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Source: (consider it) Thread: Doctor Who: Fall 2014
Wood
The Milkman of Human Kindness
# 7

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My favourite Doctor Who story, old or new, btw is Kinda. I'm sure I've said that, but it probably explains my preferences.

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Narcissism.

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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549

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quote:
Originally posted by Wood:
Hey Dafyd, did you read my essay in the SCM mag about how problematic Gridlock was in religious terms?

I have more than one pile of SCM magazines and other journals that have built up across the flat. Someday palaeontologists will investigate them. So I'm afraid I probably haven't. Was it a while back?

I'm sure Gridlock was supposed to be a critique of religion. David Tennant apparently thought so. But the story ends up doing something completely different, probably because Davies was making up the plot at one in the morning before the deadline, and therefore instead of pushing a line it ends up leaving questions open.

The fundamental flaw of all the rest of Davies' writing I think is that he can't resist spelling out to the audience what they're supposed to think and how they're supposed to feel. (On the evidence of Midnight and Torchwood: Children of Men, this is because Davies is trying to paper over his own disbelief.) Midnight works because Davies can't get an uplifting message out of it and so doesn't try. Gridlock works because the different messages Davies wants to send all cancel each other out, and we're left with something more open ended.

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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams

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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768

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quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
quote:
Originally posted by Wood:
See, Listen was pretty good, but it's basic thematic underpinning, that there's a scary thing but actually there isn't anything to be scared of, was done with Hide, and done slightly better. If that basic twist hadn't been done last year in an episode with a similar title, Listen would be higher in my reckoning.

But Listen is second best in my book.

I'm going to have to disagree with you on that one I'm afraid. Hide was close to a basic "Silurian Plot" - that of the other failing to communicate and this leading to fear and disaster.

Listen, on the other hand, may just have been a first for Dr Who. One where there was no monster at all. And it was incredibly creepy because of that.

Actually, that's not quite true about Listen - but I haven't spotted anyone else pick this up. The Monster on the Bed? Just for a second I saw a flash of a Silent/Confessor reflected in the window. Which means that we have an entire new story laden with pathos captured in just that scene. A poor orphan who literally could not be remembered by anyone at the orphanage unless it was hiding under the blanket or otherwise couldn't be seen. Adults who have seen the moon landing will try to kill the poor child. And, worse yet, even when the kid thinks they have found a way to communicate, even Rupert/Danny won't remember.

I've just watched that bit over and over again, and I couldn't see that flash at all. I did manage to stop the play at the moment the cover slid off the face, seen over Clara's shoulder. I could only see an out of focus European flesh coloured face with two widely set eyes and what looked like a normal nose, with very little fair hair. I never saw a reflection in the window.
Mind you, the story was set up to bring the Silence, and the home in the US to mind. I was expecting them when I first watched. That the Dr never once related the dream to that episode was peculiar.

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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549

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quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
That the Dr never once related the dream to that episode was peculiar.

There's an obvious explanation for why the Doctor had forgotten about the Silence.

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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams

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Robert Armin

All licens'd fool
# 182

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Hmmm. Last night's episode was OK, but didn't move me greatly. The final reveal was well done, but the Doctor doesn't seem bothered about who set the whole thing up, and killed loads of people carelessly. And I'm amazed by the praise for Frank Skinner. To me he was wooden - except when he was choking to death when he was risible. There really isn't much time for this season to turn around and become Decent, rather than Poor.

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Keeping fit was an obsession with Fr Moity .... He did chin ups in the vestry, calisthenics in the pulpit, and had developed a series of Tai-Chi exercises to correspond with ritual movements of the Mass. The Antipope Robert Rankin

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orfeo

Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878

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quote:
Originally posted by Robert Armin:
There really isn't much time for this season to turn around and become Decent, rather than Poor.

Given that general reaction to the season is pretty positive, I wouldn't hold your breath that they're going to fix whatever you think is a problem.

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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.

