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Toxxupation posted:Doctor Who Completely agree. I knew you'd come through with a sane opinion.
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Apr 20, 2015 14:50
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Man, I've stopped caring about how inconsistent the grading is and am just beginning to enjoy it. Where do you go from the two episodes referenced in "a strong return to form after a weak mid-season finale" getting the same grade? Next episode I remember as being pretty blah, but also one of the better Gatiss efforts. We'll see.
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Apr 20, 2015 14:55
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I always say Let's Kill Hitler as Moffat wishing he hadn't left with a cliffhanger about Amy and Rory's baby, taking months to try to figure out what to do, coming up with a flimsy "resolution", tried to get through it as quickly as possible, while distracting us with, "Hey look, it's the Doctor and Hitler! Look over here!" It's a fun, crazy episode with some severe problems. I don't mind it, but I also don't entirely understand it. Also, I still love Moffat.
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Apr 20, 2015 15:14
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That whole River is Mels/Melody reveal was just so soapy. I hated it then, I still hate it today, and I'm someone who still likes River as a character. Creepy dolls was a nice solid episode, that kind of suffers from its location in the season, coming right after such an arc heavy episode.
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Apr 20, 2015 15:32
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MikeJF posted:Speaking of Minisodes and River, here's a little miniseries you're up to! This one has Strax in it and therefore is the best one.
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Apr 20, 2015 15:33
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Creepy Dolls episode really feels like RTD-as-done-by-Moffat.
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Apr 20, 2015 15:33
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I don't think I've seen Creepy Dolls since it aired. I remember it being okay, if not one of Gatiss' stronger efforts.
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Apr 20, 2015 16:00
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Nikki and Paolo were great on Lost and their episode was one of the highlights of the show.
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Apr 20, 2015 16:32
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You gave LKH a B. He gave LKH a B. He gave---  Occ, I think you've officially lost it, but then again, Rory punches out Hitler, so, that's really all we need.
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Apr 20, 2015 16:33
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MikeJF posted:Speaking of Minisodes and River, here's a little miniseries you're up to! Aren't the first four from the end of season 6? I'm pretty certain they relate to events from the season finale.
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Apr 20, 2015 16:37
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Mels aside, I couldn't get past the fact that they went with a plot about killing the Doctor in a season where the central mystery is about killing the Doctor. Everyone's already wondering how he's going to survive Lake Silencio, and the answer likely isn't "getting poisoned earlier in his timeline". It robbed a lot of the drama from the episode.
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Apr 20, 2015 17:00
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Plus for long-term fans wondering about regeneration continuity bullshit was a nightmare back in SA threads as the episode first aired.
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Apr 20, 2015 17:03
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Organza Quiz posted:Aren't the first four from the end of season 6? I'm pretty certain they relate to events from the season finale. They're... listed in the list as happening now. Shall I pull them?
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Apr 20, 2015 17:09
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Mortanis posted:Mels aside, I couldn't get past the fact that they went with a plot about killing the Doctor in a season where the central mystery is about killing the Doctor. Everyone's already wondering how he's going to survive Lake Silencio, and the answer likely isn't "getting poisoned earlier in his timeline". It robbed a lot of the drama from the episode. One minor thing that bugged me about Let's Kill Hitler was that there were a bunch of secondary explanations for stuff. Like, River got her name from the mistranslation on Amy's prayer leaf but here she seems to pick up the name from people calling her River Song and she goes "who's River Song" and it turns out to be her. Also giving the Doctor her regenerations felt like a retcon for how she didn't just regenerate in the Library, but that didn't need to be retconned because it was established at the time that the Doctor wouldn't have been able to regenerate from it either. Full disclosure, I watched this episode exactly once, when it aired, so I might not be remembering exactly how it went down. quote:They're... listed in the list as happening now. Shall I pull them?  EDIT: I selflessly threw myself into the path of spoilers to watch these and Bad/Good can totally be watched right now, First/Last might be better left for after the finale. No spoilers, but they sort of feel better there imo. Also from the related links: Rain Gods comes later in the series but is entirely self contained, so may as well be watched with the others above. It's literally just a Doctor/River mini-adventure. There's another one called "Up All Night" that's set right before the penultimate episode. Why are there so many of these???? 2house2fly fucked around with this message at 19:26 on Apr 20, 2015 |
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Apr 20, 2015 17:30
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2house2fly posted:Rain Gods comes later in the series but is entirely self contained, so may as well be watched with the others above. It's literally just a Doctor/River mini-adventure. There's another one called "Up All Night" that's set right before the penultimate episode. Why are there so many of these???? I'd guess they're a fun way to flesh out the story and characters, and are way way way cheaper than filming an episode that has to have a whole plot with climax and effects and all that jazz. I think somebody brought it up in one of the threads before actually with more specific info, but I have no idea when that was. 
