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Post by Superium on Aug 23, 2019 19:43:05 GMT
Considering it's the 5th anniversary of this story, I just have to say that Deep Breath is easily my favourite New Who post-regeneration story. Thing is, I don't know if that's unpopular or not.
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Post by number13 on Aug 23, 2019 23:30:15 GMT
Considering it's the 5th anniversary of this story, I just have to say that Deep Breath is easily my favourite New Who post-regeneration story. Thing is, I don't know if that's unpopular or not. Mine too. And not only because it introduced my favourite New Who Doctor. I wasn't convinced of the need to have the TARDIS coughed up by a dinosaur, but after that it all went well imo. And has Strax in it!
The 'controversial' bit is the phone call to Eleven I suppose. It still seems odd to me that Clara couldn't adjust to the change without help when she (uniquely) has seen all the previous incarnations and should be as at home with the idea of regeneration as any human can be.
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Post by tuigirl on Aug 24, 2019 8:57:04 GMT
Considering it's the 5th anniversary of this story, I just have to say that Deep Breath is easily my favourite New Who post-regeneration story. Thing is, I don't know if that's unpopular or not. Mine too. And not only because it introduced my favourite New Who Doctor. I wasn't convinced of the need to have the TARDIS coughed up by a dinosaur, but after that it all went well imo. And has Strax in it!
The 'controversial' bit is the phone call to Eleven I suppose. It still seems odd to me that Clara couldn't adjust to the change without help when she (uniquely) has seen all the previous incarnations and should be as at home with the idea of regeneration as any human can be.
Exactly that. I liked Deep Breath, but that was a HUGE plot hole for me. Just a short while before, Clara had tea and scones with the War Doctor, and suddenly she cannot accept 12?
Where did this come from? For me this does not make sense and irritated me a lot when I saw this for the first time.
I know what they wanted to do there, having the companion as a stand-in for the audience and trying to ease us into 12 as the new Doctor (to give him a chance), since he is such a polar opposite from 11. But sadly they picked exactly the one companion where this does not make any sense.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 24, 2019 9:07:52 GMT
Considering it's the 5th anniversary of this story, I just have to say that Deep Breath is easily my favourite New Who post-regeneration story. Thing is, I don't know if that's unpopular or not. Mine too. And not only because it introduced my favourite New Who Doctor. I wasn't convinced of the need to have the TARDIS coughed up by a dinosaur, but after that it all went well imo. And has Strax in it! The 'controversial' bit is the phone call to Eleven I suppose. It still seems odd to me that Clara couldn't adjust to the change without help when she (uniquely) has seen all the previous incarnations and should be as at home with the idea of regeneration as any human can be.
Yeah, I found that a bit odd as well. I get why it was there, they start out in rough territory, but given how quickly she leaves the Doctor's company both I keep finding it implies that Clara only stuck around because Eleven told her to. The thread of the Doctor not being Clara's boyfriend, likewise strange. It felt as though it just came out of nowhere. Particularly at the end, aboard the TARDIS, where it feels as though he's apologising for leading her on. There's definitely a layer of metatext about accepting an older actor in the role to all those scenes, but strip that away -- just tell the story -- and that whole subplot feels... off. That said, I can name at least four things off the top of my head that Deep Breath has going for it: - It's the first regeneration story deliberately set in Earth's past;
- Features the return of the Paternoster Gang as a sort of New Avengers-style ensemble team;
- Ben Wheatley's directing is lovely and seamless, and;
- Has a quite genuinely unsettling villain in the vein of Ava from Ex Machina.
Mine too. And not only because it introduced my favourite New Who Doctor. I wasn't convinced of the need to have the TARDIS coughed up by a dinosaur, but after that it all went well imo. And has Strax in it! The 'controversial' bit is the phone call to Eleven I suppose. It still seems odd to me that Clara couldn't adjust to the change without help when she (uniquely) has seen all the previous incarnations and should be as at home with the idea of regeneration as any human can be.
Exactly that. I liked Deep Breath, but that was a HUGE plot hole for me. Just a short while before, Clara had tea and scones with the War Doctor, and suddenly she cannot accept 12?
Where did this come from? For me this does not make sense and irritated me a lot when I saw this for the first time.
I know what they wanted to do there, having the companion as a stand-in for the audience and trying to ease us into 12 as the new Doctor (to give him a chance), since he is such a polar opposite from 11. But sadly they picked exactly the one companion where this does not make any sense.
Fiendishly puzzling brain that I have, one of the theories I had at the time was that post- Name of the Doctor Clara had come out of the Doctor's timestream as an amalgam. A collection of differing Claras picked up from across time, all trying to inhabit the same head.
