|
MikeJF posted:Rose didn't give him 'energy' or anything. She just made his alive-ness a fundamental law of the universe. We're doing this? We're quibbling about the mechanism of magic immortality on Doctor Who? Really? This is why we can't have nice things. 
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2014 03:10
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 24, 2024 03:32 |
|
|
jng2058 posted:Thing is, Jack wasn't around for any of the Face of Boe episodes. I suppose Rose, Martha, or the Doctor could have mentioned the Face off-screen or something, but it seems odd that Jack would say what he did if he'd heard of it. Furthermore, it makes a certain amount of sense that after who knows how long his body would get so hosed up that he'd end up as a disembodied head. And only by giving away the energy that Bad Wolf Rose gave him to power New New York for years could he bleed it off enough to finally die. Didn't they mention the Face of Boe in front of him in Utopia and he didn't react at all?
|
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2014 03:18
|
|
|
Soothing Vapors posted:Didn't they mention the Face of Boe in front of him in Utopia and he didn't react at all? Did they? I don't recall, but I haven't re-watched that one recently.
|
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2014 03:27
|
|
|
jng2058 posted:Did they? I don't recall, but I haven't re-watched that one recently. "Remember what the Face of Boe said" Immediately before the Y(ou) A(re) N(ot) A(lone) flashback/reveal combo. I forget if Jack was actually in hearing range at the time, though.
|
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2014 03:48
|
|
|
Doctor Who "Last of the Time Lords" Series 3, Episode 13 Resolutions to plot arcs that boil down to "That was my plan, all along!" are narratively poor ones. It's the trump card of writing- just have a bunch of things "happen", and then when they don't make much sense and you have no clear out for character X, well, then make it all part of character X's plan. Ultimately, it's laziness as a plot device and that's why it, generally, stinks. "Last of the Time Lords" is a frustratingly bizarre episode to discuss. It's an episode that doesn't have any clear narrative throughline, so the first half is spent either on Martha's improperly paced and somewhat schizophrenic story or on The Master belittling The Doctor. The concept, in this episode, of fast-forwarding the plot a year is kind of an interesting one. Although it's a bit tired, and largely cliche ("just make it to the point where the state of the world has irrevocably changed so we don't have to go through the motions of showing it changing"), it was a narrative draw that's rarely, if ever done on Who- the show prefers just having The Doctor and co. skip ahead by however long in their magic time phone box that plot needs them to over having them wait it out. So it was at least vaguely enticing to have an episode begin with the "ONE YEAR LATER" title card, just to see how the world and circumstances had changed for our main characters. Unfortunately, not much has; Francine, Tish, and Clive are all now servants of The Master in some capacity, The Doctor is still a prisoner/plaything of The Master, and...well, that's kinda it. Outside the ship, on the Earth below, things have definitely changed, for the negative; Japan has been wiped from existence, and most of the planet has been razed to make way for the construction of thousands of rockets (for The Master's end plan of, ultimately, wiping out most of the rest of the known universe and establishing a new, dominant Gallifrey in its center). And then we arrive at Martha, who has apparently spent the intervening year that The Doctor and her family has been old and useless, respectively, kicking some major rear end all across the globe. This the most satisfying thing about this episode; it places Martha front and center within it, the force for all of the episode's movement and the quietly confident, supremely competent character that Martha at her best was. As even The Doctor notes at the end of "Last of the Time Lords", "Martha Jones, you saved the world," to which Martha simply replies "Yes I did." Having the time skip included within the episode is excused if and only if it implies a level of ability to Martha that gives her the long-awaited for validation her character deserved. Which is good, because so much of her overall plot makes so little sense: Although we have Martha going around being awesome, she's stuck with Tom Milligan (Tom Ellis), a rather boring character who only exists to die. We see her walking with Tom, being informed by him what's gone on in England since her year abroad; beyond the shot of The Master statue (which is appropriately ridiculous and hilarious), it's mostly just the necessary audience exposition to impress upon them the urgency of her mission. There's so much about Martha's plot that is altogether confusing; she visits a professor for no real adequately explained reason (she has the professor decode a disc, but it at no point seems like that was her intention and the pacing is virtually lackadaisical). I remarked to Oxx, numerous times throughout the first half of the episode, that I didn't have any firm grip of what was going on because of its pacing issues, because intercut between Martha's overall