. In the midst of the victory celebrations for the winning party, the Doctor suddenly goes into a massive exposition dump that is calmly and quietly listened to by everybody. Characters who try to interrupt or make their own points are shouted down by the Doctor and, despite him having zero authority, they all shut up and meekly listen as he just lays out the entire story from start to finish. All subtlety is thrown out the window, and the clunkiest part of the story comes when the Live 34 broadcast is hijacked, a new host lays out what is going on and then cuts back to the Doctor.... who was apparently just standing quietly on stage in front of an equally quiet audience of hundreds or thousands of people all just waiting for the unseen/unheard radio show to pass the story back over to them. Hex comes up on stage and gives his presentation, and sadly it seems the resolution to everything came about not as a result of any great planning or strategy, but a complete coincidence of timing where Hex happened to see something at just the right time and then managed to sneak into what should have been THE most secure place on the colony and remove what should have been THE most guarded "prisoner" in the colony from the premises.... oh and also nobody mentioned any of this to the actual authorities who get caught completely by surprise when the prisoner is revealed.

With all the facts now out in the open they depart, the Doctor having completed his overthrow of another despotic regime and deciding to leave the Colony free to decide what happens next. I'd like to think that what happens next points to the deeper underlying themes of the story. It could just be as simple as expecting the listener to think of it as "justified comeuppance" though, which would be a sad state of affairs, so I prefer to think of it as the former. The crowd of colonists, having learned the entire truth at last (well, apart from the Doctor revealing nothing about his own lies) angrily shove past Charlotte who is attempting to talk about law and justice, grab the fake Jaeger and basically tear him apart. Throughout the whole story there has been the odd peek through to the complicity of the colonists in the actions of their leadership, and I think this might be the ultimate example of what this says about them. The sickness in the Colony isn't so much in the Government, though that is the most obvious example. That is more a symptom of the illness, a society that is constantly on the lookout for a scapegoat, anything to push the blame away from themselves so they can continue to live their own lives in relative comfort. If there are problems, there must always be an "other" to blame - whether it be immigrants or the poor or terrorists/rebels or their own Government. Anything rather than dwell on the fact that they are complicit, that they allowed these things to happen. That mirrors modern society in a lot of ways, the way we externalize our problems onto a convenient scapegoat or try not to think about the suffering of others that allows us to live the lifestyle we do. If that was the point of Live 34, then well done, but I still can't shake the feeling that the ending was somehow supposed to demonstrate that the "bad guy" got what was coming to him and that it was well-deserved. That's about as satisfying an ending as the alteration made to the animated version of Animal Farm where the pigs are overthrown so that there is a "good" ending. I far prefer to think that the ending of Live 34 was to demonstrate that the Doctor treated the symptom and not the root cause of the issues that allowed the situation there to develop in the first place.

So yeah, Live 34 is a good effort, it tries really hard to embrace totally its narrative format and isn't shy about the nature of the atrocities it will eventually reveal. Its weakness is in writing the characters exactly the same as they would be in a regular story but then putting them into the realtime broadcast format, which results in a rather unrealistic exposition dump in the final episode as the characters just explain everything that happened while everybody else just stands around and quietly listens. The ending can be read in a couple of different ways, and I like to think that it is a good demonstration of why the Doctor overthrowing a regime (as the 7th Doctor likes to do) doesn't magically fix all the issues. That's fine, because the Doctor is NOT a politician or a figurehead to rally around and lead a society - he overthrows the guy oppressing the masses, he gives those masses all the information that has been hidden away for "their own good" but then he leaves those masses to set their own path forward from there. What they do with their society from this point forward is up to them, but at least they're starting from a point of total awareness of the facts.... it just might be that in a few hundred years the Doctor will have to come back and do it all over again.

