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I don't know if it's been mentioned in this thread yet (I probably already did), but there is a subsection of the Doctor Who fandom that maintains that Time Lords never have sex, are comically unaware of what sex is, and are produced from genetic "Looms".
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Aug 23, 2014 01:41
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| # ? Apr 28, 2024 21:13 |
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Offsite wikis are always the most hilarious part of any fandom and the greatest thing is that inevitably, the editors get into some kind of tiff about something so inconsequential, nobody but they understand it, and suddenly there are two offsite wikis.
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Aug 23, 2014 01:46
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DoctorWhat posted:I don't know if it's been mentioned in this thread yet (I probably already did), but there is a subsection of the Doctor Who fandom that maintains that Time Lords never have sex, are comically unaware of what sex is, and are produced from genetic "Looms". And as an addendum they believe this completely in spite of the fact that the Doctor's very first companion was said to be his granddaughter (although for the record they've never ever explained how that lineage came about).
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Aug 23, 2014 01:49
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DoctorWhat posted:I don't know if it's been mentioned in this thread yet (I probably already did), but there is a subsection of the Doctor Who fandom that maintains that Time Lords never have sex, are comically unaware of what sex is, and are produced from genetic "Looms". How can someone look at Tom Baker and continue making that argument?
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Aug 23, 2014 01:49
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mind the walrus posted:(although for the record they've never ever explained how that lineage came about). Now I'm working off sketchy material and best-guess scenarios here, but my wild theory is that the Doctor had a kid who grew up and had a kid of their own 
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Aug 23, 2014 01:55
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Obviously I really like watching and listening to Doctor Who, but I feel like if I ever felt inclined to update a wiki about Time Lord sex habits, I would suddenly realize that I was writing about something called a Time Lord, which sounds like a made up insult, like "Way to make us fifteen minutes late again, time lord!", and instead of updating said wiki, I would pour a Tom Baker sized scotch and do literally anything else than think about Time Lord sex.
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Aug 23, 2014 01:55
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armoredgorilla posted:How can someone look at Tom Baker and continue making that argument? Well it's based on a tie-in novel from 1997 called Lungbarrow written by Marc Platt, who wrote for Sylvester McCoy's TV era. The 90s were a weird time and, with Doctor Who "dead", folks experimented with weird sci-fi stuff. mind the walrus posted:And as an addendum they believe this completely in spite of the fact that the Doctor's very first companion was said to be his granddaughter (although for the record they've never ever explained how that lineage came about). ACTUALLY THEY HAVE. Dumbly. You see, among the ~founders of Time Lord society~, there was a ~mysterious figure~ known as The Other. The Other had a granddaughter called Susan "the normal way", as the Evil Witch Cult that used to control Gallifrey hadn't yet cursed the Time Lords with sterility. For some vauge political reason, the Other commited suicide by throwing himself into the Loomworks, and was "reconstituded" ~EONS LATER~ as The Doctor. The Doctor, for some reason, then travelled back to the Gallifrey of the Other's time, picked up Susan, and there's your stupid dumb fanwanky explanation that turns the Doctor into a literal god. gently caress LOOMS.
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Aug 23, 2014 01:55
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DoctorWhat posted:Well it's based on a tie-in novel from 1997 called Lungbarrow written by Marc Platt, who wrote for Sylvester McCoy's TV era. The 90s were a weird time and, with Doctor Who "dead", folks experimented with weird sci-fi stuff. Dumb nerd poo poo, got it.
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Aug 23, 2014 01:59
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gently caress, not only have we missed the previews, but we're like fifteen minutes into the movie and the only seats are in the front where we'll have to crane our necks. Thanks a lot, Time Lord!
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Aug 23, 2014 01:59
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armoredgorilla posted:Dumb nerd poo poo, got it. Even dumber than that. I might be misremembering, but I'm pretty sure Platt's book was actually based on aborted plans he drew up with Andrew Cartmel. Basically that poo poo would actually have been on TV if the BBC hadn't killed it.
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Aug 23, 2014 03:48
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Republican Vampire posted:Even dumber than that. I might be misremembering, but I'm pretty sure Platt's book was actually based on aborted plans he drew up with Andrew Cartmel. Basically that poo poo would actually have been on TV if the BBC hadn't killed it. Yuuup. The "Cartmel Masterplan". There are hints at it spread throughout little lines, line readings, directorial decisions, etc. in the latter half of the Seventh Doctor TV era.