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orfeo

Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878

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quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
Once you start actively deconstructing the series you're playing with you run the run the risk of taking away all the magic and being left with ... the deconstructed ruins.

quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
That said, I'd worry about anyone who said Midnight was their favourite Doctor Who story - because really it's a claim that the ethical basis behind Doctor Who doesn't work in the real world.

Okay, I find both of these remarks about 'Midnight' rather fascinating, and also slightly odd.

Because to me, 'Midnight' is primarily about puncturing The Doctor's god-like status. And I would have thought that the Capaldi era has slowly been doing the same puncturing, albeit in a slightly different way.

As well as Clara's increasing challenge of the Doctor, which has reached a peak in the last couple of episodes, there's been a variety of other characters asking "why do you get to be in charge?".

It's one of the things that's making the current run more interesting.

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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.

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Robert Armin

All licens'd fool
# 182

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orfeo, I've often found that opinion on the Ship is far more pro Moffatt's Who than anything I meet elsewhere. When you say "general reaction to the season is pretty positive", what do you mean? In the conversations I have in pubs etc about Who I get stick for not being hard enough on the current season. There are long time fans who are in despair over Capaldi, whereas I like him (but think he hasn't been given any really good scripts yet).

[ 12. October 2014, 21:38: Message edited by: Robert Armin ]

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Keeping fit was an obsession with Fr Moity .... He did chin ups in the vestry, calisthenics in the pulpit, and had developed a series of Tai-Chi exercises to correspond with ritual movements of the Mass. The Antipope Robert Rankin

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orfeo

Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878

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quote:
Originally posted by Robert Armin:
When you say "general reaction to the season is pretty positive", what do you mean?

I mean reading reviews and comments on reviews. I don't have any pub conversations to work with.

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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.

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Justinian
Shipmate
# 5357

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quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Okay, I find both of these remarks about 'Midnight' rather fascinating, and also slightly odd.

Because to me, 'Midnight' is primarily about puncturing The Doctor's god-like status. And I would have thought that the Capaldi era has slowly been doing the same puncturing, albeit in a slightly different way.

As well as Clara's increasing challenge of the Doctor, which has reached a peak in the last couple of episodes, there's been a variety of other characters asking "why do you get to be in charge?".

It's one of the things that's making the current run more interesting.

To me Midnight singularly failed at that, and was worse at that job than seasons 5, 6, or 8 have been. Midnight wasn't asking "Why does the Doctor get to be in charge?" or "What makes the Doctor? And how is this inherently a problem?" What it was asking was "What happens when you take away The Doctor's ability to be The Doctor and make them a normal person?" This is an entirely different question - interesting in its own right. But 11 and 12 have never had the obnoxious Messiah issues 10 did.

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My real name consists of just four letters, but in billions of combinations.

Eudaimonaic Laughter - my blog.

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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549

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quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Because to me, 'Midnight' is primarily about puncturing The Doctor's god-like status. And I would have thought that the Capaldi era has slowly been doing the same puncturing, albeit in a slightly different way.

In Midnight, the Doctor starts off by telling a group of frightened people that the way to react to something unknown is never to throw the outsider off the bus. That's a fundamental part of the Doctor's ethics. It turns out that the solution to the week's problem is to throw the outsider off the bus.

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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams

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orfeo

Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878

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quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Because to me, 'Midnight' is primarily about puncturing The Doctor's god-like status. And I would have thought that the Capaldi era has slowly been doing the same puncturing, albeit in a slightly different way.

In Midnight, the Doctor starts off by telling a group of frightened people that the way to react to something unknown is never to throw the outsider off the bus. That's a fundamental part of the Doctor's ethics. It turns out that the solution to the week's problem is to throw the outsider off the bus.
Huh?? That's what the people on the bus want to do. I fail to see how the episode depicts that this is the right solution.

[ 12. October 2014, 22:53: Message edited by: orfeo ]

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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.

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orfeo

Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878

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quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Okay, I find both of these remarks about 'Midnight' rather fascinating, and also slightly odd.