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Post by sherlock on Aug 24, 2019 9:32:09 GMT
Deep Breath is odd in how it seems to be hand-holding the audience through the transition to an extent I don’t think any other regeneration story does. Most of them just run with the new Doctor, but Deep Breath seems really concerned with smoothing the transition.
The veil scene is weird as Clara’s counter to Vastra’s accusations is that she had a poster of Marcus Aurelius as a teenager...I mean, good for her but how is that really relevant to her accepting the Doctor’s regeneration?
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Post by Superium on Aug 27, 2019 19:07:25 GMT
The only time the gray Daleks actually looked good were the Renegades in Remembrance. I don't know if its the paint or the studio lighting, but the gray Daleks from Day all the way until Revelation do not look that great.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 28, 2019 4:49:34 GMT
The only time the gray Daleks actually looked good were the Renegades in Remembrance. I don't know if its the paint or the studio lighting, but the gray Daleks from Day all the way until Revelation do not look that great. It could've been how they were constructed. Doctor Who has a long history of recycling its Daleks for each subsequent story and the practice for decades was to make them from wood. When it came time again, the new Necros Daleks were refurbished into the grey Renegade Daleks, only these particular props were made from fibreglass. Many of the drones -- and the Dalek Supreme himself -- were made from their 1984 Revelation bretheren. The Imperial Daleks were fabricated completely anew, from scratch.
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Post by J.A. Prentice on Aug 28, 2019 7:33:31 GMT
Mine too. And not only because it introduced my favourite New Who Doctor. I wasn't convinced of the need to have the TARDIS coughed up by a dinosaur, but after that it all went well imo. And has Strax in it!
The 'controversial' bit is the phone call to Eleven I suppose. It still seems odd to me that Clara couldn't adjust to the change without help when she (uniquely) has seen all the previous incarnations and should be as at home with the idea of regeneration as any human can be.
Exactly that. I liked Deep Breath, but that was a HUGE plot hole for me. Just a short while before, Clara had tea and scones with the War Doctor, and suddenly she cannot accept 12?
Where did this come from? For me this does not make sense and irritated me a lot when I saw this for the first time.
I know what they wanted to do there, having the companion as a stand-in for the audience and trying to ease us into 12 as the new Doctor (to give him a chance), since he is such a polar opposite from 11. But sadly they picked exactly the one companion where this does not make any sense.
It's something Moffat does often with characters, usually successfully (using Simm to represent the Master's past she was turning away from rather than the RTD-era Master) but occasionally not-so-successfully (casting the first Doctor as a sexist old man to represent a past the show is moving on from, which doesn't land and doesn't get developed enough to be more than a distracting irritation). His concern is more with making the episode work than with having Clara be a 100% consistent character. The story needs the companion to question the new Doctor and then come to accept him, acting as an audience surrogate and getting across the important message: This Doctor isn't like the ones you're used to (Tennant and Smith both fit a particular pattern that fans and the general audience were seeing as default Doctor: young, charming, goofy) but it's all right because he's the same man underneath. Power of the Daleks accomplished the same thing by having Ben be skeptical and Polly accept the new Doctor, but Whittaker had the advantage of two new companions and regeneration being "new" The trouble was that Clara, post-Day and Name, had seen A. other Doctors, some older and B. the Doctor at his worst and most dangerous. So putting Clara in that role needed a bit of fudging, but it was necessary for the story Moffat wanted to tell. Deep Breath is my favorite New Who post-regeneration story as well, with Power as my favorite overall.
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Post by number13 on Aug 28, 2019 10:29:36 GMT
Exactly that. I liked Deep Breath, but that was a HUGE plot hole for me. Just a short while before, Clara had tea and scones with the War Doctor, and suddenly she cannot accept 12?
Where did this come from? For me this does not make sense and irritated me a lot when I saw this for the first time.
I know what they wanted to do there, having the companion as a stand-in for the audience and trying to ease us into 12 as the new Doctor (to give him a chance), since he is such a polar opposite from 11. But sadly they picked exactly the one companion where this does not make any sense.
