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Post by agentten on Nov 23, 2021 4:36:47 GMT
What a thrilling episode! The best weeping angels episode since "Blink" and what I love about it is it preserves the scares from "Blink" and the mythology that's been developed around the weeping angels since then while still finding new and exciting things to do with the angels. Some thoughts:
- The burning angel was not only a fantastic and clever surprise, but also a great visual that ramped up the tension in the episode by reminding us that there's a lot we don't know about what the angels are capable of and how they work. Unknowns like that help make them proper scary again.
- Once again, characters who have only cropped up in one episode so far (two for Claire) such as Professor Jericho feel immediately relatable and important to the story. Flux has a large cast, but no one feels superfluous. This is a skill Chibbs displayed on Broadchurch and I'm glad to see him flexing that muscle here.
- Jamie Magnus Stone directed the heck out of this episode. Lots of lovely drifting camera work, quick pans and zooms that made the action seem fluid and urgent.
- Whittaker is on point in every single scene. She's got great scripts to work with and she's throwing out all kinds of nuance and interesting flavor to what she's doing with each scene. She feels Doctory in a very classic way, but also feels energized and fresh and we're getting to explore interesting new territory with her as The Doctor searches for her lost memories while the stakes just keep increasing.
- This episode nailed two elements of classic, serialized Who that I always look forward to: The opening of an episode, where the tension builds until an exciting revelation that leads directly into the opening credits, and the cliffhanger ending. This episode's cliffhanger was shocking, as many of the best Who cliffhangers are. It's lovely, too, because it's something that's never happened before and done in such a clever way that it surprises but also, once it happens, seems inevitable and inescapable and yet full of new possibilities. Creating a good cliffhanger is an art and I adore a good one. In an age of binge watching and internet spoilers, it's even harder to pull off, so I appreciate them even more when they're as good as the one this episode gave us.
I haven't been this excited about Who since Capaldi's first year. I know Flux will end in a few weeks, and I'm hoping that in a few weeks I'll finish part six and have the feeling that I've just seen an all time classic story line.
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Post by aussiedoctorwhofan on Nov 23, 2021 8:44:46 GMT
So 1 of my good mates who has waived the flag BIG TIME for Who since 1981 tells me the actor who played that Professor last night, was the "young space cop in 6th Doctors 1st story The Twin Dilemma".. WTH !
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Post by elkawho on Nov 24, 2021 4:12:59 GMT
What else can I say that you all haven't already said? It was amazing. Each episode gets better, and I have to admit that I never thought I would enjoy Chibnall's Who so much. It was a solid, compelling and terrifying story. It reminded me of the best Who with guest characters that were fully formed and three dimensional. That being said, it also makes me a bit angry. I mean, if he is capable of this quality of storytelling and character development, what was he doing for his first two series? Even so, I have to say that I'm thankful that I am finally excited about Doctor Who on TV again.
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Post by Tim Bradley on Nov 24, 2021 7:34:35 GMT
Hello everyone!
Enjoy!
Tim
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Post by bonehead on Nov 24, 2021 10:48:03 GMT
What else can I say that you all haven't already said? It was amazing. Each episode gets better, and I have to admit that I never thought I would enjoy Chibnall's Who so much. It was a solid, compelling and terrifying story. It reminded me of the best Who with guest characters that were fully formed and three dimensional. That being said, it also makes me a bit angry. I mean, if he is capable of this quality of storytelling and character development, what was he doing for his first two series? Even so, I have to say that I'm thankful that I am finally excited about Doctor Who on TV again. I wonder how much the pandemic affected the outcome of Flux? What we seem to have are six tightly written, wonderfully chaotic episodes where even Sontarans and Weeping Angels are only part of a bigger picture. If we'd had the usual unaffected number of episodes, would the Flux idea be more like a 'standard' series arc, only coming into its own in the last two or three episodes? Unless Chris Chibnall gives us another 'Writer's Tale', perhaps we'll never know. Either way, I think this is the most consistently brilliant series we've had for a long, long time.
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shutupbanks
Castellan
There’s a horror movie called Alien? That’s really offensive. No wonder everyone keeps invading you.
