Dr Who

Struggled with this Quantum Leap homage. It was OK, and the regulars were fine, and some nice touches like MLK being in 1 scene away from the showier regulars.

Thought it was a bit dull.

Hard to see what could be made out of such a plotline to make the Doctor more pivotal to the story without it being disrespectful to the real life people involved.
Think there's probably a reason why previous historical Who stories stayed well outside living memory or mixed obvious sci fi with non-specific historical characters?

Also, a few fleeting moments aside, very little sense of real personal jeopardy seemed riding on it :
If this had been an old 1960s Hartnell multi-episode story with longer running time, there would have been more danger & more at stake personally for the Doctor and companions : the TARDIS would have been impounded by the racist police, they'd have all got separated, one of the companions would have been arrested etc & etc.....Maybe a two-parter here might have given more room for more drama & less writing-on-the-wallpaper-bullet-point-history-lessons ?

^ I agree with all this except for your first bit MLL. I think you've missed the point a bit on that one. History couldn't be, ostensibly, changed (this week - this has always been a bit of a floating point for Who ). So all 'the team' were limited to at the end was filling in for the few people the pokey villian (the writer seems to have had a moral problem with making the racist too powerful a figure) had managed to put off from riding the bus. So if there was a message to be derived from such action it was just that 'you sometimes have to do good deeds without the benefit of being seen/known to have done them'. Sometimes to the extent of actually appearing to be something as rectal clenching as racist as in this case.

Actually thinking about it, it's a shame the production team don't tale this message on board more. They seem to be all about the publicity and sheer visibleness of their own worthiness at this time.

(28-10-2018 11:29 )ShandyHand Wrote:  ^ I agree with all this except for your first bit MLL. I think you've missed the point a bit on that one. History couldn't be, ostensibly, changed (this week - this has always been a bit of a floating point for Who ).

I get that - the point I was trying to make is that therefore it was a flawed choice because it didn't allow Dr & co take part in a dramatically satisfying way.
So it made no sense to me that Rosa appeared to be looking back through the bus window and acknowledging the Doctor with a nod of the head? Why exactly would she do that?
(Maybe I've misunderstood the visual grammar of those scenes, and that wasn't how it was intended to be viewed , but that's how it looked to me on first (and probably only) watch.)

OK - do good to do good, and not to be seen to be good, fair enough moral.
But with the subject matter of prejudice and racism, that still doesn't seem dramatically satisfying : attitudes don't change unless enough people stand up and speak out against them?
Would history really have been in peril if Dr and co had got themselves slung off the bus after Rosa's arrest? Or even simply made a point to the other passengers of walking off in disgust ?

Personally I think the way it panned out was the right way, when it is an historical event centered around the actions of a single person I think it is a good idea that the fictional characters are not seen to appropriate their achievement in anyway. This was her moment it wasn't about the Doctor and co it was about Rosa and what she did. It was good that it was written by Malorie Blackman, a black woman writing about a black woman gives the story a much more authentic feel. If you look at Thin Ice which also tackles racism and was written by a white woman when they encounter the racist villain, The Doctor punches him and gives an emotional speech about how you treat other people whilst Bill, the actual black person, is kind of just a spectator on the side when the subject matter is related to her. For all the best of intentions it just doesn't work.

As for tonight's episode Arachnids in the UK, it was ok but it kind of just fizzled out. The baby spiders went into the panic room without any hassle and the mother was dying anyway and was killed with one shot. I continue to like Jodie as The Doctor and how she displays empathy, apologising to the mother spider that this has happened to her is exactly who The Doctor is and should always be but it kind of went nowhere. I also wonder if Chibnall is writing too many episodes, I feel like if you are going to do a season of stand alone episodes then you should be bringing in more writers to get more diverse stories.


