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MrL_JaKiri posted:There is an excellent story called The Curse of Fenric which is set in a World War II decoding station Judson was intended to be explicitly based on Turing but the BBC, I believe, wouldn't allow TV in 1989 to depict homosexuality.
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Jan 10, 2015 16:41
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And hence, he was giving the physical disability to be frustrated with, as a replacement for the frustration Turing had about being able to express his sexuality.
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Jan 10, 2015 20:10
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Yeah handwaving away Churchill's attitudes as being just of his time really does a disservice to all the people of his time who fought hard against imperialism and racism. Also the Curse of Fenric is great, possibly the best ever Doctor Who story.
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Jan 10, 2015 20:21
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marktheando posted:Yeah handwaving away Churchill's attitudes as being just of his time really does a disservice to all the people of his time who fought hard against imperialism and racism. It does, but Doctor Who is not, and hopefully never will be, the kind of show to start making pointed political observations. The alternative would've made for a worse episode.
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Jan 10, 2015 20:28
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Mo0 posted:It does, but Doctor Who is not, and hopefully never will be, the kind of show to start making pointed political observations Is this a joke?
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Jan 10, 2015 21:08
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MrL_JaKiri posted:Is this a joke? Did you hear about the killjoy who won an outing with the Happiness Patrol? He was tickled to death.
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Jan 10, 2015 21:11
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Fungah! posted:Did you hear about the killjoy who won an outing with the Happiness Patrol? He was tickled to death. I was thinking even further back, plenty of the historicals did their best to correct common misconceptions (eg The Crusades) as much as the writers could manage/knew about/etc.
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Jan 10, 2015 21:12
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MrL_JaKiri posted:I was thinking even further back, plenty of the historicals did their best to correct common misconceptions (eg The Crusades) as much as the writers could manage/knew about/etc. Oh, well aware, just didn't want to let a feed line go to waste. Show's never had any bones about addressing that stuff in the past, it'd be a drat shame if it started now
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Jan 10, 2015 21:14
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an episode where churchill calls dr who a friend of the family
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Jan 10, 2015 21:22
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EvilTobaccoExec posted:an episode where churchill calls dr who a friend of the family Dr. Who is rarely at its best when depicting actual historical characters. The show's format doesn't usually lend itself well to complex characters or in-depth historical context. On the other hand there have been some stories with fine social allegories and representational characters that can touch on some complicated problems while everyone is running away from or bowing down to silly, cheaply made monsters. On the gripping hand, it's about a time-traveling police box with a magic-wand Jesus. So, Churchill is a jolly scamp of a patriot. Emperor Nero was a wacky, rapey hedonist with Hartnell in The Romans. And it's not like "President-Elect" Obama was treated with much accurate research either. I'm sure if there was a Guy Fawkes or a First Duke of Wellington episode they'd be depicted by their loose collections of commonly told stereotypes to fit quickly into an action script, possibly involving aliens.
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Jan 10, 2015 21:56
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MrL_JaKiri posted:Is this a joke? It wasn't, but I'm fully willing to admit that I lost track of context and was pretty much thinking about the new series. ThaGettoJew is better articulating what I was thinking about. I feel like in the specific case of Churchill it'd be like expecting a hypothetical American equivalent of the show to go back to Thomas Jefferson's time and point out that he not only owned slaves but didn't even free most of them in his will. Sure, yes, that's correct, but you're gonna piss people off for... what, a chance to score retroactive points before going back to fighting Daleks? Celery Jello fucked around with this message at 22:06 on Jan 10, 2015 |
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Jan 10, 2015 22:01
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You don't have to include Churchill.
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Jan 10, 2015 22:13
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Mo0 posted:It does, but Doctor Who is not, and hopefully never will be, the kind of show to start making pointed political observations. The alternative would've made for a worse episode. The Daleks are literally squid Nazis.
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Jan 10, 2015 22:51
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MrL_JaKiri posted:You don't have to include Churchill. But he was awesome in this episode. Are you generally against having recognizable historical characters? They were (almost) all horrible by modern standards.
