Empress of Mars

Chat around

Not a bad one at all, could easily have been a two-parter just to make the human/Warrior conflict less one-sided, and it served classic who continuity by offering up an explanation for why the Warriors were a bit more civil in the first Peladon story. The arc stuff I can't really judge 'till it plays out, but this made for most of the Monk saga. Not a fan of the historically inaccurate political correctness but it wasn't a base-breaker

This was okay.

Great weapon FX too! Nice and twisted

Just waiting for Bumjaw to go apeshit over the the Queen and Billy's feminist interaction

Zarius wrote:and it served classic who continuity by offering up an explanation for why the Warriors were a bit more civil in the first Peladon story.

No, it doesn't

Empress of Mars
Cold War - 1983
(Presumably, the Ice Warriors would go here)
Seeds of Death – Late-21st century
Peladon 3885 - http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/The_Curse_of_Peladon_(TV_story)
Monster of Peladon 3932 - http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/The_Monster_of_Peladon_(TV_story)

Boofer wrote:This was okay.

Great weapon FX too! Nice and twisted

Just waiting for Bumjaw to go apeshit over the the Queen and Billy's feminist interaction

Yeah cause its not like you complain about those things in New Who when Penny isn't around and you can't white knight is it?

Everyone in the media speculates about casting an ethnic minority, or a woman, but never a disabled person

Usual elevation of 'liberal' audience 're-education' above narrative realism. Meh.

Oh fuck off.

Harry's sexuality was the last thing on my fucking mind in old Who + 99% of the other characters.

This is just a stupid bit of (genuine) virtual-signalling and retrospective character fuckery that lends nothing to the past and very little to the future (in spite of the assurances from the lunatic fringes of the right-on squad).

Utter bollocks.

What makes you think that is genuine virtue signalling and Missy that I complain about isn't? Particularly when Steven Moffat has actually said that he cast Gomez to pave the way for a female Doctor for greater representation many times. its not even just my opinion, he openly admits it, same with Pearl Mackie's casting, though I don't mind her as a companion or actress unlike you who keeps calling her ugly compared to Jenna (what a feminist thing to do.)

As for the episode, I liked it. Probably the best this series and the second best of the Capaldi era. In his era its a diamond in a sea of turds, but it would probably stand out as a great story in any era TBH.

It had a nice link with old Who. I absolutely LOVED the cameo from a classic era character at the end (I thought the voice on the radio was meant to be another Ice Queen at first and couldn't believe how stupid she sounded, but then when the picture flashed up it all made perfect sense!) The chick playing the Ice Queen was amazing, the new way the Ice Warriors killed their victims was really unique and creative too. Supporting characters were well acted and written as well.

I'd give it a 9/10. I only knock one point off for Pissy Missy ( who is genuine virtue signalling. Hell she might as well be named "Please stop calling me a sexist on tumblr feminists, I wrecked a 40 year long character for you!" the character.)

I have to admit I saw bits of this whilst preparing dinner. It wasn't too bad, I thought the ice warriors were imposing, the threat was taken seriously, Catchlove's guilt and attempted redemption was dealt with maturely and the empress was well-played. Shame about the Frozen gag, completely intruding on the atmosphere, what a shame that even a half-decent story has to have its quota of crap gags, particularly from the Doctor. I also think it could have done with a second episode as the rather hammed-up character of Catchlove seemed to go from raffish charm to military arrogance to treacherous cowardice in subsequent scenes - too rushed.

I don't feel it'd be fair to give it a rating as I only saw half of it, maybe a 6 or 7 out of 10...

This was not bad and I never thought I would say this but Murray Gold's music on this was good for a change and had more atmospheric synth textures than the usually brass band bollocks. However, once the action scenes arrived then the dreaded brass band reared their ugly head.

Rawkuss wrote:

Zarius wrote:and it served classic who continuity by offering up an explanation for why the Warriors were a bit more civil in the first Peladon story.

