Andrew

[Andrew]

Tweeted about this thread, and this chap responded:

https://twitter.com/#!/narcotic_thrust/status/142584776132534272

Over to you!

[Andrew]

> if you haven’t picked up on what it is, perhaps you should pay attention a bit more.

I have no idea what this refers to. (But if it’s about knowing personal details, I don’t know any so wouldn’t be referring to any.)

[Andrew]

> Perhaps you should try interpreting other people’s comments a little less negatively.

Or perhaps you should write your comments more carefully and not attack so personally?

Seriously, imagine that face to face: “Nice video – I guess you had a lot of time on your hands?” Doesn’t quite convey what you were going for, does it? That’s not misinterpretation, that’s misjudged writing. If it’s not what you meant, fair enough and good for you. But say “that’s not what I meant” rather than blaming the reader for being negative, for taking you at your inadvertent inference.

What if I’d just replied here with this: “Nice forum post. I’m always envious of someone who has so much time on their hands”? However it’s meant, how it’s *written* doesn’t take any great effort of will to find not entirely complementary.

[Andrew]

> I’m always envious of someone who has so much time on their hands.

I’m envious of talent.

Saying it’s about time kinda suggests we could all do what they did if we weren’t busy doing far more important things. For all we know, the person who made the vid has three children and two jobs!

[Andrew]

Oh – duh.

[Andrew]

Actually, looking at it, I think ALL the character shots might be stills. The life given to them is just extraordinary, but if you watch closely everything – eye shifts, moves of the mouth and nose, the Doctor’s chest – has that slight ‘slidey/stretchy’ quality that you get on everything from top CGI FX textures to videogame sprites. (Do they still call them that?!)

Check out Smith’s fringe hair at the 20 second mark – it moves with his eyebrow, not independently.

That’s a fucking incredible job to do on stills, though. I’m really rather impressed.

[Andrew]

There’s a lot of bespoke stuff in there – down to manipulation of stills to appear as moving 3D and the placing of actora into new contexts. It’s a very good job.

[Andrew]

> Btw Andrew, just because BTTF’s screenplay was Oscar-nommed doesn’t make it right!

I feel I have been taught a valuable lesson. Thank you.

[Andrew]

Why the hell did I type ‘Elaine’?! OVER AND OVER AGAIN?!

a) The promised Seinfeld/BTTF crossover is finally happening.

b) Fucking idiocy.

[Andrew]

Unsurprisingly – given that we’re taking about changes to the only Oscar-nominated sci-fi-comedy screenplay in film history – I don’t much care for the mooted alternative ending.

The family’s set up as one full of issues precisely because it’s going to be solved at the end. If you’re not planning that ending, you don’t write the mother as a drunk, the dad as a nervous drip, the kids as drop-outs and losers. The end’s built into the start – you don’t change one, you change both.

Or, preferably, neither.

George McFly buying the same house is within the (admittedly nonsensical) rules BTTF choses to establish – there’s never any question that getting his parents back together will cause Marty and his siblings to be born, and be born the same, despite that being unlikely in a ‘real’ buttefly-effect time travel situation. Old man Peabody’s farm gets turned into the same (name aside) mall despite an ‘alien landing’ on the premises in the 50s.

Time’s a hardy thing in BTTF, and it has a whiff of destiny about it.

But why would George become a novelist…then keep it from his family? To buy Marty a 4×4 down the line? How about paying for Elaine’s rehab and straightening the kids out?

The change suggests that ‘Marty’s life getting better’ is the goal of the film. But it’s also about happy-ever-afters for George and Elaine. They were, however unwittingly, with Marty on his journey to solve the future. They get rewarded too for doing the right thing.

That gain isn’t financial, it’s not about paying for a car. It’s emotional – George’s sense of self-respect and confidence, Elaine’s happiness in ‘choosing’ a hero rather than marrying for pity. Kids raised in a happier environment, Marty able to talk to his parents about who he’s dating rather than hide it. All that stuff.

You’d have to take those issue out of the script, too, for the suggested new present-day ending. And since all those things are woven into the film in the early set-up and represent the character arcs for the bulk of the secondary characters, to take them out would be to collapse most of what makes BTTF such a strong character piece.

