The Woman Who Fell To Earth
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Dentarthurdent 6 months, 3 weeks ago.
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8 October 2018 at 16:49 #64277
@craig No need to apologize, you’re the moderator and it’s good to be reminded of boundaries. I apologize for being too gabby. 🙂
8 October 2018 at 16:52 #64278I liked it a lot but the young crane operator got a ticking off for booting Tim Shaw (who also reminded me of the Hyrogen in Star Trek Voyager) over the side when I thought Tim Shaw was melting due to the backfiring of his DNA bombs, so the young guy did him a favour really. Or do I need to watch it again. I probably will
8 October 2018 at 19:47 #64282Evening All
<bends knees>
Well I’ve now watched for the second time in my little white box on my little black rectangle
Yup Jodie definitely makes the grade as The Doctor
However I still think Gran’s death was veering close to woman in a fridge, for example, a broken arm in a sling making her unable to hold a gubbins and she sees them disappear would have worked just as well and given emotional push/pull , still doesn’t solve the lack of Yasmin’s family back story
I’ve read that there wil not be a story arc this season, do the forum think this is true and if so is it a good thing, personally I think that a thread running through a series is usually a good thing.
The closing credits reminded me quite strongly of the 70’s ( the coloured swirls on the border of the screen) and the theme tune with the drum beat heightened was Hartnellesque (I await the musical scholars here to politely tell me I’m a tone deaf idiot 😀)
A solid start story wise with potentially one of the great Doctor’s being created for us to enjoy by Jodie
8 October 2018 at 19:57 #64283Have posted a hello in On The Sofa. I have just rewatched The Woman Who… and it was worth rewatching. The pace seems tighter the second time, and although the plot holes (particularly timing) get worse, they also get less important. I find it better than most intros, though I still love Rose as a reboot.
8 October 2018 at 19:57 #64284Have posted a hello in On The Sofa. I have just rewatched The Woman Who… and it was worth rewatching. The pace seems tighter the second time, and although the plot holes (particularly timing) get worse, they also get less important. I find it better than most intros, though I still love Rose as a reboot.
Seems I posted twice accidentally, not sure how to remove dupes here!
8 October 2018 at 20:04 #64285@rob I was bothered by the optics of Gran’s death too — especially coming (narratively) not that long after sweet Bill Potts narrowly escaped fridging, and only a few years after Clara Oswin Oswald went through a similar so-close-but-yet-so-far encounter with the Doctor with even the same manner of death. It will be really interesting to see how this affects the remainder of the season in terms of the other characters and whether the unfortunate implications can be amended. (I know other genre shows have a bad habit of killing off black female characters and having Bill make it out after all was refreshing.)
If you want our theories and details on where the season’s going from here and how arc-based it will or won’t be, you’ll have to go to the future-episode-spoiler-friendly forums for those. I relearned that the hard way today! 😀
8 October 2018 at 20:15 #64286@rob
Well, Chibbers also said that the stories were all standalone and single episode – and we’ve just gone into Episode Two with everyone stranded in vacuum and a still-missing TARDIS. So he’s clearly absorbed Rule Zero: The Showrunner Always Lies. 🙂What he may mean is that you don’t need to know why the Gang are hanging about in space if you do choose to start at Episode Two – just that they got stuck there. Likewise, the lost TARDIS only needs a line.
The high death count is, I think, warning us that no one is safe – though frankly, I was giving it 50/50 odds that Nan wouldn’t make it to the end of the episode, as she hadn’t appeared much in the pre-publicity, and guest stars in Who have a truly horrific fatality rate. She also seemed far, far too confident about confronting weird aliens – but that could simply be the pointer that she was indeed too confident and was going to get herself killed – kind of a nod back to Clara.
Though Graham’s unexpected survival also makes me wonder about Nan; chemotherapy nurse whose patient unexpectedly survives; a son who doesn’t turn up for his mother’s funeral, a grandson who gets targeted by alien tech. Is that the Doctor later going back into Graham’s past? Is it simply that they don’t want to make Ryan’s dad an on-screen character?
Or something else?@pedant
It depends on whether she wanted to butter the bread, or fry the egg in the butter and then slap the buttered egg on unbuttered bread. In my part of the Peak District, the former would be an egg buttie, the latter a fried egg sandwich.Could simply be translation issues, of course. 🙂
I still owe Art Malik for my share of a taxi ride…
8 October 2018 at 20:23 #64287Welcome @missrori
Guessing or theories or bonkerising is usually (was willing to be put right by our mods) allowed, insider trading (you know something will happen because you 3rd cousin is the in thd production team or is JW or you’ve seen a something from the next episode even if an official trailer) is somewhat frowned upon
I can already see you’ll make some great contributions 😀
8 October 2018 at 20:44 #64288Hi, first time on any forum 🙂 so I have a question for the group. this might be off topic but! can any body tell me what is in Ryan’s hand just as the pod appears? it looks like a red crystal growing out of his hand, cant find any reference on the web, which is unusual.
sorry this is bugging the hell out of me
8 October 2018 at 20:51 #64289Don’t see the fridge issue. Grace was a leader, led from the front and that comes with risk. Pretty much from the outset she was the one who investigated, went first, threw caution to the wind. And that is as dangerous as throwing your salad at an alien.
