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Doctor Who Series 11 Discussion

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

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Dandontdare

what gets me is that at least three pages of comments/votes on one website I looked at had been written before the programme had even aired! One comment actually said "If I hadn't already stopped watching, I would particularly avoid this episode" - and he'd gone out of his way to find a Dr Who forum to type that out. Unbelievable.

dweezil2

For my money, that was a far better episode than the previous two.
Whittaker has seemingly dialled down the hyperactive, manic portrayal, which is most welcome.
The episode was much better written and the production values were very impressive in replicating the period detail.
Some excellent performances and a particularly affecting storyline.
Some great work from Bradly Walsh too!
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Colin YNWA

After the chat last night I got curious and decided to straight to the horses mouth and looked at the comments on the Telegraph's website.  Dear lord is that a world of entitled hate and fear! It really was quite breathtaking.

TordelBack

#198
"Why don't the PC Brigade create their own characters?". That's my new favourite. Ah yes,  the Doctor: stamping on the oppressed, championing inequality and generally not getting involved in local politics since 1963. What's that you Daleks, you want to turn Londoners into your Robomen and use them to run slave gangs digging for the Eath's core? Why carry on old chaps,  musn't rock the boat with this PC nonsense, humans should know their place: soon you won't even be able to exterminate an inferior race without some SJW busybody foiling you.

JamesC

Quote from: Colin YNWA on 22 October, 2018, 01:19:32 PM
After the chat last night I got curious and decided to straight to the horses mouth and looked at the comments on the Telegraph's website.  Dear lord is that a world of entitled hate and fear! It really was quite breathtaking.

I almost did the same thing but no - I'm just not going to read it. Life's too short to fill my brain with that shite and I know it'd play on my mind for the next couple of days.

TordelBack

#200
I had a goo (obviously, it distracts me from imminent economic,  political,  environmental and nuclear doom), and it's more funny than aggravating. A hive mind of the ignorant, fearful and oh-so entitled, running in circles yapping away happily. Just keep telling yourself that pointing this out will only alienate them further,  "othering" goes both ways and we have to find common ground on which to negotiate our better shared future.

Or to put it another way,  small-minded whiny racists hate being called on it.

Mind you, the review the comments are appended to isn't much better, what I could see of it: 2/5 "poorly executed". I know it's the place of critics of criticise aithout the qualifications to back it up, but I would still love to see their idea of "well executed" family telly. It's not an unblemished masterpiece, but "poor" it is not.

Another fave that appears all over the place: "all that's missing is someone with a disability". Obviously paying close attention,  these eagle-eyed guardians of quality telly like what we useta have.

Radbacker

Wow, now that was an awesome episode, probably one of the best new Whi  episodes yet.  I've never really thought about t that period of history and how totally unfair it was to people just because the colour of their skin but that was an eye opener for me.  Even had a bit of a tear in my eye at the end and I'm not ashamed to admit it, top TV

Cu Radbacker

auxlen

Late to the party as only just watched episode one.
I always give the new Drs a go...Loved Smith's first series and Capaldi's same but they lost me soon after.
1. Jodie...no problems except she seemed a bit too Matt Smith for me...hopefully she'll find her own soon. Love her costume...
2. NO MORE MURRAY GOLD!!!!!!!! get in...i HATED his too loud, too dramatic music. HATED, I tell you. The new music is a welcomed change.
3. Good mix of companions.
4. Some proper harsh deaths...[spoiler]the security guard on the phone to his granddaughter anyone?[/spoiler]
5. Loved the twist [spoiler]where you thought he was idolizing the dr(i hope that was a statement of intent) but it was his nan![/spoiler]

Modern Panther


Quoteafter the chat last night I got curious and decided to straight to the horses mouth and looked at the comments on the Telegraph's website.  Dear lord is that a world of entitled hate and fear! It really was quite breathtaking.

