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That list of 55 things makes me want to see 13 team up with a 50-something year old Ace.
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Nov 25, 2018 01:07
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| # ? Apr 27, 2024 15:46 |
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Can I just say there's something about this Doctor that's really starting to bug me? Sure, every Doctor has had a "Oh I'm so dumb how could I miss that" moment or four but it seems every episode has Jodie going " there's just so much going on and my brain is so full I just can't think properly." It's starting to feel a bit "overwhelmed and emotional because Women." And the faces. Ugh. I like them most of the time but they're over using the hell out of them. Like on this episode when they were talking about not getting on the conveyor and she's standing there with her gob flapping and eyes bugged out like she's in shock. You're not Jon Snow. Close your loving mouth sometimes.
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Nov 25, 2018 01:26
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Different strokes and all, but I love the "I'm not keeping up with my own brain" stuff and it's something I wish they hadn't quickly abandoned during 11's run since he also did it extremely well. I don't think it's intended to be,"Because she's a woman!" at all. Also if I ever get sick of Whittaker's facial expressions then a weeping boy is going to take me behind the barn with a shotgun.
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Nov 25, 2018 01:49
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Jerusalem posted:Different strokes and all, but I love the "I'm not keeping up with my own brain" stuff and it's something I wish they hadn't quickly abandoned during 11's run since he also did it extremely well. I don't think it's intended to be,"Because she's a woman!" at all. You're probably right, it's just as a woman myself I'm a bit overanalytical about instances where a female character does that because I'm always waiting for a writer to do a "duh gurls" moment. But I stand by the overuse of faces.
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Nov 25, 2018 01:53
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You've certainly got plenty of precedent to be wary, sadly. Chibnall does seem to have his heart in absolutely the right place, and the report before production started was that he'd very deliberately not told the writers the Doctor was going to be a woman, so they'd simply write for the character rather than any particular gender.
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Nov 25, 2018 02:07
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Jerusalem posted:You've certainly got plenty of precedent to be wary, sadly. Chibnall does seem to have his heart in absolutely the right place, and the report before production started was that he'd very deliberately not told the writers the Doctor was going to be a woman, so they'd simply write for the character rather than any particular gender. And you can tell that part of the character was in there from the start, because of how often it comes up and fits into the story. Notice how all the references to the Doctor being a woman/previously being a man are rare off-handed comments that don't really influence the scene; meanwhile, the Doctor not quite keeping up with her brain is coming up a lot, and is often an actual factor in scenes. One of those was squeezed into the margins during later edits, the other was clearly a part of the basic architecture of the character.
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Nov 25, 2018 02:19
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Big Finish is up to the 8th Doctor in their Regeneration Sale. Blood of the Daleks parts 1 and 2 are in there for 99¢ each, and I highly recommend them
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Nov 25, 2018 13:13
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I realised last night that Whitaker's Doctor reminds me of the disgraced dental student from Fresh Meat. That kind of enthusiasm even when everything's buggered.
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Nov 25, 2018 16:27
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17th century dunk tanks were hardcore.
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Nov 25, 2018 19:36
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Thought she was going to have lost the psychic paper in the water for a second
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Nov 25, 2018 19:40
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My Nubian prince :bigtran:
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Nov 25, 2018 19:43
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Is Alan Cumming ever *not* having the time of his life in a role? He's giving it proper "Did anyone order a MASSIVE HAM!" in this and I am loving on board with that.
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Nov 25, 2018 19:43
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Jesus, it's a wonder the sets are still standing, covered with this much saliva.
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Nov 25, 2018 19:44
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SiKboy posted:Is Alan Cumming ever *not* having the time of his life in a role? He's giving it proper "Did anyone order a MASSIVE HAM!" in this and I am loving on board with that.  It’s awesome 
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Nov 25, 2018 19:45
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I'm loving that hat making graham look like a tiny cowboy.
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Nov 25, 2018 19:49
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"The ducking stool was invented to stop foolish women from talking too much." "I knew that, which is stupid because talking's brilliant  "
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Nov 25, 2018 20:05
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The colour correction is weird every time the Doctor is on screen.
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Nov 25, 2018 20:08
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Is she turning into a tree? Because Who doesnt have a great record on episodes when people become trees...
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Nov 25, 2018 20:09
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Well this was going great until the Morax/Alien tech stuff took over.
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Nov 25, 2018 20:12
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SiKboy posted:Is she turning into a tree? Because Who doesnt have a great record on episodes when people become trees... That lecherous loving tree... 
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Nov 25, 2018 20:13
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That was alright, could have dialled up the spooky atmosphere a bit more. All those scenes in a sunny wood weren't really all that unsettling. Next week: Lämp!
