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Series 6 was to Series 5 what Series 2 was to Series 1 of the revival. Smattering of good episodes, but overall an incredible letdown compared to what came before.
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Aug 28, 2014 22:26
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I like a lot of Series 6. The Silence* are great, IMO, at the very least in concept. I don't know what the consensus is here on them, but its "good" episodes are pretty drat excellent, IMO. I liked the Flesh two-parter, the Christmas Carol special, and The God Complex. Honestly, I think The Girl Who Waited is in the running for my favorite Doctor Who episode ever. I agree that the overall arc of that series was just a mess, though. * To be clear, by "The Silence" I mean the Slender Man things, not the overbearing metaplot nonsense where "The Silence" turned out to be some counter-Doctor special ops facility and then a church.
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Aug 28, 2014 22:37
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Barry the Silence said "You SHOULD kill us all on sight" and not "You MUST kill us all on sight" so there you go, "plothole" closed, you're welcome 
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Aug 28, 2014 22:53
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Big Mean Jerk posted:I still don't understand The Big Bang/Pandorica. Or that episode with the godawful steampunk poo poo and the pyramid. Or any of 11's finales, now that I think of it.  I know most of you hate it, but I'm a sucker for that kind of thing.It also establishes a rule for time travel that Moffat continues to use that I also love. You can't interfere with your past self, unless you already have, at which point you have to act out the other end. Like, if another me wearing the same outfit I'm wearing suddenly appears and hands me a bourbon on the rocks, I can drink it, but I also have to pour another one, get in my time machine, and go hand it to my now-past self. I've technically interfered with my own timeline, but only because it happened on the first time through, which is super fun to play with. It's how we got three River Songs at Lake Silencio, and I go bonkers for that stuff when it works out. I'm easily amused, I know. Yes, I even liked The Wedding of River Song. A lot of this was aided by the fact that I binge-watched the entire revival over about three weeks, right after Day aired, so I didn't have a lot of the anticipation and expectations that a lot of you no doubt had. And I didn't have all the time and means to speculate week-to-week, or series to series.
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Aug 28, 2014 23:00
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The sad thing is, with the reveal of what the Silence ARE, his name really could have been Barry.
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Aug 28, 2014 23:03
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Barry Foster posted:Series 6 was to Series 5 what Series 2 was to Series 1 of the revival. Smattering of good episodes, but overall an incredible letdown compared to what came before. No, not really. Because looking back, Season 1 was not good. Eccleston was a great Doctor, but he didn't fit with the tone of the show. I think with a different showrunner, Eccleston's run would have been wonderful. But it isn't. It really isn't. I guess people remember it fondly due to the good parts of Dalek, Father's Day, and EVERYONE LIVES, but come on, "Rose", BAD WOLF, farting aliens, one of the farting aliens returns for some bizarre reason in another episode, the profoundly stupid reality show parodies, Rose barely having any characterization at all, etc. I guess series 2 was bad as well, but it also had one half-great nostalgia episode, a brilliant stand-alone, and a kickin' rad two-parter. Series 3&4 are Davies' Good Seasons. Not coincidentally the non-Rose seasons. Freema Agyeman and Catherine Tate just surpassed Billie Piper in every way. People complain about Martha mooning over the Doctor, but she actually did things, she had a profession, she helped the Doctor without usually functioning as a damsel in distress. And she had the good sense to hop off the Doctor Insanity Train when she realized it wasn't really doing it for her anymore. And then of course I assume almost everyone likes Donna. But yes, looking back, Series 5 was the most consistently good season of the revival. Only one arguably bad episode (Victory of the Daleks, ugh). Well, a lot of people hated Cold Blood at the time, but I watched it again recently and it's actually not bad. A bit rushed, but it mostly works, and the ending is an effective gutpunch. Season 6 is bad because it gets too plotty, and the plot episodes are confusing/bad. At the time I liked the opening two-parter, but knowing how everything resolved (or in some cases didn't), I feel like it would suffer greatly on rewatch. A Good Man Goes to War, Let's Kill Hitler, and The Wedding of River Song are just plain terrible. Most of the isolated episodes are excellent though, and The Rebel Flesh/The Almost People is completely amazing. The Girl Who Waited is the true sequel to The Girl in the Fireplace, its evil mirror. The choices and actions the Doctor takes there are some of the darkest decisions he's ever made. It retroactively makes the coalition of aliens that planned to shut him in the Pandorica seem somewhat justified. although probably the best justification is what he did as Ten to the Family of Blood. hooooly poo poo. And then I kind of dislike 7.1, with there being no episodes there I'd defend without qualifications. A Town Called Mercy was the best of the bunch, but still had issues. I guess the introduction of the Impossible Girl was pretty effective. but I am an apologist for 7.2, FOR THE MOST PART. The Name of the Doctor doesn't work, although Trenzalore is a cool concept and the Great Intelligence was sort of a cool villain. Time of the Doctor is indisputably stupid. COME AT ME BRO
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Aug 28, 2014 23:06
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I like The Pandorica Opens/Big Bang because I'm a sucker for the Last Centurion and the bit where Amy brings the Doctor back into the universe with the stupid "something borrowed; something blue" seed he fed her. It's so ridiculous and emotionally manipulative. I love it.
