Doctor Who, Series 7 (part two)

[Replies From View]

Poor SNG.

It likes being subverted.  Don't feel sorry for it.

[Cerys]

Erm - actually, in this kind of scenario, SNG is rather ... dominant.

[biggytitbo]

Like like like like like like like too much info sister!!!

[Cerys]

I just felt that calling him 'it' was inaccurate.  'It' is for every third Wednesday, sans chainmail.

[Replies From View]

Like like like like like like like too much info sister!!!

It's impossible to like such things too much.

May Cerys be henceforth known as "info sister".

[Cerys]

Better than 'mofo sister', I suppose.

[Replies From View]

"Info sister" is the title for a lady who intends to educate the "streets".  GO FORTH.

[Ambient Sheep]

I missed the first 20 seconds or so of The Snowmen on the actual broadcast.  Having now caught up with them, I'd just like to say that the snarling snowflakes intro is just silly, unnecessary, gratuitous rubbish[nb]Oh my God, I sound like my Dad slagging off Thunderbirds.[/nb], and had I seen that on first transmission I think I'd have enjoyed the rest of the episode a great deal less.  Really stupid and offputting.  I can now understand the odd dissenting "FFS, that was awful" opinion here[nb]Waves at Kelvin.[/nb] rather more than I did before.  It's surprising how much difference that opening shot makes to the tone of the thing.  A real mistake, I think.

Apart from anything else, if they only work by mirroring, why would they be snarling?  Did some intergalactic space wolf snarl at them recently on their approach to Earth?  And why would they be snarling at the camera?

Talking of such things, having rewatched it, I do now think that The Doctor is addressing the camera at the end, breaking the fourth wall.  It didn't really strike me that way at first, but on seeing it again, it seems a lot clearer.  If it wasn't supposed to be aimed at us, but just murmuring to himself, well, Matt Smith and the director misplayed it in my humble opinion.

_{^{Yeah, I know I've got some replies to get back to in this thread.  One day, maybe, sorry.}}

[Mister Six]

Apart from anything else, if they only work by mirroring, why would they be snarling?  Did some intergalactic space wolf snarl at them recently on their approach to Earth?  And why would they be snarling at the camera?

They're just snarling, and the camera happens to be in the way. I liked 'em.

Great episode all round, although the ending would've been fucking bizarre to anyone who hadn't seen Asylum of the Daleks, and the ice matron was wonkily animated. Oh, and Richard E Grant should have been given more to do. Still, it won over the girlfriend, who was determined not to like Clara after being in tears over the loss of Amy and Rory.

Do we know when 7.2 is going to be broadcast?

[The Roofdog]

Do we know when 7.2 is going to be broadcast?

April

I watched the Snowmen for a second time and I still think it's on the weaker side. Way too much going on, right down to the climax where Moffat can't even decide if the villain is REG or the Great Intelligence. Once again a decent story loses out to Moff's fannydangle. There's a house-under-siege story, the most convoluted companion introduction ever seen, the Doctor's "retirement" and the Mme Vastra Scooby gang all going on at once, all of which could be good, but because it's in the same episode, none of it is.

[Replies From View]

Talking of such things, having rewatched it, I do now think that The Doctor is addressing the camera at the end, breaking the fourth wall.  It didn't really strike me that way at first, but on seeing it again, it seems a lot clearer.  If it wasn't supposed to be aimed at us, but just murmuring to himself, well, Matt Smith and the director misplayed it in my humble opinion.

Surely it is supposed to be ambiguous.  You're meant to go "hey - he looked at the camera and told us to watch him run!" and then check again to realise he's just talking to himself, looks almost down the camera lens but not quite, and it's fine.

If it hadn't been for Oswin's far more jarring one in 'Asylum of the Daleks' (which we saw in the Christmas special in flashback), nobody would have minded this one as much.  It wouldn't be seen as part of a trend, more as a "We'll send you BACK... TO THE FUTURE!!!!...... hey look at that... rat crawling over there" moment. 


He's looking inwards, not at the audience, despite initial appearances.  In itself, in its own bubble, it is objectively fine and only ruins 'The Snowmen' if you want it to.


As for the snarling snowflake - I take some things literally, and other things not so.  The episode also happened behind the doors of the TARDIS if you take the opening sequence literally.  It was a piece of Christmas tinsel to me - nothing to mar the episode.  Just part of the picture frame.

[olliebean]

Incidentally if you watch it with the crap cgi TARDIS at the start in mind, the cgi TARDIS that you see just before Oswin enters it for the first time isn't up to much either.

[Replies From View]

Incidentally if you watch it with the crap cgi TARDIS at the start in mind, the cgi TARDIS that you see just before Oswin enters it for the first time isn't up to much either.

First time it's been done like that, if this is true:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icOHl4qCikk

"We've finally managed to do the 'it's bigger on the inside' shot."

[daf]

Talking of such things, having rewatched it, I do now think that The Doctor is addressing the camera at the end, breaking the fourth wall.

Shame he didn't go the whole hog and wish all of us watching at home a "Merry Christmas"!

