Re: A really good Dr. who related Youtube series
Well I've now watched the forest episode, so here come the spoilers of spoilery spoilingness.
I really enjoyed the start to this one and the initial idea. A little girl running through a forest in a red coat looking for the Doctor and then telling the Doctor the forest was really London. I was thinking future earth, transport across space or various other fun things, indeed it reminded me strongly of a bit from the impossible planet where Peri finds a ruined underground station in a forest on a planet that turns out to be earth. Also, huge credit for the writer in having a teaser (and something of a first half), that involved the Doctor needing to investigate a situation and not cutting between god knows how many locations one after another to show the supposed travels before the episode.
The problem though is the longer this went on the worse it got. While Mave wasn't quite as depressingly wooden as Chloe from Fear her, lost little girl with amazing p sychic powers, she wasn't exactly riviting, neither did her powers really get explained much, indeed I wasn't sure whether the golden glowy insect things were her mind, were the trees communicating or what. While we're on the subject of Mave, it also seemed a lot of the time the writer didn't know what to do with her. one minute she's chatting to the doctor about the Tardis like an adult in one of the more fun bits (I loved her, "well I thought it was supposed to be bigger on the inside"), the next she's running off for no reason.
Likewise why the heck was she supposed to be running off in terror with the Doctor and Clara following but leaving a trail for them?
The plot seemed to be going more and more contrived as time went on, though i'll forgive the wild zoo animals for amusement value, however the solar flare just dragged out as if the writer had run out of ideas, indeed I didn't get why The Doctor, someone who has p
reviously closed off gates to alternative universes, shot down planet destroying missiles and asteroids, piloted spaceships or used the tardis to redirect the energy of black holes was so helpless and fatalistic about the solar flare. I will give the writer credit for the setup of flame proof forest, but really it would've been better if the Doctor had! been going to do something about the flare but been prevented. While Clara didn't come across as quite as insufferable as usual (if you don't count danny pink), the Doctor was pretty useless, indeed if you look at the events here pretty much the same thing would've played out had the Doctor been completely absent.
Now, onto the really! bad bit.
What is it with Danny pink? All he seemed to do this episode was run around saying "please, think of thee children" link hellen loveoy from the Simpsons. I definitely approve of a male character being the one involved with looking after kids, but real ly what is wrong with the man! When the Doctor offered at the end of the episode to let him, and the kids, and Clara watch the solar flare and Danny was "oh no, stay here" yech! In the past The Doctor always hated that sort of closed minded attitude, especially with kids, look at the 9th Doctor with dickins.
I actually find this a worrying tendency, to turn around and say "look exploring the universe and marveling at things is wrong, just go and indulge in your little domestic family life with your kidsies and your social media" it's almost the antithesis of what Doctor who always was.
And Danny, was it just me or did he come across as the kind of teacher you always really hated, the sort who kept trying to persuade you how cool he was, particularly with how he only seemed to actually interact with two of the kids, depressed girl and anger management boy who went from bully to sympathy so quick I thought he was schizophrenic.
Over all no where near as good as Matheson, making the Doctor quite useless and making me dislike Danny pink even more, despite some nice ideas.
Btw, was it me, or wre there a huge number of self referencial lines in this episode where the writers were admitting on all their mistakes.
"You know, standard defenceless little girl", "How can they be in love they just shout at each other", "Oh he's the doctor, he gets like this before he does something clever", "It's a sonic screw driver not a magic wand", "Forest overnight doesn't matter, Humans, very good at forgetting"
There were probably more of those, but those are what I remember. As one of my favourite reviews of Zombie simpsons put it just because you reference your writing problems in your writing doesn't make the problems go away, though it does provide a laugh.
As to the teaser, well we'll see, to be honest if Cx2 hadn't drawn attent ion to it I probably wouldn't make more of it sinse I'm too used to the Moffat style "look, bad words!" type of teasers. Really in terms of arc plot I've not been impressed with Moffat sinse all his arcs haven't worked out. The Neversphere has just sort of sat there looking mysterious, the proof will be in the pudding as usual but with moffat the pudding has always been pretty thin, ---- but hay, I might be surprised.
I actually think for Doctor who what Davies did with cerialized plots was better, just have a single hint of a word or an idea that ran through episodes, then tie it into the final story, sinse that way you could still concentrate on touring time and space and all of the fun stuff Doctor Who is supposed to do but still have some sense of continuity runnin through the series.
I also like the Big Finish trilogy or box set angle, where you'll have three or four stories covering several locations and concepts linked by an ov er all plot, but in the middle of a run of stand alone adventures, and of course a trilogy of two hour episodes works out much more epic than 11 or 12 45 minute episodes for a continuous plot, especially sinse your dealing with only three new locations and settings each of which can be dealt with in detail and build to a really awsome finale with time to breathe, rather than having to hook viewers each day. Axing the two parters might have been an executive decision, but from a story perspective itt was a bad one.
So with the Capaldi Finale we'll see. Hopefully clara will be burnt out of existance and we can then have the next series of Capaldi travelling on his own and being awsome! sinse really the series needs to be Doctor Who again, not the Clara, river or amy show.
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