It's pretty much the same anywhere on the internet where either accounts are just throwaway, or the community size means there's little chance of encountering the same person twice.

Anyhoo...when poor Bradley discovers he's the [spoiler]standing white passenger, and there's nothing he can do about it[/spoiler]...ooofft. Big, macho tears.

Tiplodocus

That was fantastic. Plus it looked like they spent a fortune on it.
Be excellent to each other. And party on!

TordelBack

Quote from: Tiplodocus on 22 October, 2018, 11:18:28 PM
Plus it looked like they spent a fortune on it.

It really did. An amazing job of dressing South Africa to look like '50s Alabama, someone (possibly several someones) really should be getting a BAFTA (possibly several BAFTAs). 

Adrian Bamforth

Much as I've admired Steven Moffatt's writing, going back to Press Gang, I always suspected that most young viewers were tuning out the convoluted twisty stuff to get to the monsters, while the classic series was usually too drawn out and boring, essentially made for the fans with the meaning conveyed in overly fast monologue. RTD also set in motion the tradition of everything becoming increasingly epic and increasingly meaningless

I'm really appreciating the new (old) style to the show, made like regular drama, the subdued music, the anonymity of The Doctor and de-emphasising of the stock companion role.

What the show needs though is not necessarily many more twists (though one per show would be nice) but some sense of moral dilemma. Educational as it was, it was obvious that this week we were going to learn that racism is bad, though we missed an opportunity to explore what might create or normalise racism, perhaps with a villain who was sympathetic, who thought they were being morally kind in some way, or underwent a journey. The series villains have been unimpressive and thin gruel so far. Hopefully more ambitious writers will be work well, 'reigned in' under the new regime.

Also, I have to disagree with everyone about Bradley Walsh; he really doesn't seem to be a very good, or interesting actor to watch.

Tiplodocus

I can see the point; weedy villain was something I thought.

But I genuinely was shocked at seeing the whole segregation laid out so clearly in a prime time family show.

It reminded me of the start of "Saving Private Ryan". I guess, deep down, I'd always known what concentrated machine gun fire does to humans. But when someone lays it out explicitly in front of you, it wakes you up a little bit more. Regardless of how it comes to be, people need reminding not to let it come back.

(I don't feel examining the origins of this racism would particularly work in a family show. So what we got, for a genuine bit of history, worked for me)
Be excellent to each other. And party on!

Bolt-01

Personally I think they could have excised the villain entirely.

Simply have the doc inadvertantly cause an issue with the bus driver causing him to be off work before they realise who he is and the part he has to play in the drama. Rest of the episode spent trying to put it right in time.

However, I reckon Ryan has set up a villain for the future...


TordelBack

#209
The human baddie was underdeveloped and generally underwhelming alright, but I think that's because he was an obstacle rather than a villain (no prizes for guessing what the 'villain' actually was) - it would have been a shame to come out of this episode thinking "finally, a really great new wholly original dastardly adversary for the Doctor!" instead of "bloody hell, human societies can be more evil than anything we've ever seen on this show". 

Instead they just dropped in an average guy with previously-established elements (Stormcage, the Vortex Manipulator*), so that he was as unoriginal and unobtrusive as possible. The menace of segregation and wider parallels for racist thinking were foregrounded, in the same way that Rosa remained firmly the hero of the piece, with the four main characters just resetting things back to 'normal' (and learning things in the process).  As Bolt says, you could probably have dispensed with a baddie altogether, but it worked for me, and may set things up for the future.

Incidentally, I'm not sure perpetuating racism was Crasca's goal - I thought it was more a general push back against the roots of a liberal progressive culture that landed him in (the universe's least secure) prison (for murder).  But I may be projecting a bit there.



*I've no real problem with Crasca not using his non-lethal time gadgets to remove Rosa and MLK etc. from the scene entirely, since if most SF was to exploit the technological capacities it gives its characters, all conflict would be resolved by dropping large rocks on each other's planets and that would get boring.