General Ongoing Doctor Discussion

fritzelly

So we just forget what happened last week? Huh?
The environmental message is highly annoying
The whole episode was all over the place again - it's like they have 2 drums, one filled with environmental issues and another filled with every idea the writers ever came up with and they draw 3 or 4 out and make a story from them. Why can they not stick to one story - be it aliens, monsters or whatever instead of a multitude of story lines
And the ending was crap TBH
And the companions seem to spend more time on their own than they do with the Doctor!
Been an avid fan since Tom Baker but I am quickly being turned off instead of excited for the next episode

p.s. are they censoring the reviews again on RT?

Martin Tyler AgueroooOO

I want to use more plastic and throw in the ocean now after that episode!

That was just a crap episode of television.

fritzelly

Anyone remember when the tardis took them where they needed to go to help and the Doctor didn't have much control over her?
Liked those times, couldn't just fly where he needed to save someone

ebbsy

Sadly Jodie cannot carry an episode by itself, so they have had to bring in the Master, Jack etc.


It is not very good I'm afraid.

TheValeyard

fritzelly wrote: »

Anyone remember when the tardis took them where they needed to go to help and the Doctor didn't have much control over her?
Liked those times, couldn't just fly where he needed to save someone

Reminds me of that episode with 'House' as the bad guy

The Doctor: You didn’t always take me where I wanted to go.

Idris(the Tardis): No, but I always took you where you needed to go.

pixelburp

When Dr. Who has gone political, it has always had the nuance and subtly of a hammer, so TBH feels more like people are bringing their own apathy or impatience for the environmental movement to the episode. Sick of Greta telling everyone the world is f*cked and just want to escape to Dr. Who without being reminded their off-season avocados are probably killing the planet

Heck one of the great stories of the Classic Era, The Green Death, was literally built around environmentalism and a (hippy cultivated) vegan meat substitute saving the day. Spoilers for a 47 year old story BTW Presumably if it aired now people would be on Twitter screaming about vegan propaganda?

Like, this is a show that had brazen anti-capitalist messages...



Wrote a story about the UK's entry into the EU during the Pertwee era:



Or took a big swipe at Margret Thatcher (maybe airing during the shows last years meant nobody noticed?)



Ok, fair enough those were sometimes hidden behind bad wigs and penis shaped aliens, but I dunno; no more than Trek and some on that forum complaining about politics being injected in there, I'm kinda left wondering if I'm watching the same show? Sometimes it's in the margins, sometimes its on the surface - but topicality has always been in Who's blood - at least from teh moment Pertwee started dumping on all those governmental types

Don't get me wrong, Odyssey 55 was a frickin' terrible piece of television, and the message at the end pretty hamfisted, but I can't hate on something that has always been there.

fritzelly

Yeah but this season it's constant pushing agenda's using those issues to create a story from

pixelburp

fritzelly wrote: »

Yeah but this season it's constant pushing agenda's using those issues to create a story from

And again, how is that any different to The Sunmakers or Green Death? Like I posted, the latter literally ends with veganism saving the planet

I suspect this is just context at play here, we're living in the era so feel more aggrieved if an ostensibly escapist show decides to join in on a hot topic issue. I bet a lot of folk were peeved about Green Death joining in on the hippy-dippy, don't polutte the country vibes of the early 1970s.

Honestly, I don't even think "don't f*ck up the oceans" should be that controversial - or political- a cause. If anything it's one of the more longstanding and understood affects on the climate out there. What is it they estimate, a mass of plastic the size of Texas floatin gin the Pacific? That's more than a bit sh*t tbh.

fritzelly

Maybe it's a combination of things - along with the Doctor, the companions, the frantic multi-stringed stories that are less about the monster/alien...
But you are in the minority if you think this is good Doctor Who

pixelburp

fritzelly wrote: »

Maybe it's a combination of things - along with the Doctor, the companions, the frantic multi-stringed stories that are less about the monster/alien...
But you are in the minority if you think this is good Doctor Who

Dude, I literally just said Odyssey 55 was garbage, so I never claimed it was good Dr. Who, and this season has been a mixed bag. I'm saying it doesn't ring true to get upset about an approach that's almost as old as the show itself. 1970s Who loved taking swipes at contemporary issues, or contemporary tropes.

Heck, RTD loved some topical, satirical swipes. Especially when it came to the Americans - Jesus Christ when Americans appeared on screen it was facepalm time. Dr. Who is a topical show, maybe it hid under the cloak of childhood memories, or old topicality long irrelevant (like Curse of Peladon's EU parallels).

Doesn't forgive sh*t episodes, but doesn't come from nowhere either

fritzelly

pixelburp wrote: »

Dude, I literally just said Odyssey 55 was garbage, so I never claimed it was good Dr. Who, and this season has been a mixed bag. I'm saying it doesn't ring true to get upset about an approach that's almost as old as the show itself. 1970s Who loved taking swipes at contemporary issues, or contemporary tropes.