But functionally, she is a bit like the Eric Balfour character, Jesse, in the first episode of Buffy (Whedon wanted him in the main credits, but the network wouldn’t let him). It is a signal that nobody is safe. It is also floats the question (which is is nice to see acknowledged in this thread) of why we care about her death more than drunken salad guy or the train driver.
And also, in storytelling terms any victory must have a toll (the exception being stories of misunderstanding, which is what – say – Empty Child/ Doctor Dances was).
8 October 2018 at 20:53 #64290Yes CC made Gran/Grace was shown to be lynch pin for both Ryan and Graham, possibly hinted at having more than a passing knowledge of Yasmin too, so the Doctor (who remembered their names, wasn’t rude, showed real empathy and sympathy instant gran replacement maybe?) now has two granchildren and a grandfather (who is too old for a romantic entanglement handily) I’d bet my next cup of coffee (ohh yes serious stakes) that Ryan’s dad will not appear as a character more than once in this series
This Doctor will not be getting cosy with anyone this series the way that her predecessors recently did
Be interesting to see how Ryan anc Graham grow as characters. Yasmin seems pretty much a splendid individual already so bar getting experience not sure how her character grows.
It’ll be an interesting journey fof sure 😀
8 October 2018 at 20:56 #64291Well spotted. No idea. Doesn’t seem to be his phone.
8 October 2018 at 21:03 #64292I thought it was the same gadget that was the homing beacon, so logically (yes wrong sci-fi show) it was to call the blue vase thingy to earth
Interesting counter points and I’ll accept it wasn’t fridging.
There were however several payments paid to victory, possibly accidentally the train driver, the loving brother, the doting grandad and the drunk kebab scoffer, who may have been a lovely chap when sober plus all the previous trophies, which is why I felt uneasy about Grace.
Thanks for the responses 😀
8 October 2018 at 21:05 #64293He gets his phone out with the other hand in the scene after and if you watch the whole clip its coming out of his hand then disappears
8 October 2018 at 21:07 #64294he touches the symbols with his right hand, the crystal thingy is in his left
8 October 2018 at 21:12 #64295@nearlysane Welcome (twice!) I am a fan of dopplegangers.
@ Everyone – Sorry, I feel the need to lower the tone somewhat, by pointing out that Chibnall does a rather amusing turn for adult viewers with the sonic.
As we know, the sonic has, on occasion, been something of a penis metaphor under Moffat (who can forget Tennant and Smith comparing sizes during the 50th anniversary?).
So Jodie’s Doctor shows up without her own sonic, but sets to work manufacturing one for herself instead (with a touch of Sheffield steel). And design-wise, given the bend and curve of it, it does look a little more sex-toy than usual, right?
I’ll let myself out. But it did make me smile. It was done with greater subtlety than Moffat’s metaphor, but a charming additional, gentle, dig at the female-Doctor-inevitable-travesty crowd methinks.
Oh, and thankfully, having encountered it elsewhere on the interwebs, I’m not the only low-brow type to have noticed this little Freudian twist 🙂
8 October 2018 at 22:53 #64296Back again, and delighted to see so many familiar names assembled once again, as well as some welcome newcomers *waves indiscriminately to all*. The wait has been long and tedious and it is good to have something new to get our teeth into.
A number of people here and elsewhere have commented on the death count, often to the effect that it was inappropriate, especially in a show which should above all appeal to children, the up-coming generation of viewers. But Doctor Who during its 55 year history has frequently and cumulatively involved a significant death count, not just in the tally of alien monsters but in what is now euphemistically termed ‘collateral damage’, and Moffat in particular was not shy in pointing out this darker side of the Doctor’s legacy.
What impressed me in this episode was none of the deaths, except perhaps that of the train driver whom we never met, was treated casually and we were given at least a glimpse of the lives and personalities of all of these minor characters before they met their fate. We were meant to feel that we had touched their lives, however briefly, and that all of them counted, and that is important. If people die, in fiction as in life, it should not be as cyphers, Their deaths, however remote from our own life, should not by shrugged aside as of no account. ‘Never ask for whom the bell tolls … ‘
@miapatrick @bendubz11 and @scaryb have already commented on the significance of Grace’s death which, on one level, reinforced the message of the earlier deaths, because we had come to know her better as a fully rounded and forceful character whose life and death had particular meaning and impact on at least two other principal characters. Viewed more objectively- or perhaps cynically – as a plot device, it served also as a tie to cement the bond between those three future companions/travellers with the Doctor.
