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It's so weird only really knowing John Hurt from Alien, and then going to his IMDB and going "holy crap, there's so much work of his I need to watch!"
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Jan 1, 2015 00:14
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CobiWann posted:It's so weird only really knowing John Hurt from Alien, and then going to his IMDB and going "holy crap, there's so much work of his I need to watch!" Start with Spaceballs then  .
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Jan 1, 2015 03:11
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Neddy Seagoon posted:Start with Spaceballs then Which one? The Movie? The Coloring Book? The Flamethrower?
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Jan 1, 2015 03:55
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Pinwiz11 posted:What do people recommend that they use to listen to the Big Finish stories on an Android? I decided to resubscribe over the holidays and I'm open for suggestions. Winamp used to be really good, but they killed that so lately I've been using a thing called "Rocket Player." It seems to naturally understand the BF ordering without me having to create playlists so that it doesn't start playing CD 1 TRACK 1, CD 2 TRACK T, CD 1 TRACK 2 CD 2 TRACK 2 etc which was a problem back in the day. adhuin posted:I might have a problem. Funnily enough, I don't have that problem with Tom. It might be helpful that he's ironically the Doctor I've seen on tv least. It was a big problem with Peter for me, but either he's got better or I've been able to suspend my disbelief more. I just finished Masters of Earth. It was pretty good. I feel they are giving some decent exploration to Peri's arc and her issues with the Doctor (which remind me a lot of the Clara/Doctor conflict we're seeing now onscreen).
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Jan 1, 2015 04:54
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CobiWann posted:Which one? The Movie? The Coloring Book? The Flamethrower? I find The Toilet Paper to by highly underrated.
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Jan 1, 2015 04:59
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And Happy New Year from the First Doctor!
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Jan 1, 2015 05:51
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The Big Finish Humble Bundle just added three new adventures! And they're ones I never hear you lot talking about : adaptations of the Doctor Who stage plays. I didn't even know that sort of thing existed. One of them is a musical starring Colin Baker.
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Jan 1, 2015 05:59
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Cleretic posted:The Big Finish Humble Bundle just added three new adventures! And they're ones I never hear you lot talking about : adaptations of the Doctor Who stage plays. I didn't even know that sort of thing existed. Well, that wasn't at all what I was expecting! Should make for an interesting listen at least.
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Jan 1, 2015 06:08
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Time Heist is a perfectly decent episode of Doctor Who. It's good, quite good even. It's really got nothing wrong with it, it's a perfectly fine story with some nice stylistic touches in parts, somewhat hurt by a rather rushed ended that relies on some plot contrivances that make little sense in relation to the established "rules" seen earlier in the episode. It works as a self-contained story as well as including some subtle season-long stuff, more obviously with the growing relationship between Clara and Danny, but also in Clara's reluctance to reveal that part of her life to the Doctor. There is also in the first inkling that Clara is beginning to have to face up to the notion that maybe this new incarnation of the Doctor isn't a very nice person, and that her earnest attempts since Deep Breath to believe he's still the same old 11th Doctor beneath the surface of the new face are beginning to be shaken. The Danny/Clara stuff is gotten out of the way early, but has an impact across the entire episode. Clara is preparing eagerly for a second date with Danny when the Doctor shows up and obliviously punctures her ego despite her obvious attempts to look good for her date (when he sees her heels he ponders if she needs to get something off a shelf). She won't be dissuaded though, she means to go on her date and nothing the Doctor can do will change her mind, even when the phone in the TARDIS starts to ring and he brings up once again that mysterious women in the shop who initially brought the two of them together. Clara means to go on her date, though the Doctor assures her that him simply answering the phone can't possibl-  This is where the episode kicks into high gear, as the Doctor and Clara find themselves in a strange room with two complete strangers, being informed by a voice recording (and confirmed by their own recorded voices) that the four of them have agreed to rob the most secure bank in the universe for "The Architect". Their memories have been wiped, a security team is on the way to arrest them, and they have no choice but to go on the run and figure out what to do next. Despite being clueless as to why, they all know that they've agreed to do this near impossible task, and since they have no idea where they are or even if there is any way off the planet (the TARDIS is conspicuous by its absence). The Doctor isn't the type to like being forced into a corner like this, but