Doctor Who series 8 (34): Eyebrows! Eyebrows since the dawn of Time!

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > TV IV > Doctor Who series 8 (34): Eyebrows! Eyebrows since the dawn of Time!

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Linear Zoetrope: Nov 28, 2011; A hero must cook

I like to think the TARDIS was just loving with him and wrote "Listen" by itself. Like when it only showed Amy the pictures of the female companions.

# ¿ Sep 14, 2014 10:08

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 07:39

Linear Zoetrope: Nov 28, 2011; A hero must cook

SiKboy posted:

The doctor has never met anyone who wasnt important. Thats kind of part of his whole deal.

Too bad he never met Jerry.

# ¿ Sep 14, 2014 10:22

Linear Zoetrope: Nov 28, 2011; A hero must cook

Craptacular! posted:

If they cast a woman as this Doctor would all this talk of insults still happen? It's not like he doesn't needle Clara all the drat time, anyhow. She's having a date night which often heightens vain behaviors, so his usual jabs take on the twist of insulting her vanity.

If you want to say he verbally assaults her, fine, but he's been doing it in almost every episode. And if you take the season as a whole, there's been a lot of back and forth. In Deep Breath, it felt like he basically sees her as a poo poo companion wanting to sleep with Time Lord rear end because she has difficulties with him being so old in appearance. In the Dalek episode, she refers to herself as the Doctor's caregiver of all things, and he snipes back that "she cares so I don't have to." And in Robots Of Sherwood, Clara effectively calls the Doctor (and Robin Hood) a useless hero.

I have no problem with the Doctor insulting Clara. It's the fact that in every episode they've been obnoxious comments about her looks. Call her headstrong and brash, call her abrasive, call her high strung, call her a know-it-all. When she gives the Doctor another schoolteacher lecture about hope or morality or whatever the gently caress else have him say "thanks, mom!" All of these speak to her character, and could lead to some really fun bickering between them.

Hell, he can insult her looks occasionally too. But it starts to be a little #Problematic� (please reblog) when in every episode he's put down her looks. Besides, even independent of the niggling social issues regarding women and insecurity about their appearance, personally I think it's just plain obnoxious and a dumb schtick. It got kind of boring and samey when 11 kept using the same two jokes on Rory too. (Yes, we get it, Amy is your BFF and you'll only ever view Rory as an accessory to Amy's company. It was only funny the first 20 times)

Linear Zoetrope fucked around with this message at 10:22 on Sep 15, 2014

# ¿ Sep 15, 2014 10:19

Linear Zoetrope: Nov 28, 2011; A hero must cook

Cleretic posted:

And in fairness, Amy definitely wore the pants in that relationship. I always read those sorts of comments from Eleven as not caring about how marriages technically work so much as this one actually worked, and even at his best Rory was whipped as hell.

Well, yeah. That was :thejoke:

(though I object to the general tenor of your statement, ain't nothing wrong with Amy being the dominant partner). I thought the "Rory Pond" jokes were really funny for a while, it's just that in my opinion it got old, tired, and samey after the umpteenth time.

# ¿ Sep 15, 2014 10:37

Linear Zoetrope: Nov 28, 2011; A hero must cook

Pizdec posted:

The Ninth called Rose an ape, and Eleventh called Amy "huge" when she was pregnant. Neither of these are really misogynistic and the first one isn't even about appearance in context, but if you can raise a shitstorm about this episode than you certainly can about those ones. The Doctor just makes jabs at people all the time and some of those jabs will be about appearance. Hell, watching the three Doctors quibble about each other's clothes was one of the most fun parts of Day of the Doctor. The Twelfth just comes off as more agressive in his demeanor which I guess throws people off when he talks to women that way... which is kinda sexist in itself, suggests women are weak and fragile creatures that we have to protect from mean ol' Capaldi.

Pity about the opening hate, I like the visuals, refreshingly abstract. I have to agree about the music though, the title theme changes since Series 1 ranged from mediocre to awful and this one is no exception. I don't see it changing anytime soon unless Murray Gold goes all Jimmy Savile and BBC is forced to fire him.

