Why Doctor Who is a MESS

Discussion in 'Doctor Who' started by Shaka Zulu, Jul 8, 2019.

  1. Shaka Zulu

    Shaka Zulu Commodore Commodore

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    Henceforth why I said the YouTuber in question's full of hot air.
     
  2. jaime

    jaime Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Bugrit. Millennium Hand and Shrimp.

    Blunose
     
  3. Steven P Bastien

    Steven P Bastien Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    But, what is your definition of "full of hot air"? There are different possible meanings I think.

    One definition is
    "Talking a lot, especially without saying anything of value or meaning" .

    It's clear he is talking a lot, but he certainly has meaning. What about value? That is a debatable question. I would say that his opinion does have some value because he has a lot of knowledge about Doctor Who, and he forms comments, arguments and conclusions based on observations that are reasonably well-founded. I disagree with a lot of what he says and his overall conclusion because I was able to watch that season and enjoy it. But, I'm glad I watched the video because it gives me better insight as to why so many people don't like this season.

    Are you saying that you feel that his opinion is totally worthless, partially worthless, overblown or something else? If totally worthless, then you are correct to say "full of hot air", but then I have to wonder how you sat through such a long video. When someone is full of hot air, you will know it in 10 minutes and then turn it off.
     
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  4. Shaka Zulu

    Shaka Zulu Commodore Commodore

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    I watched the video from start to finish, and in the end, my comment on it is still the same.
     
  5. Timewalker

    Timewalker Cat-lovin', Star Trekkin' Time Lady Premium Member

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    What happened? (I have nothing to do with Twitter, so I have no idea)

    :rolleyes:

    Oh, please. I defended watching the video in this thread in which the person in the video makes a number of valid points about nuWho vs. Classic Who and how the various Doctors were introduced and how they relate to their companions. He also discusses the merits of the writing, and correctly points out that nuWho's writing isn't very good.

    This is starting to feel like years ago when I dared to criticize the nuTrek movies, or Enterprise or DiscoTrek. Immediately it became a case of "You don't like the same show I like, so you don't know anything/you're just a _______" (fill in the obscene epithet of your choice). Except this time some of you are directing this dismissive and derogatory attitude at a YT video host and me for defending his stance as valid.
     
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  6. Steven P Bastien

    Steven P Bastien Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    OK, thank you. I interpret that to mean that I should interpret "full of hot air" as being defined by your comment
    " just another video blogger out to bitch about current media".

    I think to answer if that is true, one needs to look at his past video posts to see if all or most videos have this same tone. I haven't done that, but I might try later and mention if I see that pattern.
     
  7. worf1965

    worf1965 Lieutenant Red Shirt

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    I have to say that generally I enjoyed the last season, but it did have weak elements to it. Some episodes were not very good. Others were excellent. I agree writing could be improved, there are too many companions and there are too few episodes. But I do like Jodie's Doctor, Graham is a great companion, and I was super happy not to have to endure more Cybermen or the Master. I could also use more of a Dalek break as well, though I thought that episode was done well.

    Bottom line - Jodie was not as bad as the You Tube trolls would lead you to believe , but the show can do better.
     
  8. jaime

    jaime Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Just finished the New Years special...started watching it in a+e on New Years.

    And..sorry. The show really is a mess. It’s like...the opposite of the McGann movie. They were trying to be true to the heart of the show while having change thrust upon them and trying to update it. This thing wriggled like it didn’t know what to Be, apart from maybe a saward tribute act in places. It needs a bit of a rethink. Smallest niggle? The Tardis panels appear to be the wrong shape. Too square, terrible sign. I didn’t notice it in the Ghost Monument.
    It’s a shell, and there’s something left under the mess piled on top of it, but it needs sorting out.
     
  9. Jayson1

    Jayson1 Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    I think most people like Jodie. I think it comes down to how they have toned down the fun and weirdness for mainstream blandness. It's given me TNG season 7 when I want it to be as wacky as Legends of Tommorow, the true spiritual successor right now. Heck they haven't even been the best educational exploring the past not touched on because of white washing in Timeless. Doctor Who should not be the third best time travel show on tv and maybe 4th best because I hear neflix had a good one as well I haven't watched yet. Jason
     
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  10. Timewalker

    Timewalker Cat-lovin', Star Trekkin' Time Lady Premium Member

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    So anyone with an opinion that doesn't match yours is a troll?
     
  11. Jayson1

    Jayson1 Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    I think he was saying some youtubers are trolls and not just anyone who dislikes the season. Youtube defiantly has some for profit trolling. Granted you got some of that on the left as well. It's good time in the world these days to hate things because if you play it right you can make some big bucks. Jason
     
  12. Timewalker

    Timewalker Cat-lovin', Star Trekkin' Time Lady Premium Member

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    If this video is the most hateful thing some people here have seen on YT, they have lived very sheltered lives.
     
  13. jaime

    jaime Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Me me. Me miss! I have!
    ...
    Largely because like the wise green man says, anger leads to hate and hate leads to suffering.

    And I largely don’t use YouTube much tbh. I go, find what I am after, run away again. I do not fall into the rabbit Hole, nor do insearch for offence. The only thing I have watched that offended me was...oh I have forgotten her name. The one who takes large somes of money to complain about video games she hasn’t played, and the picked the wrong target when she went after Rise Kujikawa. That one. I watch the other one instead sometimes, with the woman who often wears yellow tint glasses.

    Edit: sums not somes. Brain wiggly today.
    And it’s Sarkesian I am not a fan of, and occasionally watch Liana K instead.
     
