TV & Film Doctor Who (Spoilers!)

Okay, what?

Tonight's episode (I'm finally caught up, yay!) was absolutely ridiculous. How did they manage to take something as interesting as "the inside of an infinite spaceship plus the potential and grotesque fate of a companion" and turn it into this?

First was the trademark sexist joke, because ha ha, women can't drive, and of course the Doctor puts the TARDIS on basic because Clara is a woman and not because the thing is insanely complicated for any human. Then we get three black people, one of whom is presented initially as not even being human, and the other two immediately start stealing things. Because that wasn't at all a poor character choice.

Okay, the middle of the episode was pretty cool. The TARDIS rooms were incredibly neat, and the premise was interesting enough to keep the episode from ever really becoming dull. But then we get this needless side story about how the one guy actually wasn't an android, and it was a joke but actually it wasn't a joke? I don't know, the dialogue was confusing and the android guy was kind-of a terrible actor. And he seemed to recover really quickly from being stabbed in the arm?

Then the zombie monsters, which we learn are actually the future forms of the people who get burned up in the TARDIS heart or something, even though the heart of the TARDIS is traditionally under the console and all of the zombies are actually Clara. I guess that can be justified by saying that they're all from different points of time, or whatever, but when you start getting into that it just goes from "complicated and interesting" to "convoluted and annoying."

The sequence where the Doctor and Clara walk through the exploded engine room was pretty neat, effects-wise. Then of course we have the goddamn space-time crack again. I thought we'd had enough of those from all the forced cinematography in Series 5. Somehow the Doctor saves the day, and the only interesting character event - the fact that the Doctor talked to Clara about the fact that she keeps popping up everywhere - is permanently deleted from their memory. Gah!

If there's one thing I thought Moffat couldn't do wrong, it's the crazy complicated paradox-laden plotlines, and he somehow managed to mess this one up while still retaining the negatives of his usual writing.

Overall, Series 7 has been good. Wi-fi was meh, Rings of Akhaten was brilliant (though corny but then again some of the best episodes are), the Ice Warrior one was also cool (as much as I harp on Moffat I do think the idea of rebranding low-budget enemy costumes as armor works brilliantly - it was good for the Silurians as well), Hide was nothing special but very scary and tense at times (they should have kept the creature more hidden, honestly, and gotten rid of the ending where it goes to find its lost love or something).
 
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I haven't been watching. Rings was the last one I watched, and I really really hated all the singing. That's all I remember from it, the damned singing. Haven't watched since. I now find that reading a recap is more enjoyable than watching the episodes.
 
I haven't been watching. Rings was the last one I watched, and I really really hated all the singing. That's all I remember from it, the damned singing. Haven't watched since. I now find that reading a recap is more enjoyable than watching the episodes.

I liked the singing, but then again I'm a sucker for all that sentimental crap. :P

TBH, aside from the last one they've all been better than usual. Take that as you will, considering what "usual" tends to be...
 
Okay, what?

Tonight's episode (I'm finally caught up, yay!) was absolutely ridiculous. How did they manage to take something as interesting as "the inside of an infinite spaceship plus the potential and grotesque fate of a companion" and turn it into this?

First was the trademark sexist joke, because ha ha, women can't drive, and of course the Doctor puts the TARDIS on basic because Clara is a woman and not because the thing is insanely complicated for any human. Then we get three black people, one of whom is presented initially as not even being human, and the other two immediately start stealing things. Because that wasn't at all a poor character choice.

Okay, the middle of the episode was pretty cool. The TARDIS rooms were incredibly neat, and the premise was interesting enough to keep the episode from ever really becoming dull. But then we get this needless side story about how the one guy actually wasn't an android, and it was a joke but actually it wasn't a joke? I don't know, the dialogue was confusing and the android guy was kind-of a terrible actor. And he seemed to recover really quickly from being stabbed in the arm?

Then the zombie monsters, which we learn are actually the future forms of the people who get burned up in the TARDIS heart or something, even though the heart of the TARDIS is traditionally under the console and all of the zombies are actually Clara. I guess that can be justified by saying that they're all from different points of time, or whatever, but when you start getting into that it just goes from "complicated and interesting" to "convoluted and annoying."

The sequence where the Doctor and Clara walk through the exploded engine room was pretty neat, effects-wise. Then of course we have the goddamn space-time crack again. I thought we'd had enough of those from all the forced cinematography in Series 5. Somehow the Doctor saves the day, and the only interesting character event - the fact that the Doctor talked to Clara about the fact that she keeps popping up everywhere - is permanently deleted from their memory. Gah!

