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NieR Occomata
Jan 18, 2009

Glory to Mankind.



Doctor Who loving sucks!

And, yet again, Oxx and I will watch every single terrible loving episode of Series Nine. Unlike last year, though, Oxx will not be joining me on reviews, or in the thread. Besides that, though, it'll be the exact same format as last time: we'll watch every single episode, I'll write a review on it, the thread will call me crazy, there'll be a bunch of arguing. Repeat twelve more times.

What the Hell is This: A Newbie's Guide

In case you're new and/or just decided to click on this thread in the TV/IV subforum, first off: Get out while you still can. Only death awaits. Secondly, welcome. This is a review thread for the Doctor Who reboot, wherein I, Toxxupation, watch all the episodes of a given season of a given TV show, then write incredibly long, overly verbose reviews of the same.

I've done this a couple of times before: you can check out my Last Man Standing review thread (seasons 2 and 3) here. It's goldmined so you should be able to read it regardless.

After the success of the LMS thread, a whole bunch of Shenanigans occurred, which eventually lead to my literal best friend in the whole world Oxxidation pulling off what can only be adequately described as a malicious, near-Machivallian plot to force me to watch and review all of the Doctor Who reboot series. It was a year-and-a-half long effort, and Oxxidation the total fuckin' scumbag dropped out about halfway or so through, but I eventually did it. You can read that thread in its entirety here. (Will require archives soon, unless it gets goldmined.) Fair warning: the first couple seasons of reviews are rough, as I struggled with figuring out what my tone was in those first entries. I also focused on summarization over analysis early on, something I jettisoned as the reviews got longer and I solidified my point of view. There's also no-to-very-little editing going on for the first couple of seasons. Uh, yeah. As I said, rough.

I'm working on finding a solution to hosting all of those reviews off-site, both for archival purposes and because I'd like an excuse to edit my early reviews, so hopefully in the near future I'll have a blog or something you can visit to read all the old stuff.

The previous thread is a case study in how Stockholm Syndrome works, since I started it detesting DW and ended up falling in unironic love with it. Now, there's no pretense: I really love Doctor Who, I really love writing about Doctor Who, and apparently people liking reading what I write if only to tell me how wrong I am.

So, that's what I'll be doing for the 13 episodes that make up Series Nine, watching and reviewing each episode of DW as it comes. My scale is A-B-C-D-F, no pluses or minuses.



Thread Rules:
  • There used to be two, but it's a simultaneously Sisyphean and Icarus-ian task to ask people not to sperg out about Doctor Who (and downright hypocritical at this point, as the number of words I have written exceeds the length of Moby Dick), so now there's just one. It's unbreakable. NO loving SPOILERS. I used to do summaries, but now I don't, so I'll post a link to the Wikipedia summary of the episode I just watched after I watch it. Until then, consider everything that happens, on any level, in any of the thirteen episodes I have not watched to be verboten to discuss. No spoiler tags, nothing. Impressions are spoilers, saying "I can't wait till he gets to X" is a spoiler. Don't be sly, don't "spoil without spoiling", don't make "clever jokes". If your post has literally anything to do with an episode I haven't watched don't post it. If you are at all concerned that it might break the rules, either don't post it, or better just quote it and discuss it in one of the two other Doctor Who threads on this subforum. To be clear: this isn't for me, most of the time I'm utterly indifferent to spoilers and if anything I kinda hate spoiler culture. The stringency of the rules is because most of the other people in this thread like to see my reactions to things in as pure a state as possible, and people are often interested in my writeups because they're removed from general consensus in any way. So, really, if you spoil me, you're not ruining my enjoyment; you're ruining everyone else in the thread's enjoyment. Don't be That Dude.

    Also if I wanna be 100% honest I don't like not being able to read my own thread. The spoiler problem is a problem this thread has always had, so please don't break the rules if you can help it. I'm fine with, and have before, closed this thread if and when it gets bad. Oxxidation will actually be watching this thread like a hawk so if you see him posting, telling you to knock it off, stop it. It's the only time he's ever gonna be posting in this thread.

    For clarification, anything that happens in anything that isn't the upcoming thirteen episodes of Series Nine is fair game. Classic Who, RTD Who, Series Five, Six, Seven, or Eight, the comics, the audios...literally everything that isn't in Series Nine, you can discuss freely. The only time it becomes sticky is when it's spoiler-adjacent; if you discuss a story or work that was in some form of Who before that Series Nine uses in some way, feel free to discuss it, but try and not mention the fact that it's used in an upcoming story/episode.