confusing plot we get shots of The Master mocking The Doctor (and foiling an escape plot that he hatched). The Master's introduction this episode was great- having him wheeling around The Doctor as he lip syncs to Scissor Sisters' "I Can't Decide" is hilarious and amazing, but even by the halfway point I was getting burnt out on seeing Simm on my screen. The Master as played by John Simm only operates in "camp" mode, and always at 100% camp; this gets tiring after a while, and puts a fine point on how good Tennant is as The Doctor; despite his predilection for ham, he's still an actor who knows when to turn it on and off (and is written to have quiet moments, or at least moments when someone knocks him on the head and tells him to stop being so..The Doctor-y), and Simm by design of his character never has a modulating force and by acting choice never stops chewing the scenery. So we get Martha, on her own nonsensical adventure going around talking about how she discovered a weapon to kill The Master (and despite that knowledge, and the fact that she knows The Master is gonna declare war on everything else in less than 24 hours, decides to find out what the Toclafane are), and The Master foiling plots to oust him, hamming it up, and Gollum-izing The Doctor (which is conceptually interesting but losing Tennant's physical acting to watch some bulbous-headed weirdo in a tweed suit stuck in a cage isn't worth it). We then get to the Toclafane reveal, where it turns out that the Toclafane are actually the humans from "Utopia", brought back to the past by The Master, who had decided to upgrade to their own "perfect" spherical form in recognition of the coming apocalypse. Although the reveal itself is, again, contrived- OH THEY'RE ACTUALLY US FROM THE FUTURE! WE ARE THE REAL MONSTERS! come on, Doctor Who, that's like the guiding theme of 90% of science fiction -it still kinda works in and of itself by showing The Master as a "reverse" Doctor- he "saves" humanity, but only to use them as a bunch of glorified pets. Having the "Toclafane" kill 10% of humanity, and having that decision retroactively revealed to be because, according to the future-humans, "It's FUN!", is the perfect psychopathic note to inform The Master's decisions- he'd be The Doctor if he cared a whit about anyone besides him...but he doesn't. It just kinda sucks that the episode never does anything with the Toclafane besides this one little reveal scene, where it's finally explained who and what they are, because it's clear the "Toclafane" are meant to mirror the Daleks in a lot of ways- a mushy body that's useless hidden inside a virtually impenetrable metal can, that seeks pleasure almost solely in destruction -and there's a sort of informed pathos and horror in these desperately optimistic last vestiges of humanity ending up, ultimately, to be what they tried to escape from- a bunch of murderous beasts -but it's all never followed up on so it sorta just...lays there. A good reveal, with some decent implications, that doesn't get well-serviced by the plot at all. This, in essence, sums up the problems with the first half of Doctor Who: it's a bunch of cool concepts not followed up on correctly, in favor of something...else happening, so it's essentially all unfulfilled potential. Which leads me to my first paragraph. Martha soon gets ratted out by the professor she met, then brought before The Master mere minutes before his planned launch, about to be executed, when she reveals that...it was all a part of her plan. It's a confusing reveal that's endemic of the problems of the episode as a whole- so all that nonsense that occurred was all rigorously planned out by her? Is she the biggest genius in the universe or something, what's...what's going on? None of this makes any real sense, she knew that The Master wouldn't immediately kill her (despite literally being moments away from doing so, with only the appearance of the aforementioned Tom deciding to stay The Master's hand), at any point before letting her monologue to save her own life? It just reeks of RTD not knowing how to tie any of his plots together so he just threw his hands up and went "gently caress IT, ALL PART OF MARTHA'S PLAN", so here we are. But. But. But. The second reveal- that's what makes it worth it. Having Martha go through and incredibly convoluted series of events just to have her go "IT WAS ALL MY PLAN ALL ALONG!" is some poo poo storytelling, but it's all worth it to have her lay out that The Doctor would never have her hunt down some secret super-weapon- she was going around telling the tale of The Doctor, and having them all concentrate their thoughts, to this exact moment, at this exact time, so The Doctor would regain his powers and become something...more. It's, yes, a Deus Ex Machina. It's, yes, essentially having the audience clap three times and wish Tinkerbell back to life. It's silly and unearned and completely insane. And I loved it. The emotional groundswell, of watching the Earth as a whole shout "Doctor!" nearly bowled me over. It's "The Parting of the Ways" done right- having Rose turn into a God cause she stared at the TARDIS a while was stupid and insane because Rose was terrible and didn't deserve it. But this is what The Doctor is he's the concept of optimism and humanity's very best parts, its hope, given human form, and it