If those 2 kids had not skipped school that policeman would never have been killed.
He only went in the building because he thought another truanting kid was in there.
8X06 "The Caretaker" Grading/Discussion)(SPOILERS!
- Thread starter M.A.C.O.
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If those 2 kids had not skipped school that policeman would never have been killed.
He only went in the building because he thought another truanting kid was in there.
There is a fun continuity challenge for the observant viewer. I counted the flags of 17 countries and/or continents hanging from the ceilings of the school. The challenge is to mark the location of each flag as the episode progresses.
There were terms I didn't understand.
* Bezzy Mate
* M.N.L. three
I did a check on boggins. The word boggin is a Scottish slang word for something that is smelly or dirty.
Unless the TARDIS was translating the computer language of the robot, for the benefit of the audience, the robot was built by humans who spoke English. Considering the robot might have the ability to teleport through time and space, could this robot have been sent from the future by an unknown group of humans?
Either the writers committed an error or there is a country in the Whovian universe that doesn't exist in the real world. Sergeant Pink was said by Adrian Davies to have served five years in the UK and Afghan. There is no country named Afghan; there is a country named Afghanistan, where anything that originated from there is called Afghan.
Finally, Adrian Davies was the Coal Hill School history teacher.
There were terms I didn't understand.
* Bezzy Mate
* M.N.L. three
I did a check on boggins. The word boggin is a Scottish slang word for something that is smelly or dirty.
Unless the TARDIS was translating the computer language of the robot, for the benefit of the audience, the robot was built by humans who spoke English. Considering the robot might have the ability to teleport through time and space, could this robot have been sent from the future by an unknown group of humans?
Either the writers committed an error or there is a country in the Whovian universe that doesn't exist in the real world. Sergeant Pink was said by Adrian Davies to have served five years in the UK and Afghan. There is no country named Afghan; there is a country named Afghanistan, where anything that originated from there is called Afghan.
Finally, Adrian Davies was the Coal Hill School history teacher.
Its dialogue was *very* similar to the speech of the Mechanoids - robots sent by Earth to prepare a planet for colonisation - back in the Hartnell story The Chase, so I immediately assumed it was a related device.
Nope, that's just British military slang/abbreviation for Afghanistan. They really do call it just Afghan.
It would be easy to dismiss this as an average filler episode, but I found I rather enjoyed it. Yeah the robot was a bit naff (but he was hardly the focus anyway) and even though much of the episode was just about moving the season along it was fun and funny, yet also deadly serious at times.
I loved the scenes between Danny and the Doctor when Danny finally snapped and stood up to the irascible old Time Lord, that comment about the Doctor being an officer really hit home (kudos to both men in that scene). I’ve liked Danny from the off but now I really like him.
Courtney was funny, and I liked how she and the Doctor played off one another. For a disruptive influence she didn’t come across like that much of a tearaway.
It’s interesting to read the comments re race made here. Yeah the two boys were black, but much like Courtney they were hardly knife wielding thugs, they were just two kids bunking off, I guess they could have made one of them white, or Asian, or they could have made the copper black or Asian as well but I think people do overthink things sometimes (and as a side note the BBC were recently castigated a little for Eastenders still not being nearly as non-white as a show set in London should be given the diverse nature of the capital’s population. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t…)
The comments re the Doctor imagining the young white teacher was Clara’s boyfriend because he was white…Oh dear, sometimes I think people find the things they’re looking for in the media, and I don’t know how they could have made the inference that he thought she fancied him because he
looked/dressed a little like Eleven any more obvious without getting Matt Smith to play him!
Does anyone know if Danny is actually going to travel in the Tardis?
I loved the scenes between Danny and the Doctor when Danny finally snapped and stood up to the irascible old Time Lord, that comment about the Doctor being an officer really hit home (kudos to both men in that scene). I’ve liked Danny from the off but now I really like him.
Courtney was funny, and I liked how she and the Doctor played off one another. For a disruptive influence she didn’t come across like that much of a tearaway.