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Jan 10, 2015 22:51
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Doctor Who "Victory of the Daleks" Series 5, Episode 3 The process of writing a review for this thread is a rather predictable event. Oxx and I view the episode together, usually providing our C-grade MST3K riffing on the events that happen; at the same time, I take notes on specific events or quotes in the episode that affected me. By the end of the episode, I usually have a pretty decent idea of my opinions on the quality of the episode, and the post-episode conversation Oxx and I have is mostly to calcify my beliefs and to illuminate some things I might have missed or forgotten about. Either way, by the time that conversation is over I have a very solid idea of what my grade for the episode is going to be, and what tone I'll be setting when writing it- whether I'll be overjoyed, bitter, disappointed, surprised, angry, etc. That...uh...that didn't happen, with "Victory of the Daleks". "Victory of the Daleks" opens with The Doctor and Amy responding to Winston Churchill's (Ian McNeice) request from the previous episode, "The Beast Below," which takes them to the bunkers of WWII London. Since the setting of the episode is during the height of the Germans' bombing of London, Churchill is clearly desperate- desperate enough to fight off the German bombers with the greatest invention of Scottish super-scientist Edwin Bracewell (Bill Paterson). Namely, the Daleks. Or, as Bracewell likes to call them, the "Ironsides". Because that's the thing- by all accounts, the Daleks- er, "Ironsides" -are completely helpful and innocent- shooting down German bombers, obeying their human leaders, being helpful, polite, and distinctly .un-Dalek. Heck, the Daleks don't even know what they are, responding to The Doctor's increasingly angry insistence that they're Daleks with polite confusion, only responding that they are Britain's "soldiers". Eventually, The Doctor loses his patience and assaults an Ironside, yelling "I am The Doctor! And you are the Daleks!" Which turns out to be exactly what the Daleks want, as they drop the disguise and immediately port back to their ship, but not before revealing Bracewell to be an android in whom they implanted false memories. The Doctor follows the Daleks back to their ship, where they confess that the whole "pretending to be docile minions of the embattled Brits during WWII" gambit was so they could record The Doctor confirming that they were, in fact, Daleks- it was essentially a password to open one of the Progenitor devices the Daleks found in space, thus allowing new Daleks to be created. Back in London, Churchill and Amy both realize that they can help fight back against the Daleks by using Bracewell- who, himself, is a creation of the Daleks' future technology. Bracewell readily signs on, and outfits some Spitfires with "gravity wells" or whatever that makes them able to fly into space and shoot down the Daleks' lighting beacon. The new Daleks- who come in a startling array of colors, they're like iPod Minis or something -then respond via one final, desperate gambit: they force The Doctor to choose between killing the Daleks, once and for all, aboard their ship, or to go back to Earth and let them leave in peace, as if he doesn't they'll set Bracewell to explode (the old Daleks had outfitted him with a planet-destroying bomb in his core just in case something like this would end up happening). The Doctor chooses to go back to Earth, and the Daleks, of course, set Bracewell off anyways. All seems lost, until Amy convinces Bracewell to remember his first, forbidden love which inexplicably defuses the bomb, I guess from him having become a real human once and for all or something? It's not very clear. Anyways, day and world saved, with The Doctor and Amy leaving to go off on their next adventure. Doctor Who is often an inconsistent show, yes, but I so very rarely have inconsistent feelings about it. Coming out the other side of an episode, talking to Oxx I had zero idea- absolutely none- how I felt about it. So much about "Victory" is incredible, and yet so much about it is atrocious. Let's start with the things I adored; First things first, Ian McNeice's Winston Churchill is loving incredible. His acting as Churchill is unparalleled, and his jowly, screen-chewing performance as the man is downright inspiring, and makes every moment he's onscreen a delight. Which is good, because so much of "Victory" is about Churchill that he sort of temporarily turns into the main character of the show. The main setting, the bunkers underneath London during the Blitz, were also of a huge appeal to me. Oxxidation will complain that the setting feels cramped and sparse, but to me that's why it appeals in the first place; the setting reinforces the desperate narrative that would justify why Churchill would use the Daleks in the first place. The bunkers are a harried mass of confusion and bodies, where Brits are desperately trying to fight back the most horrific enemy mankind has ever conceived of; that oft repeated and vomit inducing "Keep Calm and Carry On" poster is one of the most enduring legacies of WWII, and I've always