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Post by jjpor on Sept 22, 2012 18:25:24 GMT
At least that's what I think this week's story is called... Once again, here is a thread for you to discuss said story - please use whichever method of spoiler-concealment seems best to you, but please do conceal them. Apparently, this one has got * UNIT* in it...
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Post by Maggadin on Sept 23, 2012 1:42:45 GMT
* UNIT or ''NuNit''?*
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Post by jjpor on Sept 23, 2012 12:14:03 GMT
Both, kind of. ;D
*Oh dear, Rory's Dad A.K.A. Petersen Out Of Red Dwarf, you're going to regret that bit of advice this time next week, methinks...
Decent enough story, if a bit of a throwback to RTD season finales of years gone by, what with the celebrity cameos and real life BBC newsreaders etc. A lot of build-up to not very much of a conclusion/ridiculously easily-solved world-rocking crisis. But then again, cf. above comment about RTD series finales.
I'm mean.
I'm not sure where I come down on the issue of Doctor/Life Balance, just like I'm not sure whether I liked/disliked, agreed/disagreed with last week's critique of the Doctor's morality. Seems like Messrs Chibnall and Whithouse continue their worrying adherence to some of the received wisdoms of the Ten era's characterisation of the Doctor as if they're general constants of the Doctor's character and lifestyle as a whole, which I'd argue they are not.
And I think the things this show was trying to say about "real life", or adult life, I guess, and the Doctor's adventuring, which I'd argue is here portrayed as inherently irresponsible and immature and not a healthy idea (literally not in the case of the poor Ponds next week, I suspect!) in the long-run... Well, it's a point of view, but one I'd suggest maybe goes against the spirit of adventure and subversion and nonconformity that has always - even during Three's era, right-on late 80s/early 90s Who writers! - been ingrained in the show's DNA.
Lawrence Miles used to make similar criticisms of some of the later EDAs, where you had companions with "proper jobs" being presented as laudable just for that, and this is one of the worryingly large number of things I agree with Mad Larry on. And, to show that I at least try to be fair to RTD, goes somewhat against the "moral" of Love and Monsters (you know, the other moral that didn't involve deviant practices involving paving slabs).
Speaking of Three and his subversion-cloaked-in-establishment-trappings, we have confirmation of the long-running bit of 90s book "canon" about the Brig's daughter Kate (from his first marriage, the one before Doris, doncha know?). Which was gratifying, really, even if the idea of her as this scientific wonk who's the de facto head of NuNuNIT doesn't mesh 100 percent with the novels, I don't think (or indeed with my fanfictional excursions into this territory, which obviously matter more to me ;D). But yeah, good. And good to see NuNIT apparently getting their act together at last and not acting like @#&%s as is their wont most of the time. I'm betting this came about via some master plan of the Brig's in his twilight years.
I sort of like the portrayal of the character, anyway, but thought Jemma Redgrave was maybe phoning it in in a couple of scenes (although not in others). Other perfomances up to the standard we've come to expect. Loved Eleven's continued failure at domestic life, including the fence-painting, keepy-ups (as we called them, anyway, in our school) and lawn-mowing...all in an hour... Standout, though, has to be Mark "Fast Show" Williams as Brian, or Rory's Dad A.K.A. Petersen Out Of Red Dwarf as he should be known. Because it's funnier.
