Series 12

A late Christmas present has arrived......

I like Critical Drinker, his reviews are always razor sharp and well-observed in terms of analysis. His old and new Ghostbusters scene comparison is a good example.

Funny how he went from initially totally sober sounding to utterly pissed in his later ones!

For those of you who had the stomach to watch it, what would you say is worse, Arachnids or Orphan 55?

ClockworkOcean wrote:For those of you who had the stomach to watch it, what would you say is worse, Arachnids or Orphan 55?

Good to see you back.

Orphan 55 was definitely more painful of the two.

It might even have done the impossible and surpassed Warriors of the Deep in awfulness for me.

Tanmann wrote:

ClockworkOcean wrote:For those of you who had the stomach to watch it, what would you say is worse, Arachnids or Orphan 55?

Good to see you back.

Orphan 55 was definitely more painful of the two.

It might even have done the impossible and surpassed Warriors of the Deep in awfulness for me.

Fucking hell- that sounds uniquely abysmal, given how awful Arachnids was. I’ll have to watch it now!

As might I.

Me and my big mouth

The Metro have a review for Sunday's episode, here's what someone on GB said about it

Metro's review of Nikola Tesla's Night of Terror mentions the following points:

Ryan takes centre stage of the companions, but the companions are brushed to the sidelines this week, although they provide comic relief - Yaz and Ryan only recognise Tesla's name from the cars. Graham has a line to the quarreling Tesla and Edison: "Oi! AC, DC!"

The episode emphasises similarities between Tesla and the Doctor, even with the companions they keep. Immigration is touched on, as people do not trust Tesla as an immigrant or his inventions, but flock to believe Edison.

Another line quoted: "Have you ever seen a dead planet?" "More than you can possibly imagine."

Uh Oh

It's a bit of a mixed review. It says the episode is a historical romp but doesn't have that "much-needed spark." The review also says Jodie Whittaker is "not...allowed to show off her acting chops" but she and Goran Visnjic have "great on-screen chemistry".

Turns out the Metro newspaper released their review of tomorrow's episode early, and it spoiled a good chunk of it. The article's been removed for now, but a few keen readers got a hold of it, here's some details

The companions are largely sidelined, Yaz does nothing again, and Ryan gets the lions' share of the focus they do get. The alien race, the Skithra are parasites that borrow other people's intellectual prowess, they are stranded on Earth and want Tesla to help them repair their ship.

Thomas Eddison's memory is not wiped (that'll trigger the twitter fem force...just remember, a woman writer spared this lad)

Don't expect connective tissue with the story arcs, it's another standalone story

Zarius wrote:Yaz does nothing again

It almost seems like the character was created to tick a box rather than to add anything meaningful to the series.

Zarius wrote:Yaz does nothing again

If she hasn't got anything better to do, She can always come down to the Lamb And Flag pub in Hammersmith. Just don't tell Eddie or any of his roustabout friends about it.

I have finally sat through Orphan 55. I can’t be arsed to write an intelligent and objective critique at the moment, so I shall outline the thoughts that went through my head whilst watching it, in chronological order.

Fuck, she’s gurning already.

Wow, the editing for this is amongst the worst I’ve ever seen, as is the direction. The cutting and lighting is about as proficient as that seen in Aliens V Predator: Requiem.

Christ, this couple is already grating on my nerves. If I hear the name “Benni” uttered in such a way again...

Fuck, she’s said it again!

Oh, look- another idiotic sub-plot between Ryan and another character that goes nowhere, and doesn’t Yas make Matthew Waterhouse look like Daniel Day Lewis?

“We both have dead parents”. What a shit line delivered with zero conviction.

She’s said ‘Benni’ again!

“How could you...” Jesus Christ. Her acting makes Jenny Laird in Planet of the Spiders look like Lawrence Olivier in comparison.

“Good old fashion passive aggressive discussion”. What a moronic and facile thing to say in such a situation, and whilst waving her hands about and gurning yet again. This incarnation seems to have no emotional awareness whatsoever and seems intent on
exacerbating the situation. So much for Mr Tardis’ sentiments of her Doctor being ‘just kind’.

Where did those bombs emerge from? Did they always have them? Why did they not use them from the outset? Did we have to contrive 20 minutes of melodrama amidst the incoherent editing? They embark outside just to travel back into the facility, so what was the fucking point of that old couple? Hell, what was the point of any of the side-characters in this?

So the contrived crisp packet from earlier on had genuine narrative significance. This makes no sense whatsoever...

So global warming was followed up by a good portion of humanity mutating into these biological tree-like entities. OK- will we get to learn more about this and who was specifically involved?

