Dr Who Deep Breath

[MasterOfHisOwnDomain]

Wasn't it The Rani? The whole android stealing people's parts fits in with her ethos and it would make sense that a Time Lord would be provide the 'Paradise' that was hidden away in time.

I thought the androids were totally unconnected with her, she just popped in at the end to say "arc plot".

Also, not seeing how it fits the Rani, though. I mean, yeah, harvesting humans, sure, but androids harvesting humans for ages for no good reason to no real goal beyond the androids surviving, not really.

Maybe, it was just a theory. It might be that they take her in a new direction as a character, or that this was simply the most fortuitous moment to introduce her (it's not an exact fit of course). It could be someone(thing) entirely different: I've heard it suggested that she is the Tardis personified amongst other things.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Maybe, it was just a theory. It might be that they take her in a new direction as a character, or that this was simply the most fortuitous moment to introduce her (it's not an exact fit of course). It could be someone(thing) entirely different: I've heard it suggested that she is the Tardis personified amongst other things.

Eh, judging from past experience, Moffat will through random clues to keep people guessing, and the explanation will be more stupid and nonsensical then whatever they came up with.

 

[NotThePANTSU]

I'll echo everyone else and say the CGI was terrible. The dinosaur being notably egregious by it's superfluity.

I wasn't especially disappointed by the overall plot since a regeneration's first episode is always fifty percent 'getting to know the new doctor' but I don't think it was a particularly well written introduction. The worst example being the overlong scene involving the homeless bloke. It felt like it would never end!

The 'action' scene with Vastra & Jenna versus the zombie-bots was pretty awful too. I mean it started well enough with them rappelling down (or whatever the correct terminology is); even though I thought it would have made more sense for them to lock-on to Clara's communication device-thingy and teleport in.

However, considering how little they were showing of the fight and the amount they kept cutting back to the Doctor I was starting to wonder why they bothered with trying to show as much as they did. It certainly didn't help that they repeatedly showed the toy-store wakizashi of Vastra & Jenny or the perfectly uniform and brand-new looking blades of their supposedly 'cobbled-together' opponents so up-close.

It was just confusing as usually I'd expect a programme that was trying to avoid showing too much violence to show the beginning of a fight, then cut back for some part in the middle to build tension, and finally the conclusion with the heroes standing victorious.

Similar to when Clara was holding her breath... like really? Red edges around the screen? What, is she in a video game now?

They were actually Red & Yellow flashes (not that that makes it any less stupid). I can only guess what they were going for but, if I'm right, they got it so very, very wrong.

I suffer from panic attacks (social anxiety disorder ftw(!)) and one of the physical effects they cause is constriction of the muscles around the eyes making your rapidly pulsating blood vessels affect your peripheral vision. The visual disturbances you experience seem like you're looking through a pair of fleshy binoculars that are constantly flashing different shades of red.

If that's what they were attempting, and they relied on someone's poor description rather than personal experience, then I can somewhat understand. Other than that I have no idea why they did it.

I like Vestra and Jenny's relationship but in this episode it's just so in your face. We get it Moffatt, you're ok with gay marriage and people who aren't are bigots. We got it the first 4 times.

It was gradually beginning to grate but it wasn't until Vastra's argument with Clara (when Jenny lightly slaps her, she hissed in response, and Jenny exclaimed: "Married!") that I really got annoyed.

I was expecting her to say something along the lines of "You love me really!" as that would be a normal response. Maybe it was the jarring nature that made it stand out and irritate me so much.

When it was mentioned after that I had to pause the video for a bit as the RTD-esque fanfare and flag-waving had reached critical mass for me.

I also thought much of the humour fell flat. Strax is hilarious and Capaldi show's signs of having great comic timing quite apart from the Malcolm Tucker and I enjoyed the Scottish jokes. Other than that I just cringed.

Personally I found the piss-poor Scots pandering to be incredibly patronising.

 

[Gabanuka]

Missy
Mistress
Master

The garden might be her TARDIS but last I checked The Master's hasn't reapeared in New Who

Clever wordplay.
That also sounds extraordinarily cool but for the record The Master has already appeared in New Who.
He conquored the Earth for a year back in Dr. 10's run...and he had robots then too. When he was defeated he claimed that he was refusing to regenerate just to spite 10 but, of course, it's not like The Master would ever lie.

Aside: my 420th post and I made no mention of weed? Screw that:
"cannabis"

I just meant his TARDIS. He came back again in-between seasons 4-5 in a special 'End of Time' was its name I think. . His plan as to make everyone in the universe him. It was stupid.

I think that ended with him regenerating but it's been years since I watched it, there as this random woman as well. I don't know.

