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Davros1
Jul 19, 2007

You've got to admit, you are kind of implausible



Edward Mass posted:

I know it's a mock-up, but why are they using the 13th Doctor's logo?

Looks like there's a sleeve at the base. Maybe it slips off and the classic logo is there?

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FreezingInferno
Jul 15, 2010

THERE.
WILL.
BE.
NO.
BATTLE.
HERE!
So there's gonna be a Blu-Ray of Season 12 (Tom Baker's first season).

Sounds pretty good on paper: you're getting no less than two all-time classics of the Baker era. Wonder how the upscale will look.

...Now do ones for the McCoy era so you can get to Season 26 so I can own these things without having to spend $150 on a Battlefield DVD :argh:

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."

FreezingInferno posted:

So there's gonna be a Blu-Ray of Season 12 (Tom Baker's first season).

Sounds pretty good on paper: you're getting no less than two all-time classics of the Baker era. Wonder how the upscale will look.

...Now do ones for the McCoy era so you can get to Season 26 so I can own these things without having to spend $150 on a Battlefield DVD :argh:

Get a region free DVD player? https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B001FJ5D5M/

cargohills
Apr 18, 2014

I find it funny how my entire collection of Doctor Who DVDs is probably only worth the same as a few out-of-print American DVDs.

Tim Burns Effect
Apr 1, 2011

There are several R1 discs i'd like to have that are out of print now but i still refuse to buy the R2 discs out of principle (literally the only reason the different disc regions exist is so that whoever's making them can sell them for different prices in different markets, if they dont want my money then i'm not giving it to them :colbert: )

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 love Japanese Doctor Who :allears:

Unkempt
May 24, 2003

...perfect spiral, scientists are still figuring it out...

The_Doctor posted:

I love Japanese Doctor Who :allears:



Hey, that's the same Dalek from the Japanese Target book illustrations!

Small Strange Bird
Sep 22, 2006

Merci, chaton!

The_Doctor posted:

I love Japanese Doctor Who :allears:


That J-Dalek looks so surprised. "Why are there flames around my rear end - THE gently caress?!?"

FreezingInferno
Jul 15, 2010

THERE.
WILL.
BE.
NO.
BATTLE.
HERE!
I adore that Gurren Lagann-lookin' Mechanoid and I want one.

After The War
Apr 12, 2005

to all of my Architects
let me be traitor

Payndz posted:

That J-Dalek looks so surprised. "Why are there flames around my rear end - THE gently caress?!?"

I'm assuming that's a Mechanoid, so it would be the same story where this happens:



Making that response entirely appropriate.

Also, I bet they made Bad Math(s) Dalek adorable. :3:

Bicyclops
Aug 27, 2004


Excelis is, overall, fairly mediocre, but you have to admire its will to totally try something strange. The two high points are Anthony Head's acting and the fairly somber conversation Five has with Iris about regeneration.

Davros1
Jul 19, 2007

You've got to admit, you are kind of implausible



US listing for the Tom Blu Ray

https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B079PT1N7W/

June release date

After The War
Apr 12, 2005

to all of my Architects
let me be traitor
Replace my Genesis DVD?! Do I have the right? :ohdear:

Edward Mass
Sep 14, 2011

𝅘𝅥𝅮 I wanna go home with the armadillo
Good country music from Amarillo and Abilene
Friendliest people and the prettiest women you've ever seen
𝅘𝅥𝅮
Well, I know what I’M asking for my birthday.

Pesky Splinter
Feb 16, 2011

A worried pug.

The_Doctor posted:

I love Japanese Doctor Who :allears:



I still love Dalek-chan. :allears:

From what I can make out it's "The Dalek Chronicles - Vworp Vworp [something] of lethal metal".
It's a promotion for Vworp magazine. Kinda neat they've made an audio with David Graham (Parker from Thunderbirds). Shame they seem to be out of stock :negative:

[e]: Apparently not that much of a bother, as it's only a 16 minute long audio. £10 for 16 minutes? No thank you.

Bicyclops posted:

Excelis is, overall, fairly mediocre, but you have to admire its will to totally try something strange. The two high points are Anthony Head's acting and the fairly somber conversation Five has with Iris about regeneration.

