|
Its amys choice before that. I think he'll like it
|
#
?
Jan 21, 2015 17:23
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 5, 2024 08:54 |
|
|
Of interest, perhaps, to this thread: http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2015/jan/21/brian-blessed-collapses-on-stage-king-lear
|
|
#
?
Jan 21, 2015 17:43
|
|
|
 The Dreamtime is living Time. The Dreaming is living myth. A city travels the stars, inhabited by stone ghosts. At its heart, an ancient remembrance of Earth. Mythical creatures stalk the streets and alien visitors have come in search of trade. But there is nothing to trade. There is only fear. And death. And the stone ghosts. For Hex's first trip in the TARDIS, it's about the strangest place he could have imagined. Weird and very far from wonderful. Adjustment to his new life could prove tough. But he will have to adjust and do more, just to stay alive, and Ace will have to be his guide through this lost city of shadows and predatory dreams. And the Doctor is the first to go missing. The Doctor has crossed into the Dreamtime. Sylvester McCoy is the Doctor in Dreamtime. Cast Sylvester McCoy (The Doctor) Sophie Aldred (Dorothy “Ace” McShane) Philip Olivier (Hex) Tamzin Griffin (Trade Negotiator Vresha) Jef Higgins (Co-Ordinator Whitten) Brigid Lohrey (Dream Commando Wahn) Josephine Mackerras (Toomey) Andrew Peisley(Dream Commando Mulyan) Steffan Rhodri (Commander Korshal) John Scholes(Baiame) Written By: Simon A. Forward Directed By: Gary Russell Trailer – http://www.bigfinish.com/releases/popout/dreamtime-233 X X X X X Some people barely remember their dreams. Some people dream in black and white. Some people dream in color. Some people can hear their dreams, while others enjoy only silence. A small number enjoy all five senses in their dreams, and a very select few can control their dreams to a limited degree. No matter how someone experiences a dream, they never experience the whole picture. Usually the dreamer finds themselves in media res with no idea how they got to where they are. Some dreams are faint imprints upon a memory, and other dreams are so vivid, so intense, they remain burned into one’s memory for days, weeks, months, even years on end. Sometimes, a dream can contain a message, perhaps a missive from the subconscious to the conscious mind, either a subtle, mystical hint about the future or a personal declaration that hits with the metaphysical force of a sledgehammer. By their very nature, dreams are jumbled fragments with a muddled message. Which makes the title of this audio incredibly appropriate. Dreamtime is a mess of an audio. The Doctor, Dorothy/Ace, and Hex find themselves on a mysterious asteroid where a domed city has sprung up around a famous natural landmark usually found on Earth. An attempt to utilize a vital Australian spirituality is poorly explained and mismanaged (with some unconscious consequences), contributing to a weak script and sleepwalking performances from several of the main cast.  There’s a famous stone formation near the center of Australia. To the colonial Australians, it’s known as Ayers Rock. To the local Aboriginals, it’s known as Uluru. The West sees it as a tourist destination, to be marveled at and climbed if one is willing. The native people of Australia view it as a central piece to their spiritual beliefs regarding the time of Creation they know as “The Dreaming.” The Doctor, Dorothy “Ace” McShane, and Hex see it as the centerpiece of an abandoned city that sits on the heart of a massive asteroid, far from Earth. Lifelike statues of the city’s citizens line the streets, faces frozen in terror, lost forever in what the handful of survivors call the Dreaming. Alongside a well-armed trade delegation from an alien race, the Doctor and his companions attempt to unweave the mysteries of Uluru, but how can the trio survive when the spiritual energy of the Dreaming prevents them from separating friend from foe…and visions from reality? Warning - I’m a little wary writing this review as I know very little about Aboriginal culture and the Dreaming. In writing about an actual belief system still being followed today, I want to make sure I get as much right as I can. I apologize in advance if I get anything wrong! In order to have any understanding of what’s going on through Dreamtime, it’s important to have some idea of what the Dreamtime and the Dreaming are. Pulling from Wikipedia, “Dreamtime” is defined as “ a concept of ‘time out of time,’ or ‘everywhen,’ inhabited by ancestral figures, often of heroic proportions or with supernatural abilities, but not considered "gods" as they do not control the material world and are not worshipped.” Creation, according to Aboriginal beliefs, came