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Hey guys, remember when we weren't going to spoil Anus about what's going to happen or pop up in the future?
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Aug 8, 2014 06:37
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Regy Rusty posted:The only thing I've watched of original DW is the very first few episodes including the original introduction of the Daleks. They were boring and awful then too but maybe there's something in the intervening years that makes them less dull. VagueRant posted:It was an old joke in Britain that you could easily escape a daleks just by going up stairs. This episode concocted the silly floating thing to mess with everyone's expectations. (But then raised the question - why don't they always do that?!) 30.5 Days posted:With respect to the Dalek, they do a good job of establishing the following without any real confusion: Well, that and "time traveller DNA". That's just dumb.
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Aug 8, 2014 09:19
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Sticking to the original run, so no future spoilers in these posts for anyone who wants to avoid them.Tiggum posted:What I really hate about this episode is that these things weren't true until just now. Daleks weren't very smart and were very bad liars. In most screen writing it's generally true that one of a thing is incredibly dangerous, while many of that thing only sum to just a bit more dangerous than it on its own. This is sort of the inverse, getting the threat back to the Dalek. The reason that daleks themselves have generally been portrayed as a bit dim and destructible on screen is because of the kind of stories they're in. Aside from a very few episodes (Death to the Daleks is the main one that springs to mind) the daleks spend most of the story in a position of overwhelming power - they've conquered the Earth, you've landed on their planet, you've landed in one of their bases - and so you have a very sixties and seventies theme of guerilla warfare against them, of canny but underequipped humans beating the more powerful force. This kind of theme doesn't work so well when you're coming up against actual small tanks rather than other humans, but it is what it is. And so to have the heroes able to win the daleks have to be a bit dim and very easy to kill. And in one instance (Resurrection) the daleks are very thick and killable because the writer - Eric Saward - wanted to show how cool and dangerous his new human mercenary character was, in a similar way to establishing an alien's power on Star Trek: The Next Generation by just having them beat up Worf every episode. It's notable that in Death to the Daleks, the story I mentioned above as an exception, the daleks are clever and the daleks are supremely dangerous in and of themselves, unkillable by the main characters. [edit] I suppose Dalek has a similar sort of theme to the guerilla warfare ones - surviving because of the capacity of the human spirit - but it's a bit of a reach MrL_JaKiri fucked around with this message at 10:06 on Aug 8, 2014 |
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Aug 8, 2014 09:58
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VagueRant posted:Really? Man, I seem to remember them even saying on talk shows and in marketing that that was a big thing. Huh. It was a big thing. Remembrance was transmitted towards the last years of the programme when it was at its least popular (which is unfair for Remembrance, as it's a very good story, but there was an awful lot of tosh being put out before that). The vast vast majority of cultural knowledge of Doctor Who comes from its most successful period when Tom Baker was in the role, either through peoples parents or because it's the most accessible or because it's more memorable. By then you have the Doctor making jokes about the daleks not being able to climb stairs, so yeah no shocks that's what people remember about them. Surprisingly most people aren't big Doctor Who nerds. MikeJF posted:Hey guys, remember when we weren't going to spoil Anus about what's going to happen or pop up in the future? No, I don't remember that happening ever
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Aug 8, 2014 10:03
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VagueRant posted:Really? Man, I seem to remember them even saying on talk shows and in marketing that that was a big thing. Huh. Yeah, and the episode itself actually treats it like a big thing. They go up some stairs and are like "phew!" and then the Dalek suddenly floats and the scene takes like five fuckin' minutes.
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Aug 8, 2014 10:41
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The canonical response is that Daleks don't climb stairs, they level the building.
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Aug 8, 2014 11:35
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MrL_JaKiri posted:It's notable that in Death to the Daleks, the story I mentioned above as an exception, the daleks are clever and the daleks are supremely dangerous in and of themselves, unkillable by the main characters. I remembered that story very fondly when I first saw it as a child, but on a rewatch it didn't hold up very well at all. That said, I did love that the Daleks land on a planet where it is impossible for them to use their weapons and their immediate reaction is,"Well we'll just see about that  " and proceed to figure out a way to kill people again.
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Aug 8, 2014 11:46
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There's some contractual nonsense where the Daleks have to show up once a season, but since they're the Big Bad of the Doctor Who universe, whichever actor is currently the Doctor gets to pull out the "maybe not just a strange man in a box" card and do some Acting.
