Job
The Carl Pilkington of Freddyshouse
- Joined
- Dec 22, 2003
- Messages
- 21,652
Very good amateur review of the pc fest that is Doctor Who.
Worrying. Deeply worrying. I hate to say it but I do think those Gamergate arseholes might actually be onto something.
Due to my experience of working in the BBC I can see clear evidence that there's a new regime in place behind the scenes. But what's worrying is that, whilst the BBC's production values seem as good as always, it seems to be married to an egocentric back stage management team. I witnessed this last night - if you look at the credit list you had the primary producer names ON FIRE because… I have no idea why they did that actually but probably to highlight the fact that they are the writers and producers now and they are ON FIRE. Now in some cases thats fine but my initial experience of this episode was underwhelming - Whittaker was kooky but ok. The Doctor is a tough role to get right but give her some time and I'm sure she'll get into it. What worried me was that the script felt a bit weak - so you had the disabled black kiddie - not full-on disabled mind you, he had a nice disability (apraxia) making him palatable to viewers - but then casting a guy who looks like he clearly has a six-pack and works out to a character who's motivation is to ride his bicycle successfully didn't make me sympathetic to him it just made me think… wot???
Indian trainee policewoman-girl had the same problem. I didn't care for her because her trivial problem of having to deal with catty soccer mums arguing over car parking spaces was so boringly contrived that I just really wanted a space nazi dalek laserbeam the entire solar system out of existence.
Bradley Walsh was… Bradley Walshing with his most Walshiest Walshingness. Otherwise he was Bradley Walsh.
The villain was…. interesting. Remind me the next time I go culling rabbits to ceremoniously stick the teeth of my fallen victims into my face. I'm sure it will go down very well at my local council meetings. But being serious it was not that weird or shocking to be honest. I would have thought they would come up with something a bit more weird for a first episode - remember that your first episode needs to clearly establish and set the pattern for the rest of the series.
So when the new Dr's attire was revealed to be… hippy uni student artist… I realised that Dr Who is now in the hands of people who seem to be deeply unimaginative and doing art by multi-purpose liberal arts council committee.
Deeply underwhelming and not really that fun or out there to be honest. If I were asked my opinion - rough it up a bit. If you are going to have a disabled person on the show then make him actually disabled - like in a wheelchair Stephen Hawking style shouting “daleks” whilst excitedly waving his hands about except that the wheelchair flies and has a time shield in it and he can sense time distortions or something weird. That would be far more brave and interesting than boring-not-really-disabled black kid getting angry at not bike riding. I would also fire the entire costume department. Not because of the Drs attire which was pretty wtf but actually because of Policewomangirl’s off duty attire - it is the very height of lazy costume direction to put an Asian lady in a fake fur lined parka - like almost a racist caricature - the only thing that could have been worse was dressing up notdisablokid in jeaned dungarees and a straw hat.
No - my gut says that everyone is saying how wonderful Dr Who is but the actual feedback they are getting is “meh.”
3/5 and I gave it one extra because I really love Dr Who.
Update after having watched two further episodes - I thought the first episode was bad but good lord WTF do the BBC think they are doing !??
The second episode had some of the laziest writing I've ever seen in it with events shoehorned in and this message of coming together being implausibly hammered into the episode. The monster of the episode - and I wish I was making this up - was some sort of sentient psychic toilet paper. Guest star was Art Malik who is a very good actor but was practically phoning his role in - when he fucked off at the end of the episode with a click of his fingers I get the feeling he was wishing that he could have disappeared from casting in much the same way.
The big reveal of the episode was the TARDIS and good lord what are the set design team doing. So keeping in line with the “appealing-to-university-lefties” vibe of the new series the interior of the TARDIS was revealed to be …. “Living room of lady who thinks crystals have healing powers.” Seriously - it has glowing rocks and is all warm colours and oranges which clashes massively with the actual filming because it makes everything a muddy brown colour which is really bad for a sci-fi show - your go to colours should be blues and greens because they resonate with the audience for science fiction.
Episode 3 - was some of the most cringe inducing television I have ever witnessed. It was just mind blowing. If the intention of the episode was to portray human decency or show Rosa Parks as a beacon of self-worth and human respect then quite frankly it failed. I was just mind blown by it. Again the culprit was bad writing - set to a film standard production including good music and art direction which highlighted just how hamfisted and crude the writing was. Policewomangirl and Disabled Adonis were being racially profiled which to be frank would probably be a welcome relief to any Dr Who companion. You won't serve me at this diner? Well thank fuck for that because I thought you were going to biomorph into my brain and feed on my negative emotions whilst turning me into jelly. That's a Dr Who threat - not a fat copper checking your bathroom out for unwanted hotel guests. The monster of the episode was some hamfistedly inserted metaphor for the alt-right being a punk in a leather jacket chewing a toothpick. If a tooth-inserting-into-face alien seemed unimaginative then anyone being involved with the creation of this episode has no place being anywhere near a creative process for a science fiction series. The worst part was that I was actually wishing that during the climatic & emotional “no that's my seat scene” I was kinda of wishing once again that something or anything vaguely otherworldly or science fictioney night happen - the bus driver is a Dalek, Rosa Parks turns out to be a cyberman (woman) - please God anything - Disabled Adonis farts out an HR Geiger Alien that sprays acid on Rosa Park's face - ANYTHING would have been better than what we got - because the crime of this episode was to be really really really dull.
