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Post by Cherry Pepsi Maxil on Sept 24, 2024 16:12:30 GMT
The Sontaran Stratagem The "I don't like guns" nonsense aside, this is more in line with the classic series. I mean UNIT vs the Sontarans on modern day Earth! Not only that, but the best modern companion Martha returns. She's so good in fact that they make a double of her. I'm not sure I can really say what I think about there being two Marthas running around without being called an almighty pervert. I quite like the cliffhanger, too. I hope The Poison Sky holds up for me as well. Who is that chick at the beginning who dies in the car? She's gorgeous. 8/10 Maybe you should do what I did and have a rewatch from s1 to the Time of the Doctor, or Day of the Doctor? New Who like I said is kind of the opposite in terms of rewatch value in that it's so much better when you watch it as a whole thing and get sucked into its world, where as old who I feel is better when you watch random stories, though that's not to say you can't have fun with them both the other way (I really liked my classic who rewatch and for all my talk I am thinking of doing another soon, but from Hartnell.) Still personally I think that's the best way to watch New Who and it's nice to see you appreciating more of new who. Honestly it's not bad for its first 7 years. It's a fine adaptation of the DW story, it's just awkward as a sequel, which is why ironically an alternate sequel would be good for new who too, not just the old. Sadly however I think Capaldi on it's just as bad as a sequel to the first 7 years of new who, never mind classic. Missy is a terrible parody of Simm's complex and tragic villain, the return of the time lords is so underwhelming when you look at how much it meant to the Doctor in the previous years. Tennant f*cking cries when the Master of all people dies, because he doesn't want to be the last time lord anymore. Capaldi's reaction to seeing they're back in the universe. CLARA: I thought you said Gallifrey was frozen in another dimension?
DOCTOR: Well, they must have unfrozen it and come back.
CLARA: How?
DOCTOR: I didn't ask. It would make them feel clever.Similarly the timeless children undermines him being the last time lord, him becoming gay undermines the Doctor/Rose love story etc. To be honest there needs to be a cut off point for new who fans and writers, but that's for them to sort out as to be fair the fitzroy crowd in that case f*cked up their own creation. I'm not so sure I can really sit through it all again especially the Smith ones. Series 3 is the only series I consider to be great. Series 4 has been enjoyable so far on this rewatch (aside from Fires), though. I've ordered it on DVD so I can watch my favourite episodes without iPlayer's shit quality and constant buffering, Partners (sorry, it's my guilty pleasure now), the Sontaran two parter (which is actually one of the best Sontaran outings), Midnight and The Stolen Earth are episodes I would happily watch again. I'd even shove The Doctor's Daughter on just to ogle Martha and Jenny. I might give Turn Left another try at some point and see if that improves for me. With the exception of Blink I can't be bothered with anything Moffat related anymore. I did plan on watching the Series 7 episodes with Jenna in, but I haven't got the energy. It doesn't go anywhere anyway. |
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Post by Cherry Pepsi Maxil on Sept 24, 2024 20:23:01 GMT
Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead
Bad kid actor, "hello sweetie" and more repeated phrases that get on my tits. It amuses me that everyone gets crazy at people who don't like it on Reddit.
This is my least favourite of Series 4 and maybe my least favourite of the entire RTD era. Yeah, I'm going there. Moffat is not big and he's not clever. The fact that he's considered the modern Robert Holmes is so depressing.
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Post by rushy on Sept 24, 2024 20:31:12 GMT
To be fair, I think is more to do with Moffat overexposure than anything else. It's hard to revisit some of his older stories that I used to like, because I'm so hyper-aware of his shtick now from how much he kept doing the same stupid shit over and over.
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Post by Cherry Pepsi Maxil on Sept 24, 2024 21:42:47 GMT
It's odd because I adore Blink. I suppose it's a bit like sticking a finger up your bum and having a good feel around the prostate area. It feels really good that one time, but I certainly wouldn't venture there again as there are better ways to get off. I haven't got anything against Moffat as a person, but the majority of his stuff is so tiresome.
