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This was a loving great episode. I was hoping we'd eventually get an episode where there wasn't actually a monster, and here it is! I guess I understand some people being angry about Clara meeting potentially the Doctor as a child, because you love the character so much that you're hyperprotective of anything that could remotely be perceived to violate how you see him. Whatever. This is a great episode, the third good one of the season, and probably easily going to jump on my top ten. In my book the season's batting 3.5/4.
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Sep 14, 2014 06:59
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| # ¿ Apr 28, 2024 09:51 |
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I dunno, apparently thinking Listen is a great episode is watching Doctor Who badly, going by the general reactions of most people here. But I haven't actually heard many non-nitpick criticisms, with the most legitimate gripe being the Doctor continually putting Clara down (that IS definitely a problem, although at the moment the Doctor is a tremendous rear end in a top hat). Well, also the army man is too loving on the nose, yeah. But I reserve the right to think that anyone unhappy about there potentially not being a monster in Listen, or convinced there was one, is a gigantic crankypants. 
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Sep 15, 2014 04:22
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LividLiquid posted:Only guesses I've seen are a Tardis, The Master, newly-regenerated River Song, the Time Lady, and some villain from the classic days. An evil Clara iteration is another guess. And another guess is that she's another stable time loop.
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Sep 17, 2014 02:09
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Chokes McGee posted:I hate everything new and alternatively everything old. I like that interpretation. In the past series, the TARDIS was thrown around the chaos because that could happen at any time. But Twelve so far has demonstrated remarkable levels of control of the TARDIS. He materialized someone into the TARDIS, found Robin Hood, and has made the TARDIS appear in some absurdly small places. Also there's a mechanical theme to this series so far.
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Sep 19, 2014 06:49
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Barry Foster posted:Yeah, I'd agree with this. Broadly speaking, I'd put it like this - I guess I must be coming from a different perspective because I've never seen any Who but the revival (will rectify that soon). But here's my reckoning Series 1 - garbage except for Dalek, Father's Day, The Empty Child, and The Doctor Dances Series 2 - very not good. Except Impossible Planet/Satan Pit and Girl in the Fireplace. And of course Daleks owning the Cybermen Series 3 - decidedly mixed, but better than the previous two, assuming you just skip the Daleks in Manhattan two-parter. There's no reason for anyone to subject themselves to that outside a toxx. And then, of course, it legendarily shits the bed at the end. Series 4 - mostly terrific Specials - I only saw Waters of Mars and The End of Time. WOM is terrific, and End of Time is End of Time. Wilf is great, though. Series 5 - near perfect, except for Cold Blood, but even that's better than a lot of Davies episodes. Series 6.0 - It's...okay. Series 6.5 - aaaaaaaaaaaaah. Series 7.0 - That sure was five episodes that happened. None were bad. None were great. Goodbye Amy and Rory. and hopefully River. Series 7.5 - Really solid, IMO; although Journey to the Center of the TARDIS is weirdly racist, and Nightmare in Silver is not as good as it could be, and I wasn't fond of The Name of the Doctor. But, I dunno, Hide, Cold War, and The Crimson Horror might all be in my top ten favorite episodes. Series 8 - Really rad so far. Loving it.
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Sep 19, 2014 17:59
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I think they've done an admirable job so far cutting the ties. Deep Breath featured Capaldi at first doing a lot of Smithing, and then it just stops, and he settles down. And while I can sort of see an Into the Dalek with Smith, Robots of Sherwood would be radically different, and Listen just wouldn't have happened.
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Sep 20, 2014 06:58
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Jerusalem posted:The season long arc is not very well handled for a variety of reasons, one of which is being the first split-season which dramatically hosed with the pacing. It also marks the point for a lot of viewers where Moffat's verbalized thoughts (which I try to avoid reading) on how he wanted to run the show either fell flat or actively horrified them. Which ones? I'm going to assume The Doctor's Wife, The Rebel Flesh, The Almost People, The Girl Who Waited, and The God Complex, right?
