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Post by captain jack on May 12, 2016 22:40:55 GMT
Maybe Vastra's half human on her mother's side? I'm pretty sure that humans weren't really around when Vastra was born. Ahh yes but it's very timey wimey . . .
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Post by newt5996 on May 13, 2016 0:32:08 GMT
I'm really not a fan of the modern Silurian designs (I miss the third eye and the reptilian vocals), but a Vastra origin story sounds marvellous. Problems I have with the new Silurian design: * Loss of third eye (some lizards do 'ave 'em) * Iris / eyes no longer reptilian, but just human-looking * Teeth are mammalian, not reptilian * And, er... breasts, a trait found only in mammals. Hence, the name mammals, which literally means "breasty" in Latin. And the Doctor calling them "Homo reptilia" shows an utter lack of understanding on the writers' part concerning scientific nomenclature and evolution. But I could rant for days... Still, I like the Vastra character, and we've already had a UNIT / Silurian story. Perhaps the UNIT series after next will have new series Silurians? I agree totally with their design problems especially because there is original art of adapting them similar to their 1970s counterparts making the odd line about the Silurian being female in Hungry Earth make a lot more sense
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Post by Hieronymus on May 13, 2016 0:40:29 GMT
Problems I have with the new Silurian design: * Loss of third eye (some lizards do 'ave 'em) * Iris / eyes no longer reptilian, but just human-looking * Teeth are mammalian, not reptilian * And, er... breasts, a trait found only in mammals. Hence, the name mammals, which literally means "breasty" in Latin. And the Doctor calling them "Homo reptilia" shows an utter lack of understanding on the writers' part concerning scientific nomenclature and evolution. But I could rant for days... Still, I like the Vastra character, and we've already had a UNIT / Silurian story. Perhaps the UNIT series after next will have new series Silurians? Wasn't Homo-reptilia from an old Third Doctor novel? It's appeared in several places, but that doesn't make it any more correct. Whether you call them "Silurians" (after a period before the dinosaurs even existed), or "Eocenes" (an epoch that post-dates the dinosaurs), or "Homo reptilia" (which means they are ape descendants in the same genus as humans), it's still just as equally, ridiculously, and completely nonsensical.
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Post by Deleted on May 13, 2016 0:43:33 GMT
Problems I have with the new Silurian design: * Loss of third eye (some lizards do 'ave 'em) * Iris / eyes no longer reptilian, but just human-looking * Teeth are mammalian, not reptilian * And, er... breasts, a trait found only in mammals. Hence, the name mammals, which literally means "breasty" in Latin. And the Doctor calling them "Homo reptilia" shows an utter lack of understanding on the writers' part concerning scientific nomenclature and evolution. But I could rant for days... Still, I like the Vastra character, and we've already had a UNIT / Silurian story. Perhaps the UNIT series after next will have new series Silurians? Wasn't Homo-reptilia from an old Third Doctor novel? Don't think so. The novels more commonly used the politically correct Earth Reptile name for them and Blood Heat has the Doctor use the term Psionosauropodomorpha. I'm almost tempted to believe that Vastra was maybe once something akin to a Silurian Harijan or untouchable who had her genetic coding spliced with mammalian life for some reason. Given her abnormal mammalian qualities, I find it very difficult to actually call her or her brethren bona fide Silurians. The changes are so marked that you can't really reconcile it in the same way as Gary Russell did in The Scales of Injustice for Icthar and the Triad, they're a genetic abnormality even amongst their own kin. I'm much more tempted to believe that they're a completely different species altogether who may have been "civilised" by the Silurians and carry enough of their DNA to be considered an off-shoot. Although it's unlikely, I personally would like Big Finish to go: "Stuff it," and add a keeled reptilian aftereffect to Vastra's vocals anyway.
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Post by seeley on May 13, 2016 1:10:26 GMT
Wasn't Homo-reptilia from an old Third Doctor novel? It's appeared in several places, but that doesn't make it any more correct. Whether you call them "Silurians" (after a period before the dinosaurs even existed), or "Eocenes" (an epoch that post-dates the dinosaurs), or "Homo reptilia" (which means they are ape descendants in the same genus as humans), it's still just as equally, ridiculously, and completely nonsensical. Which has never stopped Doctor Who before, has it?
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Post by icecreamdf on May 13, 2016 1:59:49 GMT
The new designs may look less reptilian than the old designs, but they also look much better. The old ones were never able to emote or move their lips when they talked. And there voices didn't sound at all reptilian-they just sounded silly. In a show like Doctor Who, making someone green and giving them scales is plenty to make them reptilian.
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Post by Deleted on May 13, 2016 3:41:59 GMT
The new designs may look less reptilian than the old designs, but they also look much better. The old ones were never able to emote or move their lips when they talked. And there voices didn't sound at all reptilian-they just sounded silly. In a show like Doctor Who, making someone green and giving them scales is plenty to make them reptilian. Ironically, that silly-sounding mute version was what we would have gotten if not for a budgetary shortfall. Now they look almost exactly like the Jem'Hadar from Deep Space Nine, barring the green skin. I would have been very, very happy with the original design. This looks like a Silurian to me.