he heard that recording of his own voice and it has lead him to the conclusion that all four of them agreed to do this, and so they must have had some overwhelming reason to do so, even if he no longer remembers what that was. Throughout the rest of the story the Doctor continues to lead the team, naturally assuming the position of authority in spite of being just as in the dark as everybody else. One of the other members of the "crew" - Psi - calls this into question immediately, asking why the Doctor thinks he is in charge, but even he finds himself naturally following the Doctor's lead. This natural assumption of authority will be more firmly questioned in the following episode, it's a theme intended to be explored over the entire season that wasn't executed particularly well. Considering this is a "heist" episode, which is a rarity for Who - most robberies in the classic series or revival were self-contained scenes - the episode does a pretty good job of aping the stylistic features in a kind of sci-fi Ocean's Eleven style way. Quirky camera moves, use of slow-motion, flashbacks etc. The major difference is that the crew is assembled off-screen, which means right from the get-go the characters have to work harder to get the attention/sympathy of the viewer. This works well in regards to the Doctor and Clara not knowing Psi or Saibra (and vice-versa) but there is little in the way of hostility or distrust between the four - most of the conflict comes down to Psi's questioning of the Doctor's decisions, most of which tend to end up being entirely right, apart from one really good part where Clara fobs off the Doctor's rather callous attitude and Psi points out that she's basically just making excuses for him, and maybe he really is just a callous rear end in a top hat. Everybody has a role to play - Saibra can mimic anybody she touches to such an extent that she can pass any scan, Psi can hack into system because of his cybernetic enhancements, the Doctor is the leader (and the Doctor!), and Clara is there to be the intermediary because the Doctor would just piss everybody else otherwise. But once Saibra's role has gotten them into the deposit-box room she effectively becomes useless to the wider plan, so it's no real surprise when she is quickly killed off, committing suicide rather than have her brain turned to soup by the mysterious creature/security system known as "The Teller".   The Teller is a species even the Doctor has never seen before, which of course just makes him all the more curious. Head of Security Ms. Delphox (a wonderful turn from Keeley Hawes, the lead actor from Ashes to Ashes, the sequel to Life on Mars) keeps it in hibernation until it is needed, using it as her big gun to sniff out attempts to rob or otherwise breach the security of the bank. Telepathically able to sense guilt, the Teller scans a brain, finds what it is looking for and tears the information out of the victim's mind, turning their brain to soup in the process. Even worse, the victims are kept alive and chained up in the service levels beneath the surface of the bank, an example for anybody else who even thinks about making a similar move. Even even worse, the families of the victim are also punished (though not souped!) financially just to further dissuade any attempts. The Doctor and his crew are nominally protected by their wiped memories and lack of families (or accessible ones, in Clara's case), as well as the presence of another guilty customer, but the further into their operation they go the more "guilty" they become, meaning they have to work quickly before the Teller can be set loose again. This being Doctor Who, they of course run right into the hibernation room of the creature, where it almost gets hold of Clara's brain only to snatch onto Saibra instead. Using a "shredder" mysteriously left deeper inside the bank by the Architect, she disintegrates herself rather than have her mind turned to soup and her body left alive but brain-dead. There is an attempt to establish some kind of rapport between her and the Doctor in her final moments, but she really does feel like a tool that was no longer required and so just removed from the story. A similar thing happens to Psi, though his longer interactions with Clara at least give him a bit of character development, and make his decision to sacrifice himself to save her make a kind of sense - he's desperately seeking a connection with somebody because he's been forced to forget those he already formed. That leads to a fun little nod to continuity when he downloads information on the worst criminals in the galaxy to entice the Teller away from Clara, one of whom is Abslom Daak*. He dies well, but like with Saibra it feels like they've served their purpose and just been written out of the story.. or at least so it at first seems.   