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If anything I'd say the problems of the Sixth and Seventh are the exact opposite, that they take the conceit far too seriously
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Mar 23, 2018 21:26
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After The War posted:I've always said that the First Rule of Doctor Who Fandom means that every opinion has to be held by somebody, no matter how incomprehensible, and here's the proof. When Doctor Who fandom was still small enough to have received wisdom, the received wisdom was that absolutely everything from the Trial onwards was embarrassing garbage and attempting to swim against that tide was the second-most surefire way to start a passionate and obnoxious flame war. Kids these days, never heard anyone call him "Sillybugger McCoy" and think they were being clever, you don't know you're born. (This was also back in the day when one had flame wars.)
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Mar 23, 2018 23:05
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Rewatching "The Trial of a Time Lord." I love Brian Blessed. I hate Sil.
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Mar 24, 2018 00:58
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Five's era is one of my lesser liked of Classic Who (I'll make exceptions for the two Mara stories, the first episode of Earthshock, The Five Doctors, and Cave Of Androzani though) and I love all of Seven. All of it. Even Time And The Rani, which at least hits the notes of "so bad it's good" and "utterly ridiculously 80's" enough to be a laugh and a half.
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Mar 24, 2018 01:29
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RIP Tom Baker in the Koopa Clown car with his friends avatar  What the hell avatars sizes are allowed nowadays? I guess it's time to stick ol' Five in the clown car with his own companions.
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Mar 24, 2018 01:43
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Bicyclops posted:RIP Tom Baker in the Koopa Clown car with his friends avatar 180x180, 150mb.
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Mar 24, 2018 01:49
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Edward Mass posted:180x180, 150mb. *cracks knuckles* Thanks. Time to fire up Pixlr. I know who Adric and Nyssa are, but I need to find a Nintendo Tegan.
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Mar 24, 2018 01:50
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Bicyclops posted:RIP Tom Baker DON’T START A POST WITH THAT 
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Mar 24, 2018 01:52
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Bicyclops posted:*cracks knuckles* Kumatora from Mother 3?
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Mar 24, 2018 01:52
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The_Doctor posted:DON’T START A POST WITH THAT Yikes, yeah, sorry. Edward Mass posted:Kumatora from Mother 3? YES. This is so much better than all the things I was trying.
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Mar 24, 2018 02:14
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Bicyclops posted:*cracks knuckles* First thing I thought of was Vandham from Xenoblade 2 purely because of the accent lol
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Mar 24, 2018 02:54
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Peter looks a little fuzzy but it'll do.
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Mar 24, 2018 02:55
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Bicyclops posted:I guess it's time to stick ol' Five in the clown car with his own companions. This is beautiful.
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Mar 24, 2018 03:38
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Unfortunately, those poor saps are stuck with Five, whom spending any length of time with is usually a death sentence...
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Mar 24, 2018 08:03
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that was ONE TIME!
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Mar 24, 2018 08:11
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Enough about avatars, I heard someone was talking poo poo about the McCoy years 
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Mar 24, 2018 08:12
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Trin Tragula posted:When Doctor Who fandom was still small enough to have received wisdom, the received wisdom was that absolutely everything from the Trial onwards was embarrassing garbage and attempting to swim against that tide was the second-most surefire way to start a passionate and obnoxious flame war. Kids these days, never heard anyone call him "Sillybugger McCoy" and think they were being clever, you don't know you're born. Don't forget how this attitude interacted with the New Adventures 
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Mar 24, 2018 12:58
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Also as we're talking about avatars I love that whoever bought this one kept it On Brand
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Mar 24, 2018 12:59
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Big Mean Jerk posted:Enough about avatars, I heard someone was talking poo poo about the McCoy years Don't worry, it was all part of Seven's plan.
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Mar 24, 2018 13:20
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CobiWann posted:Don't worry, it was all part of Seven's plan. Ace: But Professor, what if they go looking for one of your future regenerations as he travels through time, capture him and attempt to find out the sum total of your plans in this incarnation before you can institute them? 7: Already accounted for, I've arrrrranged for my next rrrrregeneration to suffer from chronic rrrrrepeating amnesia!