The reviewer in the Indy wrote, in reference to Grace’s death and funeral, ‘ … a lump in the throat meditation on grown up love and visceral mortality is undoubtedly a first for the series’. At which I could only mutter crossly, ‘Then clearly you never watched or were not paying attention to the past four or more seasons’ 😡
Apart from that, and after I’ve had time for further reflection and a second viewing, there were a few points which I thought possibly comment-worthy.
‘Empty pockets. Oh, I hate empty pockets’, which struck me as pure Capaldi Doctor; as did, ‘Now please, get off this planet’, echoing his words when in vengeful mode in Hell Bent. Then, perhaps closing the circle, were almost her last words of the episode, ‘Moment of truth, then. Wish me luck. And goodbye. Deep breath’.
Otherwise, as I wrote in my post yesterday evening, Jodie evoked elements of Tennant and of Smith, but showed also what she has in her to become very much her own Doctor. As she said, and for me this sums up the essence of the whole concept of regeneration, ‘We can honour who we’ve been, and choose who we want to be next’.
9 October 2018 at 00:03 #64297I’m not the only low-brow type to have noticed this little Freudian twist
True, but then, as the patient said to his psychiatrist after the latter started asking questions centred around his response to inkblot patterns; ‘What do you expect, if you insist on showing me all these feelthy pictures?’
‘ – who knows, there could be a large protection area around the Tardis’.
We know from previous episodes, and have been shown, that there is a Tardis field within which people can survive in space in its/her vicinity, so my immediate assumption in that final scene was that the Tardis was close by.
Without the protection of a pressure suit, a human body exposed to the near vacuum of space would experience more than just suffocation and freezing, because the bodies of land based terrestrial beings are constructed to withstand a certain range of atmospheric pressure and maintain an equivalent internal pressure. The effects of that internal pressure on a body exposed suddenly to an absence of atmospheric pressure would be extremely nasty.
Your plight, having to wait for the DVD, is harrowing and I feel for you, though your situation off the west coast of Canada and the resources of the Blenkinsop cellar are surely enough to take at least the edge off your frustration.
Your plight also calls for my sympathy. Doctor Who episodes are not primarily constructed around commercial breaks because the BBC is not a commercial channel, but I imagine that now, when the show has a world-wide distribution, allowance is made for the fact that in some countries it will be shown with such breaks.
My experience of TV in the US is limited and not all that recent, so I may be mistaken, but the impression I got was that the commercial breaks were more frequent and more intrusive than in the UK, and also less subtle in content. On commercial channels in the UK there are on average three four-minute breaks in an hour long programme, plus one between programmes. Normally, if want to watch a programme on a commercial channel such as ITV, I record it to watch later, so that I can fast-forward through the ads and experience minimal interruption.
9 October 2018 at 05:32 #64301@ichabod You now officially get the label of “Great Doctor Who Seer” or maybe you have a TARDIS and already saw episode 1 of the 13th Doctor before we did, because you nailed it a few weeks back: “Every show a self-contained story” sounds to me like a return to 100% “monster of the week” and no need to bother staying for the end, because there’s no chance of failure, and everyone ends up exactly as they started so the next “self-contained story” can toddle on without any continuity with what came before.” …hit a little too close to home.
One thing was different from your prediction, and that it, “won’t be the least bit “grown-up” anymore.” Alas, it was too grown-up for my boys; far too dark, creepy, depressing and gross for them. The teeth in the skin was just gross, not chilling like Weeping Angels, or creepy like a Dalek, or even scary as hell like a Cyberman, it was just a gross stock bad guy character. The episode felt more like watching a cross between the DC show ‘Arrow’ and the DW spinoff ‘Class’ to me.
@tempusfugit It was hard to accept the loss of Capaldi, but as we discussed, it is always hard to move on from a Doctor we connect with, so I appreciate Jodie keeping with the Capaldi vibe the first half of the episode.
Jodie as the Doctor worked okay, she had the right vibe, but the storyline, art direction, music, and pace left a lot to be desired, and even her performance could not save it for me.
The music was extremely boring and almost hilarious at its attempts to sound full of suspense. The new ending credit version of the theme song was good, almost a nod to the original, which was notable.
About the art direction…did they hire the people from ‘Arrow’ or some American cop show and fire everyone who previously worked on Doctor Who?
