Ah I see, presumably it’s just talking about pricing then.
Feelings Halfway Through The Series
- Thread starter StCoop
- Start date
Ah I see, presumably it’s just talking about pricing then.
Given that customers are trending towards streaming and downloads over physical media, judging any show or movie purely by Blu-Ray sales is just being nitpicky. CD sales are a bit down too, the show must be failing.
I think it’s a way of looking at fandom, which does tend towards physical media for the collection. The packaging becoming less ornate for instance...my series one box is the square Tardis fold out one, series 2 was the one with the lenticular hologram...but later sets get less extravagant. Series 7a is basically a cardboard box. A nice cardboard box, but a cardboard box.
Is there a song and dance over a new designed box set? Or are we still at cardboard? That sort of thing. Because a fan can’t put digital on their shelf to look at you see.
Are people buying streaming, or waiting for it to hit Netflix? It’s a bit pointless in UK because for the next x months it’s on iPlayer. So physical sales are a way to look at the fan situation really.
One thing about this new season is they have the opening title sequence right at the start, rather than coming after a short teaser that gets the story going. That harkens back to the classic era, I think, though I'm not sure which format I prefer. I miss the pre-titles sting too.
IMO, you're trying too hard to prove your point. There really aren't very many fancy packages for DVDs and Blu-rays anymore. Just look at Star Trek, when the various shows were first released in DVD box sets from 2002-2006 they had fancy boxes (including plastic cases for TOS and TAS). Yet, the Blu-ray re-issues in more recent years, as well as Disco's recent release were in ordinary packages.
I think it's a good move to scale the storylines and central character back (and retire Murray Gold after many, many years of his bombast), but they should be less laboured and forced with their messages (ie. "Rosa"), and have a bit more bite with their episodes (which should stand more on their own, if there's only a bare bones story arc).
You could say a lot about Moffat in Capaldi's seasons, where his overall formula was getting tired, convoluted, and self-indulgent (with a couple or so of exceptionally bad, BAAAAD episodes and S8/S9 final episodes that kinda derailed themselves).
But even Season 8 had episodes like "Flatline", "Into The Dalek", and "Mummy On The Orient Express" that were overall more exciting than anything in Season 11 (that under Chris Chibnal is just completely competently level and watchable like his "Dinosaurs On A Space Ship" story).
You could say a lot about Moffat in Capaldi's seasons, where his overall formula was getting tired, convoluted, and self-indulgent (with a couple or so of exceptionally bad, BAAAAD episodes and S8/S9 final episodes that kinda derailed themselves).
But even Season 8 had episodes like "Flatline", "Into The Dalek", and "Mummy On The Orient Express" that were overall more exciting than anything in Season 11 (that under Chris Chibnal is just completely competently level and watchable like his "Dinosaurs On A Space Ship" story).
Not my point, someone else’s, just ruminating.
And that just supports the theory...you make a fancy package and sell at a premium when you think the fans will splash the cash. They don’t, and next time it’s forty percent recycled toilet rolls and sandpaper slipcase.
I’m with you, but into the Dalek was terrible. Just saying. I mean there’s no paving stone blojobs and the moon wasn’t an egg...but man. That was the first real fail for my tastes under Moffat.
I've read rumors that Jodie and the show runner are leaving after season 2 for her. No clue if that's true, but I can say that I really haven't enjoyed this season as much as others. It's not that she's doing a bad job, but it's so forced. I don't believe she is the best person to play this role, and I don't believe this was anything more than a politically correct move to let certain types of people get offended when other people call out the political correctness.
But if you replace Whitaker with a male actor, I don't think the season quality goes up at all. The stories are a bit preachy and while the entire season hasn't been a bust, it feels more like I watch the show because of loyalty to past seasons than actually looking forward to this season.
Of course, if Jodie does leave, I believe the BBC will likely stubbornly check off another box rather than admit they made a mistake, all while getting offended that people are calling them out about it again.
It's a shame they let political correctness damage a great show. They don't have the right Doctor, and they don't have the right show runner.
But if you replace Whitaker with a male actor, I don't think the season quality goes up at all. The stories are a bit preachy and while the entire season hasn't been a bust, it feels more like I watch the show because of loyalty to past seasons than actually looking forward to this season.
Of course, if Jodie does leave, I believe the BBC will likely stubbornly check off another box rather than admit they made a mistake, all while getting offended that people are calling them out about it again.
It's a shame they let political correctness damage a great show. They don't have the right Doctor, and they don't have the right show runner.
This season has been about as subtle as a brick at times, but that doesn't mean the overriding message is wrong. The trouble with political correctness is that oft times people use that phrase to mean "But I can't discriminate against those people I used to be able to discriminate against, it's not fair." Equality of opportunity isn't something bad, neither is acknowledging that bad things happened in the past to women, and to people of colour. For me the problem is less the ethos than the clunky heavy handed nature of how it's been handled at times. Should we ignore the fact that in the 50s a black person couldn't sit next to a white person on the bus? Should we ignore the fact that the British carved India in half and this led to incredible bloodshed?