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Nov 25, 2018 20:22
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Jerusalem posted:Well this was going great until the Morax/Alien tech stuff took over. Yeah, right up until we find out what is going on and the aliens take over the lady it was amazing. Afterwards... It was just kind of there. Still, overall I enjoyed that. The first 3/4 of the episode was great (if largely carried by Alan Cumming chewing the entire scenery budget for the season and Graham in a massive hat). While the ending wasnt great, it didnt poo poo the bed as hard as last week, it just ended bland. They didnt shy away from "James VI was Gay As gently caress" either, which was good. If I had to rank them, current reaction is that this is second best of the season so far behind The Demons of the Punjab, ahead of the first in the season.
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Nov 25, 2018 20:25
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If they'd kept that episode mostly the same but had the alien stuff reduced to a brief explanation - an alien bio-weapon stored away billions of years ago or something like that, or even keep the Morax stuff but reduce it to a few lines of dialogue - with Becca's internal struggle/external projection of her issues serving as the villain of the piece I think it would have been a lot stronger. The most interesting part was the frustrating stubborn assurance of King James and the like of the rightness of what they were doing, and having the last 5-10 minutes turn into bad make-up and yelling about "filling" and the Morax King took away from what was an otherwise pretty good episode. The Doctor running smack-dab into the downside of being a woman in history was actually well done I thought, especially the way she used it to get more information, but once it turned into alien monsters growling at the screen the story got weaker. I still wish they'd have the guts to just do a straight up historical story with no monster/alien, I'm pretty sure there would be few complaints.
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Nov 25, 2018 20:25
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Jerusalem posted:Well this was going great until the Morax/Alien tech stuff took over. True, but that was maybe 4 minutes of the episode at most. I absolutely loved this (maybe because I've been out drinking recently before this today). No idea how accurate the portrayal is, as I've not studied James VI and I specifically in much depth, but Alan Cumming's King James is a hilarious foil and it's a shame they wrote it so that he killed Becka and Whittaker's Doctor is pissed at him forever. It'd be great to see him ham it up as an ignorant, arrogant king again. I hope the Witchfinder General's hat gets a few more uses in her run. Also the Morax Queen's speech was too on the nose. "We're going to bring hate and power" etc., or however it went. It's overly cartoonish and not believable for me for someone to actively say they're bringing hate. People usually hate while avoiding acknowledging that they're doing so, couching it in some 'greater good' or 'way things should be'. I think that line needed a re-write. Stabbatical fucked around with this message at 20:40 on Nov 25, 2018 |
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Nov 25, 2018 20:33
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Cumming's James (by way of Frasier's Gil Chesterton) was absolutely the highlight, even if he reached the levels of MASSIVE HAM the moment he appeared.
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Nov 25, 2018 20:37
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The_Doctor posted:even if he reached the levels of MASSIVE HAM the moment he appeared. This is a GOOD thing.
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Nov 25, 2018 21:55
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That was fine. Although they still describe what's happening on screen while it's happening, and it's infuriating
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Nov 25, 2018 22:08
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Graham wasn't a bad ham himself, he's getting some of the choicest shade-throwing I've seen in a Who episode. I'm afraid though that if you want deep and meaningful monsters you've come to the wrong place, this is Doctor Who Monster-of-the-week Baker-era style. There has to be a trade-off somewhere. I don't really care, these are the most involved companions for many a year and I'm far more interested in their story.
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Nov 25, 2018 22:10
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The_Doctor posted:Cumming's James (by way of Frasier's Gil Chesterton) was absolutely the highlight, even if he reached the levels of MASSIVE HAM the moment he appeared. I believe you mean MESSIVE HEM.
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Nov 25, 2018 22:12
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Brad could barely keep a straight face doing the Pulp Fiction quote. Which works for the scene, as Graham's pissing himself also.
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Nov 25, 2018 22:13
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I thought that was great, and kind of full-on at times, like when Willa's ghastly nan came out of the ground, or when Becka was getting consumed by a mud thing. I reckon some kids will have trouble sleeping tonight. I was so looking forward to having a woman write for a change and I swear it makes a difference. I got the impression watching Chibnall's episodes that he wasn't confident writing a female lead, making her character a cartoon super lady who used wackiness or flippancy as a crutch, while the human relations seemed to be left to Graham, but in this episode the Doctor had developed more of a soul. Her scene with King James where she convinces him we're basically more similar than we are different was wonderful. Stabbatical posted:Also the Morax Queen's speech was too on the nose. "We're going to bring hate and power" etc., or however it went. It's overly cartoonish and not believable for me for someone to actively say they're bringing hate. People usually hate while avoiding acknowledging that they're doing so, couching it in some 'greater good' or 'way things should be'. I think that line needed a re-write. dsub fucked around with this message at 22:39 on Nov 25, 2018 |
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Nov 25, 2018 22:31
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I agree with the sentiment that the Morax conclusion wasn't as well-executed as it could have been, but I really like every part of the episode if not the sum. I thought that Lady Savage's motivations were really well-considered and thoughtful given the premises and setting, too. Though that it's a 17th-century episode gives it an automatic +2/10 for me no matter what. I even liked that one where Me was the highwayman fighting the fire breathing lion alien, because 17th century.