Can’t say I expected much from the storyteller of ’42’ and ‘Dinosaurs on a Spaceship’ and I can’t admit to being a fan of Torchwood, so I wasn’t shocked to be underwhelmed by this episode. Unfortunately, since I didn’t even have characters I was invested in yet, unlike ‘Dinosaurs on a Spaceship’ which had the advantage that I already adored the characters, I found this to be a very hard episode to get through; painfully boring even.
I think the worst thing for me as a long time fan is that I just couldn’t connect to this episode at all, nothing was visceral, it was very flat. Haven’t read any other comments or articles yet because I wanted to add my honest and untainted thoughts before I read this thread through. Sadly, it just felt like another comic book show or predictable sci-fi.
For the first time ever it just didn’t feel like Doctor Who to me.
9 October 2018 at 05:34 #64302I understand the teeth, though. Check my post on page 1.
As for the music, ooh, that’s harsh! I actually thought it had some lovely orchestral moments? It wasn’t Murray, that’s for sure, but I do think it was in the upper portion of successful for something so obviously new. Again, that’s just my personal opinion….
Puro
9 October 2018 at 05:53 #64303Welcome back Doctor!
Feels like a great season on the way.
Bit of adrenalin …
Dash of outrage…
Heat of panic…
Nice batch of ingredients.
Can anyone explain the Sheffield Steel reference? Us Americans are clueless over here….
9 October 2018 at 06:08 #64304Okay, just did my read through, and it reinforced why I always post before I read everyone else’s posts because I inevitably feel very bad that everyone else liked it and I went and ripped on the episode.
Hello everyone! Miss reading your comments, and welcome to all the new additions. (:
Glad to agree on some of the positive comments. Impressed that Jodie could feel like the Doctor with everything else surrounding her feeling more like ‘Arrow’ or ‘Torchwood’ and not in the slightest like Doctor Who. Hats off to Jodie for bringing a little Matt, David, and Peter to her Doctor so we could connect to her as our beloved Doctor.
@missrori Agree as usual.
@bluesqueakpip “Though Graham’s unexpected survival also makes me wonder about Nan; chemotherapy nurse whose patient unexpectedly survives; a son who doesn’t turn up for his mother’s funeral, a grandson who gets targeted by alien tech. Is that the Doctor later going back into Graham’s past? Is it simply that they don’t want to make Ryan’s dad an on-screen character?
Or something else?” ….Okay, I’m loving something to chew on, so I’m going to go with “something else” (: Oddly, your take on what might be happening interested me far more than anything in the actual episode. I have a feeling you would be a better showrunner for my weird personality than Chibnall.@thane16 Good evening old friends! Great to read your comments. Sorry, I was so harsh on the music, you know how invested I get in the compositions. Did like the ending retro theme music though, just not the score for the episode itself.
9 October 2018 at 06:14 #64305@notime Sheffield is a steel town and is known for its quality steel. It was fun to see so much of the personality of Sheffield; Chibnall seems like he is alright with getting a sense of place right in his episodes. The part about the Doctor making her own sonic out of a Sheffield steel knife was my favorite part about the episode. (:
9 October 2018 at 06:18 #64306…and sorry for the disjointed writing, as promised I had wine after this episode. /:
9 October 2018 at 09:14 #64317Anonymous @
@kharis I was a big fan of Murray Gold, his music excited and moved me, it made me feel. The new music left me cold, borig and unisnpiring. I liked Jodie but the episode lacked that je ne se quais that Doctor Who has. Let’s see if next week is better
9 October 2018 at 09:32 #64324@tempusfugit Agree with every word; well put.
Murray Gold is a master, a truly gifted composer who will go down as a musical legend, so I didn’t expect the music to rise to his caliber, but to replace him with pure mediocrity? Same as the art direction, I expected changes, but to turn on Doctor Who and feel like you are watching ‘Arrow’, ‘Torchwood’ or ‘Class’ instead is beyond disappointing.
Yes, hopefully better next week, at the very least a better storyline and some connection to the characters.
9 October 2018 at 09:38 #64327@kharis I have seen a lot of dislike for Murray, people saying he was too loud or intrusive. For me, his music connected me with the show on a deep level. Music is very powerful and it tugs at your heartstrings. The new composer didn’t.
9 October 2018 at 09:40 #64328@kharis @missy @tempusFugit I’m a Leo. And telling it like it is. 😀
I was a professional musician. So, speaking as an orchestral conductor the music was quite difficult to write; it’s new; it’s not Murray Gold but it IS a composer with a pretty legitimate background. I think that were he, or his family, reading comments that it’s “extremely boring, cold” that would be hurtful.
I’m not saying you shouldn’t – and no-one is being particularly rude or unfair. Posts are honest. If this was a “yes-sir” site that would be a bad thing. But music is personal to me, hence my comment. I’m not dissing anyone, old or new but I think it might be wise to wait ’til the end of the series before completely hating on the dude. Or not. But I totally get it. We miss Mr Gold 🙁
You’d ask yourself, OK, I loved Gold, I connected with him; he was soaring, not a mediocrity (that’s harsh @kharis! but that’s OK), would ya’ll really have thought that back in 2005 after the first 30 mins of a completely, utterly fresh new soundtrack?
