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Friends In Your Head | Forums → Posts by BBQ
Every trailer I saw made it look like Dune and the SW Prequels had a baby.
Since it's come out, ever review seems to describe a movie that fits that description.
Unless I start seeing some serious turnaround in response, I can't imagine I'll see it in theaters.
I can't wait to see a good fanedit of Hobbit...
THIS.
My only gripe was that I was hoping James Cameron would follow Micheal Bay, because if anyone on the planet has grounds to say "Sorry, you were talking about making money?" to Bay, it's Cameron. There's also a lot of fun material to mine with him for a verse.
I enjoyed all the ones they did cover. Fun stuff.
Did anyone here ever watch "Beakman's World"?
He slightly pre-dated Bill Nye the Science Guy, and my kids recently re-discovered him on Netflix. He is a comic not a scientist but he clearly got good science advisors in the writing process. His show also coined the term, "Mythbuster," as far as I can tell.
I absolutely did!
I re-watched a few episodes recently and was sort of shocked at just how stereotypically "New Jersey Italian" that character felt.
If academic papers were published in a way that was in plain English, in "laymans" terms, and were freely available without subscription, would you be more inclined towards reading papers from fields you know little-to-nothing about?
There actually used to be a Government agency dedicated to exactly this:
The Office of Technology Assessment
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_ … Assessment
The Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) was an office of the United States Congress from 1972 to 1995. OTA's purpose was to provide Congressional members and committees with objective and authoritative analysis of the complex scientific and technical issues of the late 20th century, i.e. technology assessment...
Congress created the Office of Technology Assessment in 1972 through Public Law 92-484. It was governed by a twelve-member board, comprising six members of Congress from each party — half from the Senate and half from the House of Representatives. During its twenty-four-year life it produced about 750 studies on a wide range of topics, including acid rain, health care, global climate change, and polygraphs.
The goal was to make difficult-to-understand technological concepts easily grasped by members of Congress that might not have a technical background in that particular subject, but were expected to vote on measures that required at least a basic understanding of the subject. It was obviously geared more towards scientific topics, so it obviously didn't cover all areas of academia.
But it was all public research, so it was/is freely available for anyone to read, and it was specifically written in terms that non-technical specialists (such as the many lawyers you find in Congress) could grasp.
It was shut down (de-funded) in 1995 as part of Newt Gingrich's "Contract with America" in large part because of the belief that lobbyists from specific industries could provide Congresspersons with the same information, thus making the Government's objective analysis redundant.
You can still read every study the agency produced here: http://www.princeton.edu/~ota/
There's also been a bit of a push lately to bring the agency back, though it's not looking likely anytime soon. Unfortunately.
I'm excited, but I'm going to try to keep that excitement to a manageable level next year. More than any other movie, this is the film I could overhype in my head to the point of completely ruining it.
I think the key to enjoying the new Star Wars movie is managing expectations via remembering that it's very likely going to be a "typical JJ Abrams film".
Assume it'll be a super-fun popcorn movie, probably with fridge logic issues, and not much else. It'd be shocking if it didn't at least meet that expectation, and if he does step up his game you'll be pleasantly surprised.
Gotta love the internet. They have 20 frames of a new thing, and they already don't trust JJ enough to explain it to us or make it work.
I read a thing the other day where someone went down the line and listed every known material in the EU (As it stood before Disney) that was impervious to lightsabers. List was like 20-30 materials long. And clearly it's not any of those that they are incorporating into canon, or hell, any of the other hundred legitimate sounding reasons fans have come up with in the last few days to explain why it would work.
No, clearly JJ is wrong about his own movie and based on the 20 frames we have of this new thing we know better.
Oh internet.
Wow...take a breath, will ya?
I just thought it looked cooler than what we saw in the trailer.
Geez.
Colbert put forth a reasonable theory on his show last night. He says that the side guards aren't separate beams, but refracted from the main one. The metal protrusions are there to protect the user's hand, and slicing through them would still hit the saber.
I saw it, and am fine with the explanation. This rework of the saber doesn't do anything at all to invalidate that explanation, either. All it does is removes the top-half of the tubing, resulting in (IMHO) a much cooler looking lightsaber.
I have no idea who created this, but someone needs to get this image in front of JJ Abrams -- stat.
Lamer wrote:Kyle Monroe wrote:Finally got around to watching Snowpiecer, and it was pretty damn good.