  • Don't insult Rory Williams you horrible fucks

Stuff I Was Inadvertently Spoiled On:

With that all being said, most of the people who read this thread want to know how much I actually know about a season before I watch it. Because I follow television news really intently, I ended up spoiled as just a matter of course from reading Onion AV Club. For those people, here it is, stuff I already know going into this season (Again, this is stuff I'm saying that still falls under the "no spoiler" rule. Don't confirm, deny, or talk about them, this is just a list):
  • Lots of two-parters this year
  • Peter Harness wrote a two-parter which apparently sucks
  • Jenna Coleman leaves the show this year, so I assume that Clara dies or something at the end of the season

Update Schedule:

Unlike last time, this time I actually intend to update only once a week. Especially considering the length of these reviews (5,000+ words isn't uncommon), I need the time, plus with both Oxx and my's full time jobs it's actively exhausting to review more than one episode a week. Updates should come out on Saturdays.

A Note

Usually I post a review thread with a review already in the can, but I'm not doing that this time to surface the fact that idonotlikepeas is running the traditional "Doctor Who Guessing Game". Details below. First review will be up tomorrow, January 2, 2016.

If you want to know what to expect to calibrate your guesses better, here:

Although I disagree this is a weakness due to my ideological view on how episodic works should be appraised, many people (including Oxxidation) find fault with how I'll grade an episode removed from context or expectation. In other, simpler terms, I find that just because something might be or "will be" paid off in the future does not make a "bad" thing that happens now any less bad.

By the way I'm "Toxxupation", "Occupation", or "Occ". If you read people referring to one or more of these terms, that's me. Oxxidation, my best friend whom I watch these episodes with (he has seen all of these episodes beforehand and we usually discuss/kvetch about it as it is airing), is "Oxxidation" or "Oxx". I'll usually bring him up in my writeups for greater insight or as an opposing viewpoint, since we disagree on a lot and he's a really "logical" viewer, whilst I'm an "emotional" one. Oxx used to also review all the episodes with me but then quit due to a sudden influx of common sense. He's not gonna be reviewing this season, presumably because he's too busy writing fanfiction or some such horrible bullshit, I dunno I'm not his keeper.

Review Archive:
901, "The Magician's Apprentice"
902, "The Witch's Familiar"
903, "Under the Lake"
904, "Before the Flood"
905, "The Girl Who Died"
906, "The Woman Who Lived"
907, "The Zygon Invasion" Oxx's Review
908, "The Zygon Inversion"

NieR Occomata fucked around with this message at 07:49 on Mar 7, 2016

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idonotlikepeas
May 29, 2010

This reasoning is possible for forums user idonotlikepeas!
Are you a person? Do you like to win completely meaningless prizes? Can you type the letters A-D and F over and over again? Then you, too, are eligible to participate in a contest statistically little different than a random lottery! As part of the review thread, we readers guess what grade each episode will receive and then complain bitterly about Toxx's taste when we inevitably get it wrong.

Here are the rules, in no particular order:

  • The episode list for the purposes of this contest starts with the first episode of Season Nine ("The Magician's Apprentice") and ends with the most recent Christmas special.
  • Send all your guesses via e-mail to my SA username @gmail.com or via PM on SA itself or via any other means of contact you happen to have for me. The best format is your SA username on the first line and one vote per line thereafter, but I'm not too picky. The subject of every mail or PM should include the phrase "Season Nine Guessing Game" so I can keep track of them.
  • One vote per person per episode. You cannot change your votes for any episode once you've sent them to me.
  • Each vote has to be a letter grade, A-D or F, no half-step grades or other cutesy stuff.
  • You get one point for every step by which your grade differs from the one Toxx assigns in either direction. So if he says C and you said B, you get one point, and if he said A and you said F, you get four.
  • Whoever gets the lowest point value at the end of the season wins a prize of some kind, which I will eventually remember to give them!
  • :ducksiren: You can vote on each episode at any point before the review comes out :ducksiren:, which means you can watch along with the reviews (or at least a little bit in advance). In other words, you don't have to send me the full list right away, as long as you vote for the episode at some point before it gets reviewed.
  • If you don't get a vote in on any episode, you will automatically get four points for that episode even if that would otherwise be impossible. Obviously, Toxx is under no obligation to inform anyone in advance when he's doing reviews, so it's to your advantage to get your votes in as early as you feel able. This also means that you can enter the contest late, you will just get four points for any episodes already reviewed.

Final Rankings:

Red Metal: 9
And More: 11
blasmeister: 12
onetruepurple: 12
Ajax 99: 13
Howe_sam: 13
jng2058: 13
Weird Sandwich: 13
AndwhatIseeisme: 14
Jet Jaguar: 14
mycelia: 14
Regy Rusty: 14
Xenoborg: 14
Alkarl: 15
ThNextGreenLantern: 15
DoctorWhat: 16
Enourmo: 16
Organza Quiz: 16
Paul.Power: 16
2house2fly: 17
cargohills: 17
Lottery of Babylon: 17
Mind the Walrus: 17
NeuroticLich: 18
Angela Christine: 23
BSam: 27

idonotlikepeas fucked around with this message at 01:33 on Mar 30, 2016

NieR Occomata
Jan 18, 2009

Glory to Mankind.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magician%27s_Apprentice_(Doctor_Who)

In which Missy sends a text.