It’s early dayz.
Puro
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This reply was modified 5 years, 6 months ago by
syzygy. Reason: be kind, never be cruel, nor cowardly. Hopefully!
9 October 2018 at 10:30 #64330@thane16 I didn’t insult him, it’s only that I don’t connect with his music the same way. Music is very personal and there are songs people love that I loathe and vice-versa. I no doubt Segun Akinola is a talented composer but I, personally, found his tracks dull.
9 October 2018 at 10:48 #64331@tempusfugit
Of course not! Nothing like that.
And certainly you didn’t have a go at him….and had you, that’s OK too. As I say, it’s not a “yes ma’am” place AT all. In fact being able to criticise is part of the site’s appeal because there’s no screaming or hassling, I just wanted to defend the dude a bit, is all. He has one heck of a job and Murray Gold had many of the same issues. There’s an expectation to create a movie score every week. It’s like asking Superman to fly around the earth -backwards!
Wait….
🙂
Puro.
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This reply was modified 5 years, 6 months ago by syzygy. Reason: I REALLY need to spell properly
9 October 2018 at 12:03 #64333“Every show a self-contained story” sounds to me like a return to 100% “monster of the week” and no need to bother staying for the end, because there’s no chance of failure, and everyone ends up exactly as they started so the next “self-contained story” can toddle on without any continuity with what came before.”
Literally don’t really get what you’re tying to say here; they ended floating in space., which is a very Classic Who callback. But it would be as well to remember that Chibnall is as capable of pulling the fans’ legs as Moffat. We have a grieving cancer survivor, a troubled teen with a disability and a probationary cop who feels she is capable of more – and an AWOL Tardis.
Not all arcs are plot arcs. in fact the best ones aren’t. The “crack” plot arc in S5 was a very lightweight framework for the staggeringly bold and brilliant study of loneliness and abandonment that was Amy’s character arc.
The music was terrific for me (and in terms of quality will always defer to the judgement of the walking medical emergency that is @thane16 senior, since she is as qualified to comment as anyone we are likely to meet). But again, it is worth remembering that Gold’s score for Rose was a truly dreadful parody of 60s caper shows like The Persuaders and it took him a good season and a half to properly find his groove.
Too adult? If Who isn’t giving 7-year-olds nightmares, it isn’t doing its job.
Also, there will be no dissing of Dinosaurs on a Spaceship, which besides being a ridiculous hoot of an episode, also had probably the darkest single moment of Smith’s run.
I remain wary of Chibnall, but this episode earns him the right to be trusted.
9 October 2018 at 12:22 #64334Good to have the Doctor back after what seems a very extended period. But I struggled with this episode quite a bit and honestly found it a bit of a slog to get through. The story really didn’t warrant the extra running time, but the extra characterisation of the last few minutes were possibly worth it.
First the main positive. Jodie Whittaker owned the character of the Doctor, and I’m comfortable the part is in good hands. No excess of quirkiness in the writing or performance, but the character of the Doctor came through. The parts with her improvising both a sonic and the teleporter (?) near the end were good fun.
For an episode that was presumably mostly to introduce the Doctor’s companions, I felt I didn’t get to know any of them that well yet, and that wasn’t helped by possibly the most interesting character being killed off. Given the choice, I’d have preferred Grace over Graham as a companion. Early days there though.
I was a bit troubled by the Doctor being able to fall from a great height and survive apparently unscathed. The justification I found for myself was that immediately post regeneration she can recover from injuries much more easily, since the regeneration process is still going on.
Some have commented on the derivative plot and slow pacing, and those definitely bothered me. In part that was because this was an episode that should have had as an aim to draw in new viewers, and to be honest, if this was my introduction, I might not be back for more. I’m definitely hoping for some tighter writing in coming episodes.
For me, there was something a little off with the tone in the episode also. I’m not sure why, but it felt in places like the Doctor Who movie, which isn’t a comparison that I make lightly. Darkness in the lighting and the general tone contributed to that.
I’m certainly interested in seeing more of the new Doctor, but this episode was a forgettable one for me.
9 October 2018 at 12:24 #64335I bow….
Followed by falling over.
Indeed Gold has made it clear, “it was a pastiche, basically. It was bloody hard. It was mainly samples.”