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Apr 21, 2015 04:51
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They're also DVD purchase incentives.
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Apr 21, 2015 08:30
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Another rubbish thing about LKH: "Regeneration disabled." Made it sound like the poison had somehow flicked a switch in his brain marked 'regeneration' to OFF or something equally dumb.
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Apr 21, 2015 11:57
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That does remind me of Matt Smith's double-take when the image of Rose appeared though, and how disgruntled he was to see her  
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Apr 21, 2015 13:18
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What's important is that he hates Mels and has hit on the exact reason why she is so terrible (the Lost comparison is spot on). I disagree that the second half is strong enough to make up for it (it's okay, but it still has a little too much of River basically playing Mels), and I definitely think it is a flaw in the writing. You can be as good of a writer as you want, and if you're writing six of thirteen episodes in a season, as well as doing the showrunner stuff, something has to give. Good writers can write absolutely horrible things when they're pressed for time and have deadlines.
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Apr 21, 2015 15:15
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Doctor Who "Night Terrors" Series 6, Episode 9 There's a common sentiment in internet television fandoms to discount, discredit, or otherwise ignore the more texturally plain and simplistic episodes of a program. Every episode has to have things happen, has to continue or set forth an overarcing and/or serialized narrative, has to be full of bombast and vigor and major plot events. It makes sense; people enjoy forward movement and momentum, and very rarely do single-episode setpieces, in the grand scheme of things, mean much to the overall narrative delivered. More specifically in TVIV, however, there's a demonization and outright rejection of episodic narratives; the word "procedural" is spoken of in disgusted terms, as if a contained narrative is definitionally useless. Every story needs to be serial, every episode part of some grander whole, complex and heart-rending and insane- if TVIV had their way, every season of every TV show would be an unending parade of emotional and narrative peaks, ignoring the fact that those peaks only exist because of flat spaces and even valleys before and after. For a season of television to work, there needs to be release valves; shows simply cannot function running at 100% all the time. I just finished watching Netflix's Daredevil, an overall quite-decent-to-approaching-great show, and that's one of my main issues with the show: It would approach every episode with everything on the verge of falling completely to pieces, with Matt Murdock and Fisk and everyone else in constant danger of being discovered, beaten, or killed. It was able to establish the dark, desperate atmosphere the show was going for, but it also made the show too tense (and yes, that can happen). It became a stressful, exhausting show to even watch because there weren't any moments of respite; I ended up shelving the last three episodes of the season for almost a week due to Daredevil's overwhelming oppressiveness. Making a show too bombastic also diminishes the importance of when the show needs to hit a critical note, when it builds to a singular, "pin drop" moment of the season. If that single, season-defining sequence is surrounded by a bunch of similar scenes that the show also demanded I take just as seriously, then that moment becomes one among many as opposed to a standout. For example, let's again use Daredevil. To me, the unequivocal best episode of the season- and the only episode that I would assess as flawless in its aims, execution, and thematic coherence -is episode 108, "Shadows in the Glass". It's also an episode with incredibly low narrative stakes, that works as a very welcome respite from the overwhelming sense of disaster and constant fears that everything would explode. Most importantly, however, and most relevant to "Night Terrors", "Shadows in the Glass" is an almost entirely self-contained narrative, with only bare mention of the overarcing serialized plot for the first season of Daredevil, deciding instead to delve into series villain Wilson Fisk's backstory for surprising emotional and thematic dividends. That's the point, though, right, Daredevil is at its best when it divorces itself from its own, still fairly strong, overarcing narrative and instead focus on an episodic story that dealt more with explaining and humanizing a single