|
|
Post by jjpor on Oct 22, 2010 22:06:36 GMT
|
|
|
|
Post by merrythemad on Oct 22, 2010 22:36:49 GMT
I really can't wait. I haven't watched an SJA since DT was on, as they no longer air it here in the states and then I lacked the hard drive space...soon i shall be catching up! Cannot wait for this episode though! Hey can anyone tell me who Rani is and what happened to what's her nose and her dad?
|
|
|
|
Post by jjpor on Oct 22, 2010 22:44:38 GMT
Er, yeah, Maria and her dad left at the beginning of S2 (I think), and Rani is sort of the replacement - a schoolgirl would-be journalist. Her parents, though, Gita and Haresh (Haresh is the headmaster of the kids' school and has this kind of love/hate thing going with Clyde, the way bright-but-cheeky pupils and hardman teachers sometimes do), are like comedy gold and almost make up for losing Maria and co, and esp Maria's mum who amused me no end... ;D
But yeah, I thought the last series, S3 had some particularly nice stories, including the one with Tennant in, so yeah, get caught up if you can! ;D
|
|
|
|
Post by merrythemad on Oct 23, 2010 0:14:33 GMT
*blinks* I notice I explained that poorly, when DT was on I made a special to see that episode, I haven't watched regularly since "Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane?". Sorry, I'm a loon.
|
|
|
|
Post by reversethepolarity on Oct 23, 2010 2:32:02 GMT
Where are you guys watching these episodes? Can we get them on the net or something if we're in the States? Or does it come on BBCA, maybe?
|
|
|
|
Post by jjpor on Oct 25, 2010 21:16:38 GMT
Well, I watch them on BBC iPlayer, but I realise that isn't a great deal of help to people outside the UK... I'm sure there are ways and means, though...
Some thoughts from watching Part 1:
*NuNIT - you idiots! I don't know, they just annoy me with their screeching tyres and pointless gun-toting and black SAS-suits (all the Brig ever needed was his trusty combat-jumper), not to mention their ridiculous attitude to the Doctor (gushingly worshipping him while doing all sorts of things that'd appall him). Haresh eyed them with the contempt they deserve, anyway.
I do get the impression, in this and his earlier portrayals of them, that RTD intends them to come across as ludicrous and a bit annoying - well, he succeeds masterfully.
And they have a ridiculous Secret Volcano Base inside Mount Snowdon, presumably inherited from the now-defunct Torchwood, because Brig-era UNIT quite frankly didn't look like they had two pennies to rub together...
Still trouble in Peru requiring the Brig's attention - haven't the faintest idea what keeps happening down there...
And quite apart from the Secret Volcano Base, they have a moonbase! With Liz Shaw in it!!! For some reason this struck me as a) slightly ludicrous and b) great - the thought of Liz Shaw IN SPAAACCE deserves a little bit of squee I think.
A lot of squeeable stuff in this first part actually. I thought Eleven was a bit offhand with Jo, considering how miserable Three looked at the end of The Green Death (although his observation about her being baked, while deplorable, made me laugh a lot), or at any rate seemed so alongside his beaming adoringly at Sarah... Jo's perhaps understandable hint of sorrow at not having seen the Doctor again when Sarah had came a bit close to patented RTD-angst, but it was only for a moment, and was more than undercut by the information that she had spent her 35-plus years married to Cliff producing numerous children and grandchildren and moreover travelling the world saving the environment (and apparently handcuffing herself to Robert Mugabe). And her grandson is called Santiago. And she said "groovy!" ;D
I liked the interaction between Sarah and Jo, sharing happy reminiscences about Peladon and other places they had been, using the power of aromatherapy and list-making to think of who could have wanted to fake the Doctor's death...
The vulture-like Shansheeth were pretty amusing, really, a combination of fake rubber props, pompous voices and slightly daft funeral rituals. I got a sort of Clocket-Clyde-Androvax moment when one of them said "and what about their bodies?" with an ominous chuckle...
Clyde and Rani excellent - Clyde The Man as usual - liked his exchanging insults with the Groske (not Graske, honest!), and general reactions to events, especially the unexpected turning into the Doctor thing at the end. I can only assume that his main reason for being so saddened by the Doctor's alleged death was that now he would never get to be his awesomest companion ever.
I don't like to keep heaping the praise on Matt Smith, but here he got about half a dozen lines and still Eleven managed to be the most squee-worthy thing about the episode, even with all of those oldschool references to contend with. Especially his confrontation of the Shansheeth (quickly going from badass to unstuck as he seems to do quite a lot), and his suddenly worried thought that Clyde might be in an awful lot of trouble...