Yeah, it's an odd listen. But there's still some good character parts across the miniseries, like you say.

Pesky Splinter fucked around with this message at 01:43 on Mar 8, 2018

Forktoss
Feb 13, 2012

I'm OK, you're so-so
Here's something cool I saw on Twitter! Andrew Skilleter, the guy who's done a bunch of covers for Doctor Who books, such as Virgin novels and Target novelisations, also made a second version of his artwork for the cover of The Five Doctors with Doctors Six through Ten:



(sorry for the low-res images though)

Wheat Loaf
Feb 13, 2012

by FactsAreUseless
For International Women's Day, Big Finish is offering a free episode of their new non-science-fiction drama series ATA Girl, which was created by Louise Jameson and is about the female pilots of the Air Transport Auxiliary service during the Second World War.

I haven't listened to it. Maybe the thread would be interested.

Link: https://www.bigfinish.com/news/v/ata-girl-free-episode

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."

Forktoss posted:

Here's something cool I saw on Twitter! Andrew Skilleter, the guy who's done a bunch of covers for Doctor Who books, such as Virgin novels and Target novelisations, also made a second version of his artwork for the cover of The Five Doctors with Doctors Six through Ten:



(sorry for the low-res images though)

Fine, I'll say it. That McGann is terrible.

thexerox123
Aug 17, 2007

The_Doctor posted:

Fine, I'll say it. That McGann is terrible.

Better than the Tennant, which looks more like Adam DeVine.

TinTower
Apr 21, 2010

You don't have to 8e a good person to 8e a hero.
https://twitter.com/bbcdoctorwho/status/971757474964557831

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 see they’re stretching the ‘Public Call’ bit of the Police Box text again. That’ll ruffle echoplex.

egon_beeblebrox
Mar 1, 2008

WILL AMOUNT TO NOTHING IN LIFE.



"Minuet in Hell" is gibberish.

Jerusalem
May 20, 2004

Would you be my new best friends?


Very first reply:

"Don't recall Doctor Who making a tweet in tribute to the men who made doctor who on International Men's Day??? Absolutely sexist"

Jesus loving Christ what is wrong with these people? :cripes:

Big Mean Jerk
Jan 27, 2009

Well, of course I know him.
He's me.

Jerusalem posted:

Very first reply:

"Don't recall Doctor Who making a tweet in tribute to the men who made doctor who on International Men's Day??? Absolutely sexist"

Jesus loving Christ what is wrong with these people? :cripes:

I've seen similar comments on almost every single Women's Day post today, no matter the page or twitter account. It's really sad.

Jerusalem
May 20, 2004

Would you be my new best friends?

I can't remember the exact phrasing, but a few years ago Paul McGann tweeted out his admiration for a historic female freedom fighter, and somebody replied angrily ranting about how she wasn't the type of person who should be lionized. McGann's reply was this beautiful, almost Doctor-like withering putdown of the guy and it absolutely made my day.

What I'm saying is that the BBC should produce a 6-8 episode 8th Doctor Adventures TV series that airs during hiatus of the revival. :colbert:

Edward Mass
Sep 14, 2011

𝅘𝅥𝅮 I wanna go home with the armadillo
Good country music from Amarillo and Abilene
Friendliest people and the prettiest women you've ever seen
𝅘𝅥𝅮
I don't think the BBC would want to fuel a "Not My Doctor" movement.

Bicyclops
Aug 27, 2004

Big Mean Jerk posted:

I've seen similar comments on almost every single Women's Day post today, no matter the page or twitter account. It's really sad.

Unfortunately, whenever we celebrate the accomplishments of women or black Americans or GLBTA-identifying people, there is always somebody poised to make this comment:

https://twitter.com/probirdrights/status/368542088897372161?lang=en

I think that's a nice tweet from the BBC, and I just hope the BBC's promise that there are "a number" of women writing for the show is more than like, two.

Jerusalem
May 20, 2004

Would you be my new best friends?

Edward Mass posted:

I don't think the BBC would want to fuel a "Not My Doctor" movement.

