Amph Doctor Who Discussion (Russell T. Davies returns)

Good job I don't then

 

Over-using a negative term like that though makes it totally meaningless for anyone, though. You have to be able to make a distinction. And by the way, this attitude amongst fans that any one-offs in a show are "filler", the desire for absolutely everything to be serialized, is exactly why you wind up with things like Moffat trying too hard to over-serialize things. When a writer hears the fandom talking about "filler" episodes, they feel more pressure to make everything connected. Which fans also then complain about. You can't really have it both ways.

And I don't care if fans use those terms, they don't mean what fans sometimes think they do. If every fan these days thinks they know how to write a show, the least they could do is learn the importance of word selection. If you want to call it all filler, then don't presume to be taken seriously when expressing your opinions on the writing of a show.

 

Yawn

 

Another excellently written retort, hal Really, I don't know why Moffat doesn't ask you to weigh in on the scripts.

 

I haven't complained about the scripts.

 

Thing is I don't think fans see them as negative. They are what they are, some are good, some are bad, some are neither. Some series have more than others, depends on the type of series.

That's my opinion anyway, doubtless everyone will have their own.

Sent from my GT-I9305 using Tapatalk

 

When you complain about the storytelling, hal, you're complaining about the writing. Really when you have a complaint about anything other than something specifically departmental (the acting, music, or design), you're complaining about the writers. It's TV, not film. What's in the scripts and decided by the writers in prep is what's on screen 95% of the time.

I'm only saying, whether fans mean it as negative or not, when they talk about the storytelling and continually use a term that is distinctly negative to writers, that's how they will take it. And then you wind up with over-serialization in some shows that fans then also say they don't like.

I don't understand why it's hard to just call them what they have always been called, which is one-offs.

 

I haven't done the math but based on what I remember from my reviews, if you were to do a score average, I think the RTD era would rate that bit higher. It definitely felt that way in the last season and a half that I reviewed.

 

The thing is, as bad as 7B was on the whole (barring a few standouts such as Hide), it didn't have nearly as many godawful eps as say Series 2. Though Crimson Horror is easily the worst Moffat era ep and was pretty close to bad RTD era stuff. I think that might be the only Moffat era ep I regularly skip on re-watches (as I do with Aliens of London, WWIII, and Love and Monsters for instance). Jenny and Vastra taking up most of the episode is bad enough. Mr. Sweet just pushes it over the edge.

 

I can think of one that is worse...

 

Mercy, I don't know whatever you mean hal.

 

Time Heist: a Doctor Who story with the word Time in it.

This episode disappointed me. Everything up to the worm moment was gold, but then it went downhill. Oceans 11 slow motion powerwalking, seriously? On this budget?

Pretty much every element of the story was predictable... I sussed that The Doctor was the Architect, the suicide syringes would be teleporters, that the bug eyed monster (BEM) had a mate... I kept thinking 'oh we're doing this again' and 'why does this bank have a network of air ducts so big you could drive a golf buggy through it?' and 'why don't they even secure the grills to the walls?'...

Some of the hair-pullingly frustrating conveniences actually make sense from a time travel plot perspective, such as the planted suitcases, the timing of the event so the rescue takes place after the BEM's career was over and all evidence erased. The problem is it was annoying to watch at the time because the conveniences seemed to belong to the same set of contrivances as the oversized ducts, etc.

I can accept 12 going in ahead of time and setting up the memory wipe, etc... But are we to think he went back even further and designed those stupid ducts?

People don't take ducts seriously enough.

Ducts.

I admit I missed Abslong Daak. I thought the planet the BEMs were released on looked like the Eye of Orion, was that supposed to be the case? I also thought the main villain was Missy, have I got that wrong? They look spookily similar if they're not the same actress.

I hope this improves on subsequent viewings but I'm in no hurry to watch it again.

 

I don't mind one-offs, as long as they don't lead to rushed endings, then it feels like they wasted time instead of using that for more important plot scenes. For instance, this season's overall plot hasn't been going anywhere fast and doesn't feel too urgent (compared to say Amy being pregnant) so one-off episodes don't bother me as long as they're not too stupid. Is standalone episode another possible description?

I don't need serialized stuff, though sometimes having every episode end on a stinger is a bit annoying (large cracks in time, Missy in "heaven") so I'm glad this week the Doctor just mentioned that they still don't know who gave the Doctor the TARDIS number, and that's fine with me.

I'm glad the minor characters survived, usually minor characters are just there to die, though so far this Doctor hasn't been as big on the "nobody dies" thing as previous Doctors, he's already a lot more cynical than the last few. The only minor nitpick is how the Doctor mistook those shredders for suicide option rather than teleporters, but its only a minor problem as he set up the whole thing himself. Aside from the Dream Lord thing, self-hate has been brought up occasionally on the show, even after resolving his issues with his War Doctor incarnation. Even this series has already brought it up again with the Doctor worrying about being a good man or not.

I know this show doesn't have the greatest budget, and they reuse scenery of course, but I wonder how many times they used that same grate and that hallway in just this episode? Security in the supposedly secure bank was awful, but security in Doctor Who is always silly. Also not sure how much inside info the Doctor had from future Karabraxos. I agree its contrived, but for a one-off episode with good acting I don't mind as much.

 

I do agree about the ducts. I just thought to myself.... Holy **** those are the largest ducts in the world and this supposedly impossible bank to break into is really easy to break into. Yes I think from an actual clever bank heist standpoint it was not that meticulously thought out. I found it entertaining and a good effort to have a foray into this genre. But it was definitely pretty predictable. We did *just* have the creature that just wanted its mate in the infinitely superior Hide.

 

I thought "Time Heist" was OK, though it might've benefitted from an extra ten minutes or so to develop Psi and Saibra. I wasn't expecting the twist at the end about who organized the heist and why.

Next week, I'm wondering if maybe someone will say to the new caretaker, "You know, I knew a John Smith at another school. He was this strange sub, around the time the school got blown up. Funny, they never saw him again after that."

As for show runners, is it wrong of me to prefer Phillip Hinchcliffe?

 

Well that's what fanfic is for.

 

I like that there's no single episode dedicated to advancing the season's arc (so far). There's just a tease here and there, it's a nice change from "HEY GUYS DID WE MENTION AMY AND RIVER ARE IMPORTANT? Not so much Rory." Actually, it's a nice change from, well...most everything after the cracks in time.

I kind of wish the arc was just the Doctor wandering around being a good guy to make up for all the stuff he's done, like that was the only real ongoing narrative between episodes. No huge unspeakable evil working behind the scenes.

 

I wish they'd do a straight historical episode with no aliens or monsters. Like, they go to Runnymeade for the Magna Carta and just watch it. Clara learns some things. The audience learns some things. Fans try in vain to find a hidden meaning contributing to a perceived overall arc.

It'd be great.

 

Functionally, I like heist episodes and -- even though this wasn't, strictly speaking, a heist episode -- I liked this one. Wasn't the best of the season (and I expected to like it the most going in) but was pretty good.

Would have been better with the Doctor finding what he wanted most in the Private Vault sitting in the chair... surrounded by archaeology finds...

"Hello, sweetie..."

 

I mentioned a long time back that I really wish we still had straight historical episodes like Classic Who sometimes did. I stand by that, but I don't think it will happen in NuWho sadly.

 

Oh, I forgot to mention, I totally back solojones up on one-off vs. filler. I happen to think this was a (good) one-off, but filler has a totally different meaning in TV...

 

This. If they were going to have River at all in S8, this episode was the perfect one to do it in. After all, she is an expert in breaking in and out of things.

 

Shoulder to cry on

 

Yep, we loved that line here.