Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Locked thread
computer parts
Nov 18, 2010

PLEASE CLAP

Burkion posted:


Which is very sad because when she first showed up, she was great. And her appearance in the Angels two parter was OK too. The Angels Two Parter kinda sucked, but you know.

People poo poo the moving Angels but I didn't see what was so wrong with the rest of it (it even had Jorah Mormont as a battle monk!).

Disclaimer: that was literally the first time I'd seen Weeping Angels though.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Burkion
May 10, 2012

by Fluffdaddy

computer parts posted:

People poo poo the moving Angels but I didn't see what was so wrong with the rest of it (it even had Jorah Mormont as a battle monk!).

Disclaimer: that was literally the first time I'd seen Weeping Angels though.

Yeah I've been watching the revival since day one, or near about thanks to Scifi, so seeing the Weeping Angles so radically different, it was like an entirely original villain group they just didn't have the budget to pull off so they replaced them with Angels.

They went from being these enigmatic if not vaguely kind assassins who just send you some where in time, to out right horrific monsters that have a ton of powers out of goddamn nowhere and murder for no good reason just to be cruel.

It's like if Aliens was about how the Alien we saw before wasn't actually the norm for the drones, and instead that the entire species could actually teleport and make new aliens if you so much as thought about them. Also they could speak now.

It's not BAD, exactly, that's the Silurians and their weirdly sexualized designs, it's just off putting.


The Angels Take Manhattan was bad. gently caress that.

thexerox123
Aug 17, 2007

Burkion posted:

The Angels Take Manhattan was bad. gently caress that.

The statue of liberty part is easily one of the stupidest things in all of Who... and not in a good way. It makes no sense whatsoever.

Jerusalem
May 20, 2004

Would you be my new best friends?

I really enjoyed the Angels 2-parter, but there is no doubt that the Weeping Angels in it are very different from the ones in Blink.

Weren't they mostly reused because they were Matt Smith's favorite monster?

thexerox123 posted:

The statue of liberty part is easily one of the stupidest things in all of Who... and not in a good way. It makes no sense whatsoever.

The only thing I can think of is that Moffat wanted to out-RTD RTD's giant Steampunk Cyberman in Victorian London. But given he did the Statue of Liberty AND later did a super-giant T-Rex in Victorian London I'm starting to suspect he's the one who gave RTD the idea for the giant Cyberman in the first place.

ewe2
Jul 1, 2009

Jerusalem posted:

The only thing I can think of is that Moffat wanted to out-RTD RTD's giant Steampunk Cyberman in Victorian London. But given he did the Statue of Liberty AND later did a super-giant T-Rex in Victorian London I'm starting to suspect he's the one who gave RTD the idea for the giant Cyberman in the first place.

IDK about anyone else but I didn't need reminding of Ghostbusters II.

howe_sam
Mar 7, 2013

Creepy little garbage eaters

thexerox123 posted:

The Angels Take Manhattan was bad. gently caress that.

There is a lot I dislike about Angels Take Manhattan. There is however, one thing I love for the sheer improbable absurdity of its existence.

Lions, bitch.

Cleretic
Feb 3, 2010


Ignore my posts!
I'm aggressively wrong about everything!
I've found that I really like Who monsters being 'correct', in direction, internal story, message, and tone. It's why I liked Dark Water/Death in Heaven not as a Master story (which it's good at), but as a Cyberman story. It felt like Moffat seemed to get what made the Cybermen work; the right feelings to evoke, the right imagery, the right concepts to introduce to the picture without bringing the house of cards crashing down.

That's why I actually prefer Angels Take Manhattan over Flesh and Stone/Time of Angels. Beyond anything else, Flesh/Time just wasn't a Weeping Angels story. The enemies were statues, and they didn't move if you looked at them, but that's it. And even then, they gently caress up one of the two facts they stick with; the way they act in Flesh/Time implies that they can move if you're looking at them, they just don't.