about as heroes traveled a formless, shapeless land, their actions and adventures establishing sacred sites (such as Uluru/Ayers Rock) along the way. The legends of the Dreamtime, much like the mythologies of other culture, can serve as a narrative source for some great modern day stories. Sadly, the script for Dreamtime doesn’t hold up to its potential. Simon Forward has penned numerous Doctor Who spin-off materials, as well as the Big Finish audio The Sandman. In that story, Forward managed to lay out the necessary exposition for the conflict between the Sixth Doctor and the Galyari with ease. In Dreamtime, however, Forward forgoes any attempt at exposition and lays everything out in a straight forward, simple manner. The story explains very little with regards to the Dreaming or Dreamtime, as if Forward was expecting primarily Western listeners to know what they needed to know about the concepts before diving ahead with the story. Everything is unexplained, glossed over, or handwaved away, from just why the inhabitants of the doomed city are being turned to stone and absorbed back into the Earth, or who exactly the Dream Commandos are and what they do and why they’ve lost the fight to save the city and its citizens, or just who Baiame is other than a wise old sage/man, when in reality he’s one of the central figures of Aboriginal myth…but from listening to this story, one never would have known it! One could take another mythological concept, real or fictional, and plug it in place of the Dreaming, and the story will still make the same amount of narrative sense. It doesn’t help that, Dreaming aside, Dreamtime simply isn’t a well put together story. The Sandman suffered from being dull as dishwasher. Dreamtime suffers from being confusing. Scenes move with very little narrative between them, human characters do little more than talk about how there’s nothing they can do, threatening images from the Dreaming show up for one scene/plot thread and are never mentioned again, and there’s little to no explanation of WHY things are happening other than “The Dreaming started to change the environment early.” There’s some mention of “forgetting our roots” and “going back to the old ways,” but it’s too little, too late, or too little, at the time. The Doctor, Baiame, and the Dream Commandos spend a lot of time talking about the mysticism of the Dreaming. This is the second Big Finish audio to deal solely with the mystical without any scientific explanation (the other being Loups-Garoux, and for some the lack of a scientific/alien bent is a slight upon that story), but instead of being “firm” with the mysticism, the characters are “vague,” with too much talk in riddles and not enough talk in any semblance of fact. The Dream Commandos, who have experienced the horrors of the Dreaming first hand, only speak about its danger and how hard it is to pull someone out of it. The only mention of anything science based, and the only mention of anything concrete, is a strange scene where the Doctor is thrown back in time to Earth, just before its hit by solar flares, where Baime is about to pull Uluru/Ayers Rock into space to save his people from destruction, and even then it’s tinged in mysticism, as in “how the HELL does someone pull an entire rock from space and throw it into orbit” before the Doctor causes a predestination paradox of sorts since the whole mess with the Dreaming becoming active is somehow HIS fault, and by that point in the second episode I really could have cared less. It’s a bit ironic that the Galyari, the most openly alien aspect of the story, are the only ones who make any semblance of sense, with their focus on trade first and using sonic weapons against the forces of the Dreaming! In a way, the presence of the alien, as in foreign to the city, Galyari ties into something that made me the most uncomfortable about this serial. In Australia, there’s still an ongoing discussion over the “relationship” between the Australians and the Aboriginals and how to coexist with one another, not just in terms of physical space but in terms of respecting the traditions of each other’s culture. Again, I know very little about the topic and won’t go into it here out of respect. But one could make the case that the Galyari, who have come to the domed city to establish trade, are the “Australians” and the inhabitants of the city are the “Aboriginals.” And I say this because, during the course of Dreamtime, one of the survivors mentions that over time, the Aboriginals and the few Australian survivors from Earth have “blended together” into a new culture. This is a fine concept, and cultural blending and adaptation are familiar concepts to Doctor Who. But the story is