character. And in much the same way "Night Terrors", in focusing its story to be a procedural, episodic episode of Who after an intensely arc-heavy preceding two episodes ends up being one of the strongest episodes of Series Six, and the one that's the least flawed. "Night Terrors" is really great because it's a throwback, and a stark reminder after all the Melody troubles and focus on the failures of The Doctor in the episodes preceding, whether earned or not, that The Doctor is still a fundamentally Good Guy Who Does Good Things. It's a reinforcement of the general, unfailing optimism that Doctor Who as a television program singularly possesses.It's also, as someone has already mentioned- but I came up with fully independently, I swear -basically "Fear Her" done right. Incidentally, it turns out that "Fear Her", which I must remind you is merely mediocre over outright bad and is in no way deserving of the hate it receives, was structurally sound with a good conceit. It's the execution, whether that being the acting, dialog, general plot progression- or lack of it, in "Fear Her"'s case -or underlying themes ("Fear Her" does say some really gross poo poo about child abuse) that kill it. But as the foundation for an episode "Fear Her"'s structure works, in dealing with a relatively blameless alien child who reacts strongly to some outside influence which then causes the conceit of the episode, which "Night Terrors" proves out. "Terrors"'s place in the season is part of what makes it as effective as it is; after two such extremely arc-heavy episodes as "A Good Man Goes to War" and "Let's Kill Hitler" "Night Terrors" is such a relatively relaxed change of pace that it comes across as a relief, a way to drain excess tension from a season just chock-full of it, a way to keep the season from getting too serious when it's already been so dire. A light of hope, in other words. "Terrors", when compared directly to "Fear Her", illustrates most starkly its strengths. Although the child actor is still bad here- Jamie Oram as George most certainly does not put in an Emmy-caliber performance -the episode has the good sense to take the focus away from him immediately, so the episode turns to focus more on his father Alex (Daniel Mays) Alex goes through a neat little emotional arc throughout the episode that grounds it, on top of being an interesting and well-acted character- the sort of concerned and worried, if somewhat nebbish father in "Terrors" plays far better here than the selfish rear end in a top hat mother who allowed her kid to get abused did in "Fear". It also helps that "Terrors" decides to split Rory and Amy off from The Doctor almost immediately- although usually speaking the show is at its strongest when the trio is together Amy and Rory's little B-plot is strong and, frankly, terrifying, with the creepy designs on the doll-humans giving the episode its suitably sinister edge. The moments of genuine creepiness and fear keep the episode from getting too placid and dull- another failure of "Fear Her", where so very little happens for so much of its runtime, and what little that does happen is stupid over scary. Splitting Amy and Rory off from the narrative early on also allows The Doctor and Alex to bond over the course of the episode in a way they couldn't if Amy and Rory were hanging around in the background, which is important since so much of the episode's climax and emotional weight is focused around Alex and his relationship with his revealed-to-be-alien-adopted-child George. It's a simplistic moral- love your kids, no matter where they come from or who they are -well told, that works because the episode spends so long focusing and dimensionalizing Alex as a person that the payoff lands, and lands hard. Also I thought the shot of Alex crying while hugging George was SUPER emotionally affecting and earned so gently caress off, this episode was great. But even beyond its specific emotional climax there's really nothing wrong I can say about this episode- the minor characters were all interesting for the brief moments they were onscreen, with Andrew Tiernan as the landlord a specific standout for playing slimy so utterly well. The dialog was cracking when it needed to be and the acting was all there. Most intriguingly, and in direct contrast to "Fear Her", the plot progression of "Night Terrors" was on point, with the underlying question of what, exactly, was going on in the apartment complex kept in the forefront, with the twist reveal of George as an alien child who was able to externalize and make real his fears built to and foreshadowed within the episode at large. It's all really just well-done on every level. To me, objectively speaking, this episode is an easy A- the episode is more-or-less perfectly constructed, with no scenes or sequences that drag, anchored with excellent dialog and