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Aug 8, 2014 12:32
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He's barely into season 1 and has already given two episodes a B and is beginning to understand why people enjoy the program. He should be ready for cyber-conversion in two weeks.
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Aug 8, 2014 14:09
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Hey Occupation, based on the parts of Dalek that you enjoyed, you might get something out of the audio drama Jubilee that it was loosely based on, by the same writer, Rob Shearman. Dalek was heavily rewritten both by Shearman and Davies, but Jubilee is a bit more raw (and the plot is considerably different). The companion, Evelyn Smythe, is a middle-aged history professor and is way more interesting than Rose, and the Doctor (6th) is Colin Baker giving a really great performance (though he interacts with the Dalek far less than Eccleston does). It's $3 for a DRM-free download at http://www.bigfinish.com/releases/v/jubilee-206 and I know you're not currently, and quite likely will never be, a "fan", but if you have a car ride or commute(s) coming up in the near future and two hours to kill, there are worse ways to spend your time. Rob Shearman is one of my favorite writers ever, generally, as my posts in the main Who thread will attest.
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Aug 8, 2014 15:01
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Shearman's definitely a great writer and some of his Big Finish stuff is arguably better than most of what's on television for Doctor Who, but I really don't think a guy whose premise for a Doctor Who thread is "I hate Doctor Who" and has expressed a dislike for genre fiction is going to be into dystopian science fiction radio dramas, to be honest.
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Aug 8, 2014 15:05
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I have to try.
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Aug 8, 2014 15:06
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DoctorWhat posted:I have to try. You really don't. While I like for my writeups to immediately follow Occupation's, he made the horrible mistake of posting his latest review while I was out doing stuff and the delay will be longer this time. Everyone can expect my thing within the next twelve hours, which is coincidentally when Occ will get his kidneys back.
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Aug 8, 2014 15:12
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Hey can someone help me process my pee for me I could... I could really use that 
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Aug 8, 2014 15:44
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Since people are talking about the non-TV Doctor Who stuff, what's the general consensus on Scream of the Shalka? 'Cause when I watched that I really wanted them to make more of the same. I particularly liked what they did with the Master.
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Aug 8, 2014 17:37
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You will find some very loud fans of Shalka out there... okay, its fans are almost entirely composed of Doctor/Master slashfic writers. Honestly, Richard E. Grant kinda phones it in as the Doctor, the Shalka Doctor's appearance is unpleasant, and the animation is kinda poo poo. The Shalka Master was played by Derek Jacobi, however...
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Aug 8, 2014 17:45
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What is it about Doctor Who that makes you guys continually go off on tangents about poo poo that hasn't happened yet, that no one asked about in a thread involving a blind watch? Seriously now.Tiggum posted:Since people are talking about the non-TV Doctor Who stuff, what's the general consensus on Scream of the Shalka? 'Cause when I watched that I really wanted them to make more of the same. I particularly liked what they did with the Master. You know there's an actual Doctor Who thread right?
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Aug 8, 2014 17:47
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DoctorWhat posted:You will find some very loud fans of Shalka out there... okay, its fans are almost entirely composed of Doctor/Master slashfic writers. Pretty much the only thing I remembered about Shalka was the console room being pretty cool, so I google image searched 'Scream of the Shalka console room' and the very first page of results had the Doctor and the Master making out.
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Aug 8, 2014 17:51
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I'm pretty sure this is the new DW thread.
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Aug 8, 2014 17:56
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MrAristocrates posted:I'm pretty sure this is the new DW thread. Over Occupation's dead loving body it is. Those people have their timey-wimey ghetto for a drat good reason.
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Aug 8, 2014 18:00
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MrAristocrates posted:I'm pretty sure this is the new DW thread. gently caress
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Aug 8, 2014 18:02
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Go RV! posted:You know there's an actual Doctor Who thread right? We should put this in the thread title.
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Aug 8, 2014 18:03
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Okay I'm usually live and let live but here let me reiterate the rules for you morons: 1) don't post about poo poo that hasn't happened yet, you have not one but two separate threads to do so 2) I don't give a poo poo if you talk about old serials/radio plays itt, whatever, just don't talk about stuff that is yet to happen. If anything the radio play discussion is helpful for figuring out who the giant nerds are (I assume doctorwhat is like the king of nerdy doctor who poo poo or somethin now) 3) DONT TALK ABOUT CREEPY poo poo. If your post amounts to "look I found a drawing of people kissing on the internet who shouldn't be", don't loving post about it, keep that weirdness to yourself Y'all had a good run of talkin about the episode I just watched, don't spoil it with bein weirdo creepers about doctor who
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Aug 8, 2014 18:09
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Holy poo poo. They survived watching the farting aliens. This thread is like schadenfreude and catharsis at the same time. And it is lovely.