INCREDIBLY steeped in Aboriginal lore…and all the actors and actresses are white Europeans. Even Baiame, a central figure to Aboriginal lore, is played by a white European. And the day is saved as the Doctor uses Galyari (“Western”) technology to overcome the mystical (“Aboriginal) Dreamtime. Look, I know that this is an audio play and it shouldn’t matter, but it does to me because it’s just…off-putting. All the pieces of mythology that Forward throws in – didgeridoos, bunyips, the Dreaming, dingos – it doesn’t add to the story, and the more one thinks about it, the more one might lump this story in with the audio Flip-Flop or the classic Fourth Doctor story The Talons of Weng-Chiang. Solid stories, but with some unfortunate racial implications… Maybe it’s because of the script’s obvious problems or the subconscious racial concerns, but the acting in this story is subpar as well. Where Davison, Baker, or McGann can elevate a script with their performances, the quality of Sylvester McCoy’s acting seems to be directly proportion to the quality of the script. McCoy sleepwalks his way through Dreamtime, getting off a few good Seventh Doctor witticisms and puns, and raging/pleading at the appropriate time against the appropriate figure (Baiame at one point, Commander Korshal at the other). Perhaps it’s the lack of a defined central villain that lessens the presence of the Seventh Doctor. Sophie Aldred and Philip Olivier are given less to do. Hex is the highlight of the story, with his sense of wonder and awe at being in space a joy to listen to. The quiet at realizing he’s floating on a rock in space is balanced against “holy crap, lizards” Hex exclaims when he sees the Galyari for the first time. But he gets shuffled onto a “rescue mission” to save the Doctor, while a wounded Ace is left with the Galyari “for her protection.” It really should have been the other way around, and if Forward was attempting to turn the “Ace saves the Doctor, Hex gets coddled” concept on its ear, more and better time should have been dedicated to it. More time is instead spent following the Doctor through the past and through the Dreaming, and even then it just doesn’t come off as interesting, or even confusing enough to be interesting. And perhaps for the first time that I can recall since beginning these reviews, I can’t feel arsed enough to look up the supporting cast. They really didn’t stand out in any major way. The human characters, both survivors and Dream Commandos, were interchangeable, and Baiame bounced from being a vengeful shaman who could throw Ayers Rock into space to “just an old man” who needed the Doctor to save him from an angry Commander Korshal…and the only reason Korshal and Vresha, the two main Galyari, stand out is due to the voice modulation used, given them a separate identity. That’s a bit cruel, though, since Korshal is looking to save his men through his (misguided) effort to kill Baiame and Vresha realizes there’s something more going on. Dreamtime certainly SOUNDS Australian, even more so than our favorite long-legged , gobby-mouthed flight attendant! The music was a mix of native Aboriginal and something out of Farscape, which was filmed in Australia if I recall. The Dreaming holds the souls of the Aboriginals and the stolen citizens, and the moans and voice modulation provide an eerie feeling. And of course, the snapping sounds of bunyips mixed with the soothing sounds of rain sticks and didgeridoos. But when added in to the rest of the serial, it comes off as slapping a whole bunch of Australian themes onto a steakhouse and calling it “Outback.” I save the scores of “1” for truly horrible stories that shouldn’t be listened to by anyone…well, everyone should have to suffer though Minuet in Hell…but Dreamtime came very close to snagging this dubious honor. It’s a story that’s poorly put together, makes little sense, has no narrative explanation, poor characters and less solid acting, and a very uncomfortable underlying message. I’d call this story a The Unicorn and the Wasp type of story. You listen/watch it for one thing (Philip Olivier’s performance/”Harvey Wallbanger?!?”), but beyond that there’s nothing redeeming or worthwhile. If you’re a completest, grab Dreamtime, but otherwise, I’d recommend sleeping on this story. Synopsis – Unfortunate racial implications, a poor script, and a complete misuse of Aboriginal mythology make Dreamtime a hard serial to recommend in any capacity. 2/5. Next up - When the Doctor and Mel visit the National Foundation for Scientific Researchas it celebrates its centenary, Mel expects only to be able to catch up with her uncle. She doesn't expect to meet her own ancestors... Colin Baker is the Doctor in…Catch-1782.
|
|
#
?
