Doctor Who [11]

Season 8 is on Netflix. Time to get caught up.

Hope you enjoy it Bungo, its a whopper

Pettytyrant101 wrote: its a whopper

Sometimes...

I still don't see how Moffat thought greenlighting

Spoiler:

was a good idea...

Well as you know the first one Im a fan of-

Spoiler:

The Doctor, Clara, Fun, and Cybervikings. Sounds like good old fashioned Doctor Who to me. Moooooore! Can't wait.

I like Jenna Coleman.

Well I've started The Talons of Weng-Chiang.
It has figured rather prominently on "Best of" poll lists, and I must say it's been great so far! I like the combination of horror and comedy and although the strangely-accented John Bennet as Li H'sen Chang is.. well... strangely accented, I really like his performance.

The best example of this combination of horror and fun is when the Doctor and Leela encounter the R.O.U.S. in the sewers. On the one hand it was genuinely unsettling, but then on the other it was hilarious to imagine the filmmakers building a miniature set and filming the R.O.U.S. on it. If I saw it when I was younger I think it would have been simply frightening, but that's the advantage of watching children's shows as an adult I guess.
I also found out that the ventriloquist doll is played by Deep Roy, a dwarf actor that has been in a lot of small roles over the years.

But who you may know from the (admittedly poor) 2005 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory or The Neverending Story as his face is actually shown in those movies.

I was also home alone last night and popped in Turn Left. It was better than I remembered!  
By the end, with the

These aren't really needed I guess. :

It really is an excellent set-up for the two-part finale and I can't help but love when Doctor Who sidelines the Doctor in favour of the companion's story. It's really almost more successful when you can see the world as regular people do, and then have the Doctor come in and shock and delight everyone.

P.S.
Jenna Coleman, boo!

I like Jenna- Bungo

I am a big fan of both Clara's character development in series 8 and of Jenna's performance conveying it.

Ah the controversial (these days) Talons- it might to best story lists but it also tends to top most racist lists too.
I tend not to judge that side of it but just to accept it in the context of the times it was made- if James Bond can get away with pretending to be Japanese by pulling his eyes back then in the same era Who should be given some allowances for not casting a Chinese actor in the Chinese character role.
Also its a homage to the films of FU-Manchu, likewise a Chinese man played by a westerner, Christopher Lee in fact.

The best thing about Talons is what you have picked up on Forest, its a wonderful mix, its Who Shaun of the Dead in that its a comedy horror. Surprisingly a lot of people miss the comedy part!

Turn Left is indeed an excellent episode, one of my personally favourites of the RTD era, marred only slightly by the fact its impact is greater with continuity of what has gone before, and that means enduring stuff like the xmas Titanic episode with celebrity stunt casting Kylie, and the Poison Sky two parter

'' It's really almost more successful when you can see the world as regular people do, and then have the Doctor come in and shock and delight '' Forest.

exactly my opinion. that's why I have had a problem with Moffats run, his companions aren't generally just regular people but they always have to be special like Amy, River and Clara and I prefer ordinary people like Donna.

Yeah, same here. The series looses a lot of charm and interest this way, in my opinion. The characters become unrealistic from the start.

I didn't like Donna. Maybe if they had cast someone other than Catherine Tate. Didn't like her in Doctor Who, didn't like her in the US version of The Office.

Im not sure thats what Forest meant Figg/Amarie- did you Forest? Or did you mean Doctorlite episodes?- like Blink, Family of Blood, The Girl Who Waited, Turn Left ect

Regards companions being 'ordinary' thats a very RTD approach (and no one showrunner should impose a format on future showrunners)- some companions in classic Who were perfectly ordinary, like Sarah Jane, but plenty of others were anything but, Romana 1 and 2, Adric, Leela ect none of whom are your ordinary person from modern day earth.

And Clara is perfectly ordinary- the Impossible Girl thing was form the Doctors perspective , and series 7 is all about him finding out she is ordinary and nobody special as such.
Its because we met her first before we met ordinary Clara you have gotten confused.
That would be like if we saw DoctorDonna first then met ordinary Donna- it would not make Donna any less ordinary for having seen the extraordinary she would eventually do.