As long as you don't think too much
I've sat on this for a day and so far the only issues I can think of are, some pretty bad shaky cam in some fight scenes,
, and there is something about the ending that is off to me; but I can't put my finger on it.the girl having clairvoyance
I finally watched this last night, and as for the ending...
However, by adding that hint of hope (and the way it's shot feels like it's supposed to be hopeful) doesn't mesh with the idea that the human race is doomed because there's no logical way for it to start with 2 people...unless there was a religious allegory going on that was totally not conveyed well and also would feel out of place.
They either needed to show more people surviving somehow (maybe have other people climbing out of the train in the background) to say "humans can survive and will come back" -- hopeful ending. Or they should have just killed everyone in the crash and then revealed the life outside the train, showing that we enslaved and destroyed ourselves when we didn't have to -- depressing ending.
Instead they sort of flirted with both.
As for actual "issues" with it...
Why would Wilford want Curtis to take over the train in the first place? Why not the woman that clearly knew everything already and was obviously on board with the way things worked?
I liked that the one guard was super bad ass and killed a whole bunch of the heroes, but did he have to be a Terminator? I mean, really.
Minsu's plan to escape the train didn't seem to make any sense. Why couldn't he just unlock the gate to the outside like he could the others? Why not use the explosives to STOP the train in the engine room itself, instead of just opening a door that would then require you to jump out of a speeding train? If he didn't want to open the engine car door, where did he think they were going to go when he set that thing off in the first place? Also, bullets were able to penetrate the windows of the hot-tub car...why not use the explosives there?
All in all, it was an enjoyable romp with some interesting themes. I certainly see why many called it a "video game movie" and that's both a compliment and exactly right. Despite some of the fridge logic (hah!) issues, I still had a great time watching it and will probably do so again at some point.
Sidenote: I feel like 'Snowpiercer' and 'Dredd' would make an awesome "video game style" double-feature movie night.
Saw it again, this time in IMAX. The theater shook and rattled and it was blisteringly loud -- and I still had absolutely ZERO trouble hearing any of the dialog throughout the entire film.
I have further thoughts, but I'll just quickly note that I held off from watching it online and saw it for the first time on an IMAX screen.
Shit was fantastic -- especially the X-Wings and Falcon.
I'm certainly not one for spoon-feeding, but if you literally need a disclaimer to inform your audience that the equipment isn't broken...that's a shortcoming, not a feature.
That said, I had no issue making out the dialog, so I'm not sure what the hoopla is about.
But what does "The Force Awakens" even mean? Has it been asleep for the last six films?
Actually, when you think about it...it kind of has. I mean, in the prequels there's an entire Jedi Order that uses the force and the force itself is generally understood to exist and be a thing. However, at the end of Revenge, Anakin murders all the younglings and the remaining Jedi Masters are scattered and in hiding.
By the time we get to New Hope, the force itself is referred to as an "ancient religion" and is generally dismissed and forgotten by the majority of people. I mean, in the entire Original Trilogy we only see a handful of people actually use the force -- and by the end of that story arc all but Luke are dead.
In theory, from the viewer's perspective (and excluding expanded universe knowledge) Luke is literally the only known practitioner of the force in the universe at that point.
My guess is that "The Force Awakens" means that for the first time since the end of Revenge, the force begins manifesting in people again for some reason. The reason itself could be the mcguffin, or it could just be the environment, setting the stage for a story to take place within a world more akin to Menace.
Either that, or the boring option, which is some "ancient, evil force" awakens and that's the big bad.
Well...yeah that was bad.
More so it was just bland, filled with the (still) pathetic "romance" of Clara/Danny, and sort of pointless. It reminded me of Super 8, actually, in that the characters in the story really didn't have ANY impact at all on the actual plot. They were there and we followed them during the event, but they really they had nothing to do with it and no effect on it...which is not good storytelling and why it left me (and others, apparently) with the thought "what was the point of the last hour?"
The science stuff continues to just flat out suck. It's just LAZY. I feel like many of these writers let all this bullshit about "good storytelling over continuity" stretch to basically anything. Ironically, they take it so far that it ends up circling back around and drastically hurting the storytelling. *facepalm*
The finale seems interesting based on the teaser, but the fact that Moffat wrote it makes me think it will end up being terrible, because he's terrible a vast majority of the time at this point.