makes complete tonal sense that he would become an Avatar of the world at large's desperate pleas in the face of utter destruction. It's not a narratively earned climax, and it makes no loving real sense- as even The Master notes, "You can't do this. You can't do this! It's not fair!" No, it's not fair. It's not loving fair at all. But it's Doctor Who as gently caress, and I wouldn't have this episode's climax occur any other way. Because this, this is what Doctor Who loving is. This right loving here. About the triumph of humanity over anything, and everything. The scene itself is made greater by The Doctor confronting The Master, at his full power, and saying "You wouldn't listen...because you know what I'm going to say...I forgive you." It's The Doctor, having suffered a full year of torture and humiliation, being the ultimate ideal of who The Doctor is supposed to be: a man who can forgive even his greatest enemy, even in a moment of complete control and triumph, and was so emotionally powerful I nearly cried. This...this is what I watch Doctor Who for, these huge moments of pure emotionality that say something, even if it's somewhat trite and picayune, about how people should act to each other. It was an incredible scene and I can't say enough good about it. The moment is so powerful, and so resonant, that it wipes out everything that came before and most of the bad that comes after- except for the time rewind. Having the episode end with The Doctor flipping a switch so everything that happened unhappened and we're all back to the present-day, totally fine Earth just reeks of the "Boom Town" Davies that I hate so much, the one who runs away screaming from having to deal with the consequences of his narrative actions. Plus, it ensures the "Toclafane" are stuck in a timeline that can never be reached, essentially writing them out of the show and preventing any possibility of narrative payoff or closure that we never really got due to how the episode handled them. In any case, the episode closes with Martha deciding not to go on with The Doctor. She regretfully steps down as Companion, insisting that she "just can't", not after the trauma her family experienced. It's a powerful, powerfully independent end to a fantastic character wonderfully played by Freema Agyeman who was hamstrung by RTD's inability to focus on someone who wasn't Rose, in an episode that works as a fantastic send-off to why Martha was so great and gives her the screen time she sorely needed. Goodbye, Martha; goodbye, Freema Agyeman. You both were great and made Series 3 quite a bit better than it had any right to be by your presence. The next Companion The Doctor gets has some mighty big shoes to fill. WAIT, WHAT THE gently caress IS THAT BOAT DOING THERE?! Grade: B Random Thoughts:
|
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2014 04:10
|
|
|
Penis Ouija posted:"Remember what the Face of Boe said" Just pulled it up, he's standing right next to Martha, and turns to look at her when she says it.
|
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2014 04:17
|
|
|
Oh okay 2 things: 1) everyone bug MrAristocrates to make sure he fulfills his newsroom toxx 2) me and oxx talked it over and ultimately the pace of the updates is getting to be too much. i've mentioned before that each review i post takes me roughly 3 hours, start to finish, to make- even longer, recently, starting around the human nature two-parter ending with ultra-long reviews anyways all this is to say that with the average of 4-5 reviews a week it was getting unsustainable- 12-15 hours on reviews a week essentially turned it into a second job and it started feeling like it, and I'm feeling super burned out i actually really do enjoy watchin this show now- it's not that, don't worry -and i genuinely like the reactions my reviews get but it's kinda gettin to be too much for me, so with the original plan of having the break at the end of s4 for a month to coincide with the month of december is leadin to a change in the update schedule with nine weeks till the end of november, and apparently 18 episodes to review me and oxx'll be doin 2 reviews a week, once on monday nights and friday nights, till then apologies if i set expectations too high by reviewing so quickly but yeah i gotta cut down on my review schedule or i'll just burn out on this entirely that shouldn't affect this week; we still have to do two reviews so it'll be tomorrow and friday, or friday and saturday, or friday and sunday to keep on pace. definitely should have an update friday though anyways yeah apologies again
|
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2014 04:18
|
|
|
It's all good, slow down a bit. It will give you more time to watch Torchwood.
|
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2014 04:21
|
|
|
In the spirit of magnanimity and goodwill to all things I will gently remind you all that if you utter ONE MOTHERFUCKING SYLLABLE about the next season of this Nice and Fun show I will, with great regret, have no recourse but to RIP OUT YOUR ACCOUNT'S BEATING HEART AND CRUSH IT IN MY HAND. Cheers!
|
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2014 04:24
|
|
|
BSam posted:It's all good, slow down a bit. It will give you more time to watch Torchwood. Yes please get all the rest you need so that you may embark on this particular endeavor.
