jedi_of_urth (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
jedi_of_urth) wrote2010-10-12 07:48 pm
jedi_of_urth) wrote2010-10-12 07:48 pm
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Extra DW thoughts
So, as I speculate I might do and for a few different reasons that built up, here you can find some more of my thoughts of the first five episodes of Doctor Who season 5.
I don’t have any lingering desire to talk more about ‘The Eleventh Hour’ or ‘The Beast Below’, I think I covered my feelings on those pretty well before. But a couple general thoughts.
I still hate the opening credits. It would be one thing if they seemed metaphorical, flying through a storm and then through hellfire, but they really just seem…cloudy and random.
I still hate the new TARDIS layout. I’m kind of getting okay with the outside (not happy with it, but I can deal with it at least), but the inside still doesn’t work for me. Something about it makes me think this is all the TARDIS is. I can’t really explain it, but with Nine and Ten’s TARDIS (and with the Old School ones) I could totally believe the TARDIS was huge and practically endless inside, but now it seems so...small.
I think we can all see that Eleven has mostly grown on me, so long as I can read Ten’s emotional drama into him. Amy, well, I’m pretty much neutral towards, I neither like her nor dislike her, she’s just there. I definitely agree with my f-list who has been saying that Eleven is very fatherly with her, although she’s got a bit of hero worship going on with him I think his side of the dynamic will win out. But oh how I wish Eleven’s reaction to Amy coming on to him had also been Ten’s to Reinette.
I continue to think ‘Victory of the Daleks’ was awesome. I mostly covered it from the emotional angle in my previous post, but there were more structural things I liked too that I forgot to mention. I loved how it also echoed back all the way to ‘Genesis of the Daleks’ as well as being part of the more modern setup of how the Daleks effect the Doctor. GotD more or less was a WWII metaphor as I recall and the décor of the trenches and bunkers matched, and then came back here.
It placed the ever so slight doubt in my mind that, like the Cybermen, humanity was capable of creating another round of the great enemies. Obviously for WWII era there would have had to be some outside influence be it future echoes or some remnant of the Daleks themselves, but quite frankly I’ve always thought Lumic had someone feeding him ideas, Inception style at least.
But all of that was before the Dalek’s went to rainbow colored and I couldn’t take them seriously anymore.
Though I did like that the Daleks as we’ve know the past few seasons basically just surrendered to the rainbow Daleks. I hate that we’ve now got Rainbows of Bronze, but it was a very Dalek thing to do. They aren’t pure Dalek, so they are they’re on enemy and understand they deserve extermination by true Daleks (rainbow colored though they may be).
On a more meta level, in RTD’s era the Daleks were almost always corrupted in some way. By Rose, being rebuilt from humanity, the Cult of Skaro that wasn’t technically corrupted but weren’t normal Daleks either, Dalek Sec and the human/dalek/time lord hybrid army, and finally Davros’ do over. Each was interesting, and I’ll miss that way of approaching the species, but I can appreciate that maybe it was time for a fresh slate (on their side, not on the Doctor’s obviously).
And then there’s Amy not remembering the Daleks, which is interesting to me given the Doctor’s drama regarding them in recent ears. I’m sure it’s important to the plot, but it’s mostly interesting to me on a poetic level.
Here’s the thing, the only episode I have honestly liked so far was, surprise surprise, not written by Moffat.
Which brings us to ‘Time of the Angels’/’Flesh and Stone’. Which, no longer being half asleep, I’m back to disliking a lot.
In ‘Blink’ the concept of the Angels was interesting. Lonely Angels who couldn’t even look at each other because it would paralyze then both forever, only moving when you can’t see them and being super fast when you didn’t, that they could be anywhere, and the *way* they kill people, by letting them live to death was unique. Pretty much all of that was undone by this episode, now they’re just random villain number 648. Apparently now they just kill you (and maybe steal your voice), an army of them can be held at bay by a few people looking around randomly, and (as part of that) not even all that fast.
I stand by my statement that River is growing on me, but she’s still annoying. She’s still a plot point rather than a character and in a lot of ways that character is a Mary Sue, Alex Kingston just happens to be giving the part enough charm that I don’t dislike her as much as I used to (also not nearly such bad timing and not quite as bad writing, plus the actors not deliberately having no shade of chemistry).
Now some of you might be objecting to my use of the Mary Sue label, but a) that’s not stopping me from giving her a chance and b) name one flaw that she has (and c) I don’t hold it against the character, just the writing). She’s practically perfect in every way. I suspect she’ll continue growing on me, and may develop more character as we go, it’s just that for now it hasn’t show up much.
Yep, military church still bothersome. Plus everyone knows Clerics are party healers anyway. As an add to that, why were all the soldiers men? Military church not wanting women or Moffat’s sexism showing through? Depends on how Watsonion vs. Doyelist I want to be.
Another side note, in spite of being in the 51st century where they have sonic blasters and energy weapons, teleports, and time travel, their guns appear to be standard 21st century style. Just saying.
On an aesthetic level, these episodes just didn’t look as good as things have so far this season. There were a couple of moments of pretty shots (one of them being straight out of ‘The Impossible Planet’ of course) but mostly it was pretty drab looking.