[Andrew]

He’s shown in the BTE docco – waiting for a bus – for your convenient reference…

[Andrew]

> I never strongly swear either.

And yet you’re fine with trolling. That’s quite the value system you’ve got there.

[Andrew]

> around these parts, that word is not held to have the same extreme impact that it would elsewhere.

I’m doubt when she tracks back the link, that will be the first thing she realises. Didn’t work that way with the Rob Grant headline, did it?

> The blog mainly just seems to consist of “look at all of these nerdy things, I don’t get them” and nothing else of substance.

I entirely agree. And I’m unimpressed. Not sure that means the person’s a cunt, though. And even if it did, I’m not sure that warrants creating the bad day discovering people calling you that brings. It’s dismissive of the human – which, okay, happens all the time, but that doesn’t make it right.

While there’s certainly an argument that ‘if you publish, any feedback is legit’, that kind of attack upsets me. It’s an ‘only on the internet’ way of hurting someone, deliberately, for their (pretty bloody innocuous) opinion.

> Who’s claiming the higher ground?

No, okay, you’re right – there’s no higher ground. The name-calling is exactly as senseless as the original blog. Only targeted specifically at a person rather than being a general (and clumsy) commentary on personal taste.

Wouldn’t going for the higher ground be better, though? There’s a reasoned argument to be made. All name-calling does is make the name-caller feel better. It doesn’t cause the blogger to reflect or learn. It doesn’t enhance the debate.

> Swearing isn’t hate, its just extra vocabulary

Swearing isn’t hate. Unironically calling someone a cunt is pretty damn close.

[Andrew]

So for having a different – and admittedly ridiculous – take on fan culture, we’ve decided this one person deserves harassment and top-of-the-swear-box name-calling in a thread intended to demonise her? (A thread which, surely, will tracked back through the blog’s stats.)

Call me crazy, but I’m not sure this is claiming the higher ground.

How about the whacky notion of reasoned counter-argument? Replaying with hate just means there’s more hate.

[Andrew]

Showing old stories as they happen – differently this time – is a good concept. It’s why it’s been done so often. (To death, one might say.)

Showing old stories to a character who doesn’t have a direct connection to much of it (“who are Torchwood and why do I care if they’re dying in space?”), and who only acts as witness rather than protagonist, is a rubbish concept.

And doing a story about how ‘important’ a character is, only to discover the only useful thing they ever did was made an arbitrary decision based on traffic – after which they remained passive for the rest of their existence – is disastrous.

Turn Left wasn’t a “Donna is special” episode, despite constantly repeating that it was. The actual message was “We’d be stuffed without the Doctor, and Donna would be stuffed along with the rest of us”. Which I don’t think came as news to anyone.

Lots of good bits, but overall it’s a massively clumsy script.

[Andrew]

> But all of the Doctor-lite episodes so far have been brilliant

Turn Left was arse.

[Andrew]

> Yeah. Doesn’t he know how distracting that can be? ;-)

Steady ladies.

> The one without glasses, where everyone else did?

Had my glasses on the entire time. I guess they’re harder to see when out of focus, since they’re rimless…

[Andrew]

Indeed. T’was on io9.

[Andrew]

>> They were going to wait regardless.

> So why turn up thirty minutes before the opening?

Bazillions of ships arriving at the same place from all across time and space…I think we can describe turing up half an hour before the opening as ‘on time’.

But the answer, to me, is “to lock the Doctor in place”.

Letting the Doctor think they’re having a ruck so as to strengthen his position on the ground – making it even more certain that he’ll place himself directly between the Pandorica and them, where he wants to be AND where they want him – adds up as far as I’m concerned.

Turning up at the last moment wasn’t an option, since the stones were transmitting and the Doctor knew things would be on the way. Showing up at the last second, he might not have placed himself where he did.

>> so he’ll stick around for the opening.

> Was there ever really a chance that he wouldn’t?