This sounds like nitpicking, but it adds up. Flesh/Time isn't an Angels story, because it doesn't respect any of the elements behind them. It's not just that they don't play by the same rules; they don't prey on the same fears, grow from the same concepts, they introduce new ideas and have them act in ways that completely goes against their previous appearance. The fact they seemed to throw consistency to the wind rubs me the wrong way, and I just can't really judge the story on its own merits because of it. It will always be 'that story with the lovely fake Angels'.

For all its flaws, and even though it may not be a good story (I haven't watched it since it aired), Angels Take Manhattan does at least feel like the same monsters that appeared in Blink. They're more organized, but that works--contrasting a structured plan like that with their more chaotic, directionless predation in Blink is a nice way to build on them. They're fighting in the same way, are weak to the same tactics, and call up the same emotions. It's the proper sort of follow-up to Blink: same enemies, same rules, just bigger and smarter.


Maybe Flesh/Time would have worked better if it were after more Angels appearances. If you set a pattern, that gives you greater ability to break it, because you've at least shown that you understand and can probably use that pattern to structure the breakage itself. But with their second appearance acting nothing like their first, it just doesn't work for me, it makes it feel lazy. Like they had a story they wanted to tell, but couldn't be assed designing a new monster, so they crammed the most tangentially-relevant pre-existing one they had in. Or, other way around, that they wanted to write a new Angels story but didn't want to go through the effort of making a plot that suited them.

docbeard
Jul 19, 2011

Jerusalem posted:

Oh yeah, and let's not forget the TERRIBLE epilogue with River.

Respected Professor of an enormously prestigious Galactic University: So Miss Song, why do you want to study archeology?
River Song: I'll be perfectly honest...I'm looking for a good man :smug:

How that episode doesn't end with that professor going,"Haha get the gently caress out of my office" I'll never know.

One thing I've really noticed about Moffat, and this is as good an example as any (though I think the notorious "...A WOMAN" line from The Wedding of River Song is the platonic ideal), is that, given the choice between dialogue that fits the character and scene and plot and a one-liner that sounds cool, he's going to go with the cool one-liner every drat time.

docbeard
Jul 19, 2011

Cleretic posted:

This sounds like nitpicking, but it adds up. Flesh/Time isn't an Angels story, because it doesn't respect any of the elements behind them. It's not just that they don't play by the same rules; they don't prey on the same fears, grow from the same concepts, they introduce new ideas and have them act in ways that completely goes against their previous appearance. The fact they seemed to throw consistency to the wind rubs me the wrong way, and I just can't really judge the story on its own merits because of it. It will always be 'that story with the lovely fake Angels'.

I agree with this and would go one step further; you could swap in any number of other established aliens for the Angels without changing a good 90% of the story. You might lose the specific way in which the Angels are loving with Amy's mind, but (a) that's not something they've ever been able to do before or since, and (b) it's not like aliens influencing human minds is exactly unprecedented in Doctor Who. Otherwise, make them Daleks, make them Cybermen, make them any number of other critters and the story doesn't change. And I think that the Angels, in particular, really only work in stories where only the Angels would work.

(It has just occurred to me that the plot, at least at a high level, is not far at all from that of Tomb of the Cybermen.)

Rannos22
Mar 30, 2011

Everything's the same as it always is.
The weird new angel abilities in the two parter remind me of when halloween/friday the 13th decided to throw in voodoo, satanic bullshit to try and make the slasher villian more scary because they couldn't just make another movie doing the same stuff as the last one. Sure they're thinking outside of the box and trying something new which is almost unheard of in mainstream popular media but its also completely ridiculous and strains believability.

Also I'd take the Mels actress over Kingston any day of the week. The way Kingston says stuff in the smug tone just makes me skin crawl.

Cliff Racer
Mar 24, 2007

by Lowtax

docbeard posted:

the Angels, in particular, really only work in stories where only the Angels would work.
The angels, in particular, really only work in Blink and thats it.

2house2fly
Nov 14, 2012

You did a super job wrapping things up! And I'm not just saying that because I have to!
I see a load of wrong people in here who don't think the Angels two-parter was great.

