What aren't you getting from that? That I didn't type the word 'ratings' after 'mid-series lull'? It seems reasonably clear what I was getting at, but if it isn't, then that is what I meant. Viewers starting to drift away half through as it became just another episode.
Truce! Help! The inference was more that there's a lull because the episodes aren't any good and people tune out because of that (leading to lower ratings, of course) but more a statement of quality.
Quote: Badge @ May 16 2011, 8:13 PM BSTTruce! Help! The inference was more that there's a lull because the episodes aren't any good and people tune out because of that (leading to lower ratings, of course) but more a statement of quality.
Okay, if that's how you read it, it really wasn't what I meant. I wasn't talking about episode quality, just that when your half way through a long (For UK) series, people are more prone to skipping episodes as they think it won't matter.
I thought next week's looked interesting, judging by the trailer.
Quote: Matthew Stott @ May 16 2011, 8:15 PM BSTOkay, if that's how you read it, it really wasn't what I meant. I wasn't talking about episode quality, just that when your half way through a long (For UK) series, people are more prone to skipping episodes as they think it won't matter.
Okay, sorry for misinterpreting. Now, I'd better start planning my negative comments for next week.
I have to say, the ads for this one look a little flat to me, and grey. And it's a two parter.
Quote: Godot Taxis @ May 16 2011, 6:51 PM BSTThe Doctor builds a stripped-down Tardis console to go after the real Tardis - not bad - then can't make it work until the Idris Tardis licks her finger and squirts an energy beam into it? Then Deus Ex machina-like she re-inserts herself ectoplasmically back into the actual Tardis and expels 'House'
Wasn't that the point though? that the Tardis is more than just a few bits of machinery, that it needs an animating lifeforce? It was more odd that the Doctor seemed to think he could make a functioning Tardis console without that connection. As for her reinserting herself in the Tardis, it had been established that the Idris body could not hold the lifeforce and the idea of returning her to the Tardis was so the lifeforce could return to its proper home, and expel House who had hijacked it.
I don't know if is science fiction, but, unusually for recent Who, it is logically consistent fantasy where people do things for identifiable reasons.
When you dismiss an episode as gibberish seven minutes in, you clearly have a set agenda and no intention of giving it a chance.
Quote: chipolata @ May 16 2011, 8:06 PM BSTHave you ever watched New Who? I doubt the scripts take that long to finish.
Is Mikey "Plate Spinner" Jackson writing for them now then? 
Quote: Matthew Stott @ May 16 2011, 7:26 PM BSTNo it's not, it's just, well, why not? Rather than stick to the same format as every previous year, they decided to try something else for the opener, something other than a stand alone 'romp'.
Again, they just wanted to try something different as they felt last year there was a mid-series lull, as it became 'just another episode', perhaps people wouldn't worry about missing it. They wanted more 'event episodes', and having a mid-series cliffhanger was the idea they came up with, then a short break to hopefully build expectation and have viewers eager to tune back in when it returned.
I've already gone over the folly of starting with a two-parter. I described it as the reason you don't get a whole lobster on your bruschetta - which should make it clear to everyone. The fact that they did it is not because they fancied a change - but because Moffat couldn't unfold the story he wanted to unfold any other way.
This is the likely reason for the hiatus - not that they couldn't get the farmed out scripts into the production office, but that Moffat couldn't finish shining his multi-series-spanning edifice. It's hard work to watch - it's going to be a lot harder to write.
Quote: Timbo @ May 16 2011, 9:29 PM BSTWasn't that the point though? that the Tardis is more than just a few bits of machinery, that it needs an animating lifeforce? It was more odd that the Doctor seemed to think he could make a functioning Tardis console without that connection. As for her reinserting herself in the Tardis, it had been established that the Idris body could not hold the lifeforce and the idea of returning her to the Tardis was so the lifeforce could return to its proper home, and expel House who had hijacked it.
I don't know if is science fiction, but, unusually for recent Who, it is logically consistent fantasy where people do things for identifiable reasons.
It's not science fiction. The clue is the word 'life-force'. If you can't see how lame having the Tardis personified as a woman is I can't help you. It's a bong smoker's idea.
The real objection is the weakness of the writing. The Doctor has supposedly build lots of Tardis' and knows all about the science of time-travel, but he's not aware of the fact that he needs this yellow life-force to make all the valves work. Also if Idris can just fire it out of her finger, presumably he could just jump on her back and she could shit out a time beam and he could ride her like some kind of tardis horse.
I notice you neglected to tackle the telepathy thing. Remember the Timelord headbutt from last season. Embarrassing.
Quote: Timbo @ May 16 2011, 9:29 PM BSTWhen you dismiss an episode as gibberish seven minutes in, you clearly have a set agenda and no intention of giving it a chance.
You almost never understand what I write. Labelling something as gibberish after seven minutes necessarily means that you are dismissing only seven minutes of it. Speaking personally I could have done without the Brain of Morbius meets Beckett's Endgame of the opening. You obviously liked it.
Quote: Godot Taxis @ May 17 2011, 1:00 AM BSTIt's not science fiction.
Unless you really get down to nuts and bolts, which is not going to happen in a 45 minute drama, science fiction always has elements of fantasy, and is not properly distinguishable from magic. Who, which begins from a particularly anything-goes premise, suffers particularly from this. Ultimately the 'what if' is more important than the 'how', and you can get away with a lot if you avoid inconsistencies and preserve internal logic.