|
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2014 04:26
|
|
|
Slowing down is cool. The writeups are worth the wait. Regarding the Toclafane... I've always liked them because they seem like a way better version of The Cybermen than, you know, the Cybermen have been for decades. Humans so desperate to survive that they cut everything human out. The childish voices even seem to recall the way early Cybermen spoke. For a monster dreamt up on the off-chance that the BBC couldn't get the rights to the Daleks (they were sketched up on the quick as a replacement for the Dalek in Dalek and then re-used later) they're really a pretty cool creation.
|
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2014 04:26
|
|
|
Oxxidation posted:In the spirit of magnanimity and goodwill to all things I will gently remind you all that if you utter ONE MOTHERFUCKING SYLLABLE about the next season of this Nice and Fun show I will, with great regret, have no recourse but to RIP OUT YOUR ACCOUNT'S BEATING HEART AND CRUSH IT IN MY HAND. I'll be the hand that does it. That said, I feel like my favorite stretch of Doctor Who is from Human Nature through just before the Doctor turns into Jesus. And then it's like 30 seconds of cringing at floating glowy space Jesus. Then back to awesome for the rest of the episode. Martha's parting is my favorite of all the partings because she gets to leave on her own terms, for her own reasons, and say exactly what she wants to say, and trounces off to lead her own life. I hated to see her go, but I was so relieved in how she left.
|
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2014 04:30
|
|
|
I really loving hated the resolution, and it poisoned my impressions of the previous two episodes until I rewatched them. It combines the stupid deus ex machina, the nauseating power of hope and the frustrating total reset endings that are sometimes on this show. It was also just done so stupidly. Everyone is thinking about The Doctor, therefore obviously he gets his regeneration energy back, and gets younger, and starts to fly, and can also deflect laser beams with his hand. It's a shame because I thought most of the Doctor/Master interactions were interesting and emotional (particularly the ending one, which I guess provides this episode with at least some redemption). I would have liked these episodes more if they had crafted a plot that drew more attention to that (and perhaps brought Martha into it), rather than one that required Martha to spend half an episode talking about all the unrelated cool things she'd done. Although for me the biggest question is still unanswered: what song did The Master play when he destroyed Japan?
|
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2014 04:31
|
|
|
E: ^ Don't forget the energy aura literally forming stylized angel wings as he floats forward in the Jesus pose. Also during the "I can't decide scene", I love the little detail of Lucy turning away and dropping the fake smile as the line "My heart feels dead inside/It's cold and hard and petrified" plays over it. A lovely little touch of subtlety in possibly the most over-the-top sequence in the show's history (at least post-revival, I haven't really watched any classic Who).
|
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2014 04:32
|
|
|
Interesting. This is one of the more reviled episode of the reboot. Generally the main points that get hit are this:
|
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2014 04:35
|
|
|
BSam posted:It's all good, slow down a bit. It will give you more time to watch Torchwood. Man, I watched some of that recently because I'd never seen it before and somebody said it was silly, but I thought it's less silly and way more boring.
|
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2014 04:37
|
|
|
Whew boy did I hate Super Saiyan Jesus Doctor. And I still do. I'd call it an incredibly lazy way out of the corner they were painted into except it's absurdly audacious to even try to use that as a resolution.Toxxupation posted:Random Thoughts: Jack being the Face of Boe was a great idea, but the speech that he had to reveal it was painfully contrived. It was like RTD went, "Oh hey, I don't know of Barrowman is going to be available for any future episodes so I need to resolve this within ten seconds." Anyhoo, congratulations on surviving season three! You have seen the dizzying heights and the abominable lows, sometimes in the same episode! There was some massive whiplash going on there. Speaking of which, this is where the short Timecrash fits in.
|
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2014 04:42
|
|
|
Irony Be My Shield posted:Although for me the biggest question is still unanswered: what song did The Master play when he destroyed Japan? Big In Japan, duh.
|
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2014 04:45
|
|
|
So are you going to watch Time Crash or not? It's not essential viewing but it is 1. Moffat-written 2. Very fanservice-y and absurd 3. Short as hell I would strongly recommend watching it before leaping into the next Christmas special. For us if nothing else. Pretty pretty please.
