Dinosaurs On A Spaceship

[jjpor]

Your thread for discussing the latest story of the latest series of NuWho. As always, please use whatever means seems right to you to prevent your spoilers being read by anybody who doesn't want to read them. I know I don't really have to remind you of this.

[johne]

I'm getting ever so slightly tired of ]the logic that if a dinosaur's herbivorous, it's necessarily harmless. Has the Doctor never met a bull?

I thought the sound mix was a bit indistinct, too, when the Doctor's having his hearts-to-heart with Amy; it took me a couple of rewinds to work out what his answer was to her 'weaning off' comment. Or maybe my hearing's going.

Other than that, I liked it, though there's something of a mood whiplash when you think about the villain's casual genocide. Being blown up is too quick; the Doctor should have let Vastra give him a tonguelashing. Followed by lunch.

ETA: And who built those robots? The Sirius Cybernetics Corporation?
[

[clocketpatch]

Well, my squee isn't gone because I enjoyed that thoroughly, but agree with Johne about the mood whiplash

I'm curious where the show came up with such a huge budget because this episode plainly wasn't cheap. The dinosaurs have come a long, LONG way since Invasion. And the Dromaeosaurs had feathers! How awesome is that. It's not often that Doctor Who has better and more accurate SFX than a Classic Spielburg movie. So that's pretty damn awesome.

And it was just fun. Especially the guest characters, Nefie and the Walking Innuendo, and Rory's Dad (was it implying at the end that Rory's dad went travelling with the Doctor for a bit?)

I like the opportunity to show off Rory's mad nursing skillz. Now all he needs is a swordfight and a proper fencing scene (and also not to be leaving the show in three episodes, because I do love him so).

A few running plot devices here that i found interesting: 1. that the writers are so far sticking by the Doctor's erasure from history. He really is just bouncing around having adventures like in the old days. I like it.

And 2. the Doctor's relationship with the Pond's reminds me more than a little bit of his relationship with the Brig, except now we're seeing it from the other side. It's an interesting device and I like it, except as Amy and the Doctor's little quiet talk indicated, these things can only end one way. I was a little shocked when Rory stated that he's now 31. I know he's a little bit older than Amy in the show, but not by that much I don't think. So how many years have they been living their "normal" Pond life with the Doctor dropping in?

All in all, I'm far more excited with the series than I was at this point last year. Next up - A Town Called Mercy (I guess it would have been jinxing it to call it "The Gunslingers Part II" but I'll forgive them for that if Rory gets a random musical number...)

[aquabluejay]

I certainly liked this one a lot better than the last one!
This did indeed seem like a particularly expensive ep, and I agree with Johne that I'm not really sure what went on in that one conversation with Amy because I couldn't hear at all.

The guest characters were quite fun, (I loved Rupert Graves there ) but I was getting a bit tired of the repetitive feminism arguments between Nefie, Amy and Riddel.

I thought that clip of them riding the Triceratops looked like very dodgy cgi in the trailers, but everything actually looked surprisingly good in the actual ep.

I am curious about what Matt Smith was going for with a couple of the Doctors expressions when they first spot the dinosaurs... There's some weirdness going on there for a few beats.

Poor Doctor was too late to help the Silurians AGAIN... He was obviously upset over the genocide thing, but he was pretty cool about it in front of everyone until the very end. I thought basically sending the guy to his death was a bit harsh for the doctor. Perhaps that's not the right phrase... Lets say it wasn't quite his style. None of his companions were really there to stop him. He didn't really give the guy any chance to get away. I mean, sure, he'd given him chances earlier, but normally he leaves people a way out. Like "Hey, here's this incredibly valuable thing, if you let go of it you live" and they're trapped by their own greed into staying and being killed or something. I was kind of expecting him to go there at the end but he didn't and him shutting the door in the guy's face and snarking at him through the bars kind of left me going, "Woah there Doc, let's take a second and talk about all this now."


One thing I would have loved to see- Rory got to show off his nursing skills to his dad, but I was rally hoping he was going to grab a piece of pipe or something and go all Last Centurion on their rusty butts. He kept threatening them like a BA, but he didn't ever get to do anything. I would have died to see him try to explain to his dad where he learned to do that.
Rory's desperate exasperation about the third time the Doctor asks why he brought his dad along is gold!

[clocketpatch]

SPOILER: Click to show

Apparently the front half of the triceratops was an actual prop that the actors actually rode on for several hours during the shoot (further internet gossip says that Matt Smith had to wear padded trousers because it was such a rough ride)

I think this is even more impressive than CGI (and apparently cheaper... which makes me scratch my head and wonder why /anyone/ would use dodgy CGI dinos if non-dodgy actual dinos are cheaper.) The two comedy robots were also real. This all makes me happy. Still curious about how they got the budget to stretch so far though - I mean last week's episode wasn't cheap either and next week's has extensive foreign filming. It'll be interesting when the yearly cheap episodes come up. I wonder if they'll include Craig again...

