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I have been informed that some people are wondering if we are taking a longer-than-average break following the conclusion of series 1, which says to me that some people severely underestimate Occ's masochism. Christmas special writeups are planned to go tonight.
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Aug 18, 2014 17:19
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It'll be interesting to see what he thinks of the Christmas specials. It reminds me of something someone wrote about Dickens (I think it might have been John Irving, actually) in which people are entirely forgiving of the schmaltz and cliches in A Christmas Carol but for some reason seem to condemn him for it in his other work. Doctor Who is the reverse: all of the flaws that make the show charming for its normal audience seem somehow infuriating when they're wrapped in a Christmas ribbon. Both of this thread's reviewers are going to hate David Tennant's portrayal the most of the revival Doctors; this is virtually a guarantee.
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Aug 18, 2014 17:24
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Oxxidation posted:I have been informed that some people are wondering if we are taking a longer-than-average break following the conclusion of series 1, which says to me that some people severely underestimate Occ's masochism. Christmas special writeups are planned to go tonight. This makes me happy in a strange, sadistic way.
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Aug 18, 2014 17:27
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Basebf555 posted:I suppose its an apples to oranges comparison then. Dr. Who has never been more popular in the U.S. than it is today, and it still doesn't have half the mainstream pop culture presence that shows like 24 and Lost did in their day. Most people here regard 24 as the show that really popularized serialized television, it was the first show in a very long time that was successful at it. Doctor Who casting information is front page news on national newspapers.
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Aug 18, 2014 17:52
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In case people who were fans of my LMS thread-all like, two of you- were wondering, yeah I do plan on doing season in review write-ups, just I dunno when, it might be whenever oxx and I take an extended break ( if we keep on pace it'll be probably whenever we finish season 4, which seems like both a natural break point and timed to be roughly around the holidays, which I'll be very busy with my LMS thread and the TVIV yearly poll) Anyways yeah ~thread plans~
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Aug 18, 2014 17:56
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MrL_JaKiri posted:Doctor Who casting information is front page news on national newspapers. Wow I think that would probably piss me off if I saw that. I don't remember a show ever getting so big in the U.S. that casting rumors actually made the front page, keep that poo poo to the entertainment section.
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Aug 18, 2014 17:58
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Toxxupation posted:In case people who were fans of my LMS thread-all like, two of you- were wondering, yeah I do plan on doing season in review write-ups, just I dunno when, it might be whenever oxx and I take an extended break ( if we keep on pace it'll be probably whenever we finish season 4, which seems like both a natural break point and timed to be roughly around the holidays, which I'll be very busy with my LMS thread and the TVIV yearly poll) Might as well do the specials after season 4 before you break. If you're doing this through Netflix, for some reason they're classified as their own individual units instead of being part of the main run, but after those is when the showrunner and Doctor both change, so it's a good stopping point.
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Aug 18, 2014 18:06
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Bicyclops posted:Might as well do the specials after season 4 before you break. If you're doing this through Netflix, for some reason they're classified as their own individual units instead of being part of the main run, but after those is when the showrunner and Doctor both change, so it's a good stopping point. Cool thanks yeah, that sounds like the plan
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Aug 18, 2014 18:14
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Bicyclops posted:Might as well do the specials after season 4 before you break. If you're doing this through Netflix, for some reason they're classified as their own individual units instead of being part of the main run, but after those is when the showrunner and Doctor both change, so it's a good stopping point. This is actually no longer true. The specials in question are included in Season 4 on Netflix.
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Aug 18, 2014 18:25
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Go RV! posted:This is actually no longer true. The specials in question are included in Season 4 on Netflix. Do they have Planet of the Dead, or is that one still mysteriously excluded?
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Aug 18, 2014 18:28
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computer parts posted:Do they have Planet of the Dead, or is that one still mysteriously excluded? It's still missing for reasons unknown.
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Aug 18, 2014 18:30
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DoctorWhat posted:It's still missing for reasons unknown. Humanitarian efforts
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Aug 18, 2014 18:36
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Basebf555 posted:Wow I think that would probably piss me off if I saw that. I don't remember a show ever getting so big in the U.S. that casting rumors actually made the front page, keep that poo poo to the entertainment section. There's also a notable cultural difference. Entertainment news, sports news, and soft focus lifestyle stuff tend to wind up on the front of UK tabloids as a support story or flash pretty regularly.
