Finally watched the new Dr. Who stuff - does anyone care enough that I should put spoiler space? Ugh, fine.
Finally watched the new Dr. Who stuff - does anyone care enough that I should put spoiler space? Ugh, fine.
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That's all you're gettin'.
I've been pretty unenchanted since parts of Series 7 (I think that was when it got particularly bothersome). Anyway, I was completely not amused by the flopping around trying to figure out what we're doing in Series 8, thus the effort it took for me to convince myself to watch now. Oddly, in spite of multiple quibbles, I thought the opening 2 episodes were entertaining and hopeful. So I watched the next 2.
Yes, Peter Capaldi playing electric guitar is great. No, really, this could work. Lame bootstrap paradox/missing Beethoven blah blah blah explanations of unrelated pointlessness is, well, pointless. If you're going to write soliloquies/break the fourth wall, do something useful or entertaining with it.
Telegraphing your every plot bit, and then filling in with a bunch of wasted time is pointless, as well. Pop culture references to horror/suspense flicks only really work if you do something with them. Other than just toss them out there for private giggles in the writers' room. Fyi, you flubbed the bit with the deaf character and the ax. I mean, you got there in the end, but come on. She was a great character.
Will you please decide if the Doctor is a tone deaf, insensitive ass, or not? Btw, what happened to we aren't going to do the everybody falls in love with the Doctor and vice versa? His motivation is loving Clara/Clara loving him? Really, could you please stop with the Doctor as romantic lead trope? I mean, ok, I could buy she's using him to replace the Danny-sized hole in her life, but not because she's in love with the Doctor. Rather, because it's keeping her busy and all the risk-taking is running away and making her feel alive and she's avoiding, etc. Oh, and if you're going with the glasses instead of a screwdriver, now, do it better.
Does the Tardis' cloister bell mean anything if you haven't rewatched an old episode where it previously came up? I mean, it would seem pointless and random, I think, without that context. Particularly as they run back and then basically just turn it off or ignore it the rest of the time. No, the Master/Missy don't show up in these episodes with the cloister bell.
The creature shop is going great guns and all hail the Fisher King. Major kudos on that one. Too bad it's something you could have done the whole episode without ever seeing. I mean, I enjoyed seeing the creature, the seeing just wasn't critical to the story. As for the annoying alien, somebody needed to edit. Would have moved things along perfectly well without the revolting obsequities.
Gong back to the first 2, I overall loved Missy in the first 2 episdoes. It's like they let her off the chain and it's crazed and random yet internally consistent. The walking snake nest was meh. Again, kudos creature shop for all the Dalek variants, even if it was purposeless it was a form of eye candy.
Oh, and in 2 two-part episodes we've had in the first 4 episodes of this series, the doctor has supposedly been about to die in, yes, both of them. Along with the love interest nonsense, you can stop with the omg, doctor going to die, shock, horror, no no no! You've done it way too often and we know there's at least one whole series, here, so, duh, he ain't dyin' anytime soon. Plus, you just magically regenerated his regenerations so unless you flub the show and it gets cancelled, he's not dead. No, truly, stop with the dead doctor. It's like crying wolf, now.
So the first two got my hopes up, the next two are sliding back into the stuff that kept me off Series 8. They need to figure out who the heck Capaldi is as the Doctor, quickly. It wouldn't hurt to try a few different types of episodes, as well.
w
h
a
t
e
v
e
r
That's all you're gettin'.
I've been pretty unenchanted since parts of Series 7 (I think that was when it got particularly bothersome). Anyway, I was completely not amused by the flopping around trying to figure out what we're doing in Series 8, thus the effort it took for me to convince myself to watch now. Oddly, in spite of multiple quibbles, I thought the opening 2 episodes were entertaining and hopeful. So I watched the next 2.
Yes, Peter Capaldi playing electric guitar is great. No, really, this could work. Lame bootstrap paradox/missing Beethoven blah blah blah explanations of unrelated pointlessness is, well, pointless. If you're going to write soliloquies/break the fourth wall, do something useful or entertaining with it.
Telegraphing your every plot bit, and then filling in with a bunch of wasted time is pointless, as well. Pop culture references to horror/suspense flicks only really work if you do something with them. Other than just toss them out there for private giggles in the writers' room. Fyi, you flubbed the bit with the deaf character and the ax. I mean, you got there in the end, but come on. She was a great character.
Will you please decide if the Doctor is a tone deaf, insensitive ass, or not? Btw, what happened to we aren't going to do the everybody falls in love with the Doctor and vice versa? His motivation is loving Clara/Clara loving him? Really, could you please stop with the Doctor as romantic lead trope? I mean, ok, I could buy she's using him to replace the Danny-sized hole in her life, but not because she's in love with the Doctor. Rather, because it's keeping her busy and all the risk-taking is running away and making her feel alive and she's avoiding, etc. Oh, and if you're going with the glasses instead of a screwdriver, now, do it better.
Does the Tardis' cloister bell mean anything if you haven't rewatched an old episode where it previously came up? I mean, it would seem pointless and random, I think, without that context. Particularly as they run back and then basically just turn it off or ignore it the rest of the time. No, the Master/Missy don't show up in these episodes with the cloister bell.
The creature shop is going great guns and all hail the Fisher King. Major kudos on that one. Too bad it's something you could have done the whole episode without ever seeing. I mean, I enjoyed seeing the creature, the seeing just wasn't critical to the story. As for the annoying alien, somebody needed to edit. Would have moved things along perfectly well without the revolting obsequities.
Gong back to the first 2, I overall loved Missy in the first 2 episdoes. It's like they let her off the chain and it's crazed and random yet internally consistent. The walking snake nest was meh. Again, kudos creature shop for all the Dalek variants, even if it was purposeless it was a form of eye candy.
Oh, and in 2 two-part episodes we've had in the first 4 episodes of this series, the doctor has supposedly been about to die in, yes, both of them. Along with the love interest nonsense, you can stop with the omg, doctor going to die, shock, horror, no no no! You've done it way too often and we know there's at least one whole series, here, so, duh, he ain't dyin' anytime soon. Plus, you just magically regenerated his regenerations so unless you flub the show and it gets cancelled, he's not dead. No, truly, stop with the dead doctor. It's like crying wolf, now.
So the first two got my hopes up, the next two are sliding back into the stuff that kept me off Series 8. They need to figure out who the heck Capaldi is as the Doctor, quickly. It wouldn't hurt to try a few different types of episodes, as well.
I agree with you in general, disagree with you on specifics. Like, I thought season 8 was the best season since RTD (a couple of crummy episodes aside - although all of RTD's seasons had a crummy episode or two). I thought bringing Missy back was terrible, they overplayed their hand (Moffat does this all the time, though: "everybody/I personally liked that thing, so lets bring it back and shoehorn it into another episode for no raisin!"). And I thought the first two episodes of this season were really bad, while these two were much more...okay. I do think the decision to make an entire season of double episodes looks like a huge mistake, though, because these first two have both felt very padded (Missy was basically pure padding in the first double.)
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