Doctor Who series 11 (Season 37): The former Paul McGann in 'Chibnall & I'

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > TV IV > Doctor Who series 11 (Season 37): The former Paul McGann in 'Chibnall & I'

spog: Aug 7, 2004; It's your own bloody fault.

I've been burning through s9&10 these past few days to get myself prepared for the big event and I was surprised that there were more highs than lows than I remember.

I'm also amazed at just how good actresses Coleman and Mackie were, with two very different, but equally engaging characters.

# ¿ Oct 7, 2018 00:22

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# ¿ Apr 23, 2024 10:56

spog: Aug 7, 2004; It's your own bloody fault.

If the only result of this is to get more Jodie on TV interviews, then it will have been a job worth doing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAZUlmrjTTU

# ¿ Oct 7, 2018 11:55

spog: Aug 7, 2004; It's your own bloody fault.

The_Doctor posted:

The new theme music is just the 60s one with added stuff?

It seemed to be the original theme with someone tacking a drum machine track over it like a backbedroom 'disco mix' from the 1990s

The_Doctor posted:

Man, Grace’s death has left a really bad taste in my mouth. It felt very unnecessary, and they telegraphed it coming quite hard. I was hoping it was a misdirect, but no.

"Yes, your mum and your wife has just died. Still nevermind, I am sure no one will be sad by this time next week."

# ¿ Oct 7, 2018 20:06

spog: Aug 7, 2004; It's your own bloody fault.

Pesky Splinter posted:

It was okay - cast was pretty good, though the script could have been a bit tighter in places - another draft to smooth out some of the clunkier bits of dialogue. And while it's nice there were some stakes with people being killed, killing the nan felt unneeded.

Yeah, I'd agree with that. 'Okay' was my rating.

quote:

Liking where they're going with Whitaker - everything's all new and wonderful and vibrant and bouncy. Some good lines from her too.

That gave me a lot more confidence. Both the actor and the character look they could be very good indeed.

# ¿ Oct 7, 2018 20:41

spog: Aug 7, 2004; It's your own bloody fault.

SiKboy posted:

This is why I think they might undo some of the deaths of this episode. They are definitely going to revisit the tooth aliens and rescue the in-stasis trophy people. Its a little grim if they release the sister and then tell her "Oh yeah, your brother died because he was searching for you", so they find a way to save him. If they save him they might as well save grace too. And possibly drunk kebab guy, but frankly he brought his death on himself.

I dunno. Capaldi had an awful lot of 'oh he's dead/dying. Never mind, on to the next scene' in his tenure.

# ¿ Oct 7, 2018 21:12

spog: Aug 7, 2004; It's your own bloody fault.

I liked how they handled the Doctor being a woman.

I.e. The Doctor happens to be a woman but is still the Doctor.

I feel that if Moffat had written it, he would have handled it with his usual hamfistedness with the point being brought up every 10 mins with a mug to the camera and a crap joke.

# ¿ Oct 7, 2018 23:00

spog: Aug 7, 2004; It's your own bloody fault.

When you think about it, if you are a 7 foot tall, armour-plated alien warrior, killing an unarmed and unprepared human isn't a particularly challenging way of proving what a great soldier you are.

It's like proving what a macho dentist you are by shooting an old and sick lion with a rifle.

# ¿ Oct 7, 2018 23:33

spog: Aug 7, 2004; It's your own bloody fault.

# ¿ Oct 8, 2018 09:28

spog: Aug 7, 2004; It's your own bloody fault.

At the very real risk of being 'that guy', did the new screwdriver design remind any other viewers of something else?

# ¿ Oct 8, 2018 11:20

spog: Aug 7, 2004; It's your own bloody fault.

Sydney Bottocks posted:

Personally, I think one of the things JNT did right was getting rid of the sonic screwdriver near the start of the Fifth Doctor's run. It was way too easy for writers to have the Doctor fall back on it just to solve a problem, and the only reason it exists currently is to sell toys to (man)children.

I was quite happy when it was just a very good screwdriver instead of being a phone, computer, GPS, mp3 player, divining rod, USB stick, or - as you say - easy plot issue solver.