Cleretic
Feb 3, 2010


Ignore my posts!
I'm aggressively wrong about everything!

2house2fly posted:

I see a load of wrong people in here who don't think the Angels two-parter was great.

Like I said, I can't judge the quality of it because I always just dismiss it as 'the episode that got the Angels really wrong'.

Docbeard is right that it really didn't call for the Angels, which only made the fact they were forced in there worse. The story is good in spite of the Angels' presence, not because of them. It reminds me of Asylum of the Daleks; an episode let down by a miscast monster. Someone in these threads mentioned it would have been better as a Cyberman episode, and they're right.

Similarly, Flesh/Time would have been better with a monster more suited to it. I feel like they wanted to have the monsters be sentient art, which would be in-keeping with the 'image of an Angel becomes an Angel' idea, and does well at demonstrating the Cracks erasing something from existence. Why not make that the core of it? Why recycle the Angels, which look like sentient art but aren't, instead of just making a new monster that does work like that?

Cleretic fucked around with this message at 08:13 on Nov 23, 2014

Oxxidation
Jul 22, 2007

Cleretic posted:

Someone in these threads mentioned it would have been better as a Cyberman episode

Nothing would be better as a Cyberman episode.

Facebook Aunt
Oct 4, 2008

wiggle wiggle




Jsor posted:

The problem I had with River was when they showed their relationship, I didn't buy it. It felt like the entire time the Doctor was stringing her along. Like he was acting out a play that they were married because he knew they were married in the future. Especially in the episode with their wedding, marrying her seemed like a last ditch "oh, gently caress it!" option to save the universe rather than any actual desire to be in a relationship with her.


It's a shame, because River is decent, and she gets that great Gay Gypsy Bar Mitzvah line, but I really feel like the Doctor would have married Mickey the Idiot just as well as River in the same situation.


By the time they get to the wedding, the Doctor realizes exactly what she really is: a broken little girl that he failed to rescue in time. He feels responsible, and to some extent he really is responsible. If he hadn't been so noisy, hadn't made so many afraid of him, then Amy and Rory's children would probably have been perfectly average. Melody/River suffered immeasurably for his sins.

He can't make up for what happened to her as a little girl. He can't make up for her lost parents, lost childhood, nor whatever horrors she suffered at the hands of the Silence. He can marry her, which is what she wants more than anything in the universe, and it costs him almost nothing to do that for her.

Irony Be My Shield
Jul 29, 2012

Yeah I felt like the Flesh and Stone two-parter ruined the core conceit of the angels and couldn't really forgive it for that. Maybe it would've worked better with a new set of aliens that had the new powers the angels gained.

New York kindof got it back but the Statue of Liberty thing was just so stupid

Jerusalem posted:

If I was recommending somebody to start at The Eleventh Hour, I'd say watch the whole of season 5 and then if they felt like it jump back and check out the Library 2-parter. If anything it might encourage people to check out more Tennant, which in turn might encourage them to check out more Eccleston.

I used to recommend Rose as a great starting point, and it still is as far as the RTD era goes. But it already feels like a bygone era of television despite only being 9 years old. Compared to the production values on the current show it's kind of incredible how quickly it has aged.
That makes sense, I guess season 6 is when River starts to really become important.

I was thinking of including the library two-parter not because it's the best or most representative RTD episode (although I think it's pretty good).

CobiWann posted:

I'd actually suggest the Sontaran two-parter over Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead. Set on Earth, more action packed, and a little less weird than the Donna-in-the-computer scenes. Plus introducing someone to River Song without a little more Ten experience seems off somehow.
It probably wouldn't work as a first episode, but I think it's a pretty important episode for establishing the relationship between 11 and River so I'd like to to go in somewhere on an otherwise Moffat-only run.

MikeJF
Dec 20, 2003




Incidentally, anyone who hasn't gone back and watched Silence In The Library now we've seen River's life needs to, that initial meeting is amazing and heartbreaking when viewed in retrospect.

Jerusalem
May 20, 2004

Would you be my new best friends?

