466 posts
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Post by Deal J on Oct 14, 2018 22:46:40 GMT
Anyone else think "the ghost monument" is going to be the TARDIS? Bravissimo!
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455 posts
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Post by mistressjojo on Oct 14, 2018 23:10:57 GMT
Episode 4 is called “Arachnids in the UK” (which sounds extremely literal and lacking in imagination personally) I think it's a play on 'Anarchy in the UK'. Maybe there will be punk spiders?
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Post by oxfordsimon on Oct 14, 2018 23:22:14 GMT
I do wish they would put more effort into creating some real jeopardy. It was so clear that none of the characters was under any serious threat of harm that it eliminates any tension that might have built up.
I am not demanding deaths in every episode. But the lack of consequence does mean that we don't have worry about 'main' characters.
Last week does not count as anyone who had followed the run up to the new season knew that there were 3 new companions and Sharon only had a small role - so her exit was clearly signposted.
Better plotting would create better suspense - which makes for better drama.
Otherwise it ends up being very formulaic.
So far, I am not loving the writing of the new regime. Other things are good. But the plotting is poor.
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4,458 posts
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Post by poster J on Oct 14, 2018 23:43:54 GMT
I thought Jodie was great again, but apart from that my goodness episode 2 was boring. Chris Chibnall isn't known for writing good Doctor Who stories (in fact he's written some shockers), and that was painfully evident here.
Hopefully next week is better.
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Post by jaqs on Oct 15, 2018 8:54:26 GMT
Agreed. I understand having a few formulaic episodes as we get to know the new assistants etc but it was dull.
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2,706 posts
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Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Oct 15, 2018 10:00:18 GMT
I thought it was better than the first episode, more developed intaractions and a greater sense of danger. The first episode was a bit soapy for me. Jodie Whittaker is excellent in any case, quite Tennant-y really.
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540 posts
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Post by freckles on Oct 15, 2018 10:18:48 GMT
I like Jodie's take on The Doctor, but am finding the writing a little pedestrian. It feels like a children's version so far. Granted, the last few series had become a little hard to follow, but this back-to-basics approach has gone a little too far, for me.
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999 posts
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Post by Backdrifter on Oct 15, 2018 10:36:05 GMT
I do wish they would put more effort into creating some real jeopardy. It was so clear that none of the characters was under any serious threat of harm that it eliminates any tension that might have built up. I am not demanding deaths in every episode. But the lack of consequence does mean that we don't have worry about 'main' characters. Last week does not count as anyone who had followed the run up to the new season knew that there were 3 new companions and Sharon only had a small role - so her exit was clearly signposted. Better plotting would create better suspense - which makes for better drama. Otherwise it ends up being very formulaic. So far, I am not loving the writing of the new regime. Other things are good. But the plotting is poor. SDC's exit from the main action was indeed predicted, not necessarily her death. It might be that that in itself is an indicator that we shouldn't assume all three companions will survive? If another is to meet their demise my money would be on Naz. But I agree with much of what you said and some of the subsequent comments about the writing; it was quite slapdash with a "this'll do" feel. And it definitely does need some jeopardy. The new show is going to have a very short honeymoon period and it needs to start addressing some of these things from the next episode onwards. So far it's been carried along on the positivity about how good JW is and the nicely different overall feel of the show. I'm glad I revisited this thread and saw the tip-off about the title of episode 4, it means I can warn Mrs Backdrifter - it sounds like one she will want to avoid in every way possible, including trailers.
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3,072 posts
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Post by david on Oct 23, 2018 14:10:33 GMT
Just caught up with episodes 2 and 3. Overall I thought episode 2 like other posts really didn’t do that much for me I’m afraid. After the excellent opening episode, I thought this really was a step back in the quality of the writing and with the quality of the cast in that episode, I thought the writing didn’t match that. It didn’t help that I couldn’t see where, like others have stated where the danger for the characters came from.
I’m still impressed with JW as the Dr though and it’s definitely nice to see the companions in this series have some development. The age range of the characters has definitely paid off as you get a wider range of experiences and knowledge that they can bring to the different episodes.
While the episode wasn’t that great, I have to say having the episode filmed in South Africa is certainly a step up from the famous Dr Who quarry setting used in many a episode of the classic series. It certainly made for a fantastic setting. Oh how times (and show budgets) have changed!