I think the fact that as soon as I was really awake I couldn’t like these episodes any more says a lot. That the only way to enjoy them at all is to not be particularly engaged in them and not really thinking as you do. Look I can handle bad science and plot holes, but having to be half asleep to even semi-enjoy an episode is a problem.
I don’t have any lingering desire to talk more about ‘The Eleventh Hour’ or ‘The Beast Below’, I think I covered my feelings on those pretty well before. But a couple general thoughts.
I still hate the opening credits. It would be one thing if they seemed metaphorical, flying through a storm and then through hellfire, but they really just seem…cloudy and random.
I still hate the new TARDIS layout. I’m kind of getting okay with the outside (not happy with it, but I can deal with it at least), but the inside still doesn’t work for me. Something about it makes me think this is all the TARDIS is. I can’t really explain it, but with Nine and Ten’s TARDIS (and with the Old School ones) I could totally believe the TARDIS was huge and practically endless inside, but now it seems so...small.
I think we can all see that Eleven has mostly grown on me, so long as I can read Ten’s emotional drama into him. Amy, well, I’m pretty much neutral towards, I neither like her nor dislike her, she’s just there. I definitely agree with my f-list who has been saying that Eleven is very fatherly with her, although she’s got a bit of hero worship going on with him I think his side of the dynamic will win out. But oh how I wish Eleven’s reaction to Amy coming on to him had also been Ten’s to Reinette.
I continue to think ‘Victory of the Daleks’ was awesome. I mostly covered it from the emotional angle in my previous post, but there were more structural things I liked too that I forgot to mention. I loved how it also echoed back all the way to ‘Genesis of the Daleks’ as well as being part of the more modern setup of how the Daleks effect the Doctor. GotD more or less was a WWII metaphor as I recall and the décor of the trenches and bunkers matched, and then came back here.
It placed the ever so slight doubt in my mind that, like the Cybermen, humanity was capable of creating another round of the great enemies. Obviously for WWII era there would have had to be some outside influence be it future echoes or some remnant of the Daleks themselves, but quite frankly I’ve always thought Lumic had someone feeding him ideas, Inception style at least.
But all of that was before the Dalek’s went to rainbow colored and I couldn’t take them seriously anymore.
Though I did like that the Daleks as we’ve know the past few seasons basically just surrendered to the rainbow Daleks. I hate that we’ve now got Rainbows of Bronze, but it was a very Dalek thing to do. They aren’t pure Dalek, so they are they’re on enemy and understand they deserve extermination by true Daleks (rainbow colored though they may be).
On a more meta level, in RTD’s era the Daleks were almost always corrupted in some way. By Rose, being rebuilt from humanity, the Cult of Skaro that wasn’t technically corrupted but weren’t normal Daleks either, Dalek Sec and the human/dalek/time lord hybrid army, and finally Davros’ do over. Each was interesting, and I’ll miss that way of approaching the species, but I can appreciate that maybe it was time for a fresh slate (on their side, not on the Doctor’s obviously).
And then there’s Amy not remembering the Daleks, which is interesting to me given the Doctor’s drama regarding them in recent ears. I’m sure it’s important to the plot, but it’s mostly interesting to me on a poetic level.
Here’s the thing, the only episode I have honestly liked so far was, surprise surprise, not written by Moffat.
Which brings us to ‘Time of the Angels’/’Flesh and Stone’. Which, no longer being half asleep, I’m back to disliking a lot.
In ‘Blink’ the concept of the Angels was interesting. Lonely Angels who couldn’t even look at each other because it would paralyze then both forever, only moving when you can’t see them and being super fast when you didn’t, that they could be anywhere, and the *way* they kill people, by letting them live to death was unique. Pretty much all of that was undone by this episode, now they’re just random villain number 648. Apparently now they just kill you (and maybe steal your voice), an army of them can be held at bay by a few people looking around randomly, and (as part of that) not even all that fast.
I stand by my statement that River is growing on me, but she’s still annoying. She’s still a plot point rather than a character and in a lot of ways that character is a Mary Sue, Alex Kingston just happens to be giving the part enough charm that I don’t dislike her as much as I used to (also not nearly such bad timing and not quite as bad writing, plus the actors not deliberately having no shade of chemistry).
Now some of you might be objecting to my use of the Mary Sue label, but a) that’s not stopping me from giving her a chance and b) name one flaw that she has (and c) I don’t hold it against the character, just the writing). She’s practically perfect in every way. I suspect she’ll continue growing on me, and may develop more character as we go, it’s just that for now it hasn’t show up much.
Yep, military church still bothersome. Plus everyone knows Clerics are party healers anyway. As an add to that, why were all the soldiers men? Military church not wanting women or Moffat’s sexism showing through? Depends on how Watsonion vs. Doyelist I want to be.
Another side note, in spite of being in the 51st century where they have sonic blasters and energy weapons, teleports, and time travel, their guns appear to be standard 21st century style. Just saying.
On an aesthetic level, these episodes just didn’t look as good as things have so far this season. There were a couple of moments of pretty shots (one of them being straight out of ‘The Impossible Planet’ of course) but mostly it was pretty drab looking.
I think the fact that as soon as I was really awake I couldn’t like these episodes any more says a lot. That the only way to enjoy them at all is to not be particularly engaged in them and not really thinking as you do. Look I can handle bad science and plot holes, but having to be half asleep to even semi-enjoy an episode is a problem.