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Aug 28, 2014 23:14
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LividLiquid posted:I unabashedly LOVE The Pandorica Opens. That's because it's fantastic and so is The Big Bang, and they were brilliant concluding episodes to the best season of the revival to date. "Something old, something new, something borrowed, something... blue," still gets to me  Jsor posted:I like The Pandorica Opens/Big Bang because I'm a sucker for the Last Centurion and the bit where Amy brings the Doctor back into the universe with the stupid "something borrowed; something blue" seed he fed her. It's so ridiculous and emotionally manipulative. I love it. 
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Aug 28, 2014 23:15
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LividLiquid posted:Like, if another me wearing the same outfit I'm wearing suddenly appears and hands me a bourbon on the rocks, I can drink it, but I also have to pour another one, get in my time machine, and go hand it to my now-past self. Marty! You're not thinking fourth-dimensionally! You'd be pouring the same one, not another one!
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Aug 28, 2014 23:15
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I loved The Big Bang, it made me feel like a kid again, and tied up a lot of things satisfying. Then The Impossible Astronaut came along and there were so many cool time-travelly plot details, it felt grown up but with the same sense of childish adventure as Series 5, and the creepy scenes were gorgeous tonally. There's something I love about the Doctor showing up in Nixon's Oval Office on a cold, rainy night and setting about tracking down a missing girl like he owns the place. Then Day of the Moon came along and was a bit of a mess, particularly the first ten minutes. It was still fun and had the great haunted house scene, but a lot of stuff which made sense in the first part seemed a bit off, suddenly. That was a harbinger of things to come as far as Moffat was concerned.
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Aug 28, 2014 23:31
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CaptainCaveman posted:Marty! You're not thinking fourth-dimensionally! You'd be pouring the same one, not another one! That being said, I couldn't use the same glass, because it would create a paradox, or failing that, that same glass would then be looping through time until it fell to entropy, negating the events of all previous loops, causing yet another paradox. Who's not thinking fourth-dimensionally now?
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Aug 28, 2014 23:36
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LividLiquid posted:I laughed out loud. It would be the same glass, just in two different places at once. So it goes like this: the glass is on a table beside you. Future-you comes in and hands you the same glass from the future. You drink it and set it down on a countertop instead. You then grab the present version from the table, fill it up, travel back in time and hand it to past-you, who will then drink it and set it down on the countertop. A non-time traveling observer would basically witness the glass on the table, then two of the same glass in the same room for a moment, before the table glass leaves with you leaving only the countertop glass. By setting down the glass you were provided and picking up the "other" (but still the same) one, you negate any possible paradoxes or infinite-loops.
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Aug 29, 2014 00:03
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Plavski posted:Five is my favourite Doctor, but a lot of his stories stink. Never because of him though, always because he is shortchanged by lovely writing. Big Finish productions like Singularity, Loups-Garoux and Phantasmagoria let him really shine. The last thirty seconds of Singularity are one of the most out-of-the-blue, holy poo poo, emotional gut-punches I've ever experienced from a work of fiction. It's amazing what Big Finish (and Davison!) did with the idea of the last human when the revived series has only used the concept as a cheap laugh or a cheap scare.
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Aug 29, 2014 00:11
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evenworse username posted:This is exactly why I don't think there's much ambiguity about who did what in the balloon scene. The Doctor kills things (sentient things) all the time. Just off the top of my head, Matt Smith's Doctor blew the crap out of the bounty hunter guy in Dinosaurs on a Spaceship. 'The Man who Never Would' was a nice line but it isn't even a little true; The Doctor is lying about his basic programming. People misinterpret that line a lot. In context, the Doctor had a helpless man on his knees with a gun to his head. I can't think of anytime the Doctor would kill a helpless prisoner, certainly if there's a better alternative. It was also right after his "daughter" was supposedly killed, so he was enraged, but chose to do the right thing. So he "never would" kill a helpless person, and he "never would" kill out of revenge. He always seeks a better option first, but that doesn't mean killing's completely off-limits.
