Legend of Ruby Sunday/Empire of Death (FINALE)

[rushy]

I still heavily dislike most of the Capaldi era, but his comparison of Hartnell to "a cold winter night" and wanting to explore the night is by far the most artistically relevant thing anyone creatively involved in New Who has said.

[burrunjor]

Jun 16, 2024 14:30:17 GMT rushy said:

I still heavily dislike most of the Capaldi era, but his comparison of Hartnell to "a cold winter night" and wanting to explore the night is by far the most artistically relevant thing anyone creatively involved in New Who has said.

Agreed. That's what I and clearly he wanted his era to be. The Doctor takes you out into the unknown. No stupid council estate flats to return to, no companions families, no Doctor who knows everything about every planet in the universe. You genuinely end up on mysterious planets like the first Dalek story where you're not sure what is lurking round the corner, or get lost in periods of earth's history etc. Such a shame that he got what he did, although compared to Ncuti even Capaldi's neutered cucked Doctor seems like a completely different character. 

[Deleted]

Jun 16, 2024 11:42:42 GMT burrunjor said:

You know what makes it even funnier? Pyramids of Mars was repeated the year it was shown as an omnibus edition over Christmas and that version pulled in 13 million, making it the third highest rated episode in DW's history after Destiny and City of Death.

Sutekh basically did a Michael Keaton, returned to star in a flop. He needs to fire his agent. Marcus Scarman was his best agent for me.

To be fair to Sutekh though he had a writer, Bob Holmes writing for him last time and not a heat magazine loving narcissist like now. A great actor can only do so much with that kind of material.

Oh shit, I didn't realise "Stephen Harris" was a pseudonym for Bob Holmes. Explains why the dialogue is so good then

[Deleted]

I can't help feeling the overemphasis on characters referring to the hooded figure as "Ruby's mom" is gonna be a rug-pull moment. Imagine if it really is the Trickster and he parrots Sutekh's "did you think I was family?"

[burrunjor]

Jun 16, 2024 16:59:40 GMT @theyakemperor said:

Jun 16, 2024 11:42:42 GMT burrunjor said:

You know what makes it even funnier? Pyramids of Mars was repeated the year it was shown as an omnibus edition over Christmas and that version pulled in 13 million, making it the third highest rated episode in DW's history after Destiny and City of Death.

Sutekh basically did a Michael Keaton, returned to star in a flop. He needs to fire his agent. Marcus Scarman was his best agent for me.

To be fair to Sutekh though he had a writer, Bob Holmes writing for him last time and not a heat magazine loving narcissist like now. A great actor can only do so much with that kind of material.

Oh shit, I didn't realise "Stephen Harris" was a pseudonym for Bob Holmes. Explains why the dialogue is so good then

It says everything about how good Bob Holmes was that 50 years later the best bit in DW is a line of dialogue he wrote "I bring Sutekh's gift of death to all humanity." Only bit that genuinely creeped me out in last nights episode. Again though it was from a writer, not whatever the hell RTD has become. 

[ClockworkOcean]

Firstly, it's wonderful to hear that the inimitable Gabriel Woolf is well enough to still be acting at the age of 91. I watched the Sutekh scene on YouTube and he still sounds great. I'll probably seek out the rest of his scenes too, as I did with the classic series cameos in Power. The reveal scene also seemed fairly well done in terms of visual effects, music, etc.

However, I'm still not coming back. This is all taking place within the context of the continuing story of an immortal, overtly gay, gender-bending, species-shifting, non-Time Lord whose first incarnation wasn't William Hartnell, and who splits off into an entirely distinct entity upon regeneration. It's therefore not the story or the character I'm signing up to follow when I choose to watch something that calls itself "Doctor Who". A few well-executed scenes featuring some actors I like don't make any of that shit go away. When I said the show was dead to me, I meant it. Decanonise those changes, then we'll talk.

[Ludders II]

I don't subscribe to the notion that NuWho ever has been, or ever will be Canon.
But I get what you're saying.

[burrunjor]

Jun 16, 2024 17:35:55 GMT ClockworkOcean said:

Firstly, it's wonderful to hear that the inimitable Gabriel Woolf is well enough to still be acting at the age of 91. I watched the Sutekh scene on YouTube and he still sounds great. I'll probably seek out the rest of his scenes too, as I did with the classic series cameos in Power. The reveal scene also seemed fairly well done in terms of visual effects, music, etc.

However, I'm still not coming back. This is all taking place within the context of the continuing story of an immortal, overtly gay, gender-bending, species-shifting, non-Time Lord whose first incarnation wasn't William Hartnell, and who splits off into an entirely distinct entity upon regeneration. It's therefore not the story or the character I'm signing up to follow when I choose to watch something that calls itself "Doctor Who". A few well-executed scenes featuring some actors I like don't make any of that shit go away. When I said the show was dead to me, I meant it. Decanonise those changes, then we'll talk.

