Spoilers Orphan 55 grade and discussion thread
- Thread starter The Nth Doctor
- Start date
24 years at the Singing Towers with River sounds nice, although it had a built-in downer.
That was... not good. Where to start with this?
* The actress they had as the little old lady was absolutely dire;
* if you are doing an episode where your characters are suppose to be struggling for oxygen, don't have a little fire going in the background;
* That heavy handed exposition at the end - yikes!
That end bit also seems to misunderstand how time-travel works in Doctor Who - the Doctor does not travel to possible time-lines, she travels to the future as it is at that point. The future can be changed if they change it based on their knowledge as time-travellers but unless Graham, Yaz and thingy are the ones who do it - that is what is happening.
* The actress they had as the little old lady was absolutely dire;
* if you are doing an episode where your characters are suppose to be struggling for oxygen, don't have a little fire going in the background;
* That heavy handed exposition at the end - yikes!
That end bit also seems to misunderstand how time-travel works in Doctor Who - the Doctor does not travel to possible time-lines, she travels to the future as it is at that point. The future can be changed if they change it based on their knowledge as time-travellers but unless Graham, Yaz and thingy are the ones who do it - that is what is happening.
I don't think the fail reader's will like this episode.
Is that furry person in the orange suit in tonight's Dr Who meant to be a relative of Barf from Spaceballs?
TBH the episode lost me as soon as that makeup job appeared. It's season 24ness is just antithecal to the visuals of the rest of it, which actually are really good. And also plotwise this is very much just "we're lurching from disaster to disaster at fast pace for no actual logical story reason" - and now repeating a Mysterious Planet cliffhanger too. Good monsters though, even if the name Drex implied "dregs of humanity" from the get-go. oh, they're the Haemovores with the serial numbers filed off, but the same backstory (mutated survivors of polluted future).
Oh, a lecture to the camera, great. This speech is really disjointed, as well as being crap, and what the fuck was that for an ending?
Can't believe this is written by the same guy who did my favourite episode last season - was he given a specific brief to do one that's worse than Chibbers's own, after last season everybody else's episodes were better than the showrunner's?
At east next week's Tesla historical should be fun.
TBH the episode lost me as soon as that makeup job appeared. It's season 24ness is just antithecal to the visuals of the rest of it, which actually are really good. And also plotwise this is very much just "we're lurching from disaster to disaster at fast pace for no actual logical story reason" - and now repeating a Mysterious Planet cliffhanger too. Good monsters though, even if the name Drex implied "dregs of humanity" from the get-go. oh, they're the Haemovores with the serial numbers filed off, but the same backstory (mutated survivors of polluted future).
Oh, a lecture to the camera, great. This speech is really disjointed, as well as being crap, and what the fuck was that for an ending?
Can't believe this is written by the same guy who did my favourite episode last season - was he given a specific brief to do one that's worse than Chibbers's own, after last season everybody else's episodes were better than the showrunner's?
At east next week's Tesla historical should be fun.
I don't think anybody will...
Let’s not forget actual trees everywhere. And previous Who’s don’t deal in ‘one potential timeline’ (see Pyramids of Mars.)
It was Paradise Towers for the new millennia.
Also clumsy and ham fisted, and enough holes to be lace (of course though, whole thing could be Ryan’s hallucination from the Deus Ex Vending Machina) and an Aliens rip off.
And again, unresolved. Unresolved.
This Doctor never bloody does anything.
Only two non-Tardis survivors. I can hear the criticisms of the eighties echoing down the ages.
I have to admit, the word Ravolox popped into my head too.
It was just fucking awful, with none of the excuses eighties who had.
I really enjoyed this one, until it turned into a thin climate change parable.
What I did love about this episode how the guest characters were groups of family units, all working out their own different personal issues. The guest actors were also great from Laura Fraser to Lewin Lloyd (Roger from His Dark Materials). I also loved how the episode reminded me of Farscape, between the colorful weirdness of the make-up fashion of the resort and the Dreg looking like that alien that stalked Crichton in "Thanks for Sharing" (also a bit reminiscent of the Scarren).