Because to me, 'Midnight' is primarily about puncturing The Doctor's god-like status. And I would have thought that the Capaldi era has slowly been doing the same puncturing, albeit in a slightly different way.

As well as Clara's increasing challenge of the Doctor, which has reached a peak in the last couple of episodes, there's been a variety of other characters asking "why do you get to be in charge?".

It's one of the things that's making the current run more interesting.

To me Midnight singularly failed at that, and was worse at that job than seasons 5, 6, or 8 have been. Midnight wasn't asking "Why does the Doctor get to be in charge?" or "What makes the Doctor? And how is this inherently a problem?" What it was asking was "What happens when you take away The Doctor's ability to be The Doctor and make them a normal person?" This is an entirely different question - interesting in its own right. But 11 and 12 have never had the obnoxious Messiah issues 10 did.
That only makes sense to me if you see being authoritative as an essential part of "The Doctor's ability to be The Doctor".

It's fascinating watching the very first story of William Hartnell these days. You know who the first person to get in trouble on Doctor Who is? The first person who needs rescuing by others? The Doctor. He gets bopped over the head by a caveman.

The Doctor being powerless is only a radical move because of what later stories turned him into.

[ 12. October 2014, 22:59: Message edited by: orfeo ]

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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.

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Kelly Alves

Bunny with an axe
# 2522

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quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:

It's fascinating watching the very first story of William Hartnell these days. You know who the first person to get in trouble on Doctor Who is? The first person who needs rescuing by others? The Doctor. He gets bopped over the head by a caveman.

I really need to catch up with Old Who, because I think I would like that version of the Doctor. The whole ubermensch thing is not only overdone but IMO we actively need an antidote to it in this current age. Too much cultural poisoning still exists from bad use of ubermensch narratives.

SO maybe "midnight" wasn't the Doctor failing to be the Doctor, but circumstances arising to remind The Doctor what he is not.

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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.

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Justinian
Shipmate
# 5357

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quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
That only makes sense to me if you see being authoritative as an essential part of "The Doctor's ability to be The Doctor".

It's fascinating watching the very first story of William Hartnell these days. You know who the first person to get in trouble on Doctor Who is? The first person who needs rescuing by others? The Doctor. He gets bopped over the head by a caveman.

The Doctor being powerless is only a radical move because of what later stories turned him into.

Indeed. Hartnell's Doctor didn't start out as The Doctor. I'd argue that the transformation came somewhere between The Edge of Destruction and The Dalek Invasion of Earth - and Ian and Barbara were very much catalysts. (Which, of course, means that there's a case that it wasn't complete until The Time Meddler).

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My real name consists of just four letters, but in billions of combinations.

Eudaimonaic Laughter - my blog.

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Justinian
Shipmate
# 5357

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quote:
Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:

It's fascinating watching the very first story of William Hartnell these days. You know who the first person to get in trouble on Doctor Who is? The first person who needs rescuing by others? The Doctor. He gets bopped over the head by a caveman.

I really need to catch up with Old Who, because I think I would like that version of the Doctor. The whole ubermensch thing is not only overdone but IMO we actively need an antidote to it in this current age. Too much cultural poisoning still exists from bad use of ubermensch narratives.

SO maybe "midnight" wasn't the Doctor failing to be the Doctor, but circumstances arising to remind The Doctor what he is not.

Try rewatching S5 and S6. Matt Smith's Doctor gets outmaneuvered quite spectacularly at times - often at the points of his greatest hubris. The point I'm thinking of in specific is this speech. That wasn't success. That was hubris - and the Doctor showing he was actually well out of his depth.

Also has anyone looked through this and seen a few spoilers?

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My real name consists of just four letters, but in billions of combinations.

Eudaimonaic Laughter - my blog.

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Kelly Alves

Bunny with an axe
# 2522

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One of the reasons I really really liked Smith was his ability to own his vulnerability, so yeah, I agree with that. I wasn't sure if that was just him or part of the canonical character, but I definitely appreciated the way he showed the cracks in the Doctor's veneer.

