Doctor Who [12]

cant beat a good pre-Crimbo punch-up

Tis the season to be crabbit afterall

Ooh something I meant to mention and forgot-

Spoiler:

Some recent Who vids I liked-

I held back from watching this series for ages, and have now just finished watching the episodes in rather a hurried fashion.
Anyway, "Heaven Sent" was great. Before this I would have said that the second-half of the first two-parter was my favourite from this season, but this Doctor-centric episode has absolutely replaced it. 
I liked Capaldi's acting. I loved the setting. I liked the mood of the episode. I liked the Veil creature (and, in fact, found it far more scary than anything in Gatiss' "Sleep No More"). The cinematography was beautiful. There was one scene, when the Doctor is digging in the garden, in which the light changed from a whiter mid-day sort of light to this pretty orange-sunset ambiance that made me stop and say to my sister, "Wow, that's really pretty".

I saw ahead to the central conceit of the episode the moment the Doctor hung his wet clothes to dry by the fire, but I still liked the idea of it. It was rather Promethean. At one point the Doctor mentions how this place could be his hell. Ultimately, the reason behind the castle and its purpose disproves the idea that the Doctor is doing any penance here, otherwise I would call it his Purgatory.
I especially enjoyed the tortured way that the Doctor had to regain the top of the tower at the end because of how meaningful the struggle felt. That has been something that I've had trouble with this season: the problem of why I should care whether or not the characters succeed in such-and-such. Well this episode I cared the whole time. It was good Doctor Who.

The bad:
1. Apparently Time-lords only have one bone in their body: the skull.

2. Why did the Veil freeze-frame in that gimmicky Matrix-inspired sort of manner only the first time that the Doctor confessed? 

3. I liked it and so this is only a bad thing in retrospect, but why did the Veil somehow burst out of the side of the grave?

4. Why on earth did the diamond wall need to be sci-fi material? Why not just diamond? Diamond would do the job quite well. Even 4 billion years of a man punching at it would never wear a passage through the center of it, so giving it magical "Ultra-Diamond!" strength is just showing off pointlessly.

5. Which brings me to the logical next complaint: Why did the stupid wall need to require so much time? I get it that the writers wanted the Doctor to naturally get to the end of the universe without time-travel involved, but blasting out into relative infinity the length of time the Doctor spent in the castle seemed like a "jumping the shark" act of one-upmanship that was not needed. 
Give the Doctor a pick-axe, have the wall not be so thick and only made of comparatively soft diamond, and let it only take 10,000 years. Still a ridiculous length of time. But 4.5 BILLION YEARS???? Come on!!!

6. Which then leads to the obvious follow-up: what about all the skulls? If, say, the Doctor spends a week in his cycle, that would be 52 skulls a year. Extrapolate out the math and you get over 4.5 Billion years: 234,000,000,000 skulls. That would be roughly over 8 cubed kilometers of skulls. Or almost 2 square miles packed full of them. You wouldn't be able to see the daylight!


The second-half was pretty good, and I can't say I disliked where they stuck Clara at the end because it was kind of nice seeing the Doctor get so worked up. But I just didn't enjoy it as much as the first half.

azriel wrote:The music from the 1st video sounded like something I should know, like Beethoven, a requiem maybe ?  

I had a similar thought. There was one part where the cellos were playing a progression of drawn-out notes and I thought, "hey! They're about to break out into Beethoven's 7th!"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKOpdt9PYXU  (13:06 for the Allegretto).

Pettytyrant101 wrote:I know it's Doctor Who, but putting frickin' electric eels in middle-ages SCANDINAVIA is like putting a penguin in the Serengeti! - Forest

Someone over on Gallifrey Base did some research on this- and whilst there is no direct account of electric eels apparently the Vikings brought all sorts of animals, birds and fish back from their journeys and kept them as prestige.
Accordingly if they had brought eels back they would have to keep them in a special shed to monitor temperature and have them in separate tanks of there own- which is the case in the episode- so I can give it a 'stretch' of history on this one.