 

[someonehairy-ish]

And we end with a generically mysterious woman for the arc story. Goddamnit Moffat. I agree with the Matt Ward comparisons.

It doesn't help that I recognise the woman from an episode of Green Wing where she wanks off an unconscious person. At least, it looked like her. Didn't help me take the weird dialogue very seriously, in any case.

...

Overall I wasn't keen on the episode. The dialogue was naff. The CGI was varied, I quite liked the cyborg guy but the dinosaur was fucking terrible. The story was hopelessly schizophrenic, what with all the random tangents with police officers that do nothing, and the dinosaur that didn't really do anything plot-wise, and the cyborg heaven bit which was just plain weird. I didn't really start to enjoy the episode at all until the restaurant bit, where the pacing sorted itself out a bit and the tone felt more consistent. As soon as they realised that neither of them placed the advert, I was interested... and then 10 minutes later they kill it by having lizard-woman and her wife drop from the fucking ceiling. Urgh.

I really wish they'd take these episodes and jut slow them the hell down. Get rid of all the extraneous rubbish, pick a couple of characters to focus on, decide what story you want to tell, figure out what the character arcs going on are, stop having the tone jump all over the place...

Oh yeah, one more thing. I'm all for more positive LGBT representation in TV, but do you have to make your lesbian couple so fucking annoying and superfluous to the plot? Grah...

I liked Capaldi so I'm going to at least watch the next couple of episodes. But I was mostly not impressed.

 

[Kingjackl]

I liked the ambiguity at the end as to whether it was the Doctor or the robot that broke their rule at the end. I suspect/hope it's the former, as that has the potential to be interesting.

Apparently there are people up in arms about Vastra and Jenny's kiss. What? Seriously? Surely those people must have seen the show before, how dumb can you get? It's not like the fact they're lesbians is a secret, you could see it from space. The show was already making jokes about Vastra getting Jenny to pose in a corset, but one kiss (which in the context of the scene was more like CPR) and everyone looses their minds. Dear oh dear.

 

[NotThePANTSU]

And we end with a generically mysterious woman for the arc story. Goddamnit Moffat. I agree with the Matt Ward comparisons.

It doesn't help that I recognise the woman from an episode of Green Wing where she wanks off an unconscious person. At least, it looked like her. Didn't help me take the weird dialogue very seriously, in any case.

Not familiar with the episode your talking about but she was definitely part of the Green Wing cast (not just one episode).

Oh yeah, one more thing. I'm all for more positive LGBT representation in TV, but do you have to make your lesbian couple so fucking annoying and superfluous to the plot? Grah...

Moffat is supposedly actually trying to get "The Paternoster Gang" spun out into a childrens program...which tbh is kinda pushing at things bearing in mind that Torchwood (complete with "LGBT representation") was rather firmly defined as "an adult show"...

Certainly having Lesbians in a kids show would ruffle the feathers of certain circles but what do you mean "pushing at things"?

Also: Torchwood was an 'adult' show?

 

[NotThePANTSU]

contrary to what you might think the UK is not a bastion of "liberal"/"progressive"/"tolerance" whatever especially when there is a right wing government and the prospect of an even more right one after the next General Election.

Believe me I'm under no illusions as to what this country is like but I'm not sure why you think everyone's attitude's are completely changed by what variety of twonks are in power. Also a more right wing government? Is that an allusion to UKIP or do you believe that a reinstated Conservative party would see their re-election as vindication of what their policies suggest they've really been wanting to do these past four years?

ideologically the current UK conservative government want the entire BBC scrapped.

something they may actually even effectively accomplish in the next parliament as the BBC Charter is up for renewal.

Considering the belly-aching from a whole host of people over the mere notion of the BBC becoming a subscription-based service (an idea that is regularly floated by it's detractors and which resurfaced once again earlier this year) any 'death' of the BBC would be a long, drawn-out, ugly prying from the cold, dead hands of an incredibly vociferous section of the general public.

It also wouldn't be good PR for the Conservatives with their current political narrative of "promoting British-ness"...

in addition to that a great many of them would like to see some form of Section 28 reinstated...

what is "Section 28" ? well y'know Russias infamous "anti gay propaganda law"...basically, in effect, that.

which the UK had on it's own books til about 10 years ago.

Great many of whom? I'm not really sure why I should care what antiquated laws 'they' would like to see reinstated when doing so would be political suicide.

and yes Torchwood was a "post watershed" show meant for adult viewing with a "pre watershed" edited repeat.

the point is while the BBC can get away with amputees, effeminate men and vast amounts of cocaine abuse on Childrens television if pro active, constantly in your face sci fi lesbian ninjas were really acceptable to the current socio political environment Moffat really wouldn't be having to "try" ...

It was a joke based on the fact that, outside of "Children of Earth", I found Torchwood to be disappointingly juvenile.