As for Jodie, if I'm honest I'm still not convinced. I think she's a good actress, but I wish she had more screen presence. I'm cutting her some slack because of the material, and frankly she has looked better in non-Chibnall scripts, and let's face it I didn't like Tennant or Capldi until their 2nd season so...
I'm enjoying the show and the chemistry between the Tardis team, but I can't deny that, for me personally, it's missing something, some spark. Like Dr Frankenstein Chibnall has assembled all the right pieces but lightning still needs to strike to give life to the creature.
As for Jodie, if I'm honest I'm still not convinced. I think she's a good actress, but I wish she had more screen presence. I'm cutting her some slack because of the material, and frankly she has looked better in non-Chibnall scripts, and let's face it I didn't like Tennant or Capldi until their 2nd season so...
I'm enjoying the show and the chemistry between the Tardis team, but I can't deny that, for me personally, it's missing something, some spark. Like Dr Frankenstein Chibnall has assembled all the right pieces but lightning still needs to strike to give life to the creature.
I don't think that's it at all. I think PC is about regulating language and thought processes, and it's about a group of opinionated people trying to force their thoughts on others. It goes against a lot of things, and I find it to be just as discriminatory and hateful as those that they think they are combating.
One can be pro-woman without wanting a woman to play The Doctor, or another part that was created for and by a male actor. One can be non-discriminatory and NOT hate white males.
I agree with you 100000 percent. But equality of opportunity is not the same as forced quotas and checking the box. Doctor Who is not the only franchise guilty of it.
You know what franchise understands the difference? Star Trek.
They didn't recast Spock with a black actor. They created Tuvok. They didn't make Kirk black or female. They created Sisko and Janeway.
I wish they had written Janeway better, but they went about it the right way.
What they did here was affirmative action/quota. If they wanted a woman time lord, go for it--but create someone new. Don't change an existing character, because that lacks the confidence that a woman can lead without some sort of PC charity.
Of course not, as it is historically significant. MLK's work, and Rosa Parks was a part of that, was tremendous and is a perfect example of effecting lasting change the right way.
I'm not sure how that story fits with Doctor Who, but that episode was one of the better ones this season--at least for me.
Yeah--I feel she's a good actress, but she hasn't sold me as The Doctor. I feel like she's an actress at times reading a Tennant script, but I don't feel she has a fraction of the presence as the 2005-on Doctors that I've enjoyed. I don't know if it's her or the writing. I have a similar attitude toward Henry Cavill as Superman. He sure LOOKS the part, but all of his movies have been terrible. Is that him or the stories?
I'll agree with that too. The companions are not bad. Yet they still also kind of lack the oomph of the recent companions. I don't feel the Rose/Martha/Amy/Clara vibe.
"I'm not sure why that story fits Doctor Who" is perhaps the saddest sentence I've ever read and contextualizes a lot of your comments.
Doctor Who to me is a show about aliens and time travel and crazy timey wimey adventures. It's not about historical real world events for the most part. I'm sorry if that gets you up on your soap box, but so be it. The fact that it does contextualizes a lot of YOUR comments.
Then you must hate what the series was originally intended to be.
Thing is, though I see your point, the show has not been that for some time. Last pure historical was about 82, was a two parter, and the last one before that was about 68....The Highlanders, I think. That’s quite a way back. The edutainment aspect to who is still there, but it’s been down in the mix for some time. Even now, there are no pure historicals.
To be fair, there is a logical thing here...Who rarely touches American History, (though it’s tinkeed with the settings lot more of late) and rarely touches the big things in history in general...and no pure historicals in some time, as the Rosa episode almost, but not quite, is. It also almost never touches what might be termed ‘modern’ history. Full on Second World War stuff doesn’t show up till Fenric, and I don’t think we see the Nazis till NuWho and let’s kill hitler. (Neo Nazis turn up in silver nemesis though.)
It’s always through allegory, or its distant past with its Aesop leanings.
The other thing...coming back to the American History aspect a little...is that Rosa and MLK is taught in schools as standard here in the UK, but it’s not *our* history, and who is still a British show. (Qualifier..I understand and acknowledge it’s place in world history, but every place on earth has its own history, and the history of other nations slots in in very different ways, so by our, I mean local essentially. I don’t downplay the events importance, nor how important it is as simply a way to show how bad things are, or how good people that stand up to them can be.) Demons works in a way that Rosa can’t....Demons ties to the modern companion, and to modern Britain.
So I can see how Rosa May not feel like the best fit for who, whilst personally not having much feeling myself in that manner, and without considering it in any way ‘lesser’ for that. (As it seemed either other poster.)
Who has tackled all sorts...South African apartheid, drug addiction, power structures, eastern philosophy, western, the EEC and through extension the EU, all sorts...for decades. But SF and Who have the power to use Allegory as a powerful tool, and rarely does it deal with the actual politics of the historical periods it uses as settings...Ghost Light for instance dabbles around a pot pourri of Victoriana, with its crown saxe coburgs and it’s naturalists, colonialists, and science and religion stuff...but it’s not ever directly dealing with actual events. Nor does it make much of a judgement, it asks you consider them, and talks about them again through allegory. And it’s a potent cocktail.
