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Doctor Who Series 11 Discussion

Started by Andy Lambert, 07 October, 2018, 08:13:12 PM

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Richard

I don't see why an episode should have to have a Xmas theme just because that's when it's on.

Andy Lambert

Call me old fashioned but I like a Christmas special to be Christmassy. It has to be said the Doctor Who Christmas specials were becoming less Christmas themed as they went on...

Andy Lambert

Well, I'm not loving this one. Aside from some terribly clunky dialogue, I can't take the situation seriously when there's a chubby little gremlin on the loose and a ridiculous performance from a pregnant man. The tone is generally played straight, but it's all so silly. I was really hoping for a decent villain/monster after a several weak ones, but this is just too silly and the episode is not holding my attention at all.

Colin YNWA

Have to say that it somehow managed to lack tension. The scenario seemed to warent tension but somehow it didn't materialise. Don't think it was to do with the beastie just don't think it was generated by the cast somehow...

Shame as it looked great and again had some good ideas and moments.

BPP

Well now we know what the cybermen fear.

It is somewhat enjoyable that they are trolling the folk who object to a female doctor. Male Pregnancy, female warrior role models, lengthy discourse on single parenting and absentee dads. Next weeks monster - English Colonialism!

The Scooby gang don't really 'work' for me - just too many of them and chirping on the same beats. The same sort of problem they had when Rory joined in. Whereas Nardole and Bill were very different characters.

If I'd known it was harmless I would have killed it myself.

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Taryn Tailz

#245
So, this weeks Doctor Who:

If we were looking at that one objectively then there was nothing really wrong with it, but that's about as faint a praise as one can offer a story. Doctor Who can be many things and be them successfully. It can be complicated, educational, silly, surreal, over-the-top, philosophical, base-under-siege, etc, but it should never be banal.

This weeks episode offered absolutely nothing worth responding to, in fact it felt exactly like one of those slot-filler episodes you would get in an American sci-fi series when they're having to make 22 episodes a year; 'Little gremlin runs around eating the spaceship'. Yawn.

When you're starting off from a banal idea, it's damn near disastrous to then be utterly predictable as well, but, alas, I had worked out both the manner of the resolution (flush the damn thing out an airlock) and the means through which it would be achieved. Not a good thing when it takes fifty minutes for the characters to reach that conclusion.

Yaz literally spent the first third of the story standing around saying nothing. Of the three companions she continues to be the most overlooked and it's a damn shame. Nyssa didn't deserve that treatment and neither does Yaz.

It's becoming increasingly obvious that while Chris Chibnall is a very good showrunner, he is a desperately disappointing head writer, his scripts never failing to be competent but never succeeding in rising any higher than that.

On a more positive note I think Jodie Whittaker is becoming the most adept of the Doctor's when it comes to displaying wonder at her environment. She just seems to be able to perfectly articulate this sense of absolute joy which is such a key part of the Doctor's character. It's just such a shame that she's having to drag these scripts up by the bootlaces in order to reach her level.

Tiplodocus

Slight but it entertained me. Doctor vs. Nibbler. And I like the family vibe from the companions.
Be excellent to each other. And party on!

TordelBack

#247
I enjoyed it, with a few reservations.

Positives: we got a bit more of an insight into this Doctor; [spoiler]killing Astor(?)[/spoiler] was a nice shock; I thought the set design was impressive; the guest cast was uniformly good; the pregnancy and Ryan and Graham's interactions were a good laugh; the alien was an amusing little design; and I greatly enjoyed the Doctor's non-violent resolution ([spoiler]fill his little tummy and send him on his way[/spoiler]). 

Negatives: the companions looked bored and passive a lot of the time, often killing the tension - the pacing of Yaz and Ryan's conversation in particular was ludicrously bad - ambling around, hands in pockets, pausing for a bit of sympathy - lazy, lazy writing; the rather cool android/consort did essentially nothing (especially as he could have been a target for the energy-hungry alien); the teleporting-you-home thing was stupidly anticlimactic, and the Doctor's predicament at potentially losing the TARDIS again amounted to a keep-them-away-from-it-for-an-hour device.

I do like the three companions, but they really need to find something for them all to do each episode, instead of having them hang back in a group commenting like a Greek chorus.  Ryan and Graham are consistently good when they get scenes together, but that quality seldom has much to do with the plot, beyond working through their relationship and shared loss. Hopefully Yaz gets some development next week, because she's starting to bore me.

Adrian Bamforth

Haven't watched this week's yet but how much teleporting can we take? It reminds me of the recent Star Trek sequel where villains were able to teleport themselves between planets, thereby eliminating those pesky 'spaceship' and 'trekking' elements.

1. Villain is teleported away. Doctor teleports them all into space.
2. Villain is a hologram who appears and disappears (with his tent!). He teleports the pilots off the planet in the end.
3. Ryan teleports villain into the past.
5. People teleported home, apparently.

Jim_Campbell

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JamesC

This episode seemed aimed towards the younger viewers.
I thought it was fine but had its problems - I won't bother listed them as that's been done already.
I really liked the little alien though. Again, I have a feeling we'll see the alien again. I don't know if we're heading towards some sort of end-of-series Royal Rumble but that's what it feels like to me.

von Boom

The Doctor encountered space Gizmo post midnight feeding. At least they didn't get it wet. Not a terribly engaging story. Bradley Walsh is still my hero for this series so far.

Mattofthespurs

Generally I've liked this series of Doctor Who...

But that latest episode was bloody awful.

Just really, really bad.

Colin YNWA

Well lows followed by highs it is.

Thought that was bloomin' great. Timely and moving. Thought Jodie Whitaker was superb.


TordelBack

#254
Well that was pretty cool!  I'm not sure it did much to make Yaz herself any more interesting (her family  certainly!), but it was definitely stronger writing this week,  engaging and exciting, and educational (if simplistic,  but hey, family TV).  Do they teach this stuff in UK schools much?  They certainly didn't here,  but the murder of Mountbatten's party in Sligo put the partition of India firmly into awareness all the same.

If I had a real complaint, it was the continued general passivity of the gang - Graham got some more emotional stuff to do,  but would anyone have noticed if Ryan wasn't there? Again, a lot of standing around witnessing rather than doing, heightened by being in an episode about witnessing.

Some very minor niggles, such as wondering why [spoiler]Yaz was back in Sheffield so soon after the Spider episode (we've already established time isn't passing at a consistent rate back home, so no rush for Nana's birthday), why no-one noticed the holy man had been shot with a .33 rifle, and why we missed the fun opportunity of re-introducing the Dr to the older Umbreen. [/spoiler]

On the positives, great cast, Prem and Umbreen(s) were terrific and quite compelling, Granada looked awesome,  [spoiler]the idea of the stream border was evocative,  alien design and effects were very cool,  and the Dr's glee at her juryrigged chemistry set was fun. [/spoiler] And Prem's big speech had a nice dig at Brexit, if I'm not mistaken.