kind of hated it. It implies the British just sorta tolerated Hitler's regime with their trademark stiff upper lip, when in fact they were, just like the French resistance, doing everything in their power to stop Hitler's spread. The realities of WWII and the Blitz weren't some dumbass poster advertising restraint in the face of evil, it's what is occurring in the sets of "Victory of Daleks"- a bunch of good, honest British men and women trying their very hardest, in some very inhospitable conditions, to stop the Third Reich. But the point of the thing was, it was a desparate and harried effort, as Churchill said both in the episode and in real life, "If Hitler invaded hell, I would give a favorable reference to the Devil." The setting and tone of "Victory" makes it not only understandable but necessary that Churchill would use anything- anything -to stop the Germans' bombing. Knowing now what I do about how the Daleks were created for Doctor Who, and how important their cultural legacy was to the popularity of the show, I'm especially impressed at the decision on Mark Gatiss' part to have the Daleks fight overtly for the Brits during, not only WWII, but during the London Blitz in specific. Turning one of the show's most overt references to Nazism into British forces during WWII- replete with British flag on their bodies -was a hugely narratively bold decision to make, a risk that I have to applaud the show for even intimating. Sure, a lot of that is undercut by the eventual reveal that the Daleks were in disguise all along, but even the concept of that decision- to turn one of Doctor Who's most sacred cows, most hateable antagonists, and have them fight for the good guys during one of the proudest periods of British history -is insane. I, too, loved the effect that the the ostensibly "good" Daleks had on The Doctor as a character. The first fifteen minutes of the episode, especially when it focused on The Doctor having to come to terms with the idea of the Daleks as a force for justice, and having to deal with his own inherent rage and hatred for the Daleks as a race was some really narratively rich stuff, stuff that I would like to see explored without reservation in a future episode. As it stood, though, what little we got was fantastic, especially the way Matt Smith portrayed Eleven's unsettled, skeptical confusion whenever around a Dalek- he looks ready to throttle the nearest one, but is restraining himself both out of concern for what making his grievances known could make the Daleks do and out of a genuine curiosity for what their master plan is. I did like the angle the episode took of explaining away why Amy wouldn't immediately go "Oh yeah, Daleks, they invaded Earth like twice in the past three years, they're total dicks and you shouldn't trust them", thus destroying the narrative before it could even start, by having her somehow forget about the Daleks entirely. Most of the time, the serialized stuff doesn't do anything for me- every time a crack has shown up at the end of episodes this season I roll my eyes because it always comes across as kinda hokey, and I've complained enough about Mister Saxon or mother loving Bad loving Wolf gently caress, gently caress that poo poo gently caress Series One ugh -but the weirdness surrounding Amy and more specifically why and how she could've forgotten about the Daleks is actually a strong narrative hook, one that I'm happy and interested to see explored. I also enjoyed the thematic message the episode was impressing about the Daleks- how rotten and flawed their culture and emphasis on "purity" was where they were forced into utilizing their most hated enemy in The Doctor just to be able to make more Daleks- the dramatic irony was wonderful. The "old" Daleks' reaction to the "new" Daleks- their total acceptance and seeming joy over being exterminated by the creatures they risked everything to create, simply because of their biological imperative to be perfect and to hate everything else that was even slightly more flawed than them, including other Daleks and even themselves put a very fine point on how awful and broken, fundamentally, the Daleks were. And, finally, I loved how the Daleks were stopped by one of their own creations in Bracewell, creating a strong capper to "Victory" of how human ingenuity and genuine compassion can defeat the strongest, most militaristic and self-glorifying culture- much like how the Brits were able to stop and eventually repel the Germans. But then, of course, we come to the episode's failures, of which there are myriad. Selling out the really interesting moral examination of how The Doctor would react to a "good" Dalek by making The Doctor right all along and having the Daleks been deceitful the whole time was ultimately a really rote, uninteresting resolution to the conflict set up in the episode's first act, although that comes close to the "What I wanted versus what the episode was trying for" argument I brought up back up back in the "Planet of the Ood" review. But even divorcing the episode I wanted in "Victory" from what I got, the meta-narrative for the episode is rather boring and progresses about as dully as one could imagine, with The Doctor mostly standing