And that's my problem with the new Dr Who - it's boring. There's no spice to it. There's no madness. There's no fun or scare. The ideas are there - alien death hunt (cool I can get behind that), galactic death race (colour me intrigued) and rewriting the civil rights movement (not my ideal cup of tea but who doesn't enjoy watching Space Nazis get their comeuppance) but the actual execution is being brutally butchered by extremely poor writing
Due to my experience of working in the BBC I can see clear evidence that there's a new regime in place behind the scenes. But what's worrying is that, whilst the BBC's production values seem as good as always, it seems to be married to an egocentric back stage management team. I witnessed this last night - if you look at the credit list you had the primary producer names ON FIRE because… I have no idea why they did that actually but probably to highlight the fact that they are the writers and producers now and they are ON FIRE. Now in some cases thats fine but my initial experience of this episode was underwhelming - Whittaker was kooky but ok. The Doctor is a tough role to get right but give her some time and I'm sure she'll get into it. What worried me was that the script felt a bit weak - so you had the disabled black kiddie - not full-on disabled mind you, he had a nice disability (apraxia) making him palatable to viewers - but then casting a guy who looks like he clearly has a six-pack and works out to a character who's motivation is to ride his bicycle successfully didn't make me sympathetic to him it just made me think… wot???
Indian trainee policewoman-girl had the same problem. I didn't care for her because her trivial problem of having to deal with catty soccer mums arguing over car parking spaces was so boringly contrived that I just really wanted a space nazi dalek laserbeam the entire solar system out of existence.
Bradley Walsh was… Bradley Walshing with his most Walshiest Walshingness. Otherwise he was Bradley Walsh.
The villain was…. interesting. Remind me the next time I go culling rabbits to ceremoniously stick the teeth of my fallen victims into my face. I'm sure it will go down very well at my local council meetings. But being serious it was not that weird or shocking to be honest. I would have thought they would come up with something a bit more weird for a first episode - remember that your first episode needs to clearly establish and set the pattern for the rest of the series.
So when the new Dr's attire was revealed to be… hippy uni student artist… I realised that Dr Who is now in the hands of people who seem to be deeply unimaginative and doing art by multi-purpose liberal arts council committee.
Deeply underwhelming and not really that fun or out there to be honest. If I were asked my opinion - rough it up a bit. If you are going to have a disabled person on the show then make him actually disabled - like in a wheelchair Stephen Hawking style shouting “daleks” whilst excitedly waving his hands about except that the wheelchair flies and has a time shield in it and he can sense time distortions or something weird. That would be far more brave and interesting than boring-not-really-disabled black kid getting angry at not bike riding. I would also fire the entire costume department. Not because of the Drs attire which was pretty wtf but actually because of Policewomangirl’s off duty attire - it is the very height of lazy costume direction to put an Asian lady in a fake fur lined parka - like almost a racist caricature - the only thing that could have been worse was dressing up notdisablokid in jeaned dungarees and a straw hat.
No - my gut says that everyone is saying how wonderful Dr Who is but the actual feedback they are getting is “meh.”
3/5 and I gave it one extra because I really love Dr Who.
Update after having watched two further episodes - I thought the first episode was bad but good lord WTF do the BBC think they are doing !??
The second episode had some of the laziest writing I've ever seen in it with events shoehorned in and this message of coming together being implausibly hammered into the episode. The monster of the episode - and I wish I was making this up - was some sort of sentient psychic toilet paper. Guest star was Art Malik who is a very good actor but was practically phoning his role in - when he fucked off at the end of the episode with a click of his fingers I get the feeling he was wishing that he could have disappeared from casting in much the same way.
The big reveal of the episode was the TARDIS and good lord what are the set design team doing. So keeping in line with the “appealing-to-university-lefties” vibe of the new series the interior of the TARDIS was revealed to be …. “Living room of lady who thinks crystals have healing powers.” Seriously - it has glowing rocks and is all warm colours and oranges which clashes massively with the actual filming because it makes everything a muddy brown colour which is really bad for a sci-fi show - your go to colours should be blues and greens because they resonate with the audience for science fiction.
Episode 3 - was some of the most cringe inducing television I have ever witnessed. It was just mind blowing. If the intention of the episode was to portray human decency or show Rosa Parks as a beacon of self-worth and human respect then quite frankly it failed. I was just mind blown by it. Again the culprit was bad writing - set to a film standard production including good music and art direction which highlighted just how hamfisted and crude the writing was. Policewomangirl and Disabled Adonis were being racially profiled which to be frank would probably be a welcome relief to any Dr Who companion. You won't serve me at this diner? Well thank fuck for that because I thought you were going to biomorph into my brain and feed on my negative emotions whilst turning me into jelly. That's a Dr Who threat - not a fat copper checking your bathroom out for unwanted hotel guests. The monster of the episode was some hamfistedly inserted metaphor for the alt-right being a punk in a leather jacket chewing a toothpick. If a tooth-inserting-into-face alien seemed unimaginative then anyone being involved with the creation of this episode has no place being anywhere near a creative process for a science fiction series. The worst part was that I was actually wishing that during the climatic & emotional “no that's my seat scene” I was kinda of wishing once again that something or anything vaguely otherworldly or science fictioney night happen - the bus driver is a Dalek, Rosa Parks turns out to be a cyberman (woman) - please God anything - Disabled Adonis farts out an HR Geiger Alien that sprays acid on Rosa Park's face - ANYTHING would have been better than what we got - because the crime of this episode was to be really really really dull.
And that's my problem with the new Dr Who - it's boring. There's no spice to it. There's no madness. There's no fun or scare. The ideas are there - alien death hunt (cool I can get behind that), galactic death race (colour me intrigued) and rewriting the civil rights movement (not my ideal cup of tea but who doesn't enjoy watching Space Nazis get their comeuppance) but the actual execution is being brutally butchered by extremely poor writing
