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Y'all have a bad taste. The unit guys were funny and the companion was interesting. Nice, low stakes for a (rusty) special. 
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Nov 22, 2014 04:57
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adhuin posted:Y'all have a bad taste. The entire Earth was doomed. Again.
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Nov 22, 2014 05:09
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This is the one with the actual "magic negro", right? The episode from two-thousand-and-loving-nine using a trope from the 1800's.
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Nov 22, 2014 05:09
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adhuin posted:Y'all have a bad taste. You're just mad cause you probably lost first place.
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Nov 22, 2014 05:12
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MikeJF posted:Also we learn the moral lesson that if you're rich and pretty and you only steal things out of boredom rather than to survive, you're an okay person and don't deserve to go to jail.
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Nov 22, 2014 05:17
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Oxxidation posted:The entire Earth was doomed. Again. That's low stakes for rusty! Irony Be My Shield posted:Honestly I could kindof forgive it as a hamhanded anti-greed message if she were at least stealing from a private collector. But as far as I can tell she was stealing a priceless artifact with huge historical significance out of a public gallery for no reason at all. It's basically Gentleman thief-genre, with charming Upperclass rogue targeting highly guarded treasures & dastardly Inspector vowing to catch her. Zaggitz posted:You're just mad cause you probably lost first place.
Issaries fucked around with this message at 05:32 on Nov 22, 2014 |
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Nov 22, 2014 05:25
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I think I liked the goofy hero worship scientist from this episode and also the way that he used the psychic paper to get on the bus at the very beginning, which everyone else hates, but the rest of the episode is quite bad and the bus is filled with, for reasons beyond my comprehension, stock characters from some kind of half-assed Stephen King ripoff.
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Nov 22, 2014 05:29
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Yeah, Lee Evans the scientist makes this episode a good episode.
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Nov 22, 2014 05:34
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Oxxidation posted:The entire Earth was doomed. Again. I wish I could find the exact quote, but I once read something that's stuck with me over the years, from someone giving advice to new writers. Specifically that a small threat to a few specific people can often be a lot more interesting than something that threatens the whole world, or the whole galaxy, or the whole universe. I found this piece of writing advice within the submission guidelines for the New Adventures line of Doctor Who novels back in the '90s.
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Nov 22, 2014 05:44
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BSam posted:Yeah, Lee Evans the scientist makes this episode a good episode. I wouldn't go that far.
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Nov 22, 2014 06:15
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This is literally the only episode of RTD Who I've only seen once. That was too many times. There are episodes I probably rewatched a dozen or two times. But not this one. Never again.
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Nov 22, 2014 06:31
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Annakie posted:This is literally the only episode of RTD Who I've only seen once. Same, actually. It was ALSO the first episode I watched first-run on BBCA. So I haven't seen this episode SINCE IT AIRED. Never again.
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Nov 22, 2014 07:03
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BSam posted:Yeah, Lee Evans the scientist makes this episode a good episode. I'd give this episode at least 100 Bernards.
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Nov 22, 2014 07:41
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I'd say this is probably the worst RTD episode. Just a lot of dumb stuff (why does the thief take her mask off while still in mid-escape?). I did like the gag at the end where the Doctor tells the inspector he'll "step into this police box and arrest myself."
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Nov 22, 2014 08:59
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I watched it ONE more time in order to do a write-up for it in the other thread and if anything hated it even more the second time around. It's sooooo bad.
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Nov 22, 2014 09:17
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It's me. I'm the guy who loves this episode. I have no excuses. E: Like, after I saw it I legitimately wanted Christina to be a full-time Companion. I don't really remember the plot to the episode at all, just 10 and her riffing off each other. Linear Zoetrope fucked around with this message at 09:43 on Nov 22, 2014 |
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Nov 22, 2014 09:39
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I don't remember a drat thing about Planet of the Dead except near the ending where Ten is having his sadtimelordinrain.gif moment again. I think I have to re-watch it again. LEGO Genetics fucked around with this message at 09:59 on Nov 22, 2014 |
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Nov 22, 2014 09:55
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I only ever watched Diamanda Hagan's review of it once to know that it was cesspolic.