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Aug 18, 2014 18:39
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Actually, Planet of the Dead, season 5's Christmas special, and the last two Matt Smith specials are on Netflix now, all in their proper seasons. For better or worse, the whole of nuWho is on Netflix.
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Aug 18, 2014 18:56
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Oh, sorry, my bad. Glad they fixed it.
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Aug 18, 2014 19:00
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Bicyclops posted:Oh, sorry, my bad. Glad they fixed it. It's all good; it was a very recent thing, last I could tell.
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Aug 18, 2014 19:11
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Regy Rusty posted:"Bad Wolf" showing up throughout the season leading to this is one of the dumbest things in the show in my opinion. It has no purpose whatsoever and isn't a remotely interesting secret or hidden thing for viewers to catch. Did someone actually think it was clever? Oh, I remember the speculation over this thing. I remembering speculating the hell out of it. I was ravenous for all of those little teasing clues, trying to connect them all up into something remotely coherent. Honestly, the very last thing I expected it to be was a boring closed timelike loop which makes no sense even in the context of omnipotent godlike spacetime powers and closed timelike loops. I was also expecting the deep booming teaser voice "THEY SURVIVED THROUGH ME" to be the Face of Boe, who was clearly (to my eyes) an overgrown Dalek secretly manipulating all events from behind the scenes. So, yeah, this was the episode where I stopped trying to predict Doctor Who.
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Aug 18, 2014 19:56
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The Bad Wolf thing is pretty silly because "Bad Wolf" is meaningless of itself, so the seeding it throughout the season thing is a false clue that doesn't actually lead anywhere. Also it's pretty silly because "one character suddenly becomes a god and wishes all the baddies out of existence" is an extremely hokey way to do justice to your stakes.
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Aug 18, 2014 21:01
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Some questions about doctor who that I hope aren't spoiler filled answers, if they are just say "spoiler" and don't answer them 1) at what point in creating season one did Davies know eccleston wasn't coming back as the doctor, and why didn't eccleston come back? Because that's my assumption for why eccleston is a one season doctor- it wasn't planned like that right? 2) has Davies ever said how the ending to parting of the ways would've changed if eccleston stayed on? 3) how was tennant cast as the tenth doctor, and how late was he cast in the production of season one? 4) at what point was Davies made aware that torch wood was gonna be a spinoff starring jack harkness? Is that why jack is the only person revived at the end of the season finale?
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Aug 18, 2014 22:35
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Toxxupation posted:Some questions about doctor who that I hope aren't spoiler filled answers, if they are just say "spoiler" and don't answer them It wasn't planned at first, I think Eccleston left mostly because of some backstage drama that soured him on the whole experience. quote:
Torchwood was the working name for Doctor Who (it's an anagram of the latter), I'm pretty sure he planned it to be a spinoff after Doctor Who turned out to be so successful.
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Aug 18, 2014 22:38
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Toxxupation posted:Some questions about doctor who that I hope aren't spoiler filled answers, if they are just say "spoiler" and don't answer them 1) We don't know. There was doubt as to whether the show itself would last more than one season. 2) No. 3) He was a big Doctor Who fan with ties to Big Finish, an up-and-coming young actor. We don't know when he was cast, AFAIK, 4) Torchwood Series 1 didn't enter production until some time into Series 2 of the main series. "Torchwood" was originally an anagram of "Doctor Who" used to keep early tapes and materials secure in transportation.
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Aug 18, 2014 22:39
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DoctorWhat posted:3) He was a big Doctor Who fan with ties to Big Finish, an up-and-coming young actor. We don't know when he was cast, AFAIK, Tennant had also worked with Davies before in a BBC miniseries version of Casanova; I think it was rumored that Tennant was already up for the role the first time around before bringing on Eccleston, but I could be wrong.
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Aug 18, 2014 23:03
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With regards to 1, I had always heard that one of the directors (I think it was the guy who did the Slitheen 2 parter) was pretty terrible to cast and crew. He pissed off Eccelstein who went to RTD and RTD wouldn't/couldn't do anything about it, and that soured Eccelstein to the whole thing.