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Mar 24, 2018 15:27
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https://twitter.com/EddieRobson/status/977562387413905408
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Mar 24, 2018 17:15
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FreezingInferno posted:Five's era is one of my lesser liked of Classic Who (I'll make exceptions for the two Mara stories, the first episode of Earthshock, The Five Doctors, and Cave Of Androzani though) and I love all of Seven. All of it. Even Time And The Rani, which at least hits the notes of "so bad it's good" and "utterly ridiculously 80's" enough to be a laugh and a half. My sentiments exactly! The McCoy era feels the most like a loopy kid's show, I love it to pieces. Even the stories that most people hate on. And The Curse of Fenric is the best classic serial. There. I said it. Davison's era mostly bores and/or annoys me, though its best serials are very, very good. Enlightenment is a gem.
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Mar 24, 2018 18:11
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https://twitter.com/EddieRobson/status/977563426313637889
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Mar 24, 2018 18:27
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Imagine him doing the scene where Five has to imitate all the earlier Doctors.
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Mar 24, 2018 23:34
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That right there is the universe just loving with us.
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Mar 24, 2018 23:54
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Trin Tragula posted:When Doctor Who fandom was still small enough to have received wisdom, the received wisdom was that absolutely everything from the Trial onwards was embarrassing garbage and attempting to swim against that tide was the second-most surefire way to start a passionate and obnoxious flame war. Kids these days, never heard anyone call him "Sillybugger McCoy" and think they were being clever, you don't know you're born. If we're talking newsgroups, I think it was more a few insanely dedicated shitlords who would never, ever shut up about how lame McCoy was. Thank goodness for google's news archives so we can relive this golden era again.  https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/rec.arts.drwho/dburns$20mccoy%7Csort:date/rec.arts.drwho/pXgzVbglXsU/bjBFxEVkegIJ
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Mar 25, 2018 01:41
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As soon as Tennant heard this he called Chibnall to offer his services in the same fashion should Jodie need a day off. "Yeah, thanks David, but we've already heard the same from Peter." "Capaldi? Or Dad?" "Both..."
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Mar 25, 2018 02:21
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Astroman posted:"Yeah, thanks David, but we've already heard the same from Peter." “He’s not yo- never mind.”
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Mar 25, 2018 02:28
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Given that Castrovalva story and the fact that Troughton was the one who told Davison to only do the role for three years, I'm gonna go ahead and believe regardless of any other facts that he was actually secretly angling to slip back into the role 
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Mar 25, 2018 02:40
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corn in the bible posted:McCoy owns and Battlefield is great I love battlefield.
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Mar 25, 2018 03:07
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I got to meet Michael Jayston* this weekend and I got outfoxed with my own bad joke. MJ: [talking about Colin Baker] He’s the real McCoy. Me: No that was a different Doctor.  MJ: Yes! I love Star Trek too!  *and also Cbake, Capaldi, Michelle Gomez, Nicola Bryant, and Matthew Waterhouse. Cbake was awesome. We had a lovely talk about Big Finish and Nick Briggs. Life is good. PS: during Gomez’s talk she let slip that she did a BF audio as Missy going up against River Song.  should be out soon. I don’t think she was supposed to do that.
Doctor Zero fucked around with this message at 03:38 on Mar 25, 2018 |
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Mar 25, 2018 03:32
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Maelstache posted:If we're talking newsgroups, I think it was more a few insanely dedicated shitlords who would never, ever shut up about how lame McCoy was. That's from 2008
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Mar 25, 2018 04:27
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Doctor Zero posted:PS: during Gomez’s talk she let slip that she did a BF audio as Missy going up against River Song. Sure, Missy against River will be great, but the biggest takeaway from that is HOLY poo poo THEY'VE ALREADY GOT MISSY AUDIOS IN THE WORKS?! 
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Mar 25, 2018 05:08
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Doctor Zero posted:PS: during Gomez’s talk she let slip that she did a BF audio as Missy going up against River Song. omgomgomg MrL_JaKiri posted:That's from 2008 That's not a good example of olden daes stuff but Google's archives there do go back to late 80s/early 90s stuff. When they first got them all there I had a ton of fun combing back through all kinds of groups but then they reworked the interface and made it a bit more difficult to just kind of go back that far without having to set specific date periods or whatever
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Mar 25, 2018 05:09
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Oh poo poo, this means we can have a multi-Master episode with Macqueen and Gomez!
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Mar 25, 2018 05:18
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Astroman posted:Oh poo poo, this means we can have a multi-Master episode with Macqueen and Gomez! If only I could get amnesia so I could forget this and be surprised when this happens..