Yeah, but it's not really the fact that he makes jabs at her appearance. It was even legitimately funny a couple of times. It's just a bit <insert preferred word here on the spectrum of misogynistic to slightly obnoxious> that he keeps doing it every episode.

I mean, I'll be totally honest. I laughed at the whole "she needs three mirrors!" thing. But it would be better if it only happened occasionally.

E: I really have no feministy objections to River. I didn't really like her much and found her sort of obnoxious, but I really think that trying to get something anti-feminist or misogynistic or problematic� out of it is reaching.

Linear Zoetrope fucked around with this message at 01:20 on Sep 16, 2014

# ¿ Sep 16, 2014 01:15

Linear Zoetrope: Nov 28, 2011; A hero must cook

Pizdec posted:

What WERE those jabs, incidentally? Is there a list somewhere, I honestly can't remember them.

E1:

quote:

Wrong? What's gone wrong? I remember you! You're Handles! You used to be a little, a little robot head, and now....
THE DOCTOR (cont'd)
- you've really let yourself go.

He keeps confusing her and Strax too.

E2:

quote:

THE DOCTOR
Are you alright back there. It's a bit narrow, isn't it?
CLARA
Any remarks about my hips will not be appreciated.
THE DOCTOR
Oh, your hips are fine, you're built like a man!
CLARA
Thanks.

E3:

I'll come clean, I didn't look very long, but I couldn't easily find one here.

E4:

The makeup thing and the three mirrors thing.

All of them are honestly pretty drat funny on their own (and to be fair, in the first one the Doctor was regeneration-confused as gently caress), but as a pattern it makes me kind of uncomfortable, even independent of any possible feminist issues. (Edit: And yes, I had similar issues with the running jokes with Mickey and Rory. I thought all of them were funny, but became obnoxious and sometimes uncomfortable after they were repeated ad infinitum)

Linear Zoetrope fucked around with this message at 01:59 on Sep 16, 2014

# ¿ Sep 16, 2014 01:53

Linear Zoetrope: Nov 28, 2011; A hero must cook

CobiWann posted:

Yeah, but Clara gives back just as good as she takes.

To me, it's nothing more than two really good friends who needle one another and one of them is more socially inept than the other.

I maintain that my uncomfortableness is due to the lack of variety. The Doctor never really insults her in a way other than her appearance. It's a bit one-trick-pony. Clara insults a bunch of the Doctor's personality traits. I'd really just prefer a bit more variety in their bickering.

# ¿ Sep 16, 2014 02:01

Linear Zoetrope: Nov 28, 2011; A hero must cook

Android Blues posted:

I don't really see it, moths. Twelve seems to me like he has no romantic interest in Clara whatsoever but rather considers her sensible, intelligent and reliable. Maybe the leaked scripts had notation suggesting jealousy on the Doctor's part, but I don't think it shows up even slightly on the screen. When he apologises to her in Deep Breath for acting like her boyfriend before, it's an apology for the flirty way he was leading her on as Eleven, which he now realises was unhealthy and inappropriate.

I can agree that maybe there's an issue with all his oblivious insulting of her being looks-focused, but at the same time I think a lot of it is too weird to really play into that narrative, and some of it clearly isn't malicious - like, when Capaldi delivers "her face is so wide, she needs three mirrors", he sounds more impressed than anything. The bit where he assumes she's already taken her makeup off reads way more as his inability to tell whether Clara is wearing makeup or not, to me, combined with an impatience to get her to come with him, than a process of "you look ugly - you must not be wearing any makeup".

It's not all like that, and if it continues apace maybe I'll change my mind, but I don't think it's particularly bad so far, and it's more than made up for by how important, confident, capable and pro-active Clara has been in these episodes.

She's interesting, charismatic, good with the Doctor, good at solving problems, though not without her own flaws...I think the amount of spotlight she's getting in these episodes and the way it's framed is really feminist. At this point she's not the Doctor's sidekick but feels like she's genuinely sharing centre stage as one of two heroes.