He might have gone for the TARDIS. Not to flee, but to work. Was it a big chance? Maybe not. But you don’t build a strategy and then leave a gap if you can help it. Sure he might have run (River asks him to). He might have come up with another idea if he’d had the chance, something that took him away from the doors of the Pandorica.

If he’d run off to the TARDIS – him instead of River, and that ain’t outside the realms of possibility – the whole thing fails. Drop in Daleks and Cybermen and you fix him in place. Taking a stand is what this Doctor does. And he takes it between foe and quarry. No foe means room for fluctuation.

Ah well, anyway – as with anything like this it’s basically possible to argue either side within the fiction. It either ‘feels’ right or it doesn’t. (The cause of the Doctor being stranded in The Lodger never felt right to me, ‘explanation’ or not.) If it doesn’t, it doesn’t. Just did to me.

[Andrew]

For me, that’s why that scene makes PERFECT sense. It’s a speech so sharply written that it’s entirely credible as a plot development, while at the same time the content illustrates the very reason they’ve clubbed together against him. He thinks he’s cleverly pitted them against each other, but it turns out that his world-saving bravado is meaningless – they’re sat waiting for the Pandorica to open just like he is. They were going to wait regardless.

They just need him to *think* he’s been successful in his speechifying, so he’ll stick around for the opening. It undercuts the Doctor entirely, rendering something that’s been a key skill useless at exactly the right moment.

Made sense to me.

[Andrew]

> I attended the recordings and can say that there’s quite a few interesting ideas in this series!

I script edited this series and I can entirely agree.

[Andrew]

> After all, the 10th Doctor’s prophecy was given to him by a woman on a bus

I wouldn’t hold that up as a particularly good example of arc-building…

Anyway, I wouldn’t trade the amazing undertone that Vincent’s depression is akin to mourning the loss of someone you don’t remember for anything. And certainly not so we can skip over the loss of a companion in order to keep the cracks-in-time truck rolling at top speed.

The idea that the episode could be adjusted by ‘a few lines’ to account for Rory seems to miss so much of what was implicit. SO much of that episode is about Amy’s loss. That it’s not hammered away in literal dialogue doesn’t mean it’s not there.

I don’t think you can equate an entire episode about intangible pain with a single line of thrown-in dialogue.

[Andrew]

There wasn’t a crack in Vampires either, aside from the dialogue mention. The cloud thing is all viewer rorschaching.

[Andrew]

Donna DiStefano had some original Rimmer Hs. She, erm, gave me one.

[Andrew]

God, I wish it were easier to track down old forum discussions. The Lost discussions from a few years ago would be awfully interesting…

[Andrew]

Posting without a link? You cock tease.

[Andrew]

Presented without comment (since I never saw the finale):

http://io9.com/5547255/50-questions-lost-needed-to-answer-a-report-card

[Andrew]

Both ‘O’ sounds are very different – the first one, too. It’s almost an ‘Ah’ sound. “Cahndahm”.

[Andrew]

> Although the part that piques the most is wondering what the heck DVD he’s watching… where is Kryten “episode five” of series two?

There’s definitely something messed up. I was totally thrown when the whole backwards reality discussion started long before Series III was mentioned.

It’s possible they’re all in the wrong order from being downloaded (can’t be DVD, can it? Not unless he imported Bodysnatcher)…but it’s equally weird not to not the change in production values and design aesthetic after the first 12 eps.

> And I’m guessing from screenshots and the Holly gag from C&P that he’s got Remastered?

Indeed. That’s part of what interest me, actually – that he’s apparently unaware that it’s remastered, and that there are digs at the production values…but not specifically the effects. (When even the models usually take the traditional – and wholly unfair – kicking of being called “wobbly” of whatever when those eps are retrospectively reviewed.)

[Andrew]

It’s surely gonna be about even between kids, parents and Who fans? Can’t imagine the latter group will stay at home assuming the place will be full of children…

[Andrew]

> Well the most obvious thing to refer to here is that the ending of Fallout didn’t. How six was one etc.

See, I thought I covered that with my “Coherent episodes, symbolic finale” line. Taking the one – already acknowledged – exception doesn’t contradict what I said about the show’s episodic stories been clear and coherent.

