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Doctor Who - Series 12, Chibnall's Revenge

Started by Deanjam, June 13, 2019, 04:35:22 PM

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olliebean

I guess we know from how much Chibnall was going on before this series about how big it was, how much bigger than ever before, that he doesn't really know the difference between "big" and "impactful."

Thomas

Most memorable thing in Series 11 was a rubber frog from Poundland blu-tacked to a chair in a featureless room.

Kelvin

Well, that was the best episode of Chibnall's Who by some considerable distance. One of the very few (maybe the only one) that felt like it would have been a standout even in a RTD or Moffat series.

Whitaker's Doctor was genuinely good!

weekender

Quote from: Kelvin on February 16, 2020, 08:04:31 PM
Well, that was the best episode of Chibnall's Who by some considerable distance.

So does it maybe warrant a 3 or a 4 out of 10?  I haven't watched it yet, couldn't be arsed.

Kelvin

Quote from: weekender on February 16, 2020, 08:10:51 PM
So does it maybe warrant a 3 or a 4 out of 10?

No, as I say, it was genuinely good, not just in comparison to everything else. 

Malcy

Not bad but I found myself not knowing who each character was for most of it. Enjoyed Robo-Borg.

Alberon

Yep, it's a good one. Some good scares, a few good jokes, a mystery and a menacing monster that largely delivers. I liked the neck snap of the maid, properly dark, even if it happened sort of offscreen.

Mango Chimes

Quote from: Kelvin on February 16, 2020, 08:04:31 PMWhitaker's Doctor was genuinely good!

This was the episode where I came round to accepting I dislike her. In fact, she's the thing I liked least in the episode.

GOOD BITS:

  • Spooky house was spooky.
  • The looping rooms was a nice idea. Definitely seen it before (Labyrinth, maybe? Probably lots of things,) but it was nicely done, first with Graham and then later on.
  • Graham. I've had trouble seeing the CaB love for him in the past, but he's shone recently. His realisation at being haunted would have been a fun button were it not bungled.
  • It was pretty compelling, despite some of the BAD BITS I'll mention below, for most of the running time. Not really knowing what's going on, it worked as an intriguing mystery until it completely collapsed at the end.

BAD BITS:

  • Jodie performing the Doctor so straight. She plays the jokes as jokes and the serious bits as serious, which is fine for most characters but is leaden for the Doctor. When she said "This house is decidedly evil", she said portentously like it was a fact. But the Doctor wouldn't think a house is evil[nb]And the house wasn't fucking evil in the end, was it?[/nb]. And if she did, she'd say it with a twinkle. In the moment afterwards, where she's stood there looking stern, I was thinking of Matt Smith saying it with a shrug and a half smile and an uncertain glance. See also her breathy "ooh, I can't think" and "ah, it's this, and this, and that means this" stuff. I dislike it all.
  • The fucking Doctor being so enamoured of celebrities. Yes, Tennant's "all the little people matter, you're brilliant, you are" stuff got grating. But this episode began with the Doctor wetting herself to meet some celebrities, had a scene where she shrugs off two dead servants with "we can't let this happen to you famous people or history will change!", and ended with her bollocking Ryan for making the sort of pragmatic utilitarian point the Doctor might have previously considered. "Fuck off, Ryan. Billions dead? Don't you realise – he's a fucking FAMOUS WRITER." Horrible.
  • Jack's fucking warning being as utterly worthless as it seemed when it was given.
  • The Cyberman having the same awful hard-to-make-out voice as Tim Shaw
  • Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin spending half the episode desperate to get her baby back then immediately ditching her baby to run off whilst a Cyberman's still stomping around.
  • The Doctor absorbing the Cybermercurystuff then immediately giving up the Cybermercurystuff. What was point?

Malcy

I struggled with what it was saying at times as well. The Cyberium idea is very like something I read recently. I think it was the Doctor Who & Star Trek TNG crossover 'Assimilation '. A sort of backup of the Borg collective or Cyberman similar, I can't remember.

Kelvin

Quote from: Mango Chimes on February 16, 2020, 08:33:30 PM
This was the episode where I came round to accepting I dislike her. In fact, she's the thing I liked least in the episode.