For the whole 1st season! Later, Foster did quite a bit of the incidental music. I’d say that Akinola is at the stage Gold was at in 2002-03. We ought to give him time to develop. As for arcs, there’s something to be said that Buffy Season 3 wasn’t ‘arc-filled’ either. Sure, there was a general ‘plan’ but even that changed by the 5th- 10th episode and Who is half of the original American 22 episode run. We knew where it was headed and I suspect within a couple of episodes we’ll gain the general impression for Who Under Chibbers.
I thought it WAS creepy but as I mentioned before, the Teeth of Scary Tim Shaw (TSTS) had a significant purpose: I didn’t think it was “proper gross” but it WAS proper scary. I recall the last time we saw Davros: now that was properly disturbing…..insane screams, fire, oozing daleks with their oozing bowels of sewers…. 😀
Bring it on! @tardigrade you’re back.
Puro and Thane
9 October 2018 at 12:37 #64336@tardigrade I agree with all you have said. I liked Grace a lot, more than Graham, and I was sad to see her killed. I have seen some people celebrating the fact that death is again real in the DW universe but to me, this show is escapism.
I’m worried about the space scene, how they will survive that reallisticaly? after watching Oxygen one has to wonder…
9 October 2018 at 12:40 #64337@thane16 I fell in love with Gold’s style after hearing The Doctor’s Theme during Nine’s run. I can’t express how much that composition gives me chills
9 October 2018 at 13:23 #64338@at all.
Speaking for me, Thane, I loved it. Immediately upon watching the first 12 mins, I said, “Oh, Lord, she’s DONE it!”
I can see why others might not.
From a 16 1/2 point of view, it was very funny AND there were the jump scares.
I really liked how Doctor said, in response to “what if it kills us?” “it could have already.”
I took that to mean, not: “if it wanted us dead…” but rather “we could be dead and not know it” Loved the: “can’t ride a bike. Started an alien invasion.” 🙂
She did talk an awful lot and there was discussion as to whether that narration (describing what she was doing) was necessary for momentum but in the end, us 16-yr olds thought it was necessary, funny and it clearly delineated this Doctor’s personality: that she refuses not to help, that she’s good at building things and this beauty of a line:
“I’m not yet who I am.”
Isn’t that great? It tells us all that we can change, move, regenerate for the better (or worse) so, all in all, this wasn’t preachy or speech-y but fast driving and villainous.
@tardigrade as for slow pacing? That really concerns me, because it was very fast paced, and to me, also very tight. And I watch some REALLY fast shows. Lots of Moffat writing was extemporised with large reflective gaps. So, I’d have to disagree with that view, on balance. I think the tone wasn’t bleak or texture-less. There was optimism, a heavy dose of reality – in the word ‘Grace’ we have our entire premise. In that one word. I think Mum mentioned something like that above: I’ll have to get a shift on and read about that. With respect to her falling, I think Tennant lost a hand when he was still regenerating and it grew back so that explains why New Doctor can fall through a train and look beautiful: except for shredded clothes. 😀
From Thane. Thank you for reading.
9 October 2018 at 13:28 #64339@tempusfugit
Sorry, it’s Thane here. With the old Who and NuWho there was a large area around the TARDIS protected? I think @mudlark and others already commented on that part of history so I wouldn’t be worried. If they were in that cold outer- atmosphere for a pico-second they’d be instantly frozen.
With the score, I think Mum meant that if you fell in love with 9’s musical motif it wouldn’t have happened in the first 30 minutes. Also, back in 2005 there was no real way to look back to say, 1097 or 1989 and immediately compare as we can now. This makes us all knowledgeable and opinionated all at once! 🙂
Thane16.
9 October 2018 at 13:36 #64340@mudlark I had the same thought concerning them floating in space. They surely have to be in the TARDIS force-field, or at least in A force-field. It would be imo very shoddy writing to forget about the effects of space on the human body, just 1 series after Oxygen explicitly covered it.
Also something I thought of earlier; with Ryan telling the story in a video, as a tribute to the person he cared about the most, there’s a surprising similarity with Love and Monsters. Just, without the weird pavement love.
9 October 2018 at 13:47 #64341@tardigrade @pedant writes this above:
But functionally, she is a bit like the Eric Balfour character, Jesse, in the first episode of Buffy (Whedon wanted him in the main credits, but the network wouldn’t let him). It is a signal that nobody is safe. It is also floats the question (which is is nice to see acknowledged in this thread) of why we care about her death more than drunken salad guy or the train driver.
And also, in storytelling terms any victory must have a toll (the exception being stories of misunderstanding, which is what – say – Empty Child/ Doctor Dances was).Liking Grace and wanting her to stay, and not Graham was the point. It’s far more real life but at the same time @tempusfugit there’s still a lot in the episode to feed our escapism. A purple-blue vase of frigid cold….not to be confused with ‘fridging’ from @rob above. I thought it was too, but on balance, not. 😉
Well, time for a shift on to sleep…
Thane. The Younger.