Were references to homosexuality equivalent to those appearing in Doctor Who also removed from the edited version? The main show is still pre-watershed so, unless there's some kind of immense backlash against this episode, I don't see why there would be a problem. I highly doubt they'd have the characters engage is some sort of 'erotically-charged' display.

And "vast amounts of cocaine abuse"?

 

[Willzors]

I found myself incredibly annoyed at some of the comedy in the episode.Like the newspaper scene and the scene where the doctor falls asleep, the sound effects..... ugh.

I'm also in agreement about the dinosaur being completely irrelevant/time filling, it seemed like someone thought they needed something cool for the advertising.

I think I'll have to give the new doctor some time til I can decide if I like him. As I found it unclear if how he was acting is based on him being weird after regenerating or how the new doctors personality is.

 

[maxben]

I never understand people who are so worried about CGI effects and silliness. This is the Doctor, if you can't handle a little camp and crappy CGI how the hell did you even make it through the first season of New Who? A little suspension of disbelief people.

Anyhow, I am going to say love it. The villains were great, Capaldi was unique, and Clara really got to shine (she is so often superfluous). Certain things didn't work, but to be honest it didn't matter because I very much enjoyed the package and am now really excited for this season.

 

[NotThePANTSU]

And "vast amounts of cocaine abuse"?

it's fairly common knowledge in showbiz circles that pretty much everyone on kids TV is coked out their brain most of the time they are on camera.

how else do you think adults stay so wide eyed and enthused about the likes of glove puppets, finger painting and sticky back plastic 365 days a year...

I must admit I misinterpreted what you wrote; I thought you were still talking about Torchwood.

I was aware it's a fairly common rumour. I have no difficulty believing a fair percentage rely on certain substances to get them through the day but "pretty much everyone"? I find that harder to believe, yet have no actual insight, so I guess I'll take your word for it...

[small]as for the rest of the stuff, forgive the late night posting...and i shouldn't have brought up the politics...but imo you're wrong on both counts both about what the torys (and potentially + UKIP) might do to the BBC and the desire for a return of something similar to section 28. my family are very involved in both the media and politics...we were effectively the nexus of the anti section 28 campaign in Scotland the last time. i would expand more but now is neither the time or the place.[/small]

Conflating UKIP and the Tory's makes your argument confusing. True, both aren't overly fond of the BBC, but, as I thought I managed to convey, I don't think they could dismantle it within five years of government especially as it's seen as a 'pillar of British-ness' and 'British-ness' is the core of the current political narrative.

However, Cameron (being the 'PR slave' that he is) wouldn't attempt anything like section 28 as he couldn't possibly put a convincing spin on any kind of 'anti-homosexual-child-corruption' bullshit, à la Russia, after fighting the cognitive dissonance that were the anti-same-sex-marriage brigade.

UKIP, on the other hand, see themselves as the 'Paragon of Christianity' in politics so I imagine they would proudly jam crucifixes in their lugholes and gleefully stride all the way to the statute book flicking the v's at their detractors as they went.

Of course I'm perfectly happy to agree to disagree if you still think I'm talking out of my backside.

best just go back to Who...

Moffat wants "The Paternoster Gang" to be a spin off childrens series.
thus far, the BBC has said "no".

draw your own conclusions if you don't want mine.

You are probably, at the very least, partially correct although I would suggest the over-saturation of all things 'Who' when RTD was at the helm and the budget cuts are also playing a part.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Eh, in regards to the UK being conservative, IIRC, it's been pointed out[footnote]By a conservative MP[/footnote] that Doctor Who has better Cybermen stories under conservative governments. Revenge of the Cybermen, for example, wasn't, but Earthshock was.

...

Personally, if Moffat wasn't the writer, I'd suspect the mysterious woman to be a future incarnation of the Doctor.

Or possibly one between the other ones, and she doesn't count because women cant be Doctors or something.

 

[Lilani]

I only saw it just last night so I'm going to rebump this thread.

I'm excited about Capaldi being the Doctor, but I feel like the episode had the same issue that often comes with a new Doctor's first episode. Most of the episode, the Doctor wasn't "fully operational," so to speak, so all we saw of him wasn't really how he's going to be all the time. Like the way Tennant was unconscious half of his first episode and manic by even his future standards for the rest. Matt Smith didn't have this problem in his first episode so much--his mind wasn't muddled or anything, he was just kind of figuring out who he was. So he was behaving the way he normally would, but those behaviors were just kind of a surprise to him.

So, yeah. It holds a lot of promises for the future I think, but we'll need a couple more episodes to really see what Capaldi's Doctor will be like. Oh, and the lady at the end scared the shit out of me.

 

[Lilani]

Whoops, double post.