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Besides, some of the doctor's best friends are black. I liked this episode for the most part. Though it reminded me a bit of that episode of Always Sunny In Philadelphia where Charlie is a janitor.
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Sep 29, 2014 04:25
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I actually think the interaction between Danny and the Doctor worked precisely because Danny basically calls him out on being an old white guy calling the shots and criticizing him. The Doctor's being mad at soldiers regardless of their history or the sort of person they are is a commentary on the sort of well-meaning but wealthy individual yelling at someone with less privilege than they have about their life choices. Both Danny and the Doctor are painted with humanity, but the episode puts you firmly on Danny's side and always wants you to be on his side.
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Sep 29, 2014 04:38
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CuddleChunks posted:I don't remember them getting up in anyone's face and saying, "You're a soldier! gently caress YOUUUUUUUUUU". *That* is the change in Doctor number 12 that I don't see any motivation for and I think is lovely writing.Capaldi. Okay, let's assume the Doctor is justified in hating soldiers 'cause they're morally culpable for their actions having signed up in full knowledge that they could be called on to kill people without question, and thus necessarily agreed to be complicit in horrible acts whether they end up committing them or not. Sure. Okay. The Doctor hates soldiers, and he's not wrong to do so. Danny isn't a soldier- he's a math teacher. If he once was doing bad stuff, he's not anymore. He's doing pretty inherently good stuff. What more can the Doctor ask for? And what's more, what does the doctor have against PE teachers? Like, honestly, that seemed more dickish and out of place than the anti-soldier stuff. First off, assuming someone is not book smart because they choose to do something for a living that doesn't require book smarts is dumb, mean and un-Doctory. And even then, since when does the doctor belittle someone's value because they're not book-smart? Like 10 didn't go on and on about what a stupid worthless temp worker Donna was. Exactly the opposite! I'm okay with a gruff insulting Doctor. The Bakers were both quite rude and arrogant at times. But they were never as unkind as 12 has been, even in their rudeness. At least not that I remember. It was more flaunting authority and conventions than actually belittling people. All that said, it's pretty clear that this issue is one the show plans on acknowledging. I imagine the Doctor's hatred of (obedient) soldiers is going to be explained as self-loathing for his own role in manipulating people into violence. There was already some payoff as Danny was infinitely more sympathetic going off on the Doctor the way he did, considering the Doctor deserved it (and more). Setting up this dynamic this way gives Danny plenty of room to be quite justifiably in opposition to the Doctor in a way that will, undoubtedly, really teach the Doctor something. I imagine it'll be pretty satisfying. It's still really uncomfortable to watch this stuff, though. Basically this: Bicyclops posted:I actually think the interaction between Danny and the Doctor worked precisely because Danny basically calls him out on being an old white guy calling the shots and criticizing him. The Doctor's being mad at soldiers regardless of their history or the sort of person they are is a commentary on the sort of well-meaning but wealthy individual yelling at someone with less privilege than they have about their life choices. Both Danny and the Doctor are painted with humanity, but the episode puts you firmly on Danny's side and always wants you to be on his side. Danny's awesome, and I hope he continues to be awesome. I can't wait until he becomes a full companion.
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Sep 29, 2014 05:07
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I think, overall, they're trying for what they did with Six, which is to make the Doctor vaguely off-putting at first and generally get you tor warm up to him. I'll admit that they did it better here than with Six, but I can definitely see how it would make people get uncomfortable, especially since the people he's screaming at are his young woman assistant and a black man with obvious war PTSD. It has not been handled in the best of all possible ways. I think the reason it worked slightly better for me in this episode is that the monster of the week took up so little time that they were at least able to properly focus on it. It helps that they allow you to like Danny enough that when the Doctor calls him the PE teacher, it feels completely mean and unjustified. You can feel Clara's discomfort at the way he's treating other people and you end up feeling a little like Danny does: if that's the way he acts, she had better be careful around him. One weak point was when they dwelt on the PE joke for awhile and were obviously going for laughs and instead it got uncomfortable. I do think the season improves as it goes, though, which is something I couldn't say for either half of seven. I sort of hope the end of it is the Doctor the crisis he's going through in his latest regeneration and getting a little kinder to, at the very least, his companions.