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Aug 29, 2014 00:28
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ApathyGifted posted:Paradox stuff
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Aug 29, 2014 00:36
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Speaking of Big Finish, I think I've found my favorite exchange - and favorite Doctor quote - in all of Doctor Who: ~~~ STRAXUS : I am a realist, Doctor- DOCTOR (interrupting) : Oh here we go. ~~~ That's it. That's great. Because I've been there. We've all been there when some rear end in a top hat says "some of my best friends are [blank]", or "you have to be realistic", or "how do you expect to convince people when you're so angry". Six is the best.
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Aug 29, 2014 00:37
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Some of my favourite Doctor Who stories feature Colin Baker
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Aug 29, 2014 00:46
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Oh here we go.
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Aug 29, 2014 00:51
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DoctorWhat posted:Speaking of Big Finish, I think I've found my favorite exchange - and favorite Doctor quote - in all of Doctor Who: Just based on that one quote, God drat do I want to listen to that
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Aug 29, 2014 00:52
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Glenn_Beckett posted:Just based on that one quote, God drat do I want to listen to that Jeez, I forgot to source it. It's from The Light at the End. EDIT: here, I clipped it out. No spoilers! http://bright-coat-and-bravado.tumblr.com/post/96041146081/my-favorite-bit-of-the-light-at-the-end-no-major DoctorWhat fucked around with this message at 01:12 on Aug 29, 2014 |
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Aug 29, 2014 00:57
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Not that it isn't a cool quote, but the Fourth, Sixth and Tenth Doctors say pretty similar things to monologing villains all the time. It's basically just a verbal eyeroll.
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Aug 29, 2014 01:19
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I think the "go on..." may be better than the "oh here we go".
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Aug 29, 2014 01:19
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Bicyclops posted:Not that it isn't a cool quote, but the Fourth, Sixth and Tenth Doctors say pretty similar things to monologing villains all the time. It's basically just a verbal eyeroll. It's the delivery that sells it for me, really. The sheer exasperation, not just mockery or anger.
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Aug 29, 2014 01:22
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Watching The Enemy of the World and I love that the Doctor's attempt to explain what a helicopter is is to use a load of synonyms, as if that'll help. "You know, a chopper. A whirlybird."
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Aug 29, 2014 01:34
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Spatula City posted:COME AT ME BRO No, you're right. Season Five is the best, most consistent season, but I think season six has the better individual episodes. God Complex really should've been the last episode for Amy and Rory  Well other than Wedding of River Song, which happened in a pocket time line and therefore never really happened and their totally  reunion in the following Christmas episode, but the point is their still loving in their house with the TARDIS blue door and not decades away from poor Brian (and Amy's parents), and gently caress Angels Take Manhattan.
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Aug 29, 2014 02:17
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howe_sam posted:No, you're right. Season Five is the best, most consistent season, but I think season six has the better individual episodes. Season 6 is very awkward when taken as a whole, but yeah it has absolutely incredible standalone episodes (plus the Flesh 2-parter which is great).
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Aug 29, 2014 02:28
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Season Five has The Enemy of the World and Season 6 has The War Games, they're both fantastic
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Aug 29, 2014 02:31
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DoctorWhat posted:Season Five has The Enemy of the World and Season 6 has The War Games, they're both fantastic You're talking about the classic series whereas these other posts were about the revival, don't be embarrassed it's an easy mistake to make! 
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Aug 29, 2014 02:33
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DoctorWhat posted:Season Five has The Enemy of the World and Season 6 has The War Games, they're both fantastic You pick the Enemy of the World out of that series?
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Aug 29, 2014 02:42
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MrL_JaKiri posted:You pick the Enemy of the World out of that series? Honestly? I would too. Tomb is good, but it's slightly overrated and Enemy was massively underrated for years. And Web of Fear suffers from some really blatant work to cover for Pat taking the week off midway through.
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Aug 29, 2014 02:48
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Jerusalem posted:You're talking about the classic series whereas these other posts were about the revival, don't be embarrassed it's an easy mistake to make! His eye twitches involuntarily... MrL_JaKiri posted:You pick the Enemy of the World out of that series? Enemy owns, deal with it.
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Aug 29, 2014 02:50
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The one thing I'll say in defense of the Wedding of River Song is that I really like the setting. Every event and period in history occurring simultaneously at around 5PM on a Tuesday is a really fun setting, and a great way to depict 'poo poo Is Temporally hosed'. What they do IN that setting, that's complete garbage, but I can't hate a setting with Holy Roman Emperor Winston Churchill.