Burkion
May 10, 2012

by Fluffdaddy
This is going to be an interesting review.

Facebook Aunt
Oct 4, 2008

wiggle wiggle





Oh, wow, according to that there was a prequel. It shows what the Doctor was doing before Clara showed up. http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x37zoka

Neat.

cargohills
Apr 18, 2014

I found this episode hilarious. Missy is wonderful and amazing and so is 12.

And More
Jun 19, 2013

How far, Doctor?
How long have you lived?

Angela Christine posted:

Oh, wow, according to that there was a prequel. It shows what the Doctor was doing before Clara showed up. http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x37zoka

Neat.

This is really recommended viewing. Some characters get introduced here that barely get any screen time in the episode itself.

Lottery of Babylon
Apr 25, 2012

STRAIGHT TROPIN'

And More posted:

This is really recommended viewing. Some characters get introduced here that barely get any screen time in the episode itself.

Those characters are a pointless waste of time, much like the episode itself.

AndwhatIseeisme
Mar 30, 2010

Being alive is pretty much a constant stream of embarrassment.
Fun Shoe
Oh good, I managed to catch this in time to get a bunch of wrong guesses in this season.

Soothing Vapors
Mar 26, 2006

Associate Justice Lena "Kegels" Dunham: An uncool thought to have: 'is that guy walking in the dark behind me a rapist? Never mind, he's Asian.
why did you two dummies subtly hint at the existence of a new thread instead of just linking it GOD

Attitude Indicator
Apr 3, 2009

Lottery of Babylon posted:

Those characters are a pointless waste of time, much like the episode itself.

like DW in general.
but you're right, this episode is garbage.

Regy Rusty
Apr 26, 2010

Oh god is she still alive

I guess I need to get watching tonight

CobiWann
Oct 21, 2009

Have fun!

Attitude Indicator posted:

like DW in general.
but you're right, this episode is garbage.

Not entirely garbage...

Hemingway To Go!
Nov 10, 2008

im stupider then dog shit, i dont give a shit, and i dont give a fuck, and i will never shut the fuck up, and i'll always Respect my enemys.
- ernest hemingway

Regy Rusty posted:

Oh god is she still alive

I guess I need to get watching tonight

No, sorry, Hetty is still dead.

Regy Rusty
Apr 26, 2010

Acne Rain posted:

No, sorry, Hetty is still dead.

She lives on... in my heart

idonotlikepeas
May 29, 2010

This reasoning is possible for forums user idonotlikepeas!
Hey, folks. Here are the current contest participants:

2house2fly
Alkarl
And More
AndwhatIseeisme
Angela Christine
blasmeister
BSam
cargohills
DoctorWhat
Enourmo
jng2058
Lottery of Babylon
Mind the Walrus
Organza Quiz
Red Metal
ThNextGreenLantern
Weird Sandwich
Xenoborg

If you don't see your name there, either you haven't signed up yet, your entry got spamfiltered, or I was an idiot and didn't put you into the spreadsheet. If you haven't signed up and want to, given that the first review is likely to come in tomorrow according to Toxx's OP, you probably want to get your first guess in pretty soon. (Remember, all you need to do to participate is send me one letter grade for the first episode of the season.) If you signed up and are not on the list, please let me know so I can correct things.

Thanks, and good luck!

idonotlikepeas fucked around with this message at 05:37 on Jan 2, 2016

Regy Rusty
Apr 26, 2010

Me watching the first episode rn: "Did he just say handmine? He must have said landmine weird

Oh nope."

E: Lol the kid's name

This season's gonna be cool

Poor Miserable Gurgi
Dec 29, 2006

He's a wisecracker!
I liked this episode, other than the stuff on Earth. I must watch TV wrong.

Facebook Aunt
Oct 4, 2008

wiggle wiggle




Practical Demon posted:

I liked this episode, other than the stuff on Earth. I must watch TV wrong.

Earth sucks.

Spatula City
Oct 21, 2010

LET ME EXPLAIN TO YOU WHY YOU ARE WRONG ABOUT EVERYTHING
I don't hate this season. It has good and bad bits. It ends well, IN MY OPINION. but toxx will hate it with a fiery passion. I expect one A and a significant number of F's and C's.

ashpanash
Apr 9, 2008

I can see when you are lying.

I think you're wrong. But we'll see!

