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Greg1138

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Yesterday's episode was fun. Nice creepy (crawly) monsters. Still not sold on Jodie as the Doctor. I don't hate her, I don't love her. She's just sort of there. I'm still waiting for that one moment when she commands my attention and I suddenly think "That's it! There's the Doctor!" As for the music, I've NOT been a fan of Murray Gold for the last 5 years or so. One of the things I was most looking forward to this series was a much-needed change of composer. That said, the music for yesterday's episode was awful! Just a load of ambient sound that was mixed so high as to be really distracting. It might have worked better if it was quieter in the mix, but as it was balanced it was very irritating. I watched it in the US on BBC America, and I wonder if their audio signal is over compressed. How was the music balance in the UK?

 

By the way, the new Mr Men Doctor Who book has come out: Dr. Thirteenth. All the other Mr Men Who books have had the Doctor equally naked, so why am I finding it slightly disturbing that Jodie's Doctor is only wearing boots? LOL

 

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Doctor Who does Eight Legged Freaks/50s 'mutated giant critters' sci-fi B movies. I'm quite arachnophobic, so bits of this episode gave me the skin-crawls quite a lot. 

 

However ... was it just me, or did the conclusion feel kinda rushed? And what about the spiders that had escaped into Sheffield, nothing seemed to have been done about them (unless we were meant to assume they were amongst all the ones being lured to the panic room)?. And no comeuppance for the bad guy?

Also, I don't like 'grime' and the Doctor's continuing usage of 'fam' ... makes me cringe, seems like a crowbarred-in attempt to be contemporary and relevant for the 'yoof'. Maybe I'm just a grumpy old fart, lol.    

 

Mmmm ... I appreciated the creepiness, and Jodie's Eleven-ish moments in Yaz's family's apartment ('Imagine me with a sofa, I'd be good with a sofa'). But a mixed bag.             

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I wish someone would write Jodie some dialogue that is less naff, or that is too much like previous Doctors. I feel like she's not getting a chance to make an impact in any way other than being the first female in the role. Some of this is down to the way she's playing it, but an awful lot is down to the way her Doctor is being written. Why does every Doctor since Eccleston have to babble like an imbecilic child? 

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8 hours ago, Sweeping Strings said:

Doctor Who does Eight Legged Freaks/50s 'mutated giant critters' sci-fi B movies. I'm quite arachnophobic, so bits of this episode gave me the skin-crawls quite a lot. 

 

However ... was it just me, or did the conclusion feel kinda rushed? And what about the spiders that had escaped into Sheffield, nothing seemed to have been done about them (unless we were meant to assume they were amongst all the ones being lured to the panic room)?. And no comeuppance for the bad guy?         

 

Yep - the ending definitely felt rushed and not really thought through.

 

I really enjoyed it though - the scenes with Walsh were really touching. I haven't seen Broadchurch but I suspect some of that is coming through there. Still loving Akinola's score.

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23 hours ago, Richard Penna said:

 

Still loving Akinola's score.

I preferred his music to the first three episodes. I just felt it was too intrusive and bland in episode 4. The whole sound design felt very compressed, though. I wonder if it's a setting on my TV (unlikely as everything else I watch sounds fine), or (more likely) the way BBC America broadcasts audio.

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Doctor Who 2018, treatment of spiders which have grown to giant size through no fault of their own - 'These creatures deserve a humane death'.

 

Doctor Who 1973, treatment of maggots which have grown etc etc etc - BOMB THE BASTARDS! 

 

:lol:  

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Nice, @Sweeping Strings, but you know, as well as I do, that the maggots were a threat to life, and that the poison from the mines could only be cured by the fungus from the Nuthatch. Anyway, Global Chemicals was to blame, for the whole Llanfairfach fiasco.

"Stevens? Oh, Stevens?"

 

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I was just amused by the contrast. And now that I come to think of it, the last time the Doctor encountered oversized spiders (The Runaway Bride) they got drowned. So maybe the ones in Arachnids In The UK should think themselves lucky.      

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I haven't yet watched Planet Of The Spiders, but I enjoyed Metebelis 3's previous brief appearance in The Green Death. One the most hostile alien planet environments in all of Who, I reckon.    

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I think Blink even works as a standalone story, without the bigger Who framework - the Doctor barely features in it, the Weeping Angels are new, you could watch it knowing hardly anything about the franchise and still enjoy it. It's not just the best Who episode, it's one of the best things I've seen on a screen.

 

My one big regret is that they didn't get Carey Mulligan as the next companion.

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Does anyone else feel a bit bummed out with this new season? I love Jodie's Doctor, but the stories have been so-so and kind of betray her Doctor the way some of the shittier stories of Capaldi's tenure (series 9 I'm looking at you) betrayed him. Brilliant actors, brilliant Doctors in disappointing stories.

 

What I love about this season so far is how well Chibnall has handled the companions, their development and the dynamic they have as a team, but the only time this has felt like 'Doctor Who' to me was in the first episode...

 

I'll keep watching, of course, I'm a huge whovian, just irked by these underwhelming stories.

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2 minutes ago, Arpy said:

 

I'll keep watching, of course, I'm a huge whovian, just irked by these underwhelming stories.

 

I'm not underwhelmed, but neither am I overwhelmed.  I am whelmed.

 

3 minutes ago, Arpy said:

series 9 I'm looking at you

 

This is my favorite series of the entire modern era.

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20 hours ago, Arpy said:

Does anyone else feel a bit bummed out with this new season? I love Jodie's Doctor, but the stories have been so-so and kind of betray her Doctor the way some of the shittier stories of Capaldi's tenure (series 9 I'm looking at you) betrayed him. Brilliant actors, brilliant Doctors in disappointing stories.