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Post by burrunjor on Sept 24, 2024 22:18:04 GMT
Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead Bad kid actor, "hello sweetie" and more repeated phrases that get on my tits. It amuses me that everyone gets crazy at people who don't like it on Reddit. This is my least favourite of Series 4 and maybe my least favourite of the entire RTD era. Yeah, I'm going there. Moffat is not big and he's not clever. The fact that he's considered the modern Robert Holmes is so depressing. I actually really like that story, but I do agree with you and Rushy that Moffat's style is extremely annoying. It's fine to have a signature style, most writers do, but Moffat's is just too overdone. It reeks less of a writer enjoying writing about this subject and returning to it, and more him wanting you to notice how stylized it is, which coupled with Moff's own mind melting pretentiousness can get really annoying. I still say Matt Smith's era is the best even with that of New Who, with Matt's performance being the perfect Doctor. |
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Post by iank on Sept 25, 2024 6:13:38 GMT
I'm sorry but Moffat>RTD by a looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong way, so enough of this dumbasssery.
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Post by burrunjor on Sept 25, 2024 9:47:04 GMT
I'm sorry but Moffat>RTD by a looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong way, so enough of this dumbasssery. No sorry that's not true. Yes the 11th Doctors era is better than 10s, though not by a huge margin and let's not forget that a lot of what was wrong with Tennant was magnified with Smith. All the macho shit for instance, or the Doctor being made the pivot of the universe, was there for a bit with Tennant, but ended up reaching insane levels where Matt not only whipped it out and measured it with villains all the f*cking time, but the entire universe agreed to save him. Then there is also the romance. At least with Tennant he never actually returned the feelings of any of his companions really and it was more emotional. In the case of Rose whilst he clearly felt something for her, he also knew it would never work, hence why he left his clone who was half human with her. Meanwhile Matt slapped his companions on the arse, forced himself on a lesbian ninja and mimed getting an erection at her, and ended up marrying one of his f*cking companions. Everything that was annoying about Tennant's Doctor is at least present if not worse here. Where the 11th Doctors era is better is that Matt Smith is a more natural choice for the Doctor. To be honest I don't think he gets quite enough credit as one could argue he is objectively the best Doctor in some ways. I don't think he has the charisma of say Hartnell, Pertwee or Baker, or is as intense as McCoy, but he did manage to combine the old, professorial qualities of the original 7 Doctors, with the brooding romantic aspect of the New Who Doctors, and he even took elements of the Cushing Doctor, like his affinity with children and cuddlyness to make a version that everybody could enjoy. He is the Kevin Conroy of Doctor Who in that respect. New Who fans by and large could still appreciate him as a follow on from Tennant, whilst even classic era fans by and large could enjoy him as a more faithful version, hence why he was the second to go around the world and crack America after Tom Baker. Of course typically he is regarded as the worst of the new who Doctors by "official fandom" on places like Reddit, tv tropes and GB. He isn't stunning and brave like the Jodie and Ncuti, there isn't pretentious pseudo intellectual crap people who want to look clever can read into his era (or at least as much of it) as there was with Capaldi, and aging Millennials and older Gen Z fans who the aging classic era boomer fans like Nick Briggs are scared of and who dominate the fandom don't have quite the nostalgia for him as he was their third Doctor and when they started to grow up. It's further proof that the current elites of fandom are far more divorced from what the public want than the 80s fans they sneer at for being anoraks ever were. Still whilst you have to give credit to Moff for hiring Matt and Karen and Arthur, even then he may have hired them for the wrong reasons, IE because they were young and pretty and he wanted a Tennant clone. Remember a lot of what made the 11th Doctor great came from Matt more than Moffat. His costume for instance, and even his characterisation were entirely down to Matt. Unlike Tennant and Moff, the supposed uber fans, Matt actually went back and rewatched the classic serials after being cast and famously fell in love with Troughton's Doctor hence why he insisted on the frock coat and bow tie (Moff originally wanted him to dress like a London hipster.) Then there is also the awkward love triangle in the first season with Matt and Karen, that again died down because Matt and Karen weren't comfortable doing it and the rest of the Amy/Doctor dynamic comes from their natural friendship which endures to this day. Still again credit to Moff for letting them have freedom and yes he did write some great stories for 11 like the Angels two parter and 11th hour, though to be honest even then his best were arguably mostly by other writers, Mark Gatiss (Cold War), Toby Whitehouse (God Complex, A Town Called Mercy) Richard Curtis (Vincent and the Doctor), and Amy's Choice and the Girl Who Waited (I can't remember who wrote them, but neither were Moffat.) Furthermore the Capaldi era is far worse than either 9 or 10s eras. Whilst Ncuti's era may be worse technically, it would not exist were it not for the Capaldi era. It actually pisses me off to see even the anti SJW crowd reassess Moffat. Like those guys I did the live stream with, they voted Death in Heaven as the best episode of season 8. What the actual f*ck. Moffat was the one who ultimately destroyed DW in the following ways. He drove its mainstream appeal into the absolute ground with his AWFUL stories in season 8, which it still hasn't recovered from 10 years on. He picked out Chris Chibnall to be his successor and convinced him to do the job. He really pioneered the let's smash up classic who's history crap with things like the Hybrid, sexual braggard Hartnell. rewriting the Doctors relationship with the Master, let's stick in unseen incarnations etc. Missy. I don't need to say more do I? Pioneered the stupid gender change, ruined the Master, and completely dragged the show down into the farce it was now. He also spinelessly sold the fandom out to the insane gender cult with Missy and other things like his directors promoting Whovian Feminism and others like her etc. Moffat is to use a phrase from a proper DW story "THE SUPREME TRAITOR" who did about 1000 times the damage to the show and brand that RTD ever did. Proof of that is that after RTD left it was healthy and you could as seen with Matt even go back to the classic style a bit, where as after Capaldi it was permanently broken, with Chibnall just solidifying it and RTD's second run just kicking the corpse. |
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Post by iank on Sept 25, 2024 10:33:38 GMT
Nah.