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Sep 20, 2014 17:03
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MattD1zzl3 posted:I understand moffat effecting canon is a sore subject here, but i just thought of "Listen" one last time, and i think it answers a long running question of doctor who, dating even back to the classic series. That i think that it makes clear (combined with showing the helpless populace in "Time of the doctor") that not all people who live in gallifrey are time lords, being that the adults who visit the doctor in the barn question his ability to "become" a time lord at a later time. This means that somewhere on the planet there must be at least a portion of the population that doesnt make the cut, and has to have some other title and occupation. Ha, it'd be cool if he really was the last of the Time Lords, but he finds some way to rescue the normal people of Gallifrey. Although, I can't see any way Moffat doesn't shake up the status quo so that the Doctor's not the only Time Lord in the universe anymore. It just seems incredibly likely that he'll put them back into play by the end of his tenure.
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Sep 20, 2014 17:14
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Well, this was a fun episode, but I wish Clara had been given something, anything to do beyond quips and trying really hard not to think. It did look amazing in terms of the cinematography. I mean, since Moffat's tenure started, the look of the series has gotten so much better, but Into the Dalek, Listen, and Time Heist in particular have had really solid visuals. Also the Teller was a cool beast, and I'm always a sucker for twists where the monster turns out not to be really so bad after all. 
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Sep 21, 2014 05:34
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I have a question for the old-timers: has the Doctor ever been so precise with the TARDIS that he could land it inside fairly small spaces the way Twelve has done multiple times? Because I don't remember him ever purposefully doing it in the revival. He just didn't have the control.
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Sep 22, 2014 06:58
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Well, Elizabeth I was played by a man in the movie Orlando.
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Sep 25, 2014 04:01
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It's interesting how willing Moffat and Capaldi are to make the Doctor so unlikable. It stands in particular contrast to Smith's tenure, with the Doctor striving towards likability. It's quite obvious this is totally intentional on Moffat's part, but I'm not sure what his endgame is. Obviously, part of that is getting Clara to quit, because that is the obvious implication of Clara's conversation with Danny at the end, that a time will come when the Doctor does push her too far, and in keeping with her promise, she quits. The Doctor also says to Courtney he might soon have a vacancy. Might double as foreshadowing?
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Sep 30, 2014 00:45
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Loved this. Kill the Moon, Listen, and Into the Dalek, I could easily slot into my top ten favorite episodes of the modern run (I feel it necessary to mention I haven't seen anything prior to the beginning of the revival). Only Doctor Who could have a line like "The moon is an egg!" and make it work. Of course it's a divisive episode, and watching it I was keenly aware of the elements people would hate, and why I love those elements. The whole goddamn mission statement of this season is that conversation between Clara and Vastra, as Sandifer said. The Doctor is stripped of his artifice, of his desire to please, and his eagerness to be liked. He's temporarily lost something very important. It's a reaction to his worst excesses that takes him off in the opposite direction. This season is darker, rawer, and necessarily Clara is its protagonist for at least half the episodes so far. Some longtime fans here have been horrified by what they view as the Doctor's new cruelty, that Moffat is reshaping the Doctor into a huge rear end in a top hat. I think, for those people, this season will likely play better on a second viewing a year or two later, assuming Moffat & co. stick the landing as I believe they can (knowing as I do now that the disastrous nature of season 6 was shaped in part by production troubles). Without the benefit of knowing for sure where this is going, it does play like the Doctor has regenerated into a massive dickwad. But Moffat is a keenly self-conscious, reflexive showrunner/writer, and he seems to have a definite showrunning pattern of course correction/excess/course correction/excess. The Doctor makes a persistent mistake, and is chastened for it, and the show mirrors that in its structure. So far, Twelve is not yet his own man, but merely the shadow of Eleven, his photo negative. I have a hope that by the end of the season he comes into himself, and Clara's rebuke is an important turning point for him. But as of yet he's just course correcting for the deception and vanity of Eleven (traits best symbolized by his invoking of his own legend in The Eleventh Hour, and his lie to the old Amy in The Girl Who Waited). more thoughts later.