Put another way – I’m not sure people would have happily watched Fallout for 16 weeks so long as an explanation was expected at the finale.

My entire point was about how including unexplainable head-fuck events early on forces a clear direction on the rest of a series. A direction that doesn’t make for great TV. I feel like maybe you’re not quite seeing what I’m getting at, since neither ‘the original ending was a head fuck’ or ‘they mess with six’s head in the old show, too’ stand in contradiction to that original point.

> But yes, I’d agree it’s something that should have been used more and more effectivly.

Um…I didn’t say anything about how it should have been used.

> I’m judging it as an overall piece rather than judging the individual episodes.

And since my point was that individual episodes aren’t proving remotely satisfying, and promising an arc that can only lead to tosh loose-end-tying, I’m not sure that matters. Or, more accurately, I’m not sure “The show makes sense when you’ve seen the ending” is enough. That should be taken as a given, and in the meantime…it’s a mess.

The final episode of the original series chose ambiguity after an entire run of strict episode-by-episode storytelling. The remake’s finale will chose ‘the only thing that’ll make it all add up’ having done an entire run of confused nonsense. What kind of dope makes telly that way?

[Andrew]

> That’s really no more of a head fuck than a lot of events in the original, i.e. the end of Chimes Of Big Ben where having seen 6 escape to London it turns out he’s never left the Village.

Well…yes, it is. It *massively* is.

The head fuck of “I was in a box and thought I was escaping to London, but they just moved me around and brought me back” is clear and straightforward. It’s just a con of perspective, a magic trick, it requires the subject to be in a specific place to view the gag – pull back wide and the reveal is wholly pedestrian.

The head fuck of “I climbed a specific ridge in a massive desert – first time it lead to a vast ocean, second time it led to loads more desert” has no such explanation. You can’t put that down to a load of blokes going out in the night and moving the ocean.

The point is that, as soon as a show starts showing you *literally* impossible things – as opposed to things that can be rationalised – the number of end-of-series explanations available is reduced to very few options. None of which are likely to be dramatically satisfying. Why is impossible stuff allowable? Because the explanation’s not-even-Life-on-Mars-USA-quality bollocks.

Even the biggest head-fucks in the original series had in-episode explanations. Scientifically beyond the means of the time, sure, but absolutely understandable and explained to the audience. Coherent episodes, symbolic finale. This goes for unexplainable balls within its episodes, then rationalises it all at the end.

And for me, that sucked away the only pleasure I was getting. The characterisation is weak, the direction indulgent and ill-judged, and the writing mistakes confusion for intrigue. The mystery is all you have left, but the moment reality starts getting bent the mystery is pretty much guaranteed to have a crappy truth behind it.

> As for Rover, in the original it’s existence was not explained (while it is in the remake)

Not in episode one (the time of that tweet) it wasn’t. It showed up at the last moment…and they cut to credits. It’s just a mad piece of imagery at the end of a migraine of an episode. Whereas in the original series it was clearly deployed as a device at the command of the village’s higher-ups, here you didn’t know *what* it was…unless you already knew the old show.

> For example, the phrase ‘Be seeing you’ in the original came across as pleasantry that you might find in English whimsy, but played out here it seemed to carry sinister undertones.

See, this worries me. The original series explained the Rover in episode one. It used the Chimes story as a very specific and explainable bit of subjective trickery. And it made a very deliberate point of the “Be seeing you” repetition *as* something sinister and hinting at mistrust. (To the point where Babylon 5 adopted it for the Psi-Corps’ creepy dealings – which suggests JMS got the implication.)

I think we’ve seen very different shows!

[Andrew]

I’ll just cut and paste what I’ve said on Twitter:

Prisoner remake: Dazed storytelling and a wholly uninteresting main character. This is not boding well.

No 2 refs Neverneverland to 6 hours after asking him to believe that the whole of ‘real life’ doesn’t exist. Um – so no pop culture, then?

Prisoner [ep one] ended with a Rover. Fun for people who know the old show; suspect newcomers were baffled. Run, big balloon, squash, cut to credits.