MikeJF posted:

Incidentally, anyone who hasn't gone back and watched Silence In The Library now we've seen River's life needs to, that initial meeting is amazing and heartbreaking when viewed in retrospect.

I thought,"Funny thing is.... this means you've always known how I was going to die" was a powerful line even when it initially aired, but once you have the knowledge of all the stuff they've been through since then it becomes an even stronger moment.

Dabir
Nov 10, 2012

Watch every story with River in it in chronological order.

For River. :getin:

Rannos22
Mar 30, 2011

Everything's the same as it always is.

Angela Christine posted:

By the time they get to the wedding, the Doctor realizes exactly what she really is: a broken little girl that he failed to rescue in time. He feels responsible, and to some extent he really is responsible. If he hadn't been so noisy, hadn't made so many afraid of him, then Amy and Rory's children would probably have been perfectly average. Melody/River suffered immeasurably for his sins.

He can't make up for what happened to her as a little girl. He can't make up for her lost parents, lost childhood, nor whatever horrors she suffered at the hands of the Silence. He can marry her, which is what she wants more than anything in the universe, and it costs him almost nothing to do that for her.

I didn't know the River Song story could be made more creepier and gross than it already was but here we are now I guess.

Jerusalem
May 20, 2004

Would you be my new best friends?

Dabir posted:

Watch every story with River in it in chronological order.

For River. :getin:

Is that even possible considering she appears in multiple incarnations in more than one single episode? She's in A Good Man Goes To War as a baby and as an adult so it would be set both before and after The Wedding of River Song, and she's a child and two distinct adults in The Impossible Astronaut?

Facebook Aunt
Oct 4, 2008

wiggle wiggle




Rannos22 posted:

I didn't know the River Song story could be made more creepier and gross than it already was but here we are now I guess.

It is an incredibly creepy and tragic story. River spends all that effort to seem clever, dashing and mysterious, because she was programed from birth to be obsessed with the Doctor. The Doctor for his part does what he can to give her the best possible quality of life, knowing from the day he meets her exactly how and where she is going to die.

From his point of view it isn't a romantic story at all.

Dabir
Nov 10, 2012

Jerusalem posted:

Is that even possible considering she appears in multiple incarnations in more than one single episode? She's in A Good Man Goes To War as a baby and as an adult so it would be set both before and after The Wedding of River Song, and she's a child and two distinct adults in The Impossible Astronaut?

watch it three times

Jerusalem
May 20, 2004

Would you be my new best friends?

Angela Christine posted:

From his point of view it isn't a romantic story at all.

Yeah and I've always been surprised at how many people take the relationship at face value, considering it is established from their very first story that he's operating under a sense of obligation/guilt. This isn't to say that he doesn't genuinely care for her or like her, but he's basically forced to act his part in their relationship. People complain a lot about how smug and superior River is, but she is ALWAYS operating under a misunderstanding of what the Doctor is constantly holding back from her.

Dabir posted:

watch it three times

:stare:

Android Blues
Nov 22, 2008

My only problem with River is how her relationship with the Doctor goes from her being his peer, someone who can match his wits and challenge him, to her being his desperate, doomed fan. It feels like a weakening of the character to have her be obsessed with him, sad about it, and have those feelings be as one-sided as they are.

Not just in the Library two-parter, but even in Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone and Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang, River is very much the Doctor's equal. As Series Six and Seven go on, though, there's an increasing focus on moments of pathos that just paint her as tragically in love while the stoic Doctor must heroically patronise her so as not to hurt her feelings. It's a shame.

BSam
Nov 24, 2012

Oxxidation posted:

Nothing would be better as a Cyberman episode.

SOUNDS LIKE YOU NEED TO LISTEN TO SPARE PARTS.

Facebook Aunt
Oct 4, 2008

wiggle wiggle




Android Blues posted:

My only problem with River is how her relationship with the Doctor goes from her being his peer, someone who can match his wits and challenge him, to her being his desperate, doomed fan. It feels like a weakening of the character to have her be obsessed with him, sad about it, and have those feelings be as one-sided as they are.