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Aug 19, 2014 00:19
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Illuen posted:With regards to 1, I had always heard that one of the directors (I think it was the guy who did the Slitheen 2 parter) was pretty terrible to cast and crew. He pissed off Eccelstein who went to RTD and RTD wouldn't/couldn't do anything about it, and that soured Eccelstein to the whole thing. Yeah, Keith Boak. He was also the director on Rose and was responsible for elevating to the grotesque heights much of the crude humor (farts, mostly) in those stories.
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Aug 19, 2014 00:22
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Eccleston's official reason for leaving was that he "didn't want to be typecast". He'd already done an amazing mini-series with Russell T Davies (The Second Coming) and supposedly had a good working relationship with him from that. That said, along with Paul McGann, he's an actor who much prefers Theatre work over doing TV and movies, and so I think has said that he's quite happy to take terrible roles in bad movies for lots of money if it means he can do interesting stage work for the rest of the year.
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Aug 19, 2014 00:31
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Eccleston has said publicly he was not a fan of some of the production stuff from season 1, although he has never elaborated or gotten more specific than that. He doesn't hate Doctor Who, but he doesn't seem to like discussing it much anymore. I'm sure they would have kept him on, because the prospect of casting a new person to play the lead is difficult enough when you aren't in the midst of reviving a long-dead program. And yeah, Tennant was a huge fan who basically got into acting because of Doctor Who, had been working on the radio dramas as a few characters for awhile, and had worked with RTD before. He got to live out his childhood dream and play the Doctor (and, hilariously, married the daughter of the person who played the Fifth Doctor, thus both becoming his hero and getting his father in law as his hero at once). I'm pretty sure Captain Jack was brought back to life purely because he was so popular, they wanted to be able to bring him back if they wanted, but who knows?
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Aug 19, 2014 00:31
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One Swell Foop posted:Eccleston's official reason for leaving was that he "didn't want to be typecast". He'd already done an amazing mini-series with Russell T Davies (The Second Coming) and supposedly had a good working relationship with him from that. That said, along with Paul McGann, he's an actor who much prefers Theatre work over doing TV and movies, and so I think has said that he's quite happy to take terrible roles in bad movies for lots of money if it means he can do interesting stage work for the rest of the year. David Tennant's tramp-steamer of a career has a lot of theatre roles in it, too. Maybe it's a British thing.
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Aug 19, 2014 00:37
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Oxxidation posted:David Tennant's tramp-steamer of a career has a lot of theatre roles in it, too. Maybe it's a British thing.
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Aug 19, 2014 00:41
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qntm posted:Oh, I remember the speculation over this thing. I remembering speculating the hell out of it. I was ravenous for all of those little teasing clues, trying to connect them all up into something remotely coherent. Honestly, the very last thing I expected it to be was a boring closed timelike loop which makes no sense even in the context of omnipotent godlike spacetime powers and closed timelike loops. I was also expecting the deep booming teaser voice "THEY SURVIVED THROUGH ME" to be the Face of Boe, who was clearly (to my eyes) an overgrown Dalek secretly manipulating all events from behind the scenes. So, yeah, this was the episode where I stopped trying to predict Doctor Who. I'm pretty sure we covered about every line of speculation possible. I was expecting it to be an overgrown Adam from the Dalek / Long Game episodes. He was imbued with future technology and had been in contact with a Dalek, and had a weird forehead thing reminiscent of a Dalek eye stalk, or the similar prosthetic eye seen on the Daleks' creator Davros in the original series. He would be the progenitor of the new Daleks. It would fit in with the theme of the Doctor's careless actions having unexpected bad consequences. I was wrong but I still think it would have been plausible. Agreed on "Bad Wolf" being unsatisfactory without any reason why that phrase in particular should be meaningful. You could replace it with any other mysterious phrase and the series would work just as well (or badly).
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Aug 19, 2014 00:47
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One Swell Foop posted:Eccleston's official reason for leaving was that he "didn't want to be typecast". He'd already done an amazing mini-series with Russell T Davies (The Second Coming) and supposedly had a good working relationship with him from that. That said, along with Paul McGann, he's an actor who much prefers Theatre work over doing TV and movies, and so I think has said that he's quite happy to take terrible roles in bad movies for lots of money if it means he can do interesting stage work for the rest of the year. That was actually the reason the BBC offered for him and he explicitly had to come out and say that it was actually because of poo poo that happened that pissed him off and he never said anything about typecasting to anyone, but wouldn't really elaborate further. It reminds me of when I was moving out of an old apartment and they asked me why I was leaving. I gave them my top 3 things I hated about the place (mainly centered around a bad office staff), and they wrote down "didn't like the neighborhood".