[Replies From View]

"Quite soon I'll be sending this lot 'Doc to the Whoture' if that makes sense!  Haha!  Merry Christmas folks!!"

[Phil_A]

First time it's been done like that, if this is true:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icOHl4qCikk

"We've finally managed to do the 'it's bigger on the inside' shot."

They were doing this sort of thing as long ago as The Sensorites, and without the aid of green screening!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=SQd5PBBEAks#t=147s

[Replies From View]

They were doing this sort of thing as long ago as The Sensorites, and without the aid of green screening!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=SQd5PBBEAks#t=147s

That is extremely nice, and there's no doubting there have been many ways of showing the transition from outside to inside the TARDIS (and vice versa) over the years.

What they claim to have done for the first time in 'The Snowmen' is show that the TARDIS is a box, then go into it in one single shot.  The equivalent version of The Sensorites sequence would have had no edit between stepping out of the TARDIS and locking the door, and then zooming out and panning a bit to see the police box isolated within the larger set.  The director is clearly over-egging it when he says "We've finally managed to do the 'it's bigger on the inside' shot."  It's just one of many ways, and is only a gimmick when all's said and done.  It's probably something you should only do when introducing a new companion, when the TARDIS is meant to come across as unexpected and exciting.  I'd hate it if they started making all TARDIS entrance and exit shots into a big deal.

[Phil_A]

That is extremely nice, and there's no doubting there have been many ways of showing the transition from outside to inside the TARDIS (and vice versa) over the years.

I know, I was just being facetious. Both sequences are impressive, but I think The Sensorites one is probably more of an achievement, given the limited technical resources the show had to work with in 1964.

[Replies From View]

I know, I was just being facetious. Both sequences are impressive, but I think The Sensorites one is probably more of an achievement, given the limited technical resources the show had to work with in 1964.

True.  It'd be interesting to see if they could build some planets or spaceships immediately outside the current TARDIS set in order to achieve similar shots today.

[olliebean]

First time it's been done like that, if this is true:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icOHl4qCikk

"We've finally managed to do the 'it's bigger on the inside' shot."

Yes, I notice they don't mention in that video how it was done, which was the reason I went back and rewatched that scene and was disappointed to find the cgi so obvious.

[biggytitbo]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDj7gvc_dsA

[biggytitbo]

Yes, I notice they don't mention in that video how it was done, which was the reason I went back and rewatched that scene and was disappointed to find the cgi so obvious.

Apart from the Tardis exterior looking a bit dodgy, that's a brilliant, brilliant shot. Spectacularly difficult to do on a Brit TV budget aswell.


Of course its not quite the first time they've done it. At the end of the Doctor Dances they do they same shot but from the other direction, which is equally wonderful in its own way, but much much cheaper to do.

[Thomas]

Steven Moffat interviewed by his son, with questions submitted by YouTube users -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=5eu5xtc-x3k#!

'Does the Doctor ever sleep or use the toilet?'

[Angst in my Pants]

Speaking of speaking to camera - from memory, isn't Colin Baker's "Change my dear, and not a moment too soon!" spoken to Peri but addressed to the camera in a "You think Davison was good? Wait til they get a load of me!" moment of madness?

[Edley]

Speaking of speaking to camera - from memory, isn't Colin Baker's "Change my dear, and not a moment too soon!" spoken to Peri but addressed to the camera in a "You think Davison was good? Wait til they get a load of me!" moment of madness?

I think so. That story is full of fourth wall vandalism.

[Catalogue Trousers]

From "More Than 30 Years In The Tardis" - small boy opens Tardis door AND WE SEE THE INSIDE ALL IN ONE SHOT...from 1993 (the moment in question is pretty much spot on the 1:00 mark)...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QNF0vuHyGw

[Norton Canes]

I could never understand shots that looked straight into or out of the TARDIS. Because for the vast majority of the classic series, past a few instances in the Hartnell days[nb]and that bit in Pyramids of Mars where the Doctor shows Sarah the devastated alternate future[/nb], it was obvious that the Police Box doors and the heavy inner doors were entirely different things, and there was a kind of limbo in between. Glimpses into the outer doors indicated that there was nothing more than black space behind them, so I imagined there was a few feet of 'void', of darkness that you had to stumble through to get to the console room. It was almost like a leap of faith, going into it. And after a chilling second of isolation, the interior would be revealed.

That always seemed to me to be infinitely more satisfying than having the interior as an adjacent and obvious extension of 'normal' space.

[Replies From View]

That's right - like the bit of normal wardrobe before Narnia kicked in.

[biggytitbo]

The way they used to do it was entirely because of budget.


The way they do it now is right, none of this void shite.

[Replies From View]

It made sense because the TARDIS isn't literally a police box.  The TARDIS had its own proper heavy doors, and then beyond that a temporary "layer" of what it was resembling.  If the chameleon circuit was working now, we can only assume that the inside door area visible from the control console would be continually changing as it became a church organ or a stone column.  Which would be a bit odd I think.