It's quite clever really, but Moffat and Thompson (co-writers of this episode, Thompson being the third writer on Sherlock with Moffat and Gatiss) have given us two seemingly 2-dimensional characters with a single defining feature, used them like tools and then removed them from the story since they're no longer required.... then brings them back successfully after laying on the poignancy by having the Doctor and Clara penetrate the vault and discover the perfect things that were being held inside for both characters. Unfortunately it requires a little bit of contrivance, since the Doctor and Clara are caught inside the vault by the Teller but simply taken in cuffs to Ms. Delphox instead of having their brains souped by it. Not only that, but after Delphox has them in her power, she puts the Teller away and heads off herself, leaving them in the hands of her normal security team despite a normal security team being easily neutralized by them at the start of the episode. Still, Saibra and Psi's return is a welcome one and serves to bring the crew closer together thanks to their shared experiences and their belief that the two had died. The Doctor gives them both their reward - a memory restorer for Psi to remember who his family is, a gene suppressant for Saibra so she can touch people - and together all four return easily to the vault and access the private vault, apparently security just shut right the hell down after they were captured. The contrivances continue when they confront the mysterious Madame Karabraxos who quickly reminds them that they're still in her power (they have no weapons and no intent to do her harm), only for a solar storm to come out of nowhere that threatens to kill everybody on the planet if they don't evacuate. This is really ridiculous, not just as an excuse as to why the Doctor couldn't bring the TARDIS straight into the vault, but because how the hell does the most secure bank in the universe not have a system in place to either detect massive solar storms or to be protected from them when they strike - hell we have the former at least in OUR time. Karabraxos has to run with whatever she can grab, and basically everybody else on the planet/in the bank is utterly forgotten by the story, which leads into the very good conclusion but is still a pretty massive contrivance of the plot to get the characters into the place they wanted them to be. The identity of the Architect is supposed to be a mystery to both the characters and the Doctor, and this is only enhanced by their bewilderment at learning the Architect has somehow gotten in ahead of them every step of the way and left tools for them to continue. That raises the question of why he needed them in the first place, and how he is capable of doing these things. The Doctor admits to hating the man, but considering that he seems remarkably willing to just continue along on the track that the man has seemingly laid out for him and set him on - I never really got any sense of frustration of anger from the Doctor over finding himself in this situation, if anything he appears to be happily using the excuse of the Architect to satisfy his own curiosity and the chance/excuse to do the impossible and rob the most secure bank in the universe. Psi kind of alludes to this but we get such little chance for interaction between them as they run from danger to danger that even after the Architect's identity is revealed, we never really get any explicit admission from the Doctor one way or the other - was he secretly happy to be thrust into this life or worst-fate-than-death scenario? Even once his memory is restored at the end, it pays to take his actions throughout the episode in the context of him not being aware of the greater mission he was on. That said, the scene where all the little details that have been present throughout the episode finally come together in his head and he figures out exactly what is going on is really neat, and Capaldi sells the hell out of it (even channeling a little g-rated Malcolm Tucker in the process) - who had his phone number? Who gave it to them? How did the Architect get ahead of them every step of the way? How did the Architect know exactly what each member of the crew wanted and where exactly in the bank to find it? What significance does Madame Karabraxos' staffing policy have? What did Saibra tell him about why she can't form lasting relationships? Why did he have SIX shredders for a crew of three etc? Capaldi's Doctor is just as smart as his previous incarnations, but he's a little slower when it comes to making the connections consciously - the 11th Doctor's brain often moved too fast for his conscious mind to keep up, with the 12th Doctor I more get the sense that his subconscious mind doesn't so much work things out as intuit them immediately, but there is a disconnect between that subconscious intuition and his conscious mind which has trouble seeing the forest for the trees. When he does catch up though, it's wonderful, and the joy (and smugness!) he takes in talking his way through it is a blast, especially when he rings that loving gong    In a similar "twist" to Hide, the Doctor has figured out that the Teller has its own "riches" in the vault, which turns out to be a second member of its species - presumably its wife or husband or whatever the gender of the creature is, if it even has one. Madame Karabraxos has been keeping this one locked up in her safe to ensure the docility of the other, it has had no choice but to sniff out the guilt of the customers and soup their brains, and the Doctor appeals to it as a sentient being with its own thoughts, feelings and emotions, perhaps the only time that such an appeal could make any difference. Freeing its partner, the Doctor uses the shredders (revealed to actually be teleporters, though that wasn't a huge surprise given the special effect they used for it) to take all six of them onto the ship orbiting the planet where the TARDIS is being held. Dropping the telepathic creatures off on an abandoned planet to enjoy the quiet and get about the business of repopulating their planet (the first thing they do is get naked!), he then grabs some Chinese takeaway for the crew to celebrate their successful robbery of the vault. Psi and Saibra both managed to come across well in their brief time in the episode, and Psi himself seems to have turned the corner on the Doctor, belying his earlier warning to Clara about what kind of person the Doctor actually was - the feeling seems to be reciprocal, as Psi jokes about considering him the next time he wants to rob a bank. Clara laughs off the notion, but in another example of Capaldi's wonderful physical acting, it's not entirely out of the realm of possibility - the Doctor doesn't care about getting riches, but doing the impossible like robbing an impregnable bank or talking down a creature who can turn your brain into soup? Oh that's just fun.   