While episode 2 was a bit of a duff one, episode 3 was for me a fantastic episode, both in the writing and the acting. The historical stories, both in the classic and new series have been some of the best ones I’ve enjoyed. Overall I thought that the retelling of the Rosa Parks story was an inspired choice and allowed us to get a glimpse of what it must have been like to live in that era. I thought that the Krasko character was underused and not really well written. but Vinette Robinson as Rosa was great and visually was pretty close to the real Rosa.
Having now seen the opening titles and the newly designed Tardis, they both get the thumbs up from me.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 23, 2018 16:38:04 GMT
I don't think Jodie has quite hit her stride yet (she's still torn between playing Tennant or Smith with a bit of Su Pollard, sometimes all at the same time, with a bit too much "oooh I'm scatty me!") but she's charming enough that she'll definitely come into her own really quickly. I really like Ryan and Graham but they haven't really given Yaz much to do so it's hard to judge.
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3,072 posts
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Post by david on Oct 23, 2018 16:50:38 GMT
Episode 3 was a bit left field. I enjoyed it, but is it really "Doctor Who?" Definitely agree it wasn’t your normal Dr Who episode. I’d be keen to ask the show runner why the episode was included. Though I did read an interview somewhere where he said that there would be some episodes that would resonate with a particular companion. Also in another interview I’ve found, Chris Chibnall said that he wanted to return to the educational focus that Dr Who had when it first started. So maybe this was one of these episodes. I’m happy that they told the Rosa Parks story with respect and dignity to those people involved in that era, but didn’t shy away from showing how people acted or where treated back then. If nothing else, hopefully it will keep this part of history alive by telling a very important story to people who may not be aware of who Rosa Parks was or her role in the US civil rights movement.
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Post by oxfordsimon on Oct 23, 2018 17:00:15 GMT
I did find the tone just a little too preachy in Ep 3. It needed a stronger plot than random racist alien to actually make it more than a history lesson.
Random racist alien was very pretty to look at - but he was a very clunky device to attempt to justify this as a Who episode.
Plotting is something that has not been good with this season so far. Character work is fine. There are some good lines and moments. But I want a proper story that goes somewhere.
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3,072 posts
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Post by david on Oct 23, 2018 17:07:32 GMT
I don't think Jodie has quite hit her stride yet (she's still torn between playing Tennant or Smith with a bit of Su Pollard, sometimes all at the same time, with a bit too much "oooh I'm scatty me!") but she's charming enough that she'll definitely come into her own really quickly. I really like Ryan and Graham but they haven't really given Yaz much to do so it's hard to judge. Su Pollard as the Dr? Now that would definitely be an interesting one. Though after a while, a tad annoying I think. Definitely agree with you Ryan that I think there is plenty more to come from JW. I just hope the scripts allow her to do it. With Yaz, I’m with you 100%. Out if the three companions, I think hers is the one with the least development. Hopefully in the coming weeks there will be an opportunity for the character to shine. Bradley Walsh really has surprised me. I’ll admit I was a little unsure whether he would work as a companion, but from episode 1 he really has impressed me. It’s nice to have an older head if you like as a companion as it givs a better balance within the TARDIS team rather than having a more youthful approach which has been in the case over the last couple of years.
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Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Oct 23, 2018 17:13:10 GMT
Episode 3 was a bit left field. I enjoyed it, but is it really "Doctor Who?" It’s actually the sort of episode that that the show was set up to do at its inception. Travelling through time and highlighting aspects of history in an educational way. I thought it worked well.
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4,458 posts
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Post by poster J on Oct 23, 2018 18:55:48 GMT
Episode 3 was a bit left field. I enjoyed it, but is it really "Doctor Who?" It’s actually the sort of episode that that the show was set up to do at its inception. Travelling through time and highlighting aspects of history in an educational way. I thought it worked well. I don't dispute that, but my problem is in the execution of it - the alien threat was pretty much non-existent and so underdeveloped. It could have been so much more.