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Mar 25, 2018 05:31
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Doctor Zero posted:PS: during Gomez’s talk she let slip that she did a BF audio as Missy going up against River Song.  Holy gently caress.
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Mar 25, 2018 07:45
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Jerusalem posted:Given that Castrovalva story and the fact that Troughton was the one who told Davison to only do the role for three years, I'm gonna go ahead and believe regardless of any other facts that he was actually secretly angling to slip back into the role Getting Troughton back as the Doctor was kind of on the table at the time - that was Sydney Newman's suggestion on how to save the show during the 1985 hiatus!
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Mar 25, 2018 08:08
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Flip bringing the good Content https://twitter.com/Lisagreenwood20/status/977616770466009089
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Mar 25, 2018 08:13
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| # ? Apr 25, 2024 02:41 |
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If The Empress of Mars had screened during the first five episodes of the season I'd have thought it was the weakest of the lot. Not bad, mind you, just not quite living up to the excellent quality of those first few stories. That it comes directly after the Monk trilogy, however, makes it seem a lot better than it is. Again, not that it's bad, it's just that it isn't much better than perfectly fine if largely unremarkable. Presumably the last Who work by Mark Gatiss for some time to come, it probably fits in the upper half of the stories he has done for Who but certainly not at the top. Again again, not because it's bad, but because it almost lacks something that makes it stand out - though the one thing it does have that is truly remarkable is something I personally found absolutely loving wonderful. I'd classify this as being about on the Cold War level, which seems appropriate given that the "monster" for both episodes is the Ice Warriors, and Gatiss uses them in the way that has always made them the most interesting: as complex creatures that aren't necessarily evil or bent on world destruction. They are alien, yes, but they can be reasoned with and they're not inherently evil. The worst part of the episode comes right at the very beginning, which didn't exactly put me in a good mood after the previous two episodes. Happily it got better and I got happier as a result. As a story hook it's great on paper: NASA are preparing to receive back video transmissions from Mars that can see deeper below the surface than ever before. But what do they see? A message in rocks written in English: GOD SAVE THE QUEEN. Unfortunately, the way they get there is with the Doctor, Bill and Nardole acting condescending and inappropriately intrusive as they appear uninvited inside the control room at NASA without even the pretense of a cover story, hijacking the countdown and treating the whole thing like a lark. The scene could have easily been done without their presence and left it as a mystery for NASA to ponder (it triggers the Doctor to go to Mars, but there's no reason he couldn't have just gone there without a reason) and the GOD SAVE THE QUEEN bit would have still had impact without being undercut by the demeanor of the Doctor and his companions. Bill in particular being so cavalier felt really off.  So of course they travel to Mars, with the Doctor adamant that despite what the readings he took of the message said, humans were NOT on Mars in 1881. But that's the time they've come to, dressed in space suits and moving through subterranean tunnels beneath the ice caps in search of something unusual. Which boy do they find, when they come across a campfire burning in the non-breathable atmosphere of Mars. Bill figures that fire means oxygen, but the Doctor is wary of testing that theory by removing their helmets... till Nardole happily shows up with his helmet removed because fire means oxygen! They follow suit but things take a grim turn when Bill falls down a hole, so the Doctor sends Nardole rushing back to the TARDIS to get a rope where - for reasons that are NEVER established - it develops a fault and returns him to the Doctor's study in the 21st Century. All his efforts to get it to return fail, and in despair he turns to the Master for advice. Her suggestion? Made seemingly in innocence but giving him obvious pause: let her out so she can better help him. This is one of the issues with this particular episode, it feels like there is a bit too much going on they couldn't quite fit in, so some moments go without explanation or are used as shortcuts to developments. The story doesn't feel sketched in, but scenes don't always connect one to the other. I feel a lot was cut away from the original script for timing, budget and feasibility reasons: I certainly don't see Gatiss being the type to phone it in and what is there doesn't feel half-assed at all. Part of the issue is that there are too many characters aiming for time. Nardole is quickly stripped out of the story as seen above, but along with the Doctor and Bill are the two top British soldiers, a Sergeant-Major, a couple of lower ranked soldiers with significant roles, Friday and the Empress. Throw in a scene with Missy at the end and you're basically looking at 9-10 characters trying