As a parting shot, I have to say I do like the idea of the Doctor repeatedly coming across these characters out of old Gallifreyan fairy tales...and then killing them. Sort of like coming across a wolf in your nan's nightie, to use the example in the episode...and then shooting it. Because he totally does kill people/things, lots of people/things, whatever fandom may think.*
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Post by johne on Sept 23, 2012 13:26:29 GMT
* As a parting shot, I have to say I do like the idea of the Doctor repeatedly coming across these characters out of old Gallifreyan fairy tales...and then killing them. Sort of like coming across a wolf in your nan's nightie, to use the example in the episode...and then shooting it. Because he totally does kill people/things, lots of people/things, whatever fandom may think.* ] I got the impression that the 'real' Shakri were long gone and what was running the show was a rather dim AI they'd left to mind the shop. But then, just because nursery tales are told about something doesn't mean it automatically becomes a villain that can give the Doctor a run for his money -- any more than (say) the Evil Stepmother and her daughters from Cinderella could inconvenience Sherlock Holmes.[
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Post by aquabluejay on Sept 26, 2012 23:47:39 GMT
I'm going to be perfectly honest and say that I was definitely excited about this episode for the Doctor whump in the 'next time' trailer. It wasn't everything I'd hoped for, but good enough. The episode itself started promisingly, but to be frank I was extremely disappointed by the ending. I was fully expecting that when the Doctor has that line pretty early on about the cubes "wanting you to pay attention to them" that either right then, or later on they were going to turn out to have been a distraction while the real plot was going on under everyone's noses. They weren't. I was frozen in disbelief by the rubbish plot we got instead. There was plenty to like and frankly to love about the Doctor's antics and life with the Ponds and Rory's dad that almost made up for the utter failure of the episode to have an ending worth speaking of. I too am interested in the idea of things the Gallifreyans told nursery stories about (theoretically therefore never knew really existed, and they should still be around after the war in that case) coming back and getting taken down by the Doctor. However, when they whipped that one out in this episode, it just felt hollow and pointless. They could have just said he was the Shakri, fabled inhabitants of the Lost Moon of Poosh for all it mattered. The Shakri tells the Doctor that it's too late, there's nothing he can do, and then the Doctor just waves his screwdriver, everything's better, and then the ship explodes? Really?! I feel almost certain that something terrible happened during the writing of this and the ending was cobbled together in the last 20 minutes before filming... It's like that bit part of Monty Python and the Holly Grail where they're being chased by the dreaded Black Beast of Aaaaaarrrrrrgggggghhhh and then the Animator suffers a fatal heart attack, only less clever. I'm not familiar with any other appearance or mention of her, but I quite enjoyed having the Brigs daughter there, and of course seeing that she had a firm hand of things. And of course her little nod to the Doctor being Unit's scientific adviser was much appreciated. There were a couple of scenes where she was definitely pretty blah, and I half expected the director to step into frame and go, "No, more desperate, more excitement!"
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Post by magnusgreel on Dec 23, 2012 9:40:54 GMT
And I think the things this show was trying to say about "real life", or adult life, I guess, and the Doctor's adventuring, which I'd argue is here portrayed as inherently irresponsible and immature and not a healthy idea (literally not in the case of the poor Ponds next week, I suspect!) in the long-run... Well, it's a point of view, but one I'd suggest maybe goes against the spirit of adventure and subversion and nonconformity that has always - even during Three's era, right-on late 80s/early 90s Who writers! - been ingrained in the show's DNA. Well, it's this point of view that sunk its teeth into me when I came across DW in the late '70s, and it's THE point of Dr Who for me. It's the content of Dr Who for me. I'm very glad you said this. DW used to be liberating. Respecting the travails of everyday life that most people deal with is honorable. However, let's not forget the coolness of Tom having absolutely no time for any of this, personally. He served as a great blueprint for dealing with adult life for me (I was age 20 at this point), which is mainly why it's hard for me to see DW returned to the status of a children's show. Four was a signal that you don't have to give up a sense of freedom and adventure, and independence of thought, in order to be an adult in this society. Four was admirable for sidestepping society's requirements, not irresponsible. Maybe it's a generational thing. In the 70s there was still a counter-cultural backlash going on, against a culture that had gone far too grey and practical and soul-deadening. Now the culture isn't as restrictive and colorless, so the '70s DW spirit is harder to understand or identify with. We needed Four a bit more in the '70s than we do now, maybe, but we still need him. I only get a chance to see these stories once, at an old fandom friend's house, and the first viewing is always hard to follow for me, so I can't comment more on the new stories.
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Post by jjpor on Mar 16, 2013 22:05:22 GMT
Magnus - just looking at some of these old threads for reasons known only to myself, and I just wanted to say - sorry I never got around to responding to your point above at the time you posted it. I hope you still pop in from time to time and see this. But yes, I think you're right on the money there, regarding Four. And indeed all of the oldschool Doctors, to one extent or another. I do genuinely think that modern-day society while in some ways more liberated than that of the 60s or even the 70s is also in some weird way less tolerant of eccentricity or nonconformity. Alternative lifestyle choices are nowadays treated by mainstream society as almost another consumerist fashion trend - not something people should, like, believe in or anything... After the counterculture, there was a big small-c conservative pendulum swing back in the other direction, I think, and we're still feeling its effects. Its tenets still completely dominate our current discourse and political "narrative" to the extent when it's even affecting the portrayal of the Doctor. And through no fault, I'll add, of the show's producers and writers - it's just the Zeitgeist or cultural context or whatever that they happen to be working in. It's the classic line, at the end of the day - "there's no point in growing up if you can't be childish sometimes." For me, that's the essence of Who in a nutshell, whereas at times S7a or whatever we should call it was saying "you have to put childish things away." Four would beg to differ, I think.
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