No, it doesn't

Empress of Mars
Cold War - 1983
(Presumably, the Ice Warriors would go here)
Seeds of Death – Late-21st century
Peladon 3885 -  http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/The_Curse_of_Peladon_(TV_story)
Monster of Peladon 3932 - http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/The_Monster_of_Peladon_(TV_story)

Something something rogue factions

Wasn't bad at all. But the things that didn't sit right, really didn't sit right. There was only four things I didn't like.
I was OK with Victorians on Mars, but did the deserter really have his noose around his neck that was too hard to remove, oh wait it came off underground on Mars!

The loyalties of the black soldier didn't appear to be thought out as well.

It was brief thankfully, but the "Woman in the police?" bit was shit too.

And although it was a good idea having killed people turn into a square pile of clothes, I didn't like the way they bounced.

Apart from that, and it wasn't a long list! It was more enjoyable than the last three episodes for me.

Rather enjoyed that one, certainly a vast improvement on the Monks trilogy (what a pain in the rear end waste of time that all was). Given this seems to be Gatiss' last script (Chibnall is bringing in a whole new raft of writers, apparently, and not before time!) it's a good one to finish on. A few new series-related niggles aside (i.e it was rushed, a few moments of PC wankery and the arc plot unnecessarily butting in) this was a very enjoyable slice of refreshingly unpretentious oldskool fun with some cliched but fun guest characters (nice to see the guy from New Tricks in it, and he was good too). Not bad at all, probably joint with Oxygen as the best of the season to date.
And I can't believe they brought Alpha Centauri back!

So fucking bored of the PC-infested scripts - just write a fucking story you cock-sucking c*nt, without the need to ram a "message" or revisionist piece of propagandist shit into every.single.fucking.script. Yes, the world sucks, but I watch Dr Who for entertainment, not your fucking twisted fucking educational agenda, you oily, creepy, overbearing sack of c*nt snot.

Moffat really annoys me.

3/10 - 1 for the Ice Warriors, 1 for the reductionist sets and 1 for luck.

(yeah, I know it was scripted by his mate, but we know whence the real evulz emanates)

7/10

Despite the way the media pushed Bill as "Doctor Who's FIRST OPENLY GAY COMPANION!" I think she's the best so far in New Who.

Gatiss criticised the 'colour blind' casting of the black soldier... sort of. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4595196/Doctor-writer-criticises-casting-black-actor.html

Adam Ant Driver wrote:Gatiss criticised the 'colour blind' casting of the black soldier... sort of. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4595196/Doctor-writer-criticises-casting-black-actor.html

But they would be just as useless and uncharacteristic if it was a great pink actor! I really think Gatiss shouldn't be drawing too much attention to that character.
I'm a good guy. Oh wait, I'll keep a look out. No, I'm a good guy again. Oh I'm dead.

Adam Ant Driver wrote:Gatiss criticised the 'colour blind' casting of the black soldier... sort of. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4595196/Doctor-writer-criticises-casting-black-actor.html

The thing about New Who that's annoying is that everything these days seems to be geared towards virtue signalling rather than what's right for the show.

The way I see it with casting minorities in things set in racist times there are two options you can take.

1/ Make it like Xena and Hercules and Merlin IE not even attempting to be historically accurate and camp to the point where no one would even notice or care as everything else is so inaccurate.

2/ Try and make it accurate and show the effects of racism in the past like Old Who did. I know that Old Who undoubtedly didn't always get its historicals right, but it did at least try with stories like Remembrance of the Daleks which showed us a darker side to the 60's.

New Who meanwhile it seems again goes for whatever allows it to virtue signal.

Like in Thin Ice. At one point they make out that actually the past has been "whitewashed" and there were black people in positions of power, they were common, there were interracial relationships a plenty back then etc.

Then later in the same episode they make out that it was just as racist as it was now by having the Doctor go up against a rabid racist dickhead.

Cor. Four million HIVE POINTS for Mr Spadge

So edgy.