Yes, I did mean basically that Doctor-lite episodes are among my favourites. We haven't really had any of those with Capaldi yet, I don't think. There is less of him in each episode than is the norm I think, what with Clara and... Whats-his-face having their relationship featured so prominently.
But yeah, even if the Doctor is absent for a period of the episode (as in his first of the season) he still comes full front and center again later on.

Recall Rose, for example, Doctor is very absent and we see him briefly but then spend a lot of time learning about him from tertiary sources. Blink, yes, excellent example, Family of Blood (my favourite or second-favourite Doctor Who episode ever) in which the Doctor is missing, but we still get to enjoy Tennant's performance.
Even Love and Monsters has its weird bits redeemed in part by the fun of an absent Doctor.

I'm trying to remember Smith episodes that worked this way, but can't seem to for some reason... But then I'm not as familiar with Smith's run as with Tennant's.


Now on another note, I did not mind Clara at first. But as things progressed and she was stressed more and more as being "The Impossible Girl" I grew tired. I liked her more since then, but that strange muddiness of plot that I see series 7 as has lingered in my perception of her. So in that sense I must agree that I would prefer if Clara were simply a regular girl to begin with, rather than have her introduced as this strange time-manipulating projectionist futuristic-past-and-present amalgamation of plot loops. Or whatever it was that happened back there.

Because the shooting schedule is so intense there is usually a Doctorlite and a companion lite episode in every series- Midnight is a great example of a companion-lite episode- and its a cracker too.

The Girl Who Waited is a 11 Doctor lite episode (but well disguised) whereas Closing Time is a companion-lite episode, with no Amy and Rory.

edit add- Flatline was the Doctor-lite episode for 12- another good-un, and another well disguised one, bit like the Girl Who Waited similar technique- get Capaldi to shoot all his scenes in pretty much one go on his own in the TARDIS then he gets some time off while they shoot everything else.

Closing time was good.

Yeah I'm with Forest.

Even if Clara seems ordinary and doesn't remember, we still have been told she is The Impossible Girl. I dunno... It's like a werewolf movie when someone gets bitten but thinks it's nothing. You keep waiting for the person to change to keep up with the plot.

we still have been told she is The Impossible Girl.- Amarie

More correctly now- was the Impossible Girl- that story is a closed loop, we saw the result of it, then we met the person, then we saw how the result came about. We are now beyond that point, and as Clara cannot properly remember it all, timey-wimey and all that, the Clara we have is pretty much the same ordinary non impossible girl we first saw in Bells of St John.
There is nothing ahead of Clara which we know of which makes her extraordinary in the sense you mean it.

No wait which ep was closing time again? I think I got it confused with the lodger one...

Closing Time is the sequel to the Lodger- its the second one with Craig in it, and the baby, and the Doctor gets a job in the shop selling toys to hunt cybermen.

But the Lodger is also a companion lite episode.

Mummy on the Orient Express is a companion-lite episode, but another well disguised one )its why Clara has so many scenes either on her own- in her cabin on the phone to Danny- or locked up in the hold with the other girl.

Ah yes, not so far off the mark then. Craig is quite stereotypic, as is his wife but the eps have their charm and Smith is great.

Yup he always was

Mummy on the Orient Express is a companion-lite episode, but another well disguised one )its why Clara has so many scenes either on her own- in her cabin on the phone to Danny- or locked up in the hold with the other gir

I seem to recall reading the filming for this and Flatine partially overlapped, the latter being more of a companion lead episode, I'm not sure if they were part of the same production 'block' but it would make sense to film the 'lite' episodes at the same time.


I've always wondered why it take so long to film Who 12/13 Eps in about 8/9 months, whereas some American shows can crank out 22 eps a season...

Quality. I loved ST:TNG and DS9 but about half of most series were not worth the watch, or instantly forgettable, or obvious filler. More is not always better.

Interesting Rumour about the Series 9 finale:

Big Rumoured Spoilers about Series 9 Finale:

Not sure I like the sound of that personally...

Whatever iot is I am not looking- so please keep using spoilers if talking about it. Whatever it is Id rather see how its set up and unfolds before leaping to any predictions, plus I really, really dont want this series in particular to be spoiled. I am so looking forward to it.

Yeah I'll keep my hands off the spoilers as well.