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Post by eric009 on Dec 15, 2018 16:22:38 GMT
I thought it was alright. There was a lot of potential in the story, but as someone who was studied the historical Darwin and his work (I'm an evolutionary biologist by training) I was disappointed many times by the script. It could have been a lot worse, but there were many problems, including the character of the young Darwin himself. A big plus was bringing back the Silurians, but again, there were problems. I have yet to see any writer get the science right without at least one gross mistake.* * Pet peeve: calling the Silurians "Homo reptilis", which would make them mammals and close relatives of humans, because that's how taxonomic naming works. If two species are given the same genus name, then they are very closely related evolutionarily. "Homo" is the genus for the closest living and fossil relatives of humans, and so it is absolutely impossible for a reptile to be a member of that genus. Every attempt ever made by some writer to "fix" the misnomer of "Silurians" has just made the situation worse. watch the ice warrors part 1 there is a better mistake there {Spoiler} that would be telling
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Post by Kestrel on Mar 27, 2021 19:46:54 GMT
- I suppose there are multiple valid perspectives here, but "pompous and overblown" is absolutely NOT how I'd describe Melville's prose. I found his fiction to be—especially his short stories, like 'Bartleby the Scrivener,' to be remarkably modern—despite the cliché, well ahead of its time.
- Wouldn't it be interesting if a Silurian Enclave ever woke up and were reasonable and cooperative for a change? It seems like such a waste that Doctor Who has this whole other intelligent species on the Earth, and they're only ever used for generic "alien invasion" stories. What's the point of making them a Terrestrial life form in the first place, then?
Oh, wow. They really had Darwin leap headfirst into ardent atheism really fast, huh? My understanding is that Darwin's atheism was rooted more in a rejection of the Church as an institution than any disagreement with scripture. - Pretty solid story overall. Not a lot of depth, but fun. Supporting cast isn't terribly memorable, but Colin Baker and Maggie Stables absolutely nail their characters and kinda carry the whole thing.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Mar 28, 2021 3:48:36 GMT
- I suppose there are multiple valid perspectives here, but "pompous and overblown" is absolutely NOT how I'd describe Melville's prose. I found his fiction to be—especially his short stories, like 'Bartleby the Scrivener,' to be remarkably modern—despite the cliché, well ahead of its time.
- Wouldn't it be interesting if a Silurian Enclave ever woke up and were reasonable and cooperative for a change? It seems like such a waste that Doctor Who has this whole other intelligent species on the Earth, and they're only ever used for generic "alien invasion" stories. What's the point of making them a Terrestrial life form in the first place, then?
Oh, wow. They really had Darwin leap headfirst into ardent atheism really fast, huh? My understanding is that Darwin's atheism was rooted more in a rejection of the Church as an institution than any disagreement with scripture. - Pretty solid story overall. Not a lot of depth, but fun. Supporting cast isn't terribly memorable, but Colin Baker and Maggie Stables absolutely nail their characters and kinda carry the whole thing.
Give it a few centuries. Somewhere in the next 400-500 years, there's a cultural as well as personal reconciliation between the species. By Benny's time in the 26th century, the custodianship of Earth is held between both humanity and the Earth Reptiles. Some are musicians, actors, members of government, and so on.
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Post by Kestrel on Mar 29, 2021 1:08:15 GMT
That sounds fun! Haven't come across that yet, but I am slowly working my way through Benny, so hopefully soon. I'd still like to see a story set around them waking up there, as I'm pretty tired of seeing the same thing happening with them in every Doctor Who story. Ditto for the Ice Warriors.