Jan 21, 2015 18:57
|
|
|
I just finished the first lot of the Eighth Doctor audios, from Storm Warning, to Army of Death. These are just my overall thoughts on the series. I enjoyed them overall, but was surprised at how much the quality varied, even throughout a single story. That's typical for Doctor Who, but the long run-time seemed to make the flaws more glaring; there's so much padding in places, and it just completely kills the pace. The Chimes of Midnight and Scherzo really are the stand-out audios. I wasn't sure if they'd live up to the hype, but they are great radio-dramas. Both have excellent pace, both keep up the threatening atmosphere , and both have stellar voice work - the duologue in Scherzo being the series highlight. Seems almost redundant to say it, but McGann is pretty great as the Doctor, and India Fisher is fantastic as Charley. Seasons of Fear is also high up on the list, it's a neat concept and executed very well. How they handled Grayle, and showed his progession from well-meaning, but misguided, to aloof, vengeful, and uncaring, was novel. Minuet in Hell for me, trancends "bad" to become "hilariously bad". It's entertaining, for all the wrong reasons. The story is an absolute mess, the American "accents" are Dick Van Dyke levels of bad, the attempts at titillation are absurd, and the charaters meander aimlessly looking for tthe plot. Throwing in the Brigadier as well, is almost a non-sequiter. The few sparks of actually something "good", come from McGann, who can pull off amnesiac crazy quite well (I guess the writers giving the Eighth Doctor amnesia every other story gives him plenty of practise  ).The other pre-Zagreus stories run the gamut of "starting strong but ending weakly" (Storm Warning, Embrace the Darkness) and "interesting idea, but mishandled" (Sword of Orion, The Stones of Venice, The Time of the Daleks). I'm not really sure what to make of Zagreus. Neverland was a good finale and introduction to Zagreus, tying together various plot aspects of the previous stories into a single narrative, but it's hard to view either story by itself as it relies so heavily on that. Zagreus is certainly the one story where I started clock-watching to see how much more of it was left, especially as it takes so long to set itself up. The Divergent Universe story arc has a fantastic start with Scherzo, but then drags on throughout the remaining stories. Some are ordeals, just endlessly going on and on and on; The Creed of the Kromon, The Twilight Kingdom, and Caerdoia being the worst such examples. The Natural History of Fear, Faith Stealer and The Last, less so. The Creed of the Kromon also introduces C'rizz, who, through no fault of the actor, has got to be one of the most boring companions I think the series has ever had. Even the reveal that he's an emotional chameleon and deliberately, but unconsciously adapts to social influence around him, as well as his species being made intentionally pliable, doesn't do much to excuse his almost non-character. A big problem with the majority of the stories, is they don't really take advantage of a universe where time (as a concept) doesn't exist. Characters age, planets/zones have day and night cycles, etc. Literally the only thing that distinguishes the universes seems to be characters saying "Time? What is this...time?". The only two that go into any sort of depth are Scherzo (zero concept of time), and The Last (repeating cyclical time). The final story of the arc, The Next Life, redeems itself slighty by having actress, Daphne Ashbrook, (Grace from the 1996 film) voice a pseudo-companion of the Doctor, if only for the tremendous chemistry both her and McGann share together. It's also a relief from the tedium of the Divergent Universe. Terror Firma is interesting. The reveal that the Doctor had companions that he forgot is interesting, but almost nothing is made of it. It's the strongest of the remaining stories, but much of it seems too rushed. Davros though, voiced by Terry Molloy, still manages to steal the show, and is consistently great every time he voices the character. Scaredy Cat, Something Inside and Absolution are probably the worst Eighth Doctor stories, I've heard thus far. Their worst aspects is that they're just super dull. Even Absolution, which ends C'rizz tenure as a companion and drives a wedge between Charley and the Doctor, seems like it's going through the motions. Other Lives, Time Works and Memory Lane, are average Doctor stories. Just fun romps, mostly. Same for Charley's final adventure with the Eighth Doctor, The Girl Who Never Was, although it's far more engaging, as Charley is a far more engaging character than C'rizz ever was. The final lot of stories before the Eighth Doctor Adventures, jumps around his timeline, and lines him up with previously unseen, or briefly mentioned companions (from an audio persepective - the rest were in related comics or novels). The Company of Friends is really four self-contained stories, which makes for a brisker pace - a relief after the monolith-like pace of some of the previous stories - and flits between the varied interactions the Doctor has with his companions, and varying levels of drama and comedy. Each companion is radically different - a nice change from boring-as-gently caress C'rizz - Fitz and Mary Shelly being my personal favourites of the stories (Fitz for the quirkiness, Mary for the drama). The remaining stories focus on the Doctor's travels with Mary. Of them, The Silver Turk and The Witch from the Well, are good solid stories, the latter suffering somewhat from jumping between two time periods without much notice (more-so reusing the actor to portray his ancestor, making it hard to discern sometimes when the characters are). Army of Death is rather awful. The story is unremarkable, aside from a giant skeleton made up of other bones, and the ending feels rather rushed. I've just started on the Eighth Doctor Adventures, I'm not too sure on Lucy as a companion, at the moment, but it is nice to have a slight antagonism between her and the Doctor.
|
|
#
?
