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Post by primsong on Dec 22, 2010 4:27:21 GMT
Continuing my managing from time to time to land obscure episodes I have no clear recollection of, I finally got to watch The Power of Kroll from one end to the other last night -
And NOW I finally understand with the complete understandness of understanding just how ridiculous men who are painted entirely green with little knitted green caps can be when they dance with poor choreography and chant "KROLL!" over and over. ;D I can now die happy. Or something.
A surprisingly enjoyable episode, loved all the tall grasses and outdoor shots, the kayaks and the 'aussie style' gun-runner chap. Rubber tentacles coming out of pipes and dragging people in! Ridiculous dubbed singing notes to shatter glass so they can escape the plastic ivy! The Doctor stopping countdowns with low-tech hammers and ripping out of wires! Squid puppet attacking a model! Yay!
This makes me want to revisit the entire "find the various segments" story arc, Romana I and non-burned-out Four are good fun.
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leamichelle
Code/Graphics Moderator
Of the Cult of the Chicken of Rassilon (thanks LL!)
Posts: 157
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Post by leamichelle on Dec 22, 2010 18:45:04 GMT
I loved that episode. Especially when the leader and that one other bloke were conferencing about the fake sacrifice. "Uh, yeah we know it's totally fake and symbolic, but you still get to die."
Quite!
And the rack made of plants and wood - I do love character torture. Which, speaking of Four - I got on to revisiting "The Deadly Assassin" last night, and lord mercy I forgot how much hell he goes through. (Which I enjoyed thoroughly, because I'm mad. But anyway.)
And you mentioned the Key to Time arc which makes you my new best friend.
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Post by primsong on Dec 22, 2010 20:31:11 GMT
I love stuff that has the "series of Herculean tasks/quests" theme, they're such fun, like following beads on a string. One's Keys of Marinus was quite likeable for a similar reason.
Deadly Assassin is definitely the epitome of Four-whumpage, poor fellow really gets dragged through a knothole backwards (as my mother would say). And yes, the one-size-fits-all rack with its rather silly contracting ivy vines theme was quite good, probably looked a lot better on paper than when they tried to make it something they could film, lol...
Kroll! Kroll! Kroll!
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Post by jjpor on Dec 27, 2010 20:38:04 GMT
Kroll! Kroll! Kroll! Kroll! ;D
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Post by magnusgreel on Jan 22, 2011 2:59:58 GMT
Written by Robert Holmes, you know. It's got that political element that will always be a part of the DW mindset for me. The simple non-effect of inserting Kroll into the scenery just by cutting off the reeds arbitrarily halfway up the screen, as if it's the horizon when it's not, works well for me. At least we actually get to see something like that in DW, for once.
I also like the mucking about in canoes, and in general, the look and feel of the outdoor scenes. I like the undramatic dismal swamp, I like that they challenged themselves to make that interesting, a place like that. That wasn't a quarry.
People shoot at Four the moment they meet him, they push him around, threaten to kill him, and then graciously accept his help to save their lives at the end. Classic.
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Post by jjpor on Jan 24, 2011 20:30:03 GMT
Yeah, the sheer size and scale of Kroll are pretty impressive, really, even given the limitations of the effects at the time. He/she/it is convincingly huge, I think, as he/she/it is meant to be. I also like the non-traditional location work. And the political subtext/satire is quite subtle and sophisticated, considering.
I think this is something that's generally true of much of classic Who, whereas the tendency in NuWho when they include a bit of political commentary is to a) have it be about an obvious "topical" subject that will mean nothing to repeat viewers a few years down the line, and b) to draw attention to it, like a bit of a wink at the audience, "aren't we clever?" I think in some ways television and maybe television audiences were more sophisticated about that kind of thing 20-30 years ago, or at least assumed a certain level of commentary in what they were watching rather than seeing it as a novelty.
(cf. stupid newpaper articles that seem to suggest either Andrew Cartmel, RTD or Moffat, take your pick, was the first person to invent political commentary in DW...)