However! This seems like the goodbye of Clara, however they end up handling it. So at least series 9 will likely start with a fresh arc for Capaldi. I knew from the beginning that holding on to Clara meant that we would probably drag down this season for a number of reasons...but Capaldi seems quite adept and a new arc from scratch (which is what I wanted since Smith retired) could be what is needed to refocus...and FFS I hope they figure out that totally nonsensical absurd bullshit science is not an acceptable means to an end.
Also I found the suggestion that you should give someone with mental health issues medication, quite insulting.
Uh, I mean...I don't think they handled the idea that the girl was traumatized all that well, but I'm not sure how the idea of the girl receiving medication for a trauma in of by itself is offensive. Medication for mental illness, both short and long term, is a totally legitimate option if the situation calls for it.
I just realized I have absolutely zero desire to catch-up/watch this season anymore. Not in the like, angry, fuck it sort of way, I just have absolutely no desire, it has fallen off the plate of things I care about.
Wow... this season has actually managed to legitimately kill Doctor Who for me. That's...kinda impressive really.
That's a curious thing. Disinterest outweighs crapfest, I guess?
That said...it's also a shame, because the last 2 episodes (Orient Express & Flatline) have actually felt very much like a more traditional Dr. Who experience, and have been very entertaining. I'm really liking Jamie Mathieson with the pen in his hand and I'm really hoping he gets to put some heavy influence on the show.
Actually, I just looked and I'm really wanting to see more team-ups of Douglas Mackinnon (Director) & Jamie Mathieson (Writer). Mackinnon has directed Listen, Time Heist, and Flatline. Despite the serious plot issues I have with Listen and some minor gripes with Time Heist, they both seemed well put together. Jamie Mathieson wrote Orient & Flatline, what I consider to be the strongest 2 episodes of the season so far. The show creators have a nice pairing with those two...I hope they utilize it.
So far, we're 9 episodes in (that went by FAST) and all in all I'm not super upset. It's been a little rocky, true. The carry over of Clara, thus some of the nonsense from Smith's run, made it a tougher transition than I feel it needed to be. More recently they seem to actually have developed a legitimate arc between the Doctor and his companion without shoving it in our faces as the entire crux of the show. I'm worried because Moffat is penning 2 of the final 3 episodes of this series, and he simply doesn't understand the word "restraint". I'm hoping he sees what's been working and builds on that...rather than his propensity to spend the entire hour trying to prove how fucking clever he can be.*
Right now I'm about evenly split between "enjoyable", "ok but with some frustrating bits", and "ugh, eye roll" for the season on the whole.
*sidenote: The more I think about it, the more I seem to notice that while the Doctor was always clever, since Moffat really took the reigns of the show, more and more it was about the Doctor proving how clever he was to everyone. I get the feeling that might be bleed through from Moffat's writing personality, since we've seen the same sort of thing in his work on other shows as well.
Best episode of the season so far.
I'm super tired so I'm not going to go into detailed reasons why, but I will say that the episode was entertaining and densely packed. I felt like I saw a lot of great material and thought the time had flown by because it was so fun...then realized it was only half-way through the episode. I was on the edge of my seat for the entire 2nd half, too.
Just a super fun episode without the nonsense that's been so frustrating lately.
Oh, also...
Based on the Doctor we've seen so far this season, am I the only one that heard that joke and wondered if there wasn't a small chance that it was actually true? As if mentioning it as a joke was just to help make himself feel like he wasn't lying to Clara, but in a way that she wouldn't know he let everyone but her die (he wants her to think he's a good man).
I mean, we have zero evidence that he actually saved everyone other than his word...
If it were meant to be subtext for abortion, that implies that Peter Harness is a patronizing asshole and strongly anti-choice.
I have no idea about his stance on abortion, but I'd say that a large volume of the writing that has gone into Dr. Who since the start of Smith's run has certainly made me think many of those penning it are patronizing assholes...at least in regards to how they treat the viewers.
I'd love to see his shortened by removing some of the more obviously fake clips, then transfer it to a VHS tape or film, actually physically stress it some, then re-digitize it so that it truly looks like an old film reel. Also, leave it silent.
That said, it's some really great work as is.
Actually let me ask you this. What would have actually changed about this episode, on a thematic or character level, if the science had been good (or at least on the better side of what Doctor Who is known for)? Would it had have ruined it? Would it have made it a less bold choice? Is there anything about this episode that would have suffered by including that extra little bit of scientific thought?