Jerusalem fucked around with this message at 00:50 on Nov 18, 2014

ewe2
Jul 1, 2009

Yeah, I liked Live 34, despite the clunky plot. The sound design was the technical star of the show for me, just in front of the theme. Of course the Doctor will have to fix them again, he's already a de facto regulator of several societies which I thought was the real dig in the episode, not just the comment on our own. And when you think about it, the Doc usually does a lot of exposition to those he's helped or thwarted, just not as openly or obviously. I didn't get the 'good ending' feeling because it so strongly suggests that violent revolution is just as futile a 'solution' as anything else, it creates its own problem.

Astroman
Apr 8, 2001


NarkyBark posted:

UK figures are in, apparently season 8 maintained the same viewership that Smith's seasons had, and the US viewership went up 23% since season 7.

And Capaldi wants a new tardis look (from doctorwhotv):
Speaking at An Afternoon with Mark Gatiss and Friends about the prop reuse including the Sonic Screwdriver: “I have to say, the BBC are very responsible with license payer’s money. So they feel if they’ve spent a certain amount of money on a certain amount of props, then they won’t get rid of those props until they’ve been used. This applies equally to the TARDIS. It’s essentially Matt’s.”

Capaldi’s preference is for a more retro flavoured design: “Roundels. I like the old Sixties roundels. That was the coolest look and I think it’s also appropriate for the way this Doctor dresses. It’s got a sort of Edwardian look about it – not the actual console – it’s the bits and pieces lying around. Cricket bats, maps and odds and ends and things. There’s a Jules Verne quality to it – I would like to make it more Bauhaus.”

Capaldi just keeps getting more and more awesome. :allears:

I wonder if he'd go for the Full Hartnell or something crazy like the one off giant roundels from that one Pertwee ep?

Thauros
Jan 29, 2003

I've been one or two weeks behind for most of the series and I'm finally caught up now.

I seriously think 8 was my favorite series of the show and I absolutely love Capaldi's portrayal of the Doctor.

That season finale wasn't perfect (what is?) and shared some of the issues all of the other epic/ludicrous series enders have had, but that was probably the best Cyberman centered story I've seen. They're usually by far my least favorite reoccuring adversary but they fit very well into that storyline.

The new incarnation of the Master was simply perfect IMO even though I kinda saw the reveal coming as soon as she first used the name Missy early in the series. My only complaint is that it's a shame that Michelle Lopez's incarnetion was only really featured in two episodes and we'll presumably have to get a new incarnation the next time he or she returns.

Android Blues
Nov 22, 2008

Hey, John Simm got two two-parters. Maybe Gomez will too! I think a lot of people would love to see her again, she seems to have been a smash hit in the role.

Jerusalem
May 20, 2004

Would you be my new best friends?

ewe2 posted:

Yeah, I liked Live 34, despite the clunky plot. The sound design was the technical star of the show for me, just in front of the theme. Of course the Doctor will have to fix them again, he's already a de facto regulator of several societies which I thought was the real dig in the episode, not just the comment on our own. And when you think about it, the Doc usually does a lot of exposition to those he's helped or thwarted, just not as openly or obviously. I didn't get the 'good ending' feeling because it so strongly suggests that violent revolution is just as futile a 'solution' as anything else, it creates its own problem.

Yeah I'm hopeful that was the intent, but I just couldn't help but get this gnawing doubt in the back of my head that there was a vibe of,"And the bad guy got what they deserved!" - that's probably more about me than the story though, since it is accompanied by Charlotte begging for calm.

The 7th Doctor audios seem to be picking up in quality now, which is nice since outside of a few standouts like Fearmonger and Colditz I've felt they've been weaker than the 8th, 6th or 5th Doctor have been getting.

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thexerox123
Aug 17, 2007

Jerusalem posted:

"And the bad guy got what they deserved!"

Isn't that kind of a 7th Doctor thing, though? Like the ending of Paradise Towers or The Happiness Patrol... that's kind of the thing that I liked about the 7th Doctor, to be honest... seeing him topple dystopian setups and the people/aliens responsible for them.

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