Time Heist is a good episode that is quite a lot of fun to watch. There are some jarring transitions that feel like an attempt to get around shortcomings in filming through editing, and the structure of the episode means we mostly miss out on one of the more fun parts of a heist flick, which is the assembling of the crew. The ending is rushed and requires a lot of plot contrivances that don't gel well with what felt like a more structured and thought-out first half or so of the episode, but as an episode of Doctor Who that plays around in a genre we don't normally see from the show, it at least stands out from your normal "fine but ultimately forgettable" episodes. The episode also ends with Clara finally getting to rush out the door to her date (and a pretty hilariously mean joke from the Doctor about calories in the TARDIS) and the Doctor making a rather odd comment about beating robbing a bank for a date. It basically comes down to the Doctor being a typical "dad' who is upset that he's no longer the most important person in this girl's life, and that gets played up a bit more in the next episode. But it kind of comes out of nowhere in THIS episode, and some people overreacted a bit about it, suffice to say the days of quasi-romance between the Doctor and a female companion are very definitely in the past of the revival, at least for now, and thank goodness. * DALEK KILLER! Jerusalem fucked around with this message at 13:37 on Jan 1, 2015 |
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Jan 1, 2015 07:20
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CobiWann posted:It's so weird only really knowing John Hurt from Alien, and then going to his IMDB and going "holy crap, there's so much work of his I need to watch!" Start with I, Claudius, he plays Caligula and absolutely steals the show
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Jan 1, 2015 08:22
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CobiWann posted:
CobiWann posted:Sylvester McCoy is the Doctor in…Dreamtime. Cleretic posted:The Big Finish Humble Bundle just added three new adventures! And they're ones I never hear you lot talking about : adaptations of the Doctor Who stage plays. I didn't even know that sort of thing existed. Is it worth getting the FLAC versions of these for 2-3 times the space on my note 3. Can't imagine the quality is THAT much better, but I've been surprised before.
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Jan 1, 2015 09:16
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Fungah! posted:Start with I, Claudius, he plays Caligula and absolutely steals the show The scene where he invites Claudius and two Senators around to the palace in the middle of the night is absolutely loving amazing.
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Jan 1, 2015 11:37
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Cleretic posted:The Big Finish Humble Bundle just added three new adventures! And they're ones I never hear you lot talking about : adaptations of the Doctor Who stage plays. I didn't even know that sort of thing existed. Wait, does that mean that if I already paid I get them too?
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Jan 1, 2015 12:13
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Yvonmukluk posted:Wait, does that mean that if I already paid I get them too? Yes. Now I just hope they add the 4th season of the Dalek Empire into the bundle.
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Jan 1, 2015 12:29
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Jerusalem posted:The scene where he invites Claudius and two Senators around to the palace in the middle of the night is absolutely loving amazing. God, everything about I, Claudius is loving amazing but that scene takes the cake. The rosy-fingered goddess Dawn tiptoes on his domain...
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Jan 1, 2015 22:26
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I've just started working my way through the Eighth Doctor's audiobooks - I'm at Minuet in Hell, having started from Storm Warning, continuing through Sword of Orion, and The Stones of Venice. They've been pretty engaging so far, although I feel the pacing is a tad off in places. The accents in MiH are certainly...um...wow...ah...colourful.
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Jan 2, 2015 01:01
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Pesky Splinter posted:I've just started working my way through the Eighth Doctor's audiobooks - I'm at Minuet in Hell, having started from Storm Warning, continuing through Sword of Orion, and The Stones of Venice. I WARNED YOU ABOUT MINUET, BRO
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Jan 2, 2015 01:05
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If we're having John Hurt talk, this needed to go here.
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Jan 2, 2015 01:08
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DoctorWhat posted:I WARNED YOU ABOUT MINUET, BRO MiH is hilarious in all the worst ways.  Zero taste or restraint. The demon, Marchosias', voice just cracks me up.