Completely agree with you. As long as those things are canon, then f*ck off I'm not going to consider this anymore canon than the Cushing movies. 

Meanwhile this hilarious review from Ian Levine's facebook (NOT from Ian himself.) Sums it up.

After about 20 minutes of tedious soap opera meet and greet, the Doctor realises that just dressing up as the Fonz won't be enough to defeat a bouncey castle in the form of a giant donkey. The Legend of Ruby Sunday can't be resolved by looking at an old video tape. The Doctor feels all useless and sits down in sorrow, and can only be prompted into further dithering by a pep talk from his least popular eighties companion. Sutekh forgets he was an Osiran exiled and imprisoned by his own people and reinvents himself as the head of a whacky pantheon of strictly come dancing gods. But the question everyone isn't asking is, what the hell is the Vlinx supposed to be?

[rushy]

"The Doctor feels all useless and sits down in sorrow"

So what happened all that therapy he got from bi-regenerating?

And maybe this is a dumb question, but why has all that therapy made him so over-emotional? People on Twitter keep saying that the new Doctor has embraced his emotions more, but isn't therapy about *mastering* one's emotions, instead of letting them control you? I feel like Tennant's Doctor (at least the 14th) was in a way better place mentally. He got on with the job.

[burrunjor]

Jun 16, 2024 18:09:16 GMT rushy said:

"The Doctor feels all useless and sits down in sorrow"

So what happened all that therapy he got from bi-regenerating?

And maybe this is a dumb question, but why has all that therapy made him so over-emotional? People on Twitter keep saying that the new Doctor has embraced his emotions more, but isn't therapy about *mastering* one's emotions, instead of letting them control you? I feel like Tennant's Doctor (at least the 14th) was in a way better place mentally. He got on with the job.

You know Tennant's hollowed out, third rate corpse of an incarnation in 14 seems like f*cking Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker at their peak compared to Ncuti. 

[rushy]

That bad, huh? (I didn't watch past Church of Ruby Road)

EDIT: I really loved this speech from WBY. From what I saw of Ncuti, I couldn't imagine him delivering it.

[iank]

Jun 16, 2024 17:35:55 GMT ClockworkOcean said:

Firstly, it's wonderful to hear that the inimitable Gabriel Woolf is well enough to still be acting at the age of 91. I watched the Sutekh scene on YouTube and he still sounds great. I'll probably seek out the rest of his scenes too, as I did with the classic series cameos in Power. The reveal scene also seemed fairly well done in terms of visual effects, music, etc.

However, I'm still not coming back. This is all taking place within the context of the continuing story of an immortal, overtly gay, gender-bending, species-shifting, non-Time Lord whose first incarnation wasn't William Hartnell, and who splits off into an entirely distinct entity upon regeneration. It's therefore not the story or the character I'm signing up to follow when I choose to watch something that calls itself "Doctor Who". A few well-executed scenes featuring some actors I like don't make any of that shit go away. When I said the show was dead to me, I meant it. Decanonise those changes, then we'll talk.

Bingo. I've heard the usuals squeeing and I'm like, "Dude, he was still snogging another dude last week." 
And I agree with whoever it was saying that this humiliating failure was perhaps necessary to forever tarnish New Who and RTD in the future. If they had ended it with Jodie we'd probably have had "it needs RTD back/to be like what it was with RTD" forevermore. Well now they've had that, it's failed spectacularly and the only way to ever save Who is to forget this entire shitshow and go back to what made the original work. 

[rushy]

Jun 16, 2024 21:47:43 GMT iank said:

If they had ended it with Jodie we'd probably have had "it needs RTD back/to be like what it was with RTD" forevermore. Well now they've had that, it's failed spectacularly and the only way to ever save Who is to forget this entire shitshow and go back to what made the original work.

No, now it'll just be "it needs to be like what it was during RTD1". This era doesn't recapture his original at all.

[henshin]

Great episode, but boy do the ironies run deep.

RTD: "We are phenomenally successful with a young audience!"

Also RTD: "Ratings are suffering"

Also RTD: "We're not about catering to older fans"

Yes, RTD again: "THE BIG BAD REVEALLED.....*ahem* obscure villain from the 1970s that not even Henshin was aware of because he is yet to own the box set."

[Genkimonk]

I think I can guess how they will defeat Sutekh. When they used the window they said history is memory. So it takes people remembering it for it to exist.

So they will probably get Sutekh in the window, and use Susan to send a mental projection through time and space wiping all memory of Sutekh. This will explain why she is all over the place. With the universe forgetting, Sutekh will lose his power and faid away.