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Oxxidation
Jul 22, 2007

mind the walrus posted:

When I consider that every Series 8 ep. I've seen so far (the first three) are uniformly terrible, I'd say you should be more excited about the next review.

It'll be a frosty day in Hell before I trust a Doctor Who fan's opinion on Doctor Who episodes. Hence why my spastic friend is providing a valuable service to the community.

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mind the walrus
Sep 22, 2006

That's fine by me. I'll let the episodes speak for themselves :)

Just rest assured that the reasons I don't like them are not because of Moffat-grudges or misogyny or some sort of aversion to the types of stories it's trying to tell-- it's simply that these scripts tell these particular stories very very poorly and once again relies on the broken back of the Doctor's actor to carry the whole mess through.

Regy Rusty
Apr 26, 2010

I just saw DoctorWhat on TV.

howe_sam
Mar 7, 2013

Creepy little garbage eaters

Regy Rusty posted:

I just saw DoctorWhat on TV.

That was pretty goddamn glorious.

Oxxidation
Jul 22, 2007

Regy Rusty posted:

I just saw DoctorWhat on TV.

Were the police involved

mind the walrus
Sep 22, 2006

Fashion police, I'm sure.

DoctorWhat
Nov 18, 2011

A little privacy, please?
I AM THE KING OF DOCTOR WHO

CHRIS HARDWICK THOROUGHLY UPSTAGED, WIL WHEATON BROUGHT TO SHAME

ALL HAIL DOCTORWHAT

ALL HAIL THE COAT

Attitude Indicator
Apr 3, 2009

DoctorWhat posted:

I AM THE KING OF DOCTOR WHO

CHRIS HARDWICK THOROUGHLY UPSTAGED, WIL WHEATON BROUGHT TO SHAME

ALL HAIL DOCTORWHAT

ALL HAIL THE COAT

ive rarely been this embarrassed on behalf of someone else

primaltrash
Feb 11, 2008

(Thought-ful Croak)

DoctorWhat posted:

I AM THE KING OF DOCTOR WHO

CHRIS HARDWICK THOROUGHLY UPSTAGED, WIL WHEATON BROUGHT TO SHAME

ALL HAIL DOCTORWHAT

ALL HAIL THE COAT

I think we all knew it would come to this.

NieR Occomata
Jan 18, 2009

Glory to Mankind.

what in the hell is going on in this thread

computer parts
Nov 18, 2010

PLEASE CLAP
e: wrong thread!

DoctorWhat
Nov 18, 2011

A little privacy, please?

Toxxupation posted:

what in the hell is going on in this thread

I have reached my moment of apotheosis. You, and all other Doctor Who fans, are no longer needed.

primaltrash
Feb 11, 2008

(Thought-ful Croak)

DoctorWhat posted:

I have reached my moment of apotheosis. You, and all other Doctor Who fans, are no longer needed.

He may have to be put down.

Solaris Knight
Apr 26, 2010

ASK ME ABOUT POWER RANGERS MYSTIC FORCE
I think DoctorWhat is getting a little TOO into character :ohdear:.

Adeline Weishaupt
Oct 16, 2013

by Lowtax

poo poo gently caress.

...Alright fixed.

PantsOptional
Dec 27, 2012

All I wanna do is make you bounce

Attitude Indicator posted:

ive rarely been this embarrassed on behalf of someone else

Someone's got to be since he clearly refuses to do it himself.

NieR Occomata
Jan 18, 2009

Glory to Mankind.

Doctor Who
"School Reunion"
Series 2, Episode 3

This was not good! This was a very very very bad episode of television. I need to stop watching previews for the next episode that air at the end of the previous episode of DW, because this promised some utter lunacy, with robot dogs, an evil school, and most hilariously, watching The Doctor pretend to be a teacher. Instead, this episode is an incredibly boring nostalgia wank with a terrible, desperately inept antagonist and some really uncomfortable scenes.

