|
|
#
?
Jul 5, 2017 20:23
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 18, 2024 04:36 |
|
|
My hottest of takes is that I've been watching all of John Simm's stuff lately and goddamn he's incredible even when his material isn't really working. But I am the sort of simple soul who's kind of delighted by things like that Scissor Sisters routine. I can happily watch any Doctor except Four, whom I like, but find hard to get my head around. I probably just need to see more of him.
|
|
#
?
Jul 5, 2017 20:28
|
|
|
Timby posted:The second season is essentially unwatchable to me. Outside of School Reunion and the Impossible Planet / Satan Pit two-parter, it's just so, so much hot garbage. I used to be fond of the Cybermen two-parter, but after revisiting it a few months ago, it was just stunningly bad. The Girl in the Fireplace is kind of fun, and I don't mind Fear Her too terribly. New Earth gets worse every time I see it, though. Like the parts of it I used to think were okay are actually just as bad as the vat full of IV cures being mixed altogether.
|
|
#
?
Jul 5, 2017 21:19
|
|
|
Coming soon to BBC Three, it's
|
|
#
?
Jul 5, 2017 21:55
|
|
|
Forktoss posted:Coming soon to BBC Three, it's I love your comics so much. 
|
|
#
?
Jul 5, 2017 23:28
|
|
|
Big Mean Jerk posted:While there's an argument for 12 being more Hartnell than Troughton, I'd hesitate to call him authoritarian. He's very much a punk Doctor, to the point where I personally would consider him a Troughton, albeit a much more serious variation on the style. I put him in the Hartnell camp more for the way he ran the TARDIS. 11 and Amy and Rory were pals palling around; 12 was a teacher and mentor. Tim Burns Effect posted:I'm not even sure i'd go with that reading of Hartnell honestly, he's just as trickster-y/anti-authoritarian as Troughton, just under a less wacky exterior. He's the kind of guy that would cause mischief and blame it on somebody else while LOOKING like an authority figure, if anything I think I like this take on it: Davros1 posted:The greatest thing about Hartnell's Doctor, and one that every single actor after picked up, is that he played the Doctor as the ultimate authority figure ... who's completely and totally anti-authority. The whole series has this text of the Doctor as an anti-authority figure (ran away from the Time Lords and whatnot). But authoritarianism often exists in opposition to other authority. (The USA and the USSR, for instance.) So he always exists against (some kind of) authority. But what does he stand for? We can see that in his relationship to his companions. Sometimes it's a bunch of buddies travelling in the TARDIS, sometimes it's the Doctor taking the lead and guiding everyone (And sometimes it's stuff like Turlough and Adam, which I confess I don't have an answer for.) CommonShore posted:Not the worst interpretation. I'm mulling over the possibility of a Pertwee archetype - Troughton and Hartnell didn't do much of the running and jumping and swashbuckling we see in later interpretations. 6, 10, and 11 all go down this path, while others - 5, 7, 9, 12 - mostly avoid it. There's the trickster axis and the swashbuckler axis, with Hartnell, Troughton, Pertwee, and Smith in the four corners. That's a pretty good angle, too. Sometimes the show is more action-oriented, sometimes it's more geared toward being clever. Forktoss posted:There are some that the template fits to a tee - Three and Six are obvious Hartnells while Seven and Eleven are pretty explicitly modelled after Troughton - but the ones I have most trouble cramming into either box are Davison and Eccleston. Agreed, they're hard to pigeonhole. (I did say this was pretty reductive.) I put Davison in the Hartnell category because he felt more like the father figure in a big travelling space family to me. (Maybe Baker was too? That whole companion cast was pretty set when Davison took over. But Baker felt much less comfortable with that.) Eccleston is almost his own archetype. I decided he was a counterculture subverter, but more in the mold of a veteran who saw things in combat and is now an antiwar activist. I don't get the sense he's into relying on any kind of authority, but he's more like a bitter anarchist than Loki. Anyway, good conversation. I love overthinking this show for some reason. 
|
|
#
?
Jul 5, 2017 23:42
|
|
|
Yeah, Eccleston/9 is the PTSD Doctor. You can certainly argue there's an element of that to 10 as well. Some undertones even carryover to 11 and 12, but that very much feels like 9s "niche".
|
|
#
?