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Sep 29, 2014 05:16
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I think that's the point though. It's off-putting and it should be off-putting because the Doctor is wrong here, and we know it. It's probably something that goes back to the Time War, when he was as Danny said, an officer, the accusations of Davros about how he molds his companions to be soldiers, and him fighting a losing war against the combined armies of the universe at Trenzalore for ages. The Doctor has some serious issues, and working through them will be a plot point. Some of it could have to do with Gallifrey. It was set up after the 50th that Gallifrey was out there somewhere and the Doctor should find it, but he got sidetracked by Trenzalore. Now he's free, and working on some Mysterious Equations which may or may not have to do with finding Gallifrey, but he is no doubt wondering--does he DESERVE to find Gallifrey? Is he a Good Man? If he brings it back, will it indeed bring back the Time War and force him back into battle again to become the soldier he hates?
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Sep 29, 2014 05:19
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Astroman posted:I think that's the point though. It's off-putting and it should be off-putting because the Doctor is wrong here, and we know it. It's probably something that goes back to the Time War, when he was as Danny said, an officer, the accusations of Davros about how he molds his companions to be soldiers, and him fighting a losing war against the combined armies of the universe at Trenzalore for ages. I can see this as eventually being something. If he gets to Gallifrey and basically gets the "You would make a good Time Lord!" speech from some council member and has to confront the fact that he's turned into the same stuffy, judgmental authority-invoking aristocrat as the rest of them and that his "coming home the long way round" has made him what he always hated, it would be an interesting season arc. It's still kind of awkward and painful episode to episode, though. In a show with two main characters, you do want to like both of them, and it's hard to like him in every episode.
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Sep 29, 2014 05:24
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That's the thing. If he does bring back Gallifrey, why wouldn't it be Time War II (or III, or XVII, or whichever it is)? I mean the Daleks are still out there too. So the question isn't "How do I free the Time Lords?" As the guy who locked them up in the first place, the Doctor should be able to unlock them without too much trouble. The real question is "How do I free Gallifrey without plunging the universe into another Time War and loving reality all over again?"
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Sep 29, 2014 05:26
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The doctor saw him a soldier hence the P.E teacher. Soldiers are all about team stuff, PT, yelling. You all know he hates soldiers. Danny saw him as an officer getting people hurt or killed without a second thought. Wheres the mystery?
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Sep 29, 2014 05:33
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jng2058 posted:The real question is "How do I free Gallifrey without plunging the universe into another Time War and loving reality all over again?" Exactly. It wouldn't be so bad if it were just the Daleks, but this time everyone is hell-bent on making sure they don't set off another Time War.
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Sep 29, 2014 05:39
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Rocksicles posted:The doctor saw him a soldier hence the P.E teacher. Soldiers are all about team stuff, PT, yelling. You all know he hates soldiers. Danny saw him as an officer getting people hurt or killed without a second thought. I want to know how PE teachers feel about the Doctor's discrimination against them.
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Sep 29, 2014 06:02
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Astroman posted:So either he can be played as written by a white actor or watered down into a no conflict character. Which would you choose? Not everything is about racism. If it is, then you can't cast black actors in any role where they have flaws whatsoever (especially dumb in this case, since in most aspects Danny is preternaturally competent and cool, and the Doctor is clearly in the wrong for disliking him). The problem is that what's clearly intended as a humorous exchange falls flat because it's bundled with centuries of real-world baggage. An old white guy arguing with a black man that he must do sports because he literally cannot conceive of him doing math? At best, that's incredibly tone-deaf. They're clearly going for a Rick and Morty dynamic (where the abusive old jerk secretly cares a lot) but ruining it by punching down.