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Post by Deleted on May 13, 2016 5:33:38 GMT
The new designs may look less reptilian than the old designs, but they also look much better. The old ones were never able to emote or move their lips when they talked. And there voices didn't sound at all reptilian-they just sounded silly. In a show like Doctor Who, making someone green and giving them scales is plenty to make them reptilian. Ironically, that silly-sounding mute version was what we would have gotten if not for a budgetary shortfall. Now they look almost exactly like the Jem'Hadar from Deep Space Nine, barring the green skin. I would have been very, very happy with the original design. This looks like a Silurian to me. That is indeed a thing of beauty
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Post by Hieronymus on May 13, 2016 5:51:20 GMT
It's appeared in several places, but that doesn't make it any more correct. Whether you call them "Silurians" (after a period before the dinosaurs even existed), or "Eocenes" (an epoch that post-dates the dinosaurs), or "Homo reptilia" (which means they are ape descendants in the same genus as humans), it's still just as equally, ridiculously, and completely nonsensical. Which has never stopped Doctor Who before, has it? There's a difference between "OK, that's impossible, but somehow sounds plausible, so I'll suspend my disbelief" and "The words coming out of that character's mouth are so wrong they can't possibly understand anything." Whether it's the 8th Doctor referring to Benjamin Franklin as a US President, or Qui-Gon offering "midichlorians" as an explanation for the Force, or F. Murray Abraham playing an entomologist who doesn't know that Insecta is a Class, or Doctor Bashir claiming that protein fragments are breaking down into DNA, or the Moon covered in "prokaryotic" spiders before hatching like an egg, some things are just sloppy research thereby lead to a supposedly knowledgeable character sounding thoroughly ignorant. Some writers do their research and use plausible technobabble without bald errors. Robert Holmes was extremely good at it.
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Post by Deleted on May 13, 2016 7:32:40 GMT
Which has never stopped Doctor Who before, has it? There's a difference between "OK, that's impossible, but somehow sounds plausible, so I'll suspend my disbelief" and "The words coming out of that character's mouth are so wrong they can't possibly understand anything." Whether it's the 8th Doctor referring to Benjamin Franklin as a US President, or Qui-Gon offering "midichlorians" as an explanation for the Force, or F. Murray Abraham playing an entomologist who doesn't know that Insecta is a Class, or Doctor Bashir claiming that protein fragments are breaking down into DNA, or the Moon covered in "prokaryotic" spiders before hatching like an egg, some things are just sloppy research thereby lead to a supposedly knowledgeable character sounding thoroughly ignorant. Some writers do their research and use plausible technobabble without bald errors. Robert Holmes was extremely good at it. The Ben Franklin reference tied into the R101 arc with Charley from memory, so that one can be forgiven but there are some basic fundamental things that a person in that field of expertise would know. Imagine if you wrote a musician who thought that a guitar was a wind instrument, not only is that particular fact wrong, but it makes your character look really uneducated as a result. Fundamental research like that is crucial to Doctor Who's historical stories, even if authors decide to deliberately diverge from established knowledge for the purposes of creating an entertaining tale. John Lucarotti's Marco Polo was taken from the titular explorer's autobiographical travelogue that had been dictated to Rustichello da Pisa while the two of them shared a cell in Genova, Italy. He used the same level of research for The Aztecs and for his original manuscript for The Massacre, which can be read in his Target novelisation of the script. Some writers do their research and use plausible technobabble without bald errors. Robert Holmes was extremely good at it. One example I can use of Bob Holmes was the claim he attributed to the Fourth Doctor that weeping gelignite is highly unstable. Gelignite as an explosive compound doesn't weep, yet Holmes has clearly done enough research to know that this is an issue with regular dynamite, consequently it's not as big a gaffe as it could have been if he hadn't included that information. That said, there was a very easy way to get around the really terrible decision to turn the Moon into an egg -- make it the natural satellite of an alien planet. It doesn't remove the fact that Clara makes the selfish decision to place her single vote against the vote of an entire world, but it takes away that added leap for a willing suspension of disbelief. Placing it in Earth's orbit not only breaks regular viewers' belief, but also longtime fans who know that historically that makes no sense. It's all about credibility via effort I suspect. If you have the basics down then chances are whatever it is you're trying to do will be fine, it'll sound perfectly reasonable to the layman and maybe even to the experts. A trick to get around this issue is to have a character speculate rather than provide any concrete answer. However, when even an amateur looks at the research that's grounding the basis of your story and goes: "That... doesn't... work... at all..." then you've got a serious issue. It's usually a by-product of a much greater problem, but it's still a problem. Kill the Moon and the prequels for Star Wars spring to mind almost immediately.