|
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2014 04:47
|
|
|
Doctor Who "The Last of the Time Lords" Series 3, Episode 13 Do you know why I just laughed and taunted you nerds when you asked to have this be the livewatch episode instead? Because I hate it. It's bloated, it's inane, it tries to do too much at once and fails at nearly every turn, and most importantly, so much of it is boring. Oh sure, we have that unforgettable Scissor Sisters sashay at the beginning, and Doctor Dobby (bad), and Doctor Jesus (so much worse), but like so many of Davies' overlarge plots a lot of the time in between those events is just dead air, character-building with non-characters and action scenes with no action. I know how you people think, you all just wanted to Rifftrax that Blues Brothers-esque car pileup of an ending for the umpteenth time because our cosmos is defined by repetition within and without. Well, fie on you, says I. I'm going to spend most of this writeup talking about parts of the episode that I like. That'll learn you. "The Last of the Time Lords" opens on an Earth that has seen better days. Japan's a cinder, London is overrun with feral dogs, the United States is one big labor camp, and most of the places in between have been converted into one giant fusion reactor to fuel the Master's nuclear missile batteries. It's about as big and loud as you'd come to expect from Davies - his ever-escalating series of crises always peak as his seasons draw to a close - but in an unusual display of subtle restraint, he's able to depict much of the Earth's devastation with only a few brief phrases and allusions instead of the shoestring CGI shots he loves so much. The locked-down borders, obliterated infrastructure, and rather drastically heightened mortality rate has reduced much of the surviving human population to rely on rumor and superstition, and almost all the references to the Master's various grisly public works projects are delivered in hushed tones and then quickly passed over as if they're afraid someone might be listening (which, you know, they probably are). The dread experienced by the refugees as the Master himself comes down to fetch Martha is a bit cheesy, but still nicely illustrates the power dynamic he's managed to establish over the Earth in such a short time. "He never walks upon the ground!" one refugee cries, and it makes sense why; the Master, a brutal tyrant but also a perennial coward at heart, is quite cozy in his sky fortress, sending the Toclafane down to do all his actual dirty work. Oh, right, the Toclafane. Humanity's terminal form. While Davies didn't seem to do much with the Toclafane reveal, I enjoyed it quite a bit and thought it was one of the cleverest bits he's written, even if he did it accidentally (which I'm inclined to believe; I will never shake the image of Davies as the showrunner equivalent of Mister Magoo, stumbling blindly and miraculously through the construction yard as we hapless viewers get smacked by all the girders he dodges). The Toclafane and their origin are another eerie half-suggestion from the script, as we're only told that the Master found them in the "endless furnaces" of Utopia. What was Utopia? Was there even a Utopia to find? Did the Master generate that signal with his machinery or somehow disable it mid-flight, as hinted by Jacobi's contemptuous remark in "Utopia" as he pulled out the computer chip emitting the radar blip? In the end, it's irrelevant - the remnants of mankind wound up building towering fires against the march of entropy, and their survival instinct that the Doctor loves so much drove them to sacrifice their bodies and minds just so they could keep surviving, if not necessarily living. All that ingenuity, all that struggle, all that brilliance that got the Doctor so fired up - all ultimately reduced to a horde of insane, infantile flaps of skin sealed inside metal cages. If that's how we end up, what's even the point of everything that came before? And that's where the real brilliance of the Toclafane shines through, because they're a living symbol of the last, most cogent difference between the Doctor and the Master. The Doctor hates endings, will always struggle not to accept them if possible, nurturing new beginnings just to keep the goodness of the world rolling on. But the Master fetishizes endings, weaponizes them, as he did with Lucy, showing her the end of the universe to break her spirit and drive her to accept his rather fuzzy and omnicidal goals; compare with the Doctor in "The End of the World," where he used the destruction of the Earth as an inspirational message for humanity's indomitable nature. The Doctor dances when everybody lives, and the Master dances - badly, and to very camp pop music - when worlds burn and the stars turn cold. If the primary message of Doctor Who is "the end is never the end is never the end is never the end," the Master's response is to laugh and say, "The end is the end." Which is partly why the Face of Boe (whose Chin has survived the eons with the rest of its owner) reveal is also quite nice, because