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Sep 29, 2014 06:14
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Mr Beens posted:Except that since the Time War (i.e. the revivial) the dctor has interacted with soldiers literally dozens of times that we have seen but, until Capaldi, he has never been outright hostile to an individual guy just because of his occupation (or former occupation). In fact we have seen the doctor working with soldiers in an amicable fashion loads of times. I didn't even get that much of a "I hate soldiers grrgghhhaaaghhh" vibe from him. When he first met Danny he was casually snarky like "oh so you were a soldier? Heh, meathead  " which is pretty much standard operating procedure for Capaldi so far. he wasn't hostile until Danny hosed up his plan and was revealed as Clara's boyfriend, at which point there was obviously a bit more wrapped up in his attitude than "he's a soldier"
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Sep 29, 2014 06:16
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Trin Tragula posted:Wait a minute, it's a surprise to you that the guy who literally ran away from his society because it was too dull and stifling, and who is constantly trying to find non-violent solutions to problems, has a problem with organisations that train their people to obey and conform rather than think and be individual, and that exist to provide bespoke violence on demand? What were you expecting him to think? Remember, he also ran away because Timelords constantly refused to take matters into their own hands and intervene, preferring to sit back and do nothing. His arguments in The War Games (as well as most of both 3's and the original Master's remarks on the exile to Earth) point towards him wanting people to act against threats. And though he'll usually prefer talking he rarely gets through an episode without using physical force or getting someone else to do so. The only difference between him and a military man is that his army typically consists of only two or three people. As to the Time War stuff, remember, he didn't do that to end the Time War, he did it to end the Time War in a way that didn't involve the Timelords losing and Daleks conquering the universe. Well the Daleks are back, right now, out there conquering the universe. It would make sense that you'd want Timelords around to counter-balance them. Perhaps the one saving grace is that both sides would probably want to rebuild rather than immediately resume fighting.
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Sep 29, 2014 06:28
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2house2fly posted:I didn't even get that much of a "I hate soldiers grrgghhhaaaghhh" vibe from him. When he first met Danny he was casually snarky like "oh so you were a soldier? Heh, meathead Did you miss the Dalek episode where he had the same attitude to the woman he rescued? Basically "gently caress off you are not coming with me as you are a soldier, I hate soldiers. You could come with me, but you are a soldier so you can't"
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Sep 29, 2014 06:37
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Well, that episode was bad. Really bad. Anything that has to do with Clara's relationship with Danny, or The Doctor and Clara, or The Doctor and Mr. Pink. It's all terrible and I hate how much focus it's gotten. Time Heist was really good, I liked Robot of Sherwood, and Into the Dalek was petty good too. So, half the episodes this season. It's just that the other half has left me feeling so bad that I'm considering telling my partner to watch it alone and I'll just catch up at the end of the season or something.FreezingInferno posted:Oh no. The nice lady who played Evelyn Smythe died. Maggie Stables was one of the very best of the Doctor's companions.  Everyone should listen to at least one of her audios.
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Sep 29, 2014 06:46
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FreezingInferno posted:Oh no. The nice lady who played Evelyn Smythe died. drat  Evelyn Smythe/Maggie Stables was the best Sixth Doctor companion, period.
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Sep 29, 2014 07:30
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moths posted:The problem is that what's clearly intended as a humorous exchange falls flat because it's bundled with centuries of real-world baggage. An old white guy arguing with a black man that he must do sports because he literally cannot conceive of him doing math? At best, that's incredibly tone-deaf. Oh for gently caress's sake, he's not saying "oh, you can't work out how many beans make five". Is it ever possible for a white person to say something that isn't 100% supportive and encouraging to a black person? Here, let's look at this another way. There's a huge shortage of black people getting involved with any kind of sports coaching at all levels, including being PE teachers. Therefore it's actually really progressive that the Doctor sees the guy as a natural PE teacher and he's actually trying to subtly encourage him to do something where he sees they need more representation! Cliff Racer posted:Remember, he also ran away because Timelords constantly refused to take matters into their own hands and intervene, preferring to sit back and do nothing. His arguments in The War Games (as well as most of both 3's and the original Master's remarks on the exile to Earth) point towards him wanting people to act against threats. And though he'll usually prefer talking he rarely gets through an episode without using physical force or getting someone else to do so. The only difference between him and a military man is that his army typically consists of only two or three people. There are ways to resist that do not involve fighting, and there are ways of fighting that do not involve subsuming your own identity and agency to a military organisation. It's understandable that an ex-squaddie makes the "officer" comparison on what he knows of him, but the Doctor would make a terrible officer; he'd have no time for the discipline or the chain of command. Where are people getting this "the War Doctor was part of the Time Lords' organised military effort against the Daleks" thing from? From what I saw, he continued as an independent renegade, just with more violent tendencies; there's a reason McGann asked the Sisterhood for "warrior", not "soldier". If the Daleks are Nazis, the Time Lords are the Free French and the Doctor's a one-man Resistance.