Jan 21, 2015 19:53
|
|
|
Pesky Splinter posted:I've just started on the Eighth Doctor Adventures, I'm not too sure on Lucy as a companion, at the moment, but it is nice to have a slight antagonism between her and the Doctor. I greatly disliked Lucie at first, because at the start she's written as overtly abrasive, but she's definitely the Eighth Doctor's best companion. Stick with it.
|
|
#
?
Jan 21, 2015 20:20
|
|
|
It sounds like McGann doesn't quite hit his stride in terms of episode consistency until the Eighth Doctor Adventures. Most of his stories that are considered "bad" seem to fall during his time in the main range.
|
|
#
?
Jan 21, 2015 20:25
|
|
|
CobiWann posted:It sounds like McGann doesn't quite hit his stride in terms of episode consistency until the Eighth Doctor Adventures. Most of his stories that are considered "bad" seem to fall during his time in the main range. Some of his best are definitely before then, though. I think all of the first season of EDAs are likeable, but I wouldn't begin to compare any of them to Scherzo.
|
|
#
?
Jan 21, 2015 20:30
|
|
|
Rob Shearman stories are outliers and should not be factored into judgments about production eras.
|
|
#
?
Jan 21, 2015 20:36
|
|
|
DoctorWhat posted:Rob Shearman stories are outliers and should not be factored into judgments about production eras. That's a fair point. I like The Natural History of Fear way more than most people do, but otherwise, yeah, the average quality takes a pretty big jump right around the time the EDAs start.
|
|
#
?
Jan 21, 2015 20:39
|
|
|
I wonder why McCoy has never really received stories of the same consistency as Davison or Baker in the monthly range. Taking his first 50 (I think things pick up for the Seventh Doctor once Hex gets there), I'd say two of his are really good ("The Fearmonger" and "Colditz") if not quite on the level of, say, "Creatures of Beauty" or "The Holy Terror" or "The Chimes of Midnight", while the rest are good-but-not-great and "The Rapture". Perhaps it's because so many of the writers for Big Finish came up through the fandom in the 1990s, when he was essentially the main Doctor in most of the EU material, and they just can't think of as many stories that haven't been done before?
|
|
#
?
Jan 21, 2015 20:40
|
|
|
"The Problem With McCoy Stories" DOES have to do with the 90s/Wilderness Years, but not in quite the way you think. It's all because of the goddamn Cartmel Masterplan. The writers of the VNAs didn't want to "get into the Doctor's head" because it would spoil the chessmaster bullshit if we knew what Seven was thinking or feeling. As a result, the Doctor spent huge swathes of his VNA tenure not actually being IN the stories very much. He'd drop out of the narrative for hundreds of pages and be cryptic and dull and irritating, exacerbated by the fact that they couldn't rely on McCoy's physical performance to maintain the Doctor's presence. Unfortunately, this trend stuck in the minds of a lot of the BF writers who came up via the VNAs, so loads of Seventh Doctor stories just... well, they don't have the Doctor in them very much. Of course, there are relatively Doctor-lite Seven stories that work really goddamn well (A Death in the Family, for instance) but the sheer VOLUME of Seven audios without Seven in them is infuriating. Things do pick up when Hex comes in, in terms of overall quality, but the tendency towards Doctor-Lite hasn't gone away - in fact, it got even MORE egregious for a while when Sly was filming The Hobbit and whole 2-hour stories would go by where he'd only have, like, twenty lines.
|
|
#
?
Jan 21, 2015 20:47
|
|
|
I think it also has a little to do with the Big Finish writers clearly realizing that Six and Five had to have some distance from their own periods (Six in particular is a very different Doctor, writing-wise, and actually gives Colin Baker a chance to, you know, act), while Seven, even with the good audios like Fearmonger, are trying to be a continuation of the canceled show. There are ways in which that's great, because the two of them make it feel like you got transported back to the 80s, but after a few stories, you're like... did I really want to go back to the 80s?
|
|
#
?
Jan 21, 2015 21:07
|
|
|
I'd be fine with the 80s-McCoy. Gimme another story like Paradise Towers or The Happiness Patrol, I'd LOVE that. What I'm tired of is NINETIES McCoy.
|
|
#
?