So yes, very good - all of that throwaway silliness you sort of expect from RTD in playful mode, but it worked here (not surprising considering how he cut his teeth on children's TV back in the day), you know, something light and fun without ludicrous UNIT volcano bases and daft alien names cropping up in the middle of the allegedly epic season finale or whatever. ;D
So, yes, thumbs up! And if we're very lucky, it won't all fall to pieves in Pt 2! ;D*
|
|
|
|
Post by merrythemad on Oct 26, 2010 2:19:36 GMT
RTP check your pms, duck and my thoughts in a bit as I have company
|
|
|
|
Post by johne on Oct 26, 2010 18:44:40 GMT
Just watched Part 2.
RTD is such a fanboy. Modulo the occasional detail, I'd have done exactly the same thing.
]In my head canon, "Dorothy something" is more likely to be Dorothea than Ace. Can't see Ace running a company.
And even if he did mean Ace, he's still done a pretty good demolition job on some of the other egregious bits of the Expanded Universe: Jo still married, Liz confirmed as alive (though by an unreliable narrator), Tegan confirmed as alive, canon Ben/Polly, canon Ian/Barbara, canon Sarah/Harry (or at least Sarah -> Harry)...
Talk about fix fic ;D [
|
|
|
|
Post by jjpor on Oct 26, 2010 22:12:52 GMT
He is SUCH a fanboy, but also still very much RTD... You can take the boy out of The End of Time, but you can't...well, something like that...
*I was very, very happy and squeeful indeed about all of the companion references and the various endings that he hinted at for them. Big softie that I am. I like to think that the comment about Ian and Barbara not ageing was metaphorical, for some reason (although I suppose if it wasn't they could team up with Captain Jack to Fight Intergalactic Crime in the 25th Millennium or something). Really not sure about the idea of Ace running a charity and raising billions (unless, as I said over on Livejournal, she's using it to siphon funds to terrorists freedom fighters overthrowing oppressive regimes around the world (or bankrolling Mickey and Martha, Freelance Alien Fighters!!)
Yes, I really ought not to watch things like this, it gives me a bad case of the plotbunnies - I mean, the inner monologue I was constructing about Ian and Barbara's careers at Cambridge, in conjunction with Professor Shaw and quite possibly Professor Chronotis too... Yeah...
But yeah, that was the enjoyment I derived from this, the shoutouts and the "canonisation" of some of my favourite ships, and Katy Manning and Lis Sladen and Matt Smith being kind of great together on screen. Not to mention Clyde and Eleven being great together...
All of this managed to dull my inner pain a little at the realisation that Rusty's plot was, guess what? flimsy, rushed, handwavily resolved, you know all that stuff I say about things like Journey's End... And the realisation that he actually only has one idea of how to write Doctor-companion reunions - resentment, jealousy, pining, gushy love-in etc - when if there was anyone entitled to feel aggrieved in the case of Jo taking off with Cliff, surely it was the Doctor?
(I mean, I'm sure he was, but Eleven, characteristically, was playing his emotional cards close to his chest - Matt Smith cannot play the Doctor badly can he, even in some spinoff that he probably did on his once-in-a-blue-moon day off from shooting DW?)
Oh yeah, and the third realisation, that Rusty has somehow seen a version of The Green Death quite different from the one I saw. He probably found it in a car boot sale next to that "special edition" of The Hand of Fear that he's also evidently seen... ;D
But enough churlishness - we got Ian/Barbara and Ben/Polly and Tegan and possibly Ace (still not quite buying the notion of that one), and Sarah being all wistful and sad about Harry in a way that kind of chimes in with my thoughts on their post-Doctor relationship. It almost blots out the thought of what a satisfying story this could have been if Rusty had left some of his baggage at the door.
Yeah, yeah I know, I'm just a Rusty-basher...still can't let it go after all these...months... ;D*
|
|
|
|
Post by jjpor on Oct 26, 2010 22:27:56 GMT
*Thought: was the thing about Ben and Polly being in India some reference to Anneke Wills dropping out in real life and going to live in some sort of commune or ashram or whatever? No, you're right, probably not.
Hang on, my memory is hazy, but didn't Two say Ben (quite improbably) ended up becoming an admiral? Or was he just fibbing to Jamie? ;D*
|
|
|
|
Post by johne on Oct 26, 2010 22:49:51 GMT
* Hang on, my memory is hazy, but didn't Two say Ben (quite improbably) ended up becoming an admiral? Or was he just fibbing to Jamie? ;D* He did, but it seems to be intended as a hope for his future, rather than as a cast-iron prophecy. |
|
|
|
Post by clocketpatch on Oct 27, 2010 0:24:50 GMT
Oh, so much I could say. Rusty is still, well, rusty about some things, but the main point is... THAT WAS THE MOST EPIC FANWANK SQUEE EVER!!!
;D ;D ;D
|
|
|
|
Post by jjpor on Oct 27, 2010 18:42:06 GMT
Ah, crafty old Two and his pronouncements...