I agree with this 100%.

I still maintain that somehow 11 regenerated into Clara and picked up some dope from Pompeii and screwed with his memories to be her body double.

# ¿ Sep 16, 2014 03:01

Linear Zoetrope: Nov 28, 2011; A hero must cook

Evil Sagan posted:

So how are people "numbering" The Doctor's regenerations these days? Is Capaldi considered the 13th Doctor, counting Hurt before him? Or is Hurt sidelined? If Hurt does "count", does that retroactively make Eccleston 10, Tennant 11, and Smith 12, or do you count them in order of appearance in the show, making Hurt 12 despite canonically coming before Eccleston?

Generally Capaldi is 12 and Hurt is "War". (And the Metacrisis which technically counted as a regeneration is generally 10-2 or "Rose's Realdoll")

# ¿ Sep 16, 2014 03:12

Linear Zoetrope: Nov 28, 2011; A hero must cook

Astroman posted:

One note though: Metacrises was NOT the extra regeneration. The 10-2 Doctor is the Doctor who looks like 10 who regenerated after he was shot by the Dalek. He put some of his regeneration energy (the part which gives him a new face/body) into his hand, which when touched by Donna grew into a human Doctor, like a worm tail regrowing a body and head.

10-2 is the human doctor, yes. I consider Time-Lord 10 (post-metacrisis) and Human 10 (10-2), and to a lesser degree Doctor Donna as part of the "same regeneration." It's just easier to refer to 10-2 as the "extra regeneration" even though technically the "regenerated form" was the Time Lord body because 10-2 is the most obvious, visible change brought about by the regeneration.

# ¿ Sep 16, 2014 05:18

Linear Zoetrope: Nov 28, 2011; A hero must cook

Something just occurred to me, was 11 still seeing River sometimes offscreen around Day of the Doctor? Because he gave her the screwdriver when she went to the library which means after she left it wouldn't have been the same screwdriver War and 10 used to scan the door and compute the harmonic resonance.

Or is it some sort of TARDIS cloud computing thing with the screwdriver's software?

Edit: Unless 10 kept the screwdriver in the TARDIS until after he gave the current one to River? But I thought he left 11's screwdriver in the library computer.

vvvv Fair enough

Linear Zoetrope fucked around with this message at 01:38 on Sep 17, 2014

# ¿ Sep 17, 2014 01:34

Linear Zoetrope: Nov 28, 2011; A hero must cook

Sobatchja Morda posted:

It's the only way to survive what should have been called Not-Buffy and the Pretty Satin-Bottoms versus Yosemite Sam and his Passive-Aggressive Demon.

I'm sorry, but this sounds amazing which probably wasn't your intention. I want to listen to this now.

(Spoiler: I won't, I don't do audio dramas)

Linear Zoetrope fucked around with this message at 09:48 on Sep 17, 2014

# ¿ Sep 17, 2014 09:29

Linear Zoetrope: Nov 28, 2011; A hero must cook

Neddy Seagoon posted:

The slow path is the cruelest of all.

Honestly, this was just an elaborate plot to get Jerusalem to understand how 11 felt during the Slow Invasion.

# ¿ Sep 17, 2014 11:03

Linear Zoetrope: Nov 28, 2011; A hero must cook

Without getting into a debate about how the Scottish should vote, if they voted yes, what would it mean for Capaldi? Would it make it difficult for the BBC to renew his contract?

# ¿ Sep 18, 2014 00:26

Linear Zoetrope: Nov 28, 2011; A hero must cook

Cerv posted:

i like that you think the BBC only employs actors from the UK at the moment

Well, no, but I figured the rules may be a bit more stringent for the highly paid face character of one of their big mainline shows.