Jan 21, 2015 21:16
|
|
|
DoctorWhat posted:I'd be fine with the 80s-McCoy. Gimme another story like Paradise Towers or The Happiness Patrol, I'd LOVE that. Yeah, I think people are too in love with the inscrutable chessmaster characterisation. That's often been an element of the character in all his incarnations, and it can be really effective with McCoy, but when he's just that, I feel like you're wasting an actor who's also really hilarious and quirky when you let him be.
|
|
#
?
Jan 21, 2015 21:30
|
|
|
CobiWann posted:Synopsis – Unfortunate racial implications, a poor script, and a complete misuse of Aboriginal mythology make Dreamtime a hard serial to recommend in any capacity. 2/5. Unfortunate is a pretty good description for Dreamtime. The concepts it tries to explore are interesting ones, but everyone and everything is essentially white, it's basically cultural appropriation of Aboriginal culture while excising the actual Aboriginies, and it gives the entire story a very unpleasant and mildly disturbing flavor.
|
|
#
?
Jan 21, 2015 22:15
|
|
|
I just started The Creed of the Kromon on my commute this morning. I haven't reached anything bad with Charlie yet, but I can unfortunately see where it's going if it's bad enough to get the creepy-fetish response.  I was super confused during the start why the doctor was all good with charlie being there, until I noticed I'd totally skipped over Scherzo  Think I'll try and download/load that onto my phone before the end of the day, give myself a better ride/walk.Zagreus was awesome, and I definitely agree with whoever was just praising the voicework. India Fischer and McGann are both awesome, and they do a good job of distorting the Zagreus voice enough without going overboard. I do feel like I missed out somewhat, as my watching of the classic series hasn't gotten far enough for me to be familiar with the doctors voices. I kind of got that those three voices were probably versions of the old doctors (the cover has them all on it, after all), but I feel like I didnt' appreciate it anywhere near as much as I would have if I had already experienced them as The Doctor.
|
|
#
?
Jan 21, 2015 22:56
|
|
|
surc posted:
Zagreus is a bit of a mess even if you know everybody, to be honest. It's Pertwee's voice, for example, but you can barely hear it, and all of the old companions and Doctors are in it, but playing different characters. It's a great little trippy mindwarp, but it's really tough to wrap your head around or even hear half the time, even if you're really familiar with Big Finish and the classic series. I don't want to build up Scherzo too much for you (too late, I'm sure), so I'll just say to keep in mind that while it's a great story, it's very unsettling and at times viscerally so. Go into it with that mindset and I think you'll really enjoy it. given your taste in stories so far!
|
|
#
?
Jan 21, 2015 23:01
|
|
|
Last winter, I went ahead and spent £95 on all four EDA seasons when Big Finish did their Black Friday sale. Unfortunately, I had to replace my computer in the interim and I've only just gotten around to downloading them (been occupied with work and various apprenticeship applications at the moment), so I'm looking forward to starting them soon. I'd have done so today, if only I hadn't forgotten to put my earphones in my pocket before I went for the train.
|
|
#
?
Jan 21, 2015 23:06
|
|
|
Scherzo is one of the bravest scripts I've ever heard. I can only imagine Shearman trying to sell it to Fisher and McGann.
|
|
#
?
Jan 21, 2015 23:06
|
|
|
I can't say I liked Scherzo very much but I admire the hell out it.
|
|
#
?
Jan 21, 2015 23:18
|
|
|
Bicyclops posted:I don't want to build up Scherzo too much for you (too late, I'm sure), so I'll just say to keep in mind that while it's a great story, it's very unsettling and at times viscerally so. Go into it with that mindset and I think you'll really enjoy it. given your taste in stories so far! Successfully hyped up even more, I now know as fact that Scherzo will be the best auditory experience I'll have in my entire life. Thanks! Fortunately I skimmed over the earlier scherzo posts so as to avoid spoiling myself too much, I'm intrigued as to what's so unsettling about it. Hopefully this time I'll remember to not do my usual media it-rolls-over-me-and-then-I-forget-my-opinions so I can actually voice an opinion once I'm done!
|
|
#
?
