Ben Saunders

[Ben Saunders]

The general public seem to consider 5/10 the worst rating you could possibly give something. It’s best to treat a 1-10 scale on something like IMDB as like a 6-8 scale, really, with only exceptionally loved or hated stuff going outside that limited range.

I think the effects of “review bombing” are overstated, yes there’s a little dent to the scores but it doesn’t have the huge impact people would lead you to believe, and I think the scores for the Jodie era stuff are pretty agreeable. Most of my personal ratings are lower than the average but I score things properly so there are 2s and 7s and not just 5s to 8s.

You do have Sleep No More, Fear Her, In The Forest of the Night, Love & Monsters, The Lazarus Experiment, The Idiots Lantern, Victory of the Daleks, Curse of the Black Spot (boo!), Kill the Moon, The Eaters of Light, World War Three (boo!), The Vampires of Venice, Robot of Sherwood (boo!) and Empress of Mars all being sub-7, with only Orphan 55 and Legend of the Sea Devils going below 6. Deservedly so for the latter and probably the former but I haven’t thought about that since it aired.

[Ben Saunders]

Yeah, the ending of The Five Doctors is all smiles.

Interesting to realise that “I’ll explain later” is a Sawardism, Fivey says it in just about every episode, and Three says it at the end here.

Davison loves to act like he’s going to go one way down a corridor then decide to go another way, or to toss a coin and disobey it, etc. He does that all the time too.

[Ben Saunders]

A nice nod to how common it was for video communication to be used in the Troughton era, they were doing it all the time, and in black and white too, a very tasteful bit of nerdy fanservice

One of the most genuinely horrible things the series has ever done, and somewhat understated.  Something that really sticks with you.

Is that subtle eyeshadow on Davison, very 80s.

[Ben Saunders]

This is such a genuinely satisfying moment. Zoe’s bubblewrap dress is something else though.

[Ben Saunders]

The Promised Land was great. They should make more.

[Ben Saunders]

There are only a couple real stinkers, fans of things love to exaggerate just how “bad” mediocre things are. The Doctor, The Widow and The Wardrobe & Kill The Moon & In The Forest Of The Night are the only Moffat era episodes I remember simply not liking at all. The Gatiss stuff is definitely D tier, although I like the Robin Hood episode honestly. It’s fun.

Oh and Twice Upon a Time I guess but I really just pretend that didn’t happen. Dr Who was cancelled immediately after the credits rolled on The Doctor Falls. Sad really.

[Ben Saunders]

#RedDwarf #Smegle 30/06/2026 

M-Corp, Can of Worms, Can of Worms, Krysis

6

[Ben Saunders]

Well that’s M-Corp lighting I guess so it makes sense, looks good and appropriately bright/corporate

[Ben Saunders]

trivia like some cover screenshots mistakenly using rehearsal footage

was it at least from the correct episodes?

[Ben Saunders]

I could have sworn at least one of them tried to step in a “pi direction”. That is, third from the left, then first from the left, then fourth from the left… 

Tegan starts on 3 at least.

[Ben Saunders]

Never liked the Five Doctors myself, its got S20 disease where its just painfully dull and boring. The gimmick of seeing Pertwee and Troughton come back doesn’t do much for me either.

The last time I watched it I thought it was embarrassing drivel that should never have been televised. This time, I find myself enjoying it. It is at least very straightforward and moves quickly from set piece to set piece. A real step up from something like Arc of Infinity or Terminus.

[Ben Saunders]

There is absolutely no attempt whatsoever made by anybody at any point to make this scene even remotely logical, they all just step on random squares, multiple at a time, basically in a straight line, and never the same ones as the person they’re trying to follow. I like The Five Doctors but surely somebody could have put a little more effort in.

[Ben Saunders]

#RedDwarf #Smegle 29/06/2026 

BitR

5

[Ben Saunders]

One thing about the Remastered ship is that it doesn’t make sense in the context of VIII, because the reason the ship looks like that in VIII is because the nanos rebuilt it to its original, pre-budget cut specifications. Assuming they’d remastered everything in the end, do you think they would have re-redesigned the ship for VIII and made it even more absurdly big, or would they have just ate the nonsense continuity? 🤔

[Ben Saunders]

#RedDwarf #Smegle 28/06/2026

Beyond a Joke

4

[Ben Saunders]

[Ben Saunders]

Enlightenment is fantastic, a real standout. I distinctly remember the first time I saw the cliffhanger to part 2, and being utterly shocked, nearly falling off my seat at how visceral and unexpected it was. This time however it was all I was thinking about for most of the episode so when it finally happened it was a little underwhelming lol. Tegan’s dress is about the most exciting thing in all of Season 20.