# ¿ Sep 18, 2014 10:29

Linear Zoetrope: Nov 28, 2011; A hero must cook

Slowpoke! posted:

I think everyone has a different opinion. Some people dislike season 3 but I think the second half of that season is the strongest stretch in New Who (Human Nature/Family of Blood two-parter, Blink and the three-parter return of the Master). I'd say the first half though, particularly the two-parter with the human Daleks and bad-accent Spiderman, followed by the Lazarus Experiment, is probably the worst 3 episode stretch.

So basically the worst stretch immediately followed by the best.

I didn't like the Season 3 finale except for Utopia. For one, Gollum!Doctor made it so I simply couldn't take anything happening seriously. But aside from super bad CG (I mean, come on, it's Who), I felt the entire 3-parter was retroactively weakened when it turned out all Martha was doing was enacting the Doctor's plan.

# ¿ Sep 19, 2014 15:00

Linear Zoetrope: Nov 28, 2011; A hero must cook

Spacedad posted:

(Animated version of the puppet: )
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtPtUezpKEs

From the maker of these familiar shorts:

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

I feel a little happier about the world knowing there's a puppet of Peter Capaldi in it.

This reminds me of the best episode of Angel where Angel got turned into a puppet by a bunch of evil puppet demons working on a children's show.

I would not object to Doctor Who ripping off of that.

# ¿ Sep 25, 2014 07:09

Linear Zoetrope: Nov 28, 2011; A hero must cook

After The War posted:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solitaire_%28audio_drama%29

Hmm... but how will I relate to the puppetness if I can't see the Doctor being adorable?

quote:

Since I haven't seen that episode, I'm imagining that being read by David Warner. Both parts.

That scene, like the rest of the episode, is pretty great. (Warning: lovely off-screen cam recording).

# ¿ Sep 25, 2014 13:27

Linear Zoetrope: Nov 28, 2011; A hero must cook

FWIW, I somewhat agree with Mr. Flunchy. I mean, I've seen some of the poo poo Moffat says about women. Even in official BBC aired interviews. That's not okay. But as far as the show goes, I'm often pleasantly surprised by the female companions, at least. Sure on a meta-level Moffat sees Clara as some controlling bossy woman who needs to learn to not be so controlling, but so far in this season she's basically turning out like I imagine a female Doctor would. I think both Clara and Amy are a fair bit better than both Martha and Rose, and his RTD episodes treat female characters pretty well in almost all cases I can think of.

Does he, as a writer of Who, have his problems? Oh yeah, and his repetitions grate. And I'm on record as being one of the people butthurt over the insults about Clara's appearance. But on average? I feel like Doctor Who has been at least fairly good to women since Series 4 or so. There are some questionable statistics (I think Doctor What once posted an infographics showing total speaking time and Bechdel test passage plummeted under Moffat), but other than his odd stuttering in the "women in places of authority" department, I've found his female characters rather compelling and well-written.

# ¿ Sep 25, 2014 14:42

Linear Zoetrope: Nov 28, 2011; A hero must cook

"Viscious Hivemind" is a pretty :krad:

band name, though. ("viscous hivemind" less so, you usually don't want your hiveminds thick and gloopy)

# ¿ Sep 26, 2014 07:18

Linear Zoetrope: Nov 28, 2011; A hero must cook

Bicyclops posted:

The most bizarre thing about Something Awful Doctor Who is that in all three threads, there are posters talking about the other threads as though they are an entirely separate culture that they're incapable of interacting with, even though the people posting in all three threads are, by and large, the same and mostly saying the exact same thing in each thread.

Nonsense. You're a cool dude, you know you hate that "Bicyclops" guy in the Occ thread too.

# ¿ Sep 26, 2014 18:23

Linear Zoetrope: Nov 28, 2011; A hero must cook

PriorMarcus posted:

Yep, and it turns out the Producers of the original series hated him for writing in all the time and being a massive loving nerd.

So what you're saying is that the 27th Doctor is on track to be Doctor What.