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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.

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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549

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quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
It turns out that the solution to the week's problem is to throw the outsider off the bus.

Huh?? That's what the people on the bus want to do. I fail to see how the episode depicts that this is the right solution.
It is what works in the end.
There's no suggestion of any way in which the Doctor's plan could have worked. We don't even get the Doctor saying that there should have been another way, let alone that there was another way.

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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams

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The Great Gumby

Ship's Brain Surgeon
# 10989

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quote:
Originally posted by Robert Armin:
orfeo, I've often found that opinion on the Ship is far more pro Moffatt's Who than anything I meet elsewhere. When you say "general reaction to the season is pretty positive", what do you mean? In the conversations I have in pubs etc about Who I get stick for not being hard enough on the current season. There are long time fans who are in despair over Capaldi, whereas I like him (but think he hasn't been given any really good scripts yet).

It's strange, isn't it? I know of these fans in despair over Capaldi, thinking that he's too nasty and callous, and the Doctor isn't really like that. In fact, that's as much a part of his character as any fluffy characteristic of 10 and 11, because at this point, the Doctor is basically a mythical mass of contradictions. Like a Sci-Fi Rorschach Test, who we think he is probably says more about us than about the character himself, built up over 50 meandering, inconsistent years with layer upon layer of new mythology haphazardly slapped on top of each other.

I liked this episode, which was good, because I'd been caught between a childish excitement about it and the more world-weary assumption that it would be a stinker that was only written because the title sounded cool. I liked it, but it could qualify for higher praise if we get a payoff from some peculiarities, like who or what Gus (GUS?) was - I was reminded of House from The Doctor's Wife - and what was up with Perkins, who I rather like, but also suspect of hiding something. Then there's the handwavy escape, which felt a bit off.

Still, a decent (and scary) story, interwoven with arc and character, Capaldi doing his thing again, and I must admit I had a total squee when he did his Tom Baker impression talking about the mummy. (Also, one of the voices when he was arguing with himself sounded a bit Troughtonish. I must watch again to see if I missed anything else.)

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The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool. - Richard Feynman

A letter to my son about death

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Wood
The Milkman of Human Kindness
# 7

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I have to be honest, I hang with lefties and feminists, and in the circles I move in, Moffat's Who is generally loathed (I'm the Moffat apologist usually), so here it's an interestingly different view to what I'm getting elsewhere.

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Narcissism.

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Eigon
Shipmate
# 4917

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One of the things I particularly liked about the Mummy was how many of the extras were black, or Asian or Chinese.

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Laugh hard. Run fast. Be kind.

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Heavenly Anarchist
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# 13313

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This lefty feminist is rather fond of Moffat, The Empty Child and Silence in the Library are some of my favourite Whos and I rather like the twists you get in his work. I liked Deep Breath despite some of the hamminess. But I have no problem with RTD either, both writers have their high and low points, as expected in any field.
I'm enjoying Capaldi's Doctor, it's refreshing; he's very multi-layered in his characterisation and I'm a sucker for psychology. I like that I recognise my childhood Doctors in him, not just in obvious references but in his thinking and behaviour. (My ipad just tried to change thinking to thunking! How very Dr Seuss).
My son tells me that Stephen Thompson is the father of one of his school friends. My husband is very excited now as he has a mathematical Doctor Who story storyline in his head and wants to share it with him [Smile]

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Dog Activity Monitor
My shop

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Hedgehog

Ship's Shortstop
# 14125

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quote:
Originally posted by The Great Gumby:
I liked it, but it could qualify for higher praise if we get a payoff from some peculiarities, like who or what Gus (GUS?) was - I was reminded of House from The Doctor's Wife - and what was up with Perkins, who I rather like, but also suspect of hiding something.

Oh, yes. I have a feeling both are going to reappear later in the season. What do we know of Gus? It tried multiple times to get the Doctor to come there, and when the Doctor tried to access it for more info it blew itself up. That is waaaaaaaay too much of a mystery not to clear up at some point (although it took several years for the TARDIS-exploding-explanation to show up...and then in a throw-away line!)

