Exterminieren
Banned
Well, they got the youngest Doctor to dress old. As a result, I can only see Capaldi wearing a hoodie and trackie bottoms.
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Doctor Who Series Seven |OT| The Question You've Been Running From All Your Life
- Thread starter Mr. Sam
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The 12th doctor's going to be a chav?
Gotta appeal to the Americans!
JonathanEx
Member
Been rewatching all of NewWho. Really interesting to see the difference, and well worth doing if you haven't in a while.
...but.
We're about to hit Love and Monsters/Fear Her. I feel the 'rewatch it all' plan may need modifying.
...but.
We're about to hit Love and Monsters/Fear Her. I feel the 'rewatch it all' plan may need modifying.
DrForester
Kills Photobucket
Love and Monsters easily crosses the "So bad it's good" line. Fear Her is just a horrible boring piece of crap.
Jorok Goldblade
Member
The only constant is that they all include some form of coat or jacket for the Doctor to pull the psychic paper, sonic screwdriver, and other tools from.
The Real Abed
Perma-Junior
I just realized, unless 11 decides to wear something else before he dies, 12 is going to be "born" into Matt's bowtie. And dammit, I hope he's wearing that goddamn fez.
Each Doctor has regenerated into the old clothes. Tennant wore the leather jacket for his first episode before choosing his outfit. And Matt wore Tennant's button shirt before looking through a wardrobe. I cannot wait to see Mr. Fuckity wearing a cool red bowtie.
So bad it's bad.
A stetson with a fez on top, and a bowtie.
Worthintendo
Member
Love and Monsters was on TV the other day, I caught the last half of it and you what its not as bad as everyone makes it out to be. If not for the horrible looking alien and the pavement blowjob ending I would say it would be a very good episode. The monster just looks soo stupid and I know its the result of a kid submitting a design and winning a contest but it just looks like crap.
Everything else about that episode was really well done and I enjoyed it.
Fear Her though is tripe
Ruins the entire thing. Seriously. *shudders*
Exterminieren
Banned
Love and Monsters is Who's most thematically rich episode.
Last of the Time Lords comes second.
Last of the Time Lords comes second.
Really found the Abzorbaloff or whatever to be rather annoying, of course it was designed by a child for a competition, I suppose it was to be expected not to be the greatest villain. I do find it funny whenever mentioning that episode when I'm with friends round the pub there's always a big groan in unison across the whole table.
Box of Bunnies
Banned
I haven't watched it since it aired, but that was how I came away from it at the time. Was surprised at the sheer hate for it.
SpacePirate Ridley
Member
Yep.
Fear her is my most hated Doctor Who episode, its just the most horribly boring episode ever. Then come The widow, the doctor and the wardrobe.
I an episode does something bad but its entertaining at the end I can't hate it, but if its a boring piece of crap like those two makes me dont wantto watch them ever again.
Worthintendo
Member
You look at Blink and its a very similar premise to Love & Monsters, just being about someone whose life the Doctor has touched and then them trying to deal with everything that has caused. The premise of the villain in L&M is really quiet creepy and frightening, you get absorbed into this thing and you are still conscience but there is almost nothing you can do. Had they not played it so comical and made it alot more menacing the episode would have worked and would be regarded alot better.
I don't mind the whole Moaning Myrtle being turned into a slab of concrete thing soo much had they not made that line about a love life, it would have added a tragic happy note to it all that it needed. Elton was a really well written character and someone I think alot of the fanbase related to. I liked his arch and how he realised that he didn't need to chase the Doctor anymore because he had everything he wanted. Unfortunately he realised it all too late and almost lost everything. I think out of the options for the conclusion they almost went with the right one, I would have hated it in hindsight if everyone the monster had absorbed came back but it would have been too depressing if he had lost everything. At least with the ending they gave him a somewhat happy yet sad note but they had to ruin it with that Love Life stuff, somethings are better left to the imagination or season 1 of Torchwood. I'm sure there is an ending there that would hit the right sour note without being creepy/icky.
So yeah I think this is one of the episode of New Who that gets alot of unfair hate, I think if you look at it as a proto Blink it works alot better. They were just ironing out the details of doing a Doctor Lite episode and with a better designed/written villain and a slightly altered ending this episode would have been as well regarded as Blink.