It’s interesting to read the comments re race made here. Yeah the two boys were black, but much like Courtney they were hardly knife wielding thugs, they were just two kids bunking off, I guess they could have made one of them white, or Asian, or they could have made the copper black or Asian as well but I think people do overthink things sometimes (and as a side note the BBC were recently castigated a little for Eastenders still not being nearly as non-white as a show set in London should be given the diverse nature of the capital’s population. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t…)
The comments re the Doctor imagining the young white teacher was Clara’s boyfriend because he was white…Oh dear, sometimes I think people find the things they’re looking for in the media, and I don’t know how they could have made the inference that he thought she fancied him because he
looked/dressed a little like Eleven any more obvious without getting Matt Smith to play him!
Does anyone know if Danny is actually going to travel in the Tardis?
Huffingtonpost did an article on the episode.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/27/doctor-who-the-caretaker_n_5894486.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular
I think the Doctor really displayed a high level of bias in this episode. Constantly referring to Danny as a soldier and saying all he could be at this school was a PE teacher because of it. When Danny continuously corrected the Doctor about what his actual job is, the Doctor didn't relent but reloaded on his baseless assumptions about Danny. He prejudged him. It's only when Danny helps save the world with that amazing flip does the Doctor finally relent.
It fits in to the Doctor's character after all. His greatest flaw has been his own hubris throughout many incarnations. Which has come back to bite him in the ass more than enough for him to learn from it.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/27/doctor-who-the-caretaker_n_5894486.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular
I think the Doctor really displayed a high level of bias in this episode. Constantly referring to Danny as a soldier and saying all he could be at this school was a PE teacher because of it. When Danny continuously corrected the Doctor about what his actual job is, the Doctor didn't relent but reloaded on his baseless assumptions about Danny. He prejudged him. It's only when Danny helps save the world with that amazing flip does the Doctor finally relent.
It fits in to the Doctor's character after all. His greatest flaw has been his own hubris throughout many incarnations. Which has come back to bite him in the ass more than enough for him to learn from it.
It's interesting, for me, that the camera lingered on the first sentence from Pride and Prejudice. The sentence reads:
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.
The preoccupation with socially advantageous marriage in nineteenth-century English society manifests itself here, for in claiming that a single man “must be in want of a wife,” the narrator reveals that the reverse is also true: a single woman, whose socially prescribed options are quite limited, is in (perhaps desperate) want of a husband. (SparkNotes, http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/pride/quotes.html)
What does this quote and its meaning reveal about the characters in this episode?
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.
The preoccupation with socially advantageous marriage in nineteenth-century English society manifests itself here, for in claiming that a single man “must be in want of a wife,” the narrator reveals that the reverse is also true: a single woman, whose socially prescribed options are quite limited, is in (perhaps desperate) want of a husband. (SparkNotes, http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/pride/quotes.html)
What does this quote and its meaning reveal about the characters in this episode?
Regarding the 2 truant kids, I think the reason, the imagery is so prevalent in American Minds is from the whole Ferguson blow up. I am pretty sure this episode would've been written, cast, and filmed long before the Ferguson tragedy occurred, so, I can't imagine there was any intentional connection.
Regarding Racism against Danny, we've been shown all Season long that the Doctor has a major problem with Soldiers this Series. None of what occurred between the Doctor and Danny was racism, it was prejudice against Soldiers and jealousy. And really, ask yourself, if the writers were trying to slip in veiled racism, why would they even spend an entire Series building up a relationship between Clara and Danny? Plus, Danny became the Hero of the episode. And there was 4 black roles in the episode, that's pretty diverse to be accused of racism, IMHO.
Mickey was made out to be an idiot, because of his relationship with Rose, not because he was Black. And again, by the end of Mickey's Arc, he was a major Stud and a leader of the Rebellion against the Cybermen. Although Rory wasn't treated badly for as long as Mickey, Rory certainly did get abuse heaped on him by the Doctor, and he wasn't even romantically attracted to Amy.