'I'm tempted to look out for things that all of you variously identify as "Moffatish" and this makes me more critical of the writing styles.'

Surely that fault is yours, not the episodes?

'They really carried on the grand Whovian tradition of soldiers being easily overpowered and destroyed'

UNIT do have a history of this- and they were UNIT soldiers only. But rather I think the premise set up during the drone attack sequence was the idea that even a trained soldier, when confronted with the likeness of their dearest love ones juts cant bring themselves to do it- whether you think this would be the case or not is up to opinion of course as no-one has ever faced such a situation for real so we dont know- but the episode does set up that premise early on. The soldiers at the church merely confirm it.
So within its own story rules it does stay true to them.
Also had they opened fire and gunned them down there is noway it would have gotten broadcast as family tv.

'Capaldi was masterful in his delivery'

Yup he sure is. And the really amazing thing is as far as performances go, thats just his warm up for whats to come.



'How is it that the Zygons were able to live on earth in disguise? And why did that not lead to a sort of cloning of 20 million random people?'

According to the episode this is the important stuff- in the past a Zygon had to capture and kjeep the person they were going to copy and use them as a live feed to refresh the image and to get all their personal history and details out of them.
However by this time Zygons no longer need to do this- they can in fact pluck an image from a living mind- such as the family members of the soldiers- but they don't get all the details or information- hence the 'mother' can't remember things about his childhood.
However if they still need information from someone they still have to keep them alive- see Clara.

The treaty struck between UNIT and the Zygons saw the Zygons taking images form the UK population- these copies were then presumably given false names and papers and were placed in a variety of countries around the globe. So alot of Brits have a doppelgänger out there somewhere.

Ah, so that would explain the emigration-thingummy that was going on. I was confused about that.

As for the vikings bringing back electric eels from their foreign raids... The only possible way they could have taken electric eels home would be if they had somehow sailed all the way to South America and up the Amazon river, as that is the only place said eels live. (They're also technically not in the eel family at all: being more closely related to the catfish. That's not too important though.)

Pettytyrant101 wrote:Ooh something I meant to mention and forgot-

Spoiler:

Four posts in a row! I didn't realize the last three came out together too. Oh well!

Anyway, they may have "laid the groundwork" in internal consistency terms, but they have a heck of a long way to go of "laying the groundwork" for getting me to go along with the bloody idea!

Forest Shepherd wrote:

azriel wrote:The music from the 1st video sounded like something I should know, like Beethoven, a requiem maybe ?  

I had a similar thought. There was one part where the cellos were playing a progression of drawn-out notes and I thought, "hey! They're about to break out into Beethoven's 7th!"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKOpdt9PYXU  (13:06 for the Allegretto).

See, Im not the only one who felt the music was familiar The conductor was a bit hypnotic ?

Why did the Veil freeze-frame in that gimmicky Matrix-inspired sort of manner only the first time that the Doctor confessed?
- Forest

It doesn't- it does it every time he confesses, and with each new confession the castle reconfigures leading him closer to the Home square. It freezes in the grave and on the roof top too.

'diamond wall need to be sci-fi material?'

Why not? Its a sci-fi- just be glad its not made by James Cameron it would have been called ultrahardidium.

'Give the Doctor a pick-axe, have the wall not be so thick and only made of comparatively soft diamond, and let it only take 10,000 years.'

Well 10,000 years would not have got him where he needed to be- near the end of the universe, and he doesn't have a TARDIS or in fact know where it is. And we learn in Hell Bent that he stayed in their deliberately in order to get to there the Time Lords are and he was bluffing about knowing about the Hybrid, because if they realised he didnt know anything they would have let him out. And he does it all to get to Gallifrey in order to have something to barter with- knowledge of the hybrid- and get to an extraction chamber to save Clara. And after 4 and a half billlion years you can see why the Time Lords would genuinely believe he had the information.
Also he could have left himself the shovel, would have sped things up a bit, but he didn't- because a huge part of what is happening is self-penance for his own failures as he sees it in protecting Clara, in providing a duty of care for her. He is also punishing himself.