Hemingway To Go!
Nov 10, 2008

im stupider then dog shit, i dont give a shit, and i dont give a fuck, and i will never shut the fuck up, and i'll always Respect my enemys.
- ernest hemingway
I was happy with this characterization of 12 of last seasons
I'll have to track down Toxx's reviews of those I guess, now that I have breathed the air here I guess I am one of you

ThaGhettoJew
Jul 4, 2003

The world is a ghetto

Come on, Spatula City. Not in the spirit of the threadrules at all.

Escobarbarian
Jun 18, 2004


Grimey Drawer
rubbish

this episode, I mean

Attitude Indicator
Apr 3, 2009

Practical Demon posted:

I liked this episode, other than the stuff on Earth. I must watch TV wrong.

you might be doing TV wrong yeah. maybe it's not for you? have you considered books or tadpole collecting?

NieR Occomata
Jan 18, 2009

Glory to Mankind.

Doctor Who
"The Magician's Apprentice"

Series 9, Episode 1

In order to talk about this Moffat season premiere, we need to discuss Davies series episodes. Both out of a contractual obligation - we have to endlessly compare the two showrunners, Doctor Who Review thread - and out of simple analytic necessity.

Think of the number of, as I call them, "perception versus reality" episodes of Who there were in the first four seasons. You know, the hours where Rose or Donna or the episode specific guest would have some beatific image of who the Doctor was. Which would all invariably come crashing down as Nine or Ten pulled faces and shouted at a Dalek, or a bunch of spiders, or a bunch of Daleks, or - get this - Daleks. Then Ten would do something terrible as the program quickly cut to a shot of Billie Piper's horrified face. The audience would be all like, "Oh no! The Doctor! He's actually a baddie!" But then Tennant would, by around midway through the third act or after the climax, make a sad face at the screen. Then everyone in the audience would say something along the lines of "Oh. Okay. He's actually a goodie, not a baddie. Whew. I was worried there, for a second." Then they'd post about it on the internet.

Such eps became almost cliche, was my point. An obvious theme of the show has always been the moral ambiguity of The Doctor; Davies, in his specifically Davies-rear end Davies way, would take such a concept and run with it over and over and over and over and over while running the show. Nowadays, episodes dealing with that central philosophical contradiction that defines The Doctor come across as tired due simply from RTD's overuse.

Twelve's been able to dodge it, for the most part, because there's no parenthetical to his morality. With Ten, Eleven, and even Nine, every "bad thing" they did was always followed immediately by (but, clearly, he's a good guy) within minutes. It was never a real question, what side the Doctor fell on. Twelve, in contrast, is a Doctor that has a hard time parsing what the base concept of ethicality even is much less what side he falls.

But even in Twelve's outlier case, where so much of his personality is wrapped around the central enigma of how much he does or does not understand about basic decency, RTD so thoroughly poisoned the well against "morality episodes" that Moffat needs to play real carefully from now on when writing them. Such hours demand both a deft touch and a sense of restraint, both things that are in criminally short supply on Doctor Who.

Luckily, "The Magician's Apprentice" isn't a "perception versus reality" episode. "Apprentice" views the Doctor through the prism of the people around him, seeking to explain how they define their relationships to him versus what those aforementioned relationships actually are.

This brings us to Missy. Everyone who watched her "death" last season, especially diehard fans, knew that wasn't a series wrap on Michelle Gomez's character. But, even so, the specific way in which "Magician's Apprentice" reintroduces Missy to the program - mangled lyrics of "Hey Mickey", 3D-projected image of her face, ending with her nonchalant admission of un-death: "Okay. Cutting to the chase. Not dead. Back. Big surprise. Never mind." - it all, somehow, works. This could've been the biggest mistake of the program, re-introducing the previous season's main villain two episodes after her death. Selling out the narrative stakes so easily could have come across as both unearned and, worse, downright disrespectful to the audience who cares about the serialized nature of the program. Instead, Missy's return is "Apprentice"'s greatest strength - her simultaneously bombastic and totally blase re-appearance sells it utterly, on top of being hilarious.

Bringing Missy back so early in Series Nine also allows for Michelle Gomez to effortlessly steal the show. Even considering the fact that Missy was a clear highlight of Series Eight, Gomez's acting runs circles around everyone else here. Her ability to drop into and out of her native Scottish accent is used to both dramatic and comedic effect, often within the same line. Her physical work is just astounding. The dialog that Moffat wrote for Gomez is some of the best he's ever written, with virtually every line out of her mouth being solid loving gold in "Apprentice". Essentially, every part of Missy, from the way her character is written to the way that Gomez plays her, is brilliant in "The Magician's Apprentice", with literally no missteps.

