Lily

[Lily]

Kinda inspired by this thread, I’ve been watching Voyager over the Christmas break. I watched the first few seasons when they originally aired but stopped a little while after 7of9 turned up (no idea what season that is).

I’ve got through the first two seasons now and boy has it been a slog. I didn’t remember the vast majority of the episodes from first time around, although one or two were familiar. Half the time I ended up fiddling on my phone because they were so boring though.

Season 3 seems to be picking up now so hopefully this will feel less of a grind soon.

[Lily]

I only got round to watching it last night, as I’ve been in no real hurry to catch up. Almost wish I hadn’t bothered as it’s yet another ‘eh’ episode.

It really felt like the pacing was all over the place, one minute we’re having quiet conversations, cut to action sequence of dalek causing havoc, cut back to a different emotional conversation. It just felt really disjointed and unsure what tone was being set. Then just to mix it up there’s a handful of comedy scenes being thrown in for no good reason. Oh the Doctor is panicking about this alien invasion and is desperately calling for backup? Of course that’s the perfect time to throw in a “aren’t call centres annoying” comedy bit!

I’ve also got to the point where I stop worrying about all of the plot holes/conveniences now. The archaeologist guy -happens- to be an expert in this 9th century cult that just -happens- to be relevant to the plot, complete with illustrated guide on how to kill a dalek? Fine. Whatever. A dismembered dalek can be buried for over two thousand years, but with a little UV light teleport its bits back together again and live? Fine. Whatever. I’m willing to suspend disbelief, but things still need to have their own internal logic.

I think another problem is that they try to make things seem grand and epic when they’re not. Having the Doctor looking at tardis monitors, running around shouting “oh no, it’s turning off the wifi, it’s shutting down the power!” is meant to sound epic, but all we’re seeing is her looking at monitors. It doesn’t -feel- threatening. Go back to season 1 and watch Eccleston stare in horror at one tin can trundling through a single building and you really -feel- the threat of a Dalek.

As for the end, I couldn’t really care less about the Dad. We’re told all season he’s a bit of a loser and doesn’t even really say sorry to Ryan during their heart to heart. The only reason I didn’t want him to die was because that would give too much importance to a nothing character.

If I could re-write the last few episodes, I would hold off on the Graham/Ryan moments and leave them for this one. Dalek jumps onto Graham, Graham is willing to sacrifice himself for the others, “I’ve had a good life” and all that, Ryan says “I love you Grandad”, Graham lives, everyone happy and sentimental. Job done.

As for the ratings, yeah as a single number 5.15 million is low even for a normal episode, let alone a ‘special’, but everything on New Years Day was low. It was still the 4th highest show that day with the top only 0.5m more. It’s not really a case of the show “haemorrhaging viewers” but just that not many people watch TV on NYD. But let’s not let facts spoil a nice narrative eh?

[Lily]

My ex was into sci-fi anyway, so when he saw I had all the DVDs was down to watch through them. The response was pretty lukewarm though, although he enjoyed them there’s been no desire to re-watch at all. He did watch series X but didn’t like it much and refuses to watch XI and XII.

Just asked what his favourite series was and he’s replied “the prison one”. Huh. Apparently it’s because it has more of the bunk room scenes, which he felt was the best bit about the earlier series.

[Lily]

I can’t help feeling a little underwhelmed. It felt like there were ideas that were big and impressive, but were treated with so little care they just rushed past. Big battles, hundreds of crashed ships, whole planets in a bit of perspex, people that live thousands of years, chambers full of stasis people, ‘the planet’ wiping memories. So many things that were thrown in, maybe to try to make it seem epic, but just ended up feeling a mess.

Also, since I don’t see trailers or any promotional material if I can, I was totally expecting Graham to be killed off today. Especially since he had his deathwish grudge match. So in all honesty I feel a little cheated that he just shot Tim in the foot and was fine and dandy. Not even the Ux died. Doesn’t feel like a finale unless -someone- dies.

I guess to give some credit, it wasn’t a BAD episode. Just, could do better. Which is a shame.

[Lily]

How many seasons were there in total?

[Lily]

Call me paranoid, but I prefer to have a solid grip on my luggage.

[Lily]

Pretty blobs on lines, for those that are interested in seeing viewing figures in context.

