Doctor Who: The Stolen Plot Device

[matgb]

So, watched it last night, then went to the pub, then came back, and watched it again as a few points were bugging me. There now follows a poll, and that poll does contain spoilers.

[Poll #1213113]Overall, I enjoyed the show, but I enjoyed the penultimate show last season as well. This is Rusty's last ever finale, and I refer my honourable friends to the opinions expressed this time last year.

ETA: My friend the astrophysicist says: Basically, doing this with a planet will screw it up but he still enjoyed it.

Comments

[davidnm.livejournal.com]

The thing I didn't like with this one was the Shadow Proclamation. It seemed a bit of a letdown, really. Other then that I did quite enjoy this episode, and the giggling Dalek was actually a bit creepy, too. I liked the idea of the disappearing Earth, although as I noted on my own post on it, I do have some practical issues with it...

[matgb]

Aye, I just edited in a link to your post, but meh, there was a minor earthquake, Davros used some super special sekrit thing to stop the rest happening, obviously. Or something.

But yeah, enjoyable, despite Donna and Rose, here's hoping he doesn't mess it all up next week (reset buttons suck, two in a row would really suck).

[davidnm.livejournal.com]

Yeah, there was the small one. In fact, they could have used all of that as a really good plot device. 'We need to get the Earth back into a solar orbit before the plants all die, the air freezes out - and OMG there's a volcano going off in the middle of Basingstoke!?!' (Actually, the geology probably wouldn't allow *that*, but it would be funny...)

Indiana Cribbins and the paintball of doom

[hazeljnutt.livejournal.com]

"Nice try but they're Super!Space!Daleks so it won't work"

See, I thought it would've been a nice nod to original Who, if this did work! Of course, it would take everyone in the world having two paintball guns each and being a crack shot for it to have been any help, but it still would've been a nice stalling device.
*reminisces of daleks you could throw a blanket/scarf over or run up stairs to get away from*

Re: Indiana Cribbins and the paintball of doom

[purplecthulhu.livejournal.com]

Did BC do something along these lines in one of the two Dalek movies?

Re: Indiana Cribbins and the paintball of doom

[davegodfrey.livejournal.com]

I like it when they do things like this, like in Dalek where it starts flying up the stairwell (OK, so we've seen this in OldWho too), etc.

It would be nice if they do get to blind one next week though.

Re: Indiana Cribbins and the paintball of doom

[rhythmaning.livejournal.com]

I thought the guys in Torchwood were going to shoot the Daleks' eyes off - kind of like paintball, only more violent.

Re: Indiana Cribbins and the paintball of doom

[cassandravert.livejournal.com]

"See, I thought it would've been a nice nod to original Who, if this did work!"

I thought of that too! The simple tactic against the fearsome threat, cf "give it a virus"

Re: Indiana Cribbins and the paintball of doom

[biscit.livejournal.com]

Well isn't it a big nod to the original series that Wilf tries to blind it and the line it comes back with is "My vision is unimpaired."

A nod to "My vision is impaired I cannot see."

[redatt.livejournal.com]

"There was something on your back." Both because that's what it sounded like and because Donna replied, "How do you know that?" And not, "No, no, it's gone. It has. Hasn't it? OH.MY.GOD. IS.IT.BACK? Is it, isn't it? DOCTOR!!!!"

[matgb]

Good point, danke. Rewatched the scene about ten times trying to figure out the words clearly, context should've revealed it.

Still, huge chunk of others thought it was 'is', 32% at the moment. Does make things a bit interesting. Pondering the reset button is going to take fandom all week methinks.

[biscit.livejournal.com]

I pressed skip back and switched the subtitles on. It was was.

[matgb]

Ha, subtitles prove nothing, they were fixed today, they did, for example, refer to Rose as Bad Wharf...

They don't always get to work from a script, and have to transpose what they hear, it's not always someone who actually watches the show normally.

[pickwick.livejournal.com]

Re first death another black woman: assuming they're casting colourblind just now, would you rather they only cast white women in the role of first cannon fodder?

(I can't actually remember who the first victim was, so this could be totally irrelevant.)

Also, we're shooting the Doctor "on site"? Easier than when he's somewhere else, I guess ;)

[miss-s-b.livejournal.com]

I don't think they should ONLY cast any race in the role of cannon fodder. The fact that they seems to be casting black and Asian actors completely disproportionately as cannon fodder hasn't been jumping out at you for three series now? It has me. I'm totally with spiralsheep on this issue.

And yeah, his spelling's awful, but I still love him...

[pickwick.livejournal.com]

There's probably a breakdown somewhere, isn't there? I'm sure I've seen one - I'll go look. I've heard it said before, certainly, and I've noticed it a couple of times, but I'm not sure. If the leads are both white and a lot of one-episode-only characters die, if they're casting for diversity, there would be a higher proportion of non-white characters dying, IYSWIM. And it also depends on which of the characters are written as a certain race, I guess, and which are just cast that way.

I don't normally (well, always ~blush~) pick up misspellings, but I liked that one. Most of my mistakes are homonyms too...

[pickwick.livejournal.com]

Ah - this post from seeingred is what I was thinking of - it's got a breakdown, and the difference isn't statistically significant. Though there are discussions about who counts and who doesn't, and the definition of "dying", heh. And it's from before this series - would be interesting to update it.

[paulgregory.livejournal.com]

Last week's Confidential had a montage of Who screen deaths - I don't know who thought cutting together these sacrifices and killings out of context to the sound of Live And Let Die was a good idea, but they did it anyway. That would be a simple subset to count from.

[matgb]

Thing is that counts speaking parts—I didn't notice it until recently, but SB pointed out to me that a huge chunk of the time the non-white female character will have bad things happen if she appears to be major.