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Nov 22, 2014 10:15
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The companion's quite good, I liked her. The plot is a big nothing, though. Besides, the Doctor'd have a hard time looking good bringing a romantic aristocratic thief to justice, since that's exactly what he is himself!
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Nov 22, 2014 11:12
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Fun fact: I started reading this thread just after the Voyage of the Damned review was posted, confused it with this episode for a bit because of the similar "Noun of the Adjective" title, and yet still read most of the review thinking "yeah, that sounds about right" before realising my mistake. I did like Lee Evans though.
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Nov 22, 2014 13:48
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Bicyclops posted:I think I liked the goofy hero worship scientist from this episode and also the way that he used the psychic paper to get on the bus at the very beginning, which everyone else hates, but the rest of the episode is quite bad and the bus is filled with, for reasons beyond my comprehension, stock characters from some kind of half-assed Stephen King ripoff. Planet Of The Dead basically reeks of Stephen King's The Langoliers. An impressive feat, given that we already did a story that kind of reeked of The Langoliers in Father's Day. Whereas Father's Day was my introduction to the show and it hooked me based on the concept of time travel fuckery, Planet Of The Dead was just a mess that actively made me say "holy poo poo this is just a giant ripoff of The Langoliers, except worse".
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Nov 22, 2014 14:00
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I didn't hate Planet of the Dead the way some of you do. Come on, how can you say it's the worst thing Davies did, in a series that contains Voyage Of The Damned and Fear Her? It's just...mediocre. And while I think mediocre is one of the worst things a Doctor Who episode can be, it's not, I think, the worst. I did like Ten and Lady Michelle Ryan together, though, and wish they had had a good story to be in.
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Nov 22, 2014 14:45
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docbeard posted:I didn't hate Planet of the Dead the way some of you do. Come on, how can you say it's the worst thing Davies did, in a series that contains Voyage Of The Damned and Fear Her? "Fear Her" was never that bad and Occ and I agreed this was worse than "Voyage of the Damned" by a fair margin. I shouldn't go into why til my writeup, though.
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Nov 22, 2014 15:21
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Toxxupation posted:there are people who like this show
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Nov 22, 2014 15:28
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Android Blues posted:The companion's quite good, I liked her. The plot is a big nothing, though. Yeah, I would not have minded her being a longer-term companion, except that she would have been a constant reminder that this episode existed
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Nov 22, 2014 15:50
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IronicDongz posted:so is it an A or a B 
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Nov 22, 2014 16:32
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Wait, poo poo, Planet of the Dead. I thought it was a different episode. Nope, just poo poo.
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Nov 22, 2014 17:27
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The weirdest (Read 'only') thing I remember about this episode is that the Doctor basically tells the two lads to join UNIT. Like 2 episodes ago they made a big thing about how the doctor turns people into soldiers for him and then here he pretty much says "Get those lads in the army- that’ll sort them out!"
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Nov 22, 2014 17:56
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Muppetjedi posted:The weirdest (Read 'only') thing I remember about this episode is that the Doctor basically tells the two lads to join UNIT. Even in the classic series Doctor Who has always been wildly inconsistent about the Doctor's stance towards the military and soldiers, and I don't think it's ever going to get any better. It's even more wildly inconsistent than whether or not the Doctor would use a gun or kill, since we have this (which I will use any excuse to post): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNuHV-iLBRw
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Nov 22, 2014 18:14
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Honestly if there's one thing to take from all this? Doctors 9 and 10 are PUSSIES compared to the older Doctors. gently caress YEAH BASH SKULLS IN WITH SHOVELS AND MURDER THE WITNESSES 
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Nov 22, 2014 18:41
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Burkion posted:Honestly if there's one thing to take from all this? He does spend some time moping about the things he had to do in the Time War. It's not necessarily bad characterization for a guy who saw the horrors of war up close to try to become a pacifist.