Clara, too, returns, sporting a new, shorter hairstyle. "Last Christmas" brought her back under somewhat inauspicious circumstances, and as a result Jenna Coleman plays Clara a lot more subtle this episode. It's almost a return to Old, lovely, Overly Earnest and Supportive Clara from Series Seven (as opposed to Angry, Barely-Controlled Clara from Series Eight), where she feels a lot blander and with less of the nuance that defined her last season. She just feels sorta...there, ably playing the straight man (especially opposite Missy, her major foil in "Apprentice") but with none of the greater subtext that helped make her so captivating a year ago.

And finally, to conclude the trio of characters in the Doctor's inner circle, we have Davros (young version played by Joey Price, with Julian Bleach reprising his role from way back in Series Four). Both versions of Davros are played well; young version is a rare example of Doctor Who casting a child character well. Bleach puts in an even better performance on his sophomore outing, playing the dying Davros with a disaffected, downright wistful air. Bleach's performance, combined with fairly layered writing, makes the omnicidal maniac who created the Daleks into an empathetic, if not outright sympathetic old man with a fairly understandable grudge against everyone's favorite Time Lord.

Because that's, well, the crux of the thing. The story of "Apprentice" is not the story of The Twelfth Doctor.

It's the story of Missy and how she relates to him. She sees herself as The Doctor's best and most important friend in the universe, and the panicked actions she takes - stopping all the planes, directly asking UNIT of all organizations for help - reflect that viewpoint. It gives a tragic underpinning to what she does this episode. She invests in her relationship with The Doctor far more than he invests in his relationship with her. There's a toxic need that defines Missy, literally unable to function without her gangly British alien yardstick. It helps us understand, and therefore relate to even more, the sort of person that Missy is. For all of her bluster and vitriol and one-liners, she's always gonna be the pathetic creature in the cemetary during "Death in Heaven", begging for her "friend" back.

It's the story of Clara and how she relates to him. Clara's someone who views The Doctor as an equal or even a superior, when in reality she's the closest thing Twelve has to a mother figure. The Doctor is totally dependent on her in a way no other Doctor has ever been dependent on a Companion. He cannot perform simple tasks when she's not around. The comment he makes about halfway through "Apprentice", about being so face blind that hers is literally the only face he can recognize in a group of hundreds is played off as a joke, but it betrays a painful truth: the Doctor needs her to guide him through everyday life. It's what explains her weird, disaffected, straight-man characterization here; Clara is now the Doctor's carer now, 100%. There's a reason that the Doctor desperately begs for Clara's life in the episode's climax. There's a reason that, after her murder, he immediately goes back in time to kill a then-innocent Davros. He can live without Missy, but at this point the Doctor is simply not the Doctor without Clara. He depends on her too much for that, and on a subconscious level she knows that.

It's the story of Davros and how he relates to him. Oxxidation said it best, "The weird thing about time travel is that if you run far enough, for long enough, you always end up running to what you're running away from." Although the episode makes no definite statements in either direction, the way that Moffat loves his time loops easily allows for the interpretation that the Doctor "created" Davros by abandoning him on whatever nameless, war-torn planet that gave Davros his twisted worldview in the first place. Essentially, that means that the Doctor is literally the grandfather of the Daleks. Either way, it really doesn't matter. The important thing is, in Davros' time of need, as a more-or-less totally innocent child, the Doctor ran away. Davros has been, and will always be the one who begged the Doctor for help, while the Doctor turned his back. Although it doesn't give justification for his subsequent horrific actions, it does provide a necessary context for Davros that makes us understand him better, relate to him better.

Let's be clear here. This episode does many things right, or at least many interesting things. The three characters of Missy, Clara, and Davros are the three highlights of "The Magician's Apprentice". Their contained stories within this larger hour are all engrossing, and the program does right by giving some depth to the people immediately within the Doctor's sphere of influence. This, combined with stellar writing and some brilliant, brilliant scenework makes for at-times very good Who.

But that all being said, "The Magician's Apprentice" does just as many things wrong.

Amidst this trio of smaller, personal narratives, you know whose narrative is most noticeable by its absence? That's right, the Doctor. "The Magician's Apprentice" is chiefly a story about the three people closest to the Doctor. You can even see it in its name - all three of Davros, Missy, and Clara have legitimate, differing claims to the title of "Magician's Apprentice". But in pushing the stories of those three to the forefront, the Doctor starts to fade into the background. He feels barely extant in this story, existing more as a glorified prop for the audience to understand other characters better.

Honestly, the Doctor is almost never even onscreen here. The first ten minutes of "Apprentice" are devoted to Colony Sarff's (Jami Reid-Quarrell) boring-as-poo poo adventures around the universe as he looks for the Doctor. The next ten minutes are spent with Clara's boring UNIT adventures and in the amazing Clara/Missy scene, but that's still a full half of the loving episode where Peter Capaldi doesn't even show his face. And when he does appear, no matter how awesome his appearance is...wait.