Chavs arrent appealing to Americans.
wha?
peanutbutterlatte
Member
The whispering girl from Fear Her is the most irritating little child in all of creation. Wish the wall had swallowed her up.
JonathanEx
Member
Let's go to Bob in the commentary booth. Bob? Not you too, Bob!
(I sort of want to re-edit Fear Her adding Trevor Nelson commentary on the TV bits)
(I sort of want to re-edit Fear Her adding Trevor Nelson commentary on the TV bits)
Dr Zhivago
Member
I hope they bring back the Doctor-lite episodes, they were interesting.
Barring a major budget increase, there will always be Doctor-lite episodes. :lol
SpacePirate Ridley
Member
Yep, I also think like this. the monster is shit, and the comedy is not needed, but what it does is frightening as hell, I've always feared mosnters that eat or absorb humans and the one in loves and monsters was very creepy in that aspect, and its even more surprising and depresing when they can not come back, but they failed big time in the presentation.
And of course the final joke, that was really not needed.
If they're only going to commence filming in january they'll have to bring back doctor-lite episodes if they're going to film 12 episodes in time for autumn...
The monster was terrible, the love life joke may have been a little too obvious, but I still enjoyed Love and Monsters, humour included.
Elton was interesting, LINDA was funny, ELO music was fun to hear, story was sound.
I think people forget to mention or bring up that it also had Jackie being cool. She was shown as having strong resolve and not telling Elton anything about the Doctor or Rose, despite being lonely and Elton taking advantage of that.
Elton was interesting, LINDA was funny, ELO music was fun to hear, story was sound.
I think people forget to mention or bring up that it also had Jackie being cool. She was shown as having strong resolve and not telling Elton anything about the Doctor or Rose, despite being lonely and Elton taking advantage of that.
Disagree with everything bolded. The monster was not the only thing that adulterated an otherwise accomplished episode guys... it was pretty horrible in all facets of its execution. Boring story, horrible dialogue, hammy acting - but the biggest problem of all is that it felt like time wasting filler - you couldn't accuse blink or turn left of that.
scooby doo corridor homage
But the idiot's lantern and fear her are worse.
APZonerunner
Member
I think Love & Monsters has some nice themes and stuff, but I agree with this. It shows a more callous side to the Doctor in general, like how when he saw Elton when he was a kid he just disappeared and all that. Didn't explain anything. The paving slab thing is, along with the awful prosthetic - designed by a 10 year old, lets not forget, the worst of the episode.
Even without those things it was always going to polarize, though. It's a very different episode, structure-wise.
Well, we've had them the one year that they made sense for Smith. The post-2010 production team has shit the bed on a lot of stuff, which has meant it wasn't needed this year due to the way it was scheduled. Series 5 didn't need one because the previous Christmas episode was done by the previous team, of course.
Series 6, the only series to be filmed in the same rolling format as 2-4, has a Doctor lite episode, The Girl Who Waited. Smith has about as much material in that episode as Tennant has in Blink or Love & Monsters - barely a bit more (Turn Left is really an outlier as he has next to no material because he had his own solo episode), it's just spaced out much more to make him a more constant presence in the story. Almost all his stuff is filmed on the TARDIS, etc. And it's a really good episode.
Let's be honest - right now, Clara is too paper thin to accommodate a Doctor lit episode anyway. We won't get one next series, I imagine. Each series is produced in a block of 14, the previous Christmas special and 13 episodes. Because Smith will be in the 2013 Christmas Special, Capaldi won't need an episode off. Coleman might, but they can do an episode without the regular companion easy.
Couple that with the rumour that Series 8 is going to be at least one episode shorter, and... they may even be gone forever!
JonathanEx
Member
And the double-bankers are also dealt with now by having one of the episodes set pretty much entirely in the studio - so it's easier to have two teams working. So Cold War was double banked this time round. According to a Wiki.
acheron_xl
Member
This is true. I don't think Clara is enough to carry an episode. Vastra, Jenny and Strax on the other hand might be capable as they more or less did that for a good chunk of The Crimson Horror.