in different locations and yelling at people/Daleks. The Doctor, specifically, was written really oddly for this episode- although Matt Smith's performance is great, his physical reaction when a Dalek butts into his conversation with Churchill, asking if it can "BE OF ASSISTANCE" is a standout. That being said, Eleven feels characterized as if he were accidentally placed into a Ten script, where he does far more shouting and overt emoting than is necessary. It doesn't really fit the Eleven that had been established in his previous two episodes where he's far more subtle, controlled, and good humored than in here, where he goes through some serious emotional extremes. Amy is barely a character in this episode, as well- although the fews moments she has, are great, especially when she calls Churchill on having pickpocketed The Doctor's TARDIS key. From what Oxxidation told me, the Dalek redesign in "Victory" was...controversial, to say the least, with the fanbase at large hating it. Personally speaking. I don't like it very much, although that's mostly due to the Daleks' color palette- everything else about their redesign with I'm fine with or even like, especially their smooth, clean, flat lines on their exteriors. I joked earlier about the Daleks being redesigned as iPod Minis, but I would really like a redesign that went more in the Apple direction of product design- a simplistic, clean lines redesign of the Dalek (that removes their stupid as poo poo bubble armor and combines their laser/plunger into one thing, that only surfaces when necessary) would be much better than the current and I have to give Moffat and Gatiss points for even trying, because as it stands the Daleks look completely laughable as antagonists, much less the most feared antagonist in the Doctor Who universe. Although I conceptually really liked the climax of "Victory"- having Bracewell defeat the Daleks' fail-safe by becoming as un-Dalek as possible resonated with me and reinforced the theme of "the failures of Dalek society" that permeated the episode -executionally the scene was too hokey and sentimental even for me, and the "POWER OF LOVE" stuff was eye-rollingly poorly done. This is a minor niggle, but on the other hand it kind of isn't- having Amy in a mini-skirt the entire episode was just weird. She's in the middle of the London Blitz, how does she wear an outfit that would be obscenely raunchy for the time period, especially around Winston Churchill, maybe one of the most womanizing adulterers of his era, and have that pass without comment? It was such a jarring costume choice that it was genuinely tone-breaking for the episode at large, especially since it was so blatantly a move for sex appeal. Whatever happened to the idea that The Doctor and his Companion would dress up in the style of the time before disembarking? To me, the mini-skirt thing is more reflective of a larger issue "Victory" has- where it cuts a corner to force a specific angle, without thinking of the larger effect it has on the episode as a whole. So the mini-skirt thing is minor on the whole, yeah, but it ends up cheapening Amy's character while being such a bizarre costume choice that it breaks the ostensibly serious, desperate tone of the episode at large for no real benefit outside of Karen Gillan's legs. This is my problem with "Victory of the Daleks". Its mistakes are grave, but it's hard for me to divorce my own expectations for what I wanted out of the episode in comparison to its mistakes. In some cases it's hard for me to think the mistakes are actually mistakes- nowhere is this more evident than in the scene with the Spitfire assault on the Dalek base. It was obscenely retarded and made no logical or scientific ("scientific") loving sense, even by Doctor Who's unbelievably low standards, sure, but was that why I enjoyed it as much as I did? Did I enjoy it, or was I just stunned by the insanity occurring on my screen? Really, thinking about it, was the Spitfire assault any more absurd and insane than Ten swordfighting the Sycorax leader aboard his own city-sized ship? I mean, yes, it was, but is that a bad thing? Or is it a good thing? I don't honestly know. And this is why the episode is so goddamn confusing to me. All of my faults I have with it I don't know if they're faults, or they're simply issues where my expectations for where the episode was going were unreasonable. Considering the cultural and narrative legacy of the Daleks, it would be almost as hacky if they were revealed to be Actually Good over the hacky resolution of them having been lying the entire time. Plus, making them "good" could've made "Victory" into a "Dalek" situation, where RTD wrote a Genuinely Good episode all about the Daleks that ended up selling out the entire concept of the Daleks just to tell one story- "Dalek" is a great episode, but as an episode about the Daleks it ultimately kinda fails. In contrast, "Victory" makes a strong statement about the Daleks in having The Doctor overtly letting them go- the Daleks' story doesn't end (or does it????) like it normally does in most Dalek episodes- they're still out there, and Eleven is going to encounter them again, because he made the choice in letting them