"What are you going to do, assemble a cabinet at them?�

# ¿ Oct 8, 2018 11:51

spog: Aug 7, 2004; It's your own bloody fault.

NoNotTheMindProbe posted:

Sure, on an inhospitably hot planet full of savage primitives. It'd be like having to go catch an alien on Venus.

Do they have Linkedin on Venus?

https://www.linkedin.com/in/karl-brian-wright-ba8786172/

# ¿ Oct 8, 2018 12:37

spog: Aug 7, 2004; It's your own bloody fault.

AndyElusive posted:

What are the chances of anything in any given episode of Who actually happening?

I did get a blowjob from a paving slab last week.

# ¿ Oct 8, 2018 23:45

spog: Aug 7, 2004; It's your own bloody fault.

jivjov posted:

We still exist in a time where minorities of all types are underrepresented in mainstream pop culture. If a showrunner says "yeah, we're gonna take an active hand in correcting that", that is unequivocally a good thing.

I was watching some of s9/10 and you notice a lot of ethnic diversity in the UK at a time when there weren't many non-whites and there certainly wasn't equality.
Which seemed a little like whitewashing the past.....

...then you remember that it is a kids programme and anything that makes kids all feel normal and included is indeed A Good Thing.

Safeword posted:

I'm just glad it's presented as a normal group without back patting going on. Bill in the previous series rubbed me up the wrong way slightly for that reason - it was fantastic she was black and gay, but she announced the latter aspect of herself at the most random and weird moments at several points which was kind of jarring.

I'm dying! Thanks for letting me like girls!

Agreed, that was not done well.

# ¿ Oct 9, 2018 11:49

spog: Aug 7, 2004; It's your own bloody fault.

The_Doctor posted:

See, I never got the �randomly mentioning it� thing. Every time it came up, to me it seemed a valid place.

We're the last of the Ninth Legion, hiding in a hole in the ground from an alien monster that kills us by stealing the sun and we might not make it through the night unless someone saves us.

Will we live, will we die, what is that thing, hey, I don't like men, what does it mean about the universe that such a creature exists?

# ¿ Oct 9, 2018 12:16

spog: Aug 7, 2004; It's your own bloody fault.

misadventurous posted:

I didn�t really follow Bille Piper�s career between her time as Rose and Day of the Doctor, so when she appeared as the Moment/Bad Wolf i remember I was really blown away at how much she�d grown as an actress

If you really want to blow your mind, take a look at the career of Noel Clarke, aka Mickey Smith

He's a very different person from Thickey Mickey. Apparently, he'd never watched DW before the job and part of the reason he looked so baffled most of the time was because he was baffled most of the time.

# ¿ Oct 9, 2018 23:53

spog: Aug 7, 2004; It's your own bloody fault.

Rhyno posted:

I need to ask again, does anyone know if digital sales of episodes are in any way counted towards viewing numbers for ratings?

https://www.barb.co.uk/barb-explained/how-broadcaster-vod-viewing-is-included-in-our-programme-audience-figures/

quote:

BARB has reported timeshifted TV set viewing for a number of years. At first, we reported timeshifted viewing up to seven days after broadcast; now we report up to 28 days post-broadcast.

There�s a common misconception that we only report timeshifted viewing if it�s via a recording device, and not if it�s via a broadcaster video-on-demand (BVOD) service. In fact, if a BARB panel member watches the latest episode of Poldark on BBC iPlayer on their TV set, for example, within 28 days of it airing on BBC1, we capture this timeshifted BVOD viewing and it is included in the consolidated viewing figures. However, we can�t yet ascertain if the panellist has watched the programme via a recorded playback or through BBC iPlayer.

There is an exception to this, which is Sky. In BARB households with Sky, we have wired connections into their Sky boxes, which gives us access to service information codes. These enable us to distinguish whether their timeshifted viewing is via recorded playback or through Sky On Demand.

So, if you watch it on Sky it counts and that is a digital sale

# ¿ Oct 10, 2018 20:01

spog: Aug 7, 2004; It's your own bloody fault.

The_Doctor posted:

It's a lot better than the 'Victorian spinster aunt' look a lot of artists give their OC female Doctors.