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Aug 8, 2014 18:30
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E PLURIBUS ANUS posted:I assume doctorwhat is like the king of nerdy doctor who poo poo or somethin now He has spent much time and money assembling a version of this:  costume. And he only started watching recently, god knows what would have happened if he'd grown up with it in the 80's like I did. Probably this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-HsqArxhWU
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Aug 8, 2014 18:30
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Go RV! posted:What is it about Doctor Who that makes you guys continually go off on tangents about poo poo that hasn't happened yet, that no one asked about in a thread involving a blind watch? Seriously now.
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Aug 8, 2014 18:43
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At this point I almost wanna pay the 8bux to change Occ's username back myself, as funny as seeing people refer to him as "Anus" is.
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Aug 8, 2014 18:45
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Yeah this whole referring to me as EPA over occupation/occ is some Toby over kunta kinte poo poo
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Aug 8, 2014 18:49
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Tiggum posted:The only stuff I've talked about that wasn't related to the specific episode that E PLURIBUS ANUS just watched was stuff that came before that, which I assume is fair game. ANUS, if you'd rather that stuff not be talked about here I'll happily leave off, but I'm going on the assumption that you're approaching it as though you're starting watching in 2005, so anything we know about from before that time is OK because we could legitimately have known about it at the time. It's like an opportunity to talk about it like it's just happening again, Bro you're asking about a completely-unrelated-to-this-thread Doctor Who story, and not in a way that promotes discussion relevant to this thread. You literally just wanted to know what people thought of it. Go to the Doctor Who thread. Like for real, I love Doctor Who (I have a Doctor Who tattoo for Christ-sake), but all of you people posting and talking about all this irrelevant bullshit after every review Occ posts are just annoying. Go talk about the classic serials in the other thread. Mention to him "oh Genesis of the Daleks is p. good" and be done with it. GonSmithe fucked around with this message at 18:56 on Aug 8, 2014 |
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Aug 8, 2014 18:52
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E PLURIBUS ANUS posted:Yeah this whole referring to me as EPA over occupation/occ is some Toby over kunta kinte poo poo No wonder you didn't use Snowball's slave name when talking about Rick and Morty. 
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Aug 8, 2014 19:06
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I'm really hoping that Occ comes away from this with the same feelings about Doctor Who that he came in with. It's an enjoyable show, but it's responsible for far too many convention-goers in ill-fitting thrift shop suits. Also, a disproportionate amount of episodes end with the Doctor wildly flipping switches somewhere and being all "No, my friend, we're going to save ALL THE BONERS!" and then he starts flipping switches HARDER while sparks fly and horns blare in the background.
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Aug 8, 2014 19:39
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E PLURIBUS ANUS posted:Yeah this whole referring to me as EPA over occupation/occ is some Toby over kunta kinte poo poo YOUR NAME IS ANUS
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Aug 8, 2014 19:57
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I'm kind of embarrassed at the inability to keep on topic, but I have seen very few spoilers for the 2005 series. Everything I've seen has been about the classic series, or the Big Finish audios. Which, yeah - they don't belong in this thread much beyond maybe a "this element of the story is a callback to...". So cut it out, guys, lets keep it in our thread! The real reason I wanted to post though was the point out that Daleks are not robots, they're living creatures inside the robot shell. Which plays big into their/Davros psychology. [/nerd] carry on!
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Aug 8, 2014 21:17
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McGann posted:I'm kind of embarrassed at the inability to keep on topic, but I have seen very few spoilers for the 2005 series. You've not seen all the posts talking about future characters, "foreshadowing", and "WOO I HOPE HE WATCHES THIS EPISODE WHAT I LIKE/DON'T LIKE"? Interesting. Also there's no reason at all to post that word that's there in the spoiler at all so why do it?
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Aug 8, 2014 21:24
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Oh, this is nothing. Foreshadowing talk is only gonna get worse.