The plot of this episode is pretty weak: It turns out that a group of aliens, the Krillitanes, have taken over a children's school via impersonating the staff and are attempting to harness the student body's combined brainpower (with some chemical help) to unlock the secrets of the universe and become gods. The Doctor quickly puts a stop to both the Krillitanes plans and their lives, and everything turns out swell (except for all the non-Krillitane teachers, who were summarily killed).

There isn't really a lot of plot here because, due to this being set in modern-day England, this episode brings in Mickey (ugh) and a brand new character who's also a former companion of The Doctor, Sarah Jane Smith (Elisabeth Sladen). So, instead of having any real plot to speak of- it's pretty clear from the start that the teachers are evil aliens of some sort, and are clearly somehow controlling the kids -the episode focuses on character interactions.

Now, I've said again and again that the plotting and overall pacing of Doctor Who is its weakest asset, tied with the outright shitshow that is its special effects, so focusing on character interactions would normally be a strength. And, indeed, the fact that the episode focuses on all of the other characters emasculating and insulting Mickey is a real highlight, especially because Mickey is such a terrible, poorly defined character, and the only way he really works onscreen is as the butt of everyone else's jokes- for once, whenever Mickey's onscreen, Rose is definitively not the absolute worst character in the episode, and the writing staff has finally seemed to realize that that's essentially the only positive that Mickey can contribute to any episode outside of his outright wizardlike hacking abilities.

But the downside of "School Reunion"'s characterization-over-plotting focus is made plain with the (re-)introduction and group dynamic of Sarah Jane Smith. Now, from what I understand Sarah Jane was a former Companion of The Fourth Doctor, who abandoned her on Earth. Also- and I only know this from Oxxidation telling me -Sarah Jane was apparently his longest-running Companion, and thus the DW audience have an especially strong bond with her character as a result.

Doctor Who, in general, has been a decent show at balancing its callbacks and references by still making them accessible/understandable to new fans, or at least making the references irrelevant enought to be safely ignored. However, in this episode's case, the reference comes in the form of an entire character- a Companion, even -that had presumably seasons of characterization and relationships with both The Doctor and Doctor Who fans. So the deck was kinda stacked against integrating her well within the episode at all, especially since the episode so focuses on characterization and character moments between her and The Doctor.

Essentially, the episode plays out a bunch of moments between her and The Doctor that can only land if the audience is intimately familiar with her character, which I was definitively not. Even worse, there were entire stretches of the episode that made very little sense to me, since it's predicated around knowing both who Sarah Jane is and what her backstory is.

I got the central gist of who she was- that she was a reporter, and a former Companion, and she was abandoned by The Doctor at some point in the distant past, and never really got over it -but beyond that it was too inside baseball for me to make much sense of anything that was really happening and as a result I was just bored during most of her scenes, specifically any and all character payoff moments (especially her goodbyes to The Doctor at the end of this episode) because I had no loving clue who she was as a character. This is Doctor Who getting too obsessed with its own expansive history, to the detriment of the episode as a whole.

But even beyond that, having Sarah Jane in the episode was just a bad idea. Introducing another female into Rose's orbit, especially an older woman who has an intimate connection with The Doctor that was clearly romantic in some capacity, was just a loving mistake since Sarah Jane and Rose spend the majority of the episode at each other's throats over The Doctor. It's every sexist, tired stereotype of "Two women, one much older and one much younger, fighting over a man" that's been in every piece of media ever and it's especially tiresome here. There's a nice moment when Rose and Sarah Jane finally set aside their differences momentarily to mutually mock The Doctor's weird tics, but even that scene felt super cliched and obvious, a scene I had viewed many times before in cinematic/televistic formats.

It's just bothersome because the show keeps on making slight, slight efforts to improve Rose's character as a whole but then undo all the good work and goodwill the show has built for these incredibly boring, incredibly obvious tropes. It's all the worse, too, because the show's writing staff places this catfight dynamic on, clearly, a fan favorite returning character's reintroduction, and by doing so poison her entire appearance. It undercuts the whole aim of what the show was going for, which was clearly to reward old fans, to the point of ostracizing and confusing new ones. Who is this episode for, exactly?