I need to emphasize this loving point as much as is possible. Peter Capaldi playing a guitar solo while riding a Sherman tank in the Middle Ages was the raddest poo poo ever. Okay? Okay. It is one of the best scenes in the show's history. It is an incredible loving sequence. That was the best loving poo poo I've ever seen. Okay? Okay. And if you disagree, gently caress you.


That all being said. When he does appear, no matter how awesome his appearance is, ultimately he feels like a prop. Just as necessary to what subsequently happens as his guitar or his Sherman tank. Twelve exists in this story to be emoted against. That's kind of it. He has no importance or meaning in the story; he's an ephemeral, weightless character. This would be a problem in any Doctor Who tale, but it's even worse here when the Doctor is ostensibly the star around which this whole narrative revolves.

That's not the only problem "The Magician's Apprentice" has, it's just the biggest one. Being a two-parter, as is tradition with the first half of two-parters, "Apprentice" is all exposition and buildup. The story's flow starts and stops throughout as the show has to sort of awkwardly dump reasons why things are happening in between awesome Clara/Missy character moments or Davros monologues. The first fifteen minutes - a full third of the episode - is spent with Sarff (who loving sucks, simultaneously horribly overacted and tremendously boring) or fuckin' UNIT to give explanation for how everyone meets up by the middle of the episode.

Notice how I said "middle" and not "act two". That was intentional - and here is where the episode's second-biggest problem comes into play. "Apprentice" has no framework narrative, no transitions. No real progressing, start-to-finish story. It, essentially, has four scenes: "Sarff looks for the Doctor", "Clara and Missy look for the Doctor", "Clara and Missy find the Doctor", and "Clara, Missy, and the Doctor hang out on Skaro". There's no transitions, there's no rising action. There's barely a climax. It's just all this formless gray nothingness. Are the Missy scenes great? Yes, they are. Is the character work compelling? Yes, it is. But there's nothing to anchor it. Not even a bare implication of an overarching thrust of a narrative underpinning. It makes everything feel kinda pointless because there's no reason for anything that's happening. It's almost surrealistic, in a way; Mad Men by way of Doctor Who, if every episode was just big long scenes of confrontation between two people as they reveal deeper truths about themselves to the audience.

Finally, I'm honest-to-god tired of Moffat's narrative crutches. I don't need, want, or even slightly desire a story where the inciting action of it is "The Doctor's about to die!" Seeing it here, every time Missy brought that specific point up was like a cold bucket of water to the face. I would almost agree with the Moffat haters at this point, that he's an unimaginative and lazy writer who falls back on a bare handful of leitmotifs to increasingly diminished returns during the course of his showrunning. Almost. And then I remember that RTD did all that poo poo too, namely "Is the Doctor a baddie? I dunno, maaaaaaaaaaaaybe!" like I literally mentioned at the beginning of this review.

The worst part is, Doctor Who has done this exact sort of episode before. "The Christmas Invasion" was also a season premiere wherein the Doctor is a bit character within it. One in which the more minor characters get thrust into the forefront as the audience learns more about them. On top of that, it was a regeneration episode, so by default it was a harder episode to craft than here, with "Apprentice". Even with all that said, "The Christmas Invasion" is just a flat-out better hour than "The Magician's Apprentice", in every way. Ten feels alive and vital to that story in way that Twelve just totally does not here. It's a well-paced, well-structured three-act structure, that also isn't a two-parter so actually feels engaging over a slow-paced mess. And Rose still experiences character deepening while not selling out the person whose name is the title of the loving show.

There's just really no excuse here. At first, I was gonna say something along the lines of '"The Magician's Apprentice" is severely flawed, but it tried for a wholly original structure dealing with a focus on the more minor supporting characters in the Who universe. As a result, the Doctor feels superfluous and unnecessary, but that may be just a restriction of the form; make an episode where the minor characters are major, and guess what? The major character will end up minor." None of what I just wrote is true. Doctor Who can write and film good episodes that make the Doctor into a minor character while still feeling essential to the narrative being told, because I've seen them. Worse than that, I reviewed them. I can look my reviews up right now, and remember why I still[ consider "The Christmas Invasion" to be the second-best episode of Doctor Who I've ever seen.

Season premieres should make me excited for the season to continue. The first half of two-parters should, at the very least, get me excited for the next episode. This made me indifferent, which is in some ways even worse than just outright hating it. What a disappointing loving start to Series Nine.