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Nov 25, 2018 22:50
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Barry Foster posted:That was fine. Yeah I enjoyed that. But. When the aliens revealed themselves every one just stood there whilst the aliens explained who they were and what their plans were. Then knocked everyone out. Then round the fire the doctor explained who the aliens were and what their plans were. Then at the tree the aliens explained their plan again to the king. Looks like they have given up trying to blend in, just wear their normal clothes no matter where they go.
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Nov 25, 2018 22:58
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I think it could be interesting to have a plot point where something that happened, some small localised, almost unnoticeable atrocity in history, didn't happen because one of the historical figures took their meetings with The Doctor to heart. Like a witch trial that was supposed to happen after the one shown... didn't, because King James got introspective when he got home, realised killing that woman was a step too far and calmed down. Not a big enough ripple to have to fix it by making it happen, but a point of "Oh hey, he listened...  " on the way to another adventure.
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Nov 25, 2018 23:01
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Pretty good episode, though maybe it would have been better if it turned out that actually witch hunts were a good thing, but they managed to cut the false positive rate to a mere 40% and given anybody falsely accused a paid 2 week vacation. The alien plot should either have been brought up earlier or just left completely plotless, like having the muck be something non-sentient looking for corpses. As it is, there's a big exposition dump like 8 minutes before the end of the episode. The way the zombies' skin was expanding and contracting was incredibly effective, and Alan Cumming was an utter delight. There's another inexplicable moment of the Doctor trying to have the moral high ground when she yells at King James for setting the last mud zombie on fire. The witch hunter lady is already dead, isn't she? Burning a corpse is kind of gauche I suppose but not entirely irrational under the circumstances.
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Nov 25, 2018 23:35
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Following the above two posts, I'm never sure how to feel about historical episodes in Doctor Who. This one really helps me express something that has bugged me. Part of me feels that (when set far enough in the past), The Doctor cannot help but patronise those (fictional) people who could not have known any better. (Obviously, I hope, this doesn't apply to Alabama in the 50s. By that point, Michigan and it's folk could have known enough to know better.) I think this may be something from the writers of historical episodes. I'm not surprised that, when all the alien things were somewhat explained to (the way in-over-his-head and dense) King James I and VI, that he still understood it under the paradigm of 'witches and Satan'. Why wouldn't he? When The Doctor says 'the cells are all being taken away' (or however exactly it goes), that cannot mean anything to him. Cells weren't discovered until just after James dies by Hooke (and even then, not fully in the way we understand). While, of course to our eyes, James is wrong to run to Becka shouting "Burn the witch!" (also lmao they got Cummings to say that, I enjoy that very much), I'm not sure that, remembering the limitations of the C17th scientific paradigm, The Doctor can just proclaim her correctness to these people. She is right to go after Becka because as we see she is executing people from of her position of authority to try and save herself from her disease/the Morax/the idea of 'Satan', but I'm not sure the episode or any of the cast show any real understanding of (the nowadays ludicrous) worldview of the time. All in all though, the atmosphere until the big reveal is so well done. This is a great episode, imo
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Nov 25, 2018 23:39
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Rochallor posted:There's another inexplicable moment of the Doctor trying to have the moral high ground when she yells at King James for setting the last mud zombie on fire. The witch hunter lady is already dead, isn't she? Burning a corpse is kind of gauche I suppose but not entirely irrational under the circumstances. It's, what? The third? Fourth time that's happened this season?
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Nov 25, 2018 23:47
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The_Doctor posted:It's, what? The third? Fourth time that's happened this season? I assumed that, had Alan Cummings's King James not burned her, she would have lived, or at least The Doctor thought so. The Morax would have left her body and it could've been written off as a possession or some such to be never spoken of again. It shows a complete lack of grasp of a (for The Doctor) fantastically old fashioned mindset. Even Becka, the person infected by the Morax Queen, thought she was possessed by Satan's powers. She's a somewhat tragic figure killed by something beyond her comprehension, aiming to fix her problem in an inhumane way allowed for by the politics of the time. Like last week, I think, the more I reflect on it, the worse it gets.
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Nov 26, 2018 00:05
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SMH if it takes you less than 24 hours to get over Alan Cumming putting in one of the all-time best-ever scenery-chewings
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Nov 26, 2018 00:36
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| # ? Apr 27, 2024 15:46 |
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King James was fantastic and the rest of the episode was pretty good, so overall good. Shame that at this point in the series I’m smiling with relief when I see the writers credit isn’t Chibnall.
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Nov 26, 2018 00:40
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