By making the character moments lame and vaguely irritating the show falls to its antagonists and overall plot to carry the episode as a whole, neither of which can do so. The antagonists are almost pitifully inept and nonthreatening: the CGI for the Krillitanes is as usual pretty terrible, and their general inability to pull off any of their evil plans without a significant hitch- I mean, one of them dies in the first ten minutes of the episode! Mickey undoes their evil apotheosis plans via unplugging something! They are all killed by a robot dog! -makes them extremely nonthreatening. There's two nice moments in the episode with their leader, Mr. Finch (Anthony Head), as he confronts the Doctor both at the pool and at the climax of the episode, as he reveals his evil plans and almost sways the Doctor to his side with base flattery of The Doctor's wisdom and the promise of Godhood appealing to both The Doctor's ego and his general sense of altruism. There's even a sort of ambiguous moment the episode makes where it throws the morality of the Krillitanes' plans into doubt, helped by Anthony Head's better-than average acting abilities, but the episode doesn't focus on the moral complexities of the Krillitanes' plan over showing more scenes of Sarah Jane and Rose fighting so whatever.

Clearly, the episode was meant to illustrate the moral lesson that life has pain as well as pleasure, and things don't necessarily work out in the end, and that it's all about the journey not the destination, as Sarah Jane's existence and backstory is a stark reminder to Rose of the impermanence of Rose's position as The Doctor's favorite. I just, well, didn't really loving care about it in the end, because it involved a character I usually hate being hateable to a character I both wasn't invested in and didn't like who was also being hateable, and thus the allegory landed with a massive thud, being revealed plainly for what it was. But, hey, we got to see K9, and that was rad, so it wasn't all bad.

Oh also Mickey's a Companion now too I guess. Who the gently caress gives a poo poo.


Grade: D

Random Thoughts:
  • Why couldn't the episode have just been K9 doing cool poo poo, seriously
  • Mr. Finch: "Forget the shooty dog thing."
  • Mickey: "We need to get inside the school. Do you have an, I don't know, lock-picking device?" K9: "WE ARE IN A CAR." Mickey: "Maybe a drill attachment?" K9: "WE ARE IN A CAR." Mickey: "Fat lot of good you are." K9: "WE ARE IN A CAR."
  • Tennant: "You can spend the rest of your life with me...but I can't spend the rest of mine with you. I have to live on. Alone. That's the curse of the Time Lords." (This was a really nice moment of the episode, even though it really underscored the allegorical nature of it really really obviously.)
  • Mickey, in his one moment of self-clarity ever: "Oh my god, I'm the tin dog."
  • Why hasn't the military just taken away Mickey's internet already? He must hack them like twice a week at this point.
  • Mickey: "You see, what's impressive is that it's been nearly an hour since we met her and I still haven't said 'I told you so'." Rose: "I'm not listening to this." Mickey: "Though I have prepared a little 'I Was Right' dance I can show you later."
  • I did like the fact that Sarah Jane confronted The Doctor over the fact that he essentially abandoned her, since it creates interesting moral flaws in The Doctor's character, and also underscores the fact that The Doctor's actions, even though they're rooted in benevolence, still ruin lives.
  • Doctor: "Correct-amundo! A word that I've never used before and hopefully never will again."
  • It sucks that the preview for this episode essentially sells a bill of goods- we see The Doctor teaching for barely a minute, the school sequences are pushed to the back, and there was far far too little K9.

Oxxidation
Jul 22, 2007
Doctor Who
"School Reunion"
Series 2, Episode 3

You know, on this rewatch I am beginning to detect a common thread running through the first several episodes that I rather like - "Rose Tyler is wrong about everything." You had the Christmas Invasion, where she was wrong about Ten not being "her" Doctor. In New Earth, she was (clumsily) proven wrong about her initial take on Cassandra. Then, she was wrong about her happy-go-lucky attitude to the terror and destruction that surrounds the Doctor by day and by night. And now, she's wrong about how the Doctor is totally her super-special space boyfriend forever and ever. Again, probably projecting, but I need to play little games like this with myself or I'll go mad this season.