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Jan 2, 2015 02:27
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Fungah! posted:God, everything about I, Claudius is loving amazing but that scene takes the cake. The rosy-fingered goddess Dawn tiptoes on his domain... I do not know any scene with Livia is amazing.
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Jan 2, 2015 02:30
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Pesky Splinter posted:Zero taste or restraint. The demon, Marchosias', voice just cracks me up. He's like a villain from Buffy the Vampire Layer!
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Jan 2, 2015 02:46
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RodShaft posted:If we're having John Hurt talk, this needed to go here. John Hurt IS Windsor Davies IN "It Alien't Half Hot, Mum"
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Jan 2, 2015 05:27
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Sydney Bottocks posted:John Hurt IS Windsor Davies IN "It Alien't Half Hot, Mum" That's an incredibly deep cut. Respek.
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Jan 2, 2015 05:29
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DoctorWhat posted:That's an incredibly deep cut. Respek. (chestburster pops out of Little Lofty's chest) "Oh dear. How sad. Never mind."
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Jan 2, 2015 05:33
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Sydney Bottocks posted:John Hurt IS Windsor Davies IN "It Alien't Half Hot, Mum" This made me grin like Tom Baker, and I thank you for it 
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Jan 2, 2015 05:35
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RodShaft posted:If we're having John Hurt talk, this needed to go here. I was worried about the live action Looney Tunes reboot, but if this is the Yosemite Sam they've chosen, I have reservations NO MORE.
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Jan 2, 2015 07:21
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John Hurt lived in my home town as a youngster. Both of us had the sense to move out of that loving poo poo hole.
Myrddin_Emrys fucked around with this message at 11:42 on Jan 2, 2015 |
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Jan 2, 2015 11:39
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Sydney Bottocks posted:John Hurt IS Windsor Davies IN "It Alien't Half Hot, Mum" 
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Jan 2, 2015 12:09
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I don't get it...
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Jan 2, 2015 12:10
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Jsor posted:I don't get it... There's an old sitcom called It Ain't Half Hot, Mum . John Hurt's glorious 'tache bears a resemblance to the lead actor's; 
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Jan 2, 2015 15:21
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Pesky Splinter posted:There's an old sitcom called It Ain't Half Hot, Mum . John Hurt's glorious 'tache bears a resemblance to the lead actor's; 
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Jan 2, 2015 15:28
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Jan 2, 2015 16:04
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Someone please update the title appropriately for the season break so that it says something like "bargain discount radio plays and puppet shows from the 1970s."
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Jan 2, 2015 17:56
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Doctor Who – Discount radio plays, puppets from the 1970’s, and one guy who still hasn’t seen “Red Dwarf.”
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Jan 2, 2015 18:13
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CobiWann posted:And Happy New Year from the First Doctor! "Ah, I see you've been doing up the place. I love it."
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Jan 2, 2015 18:47
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PSA: Both the classic series and the revival are leaving Netflix on February 1.
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Jan 2, 2015 19:46
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Came across this great post on Reddit about the Doctor's age. I really like the idea at the end.quote:Let's get it out of the way that Nine's "900" is really really not accurate to what he'd claimed before. Because Six claimed to be 900 in Revelation of the Daleks, and Seven claimed to be 953 shortly after regenerating in Time and the Rani. Those ages jive pretty well with statements made by the Fourth Doctor. Then, you have all of the Seventh Doctor's life from that point until, having aged visibly and lost all his companions, he regenerated into Eight, who did the same (including a 600 year stay on Orbis after which he said that he makes a habit of rounding his age down and adjusting it based on the length of the year in that part of the universe) followed again by the War Doctor who nearly aged to death (which takes about 1000 years, given Eleven and the descriptions of the ages of retired Time Lords in Shada) and then finally Nine, who claimed only 900.
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Jan 2, 2015 19:53
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Timby posted:PSA: Both the classic series and the revival are leaving Netflix on February 1. Whoa, bummer. Is that in all countries, do you know?
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Jan 2, 2015 19:57
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Timby posted:PSA: Both the classic series and the revival are leaving Netflix on February 1. They said the same thing for last February 1st. All it means is that the BBC contract renewal hasn't been finalized yet.
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Jan 2, 2015 19:57
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PantsOptional posted:They said the same thing for last February 1st. All it means is that the BBC contract renewal hasn't been finalized yet. Yeah I remember that. Netflix are very obtuse when it comes to stuff like this.
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Jan 2, 2015 20:06
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