it turns Jack into not just the most ridiculous Chekhov's Gun I've seen in a while, but it also makes him a positive contrast to the Master's newest friends. The Face of Boe - Jack Harkness, most likely, warped beyond recognition by the march of time - is always a gentle, sagely figure, eventually sacrificing itself to save the same people it used to be. The fact that Jack's human nature survived with him is a direct contrast to the desperate, insane immortality of the Toclafane, and drives one last nail into the Master's thesis - just because something ends doesn't mean the goodness that came before it is irrelevant. The Toclafane were banished to whatever dark place they came from, and while they might be humanity's last stop, the journey is still worth making. Well, that's the good bits out of the way. Here's the stuff that sucks a fat one! I hated Doctor Jesus. Ohhh, did I loathe it. I hate it general whenever the Doctor is treated as a Messianic figure, as opposed to a brilliant, magnetizing personality with deep issues under his blinding idealism, and the fact that Davies literally made the Doctor into a Messiah - and through one of his laziest deux ex machinae yet, by having the Doctor telepathically link himself with a loving cell phone network - grinded my gears so bad I think flakes of rust fell out of my nose. It also made the subsequent nuclear standoff between the Doctor and the Master boring and pointless, because where the gently caress do you go when you make your protagonist into a glowy skinny British angel who deflects lasers with the power of his mind? It would have saved us all some time if the Master had just surrendered right there. It speaks to the horribly jumbled nature of the ending that Occ and I hated different parts of it - I was okay with the time-reversal, comparatively, because at least that was foreshadowed and the series would've been rattled for the rest of its entire run if Davies had kept the Earth as a razed fusion plant (his fault for always setting the stakes so high, really), but the "emotionality" of Doctor Jesus hit me with all the force of a deflated balloon, and I spent the rest of the episode from that point on just waiting for it to be over. The only part "The Last of the Time Lords" that came close to excusing Doctor Jesus was Martha, who once again gets short shrift. After spending the entire season undertaking tasks that would've broken Rose right the gently caress in half and being constantly reminded by the script that she was a rebound, Martha's last hurrah consists of trekking across the destroyed remnants of her home planet, under constant threat of death, with the same steely competence as ever. The enormity of her sacrifice is the only thing that could possibly justify the bullshit result of Psychic Cell Network Ave Maria, and even then it's undercut by her final reason for leaving being, once again, that the Doctor won't snog her. How's about the fact that being around him got your whole family tortured, your world destroyed, and your med degree seriously delayed, Martha? No? It's got to be the dating thing? Well, fine then, at least you got out. Davies is on record as saying he regrets his treatment of Martha, that he didn't know what to do with her from the word go, and while that's certainly obvious in the script, it doesn't excuse him one whit. I get real loving tired of him making stupid, short-sighted, or horribly spiteful decisions with his script and then hooking his thumbs in his pockets and going "Gawrsh, dunno what I was thinking" afterward, and Martha's among his worst. Well, whatever. The breakup season is at an end, and the Doctor's latest uninvited guest is the Titanic. Radical. What awaits us in Season 4? No doubt something dense, oafish, nauseatingly naive, and asinine - just another day in the life of a Rusty episode, in other words. But I'm on the far side of all the episodes that nearly broke me, and Occ, bless his poor, insane heart, seems to like this nonsense now, so on we go. See you then. Oxxidation fucked around with this message at 05:19 on Oct 2, 2014 |
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2014 05:12
|
|
|
mind the walrus posted:So are you going to watch Time Crash or not? It's not essential viewing but it is I've told him about it already. He'll get to it in his own time.
|
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2014 05:14
|
|
|
Oxxidation posted:Do you know why I just laughed and taunted you nerds when you asked to have this be the livewatch episode instead? Because I hate it. I think that's why a lot of us wanted to livewatch it. 
|
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2014 05:23
|
|
|
Oxxidation posted:In the spirit of magnanimity and goodwill to all things I will gently remind you all that if you utter ONE MOTHERFUCKING SYLLABLE about the next season of this Nice and Fun show I will, with great regret, have no recourse but to RIP OUT YOUR ACCOUNT'S BEATING HEART AND CRUSH IT IN MY HAND. Next season has both one of the first episodes of Who that I've seen, and one of my favorites. 