# ¿ Sep 27, 2014 18:29

Linear Zoetrope: Nov 28, 2011; A hero must cook

What about Turn Left? As I recall, the "monster" took up about 2 seconds of the episode and was more accurately termed "a technobabble plot device." The plot would have worked exactly as well if the explanation was "The TARDIS malfunctioned and rewrote Donna's history. oops"

# ¿ Sep 28, 2014 07:30

Linear Zoetrope: Nov 28, 2011; A hero must cook

Not that it wouldn't be really cool, but did Ian and Barabara even know The Doctor could regenerate? That might take some splainin.

(Granted taking 3 seconds to show him the pretty blue bigger on the inside police box would rectify that instantly).

# ¿ Sep 28, 2014 08:11

Linear Zoetrope: Nov 28, 2011; A hero must cook

So what are we betting? The Library computer? Cyber control hivemind?

(Probably something new, but still)

# ¿ Sep 28, 2014 11:12

Linear Zoetrope: Nov 28, 2011; A hero must cook

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.

# ¿ Sep 29, 2014 09:15

Linear Zoetrope: Nov 28, 2011; A hero must cook

DoctorWhat posted:

Please, if Sixth Doctor coats were widespread enough to become an irritating fandmom meme (like those Homespot trolls or the literal hundreds of TARDIS dresses that flood NYCC every year), I'd be over the moon.

Is a fandmom like a band mom except for memetic TV and webcomics fans?

# ¿ Sep 30, 2014 22:10

Linear Zoetrope: Nov 28, 2011; A hero must cook

Solaris Knight posted:

I think I may have been Gumshoe that there. Weird we've been to the same con and generally seem to be in the same area, but never bumped into each other.

Or maybe we have?

Since you've never seen each other in the same room at the same time, have you considered that you are, in fact, Doctor What?

# ¿ Sep 30, 2014 22:58

Linear Zoetrope: Nov 28, 2011; A hero must cook

IMO, the Doctor treated Danny almost exactly like he treated Rory early on, or Mickey. The Doctor just hates his companions having boyfriends or something.

# ¿ Oct 3, 2014 03:22

Linear Zoetrope: Nov 28, 2011; A hero must cook

I would argue that the Doctor's home is Earth. Far more than Gallifrey. I wouldn't be at all surprised if Series 9 or 10's arc is all about him having Gallifrey back and realizing that he's an Earthling far more than a Gallifreyan.

Edit: also, Courtney insisting on calling Clara "miss". If the stupid theories are true, that may have been a hint at Clara=Missy. Normally I wouldn't pay that line any mind, but I wouldn't put it past them to drop dumb hints like that.

# ¿ Oct 5, 2014 10:40

Linear Zoetrope: Nov 28, 2011; A hero must cook

It turns out that, after years of being homesick, the Doctor embraces his true Time Lord heritage and assumes his rightful place as the head of Gallifrey. The TARDIS gets mad at him and next season it gathers all his former companions. Led by Susan. they siege the capital and bring sense back to the Doctor.

Linear Zoetrope fucked around with this message at 21:42 on Oct 10, 2014

# ¿ Oct 10, 2014 21:39

Linear Zoetrope: Nov 28, 2011; A hero must cook

Little_wh0re posted:

Senor Tron. You monster

I came here to post the same thing. :smith:

# ¿ Oct 11, 2014 09:58

Linear Zoetrope: Nov 28, 2011; A hero must cook

At the end, for a moment I thought they were all in Missy's afterlife.

Anals of History posted:

Clara's question about whether the Doctor is an addict made me wonder if Clara's quick turnaround might be because Clara herself is now addicted to the thrill/adrenaline/etc. of traveling with the Doctor. She created a flimsy rationalization as to why she doesn't need to change her habits or to think about quitting any longer, she lied to the Doctor with that rationalization, and she shifted blame/responsibility to Danny for why she did or didn't have to quit. At least, that's why I didn't find that turnaround to be too jarring. If it is addiction, there will be more ups and downs to come.

I thought that was pretty transparently the implication of that scene.