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Post by rushy on Sept 25, 2024 12:25:49 GMT
The show completely fell apart during Moff's tenure. Nevermind what RTD does now, his original era didn't produce the likes of Death in Heaven and Hell Bent.
We can debate their talents (or lack thereof) but this is just an objective fact. RTD gave Moff a healthy show in terms of ratings/success, and Moff gave Chibnall a show that was barely clinging on.
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Post by burrunjor on Sept 25, 2024 12:37:14 GMT
The show completely fell apart during Moff's tenure. Nevermind what RTD does now, his original era didn't produce the likes of Death in Heaven and Hell Bent. We can debate their talents (or lack thereof) but this is just an objective fact. RTD gave Moff a healthy show in terms of ratings/success, and Moff gave Chibnall a show that was barely clinging on. Completely true, though again can you believe the guys who I do the livestreams with voted Death in Heaven as the best story? They are supposed to be the anti sjw side of fandom. It's really depressing. That is to me the single worst episode of any tv show ever made. It's very rare to get a story that does signal the end for a tv show like Death in Heaven did. Missy needs to replace jump the shark because as soon as they did that, then there really was no going back. I said it back then and EVERYTHING since has proved that I was 100 percent right. From the Hybrid to sexual bragged Hartnell, to Jodie, to the Timeless Children, to Ncuti and his party boys that kill people for money etc. All a direct result of that. Yes you can say that the first RTD era set a precedent by changing it from the classic era, but again as you say what followed RTD's era was another healthy, strong era for the show with Matt, and the fact that Matt was able to be a bit more like the classic era, showed that RTD 1 hadn't completely destroyed the ability to go back there either. As I've said before in 2013 Moff was faced with a choice. The public adored all of DW, not just the current version. Appreciation for the classic was at an all time high with An Adventure in Space and Time. Obviously yes it couldn't maintain that success forever, but that did bode well for another few years at least. Peter Capaldi, more of an old school Doctor was cast, Gallifrey was back and so all that baggage was gone. Moff could have easily honoured Capaldi's wishes and made it a scarier, darker show that saw the Doctor jump back into the unknown again in his search for Gallifrey, much like Hartnell. By that stage all of RTD's influence is gone, so you can't blame him for Moffat not taking advantage of that. However due to his own insecurities about being called sexist and the obnoxious, then trendy millennial side of fandom like Who Addicts Reviews, Five Who Fans trashing him, he sold out completely to them to a greater extent and within two years took it from the hype of the 50th to the point where it was taken off for a year after 2015. RTD despite his admittedly dickish behavior on social media, is still the one who did the least damage to the show and brand of the three showrunners. It's hard to say between Moff and Chibs as whilst the former started it off, Chibnall took it to its worst extreme. |
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Post by iank on Sept 25, 2024 13:19:53 GMT
No, the RTD era just produced the likes of Journey's End and The End of Time.
Masterpieces... of shite.
And far from leaving the show "healthy", the RTD era left it permanently damaged, the perception of the show (and its character) forever altered to a cataclysmic degree, to the point there was (and is) no chance of getting anything resembling the real show back on air ever again.