View post on imgur.com

[Lily]

Ryan has called him grandad now. We just need the fist bump next week and we’re done with Ryan.

Unfortunately I suspect we’re more likely to lose Walsh at the end of the season, as he seems far more likely to be a ‘one season and done’ kinda companion. If Chibnall and Whittaker do leave then we’ll get her and the remaining 2 companions in next year’s half arsed season and then starting all from scratch again.

[Lily]

I’ve just started buying the Who dvds, so the inability to get the season 12 blu-rays is really annoying. It seems such a bizarre business choice to only do one print run and say ‘no more’ on something that’s got long term appeal. People want to buy it regardless of its “limited edition package”. I just want a nice blu-ray boxset. I want to give the BBC money and they won’t let me!

[Lily]

Well that was a bit bloody brilliant. Even the frog.

OK so the Doctor pulled the explanation for what’s going on out of her arse a bit, but in all honesty that’s almost a feature of Who anyway. I can totally live with that.

Everything else was just great! We’ll have more of that thank you very much.

[Lily]

The 5 year plan only included 3 series anyway, with 18 month gaps. But because this series has done so well on Sunday nights, the BBC now want a series every year. But Chibnall doesn’t want to do that much, so is going to half-arse one for them next year then fuck off, with Whittaker going with him.

Allegedly.

[Lily]

Well yes, I did mean other than Chibnall. If everyone else is new though, that might help explain that feeling of “almost, but not quite” that I’m getting on every episode. Would certainly be a reason why so often the alien of the weekend feels a little crowbarred into a story that didn’t need one had it not been Doctor Who.

What determines a show as a success though; the quantity of the general public watching it, or the opinions of the fans?

[Lily]

Just got around to watching this week. Good period stuff, interesting mystery, interesting witch finding stuff, whole team feeling useful, it was on the whole a really good episode. Loved Alan Cumming hamming it up as King James.

Until the shouty alien turned up. Then it all got rather silly. I’m not a fan of the whole shouting to make things scary. I’d rather be scared by actions, not volume of voice.

Out of interest, are the writers this year all new to Who?

[Lily]

Not a fan of that one personally. From the start the over excited reaction of when the Kerblam bot turned up was uncomfortable to me. There’s sometimes the feeling that this Doctor is a 12 year old who’s had too much sugar.

The whole ‘automated company has put all the people out of work’ thing was a pretty low hanging fruit swipe at Amazon complete with objectionable manager. You knew Dan was dead as soon as he got soppy about his little girl (love Lee Mack though), you knew Kira was dead as soon as the Doctor started to protect her.

Ryan’s dyspraxia bit felt totally shoe-horned in. It was like they recognised that the iminent action sequence was a dumb idea that shouldn’t be possible, so they put a disclaimer beforehand of ‘I have this condition, but I’m going to do this anyway’, like that makes it any better.

Did anyone else have trouble telling the types of robot apart? It didn’t really occur to me that there were two types, as they all looked the same to me. I will admit I loved the design though, creepy right from the start.

As much as I loved the twist, it almost feels like it raised more questions than it answered. How was the ‘evil’ manager keep track of disappearances when the HR lady kept saying it’d be impossible to know? Why did Charlie try to kill off Yaz the moment she got there (presuming it was him giving people 999 orders to get picked off by his bots). Finally, since the system could control what the good bots said and did, why didn’t it just -tell- the Doctor what was going on?

I really wanted to like this one, but it just irritated and annoyed me all the way through.

[Lily]

>Where is it said he intended to bow out with The Doctor Falls?

Here – http://www.digitalspy.com/tv/doctor-who/news/a834617/doctor-who-christmas-special-almost-scrapped/

[Lily]

>I’ll never get used to them ending with different music that plays over the credits, I don’t like that.
Ditto. Hate that.

Oh, just catching up on reddit they point out it’s the normal theme slowed down indian style.
Still hate it.

[Lily]

I enjoyed the episode in general but the alien twist felt rather unsatisfactory. Once you’ve found out they’re just hanging out for dead people it makes their former actions more questionable like why all the mental attacks on the Doctor when they first get there?

>And Tosin Cole still can’t act.
While I agree, I’d also argue that he’s making the best of the lines he gets. Sometimes it’s a case of *screen turns on* “Hey look, the screen’s turned on”. It doesn’t help that everything seems to be delivered in a monotone.