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Nov 22, 2014 19:09
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mind the walrus posted:Even in the classic series Doctor Who has always been wildly inconsistent about the Doctor's stance towards the military and soldiers, and I don't think it's ever going to get any better. It's even more wildly inconsistent than whether or not the Doctor would use a gun or kill, since we have this (which I will use any excuse to post): I watch this one and the other one every time they are posted and I never regret it
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Nov 22, 2014 19:30
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I really need to watch more Pertwee.
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Nov 22, 2014 19:31
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Nov 22, 2014 19:38
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i'm just gonna assume this is the review and it's an a
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Nov 22, 2014 19:39
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Doctor Who "Planet of the Dead" Series 4, Episode 15 Before I review "Planet of the Dead", let's talk television production. Some information, for those of you unaware of how television is made, from the writing end (at least in America): Several months before a season of television is set to film, the showrunner(s) and the writing staff all meet up to hash out what the season of television they are writing will be- this is called "breaking" the season. The showrunner will detail what he or she wants the metanarrative (if the show is serialized) to be, what the larger thematic "points" of the season will be, what he or she imagines the finale to be, and usually- at least, if the showrunner has a good writing staff -the writing staff will raise their objections to the showrunner's ideas (for example: "I don't think that ending the season having it turned out to all be K-9's dream is a good idea, Rusty.") or provide solutions to hanging plot points (for example: "If we want it to turn out that Jack is the Face of Boe we should have the Face of Boe return frequently throughout the season so the character is fresh in the audience's mind, Rusty."). After detailing the broad "arc" of the season (again, if the show is serialized), the showrunner and his or her writing staff then break the season down into specific parts- episodically, in other words. They detail when, and in what episodes, specific characters are introduced, the mini-narratives (aka the episodic narratives) that occur within these specific episodes, and how they all tie back to the greater narrative or thematic point of the season. Eventually, they get detailed enough that a loose framework for, well, for every episode of the season has developed- all acts for every episode, what major and minor characters are introduced within each episode, the setting- everything. Timeline-wise, by the time the writing pool is done "breaking the season", it has been a couple of months since they started. It's at this point that the showrunner starts assigning scripts, credited writers for each episode of television. At this time filming is set to swing into full production in about a month or so, so the showrunner assigns scripts sequentially- barring an episode that requires heavy pre- or post-production work (a special effects heavy episode, an animated episode), episodes are filmed based chronologically on their airing order- the first one first, the second one second, etc. This is for two reasons: it makes the most sense logically, and on most shows they air the season while they're still producing episodes (either filming or editing) so a tv show needs "lead time", an episode buffer of sorts, on wherever the airing season is at currently. So, for a television show most writers have maybe a couple of weeks, at the most, to write a script: They need to turn the script in early for editing work, most scripts are thrown back into the room for extra time with the other writers, and that's not even taking into account that the script has to be ready in some stage for the actors to be able to read through it a couple of days before filming starts. There's no time for anything in television production. If you work on a half-hour program, you're given roughly a week to write a 30 page script (which will be cut down to 21 pages if it's network, 22-25 or so if it's cable). Most of the people reading this aren't writers, especially screenwriters, so trust me when I say that writing a 30 page script, with a clear 3 act structure, with an arc and jokes and characters that are introduced and dimensionalized, and stage directions and setting descriptions, all within a half-hour? It's hard. Writing it within a week is almost impossible, hence why scripts are edited even as they're being filmed- new lines are literally being sent down on shoot days. For an hour-long, which needs at least a 45 page