I had thought about diving into this -- the Moon is an egg? Really? Do we even need to get into how dumb that is? - but this note actually steered me in another direction. There's basically no way to make the science "work" without drastically altering the storyline. You'd have to come up with some other reason that the Moon is breaking apart.
So just brainstorming for about 10-15 minutes, this is what I came up with...not just with that episode, but the overarching story of the season:
For "Kill The Moon", instead of a monster growing inside of the moon, it's some sort of mass increasing bomb. You can technobable that away as like "creates a miniture black hole that pulls in matter from another dimension at a higher rate than from this one" or something similar. Whatever, that's not outside the realm of Dr. Who level non-science.
So our heroes head for the Moon for fun but arrive in the future as investigation astronaut squad gets there. They find out the mass of the moon is increasing (a nice "that's not possible! oh wait it is! technobable!" moment for the Doctor). He of course figures out it's a device of some sort and they go to investigate, heading down a crater impact that leads to underground caves. They run into some booby-traps, which takes out some of the astronaut team to let us know the danger. The Doctor says something's up and he/Clara/Courtney(?) go back to the TARDIS while the team keeps searching.
The Doctor is doing his "working things out" thing, when they hear back from the astronauts that they found the device deep underground in a cavern, so the Doctor locks onto their signal and flies the TARDIS in. He looks at the bomb, has some revelation, notes that it's essentially building up energy and will really "go off" soon, shattering the moon apart and destroying Earth with the debris, then he goes to leave. Clara, obviously confused is like "hey, defuse this fucking bomb dude" and he responses with "I can't do everything for you. I assure you that all the knowledge and skill to defuse this bomb is in this cavern without me." Then he bolts, leaving everyone pissed and, you know, afraid they are about to die. We get a countdown clock thing for dramas sake, but in the end they figure out how to defuse it (doesn't matter how, just that they come up with some clever way to do it).
The group heads back to the shuttle, where the Doctor is waiting. Clara does her "I'm super pissed at you" thing, which makes WAY MORE SENSE since instead of leaving a decision up to her, he basically left her and the school girl to die if they didn't get themselves out of a situation he put them in (note: this fits Danny Pink's "he'll push you too far" warning pretty darn closely, as well).
He tells Clara that he knew they could handle it, maybe with a touch of arrogance that he was helping her become more independent/capable or something. This continues the rift between them, could add depth to the idea that the Doctor feels he's preparing her for their eventual break, maybe with a touch of trying to drive her away.
In either case, he tells her that he left because he realized that the bomb was put there in order draw the Doctor there -- the entire situation was a set up to get the Doctor to save the day. He left because he wanted to see if he could find out who was watching the situation play out. He remembers the Earth history of the event (catastrophes due to the Moon's mass increasing, the the resulting changes in Human progress after, blah blah), but he had no idea that he had a part in it and suspects that someone went through a lot of trouble to make it all happen.
Basically it plays with the idea that the Doctor has sort of invisibly helped shape human progress from time to time with only select people getting glimpses of him...whereas this seems like a glimpse of someone who's doing the same thing to Doctor. This "who's setting up these situations for the Doctor" mystery would be a recurring thing, making him question what things he done in his years of travelling were his own or pre-planned for him to do by this outside agent. It also plays into the "am I a good man" aspect, in that he isn't sure if he's actually causing the issues by being who he is (the Batman/Supervillian dilemma), also it makes him wonder if he's actually good or if it's all just a manipulation. Maybe THIS is what Missy is up to? Maybe it's someone trying either lead him to Gallifrey, or prevent/distract him from find it? Who knows? TUNE IN NEXT TIME!
Anyways.
Time Heist
The Good:
Lighting and sets are pretty good.
Good casting in this episode. Everyone is a professional actor and gives a decent performance, etc.
The plot mostly makes sense. There seems to be the bones of a really fun story here. As I understand it, the Doctor wants to save a species so he makes a plan but finds the vault only opens during a solar event and the TARDIS can't operate in the event. So, he pops in a few times before the event to leave confusing directions and unlabelled supplies. I think Moffat took a decent script and Moffat-ed it up.
The Bad (a lot, but they don't kill the episode):
There was no need to rush the pacing. Everything between finding the vault door and being rescued by the presumed dead is meaningless. The devices don't kill and there was no reason to assume they would. The worst rush is that we never see their last-minute escape into the TARDIS. The timing for it was there. They escaped just as flames engulfed the planet. But, we don't get to see it and the getaway is a big part of both Doctor Who and heist stories.