 

What I love about this season so far is how well Chibnall has handled the companions, their development and the dynamic they have as a team, but the only time this has felt like 'Doctor Who' to me was in the first episode...

 

I'll keep watching, of course, I'm a huge whovian, just irked by these underwhelming stories.


I get where you're coming from ... she is great, and the 'team' are charming. But shaking the feeling that something's just a little 'off' this season is difficult be it Tosin Cole's sometimes-wooden line delivery, the at-times ill-fitting incidental music or the rushed ending to the most recent episode.

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Things I liked about last night's episode - it was in space, yay (next week's historical ep is Earth-set again, which will make it 4 out of 6) with very good sets, the music seemed to fit better and the Doctor being forced to quick-think his/her way through a series of one-after-the-other problems is always good. 

Things I wasn't so keen on - the alien was too cute and had a name seemingly chosen in desperation at the end of the last script meeting before shooting began, and while I realise the pregnant alien bloke was in there to give Graham and Ryan something to do/give Tosin Cole some 'Ryan working through his daddy issues' stuff to play it was still a bit ... ehhhh.  

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Liked this episode more than the last, there were clear goals, problems to solve, The Doctor was 'The Doctor' and all was right with the universe and the show.

 

I want more human/alien villains next time.

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The pregnant guy was, I agree, just added in to keep them busy. There were a few nice moments with Tosin, but generally every time it cut to that storyline i was like 'this again?'.

 

The central premise was quite clever and I didn't see the Doctor's final plan coming. Having said that, I saw the medic's evacuation coming a mile off (did anyone not?) and thought that was rather poor writing.

 

I can't help feeling that Chibnall started with the idea of how to remove the creature, but then struggled to come up with a properly logical buildup. Where did that magical protective sheet come from? And if the creature feeds on energy, why didn't it eat people?

 

Interesting to see the Doctor put in her place... reminded that she's no more important a person than anyone else on the ship. A big change from previous, rather arrogant Doctors.

 

I really enjoyed the episode but the story was very flawed. DIdn't really notice the music this time.

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The Mutos in Godzilla fed off of nuclear energy sources. The idea isn't original, but I never felt like the creature on this episode was the central focus.

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On 11/1/2018 at 11:02 AM, Sweeping Strings said:

I haven't yet watched Planet Of The Spiders, but I enjoyed Metebelis 3's previous brief appearance in The Green Death. One the most hostile alien planet environments in all of Who, I reckon.    

Oh you should see it. Shoddy CSO backdrops (and some awful acting from the mother on Metebelis 3) aside, it's a really fun story. Lis Sladen is particularly good in it, but I also enjoy John Dearth as the bizarrely wicked Lupton, and the character of Tommy has a very nice arc. 

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I'll get round to it. Enjoyed the Third Doctor nod in Jodie's second ep with the 'Venusian aikido' reference, but oddly enough I don't think there was a Planet Of The Spiders one in her fourth.

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Anyone else think the adversaries in this series (apart from 'Tim Shaw') are a somewhat lacklustre bunch?

I mean ... when a racist toff was a jerk to Bill, Twelve punched him to the floor. Thirteen encounters a time-travelling white supremacist trying to alter the course of history and it never really gets worse than 'Ooh, aren't you horrible!' between them, and then Ryan dispatches him with no little ease.

Maybe leaving 'classic' enemies like the Daleks and Cybermen out of this series will prove to be ill-judged.   

Proving that a 'season arc' is nothing new to Who, recently started 'The Stones Of Blood' (the third story in the Fourth Doctor's 'Key To Time' season).  

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This week's episode was incredibly boring, I couldn't keep paying attention. 

 

However, I was pleased that Ryan and Graham were so used to alien stuff by now that the concept of a pregnant male giving birth did not strike them as odd. They just took it in stride and helped make a difference. Likely because the younger companion came from having an unreliable father, he did not want the baby to have the same. 

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I didn't like how the female Doctor was staggering around the medical ship in distress about her insides hurting with no mention of her two hearts or different internal plumbing that she still wasn't used to yet. Just dumb. 

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1 hour ago, Wojism said:

I didn't like how the female Doctor was staggering around the medical ship in distress about her insides hurting with no mention of her two hearts or different internal plumbing that she still wasn't used to yet. Just dumb. 

 

WTF? In what universe do we need to hear about the Doctor's "internal plumbing"? 

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3 hours ago, Sweeping Strings said:

Maybe leaving 'classic' enemies like the Daleks and Cybermen out of this series will prove to be ill-judged.

Come on, Sweep. Look at Jon Pertwee's first season. Not a Dalek, nor a Cyberman in sight, and it's magnificent.

 

3 hours ago, Sweeping Strings said:

Proving that a 'season arc' is nothing new to Who, recently started 'The Stones Of Blood' (the third story in the Fourth Doctor's 'Key To Time' season).  

You'd better finish TKTT, or else nothing will happen to you...nothing, at all...

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1 hour ago, Wojism said:

I didn't like how the female Doctor was staggering around the medical ship in distress about her insides hurting

 

I liked how she kept shrugging it off as a minor annoyance instead of a cause for concern or even alarm, in a quite Ten-ish way.

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11 hours ago, Richard said:

Come on, Sweep. Look at Jon Pertwee's first season. Not a Dalek, nor a Cyberman in sight, and it's magnificent.

 

You'd better finish TKTT, or else nothing will happen to you...nothing, at all...


Yes, but there were decent villains in their place in Pertwee's first season. I mean ... at the end of Arachnids In The UK Chris Noth's heartless-bastard businessman is simply allowed to walk away unscathed, having seemingly not learned a bloody thing. 

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