>I’ll never get used to them ending with different music that plays over the credits, I don’t like that.
Ditto. Hate that.

What I found a little odd was the lack of accents. The Nan had a very mild accent in Sheffield, which was less than I’d expect really. It was the stuff in the Punjab that really seemed odd though. You get a little line about their punjabi not being bad for foreigners, but then all of the locals have a faint northern accent. It’s not like I’m saying we need Apu but it just felt a little off.

Also why are they all “oooh what killed the holy man?” – doesn’t the sonic read a bullet wound?

[Lily]

Oh, poor graphing skills with no labels. It’s viewers in Millions up the side and episode number along the bottom.

[Lily]

> I don’t really want to be one of those people who talks about hearsay regarding viewership, I find that a bit daft sometimes

I’m daft, I’m a data nerd. I was actually having an argument with a friend this morning about this. He’s one of these “never watched after Tennant” types, who was adamant that viewing figures have been going down ever since and no-one liked or watched Smith. So I put this together to hit him with some data.

View post on imgur.com

Last week’s final figures haven’t been confirmed yet and obviously her average will go down over the next few weeks. The grouping isn’t entirely accurate as Ecclestone never had an Xmas episode, but it’s close enough to give an idea. I also split out the season that was half Amy, half Clara as there was a clear dip in interest with Clara around. There’s also an extra Xmas episode that I ignored, as it wasn’t attached to a season and xmas is always an outlier anyway.

[Lily]

>The internet in general seems to think it was pish

Oh wow yeah, they really hated it didn’t they? I mean sure, it’s no Blink, but I didn’t think it was that bad? It had a few issues but nothing that killed the show dead in the water.

People are moaning that it was boring and confusing, but I found it neither. Just a entertaining little base-under-siege middle of the season episode. Almost feels like I didn’t watch the same show as everyone else (apart from Ben).

[Lily]

Yes I really enjoyed that one. Tension, danger, running around, people dying, Doctor desperately trying to take charge and think of how to save them, all good Who stuff. I could have done without the dead mother chat which rather killed the pace for a little while, but other than that it was a good little episode.

Shame we’ve had to wait 5 weeks for one though.

[Lily]

>I’m also reminded of how inappropriate I find the laughter after Red Dwarf blows up in Demons & Angels. I mean I guess there is a joke there and maybe it was funnier in the studio.

“the chances of it actually blowing are about one in *kaboom* … one” is one of my most favourite lines in all of Dwarf. I even do that slightly weird thing where you mouth along silently with the line, in gleeful anticipation of what’s about to come. (Is that something other people do with favourite lines? I really hope so.)

[Lily]

>Hartnell’s ring was discarded by Troughton at the start of his first episode. It’s a back-reference to this, given the context of the episode.

Thank you!

[Lily]

It’s still on iplayer (in fact all nuwho is now).

I re-watched the regeneration earlier, the Tardis turns on its side and literally shakes her out. That’s why I thought there would be more issue made about the ring and getting back in. But apparently not.

[Lily]

Actually fuck these guys, I want to take my view count back from them.

Clicked on the Yes Minster one, and they literally watch a 3 minute clip then spend 5 minutes saying how they don’t understand who anyone was or the context of the 30+ year old political landscape being made joked about.

At the end they ‘defend’ not watching a whole show as they say it’d be taken down for copyright. “we’re just making react videos here”. So basically they’ve no interest in the show, or really reacting to it much they’re just putting up clickbait videos because they know that suckers will watch any video with the title of a well loved british comedy show in it

… like us lot.

[Lily]

I think a lot of the episodes from 4/5/6 would be good. Preferably ones without any alternate realities or duplicate characters.

A bunch of them say to start at The End, but if it’s only going to be a one off, it’s not really representative. Likewise with Back to Reality and Gunmen, although great episodes they spend so long in another reality it’s too confusing for a one off.

Something set mostly on the ship or a shape station, with minimal guest stars would be the better choice. DNA, Justice, White Hole, Inquisitor, Quarantine, Psirens, Legion etc.

[Lily]

>do you think they’ll ever explain how the Doctor fell to earth safely at the start of this series

“Still in regeneration”

I’m more confused about the whole ring falling off and Tardis throwing her out thing. I presumed the ring was required to operate the Tardis or something like that, but new Tardis apparently don’t care. There was such focus on the ring it’s got to mean something?