As for Perkins, his rather pointed comment about the job leaving you "a changed man" suggests more knowledge than he could be expected to have. I also wonder about his comment (after looking at the TARDIS inner workings) about stacks overloading (or some such phrasing). If Missy and the Netherworld are aspects of the TARDIS, mayhap that is an indication of it. As was mentioned above, a lot of this series deals with malfunctioning technology. Perhaps a TARDIS malfunction is creating Missy and her world? And perhaps Perkins just pointed the problem out to the Doctor? I suspect Perkins will be back later in the series.

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"We must regain the conviction that we need one another, that we have a shared responsibility for others and the world, and that being good and decent are worth it."--Pope Francis, Laudato Si'

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The Great Gumby

Ship's Brain Surgeon
# 10989

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quote:
Originally posted by Wood:
I have to be honest, I hang with lefties and feminists, and in the circles I move in, Moffat's Who is generally loathed (I'm the Moffat apologist usually), so here it's an interestingly different view to what I'm getting elsewhere.

Is that the "Moffat Can't/Doesn't Write Female Characters" thing? I hear that complaint quite a lot, but it's always seemed to be long on rhetoric and short on hard evidence, quite apart from the fact that most episodes are written by other people.

I flip-flop on Moffat - when he's good, he's very good, but there have also been plenty of times when I've longed for more simplicity, less overblown foreshadowing and fewer loose ends dangling for years at a time. I've even come to miss RTD in some ways, who for all his faults didn't go round writing cheques he couldn't pay. But he seems to have improved after a difficult start (I heard of all sorts of production problems in his early series), this series as a whole (I'm pretending the Moon-Egg never happened) has been strong so far, and I'm hoping for more of the same.

--------------------
The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool. - Richard Feynman

A letter to my son about death

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Robert Armin

All licens'd fool
# 182

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This morning I watched the episode again, and enjoyed it more. Coleman and Capaldi continue to impress, and I loved the Doctor's conversation with himself. In fact I was even feeling better towards Frank Skinner, and wondered if I could describe his performance as "understated". Then I saw him gasping for air again and had to go back to "wooden". (He certainly could come back, or he could be another Moffat loose end, left flapping in the wind.)

--------------------
Keeping fit was an obsession with Fr Moity .... He did chin ups in the vestry, calisthenics in the pulpit, and had developed a series of Tai-Chi exercises to correspond with ritual movements of the Mass. The Antipope Robert Rankin

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Lord Jestocost
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# 12909

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quote:
Originally posted by Robert Armin:
In fact I was even feeling better towards Frank Skinner, and wondered if I could describe his performance as "understated". Then I saw him gasping for air again and had to go back to "wooden". (He certainly could come back, or he could be another Moffat loose end, left flapping in the wind.)

Surely the history of Dr Who is littered with such characters? It's not just a Moffat phenomenon. I'm happy to leave them flapping rather than tie them all up in an uberfannish bundle of continuity. Leave that to the fanfic writers.
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Wet Kipper
Circus Runaway
# 1654

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someone pointed out on Facebook that near the end, Clara's hairclip was on the other side of her head.
was our view of her "mirrored" because the Dr was looking at her through the big glassy bit in the middle of the Tardis console, or was it just a "whoops" ?

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doubtingthomas
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# 14498

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quote:
Originally posted by The Great Gumby:
quote:
Originally posted by Robert Armin:
....There are long time fans who are in despair over Capaldi, whereas I like him (but think he hasn't been given any really good scripts yet).

It's strange, isn't it? I know of these fans in despair over Capaldi, thinking that he's too nasty and callous, and the Doctor isn't really like that....
We had a long discussion about these matters in the pub on Sunday, with lots of strong opinions and reasoned arguments. Then someone pointed out that we haven't had that level of debate about any of the new doctors yet!
So even if Capaldi's doctor achieves nothing else, he has made us talk about him.