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Aug 23, 2014 03:55
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Doctor Who "Tooth and Claw" Series 2, Episode 2 I feel bad for giving this episode something less than an A, because on paper, it's a great episode. The performances are stellar, the script is pretty airtight, and the plot is solid. That's, really, everything I can ask for in an episode of Doctor Who. And yet, the episode still didn't really coalesce into something I really loved, either due to outright insanity or due to some pivotal emotional or otherwise affecting scene. It's not a bad episode- The Doctor and Rose land in late 1800s Scotland, and quickly run into Queen Victoria, who turns out to be staying overnight at the estate of Sir Robert. Unfortunately, his house has been commandeered by a cult of monks who worship a werewolf, and they plan to trap the queen and, essentially, "infect" her with the werewolf powers. A bunch of running around happens until The Doctor figures out a plan to kill the werewolf, which goes off without a hitch. The, well, end. There isn't really a lot of plot here but the story is able to move between setpiece and setpiece, and is able to firmly establish the werewolf as a credible threat, so you kind of are manipulated into forgetting the fact that episode consists of either people running down hallways or shouting at each other about what they're gonna do about the werewolf. Doctor Who usually has massive pacing issues, so it's really bizarre to watch an episode that knows how to maintain interest and narrative tension. I don't get why I don't love this episode more. I feel kind of bad for not liking it more because, again, I feel like I should. The script is really well-written, with some absolutely plum one-liners tossed throughout the length of it. It's a breezy, light, fun action flick that's exactly what I've been advocating Doctor Who be. And yet, it's still missing...something. Maybe it's because the cold open promises a much, much more insane episode than what the episode ends up being. When the monk goes "No...the fist of MAN" to a dramatic zoom-in on his eye, right before all the monks rip off their robes dramatically as one to reveal kung-fu outfits, before an insane (and decently well-choreographed) fight scene, complete with ludicrous slo-mo and fifteen-foot high crane kicks, I was so goddamn elated because I thought this episode would be The Christmas Invasion, Part II. So when it turns into a typical monster flick, even a well-made monster flick, the letdown from expectation is so much higher. I want the version of this episode that's just The Doctor kung-fu fighting Scottish monks! That's the episode I want! Maybe the fact that I'm so cool on this episode boils down to its problems. The running joke of Rose trying to convince Queen Victoria to say "We are not amused," is initially a pretty fun one, but the script quickly kills the joke through having Rose attempt it too many times throughout a single conversation, instead of spacing it out throughout the episode. The moment, especially, when the werewolf is trying to break into the room where The Doctor, Rose, Robert, and Victoria are cooped up and Rose attempts, yet again, to make the queen say "We are not amused"- uh, Rose, you're in very real danger of dying. You should really take that threat a little more seriously. This, too, is another major problem with the episode. The Doctor and Rose initially treat the episode as one big amusing gag, which is great at first- the scene where Rose attempts to speak with a Scottish accent to "blend in" as the duo have a fuckload of guns pointed at them is a highlight -but it persists throughout the episode, with them almost never taking any of the drama seriously. As a result, the episode kinda loses its narrative weight frequently, since its stars seem to be treating it as one big joke. It's the difference between something being sincerely hammy and "ironically" hammy, and having the main characters be blase about the whole werewolf thing is that same sort of robbing of enjoyment that stuff like Sharknado trades in. Like I really do enjoy the Tenth Doctor-Rose dynamic more, since Tennant just seems to be having more fun on set with the material, and that filters down to Billie Piper as well. When they're not batting their eyelashes around and just sort of comedic duo'ing their way throughout the universe, Doctor Who is a much more fun and watchable show than under Eccleston. But that dynamic can cross that line, which I think this episode did, and that's why I didn't love it as much as I thought I should. The resolution to how The Doctor figures out how to save the day- complete with his slow realization that Prince Albert had teamed up with Sir Robert's Dad to plan for this eventuality -works, and Tennant really does sell that dramatic realization in his own, overblown way. It's fun. This episode, as a whole, is fun. Finally, though, I think I realize why I consider this a firm "B" episode. Although Doctor Who has done supernatural episodes before, they've always turned out to have firmly "scientific"- or whatever passes for scientific on this show -explanations, such as the "ghosts" from "The Unquiet Dead" turning out to be an alien race. They try for the same thing here with the werewolf- he's actually an alien lifeform that's quietly been reproducing itself for generations or something- but in this case it feels really, really weak. So, in essence, this is a supernatural episode, not a sci-fi one, and once Doctor Who plays in the supernatural corner of things I end up comparing it to Sleepy Hollow, and that's why I was sort of unimpressed even though I felt like I should've. It wasn't the raised expectations of the cold opening, I think, or even the problems dragging down the episode in my eyes- not directly, anyways -it's that, to me, this was playing in the Sleepy Hollow sandbox really directly this episode, and just came up short. Grade: B Random Thoughts:
NieR Occomata fucked around with this message at 04:56 on Aug 23, 2014 |
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Aug 23, 2014 04:01
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Toxxupation posted:
Occupation I love you. You are amazing. I can't stop smiling.