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Aug 8, 2014 21:26
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Doctor Who "Dalek" Series 1, Episode 6 Pont-i-fi-caaate! PONT-I-FI-CAAAATE! Ahh, the Daleks. Doctor Who's signature alien, and in a way, the one that best represents the series - cheaply made, utterly ridiculous, and still expected to be taken seriously. Every aspect of the Dalek, from their appearance to their character to the way they E-NUN-CI-AAAAATE speech, is iconic and therefore sacrosanct, which is why they've barely changed since their inception in 1963 - which is a bit of a shame, since they were evidently created with papier-mache and whatever had been lying on the floor of the janitor's closet at the time. But let us look past the cumbersome pepper-pot shape, the obvious toilet-plunger arm, and the egg-beater death ray, and into the quivering jelly at the Dalek's heart. To paraphrase retired poster and noted LP weirdo Leovinus, a Dalek is basically a tank. And in this tank is a creature that hates you. Specifically, you. Specifically, everything else as well. If Daleks were real, which they probably aren't, there would be one on the other side of the universe hating you right now. Genetically engineered to feel nothing but shrieking hate with absolute xenophobia at its core, the Daleks are naturally compelled to form a crude Pax Romana-type "culture" that consists of nothing except bulldozing over everything that is not a Dalek. With their militaristic mono-culture, cumbersome-but-unstoppable technology, and furious racism, it's not hard to come to the same conclusion stated by someone else earlier in the thread; the Daleks are Nazi jellyfish in bargain-bin table-setting tanks, and the sight of something so feared reduced to something so inherently ridiculous may be part of why they were initially such a smash hit with viewers. Even if they do look dumb as hell, though, Daleks are never treated lightly, at least in nu-Who. They're impervious to pretty much all conventional weaponry (as opposed to the serials, where a single well-aimed potshot at their eyestalk would cause them to go blind and freak out), and that death ray of theirs takes the "death" part seriously; it takes some cask-strength plot bullshit to survive getting clipped by one of those things. They're so tough that they suffer the old reverse-ninja fallacy as a result - a multitude of Daleks (a "concentration," I believe is the formal term) tend to get chumped because they're so tough that only a deus ex machina can get rid of them, but a single Dalek, or a handful, wreak havoc up and down, because the script allows for more conventional solutions. Enter the titular Dalek, the last of its kind, fallen through time and space itself only to get tortured by a jolly bearded billionaire. There's a lot of backstory and emotional baggage with the Daleks, and the only reason it didn't torpedo this episode is because of Eccleston. Given his track record so far, Davies was probably scripting out an agonizingly detailed montage scene of Dalek history shown on a film projector powered by farts, but then Eccleston hit him very hard on the back of the head and announced, "I will ACT at it." Eccleston's acting in this episode is marvelous, and probably better than this show deserves; he whipsaws between terror, fury, legit sadism ("I watched it happen! I MADE it happen!"), immediate regret at said sadism, and then maniacal glee followed by torture when he's called out on it. The Doctor, hippy-dippy space man extraordinaire, has shown nothing but childlike wonder at everything alien and strange from tree-women to a spaceship taking a bite out of Big Ben, but he'll happily throw a switch just to hear a Dalek scream. The Daleks - engineered for anti-cooperation and anti-life - are everything the Doctor despises, and as the Dalek points out in this episode, they're also a reflection of the Doctor himself on his worst days. His hate, revulsion, and similarity is all portrayed with deft, small touches in the dialogue of this episode, and succeeds better than any expo-dump could. Not bad for a screaming match between a bald man and a pedal-bin. And while it's a little comical to see Eccleston flexing his acting chops so hard in the direction of R2-D2's evil twin, the Dalek does a decent job of keeping up its end of the exchange. I actually really like the Daleks' speech patterns; beyond the obvious "feels nothing but hate, speaks nothing but screams" logic, whenever the Daleks try to actually talk in coherent sentences, the wild start-stop of their speech and harsh chopping of their syllables makes them sound like they're choking on their own bile, barely able to communicate past through bred-in rage. They're only comfortable when repeating certain four-syllable words about murdering everything, which might explain why they're so fond of saying them. The Dalek in this episode is able to communicate shock, regret, reluctance, anger, greater anger, significantly greater anger, and "I just saw Carlos Mencia and Larry the Cable Guy talking politics" anger while barely modulating its shriek, which is pretty impressive. This script's success is partly because it does take pains, if unsubtle ones, to show Daleks from both sides - yes, on