"School Reunion" is, at its heart, a brief rumination on what the Doctor's companions do after he leaves them behind, with a wallop of nostalgic fanservice thrown in for the old people and young mutants who watched and enjoyed the serials. Oh sure, there's some monsters and a stupid plan and the Doctor/Rose/Mickey trifecta running around hallways, but the real stars of this show are Sarah Jane Smith (Elizabeth Sladen) and her jankity-assed robo-dog K9 (tinny little voice provided by John Leeson). Both are series veterans, two of the more long-running companions for the Fourth Doctor - possibly the most iconic Doctor of the bunch, a tall, deadpan, mutter-y chap with a long scarf and a hairstyle that suggested he was addicted to licking light sockets - and I'm sure their appearances caused no end of delight for anyone still old/insane enough to know who they were. Smith and K-9 find themselves embroiled in the Doctor's hijinks on pure happenstance, and wind up going on one last adventure with him long after their initial abandonment.

Occupation was unmoved by their presence, insisting that you needed some kind of emotional rapport with the characters beforehand to give a rip about them, but I don't agree. To be fair, that's mostly because of Sladen's performance - her uneasy mix of joy, hurt, and resentment at seeing the Doctor again is crystal-clear, as even the man's face is a constant reminder that what was, to her, the most brilliant time of her life is over - which is routinely undermined by her catty tension around Rose. You have Smith practically begging the Doctor for an answer as to why she was left behind, the Doctor's hesitance to give her a straight reply only digging the knife in further, there's pathos, drama, unanswered questions, and in the background you have Rose glaring bratty teenaged daggers at the two of them as Mickey practically wees himself with joy at not being the second-stringer for a change. The ladies' anti-chemistry gets really tiresome, at least until it's finally defused in the computer lab, where their gossipy back-and-forth over their dork of a space-BF is genuinely charming; unfortunately, it's not really followed up on, as the subsequent, sub-par action splits them apart until the very end and there's very little conclusion given to their conflict.

Oh, K-9 is there too. He does stuff. He is amazing and adorable. Good tin dog, best tin friend.

Rose's resentment is understandable and could've been a lot less insufferable if it hadn't been for the past actions of her character making her come off as a bratty ex. In particular, while her sullenness at the very end comes off on-screen as being directed at Mickey, I like to think it was in response to Smith turning down the Doctor's offer to come back on-board - Sarah Jane is as Rose will be, and her refusal to resume her adventures is one last reminder that, as much as Rose wants it to be otherwise, her travels with the Doctor can't last forever, no matter what she hopes and no matter what she promises. The Doctor leaves people, not just because they grow old and he doesn't, but because being around him is terribly hazardous for your health and he's racked up quite a body count of old friends in his time. Sarah Jane's goodbye was a luxury not all of his companions are afforded - who can say what Rose's might turn out to be?

As for the actual plot, it's a mess and not worth considering. The Krillotane are outlandishly inept even by Who standards (one of them blows themselves up within five minutes of their introduction!) their CG is absolute trash, their plan's success hinges on the state of a public school's electrical system, and the students themselves so ill-characterized as to be practically animatronic. I'm still not sure how that little fat kid wound up with the group. Oh well, at least K-9 lived. Jubilation, all.

...I feel like I'm forgetting something. Oh, right. One last thing to make official, for Occ's sake.

A NEW COMPANION APPROACHES: MICKEY SMITH

Ah ha ha ha ha. Ah ha ha ha ha ha! Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! AAAHHH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HAAAAA!

Ohh, Mickey, Mickey, Mickey. The patron saint of whipped boyfriends everywhere finally works up the nerve to come onboard, and even his request is incredibly timid and greeted with nothing but derision. There have been good companions and bad ones, benevolent ones and morally questionable ones, men and women and aliens and little robot dogs, but Mickey might be the first of the Doctor's entourage who is, in the end, just an extra pair of hands. He's a gap-filler, an errand-runner. The tin dog, in other words. His one strength, which has developed with time, is his resentment for the Doctor and Rose's little tryst, which has calcified into a smirking contempt for both of them as well as, apparently, the rest of the known universe and his own sense of well-being. He might be afraid of rats and only knows how to hack the military's database because they still can't be arsed to change the password from "buffalo," but his overdeveloped fear instinct might balance out his new buddies' cavalier attitude. Come on, Mickey. Blow our minds.