# ¿ Oct 12, 2014 04:34

Linear Zoetrope: Nov 28, 2011; A hero must cook

Jerusalem posted:

Also wow but that cover of Don't Stop Me Now was great

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-6fEj17MK4

Apparently there's a full version :syoon:

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=830564583630628&fref=nf

# ¿ Oct 12, 2014 04:48

Linear Zoetrope: Nov 28, 2011; A hero must cook

It seemed like the angle they were going for with "The Devil" in that Ood episode was supernatural. Like, he wasn't meant to be "the Devil" in the sense that he was literally exactly the same as the popular Christian interpretation of him. But he was still made out to be something strange, powerful, and outside of normal explanation.

quote:

...the time when Ten had to deal with that guy who set him and Amy/Rory up with alternate scenarios and they had to choose which was real.

Nah, they explained that with telepathic pollen or something.

# ¿ Oct 12, 2014 04:59

Linear Zoetrope: Nov 28, 2011; A hero must cook

Jerusalem posted:

I was very happy that the reply was a very disgruntled,"Like a restraining order "

Oh man, that's a pretty great :iceburn:

# ¿ Oct 12, 2014 06:04

Linear Zoetrope: Nov 28, 2011; A hero must cook

Cleretic posted:

It sort of misses the spirit of the song, since it's basically about having the most high-octane fun you can possibly have. Foxes' version is just fine by itself, but it isn't really Don't Stop Me Now.

That's part of the beauty of it, though. This is a space train in the year whatever. It reminds me of the quote in Dreden Codak's Pretend to be a Time Traveler Day. �If the Future did a documentary of the last fifty years, this is how badly the reenactors would dress.�

Imagine you get this manuscript with lyrics of Don't Stop Me Now. Some self-styled "20th century music historian" says "oh, yeah, sure, I can reconstruct that, I know all about 20th century music :v:

." There's a pretty good chance that you'd get something nonsensical. It might be Disco, it might be Late '80s Hiphop, it might be '90s Europop. Hell, maybe it's set to the tune of Eleanor Rigby because don'tcha know that was the foundational work of 20th century music?

It's like people who dress up like pirates or early vikings at the "Renaissance" festival. Late '70s music in a 1930's train sung in a slow Jazz style with modern-day vocal fry singing? Sure, why not?

I'm giving them way too much credit, honestly. I doubt they planned that, but I really like it from that perspective.

# ¿ Oct 14, 2014 03:15

Linear Zoetrope: Nov 28, 2011; A hero must cook

Irony Be My Shield posted:

What other way is there to read it, unless we're suggesting that the producers of Doctor Who literally do not realize that Don't Stop Me Now wasn't actually a 1920s lounge song? We hear it during the scene where they joke about poor historical accuracy, so it's clearly playing into that.

Well, you can rewrite a song in a different style without explicitly tying into that stuff. It's done all the time. I missed the historical accuracy joke though, so maybe I missed that the point I was making was the real point after all.

# ¿ Oct 14, 2014 03:39

Linear Zoetrope: Nov 28, 2011; A hero must cook

I do kind of still refuse to believe that that was the only plausible way to get him out of there in time, but :shrug:

# ¿ Oct 16, 2014 02:57

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 07:39

Linear Zoetrope: Nov 28, 2011; A hero must cook

PriorMarcus posted:

This also makes his fear of regeneration make more sense, he's going onto his last life and Trenzalore.

I really think that the "I don't want to go" stuff was a holdover from Human Nature/Family of Blood. The Doctor said that John Smith would always be a part of him, and in some ways Smith is closer to 10 than even his other regenerations are. Smith was terrified of dying, but ended up choosing to do so for the greater good. To save people. While 10 had a very rocky path, when it came time to choose, he ultimately decided to be the man John Smith was: a man who had to face his fear of death to save another. In fact, you could almost argue that 10 one-upped Smith. Smith chose to die in order to save many people, but 10 died to save a single, ordinary grandfather.

# ¿ Oct 16, 2014 03:24

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > TV IV > Doctor Who series 8 (34): Eyebrows! Eyebrows since the dawn of Time!

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