Need a Webster Doctor.
Spoilers The Star Beast grade and discussion thread
- Thread starter The Nth Doctor
- Start date
Thoroughly enjoyable. Yes, the Meep twist was easy to see coming, but still fun, not least because if anyone can go from saccharine to psychotic in the blink of an eye it's Miriam Margoyles. Yes, the plot was thin and pretty standard, but you can understand and accept that when the main focus is The Doctor and Donna back together, and that aspect delivered in spades. Tennant and Tate haven't lost a thing.
I didn't have any issues with Rose and her story, but I could easily have missed something, not least because I had an eye on the friend I was watching the episode with and his exuberant reactions; Tennant's his favourite Doctor. A solo rewatch may well be in order. Been a while since I've even considered that with Who. If it was clumsy, it was at least clumsy with good intentions, and anything that flies in the faces of the "go woke, go broke" brigade is a-ok by me.
Gotten off to a flying start, eager to see how things build, especially when you-know-who is unleashed.
I didn't have any issues with Rose and her story, but I could easily have missed something, not least because I had an eye on the friend I was watching the episode with and his exuberant reactions; Tennant's his favourite Doctor. A solo rewatch may well be in order. Been a while since I've even considered that with Who. If it was clumsy, it was at least clumsy with good intentions, and anything that flies in the faces of the "go woke, go broke" brigade is a-ok by me.
Gotten off to a flying start, eager to see how things build, especially when you-know-who is unleashed.
Sadly not surprised by the abuse Ruth Madeley has been getting for being cast in a role that "should" have been played by an able-bodied actor* but there's been one moment of dark humour resulting from it.
Because these pea-brained idiots can't comprehend the fact that using a wheelchair does not automatically mean you're paralysed from the waist down, they've convinced themselves that's she's not really disabled at all, since at one point in the episode she crosses her legs. It's all just a big conspiracy to force their "woke garbage" on us, you see.
*And I have to say while I found the whole Davros change bit ridiculous at first, I can certainly see the other point of view more clearly now.
Because these pea-brained idiots can't comprehend the fact that using a wheelchair does not automatically mean you're paralysed from the waist down, they've convinced themselves that's she's not really disabled at all, since at one point in the episode she crosses her legs. It's all just a big conspiracy to force their "woke garbage" on us, you see.
*And I have to say while I found the whole Davros change bit ridiculous at first, I can certainly see the other point of view more clearly now.
can’t fix stupid and sadly can’t feed it to a Dallek supreme’s pet slyther.
People like that don’t realize how little it would for them to wind up in a wheelchair.
Or long before him, Peter Davison! Must be something else as the reason and I'm pretty sure it's not the actor's age... depends on whom you ask, even those who can't handle an older person as the Doctor (or potentially any other Time Lord).
From the Big Finish audio adaptation of the Doctor Who Weekly comic narrative, here is the "Meep" song along with a transcript of the lyrics. It's a shame this was not somehow incorporated into the episode, even if it was just played during the closing credits.
Oh we dance and we play with joy we gush,
As our dreadful song turns your brain to mush,
Join the fun and you’ll see, soon you’ll agree you are Beep's friend after all!
Ask your neighbour round for a bite and a drink,
Then nibble off his face ‘til he’s raw and pink,
Enjoy his surprise as your suck out his eyes, you are Beep's friend; smash them all!
Put your dog in a blender and close the lid,
Cut your hamster to pieces to feed your kid,
Slice the fur from your cat, deep-fry him in some fat, you are Beep's friend; kill them all!
Rend and Maul! Rend and Maul!
Kill them all! Kill them all!
Killllll Themmm Alllllll!
La la la la la la la la la,
La la la la la la la la la la la,
La la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la laaaaaaaaa
Let the streets run red spread our message of pain,
When they beg for their lives use the pliers again,
No need to ask why, do it for the Most High, you are Beep's friend; Conquer Alllllll!
Oh we dance and we play with joy we gush,
As our dreadful song turns your brain to mush,
Join the fun and you’ll see, soon you’ll agree you are Beep's friend after all!
Ask your neighbour round for a bite and a drink,
Then nibble off his face ‘til he’s raw and pink,
Enjoy his surprise as your suck out his eyes, you are Beep's friend; smash them all!