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Aug 23, 2014 04:04
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You have interesting tastes, they're a bit askew from most of the people around here, but it's fun to see. I mean, as I understand it, the general feeling on 'The Unquiet Dead' and 'Tooth and Claw' has been 'eeeeh, forgettable'. The main thing I remember from Tooth and Claw was a) how silly the random kung-fu monks were considering it was just irrelevant to the rest of the episode and b) Rose being insufferably smug and irritating, with both the 'make her say we are not amused' challenge and when she was getting overly giggly-flirty with the Doctor. The failed scottish accent and the Doctor's reaction to it was great, though. MikeJF fucked around with this message at 04:10 on Aug 23, 2014 |
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Aug 23, 2014 04:06
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Toxxupation posted:[*] I feel bad for not giving an episode of Doctor Who an A. I loving despise all of you for what you've done to me. That's funny, because this is one of my least favorite episodes.
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Aug 23, 2014 04:22
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MrL_JaKiri posted:Their Big Lebowski parody is actually brilliant and worth skipping all the loving to watch The one for 30 Rock was amazing with the poo poo they wrote for the Tracy Jordan character Toxxupation posted:
Delicious.
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Aug 23, 2014 04:25
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Also I've decided to gif funny rear end parts of doctor who eps I watch and post them here you go 
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Aug 23, 2014 04:43
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Toxxupation posted:Also I've decided to gif funny rear end parts of doctor who eps I watch and post them Wow, it zoomed into the door and then cut to the dude's face. That's quality.
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Aug 23, 2014 04:45
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Has anyone linked the Children in Need special yet? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IylzJNaW5k There are no spoilers in this; it aired between Eccleston's last scene and the first Christmas special.
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Aug 23, 2014 04:53
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Doctor Who "Tooth and Claw" Series 2, Episode 2 Unlike my more excitable alter ego, it's rare that I'm completely bewildered by some really stupid thing that I've watched or read. High are the bulwarks of my cynicism and deep the moats of my contempt. But when the beginning of this episode turned into a low-rent jitter-cam Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, my synapses just sort of chuckled weakly and went dark for a little while. This nonsense is the reason Davies' scripts should come with a loving hazard sticker on the front - we have kung-fu monks, werewolves, laser beams, and Queen Victoria jostling for space in the same forty-five minutes. What kind of lunatic would think this stuff goes together? The fact that this stuff does not go together is the biggest failing of "Tooth and Claw." While I actually found the episode entertaining after a rewatch - prepared now for the assault of fearsome skinny bald men - both Who's and Davies' inconsistencies are in full force here, in writing and production. The monster is utterly ludicrous (a "wave lupeform," some kind of infectious cellular organism that adopts memetic properties from the mind of its host), but the CGI is surprisingly well-done given the time of filming; the werewolf's textures are primitive, sure, but its movements and expressions are varied and lively. Rose is an utter prat, even worse than usual, but it eventually leads to a satisfying conclusion when the Queen tells her and the Doctor to calm the hell down and act like adults until people stop being murdered around them. The side characters are mostly bland, but the scream the captain of the guard lets out as the wolf tears into him is downright bone-chilling and far above what I'm sure the script called for. Above all, the pacing and tone is a start-and-stop wreck and makes it difficult to get fully immersed in the story's silliness. There's an obvious and intentional tonal dissonance in the Doctor's and Rose's amusement-park attitudes as the wolf slaughters the mansion's inhabitants, but even beyond that, there's a brief shot of Queen Victoria going from airy dinner-table chatter to haunted ruminations on the inscrutability of death, which leaves as suddenly as it came. Drive-by navel-gazing is what that was. The chase scenes are broken up by long periods of standing around doing nothing in a library (though the sound of the wolf stalking around the area, looking for an entrance, was impressive by Who's standards - kind of raises the question why one would werewolf-proof a room's walls and make a great big fragile glass ceiling, though). At one point our small group engages in some highly dynamic and energetic reading, which is dull and ridiculous. I suspect these long lulls were partly due to the time and expense of animating the wolf, which is just another pitfall