There was no need to rearrange the order of the scenes. There are too many smash cuts and flashbacks. I expect it was to create 'mystery' but I mostly found it annoying, as I had to keep trying to figure out where we were in the story.
The terrible monster doesn't kill the Doctor and Clara and we are given no reason for why it doesn't when it seems happy to eat the brain of anyone it's pointed at. In fact, it seems denied two meals before it finds them and it should be hungry, yeah?
The generic industrial pipes lead to both the vault door hallways and to the isolated personal vault; going to a guard room is breaking the flow of the 'heist', as we basically leave 'step 4', go back to the start, then run back and start 'step 5' with no trouble.
In prior episodes, we had very good scenes placed into very bad stories: Clara and the robot, Clara and the Sheriff, the Doctor and Robin Hood, etc. This episode had no great scenes. Here's a great comment by Ebert: Howard Hawks, asked for his definition of a great movie, said: "Three great scenes, no bad scenes."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Hawks
http://www.rogerebert.com/rogers-journa … casablancaIs it me or did the Doctor say he hates himself?
This is a circular time-loop, right? I thought Doctor Who didn't do those. That's Back to the Future stuff: the Doctor broke into a bank to tell the owner to tell him to break into the bank to hell her to tell him to...
The cybernetic guy pulled a Max Headroom. That was dumb in the 80's. It's worse now.
The solar event allows the vault to open but it will also destroy the bank? Not a single person has the job of looking into that stuff for the richest bank/woman in the galaxy? Is the event really the day the bank was destroyed and only a suitcase of its contents were saved?
The monster eats memories AND the worms eat memories AND the cyborg deleted his own memories? That's too much memory loss for one episode. The cyborg, at least, could have been motivated by information that wasn't deleted memories. The monster could have sensed guilt and eaten brains but not memories (I know it would require a new way for the Doctor to get his memory back).
How did getting his memories eaten restore the Doctor's memories? It's pretty counter-intuitive.
How did the Doctor learn about the last two members of a species he didn't recognize who exist only in the most private bank in the galaxy and in the closet of that bank's most private quarters? This goes back to the time loop and is sloppy writing.
The story tries to make the Doctor look like he was forced into being a crook and the reveal that he is not a crook is really no surprise at all.
The Ugly
The episode is organized like a damn fever dream. We skip from present day to a meeting table to guards to the start of the job in just a few minutes. During the job, the cuts are too fast and awkward for my taste. The ending is especially abrupt.
Overall, I expected to want to vomit. This episode was a more enjoyable alternative. Objectively, I think it is actually kind of pedestrian/mediocre. The story would have been better if the Doctor simply said he has a special mission to save a whole species, came up with a plan and then followed it. Being pursued by a brain eater and guards and maybe accidentally touching a memory-eating worm would have been plenty of danger. The last episode, remember HAD NO MONSTER OR DANGER. (Sorry, I'm still annoyed by that one).
Eh, this feels a lot like nitpicking.
I really enjoyed this episode, if only because the bar for Who at this point is quite low for me. With a more critical eye, I'd probably say that this would make for a "solid" episode. I think we can all agree that if this was what passed for a baseline average for Who episodes, that would be fantastic.
So, to nitpick in return: 
The pacing wasn't perfect, but I felt it worked well enough and wasn't distracting. Also, the reason why we didn't get a grand escape in the TARDIS was because their grand escape was to the ship in orbit since the TARDIS was unable to be accessed at the time. I didn't notice/care that we didn't get a "jumping away from the explosion" moment, and honestly I enjoyed the fact that the Doctor wasn't able to utilize the TARDIS at all in this episode.
I thought it did a solid job of building the mystery. What I liked in particular is that it didn't make "Who is the Architect" the end-all-be-all of the story, because I think most of us knew pretty quickly it was the Doctor. What they were trying to steal drove the story more, I felt, and that was a good choice.
The Teller didn't kill Clara because Psi distracted it before it could get her. This works on it's own, but especially once you know that it's not hunting people because it's "hungry" but rather eating perceived threats to the bank. The larger threat would clearly draw the Teller. As for the Doctor, it starts to, but once it realizes what the Doctor is doing (rescue mission), it stops. Recall that in other instances the Teller scans before it feeds.