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Aug 29, 2014 03:01
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Jerusalem posted:Season 6 is very awkward when taken as a whole, but yeah it has absolutely incredible standalone episodes (plus the Flesh 2-parter which is great). I just cannot stress enough how much I like the Flesh as a concept, and how perfectly it was executed. and then immediately plot relevant. Granted, it lead into The Worst Episode, but that doesn't diminish the great two-parter at all. I've heard that in the original series, a lot of the serials had serious ethical dilemmas presented to the Doctor with no easy answers. I wish the revival had more of those. Definitely the Flesh is one, and The Girl Who Waited. What else?
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Aug 29, 2014 03:02
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Cleretic posted:The one thing I'll say in defense of the Wedding of River Song is that I really like the setting. Every event and period in history occurring simultaneously at around 5PM on a Tuesday is a really fun setting, and a great way to depict 'poo poo Is Temporally hosed'. What they do IN that setting, that's complete garbage, but I can't hate a setting with Holy Roman Emperor Winston Churchill. What I love the most about it is that after his initial moping, when the Doctor finally decides to face up to his apparent inevitable death he suddenly comes up with a plan to immediately solve all his problems and fix everything.... and then River (and later Amy) completely gently caress everything up in their efforts to help or come up with plans of their own, all while he's insisting,"Seriously guys just let me go to my death wink wink I'm totally cool with going to my death wink wink just stop interfering oh fine gently caress it let's get married then happy now? look I've got my own plan and you're just getting in the way" It kind of wraps back to Impossible Astronaut when the younger Doctor immediately picks up that they're hiding something from him and immediately refuses to take a step further because he's pissed they think they can pull the wool over his eyes.
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Aug 29, 2014 03:05
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DoctorWhat posted:Enemy owns, deal with it. MrL_JaKiri posted:Watching The Enemy of the World and I love that the Doctor's attempt to explain what a helicopter is is to use a load of synonyms, as if that'll help. I think I can deal. I was thinking more of The Abominable Snowmen or even The Ice Warriors. It's a really really wonderful set of stories.
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Aug 29, 2014 03:07
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howe_sam posted:No, you're right. Season Five is the best, most consistent season, but I think season six has the better individual episodes. God Complex really should've been the last episode for Amy and Rory I never understood why they never had that as their last episode. It was a perfect ending of Amy's story, and the first part of season 7 is absolute dogshit. Jsor posted:I like The Pandorica Opens/Big Bang because I'm a sucker for the Last Centurion and the bit where Amy brings the Doctor back into the universe with the stupid "something borrowed; something blue" seed he fed her. It's so ridiculous and emotionally manipulative. I love it. I also love the cold opening of The Pandorica Opens. I really loved the build up to seeing the painting, bringing back characters from the past episodes. It really helped gel the whole season plot. It's a shame Moffat has kept trying to make lightning strike twice and it keeps failing.
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Aug 29, 2014 03:08
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wins.
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MrL_JaKiri posted:I think I can deal. I generally prefer stories that exist complete, and that leaves Tomb, Enemy, and kinda-sorta Web as my options. Tomb's racist and overrated and the Cybermen's "awakening" is followed immidately by them... going back to sleep; Web is pretty cool, in particular the fake London Underground sets; but Enemy has style. And the Trout in long johns.
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Aug 29, 2014 03:12
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Spatula City posted:I just cannot stress enough how much I like the Flesh as a concept, and how perfectly it was executed. and then immediately plot relevant. Granted, it lead into The Worst Episode, but that doesn't diminish the great two-parter at all. The Beast Below springs to mind, he discovers Starship UK's secret and is disgusted with them but can't think of any solution that doesn't involve more death. Amy then steps up and reaffirms his faith in humanity, and the Space-Whale furthers that sense that forgiveness and hope aren't just empty words.
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Aug 29, 2014 03:16
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PassTheRemote posted:I never understood why they never had that as their last episode. It was a perfect ending of Amy's story, and the first part of season 7 is absolute dogshit. I mean I get that everyone on the show wanted something flashier and definitive for the pair to go out on, it just...didn't quite work. Although Angels Take Manhattan does has my all time favorite joke in the history of Doctor Who 
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Aug 29, 2014 03:36
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howe_sam posted:I mean I get that everyone on the show wanted something flashier and definitive for the pair to go out on, it just...didn't quite work. Although Angels Take Manhattan does has my all time favorite joke in the history of Doctor Who I was actually there when they filmed that scene!
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Aug 29, 2014 03:41
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