of the show's laughable SFX budget at the time. As we progress through Series 2 I become doubtful that my own write-ups will have much meat, if only because there's not a whole lot to most episodes this season beyond what's there on the surface. I mean, what am I going to do, expound on the occult-repelling properties of mistletoe? Go to Wikipedia for that, ya jerks. I will say that it felt like there were a lot of jokes in here that wouldn't quite land for someone unfamiliar with the British royal family, which I am, so I didn't; the best I had was a vague awareness of the hemophilia/lycanthropy meme, and all I can say to that is Jesus Christ, you limeys are a fanciful bunch. The only flash of apparent depth in this script was of the Queen's rebuke of the Doctor and Rose - outright vocalizing that the both of them (and Rose, especially), are entirely too comfortable with their daily lives of mortal peril, and that their attitudes will come back to haunt them in the end. The Doctor's had plenty of hauntings already, but Rose blithe disregard for the consequences of her actions is in full force here, and it's nice to see this officially acknowledged as a dangerous attitude, given her circumstances. In the end, though, I'd come down as an overall positive on "Tooth and Claw," just because the inherent ludicrousness of its mish-mash makes for a bit of stupid fun. And also, because of the accents. God, I love Scottish accents, I love 'em, I love 'em, I could listen to them forever, doesn't matter who's saying them. The way Tennant effortlessly switches between his native Scottish and squeaky Estuary accents is a gimmick I wish could've been shoved in more often, but some things are just too beautiful to be true. Och, aye.
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Aug 23, 2014 04:56
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Bicyclops posted:Has anyone linked the Children in Need special yet? I reviewed it chump! CHUMP
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Aug 23, 2014 04:57
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Toxxupation posted:I reviewed it chump! CHUMP Whoops, sorry, I skipped a bunch in between Bad Wolf and the Christmas special.
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Aug 23, 2014 04:59
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Toxxupation posted:uh, Rose, you're in very real danger of dying. You should really take that threat a little more seriously. Toxxupation posted:I feel bad for not giving an episode of Doctor Who an A. I loving despise all of you for what you've done to me. Republican Vampire fucked around with this message at 05:22 on Aug 23, 2014 |
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Aug 23, 2014 05:04
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Toxxupation posted:Finally, though, I think I realize why I consider this a firm "B" episode. Although Doctor Who has done supernatural episodes before, they've always turned out to have firmly "scientific"- or whatever passes for scientific on this show -explanations, such as the "ghosts" from "The Unquiet Dead" turning out to be an alien race. They try for the same thing here with the werewolf- he's actually an alien lifeform that's quietly been reproducing itself for generations or something- but in this case it feels really, really weak. This seems to be par for shows of this type. In Buffy (and probably Supernatural?) everything, even the odd thing from outer space, is Demons. In this sort of work regardless of medium it seems like they always try to kludge everything into a neat little consistent box, whether it be "wizards", "demons", "aliens", "mutants" or whatever else.
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Aug 23, 2014 05:04
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well, to be fair, in Dr. Who it can also be mutants, robots, rogue AIs, or other time travelers. Or stable time loops. Or unstable time messes.
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Aug 23, 2014 06:33
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Toxxupation posted:I feel bad for not giving an episode of Doctor Who an A. I loving despise all of you for what you've done to me.  I have no recollection of these past two episodes at all though. I remembered giving up on the show in the middle of Tennant's run, but maybe it was just the Christmas Special? Or are they just THAT forgettable? 
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Aug 23, 2014 07:25
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VagueRant posted:are they just THAT forgettable? For me at least I found Tooth and Claw to be a very forgettable episode, I didn't think it was a bad episode but there was very little memorable about it and it didn't stand out positively in any particular regard. The last time I rewatched it I enjoyed it more than I thought I would, pretty much because all I really remembered about it were the the bad parts, so the generally inoffensive and standard quality "good" bits came as a bit of a pleasant surprise.
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Aug 23, 2014 07:39
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Jsor posted:This seems to be par for shows of this type. In Buffy (and probably Supernatural?) everything, even the odd thing from outer space, is Demons.