Oh yeah I hadn't considered that, but you're right.

I've been pushing for a televised 8th Doctor Adventures between seasons of the regular show for years now, and Night of the Doctor only encouraged me to continue to dream :shobon:

Gaz-L
Jan 28, 2009
Round up Alex Kingston and Lisa Bowerman and do River & Benny's Wild Ride as a series of TV movies.

Vinylshadow
Mar 20, 2017

Would've been nice to have Paul McGann, John Barrowman, and Alex Kingston team up for a mini-series instead of...say...Class

Oh well~

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."

Gaz-L posted:

Round up Alex Kingston and Lisa Bowerman and do River & Benny's Wild Ride as a series of TV movies.

Big Finish have got to have something in mind like this, surely?

PriorMarcus
Oct 17, 2008

ASK ME ABOUT BEING ALLERGIC TO POSITIVITY

The_Doctor posted:

I see they’re stretching the ‘Public Call’ bit of the Police Box text again. That’ll ruffle echoplex.

Yet another thing about the new Tardis that looks terrible.

McGann
May 19, 2003

Get up you son of a bitch! 'Cause Mickey loves you!

Wheat Loaf posted:

For International Women's Day, Big Finish is offering a free episode of their new non-science-fiction drama series ATA Girl, which was created by Louise Jameson and is about the female pilots of the Air Transport Auxiliary service during the Second World War.

I haven't listened to it. Maybe the thread would be interested.

Link: https://www.bigfinish.com/news/v/ata-girl-free-episode

It's very character driven, not much (if any) real action, and I did quite enjoy it.

This is from someone who liked Confessions of Dorian Gray (for the most part), so take it with a grain of salt.

Rhyno
Mar 22, 2003
Probation
Can't post for 10 years!

Vinylshadow posted:

Would've been nice to have Paul McGann, John Barrowman, and Alex Kingston team up for a mini-series instead of...say...Class

Oh well~

Did Class get a second series?

Davros1
Jul 19, 2007

You've got to admit, you are kind of implausible



Rhyno posted:

Did Class get a second series?

No

AndyElusive
Jan 7, 2007

Schoooooooooools out. For. Evaaaaah!

Rhyno
Mar 22, 2003
Probation
Can't post for 10 years!
Whew.

Vinylshadow
Mar 20, 2017

inb4 the Beeb announces that Series 11 will be put off for another year and we get Class: Second Semester instead

Jerusalem
May 20, 2004

Would you be my new best friends?

Where to start with The Pyramid at the End of the World? Well in the interests of positivity, of putting the best possible spin on things I can, and to try to avoid wallowing too much in negativity or criticism.... it has a really loving good title!

But hang on, there has to be more than that. So... the previously on recap is neatly handled, with Bill telling a modified, 3rd-hand account of what happened in the simulation to her date Penny, while we the viewer are treated to flashbacks to make sure we are up to speed.

But is that it? Well no, I don't want to pretend the story was completely dogshit because it wasn't, so what else good is there to say? Well the character of Erica has a large amount of screen time and at no point in the story does the fact she is a dwarf ever get mentioned or referenced, because it is utterly irrelevant to who she is and what she does. That's good, any attempt to address it (even to say they didn't care) would have probably felt forced and undercut anything they were trying to say.

Hey there's a scene where everybody is invited to view the future of the Earth and recoil in horror to see/feel/experience a world completely devoid of life... except for the Doctor who just casually holds onto the "thread" while continuing to chat with the bad guys.

The Doomsday Clock being reset and the Monks being completely taken aback? That was good too! There you go, there's a list of positive things I have to say!



Other that that though? No this isn't a very good story. It squanders the setting, it squanders the characters, it squanders the opportunity afforded by the set-up of the previous episode (which I still think would have worked better as a one-and-done) and it has a loving TERRIBLE ending. This feels like a lovely attempt at an RTD style episode with none of the charm, joy or gloriously batshit insane nonsense that the brilliant (and often maddening) Welsh giant made seem so effortless.