Jan 21, 2015 23:31
|
|
|
I forgot how good a sendoff the power of three already was. Sigh.
|
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2015 00:07
|
|
|
I was really disappointed when Power of Three felt the need to actually include aliens at the end. I liked the idea of the Doctor (possibly subconsciously) using a weird, inexplicable thing as an excuse to hang out with Amy and Rory over a year.
|
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2015 00:14
|
|
|
CobiWann posted:Scherzo is one of the bravest scripts I've ever heard. I can only imagine Shearman trying to sell it to Fisher and McGann. "Paul, the Doctor goes through some severe mental trauma." "Sold!" Honestly, that's pretty much the truth when it comes to all those stories where the Doctor gets messed up mentally. That's what McGann wants. He likes the stories where that happens to the Doctor, which is why you have that rash of stories where it seems like that's all that happens to him. surc posted:I just started The Creed of the Kromon on my commute this morning. I haven't reached anything bad with Charlie yet, but I can unfortunately see where it's going if it's bad enough to get the creepy-fetish response. Seriously, BF loves Phillip Martin because he wrote a show called "Gangsters", but he is a one trick pony when it comes to writing Who. Vengeance on Varos, Mindwarp, Creed of the Kromon, Antidote to Oblivion, all have the Doctor's companion being forced into some sort of metamorphosis. I think Mission to Magnus is his only story that it doesn't happen.
|
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2015 00:14
|
|
|
CobiWann posted:Warning - I’m a little wary writing this review as I know very little about Aboriginal culture and the Dreaming. In writing about an actual belief system still being followed today, I want to make sure I get as much right as I can. I apologize in advance if I get anything wrong! I'm not Aboriginal, but I am Australian, and there's a lot of Aboriginal history in our schooling. So I can say you've got everything right here, both on the subject of mythology and actual cultural implications of all of it. Aboriginal Australians are extraordinarily poorly-treated culturally, both in the past and today (this is a hard thing to say, and not an argument for now, but I think Aboriginals might actually be the worst-treated minority culture in the world). I always honestly liked the Dreaming stories, because they're actually, in a way, fairly relatable. There's an element of simplicity to it, since a lot of it is just the Aboriginals trying to explain parts of the world they don't understand with things they've observed. Done right, I'd actually think it would be great pickings for a science-fiction story; these aren't gods, they're just greater versions of animals, with the occasional extremely powerful human. It's even relatively scientifically forward for a belief system, since it's all about unrelated events, with no actual thought to them, gradually shaping the world we know.
|
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2015 01:06
|
|
|
Doctor Spaceman posted:I was really disappointed when Power of Three felt the need to actually include aliens at the end. I liked the idea of the Doctor (possibly subconsciously) using a weird, inexplicable thing as an excuse to hang out with Amy and Rory over a year. Power of Three's ending is just abysmal.
|
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2015 01:26
|
|
|
MikeJF posted:Power of Three's ending is just abysmal. It's like the director knew his audience would go "defibrillation does not work that way" and pre-emptively countered with "THEN LET'S DO IT TO THE WHOLE PLANET, TOO"
|
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2015 01:27
|
|
|
Oxxidation posted:It's like the director knew his audience would go "defibrillation does not work that way" and pre-emptively countered with "THEN LET'S DO IT TO THE WHOLE PLANET, TOO" The worst thing about it is (besides the fact that they pull the same trick again in Name of the Doctor) it's a fantastic wonderful episode up until they realize, oh poo poo, we have to fit AN ENTIRE OTHER EPISODE WORTH OF BULLSHIT into the last few minutes! I really do wonder if it was meant to be a two parter and just got shafted due to the backlash to all of the two parters in season 6.
|
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2015 01:31
|
|
|
Burkion posted:I really do wonder if it was meant to be a two parter and just got shafted due to the backlash to all of the two parters in season 6. Both of them.
|
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2015 01:34
|
|
|
For me the biggest problem with The Power of Three is that it's basically just a series of scenes (many excellent!) that don't feel like they stand together as a single episode. I actually enjoy every single individual facet of the story (apart from the terrible "bring everybody back to life!" bit) but the episode still feels tremendously underwhelming. It's another example of Chibnall seemingly attempting an RTD style "big crazy story" without quite managing to grasp what made RTD's stories mostly work even when they were unbelievably stupid or ridiculous. Also the title makes no sense, especially with Amy's closing narration - "they didn't account for the Power of Three!" ..... in what way? There was nothing about the three of them working together that had any real impact on events whatsoever! But it does includes this shot, which is really sweet  
|
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2015 01:35
|
|
|
I got the impression the two-parter change was because of production issues, not because the audience didn't like them. Also the chicken dance joke in Power of Three is fantastic.