continue. The Doctor and Amy are more marginal this episode, sure, but we get a ton of Churchill- which is more than worthy compensation. Sure, the climax was bad on one level, but it still kind of worked- at least conceptually -on the other. Basically, I came out of "Victory" having a legitimate argument to give the episode every grade- the parts that were strong were both really great and really terrible, sometimes for the exact same reason- laser Spitfires -and it's not a simple matter of a "Pros" and "Cons" list, because its failures can easily be seen as its strengths and vice versa. At least to me. Some of the episodes I've given an A or B did things worse than this episode did, and some of the episodes I've given a D or F did things better. Giving this episode a C felt like both a lovely compromise and disingenuous- I give Cs to episodes that are either dull or balanced in their bad and good parts, neither of which I felt applied to "Victory of the Daleks". "Victory", to me, is a fascinating failure- or an irritating success. It's both, and it's neither. It's Doctor Who, really. Grade: D Random Thoughts:
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Jan 10, 2015 23:21
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Since this review was written...uniquely I'm explicitly requesting people's opinions on it I don't usually write reviews like this, and I'd like how people think it works in comparison to my "normal" reviews
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Jan 10, 2015 23:23
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Toxxupation posted:Grade: D I guessed right! edit: whoops DoctorWhat fucked around with this message at 23:28 on Jan 10, 2015 |
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Jan 10, 2015 23:23
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OH GOD WHY DID YOU QUOTE THE WHOLE THING
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Jan 10, 2015 23:27
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Toxxupation posted:Doctor Who This has never really been a thing, the reference to it in whatever episode it was (Shakespeare Code? Unquiet Dead? One of those) was more of a joke about how the series has never cared about historical accuracy in clothing except when it does
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Jan 10, 2015 23:29
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I love this episode because in this one Smith's Doctor stopped being an aspie and showed some genuine emotion. Doctor really hates the Daleks and it is useful to remind about it after the reincarnation. Also mothefucking Spitfires in space!
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Jan 10, 2015 23:35
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Daleks double-cross was kinda expected, so it was fun to guess when and how. Few Audios have used similar ruses, when they can't achieve their goals militarily. And Doctor futilely warning people about Daleks betrayal is always fun to watch and hear. Gatiss episodes are always kinda dumb, but usually they are funny kind of dumb. I was grinning most of the episode, even when the stupid planes appeared. Grade: A Issaries fucked around with this message at 23:45 on Jan 10, 2015 |
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Jan 10, 2015 23:41
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quote:So I came up with the grade for this episode differently than usual; I was so split on what grade to end up giving this one- I could literally see myself giving every possible grade to it -that I wrote the review first, then went to random.org and rolled a number from 1 to 5, with 1 being an "A" and 5 being an "F". At no time writing this review- not even writing the words you're reading now -did I have any idea what the grade would end up being, since I wanted this to be as pure an expression of my thoughts about the episode as possible. If I could, I simply would not have given this episode a grade- but that would throw off the contest, so here we are. Yeah, Victory is pretty weird.
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Jan 10, 2015 23:45
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Also this is a reference you probably don't know about but the first half of the episode with the Daleks going undercover is basically a straight up-rewrite of a very old Doctor Who story called The Power of the Daleks where a human colony undergoing a massive power struggle unearths a Dalek spaceship. The scientist who studies the spaceship finds a single surviging Dalek aboard sans gunstick. The Dalek pretends to be serving the humans and begins building other Dalek "servants" who eventually strike and wipe out most of the colony during a human-sponsored coup before the Doctor manages to stop them. Reason this is interesting is that this was the very first regeneration story (The doctor had just finished "changing his appearance" from William Hartnell, the first Doctor, to Patrick Troughton) and Smith's said on several occasions that he modeled a lot of his Doctor's mannerisms on Patrick Troughton's. Just kind of an interesting parallel with the semi-reboot the revival underwent when it switched showrunners from Rustie to Moffat.