(Personally, I think I have come off the fence after this week's episode to argue that I actually like his protrayal of the character, even if that does not actually make for an immediately likeable character.)

quote:
Originally posted by Lord Jestocost:
quote:
Originally posted by Robert Armin:
...another Moffat loose end, left flapping in the wind.)

Surely the history of Dr Who is littered with such characters? It's not just a Moffat phenomenon. I'm happy to leave them flapping rather than tie them all up in an uberfannish bundle of continuity. Leave that to the fanfic writers.
...or indeed, other Doctor Who writers! [Razz]

[ 14. October 2014, 23:40: Message edited by: doubtingthomas ]

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Robert Armin

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LJ - completely agree with you about Who-history being littered with such characters. However, it seems to me there have been an awful lot of loose end in the Moffatt era. That, coupled with him boasting about how his is the greatest ever period of Who, helps me get annoyed when I see another portentous thread that does not go anywhere.

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Pine Marten
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# 11068

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quote:
Originally posted by Wet Kipper:
someone pointed out on Facebook that near the end, Clara's hairclip was on the other side of her head.
was our view of her "mirrored" because the Dr was looking at her through the big glassy bit in the middle of the Tardis console, or was it just a "whoops" ?

Yes, I noticed that too. I assumed that, as she was on the left side of the screen both times looking towards the right they edited it like that so that it wouldn't look odd - the Doctor being on the right. Or maybe it's just a 'whoops'... [Smile]

I've watched it twice now - maybe I'm dumb, but what was the Hartnell mannerism outside Clara's cabin?

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orfeo

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# 13878

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quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
It turns out that the solution to the week's problem is to throw the outsider off the bus.

Huh?? That's what the people on the bus want to do. I fail to see how the episode depicts that this is the right solution.
It is what works in the end.

I'm sorry, but this is just completely nuts. Unless you watched some different edition of the episode where the people baying to throw the Doctor out the door succeed. There is a universe of difference between throwing the "outsider" out and correctly identifying an ACTUAL threat and getting rid of it. That is the half the point of the episode.

[ 15. October 2014, 11:30: Message edited by: orfeo ]

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orfeo

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# 13878

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PS And I find your comment even stranger because the alternative - your claimed ethic of the Doctor - is that he never destroys any actual threat. Which is so manifestly not true after 30+ seasons of the show as to be completely untenable. It has never, ever been the Doctor's ethic to say that a genuine deadly threat needs to have its hand held and be made friends with. The ethic is to not jump to that conclusion. "Midnight" shows a character saving the day by not jumping to the wrong conclusion that the "throw the outsider off the bus" crowd jumps to.

How you can read the end of the episode as any kind of vindication of the paranoia of the characters who spend the episode disagreeing with the Doctor is mindboggling.

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Justinian
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# 5357

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quote:
Originally posted by Robert Armin:
LJ - completely agree with you about Who-history being littered with such characters. However, it seems to me there have been an awful lot of loose end in the Moffatt era. That, coupled with him boasting about how his is the greatest ever period of Who, helps me get annoyed when I see another portentous thread that does not go anywhere.

I on the other hand would be really really annoyed if someone tried to tie up all the loose ends. I want the characters to have lives outside The Doctor. I want to be able to imagine that there's a bigger universe out there than the small part of it revolving around The Doctor. Loose ends like that are a good thing because they add scope and scale rather than giving the impression that it's all a bottle episode.

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doubtingthomas
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# 14498

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quote:
Originally posted by Pine Marten:
I've watched it twice now - maybe I'm dumb, but what was the Hartnell mannerism outside Clara's cabin?

It's the little twiddle he does with his fingers while he makes up his mind not to disturb Clara. Hartnell's Doctor did that a lot.

No dumbness detected. A brainstorm/group-squee on Sunday revealed (as expected) that I had missed more of these things than I spotted, and I suspect that is true for many of us...