Likes: 5,666
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Post by shutupbanks on Nov 25, 2021 12:53:14 GMT
Finally got around to watching it (school reports and a play opening tomorrow night means I haven’t really been able to watch much lately) but that was superb. It looked so damned good and there was hardly anything that took me out of it (Claire’s wings in the mirror were about it) and everyone was just on point with their acting. I don’t really have anything but gibberish praise for this season: the faults have been minor and probably only really troubling to me. It’s just wonderful, smart, gorgeous television.
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Post by nucleusofswarm on Nov 25, 2021 17:34:06 GMT
Now my fuller thoughts: Those 15 odd years on Emmerdale served Alderton well as she's proven, now twice, what an absolute force she is as a storyteller. And to hit bullseye with established monsters with very set precedents and requirements twice is no slouch either. The overegging of Flesh & Stone and Angels Take Manhattan is gone: these are much closer to the unrelenting, unfathomable nightmare from Blink (couple of things I think prevent this story from being an equal, which I'll mention shortly) and all the better for it. In part thanks to them, this is a story that never lets up with the tension: every scene crackles with danger and immediacy, bathed in a thick Gothic atmosphere that is near on par with Haunting last year. It also does what I think Once should've also been doing: constantly upping the stakes, squeezing our leads and wrongfooting the audience in the end. By the end of the episode, it feels like the game's changed and Flux, for me, finally comes alive as a all-or-nothing epic. Best episode of Flux? So far, unquestionably. Maybe 3rd/4th best of 13's era overall.
Jodie really shines here: certainly I've taken umbrage many times with sniffy remarks about her abilities, and thinks she has been good throughout (with highlights liek Woman and Punjab), but this is episode shows her, and 13, at their best: when overwhelmed and madly trying to keep things together as the story breaks them more and more apart. Underdog desperation plays to Jodie's strengths and she sells that mix of anger, fear and adrenaline terrifically here - no easy feat when you've got Kevin McNally as an old salt-war veteran professor, who's first impression is a bit doddery, but by the end becomes a commanding presence in the episode. Annabel Scholey is good as well, allowed to show more fear and dimension compared to the walking mystery box of HA and thankfully light on the kind of cheeky-ominous behavour characters like this tend to have. Stone, likewise, has reined in his more manic tendencies from past episodes, allowing the shifting plot threads to feel more organic, and he milks the night sequences for all their worth. Graveyards, basements, abandoned tunnels, clinking, and tinkering machines, it is incredibly evocative and punctuated with powerful images like 13 transforming into an Angel, or the abandoned village in 1901. And that this was achieved, even with COVID around... 'chef's kiss.'
Now, there are some things here that didn't sit well with me, and while they aren't big or numerous enough to weaken the episode in a huge way, they do stop from being on the same level as Haunting or Blink - the villagers and especially Peggy's Uncle and Aunt are just redshirts. Peggy herself... it's odd and I'm struggling to tell if the actress is just miscast or if this was a deliberate choice, as she has a particular cadence to her performance (I said in another post that perhaps the script implied Peggy's somewhere on the spectrum, hence her nothing-reaction to her guardians dying (which if so... that's a bit sticky), as well as her uncle going on about never getting on with her and finding her strange, which then got cut in the edit), but with no in-text confirmation, she does constantly stick out in her scenes. She's really here to set up the start and ending, and the Mrs Hayward twist is exactly that - just a plot point. That Hayward and the guardians never interact over the course of the episode just feels like a missed opportunity that could've had the kind of 'dark snap' that the baby scene in Haunting did.
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Post by nucleusofswarm on Nov 25, 2021 17:44:27 GMT
Plus, while the Angels are great here, with a really compelling sadistic streak that adds another diabolical layer, I'm not sure how I feel about the 'image of angel can be an angel itself' thing. I wonder if maybe it's too close to Gaiman's 'the Cybermen can insta-evolve'
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Post by Chakoteya on Nov 26, 2021 10:01:41 GMT
Peggy herself... it's odd and I'm struggling to tell if the actress is just miscast or if this was a deliberate choice, as she has a particular cadence to her performance (I said in another post that perhaps the script implied Peggy's somewhere on the spectrum, hence her nothing-reaction to her guardians dying, as well as her uncle going on about never getting on with her and finding her strange, which then got cut in the edit), but with no in-text confirmation, she does constantly stick out in her scenes. She's really here to set up the start and ending, and the Mrs Hayward twist is exactly that - just a plot point. That Hayward and the guaridans never interact just feels like a missed opportunity that could've had the kind of 'dark snap' that the baby scene in Haunting did. The vast majority of people 'on the spectrum' that you will meet in real life won't be wearing a big placard proclaiming the fact. And many people - especially girls and women - won't even have got a diagnosis. So this is not a problem as far as I am concerned - it is just a reflection of reality even in 2021, let alone 1967 and 1901 (when it wasn't even recognised as a problem).