script, up to 60 pages if it's premium cable? It's even more difficult. Writers work intensely long hours, behind the scenes, and routinely will nearly kill themselves trying to hash out a script- because it's impossible to rush creativity, yet they have to to keep on schedule, and the biggest enemy to all of this is time. If you are watching a show, and you see a lovely episode, like 90% of the time the people who wrote that episode knew it was lovely coming out of the door- the story editors knew it was lovely, the writer knew it was lovely, and the showrunner especially knew it was lovely -but they couldn't do anything about it because they had no loving time. The network and/or the studio demanded another script, so another script they gave- even if they knew it was sub-par. The point I'm trying to make is that writers routinely will turn in bad scripts, that get signed off by everyone above them, simply because as soon as that script is done and turned in they're frantically working on another script because television production is an insane pressure cooker for writers- having to write 12 scripts in 3 months, minimum, is no loving joke. So it's with all that said that "Planet of the Dead" is so infuriatingly, so monstrously, so terribly and horrifically bad. This is the second of five episodes Rusty produced in the "Year of Specials", and this episode premiered on Easter 2009. Like...there's no excuse for a script this loving slipshod, a script this lazy and full of bloat. For the worst episodes of RTD's run previously, there's at least been some sort of logistical defense one could make- well, he was the showrunner, which meant his time was divided and he was insanely overworked as it was covering every aspect of Doctor Who's production, and even though it was absolutely terrible at least you could see some evidence that Davies had, you know, he had tried. This? There's no loving excuse for this. He's working off a five-episode "season"- okay, maybe he didn't know the number of episodes the studio would be producing at this point -so it's not like his pre-production efforts are super stressful, especially in comparison to a regular season's pre-production demands. But even beyond that, if the last episode he wrote aired in loving Christmas (which meant "The Next Doctor" had finished being written by like, the first week of December at the absolute latest), even giving him until the start of the new year off for holidays or whatever- and even, and this is really charitable, assuming that he's breaking every episode on a sequential basis because he has no idea how long the season is gonna be or how many episodes he'll produce -that means that he was given a three months to break and write one- one -episode of television. That is a lifetime in screenwriting. Except he didn't even write this episode- he loving co-wrote it, which meant that he had at least one other set of eyes working on this episode with him, Gareth Roberts. It's impossible to emphasize enough how much time, comparatively, RTD was given to write this episode of television, how many advantages he was given as a writer so rarely afforded anyone else, and conversely how completely and utterly wretched "Planet of the Dead" turned out to be. But I'm getting ahead of myself, let's detail what "Planet of the Dead" is all about, shall we? "Planet of the Dead" opens to a heist being performed by Christina (Michelle Ryan), wherein she steals a priceless Welsh (oxymoronic, I know) cup before being chased by the cops onto a bus, which she then hides out on (by bribing the driver with, no poo poo, her loving diamond earrings). The Doctor arrives soon after, psychic papers his way onto the bus, and soon after the bus gets warped through a wormhole to a sandy alien planet. And, well...that's it. You could append the sentence "And, well...that's it." to virtually every line of my summary, because so little in this episode happens. The other passengers on the bus are there, and, well...that's it. They have no purpose, beyond the almost hilariously racist magic black lady who exists solely to communicate the arc words of the Year of Specials ("They will knock four times") to Ten, and, well...that's it. The bus driver dies when he tries to run back through the wormhole because it turns out it's a Faraday cage that zaps any living matter unless they're enclosed in metal (like, say, a bus), and the bus is currently broken and buried in sand, and, well...that's it. The Doctor and Christina go out to explore the sandy planet, and, well...that's it. They get kidnapped by other marooned survivors who got their plane crashed, two fly-people form the Tritovore race, and, well...that's it. The Doctor finds out that the wormhole is the result of a race of metal creatures who go so fast they open rifts in space time, who consume planets all Langoliers style, and, well...that's it. The Doctor and Christine get some magical antigravity clamps that make the fuckin' bus fly and