Yeah, anything as long as it's not a loving puffy dress with a bustle.

# ¿ Oct 12, 2018 21:31

spog: Aug 7, 2004; It's your own bloody fault.

Nodosaur posted:

It's hilarious how in The Three Doctors the First Doctor is so respected he's what it takes to get Two and Three to work together, when later stuff makes it so the majority of his incarnations see him as their lovely teenager phase.

I thought that this was a Moffat joke.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57_tXWsqO_g

I didn't realise it was a callback to a real scene with the First.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snprb1JY_YA

# ¿ Oct 13, 2018 20:42

spog: Aug 7, 2004; It's your own bloody fault.

Safeword posted:

Hey Doc, give everyone your do anything magic wand before lecturing the mortals on defending themselves with laser rifles.

"guns are bad, I hate guns, you shouldn't ever use guns"

~deonates bomb~

# ¿ Oct 14, 2018 22:42

spog: Aug 7, 2004; It's your own bloody fault.

Was it just me, or is the Tardis green?

# ¿ Oct 15, 2018 00:10

spog: Aug 7, 2004; It's your own bloody fault.

Why do they bother with all that 'acting' stuff?

You could cut it all out and just rely on the fact that every single action, emotion or set-up is slowly and painfully explained by the characters.

E: Challenge for you: name one event or plot point in the entire episode that didn't have someone explain it to the ~~audience~~ other characters.

spog fucked around with this message at 22:58 on Oct 21, 2018

# ¿ Oct 21, 2018 22:56

spog: Aug 7, 2004; It's your own bloody fault.

SiKboy posted:

I'm on the record as thinking it was clumsy (though clunky would have been a better word for it in hindsight) but... At the end of the day its a family show. I have to remind myself to make allowances for the fact that if they dont pitch low a large percentage of their most important audience will miss stuff. With that in mind.... it was still clunkier than it could have been, but its largely forgivable.

I'd rather have an episode like this that spells out its message than a repeat of the moon abortion, or the zygon immigrant jyhadis or the "hey kids, dont take your medication" forest debacles.

MrL_JaKiri posted:

It's a family show dealing with an issue it's pretty super important to make sure people "get", and which many people won't have engaged with in the past.

I mean not just the message and the history: I mean every single action/situation in the entire episode had someone explain it like the audiences couldn't see the screen or hear the relevant dialogue:

e.g. hotel sign saying 'whites only'
"look, there's a bad sign"
"oh no, how we will get into this room?"
-climbs through window-
....
"we just climbed through a window into this hotel."

E: with regards to the historical event itself and what it lead too, the cast basically took turns reading out the entire Wikipedia entry, one sentence per character.

spog fucked around with this message at 23:58 on Oct 21, 2018

# ¿ Oct 21, 2018 23:29

spog: Aug 7, 2004; It's your own bloody fault.

Regardless of my other complaints, nobody can say that the propmaster wasn't doing his job well:

# ¿ Oct 22, 2018 14:40

spog: Aug 7, 2004; It's your own bloody fault.

https://twitter.com/SamiraAhmedUK/status/1053343103032139778

# ¿ Oct 24, 2018 15:49

spog: Aug 7, 2004; It's your own bloody fault.

trouser_mouse posted:

I felt like I missed a chunk of the end, what happened to the spiders completely passed me by.

Feels like they forgot to broadcast the entire third act.

# ¿ Oct 28, 2018 22:39

spog: Aug 7, 2004; It's your own bloody fault.

Definitely a 'we blew our budget last week' episode.

But I think that made it better.

She was more Doctorly than ever before and a much stronger character than previous episodes.

# ¿ Oct 28, 2018 23:38

spog: Aug 7, 2004; It's your own bloody fault.

Doctor Spaceman posted:

If you are arachnophobic how bad / tolerable is the episode?

Don't watch it.

# ¿ Oct 29, 2018 00:51

spog: Aug 7, 2004; It's your own bloody fault.

Carbon dioxide posted:

Did you know that because something something volume surface area, spiders this big can't walk on ceilings at all without falling off?