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Sep 29, 2014 07:40
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Cleretic posted:I want to know how PE teachers feel about the Doctor's discrimination against them. gently caress em, they are all sociopaths 2house2fly posted:at which point there was obviously a bit more wrapped up in his attitude than "he's a soldier" Because he didn't think a soldier would be good for her. #10 had a hard on for giving soldiers poo poo too Rocksicles fucked around with this message at 07:52 on Sep 29, 2014 |
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Sep 29, 2014 07:50
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Trin Tragula posted:Oh for gently caress's sake, he's not saying "oh, you can't work out how many beans make five". Is it ever possible for a white person to say something that isn't 100% supportive and encouraging to a black person? If you'll excuse a terrible sideways mobile phone recording of a video playing on a tablet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hc2TtE9vIbw Regardless of how it all shakes out, it's not completely out there for people to read that scene as touching on race.
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Sep 29, 2014 07:53
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Trin Tragula posted:Here, let's look at this another way. There's a huge shortage of black people getting involved with any kind of sports coaching at all levels, including being PE teachers. Therefore it's actually really progressive that the Doctor sees the guy as a natural PE teacher and he's actually trying to subtly encourage him to do something where he sees they need more representation! They're also under-represented in the cotton-picking industry nowadays, maybe the Doctor should've recommended that to him too. 
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Sep 29, 2014 07:57
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Cliff Racer posted:Remember, he also ran away because Timelords constantly refused to take matters into their own hands and intervene, preferring to sit back and do nothing. His arguments in The War Games (as well as most of both 3's and the original Master's remarks on the exile to Earth) point towards him wanting people to act against threats. And though he'll usually prefer talking he rarely gets through an episode without using physical force or getting someone else to do so. The only difference between him and a military man is that his army typically consists of only two or three people. I would actually argue that his actions were very much to end the Time War and remove both sides. Remember, if the Doctor hadn't intervened, it would not just have meant the destruction of Galifrey but that of all time and space (because of Rassilon's plan). Even with the Daleks out there, the last thing you'd want to counter-balance them is a bunch of Timelords. Also, 12's response to soldiers is not completely without precedent. Just look at 10's reaction to meeting Martha and learning she's with UNIT.
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Sep 29, 2014 08:02
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Sobatchja Morda posted:Just look at 10's reaction to meeting Martha and learning she's with UNIT. Yep, his behaviour towards UNIT in that episode was also baffling.
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Sep 29, 2014 08:26
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Sobatchja Morda posted:Also, 12's response to soldiers is not completely without precedent. Just look at 10's reaction to meeting Martha and learning she's with UNIT. Which I remember being quite frankly bizarre since he got her the job at UNIT in the first place. 
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Sep 29, 2014 08:46
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Bicyclops posted:I actually think the interaction between Danny and the Doctor worked precisely because Danny basically calls him out on being an old white guy calling the shots and criticizing him. The Doctor's being mad at soldiers regardless of their history or the sort of person they are is a commentary on the sort of well-meaning but wealthy individual yelling at someone with less privilege than they have about their life choices. Both Danny and the Doctor are painted with humanity, but the episode puts you firmly on Danny's side and always wants you to be on his side. I agree with this. Though I will note that I found it slightly awkward that, of all the kids they showed, the bad kids were all black. (The two playing the video game and ditching at the beginning and Courtney "Disruptive Influence" Woods). It's a super minor complaint though, since I actually liked Courtney and the delinquent kids thing was more eyeroll worthy than anything. I'm also coming from an American cultural perspective and I don't know if they have the same issues in the UK. They also only had like, what, 5 students with speaking roles? And 3 or 4 were black? That makes up for it anyway, since I'm pretty sure they were just saying "ain't kids little shits sometimes?" Anyway, on the episode in general I... didn't really like it. I loved the first half or so, then it got boring around when they caught the robot in the vortex thingy. Danny doing the sarcastic SIR YES SIR! was the only really good thing in the latter half.