    Last edited: Jul 13, 2019
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  14. Jayson1

    Jayson1 Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    I was speaking of Youtube videos in general more than that specific video. Jason
     
  15. Jayson1

    Jayson1 Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    I have fallen down that rabbit hole a few times. I have started to ignore the ranting. What I have noticed is that many times the rhetoric is insipid to offensive yet most of rabble still seems to cluster around bad or very medicore shows or characters. The truly great and very good stuff tends to less internet toxicity. Not perfect because but the really thick stuff seems to hook onto bad movies like Last Jedi or Ghostbusters. I think that is because if something is good it's harder to substain. Jason
     
  16. Timewalker

    Timewalker Cat-lovin', Star Trekkin' Time Lady Premium Member

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    I've found some really good stuff on YT, such as how-tos for various things I want to know how to do, a complete walkthrough for the computer game I'm adapting to novel form (it was very handy to have the entire script available without having to replay the entire game), there are lots of great documentaries, and years and years of episodes of some of my favorite older TV shows.

    Reviews are a very subjective thing. I am probably going to unsubscribe from one of the channels where the person reviews The Handmaid's Tale, as it's turned into a hatefest against "privileged white women" just because the latest character to be killed off was black. The people doing this ranting have either never read the novel or they've completely missed the point of it and the show.

    So yeah, YT isn't all roses, but fortunately there are enough interesting places where interesting conversation can be had (like on a couple of the Dune channels; I've had some pretty good discussions on those).

    And I haven't changed my mind about the video under discussion here, either. The presenter may be a bit blunt in his assessment, but he's mostly right. And I do not care if it's monetized or not. For me it's the content that matters, not whether or not the person makes any money at it.
     
  17. Jayson1

    Jayson1 Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    For reviews I tend to go to safe bets like collider or screenjukies. Also Kevin Smith but he is to nice to tear into anything. Jason
     
  18. jaime

    jaime Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Sean Young has her own behind the scenes on Dune up on her channel.
     
  19. Qonundrum

    Qonundrum Vice Admiral Admiral

    Gomez... was she bad? Only when the scripts had to do the cringe-inducing comedy act, which just did not work. Given some solid villainous material, Gomez was great. Her final outing Capaldi's finale shows she's a lot more than just a vehicle for Moffat's often cringe-inducing jokes. The identical statement goes for Simm - it's great Moffat won him over because under RTD his Master was laughably bad and if anyone needed proof it's the script quality that matters, Simm proved that fast enough. Simm still got a couple of comedy lines (what with his future incarnation's appearance and he is a villain so why not be crude), but he knocked it out of the park. I dunno, maybe some people liked their comedic versions better than the straight villainy and both Moffat and RTD were trying to get the best of comedy and villainous acting from both.

    Agreed re: Capaldi. He had some great stories along with some bad ones over his three series... But to me he's a step up since Matt Smith's first year (a high point, then came series 6 and it only went downward since for him.)

    Kill the Moon? Nope. Kill the script and put something halfway decent in that story's place? Yup!

    Of all the NuWHO actors that could do the eccentricity, Capaldi did it the best with both that material and while keeping a balance with the spiky grumpy routine. He was still saddled with some poorly conceived stories but he made more of those watchable...

    Regarding "eccentric", it's as if everyone making the show believes that "eccentric" must be only "Attempt to repeat Tom Baker's silliness" (and forcibly, if not poorly, at best). It's not like the show's never had serious incarnations before: Those that did nothing to build the show's legacy in the past such as Hartnell, Pertwee, Davison, Baker (Colin), McCoy (inconsistently but increasingly), and Eccleston were serious and most of them were popular. Whitaker should have been the same from the get-go, serious but maybe a one-off episode to inject some humor - even Hartnell had "The Time Meddler" and he managed to make the newfound comedy work, especially as a one-off - but they wanted to mimic Tennant (with a dash of Smith) instead because that's all "the fans" every pine on about, ironic but true.

    She also needed to be more a consistently authoritative figure as well, which falls in line with what you said about straight, as her best line was in "The Witchfinders" where she started with verbal authority in addressing the antagonist... unfortunately in mid-sentence no less, she turns to "Arnold Rimmer Mode" when she backtracks and has to go find her psychic paper (even though she was already and clearly selling her point effectively.) But the guards letting this complete stranger run to her coat and rummage freely - I'll save the litany of how poorly scripted the episode was, the episode was an inconsistent pandering one-dimensional mess. Apart from saying they almost had the Doctor right, for a brief moment. She was largely consistently well-presented in "It Takes You Away" as well.
     
  20. jaime

    jaime Vice Admiral Admiral

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    I think that lack of seriousness...or to put it differently, gravitas, is definitely hitting a nail on the head. McCoy improves noticeably once they tone down, and eventually eject, the clowning that heralded his arrival (partially as a post regen hangover of deliberately failing to be Bakers Doctor because of the Ranis drugs.) it made him much much more powerful and interesting, he couldn’t dominate physically (he is tiny) but he could through quiet words and occasional loud ones. (I strongly disagree with your statement about them not building the shows legacy...the fingerprints of the seventh and eight incarnation are all over the modern series, and all the better for it.

    But yes...it’s Though they read a description of the Capaldi doctor that included the words ‘doesn’t care’ and tacked hard against it whilst desperately trying to be tenant and smith and heavy dose of Davison at the edges (costume and the sawardian approach of increasingly pointless deaths.) and its just not working. Something that could work for Jodie might be the writers going and familiarising themselves with the Eighth Doctor, because I think that is what they want to hit, even if they haven’t realised, and are currently missing.