It's something Moffat does often with characters, usually successfully (using Simm to represent the Master's past she was turning away from rather than the RTD-era Master) but occasionally not-so-successfully (casting the first Doctor as a sexist old man to represent a past the show is moving on from, which doesn't land and doesn't get developed enough to be more than a distracting irritation). His concern is more with making the episode work than with having Clara be a 100% consistent character. The story needs the companion to question the new Doctor and then come to accept him, acting as an audience surrogate and getting across the important message: This Doctor isn't like the ones you're used to (Tennant and Smith both fit a particular pattern that fans and the general audience were seeing as default Doctor: young, charming, goofy) but it's all right because he's the same man underneath. Power of the Daleks accomplished the same thing by having Ben be skeptical and Polly accept the new Doctor, but Whittaker had the advantage of two new companions and regeneration being "new" The trouble was that Clara, post-Day and Name, had seen A. other Doctors, some older and B. the Doctor at his worst and most dangerous. So putting Clara in that role needed a bit of fudging, but it was necessary for the story Moffat wanted to tell. Deep Breath is my favorite New Who post-regeneration story as well, with Power as my favorite overall. Deep Breath for me too in the new era, and Power tied with Spearhead in the classic era. Most later regenerations were written so it happened in front of the Companion(s) eyes and there was no room for doubt. (They didn't always like it of course - Peri for example, but she did have serious grounds for complaint.)
I like the way that both Power and Spearhead do it, as you said, one character is doubtful to start with and Ben and the Brig both become convinced by the Doctor just being unmistakably the Doctor. Poor old Brig, he had to cope with it apparently happening the other way round too...
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lidar2
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You know, now that you mention it, I actually do rather like Attack of the Cybermen ...
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Post by lidar2 on Aug 28, 2019 10:50:43 GMT
Exactly that. I liked Deep Breath, but that was a HUGE plot hole for me. Just a short while before, Clara had tea and scones with the War Doctor, and suddenly she cannot accept 12?
Where did this come from? For me this does not make sense and irritated me a lot when I saw this for the first time.
I know what they wanted to do there, having the companion as a stand-in for the audience and trying to ease us into 12 as the new Doctor (to give him a chance), since he is such a polar opposite from 11. But sadly they picked exactly the one companion where this does not make any sense.
It's something Moffat does often with characters, usually successfully (using Simm to represent the Master's past she was turning away from rather than the RTD-era Master) but occasionally not-so-successfully (casting the first Doctor as a sexist old man to represent a past the show is moving on from, which doesn't land and doesn't get developed enough to be more than a distracting irritation). His concern is more with making the episode work than with having Clara be a 100% consistent character. The story needs the companion to question the new Doctor and then come to accept him, acting as an audience surrogate and getting across the important message: This Doctor isn't like the ones you're used to (Tennant and Smith both fit a particular pattern that fans and the general audience were seeing as default Doctor: young, charming, goofy) but it's all right because he's the same man underneath. Power of the Daleks accomplished the same thing by having Ben be skeptical and Polly accept the new Doctor, but Whittaker had the advantage of two new companions and regeneration being "new" The trouble was that Clara, post-Day and Name, had seen A. other Doctors, some older and B. the Doctor at his worst and most dangerous. So putting Clara in that role needed a bit of fudging, but it was necessary for the story Moffat wanted to tell. Deep Breath is my favorite New Who post-regeneration story as well, with Power as my favorite overall. The way I rationalise the phone call is not about 11 calling Clara to explain/verify the concept of regeneration, because she is already familiar with it, but to persuade her to stick with the seemingly rather unpleasant 12. Not so much about saying he' still the same Dr, because she knows that already, but saying he's still the same nice Dr. If 11 had regenerated into a pleasant incarnation, like say 5 or 10, then 11 would not have felt the need to call her. Pity 5 hadn't called Peri in the Twin Dilemma ...
IMHO the real-world rationalisation is Moffatt doing it "just because he can", and because no one else has ever done it before, in order to get a Wow! moment
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Post by Superium on Aug 30, 2019 17:20:19 GMT
The 'I know where I got my face from' scene in The Girl Who Died felt shoehorned in and wasn't that great of a moment.
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Post by mrperson on Sept 2, 2019 21:31:44 GMT
It's something Moffat does often with characters, usually successfully (using Simm to represent the Master's past she was turning away from rather than the RTD-era Master) but occasionally not-so-successfully (casting the first Doctor as a sexist old man to represent a past the show is moving on from, which doesn't land and doesn't get developed enough to be more than a distracting irritation). His concern is more with making the episode work than with having Clara be a 100% consistent character. The story needs the companion to question the new Doctor and then come to accept him, acting as an audience surrogate and getting across the important message: This Doctor isn't like the ones you're used to (Tennant and Smith both fit a particular pattern that fans and the general audience were seeing as default Doctor: young, charming, goofy) but it's all right because he's the same man underneath. Power of the Daleks accomplished the same thing by having Ben be skeptical and Polly accept the new Doctor, but Whittaker had the advantage of two new companions and regeneration being "new" The trouble was that Clara, post-Day and Name, had seen A. other Doctors, some older and B. the Doctor at his worst and most dangerous. So putting Clara in that role needed a bit of fudging, but it was necessary for the story Moffat wanted to tell. Deep Breath is my favorite New Who post-regeneration story as well, with Power as my favorite overall. The way I rationalise the phone call is not about 11 calling Clara to explain/verify the concept of regeneration, because she is already familiar with it, but to persuade her to stick with the seemingly rather unpleasant 12. Not so much about saying he' still the same Dr, because she knows that already, but saying he's still the same nice Dr. If 11 had regenerated into a pleasant incarnation, like say 5 or 10, then 11 would not have felt the need to call her. Pity 5 hadn't called Peri in the Twin Dilemma ...