Co-written by Steven Moffat and Peter Harness, I was surprised to find I honestly couldn't tell where one began and the other ended. Harness has now written 4 episodes of Who, two of which were co-written by Moffat, and not a single one has been good. At best they have been serviceable, often a mess, and at their worst spread a really dangerous and recklessly stupid message. This episode doesn't hit those lows, but it doesn't hit any highs either, with Harness seeming to pull Moffat down to his level (though some would argue Moffat has no trouble doing that himself). The most baffling thing of all for me is that for some reason when I first watched this episode I recall thinking it was reasonably good. What was I thinking? Because this sure as hell isn't, it suffers that nasty "first draft" feel I often complained about with RTD, except he usually made it work in the moment. There's certainly none of Moffat's trademark puzzle-box intricacy, and somehow they've managed to write the soldiers to be even stupider than the morons from The Zygon Invasion who fell for the "We're totally your parents/loved ones and not the shape-shifters you came to kill!" trick.

Repeating the same joke from the previous episode, this time Bill's (real!) date with Penny goes wrong when the Secretary-General of the United Nations bursts in to her home to ask for her assistance contacting the President. A minor Trump joke displays an interesting concept - Trump is US President in this season of Who, but a clearly NON-Trump or Obama President was seen in the simulation universe which was supposed to emulate the real world perfectly. The obvious reason for this is that showing the current President of the United States dead from a drug overdose wouldn't go down particularly well. But I'd like to think that the Monks assumed President Trump (and Brexit!) were so ridiculous a notion that they represented a fault in their simulation code so they re-ran a "corrected" model. All joking aside though it does showcase a regular recurring (if minor) issue with the Revival - either their version of contemporary Earth is analagous to our own or it isn't, and playing it both ways in back-to-back episodes just highlights the disparity.

The Secretary-General means the Doctor of course, as they return to the rather dumb notion of the Doctor being Earth's President in times of great crisis. It was a dumb idea in season 8, just as dumb in season 9, and remains dumb in season 10. I hope Chibnall just abandons the notion quietly and never even references it again. They load his TARDIS into his special plane (another dumb returning idea) and fly to the warzone of fictional Turmezistan (referenced in The Zygon Invasion) where a 5000-year-old pyramid appeared overnight right in the center of the disputed zone between China, Russia and the United States. Not bad as far as story-hooks go, but any potential sadly goes unrealized.

The Doctor, still hiding his blindness from everybody but Nardole, meets with the Monks who inform him that they have not come to take the world by force, but by invitation. Their simulations mean they believe they have foreseen every possible permutation, and their confidence is unnerving, what do they know?

Well apparently they know about a research lab with the worst security measures, hiring policies and incompetent staff of all time!



Erica's reading glasses were broken as she left the house this morning, and her associate Douglas (The Thick of It's Dan Miller) is hungover and nauseous. Yet the two of them are left running tests of chemicals on plant life, and a missed decimal point by the useless Douglas wipes out all the vegetation... then he leaves the lab door open AND his lab suit mask off, and quickly melts into goo when the sample gets into his airways. Erica at least was smart enough to leave her suit fully on, but the lab's own security measures for some reason don't destroy samples in the event of an airlock breach... they vent the lab's atmosphere out into the outside loving world!?! :psyduck:

This is what is going to wipe out all of mankind, a bunch of dumb decisions in a row, and the Monks are confident that nobody is going to be able to figure this out because, based on their simulations, human beings are loving idiots. Which is quickly proved correct, as the various humans present make one boneheaded decision after another. The Monks aren't great geniuses, they're just dealing with idiots, and the Doctor actually runs rings around them and treats them with complete disdain the entire time because their plan really isn't all that clever at all. Which makes the fact they created the simulation and have vaguely defined super-powers all the more ludicrous. The humans complain that it is impossible to figure out where the accidental threat is coming from and rush off to surrender themselves to the Monks (after watching the UN Secretary General get murdered after doing the same thing!).

The Doctor then promptly figures out in barely a few minutes exactly where the threat is coming from.... by turning off all the cameras and checking to see which one the apparently not particularly bright Monks turn back on.

The soldiers all die after they offer "impure" consent to the Monks' demands, at which point the usually intelligent Bill starts pondering whether she should consent as well.