I think you're right Clocket - I shouldn't let my continuing misgivings about RTD detract from my squee - because you're right, that was some powerful fanw*nk right there. And isn't that the sort of thing we're watching SJA for? That and Clyde? And Rani's mum and dad? ;D
And I keep accusing RTD of writing School Reunion, when actually it was the other bloke... But we have it on good authority that everything in S1-4 that didn't have Moffat's name on it was pretty extensively RTD-ified, so I like to blame him anyway. ;D
|
|
|
|
Post by reversethepolarity on Oct 28, 2010 0:56:03 GMT
Okay, super thanks to those who sent me download links. This episode was amazing.
Oh, my Rassilon. This whole thing was great. Jo was just so much awesome. Her introduction with the flowers was classic Jo. And the reference to wishing she had glasses was priceless. I also loved all the old references; Metebelis III, Drashigs, Peladon. Oh, it was over-the-top love, for sure. Especially the flashbacks to Four and Three. I was sitting there watching all the Ten flashes and being like 'oh, please show another Doctor, oh please, oh please.' And then 'boom' they showed both Tom and Jon. I flipped out, for sure.
Also, am I the only one who is really liking these vulture guys? I thought they were a little silly at first, a bit too 'Dark Crystal,' but they grew on me. By the end I found them to be rather cool bad guys and kinda creepy, actually. I'm really digging them.
And I'm really out of the loop. Where did Maria go? And who is this Rani person? That name really threw me off a couple times. When they called it out in the hall I was like 'No way, the Rani's in this?!' = ) Yeah, I'm a loser, but it got my fan squee level up for about two seconds until I realized the girl was just named Rani.
All in all, super awesome. Thumbs up, which is something I never thought I'd give RTD. I don't know about Eleven's 'baked' comment and he didn't seem to really be excited enough to see Jo again. In fact, that whole meet up was really rushed. But other than that, great.
|
|
|
|
Post by clocketpatch on Oct 28, 2010 1:05:38 GMT
* The entrance with the flowers was absolutely amazing wasn't it? I knew that the episode (and Jo) would be fine from that point on. Only thing that could've made it better would've been if the flowers were daisies * Marie's dad got a new job in America at the beginning of series 2. She's been back a few times via Internet video chat. Rani and her hilarious parents come in as a replacement. Rani's parents, after Clyde, are the best thing in the show. I do miss Marie's dad though. I he had a thing going with Sarah-Jane that I'd hoped... anyway. But, on a Rani-related note: I know I saw *somewhere* on the Internet that Rusty was asked if the Doctor episode in the SJA would become a tradition and he said, no, it had to be different every year, but maybe next year we'll get The Two Ranis.  * |
|
|
|
Post by merrythemad on Oct 28, 2010 1:30:51 GMT
That interview CP is discussing can be found at whoviannet. I <3 whoviannet, among a few others.
|
|
|
|
Post by jjpor on Oct 28, 2010 20:30:03 GMT
Heh, I read that too, Merry - he's still a tease, old Rusty.
*I also read something where he said that the thing about 507 regenerations would "never stick", because people are too attached to the thirteen thing - seems he just thought it was funny.
And just to reiterate - weren't Clyde and Eleven great together? When SJA ends, Clyde has got to become a fulltime companion. ;D
I quite liked the Shansheeth as well, rtp - they were just the right side of silly, with great voices. I agree, a bit Dark Crystal, but I think The Dark Crystal's fantastic, so that's not a drawback. ;D
And the thing about Jo's glasses made me laugh as well. Agreed with Clocket that if they'd been daisiest daisies that would have been even better, but I suppose lilies are the thing for funerals.*
|
|
|
|
Post by johne on Oct 29, 2010 11:31:52 GMT
* Really not sure about the idea of Ace running a charity and raising billions (unless, as I said over on Livejournal, she's using it to siphon funds to terrorists freedom fighters overthrowing oppressive regimes around the world (or bankrolling Mickey and Martha, Freelance Alien Fighters!!)* ] It occurs to me that "running a charity" is probably no more accurate a description of Dorothy's activities, than "freelance journalism" is of SJA.[ |
|
|
|
Post by Abbyromana on Oct 29, 2010 21:56:31 GMT
I quite liked the Shansheeth as well, rtp - they were just the right side of silly, with great voices. I agree, a bit Dark Crystal, but I think The Dark Crystal's fantastic, so that's not a drawback. ;D
* Yeah! A fellow fan of Dark Crystal! |
|
|
|
Post by jjpor on Oct 29, 2010 22:59:39 GMT
Yes, I think you're right, johne... Much more to it than that. ;D
The Dark Crystal is ace, as Ace might say - I have nothing but admiration and fond memories for it! ;D "Trial by stone! Trial by stone!"
|
|