[Ben Saunders]

This but it’s edited so “supreme” is silent

[Ben Saunders]

[Ben Saunders]

Now there’s a bit you genuinely couldn’t do in like Series 3 or something. The audience just wouldn’t laugh that much. It sort of relies on the audience being willing to piss themselves laughing at Robert Llewellyn just kind of sitting there for a while.

[Ben Saunders]

As unconvincing as Sarah Sutton is 80% of the time, her goodbye to Tegan is a little bit of a tearjerker, perhaps because she’s crying for real and is no longer acting.

[Ben Saunders]

At least Michael Jackson is a cultural reference that could feasibly survive into the 23rd century, one of the few that could really

[Ben Saunders]

There are people out there who will have every TNG VHS, probably taking up an entire room and costing them a thousand pounds. The real fans.

[Ben Saunders]

It’s certainly the worst so far. There has been the odd stumble up to this point but now the show is stumbling more than it’s managing to walk.

[Ben Saunders]

Currently watching Terminus, just finished episode 3

[Ben Saunders]

#RedDwarf #Smegle 27/06/2026 

Krysis

3

[Ben Saunders]

I corrected some grammar/typos on a couple Doctor Who episode pages the other day. You’re welcome.

[Ben Saunders]

#RedDwarf #Smegle 26/06/2026 

Lemons, Dear Dave

3

[Ben Saunders]

My mate had that one time I was over at his and when I pointed it out he thought it was just a normal Windows/browser feature until I got rid of it for him lol.

[Ben Saunders]

The Doctor shares the audience’s collective reaction to Nyssa’s new outfit.

[Ben Saunders]

They could easily have six breasts under there. It’s uncouth to think about it too much.

[Ben Saunders]

I hate Arc of Infinity its a contender for most boring Doctor Who episode of all time for me.

The Davison era really leans into the whole “dull and confusing” thing from time to time

[Ben Saunders]

Poor Omega. That little bit of humanisation they give him towards the end is enough to make his final death (that’s right folks, he died forever and never came back in any form) just a little tragic.

Nyssa and Tegan are so gay.

[Ben Saunders]

How it feels trying to understand Arc of Infinity

[Ben Saunders]

#RedDwarf #Smegle 25/06/2026 

Beyond A Joke, DNA

2

[Ben Saunders]

Ironically, my parents who taught me to pirate have now moved on to streaming services and think I’m out of touch for still torrenting stuff. 

Streaming services were very briefly the answer to piracy, when it was pretty much just Netflix and they had everything. But now there are 4,012 different ones and they’re getting more and more expensive and even forcing ads upon paying customers. Corporate greed and every company under the sun wanting a piece of the pie killed streaming as a truly convenient answer to piracy. It’s been said many times before that due to things like Denuvo and DRM and whatever actively making paying customers’ experiences worse, you can actually get a better overall experience by just stealing shit now.

[Ben Saunders]

He injects such life into the character with some of those moments you might call scene-chewing or overacting, though. Him holding on for dear life during the “less brains than a mollusc” speech, the unnecessary sauce he puts on “it’s insane” and “blood-chilling terror”, the psi-scan bit in Quarantine, shouting in German, that stupid laugh he does. It’s all glorious. There are even moments in XI-TPL where I think he’s excellent. I don’t care if something is a bit broad or over the top as long as it’s funny.

[Ben Saunders]

You put Robert last, but none of the rest of them could do Kryten. Maybe it’s all Robert can do, but he does it extremely well. 

[Ben Saunders]

Do I just have survivorship bias if I think piracy isn’t dangerous at all? I’ve been at it for ~26 years and nothing bad ever has happened to me. Viruses are much less of a concern these days than they were in the past because even your in-built Windows virus detection will do most of the work for you. I got an e-mail once asking me to stop torrenting Family Guy but that’s all. I keep getting TV license letters but they’re very easy to ignore.