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Xanderl
Member
Not always very high value in terms of ticket yield or donations
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Post by Xanderl on Oct 23, 2018 19:09:34 GMT
It’s actually the sort of episode that that the show was set up to do at its inception. Travelling through time and highlighting aspects of history in an educational way. I thought it worked well. Yep, every so often you'd get an episode like the one where the Doctor lands in the middle of the massacre of the Huguenots by the Catholics in Paris in 1572 and then buggers off as he can't intervene Or the one in the Trojan Wars, where his companion Vicki leaves by changing her name to Cressida, and going off with Troilus
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Post by martello736 on Oct 23, 2018 19:37:11 GMT
I did find the tone just a little too preachy in Ep 3. It needed a stronger plot than random racist alien to actually make it more than a history lesson. Random racist alien was very pretty to look at - but he was a very clunky device to attempt to justify this as a Who episode. Plotting is something that has not been good with this season so far. Character work is fine. There are some good lines and moments. But I want a proper story that goes somewhere. I agree that random racist alien was a paper thin villain and his motivations were two dimensional at best. I really think if you were in an outer space prison for mass genocide, your first priority on release wouldn't be going to Earth, 1955 to change a couple of duty rotas. I saw someone suggest on Twitter was that it would have made a better story had the Tardis crash landed and created a massive hole in the road or something, and then the Tardis team could have had to fix their own mistakes to make sure the bus could still run and Rosa could still get on it at her regular stop. I kinda wish they'd done that.
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Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Oct 23, 2018 19:53:12 GMT
It’s the time travel bit of sci-fi that’s always interested me, the alien bit I can take or leave.
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Post by sherriebythesea on Oct 24, 2018 0:10:29 GMT
I did not like the Rosa episode. Thank goodness there was a white woman who saved a pivotal moment in Black American history ?
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Post by poster J on Oct 24, 2018 6:33:40 GMT
I did not like the Rosa episode. Thank goodness there was a white woman who saved a pivotal moment in Black American history ? Did you not manage to see the black man and mixed race woman who saved it then?
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Post by vdcni on Oct 24, 2018 7:55:12 GMT
Yeah that seems a bit unfair given the show bent over backwards to make sure Rosa had the spotlight. Showing this wasn't the first time she had taken a stand, that she was an activist and disposing of the villain in such a half arsed way to draw attention to Rosa's moment as the true climax of the episode.
I thought overall they handled it pretty well though the villain wasn't particularly compelling, but then maybe that's the point really. He's some nothing racist who couldn't even directly affect things while Rosa is brave and compelling.
Yeah I think with a bit more confidence they could have done this as a pure historical as they have in the past which are some of my all time favourite Who stories with The Aztecs, The Romans, The Crusade, Marco Polo, The Massacre & The Myth Makers probably top of the tree. The nature of society of the time particularly with this Tardis crew would have been enough of a threat - and we saw that in the episode with the initial attack on Ryan and the scene with the cop much more threatening than anything the actual villain did. But then even with what they did do many people are saying it wasn't really Doctor Who, ignoring that this kind of episode is Doctor Who to its very core, so you can understand why they were really hesitant.
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Post by Backdrifter on Oct 24, 2018 10:29:15 GMT
Yes I'm not getting the "this wasn't really Doctor Who" thing. There's also partly an element of not just having the first female Doctor, but a more general change in the show's whole 'feel' and I think they are aiming for it not seeming like what we know as 'normal' Doctor Who. Given that normal DW had of late become rather lame, that's theoretically a good thing. I do agree though that the baddie in this one was a bit bleurgh. There was no real sense of who or what he was. We're saying he was a random alien but I wondered if he was human but a murderous racist from the future who's got hold of the time bracelet thingy & other stuff and decided to undo what Parks did. Or else he is indeed a generally bigoted alien roaming the galaxy and disrupting civil rights wherever he sees them. But yes we expect alien baddies to disintegrate people rather than change a duty rosta, park inconveniently and stick some paper signs to bus stops! Maybe it's a new approach and we'll have giant snarling three-headed lizard beings doing a bit of graffiti and setting fire to litter bins. I'm surprised oxfordsimon found him pretty, I thought he had a really annoying punchable smirky face. There is of course also the point made earlier, that in this episode the real villains were the humans of the time so maybe it was intentional to make the actual baddie seem comparatively tame. Vinette Robinson was great, and it was good to see her get a decent appearance in following her previous one in 42 when she got to scream a bit then be reduced to a charcoal mark on the wall.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 24, 2018 14:46:27 GMT
Was there any warning about the use of racist language well before the watershed ironically they didn't use the very racist n-word but had Yaz say she had been called the p-word and negro was used several times which some people may have found offensive.
The storyline was a bit weak but highlighting Rosa Parks and telling her back story was a good thing to do in Black History Month and although I knew about her fairly well I didn't know MLK was a minister at her local church.