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Aug 23, 2014 10:39
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Tiggum posted:Supernatural gets more like this as it goes on. Originally there were just all sorts of monsters and they weren't related, but in the later seasons everything's tied into Christian mythology, with pretty much all the monsters being children of Lilith (if I'm remembering right). Not to derail this thread further, but the monsters are for the most part descendants of the creations ("children") of Eve, one of God's earliest fuckups.
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Aug 23, 2014 11:19
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Toxxupation posted:right before all the monks rip off their robes dramatically as one to reveal kung-fu outfits, before an insane (and decently well-choreographed) fight scene, complete with ludicrous slo-mo and fifteen-foot high crane kicks Will it make you more or less happy to learn that this sequence was based on the BBC One channel idents ("Rhythm and Movement") that were going on at the time? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MK4brKHobDE
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Aug 23, 2014 11:43
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An 'omage, if you will
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Aug 23, 2014 11:44
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It's probably worth noting for Occ that the Doctor's alias in this episode is a reference to the old show's only Scottish, and probably it's most beloved male companion. It's the best kind of in-joke, the kind that passes by as an organic part of events for the uninitiated but gets a smile from those in the know.
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Aug 23, 2014 12:51
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This was sort of the first episode of Doctor Who I ever saw. I was waiting for something else to come on SyFy and kept flipping back and forth between it and something else while having no idea what I was seeing. I thought it was so stupid I couldn't bear to keep the TV on it for long. When the credits rolled and I saw this was that Doctor Who thing everyone kept raving about, it kept me from watching the show entirely until... well not long before season 6 started.
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Aug 23, 2014 13:00
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Republican Vampire posted:I think the biggest problem with Tooth and Claw is where it landed in the running order. The episode, in a very real sense, is building towards the scene where Queen Victoria loses her poo poo and tells The Doctor and Rose off for their flippant, casual, jokey attitude to a very life and death situation. But you can't have that kind of payoff to the Doctor's atittude when this incarnation and that attitude have only had one prior episode. It just feels like it came out of nowhere. It's an unearned emotional note, but Rusty's got a lot of those.
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Aug 23, 2014 18:52
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I used to think that the single episode companions (barring one or two) were usually pretty much the worst, but then I realized that you only had to stick with them for one episode rather than two seasons. Rose is the worst. Adeline Weishaupt fucked around with this message at 03:28 on Aug 24, 2014 |
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Aug 23, 2014 20:51
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First Bass posted:Not to derail this thread further, but the monsters are for the most part descendants of the creations ("children") of Eve, one of God's earliest fuckups. Yeah, but Supernatural has always been Christianity focused. The past few seasons though have been a bunch of monsters and where they go when they die (S6), Leviathans (S7, but they aren't anything like the Bible version), closing the gates of Hell (S8), and then fighting a rogue Angel (S9). I think the last time you had major non-Abrahamic Gods mentioned it was in S5 when Lucifer killed a convention center full of them (literally).
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Aug 23, 2014 21:18
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VagueRant posted:I have no recollection of these past two episodes at all though. I remembered giving up on the show in the middle of Tennant's run, but maybe it was just the Christmas Special? Or are they just THAT forgettable? The only thing I remembered about Tooth and Claw was the terrible, terrible CGI for the werewolf. And feeling like the supporting cast kind of dragged the story down? And that the whole Torchwood thing was really clumsily delivered. I do not remember this poo poo at all: Which is a pity, because it is glorious  Jsor posted:This seems to be par for shows of this type. In Buffy (and probably Supernatural?) everything, even the odd thing from outer space, is Demons. In this sort of work regardless of medium it seems like they always try to kludge everything into a neat little consistent box, whether it be "wizards", "demons", "aliens", "mutants" or whatever else. I think I kinda prefer this to the other approach, where the fact that supernatural thing X is real is taken to mean that literally everything else ever dreamt up by the human mind, no matter how inane, is also real.
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Aug 23, 2014 21:42
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umalt posted:I used to think that the single episode companions (barring one or two) were usually pretty much the worst, but then I realized that you only had to stick with them for one episode rather than two seasons. Dude....
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Aug 23, 2014 22:48
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I'm not sure what I'm more excited for, the US premiere of Series 8, or Toxxi-Oxxi-Anus's next review.
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Aug 24, 2014 00:34
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When I consider that every Series 8 ep. I've seen so far (the first three) are uniformly terrible, I'd say you should be more excited about the next review.
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Aug 24, 2014 00:49
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