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Hedgehog

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# 14125

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quote:
Originally posted by doubtingthomas:
quote:
Originally posted by Pine Marten:
I've watched it twice now - maybe I'm dumb, but what was the Hartnell mannerism outside Clara's cabin?

It's the little twiddle he does with his fingers while he makes up his mind not to disturb Clara. Hartnell's Doctor did that a lot.

No dumbness detected. A brainstorm/group-squee on Sunday revealed (as expected) that I had missed more of these things than I spotted, and I suspect that is true for many of us...

This highlights one of the most impressive things about Capaldi's performance. In Classic Who, the actors seemed to try very hard to be "different" from what went before. On the other hand, NuWho has avoided that. Honestly, the difference between the character of 10th and 11th is pretty subtle. But Capaldi is the only one who seems intent on incorporating bits of all the previous Doctors into his performance--into making his Doctor an amalgam of all that has come before.

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Jane R
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# 331

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Eigon:
quote:
One of the things I particularly liked about the Mummy was how many of the extras were black, or Asian or Chinese.
Now that was one of the things I disliked about it. Yes, OK, they were there in the background; but how many of them actually had speaking roles? (You won't need to take your socks off to count) Why did Perkins and the Captain and Maisie all have to be white?

I think it was a mistake to show the mummy straightaway, too. I'd have kept it invisible until after the Doctor had the conversation with the pompous academic. Seeing it in the first death scene made it less scary (IMNSHO).

I liked the swing version of 'Don't stop me now,' though - a great example of how recreations of the past get things slightly wrong.

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Heavenly Anarchist
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# 13313

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Yes, her rendition of the song was beautiful, it created a great atmosphere from the start of the story and I enjoyed the mix up between re-creations, with the 1920s gear and 1980s song (the Tudor re-creator in me loved that, we have to act and dress to a specific year).

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Rosa Winkel

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# 11424

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A 1979 song. I also liked this version.

I'm enjoying the new series a lot.

It was obvious to me that Clara was going to change her mind in the end. I seem to recall that the BBC said that we'll end up with two companions, her and Mr Pink.

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The Great Gumby

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# 10989

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quote:
Originally posted by Hedgehog:
quote:
Originally posted by doubtingthomas:
quote:
Originally posted by Pine Marten:
I've watched it twice now - maybe I'm dumb, but what was the Hartnell mannerism outside Clara's cabin?

It's the little twiddle he does with his fingers while he makes up his mind not to disturb Clara. Hartnell's Doctor did that a lot.

No dumbness detected. A brainstorm/group-squee on Sunday revealed (as expected) that I had missed more of these things than I spotted, and I suspect that is true for many of us...

This highlights one of the most impressive things about Capaldi's performance. In Classic Who, the actors seemed to try very hard to be "different" from what went before. On the other hand, NuWho has avoided that. Honestly, the difference between the character of 10th and 11th is pretty subtle. But Capaldi is the only one who seems intent on incorporating bits of all the previous Doctors into his performance--into making his Doctor an amalgam of all that has come before.
I don't think that's just Capaldi - some of it's clearly written into the script, and this whole series seems to be harking back to previous stories and ideas. If the sequences where he's talking to himself weren't written with this in mind, someone was really missing a trick.

I didn't get the idea that the unorthodox Queen performance was a futuristic historical anachronism, which is slightly embarrassing as it's an old Who trope, and I only recently watched an ancient "iPod" (jukebox) playing "classical Earth music" (Tainted Love) in The End of The World. This series rewards a lot of careful repeat viewing, both in picking up on subtle references and just enjoying the stories.

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Adeodatus
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# 4992

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quote:
Originally posted by Wood:
I have to be honest, I hang with lefties and feminists, and in the circles I move in, Moffat's Who is generally loathed (I'm the Moffat apologist usually), so here it's an interestingly different view to what I'm getting elsewhere.

Philip Sandifer has blogged a few times about Moffat and his women characters, and I've a lot of sympathy for his reading of things. (I generally do anyway - I've spent many hours happily confused by his blog.)