cross back through the rift, which is then closed by UNIT (because they got called to the scene), and, well...that's it. The story's over. The worst thing about "Planet of the Dead" is how fuckin' nothing it all is. The episode is fifty loving minutes long and feels twice that, because there's approximately three scenes worth of plot- bus gets transported to alien world, The Doctor figures out the problem, bus goes back to human world -stretched out and stretched out to fill the time. It's so loving aimless, just full of long steady shots of Tennant and Michelle Ryan wandering through sand talking about nothing for minutes on loving end. The B-plot that exists, such as it is, is a real loving bore as well, just focused on UNIT Captain Magambo (Noma Dumezweni) and UNIT scientist Malcolm (Lee Evans)...uh...well...what do they do exactly? I guess Malcolm...figures out the way to close the wormhole; that's literally it, that's all there is. In comparison to other bad episodes of television, at least episodes like "Journey of the Damned" et al were evidence that RTD was at least trying. Like despite them being horrifically bad, borderline offensive episodes of television there was an element effort present that is just non-existent here, in "Planet of the Dead". This is the second episode in the row where it really does feel like RTD completely phoned it in, and it far more egregious here; "The Next Doctor" was RTD recycling a bunch of ideas and forming them into a loose, somewhat incoherent narrative, but at least there were ideas in "The Next Doctor", even if they were all recycled. This episode has nothing, it is nothing. "Planet of the Dead" is RTD taking "Midnight", an episode I still don't like much if at all, and just redoing it, as even The Doctor himself notes in the beginning- "I need to stop taking buses". But where Midnight was a genuinely tense, tonal piece, "Planet of the Dead" is...it's nothing! Nothing loving happens! The other bus passengers are completely unnecessary and all vaguely annoying and completely uncharacterized! There's nothing here! The Doctor immediately abandons the other bus passengers solely to trek, ineffectually, through the sand with Christina by his side, and it honestly makes me wonder why these other people were even written into the episode. They have no effect on the episode in any way, whether narratively or emotionally. Oh, and Christina. Let's talk about her. In a run where Astrid was a Companion, Mickey was a Companion, where Rose was a Companion, Christina is the stand-out worst Companion that RTD has written. She's not-Rose- and somehow, just as if not more irritating; instead of Rose being obsessed with The Doctor and mooning over him constantly, while being variously (in)competent, we instead get this super cool and awesome Original Character Do Not Steal lady thief who's totally self-assured and amazing who's obsessed with The Doctor and constantly, smugly correcting him. Christina immediately irritates- from the beginning, her interactions with The Doctor have this unbearably smug undercurrent and she utterly dominates the story in a way that feels completely narratively unearned. She's barely even a character- she's a smirk with tits, and the fact that everything about her life is absolutely perfect makes her grate more and more on the audience as the episode progresses. Oh, it turns out she's a Lady?! And she's a thief just because she's bored with life? Oh, swell. Just...just swell. So she's literally Lara loving Croft. The Companion of this episode is a loving video game character, except even less explored and dimensionalized. This is such a great episode of television. And her interactions with The Doctor are just so, so unbearable. Donna called The Doctor on his poo poo to rein him in, to prevent him from being too much of himself at any given time. Christina calls The Doctor on his poo poo for seemingly no other reason than to show how smart and clever she is; she's that annoying pedant friend of a friend at every party, the one who has to butt in to every conversation to patronizingly correct everyone else's grammar or knowledge on a given subject for no other reason than to show off. Except she's a Companion and the entire episode is built around proving her right, so while The Doctor tries to figure out how to get the clamps for the bus she oh-so-cooly just rappels down with her cat burglar gear because The Doctor is so flustered, huh guys?! She's loving intolerable at literally every moment throughout the episode, because just like Rose we're supposed to buy how great she is, except even in Rose's case there was an implication of human flaws. Christina is just flawless and great and amazing and clever and swell from the jump, and she's this constant, overwhelming annoyance because she can't stop rubbing in the audience's face how incredible she is. The other characters are really no better; the other bus passengers aren't characters, at all, despite the again