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Sep 29, 2014 09:15
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CobiWann posted:
I do not like Flip Flop. I admire it a lot. I am very impressed by the audacity of writing something like this, of splitting it into two separate yet intertwined stories and almost entirely wrapping everything up in a neat little bow. I applaud the effort and I hope Big Finish continues to do things like this, because even though I didn't like THIS story, I can only appreciate the effort to get outside of their comfort zone and play around in the medium a bit. From a technical standpoint, it's the kind of playing about with time travel stuff that somebody like Moffat seems to enjoy so much, and it's a story that warrants repeated listening as well as bringing up all kinds of chicken & egg questions. Upon a first listen, there appear to be a lot of contrived coincidences and dumb luck going on, but a later listen with the context of the other "side" of the story lets you understand that everything is happening deliberately because it sets up the other side to be in position to do things necessary for the first side and backwards and forwards etc. It's a tidy little loop, and while I appreciate and admire it, it's also got at it's heart my biggest problem with the story as a whole, an aspect of the story I utterly loathe and hate and which goes against everything I think about the nature of the Doctor as a Time Lord. CobiWann posted:Though, of course, there is one big, and it’s a BIG, plot hole – in both the White and Black timelines, the Doctor and Mel arrive seeking Leptonite crystals with which to fight the Quarks, the robotic servants from the Second Doctor serial The Dominators. In both timelines, they manage to obtain the crystals and head back to destroy the Quarks…but which Doctor and Mel pairing arrives to take care of them? The White timeline pair, or the Black timeline pair? It’s a simple question, but one that threatens to unravel the carefully constructed timeline(s) that Morris has created. And this is the heart of the problem, as far as I am concerned, there is only and will ever only be ONE Doctor. Sure he'll have multiple incarnations, and some of those might even meet each other at various points and have adventures together. He might even meet a younger or older version of his CURRENT incarnation, though that's usually a sign that things are going horribly wrong (or that River has walked into the wrong TARDIS ala First Night/Last Night). But no no no loving no there will never be an ALTERNATE Doctor, one created by a change in the timeline which causes there to be two Doctors at the same time. Two of everybody else in the world maybe, maybe even two of his companions (though I'd argue traveling in the TARDIS would also negate that). It's spergy nonsense on my part for a show that often embraces the laudable idea of,"gently caress continuity if it gets in the way" but it's just something I can't accept. CobiWann's quote above gives a pretty good reason why - when this story "ends" there are two Doctors in two TARDISes traveling to the same location to deal with the same problem and that makes no sense at all, even for as paradoxical a show as Doctor Who. The Doctor is a Time Lord, and as far as I'm concerned there is only ever one of him. In all those alternate realities and universes etc there aren't other versions of the Doctor running around having adventures - there's a main reality and it's whichever one the Time Lords exist in, because they're the bosses, they're in charge of time, and all those alternate realities are maintained and kept distinct by the Time LORDS. That's what it means to be a Time Lord, they're unique in time and space. The one time we saw the show have the Doctor double back on his own timeline and change events was in Father's Day and what happened? The other version immediately ceased to exist because nuh-uh - one Time Lord in the multi-verse  So yeah, it's my own baggage I'm bringing to the story, but I can't help that and I ain't gonna change - I can't accept the central premise of this story which makes the whole thing basically fall apart. There are other issues too, of course. The supporting characters are, by the nature of the story, hard to get a grip on in terms of personality and characteristics. Because different versions of them jump back and forth in time and appear at multiple different places in the narrative, it's very easy to get lost in terms of exactly which version of the character is appearing. The fact that nothing really differentiates them in terms of appearance or voice doesn't really help matters. The only supporting character that retains any consistent characterization is Mitchell, whose true nature gets revealed far too early in the story (depending on which side you listen to first, I guess). It's neat to see how the death of one person has such a wild impact on history, but in an audio story like this it also makes it way too difficult to distinguish between Version Black and Version White of a character. Sylvester McCoy is good throughout and Bonnie Langford is fine in the role - in fact she's probably the best companion for a story like this since she tends to chirpily accept nonsensical situations better than other companions. Neither really lifts their efforts though, they give adequate and competent performances but nothing extraordinary or remarkable. The Slithergees are problematic, played too much for comedy and sounded too similar to the Mentors from Vengeance on Varos/Mindwarp for their own good. I was aware going in that there were some issues around the so-called anti-immigration flavor of this story. Perhaps because I was prepared for that I thought it was overblown and hyperbolic.... until I got to the "Don't call it Christmas that is offensive!" bit. What a disappointment, that's the kind of crap I expect to hear from rightwing nutcases or on talkback radio - this nonsensical fear of the mean ol' brown people coming and ganging up on the poor white majority  It's a shame, because the Slithergees are great in concept - these grasping, unctuous, whiny assholes who plead their plight while taking more and more. But