Yeah, a lot of the technical "heist" details were a bit glossed over. I would have preferred a more realistic environment overall, but I guess that stuff doesn't bother me a ton as long as it's entertaining. Leeway for being a tv show that has to work within a budget/location, I guess.
I agree there were no "great" scenes in Time Heist, but there were less bad ones. I would also note that the scenes you listed I wouldn't call great either. So when it comes to "3 great, no bad" scenes...I feel this was still a step in the right direction.
The Doctor did say he hated himself, though I think "hate" was used as a bit of hyperbole (as people tend to do these days). I wish they hadn't made it such an exuberant exclamation, but his dissatisfaction of himself has been a running theme. He's a self-aware curmudgeon and seems hesitant to believe he's a good man. I like the curmudgeon aspect, but I'm not fond of the self-loathing aspect. That said, it does fit with what they've been doing so far.
It's a sort of semi-time loop thing, but Who has totally done that before. As time loops go, this one is rather unoffensive in my view. It wasn't a time loop to save his own life or for the sake of hi-jinks. The loop itself (bank owner's phone call) was just about kicking off the story. I will concede that I don't think it needed the time loop to work and unfortunately I don't think it's "lazy" writing so much as the writers thinking it's "clever". Lazy is when you have to do it to make something that would otherwise not work without it. The Who writers seem to shoehorn things like that into the show to make it more clever or twisty-turny...which is actually worse.
Yeah, I'm a huge Matt Frewer fan, but Headroom was never my bag either.
Eh...I mean, unless the expectation is that whatever level of technology that had existed could predict massive solar storms far in advance, I'm not sure why this would be a major issue.
Yeah, there was a lot of memory wiping in this episode. I thought the Teller was more of a "thought" eater and memories just kind of went with it, but that's just a distinction without a difference. Looking at it critically, it's mainly Psi. That character was used for 3 things: A map, to unlock the vault, and to sacrifice himself for Clara. Basically 2 of those things are easily replaceable, but they kind of needed that extra player to "kill" off. Without him, I don't think the memory stuff would have been too overloaded and the "thought eating" would have felt more different. They probably could have used that 4th person slot for something better.
The Teller scans first then eats. He scanned the Doctor's thoughts, found out what his plan was, so he stopped before he hallowed him out. Also, it's worth noting that the idea of a thought-devouring monster doesn't preclude that the Monster can put back what it takes. Also, it's The Doctor. He's special. lol
Well, that goes back to the time-loop aspect, but it's pretty clear the bank owner told him about the endangered species. He didn't remember them until they get into the private vault because of the memory wipe/lock (which that's a distinction that should have been made clearer, now that I think about it). I mean, I'm not a fan of time-loops in general, but this was a minor offense. The time-loop aspect is used to set up the adventure and that's about it. The Doctor leaving stuff for himself is not a direct part of the "loop" aspect.
Yeah, I think most viewers (I hope, at least) assumed the architect was the Doctor pretty early on. I'm pretty sure I just assumed it by default. I think the "twist" of it didn't connect all that well, but luckily as I said before it wasn't the major focus of the episode. I would have liked it more if they had dropped hints that the Doctor realized it was him earlier on, then had him react to everyone saying how much they hated the guy -- because he would semi-agree with them. That would have been some interesting character work for Capaldi to mine. But, they went more traditional.
The Calpadi episodes haven't been the revelation/reinvention I was hoping for, but when looked at in the aggregate, it does seem like the episodes are trending in the right direction.
I'm already assuming next week with be another annoying episode, as the preview seemed to indicate a "Clara/Pink Sci-Fi Romantic Comedy" hour of hell.
Seriously, the whole Clara/Pink thing is just moronic. They make terrible assumptions about one another, say terrible things to each other, neither is presented as oh-so-attractive as an excuse for putting up with that bullshit *waves to Amy/Rory*, and other than about 5 total seconds worth of screen time where they seem to get along there is NO REASON to believe these two will fall for each other besides the fact that we're told it's going to happen (in the most ham-handed ways).
Their relationship is the equivalent of the elevator scene in 'Attack of the Clones', where we get 5 seconds of Anakin and Obi-Won reminiscing over how they became such close friends during their time together (which we didn't see) rather than getting anything at all to make that connection tangible or believable. This is the laziest of storytelling and creates absolutely zero emotional investment.
I'm going to watch with the (admittedly unlikely) hope that her "I can't keep living the double-life" story ends with her leaving the Doctor for Danny and we start fresh with Capaldi alone or with a new companion. I know the more likely outcome is Pink joining them, subjecting us to their emotionally-empty banter even more...but hey, a kid can dream.