Adeline Weishaupt fucked around with this message at 05:38 on Oct 2, 2014 |
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2014 05:32
|
|
|
Here's the thing- turning into space Jesus was The Doctors plan all along, right? So, he had Martha wander a post-apocalyptic hellscape for a year, (during which time humanity is enslaved by rubber heads from the end of the universe), pretending to be building a weapon to kill the Master, so that she can Why was all this necessary? Because he wouldn't kill the Master. He'd rather condemn humanity to an un-year of horror than go back to being Last of The Time Lords. He values the life of a member of his own species that much more highly than humans, apparently. And that doesn't make much sense, RTD. Not at all. Do you remember "No second chances. I'm that kind of man?" Or, say, the Human Nature two-parter, where The Doctor turns into Zeus and binds the Family into mirror-Tartarus for all time? It must be easy to forget, since the Doctor is completely willing to forgive the villain here. After all, it's all easily undone with the power of plot magic. No harm done, except to everyone on the Valiant who had a year stolen from them. Simm hamming it up as the Master is fun, but everything else in this episode is almost offensively bad.
|
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2014 05:40
|
|
|
Oxxidation posted:I've told him about it already. He'll get to it in his own time. Not that I'm going to debate what's already free entertainment from you guys any more after saying this, but you do know that now--as in between this season finale and the upcoming christmas special--is the proper chronological time to view it right? I mean it literally opens with the end of the Series 3 finale and ends with the opening of the Christmas special.
|
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2014 05:42
|
|
|
mind the walrus posted:Not that I'm going to debate what's already free entertainment from you guys any more after saying this, but you do know that now--as in between this season finale and the upcoming christmas special--is the proper chronological time to view it right? I mean it literally opens with the end of the Series 3 finale and ends with the opening of the Christmas special. Yeah, he's aware. If it's anything like last time he'll probably watch it before getting to the Christmas special, but I wouldn't expect a writeup - he put the Tennant mini-sode into his random thoughts section, and this is even less plot-relevant.
|
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2014 05:46
|
|
|
Fair enough. It's totally your guys' call. I was personally hoping for a short write-up just because well, spoilers but if you've seen it you know why I might want to see Occ's thoughts, but I get why he might not want to.
|
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2014 05:51
|
|
|
Toxxupation posted:REGY RUSTY IS THE GREATEST POSTER IN THIS loving THREAD AND gently caress YOU IF YOU THINK OTHERWISE HOLY poo poo THAT WAS loving INCREDIBLE  Man that turned out better than I'd expected - I just wanted to make sure that the Face of Boe stuck in your mind so there wouldn't be any chance of confusion when the reveal hit. I'd kinda forgotten back when you were doing season one just how much he's mentioned in the final episodes of this season.For real though, I really do love the Face of Boe on his own merits, in addition to how cool I thought that reveal was. I love that living forever somehow turns you into a gigantic head. That's cool, I'm down with that. Aside from that one wonderful scene, I think this episode more than the last is why I remember disliking this two-parter. The resolution is just awful.
|
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2014 05:52
|
|
|
Regy Rusty posted:For real though, I really do love the Face of Boe on his own merits, in addition to how cool I thought that reveal was. I love that living forever somehow turns you into a gigantic head. That's cool, I'm down with that. It also means that Cassandra wasn't the last pure human at the end of the Earth, since Jack was there too. (Oh, and Rose, but time travelling makes it not count)
|
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2014 06:01
|
|
|
Irony Be My Shield posted:Everyone is thinking about The Doctor, therefore obviously he gets his regeneration energy back, and gets younger, and starts to fly, and can also deflect laser beams with his hand.
|
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2014 06:47
|
|
|
So one of the big reasons I really enjoy the Face of Boe reveal is because I feel it gives Jack the best resolution to a character arc in the RTD era while allowing for more appearances in the main show as well as and Torchwood. It's just one line that lets us know that Jack eventually gets his poo poo together, he eventually gets to die and he does it while saving humanity again. It's pretty genius in that it gives his character closure regardless of anything that could possibly happen on Torchwood, which is good given how it ended. More importantly unlike every other reveal in modern Doctor Who they don't make a big deal out of it. It was kind of mystery, who the Face of Boe was, but not one that anyone was sure was going to have answers. Then suddenly boom one line out of nowhere, mystery solved. It so satisfying, why couldn't we ever have another reveal like that Doctor Who?
|
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2014 07:24
|
|
|
Toxxupation posted:1) everyone bug MrAristocrates to make sure he fulfills his newsroom toxx I've already written one and I was gonna simulpost it with this review but I decided I wanted a few more under my belt. Also Ultimax just came out so I probably won't post it until next week.
|
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2014 07:28
|
|
|
quakster posted:Didn't you watch the witch episode? RTD-era Doctor Who operates by Discworld rules. (still weird and out of place, though) Honestly, if they'd made the point heavier that this was what was going on -- that Martha's plan was to use Science to weaponise the human race in the same way as the Carrionites did -- the ending would have sat a lot better for me. It'd also draw a cool parallel between the Master weaponising them through despair and Martha doing it with hope.
