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Post by jjpor on Nov 8, 2010 22:47:56 GMT
That was...interesting...  |
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Post by clocketpatch on Nov 9, 2010 3:40:10 GMT
I haven't seen it yet. Should I be scared?
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Post by johne on Nov 9, 2010 20:33:10 GMT
I haven't seen it yet. Should I be scared? I don't think so; it was rather good. Particularly, of course, Clyde... ] ... who gets to proclaim his own awesomeness (with 100% accuracy) to the Nazis. Though I find it difficult to believe that four ruthless German infiltrators didn't so much as fire their guns once.
(Allohistorical nitpicks: The threatened German invasion was in 1940, not 1941, and a temporary disruption to the British RADAR network wouldn't have been enough for it to succeed. But it can certainly be argued that a failed German invasion would have been quite as disruptive to history.)
Sarah Jane's plotline: The bit with the grandfather clock (which seemed awfully familiar for some reason ;D) Just Bugs Me.
i) The minute hand was moving far too fast, even before Sarah started playing with it.
ii) Would the mechanism cope with having the hands put back as opposed to forward? It seems more likely to me that Sarah would have broken the clock altogether.
iii) Why should changing the clock affect a purely physical phemomenon (which is what Sarah assured us the timeshift was)?
iv) The biggie: Who, in a supposedly empty and abandoned house, was keeping the clock wound up and running?
Oh, and that parrot was definitely the White Guardian ;D
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Post by jjpor on Nov 9, 2010 20:35:08 GMT
No, it's worth a watch, definitely, and I thought it picked up quite a bit in Pt 2.
*I quite liked the mysterious "Shopkeeper", as he was credited, and his parrot (and apparent boss!), the Captain. Seriously, if that bloke wasn't either a Time Lord fallen on hard times, or a Time Agent, or something, I'll eat my ornately embroidered fez and velvet smoking jacket... I sort of like the way his identity and motives remained enigmatic, but I think it was mainly down to not really thinking that part of the tale through. He was just as much of a McGuffin really as the Shiny Things he sent the regulars into the past to find.
I like to think that the Captain is now going to use said artefacts to institute some sort of cross-temporal Reign of Terror somewhere or other, after SJ and co just let him disappear with them, no questions asked. ;D
One for johne (no-one under the age of 30 or non-British will have a clue what I'm going on about), but the bits where he was watching SJ and friends' progress (or lack of it) through his crystal ball, offering various bits of commentary or exposition via conversing with the parrot, the Shopkeeper reminded me of nothing so much as Treguard out of Knightmare. Just not as funny. Or as bearded.
I suppose I'm just thinking that any story featuring time travel, mysterious shopkeepers, a horrid little ghost story, invading Nazis and Lady Jane Grey (all at once!) should have been more satisfying, but I think it was precisely that lack of focus that was its undoing, really. Any one of the three story threads could have been a cracking episode in its own right, I guess I'm saying.
Rani's tale was nicely poignant and unflinching from rl historical nastiness (in fact, it may have been slightly - gasp! - educational for its target audience), but the affected oldy-timey dialogue and stilted acting from the guest actors (I don't really blame them, some of the lines they were given) really let it down, I thought.
Clyde and 1940s schoolboy sidekick vs a load of comedy Nazis was quite fun, if a bit superficial (you know, it wanted to acknowledge Nazi racism and general scumbaggery, while also keeping it all adventurous and Famous Five and it came across a bit strange in tone as a result), as well as being, well, historically problematical, shall we say (seriously, June 1941 was not the most convenient moment for Germany to be thinking about invading Britain, magic radar-jamming gadget or not)? Clyde was great, though, even if his hitherto unexpected British patriotism made for a slightly cringy Doctor Dances type speechifying moment. I liked his assertion that "time travel is awesome, I should do it more often!" though. ;D
I was slightly soured on Sarah's story strand by the fact that I found the actress playing her Victorian contact to be intensely annoying. I did like the way the viewer was initially left to piece together the slightly horrifying "ghost story" in the first ep via half-complete snatches of disembodied dialogue, though.
But yes, this story felt like it was trying to do too much, maybe. The overarching plot was more or less nonexistent - just an excuse to dump our heroes in various historical scenarios and see what happened. Nothing wrong with that, but it wasn't as entertaining for me as last week's.*
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Post by jjpor on Nov 9, 2010 20:41:13 GMT
]
iv) The biggie: Who, in a supposedly empty and abandoned house, was keeping the clock wound up and running?[ * Aaah - there really were ghosts there!!!