If there's one thing I thought Moffat couldn't do wrong, it's the crazy complicated paradox-laden plotlines, and he somehow managed to mess this one up while still retaining the negatives of his usual writing.

Overall, Series 7 has been good. Wi-fi was meh, Rings of Akhaten was brilliant (though corny but then again some of the best episodes are), the Ice Warrior one was also cool (as much as I harp on Moffat I do think the idea of rebranding low-budget enemy costumes as armor works brilliantly - it was good for the Silurians as well), Hide was nothing special but very scary and tense at times (they should have kept the creature more hidden, honestly, and gotten rid of the ending where it goes to find its lost love or something).

You wrote my post for me! Thanks man :)
 
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Only just started watching this episode but of COURSE it's Mark Gatiss, Victorian England, yes who else would it be?

All the universe, all of time, any language, they do spend an awful lot of time in Victorian England :p
 
Last week's mess of an episode was written by a guy called Stephen Thompson. Horrible, horrible.

Mark Gatiss also wrote Cold War, it shows, he's clearly the series' best writer. Which is cool cos I like him very much but I always feel like his episodes of Sherlock are the weakest.

EXCEPT MAYBE NEIL GAIMAN WHO WROTE NEXT WEEK'S EPISODE :D

Moffat only actually wrote the first and last episode of this series :)
 
Gatiss is the only one who clearly likes women :) (EXCEPT NEIL GAIMAN)

There aren't any woman writers or directors which is a real shame :(
 
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Yeah, last night's episode was great. And I usually don't like Doctor-lite episodes too much (don't even talk to me about Love and Monsters).

So if Journey was written by another writer than that means sexism is more pervasive than just Moffat. Oh dear. :(

Not looking forward to the Cybermen too much. I like them but they're WAY WAY WAY overused. Just because it's a classic enemy doesn't mean you need to shove it in our faces every thirty seconds. :rolleyes: I doubt Gaiman will make a mess of it, though. He's a pretty creative guy, and The Doctor's Wife was good, even if it was a bit corny.

Poor Mr. Sweet. He was a really good special effect. Not CGI and done very well. A bit of a wonky idea, but those are pretty much the main point of Who. And Strax is always fun.
 
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Are there any episodes where he teams up with a villain or so?

I find things like that to be incredibly refreshing if done properly.
 
Are there any episodes where he teams up with a villain or so?

I find things like that to be incredibly refreshing if done properly.

Off the top of my head:

Boom Town (sorta)
New Earth
The End of Time (specifically Part 2)

In the old series there are probably more (I know Trial of a Time Lord has him teaming up with the Master) but it's hard to come up with these things in either one, because the lines between good and villainy are really, really blurred.

For example, the Doctor is presented as the "good guy" but he's been incredibly merciless in some scenarios. He let this one alien child army drown because they were planning to attack Earth, he caused misery (and a suicide) for everyone in a Martian colony when he tried to defy fate through time travel (and this was after he got an incredibly inflated ego in the same incident and basically declared himself a god). Hell, he even was responsible for the genocide of his own people. There are so many examples of this it's ridiculous. But most prominently he tends to show sympathy to villains, even when they don't deserve it, and tries to save as many lives as he can. He constantly fluctuates between both extremes. So I suppose that kinda fulfills what you're talking about.
 
Off the top of my head:

Boom Town (sorta)
New Earth
The End of Time (specifically Part 2)

In the old series there are probably more (I know Trial of a Time Lord has him teaming up with the Master) but it's hard to come up with these things in either one, because the lines between good and villainy are really, really blurred.

For example, the Doctor is presented as the "good guy" but he's been incredibly merciless in some scenarios. He let this one alien child army drown because they were planning to attack Earth, he caused misery (and a suicide) for everyone in a Martian colony when he tried to defy fate through time travel (and this was after he got an incredibly inflated ego in the same incident and basically declared himself a god). Hell, he even was responsible for the genocide of his own people. There are so many examples of this it's ridiculous. But most prominently he tends to show sympathy to villains, even when they don't deserve it, and tries to save as many lives as he can. He constantly fluctuates between both extremes. So I suppose that kinda fulfills what you're talking about.

Is Who supposed to be a consistent character or does his personality shift canonically between the rebirths?

Probably been asked before, so sorry.
 
I guess that's a pretty convenient way to put new spins on the same situations since it's still the same character in some ways, yet it's also a whole new iteration.

Being a powerful character like that makes one prone to being an utilitarian too, perhaps.