'what about all the skulls?'

Given where he is the ocean could be effectively infinite, plenty of room for all the skulls to spread out along the bottom forever.

You know, there is a term for this. It's called "honeypotting."

The Honeypot Phenomenon: Because D&D logic doesn’t adhere to normal logic, it is not uncommon for the show to seem entirely devoid of sense, or at least any sort of complexity. Because of this, many fans provide rationalizations or well thought out theories in an attempt to understand the show or paint it in a kinder light. Unfortunately, these explanations often make more sense that what’s actually on the screen. The most famous example of this was the “Lannister Honeypot Theory,” where everyone figured that Talisa was such a stupid invention on the part of D&D, there had to be more to her. Once she began writing letters in Volatine to her mommy, the theory was that she was really a Lannister spy sent to seduce Robb into breaking his vows, enabling the Red Wedding to occur. But no. Like Talisa, the Lannister Honeypot Theory was stabbed repeatedly in 3x09. She was exactly what she appeared: a noble woman from Volantis who was such an awesome feminist that she would walk around battlefields without a chaperone and sass-talk a king. It may be tempting to honeypot things like “well, maybe two weeks passed in these back-to-back scenes were a raven went from King’s Landing to the Eyrie.” No. It’s always the most idiotic and straight-forward answer possible. Trust us.

(The term was conceived for GoTs, but I feel it's relevant.)

Do you have any thoughts concerning other parts of my posts Petty? What did you think of the lighting? Very well done I thought.

Have you ever played Dark Souls? I thought the castle had a very Dark Souls feel to it. The creeping menace that could appear at any time, the turret-sort of puzzle that is the castle itself, and the absence of other people were all reminiscent, for me, of that game. Interesting stuff!

I thought the sound work was also very well done. The atmospherics were beautiful. The sound of the wind and the ocean in the background took me right back to when I used to play Shadow of the Colossus. Especially if you rode out towards the coast in that game. 
Anyway, big props to the creators for getting all of those different elements right at the same time: not an easy feat!

Ive been impressed by Rachel Talay's direction since I first saw her film version of Tank Girl.
When she got picked up by Moffat for Who I was very keen to see what she would do- and I wasn't disappointed- her first Who direction was Dark Water/Death in Heaven and Heaven Sent and Hell Bent had only confirmed her in my view as a very good director- I thought in particular the entire sequence on Gallifrey was strongly shot.

The castle in Heaven sent didn't remind me so much of Shadow of Colossus as its predecessor Ico, had that isolated, vast feel to it and air of mystery and danger.

Any attempt to try to make Who fit logical patterns is a waste of time. they make stuff up as they go along, in other words that honeypotting thing fits perfectly.

they make stuff up as they go along- Figg

Or as its usually called 'writing'.

Although given we watched a story resolution many of whose parts were set in place 3 series ago not sure you can accuse of Moffat of not planning ahead.

If they did its pure lucky coincidence.

I dont see how given all the other stuff Moffat has set up long term- Pandorica Opens we got an answer to at end of series 5 'silence will fall' we never got the meaning of until end of series 7- same goes for the Kovarian faction. And the ultimate question hidden in plain site was seeded a series before the reveal in series 6 with the reveal not until the end of series 7 and everything to do with River - which Moffat seeded as an idea of her re-occurances so early on RTD was still showrunner!
In fact sewing the seeds of later plot developments is one of the hallmarks of Moffats era on Who.

I don't believe they plan that far ahead.

The evidence would appear to indicate otherwise- for example we know for definite that Moffat told Alex Kingston the significance of River to Amy a full year before Karen or Arthur found out about it.

And some things simply have to planned to a certain extent- you cant put in the hints and clues about something like Trenzalore and the Ultimate Question unless you have the end game for it- otherwise the hints would not work or make sense- and they do.