Crimson Horror was a terrible episode though. Granted that wasn't due to the protagonists.
I just finished up the finale, and I have to say that between the finale and Nightmare in Silver, I am really going to miss Matt Smith as the Doctor. He's such a good actor, and his Doctor is as good as any and most importantly heis version is infectiously fun and able to convey age, when the writing is there. The disheartening thing to me is that Matt Smith wasn't really the problem with Who this season or the season before, the writing is at fault, and that's something that might not change all that much even with a new Doctor to freshen things up.
I just finished up the finale, and I have to say that between the finale and Nightmare in Silver, I am really going to miss Matt Smith as the Doctor. He's such a good actor, and his Doctor is as good as any and most importantly heis version is infectiously fun and able to convey age, when the writing is there. The disheartening thing to me is that Matt Smith wasn't really the problem with Who this season or the season before, the writing is at fault, and that's something that might not change all that much even with a new Doctor to freshen things up.
I emulate all of your sentiments regarding Smith - he was particularly excellent in a nightmare in silver and to be honest that episode would have been immeasurably improved by removing everything other than the "doctor at war with himself" conceit - all of the appurtenant characters and subplots ruined it.
But, and I can't believe I'm going to say it about a mark gatiss episode, the crimson horror was one of the highlights of the last season. Yes the episode was campy and ridiculous - but at least it was entertaining and had some semblance of originality. It was a better script than akhaten, cold war, journey to the centre of the TARDIS and about on a leve (all terrible)l with a nightmare in silver. This aesthetic suits gatiss and he should give up trying to write serious or cerebral doctor who episodes (cold war and night terrors are two of the worst episodes of the moffat era) and stick to leveraging his league of gentlemen credentials.
(He still hasn't written anything as good as toby whithouse's worst episodes though - why he was allowed to write two for series 7 is beyond me)
APZonerunner
Member
I'm really surprised you of all people said that, as Crimson Horror (like The Girl Who Waited, The Power of Three and a few others) feels like it's ripped straight out of the RTD era to me. Unsurprisingly, I liked it! Hands down the most fun episode this series, and in terms of overall quality probably my #3 of S7.
I think Nightmare in Silver is just a case of getting too over-excited. Every time there was yet another new feature of the Cybermen introduced I was sort of raising my brow further and further, because I actually think in a sense for me they became less effective the more invincible and silly they got, detaching arms and heads etc. I always felt the point of the Cybermen was that they weren't all that powerful, really, but were deadly because every time they took one of your side down, they used them to repair or, worse, make more of them. They touch on this in the episode, but it's soured by other things.
They were a brute strength force, with the heavy armor and the boots clumping loudly in unison. There IS something inherently nasty and terrible about that. The Cybermen are a tide coming in; you can build walls to try to stop it, but eventually it will overwhelm with sheer brute force. I think that's great, and sufficiently different from the organized strategic war machine of the Sontarans or the sheer power of the Daleks for instance. By making them really powerful (and theoretically able to 'upgrade' out of any weakness - would they be able to upgrade immunity to a Dalek beam?) they're playing the "completely deadly alone, an army of them and you're completely fucked!!" card, which they already played with the Daleks. So I think it's a pretty boring/terrible thing.
I think the problem is a little deeper than just on the script level, as there was it seems perhaps a conflict between what Gaiman delivered and what Moffat wanted. Gaiman wanted rid of the big heavy boot sound effects, Moffat wanted them, etc, and Moffat added some additional skills, like the head popping off and things. Gaiman said on twitter he wasn't entirely happy with both his final script or how what he was delivered was executed. Add on top of that two additional companion characters to both build and despatch of in one episode (unwise, they should've been in more than one as originally intended) and a largely ineffective squad of characters of the week and, yeah, I think it's a really mediocre episode. The stuff with the two 'sides' of the Doctor is great, but I think the stuff that takes place in his mind is filmed in a really naff way, so even that is soured.
Shame, mind. Good concepts in that episode, and I love the future they depict, with the war.
Oh, and RE Night Terrors - I think that episode is alright, but I reckon almost all of the bad symptoms it has are thanks to it being written by somebody who isn't a parent.