[Lily]

Ok yeah, that’s a really odd one to watch with no knowledge. I like the episode itself, but there’s no surprise that the woman sat there looking utterly confused.

At least in the comments they recognise it was a bad one to start with and are asking for recommendations.

[Lily]

Going back to series 11, I’m loving Bradley Walsh. The scenes with him talking to Grace in their house were just heartbreaking.

[Lily]

>Well, Helen A in The Happiness Patrol basically was Margaret Thatcher, and that was put out in November 1988.

I’ll admit I’ve not seen that one, but from a quick google that it’s basically supporting my point. It may not have been terribly subtle, but it’s still only a caricature with plausible deniability. It’s not like she’s shutting down the mines and stopping free milk for children, or Ace right out saying “oh that Thatcher is a cunt”. (On a side note, wtf is up with the giant Berty Bassett?)

[Lily]

OK so I should have specified current politicians. Historical figures are another thing.

I guess I just don’t current affairs in my sci-fi. Can you imagine Tom Baker’s doctor making snarky comments about Harold Wilson? I’m not a fan of having pop music in episodes either.

Maybe I’m just a grumpy old woman, but maybe if the shows were better written it wouldn’t be so egregious. Sci-fi has always made social and political commentary, but Who is doing it with the subtlety of a brick through the window.

[Lily]

Well that was a bit underwhelming. I really really don’t like spiders in movies (the Lost in Space metal spiders gave me actual nightmares for weeks) so I had to gear myself up for this episode. I figured Sunday tea-time shouldn’t be too scary though. Unfortunately I’m almost disappointed how un-scary they actually were.

Like Dave said, the Trump stuff was a bit unexpected as well. It was bad enough having a rich American hotel mogul running for president but I was really surprised when they literally name-checked him. Is this the first time Who has mentioned a real life politician? I mean, we’ve had two story lines involving prime-ministers without mentioning real politicians, why bring Trump into it?

As for the spiders, I’m really confused by the Doctors new pro-life policy. Sure, when you have a sentient lifeform that can be communicated with, having a little chat persuading them to bugger off is a nice idea. But these are literal man-eating monsters, I’m sure a previous doctor would have just torched the place and be done with it. The gun thing makes no sense either. Oh yes, let’s leave these spiders in a small room where they’ll starve and cannibalise each other before a slow and painful death. Likewise lets watch this giant spider slowly suffocate to death instead of putting it out of its misery. Oh and we’ll have a nice cosy chat afterwards and clear off, leaving all the other giant spiders roaming round the city, no probs bruv.

[Lily]

My main computer is a laptop, but I took the plunge and spent £900 on an MSI. It’s 3 years old now, but is still bloody brilliant and can run all the latest games at ‘high’ settings.

Budget laptops are awful things, they give the impression of being flexible when half the time they can barely summon the power to run a browser with more than 3 tabs.

[Lily]

Not everyone has the good eyesight and fine motor control to use a phone. Tablets are really popular in the older generation as you get all the cool stuff of a phone, but at a size that’s more useable for them. They can still sit on the sofa and shitpost on Facebook while watching corrie on the telly. While possible with a laptop, a tablet is still easier to hold while sitting.

[Lily]

>Harry Potter-The Next Generation

I’m going to be one of those awful Potter people. It’s more The Previous Generations, as the latest films are set in the late 20’s.

Remember all the kids that grew up with Harry Potter are now mid-20s with disposable income. They’re going to be milking this cash-cow for a while yet.

[Lily]

I’ve already got a pet cat, do I really need a pet bottle too?

[Lily]

>Me²

Oh. Yeah. So much for my ‘one light bee’ theory.

Damn this show and its bloody inconsistencies. “Can only support one hologram” my arse.

[Lily]

I’ve always presumed there’s only one light bee.

[Lily]

>I’d read that Chibnall wanted to be more educational

Whelp, guess that was the educational history episode of the series then.