Also I agree it was good to see Vinette Robinson getting a great lead guest role, I've followed her career a bit since I saw her in Paradise Lost back in about 2006.
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Post by basi1faw1ty on Oct 24, 2018 17:49:59 GMT
I did find the tone just a little too preachy in Ep 3. It needed a stronger plot than random racist alien to actually make it more than a history lesson. Glad I wasn't the only one who thought that. I don't mind the history lesson eps when they are executed well (eg. that ep with Vincent Van Gogh), but this? Meh. The bad guy was awful, the storyline was just lazy, and yeah, I was beginning to get earache from the preachy-ness and rambling, especially from Yaz and the Doctor to an extent. I appreciate they want to get a message across, but I wouldn't have done it like that. Plus the absolute tat of a song they put on at the end of the episode after the pivotal moment on the bus was a very bad idea. OK, there was some redeeming qualities: Rosa Parks' actress wasn't half bad at all, and Bradley Walsh in anything is never not a good thing, imo.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 27, 2018 21:15:04 GMT
I think the dynamic between Jodie Whittaker and Bradley Walsh is coming along quite nicely and I almost wish it was just the two of them. Having said that, I thought Tosin Cole was really quite delightful in the Rosa Parks episode and especially his joy when he was in the house with Rosa and Martin Luther King. His smile could melt an ice cap. Mandip Gill is still being criminally underused though.
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Post by david on Oct 28, 2018 21:33:52 GMT
After last weeks social drama episode, we get the attack of the spiders. This definitely wasn't one for the arachnophobes was it? I don't mind spiders, but even I would be shouting more than HOLY.... if I encountered one of them in my house or a hotel. Big beasties weren't they?! You definitely needed a bit more than bug spray to kill those. I would certainly be writing a letter of complaint to Environmental Health if I came face to face with those spiders in a hotel.
Spiders aside, it was nice to see Yaz get a bit more character development this week. As others have mentioned, and which I tend to agree with, out of the 3 companions, hers is the least developed to date. So it was nice for her of it character to get a bit more flesh as it were.
Overall, JW is settling in nicely into the role I feel, though at times there is still the odd trace of a Matt Smith Dr lurking around. By the looks of it, we are getting back into the more sci-fi element next week if the promo is anything to go by. I have to admit with this new series its nice just to have some stand alone stories rather than a series long arc. The "Bad Wolf" one I actually enjoyed, but the others under Moffat, I really didn't like as at times they really didn't make much sense watching them unfold. Though I would have liked to have seen at least one 2parter in this series, but alas, this isn't happening.
One thing I am glad about is that the producers have decided to rest the traditional enemies for this series and just keep with introducing new ones. Though I must admit, even though its early on in the series, there hasn't been any enemies I think will stand the test of time like the Daleks, Cybermen or even the Master, but hopefully I will be proven wrong in the coming weeks if they can get a decent enemy that is well written and actually poses a real threat to the TARDIS team.
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Post by oxfordsimon on Oct 28, 2018 22:02:12 GMT
Last week was 'racism is bad' week
This week was 'corporate greed is bad' and 'we should look after the environment' week
I want a decent alien baddy or two. And a proper plot. And leave off with the obvious messaging.
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Post by Backdrifter on Oct 29, 2018 11:20:51 GMT
I have to admit with this new series its nice just to have some stand alone stories rather than a series long arc. One thing I am glad about is that the producers have decided to rest the traditional enemies for this series and just keep with introducing new ones. I agree with both these points. Even with the first female Doctor being announced, I still thought the show needed some kind of general overhaul. Both the things you mention are good examples of that. I got tired of the blessed, inviolable Story Arc, and the regular re-appearances of the Daleks and Cybermen despite (it seems to me) more than one assertion that either have finally been completely wiped out.
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Post by oxfordsimon on Oct 29, 2018 17:14:29 GMT
If they had gone with Shobna Gulati and Sharon D Clarke as the new companions, it would have been a far better series.
I think the character writing is ok - up to a point. But the plot work is woeful.
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Post by mistressjojo on Oct 30, 2018 0:38:12 GMT
Sort of liked this week. Main thing is merchandise. I REALLY want one of those giant spiders (remote control version, obviously). . Come to Australia, I can hook you up with an 8 legs. Oh sorry, you want a mechanical one. Ours don't have batteries! 😂
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