hilariously racist magical black lady who serves literally no purpose in the episode outside of the very end, and both the UNIT Captain and Malcolm are unbearably irritating- Malcolm from being too much of a terrible comic relief nerdy scientist, and the Captain from having the personality of a houseplant on top of being every stereotypical military character in every television show ever. The plot is bad, the acting is bad- nobody brings their A-game, not even Tennant, and many bring their F-game- Lee Evans, in particular, is just unbearable as Malcolm -and the writing is pretty bad, but all that is drowned out by the real sense that RTD didn't give a single gently caress at any point of writing this episode. The rear end in a top hat was given three loving months to write (not just write, but co-write) one loving episode of television, and this is the half-assed bullshit he turns in? With its conceit stolen from an episode he already did, and its villains a retread of an alien which in and of itself was a straight-up copy-paste of another writer's (Stephen King's) work? But even that is not as straight up offensive as the mere fact that RTD so clearly phoned in everything outside of the setup for the episode, because so little loving happens. RTD just wastes the audience's time for a goddamn hour, and he didn't even have the loving consideration to realize how much nothing there is throughout, with the annoying as gently caress Companion or the terrible, virtually non-existent B-plot or how so much of the episode is watching The Doctor and Christina trudging through sand dunes, and cut this poo poo down to a relatively tight 45 minutes. Seriously, what the gently caress Davies, you had three goddamn months to figure something out, and this is what you give us? A bunch of loving nothing happening? Well, if you don't give a gently caress about this show any more, which you clearly don't, why should we? gently caress you, dude. loving uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuugh. Grade: F Random Thoughts:
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Nov 22, 2014 21:48
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Agreed on every single point, you basically just took my thoughts and feelings on this episode and expressed them exactly. It's terrible, it's boring, Lady Christina is a loving awful character (yes she IS the worst companion of RTD's run and it isn't even close), the "comedy" is unbearably bad, and it is inexcusably sloppy writing from RTD given how much time he had. The worst part, the WORST part is the ending. The Doctor gifting Christina a flying bus so she can escape her utterly justified incarceration and continue on her life of stealing enormously important historical artifacts purely for her own amusement is the most baffling, infuriating and rage-inducing moment of an utterly dreadful episode. Was I supposed to cheer for this? Was I supposed to buy into that bullshit equating of Christina's chosen life against the Doctor's? Was I supposed to laugh at the impotent cop who was daring to try and do his job and was completely in the right both legally and morally? But man the writing is bad in this, even putting aside the awful one-note characters, racism, and empty recycling of a hollowed out version of the superior Midnight - RTD can't even keep straight the little flourishes he tries to put on the story. Like Christina declaring leadership of the group and the Doctor going along with it (seeming bemused by the idea of a simple human doing so) only for Christian to immediately stop doing anything the moment she declares leadership and just following the Doctor's lead from that point on. Ugh. It's just awful. Edit: Also you graded it too high. 
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Nov 22, 2014 22:05
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I'm not fond of the gentleman/lady thief archetype.
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Nov 22, 2014 22:06
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Oh hey, I'd have actually guessed the right grade for this one. What a terrible episode. e: oh, apparently this is where they switched to HD
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Nov 22, 2014 22:08
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This episode was so boring, so bland, so no-there-there, that at the end the thing that annoyed me the most was the gold cup looked more like cheap bronze. Come on, prop guys. Gold. It's gold. Perfect excuse to go all out with the shiny and this is what you come up with? Something that looks like a cheap carnival prize left in the basement for twenty years? You know gold doesn't tarnish, right? Wipe the dust off and it's BLING! In other words, this episode was so lame, the stupid cup was the only thing my brain found to latch onto. And that's pathetic.
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Nov 22, 2014 22:22
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