to be shoehorned into a 40 minute episode and most of them not getting a chance to breathe. Gatiss does Victoriana well, and there is a rather neat pulp novel feel to the idea of Victorian-era soldiers on Mars. Gatiss plays around nicely with the concept, including a fun piece where the Doctor thinks a soldier is going to attack an Ice Warrior because he thinks it is a monster, only for the soldier to hold the Doctor prisoner while checking with concern on his friend the Ice Warrior. Meanwhile Bill is confronted by a figure in a delightfully archaic spacesuit complete with listening horn, who reveals himself to be the second-in-command, quite pleased to see another human being even if he is justifiably suspicious of where they came from. This leads to another shortcut as the Doctor uses the psychic paper and they rush through a "Oh so you were stowaways the whole time?" explanation before getting the story back on track. This rush job is in odd contrast to the rather neat payoff of a running joke where the Doctor is unfamiliar with pop culture references of the late 20th/early 21st century, only for it to be turned around on Bill when she doesn't grasp the significance of the Victorians calling the Ice Warrior "Friday". The soldier characters are fairly flat aside from the Colonel, but Gatiss plays to the stereotypes well and obviously has a blast with the dialogue, particularly the Sergeant-Major who takes great delight in calling Jackdaw (best known to audiences as the monstrous Meryn Trant from Game of Thrones) a 'orrible old man, or Captain Catchlove's smug "I dare say the British Army is more than a match for a bunch of upright crocodiles  ". The inclusion of a black soldier raised a few eyebrows at first from some, but when it was demonstrably shown that black soldiers did serve in the army during Queen Victoria's reign, including in the very top regiments, everybody immediately stopped making a fuss and shut up about it because it would be stupid not to.  Of course a story can't run on the gimmick alone, there's more to this episode than just Victorian-era soldiers on Mars. It's a story about second chances. A second chance for Friday to restore his Empress. A second chance for the Empress to rebuild her empire. A second chance for the Colonel to atone for the cowardice that blots his record and almost cost him his life. A second chance for Jackdaw, who has spent his life in the army but achieved no rank worth speaking of but now sees a chance for riches. A second (third, fourth, nth etc) chance for the Doctor to actually negotiate a peace between the Ice Warriors and the humans. Hell, even a second chance for the Master, who we saw at the end of last episode was maybe starting to perhaps grow as a better person possibly. Again I can't help but ponder how much better this story might have been as a two-parter, but any chance of that was wrecked by the loosely connected trilogy just completed. Even then there might not have been enough material to stretch out to two parts, but this too tightly packed story would have been improved I'm sure by having more room to breathe. The basic story is that the soldiers found Friday frozen inside his space ship and thawed him out, and he quickly learned their language and offered to go into their service to show gratitude for saving his life... and also to take them to Mars and give them access to treasures beyond counting that would make them all rich. They eagerly agreed of course, though Friday's motivation was always simply to gain access to the hibernation chamber of his Empress and wake her from her own long sleep. When they finally break through they mistake the room for a tomb and the Queen's hibernation bed as a sarcophagus. With typical colonialist hypocrisy they doff their helmets as a mark of respect to the deceased but also quickly eye up the gold and jewels inside. Ignoring the Doctor's warnings to the point of locking him away, it becomes apparent that the Colonel's leadership is undermined with surprising openness by the younger Captain Catchlove. It won't be till later that it is revealed with equally surprising frankness that the Colonel was involved in a failed hanging, leaving scars around his neck from where the noose bit into his skin but failed to choke him. Freed by this "act of God" he is still disgraced, and has emptied his purses to Catchlove in order to maintain the illusion of his command. When the Empress inevitably returns to life and they discover they have been duped by Friday, Catchlove furiously takes control, livid at anybody who questions him including the Colonel or the Doctor. He ignores the Doctor's protests and blasts the entrance to the "tomb" closed, which lulls the soldiers into a false sense of security while the Empress awakens the hundreds (thousands?) of Ice Warriors in hibernation around her, and sends them digging through the ground to outflank the soldiers.  