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Aug 19, 2014 01:24
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Bicyclops posted:I'm pretty sure Captain Jack was brought back to life purely because he was so popular, they wanted to be able to bring him back if they wanted, but who knows? Considering that episode was filmed well before Jack premiered on television, I doubt that was it.
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Aug 19, 2014 01:39
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Doctor Who "Born Again/The Christmas Invasion" Series 2, Episode 0 There's something you have to know about me: I love dumb poo poo. I mean, I really, I absolutely and completely adore dumb poo poo. Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance is one of my (and Oxx's) favorite videogames; it is an insane, stupid, absolutely nonsense game that begins with you cutting a 500-foot-long walking tank in half as the cheesiest buttrock ever conceived blasts in the background. It is absurd, and it knows it; and I love it because it is so absurd. There is a craft in making things that are dumb, awesome. It takes skill to make something so insane and so over the top, it takes actual knowledge and appreciation to be able to turn off someone's more critical, more intellectual part of their brain as you instead blast pure ludicrousness in its place. This episode is that, that knowing, clever idiocy and it is absolutely and completely incredible as a result. This...this is RTD at his absolute, unparalleled best, he crafted a real banger of a script that moves at 110% almost the entire time, and was...great. I loved this episode. This is not a good episode of television, but I loved this episode. I LOVED THIS EPISODE! There's just so much of it that's great! The Tenth Doctor (David Tennant) and Rose crash-land in modern London, literally having the TARDIS bang into nearby buildings as it wildly descends. From the first shot we see of the two mains in their phone-box spaceship, the episode makes a loud statement: This show is very, very silly. And it only gets sillier as it goes on, and it's kind of incredible. The Doctor is mysteriously ill (the aftereffects of absorbing Rose's TARDIS energy or whatever) and is essentially in a coma, so about half of the episode is spent with Rose interacting with Mickey/Jackie. Now, normally, this would be a massive bummer, but for once the script actually kinda services Rose as a character, and she actually has a fairly good arc- actually, just has an arc in general, really -dealing with her coming to grips with The Tenth Doctor appearance-wise. It's nice that they address that Ten looks completely different and having Rose try to understand that The Ninth Doctor she knew is both dead and still alive, and having her come to grips with the pathos and grief of losing someone, while at the same time trying to comprehend that the lost person still exists in some form, is some dramatically rich stuff. And, for once, having The Doctor be out of commission for so much of the episode means that Rose actually does have to rely on herself for most of it, culminating in her quiet declaration when confronting the Sycorax of "Someone's gotta be The Doctor." A rare moment of reflection and self-reliance assisted by Billie Piper's genuinely good acting makes for an actually good Rose story, an arguable first for the series. But gently caress that poo poo, none of it matters. Evil Santas with rocket launcher trumpets invade! Then a Christmas tree tries to kill the main characters! Then the Sycorax, the true Big Bads of the episode, invade! And The Doctor gets revived via loving TEA! And then The Doctor swordfights the loving Sycorax leader on top of their ship! And then Harriet Jones BLOWS UP THE SYCORAX SHIP WITH A loving SUPER LASER! THIS EPISODE loving RULES! YES! YES! YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS! This, this is what I mean when I say I love dumb poo poo. There's a part in the middle where the Sycorax are mind-controlling one-third of the world's population, causing them to stand on the edge of tall buildings, threatening to order their immediate suicides if the world doesn't immediately surrender (and get subsequently enslaved) to the Sycorax that just doesn't work, because it tonally tries to be depressing and starkly disturbing in a way that just doesn't work, but beyond that...absolutely absurd, all of the time. And I can appreciate and adore that, because I know exactly what I am getting and just the same way I can pump my fist at cutting a Metal fuckin' Gear Ray in half as "Rules of Nature" hits its crescendo, I can pump my fist at The Doctor sword-fighting the loving Sycorax leader on his own ship. I'm just gonna say it now, this might be premature...but David Tennant is a better Doctor than Christopher Eccleston. Wait, wait, wait...Let me explain. Christopher Eccleston, no doubt, is a much, much better actor than David Tennant. Eccleston is able to display a wide range of subtle emotion, of illustrating the haunted pathos of a mentally wounded veteran, one who committed genocide. Eccleston is so able to create The Doctor as a conflicted hero, one with deep, abiding issues, one that we can sympathize and understand with. And see, that's the problem. The problem is Eccleston was elevating the material of a show that did not, in any way, want to be a deep character study. I would frequently, after