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Post by Hieronymus on May 14, 2016 5:34:09 GMT
That said, there was a very easy way to get around the really terrible decision to turn the Moon into an egg -- make it the natural satellite of an alien planet. That doesn't solve the problem of the Doctor taking a look at the spiders and declaring them to be "prokaryotic", a word which means that their cells lack nuclei. The condition is limited to tiny bacteria and archaea. A cellular nucleus is the result of membrane complexity within the cell that enables internal membranes and internal transport and compartmentalization in cells, which in turn makes it possible for the cells to be larger and to form complex multicellular structures. No nucleus means tiny internally uncoordinated cells, not giant moon spiders. And no way can you tell without a microscope whether cells are prokaryotic.
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Post by Deleted on May 14, 2016 5:54:32 GMT
That said, there was a very easy way to get around the really terrible decision to turn the Moon into an egg -- make it the natural satellite of an alien planet. That doesn't solve the problem of the Doctor taking a look at the spiders and declaring them to be "prokaryotic", a word which means that their cells lack nuclei. The condition is limited to tiny bacteria and archaea. A cellular nucleus is the result of membrane complexity within the cell that enables internal membranes and internal transport and compartmentalization in cells, which in turn makes it possible for the cells to be larger and to form complex multicellular structures. No nucleus means tiny internally uncoordinated cells, not giant moon spiders. And no way can you tell without a microscope whether cells are prokaryotic. The latter part I'm willing to let slide because the Doctor's eyesight is said to be very, very good, but damn that's some really bad science right there. That's almost In the Forests of the Night bad.
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Post by Deleted on May 14, 2016 7:03:06 GMT
Hmm, this seem to have turned into a "bad science" thread. which is a good idea for a thread, but to harken back to the topic, it's apparent from yesterday what Neave's other Big Finish role is, and it isn't Vastra.
So, no Paternoster gang just yet. I still think it will happen, but I think Moffat will hold them back till his time is over.
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Post by dalekbuster523finish on May 14, 2016 8:06:55 GMT
Hmm, this seem to have turned into a "bad science" thread. which is a good idea for a thread, but to harken back to the topic, it's apparent from yesterday what Neave's other Big Finish role is, and it isn't Vastra. So, no Paternoster gang just yet. I still think it will happen, but I think Moffat will hold them back till his time is over. They should never have teased it. Just lead to disappointment when really details on a War Doctor set should be exciting.
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Post by Deleted on May 14, 2016 8:16:05 GMT
Hmm, this seem to have turned into a "bad science" thread. which is a good idea for a thread, but to harken back to the topic, it's apparent from yesterday what Neave's other Big Finish role is, and it isn't Vastra. So, no Paternoster gang just yet. I still think it will happen, but I think Moffat will hold them back till his time is over. They should never have teased it. Just lead to disappointment when really details on a War Doctor set should be exciting. You're right, I kind of overlooked all that juicy War Doctor news because it wasn't a Paternoster Gang announcement. Also no War Master in box set 3 so that's another War Doctor hope looking like it might go unrequited.
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Post by Deleted on May 14, 2016 8:17:50 GMT
Hmm, this seem to have turned into a "bad science" thread. which is a good idea for a thread, but to harken back to the topic, it's apparent from yesterday what Neave's other Big Finish role is, and it isn't Vastra. So, no Paternoster gang just yet. I still think it will happen, but I think Moffat will hold them back till his time is over. They should never have teased it. Just lead to disappointment when really details on a War Doctor set should be exciting. I don't think they did. The only thing that the announcement for Survivors did was mention that she played Madam Vastra in the new series. If anything, it seemed like they were trying to tempt their regular Who customers over to the new Survivors release and quite rightly too. The first series was amazing with powerhouse performances and scripts from everyone involved.
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Post by dalekbuster523finish on May 14, 2016 8:24:53 GMT
They should never have teased it. Just lead to disappointment when really details on a War Doctor set should be exciting. I don't think they did. The only thing that the announcement for Survivors did was mention that she played Madam Vastra in the new series. If anything, it seemed like they were trying to tempt their regular Who customers over to the new Survivors release and quite rightly too. The first series was amazing with powerhouse performances and scripts from everyone involved. They also said this isn't her first for Big Finish, which hinted at something a bit more special. The natural assumption would be Vastra in a Paternoster Gang release.
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Post by Deleted on May 15, 2016 1:00:35 GMT
I don't think they did. The only thing that the announcement for Survivors did was mention that she played Madam Vastra in the new series. If anything, it seemed like they were trying to tempt their regular Who customers over to the new Survivors release and quite rightly too. The first series was amazing with powerhouse performances and scripts from everyone involved. They also said this isn't her first for Big Finish, which hinted at something a bit more special. The natural assumption would be Vastra in a Paternoster Gang release. I could've sworn she'd done something before her turn on NuWho... Like Michelle Gomez for Valhalla. Oh, well. If I'm wrong, then I'm wrong.
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