Jul 5, 2017 23:59
|
|
|
I'd argue 9 and 10 were both PTSD Doctors in how they allowed that experience to totally define everything they did after. 9 accepted it and became bitter, pessimistic, and staunchly anti-war. 10 tried to repress it and run from it and, when forced to deal with either the Time War or his own mortality, became childish and selfish.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2017 00:10
|
|
|
Big Mean Jerk posted:I'd argue 9 and 10 were both PTSD Doctors in how they allowed that experience to totally define everything they did after. 9 accepted it and became bitter, pessimistic, and staunchly anti-war. 10 tried to repress it and run from it and, when forced to deal with either the Time War or his own mortality, became childish and selfish. And Eleven had largely dealt with it only to have his entire life be (Let's Not Have The) Time War II
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2017 00:12
|
|
|
Big Mean Jerk posted:I'd argue 9 and 10 were both PTSD Doctors in how they allowed that experience to totally define everything they did after. 9 accepted it and became bitter, pessimistic, and staunchly anti-war. 10 tried to repress it and run from it and, when forced to deal with either the Time War or his own mortality, became childish and selfish. That's certainly fair.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2017 00:13
|
|
|
The biggest problem with 9 is that we truly didn't get enough time to see where Eccleston and RTD would take the character. Imagine we only had one season (and no BF) of 6 or 12? Not a fair assesment in my book.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2017 00:23
|
|
|
Forktoss posted:Coming soon to BBC Three, it's That Tom is perfection
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2017 02:29
|
|
|
Jerusalem posted:That Tom is perfection PLEASE MAKE THESE FOREVER
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2017 05:49
|
|
|
My favorite is that Tom is holding the phone upside down. I can easily see him doing that as 4
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2017 09:59
|
|
|
docbeard posted:even the dreaded Zygon two-parter (which I think had been built up as so thoroughly awful for so long that it was a relief to see that it was really just kind of mediocre, and it also featured my favorite performance out of Capaldi up to that point). It's not dreaded because it's badly scripted, or badly acted. It's dreaded because the politics are so unbelievably reprehensible.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2017 13:40
|
|
|
MrL_JaKiri posted:It's not dreaded because it's badly scripted, or badly acted. It's dreaded because the politics are so unbelievably reprehensible. Although it is pretty badly scripted too.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2017 14:02
|
|
|
And some of the acting is bad, too.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2017 14:04
|
|
|
MrL_JaKiri posted:It's not dreaded because it's badly scripted, or badly acted. It's dreaded because the politics are so unbelievably reprehensible. Don't forget that it also aired slap-bang in the middle of a major immigration crisis in Europe just to pop a cherry on top.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2017 14:05
|
|
|
It's Peter "ABORTED" Harness, though; subtlety is not his strong suit.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2017 14:10
|
|
|
Well, that's kind of what I meant. I was afraid going in that it was actually going to have the sort of evil jingoistic "refugees are all just terrorists, really" message that people were (and are, I suppose) ascribing to it. And while I don't think it (especially in the first half) handled the subject with much grace, I didn't think it came across that way at all, and I think they were trying quite hard not to.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2017 14:31
|
|
|
docbeard posted:Well, that's kind of what I meant. I was afraid going in that it was actually going to have the sort of evil jingoistic "refugees are all just terrorists, really" message that people were (and are, I suppose) ascribing to it. And while I don't think it (especially in the first half) handled the subject with much grace, I didn't think it came across that way at all, and I think they were trying quite hard not to. No, it just said that the right way for the zygons to behave was to hide quietly and act just like REAL people, which is a different sort of problem entirely. The first half at least shows the sort of resentment and anger that that sort of thing is likely to build up.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2017 14:37
|
|
|
Don't forget the Doctor's big poo poo speech at the end where he basically tells people who don't like how they're being treated to shut up and take their lumps.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2017 14:44
|
|
|
Fil5000 posted:No, it just said that the right way for the zygons to behave was to hide quietly and act just like REAL people, which is a different sort of problem entirely. The first half at least shows the sort of resentment and anger that that sort of thing is likely to build up. Don't forget every Zygon shown being heinously terrorist-y because they hate being British and being themselves means THEY WAGE WAR BECAUSE REASONS!