But well done on Ryan getting rid of the bad guy, we’re NEVER going to be seeing him again -_-

[Lily]

I rather liked it. It seems appropriate that the crew are more subdued when they’re in culture shock from being in space and crash landing on an alien planet. It’s going to be difficult to have all of them playing a significant part in every episode, so while it was Ryan and Graham this week, I’d hope to have more focus on Yaz next week. It makes sense you can’t do character development on all of them when you’re still building the Doctors new character too.

As for the patronising side, I felt it more for the character than personally. In both the getting the boat to go and climbing the ladder, the character development was already there and was just spoilt by the Doctor coming along and giving him a pat on the head for being a good boy. The pep talk to get up the ladder felt very ’11’, but really we’re getting a bit beaten over the head with the dyspraxia bit. Just a shot of him psyching up before climbing would have made the point.

The talking mindreading rags seemed very … odd. Leaving aside the question of how rags can talk, if they can see all the way into a time lords subconscious (memory/whatever), wouldn’t the plan of what they were about to do be in big flashing letters? Eh, nitpicky. That whole scene felt very Harry Potter’esque for some reason I can’t pin down.

I’m happy enough to look forward to next week now.

[Lily]

>Does mouse shit roll? I’ve never checked.

It looks like small brown grains of rice, sooooo no, not really.

Kinda kills the line though.

[Lily]

>Yeah, I hurriedly had to skip that bit when I watched Ghostbusters for the first time with the kids recently!

My parents home edited Ghostbusters before letting me watch it (pausing the recording off TV when it got too scary). The only bit that they cut out was the librarian ghost at the start, as she was too frightening. I remember that in particular as she scared the CRAP out of me first time I watched an unedited version. I’m pretty sure they left the blowjob thing in, as to a kid it’s pretty meaningless ghosty lady floating around.

[Lily]

So I can mention the fact that the advance publicity focusing on the three companions made it pretty clear that one of the four wasn’t going to survive past this episode! It was nicely handled, though – Walsh did well during the funeral scene.

I avoid all trailers and publicity, so this was a surprise to me. Unfortunately I found her the most likeable one of the bunch so was pretty pissed off that she got killed off for no particular reason.

I think one of the things that threw it most for me was that the sense of time and locations didn’t seem to flow right. I’ve a whole list of ‘that should have taken longer’ and ‘how did they get there so fast?’. Yeah it’s picky but it’s hard to get into a story when your mind is going ‘hang on, that doesn’t feel right’ all the time. How did the guy who lost his sister know the pod was there? Why are the construction workers on site at what must be middle of the night? She’s already killed him, why send him home and get annoyed at the lad for kicking him off when he’s already teleporting anyway?

So many niggles that just shouldn’t be there.

As for Whittaker? Ehhhhh, pretty hard to judge when it’s all regeneration madness. We’ll see after the next few episodes.

Fucking hate the culottes.

[Lily]

I’ll be honest and say that I’m not a fan of the sex change, but I’m watching at least the first few episodes to see how it pans out. It was good that they didn’t dwell on it at any point, just a quick ‘oh I’m a woman now, OK’ and moving on.

The story itself was alright but I feel like I’m left with a feeling of a lot of things not really making much sense.

How spoiler’y can we be in discussion? I presume because it’s aired it’s not an issue?

[Lily]

I hadn’t noticed before that XI got a 15, while X and XII were still 12.

Bloody Samsara and its “infrequent strong sex references”.
https://www.bbfc.co.uk/releases/red-dwarf-xi-video-4

[Lily]

Got to be the officers quarters for me.

I notice on these twitter polls it’s always overwhelming in favour of the first two series. Seems odd to me that people who are bothered enough about dwarf to follow their twitter and vote on things but are firmly nostalgic for only series 1+2.

[Lily]

I always thought it was a play on the thing where people say that actors look shorter in real life than they do on tv/film.

[Lily]

>aren’t good lovers stereotypically slow and measured?

That’s all good and well, but sometimes you just want a good Black&Decker’ing.

[Lily]

Fawlty Towers is on UK Netflix. I went through them in order, but got to The Germans (last of the first series) and gave up on that halfway through. Hadn’t really enjoyed them up to that point and had enough by then. Not watched the second series at all.

[Lily]

Apologies for lowering the tone, but Channel 4 has also done a rebrand. Including this rather lovely, Dwarf-esque space station, which I’m 76% sure is a nicely put together miniature shot.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djbTRK4UQoY

Ooooh, that is nice.

[Author]

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