Grade: C

Random Thoughts:
  • Let's loving stress this: This C grade is IN NO loving WAY an indictment of Capaldi playing an electric guitar as he rides a tank. gently caress, that was great.
  • I could seriously just watch the "Missy does weird poo poo to people" show forever.
  • The cold open and final moments of the episode - dealing with the timejump to Davros as a child, on the war-torn nameless planet - were both loving great. Like, fantastic set design, great cinematography, great color palette, shot direction...I cannot talk up enough how engrossing they were and how genuinely interested I was after viewing both. The first time, to see the episode proper. The second, despite how indifferent I was to what I had just seen.
  • The Doctor: "Your chances of survival are about one in a thousand. So here's what you do. You forget the thousand, and you concentrate on the one."
  • Kate: "Why do you need snipers?" Missy: "Because it's the only way she'll feel safe enough to talk to me."
  • Missy: "How's your boyfriend? Still tremendously dead, I suppose." Clara: "Still dead, yep."
  • Clara (sarcastic): "Ooh, must be love." Missy (sharp): "Oh, don't be disgusting. We're Time Lords, not animals. Try, nano-brain, to rise above the reproductive frenzy of your noisy little food chain and contemplate friendship. A friendship older than your civilization, and...infinitely more complex."
  • Clara: "He's not your friend. You keep trying to kill him." Missy: "He keeps trying to kill me. It's sort of our texting. We've been at it for ages."
  • Davros: "Where does an old man mean to die...but with his children?"
  • Clara: "Okay, how do we find him? How do we know what we're looking for?" Missy: "Anachronisms.The slightest, tiniest (interrupted by The Doctor playing a guitar solo)...anachronisms."
  • The Doctor: "Davros is my arch-enemy. Why would I want to talk to him?" Missy (peeved): "No, wait, hang on, Davros is your arch-enemy now?"
  • The Doctor: "Davros made the Daleks, but who made Davros?"

Regy Rusty
Apr 26, 2010

It was good to remember, watching this episode, that I still hate the Daleks and Davros

Some things do not fade with time

Regy Rusty
Apr 26, 2010

PS The tank scene made me laugh, it's good

Sinestro
Oct 31, 2010

The perfect day needs the perfect set of wheels.
I watched this episode, and it was enough to make me not watch the rest of the season. The only parts I really remembered were "Missy does weird poo poo, is great", "The Doctor playing electric guitar with a tank", and "Moffat once again decides that he needs to redefine classic characters", then I read a synopsis online and thought it looked like hot poo poo, and guessed that it'd be about a C.

Soothing Vapors
Mar 26, 2006

Associate Justice Lena "Kegels" Dunham: An uncool thought to have: 'is that guy walking in the dark behind me a rapist? Never mind, he's Asian.

Toxxupation posted:

Then Ten would do something terrible as the program quickly cut to a shot of Billie Piper's horrified face. The audience would be all like, "Oh no! The Doctor! He's actually a baddie!" But then Tennant would, by around midway through the third act or after the climax, make a sad face at the screen. Then everyone in the audience would say something along the lines of "Oh. Okay. He's actually a goodie, not a baddie. Whew. I was worried there, for a second."
pls trigger warning any posts that are going to give me nam-style flashbacks to season 2, thanks in advance

idonotlikepeas
May 29, 2010

This reasoning is possible for forums user idonotlikepeas!
The Magician's Apprentice

There's nothing wrong with liking this episode, but it does have some warts. That tank thing was loving boss, though.

A

AndwhatIseeisme
Angela Christine
BSam
jng2058


B

cargohills
DoctorWhat
Enourmo
Howe_sam
Jet Jaguar
Mind the Walrus
NeuroticLich
Organza Quiz
Paul.Power
ThNextGreenLantern
Xenoborg


C

Alkarl
And More
blasmeister
mycelia
onetruepurple
Red Metal
Sinestro
Weird Sandwich


D

2house2fly
Ajax 99
Lottery of Babylon
Regy Rusty


F

Still enough Christmas cheer left over that nobody guessed this.

Overall Average Guess: 2.6 (B-)
Standard Deviation: 0.9

Current rankings:

Alkarl: 0
And More: 0
blasmeister: 0
mycelia: 0
onetruepurple: 0
Red Metal: 0
Sinestro: 0
Weird Sandwich: 0
2house2fly: 1
Ajax 99: 1
cargohills: 1
DoctorWhat: 1
Enourmo: 1
Howe_sam: 1
Jet Jaguar: 1
Lottery of Babylon: 1
Mind the Walrus: 1
NeuroticLich: 1
Organza Quiz: 1
Paul.Power: 1
Regy Rusty: 1
ThNextGreenLantern: 1
Xenoborg: 1
AndwhatIseeisme: 2
Angela Christine: 2
BSam: 2
jng2058: 2

Just getting started, and already we have a nice spread.

idonotlikepeas fucked around with this message at 00:02 on Jan 5, 2016

Facebook Aunt
Oct 4, 2008

wiggle wiggle




drat, I really thought the great moments would overcome the nonsensical plot. I have chosen poorly.

ewe2
Jul 1, 2009

I couldn't face voting in this round, but hell if I'm not attracted to the inevitable angst of Dr Who watching.