[jjpor]

On a spaceship!

*I liked this one, overall. A bit of a worrying admission considering it was written by my nemesis (well, one of them), Chris @#&%ing Chibnall...

First thoughts: The Doctor quite blatantly sending Solomon to his arguably well-deserved death might seem a bit harsh at first sight. But, you know, the Doctor has form for that kind of thing, if we can all be honest with ourselves for a sec. His bodycount runs into the billions, actually. I've been quietly amused by fandom rehashing the "bu-bu-but...he never would!" arguments from the beginning of last season this week. ;D

Re Solomon: He was a magnificently unpleasant baddie, wasn't he? I mean, like legitimately loathsome and ruthless in a way that was actually quite impressive, but sat quite uncomfortably with the genuine light tone of much of the story. So agreed on the mood whiplash, I think. And you know, a couple of prime Chibnallisms just in case I thought he was more likeable nowadays. I went "urrgh!" out loud at the "breaking her in" line with its many, many unfortunate and nasty connotations. Stay classy, Chris.

Speaking of Chibnallisms - the false dilemma with Nefertiti giving herself up to the ne'er-do-well for no very compelling reason the Doctor couldn't have thought his way around under normal circumstances, and the hard to hear hearts to heart. I was actually quite glad for the dodgy sound-mixing in that scene, because for a moment I thought I was watching Torchwood Season 1 or something.

But I liked everything else very much. Great guest characters - Nefertiti, Rory's Dad! Liked Rory's dad aka Petersen out of Red Dwarf very much. The standout for me, though was probably "Lestrade out of Sherlock" as the thoroughly reprehensible yet highly amusing Riddell. If early-period Captain Jack was reincarnated as a posh, horrendously sexist, Edwardian Englishman... Liked, though, that he was continually called on his innuendos and prejudices and that Amy and Nefi (if we're calling her that) were pretty thoroughly shown to be three streets ahead of him most of the time.

Rory great, as usual - liked his nursing moment and his don't-mess-with-me attitude to the robots. I thought the contrast between their robots' incongruous voices and the use they were put to by the villain worked very well. And the fact that they were voiced by comedy double act Mitchell and Webb just made me smile as I thought about Hale and Pace in Survival, as is my way.

Loved the fuzzy dinosaurs too - probably should have been more extravagantly feathered, tbh, but better than nothing. And I agree with johne, statistically and anecdotally large herbivores are far, far more likely to kill you than most predators, so I would have been a bit more careful around that Triceratops, Eleven.

Poor Silurians just can't catch a break, can they? I like the idea of them setting out into space to save somethign of their world, though. Maybe explains the Silurians showing up in A Good Man Goes to War?

So, the series continues well from my point of view. Slightly concerned about next time, though. On the face of it, Wild West, gunslinger Eleven, should be the awesomest thing since awesome was invented, but a) we're probably overdue a dud episode after the first two were generally strong, b) I dread to think the amount of w*nk the sight of the Doctor toting a peacemaker around will provoke on the internets and c) some of the stuff from the trailer leads me to believe we're going to have a bit of pointless, preachy angst of the sort Chibnall would be proud of. I hope I'm wrong.*

[Maggadin]

On the face of it, Wild West, gunslinger Eleven, should be the awesomest thing since awesome was invented

Awesomer than Seven?

[aquabluejay]

I've been having a discussion over on DeviantART with an artist after they remarked in their comments on the fact that Rory miraculously didn't die in this episode, despite several species of rampaging dinosaurs.
I of course pointed out to her that he was probably supposed to get trampled by Tricy, but the scene was cut for time.

[jjpor]

Seven transcends awesomeness. He cannot be quantified or reasoned with any more than any other force of cosmological nature. *He certainly wouldn't have to resort to dressing up in a cowboy hat and strapping on a six-shooter to deal with some Old West-related bother. Although it does suit Eleven. I hope the episode isn't a disappointment.

True about Rory. I don't think that Triceratops looked quite big enough to be fully grown, so maybe it was a juvenile one, explaining its lack of testosterone-crazed violence towards Our Heroes? It got me *right here* when Mitchell and Webb lasered the poor thing to death. *

[clocketpatch]

SPOILER: Click to show

I did notice that Rory didn't die this week, or last week... if he doesn't die next week I'll begin to be suspicious that the writers are going to kill both him and Amy off. I *think* I remember seeing Weeping Angels in the trailer and wouldn't be at all surprised if the stoney blighters were used as a get out of companions free card -

I mean, Amy and Rory have already been married, visited alternative dimensions, died, and been more-or-less kicked off the TARDIS. What else is left? Though, I've also realized that at three series they are definitely the longest running regular companions in NuWho history, and they've taken their place with some of the long runners from the Classic as well so good on them

and

SPOILER: Click to show

Westerns are the one thing that Who has NEVER done successfully (granted, I don't think they've tried since the Gunslingers... ) I'm prepared to cringe. A lot.

Oh well, at least Arthur Darvil can sing.