I still don't think Whittaker's much cop; very one note. But at least her scene in the basement was good, and the sort of thing her Doctor has consistently lacked - something a bit nastier underneath it all. For that stuff at least, I thought Whitaker was actually quite good.

Kelvin

Quote from: Mango Chimes on February 16, 2020, 08:33:30 PM
ended with her bollocking Ryan for making the sort of pragmatic utilitarian point the Doctor might have previously considered. "Fuck off, Ryan. Billions dead? Don't you realise – he's a fucking FAMOUS WRITER." Horrible.

That's not really what happened. She was saying that his writing had inspired and changed so many people over the years that it would change the future and stop people from existing just by removing him from it. Her phrase was "Words matters", which feels far more like The Doctor than simply not wanting a famous person to die.

VelourSpirit

"Cyberium" fucking hell
4/10 and I don't think chib era will ever go beyond that again. Inane mess as usual.

Mango Chimes

Quote from: Kelvin on February 16, 2020, 08:48:51 PM
That's not really what happened. She was saying that his writing had inspired and changed so many people over the years that it would change the future to remove him from it. Her phrase was "Words matters" which feels far more Doctor than simply not wanting a famous person to die.

But the two servants who died already, they don't matter. She's only concerned about the butterfly effect as it relates to the celebrity. Presumably there would be no writers amongst the additional billions dead in the mooted trade off.

I understand there's a more generous reading, but I don't think they earned it. "Words matter" would be powerful if the trade-off was less dramatic. Shelly versus, I don't know, Brunel – making a point about the value of Humanities. Or if it were "let him die, he's nobody" and the Doctor sticking up for him. But "is one life worth billions?" "Yes, of course it is, specifically because he's an influential person" played badly for me.

mjwilson

#2473
Quote from: Mango Chimes on February 16, 2020, 08:33:30 PM

Jodie performing the Doctor so straight. She plays the jokes as jokes and the serious bits as serious, which is fine for most characters but is leaden for the Doctor. When she said "This house is decidedly evil", she said portentously like it was a fact. But the Doctor wouldn't think a house is evil[nb]And the house wasn't fucking evil in the end, was it?[/nb]. And if she did, she'd say it with a twinkle. In the moment afterwards, where she's stood there looking stern, I was thinking of Matt Smith saying it with a shrug and a half smile and an uncertain glance.

Vincent and the Doctor though...

Edit: I was being a bit cryptic there. There is a bit in V&tD which I really dislike, when Matt Smith looks at the painting of the chicken thing and says "I know evil when I see it". That always struck me as unDoctory.

Kelvin

Quote from: Mango Chimes on February 16, 2020, 09:07:27 PM
But the two servants who died already, they don't matter. She's only concerned about the butterfly effect as it relates to the celebrity. Presumably there would be no writers amongst the additional billions dead in the mooted trade off.

The Doctor should care about anyone dying obviously, but I think it's fairly standard for every iteration of the character to treat some lives as a greater priority when it risks putting a much larger number of lives at stake. She cared more about the butterfly effect of the "celebrity" because they would have a bigger impact on the future. That's built into the show. If every death mattered that much then any supporting character dying in any episode would change the future of the world - but they don't in any meaningful way. Only someone who shaped the future significantly through art, science, social impact (etc) is considered a fixed point, or serious risk to the future. That's been baked into the concept of the show since 2005.

Catalogue Trousers

Better than any RTD season. And any of Moffat's prior to Capaldi. I know this is a minority opinion. It doesn't really bother me. At last it feels more like an adventure in space and time again rather than a cop-out-ridden soap.

Thomas

Pretty great, creepy ep. Nice tying-in of historical detail, too, from the 'year without a summer' to Percy Shelley's visions. And I was right:

Quote from: Thomas on February 14, 2020, 11:06:26 AM
[Byron] could be a great foil for the Doctor, a pompous irritant a lá Robin Hood. Send up the classic 'Byronic hero' image, have him cowering in the corner when he thinks no one's looking, at pains to hide his bald patches even in a supernatural crisis.

