The Doctor Who 2014/15 Thread

Skyquake87 · Post by **Skyquake87** » Mon Nov 02, 2015 8:34 pm

First part of the Zygon 2-parter was alright, although the whole Refugee/immigrant/Syria references were ladled on so heavily even RTD would blush. UNIT were shown up to be a bunch of divs yet again. sigh. It seemed to take a long time to get to the very obvious point, though. Did enjoy Osgood neither confirming or denying that she's one or the other. The 'hybrid' thing cropped up again too, which I liked even though its a heavy signpost about what the finale might be about.

Post by **Denyer** » Mon Nov 02, 2015 10:00 pm

I'm really enjoying the current two-part standard... it feels far more like Who with cliffhangers being a norm.

Rack 'n Ruin · Post by **Rack 'n Ruin** » Fri Nov 06, 2015 10:17 am

Denyer wrote:I'm really enjoying the current two-part standard... it feels far more like Who with cliffhangers being a norm.

Agreed.

And now, a patented RnR random thought...

If (and that's a big if!), the extant Osgood survives this story, and she is actually the originally Zygon "sister", and she then goes a-travelling with Doctor Disco, would it be a good idea for the series for the Doc to have a shape shifting companion? I believe it was done in "classic" Who. Would it open up a world of possibilities for stealthy sneaking about and guest actors playing Osgood, or would it make things too hard to follow?

Brendocon 2.0 · Post by **Brendocon 2.0** » Sun Nov 08, 2015 7:52 pm

Right, so at no point during that second episode did anybody utter the phrase "let Zygons be Zygons" so the entire program should be cancelled, the licence fee scrapped and the BBC abolished.

Rack 'n Ruin · Post by **Rack 'n Ruin** » Sun Nov 08, 2015 8:00 pm

Spooky "policemen" walking slowly along a road towards the Doctor - very Pertwee era, very good.

Online opinions of this one seem to be overwhelmingly positive. I thought it was good, but not great. Capaldi was good again, though. And he and Osgood make a good pairing. Osgood is clearly not going to be the next companion though.

Skyquake87 · Post by **Skyquake87** » Mon Nov 09, 2015 8:42 pm

I enjoyed the second part of this much more than the first. I'd agree that it was good, not great, but I really, really thought the Doctor's please-beseeching with the Zygons and the Humans was fantastic. Such smart and thoughtful dialogue and probably Capaldi's best moment for me - see, this is the kind of stuff he needs!!! Peter Harkness has impressed me with this two-parter, despite what I said upthread as there were some good points well made. And has banished memories of Kill The Moon. At least until the next time I watch that :P

Oh! And I forgot to add, had a feeling of deja vu watching the scenes around the council estate...which is where Ten, Martha and Captain Jack ran about and hid when Harold 'The Master' Saxon was Prime Minister.

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Tue Nov 10, 2015 9:07 pm

Yeah, that was good stuff. A bit on the nose with the politics, but at least it's vaguely current (whilst all that "Weapons of massive destruction" stuff in the RTD era was about three years to late) and heartfelt.

I'm not sure why Bonnie, who is fighting against Zygon's having to stay disguised as humans, was not only happy to stay disguised as a human even when she didn't have to but didn't question why Kate Stewart was doing it as well. Plus the practicalities of the show's budget--they couldn't have Zygon's just hanging about every time they visit present day Earth--means the ending was oddly against the spirit of the message with it's "Immigrants are great as long as they make sure they look and act just like us at all times" solution.

I was mildly surprised the second part wasn't postponed, or at least that the plane explosion wasn't edited out. Not that I think it should have been as such, it's just an odd change of approach after the editing of a beheading from Robot of Sherwood because of current news last year.

On the series in general, it's interesting how everyone involved is now being pretty much open that the later time slot has been a disaster. And whilst they're keen to stress that the next season will be 12 episodes, they've been dodging the question of when it will go out (I would guess it'll be like "Season 7", in that we'll actually get two seasons of six episodes they'll pretend is one so as to placate fans, with the second half in spring 2017 so as to bring the show back to an Easter start).

EDIT: Oh, and the embracing of crap 80's costumes was kind of awesome. Was Osgood's McCoy jumper more muted in colour than the original? It didn't stand out as much as usual, you could imagine her going down the shops and no one giving it a second look. Let's have her do the full Colin Baker next time.

Skyquake87 · Post by **Skyquake87** » Wed Nov 11, 2015 8:53 pm

It was interesting reading DWM commenting on the launch of the latest series and the lack of promotion for it by the BBC and (something I missed) launching it with a trailer with a clip of Clara going "The Doctor and Clara in the TARDIS. Same old, Same old." Have to agree, that doesn't really do much to sell the series.

As for the time slot, Who has really bounced around the schedules under Moffat - whether this is something he has control over or fights for, I don't know - I know RTD fought tooth and nail to keep Who to a 7pm timeslot - which means its easily missed (er, assuming you're not taping it watching online). Its a really odd thing to do, and its strange that even now, with their being a proven audience for Sci-Fi / Fantasy, the BBC are happy to mess viewers about with a changing time slot. I think if Who was doing the same sort of bleak stories as last year, there might be an argument for the later timeslot, but there's clearly been a response to viewer feedback that has resulted in a change of tone which doesn't suit the 8pm slot.

Fox and Sky, by comparrison have kept audiences - if not grown them - by keeping the likes of Walking Dead and Game Of Thrones to a similar launch month and time slot.