I think I started to get my hopes up again, as I am once again disappointed.
The Bad
The Plot seems to be that The Doctor is obsessing over the notion of why someone talks to themselves. He's obsessed in the past, so OK. Someone wrote 'listen; on his chalkboard. So, he takes the TARDIS to look for a monster. He finds a monster. He looks for another monster and finds a Pink descendant. He thinks the same monster is outside the Pink base and opens the door. He is obsessed. OK. Then, Clara tells him it's all in his head and he says OK.That is sh!t. I won't mention details of the retcons, bad fear science, bad evolution science, the Doctor's implied long subjective travel time since last episode, the chalkboard word, or a few other things I am sure would occur to me if I took the time. Instead:
1. This is the big one that ruins the episode for me: there was something under the bedsheet. There was a visual effect in the scene. Maybe the Doctor is a bit crazy and his minor telepathic ability is working very well and affecting people around him? We saw the psychic paper in use to remind us he is a bit 'mental'. BS. Moffat showed us a monster and then told us, the viewers, it was all in our heads. Sh!t. The episode has no resolution.
2. Col Pink. Why did he need to be a Pink? There is no story tie here. Any other person could do the exact same things. The only use I can think of is it reinforces some idea that Clara and Pink are 'destined' to be together (but unless they are a set point in time, they aren't). And, Moffat keeps showing the weaponless soldier as a metaphor for the Doctor and Pink is an excuse to show it again. I get the idea. But, showing it to us repeatedly doesn't make it a theme or make it more profound. And, the same actor? To me, that's like putting a mustache on Clara to play her brother. It's done only for comedy in Back to the Future.
2b.Worst of all, once more Moffat writes himself into a f*cking corner and cuts to a new scene and expects it to be OK. Clara and Pink, holding a unique item, closeup of fingers touching, Pink has just said something about family stories, time travel, and his great grandparents... [Whoa?! Where is this going, I wonder?] -AND CUT SCENE- Really? They just walked away from each other wordlessly? The same thing when the Doctor asks Clara if he is a good man. I am sure there are other examples. That is more garbage. Like having a cliffhanger at the commercial and when you come back the story has moved onto something else.
3. Clara is becoming a real B!tch. She has twice made very cruel and cutting remarks to Pink implying he is a murderer because he was a soldier. This episode she claims it was a joke. That implies he is too emotional about his time in service; That if he is traumatized it is because he is weak and a stronger man would be able to see the 'joke'. She storms off from the date when it was she who insulted him. Moffat's name is credited so I blame him. I was US Army and the handling of the whole thing is paradoxically both patronizing and insulting. None of this is really incorrect or illogical. It just makes me like it all a bit less.
4. The Doctor grew up in a place with rattling pipes? On a farm? Slept in a barn? The Gallifrey of pre-2005 never suggested that as possible, to me. And, Moffat doesn't get to say 'wait a minute this is going to get really good'. He's got no credit. It felt like a weak excuse to retcon the War Doctor story. Do you remember those stark Gallifrey halls and high collars? I refuse to believe they also milked goats.
5. Maybe not for you, but for me, we have a huge misstep for the very beginning: 'listen', 'who are you talking to when no one is around', 'breath on the back of your neck', etc. I immediately think of 'The Silence'. The word 'silence' comes up at least twice, I think. Then, in the orphanage, there is a monster under a sheet. In that scene, we have a combination of 'ancient secret monster affecting humanity' (The Silence) and 'monster with a looking at it thingy' (The Silence and the Weeping Angels). Either this is a re-hash of ideas we've seen far too recently or it's something other than what it appears to be. Moffat says it's neither and we imagined it.
I, for one, really can't wait for the 3rd movie!
Gonna be nice when someone can take them all and edit it down into single, a very good 2-2.5 hour film.
I like what the iWatch does, though I like it for basically the same reasons I like the other half-dozen smartwatches that do the same thing. Just as in those cases, I'm not looking to spend that kind of money on what amounts to a minor peripheral for my phone with some fitness upgrades.
It seems like most of these companies are basically thinking "let's shrink a phone to watch-size, then solve the input issues", which just isn't really doing it for me. The more I thought about it after the event, the more I realized that it would have been a better idea for them to take a step back and really think about what you can and would want to do with a device on your wrist.