But yes, Four gets shot at, roughed up, captured, threatened, expected to save the day...just a normal day at the office for him, surely? ;D
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Post by primsong on Jan 26, 2011 19:18:51 GMT
I'm finding a lot of my favorite episodes are the ones with at least partially natural/outdoor settings, whether it's Paris or a Naval base or "Stangmoor Prison" or a nice wild batch of really, really, really tall grass with swampy boaty bits. It's really quite refreshing after the interminable tunnels, caves and spaceship sets that others often have.
I also liked Four's very persistent point that his friend Romana was out there and he needed to find her.... It was nice, considering the way the Doctor sometimes wanders off and seems to forget he even came with other people.
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Post by magnusgreel on Mar 5, 2011 21:53:38 GMT
I like the outdoors in DW stories too, except for the quarries of course. It takes Blake's Seven to make me actually love a quarry.... Too bad my The Power of Kroll tape has some discoloration from time. There are certain bits of natural backdrops in stories that in some unconscious way get me to suspend disbelief really well.
Jjpor... I didn't even realize that RTD or Moffat were supposed to have any political content in their stories.
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Post by clocketpatch on Mar 5, 2011 23:11:52 GMT
Rusty had some giant political commentary in a few of his episodes (especially the Slitheen episodes, oddly... Weapons of Mass Destruction that don't actually exist anyone?)
It's easier to pick out the subtle (or sometimes not so subtle) commentary after the fact sometimes though. Once the buzz words have fallen out of use and you aren't hearing them every two seconds they tend to jump out a bit more.
...
And then there's The End of Time which I'm sure was trying to make some kind of statement on something... what that statement was however we may never know.
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evelyn
UNIT Red Shirt
Posts: 91
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Post by evelyn on Mar 7, 2011 18:50:50 GMT
Oh the landscape drama... I think that, based on the great deal of fun to be had in Classic Whoisodes with "swampy boaty bits" and the like, NuWho could definitely stand to have a lark in a bog full of green men, or blue men, or no men but so long as there's a bog and some aliens I'll be quite happy.
(Also, I'm pretty sure that any statements in End of Time were drowned out by RTD's "nyah I'm taking my toys and leaving" excessive recappage)
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Post by magnusgreel on Mar 23, 2011 15:01:02 GMT
I hadn't seen the end of TEoT that way... wasn't RTD leaving voluntarily? Why should he be bitter? It was too much and self-important of him, though, I'd say...
I'd like to see this version of DW really spending more time on alien planets with aliens, whatever the skin color or the bogginess of the landscape, so I could start to see this Who as something like science fiction. Come to think of it, were the bog people even alien? I got the impression that Delta Magna was a very old human colony that had expanded enough to fill and crowd the entire planet, and I even started to think that the swampies might have been a very early offshoot of the human colonists who went tribal and even evolved a new skin color to suit the environment. During that story, I spend the whole time wondering about the real backstory. I've never seen more English-seeming blue tribal swamp people, and there isn't even a language barrier...
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Post by jjpor on Mar 24, 2011 23:12:45 GMT
Yes, I think there was history there that was never really explained. I suppose that was part of the effect, but it would be nice to know more. I could see that being the case, actually. I think it was a human colony that has sort of gone its own way over the years, and it'd fit in with the sort of themes of the story, about colonialism and exploitation and all of that.
I think RTD did show a certain self-regard, shall we say, in EoT, apart from the other things that were wrong with it. I don't think he was bitter, but I think he wanted to mark the end of an era that was ending not just because Ten was going but him too, hence all the callbacks to the Ten era as a whole. Probably no more self-indulgent than some of the 80s Who stories with their constant references to the past, but definitely self indulgent nonetheless. As I say, though, not the only thing wrong with that story, not by a long shot.