Post by **Sades** » Wed Nov 11, 2015 11:03 pm

I didn't really pay attention to the last one, watched bits of it though. Box bit felt a bit long for my tiny attention span that night. Osgoods are all right.

Brendocon 2.0 · Post by **Brendocon 2.0** » Mon Nov 16, 2015 10:54 am

Sleep No More

That was alright. Worked on first viewing and has a built-in get out of jail free card for any plot holes. Which is either lazy or genius, or possibly both.

I spent the entire runtime under the impression it was a two-parter so was caught-off guard by the ending, but that's not a bad thing.

Would love to be a fly on the wall the next time Neil Gaiman bumps into Mark Gatiss...

Ryan F · Post by **Ryan F** » Mon Nov 16, 2015 2:23 pm

Not really a fan of that one, to be honest. Crap army people get picked off one-by-one in corridors - if not for the 'found footage' gimmick this would have been pretty mediocre stuff. It didn't help that the marines suffered from 'Earthshock syndrome' - all drama school types who weren't able to project 'tough military attidtude' whatsoever.

And what the hell was going on with the monsters - apparently, depriving yourself of sleep will make your eye-gunge / 'sleep-dust' come to life and start killing people? I've seen some wacky ideas in Dr Who before (moon eggs, tree mines, Kandy Man, instant forests, Lee Evans), but this takes the absolute biscuit!

It was this era's version of '42' - lots of chasing and running-around corridors with a narrative gimmick to fool viewers into thinking it was cleverer than it actually was.

One good thing, though: nice to see them cast a transgender actress in a memorable role.

Rack 'n Ruin · Post by **Rack 'n Ruin** » Mon Nov 16, 2015 8:31 pm

Well, I enjoyed it. More thoughts later. Was 474 a MTMTE style MTO, though, or more of a Star Wars clone trooper?

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Tue Nov 17, 2015 11:12 am

It felt long overdue that Who did a Found Footage episode, but this one just wound up sort of OK. All the ideas were fine except the actual monster itself, which had the potential to be completely nuts but was basically a snot monster.

It was nice to have a one parter though.

Rack 'n Ruin · Post by **Rack 'n Ruin** » Tue Nov 17, 2015 11:59 am

Actually quite ironic that Who have done a "found footage" episode, considering the amount of "lost footage" there has been over the years.

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Tue Nov 17, 2015 12:04 pm

And the lowest AI under the current system since Love and Monsters. Real life events unsurprisingly hit the overnight ratings even harder than usual for this season as well, the IPlayer is going to have to carry a lot of the weight for it not to look like a disaster (however much one out of the show's control).

Brendocon 2.0 · Post by **Brendocon 2.0** » Tue Nov 17, 2015 12:05 pm

inflatable dalek wrote:Real life events unsurprisingly hit the overnight ratings even harder than usual for this season as well, the IPlayer is going to have to carry a lot of the weight for it not to look like a disaster (however much one out of the show's control).

While ironically it's the first episode this series that I actually watched on-broadcast as opposed to via the iPlayer on Sunday.

Skyquake87 · Post by **Skyquake87** » Tue Nov 17, 2015 8:49 pm

I liked the idea of the monster...but sand would have been fine. Not eye gunge, which only gets crusty as is dries out and is kind of sticky, otherwise. And if you're robbed of the capacity to sleep how would your body generate that stuff...? Or was I not paying attention to that bit? The effect of Reece Shearsmith crumbling away was ace. It was just perhaps not terribly wise to schedule in another 'base under siege' episode after we'd had a two-parter that was similar. Sometimes I think Mark Gatiss' enthusiasm for Who gets in the way of him being actually any good at writing for it. He's been quite a patchy writer for Who, which is a shame given how good his work elsewhere has been. He'd probably make a good script editor and / or work well paired up with someone else for Who.

Brendocon 2.0 · Post by **Brendocon 2.0** » Tue Nov 17, 2015 9:20 pm

Skyquake87 wrote:I liked the idea of the monster...but sand would have been fine. Not eye gunge, which only gets crusty as is dries out and is kind of sticky, otherwise. And if you're robbed of the capacity to sleep how would your body generate that stuff...? Or was I not paying attention to that bit?

Reece was lying. The sandmen monsters weren't "real" - they were just the dust reanimated into a convincing monster so he could get a narrative together to embed the signal into it. The Morpheus procedure rewires the brain chemistry and turns the subject into the dust, rather than the dust being made up of overproduced eye gunk.

Or something. It was all very muddled and hand-wavey.

Skyquake87 · Post by **Skyquake87** » Sun Nov 22, 2015 7:22 pm

I thought as much. That's probably why I didn't quite 'get' it. Last week's was the only episode I haven't rewatched, perhaps it'll make more sense on another run through.

As for this weeks' Raven thingy episode, I really enjoyed it, although I couldn't feel too bad for Clara when she suddenly found she'd got herself into a right old mess. Her chat to the The Doctor felt a tad too long... I was more wondering was Ashelda planning to sacrifice herself..especially with those lines of dialogue about the contract and whatnot...and who is she in the service of? Interesting...

One thing I have really enjoyed in Who of late is Moffat playing with the Doctor's backstory and hinting that there might be more to his fleeing Gallifrey than we've previously known, along with other bits and pieces. Loved all the slightly scary stuff with The Doctor shouting about the Doctor not being here right now and you've me to contend with. Good stuff

Heinrad · Post by **Heinrad** » Sun Nov 22, 2015 8:25 pm

I liked Fear the Raven. Although in all honesty, I'm surprised it took this long for Clara to get herself into a serious bind.