Oh- so she’s just left them all to die in order to deliver an unbearably twee monologue. Again, ‘just kind’ my arse. She can’t even be arsed to resolve the situation! If she’s going to tell us about ‘people arguing about the washing up whilst the house burns down’, she can at least spare the moral hypocrisy and do something about it. But no- she’s just stood there delivering a moronic monologue and doing fuck all about it, the equivalent of “arguing about the washing up.” Why are NuWho fans on Twitter comparing this shite to the Pertwee stories as a defence for “preachiness”, for fuck’s sake? Can they not understand the schizophrenia behind this script, and the utter vacuity behind her sentiments?

This was inexcusably awful. I’m unsure as to whether it was worse than “Arachnids”, but it may be on par. I’m not falling for that trick again- I’m abandoning this completely from now on.

Bernard Marx wrote:This was inexcusably awful. I’m unsure as to whether it was worse than “Arachnids”, but it may be on par. I’m not falling for that trick again- I’m abandoning this completely from now on.

It was definitely the last straw for me too.

I think mainly because it was probably as ambitious as Chibnall's era ever got, and I think there were some departments that were really trying in spite of everything, despite of clashing horribly with each other.

If this was the era genuinely trying it's best and it was still this awful, then there was definitely no hope left.

I would have thought the BBC had some sort of quality control governing their prime time TV shows whereby a panel reviews them. And yet we still get sthg as poor as Orphan 55. It's almost as if Chris has given up and gone home leaving the cast take up their own lines and generally improvise.

stengos wrote:I would have thought the BBC had some sort of quality control governing their prime time TV shows whereby a panel reviews them. And yet we still get sthg as poor as Orphan  55. It's almost as if Chris has given up and gone home leaving the cast take up their own lines and generally improvise.

The problem is, I think the BBC higher ups and panels just don't get Doctor Who, or sci-fi as a genre as it's something the BBC typically don't do anymore. All they seem to know is that Doctor Who as revived by RTD was a big success and they tended to leave him to it (I think the only time they intervened was when they said they were concerned The Unquiet Dead was 'too slow' for their target audience).

I believe the BBC spent a lot of time panicking that Moffat wasn't getting the same kind of ratings, but I don't think they had a clue what he was meant to be doing right, other than do it more like how RTD was doing it. But they had this flagship show they'd invested in, and RTD wasn't coming back, nor was any willing replacement for Moffat really available, so they had to persevere with it.

Now I think they're just, on the one hand grateful Moffat's gone, but know that Chibnall is the only option they can go with, because he was the only replacement they could find.

I think the fact he's not getting the ratings is a concern, but they're not sure what they can do about it anymore (or they're still pinning their hopes on the idea that Jodie's debut demonstrated an 'up' in the ratings from Capaldi's worst), and they just can't see what's wrong with the show because they still don't 'get' sci-fi.

They probably think it has to be all tell rather than show because they think the casual audience is not literate enough in sci-fi to get it otherwise. they probably think Ryan sucking his thumb is just there for the kiddies. And they probably think Jodie's speech is addressing a resonant issue like Eastenders does.

In any case they might indeed have to start asking questions soon if the ratings stay this bad, but I don't hold my breath they'll come to any of the right answers.

Odd that so much time was taken to build up a “scary threat” and then the main villain was pure pantomime. It ruined the threat entirely.

Yep. That shot of the monsters near the end means the diehard Nu Who fans don't even have the 'rubber suits' card to play against the classic show now.

Mott1 wrote:Yep. That shot of the monsters near the end means the diehard Nu Who fans don't even have the 'rubber suits' card to play against the classic show now.

Or indeed the "wobbly sets" card, not that it even applied to the classic series anyway. Those ridiculous crystal things in Jodie's TARDIS wobble far more egregiously than anything I can recall from the original show.

You guys just can't stay off the junk. ;-)

Ludders wrote:You guys just can't stay off the junk. ;-)

I did.

Well done.

I did too. I feel gratified having not watched this crap, and I doubt I’ll be swayed this time by others into watching it out of morbid curiosity.

If I can make it that far I'll probably succumb eventually. But at the rate I'm going, I'll probably always be about 5 years behind.

I accidentally left BBC 1 on, forgetting that it was about to start. Thankfully, I was able to change the channel before the title sequence finished, but I still feel dirty knowing that I contributed to the viewing figures, even if only for a few seconds.

Tanmann wrote:

Ludders wrote:You guys just can't stay off the junk. ;-)

I did.

As did I. Do I get a cookie?