I enjoyed the episode, I thought it was great fun, and enjoyed the interaction between the Doctor and Danny (We've been being prepared all Series long for the showdown)
Regarding Racism against Danny, we've been shown all Season long that the Doctor has a major problem with Soldiers this Series. None of what occurred between the Doctor and Danny was racism, it was prejudice against Soldiers and jealousy. And really, ask yourself, if the writers were trying to slip in veiled racism, why would they even spend an entire Series building up a relationship between Clara and Danny? Plus, Danny became the Hero of the episode. And there was 4 black roles in the episode, that's pretty diverse to be accused of racism, IMHO.
Mickey was made out to be an idiot, because of his relationship with Rose, not because he was Black. And again, by the end of Mickey's Arc, he was a major Stud and a leader of the Rebellion against the Cybermen. Although Rory wasn't treated badly for as long as Mickey, Rory certainly did get abuse heaped on him by the Doctor, and he wasn't even romantically attracted to Amy.
I enjoyed the episode, I thought it was great fun, and enjoyed the interaction between the Doctor and Danny (We've been being prepared all Series long for the showdown)
Plus, Mickey wasn't scripted as being of any particular race, and is only really an idiot in the three episodes that had been scripted before Noel Clarke was cast (and Clarke himself has said that he's not happy with his performance in that first block, as he'd misjudged the tone of the show and played it too broad and comic). Mickey's role later in the season was already in the plot ideas, of course, but the actual scripts were finished after Clarke's casting.
Silly and forgettable monster, silly scenes with the schoolgirl (like Nightmare In Silver again) and silly PE teacher prattle and related buffoonery, but the show had some fine dialogue and I particularly liked Danny's astute and no-nonsense reaction to the Doctor towards the end, not to mention the latter's almost Pavlovian response. I thought Capaldi's performance improved as the episode went on, too. Coleman, of course, was on fine form. Three out of five for this one overall, with the second half elevating the episode to fourth- or fifth-best of the season so far in my opinion.
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I am now starting to think that at least with Clara, it's time to replace Moffatt. He is not looking at Who objectively any longer, just as something to leave his mark on after he's gone (even though one episode of a future DW can rewrite EVERYTHING he's done). He wasn't this bad with even Amy. Now, you can call the show THREE'S A CROWD starring Clara Oswin, Danny Pink and oh, yeah, the doctor.
Three things:
- I have to admit that I was overjoyed when I saw the evil robot. It was rubbish in the exact same way evil robots used to be rubbish in the classic series, and for some reason, though I'm not usually nostalgic, I thought it worked really well here.
- I'm digging the witty banter between Clara and the Doctor. It's getting faster and faster, more and more abstract, it's something we've never really had in Doctor Who and it reminds me of lots and lots of classic screwball comedies (or modern homages such as Sorkin scripts.) Excellent.
- There are so many movies and series which lionize soldiers and glorify war and I'm happy to see something that goes against the grain.
It's like 2005 all over again around here.
Or, if the Internet existed earlier, the JNT era which divided fans. Colin Baker, anyone?
I think the divide is now between those who want a companion-focused show or a Doctor-focused show. I am for the latter, for the show should be about him. I, also, liked that the people involved in the Classic Doctor Who put in unofficial guidelines about him - that we shouldn't learned much about his background (there should be a mystique about this alien), that he shouldn't "stoop" to our level, and that the companions are the conduit to the Doctor. (As some can tell, I am listening to the commentaries. Some of them are very informative. Others less so - hearing the actress playing Vicki saying that she doesn't remember much of her time on DW got old.)
When the show had serials that went for weeks, the most successful of them had struck the right amount of balance between the Doctor and the companions. (And, it was a plus when the writing and the directing was top-notch.)
The latest episodes are 45 minutes long, which means that there isn't the time to create a balance between the Doctor and the companion. The show has to go one way or the other.
I think the show is in a rut and that it's time for a major change from the top-down. The pattern was set in the 2005 season, when the companion became the focus of the franchise, there was a season-long arc, and the Doctor's existence was threatened. It's time to break the mold and do more experimentation. I think Doctor Who, as a space fantasy (Verity Lambert's words), is a flexible franchise where experimentation can occur. I was more intrigued by the adventures hinted at in the beginning of this episode, than the actual adventure in the episode itself.