acting, with an earned, clever, and emotional (if you're into that sort of thing) climax. So it puzzles me to see people label it as "bad". Not liking it, that I get, because that's a subjective reaction; but there's nothing about this episode that's bad. It's finely crafted if homespun; the only conclusion I can draw is that people are conflating the episode they want with the episode as it is, because the quality is so clearly evident if workhorse that I can't really say anything bad about it. I mean, seriously, I watched this episode again (not because I especially wanted to- although it was still just as entertaining the second time around -but to try and see why people thought it sucked or whatever) and it completely accomplishes its aims, with no real criticisms to speak of- no parts that drag, no bum notes or lines of dialog, a scary and affecting antagonist, a strong plot progression with two distinct and intersecting plot lines....I could go on. It's a pleasant if overall inconsequential thing, a procedural, light episode after a bunch of heavy, dark serialization, and that breath of relief "Night Terrors" grants the viewer is an important thing to the pacing of the season as a whole. A great if immaterial episode of classic Who. Grade: A Random Thoughts:
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Apr 22, 2015 06:45
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I thought this episode was boring. Not "turn it off and do something else with my time" or even "thumb through my phone with it on in the background" boring, but I couldn't take it seriously. I get what you're saying about it being a solid episode, but it feels like Typical Doctor Who Crap. A very run of the mill episode. And I think you're giving it a little too much praise for simply being the right thing at the right time in the episode order. Like your mandatory dalek episode, it's a workhorse going through it's paces. It certainly isn't any The Doctor Dances, and it doesn't seem like the kind of episode that makes you cry. Basically, my dear Occ, I think you've slowly eroded your standards from "a good episode of television" to "a good episode of Doctor Who."
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Apr 22, 2015 07:32
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Craptacular! posted:Basically, my dear Occ, I think you've slowly eroded your standards from "a good episode of television" to "a good episode of Doctor Who." If there was ever a time for a "gooble gobble" it's now.
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Apr 22, 2015 07:41
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I might have to rewatch this one because I don't recall a single second of it.
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Apr 22, 2015 07:43
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Tempo 119 posted:I might have to rewatch this one because I don't recall a single second of it. Every once in a while I get this urge, only to discover, upon loading up Netflix, that it was the most recently-watched episode in my queue. Upon further inspection, I discover that I'd watched it merely an hour before.
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Apr 22, 2015 07:52
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From wrong wrestling analogies to bad analogies with current hot tv, dang occ Breather episodes in Big Plot-heavy series are good and necessary, but it does not excuse them from being uninspired or being "just there". Doctor's Wife is an episode divorced from the season's plan and tone and themes and look how that turned out (or any of the pre-showrunning Moffat episodes, even the unambitious but largely flawless Girl in the Fireplace). Also Doctor Who is not nearly as Big Plot-heavy as the popular prestige dramas, being an episodic show is in its nature and no amount of wallcracks or arc words is going to change that - so it is wrong to compare an ordinary episode of the series in a Gatiss Slot to a limited character study, like that Kingpin episode, which, structurally and conceptually, shares a lot with the Faraday episode of Lost or Gus episode of Breaking Bad. I don't share the animosity to Gatiss episodes, by the way, they are mildly entertaining. fatherboxx fucked around with this message at 07:58 on Apr 22, 2015 |
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Apr 22, 2015 07:55
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This episode certainly wasn't bad, but as far as I remember, it's merely functional. My reaction to it was "that sure was an episode of Doctor Who." That doesn't mean I disliked it, I definitely liked it, but it doesn't go to the depths of horribleness, nor the heights of greatness, nor that weird place like LKH or half of RTD Who where it kind of wraps around. It'd be my textbook definition of a C episode if I were grading the series.