I know it's only four episodes of his first season, so far I would say it has been enjoyable but underwhelming with Jodie and Bradley Walsh being the highlight

The wholesale rip-off of a Jon Pertwee story wasn't that bad, although the up-to-date politics were sledgehammer-subtle. Some of the dialogue worked, but Jodie is back to Quip City as though RTD and Moffat never left. The way Yaz's dad was forgotten about, despite a killer spider next door, and worse the way the Doctor just stands idle whilst the baddie gets to shoot the big spider after all, aren't good.

Episode as a whole, meh, didn't enjoy it at all, the ending was the only bit I liked. Let's hope they don't have too many like this

^ Recent posts have highlighted how it is the intricacies of the writing of the show that was always going to make or break this season. Once casting was announced, the acting kahunas were pretty much assured, history told us production values were similiarly bankable and I'm glad to say expectations have been exceeded in that area. (Who has never looked so good.) With that said, I'd just like to add a few random thoughts on the scripting so far this year...

Some of the dialogue this week positively zinged I agree - for me, it was the best yet this season in fact. The regulars seem to be getting on the top of their game with the delivery too now. And the humour is on the right level I feel. Whittaker is fine with this stuff and the team bowl the viewer along with an impressive energy and verve that the scripts have dictated.

BUT... four weeks in and I'm still not sure this Doc can do the character's neccessary steel and gravitas when required. As doodle implies the Whit needs a just a little more action hero bollocks when faced with the likes of Noth's Trump like idiot with a gun. (He still could have shoot the eight legs but she should have faced him down more first and made him do it sneekily.) We've yet to see 13 really angry; I hope they haven't lost that edge. The cause may be the lack of true jeopardy in the scripts so far of course. The action episodes so far, while being engaging, have had a little too much of "and with a single bound they're free" about them to me. It's almost like they are overly full of ideas with the character moments struggling to find the breathing space to have their proper impact (and for the ideas to be fully realised at times).

I might add that the screaming faith this team had in the doctor at the false climax to episode two grated with me. Just a flicker of doubt from them at the Doc's apparent failure and her subsequent dejection would have surely been more human. But it seems everything about this lot's connection to each other is required to be eternally upbeat

Four episodes in then and we have the expected more traditional, occassionally pedestrian storytelling - a welcome respite after the too often up itself reflections of the Moffat era. We have moments of predictable preachiness and right on social commentary (some might say engineering) but not to the overwhelming extent that might perhaps have been feared (they need to drop the habit of referencing minor chatacter's offscreen S.O's as invaribly same sex though; it's getting to be a bit laughable).

As a whole, I'd say solidly entertaining without being outstanding or groundbreaking; a little too much played on the safe side and lacking in bite for me, but then, given what the production team are trying to do at this stage, that may have been inevitable.

Hope they keep up the nice variation in settings and plotting to date.

(29-10-2018 18:41 )ShandyHand Wrote:  As doodle implies the Whit needs a just a little more action hero bollocks when faced with the likes of Noth's Trump like idiot with a gun. (He still could have shoot the eight legs but she should have faced him down more first and made him do it sneekily.)

The moment was lost really with doing nothing. If she'd screamed in rage and gone "I'll get you for that!" he would still have gone "you didn't now, and you won't in future".
It's not meant to be a turning point for the character, so she looks a right mug to go "aw, how humane to lock a load of spiders in a room and suffocate them" followed by "aw, let's let the ickle big spider kill itself so I don't have to" followed by menacing lip wobbling at some gun action.

Agree with most of comments here.
It didn't hold my attention and I didn't think the Doctor came across as very effectual.
Even the explanation of where the Spiders came from was pretty much handed to her by the other scientist ?
Reminds me a bit of early era Davison at the moment - Doctor outnumbered by companions and coming across as a bit weak and unsure generally ?
If the idea is to present a more consensual, enabling, "soft skills" character - isn't that just in danger of playing into a gender stereotype?
Ok I don't think the Dr shouldn't be a superhero either but personally think the scripts need to provide character with bit more authority than seems to atm?