throw it into a pretty clear (and hopefully unintentional) immigration angle to the whole thing and it becomes really unsettling and disturbing and out of place for Doctor Who. The complex nature of the narrative leads to all manner of confusion for the characters INSIDE the story as well, which is fun. But it's also overdone, as characters made intelligent observations at some points (Mel discussing the nature of free will with the Doctor, for instance, or being the first to pick up that there may be future versions of themselves running around out there) but then are complete idiots at other points. Mel continually fails to grasp that the people she is talking to who are CLEARLY referencing different events are NOT the same versions of the people she was talking to a few minutes earlier. In fact at one point I think she confuses Stewart and Reed for a version of themselves she's only recently seen murdered! Both endings feel out of character and yet somehow in keeping with the 7th Doctor's nature. In both he takes Mel and leaves behind the situation on Puxatornee (a clear reference to Groundhog Day) to be dealt with by his other version. I don't like the idea of him just walking away, even if he is leaving it in capable hands and of course we know from the odd circular nature of the story that it all works out... kind of. But by creating the story that they did, Big Finish leaves a situation that can never truly be resolved, as well as leaving open that big open plot hole of both Doctors eventually leaving to go to the same place at the same time. In my mind once they left Puxatornee the two must have just merged into the same paradoxical self with memories of both sets of actions, but I don't like that and it once again boils back down to my unwillingness to accept the notion that anything as mundane as time or the universe could create an alternate version of the Doctor - as the Doctor himself has said in the past,"Time's not the boss of me." Flip Flop is an admirable effort. It seeks to play with story structure and the time travel concept, and in the process creates a rather novel pair of simultaneous and intertwined stories. But it's reliant on an idea that I personally just can't accept in Doctor Who, and it's structure creates a mess of the alternate versions of characters popping in and out at confusing points of the narrative. It's worth listening to if only to experience the unusual format, but be prepared for some distasteful aspects, some confusing characters, and two "endings" that you may find feel out of character for the Doctor.
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Sep 29, 2014 09:53
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Jsor posted:I agree with this. I had assumed that the two playing the video game really did have a free period, and the copper was, well, a copper from the MET.
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Sep 29, 2014 10:08
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Whybird posted:I had assumed that the two playing the video game really did have a free period, and the copper was, well, a copper from the MET. He wasn't even a real copper, he was a community support officer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwYxkZ9jTvk
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Sep 29, 2014 10:15
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Bicyclops posted:I actually think the interaction between Danny and the Doctor worked precisely because Danny basically calls him out on being an old white guy calling the shots and criticizing him. The Doctor's being mad at soldiers regardless of their history or the sort of person they are is a commentary on the sort of well-meaning but wealthy individual yelling at someone with less privilege than they have about their life choices. In this analogy, the Doctor is a socialist university student with wealthy parents, and Danny is an actual working class person who voted for UKIP in the last election.  Jerusalem posted:I do not like Flip Flop. The bad guys essentially win either way, and Puxatornee is doomed to be either a) trapped forever in a permanent nuclear winter or b) basically beholden to the whims of the Slithergees. Which disc did you listen to first? I listened to the black side first, and while I realise it's meant to work either way, I feel as though the white side might be a better one to start with.
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Sep 29, 2014 11:45
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I listened to the White Disc first since that's the way my phone loaded the files in. It seemed to make sense to me that way but I imagine the way it was set up you'd get much the same experience regardless which disc you played. I didn't actually realize there was a specific side you were supposed to start with.
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Sep 29, 2014 11:55
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I don't believe there is; the efficacy of listening to the white side first is just my own opinion.
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Sep 29, 2014 11:57
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Bicyclops posted:I think, overall, they're trying for what they did with Six, which is to make the Doctor vaguely off-putting at first and generally get you tor warm up to him. I'll admit that they did it better here than with Six... I actually don't think they have. Deep Breath is better than The Twin Dilemma as an introduction to an unlikable Doctor in the same way a delicious meal is better than repeated blows to the head with an axe, but Six as a character is better suited to this idea than Twelve is. With Six most of the awful stuff is very surface level, and Colin is generally very good at playing someone who seems like a good man lumbered with a bad coat of paint. There's still generally a sense of the Doctor bubbling below that isn't really there with what we've got now, and so in the audios there's a progression towards being likable that happens in a completely organic manner. I don't think there's any way for Twelve to progress in the same way; he's at once too thin and too broadly defined as a character.