Good that the Doctor's recent emotional developments around the Cybermen were acknowledged. 'I will not lose anyone else to that.' Gives something extra, beyond them just being Classic Baddies.

And there was a chilling inversion of the usual 'power of love' solution. 'I did have children. I slit their throats.' Almost Game of Thrones-level horror. The writer here, Maxine Alderton, really managed to infuse the elements of Series 12 with some vigour. By happy accident, the orange-and-teal regime ended up paying off, too. Thought it worked here.

Quote from: Kelvin on February 16, 2020, 08:43:17 PM
I still don't think Whittaker's much cop; very one note. But at least her scene in the basement was good, and the sort of thing her Doctor has consistently lacked - something a bit nastier underneath it all. For that stuff at least, I thought Whitaker was actually quite good.

Yeah - I don't care if we agree with all of the Doctor's philosophies; only that they seem just about plausible for the character and are performed well. I often enjoy it when the Doctor's perspective does seem cold and alien. The Time Lord Victorious and Capaldi bollocking Maisie Williams are some of my favourite moments. And recall Matt Smith, arguably out of character, smugly proclaiming, 'Fear me, I've killed all of 'em.' Great moment. I like the occasional ruthless bastard creeping in.

Now, 'words matter' isn't very bastardly, no, but I enjoyed the scene and Jodie's performance, with her Doctor getting to have a bit of a spirited tiff with a companion.

Kelvin

Yeah, and her stuff about the flat power structure and her standing on a mountain was Tenant levels of arrogance. After a few episodes of them clumsily hinting that the companions feels increasingly distant from The Doctor, this was the first time it really felt earned. Yes, she calls them all her "fam", but she need to be working on a completely different level - not just of intelligence, but of purpose. With Smith, Tenant, and Capaldi that was achieved within a handful of episodes. In two series, this is the first time Thirteen has felt that alien. 

olliebean

Quote from: Mango Chimes on February 16, 2020, 08:33:30 PM
  • The looping rooms was a nice idea. Definitely seen it before (Labyrinth, maybe? Probably lots of things,) but it was nicely done, first with Graham and then later on.

I'm pretty sure it's been done in Doctor Who before, although it may have been in a comic or something rather than on the telly. I have a clear mental image of the 4th Doctor striding bemusedly around the TARDIS and keeping on ending up back where he just came from.

Kelvin

The looping rooms was a nice idea, but felt very half arsed at points, with the characters literally walking out, and then walking back in via the same door a few moments later. They didn't even have the same momentum, it was obviously the actors just walking in and out.

Bad Ambassador

Quote from: olliebean on February 16, 2020, 10:35:15 PM
I'm pretty sure it's been done in Doctor Who before, although it may have been in a comic or something rather than on the telly. I have a clear mental image of the 4th Doctor striding bemusedly around the TARDIS and keeping on ending up back where he just came from.

Logopolis, where the Master's TARDIS lands as a police box inside the Doctor's.

Chairman Yang

Quote from: Kelvin on February 16, 2020, 10:57:55 PM
The looping rooms was a nice idea, but felt very half arsed at points, with the characters literally walking out, and then walking back in via the same door a few moments later. They didn't even have the same momentum, it was obviously the actors just walking in and out.

Hah, it was impressively shit. Hearing it described here I expected some sort of cool motion control camera work or something.

Episode started well, liked how everyone was a horny idiot, then it just became some Cyberman nonsense. Probably the best episode in Chibnall's run.

Cloud

Well that was a repetitive snooze fest, at least until Hugh Borg turned up and pretty much thereafter.  Best part of it was Graham mooching around trying to find the bog, oblivious to the ways of the 19th century



Oh I did like the whole "no win situation" thing. Nice to see her being a bit more serious.

mjwilson

Quote from: Cloud on February 17, 2020, 12:20:04 AM
Well that was a repetitive snooze fest, at least until Hugh Borg turned up and pretty much thereafter.  Best part of it was Graham mooching around trying to find the bog, oblivious to the ways of the 19th century

That raises an important question - did Graham just hold it in all night? At his age?