There's a lot of overlap, to be sure, but I think starting from scratch without the idea of what a smartphone already does (and looking at the Watch as a standalone item) could really open the door on some creative ideas.
"The third was a leftover Smith script they threw in."
You should write for this show, since that's about the level of caring they seem to have these days.
"You found a script under the couch? Eh, fuck it, throw it in there, who the hell's gonna care."
I'm not sure I understand that comment...I would love writing for Who. I think anyone around these parts can tell you that things like that do happen in the industry, though. Sometimes they become classics (Star Trek: The Original Series) and sometimes they are terrible (Star Trek: The Original Series).
As for the screwdriver, it's not so much the fact that's "new powers omgz", but the Doctor's whole thing is non-violence and using wit to outsmart his enemies, which is why he uses a bloody screwdriver and not an actual weapon. But eh, fuck it, it can make fireballs and explode shit now, that's cool right?
I guess...but despite being an "explosion" it was basically just a fireworks display, not being used as a weapon.
Not that I'm defending the episode or the use of the sonic in such ways. I actually shake my head at the fact that they even made fun of how the sonic is used now adays in the special ("Why are you pointing it at them? It's not a gun, it's a screwdriver!") but clearly have no intention of changing how it's used. I mean, why bother making the joke in the first place then? Dumb.
Again, I'm merely noting that there are far more egregious examples of this sort of thing. The Doctor blew something up without harming anyone to force a reaction. *shrug*
Also, me and Saniss were talking earlier, and he reminded me of the whole "LET'S GO FIND GALLIFREY" thing from the Christmas special that seemed so VITALLY important to everyone at the time... and so uh...has ANYONE heard even a passing mention to Gallifrey in the 3.5 episodes so far?
Wasn't there some random BS about how no one would remember the events of the special? Or something? Ugh, who knows. It feels like everything they did with Smith's run was just a convoluted mess and to be honest I'm perfectly fine with them just moving on and starting from scratch -- which they probably won't do.
Maybe the "Promised Land" trope has something to do with Gallifrey. Maybe the Doctor (before forgetting/regenerating) went back in time and created the whole "Promised Land" lore within the clockwork robots so his future self would end up following their breadcrumbs back to Gallifrey. Because of course.
I dunno, my hope is they just drop that shit. Other than a handful of great episodes, the overall arcs/plots/continuity of Smith's run might be better forgotten.
My only big problems with it were:
1.) Um... the ending was ridiculous. The robot's plan wasn't, "WE NEED TO GET ALL KINDS OF GOLD TO TOUCH OUR SHIP IN RANDOM PLACES!!!" They were actually melting it down to make circuit boards to fix the damage to their ship. I don't understand why shooting a golden arrow into the casing of one of the ship's engines is going to give them the power boost they need to escape Earth's atmosphere.2.) The Maid Marion bit was too convenient and didn't make sense. She literally just got kidnapped earlier that DAY. Why is Robin moping around like she's been gone forever, and more importantly why was she not with him under his protection? Why is he goofing around with magic strangers in the forest instead of protecting his gal?
Yeah, agreed on both counts.
So the new Robin Hood episode felt pretty clearly like a Matt Smith episode, in all the worst ways. Maybe they had the rough idea/outline already made up for Smith, but never had a chance to make it...so they just shoved it in here with a few tweaks for Capaldi. It had a good bit here and there, but overall quiet disappointing.
And let's just not even talk about the Screwdrivers new ability to make a explode a pile of wood in a massive fireball can we?
Dude, that ship sailed LONG ago. And as far as offenses of this kind go, this was relatively minor. In the last episode he unscrews a nut/hatch inside a dalek. In the special there's that long, convoluted way the Doctors unlock an old wooden door, and there are countless examples going back through a lot of modern Who (I haven't seen all of Classic Who, but I'd bet they break the rules, too).
Besides, this one has a fairly easy retcon:
No retcon is perfect, but that one isn't particularly difficult to see working within the Who universe.
The really painful part, is that I enjoyed the first two episodes, I really really wanted to believe they were going somewhere with it all. That this really was a new season and a new Doctor.
It's the 3rd episode...take a step back off the cliff.
The first was a rough transition, but ended alright. The second was ok and looked like continued movement in the right direction. The third was a leftover Smith script they threw in. Let's give it a few more episodes before we start burning the house down. I mean, hell, if you made it through Smith, there's no special reason why NOW is the time to freak.
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