9 October 2018 at 14:04 #64342@thane16 yeah, sorry, English is not my native language so maybe I misunderstand things. Yes, I didn’t fell in love with the music till later, so I hope Segun Akinola will deliver something good. The fact that the episode didn’t impress me greatly doesn’t mean anything, every episode is different and I’m sure I’ll like the next one. I think we care more about her death because we had the opportunity to know her better and get more attached to her? I felt nothing for the drunken guy(sorry, random drunken guy) but I felt an immense sadness about the grandfather. It’s how the characters engage with us at the end
9 October 2018 at 14:05 #64343@thane16 I feel very dumb but I’ve just realized you are two people writing, Thane and Puro
9 October 2018 at 14:14 #64344@tempusfugit
No, not at all! We should have been clearer. I get what you mean, I also really loved Grace. She was everything you’d want in a character -in a real life person. Maybe they created her to be so very loving and positive so we’d feel that loss with a lot more ache? So, all in all I think it’s a hard thing to do: to let her die rather than the more confused, possibly less articulate Graham
Grandad. Tough choices? I get that it’s difficult. For sure.Now, that’s the Mother Speaking -Puro. I was once here on my own, as purofilion. Even though that handle’s changed I still refer to myself as Puro and it’s confusing. Apologies. And on to the next episode. I too have some concerns about the whole Chibbers package but from the depths of my memory I recall him being an absolute fan-boy of the show. I hope there’ll be lots of uppers and less downers. I speak personally. 🙂
(Puro).
9 October 2018 at 14:22 #64345@thane16 haha don’t worry, now I know you are two people. I suppose they will flesh out Graham as time passes. I’m not totally confident on Chibbers habilities tbh. The episodes that Moffat did during the RTD era were extraordinary. The ones Chibbers did were average, but we’ll see. I hope some of the new writers come with imaginative stories and not dull monsters of the week
9 October 2018 at 14:29 #64346@tempusfugit
Agreed. I imagine it won’t just be one baddie after another. I do recall in Buffy (and I aint no expert) that there were quite a few monsters of the week but it was in between the monsters where the characters’ growth occurred.
Doctor Who has always been different, as you say. A very special kind of different which has ballooned into this mega-thing since 2005. We all want it to succeed. And with that comes nerves. I can’t imagine how Chibnall must be feeling. I loved (still do) Moffat’s work. But I expect he needed a rest.
Puro the Elder. 🙂
9 October 2018 at 14:36 #64347Yes, in Buffy there were demon of the week and also the season arc. Let’s see what brings the future 😊
9 October 2018 at 16:08 #64348@pedant To respond to your comment, “But it would be as well to remember that Chibnall is as capable of pulling the fans’ legs as Moffat. We have a grieving cancer survivor, a troubled teen with a disability and a probationary cop who feels she is capable of more – and an AWOL Tardis” Yes, but I personally felt no connection to any of the characters and we all know she’s going to find her TARDIS so I’m also not invested in that either. My problem is that it was flat for me and predictable.
@thane16 @pedant The bad guy didn’t interest me was part of the problem, it’s very hard to suspend my belief if the character feels like a stock bad guy. My kids weren’t scared of the gross teeth guy, it was the ball on the train, the waiting for something bad to happen, the constant darkness and death. Which is fine, because Doctor Who is scary, it’s been scaring my kids since they could watch it, but the dark scenes and the deaths kept coming with nothing for them to enjoy. It was like ‘Sleep No More’ where it felt like we never got a break. My older son got bored during the very dragged out yard scene, went to go get more enchiladas came back and was annoyed nothing had really happened, just a dragged out suspense scene. For me, it felt like Torchwood or the show ‘Arrow’ which is not very Doctor Who. Arrow is a popular show, I’ll watch it, not a favorite, but the characters are fun, but those dragged out nighttime scenes with steam and heavy equipment must be aimed at a particular audience, and I’m certainly not it. What I meant by “too adult ” is that most adults enjoy shows with lots of violence and death. Kids, on the other hand, seem to only like to be scared if there is a lot of whimsical things going on, or charismatic characters, or humor or something interesting. It was dark and heavy, but not visceral or thought-provoking enough to justify the constant dark and deaths in my opinion. Weeping Angels and Daleks scare my kids to death, but they are fascinated at the same time. BTW, the teeth for me were just gross, not scary.