Dabir
Nov 10, 2012

I mean, it ain't a nameless, war-torn planet, it's Skaro in the distant past. That's not a spoiler, once you know the kid's Davros you know it's Skaro. Plus the bow and arrow against fighter plane thing is a massively ham-handed callback to Genesis of the Daleks, when the Doctor observes early on that there's a strange mix of old and new technology as the aeons-long war between Kaleds and Thals has forced them to fall back on older and older stuff. Although in Genesis it was a couple of energy weapons, a lot of WW2-ish bullet guns with ammo being rationed, plus some WW1-ish gas masks, and even the dead soldiers were being propped up behind walls as decoys. A slow regression, not loving one guy with a bow and arrow against not-Spitfires and whatever the handmines are. Genesis is set decades later and nobody's using bows and arrows in that.

Actually, just go watch Genesis of the Daleks after you've done part two cause I swear half of what happens across this two-parter is Moffat pointing at stuff and going HEY REMEMBER THAT to try and keep the fans on board and you'll have missed all of it. Maybe even watch it now, it might be interesting to see the contrast between your opinion of part 1 not getting the classic references, and part 2 understanding them.

As for Missy, whilst she is great, I wasn't so keen on how she seems to have to remind everyone she's a woman with every other line. "Traps are my flirting", "What if you kissed an ugly?", that kind of poo poo.

NieR Occomata
Jan 18, 2009

Glory to Mankind.

Soothing Vapors posted:

pls trigger warning any posts that are going to give me nam-style flashbacks to season 2, thanks in advance

yo remember that part in series two where that concrete slab canonically gives blowjobs to a somethingisawful goon

ashpanash
Apr 9, 2008

I can see when you are lying.

Dabir posted:

As for Missy, whilst she is great, I wasn't so keen on how she seems to have to remind everyone she's a woman with every other line. "Traps are my flirting", "What if you kissed an ugly?", that kind of poo poo.

It may be a bit annoying, but it totally fits the character. The Master is the kind of character who would turn into a woman and loving love it. A whole new half of humans to troll!

Regy Rusty
Apr 26, 2010

Toxxupation posted:

yo remember that part in series two where that concrete slab canonically gives blowjobs to a somethingisawful goon

Good times

2house2fly
Nov 14, 2012

You did a super job wrapping things up! And I'm not just saying that because I have to!
It sucks talking about two-parters one part in. I guess I can safely say this is probably my least favourite Moffat episode. There's no clever plotting and there isn't really an emotional core I can get behind. Like the Doctor feels guilty about leaving Davros behind but the episode isn't really about that. I'm a sucker for going ages without the Doctor in episodes like A Good Man Goes To War or Christmas Invasion, but all this episode does is use it to set up a punchline where the Doctor is having a crazy party. There's no mystery or tension because we know he's hiding from Davros because he's ashamed, and so there's nothing to be dispelled when he actually shows up. If they'd found him more quickly the rest of the episode would have more time to breathe; as it is Clara and Missy are unceremoniously shoved into a small room full of Daleks to get zapped, end of episode. It feels like it was written in a hurry and not edited enough, which all of Moffat's worse episodes do really.

Burkion
May 10, 2012

by Fluffdaddy

ashpanash posted:

It may be a bit annoying, but it totally fits the character. The Master is the kind of character who would turn into a woman and loving love it. A whole new half of humans to troll!

Not really.

The Master was overwhelmingly sexist and awful in the classic and Modern series. I always thought the Master should have an air of self loathing about her own gender change, to really reinforce how truly dreadful a creature she is.

Because the thing is, and this gets lost behind the shiny happy surface of the Master- the Master is a monster. The Master is an ugly, hateful creature that is afraid of death and has an inferiority complex about the Doctor a mile wide. The Master is a truly, utterly, wretched soul, and hasn't quite had a moment to really express that yet.

It's all been very winky and noddy and belies what really makes the Master truly a great villain. Gomez is a fantastic actress though so hopefully we'll get to see it sooner than later.

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Blasmeister
Jan 15, 2012




2Time TRP Sack Race Champion

I felt at the time this episode was almost lampooning itself with the number of fakeout cliffhangers it sets up. The doctor is dying! (again!) Missy and Clara are dead! The tardis is destroyed! The doctor is totally going to kill a child! None of these were even remotely believable given the show and characters and have been almost done to death at this point. It almost feels insulting that these are supposed to be what is driving you to want to watch the conclusion, but maybe that feeling is more a symptom of the rest of the episode having so little happening that they felt they had to raise the stakes to absurdity to inject some excitement.

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