|
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2015 01:37
|
|
|
Jerusalem posted:For me the biggest problem with The Power of Three is that it's basically just a series of scenes (many excellent!) that don't feel like they stand together as a single episode. I actually enjoy every single individual facet of the story (apart from the terrible "bring everybody back to life!" bit) but the episode still feels tremendously underwhelming. It's another example of Chibnall seemingly attempting an RTD style "big crazy story" without quite managing to grasp what made RTD's stories mostly work even when they were unbelievably stupid or ridiculous. Also the title makes no sense, especially with Amy's closing narration - "they didn't account for the Power of Three!" ..... in what way? There was nothing about the three of them working together that had any real impact on events whatsoever! It's a pun about cubes. I groaned. I groaned out loud.
|
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2015 01:39
|
|
|
Jerusalem posted:For me the biggest problem with The Power of Three is that it's basically just a series of scenes (many excellent!) that don't feel like they stand together as a single episode. I actually enjoy every single individual facet of the story (apart from the terrible "bring everybody back to life!" bit) but the episode still feels tremendously underwhelming. It's another example of Chibnall seemingly attempting an RTD style "big crazy story" without quite managing to grasp what made RTD's stories mostly work even when they were unbelievably stupid or ridiculous. Also the title makes no sense, especially with Amy's closing narration - "they didn't account for the Power of Three!" ..... in what way? There was nothing about the three of them working together that had any real impact on events whatsoever! The scene where Amy and Rory are in bed, and realize that normal life just crept up and happened and they kind of like it, is the thing that sells the episodic nature of it for me. Yeah, essentially they entire last third-to-quarter is pretty anticlimactic, and that last line, Jesus Christ. But that "real life creeping up and being alarmingly comfortable" thing is definitely something I've been feeling and resonates so so hard.
|
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2015 01:48
|
|
|
Cleretic posted:I'm not Aboriginal, but I am Australian, and there's a lot of Aboriginal history in our schooling. So I can say you've got everything right here, both on the subject of mythology and actual cultural implications of all of it. Aboriginal Australians are extraordinarily poorly-treated culturally, both in the past and today (this is a hard thing to say, and not an argument for now, but I think Aboriginals might actually be the worst-treated minority culture in the world). Would you happen to recommend any books/stories about the Dreaming? If I can pull one thing from this audio, it's a curiosity to learn more about it...
|
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2015 02:26
|
|
|
Bicyclops posted:Of interest, perhaps, to this thread: "BLESSED'S ALIVE!?" Still don't understand why they can't get him in for a Big Finish. Could you imagine him playing against Tom? 
|
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2015 03:40
|
|
|
CobiWann posted:Would you happen to recommend any books/stories about the Dreaming? If I can pull one thing from this audio, it's a curiosity to learn more about it... Unfortunately I can't, because a lot of this was when I was in school. I'm sure there are some great collections of Dreaming stories or somesuch, but I'm not aware of them personally. If anywhere on SA would know, it'd most likely be Auspol. Keep in mind that it's Auspol, but they're always keen to educate, and I know they occasionally talk about books on stuff like the stolen generation. I expect someone there would have a good resource for Aboriginal mythology.
|
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2015 04:22
|
|
|
One thing to remember is that there's no solid single coherent mythology you can read because there were hundreds of nations spread across an entire continent with dozens of languages. Uluru, for example, was incredibly important - to a single nation on whose lands it stood out of hundreds. And there's just generally a lot of mythological variation, all made more chaotic by the cultural fragmentation they've suffered since European settlement.
MikeJF fucked around with this message at 04:50 on Jan 22, 2015 |
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2015 04:48
|
|
|
Doctor Spaceman posted:Also the chicken dance joke in Power of Three is fantastic. Chicken dance cube makes the episode worthwhile.
|
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2015 04:55
|
|
|
howe_sam posted:Chicken dance cube makes the episode worthwhile. Peterson makes that episode worthwhile.
|
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2015 05:46
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 5, 2024 08:54 |
|
|
Casting Mark Williams as Rory's dad was so perfect that I just kind of assume he actually IS Rory's dad. Rory, not Arthur Darvill. That would just be weird.
|
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2015 06:27
|
|