Put your dog in a blender and close the lid,
Cut your hamster to pieces to feed your kid,
Slice the fur from your cat, deep-fry him in some fat, you are Beep's friend; kill them all!
Rend and Maul! Rend and Maul!
Kill them all! Kill them all!
Killllll Themmm Alllllll!
La la la la la la la la la,
La la la la la la la la la la la,
La la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la laaaaaaaaa
Let the streets run red spread our message of pain,
When they beg for their lives use the pliers again,
No need to ask why, do it for the Most High, you are Beep's friend; Conquer Alllllll!
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7.6 million in the official ratings, an over 50% increase on the live number.
Third for the week after 'Strictly Come Dancing' and 'I'm A Celebrity...' and two million higher than the next drama in the charts.
Third for the week after 'Strictly Come Dancing' and 'I'm A Celebrity...' and two million higher than the next drama in the charts.
As far as I can tell that now makes it the most watched episode of Who since The Tsuranga Conundrum! It will get even higher with the +4 weeks but probably not mammothly higher, might just nudge 8 million, but who knows!
Seems like there were a few million people waiting to watch Dr Who again!
Seems like there were a few million people waiting to watch Dr Who again!
More fool them for having stopped
Odd they didn't use the Tom Baker BF adaptation for this.
I don't think that is their shtick. Cloister Room has done several slideshow adaptations already and they all follow this format, cropped and zoomed frame captures of the comics with musical accompaniment but no voice-overs. Simply "lifting" the audio from the Big Finish version would deviate from that style.
I checked with Wikipedia and IMDB re 'Head of the Class' and the oldest cast member playing a teenager was 27 when the show first aired.
I'd be really curious to see the Disney+ numbers on top of that.
No doubt why they brought back the tried and tested RTD, and sweetened the deal with Tennent, so the big wigs at the top will be very happy with this increase, and now with these few million coming back to Who, they can make money from the real stuff, Who merch, which was over the last 5 years was under the god awful B&M store, who stuck the said merch away in a dusty corner of their shops , and i quite l literally mean dusty as at my local one, they sat unsold for so long the had a layer of dust on them. Lol
Do Disney release numbers? I know a lot of streamers don't.
FXGuide has posted an article on the VFX work in "The Star Beast," which includes a video breakdown of several shots. Some points of interest; they had both a costume/puppet Meep and a CG Meep. The "good Meep" scenes were primarily based on the costume, but they transferred animation from the CG Meep to the footage to create a little more flexibility in the Meep's facial expression. Once the Meep revealed the Meep's true intentions, the "evil Meep" was exclusively the CG-animated character.
There's also some information and breakout footage on the energy-tendril effect of the Psychedelic Sun possession, the set extension of the warehouse where the Meep's ship landed (since the ship itself was only built partially around the landing-legs on the set), the lava-cracks forming around London (which I was surprised to see were full CG for the very wide shots, and not painted over a real helicopter shot of the city at night, and also, in that the shots of the cracks forming in Donna's neighborhood, the police car and fleeing people were shot separately on a bluescreen stage and weren't in the footage of the street). Also, some nice looks at the layers of effects in the regeneration energy shots, that's something that generally seems to have given the show a lot of trouble in terms of getting it to look consistently good (and only about a third of that can be laid at the feet of actors not injuring themselves miming that their wrists and neck have turned into firehoses at full blast).
There's also some information and breakout footage on the energy-tendril effect of the Psychedelic Sun possession, the set extension of the warehouse where the Meep's ship landed (since the ship itself was only built partially around the landing-legs on the set), the lava-cracks forming around London (which I was surprised to see were full CG for the very wide shots, and not painted over a real helicopter shot of the city at night, and also, in that the shots of the cracks forming in Donna's neighborhood, the police car and fleeing people were shot separately on a bluescreen stage and weren't in the footage of the street). Also, some nice looks at the layers of effects in the regeneration energy shots, that's something that generally seems to have given the show a lot of trouble in terms of getting it to look consistently good (and only about a third of that can be laid at the feet of actors not injuring themselves miming that their wrists and neck have turned into firehoses at full blast).
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Been looking forward to Jessie Gender's take on the episode.
