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Post by mrperson on Nov 15, 2015 22:50:17 GMT
It couldn't have been people drifting into insanity (because the rushed sleep was imperfect) and the episode being about finding out what happened after....
It couldn't have been a deluded scientist working for aliens and the sleeping machines used to introduce a genetic mutation....
It had to be monsters that evolved from dried eye-snot and skin flakes. Really? That was as convincing to me as "the moon is a magically mass-gaining egg laid a creature smaller than the moon, which uses wings to fly in the vacuum otherwise known as space."
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Post by david on Nov 15, 2015 22:54:21 GMT
If Gattis wrote it as a mad scientist, there'd be just as many people criticisiing him for going back to a massively overused Who-trope. He tried something different. I always admire originality and ambition much more than playing it safe. It's why I'm usually much more accpeting of bad Doctor Who than mediocre Doctor Who.
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Post by Audio Watchdog on Nov 15, 2015 23:19:13 GMT
If Gattis wrote it as a mad scientist, there'd be just as many people criticisiing him for going back to a massively overused Who-trope. He tried something different. I always admire originality and ambition much more than playing it safe. It's why I'm usually much more accpeting of bad Doctor Who than mediocre Doctor Who. I would agree, there is stuff in there that works. And I appreciate the quirks Gatiss added to the script to make it a little different. I mean how many stories have we seen the TARDIS grinding away from the scene only to realize the bad guys had actually won? I guess my thing is on second viewing I kept seeing all this REALLY interesting stuff introduced and then not explored at all.
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Post by hackmodford on Nov 16, 2015 3:23:42 GMT
...monsters that evolved from dried eye-snot and skin flakes. Really? That was as convincing to me as "the moon is a magically mass-gaining egg laid a creature smaller than the moon, which uses wings to fly in the vacuum otherwise known as space." This is exactly what I thought. It was this season's kill the moon. I know Dr. Who is silly at times, but can they please get a science correspondent?
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Post by icecreamdf on Nov 16, 2015 3:42:27 GMT
...monsters that evolved from dried eye-snot and skin flakes. Really? That was as convincing to me as "the moon is a magically mass-gaining egg laid a creature smaller than the moon, which uses wings to fly in the vacuum otherwise known as space." This is exactly what I thought. It was this season's kill the moon. I know Dr. Who is silly at times, but can they please get a science correspondent? I don't really care that the science made no sense. If we had gotten cooler monsters made of skin flakes in a more entertaining and well-written story, I would have been happy.
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Post by omega on Nov 16, 2015 3:51:41 GMT
It's almost a pity that some of the necessary elements of the "found footage" are things that people tend to pull episodes up for. Gimmick-based, confusing narrative and very little characterisation. As a one-off it's innovative, and bonus points for making a plot point of out the usual found footage trope of the camera filming all the important scenes.
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Post by glutamodo on Nov 16, 2015 4:08:37 GMT
I'm sorry but the Doctor doesn't "lose" like this - not when we've seen the Human Race further down the line from here, and not as dodgy looking flaky-skin monsters. For this to be a one-part story is, well, horrible. It demands a follow-up. If there is no followup, then this story is going to be one of the worst ever of the New Series, but if there is, I will reserve judgement until the time that I see it.
Okay I said "dodgy looking" above, but I will give the team something, they did try to keep the monsters shrouded in shadow and behind objects, which is always the most effective way to present monsters, IMHO.
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Post by omega on Nov 16, 2015 4:15:43 GMT
I'm sorry but the Doctor doesn't "lose" like this - not when we've seen the Human Race further down the line from here, and not as dodgy looking flaky-skin monsters. For this to be a one-part story is, well, horrible. It demands a follow-up. If there is no followup, then this story is going to be one of the worst ever of the New Series, but if there is, I will reserve judgement until the time that I see it. Okay I said "dodgy looking" above, but I will give the team something, they did try to keep the monsters shrouded in shadow and behind objects, which is always the most effective way to present monsters, IMHO. You'll be pleased to know Moffat has asked Gatiss (who is Gattis?) to write a sequel.