A chamberpot was produced at one point. FWIW, I thought the valet was very nicely done. Every so often in the back of the shot, you'd see him eye roll.

Enjoyed that a lot while having a good half dozen "oh, I'm not so sure" points. The maid-neck scene was excellent. I liked the resolution of Shelley trying to appeal to his humanity.




Mango Chimes

Quote from: Kelvin on February 16, 2020, 10:57:55 PM
The looping rooms was a nice idea, but felt very half arsed at points, with the characters literally walking out, and then walking back in via the same door a few moments later. They didn't even have the same momentum, it was obviously the actors just walking in and out.

That was bizarre. I wonder if it was shot by a second unit that didn't quite understand the concept. The bit on the hallway where they walked downstairs and then it tilted up to see them come back at the top was nice. Doesn't make any sense as a 'perception filter' thing, but that's alright.

Cerys

I really rather liked that one.  But then I'm a goth - it was inevitable.

Mister Six

Left it until last night to bother catching up with the last two episodes. I enjoyed the Judoon one and the plastic virus episode (once upon a time I would have bothered to remember the titles) but I'm so weary at this point that even the uptick isn't enough to reignite my passion for Who. If it wasn't for this forum I would probably have given up by now.

Can You Hear Me?
I bet this started out focused much more intently on the lass from ye olde Syria, and Chibnall's rewrite brought in the shitty subplots with everyone's modern-day pals. Would explain why Syrian lass basically disappears from the plot until she needs to take control of the murder-sloth at the end, in what was probably once a triumphant victory on her part but is now just a thing that happens amid a bunch of other things that happened.[nb]Monsters that don't exist representing mental health problems is a dodgy variation on Vincent and The Doctor's invisible monster that represented mental health problems. I don't think they entirely thought this variation through. Likewise, if the message of the story is to listen to people who are in emotional distress, maybe don't hinge the plot on The Doctor accidentally freeing a baddie because Graham heard her cries for help.[/nb] Having the baddies get one over on The Doctor then immediately get trapped on their next confrontation with little effort (and a particularly lazy bit of sonic screwdriving) left them looking pathetic and undercut the (pretty solid) drama of the preceding 40-ish minutes. And for what? So we can get Yaz's boring non-story in there, and a happy ending for Ryan's mate who appeared from nowhere and did nothing the whole episode? Pah! I did like this, but there's a much better episode underneath this. Maybe even a two-parter, to be honest.

The Frankenstein one
Best Chibnall-era effort by a mile. Properly spooky and nasty, good use of historical figures (even if Byron and sleepwalking fella looked too similar), decent FX and not too much of Tohsin Cole's abject shitness. Did Mary Shelley never actually tell the Frankenstein story in the end, though? Or did The Doctor and crew turn up a day early? Never mind. The only thing I didn't like was The Doctor shrugging off the ghosts in much the same way that the writer did. Completely pointless copy of the same thing in The Unquiet Dead, except there it was actually an integral part of the story and themes, and had some impact on The Doctor and Rose. Here it was like they needed a spooky thing to fill in some time early on in the episode, and that was what they came up with.

While I'm moaning, how/why did the Cyberman (or was it the magic mercury?[nb]Getting vibes of The Invisibles from some of this, which pleased me.[/nb]) control those bones, and who was tossing the vases around at the start?

Cerys

Quote from: Mister Six on February 17, 2020, 04:58:39 PMDid Mary Shelley never actually tell the Frankenstein story in the end, though?

It's implied that Mary is inspired by Ashad to write Frankenstein.

Thomas

Quote from: Mister Six on February 17, 2020, 04:58:39 PM
and who was tossing the vases around at the start?

That was Percy Shelley, frustrated at his invisibility.

Quote from: Cerys on February 17, 2020, 05:06:19 PM
It's implied that Mary is inspired by Ashad to write Frankenstein.

She even says 'this modern Prometheus' to him; as far as wedging references into dialogue goes, it wasn't bad. The poem Byron recites at the end was written in the year of their famous storytelling retreat, so we can assume they came up with their stories after the TARDIS left.