However, I won't be surprised if most people will hate this episode simply because of the third act reveal.
What I did love about this episode how the guest characters were groups of family units, all working out their own different personal issues. The guest actors were also great from Laura Fraser to Lewin Lloyd (Roger from His Dark Materials). I also loved how the episode reminded me of Farscape, between the colorful weirdness of the make-up fashion of the resort and the Dreg looking like that alien that stalked Crichton in "Thanks for Sharing" (also a bit reminiscent of the Scarren).
However, I won't be surprised if most people will hate this episode simply because of the third act reveal.
CoughRavaloxCough. Yes, slap it on with a trowel for the global warming bit (right down to the kid not listened to by adults - hello Greta!) but y'know some anvils need dropping. Not sure Who's audience need convincing though.
The main issue for me here was the sound mix - half the dialogue was inaudible against the backing tracks, which when it's breathless urgent stuff is a problem.
Why was Kate (Kane? Again, inaudible)'s "death" so horrifying to Yaz if she showed up at the end unscathed? Dragged under a pile of Dregs? Yaz's expression implied torn limb from limb...
And Ryan really should have been selling the "yeah, my Dad was a twat who was never around, then recently he nearly died in a supernova to save me" bit to Belle.
Are they going anywhere with him and Yaz? I figured after Spyfall they were setting them up, what with Yaz jealous of her sister wanting to date him and him promising he wouldn't let her die after the glowy dudes took her, but here she's more into ribbing him over his obvious attempts to get Belle's attention, which is back to the brother/sister dynamic of last series.
Good in parts, mainly the Drex, which were an impressive, if unoriginal-looking baddie. Some decent chase sequences.
But dear me, the Spaceballs-looking character and the green hair on Jay from the Inbetweeners and his son looked awful. I wondered if they were going for a Thor: Ragnarok look but, if so, they failed. They just looked stupid.
I also thought that the “possible future” bit was at odds with how time has usually been depicted in DW.
I agreed with the sentiments of that speech but it was laid on with a trowel. She may as well have stopped, turned to the camera and said “and now for the morality lesson.”
But dear me, the Spaceballs-looking character and the green hair on Jay from the Inbetweeners and his son looked awful. I wondered if they were going for a Thor: Ragnarok look but, if so, they failed. They just looked stupid.
I also thought that the “possible future” bit was at odds with how time has usually been depicted in DW.
I agreed with the sentiments of that speech but it was laid on with a trowel. She may as well have stopped, turned to the camera and said “and now for the morality lesson.”
Or ‘we can save grace’
We are currently re-experiencing the late eighties. Except I liked the late eighties more than this warmed over tripe. I wall don’t think they are going to suddenly pull a season 26 on us before we are back in another wilderness years.
Agreed, watched her opposite in Paddy Considine in Journeyman last year and she was superb. But for whatever reason, I just don’t find her at all compelling as The Doctor. When she goes, it’ll be the first one of the modern series Doctors I won’t be sad to see go; bar a major turnaround, anyway.
I forgot to mention before that I loved this exchange:
"You can't build an ionic membrane from scratch."
"If I had crayons and half a can of spam, I could build you from scratch. Now get out of my way!"
I also loved how The Thirteenth Doctor tried to tell Belle she had three-eighths of a plan, but kept walking it back, a la The Eleventh Doctor.
"You can't build an ionic membrane from scratch."
"If I had crayons and half a can of spam, I could build you from scratch. Now get out of my way!"
I also loved how The Thirteenth Doctor tried to tell Belle she had three-eighths of a plan, but kept walking it back, a la The Eleventh Doctor.
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Third act reveal? It lost me when Mrs Barf turned up.
DW has always done environmentalist political shows, but they used to actually *think* about how to do it right, rather than just chuck in a couple of randomly connected soundbites to justify a frantic lack of story.
Aw, I liked her and partially because she looked like Mrs. Barf!