EVERYBODY acts like an idiot, everybody does stupid things and make terrible decisions purely to set up the ending, and it does a huge disservice not only to the characters but the Monks too. After an effective and spooky introductory episode, their powers are so ill-defined and their strategy so nonsensical (and easily foiled!) that they lose any sense of menace. A scene of them teleporting (how?) into an attacking plane is comically bad, and the arrival of the similarly hijacked submarine in a "this is too expensive to do a CGI sequence" sequence reminds me of the equally awful,"Oh look, the moon laid an egg off-screen" bit from Kill the Moon. This is supposed to make them seem godlike and terrifying, but the Doctor clowns them so easily and their actual plot relies so much on people being idiots that they seem dumb too. Somebody claimed (I have no idea of the accuracy) that they were an attempt to repeat the success of The Weeping Angels and The Silence as spooky, creepy monsters. Visually they're neat, but the writers don't seem to have any real sense of what makes them work beyond that. The lines "You look like corpses" "To us you are corpses" is good but what does it mean? Are they without physical form? Shapeshifters? How do they teleport? Why can they break down human bodies? Why do they need Consent beyond their surface reasoning, since they seem literally restricted/bound by that condition themselves? Are they telekinetic? Can they read minds or just view enough simulations to do the next best thing and predict actions to a high level of accuracy? None of these questions are remotely answered, and it feels like once the basic visual was agreed on nobody really bothered to nail down anything else.


That is a pretty cool visual though!

But all of that pales in comparison to how godawful contrived the set-up for the cliffhanger ending is. It is one of the most forced and stupid things I can recall the show doing in quite some time, and the amount of hammering that was required to put this square peg into a round hole should have been setting off warning alarms for Moffat and Harness both.

The Doctor, freed from the idiotic humans who are tripping over themselves in their efforts to surrender the planet to the Monks at the slightest inconvenience, goes to Erica's lab to figure out how to prevent the release of the bacteria into the atmosphere. He figures out how to burn the lab without killing anybody, sets it up on a timer and then runs to the airlock to escape... where the stupidity starts. Because the airlock has an INTERNAL lock with manual dials, and as he is blind he can't see the numbers. Even his Sonic Shades are useless because it can't manually turn the dials. Erica can't operate it from her side (what a terrible, terrible system, who designed this lab?) and Nardole is passed out inside the TARDIS as it turns out he is close enough to a human that the bacteria has badly affected his lungs. So he has to bravely explain to Bill (who has no idea he can regenerate) over her phone that he has to die.

BILL HAS A loving PHONE! :supaburn:

Apparently the idea of taking a photo with the sonic shades and sending it to Bill's phone never occurred to him (or her), or setting up a video-link with it so she could guide him through using the dials. So he just decides he is going to die, so of course Bill rushes back to the Monks who probably can't believe their luck that another dumb human has come to surrender to them despite their shoddily constructed plan falling apart. She asks if they can cure the Doctor's blindness and since their powers and abilities are so incredibly vaguely-defined of course they can! So she consents, they decide it is pure, and the Doctor's eyesight is restored.


What an awfully handled subplot the whole blindness thing was.

He escapes the lab just before it burns up (the airlock was open, so surely the bacteria is still present in the next chamber?) and Bill tells him to get "her" planet back which apparently was her idea the whole time but that didn't count as impure "strategy" which is what killed the top-ranking soldiers who had a similar plan. The Monks taunt the Doctor that now he can see THEIR world, and they're right to be smug because they just took over the planet despite having a stupid plan, being dunked on repeatedly and having their carefully laid out plans easily outmanouvered by a surly old blind man.

While Extremis got better with repeat viewing, this episode gets worse, and certainly marks the end of an extremely good run of episodes that had marked season 10 up to this point. But with Harness' episode out of the way, and the next episode written by the almost always reliable, often very good Toby Whithouse, surely things could only get better from here. Right?

RIGHT!?! :negative:

Jerusalem fucked around with this message at 14:23 on Mar 10, 2018

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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 think the only thing I liked about this episode was the monk’s shield effect when a soldier fires on it.

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