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2017 14:46
|
|
|
I didn't really interpret most of that stuff that way (especially Capaldi's monologue), but it's not a good enough pair of episodes to be really worth defending either.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2017 15:12
|
|
|
Aliens of London was pretty fun on the rewatch, though the farts were still stupid.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2017 15:39
|
|
|
TinTower posted:It's Peter "ABORTED" Harness, though; subtlety is not his strong suit. I'm glad his episode this year managed to avoid having a terrible moral message by completely loving it up. Yes, genetic engineering/fertiliser research/biochemistry (seriously what the gently caress were they doing) could potentially be lethal if you build your lab like a loving imbecile.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2017 15:56
|
|
|
Murderion posted:I'm glad his episode this year managed to avoid having a terrible moral message by completely loving it up. Yes, genetic engineering/fertiliser research/biochemistry (seriously what the gently caress were they doing) could potentially be lethal if you build your lab like a loving imbecile. I'm just glad he continues his batting average of being a total waste of time, only this time without confusing metaphors and bullshit
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2017 16:09
|
|
|
Be fair he attempted the confusing metaphor and the consent thing was very much bullshit.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2017 16:11
|
|
|
Neddy Seagoon posted:Don't forget every Zygon shown being heinously terrorist-y because they hate being British and being themselves means THEY WAGE WAR BECAUSE REASONS! The nature of the genre means the heroes will mostly be interacting with the villains, but they did throw in that nice guy zygon who's just a victim in all this. "The nature of the genre" really means that the story was doomed to fail, sadly. It can't be anything but pro-assimilation because it's a tv show with a status quo; like Chris Chibnall's abominable silurian episodes you can't end with the monsters and humans making peace together in a story set in an analogue of the real world, that'd be more unrealistic than the moon being an egg or a 300 foot tall tyrannosaurus. The Zygons' grievance is just but there's no way for the show to meaningfully address it, which it kind of cops to- exposing the Zygons means the death of the Zygons. That's both Bonnie's problem and her plan. The end result is a bit gloomy, which is the only way a story like this could end, really. Next time set it on an alien planet where you can have a happy ending
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2017 16:29
|
|
|
CommonShore posted:Aliens of London was pretty fun on the rewatch, though the farts were still stupid. Part of what makes it easier is you can say to yourself "You know, this new Fartpocalypse Party has a better plan for the world than Theresa May and the DUP." :v
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2017 16:37
|
|
|
Also, the entire three parter was a lovely metaphor for fake news, so… 
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2017 16:43
|
|
|
2house2fly posted:The nature of the genre means the heroes will mostly be interacting with the villains, but they did throw in that nice guy zygon who's just a victim in all this. The real problem with the Chibnall Silurian episodes, besides that they are atrociously boring, is that they're essentially re-telling the original serial, but reversing who the warmongers are. In the original serial, it's the Brigadier to who decides that peace is not an option. It's a story where the alien-looking things that we don't fully understand don't end up being the monsters; the people do. There's an attempt at that in the Silurian two-parter, briefly, when a human woman is taunted into murder, but the Chibnall one really makes it feel like, in the end, it was Silurian militants who escalated the conflict such that they could not co-exist peacefully. I don't hate the Zygon two-parter as much as some, but I think you're right in that its failure is similar. In both stories, not trusting "the other" ends up being justified by the story itself, and in both stories, we're meant to think that "the other" is both wrong-headed and a threat to our way of life. Zygons as an alien are mostly just variations on Pod People as a trope, which is hard to do right. "That person next to you may be part of a villainous conspiracy to end your way of life" isn't exactly fodder for a hell of a lot of progressive stories.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2017 16:47
|
|
|
Bicyclops posted:The real problem with the Chibnall Silurian episodes To be fair this is the problem with the Sea Devils and Warriors of the Deep as well.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2017 17:03
|
|
|
MrL_JaKiri posted:To be fair this is the problem with the Sea Devils and Warriors of the Deep as well. Sea Devils is sort of rescued by the Master/Doctor swordfight in which Pertwee eats a sandwich, but yeah, there's only one Silurian story, and they forgot how to tell it after the first time.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2017 17:20
|
|
|
Bicyclops posted:The real problem with the Chibnall Silurian episodes, besides that they are atrociously boring, is that they're essentially re-telling the original serial, but reversing who the warmongers are. In the original serial, it's the Brigadier to who decides that peace is not an option. It's a story where the alien-looking things that we don't fully understand don't end up being the monsters; the people do. Mmmnope, having recently watched the original Silurian serial, they don't come off very well. The first Silurian leader seems like a nice chap(?) who's willing to try to coexist, but once his second in command takes over he jumps straight to attempting genocide. Twice. With no provocation. They're presented as morally complex and diverse, but they were a credible threat even if the Brig did the wrong thing. MrL_JaKiri posted:To be fair this is the problem with the Sea Devils and Warriors of the Deep as well. I got the Silurian box set partly because I wanted another 5 story. After opening it all up, the little booklet that came with the Warriors basically said "we know this is terrible and we're very, very sorry  ". Still haven't watched it. What's a good jumping on point for 5? I've got Castrovalva and I've seen Earthshock. Murderion fucked around with this message at 20:31 on Jul 6, 2017 |
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2017 17:37
|
|
|
I really like The Visitation and Black Orchid, they're what got me into 5.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2017 17:45
|
|
|
The Enlightenment is pretty good.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2017 17:49
|
|
|
I like Frontios (see the OP), but the Fifth Doctor is probably the most diverse in determining the best jumping-on point that is not crap.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2017 18:19
|
|
|
I'd argue 12 had a bigger PTSD streak than 9, honestly. From the very start with Rusty going  at what was in his brain to talking about hating The Engineer (i.e. himself) to his repeated references to being a soldier, 12 seems to be processing that grief from the Time War now instead of suppressing it. It's made all the more stark when the Time Lord army refuses to fire on him because of his service record.Maybe One helps remind him what it was like when he was young and idealistic, and that he has a chance at that again with a fresh regeneration cycle
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2017 20:18
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 18, 2024 04:36 |
|
|
Chokes McGee posted:I'd argue 12 had a bigger PTSD streak than 9, honestly. From the very start with Rusty going 12 had also just gone through the whole Trenzalore thing, too.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2017 20:35
|
|