one hand, they're super-intelligent bullet-proof mega-murderers, but on the other hand they're hideous, crippled wads of meat sealed inside tanks that are as ridiculously ugly as they are lethal. Unfeeling except for any visual data that gets piped in through their shells, unable to feel or express anything that would give them relief from their anger, they're pretty pitiful if you look past all the murders. And by the end of the episode, many people did pity them. However, while "Dalek" is highly acclaimed, and with good reason, in the larger context of the series, I say it's a failure. In fact, it's a pretty darn big misstep. E-LU-CI-DAAAATE! Okay, let's state the obvious - this episode was a transparent attempt by Davies to take all the inherently silly things about Daleks and make them seem threatening again in spite of that, and it sort of succeeded. Then it tried to make the Dalek sympathetic in spite of its one-dimensional nature, and succeeded again. This really is the end of the Daleks, not just because the last one died, but because the last one, in absorbing Rose's time-stuff handprint, experienced a minor shift in its mental state, which, by the Daleks' own logic, makes it no longer a Dalek. The race doesn't end when the last Dalek self-destructs; it ends when the Dalek says it's afraid of dying. As far as denouements go, it's pretty effective! But this is Doctor Who. There was no guarantee that this show would see another season at the time, so the episode could have been understandable in light of that fact, but as soon as it got renewed, "Dalek" turned into an albatross. You have to have Daleks in Doctor Who. Doctor Who without Daleks is like Super Mario without mustaches. So not only would the renewal guarantee we'd see more Daleks, but that the mere fact of their existence would let all the air out of this episode's plotline and taint expectations forevermore. "Dalek" is the episode by which all future Dalek appearances are measured, and by and large, every single one of them falls short. But in the end, looking past the unfortunate future, "Dalek" is also a rare moment where Davies' love for the series and goofy enthusiasm is effective without becoming overblown. It's a tribute not just to everything the Daleks were, but to what one super-fan really wanted them to be, and between that sentiment in the script and Eccleston's acting skills, it crafted a measured, memorable, and surprisingly emotional little piece out of what could have easily been another "run down halls, scary monster's coming" episode. I can't fault Davies for wanting to make "his" Dalek, even if it destroyed the curve for all Daleks to come. Comm-iss-er-aaaate. COMM-ISS-ERR-AAAAAATE! COOOOMMMM-IIISSSS-ERRRRRR-AAAAAAAAAAAATE! Oxxidation fucked around with this message at 01:12 on Aug 9, 2014 |
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Aug 9, 2014 01:04
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I know I brought it up earlier, but Dalek was co-written by Rob Shearman along with RTD (RTD did do rewrites on every non-Moffat episode during his tenure) and was loosely based on Rob Shearman's 2003 audio drama Jubilee (hence the "Jubille"-brand pizza box early in the episode). While it isn't really important for the actual 2005-onwards TV series, and Rob Shearman has yet to write again for the TV show, I genuinely think that Jubilee (along with Shearman's other pre-revival audio work, The Holy Terror and The Chimes of Midnight is extremely valuable to anyone analyzing 2005-onwards Doctor Who on a critical level, because those radio plays definitely influenced many of (the better aspects of) RTD's creative decisions when reviving Doctor Who. All three mentioned audios are available as $3 DRM-free downloads from bigfinish.com, if anyone in this thread (who isn't from the main DW thread) can be bothered to care. They're 2 hours long, each.
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Aug 9, 2014 01:27
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DoctorWhat posted:I know I brought it up earlier, but Dalek was co-written by Rob Shearman along with RTD (RTD did do rewrites on every non-Moffat episode during his tenure) and was loosely based on Rob Shearman's 2003 audio drama Jubilee (hence the "Jubille"-brand pizza box early in the episode). I say this with all respect and tact, but I'd sooner eat my own ears than listen to 6 hours of a loving Doctor Who radio show.
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Aug 9, 2014 01:31
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You could just listen to one of them, they're totally unconnected story-wise and are actually really good in the ways you seem to like. Apart from a couple of dodgy accents and voice SFX in The Holy Terror, they're also really well-produced and the performances are solid and the dialogue is never insipid or irritating (in those 3 audios, at least).
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Aug 9, 2014 01:38
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Also read the 1000 page novelization of Jubilee, which bridges the gap between the radio version and the show version of Dalek.
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Aug 9, 2014 01:41
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