IMHO the real-world rationalisation is Moffatt doing it "just because he can", and because no one else has ever done it before, in order to get a Wow! moment
But how would he know he was going to turn into someone unpleasant?
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Post by masterdoctor on Sept 2, 2019 23:25:02 GMT
I always thought it was pretty obvious why Eleven called Clara. Everyone talks about Clara meeting past regenerations of the Doctor, and that she should be used to it, but I’ve always viewed it as the reason she wasn’t okay with Eleven regenerating. She saw all the people that came before her Doctor and made her "love" that much more, but she never had to deal with her Doctor regenerating so the change wasn’t something she was prepared for.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 3, 2019 8:43:43 GMT
I always thought it was pretty obvious why Eleven called Clara. Everyone talks about Clara meeting past regenerations of the Doctor, and that she should be used to it, but I’ve always viewed it as the reason she wasn’t okay with Eleven regenerating. She saw all the people that came before her Doctor and made her "love" that much more, but she never had to deal with her Doctor regenerating so the change wasn’t something she was prepared for. Oh... A thought just occurred. Bearing in mind Missy's plan -- to use Clara as a means of emotionally manipulating the Doctor -- that phone call at the end of Deep Breath suddenly takes on a much darker tone. It's the Eleventh Doctor being kind to his companion and (somewhat unusually for the Doctors) charitable to his successor, but that whole masterplan going on in the background inadvertantly turns him into an accessory after the fact. Someone who helped push those two towards the legend of the Hybrid. That's... nasty. Even for the Master, that's really nasty.
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Post by whiskeybrewer on Sept 3, 2019 12:57:17 GMT
I always thought it was pretty obvious why Eleven called Clara. Everyone talks about Clara meeting past regenerations of the Doctor, and that she should be used to it, but I’ve always viewed it as the reason she wasn’t okay with Eleven regenerating. She saw all the people that came before her Doctor and made her "love" that much more, but she never had to deal with her Doctor regenerating so the change wasn’t something she was prepared for. Oh... A thought just occurred. Bearing in mind Missy's plan -- to use Clara as a means of emotionally manipulating the Doctor -- that phone call at the end of Deep Breath suddenly takes on a much darker tone. It's the Eleventh Doctor being kind to his companion and (somewhat unusually for the Doctors) charitable to his successor, but that whole masterplan going on in the background inadvertantly turns him into an accessory after the fact. Someone who helped push those two towards the legend of the Hybrid. That's... nasty. Even for the Master, that's really nasty. Oh i like that. Thats a Beevers Style Master plan
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Post by Superium on Sept 5, 2019 17:02:56 GMT
The Ghost Monument > The Woman Who Fell To Earth
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shutupbanks
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There’s a horror movie called Alien? That’s really offensive. No wonder everyone keeps invading you.
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Post by shutupbanks on Sept 5, 2019 22:26:49 GMT
The Ghost Monument > The Woman Who Fell To Earth I’d go that: it’s a great two-part story. As a conclusion to a fantastic cliff hanger it works brilliantly.
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Post by Superium on Sept 7, 2019 17:04:39 GMT
That transition from Hartnell to Bradley at the beginning of Twice Upon A Time looked, and still looks, awful.
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Post by Superium on Sept 14, 2019 15:27:28 GMT
I keep seeing this brought up all the time and I got to disagree on this: Robot of Sherwood would not have worked NEARLY as well if it was an Eleventh Doctor story. The conflict between The Doctor and Robin Hood would not have been as strong as it was.
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Post by polly on Sept 18, 2019 18:36:05 GMT
the Time War is an overrated idea that was soon exhausted and becomes more irrelevant with each release. there are good stories that neither require nor deserve to be linked in to the Time War. RTD was right; it is more effective by being spoken about but not experienced. I'm inclined to agree. The Time War was a good idea when all we knew was the aftermath and a few scattered lines. Mystery is more enjoyable than knowing, sometimes, and turning the Time War into a Dalek shoot 'em up in Day of the Doctor began the process of killing that mystery stone dead. Some of the stories are good individually, but the Time War is no longer the mind-bending, unfathomable conflict it once seemed.
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