There are things to like and dislike about the updated Ice Warriors. For the most part they have kept to the classic monster costume and it looks pretty drat great in HD. Largely ignoring the poor decision to show an Ice Warrior outside of its armor in Cold War, they do update their weapons effect in what sadly ends up feeling a cartoonish manner. In their original Patrick Troughton appearances, the Ice Warriors would fire their gun and we'd get a kind of warping effect on the image, which I always took to mean the victim's body was essentially imploding in on itself. Yes it was a primitive effect, but it worked (for me at least) in making the weapon look like a brutal and agonizing way to die. In this updated effect, that implosion concept is still somewhat in play, but now the victim's body crushes in on itself like a cube. This is shown by the weapon being fired and then seeing an almost comical ball-like corpse bouncing merrily across the ground. It's something that probably worked in concept but not in execution, and it's a shame they didn't just stick with the tried and true. The Ice Empress herself was a relief, in that the previews made her look like essentially a modern day Silurian in skin-tight clothing but thankfully this was far from the truth. Avoiding the sadly often used "slap some green make-up on and emphasize the tits" style of gendered costuming, the Empress even makes her hissing demands mostly work, even if the preview did give me minor Racnoss flashbacks. Where she works best comes in the climax, where she shows admiration for the Colonel's willingness to sacrifice his own life for that of his men, as well as having the foresight to kill a cruel member of his own race to save a different species that was also technically his enemy. Her pardon and charge of duty to him is exactly the kind of regal, noble command a Victorian would expect from a Queen, and just as she can respect him as a soldier, he can respect her as a monarch. Yes Catchlove is pretty flatly evil, and the death of Vincey feels like another shortcut to try and raise the stakes without actually hurting anybody "important", but Catchlove's flatness at least works in contrast to the depth in place of the likes of the Colonel and Friday. Like the Colonel, Friday sides with his enemy for what he considers the greater good and longer term benefit of his own species, and both have been willing to humiliate themselves in order to achieve their goals. One is selfless in his actions (Friday), the other selfish but eventually growing as he finds the courage to do his duty and restore himself as a man.   The Doctor and Bill have both largely been incidental to the story which is perhaps the biggest strike against the episode. The Doctor mostly just tries and fails to force peace talks, then helps set up a communication array at the end of the episode and lay down the GOD SAVE THE QUEEN message seen at the start of the episode (again, I feel it would have been better if they hadn't been present to see that message at the start of the episode). Hearing the TARDIS, they rush to meet with Nardole who apologizes profusely for what he has done to get back to them. Inside, Missy has piloted the TARDIS and the Doctor is aghast, insisting this absolutely cannot happen. Showing remarkable meekness, she agrees quickly and then unsettles the Doctor by asking if he is alright. This wasn't to set up some idea or theme that maybe he was sick or dying, it was the far more unsettling notion that she was genuinely concerned. That the reason she left the vault, fixed the TARDIS and took Nardole to Mars wasn't just to stretch her legs or show up the Doctor, but because she was worried he might get hurt. What I find interesting is that this scene comes at the end of this episode - it cannot be a coincidence that in an episode filled with deceptions, including Friday's show of humility and servitude to gain what he wants, we have the Master seemingly having turned over a new leaf and demonstrating concern for somebody other than herself. It is, I think, meant to make the viewer continue to question her motives. We want her to change, but also we don't, and regardless of which it is, everybody knows the Master is ALWAYS up to something. But what? But nevermind all that, because there is one thing about this episode that I absolutely adored above all else. I've long been of the opinion that the best kind of callbacks are those that don't alienate. Ones where those in the know can laugh and appreciate them, but those who haven't got any idea are completely unaware there was something they didn't know or catch. I think it's kind of lovely to bring something front and center that'll leave a significant amount of the viewers confused or unsure exactly why they saw what they saw. But all that goes out the window for this episode, because in a move I never would have guessed would happen in a million years, Gatiss did something absolutely wonderful and bizarre. The Ice Warriors were first shown as good guys in 1972's 3rd Doctor story The Curse of Peladon. That story also covered the existence of the Galactic Federation, made up of many space-faring species. The Galactic Federation is who the Doctor contacts to organize the Ice Warriors and surviving Victorian soldiers being picked up by, which is a nice reference for the long-time fan but also something that new viewers could easily understand the context for. Plus it is a nice nod to the notion that the Ice Warriors (and soldiers) would thrive out there in space. But it is the choice of who from the Galactic Federation that answers that I absolutely love, because it's motherfucking ALPHA CENTAURI   I don't care if you don't know who or what that is, or why I think it's brilliant, or whatever. Because Alpha Centauri appeared in an episode of Doctor Who in the year 2017, and for that reason this episode will always hold a soft spot in my heart. 
Jerusalem fucked around with this message at 11:20 on Mar 25, 2018 |
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Mar 25, 2018 11:07
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