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Apr 22, 2015 08:02
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I like this episode too, though I did find it rather forgettable/uninspiring on a first viewing. It does everything just fine without being spectacular, but the imagery is effective, the setting is an interesting change of pace, the message and moral is a really good one and a lovely change of pace from the all too prevalent "biology trumps all" bullshit that often crops up in television programs. It's still not a great episode by any stretch of the imagination, but like Fear Her I don't get why people dislike it so much, it doesn't even have that godawful Olympic Torch bit like Fear Her does!
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Apr 22, 2015 08:28
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The most distinct thing I remember from this entire episode is the dolls turning Amy. Which I don't think anyone's actually mentioned, but I thought it was a really good way to raise the stakes and the horror. We know her, and we like her, so seeing her fall victim to them really works. Obvious comparisons for the episode are The Empty Child and Fear Her, and while I think this episode falls between the two in quality it's something that it can hold over both of them. Sure, we lose a named character in The Empty Child, but it's in the same scene in which we meet him, and we don't really know enough about him to feel anything about his loss. The Doctor does fall victim to Chloe's powers in Fear Her, but he's still managing to influence and assist in solving the problem, he's not really gone. Amy IS, once they turn her she ceases to be anything beyond another one of them, and it happens well before any solution to the problem is found.
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Apr 22, 2015 08:42
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Craptacular! posted:Basically, my dear Occ, I think you've slowly eroded your standards from "a good episode of television" to "a good episode of Doctor Who." This thread has worked out better than any of us could have possibly imagined.
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Apr 22, 2015 08:48
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Was this the episode, where the Doctor compared the alien baby to a cuckoo and expected us to sympathize with the baby? My first reaction to that would have been to kill it with fire! Cuckoos are nasty critters who murders their adoptive parents other children.
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Apr 22, 2015 09:06
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Daredevil is great though.Toxxupation posted:Incidentally, it turns out that "Fear Her", which I must remind you is merely mediocre over outright bad and is in no way deserving of the hate it receives, was structurally sound with a good conceit. Remind us all you like, it's still bollocks! Yeah the kid actor in this is bad and the dolls, to me felt a little rote as"creepy monsters", just the usual Doctor Who "basically just a person but creepy oooooh!" but overall the episode is fine. I liked the idea of this incredibly powerful being just sort of living a normal life.
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Apr 22, 2015 10:05
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I genuinely, literally remember nothing about this episode. Nothing, nada, zip, zilch, ziparoonio. Either LKH was so bad I just didn't bother watching the following week or this is really the most forgettable Who story of all time. Say what you want about 'Fear Her', at least I can actually remember it!
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Apr 22, 2015 10:33
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I liked Night Terrors. I enjoyed the Doctor playing magical social worker. To be honest I don't think the dolls were that important. Dr Who is often let down by its "MUST HAVE A MONSTER" rule. See Van Gogh, end of Ganger one
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Apr 22, 2015 10:38
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The Musthavemonster rule has screwed up good stories since the beginning remember Inferno? also I finally realize what is screwing with my expectations of Oxx' like and dislikes He started watching from the RTD era. I started watching from the Moffat era and worked my way back. I just started from a higher bar
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Apr 22, 2015 10:55
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Prison Warden posted:Daredevil is great though. Ehhhhhhhhhhhh *does seesaw motion with hands*
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Apr 22, 2015 11:09
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Prison Warden posted:Daredevil is great though. I feel like the truth is more nuanced than this, the daredevil is in the details after all.
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Apr 22, 2015 11:17
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MikeJF posted:They're... listed in the list as happening now. Shall I pull them? They happen now, and are extras in the dvds of this point.
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Apr 22, 2015 11:26
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I absolutely agree with Toxx's grade - this is one of my favourite Eleventh Doctor episodes.
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Apr 22, 2015 11:44
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DeafNote posted:The Musthavemonster rule has screwed up good stories since the beginning For me, the gold standard of this principle is the pointless monster that showed up in the otherwise amazing Caves of Androzani.  Anyway, Night Terrors...yeah, it was all right. I enjoyed it at the time, though I've never really had the occasion to go back and watch it since.
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Apr 22, 2015 11:45
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DeafNote posted:He started watching from the Ecclestone era. I started watching from the Smith era and worked my way back. Not so much.
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Apr 22, 2015 12:15
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