Oxxidation fucked around with this message at 06:55 on Aug 24, 2014

Regy Rusty
Apr 26, 2010

Oxxidation posted:

A NEW COMPANION APPROACHES: MICKEY SMITH

Toxxupation posted:

Doctor Who loving sucks!

I remember yelling at my computer when I watched this episode because I knew now I'd be stuck with him for some interminable period and it would be hell.

computer parts
Nov 18, 2010

PLEASE CLAP
I think this episode was the most fanservice-y one and I never really engaged with it because of that. Really Series 2 in general felt like it wasn't focused on Doctor Who so much as referencing other things.

Bicyclops
Aug 27, 2004

Sarah Jane is only sort of the longest running companion; Jaime was in more episodes and Tegan, I think, just slightly beats her. Still, she was definitely one of the longer running ones, and her goodbye was sort of bittersweet. They were going to kill her off but had problems doing it in the script, and purportedly Tom Baker and Elisabeth Sladen made up their own goodbye.

I like School Reunion better than you did, but mostly because K-9 is hilarious and I always enjoy it when they hand Anthony Stuart Head a good piece of scenery to chew on. I do wonder how much they were already planning Elisabeth Sladen's spin-off already sometimes. It's definitely a fanservice episode, though. It's a letter to all those people who wondered why the hell the Doctor never went back for Sarah after their emotional parting.

Poor Mickey, though. The companion who was written purely to put jealousy in the show for some reason. Like the jealous Nice Guy non-boyfriend wasn't enough of a thing in sitcoms, now he has to be in every fantasy/sci fi series. Thanks a lot, Xander from Buffy.

Linear Zoetrope
Nov 28, 2011

A hero must cook
I still just want to see Anthony Stuart Head as the Doctor.

mind the walrus
Sep 22, 2006

We all want to see that Jsor.

Android Blues
Nov 22, 2008

Mickey is just such a bad character, and yet these early seasons can't seem to leave him alone.

Bicyclops
Aug 27, 2004

Jsor posted:

I still just want to see Anthony Stuart Head as the Doctor.

I'm almost surprised it didn't happen. He did four audio stories with them, played some kind of gargoyle in the weird animated story they did with David Tennant, and he was in an actual episode. He's done almost as much Doctor Who as Eccleston.

MikeJF
Dec 20, 2003




Anthony Stewart Head as a resurrected Master would also have been acceptable.

DoctorWhat
Nov 18, 2011

A little privacy, please?

MikeJF posted:

Anthony Stewart Head as a resurrected Master would also have been acceptable.

Anthony Stewart's Head as the Face of Boe.

Bicyclops
Aug 27, 2004

Anthony Stuart Head as just about anything really.

Ohtsam
Feb 5, 2010

Not this shit again.
This was the episode that led to The Sarah Jane Adventures spinoff right?

Republican Vampire
Jun 2, 2007

Android Blues posted:

Mickey is just such a bad character, and yet these early seasons can't seem to leave him alone.

Rusty was really invested in the idea of showing the domestic/kitchen sink poo poo, and talking about the people who were left behind. Rose was a big dramatic shift away from the old norm in that sense, even though there's sort of a precedent in the Seventh doctor revisiting Ace's childhood and past. Considering Rusty's roots in soapy drama? It's sort of understandable that it wouldn't quite work.

Jackie's a lot better handled and more interesting than Mickey though. Even in bad episodes or when she's being terrible, she's immediately recognizable.

DoctorWhat
Nov 18, 2011

A little privacy, please?

Ohtsam posted:

This was the episode that led to The Sarah Jane Adventures spinoff right?

Yeah.

The Sarah Jane Adventures is really really good children's television, but it's very much children's television. It deals with kid's and teenager's issues - absent/abusive families, body image issues, et cetera - and it deals with them really well, but it's not a show "for" grown-ups.

One Swell Foop
Aug 5, 2010

I'm afraid we have no time for codes and manners.