Compare to RTD who admitted that he had no idea what Bad Wolf meant until he wrote the conclusion to it. Which at least explains why the entire series arc amounts to little more than the repeated two words 'Bad Wolf' popping up- they couldn't give more hints as they didn't know what it meant yet.

nah they make it up as they go along and change things to suit. that's just how Who rolls.

Then how do you explain Moffat being able tell Alex Kingston the plot details ahead of time if its not planned?
Your statement doesn't make any sense in light of the evidence.

Obviously small details have to be left to change as there is no way to predict the filming situation when the story comes round to that point-actors/locations ect may not be available, ideas that have come in-between might modify the outcome, some things might need rethought to fit the circumstances- but its clear Moffat seeds his story ideas well ahead of time.

To say otherwise is both to be wilfully blind to the simple facts- like telling actors what's coming up a year to even two ahead of time, or all the story arcs in Moffat era.

Pettytyrant101 wrote:
In fact sewing the seeds of later plot developments is one of the hallmarks of Moffats era on Who.

Sowing the seeds...or digging himself a plot hole he doesn't always manage to fill adequately

I recently re-read the 1997 BBC EDA 'Alien Bodies' (excellent book) and noticed more than a few hallmarks of Moffat's who in its pages, which this review points out:

http://www.warpedfactor.com/2015/05/doctor-who-looking-back-at-alien-bodies.html


Remember when the Tardis blew up in Series 5?...we got the answer nearly four years later, in a single line of dialogue explaining that it happened off screen...the ongoing mysteries in Moffat's stories can be quite interesting, but personally I find more often than not the resolutions are either disappointing or caught up in their own hype, and rarely as clever as they promised to be, I doubt either he or RTD had any of their story arcs planned out in great detail that far ahead of time, there's too much else to worry about, and scripts change all the time for budgetary (or other reasons)

Look at the War Doctor and Missy, although I thought it was obvious from the start who they were, in interviews and the episodes themselves Moffat did all he could to distract or misdirect the audience from the truth for no real reason (the War Doctor was created at a very late stage at least, wouldn't be surprised if the same held true for Missy), pointless hype and misdirection doesn't really add anything to a storyline other than needless complications and baggage, Who is a low budget rather camp sci-fi show aimed at family audiences, not a hardcore sci-fi mystery show aimed at sherlock fans or forty year old sci-fi fans debating continuity or morality...I do appreciate the added depth and mystery Moffat has injected into the show as of late, but I'm already a sci-fi fan, not someone tuning in for a hour of fun romping about space.

Say what you like about RTD's overblown, deux ex machina heavy endings, but at least the storylines seemed cheerfully self aware of how daft they were half the time, I stopped watching who between Series 5 and 7b largely because for all of its self importance and supposed 'complexity' I just found it very...dull...

Horses for courses Malick- I stopped watching 10 because I couldn't stand the RTD deux ex machina and the awful 10th Doctor (90% of the time awful anyway)- Moffat has yet to do something as appallingly lame as end an entire episodes worth of set up and cliff hanger with a literal hand wave by a character (using an unexplained device that had never been seen before in RTD era Who or so much as hinted at)- that was a real low point.

But as I said above you cant plan the small details for the reasons you give- Moffat couldn't plan the War Doctor as the circumstances evolved as Eccelston didn't want to come back and Hurt became available ect- but he would have had planned for there to be a War Doctor- it was just who  it was that was changeable.

Regards the TARDIS blowing up not sure Moffat can be entirely blamed for Smith changing his mind at the last minute and deciding to leave a year earlier- giving Moffat 1 episode to tie up all the loose ends he had planned on having a series to do so in- under the circumstances I thought he did rather well with all he had to do.
But it doesn't mean he didn't plan or know who had done it or why- I think its clear he did- most fans had worked out for themselves already- that episode just confirmed it for most. The problem was scheduling in that instance and the vagrancies of actors.

I dont think Missy was a last minute thing- Moffat had talked about watching Pertwee and the Master and thats where his inspiration came from, that relationship of friends/enemies. So it seems it was in his mind for a bit beforehand.

"A bit before" could still be last minute.