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Post by nucleusofswarm on Nov 26, 2021 11:45:16 GMT
Peggy herself... it's odd and I'm struggling to tell if the actress is just miscast or if this was a deliberate choice, as she has a particular cadence to her performance (I said in another post that perhaps the script implied Peggy's somewhere on the spectrum, hence her nothing-reaction to her guardians dying, as well as her uncle going on about never getting on with her and finding her strange, which then got cut in the edit), but with no in-text confirmation, she does constantly stick out in her scenes. She's really here to set up the start and ending, and the Mrs Hayward twist is exactly that - just a plot point. That Hayward and the guaridans never interact just feels like a missed opportunity that could've had the kind of 'dark snap' that the baby scene in Haunting did. The vast majority of people 'on the spectrum' that you will meet in real life won't be wearing a big placard proclaiming the fact. And many people - especially girls and women - won't even have got a diagnosis. So this is not a problem as far as I am concerned - it is just a reflection of reality even in 2021, let alone 1967 and 1901 (when it wasn't even recognised as a problem). I should say I'm on the spectrum myself so the comment is not intended as any manner of slight. Just merely observing something I found interesting.
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Post by stcoop on Nov 29, 2021 16:11:54 GMT
7 day rating is 4.546 million. 20th for the week. 11th in individual shows. 2nd in dramas.
What a failure.
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Post by tuigirl on Nov 29, 2021 18:55:36 GMT
7 day rating is 4.546 million. 20th for the week. 11th in individual shows. 2nd in dramas.
What a failure. Yeah, I was wondering. Since someone on social media posted how abyssmal the show was doing......
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Post by stcoop on Nov 29, 2021 19:17:19 GMT
Yeah, I was wondering. Since someone on social media posted how abyssmal the show was doing......
There's a lot of people who don't seem to understand or more accurately, pretend not to understand, the reality of the ratings all television shows get today versus what they got 10-15 years ago.
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Post by tuigirl on Nov 29, 2021 19:21:37 GMT
Yeah, I was wondering. Since someone on social media posted how abyssmal the show was doing......
There's a lot of people who don't seem to understand or more accurately, pretend not to understand, the reality of the ratings all television shows get today versus what they got 10-15 years ago.
I think it is also because some people cannot attach one single bit of positivity to the show, everything has to be shown in the most negative light possible. At a guess, this will also continue when RTD comes back.
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Post by nucleusofswarm on Nov 29, 2021 19:28:02 GMT
There's a lot of people who don't seem to understand or more accurately, pretend not to understand, the reality of the ratings all television shows get today versus what they got 10-15 years ago.
I think it is also because some people cannot attach one single bit of positivity to the show, everything has to be shown in the most negative light possible. At a guess, this will also continue when RTD comes back.
We'd like to think RTD comes back and it's 14 million every week for the rest of his tenure. But let's be real - even if RTD wrote the all-time best run, the greatest Who ever, that's not going to happen. Maybe S14 gets a boost, but S15 and 16'll be heading in this direction, because this isn't 2007.
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Post by nucleusofswarm on Dec 2, 2021 21:31:46 GMT
So, I realized: when Jericho is talking about his WW2 service, the place he's referring to, Belsen, is the same death camp Anne Frank died in.
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Post by tuigirl on Dec 2, 2021 23:33:29 GMT
So, I realized: when Jericho is talking about his WW2 service, the place he's referring to, Belsen, is the same death camp Anne Frank died in. Yep, got that right away.
But we get this part of history crammed down our throats, so no surprises there.
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Post by stcoop on Dec 21, 2021 15:38:27 GMT
28 day final figure: 5.014 million
14th for the week. (Up six places on the 7 day figures!) 9th in individual shows. 2nd in dramas.
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