The robots in the Classic Doctor Who were largely let down by a budget-tight BBC. Many drawings were marked with the words "omit" written on them because of the budget. If they had the budget of today, some of them might have been less rubbish. The robot in the current story failed because there were hints that this thing might have a fascinating story of its own to tell, but the writers choose not to tell it, resulting in a villian that was more MacGuffin.
How would I have written the episode? I would have it Doctor focused, with Clara and Danny as the companions on an adventure. The Doctor learns about the robot's mission and, with his companions, they confront the agency that sent the robot. During the adventure, the Doctor comes to respect and like Clara's boyfriend.
I would have dropped the balderdash about the Doctor being anti-soldier. Watching the older serials, I think he was more opposed to the mindset that prevented the military from seeing other options. The Doctor made friendships within UNIT, and developed friendships with other soldiers from other time periods.
I think the divide is now between those who want a companion-focused show or a Doctor-focused show. I am for the latter, for the show should be about him. I, also, liked that the people involved in the Classic Doctor Who put in unofficial guidelines about him - that we shouldn't learned much about his background (there should be a mystique about this alien), that he shouldn't "stoop" to our level, and that the companions are the conduit to the Doctor. (As some can tell, I am listening to the commentaries. Some of them are very informative. Others less so - hearing the actress playing Vicki saying that she doesn't remember much of her time on DW got old.)
When the show had serials that went for weeks, the most successful of them had struck the right amount of balance between the Doctor and the companions. (And, it was a plus when the writing and the directing was top-notch.)
The latest episodes are 45 minutes long, which means that there isn't the time to create a balance between the Doctor and the companion. The show has to go one way or the other.
I think the show is in a rut and that it's time for a major change from the top-down. The pattern was set in the 2005 season, when the companion became the focus of the franchise, there was a season-long arc, and the Doctor's existence was threatened. It's time to break the mold and do more experimentation. I think Doctor Who, as a space fantasy (Verity Lambert's words), is a flexible franchise where experimentation can occur. I was more intrigued by the adventures hinted at in the beginning of this episode, than the actual adventure in the episode itself.
The robots in the Classic Doctor Who were largely let down by a budget-tight BBC. Many drawings were marked with the words "omit" written on them because of the budget. If they had the budget of today, some of them might have been less rubbish. The robot in the current story failed because there were hints that this thing might have a fascinating story of its own to tell, but the writers choose not to tell it, resulting in a villian that was more MacGuffin.
How would I have written the episode? I would have it Doctor focused, with Clara and Danny as the companions on an adventure. The Doctor learns about the robot's mission and, with his companions, they confront the agency that sent the robot. During the adventure, the Doctor comes to respect and like Clara's boyfriend.
I would have dropped the balderdash about the Doctor being anti-soldier. Watching the older serials, I think he was more opposed to the mindset that prevented the military from seeing other options. The Doctor made friendships within UNIT, and developed friendships with other soldiers from other time periods.
Indeed, it took me a bit to understand the second meaning of the Doctor's remark, when he says (in reference to what he assumes is Clara's boyfriend) "possibly reminded me of a certain dashing young time traveller". I immediately assumed he meant Adrian (with the dashing young time traveller being the Doctor's incarnation) and couldn't understand how Clara could interpret it any other way, but then I remembered the previous reference to Orson Pink (though in the episode "Listen", he looked more terrified than dashing) and that Clara must be assuming the Doctor was referring to Danny's resemblance to Orson.
A thread on a random episode is probably not the ideal place for this conversation, and I might not be saying anything that hasn't already been said in the actual discussions on the topic, but ...
I've got to admit, I'm a lot more cynical about diversity in Doctor Who than this. This might come up as pedantic, pernickety, and possibly tin-foil-hat-wearing, but .. as *diverse* as Doctor Who casting has been, I'm not sure it's been inclusive, and it most certainly hasn't been representative.