I've watched Mummy three times now, and I think it's a sheer delight. Capaldi's got style. I grinned like a fanmaniac when he took out his cigarette case, tapped it, opened it ... and it was full of jelly babies. I'm also liking the more adult turn the show seems to have taken since it moved to the 8.30pm slot.

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Dafyd
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# 5549

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quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Unless you watched some different edition of the episode where the people baying to throw the Doctor out the door succeed. There is a universe of difference between throwing the "outsider" out and correctly identifying an ACTUAL threat and getting rid of it. That is the half the point of the episode.

Before the Doctor himself gets possessed, the other characters, including the hostess, advocate throwing Sky off the bus on the grounds that she's kept to herself and now she's acting strangely and might be a threat. The Doctor opposes them on the grounds that nobody is throwing anybody off the bus on his watch.

As it turns out, if the Doctor had gone along with the mob at that point, the hostess would still be alive.

Certainly, the Doctor has destroyed lots of threats in his time. But the general rule in the Doctor's ethics is that something isn't a threat until it's killing or seriously hurting people, and even then you give it the benefit of the doubt.

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Eigon
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# 4917

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I agree with Jane R about the lack of speaking roles for minority actors in this episode, but at least someone was thinking about it, otherwise there would have been only white extras.

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doubtingthomas
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# 14498

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quote:
Originally posted by Jane R:

I think it was a mistake to show the mummy straightaway, too. I'd have kept it invisible until after the Doctor had the conversation with the pompous academic. Seeing it in the first death scene made it less scary (IMNSHO).

I agree on principle, although I was impressed that the mummy was well enough done for it to work for me anyway. A number of episode have been spoilt by showing (or showing too much of) the monster. This one wasn't, even if it might have been more effective to wait a bit.

(...it probably helped that it was a real actor, not CGI, although that is by no means a given...)

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doubtingthomas
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# 14498

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Apologies for double-post, couldn't resist commenting after all...

quote:
Originally posted by The Great Gumby:
I don't think that's just Capaldi - some of it's clearly written into the script, and this whole series seems to be harking back to previous stories and ideas. If the sequences where he's talking to himself weren't written with this in mind, someone was really missing a trick.

Be that as it may (and you are probably right...) - it is Capaldi who can actually pull it off.
Things like voices and gestures are not in the script as such. There may have been an intention to do some of this from the start, but the extent to which it is done is down to the director and (mostly!) the actor.

[ 16. October 2014, 22:30: Message edited by: doubtingthomas ]

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Schroedinger's cat

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# 64

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I'm not going to say much in case people are watching on catch up, but I loved that! The basic premise of the aliens was fascinating.

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welsh dragon

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# 3249

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I quite liked it up until the resolution which I found unsatisfactory
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Sparrow
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# 2458

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I loved it too. I thought it was very like the old classic Who of the Pertwee and Baker eras - Clara as MI5 agent was very reminiscent of Sarah Jane in investigative mode!

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Stumbling Pilgrim
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# 7637

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So did I! Fascinating, scary, funny and full of action, including a considerable amount of running in things resembling corridors. It was genuinely creepy realising what the "murals" actually were. And a return to the 'good man' theme in the Doctor's last line. As for the actual last line, I still have no idea where that's going, but then I can't even spot Agatha Christie's murderers, so what would I know?
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Pine Marten
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# 11068

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I liked it too - very creepy, and I felt quite claustrophobic!

It was good seeing Missy again, and to be comfortingly on the end of having no idea where this is going. Clara & Danny's relationship is still peculiar, and the 'goodness has nothing to do with it' line was great. A pretty satisfying episode.

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Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead. - Oscar Wilde

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Ariel
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# 58

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Good stuff with a nightmarish element to it - the dead shambling along the Underground should be enough to frighten most people. Bit let down by the resolution, that sonic screwdriver solves everything.

Also good to be reminded that Clara isn't quite who she seems to be, I was wondering whether they'd dropped that line.

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