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Sep 29, 2014 12:07
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Jerusalem posted:I listened to the White Disc first since that's the way my phone loaded the files in. It seemed to make sense to me that way but I imagine the way it was set up you'd get much the same experience regardless which disc you played. I didn't actually realize there was a specific side you were supposed to start with. There isn't if you're hearing it in the original (physical) format, but an audiobook makes the choice for you. Flip-Flop is particularly annoying since it comes so soon after the far superior (and just as jumbled) Creatures of Beauty, one of the best and most haunting audios I've heard.
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Sep 29, 2014 13:41
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Plus Flip-Flop is kinda horrifically racist and xenophobic.
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Sep 29, 2014 14:00
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Jerusalem posted:
Yeah. I really like how much Big Finish tries to do new things with the format and in particular plays with the medium they exist in and its distribution method in the storytelling, but it doesn't always work out, and it didn't really in Flip Flop. The repetition if you listen to them both gets a little annoying too. It was a really great idea for an experiment, but the execution was lacking. vegetables posted:I don't think there's any way for Twelve to progress in the same way; he's at once too thin and too broadly defined as a character. I think there's plenty of leeway, actually! You mention the audios with regard to Six, which is sort of an entirely different world than TV Six. That Twelve specifically seems to require validation that he's a good man, that there's nothing lurking under his covers, seems to me that he is written as someone who hasn't quite defined who he is this regeneration. There's plenty of room for change and growth.
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Sep 29, 2014 14:24
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I'm widely regarded as a giant killjoy social justice warrior, a term I still can't find a way to take as an insult, and even I could tell you the folllowing two things: First, Danny's relationship to the doctor as it's been presented trades on zero black stereotypes and isn't played that way at all. Second, The Twelfth Doctor is regularly portrayed as being wrong about things and people, and we're in the middle of an arc that will ultimately result in [i]his[\i] growth out of said opinions; not a validation of them. He's wrong. We're watching him being wrong. I'm convinced it's one of the reasons the character is no longer the protagonist of the show; a role that has moved entirely to Clara and Pink for now. Basically, Twelve is early Archie bunker, and we're meant to root for him to grow. Moffat may even be examining his own prejudices here, through this, though maybe I'm giving him too much credit. But you don't cast an old white man as somebody with too much prejudice, then shift the narrative away from his viewpoint and portay him as being behind the times by accident. So we'll see.
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Sep 29, 2014 15:01
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Anonymouse Mook posted:I'm rather holding out for Alex MacQueen myself If Missy is revealed to just be the villain's right hand woman, and she knocks an office door to reveal MacQueen wiggling his fingers at her with a "Hello, you!", you will hear the squeal I make on the other side of the Atlantic.
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Sep 29, 2014 15:10
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LividLiquid posted:
I think that's become a lot more obvious in the most recent episode, and some of the complaints people have about the way he's been treating Clara are actually being addressed through the way that Danny talks about him. That it's become part of the plot makes it a little more interesting. I do understand why people take issue with it, though. Danny and Clara make good protagonists, but it's hard to have the titular character be a bit unlikable. I think it could have been handled with a lighter touch, but I have some hope that Twelve will grow.
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Sep 29, 2014 15:12
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LividLiquid posted:I'm widely regarded as a giant killjoy social justice warrior, a term I still can't find a way to take as an insult, and even I could tell you the folllowing two things: I think the racial themes in The Caretaker were definitely calculated and intentional. The cop harassing the black kids is the FIRST THING THAT HAPPENS. Race and class are HUGE in this one. Very interesting.
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Sep 29, 2014 15:17
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DoctorWhat posted:I think the racial themes in The Caretaker were definitely calculated and intentional. The cop harassing the black kids is the FIRST THING THAT HAPPENS. Race and class are HUGE in this one. Very interesting. Yeah, I noticed that as well. I also get the feeling that Clara's difficulties with Courtney and are going to mirror some of the Doctor's difficulties with Danny in the lessons that both of them will learn. As a plot, that is either going to be handled very well or with a level of embarrassment that will make the entire Universe cringe, but it's an interesting idea, if it's what they're going for.
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Sep 29, 2014 15:26
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Yeah I think the racial implication may have been intentional. Not to say that The Doctor is supposed to be racist, but having it as old white man/young black man helps sell the "officer criticizing soldiers" idea that Danny brought up. Regardless though I think this is kindof a stupid criticism because the logical conclusion is "black people should not be allowed to portray certain characters"
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Sep 29, 2014 15:37
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