Have to check , which I probably won't, but I loved are you my mummy? And Blink 1 . I think when they started deconstructing the 'legend of Who' something that isn't a legend they put their heads somewhere dark and unpleasant and lost sight of what they are doing.
Quote: Marc P @ 8th September 2014, 8:26 AM BSTHave to check , which I probably won't, but I loved are you my mummy? And Blink 1 . I think when they started deconstructing the 'legend of Who' something that isn't a legend they put their heads somewhere dark and unpleasant and lost sight of what they are doing.
Yes very well put. Once they started getting into the nitty gritty they got in a mess.
Because Dr Who's been made up as they went along it would never work. That and obsessing on the Dr's apparent sex life.
Quote: Steve Sunshine @ 8th September 2014, 1:35 AM BSTOk what were the last ones that Godot, Lazzard & Marc P liked, were they pre Moffat?
Have to pop out for the morning - but I will address this.....
The premise belonged in a sketch - imagine Robin Hood was real and he was exactly like in the story books, how incongerous would that be? Not a bad conceit, but this is supposed to be a drama. The exchanges between the Doctor and Robin in prison were cringeworthy. Why is the Doctor drawn into a dickswinging contest with someone he is convinced is not real? I liked the robot knights, but as soots says, a stranded spaceship? Again?! And the Doc said they couldn't take off and if they tried it would wipe out half of England; well they did and it didn't. Then there was the 'can barely be bothered' Robin and Marion plotline. (Where exactly did she appear from at the end? Did she drop through a trap door in the Tardis?) The whole plot was undercooked to the point of being perfunctory; all Gattis really cared about was his comic wheeze.
And what was with the golden arrow at the end? The robots already had an unfeasible quantity of gold plate (did everyone in Nottingham have 22 ct dinner services?), which they had not got around to do doing whatever it was they needed an army of peasant labour to help them with. How was sticking a bit more to the hull of the vessel supposed to help.
And the arrow in the legend is silver.
Quote: Tursiops @ 8th September 2014, 9:47 AM BSTThe premise belonged in a sketch - imagine Robin Hood was real and he was exactly like in the story books, how incongerous would that be? Not a bad conceit, but this is supposed to be a drama.
Great point, but it can be comedy drama. Certainly Blink was a funny-dramatic episode as was The Lodger.
I think its story that counts and this one had none to speak of.
Quote: Tursiops @ 8th September 2014, 9:47 AM BSTAnd the arrow in the legend is silver.
You do love that history degree don't you.
It's hard not to think this season has been costing for the last 3 episodes. All made up of jumbled up bits of old stories with nothing new in them at all. It's like in the last seasons of Voyager when the Borg started turning up all the time.
Quote: sootyj @ 8th September 2014, 9:54 AM BSTYou do love that history degree don't you.
You do know Robin Hood is not history, right? I am basing my objection on the ladybird book I read when I was seven.
Anyway, if I was being really pedantic (and thank you for giving me the excuse), I would add that Tuck and Marion were characters from the May games brought into the legand as the result of conflation of Marion's shepherd lover Robin with the outlaw of the same name; that Alan on his first appearance was neither a member of Robin's band nor a musician; that the stories were originally set in Barnesdale in Yorkshire; and that Robin's peerage was awarded by an Elizabethan playwright in an effort to make him socially acceptable. The whole episode was an historical nonsense!
No but you'd study the legend as a reference point on how people of the era perceived their own stories.
In the same way Oliver Twist isn't history but it is a reflection on Dickensian urban growth,
To be fair to Dickens the surgery to remove it was much higher risk in his day.
Marc why are you having your Dickens removed
Quote: sootyj @ 8th September 2014, 9:54 AM BSTGreat point, but it can be comedy drama. Certainly Blink was a funny-dramatic episode as was The Lodger.
True, but the stories should have a dramatic premise rather than a comic premise (it is almost too much too hope that they might try a science fiction premise).
Blink was a great episode because it was genuinely scary. Doctor Who should have you hiding behind the sofa. Too much comic business gets in the way of this: there is no suspense, no sense of peril. To be honest I miss the cliffhangers of the classic Who format - it is no coincidence that Blink apart the most successful episodes of new Who have tended to be two-parters.
The sic fi element is in time travel. There is no need to introduce robots and aliens etc to historical/legendary events. The paucity of imagination it presents is shocking. To do it requires a deal more cleverness than mash up for the sake of it approach.
Quote: zooo @ 8th September 2014, 4:01 AM BSTThe people who say no modern episodes are any good (and I don't think the modern stuff is all great or anything, so I'm not trying to be combative) which is the last series that you thought was up to standard? Cos I'm watching a few of the older eps being repeated, like Steve says, and they are fun, but so immensely cheesy and silly and ridiculously overacted. Many of the complaints used about current Who.
I've been wondering if the people who hate it now are holding it to the same standards as they would old Who, or if they're just comparing it to other dramas being made now.
I'm comparing it to the early series of New Who. Dalek, The Empty Child, Father's Day, Blink, Family of Blood, Midnight. Nothing in recent series has come close, and the weaker episodes of the early series are generally better than the best episodes of recent times.
So I guess it got a bit worse when Ecclestone left
And then much worse when Russell T Davies left
Still I suppose it gets harder the longer you go, as a lot of the ideas have been used up already
Quote: Tursiops @ 8th September 2014, 10:46 AM BSTTrue, but the stories should have a dramatic premise rather than a comic premise (it is almost too much too hope that they might try a science fiction premise).
Blink was a great episode because it was genuinely scary. Doctor Who should have you hiding behind the sofa. Too much comic business gets in the way of this: there is no suspense, no sense of peril. To be honest I miss the cliffhangers of the classic Who format - it is no coincidence that Blink apart the most successful episodes of new Who have tended to be two-parters.
This pretty much says it for me.
Increasingly the SF/horror/thriller element of the show is subsumed by the various emotional arcs of the cast. I'd be amazed if there was more than ten minutes of it in the Robin Hood episode.
Ideas have been replaced by light comedy.
It was always, to a lesser or greater degree, frightening - or at the very least, tense.
And I know it's for kids - but my kids (9 & 12 - the sixteen year olds gave up on it some time ago) are bored.
They're certainly not scared.
They don't care about cheeky lesbians or Errol Flynn knob-gags.
The new inclusion of these soap-like arcs is compounded by the fact that we no longer get two parters - so a disproportionate amount of time of each story is spent on this sort of fluff.
Is Moffatt to blame?
Or is it because they've fallen in love with the Brand'?
It's all about the Doctor now, isn't it?
Sod the story.
They made the same mistake with Sherlock - we'll have to wait and see if they've f**ked that up irrevocably.
Were there massive plot holes in the past?
Was there shonky writing and leaden characterisation left, right and centre?
Maybe.
But I was too busy wondering what the hell was going to happen next to notice.
Quote: Tursiops @ 8th September 2014, 10:46 AM BSTBlink was a great episode because it was genuinely scary. Doctor Who should have you hiding behind the sofa. Too much comic business gets in the way of this:
And yet the most universally praised serial from the classic series is 'City of Death'. Whether it's actually the best story is debatable, but it is unquestionably the funniest.