And I wholeheartedly agree on the identity of the mysterious "Captain" - one or other of the Guardians, anyway - he clearly decided to dispense with the silly hat this time round and manifest as an actual bird instead.* |
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Post by johne on Nov 9, 2010 21:14:12 GMT
* I suppose I'm just thinking that any story featuring time travel, mysterious shopkeepers, a horrid little ghost story, invading Nazis and Lady Jane Grey (all at once!) should have been more satisfying, but I think it was precisely that lack of focus that was its undoing, really. Any one of the three story threads could have been a cracking episode in its own right, I guess I'm saying.] The story structure reminded me a little of The Keys of Marinus rather than The Key to Time -- a story made up of self-contained mini-adventures. And like Marinus, this does put rather a strain on the budget of the mini-adventures. Which wasn't the only Hartnell-era allusion I thought of...[ ] ... in particular, it turns out Rani can't change history -- not one line. And I may be wearing oversensitive shipping goggles, but it seemed to me that Lady Jane had something of a crush on her.
The strain on the budget showed most in Clyde's and Rani's segments, to my way of thinking. It couldn't stretch to showing Queen Mary's soldiers, or the Home Guard; the B/W parallel I came up with for that one was the bit in The Invasion, where a messenger runs in with the news of the thrilling UNIT rescue they didn't have time to film.
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Post by johne on Nov 9, 2010 21:53:33 GMT
One for johne (no-one under the age of 30 or non-British will have a clue what I'm going on about) For those who haven't encountered Treguard, this is he. |
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Post by johne on Nov 9, 2010 22:04:49 GMT
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iv) The biggie: Who, in a supposedly empty and abandoned house, was keeping the clock wound up and running?[ * Aaah - there really were ghosts there!!! * ] Unless the clock was the Master's TARDIS, and it was causing the other phenomena by its mere presence. Silly of me not to think of that earlier  [ |
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Post by clocketpatch on Nov 11, 2010 1:58:11 GMT
... in particular, it turns out Rani can't change history -- not one line. And I may be wearing oversensitive shipping goggles, but it seemed to me that Lady Jane had something of a crush on her.
[
Anyway, this episode! I don't know how it will stand up to rewatch but I enjoyed it and spent the whole time amazed at how well they were balancing the multiple plotlines - like JJ says, any one of them could have been a cracker plot on their own, but the thing is that they still managed to be pretty damn good all together.
And yes, the Captain is totally one of the Guardians (and I lol'd at the hat joke. Good call)
Lots of educational messages this week:
1. Remembrance Day is soon. This is why.
2. The Nine Day Queen and more history (and not being British or particularly up on that branch of history it served its educational purpose by leading me to Wiki)
3. Don't play with matches children. No. Really.
and... I'm probably a massive nerd for this, but when the grand-daughter of the Victorian lady said her name was Angela Price I auto-connected it with the Preacher's van driver in Pete's World. That woman is a hero in every universe!
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Post by jjpor on Nov 14, 2010 0:50:29 GMT
*Agreed totally with johne on the pretty obvious budget restrictions, and indeed the One-ishness in tone of the whole Rani bit at least (and agreed on the Invasion comparison too... ;D)
And yes - not one line...
I'm glad I'm not the only one who was thinking "if anyone had anything about them, they'd be writing Rani/Lady Jane Grey fic right this instant"... ;D
Although, I do have this sneaking thought - wouldn't it have been fantastic just to have an SJA "historical" surrounding the events of the Nine Day Queen's "reign", with all of the regular cast involved and a bit of meditation on the truly brutal nature of royal politics in the late-medieval-renaissance era (I think the fantasy author George R R Martin phrases it best: "When you play the game of thrones, you win or die..."). You know, and if they'd concentrated on that strand, they could have afforded a few extra soldiers/courtiers too.
Mind you, Clyde Versus The Third Reich had an awful lot to recommend it too, so maybe that's the strand they should have isolated and made a story in its own right, if only because Clyde is The Man...
And thanks to Clocket - I knew I'd heard that name somewhere before! Here's hoping it was deliberate and not just continuity fail... *
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