The Doctor has supposedly build lots of Tardis' and knows all about the science of time-travel, but he's not aware of the fact that he needs this yellow life-force to make all the valves work.
That is the point I made and the opposite of the one you made.
Also if Idris can just fire it out of her finger, presumably he could just jump on her back and she could shit out a time beam and he could ride her like some kind of tardis horse.
No the console harnesses the lifeforce and uses it to achieves a purpose, it needs the marriage of lifeforce and machine.
I notice you neglected to tackle the telepathy thing.
Yes; if you had limited your criticism to this I would have had no issue. It was a sloppy device used to cut a corner, the result of modern Who's short episodes and fast paced storytelling. No time to set up plot elements, no room to provide explanations.
Labelling something as gibberish after seven minutes necessarily means that you are dismissing only seven minutes of it.
No you are dismissing ideas which have not had a chance to work through and develop.
Quote: Godot Taxis @ May 17 2011, 1:00 AM BSTIt's not science fiction. The clue is the word 'life-force'. If you can't see how lame having the Tardis personified as a woman is I can't help you. It's a bong smoker's idea.
The real objection is the weakness of the writing. The Doctor has supposedly build lots of Tardis' and knows all about the science of time-travel, but he's not aware of the fact that he needs this yellow life-force to make all the valves work. Also if Idris can just fire it out of her finger, presumably he could just jump on her back and she could shit out a time beam and he could ride her like some kind of tardis horse.
I notice you neglected to tackle the telepathy thing. Remember the Timelord headbutt from last season. Embarrassing.
You almost never understand what I write. Labelling something as gibberish after seven minutes necessarily means that you are dismissing only seven minutes of it. Speaking personally I could have done without the Brain of Morbius meets Beckett's Endgame of the opening. You obviously liked it.
Ok lets start off at the beginning. Why does everyone keep referencing The Brain of Morbius as a classic? It's a pedestrian rip off of Frankenstein on the planet of Pan's People. And just stating that some one is the most scary timelord of all time really doesn't do much.
Especially when they turn up in a mouldy old bear suit with a fish bowl on top and get shoved off a cliff by said dad pleasing dance troupe. Tension is none existent and Dr Who suffers from the classic problem of saying
"I am the most evil thing in the universe" and utterly failing to show it.
Now I appreciate Gaiman is a rather more sophisticated writer then Whovians are used to. So I'm going to offer a little primer.
Gaiman's genius involves taking large complex ideas and concepts and reducing them to human concepts/relationships. So the whole of the Sandman isn't about eternal forces that shape our universe. It's about a man who is humiliated and humbled, realises how he has hurt those he should have loved and spends the rest of his life seeking forgiveness.
The Ds Wife is actually about loneliness and it's genius. The Dr travels to find a fellow surviving Timelord and finds only a graveyard and a cruel joke. He then find he's had a true friend all along, one that he can't speak to and can only be with.
It emphasises his intense loneliness that Rory and Amelia are like interns not friends or lovers.
It gets in 50 minutes what the rest of Who has been hinting at for maybe the last 40 years but failed to express.
And the one time Idris kisses him he recoils in shock.
Quote: Godot Taxis @ May 17 2011, 12:40 AM BSTI've already gone over the folly of starting with a two-parter. I described it as the reason you don't get a whole lobster on your bruschetta - which should make it clear to everyone.
Yeah,I understood that the first time you posted it, and I didn't automatically agree then either. I see nothing wrong with opening with a two parter, the idea that people couldn't cope with a big story to open a series, that they'd need chance to break in with a small trifle of an episode, is a nonsense. Either way can work, it all depends on the story.
You'd never have a trifle as a starter.
The moment I had most problems with in the last episode was when the Doctor starts to explain and Amy cuts him short with "its spacey-wacey". Authentic sounding scientific goobledygook is not simply what distinguishes science fiction from fantasy space opera, it provides limitations creating the illusion that possibilities are circumscribed and circumscribable, the basis of drama. Otherwise events are random and the Doctor fixes them with a wave of a magic wand (or sonic screwdriver).
Possbly the view has been taken that the audience is too thick and lazy to listen to scientific explanations; if so that is wrong-headed. The later Star Trek franchises contained swathes of authentic sounding scientific gobbeldeygook, and the hugely successful medical drama House is largely incomprehensible to anyone without an MD. People do not expect to understand this stuff, they just want the validation of an authentic background to the drama.
I suspect however that there never was an explanation, but Moffatt thought there should be one, so the show attempted to have its cake and eat it by claiming there was an explanation and then using Amy's smug stupidity to avoid having to provide it. It would have been better to have remained silent.
Quote: Matthew Stott @ May 17 2011, 8:58 AM BSTYeah,I understood that the first time you posted it, and I didn't automatically agree then either. I see nothing wrong with opening with a two parter, the idea that people couldn't cope with a big story to open a series, that they'd need chance to break in with a small trifle of an episode, is a nonsense. Either way can work, it all depends on the story.
It isn't nonsense! There's a reason why in five series they never started with a two parter. I would imagine that the only reason they allowed it this time was because it was packaged as a two hour special (with ads) for the American market.