As much flak as fans tend to give Daleks, and to a lesser extent, Cybermen, they at least tend to have a lot more variety in terms of the kinds of tp stories they're used in.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 29, 2021 7:00:58 GMT
That sounds fun! Haven't come across that yet, but I am slowly working my way through Benny, so hopefully soon. I'd still like to see a story set around them waking up there, as I'm pretty tired of seeing the same thing happening with them in every Doctor Who story. Ditto for the Ice Warriors. As much flak as fans tend to give Daleks, and to a lesser extent, Cybermen, they at least tend to have a lot more variety in terms of the kinds of tp stories they're used in. Keep an eye out for a Benny release called The Adolescence of Time. Through circumstances that will become apparent later during the story, it's set just after the asteroid strike that collided with the Earth. As the dust cloud begins to settle across the planet. It deals with a group of Silurians that in all probability don't survive to the modern age (in this case, the 26th century). The Silurians are a bit like the Sontarans and the Rutans. There's a certain sense that they're everywhere, but in reality, the number of stories with them as the main focus are fewer than they seem. They often appear in cameos. The aforementioned musicians, for instance, are novel-only and feature as the band playing at Bernice's wedding. Another (full-length) example from the books is a story called Blood Heat, which is set on an Earth that was reclaimed by the Silurians. It's their world, a thriving world, but the human race are failing to even survive, let alone thrive. They're dying in their droves. Curiously, the Brigadier, in our timeline, would express a lot of regret over how he handled the Silurians. The Silurian leader who ensured this world has similar reservations about their inability to co-exist when the Doctor finds him. Whoever survives Wenley Moor, no one wins. Beyond that... We don't really get many far-flung explorations of the Silurians, which is a bit of a shame really. It'd be rather fun to have a human/Silurian duo paired up to solve interplanetary mysteries.
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ljwilson
Chancellery Guard
It's tangerine....not orange
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Post by ljwilson on Apr 20, 2021 13:26:06 GMT
Over time, I've grown to really like Bloodtide.
Yes, it may have some wild inaccuracies for those in the know and some slightly ropey Spanish accents, but for a Doctor Who story it is very enjoyable indeed.
A quick shout out to The Governor of the prison colony, who at first seems to be the chief villain but turns out to be a pawn in a much bigger game. A cracking 7 out of 10.
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Post by nucleusofswarm on Apr 20, 2021 23:33:29 GMT
It made the Myrka intimidating.
Far as I'm concerned, that says everything about the standard of writing.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 21, 2021 21:22:18 GMT
It made the Myrka intimidating. Far as I'm concerned, that says everything about the standard of writing. Intimidating and oddly sympathetic, too. It's given just enough of a characterisation to evoke the same feelings you get from a real animal. (Cybernetically-advanced sea dragon heritage notwithstanding.) That's one of the things I like particularly about Bloodtide. It takes some of the preexisting concepts we've seen before with the Silurians, those expected notes, and gives them their own little twist. One of my favourite moments is when Governer Lawson opens the box and there's nothing inside. Well... Nothing to immediately visible to the human eye, anyway. It's juggling so many elements at once that it could easily feel like a string of set pieces, but... It doesn't. Everything's given its own little space to breathe, to be integrated, and then "solved" within the context of the story.
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Post by grinch on Apr 15, 2022 19:31:54 GMT
I know this isn’t the case but I can’t have been the only one to at first think that Tulok was played by Terry Molloy?
After all, if we take into account his work as Davros and his appearance in one of the Dark Shadows range he seems to have knack for playing genocidal maniacs with delusions of godhood.
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Post by dasmaniac on Feb 18, 2024 22:59:53 GMT
I find myself broadly agreeing with the sentiments expressed in this great thread. Bloodtide hardly ranks among the greatest Silurian stories ever but it offers a unique setting and some solid performances. I appreciate when Doctor Who visits lesser traveled historical periods. If you're going to tell a story with Charles Darwin, the Silurians make for an ideal contrast.
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Post by ollychops on Mar 15, 2024 10:15:08 GMT
There’s a new “Icons” book trilogy coming out later in the year and one of them features the Tenth Doctor meeting Charles Darwin on the Galapagos Islands with Silurians…
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Post by number13 on Mar 15, 2024 21:04:46 GMT
There’s a new “Icons” book trilogy coming out later in the year and one of them features the Tenth Doctor meeting Charles Darwin on the Galapagos Islands with Silurians… All those times between then and now he's been snogged by River and that lipstick, I doubt he can remember anything from his Sixth incarnation. Bound to do things again sometimes by accident.
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