That’s what who does. It very very rarely just sits there so you can see some history happen...it’s not done that in a very very long time indeed. Part of the reason is that, particularly with modern history, it has always been wary of trivialising very important things, often in living memory, by using them as the backdrop for entertainment that is in the shows DNA. It’s why Rory punches Hitler and sticks him in a closet. Who deals with Hitler through its Helen A’s and it’s Davroses, when it’s actual Hitler, he’s a punchline. Because it’s almost someone else’s job to deal with that. And it skated on thin ice there...we all loved it in some ways, but there’s also a sense of ‘why did we just use the greatest evil (possibly, there are contenders after all for that title.) as a joke’ and some people were outright upset we didn’t see the Doctor deal with athat evil. (Something Rosa sort of addresses....we can’t see the Doctor deal with actual real world evils, because the Doctor is a fiction, it breaks the suspension of disbelief, and that’s hidden in the unpleasant idea that bad things are fixed points in time because that’s how we get to where we are today. It gets very mixed. Turning real history into alt history could be dangerous game depending how it’s handled. We were all worried how they would handle it. But it outright meant the one person who always saves the day, the hero of the show, of actually being able to save the day in a way they would have done on any fictional world. Tough sell. It kinda works.)
I watched people criticise Downfall, and say it shouldn’t be made, out of ideological belief that it somehow humanised Hitler. I had to point out the danger in that. Hitler isn’t a fantasy a monster, he was human. That’s where the real monsters come from. Believing they don’t is a fools errand, and blinds you to the possibility that could happen again. You can’t make real life too much a part of the fiction, and still have your hero save the day. It’s a very very fiddly game to play, particularly in a fiction me at at least in part for a young audience.
Shit, really! I'm shocked, shocked I tell you? How could this have flown under the radar? This feels like something that should be being discussed in three separate threads simultaneously.\Oh, yeah...
"Admit they made a mistake"? Whatever else you might think of this season's quality, the episodes are bringing in the best ratings the show has had in years. I don't think an episode this season has dipped below five million viewers, and in Britain anything with over five million viewers is considered a smash hit. If this is the result of a mistake, then may all our mistakes be so fortuitous.
That is apples and oranges. Those shows were not remakes or continuations of TOS, they were new shows, meant to have new characters. That's why they didn't bring back Kirk or Spock played by actors of different gender or skin colour.
Besides, over the course of fifty years we've had Doctor old and young. There was a Doctor who spoke with a Northern accent, and two who spoke with Scottish accents. What the hell is so terribly wrong about the Doctor becoming a woman?
Ahh, yes, the classic reuse the same phrase technique. I am a'wounded. However shall I recover? I also don't recall getting a soap box. I do recall bemoaning how someone could imagine a character who fights injustice throughout time and space couldn't have anything to do with... fighting injustice in the relative past. As well, you undo your own argument with the "... for the most part." This is what the show was created for and has from time to time tried to include. Why "Vincent and the Doctor?" Why deal with depression? This is not some bold new direction, it's actually taking the writ of the show and dealing with it with the freedom to know that you can use these stories from the past as metaphor for problems we're facing today. (Racism/discrimination, religious bigotry and border division, believing women.) These are the same things the show has always dealt with, but they're being more baldfaced about it. Not wrapping it up in bubble wrap and painting it blue or green. But if you can't see how these stories fit into Doctor Who, I don't think you really understand the show.
You bring up some good points, but I'll refer to my paragraph above. Just because they feel empowered to use more modern history to tell stories doesn't mean somehow these haven't been the story of the show before. We've talked before in the Demons and Rosa threads about allegory doesn't always cut it. It's lazy and safe. Recall that when the series was created that they were proscribed from using anything with 300 years of the show. In 55 years, I'd like to think we can evolve the formula and use real history - and history that's not dusty and settled. And who largely didn't touch American history because it fell outside the parameters of the historical episodes and the expense. As an international franchise with a large American following it only stands to reason using a bit of American history would be good. Also, American history is largely problematic so it comes with the territory. ;-)
I wonder what the 'theme' or the flavour will be from this series. I can't say I liked Capaldi at first and that was with me wanting to like him. I felt as he was an older Doctor it was my duty not to be ageist. Like it is my duty not to be sexist about Jodie. However, he rambled and bobbed all over the place! Yet there was a powerful thread running through it. Clara also drove me potty but she was part of this thread and obviously Missy too.
We are over half-way through now and this series is so bloody PC, if we're all honest. It's like taking a dose of salts. Can't they just get over themselves and tell a story that isn't some historical lesson? Gee I don't know, leave planet Earth once and a while??
Sorry you feel this way, but Rosa and the Demons of Punjab are, for me, great fucking TV. And pretty brave for Doctor Who.
And I'm still confused why doing a show about the terrible nature of bigotry is so wrong. Given the state of the world, and the use of bigotry by world leaders, it feels pretty timely to talk about.
But, seriously, what's so terrible about being "so bloody PC"? What does PC mean to you?
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