Insects/arachnids famously can't growth beyond a certain size because of biology, chemistry and physics.

Carbon dioxide posted:

And also "random landfill mutates spiders into giants",

I mean I'm perfectly fine with a full on fantasy episode but at some points this episode felt like they were trying to put science where it doesn't belong.

The 'scientist dumps magic chemicals into the landfill/sewer and oversized animials with superpowers grow' seemed naggingly familiar. Then I realised:

They ripped off the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

# ¿ Oct 29, 2018 09:30

spog: Aug 7, 2004; It's your own bloody fault.

Infinitum posted:

Yes something is going to happen to Graham at the end of this season

Ryan's gonna call him Granddad

Probably in the same episode where he heroically overcomes his fear of ladders to save the day, thanks to the Doctor giving him self-belief and encouragement.

# ¿ Oct 29, 2018 16:17

spog: Aug 7, 2004; It's your own bloody fault.

CityMidnightJunky posted:

Chris Chibnall really is an awful dialogue writer. The exposition is unbelievable in how lovely it is.

My thoughts exactly.

Both for this and for all the other episodes.

# ¿ Nov 4, 2018 21:31

spog: Aug 7, 2004; It's your own bloody fault.

Barry Foster posted:

Exposition, exposition, exposition.

Chibnall is a terrible writer

Even single line of dialogue feels like the audience is being mansplained to.

Every bloody line.

# ¿ Nov 5, 2018 00:36

spog: Aug 7, 2004; It's your own bloody fault.

docbeard posted:

...well I do now!

# ¿ Nov 7, 2018 13:13

spog: Aug 7, 2004; It's your own bloody fault.

A retro clean room would nicely compliment the retro theme tune.

# ¿ Nov 8, 2018 01:26

spog: Aug 7, 2004; It's your own bloody fault.

They seriously couldn't find three Indian women who can act?

# ¿ Nov 12, 2018 21:03

spog: Aug 7, 2004; It's your own bloody fault.

Soothing Vapors posted:

What do you mean?

Her grandmother: both old and young versions and her great grandmother were pretty poo poo at acting. Kind of ruins the dramatic tension when the dialogue is being read off a card without emotion.

Yet the actress who plays her mother is a really good one and she hardly gets any screen time at all.

# ¿ Nov 12, 2018 22:04

spog: Aug 7, 2004; It's your own bloody fault.

Jerusalem posted:

It was 71 years ago. No matter how pivotal an event it was, I'm pretty sure she's not gonna remember the exact faces of the three strangers she spent less than a day with 7 decades earlier.

I dunno, I think that day would be fairly well burned into her memory, what with her husband being murdered on her wedding day.

Certainly to the point when another trio of strangers turn up in her flat; also a ditzy blonde, an old white dude and mute black kid she should probably start to feel a bit nervous that poo poo's Going Down.

# ¿ Nov 13, 2018 09:55

spog: Aug 7, 2004; It's your own bloody fault.

Harlock posted:

Good episode. Thought the plotting was a bit tighter which helped a lot.

First episode I truly enjoyed as it was the first time I felt it was a proper Doctor Who episode.

(Last week was good, but it just didn't have a Doctor vibe to it)

And as you say, this writer didn't leave his homework until the last minute and rushed the ending.

Also, it was good to see her have a little edge to her.

# ¿ Nov 19, 2018 01:32

spog: Aug 7, 2004; It's your own bloody fault.

"We need a girl who is blind and has a Nordic accent"
"Does she have to be blind, or could she just wear dark glasses?"
"She has to be properly blind, else people will complain on Twitter"
......
"Okay, found someone who is blind and can do the accent. Mind you, she can't act"
"Meh, good enough"

# ¿ Dec 3, 2018 12:12

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# ¿ Apr 23, 2024 10:56

spog: Aug 7, 2004; It's your own bloody fault.

DoctorWhat posted:

It is sincerely better that a blind actress get roles and paid work than that they meet your weird standards.

What, 'being able to act' is a weird standard?

# ¿ Dec 3, 2018 12:39

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > TV IV > Doctor Who series 11 (Season 37): The former Paul McGann in 'Chibnall & I'