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Dr Who: Legend of the Sea Devils

Started by Jim_Campbell, 19 April, 2022, 11:46:58 AM

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Jim_Campbell

Caught this on iPlayer last night. Even by the low standards of the Chibnall era, this was fucking terrible. I can't even start to count the ways the plot made no sense, but that's par for the course with the show these days.

The directing, however, was objectively awful — the action sequences were disjointed and hard to follow, and there was no sense of a coherent 3D space in any of the scenes, with characters just popping up in places where they clearly hadn't been moments earlier.

Most of the acting was pretty poor and the jokes, such as they were, completely failed to land.

On top of all that, it managed to look like the production had quite a lot of money spent on it, whilst simultaneously looking cheap and plasticky.

Is the next one Chibnall's last? God, I hope so...
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Colin YNWA

Have to say it looked terrible as well. From the moment the statue cracked we were I'm trouble.  To then make the sea devil look like a poor mapper... well I started to drift early and more importantly the kids were utterly unimpressed.

Still only one to go and we have Tegan and Ace to drag us through that... its such a shame Jodie W hasn't had better material. Should never have taken it away from Sheffield!

Leigh S

Yeah, it is shocking to think an award winning professional screen writer signed off on that script

To say the story trlling followed Dream Logic would be an insult to dreams.

The sea monster is bearing down on the pirate Queens ship, so they fire cannons at it which fall into the sea  then are somehow spat back out and explode(?!).  The monster then disappears and is never mentioned again.

A Sea Devil has turned into a  statue because of a magic gem, but then they arent because a bit is chipped off that isnt the gem - this lone Sea Devil being released somehow summons a boat load of them, who had been doing what exactly in the last 3 hundred years?

They cant navigate by instruments, so have to use the stars, but the stars then just start swimming about randomly for no plot reason (I think this might ahve been a Flux lot point rewritten when this was bumped from the Flux series?  Even that doesnt make sense as the Flux event occurred in the 21st C and wouldnt have affected the past)

Agree totally on the direction too, which really did nothing to hide and everything to highlight the shonkiness of the script.

It was also a feat to make the Doctor's reasoning for  not having sexy time relationships with humans sound so feeble.  "I'll get hurt".  hmm, you'll get hurt not doing it if thats your only objection!

Beyond incompetent and I would still argue the inevitable end result of all the apologists over the years who said any complaints about plotting in Nu Who were kill joy nit pickers


The Legendary Shark


In their lifetimes, my eyeballs will only be able to absorb a limited number of photons - and I've just wasted 45 minutes' worth making them absorb that shite.

[move]~~~^~~~~~~~[/move]




Leigh S

As Alan Moore would tell you, watching this is now part of our 4th Dimensional Solid experience, so exists infinitely, not just for 45 minutes

On the plus side, Alan Moore is also recommending reading terrible  books (and by extension I would say watching terrible TV) as a way of improving our story telling skills, so swings and roundabouts!

M.I.K.

Quote from: Jim_Campbell on 19 April, 2022, 11:46:58 AM
Caught this on iPlayer last night. Even by the low standards of the Chibnall era, this was fucking terrible. I can't even start to count the ways the plot made no sense, but that's par for the course with the show these days.

The directing, however, was objectively awful — the action sequences were disjointed and hard to follow, and there was no sense of a coherent 3D space in any of the scenes, with characters just popping up in places where they clearly hadn't been moments earlier.

Most of the acting was pretty poor and the jokes, such as they were, completely failed to land.

On top of all that, it managed to look like the production had quite a lot of money spent on it, whilst simultaneously looking cheap and plasticky.

All of this is pretty much exactly how I described it to someone a couple of days ago, with the addition of feeling a bit sorry for the actress playing Madame Ching, who I thought deserved a better go at being a pirate queen than what she had in this pile of guff.

The Legendary Shark

Quote from: Leigh S on 19 April, 2022, 10:31:26 PM

...exists infinitely, not just for 45 minutes


A better description of Hell I have yet to encounter! :0

[move]~~~^~~~~~~~[/move]




Aaron A Aardvark

Yeah, proper bad TV. Not fit for broadcast IMO.

Still, nothing cameos by two unpopular companions from forty years ago won't fix, right?

IndigoPrime

I've not watched this yet. I have no real interest to... and that says a lot. I feel sorry for Whittaker, who really has been shat out during this run by the most appalling writing. But the bigger problem appears to be in production.

