mrv3000 | (no subject)

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While I watched this episode I was mildly entertained, but the more I think about it, the worse it gets. And at this point I've worked myself into annoyance.

In the past I've disliked episodes for various reasons. Maybe I wasn't wild about the plot, or I thought it was too silly or it messed with my OTP, dammit! XD But even though I didn't care for something, the quality was there. e.g. I might not have liked GitF, but it was a great all around production.

This latest episode wasn't. It was poorly written and poorly edited. This was like a "first draft" and we've never seen that on New Who before. What makes me cranky is that its mistakes were so lazy. No one bothered. No one cared. Along its many points of production, no one said "um..." at various things.

I'm feeling the urge to flounce from DW at the moment, although I've two minds about it. Flouncing for this isn't nearly as dramatic as over Moffat giving us an episode about the Doctor's space harem of hot women. (You know you want to, Moffat. Don't deny it.) But a series in and I still don't really care about any of the main characters. Not even Rory, really. The show constantly tells us how important they all are, but I'm just not feeling it.

On the other hand Neil Gaiman is apparently some sort of god who might possibly rekindle my love of Doctor Who. So I'll probably at least stick through that episode.

I think at this point I'd gladly trade "clever" and "sexy" for a bit of heart. Just a little?

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I kind of flounced after the Astronaut episodes ngl. I don't know, Moffat's Who is okay I guess, but I definitely don't get those YAY IT'S SATURDAY WHO TIME \o/ feelings that I used to get :|

Oh definitely. I haven't actually been excited about the show in ages. It's definitely downshifted from fannish obsession to regular watcher. Might be sliding down further.

Yeah. I'm debating giving it a few episodes and then doing a catch-up on the off chance that it interests me more all at once rather than week by week.

I was really really tired, and on percocet, when I watched the pirate ep. So while I was irritated at some of it at the time, mostly I was like "Ooooohhhh, ship preeeeetty!" and "Wheee, silly pirates!" But therefore there hasn't been a lot of mental regurgitating, other than massive ranting regarding the "CPR" scene.

Steve Thompson, who wrote it, is crap. Apparently Moff likes him, because he also wrote the second ep of Sherlock (widely regarded among even rabid fans as having spectacularly craptastic plot) and is being trusted to write the vital finale ep of the next Sherlock series.

XD Sounds like the way to watch this episode!

And I wonder why he likes him? If this episode is an indication of his writing, I would not be giving him the finale!

I'd like them to stop dumbing down the Doctor for a start. He was no genius in the first 2 eps, but in this episode he's obtained the IQ of a rock.

"clever" and "sexy" vs "a bit of heart." Yeah, I think that's it.

I have to get my mind set that this is a different Who, with a very different feel-- more comic bookish, if you know what I mean. I'm amazed that Moffat, who wrote such great characters while penning eps for RTD, seems unable to get his own writers to do the same.

I did like the first two eps of the series, despite them feeling very different from other eps (even last season). But the lack of 'heart' continues... it's like it wants to be there, but isn't, quite. Rory is the closest thing we've got- you can see his heart. I think it's in large part Arthur Darville's take on the character.

He's writing the Sherlock finale??? Oh crud. Thompson wrote a sorta okay mystery, but he did not capture the characters they way Gatiss and Moffat did-- so it felt like a generic detective show, not "Sherlock" (and heck, there were only three eps, but Moffat and Gatiss got the characters down so well).

The pirate episode just left me feeling... nothing. Like, the first two brought about so much rage and hatred for Eleven and the plot in general, but made me super fond of Amy, Rory and River (at least partially because of how bad I feel for them at being stuck with Eleven). But this one was just kinda dull. And, you know, PIRATES. I like pirates.

I know exactly what you mean. By his own admission, Moffat said that S5 was written like a fairy tale. Problem is that lots of times there's just not much depth to fairy tale characters. The story is usually more important while the characters are placeholders. Meh.

I didn't know it was possible to make a dull pirate story. :D

Eleven keeps dropping down on my Doctor ranking list. I have way more affection for many of the Classic Doctors than I do for Eleven.

"Plots that don't hurt my brain" probably tops my list. :p I've pretty much given up on consistent characterization.

Yep, fairytale characters are stock figures and/or representations of ideas, not characters in and of themselves.

I saw someone on

doctorwho suggest that Moffat split the role of companion, so that instead of one person doign all of the following, you have Rory as the damsel in distress, Amy as "the pawn" (in their words; not sure what this means tbh), River as the love interest and usually a one-off as the ~student, or person who gets to learn from the experience. I have no idea if in fact this was intentional on his part, but I don't like it, if so.

I think I'm the opposite. I've given up on the plots - the arc will be some timey-wimey nonsense. I keep hoping for characters I can love. *sighs*

Yep! XD

No idea, it seems Thompson is buddies with Moffat and Mark Gatiss. Boys Club and all that.

On the positive side, this ep forced me to learn that there are indeed saltwater leeches. And also land leeches.

No, wait. That's definitely another negative for the episode.

Eleven is straight up my least favourite. And maybe One as well, I guess.

I'm not even hopeful for Gaiman, because a lot of the time I get a look-how-clever-I-am vibe from his writing and I've had more than enough of that recently.

That sort of makes sense. "Character X is this." "Character Y is this." I can see it.

My problem is that the characters never seem to need or want to move out of their slots. e.g. Martha wasn't just the Doctor's unrequited love interest.

XD I had no idea there were saltwater leeches. ICK.

LOL I think I have reached the conclusion that character driven stories just aren't Moffat's style so if the most I can hope for is plot, I want to be able to at least understand it.

Yeah, and like... the companion role was interesting because they did all of the above and more. Splitting it so that each person is designated as The Love Interest, The Damsel In Distress, etc is stupid and simplifies it unneccessarily.

This episode was pretty bad.

It would have worked for an animated Doctor Who series because the characters became almost caricatures of themselves in this episode.

And really it was a watered down version of 'The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances'.

And the Doctor lets pirates take a spaceship? That was not a good idea on so many levels.

You are also right about the Doctor being dumbed down. It's cool to have fun and whatnot when having an adventure, but shut up a second about the damn parrot and figure out how not to get killed by pissed off pirates instead of letting Amy wield a cutlass that in reality really could have hurt her.

Then on top of that the Doctor lets Amy try to revive Rory when he should have either taken over or taken Rory to the med bay that I'm sure the TARDIS has to have. He was sitting their biting his fingernail like he was watching a competent doctor save the love of his life.

In the end I kept laughing at the ridiculousness of this episode and not anything that was actually supposed to be funny.

I'm watching the next episode to see if I can figure out what's happening in this one clip where apparently Amy and Rory can't get out of the TARDIS and the Doctor can't get in. If the TARDIS is really having so many problems maybe the Doctor should, I don't know, fix it.
Though I'm thoroughly pissed at the fact we're seeing the console from 9/10's TARDIS and there's been mention of invoking the RTD quite a bit because to me that just means Moff is gonna screw up something else that was absolutely fine in the first place.

Six is still bottom for me. I don't care if he's misunderstood. Eleven's down with Four for me. (I know, blasphemy to not like Four. I'm sure my taste is suspect.)

LOL. I am oddly fond of Six. I don't even know why.

And Four... I've liked a lot of Four episodes in the past, but Tom Baker being a plonker (also a bit skeevy) doesn't help matters.

*nods* And probably also why things felt a bit flat when it was just Amy interacting with the Doctor.

I think a lot of it is Tom Baker. XD But just certain facial expressions bug the crap out of me.

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