It's not a hard and fast rule, but it's happened to often—yes, he's sometimes doing colourblind casting, but he does also seek to over-represent minorities, so this might contribute to the problem.

I'm pretty sure it's not in any way intended, but the first on screen death this time was Martha's friend in UNIT. I guess partially because he tries to present himself as being oh so very progressive, and critqued Primeval for being horribly white, etc it annoys me a bit that while it's not tokenism, it's still Bad Stuff.

[paulgregory.livejournal.com]

I thought it was "there IS", which makes sense because the Shadow Proclamation aide appears to default to present tense and has to correct herself to past/future references. I'll double check when I watch it a third time.

I did particularly like the combining of plot devices (rift, Mr Smith) to boost the phone signal.

Regeneration:
Theory 1: David Tennant will regenerate into David Tennant again (prompting heated argument on internet as to whether he is subsequently the 10th or 11th Doctor) because that hand in the jar is there. (This differs slightly from "a la Jenny", because I believe all Jenny's regenerations are clones).

Theory 2: David Tennant will regenerate into Noel Clarke (which would be a hilarious way to end the Rose plotline) but then Martha will activate her key thing which will turn out to be a big reset button. Which would retrospectively ruin 4x12.

[matgb]

I did particularly like the combining of plot devices (rift, Mr Smith) to boost the phone signal.

As did I, but the whole "get every phone to ring" was a bit too similar to last year, especially given that that wouldn't help in any way.

I'd forgotten hand-in-jar TBH, my hopes are still on double bluff new Doctor though.

[el-staplador.livejournal.com]

Assistants have really gone downhill, haven't they? I mean, back in the day there was none of this 'Daleks! We're all doomed, let's have an angsty moment and do sod all about it.' It was 'Daleks? Where? Let's hit them with a baseball bat and blow them up with grenades! Wheee!' Frankly, I expected better of Sarah Jane Smith. Liked Harriet Jones, though.

And yes, I would have thought having twenty-seven planets in such close proximity would mean instant squish, gravity being what it is. But perhaps there is some plot device going on there to cancel out the squish.

Just hope that everyone who's dead stays dead this time. I'm getting so sick of 'Everybody lives!'

[rhythmaning.livejournal.com]

Yes, I thought that: the Daleks show up and everyone rolls over and plays dead!

You'd have thought after beating the Daleks soooo many times in the last few series, they would have realised that actually they have a pretty high run rate. Or is it only something they can do with the Dr?

[miss-s-b.livejournal.com]

I just want Rose to die. Hopefully painfully.

Twenty seven planets

[biscit.livejournal.com]

I mean if you can accept twenty seven planets can be shifted just like that, it's not a big leap to a technology that can keep them all leaping towards each other.

I mean they're all stationary, so something must be keeping them in position.

Re: Twenty seven planets

[matgb]

Aye, it was Super!Sekrit!Davros!Tech—he probably cloned an anti-grav thing or sumat...

[matgb]

Assistants have really gone downhill, haven't they?

You mean from the time when they were characters with motivation that wasn't "get into the Doctor's pants"? Yes, yes they have.

I thought the whole insta-surrender thing was too OTT, sure, many would, but others would definitely fight them on the landing grounds, etc.

Quite cool to see Cribbins reprise a bit of his role from the Cushing films though.

[rhythmaning.livejournal.com]

I rather enjoyed it, though I don't think it warrants watching again. I liked various plotlines coming together (bees! disappearing planets!).

I thought the Shadow Proclamation was a real cop-out: there nowhere to go... Oh yes there is!

And it was neat getting together all the former assistants left. (What I want to know is why have they not managed to resurrect Leela? Surely the best assistant they have ever had. Well, she was when I was 14...)

[shakalooloo.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, the bees leaving - not at all knocked off from the dolphins returning home in HHGTTG, no sir. Bah.

Good riddance to Russell T.

[matgb]

I've now watched it 2.5 times (came in half way through SB watching it), and there are some subtleties that I'd missed, and some of the acting and dialogue is top notch.

But the bits that annoyed just got more annoying :-(

Might record it so I can watch it back to back with next weeks. Maybe.

[rhythmaning.livejournal.com]

I watched it again last night - prompted to see if it did warrant multiple views.

I thought it did actually - though I still think the Shadow Debating Society Proclamation is a real cop-out - although I can't believe they were just left sitting there: I am sure they (she?) will turn up again to fight the Daleks.

And Rose with a big gun is so very Buffy... (though not as cute, obviously).

Still, I think the subtleties probably passed me by!

[uninvitedcat.livejournal.com]

I think the very important key given to Martha by UNIT is going to turn out to be Very Important Indeed, but to be honest I was exasperated enough by that episode to not really care.

[matgb]

Aye—it's some sort of reset switch or SuperDeathCannon, but while there were some really good bits overall I'm still a bit meh, and it's so obviously going to get reset.

[yuxonomei.livejournal.com]

*cries laughing*

Oh man, this poll has cheered me right up after the shittiest day ever.

[matgb]

this poll has cheered me right up

Happy to be of service. I've been asked to do two next week, so I can't promise it'll be as good...

[0ct0pus.livejournal.com]

Dalek Kaan is Guilty Spark 343 on Halo.

The Key is DawnDonna. Or something like that...

Jack Harkness is not all that. Really, calm down people.

Good poll, thanks.

[matgb]

Never played Halo, but it looks a bit like it, yes. I'm guessing the key is some genetic code to humanity or something, but that'd make sense.

Of course, the Donna Noble = Domina Nobilis = Roman Time Lord = Romana speculation might be a different answer, but that'd be too silly, even for Rusty. Actually, no it wouldn't, he'd love to pull that sort of stupid.

Jack Harkness is not all that

True, but I probably still would.