OK, maybe my childhood memories and adult memories are blotting out some of the themes because there was a good story to follow

I just hope the Doctor Ruth story is done well - could be the only redeeming feature of this season

ixoy

So I'm alone then in kind of enjoying the episode? Sure it was preachy but as pixelburp said, it always has been to some extent and that's something sci-fi has often done (Star Trek as well).

fritzelly

So as I referred to earlier about RT

https://cosmicbook.news/doctor-who-rotten-tomatoes-deleting-reviews

pixelburp

This line is relevant to the credibility of the article: "... has been accused of similar behavior for Captain Marvel ..." Yes, they deleted reviews - reviews submitted before the movie had even come out yet. They literally had to change the site's entire submission logic because Marvel had been score-bombed by angsty internet trolls trying to nuke the score, months before the film was even released. The website clearly has an agenda of its own Fritz, trying to massage the facts to suit a "censorship" angle. If this is the only website reporting this, I'd question if this is a valid "story"

Hard to parse the genuine reviews & thoughts from the "angry internet troll" types, though having looked at RT and other aggregators, the angry stuff is usually one line rants about SJW this or that. No more than here in Boards, presumably RT has its own set of standards, perhaps in response to the farce with Captain Marvel.

Time was, Dr. Who was under assault from Mary Whitehouse trying to save us from ourselves, now we have Dr. Who under assault by faceless internet warriors who apparently go apoplectic on "aggregator sites". Plus ca change...

flazio

Look, if it was just this last story alone. I actually wouldn't think the message bashing isn't too bad, the story was semi decent . But Orphan 55 just ruined the whole thing and has put me wary of the future of the show.

pixelburp

Oh, Orphan 55 was an abomination and will likely rank in future "Worst Of" lists from the New Era - including my own TBH - but honestly, the Eco Message was the least of its problems. Utterly clumsy but earnest if nothing else. I swear to god that episode was written by a pre-teen RTD fanboy, hopped up on a sugar rush. Bewildering nonsense.

FunLover18

Two parter finale titles revealed.

Ascension Of The Cybermen

and

The Timeless Children

The Master

Who's the short haired blonde girl in the stripy top with the Yorkshire accent that turns up for a few minutes each episode?
She's really ruining the Graham and Co story.

Martin Tyler AgueroooOO

Is there a helpline for me to call after sitting through that muck.

fritzelly

That started so well, thought ooh classic Who, then went all kinds of stupid

(won't even mention the 70's look transitions - ok I did)

TheValeyard

*sigh*

Another good idea, just its execution was ruined.

Chris Chibnall needs to learn how to slow down and switch to decaf!

Think this may be the worst episode of the season, but still I liked the idea behind it.

jim-jam

Started off with an interesting tease into the episode and I was hoping we would be getting a Doctorcentric episode once she dropped the three amigos back but alas.

There seemed like there were two concepts for episodes in one. The Aleppo bit could've been one episode and the nightmare's another. I hope Ryan's speech at the end was a hinting at a companion cull because it needs it.

fritzelly

Reading some of the reviews - none are complimentary bar one which was going on about finally some character development of the companions (think it was the same site saying the same thing every week)
I don't care about the companions (in these last 2 seasons, they are the dumbest companions ever) - the show is called Doctor Who not The Companions and Some Alien Creature
Yet again the companions were pretty much nothing to do with the story

ixoy

Name dropping of the Eternals, Guardians and Toy Maker were nice but the ending of this immortals was terrible. They, with all their so-called powers, just stood there while the Doctor rabbited on for ages before trapping them. They didn't even put up a token resistance - stupid. Chibs does not know how to resolve a plot.

FunLover18

I'm just bored and watching the show has become a chore. I found myself checking my phone a lot during that episode and therefore have no idea what was going on with Yaz; did she have a sister who died? Did we know that before?

pixelburp

ixoy wrote: »

Name dropping of the Eternals, Guardians and Toy Maker were nice but the ending of this immortals was terrible. They, with all their so-called powers, just stood there while the Doctor rabbited on for ages before trapping them. They didn't even put up a token resistance - stupid. Chibs does not know how to resolve a plot.

Dr. Who has always kinda sucked at endings, bar a few notable exceptions; dunno what it is about the show but it's rare enough I've been satisfied with how stories wrap up. Maybe it's the nature of its "anything goes" approach, and emphasis on big concepts or gimmicky monsters, that the writers neither can or need to come up with a narratively satisfying ending.

Second only to cliffhangers perhaps; it's often the same deal where you have these dramatic "how will they get out of this!?" moments, undercut by the next part where the Doctor just waves the sonic and our heroes run out the door...

FunLover18

FunLover18 wrote: »

I'm just bored and watching the show has become a chore. I found myself checking my phone a lot during that episode and therefore have no idea what was going on with Yaz; did she have a sister who died? Did we know that before?

Just did a Google of the plot and I was way off with the Yaz storyline.

TheValeyard

pixelburp wrote: »

Dr. Who has always kinda sucked at endings, bar a few notable exceptions; dunno what it is about the show but it's rare enough I've been satisfied with how stories wrap up. Maybe it's the nature of its "anything goes" approach, and emphasis on big concepts or gimmicky monsters, that the writers neither can or need to come up with a narratively satisfying ending.

Second only to cliffhangers perhaps; it's often the same deal where you have these dramatic "how will they get out of this!?" moments, undercut by the next part where the Doctor just waves the sonic and our heroes run out the door...

I'd actually disagree I thought endings were very well handled during the Matt Smith era.

TheValeyard

Zelen is an interesting bad guy though

flazio

I only watched the episode tonight.
Going by the comments here I was expecting another environmental disaster episode but actually I thought this was a good one overall. Perhaps it's just because I can relate to the mental health tropes, I'm not sure. But those immortals seemed like secondary plots anyway.