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Post by magnusgreel on Mar 25, 2011 4:08:57 GMT
TEoT: This had the one moment that had me sitting there with jaw on carpet, more than any other in the RTD period: The council on Gallifrey consulting a SOOTHSAYER (referred to as such) with a crystal ball and even a pointy witch hat I believe, to fortell the future. Oh my God I thought, they really do think DW is Harry Potter.... Funny, I thought they knew the future by going there, or using some scientific means.... Plus Rassilon was there, and he was killing people at the table by pointing at them.
And, as someone here said, the Doctor can't survive a fall from a great height, unless he can.
1980s continuity references... I think they were poorly written and forced, shoehorned into stories just to be there, but the idea of them I approve of. It was part of the development of the program, expanding DW into a long-term story. They call it "worldbuilding" now apparently.
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Post by jjpor on Mar 25, 2011 20:17:08 GMT
Well, especially as Rassilon's whole shtick, as far as we have any confirmed information about him, was science and reason and bringing Gallifrey out of the "dark times" - he's the sort of character I imagine burning soothsayers and the type rather than consulting them. You know, if they'd sort of made a point that under the stress of war Gallifrey had fallen back into superstition and unreason, but they didn't even feel the need to do that. Imho, the whole idea of having Rassilon in it was a bit daft, really. And yes - yes, very true... I agree - I like the references and callbacks, as you say, it was creating a continuity and a history out of what had up to then just been random bits of background detail made up as the show's writers went along and contradicting each other more often than not. I mean, it's the kind of thing that's expected of genre shows nowadays, as you say, although in those days it was the exception. Trek was doing the same thing at the same time, with the movies and a bit later TNG referencing plot points and bits of background from the original series. I think it's a good thing, because it took the mythology and background of Who to a different level. On the other hand, oftentimes in JNT-era stories the actual story took a backseat to the references, or had even been conceived in the first place as an excuse to include those references, and it was not always to the benefit of the stories.
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Post by johne on Mar 25, 2011 21:54:32 GMT
Well, especially as Rassilon's whole shtick, as far as we have any confirmed information about him, was science and reason and bringing Gallifrey out of the "dark times" - he's the sort of character I imagine burning soothsayers and the type rather than consulting them. You know, if they'd sort of made a point that under the stress of war Gallifrey had fallen back into superstition and unreason, but they didn't even feel the need to do that. Imho, the whole idea of having Rassilon in it was a bit daft, really. That's one of RTD's annoying habits -- prophets who are Never Wrong and have a direct connection to the author. In his world, computers can fail, sonic screwdrivers can meet deadlocks, the Doctor can make mistakes, but a cryptic phrase mumbled at you by some random weirdo is (a) Correct and (b) Inescapable. And sticking a 'Rassilon' namebadge on the Big Bad after he's already been defeated is just... [DATA EXPUNGED]
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Post by jjpor on Mar 26, 2011 16:50:42 GMT
Very true, and the other thing is just how many times it seems to crop up. Just one inescapable prophecy might be allowable, and handwaved away as a result of knowledge gained by time travel etc, but there were so many over the years that it starts to seem like some sort of writing tic.
And well, yeah... It was just completely random and without any real thought behind it - I have the sneaking suspicion that RTD expected the reaction of oldtime fans to be the precise opposite of what it largely was.
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Post by clocketpatch on Mar 26, 2011 16:59:43 GMT
Beware the bad wolf The human girl who will fall in battle so very soon You are not alone Your song is ending There's something on your back The gate is waiting for you Rassilon's fortune teller person...
Am I missing any? I feel like I'm missing some...
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Post by johne on Mar 26, 2011 17:07:45 GMT
Beware the bad wolf The human girl who will fall in battle so very soon You are not alone Your song is ending There's something on your back The gate is waiting for you Rassilon's fortune teller person... Am I missing any? I feel like I'm missing some... Off the top of my head: He Will Knock Four $@*!ing Times
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Post by jjpor on Mar 26, 2011 17:09:15 GMT
That seems like a pretty representative set, but yes, there are probably more. And yeah, four @#!&ing times!
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Post by clocketpatch on Mar 26, 2011 17:21:48 GMT
I knew I was missing something. ;D
Didn't it end up being more like twelve times?
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