Exterminieren
Banned
Night Terrors is utterly hobbled by Gatiss's daddy issues in the script. I hesitate to psychoanalyse writers through their scripts too much, but this keeps coming up in Gatiss's scripts (remember the desperate attempts to forgive the abusive dad in The Idiot's Lantern?) and it always detracts, because he simply can't write it all that well.
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
Night Terrors is Fear Her 2.0. Same basic premise. Same lack of execution. It manages to not be quite as awful thanks solely to atmosphere, but that's about it.
It was rendered even more disappointing by the fact that the pre-transmission reviewers (dilettante in chief cameron k mckewan etc) were all over it - heaping adulation upon it in the run up to its transmission:
http://www.cultbox.co.uk/reviews/episodes/1701-doctor-who-night-terrors-spoiler-free-review
acheron_xl
Member
Just imagine Moffat's entire run if they had those early RTD production values.
peanutbutterlatte
Member
"We'll call it London Investigation... "N" DETECTIVE AGENCY!"
Oh be gone, you irritating little man. Everything about that twee, shite little episode needs to disappear into a black hole.
Oh be gone, you irritating little man. Everything about that twee, shite little episode needs to disappear into a black hole.
scooby doo chase sequence.
Dr Zhivago
Member
Heaven forbid there should be some fun in a Doctor Who episode. The 80s, when the series went all po-faced, was its absolute nadir.
Android18a
Member
I want Capaldi's doctor to dress like a pirate. Well, not entirely cliche, but something halfway between a pirate captain and a hobo. So no hooks or eyepatches or anything, but perhaps a more 18th century styled attire. That'd be pretty fun.
peanutbutterlatte
Member
Summarize Rose for me before any S1/S2 episode aired.
peanutbutterlatte
Member
"A girl who doesn't illict "IMPOSSIBLE GIRL" and "SHES IMPOSSIBLE WHO WHAT IS SHE" being repeated fifty fucking times in whatever episode she's in"
acheron_xl
Member
APZonerunner
Member
Oh, christ, that sequence was fun. It's a show friendly to 7 year olds.
Here's how Rose is introduced in the shooting scripts for Series One, so this is likely the description the other writers got, alongside the scripts for 'Rose' and 'The End of the World' to give a feel for the character:
If RTD only had one script, which he did when others started on S1, he could say all of this:
- She never finished any school beyond compulsory
- Lives on a council estate with her single mother
- She's essentially wasted - she could be so much more, but lives a boring day-to-day existence and works a shitty minimum wage 9-5 before she meets the Doctor
- She's selfish. She had a dead-end relationship with a boyfriend (who is probably up to no good behind her back) and abandons him without a word to disappear off with the Doctor.
While we get some base information about Clara, like her mother's death, we get so little out of her backstory. With Rose, her relationships with Jackie and Mickey, for instance, ultimately define her all the way through her time in the show. That's a relationship that's crystal clear from the very first moments of 'Rose', and something that could easily be passed on. Same's true of her job, her living on the estate, or even costume things RTD scripted for her, like indicating she should dress like a bit of a chav and so on - meanwhile, in DWM, the costume designer says they were just given carte blanche for Clara's look.
I think that's the problem with Clara. We learn more about Rose as a human being in 'Rose' than in an entire half-series of Clara. Amy is about on par with Rose, though it takes time to seep through with her (Vampires of Venice seals the deal, I think) and the best one for defining a character very early is actually Martha, who you learn absolutely tons about in ten minutes.
It has less money from the core BBC but is finding more money from elsewhere and other deals. Its overall funding is certainly higher. Though not by much. However, RTD's team was much better at "finding" money to do stuff like extended episodes (Last of the Time Lords 8 minutes longer than usual, The End of Time being 1x60 and 1x90 more or less, Journey's End being an hour, etc)
They're probably in trouble next series, now the Mill, who did the CG and post production from 2005 through until now, has shut. I think their last Who work is the 50th. The Mill was very cheap, and did them a lot of favours as they had deep, long-standing BBC connections. I'm expecting the number of CGI shots and/or the quality to drop, to be honest, because they're probably going to be paying more.
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