I didn’t hate ‘Dinosaurs on a Spaceship’ it just wasn’t one of the great episodes of the Smith era and one of the few I didn’t bother with a rewatch. As I said above, I loved the characters in ‘Dinosaurs on a Spaceship’ and was already invested in them so that really helped me get through it, plus dinosaurs on a spaceship is a pretty cool idea. ’42’ on the other hand was just awful, and on my don’t watch list with ‘Love and Monsters’, ‘Sleep No More’ and “The Movie” Being young when I first saw “The Movie” I had almost the exact same reaction as my kids to Whittaker’s first episode, and everyone around me back then was also excited and praising it after, so I kept my feelings to myself and focused on the fact I liked the new Doctor. I didn’t want my kids to feel they needed to do that for me, so I asked them what they felt before I said a word of my own feelings to them. Their views were very interesting, but unfortunately, the only positives were that they liked the Doctor, the homemade sonic and that in the end the character that kept trying to ride the bike, everything else was a harsher review than mine. My second grader was surprisingly the toughest critic: he said it reminded him of a long car ride at night with nothing to do.
Speaking of ‘The Movie” hats off to Whittaker for pulling a Paul McGann and being very Doctor in what did not feel like Doctor Who to me. I do feel awkward writing any of this because it is mostly negative and I am a true blue fan. Like everyone, I really want it to go well and would love to join in with the people who are excited and happy, but it would be disingenuous. I’m sincerely happy to see so many friends here posting happy reviews and all the positive comments everywhere. Glad so many got the feels and the positive comments mean that the show will survive, so I’m happy for everyone, truly.
And Puro is right, she is the expert on music, and Pedant is right in that I am not qualified to really have anything important to say on the music. I loved Murray Gold right from the start, even the “truly dreadful parody of 60s caper” style of ‘Rose’ was fun for me and helped draw me into the story. The new composer shouldn’t feel too bad about my comments, I’m clearly not an expert. Puro mentioned that the music was complicated to write and she seems to think it had promise, and she knows what she is talking about. My husband and kids are also far from experts, so our not connecting to it should be of little concern to the composer. I’m a choreographer that can’t play chopsticks, so anything I wrote about the new composition can be chopped up to nothing, because I really wouldn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings, and figured the actual composers don’t read these comments. If I could edit and erase I would, but you can’t edit on this site.
I did like some of the writing for the Doctor (feel like I need to be positive) and agree that one-liners like “I’m not yet who I am.” were nice.
9 October 2018 at 17:05 #64353Just commenting to stop getting emails every time there is a new comment
9 October 2018 at 17:31 #64354@kharis I share most of your feelings. The tooth monster was gross but a very forgettable villain, nothing original or innovative. I didn’t connect very much with the companions either, not the way I connected with Rose when I started to watch the show for the first time (I don’t like her very much on series 2 but I loved her on series 1), I connected also with Martha, Donna, Clara and Bill. Amy not so much but that’s matter of personal tastes. I don’t like The Movie either but I love the 8th Doctor. His audios are fantastic. The music… I feel like every person connects differently with music, a composition can affect people in different ways. I, for example, dislike the Keff McCulloch sound from the 80s but I find the radiophonic workshop from season 18 and 19 very evocative.</p>
9 October 2018 at 18:20 #64357@tempusfugit Couldn’t agree more about Rose and the companions. Amy was hard for me when she acted spoiled or was inconsiderate to Rory, so I get it. Graham was the easiest for me in this episode to have a slight connection to, mostly because he was clearly the most developed character, besides his wife. Still, I just couldn’t connect as I did in the past.
Huge fan of the 8th Doctor in the audios and even held out a little hope that 12 would regenerate into the 8th since BBC kept promising this regeneration would be “very different” which of course turned out to just mean a gender change. Now I’m glad it didn’t happen because if they ever do bring back Paul McGann with the promise in ‘Day of the Doctor’ to “…revisit some of the old faces” he deserves great writing, music and art direction this time. He already did his time in a poorly done Doctor Who, so it would have been very unfair to have to go through it again. Whittaker has a tough job ahead of her in my opinion, like McGann, she is in charge of holding it all together with her charisma.
9 October 2018 at 18:22 #64358You know, I don’t think we’ve fully appreciated (it’s just occured to me now as I’m cogitating on a train) how funny the occupations of the new Doctor’s companions are:
An apprentice mechanic
The mechanic’s apprentice thus replaces the magician’s apprentice. The Doctor was more of a magician under Moffat (and Clara was rather a magician’s apprentice) but, under Chibnall, the Doc is clearly going to be a scientist-mechanic.
A retired bus driver
The TARDIS and her well-know lack of reliability in terms of flight destination (except when River is in charge!).
An apprentice police-woman
Well, the TARDIS is still stuck in its obsolete (in our time) police-box form, and the Doctor does operate as a kind of rogue detective-cum-fixer-cum-freelance-policer-of-alien-ill-doings, more of a Sherlock Holmes than a regular constabulary member of course, but still…
So – mechanic, vehicle driver, police-woman – all lovely reflections of elements of the Doctor, and with particular ready-made ways to bounce off her.
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