seeing an episode I hated like "Aliens of London" and especially "Boom Town" complain to Oxxidation over gchat, where I'd go "Well, Eccleston was great, so maybe I shouldn't give this an F. Why don't they just focus on Eccleston?" And he would insist that Doctor Who was not that show. See, Eccleston was elevating the material and creating pathos when there wasn't really any on the page, with his line delivery and character subtleties. And because he was, I was expecting the show to be like that, and because of it, was more and more disappointed when it wasn't like that. I was angry because Eccleston had created an expectation, in my head, of a show that Doctor Who never wanted to be- a better show, a more nuanced show. Tennant, especially in contrast, is just loving absurd. He is loud, he is manic, he is talking all the time, and he is incredibly broad. And because of it he's a much better Doctor- because The Doctor isn't some wounded war vet masking a deep pain, he's an absurd alien shouty man who sword fights with Sycorax leaders on the roof of their loving ship HOLY gently caress GUYS THAT WAS SO RAD. The Doctor is a 60's scifi hero, tossing off one-liners and being a ridiculous, insane hero who does insane loving poo poo all the loving time, and David Tennant is that hero. And it rules, because The Tenth Doctor is so much more on tone with exactly the show RTD wants to make. I finally, I truly understand what Oxxidation had been warning me about all along- and I love it. The stupidity, the absolute absurdity wouldn't land if the script didn't support it, and with an actor who plays The Doctor to the hilt- David Tennant really deserves props for how eager and committed he is to the role -Russell T. Davies crafts a script heavy on the one-liners and light, bouncy overall mood. I mean, come on, who wouldn't cheer on a guy who says this: The Doctor: "When you go back to the stars and tell others of this planet...When you tell them of its riches, its people, its potential, when you talk of the Earth, then make sure you tell them this- IT. IS. DEFENDED." It was exactly on tone for the entire episode and totally worked- painting in big, broad, ludicrous strokes completely and utterly worked. This show finally is exactly what it wants to be- a big, stupid, amazing scifi punchy-punchy action thriller with super obvious, still effective character moments. Tennant was exactly what this show needed to be the show it wanted to be, and he is awesome, if nowhere near as good as Eccleston. This show is loving stupid. And I LOVE IT. Grade: A Random Thoughts:
NieR Occomata fucked around with this message at 03:33 on Aug 19, 2014 |
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Aug 19, 2014 03:30
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Not a word. Not a loving word. Not a loving word from any of you. The first person who mentions hubris gets an "accidental" house-fire.
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Aug 19, 2014 03:32
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The illness isn't mysterious, dude. Something like that happens whenever he regenerates. He'll have a coma or suffer amnesia or become temporarily psychotic. It's a great opportunity to introduce comedy or remove him from most of the action while the writers figure him out more or just have him choke someone.
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Aug 19, 2014 03:34
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30.5 Days posted:That was actually the reason the BBC offered for him They actually ran the "typecast" press release, including a quote from Eccleston, without ever running it by him. The BBC had to issue a formal apology after Eccleston and his agent raised hell. His contract was always for one season, though.
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Aug 19, 2014 03:35
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This is a great fuckin' episode and life is amazing
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Aug 19, 2014 03:42
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Ok now I'm finally ready to call it - you will definitely become some level of Doctor Who fan by the end of this journey. I totally agree with you about this episode. It's stupid and hilarious and I didn't really understand why people were implying it was bad. Mickey is truly the absolute worst. God I hate Mickey.
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Aug 19, 2014 03:43
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Toxxupation posted:Grade: A loving amazing.
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Aug 19, 2014 03:44
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Well Toxx the important thing here is that you're happy.
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Aug 19, 2014 03:45
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Regy Rusty posted:I totally agree with you about this episode. It's stupid and hilarious and I didn't really understand why people were implying it was bad. It's a Christmas Special. Almost all UK Christmas Specials are like this. They're bigger, louder, dumber and more fun because it's a light-hearted festive romp for people who have a pound of turkey and half a bottle of port down them. The ridiculous dumb fun aspect puts a lot of people off.
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Aug 19, 2014 03:47
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