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Post by glutamodo on Nov 16, 2015 5:15:15 GMT
Yeah, I had seen that somewhere or other, but the fact that this was not been planned as a two-parter from the get-go is not exactly encouraging.
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Post by omega on Nov 16, 2015 5:19:48 GMT
Yeah, I had seen that somewhere or other, but the fact that this was not been planned as a two-parter from the get-go is not exactly encouraging. This may have been intended as a two-part story. The follow-up was probably meant to be part two, and will be part of series ten or eleven.
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Post by Timelord007 on Nov 16, 2015 9:10:21 GMT
The monsters were like unused cgi tests of The Thing from Fantastic Four, i was half expecting "IT'S CLOBBERING TIME".
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Post by kimalysong on Nov 16, 2015 10:46:54 GMT
Far from my favorite but not the worst episode. Although I would say the story was fairly average I did like that it was experimental.
I thought the concept of not sleeping to become more productive & efficient was the scariest thing about the episode.
And while I enjoyed Reece's performance throughout the ep the ending was a bit hokey.
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Post by whiskeybrewer on Nov 16, 2015 14:03:34 GMT
I actually really enjoyed this episodes, just because it played with the tropes. As an experiment I enjoyed it. and if you tell me you didn't wipe sleep or scratch at the corner of your eye at the end of the episode, you're lying lol
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Post by hackmodford on Nov 16, 2015 15:25:06 GMT
Yeah, I had seen that somewhere or other, but the fact that this was not been planned as a two-parter from the get-go is not exactly encouraging. I liked the "bad guys got away with it" ending. Maybe this is a way to have a two parter that doesn't need to be back to back? The Doctor can always pop up later and be like "I thought I defeated you!?" That way they don't need to use two slots for the same storyline. Knowing Dr. Who, next time he'll just defeat them with warm water and a sonic washcloth or something...
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Post by relativetime on Nov 16, 2015 16:38:23 GMT
I think this is probably one of Mark Gatiss's better scripts, but it's not impressively good. The found footage idea was interesting, but it felt a little half-baked. It felt as though they couldn't decide if they wanted this to be a found footage story or a normal Doctor Who story. I think the story would have benefitted from being a full-blown found footage story with one of the characters actually carrying a camera around. Still, I applaud the change in structure, even if it could have been executed far better - one of the complaints I have always had about televised Doctor Who is that they don't shake the formula up often enough (I'm still holding out for a musical episode).
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Post by david on Nov 16, 2015 23:03:44 GMT
Mark's response to the reception Attachments:
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shutupbanks
Castellan
There’s a horror movie called Alien? That’s really offensive. No wonder everyone keeps invading you.
Likes: 5,648
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Post by shutupbanks on Nov 17, 2015 9:06:07 GMT
I liked it more than The Woman Who Lived, which would be my candidate for weakest episode of the season so far. The ending felt rushed, given that I was waiting for a cliffhanger, but the rest was good fun. There were some great SF ideas to it and it felt as though it really was taking part in a bigger world, which you don't often get in an anthology-ish series such as Doctor Who.
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Post by mrperson on Nov 17, 2015 15:43:30 GMT
The wife hadn't watched it so I gave it another chance and sat through it again. Opinion not changed.
In contrast to some, though, I appreciate that the Doctor lost.
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Post by ausir on Nov 18, 2015 14:56:16 GMT
Yeah, I had seen that somewhere or other, but the fact that this was not been planned as a two-parter from the get-go is not exactly encouraging. This may have been intended as a two-part story. The follow-up was probably meant to be part two, and will be part of series ten or eleven. Or it had a happy ending initially but it was changed to set up the sequel.
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Post by redsharkJason on Nov 19, 2015 22:32:52 GMT
After being rejuvenated watching series 8, I've found series 9 for the most part to be an underwhelming (same old, same old) viewing experience.
Watched Sleep No More today (no rush, 5.5 days later) and I can understand why this episode was assessed a low AI score.
The concept brought forth that all of us human beings experience these sleep monsters regularly, and that they're now running around rampant out of our sleeps did not resonate well with me.
A sequel to this story? Sweet Jesus!
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