Not just in the Library two-parter, but even in Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone and Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang, River is very much the Doctor's equal. As Series Six and Seven go on, though, there's an increasing focus on moments of pathos that just paint her as tragically in love while the stoic Doctor must heroically patronise her so as not to hurt her feelings. It's a shame.

She has dedicated her life to making herself exactly the sort of person the Doctor would find fascinating. As we learn more about her, some of the facade slips. Like when she is all smug about finding a way to escape that one angel, and then we find out later she broke her own wrist to do it.


Plus due to the conceit of their time-mismatch she actually is a stronger, more mature character when we first meet her. Since we meet her on the day she dies, her character development sort of goes in reverse.

MrL_JaKiri
Sep 23, 2003

A bracing glass of carrot juice!

Burkion posted:

It's like if Aliens was about how the Alien we saw before wasn't actually the norm for the drones, and instead that the entire species could actually teleport and make new aliens if you so much as thought about them. Also they could speak now.

Oh, so they are basing it closely on Alien :v:

MrL_JaKiri fucked around with this message at 13:14 on Nov 23, 2014

Fil5000
Jun 23, 2003

HOLD ON GUYS I'M POSTING ABOUT INTERNET ROBOTS

MrL_JaKiri posted:

Oh, so they are basing it closely on Aliens :v:

More of a mash up of the original planned ending of Alien and William Gibson's Alien 3 script draft.

:goonsay:

MrL_JaKiri
Sep 23, 2003

A bracing glass of carrot juice!
I meant Alien in the first post obviously :saddowns:

DoctorWhat
Nov 18, 2011

A little privacy, please?
But wait, where does that leave The Ark In Space!?

MrL_JaKiri
Sep 23, 2003

A bracing glass of carrot juice!

DoctorWhat posted:

But wait, where does that leave The Ark In Space!?

On my DVD shelf where it belongs

Ms Boods
Mar 19, 2009

Did you ever wonder where the Romans got bread from? It wasn't from Waitrose!

Metal Loaf posted:

The Sontaran two-parter is good on its own merits, but I often feel it seems a little weaker than it really is for being sandwiched between "The Ark on Space" and "Genesis of the Daleks".

For me the Sontaran two-parter has the distinction of being one of the first ones I remember watching; 39 years later, I'm still enjoying the show.

computer parts
Nov 18, 2010

PLEASE CLAP

BSam posted:

SOUNDS LIKE YOU NEED TO LISTEN TO SPARE PARTS.

Spare Parts would be better as a Dalek episode. :v:

The_Doctor
Mar 29, 2007

"The entire history of this incarnation is one of temporal orbits, retcons, paradoxes, parallel time lines, reiterations, and divergences. How anyone can make head or tail of all this chaos, I don't know."
I can get behind this:

https://vimeo.com/112543521

FreezingInferno
Jul 15, 2010

THERE.
WILL.
BE.
NO.
BATTLE.
HERE!

Now I'm a little upset that they didn't do this.

Cruel Rose
May 27, 2010

saaave gotham~
come on~
DO IT, BATMAN
FUCKING BATMAN I FUCKING HATE YOU
Happy birthday Dr Hooey!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxcMCr_lA7M

Senor Tron
May 26, 2006


FreezingInferno posted:

Now I'm a little upset that they didn't do this.

That's amazing. I have to believe that Moffat intends to bring Gallifrey back before his time is up, and when he does it will have to call back to that scene.

Wheat Loaf
Feb 13, 2012

by FactsAreUseless

Senor Tron posted:

That's amazing. I have to believe that Moffat intends to bring Gallifrey back before his time is up, and when he does it will have to call back to that scene.

I mentioned in the last thread, it would have been the coolest thing ever if that had been the "It's Peter Capaldi!" reveal.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Senor Tron
May 26, 2006


Metal Loaf posted:

I mentioned in the last thread, it would have been the coolest thing ever if that had been the "It's Peter Capaldi!" reveal.

It definitely would have, I'm sure they considered it but it almost certainly would have leaked and they'd of missed out on the big reveal special they did.

  • Locked thread