I read a piece on The Guardian the other day about what RTD needs to do to fix the show. It was full of all the usual things you'd expect, from things that would work (stop giving the Doctor an existential crisis and make it more 'story of the week') to things that just made me sigh (a series searching for the TARDIS). But what's never mentioned in these things is the show's desperate need for a script editor with power.

Perhaps that's not something that exists in British broadcast telly these days, but it has been the one thing that has noticeably caused problems throughout every run of modern Who. You absolutely cannot say the same about the best SF telly on the screens. Expanse was extremely well edited—and even some slightly questionable decisions in the final series (the sub-plot that was never resolved) were explained well by the team. I've recently been watching Severance, which is a masterpiece of script editing. Doctor Who? It's like no-one gives a shit. We get the equivalent of 'that'll do' first drafts, like the worst of Hollywood movies.

I fear we're in for more of the same. RTD wants control. If he wants Doctor Who to be properly good again, he should cede some of it. Get the scripts in. Do what he wants to fashion them into his vision for the show, and then hand them all off to a fantastic script editor (or team) to make them coherent, consistent and more interesting when it comes to supporting characters. Once that foundation is sorted, the rest should follow, even if the BBC lacks the budget of an Apple or an Amazon.

GordonR

Doctor:  "Yaz, you're the most amazing person I've ever met!"

When did this happen? Was there an entire series or two we missed when Yaz became not just interesting, but the most amazing person a 2000 year-old time traveller has ever met?

You can't just have one character tell us how amazing someone is. You have to have invested in actually showing it.


nxylas

Rumour has it, this was cut down from an hour long to its present running time. I've a feeling that restoring the missing footage wouldn't fix all the problems with this, but it might fix some of them, making it less rushed and more coherent.
AIEEEEEE! It's the...THING from the HELL PLANET!

Leigh S

To be fair, this feels jusst an extension of how we were constantly told rather than shown how amazing the Doctor was during the RTD/Moffatt years.

I agree with IP, but I have since series 2 - a  decent script editor would spot the most  glaring problems and at least give teh show a fighting chance of telling coherent and plot driven stories


Quote from: GordonR on 20 April, 2022, 11:39:06 AM
Doctor:  "Yaz, you're the most amazing person I've ever met!"

When did this happen? Was there an entire series or two we missed when Yaz became not just interesting, but the most amazing person a 2000 year-old time traveller has ever met?

You can't just have one character tell us how amazing someone is. You have to have invested in actually showing it.

Leigh S

#12
Did I read somewhere that this was the directors first go at directing for TV?

I can see that perhaps if it was intended to be a 2 parter and the end result was even more incoherent or unfinished, they pulled it cobbled together this from the remains? It would explain why plot threads such as the sea monster just fizzle out and others feel like they are missing big chunks that explain them?

Wasnt it filmed at the same time as lux and under the same restrictions? Certainly felt like it

And wasnt Flux initially revealed to be a part or two longer but was then closer to the release date reported to be only 6 episodes?

"Chaos in Cardiff" is a phrase I have heard associated with this production team, but not cared eough to bother to see if what that entailed or if there was any truth to it - I am more concerned by Chaos on the actual end product



Quote from: nxylas on 20 April, 2022, 12:34:41 PM
Rumour has it, this was cut down from an hour long to its present running time. I've a feeling that restoring the missing footage wouldn't fix all the problems with this, but it might fix some of them, making it less rushed and more coherent.

Tiplodocus

This sounds brilliantly bad... I almost can't wait to see it.
Be excellent to each other. And party on!

Goosegash

Quote from: Leigh S on 20 April, 2022, 12:47:37 PM
"Chaos in Cardiff" is a phrase I have heard associated with this production team, but not cared eough to bother to see if what that entailed or if there was any truth to it - I am more concerned by Chaos on the actual end product


Plenty of rumours abound that the production of the first two Torchwood seasons under Chibnall were a complete shambles (which Si Spencer's pseudonymous write-up of his involvement with the series backs up), so it just sounds like he's learnt absolutely nothing about managing a show in the intervening time between then and him getting the Who gig.

Here's a handy summary of the Spencer essay for those who haven't read it:

https://www.reddit.com/r/gallifrey/comments/lmk1oe/behind_the_scenes_gossip_about_torchwood_s1/