MikeJF posted:

Anthony Stewart Head as a resurrected Master would also have been acceptable.

They even trolled this a little with a promo shot from the episode with a shot of ASH standing grinning evilly in front of a door with 'HEADMASTER' written on it.

primaltrash
Feb 11, 2008

(Thought-ful Croak)

DoctorWhat posted:

Yeah.

The Sarah Jane Adventures is really really good children's television, but it's very much children's television. It deals with kid's and teenager's issues - absent/abusive families, body image issues, et cetera - and it deals with them really well, but it's not a show "for" grown-ups.

Can you use a similar method and explain this poo poo to bronies?

DoctorWhat
Nov 18, 2011

A little privacy, please?

armoredgorilla posted:

Can you use a similar method and explain this poo poo to bronies?

Bronies are beyond the help of even my considerable capability for concise and convincing pontification, prose, and and properly-presented persuasion.

EDIT: to clarify, that doesn't mean the the Sarah Jane Adventures is bad television on the whole. But it doesn't behave like Doctor Who itself does. It simply doesn't aspire to be Great Fiction; it settles for teaching really good lessons to kids and having fun with Liz Sladen and the cast. It ended too soon, and in tragedy.

Nonetheless, it's certainly more "mature", on an emotional level, than the first two seasons of Torchwood.

DoctorWhat fucked around with this message at 05:53 on Aug 24, 2014

Linear Zoetrope
Nov 28, 2011

A hero must cook
I'm pretty sure Torchwood is secretly just a warehouse they made to hide all their discarded makeout scenes in.

Celery Jello
Mar 21, 2005
Slippery Tilde

Bicyclops posted:

Sarah Jane is only sort of the longest running companion; Jaime was in more episodes and Tegan, I think, just slightly beats her. Still, she was definitely one of the longer running ones, and her goodbye was sort of bittersweet. They were going to kill her off but had problems doing it in the script, and purportedly Tom Baker and Elisabeth Sladen made up their own goodbye.

I hadn't heard/read that before, are you able to point to where you saw that?

Adeline Weishaupt
Oct 16, 2013

by Lowtax
The first and only time I watched Doctor Who was leading up to Moffat's run. But one weird thing I remember about it was that I actually liked Mickey.

I'm starting to think there's something wrong with me (aside from enjoying Doctor Who, and Tennant over the other doctors). :smith:

Bicyclops
Aug 27, 2004

Mo0 posted:

I hadn't heard/read that before, are you able to point to where you saw that?

I just found it on Wikipedia back when I was watching through classic Who. They cite the DVD commentary as the source, although they say that Baker and Sladen "wrote" the scene, and I could swear other sources (that I can't find now) say that they basically improvised it without rehearsing. The only reason I believe it is that her departure was an afternote to the serial and has nothing to do with the rest of the story. At the end, the Doctor just says that he has to go back to Gallifrey and that she can't come with him.

ThaGhettoJew
Jul 4, 2003

The world is a ghetto

umalt posted:

The first and only time I watched Doctor Who was leading up to Moffat's run. But one weird thing I remember about it was that I actually liked Mickey.

I'm starting to think there's something wrong with me (aside from enjoying Doctor Who, and Tennant over the other doctors). :smith:

As this thread highlights "Rule 1" of Doctor Who fandom is that no matter how objectively bad or good you may feel an episode is there is always someone out there who thinks it is the best or worst episode ever, whichever is the incorrect interpretation. And sometimes for the very same reasons. Your enjoyment of stuff that this Who thread or any other hates is completely normal and rational, excepting (or especially) when you are wrong.

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BSam
Nov 24, 2012

ThaGhettoJew posted:

As this thread highlights "Rule 1" of Doctor Who fandom is that no matter how objectively bad or good you may feel an episode is there is always someone out there who thinks it is the best or worst episode ever, whichever is the incorrect interpretation. And sometimes for the very same reasons. Your enjoyment of stuff that this Who thread or any other hates is completely normal and rational, excepting (or especially) when you are wrong.

Exactly. I loving love Love and Monsters.

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