It doesn't have to be representative, of course - a small sample taken from a large population at random rarely is, after all (which is why you'll find both the highest and lowest incedences of diseases in small administrative units). But be it random chance or something else, we haven't been seeing overly much of the by far largest ethnic minority in Britain: Asians. There are more than twice as many people of Asian (primarily Indian and Pakistani) extraction in the UK than there are black people, and yet there's been .. Rani and her family on SJA, and that's pretty much it.
This has some uncomfortable implications for me. The BBC has been quite interested in the US market for some time, and Doctor Who is a pretty big export. And the one ethnic minority that gets fair representation on Doctor Who happens to be the one that the UK and the US have in common, while the ethnic minority the US hardly has is petty much left at the wayside? Hm.
When an advertisment in the US has a diverse cast, my assumption is not that the company behind it is dedicated to social justice ... my assumption is that the company behind it is mindful of good marketing. I'm really not sure this doesn't apply here, too.
I've got to admit, I'm a lot more cynical about diversity in Doctor Who than this. This might come up as pedantic, pernickety, and possibly tin-foil-hat-wearing, but .. as *diverse* as Doctor Who casting has been, I'm not sure it's been inclusive, and it most certainly hasn't been representative.
It doesn't have to be representative, of course - a small sample taken from a large population at random rarely is, after all (which is why you'll find both the highest and lowest incedences of diseases in small administrative units). But be it random chance or something else, we haven't been seeing overly much of the by far largest ethnic minority in Britain: Asians. There are more than twice as many people of Asian (primarily Indian and Pakistani) extraction in the UK than there are black people, and yet there's been .. Rani and her family on SJA, and that's pretty much it.
This has some uncomfortable implications for me. The BBC has been quite interested in the US market for some time, and Doctor Who is a pretty big export. And the one ethnic minority that gets fair representation on Doctor Who happens to be the one that the UK and the US have in common, while the ethnic minority the US hardly has is petty much left at the wayside? Hm.
When an advertisment in the US has a diverse cast, my assumption is not that the company behind it is dedicated to social justice ... my assumption is that the company behind it is mindful of good marketing. I'm really not sure this doesn't apply here, too.
We've certainly seen plenty of occasions in NuWho when the Doctor was nasty toward the military. The officer all the way back in The Sontaran Stratagem. And of course how much he seemed to enjoy tearing down "Colonel Run-away" in AGMGTW.
I think my favorite bit was with Clara and the Doctor at the window. "She was your bezzy mate was she? And you went on holidays together, and you got kidnapped by boggins from space, and them you all formed a band and met Buddy Holly!"
A wonderful little takedown of Elevens annoying habit of going on about how he was best mates with some historical figure.
I think my favorite bit was with Clara and the Doctor at the window. "She was your bezzy mate was she? And you went on holidays together, and you got kidnapped by boggins from space, and them you all formed a band and met Buddy Holly!"
A wonderful little takedown of Elevens annoying habit of going on about how he was best mates with some historical figure.
Surely here you are the one showing hyper-sensitivity to race? The show was basically colour blind, Danny was a soldier, Danny is boning Clara, Doctor doesn't like Danny - race should not be discussed in this context. Introducing race as an issue where itr shouldn't be one fuels racism, giving those with a desire to think so (we have a lot of those in the UK) the excuse to claim that POCs get "special treatment".
I see Danny as a nice bloke, clearly besotted with Clara who the Doctor will come to like and respect (heck maybe too late, I'm thinking maybe that heartbroken, pregnant Clara leaves the Tardis), and his colour is an aspect of him that is as inconsequential as Clara's fringe in the context of the show.
^ I did say it was unintentional. A lot of people on tumblr and reddit were stating the same thing. I was trying to articulate a reason for why they may have thought that way. You can't effect how someone interprets a scene, show or movie. But you can create a logical explanation for those feelings said materials invoke.
Chilli, definitely agree about Asians, both those from the Far East and from the Sub-Continent. Most of the time, when people speak of Diversity, they are only speaking of Blacks, and this leaves Hispanics and Asians out of the conversation, because so much focus is put upon accusing or defending the inclusion of Blacks specifically.
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