Fungah! fucked around with this message at 00:08 on Jan 11, 2015 |
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Jan 10, 2015 23:49
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RIP my perfect score. I really think this is an absolute textbook C episode. I hated the Daleks but loved Churchill so it cancels out right in the middle.
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Jan 10, 2015 23:51
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Toxxupation posted:Since this review was written...uniquely I'm explicitly requesting people's opinions on it I liked it a lot - you explained why you had trouble with the episode, expressed what was good, what was bad, and then furthered that discussion by questioning whether the good was actually good and whether the bad was actually bad. For an episode like this I think that is very suitable, because you pretty much put it perfectly when you said the episode is either "a fascinating failure- or an irritating success". This is an episode that I can really enjoy watching, but when it is over I can't help but be taken aback by all the baffling things that happen in it. Just out of interest (for me, anyway!), the opening section with the helpful Daleks is actually a very explicit reference to a (sadly missing) classic Doctor Who episode called The Power of the Daleks, which was the first Patrick Troughton (Second Doctor) story. He finds himself in the same situation, encountering Daleks that are friendly and helpful, and everybody thinks he is mad when he insists they're evil and not to be trusted. That stretches out across multiple episodes with one hell of a payoff, so seeing a truncated form in this episode was a bit of fun, but also very frustrating because the premise could have easily taken up the entire episode and instead is resolved in about 10-15 minutes. The whole episode feels like that to me, a lot of really interesting potential that basically goes nowhere, or is resolved in a very unsatisfactory way that doesn't really stand up at all - particularly the whole thing about the Doctor clearing the alien tech out of the underground bunker, since after he talks about doing that we see Churchill talking with Bracewell (himself alien tech) and the lab is still filled with piles of alien technology he's been working on! Edit: Beaten to the Power of the Daleks like Fungah! was Robert Mugabe.
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Jan 10, 2015 23:52
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No one hasn't gushed about Blood of the Daleks or Dalek Empire Season 3, with similarly helpful Daleks... yet!
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Jan 10, 2015 23:58
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This episode bewildered a lot of the fan base at the time, so your reaction is pretty par for the course. I can forgive the miniskirt since it's obvious Churchill knew who the doctor was, and therefore must know he's a time traveller, so he's bound to show up with companions with bizarre clothing. How can you not have "Would you care for some tea?" as a quote?
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Jan 10, 2015 23:59
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Toxxupation posted:Since this review was written...uniquely I'm explicitly requesting people's opinions on it I really enjoyed it. You clearly articulated both the fact that you were conflicted and your arguments for both sides in a way that flowed well. It came across as a self contained body of work with a letter that happened to be at the end, which is how a review should probably read, I think.
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Jan 11, 2015 00:13
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Toxxupation posted:Since this review was written...uniquely I'm explicitly requesting people's opinions on it I was kind of counting on you riding the high of the last two episodes and enjoying the sheer dumb stupid poo poo happening in this one, so this went a totally different direction than I was expecting. Also the reason for Amy's skirt is because Moffat hired her in part because of her legs. Not joking.
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Jan 11, 2015 00:13
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This was actually a B episode for me (although I think I voted A since I wasn't voting based on what I thought). There are certainly some muddled bits, and I agree with most of what has been said; normally I would put this kind of thing around C, but the Churchill performance and the moment with the spitfires bumped it up for me. The latter is significant because there is nobody, anywhere, who could possibly believe it makes any kind of sense. It's not as if they made a mistake with the science; they actually beat science bloody and kicked it out the window while screaming "we don't want YOUR kind around HERE, you little poo poo" and flipping science off with both hands as it sped towards the ground. It's audacious, and I respect that. It probably helps that I do not give even the tiniest poo poo about what color the Daleks are. No matter how much you love the show, you have to come to terms with the fact that these things are giant salt shakers with plungers glued to them. It's not as if they can get sillier.