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Oct 7, 2014 20:28
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To cast "Kill the Moon" as an anti-abortion narrative (I will not loving use "pro-life" to refer to those people because by an odd coincidence they're anti-life in every other way that matters) requires some impressive mental gymnastics, or rather inattentive viewing. We as the audience are presumed to have awe and sympathy for the new life, but also understand why it might be necessary to end it. If I had to take away any commentary on abortion from the episode, it'd be "abortion is an act with grave ethical consequences, but nevertheless is sometimes a valid choice, and a choice a woman should have". But yeah, no, I don't think the narrative is intentionally about that. As DoctorWhat said, it's probably something that arose accidentally, and then that theme was discovered, and the more unfortunate elements present were patched up. It's a classic "ethical dilemma" episode. Like other episodes this season, it reuses and recontextualizes themes from past episodes, in this case most obviously "The Waters of Mars" and "The Beast Below". But the Time Lord Victorious and the Doctor who leaves Clara and Courtney to decide the creature's fate are opposites. I haven't yet entirely unpacked the connections between "Moon" and "Beast", but the act of voting in particular seems significant. quote:Back to Who, it's really taking a lot longer for this big plot to get going than I thought it would. Don't we usually get a big reveal around episode 6 or so? I can't recall. But all we've seen is Missy in bureaucracy afterlife, doing her thing. Moffat seems to be taking the Rusty approach of dropping little bits every now and then, leading up to a big reveal in the second or third-to-last episode. but anyway, the arc is more clearly than ever the relationship between the Doctor and his companion, as it is warped and maybe broken by his regeneration and subsequent personality shift. Being in this Doctor's company is like hugging a skinny, extremely bony person. You're gonna get poked, and it's not going to be as fun as you think it should be. The comparison seems especially appropriate because this Doctor dislikes hugs (very revealing, that).
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Oct 8, 2014 00:18
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Solaris Knight posted:Oh god I started a debate by accident Huh, I feel the opposite about Chosen One narratives. I don't like them, partly for having more than a whiff of predestination, partly because they tend to be very conservative narratives even when executed by progressive writers. The Doctor shouldn't be the reincarnation of a God, or the Destined One, or anything like that, ever. Not because "he could be you", but because what makes him special is the choices he makes, not who he is. And at the root of it, his choice to steal the TARDIS and ditch the Time Lords. The Doctor, ingrained by his training, will often insist things are fixed, and then eventually choose to go around and find another way. That was the entirety of what revival season 6 was about. which makes this season really disturbing. I maintain this is intentional.
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Oct 10, 2014 21:19
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wow, this is the FOURTH great episode of the season. And the same writer is doing the next episode. 
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Oct 12, 2014 04:00
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That was fantastic. Goddamn, what a season this has been so far! It's been really on point thematically, maintaining a set of consistent themes that have been woven throughout. Also, has any noticed there's been a sudden proliferation of black side characters? It's like Moffat's responding to criticism or something. Not only that, but there's been subtle bits that could be read as critical of racist authority figures. Every gag about the TARDIS's size cracked me up, with the sledgehammer bit the very best. And then Clara's reaction was pretty great too. And of course the Addams Family thing, that was sublimely goofy.
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Oct 19, 2014 03:37
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Subtle was probably the wrong word, yeah. 
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Oct 19, 2014 04:29
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Well, that episode was certainly a gigantic creepy infodump with a couple of great reveals (okay, three, the bit where the Doctor revealed Clara hadn't actually thrown away the keys was great, too). It's hard to really evaluate it without the second part. But Missy being the Master is adequate pay-off, I think. I like how Missy convinced the Doctor she was a robot just for shits and giggles. And the Doctor's reaction to the reveal was pretty much Capaldi's best acted moment so far. The death of Danny Pink was really well done. That shot of Clara in the street panning around to see it empty with a memorial thing in the background impressed me. Also the episode was a big SKELETON PARTY. Shame the skeletons are wearing Cybermen suits. Should've just been a bunch of evil Harryhausen style fightin' skeletons.
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Nov 2, 2014 04:45
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I don't know if anyone mentioned the best line in the episode. I think it went something like this Doctor - You have stairs, right? Missy - Well, I'm not a Dalek.
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Nov 3, 2014 04:55
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| # ¿ Apr 28, 2024 09:51 |
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would really dig if red telephone box was the Mistress's TARDIS, just because it'd be another laugh on the Doctor. Like, the Doctor's foiled the Cybermen, and he's got UNIT with him to capture her, and she runs, and then they hear a familiar noise, and the red telephone box whooshes away. Cut to the smuggest look on Missy's face. 
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Nov 3, 2014 22:24
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