[Ben Saunders]

The Invasion is phenomenal. It justifies its eight parts somehow and has a terrific performance from Kevin Stoney, and his lackey Peter Halliday. I love the lampshading of the obvious set re-use with the bad guy’s two offices looking identical, and the helicopter-chase-escape they couldn’t afford to film so just describe it in dialogue. I love how horrible it is when they test out the emotion-giver on the Cyberman and it goes insane, screaming off down the sewers. I love the cliffhanger of part seven. “Is this what you wanted? To be the ruler of a dead world?” Stoney’s descent into madness and utter shock at being beaten is glorious. The music is great. It’s well directed. It’s one of the best Classic Who stories, and probably the best Cyberman story. The Tenth Planet isn’t very good, but it gets points for being first. The Moonbase is better, I enjoy it as shlock. Tomb of the Cybermen is also very good. Wheel in Space is drivel. 

[Ben Saunders]

#RedDwarf #Smegle 24/06/2026 

White Hole Bodyswap

[Ben Saunders]

It turns out Time-Flight is pretty good actually. I must have fallen for the fan narrative again. Davison is becoming more comfortable in the role, there’s a little more comedy and I love the cliffhanger of Tegan getting left behind.

[Ben Saunders]

As bad as I know the rest of Time-Flight is, I still think the first episode is really rather good. There’s one dodgy CSO shot of them all arriving in the past, and the extremely questionable disguise & voice the Master has put on for whatever reason, but apart from that it’s great.

[Ben Saunders]

That final episode of Earthshock really is fantastic. Like I said, it’s a very tightly written script. The freighter being what killed the dinosaurs is great, the inevitability of (spoilers!) Adric’s death. I know they nicked the silent credits thing from Eastenders or something, but it’s really affecting. It’s quite the achievement to actually make the audience mourn the loss of someone so petty and annoying. Eric Saward did a great job of jamming all that character development into the boy’s final story and actually giving us somewhat of an emotional connection to him.

The effect of the freighter “crashing into Earth” (exploding randomly in space for no reason) is extremely poor, though.

[Ben Saunders]

Oh yeah, Fenric is good.

I have tried listening to The Nightmare Fair twice and never made it past episode one.

[Ben Saunders]

Ghostlight and Silver Nemesis are both colossal nonsense

A fellow Ghost Light denier A lot of people love that one, and I wonder if it’s because they have read the novelisation and so know what the hell is going on. And I’ve often wondered how much of the fan praise for McCoy is a result of the expanded media stuff. I haven’t heard him on audio outisde of the first Big Finish with the three of them, but I have heard both Davison and Colin Baker who excel in that format. Spare Parts, Jubilee, Legend of the Cybermen, Doctor Who and the Pirates, Psychodrome, Whispers of Terror. Tom Baker on the other hand doesn’t amaze me on audio, but he has nothing to make up for. Energy of the Daleks and Foe From The Future are the two I checked out. I’ve definitely heard Sirens of Time but I don’t remember anything about it. I think Creatures of Beauty was pretty good. I’m jumping around here.

[Ben Saunders]

I like The Greatest Show In The Galaxy for three episodes, before it descends into Sylvester McCoy gurning, playing the spoons and vomiting up an egg like he’s a Sensational Reverse Brother. Three episodes of spooky atmosphere and creepy clowns, then… that. Yikes!

McCoy is probably my least favourite Doctor. He has a couple good moments like his Dalek episode, telling the guy to end his life in the Thatcher story and sometimes acting a bit mysterious. But something like Battlefield is dire, with him shouting STOP FIGHTING!!, I can’t take him seriously.

I like the holiday camp one. The episode that made my dad give up on Doctor Who because it had Bonnie Langford AND Ken Dodd in it. It was too much for him.

Earthshock was also one of the first classics I watched, I think they gave it away free with a newspaper around the time of Series One (2005). 

[Ben Saunders]

#RedDwarf #Smegle 23/06/2026 

Justice, Backwards, D&A, Holoship, Quarantine

[Ben Saunders]

Earthshock is not quite as engaging at 31 as it was at 11, but it’s still enjoyable. Using the fact that Adric’s star for mathematical excellence is made of gold as a weapon against the Cybermen is fantastic Chekhov’s Gun stuff, from one season and two script editors prior. I really like this Cyberman getting stuck in the door shield, and I love how it’s always been obvious that the final shot of episode 3 is just the same shot duplicated three times.

[Ben Saunders]

You’d be much more forgiving if he forgot his lines etc during a live stage show. Them ballsing it up a little would be expected really given how many smeg ups there are, and it would make each night a unique experience.

[Author]

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