Given the events of this week’s Prisoner [episode two] – physically unexplainable stuff like the moving of an entire ocean – I decided to read ahead…*so* glad I did. Bloody awful pay-off to a series that’s impossible to emotionally invest in. Can now comfortably skip eps 3 to 6.

Prisoner remake: If you could film what a migraine feels like, this would be it.

[Andrew]

> The teleport was jarring and annoying. Almost makes me want to use the dreaded DEM phrase…

Yeah, if only River and the Doctor had discussed her attempts to set up the teleporter in advance of that escape. Then it wouldn’t be remotely DEM-ish.

OH WAIT THEY DID.

> Not really looking forward to Vampires in Venice to be honest. Looks distinctly filler. More interested in Simon Nye’s episode the week after.

I strongly expect the Vampires to be the hook, but the Amy story – which then leads on into the Nye story – to be the real meat of the thing. The fangs and bosoms are good for the trailer, but after that ending, and the ep we’re heading to afterwards, Amy’s issues are likely to be a bigger deal.

[Andrew]

[Andrew]

Worth mentioning the most irksome part: they’re headed to Mars on a ‘gene hunt’.

[Andrew]

Nope.

But there WAS a plan for a ‘making of Series VI’ special, and word was that might have been specifically for sell-through VHS. It was dropped very early into shooting…and you have to wonder in the Smegs plan didn’t take its place.

[Andrew]

Series VI audience? Hmm. A lot of things suddenly add up.

Anyway, yeah, if the Smeg Ups project was already underway by a separate team while the series was going on (and at the early stage it was being overseen by different people), kinda adds up. Makes the DJ reel less ‘an idea that got expanded’ and more ‘a push of a specific aspect, already being compiled, before the broadcast of VI’.

[Andrew]

Nope!

[Andrew]

> maybe the series VI footage came fresh from the rushes?

But what about the rest? The Series V and IV rushes weren’t ordered up until the Smeg Up project was greenlit and kicked off – which happened after the VI-only tape was compiled for DJ ’93. It’s hugely expensive to get those tapes out, logged and transferred – no way they do that without allocated budget. Doesn’t seem likely.

Plus, when a series hasn’t even finished being written despite mid-shoot, it’s hugely unlikely that Rob and Doug were approving ‘just for fun’ outtakes videos, or that the production team had time to knock such things up from seasons they mostly didn’t even work on (different directors, producers, etc.).

But since I don’t know the providence, I could’t say for certain.

[Andrew]

What audience was it shown to? It’s Series IV, V and VI clips, so it wasn’t the tape shown to the DJ ’93 audience. And there wasn’t a Red Dwarf studio audience between then and when the VHS was released in ’94. The next GNP audience was Series VII’s play-in, and then the 10th anniversary recording (to whom various things were shown, but not that tape).

Seems unlikely that GNP compiled a tape to show to someone else’s crew or audience. So could your source clarify the detail?

[Andrew]

What are you basing that on?

[Andrew]

> the explanation of why Amy doesn?t explode like confidence when floating in space

http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answers/970603.html

[Andrew]

Interesting Moffat interview:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00rlx6k/Front_Row_30_03_2010/

Totally agree on his take on a black and/or female Doctor. And fascinated by the talk of an episode that ‘had’ to be sent to RTD in advance.

[Andrew]

Rose > The Eleventh Hour > Smith and Jones > New Earth > Partners in Crime

I rate Rose very highly. TEH – Christ that’s an unfortunate acronym – almost equalled it.

[Andrew]

> Kissagrams and internet porn? erm?

Yet another example of The Moff’s heterosexual agenda.

[Andrew]

It was all covered on the rd.co.uk news front page.

[Andrew]

Entirely my fault. We’re fixing it.

[Andrew]

Vinnie lost me VERY early – repeatedly threatening a nerd during the Countdown task. He may have thought he was being funny, but the lad was clearly getting more and more uncomfortable. Not impressed.

[Andrew]

Yeah, it’s picked up a lot after that opening ep. Loved the afterlife-y climax stuff in episode two as well. It’s really coming together.

[Author]

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