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Jan 11, 2015 00:17
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Burkion posted:I was kind of counting on you riding the high of the last two episodes and enjoying the sheer dumb stupid poo poo happening in this one, so this went a totally different direction than I was expecting. That quote, while hardly Moffat's finest hour, was taken out of context. The joke was that he supposedly didn't expect Gillan to be ridiculously attractive, because he's a dork idiot. It was self-deprication that Went A Bit Wrong in the telling.
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Jan 11, 2015 00:17
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Toxxupation posted:Since this review was written...uniquely I'm explicitly requesting people's opinions on it The review itself is fine, as is not knowing what to think about an episode (for the record, I shared a lot of your opinions on the 'power of love' ending being overdone, etc, etc), though the randomized letter grade thing I thought was a bad way to resolve it. Not sure what to suggest instead, though. Smith's acting here is pretty odd. He looks like he's going to burst into tears for the entire second act, which I'm pretty sure wasn't the emotion they were going for. I guess it does work for just how desperate he is to finally get rid of the Daleks, just like Nine's first encounter with them. I chalk it up, as I think you mentioned, to this being a very early filming (As for the gravity bubble, just imagine that it's constantly creating an artificial gravity effect directly in front of the plane, so that the plane is actually constantly 'falling' forward)
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Jan 11, 2015 00:17
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I love this episode. It's one of my favorites, honestly. I think mostly because of how good all the period stuff is. As you said, the actor portraying Churchill is AMAZING. In fact, the only piece of Doctor Who crap I actually have is the Dalek WWII poster, which hangs in my house. I'm a huge sucker for the WWII propaganda style. There's some weird crap that drags it down a bit, but between Churchill, polite daleks, FABULOUS daleks, and space spitfires, I'm pretty happy with it. It goes over the top in all the right ways, and it has some balls for going the angle they did with the setting. What more can you ask for in a goofy sci-fi show about an immortal time traveler, really?
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Jan 11, 2015 00:19
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Go RV! posted:I love this episode. It's one of my favorites, honestly. I think mostly because of how good all the period stuff is. As you said, the actor portraying Churchill is AMAZING. In fact, the only piece of Doctor Who crap I actually have is the Dalek WWII poster, which hangs in my house. I'm a huge sucker for the WWII propaganda style.
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Jan 11, 2015 00:27
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DoctorWhat posted:That quote, while hardly Moffat's finest hour, was taken out of context. The joke was that he supposedly didn't expect Gillan to be ridiculously attractive, because he's a dork idiot. It was self-deprication that Went A Bit Wrong in the telling. Doesn't' change the fact that that's the reason why Amy's outfits largely revolve around skirts
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Jan 11, 2015 00:33
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Well Occ, your review is kind of a mess, but then again so is "Victory of the Daleks" so it works to get the feel of the episode. I dislike this episode overall, despite a few things that kind of work. For me, though, the negative outweighs the positive and I guessed you'd react the way I did and score it a D. Thanks, random.org!
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Jan 11, 2015 00:34
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I actually really enjoyed this episode, though that may have something to do with me being a major mark for the Daleks in general. At least they didn't pull any of the "The Daleks are gone for good this time, guys, we swear!" stuff that was so common in Rusty's run.
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Jan 11, 2015 00:39
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This is terribly shocking but when I also used random.org to pick my guesses in the exact fashion as occupation described, it also gave this a D. The system works. SPOILERS: Random.org hates this season.
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Jan 11, 2015 00:41
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Juvenalian.Satyr posted:This is terribly shocking but when I also used random.org to pick my guesses in the exact fashion as occupation described, it also gave this a D. Occ I object to your use of this website. It has a horse in this race and that's a blatant conflict of interest.  Also it voted differently than I did. That was wrong, too.
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Jan 11, 2015 00:50
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Regy Rusty posted:RIP my perfect score. Yeah I had the same grade, C. I feel a bit gypped that it's incorrect because Toxx flipped a coin rather than make a decision. But I understand the difficulty. The historical setting was great but the Dalek interactions are once again frustratingly uneven. Honestly its a tossup as to whether the Doctor is his own worst enemy in this episode or it was just decided that the Daleks had to have a bit of a win. The space Spitfires though, uggh.
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Jan 11, 2015 00:50
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