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Post by Cherry Pepsi Maxil on Sept 25, 2024 13:22:21 GMT
Journey's End is still better than Wedding of River Song and Death in Heaven.
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Post by iank on Sept 25, 2024 13:22:59 GMT
Nah. Wedding is a lot more watchable. It and DIH are equally shit though.
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Post by burrunjor on Sept 25, 2024 14:24:31 GMT
No, the RTD era just produced the likes of Journey's End and The End of Time. Masterpieces... of shite. And far from leaving the show "healthy", the RTD era left it permanently damaged, the perception of the show (and its character) forever altered to a cataclysmic degree, to the point there was (and is) no chance of getting anything resembling the real show back on air ever again. Sorry Iank and Ludders, but again as I pointed out that is demonstrably not true. In 2013 we had an old, unusual looking character actor Peter Capaldi cast in the role. Regardless of how badly his Doctor turned out, Capaldi is the perfect type of actor to play the part. Not only is he older, he's known for playing edgy, villainous and over the top comedy roles, like Tom Baker, Jon Pertwee, Hartnell etc. Capaldi also wanted his DW to be like the Hartnell era, and said at the time of his casting and in the years since, that his era should have been scary trips into the unknown depths of space, retro Daleks and Cybermen and TARDIS consoles, no kissing the companion, scary, cold winter nights like when he was a kid watching the Hartnell era etc. The GP were also far more welcoming to true who after the nostalgia fest for the 50th, plus the last RTDism, the last of the Time Lords had been wiped clean. Even lots of the new fans had grown tired of companion/Doctor romances by that point and were looking forward to Capaldi not having that dynamic. Moff had an easier position than anyone in 2014 to do a retro who in the style of the classic era. Okay it still wouldn't have been completely in that style as the episodes were still short, but it certainly could have evoked the spirit of the classic years, with the RTD womanizer Doctor phase just being seen in hindsight as a weird, one off period, like when the Doctor was exiled to earth. However Moff didn't do that because his bottle broke and he wanted to be seen as a progressive 21st century man after the sexist accusations, so he went 100 percent down the pandering route. As soon as he did that, then the perception of the character changed. He went from dusty old professor who could sometimes be young (and went through an odd womanizer phase as Tennant, that they even called out as him having a midlife crisis in the show) to the Doctor can be ANYONE and should represent everyone. As soon as you do that it is very hard, if not impossible to get the character back as not only will everything be dismantled, but it now becomes a political argument too. Just wanting an actor who would actually be right for the part is seen as sexist, homophobic etc. Also as soon as he did things like make regeneration a clumsy metaphor for transgenderism, throw in cringy political remarks and anti men remarks, and the Master/Doctor love fest, he made the show appeal to purely activists, which killed its mainstream appeal and also drove most of the fans away. (Moffat and his team as I've been over also deliberately courted these fans too, like Crystal Dee, Whovian Feminism etc.) Also Moff's shit spread back to the classic era too. It was in HIS era that we started to see bullshit on websites and in magazines that Delgado wanted to shag Pertwee, that the Burned Master dry humped Tremas etc. He also really pushed the go back and interfere with the past via the Hartnell cosplayer being a sexual braggard, the hybrid story etc. All of the shit we are drowning in now comes from him. The show could and did more or less shake off RTD's worst excesses. It hasn't for Moff's. |
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Post by rushy on Sept 25, 2024 14:44:55 GMT
I completely reject the idea of the show being unsalvageable after RTD. Pretty much everyone were ready to move on from the cheesiness of Ninth-Eleventh. If you read the fan theories and stuff from around 2014, everyone's expectations for the Capaldi era were significantly more darker and more adult than it ended up being.
The audience that had watched New Who as children had grown up and were looking for mature entertainment. It was the perfect oppurtunity, similar to how the Harry Potter novels became increasingly darker as they went on to great success, to take advantage of the audience aging.
It was Moffat who missed the golden oppurtunity, not Russell. Who cares if Journey's End was trash? It was a f*cking juggernaut culturally. Russell had the audience. He gave the audience to Moffat. Moffat had the chance to improve and mature the show, and he wasted it. Moffat was the worser showrunner. Maybe a better writer, but definitely the worser showrunner.
(That all being said, I do think RTD should have salvaged something with the 60th. Tennant brought the views back in, so if they just quietly moved on from the Capaldi/Whittaker debacle and told good stories, maybe it could've clawed back to some kind of dignity)
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