|
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2014 08:06
|
|
|
I am SO glad when they managed to go back in time a year, it was just after George W. Bush expy president-elect had been obliterated. Glad we dodged a bullet there.
|
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2014 08:33
|
|
|
Whybird posted:Honestly, if they'd made the point heavier that this was what was going on -- that Martha's plan was to use Science to weaponise the human race in the same way as the Carrionites did -- the ending would have sat a lot better for me. It'd also draw a cool parallel between the Master weaponising them through despair and Martha doing it with hope. Speaking of Fringe, their alternate universe was obviously the Cybus earth from this show.
|
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2014 09:10
|
|
|
The Toclafane reveal seemed designed to simply not rudely brush away the end times depicted a few episodes ago, but I never figured out if Utopia was a trap The Master set or not. Jacobi's disgisted mutter has that "crap, left the dog out again" like he found something he was familiar with and knew it was bunk. If you desperately need it to make sense, consider that the Toclafane never happened, because The Master had to actually hack a TARDIS into something that could stomach such a ridiculous dependency loop as future people coming all the way from the end of time to annihilate their ancestors. I say this because, probably unsurprisingly, this three-parter is not the only time in all of Doctor Who fiction that the final moments of the universe were dwelled on, and I don't think they really add up. But if you consider everything in Utopia except Jacobi to be just come giant hallucination of a TARDIS on tilt, eh, it works well enough.
|
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2014 09:14
|
|
|
Please take your time to review, I really enjoy reading these and seeing where we agree and disagree on various points. For instance, while I absolutely see the same potential that you saw in Martha, I still feel like it was all wasted potential. Outside of a few brief moments in Human Nature/Family of Blood she never really gets a chance to define who or what she is beyond being very deliberately "not Rose". Every moment where she stands up to be counted or pro-active is undercut almost immediately as an action defined by her nonsensical love for the Doctor (it's not just attraction, she's deeply, deeply in love with him almost from the moment she meets him which makes no sense at all) or turns out to have been acting passively under instruction from the Doctor. Those moments where she argues with the Doctor or refuses to allow him to get away with poo poo (like the end of Gridlock where she demands an explanation of his past) almost always comes down to,"Don't treat me like I'm poor replacement for Rose, I'm not Rose!" which would be great... except then what is she? I get that she's NOT Rose, but who is Martha herself? Intelligent, dedicated and committed Medical student? That almost never comes up, hell she takes off on adventures while still in training. Independent, strong-minded women? Well she defines herself and all her actions on swooning after the Doctor. The glue that holds her family together? That seems to consist of her family basically being abusive and clingy to the point that her mother loses her goddamn mind because her daughter has... been at work, gone to a function one night with a new date and then headed off to the pub for a quiz night (the events of season 3 cover 4 days in modern London). So is she just freaking out under the pressure of being "perfect", smothered by her family and the pressures of her studies? That might have been something interesting, it would at least have been something, but Martha lacks any real definition as a character. Yes the potential was there, and almost realized a handful of times, but in the end it always fell back to that same old crutch of "Who is Martha? Well she's very definitely NOT Rose!"
|
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2014 09:20
|
|
|
I can't stand the Face of Boe reveal and I think it's a huge misstep. Jack is a character who is so fun-loving, so flirtatious, so tactile and so full of life. For him to end up spending billions of years reduced to living as a head in a jar, stripped of all the things that made Jack Jack, I think that's a terrible fate for the character. I hated this finale so much I quit watching for most of S4 and that's a big part of the reason why.
|
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2014 09:24
|
|
|
Rarity posted:I can't stand the Face of Boe reveal and I think it's a huge misstep. Jack is a character who is so fun-loving, so flirtatious, so tactile and so full of life. For him to end up spending billions of years reduced to living as a head in a jar, stripped of all the things that made Jack Jack, I think that's a terrible fate for the character. I hated this finale so much I quit watching for most of S4 and that's a big part of the reason why. It's something I just kind of choose to ignore.
|
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2014 09:32
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 24, 2024 03:32 |
|
|
I think RTD himself only threw it in because he thought it would make for a great "haha, really?" bit (Martha and the Doctor both consider the idea and humorously reject it) and didn't really think about any long-term implications. Doctor Who fans, being what we are, obsess over the minutiae while RTD seemed to just consider it a fun line/concept to throw out there and then move on to other stuff without a second glance.
|
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2014 09:37
|
|