|
Post by bethhigdon on Jul 2, 2024 16:48:37 GMT
Hurt 9th Review
Decoy - Short Story
Rassilon plans to lure the Daleks into a trap using an Auton copy of the Doctor... only he'll be using real soldiers at the same time, much to the Doctor's disapproval. So the Doctor decides to fool both Daleks and Rassilon with a couple of decoys of his own.
Once again, the story is fine, it's just you could replace The War Doctor with Eight and it wouldn't effect anything. He's still called the Doctor by both the narrative and the other character, and his behavior is no different from any other Doctor's.
He doesn't even have a difficult choice to make in this one. Everybody lives in the end, and we're also back to seeing less and less temporal shenanigans. There's some lip service to the Daleks getting reinforcements from 'aborted timelines' but it doesn't really amount to much other than some different looking spaceships. They all blow up the same either way.
|
|
|
Post by bethhigdon on Jul 10, 2024 18:50:35 GMT
Hurt 10th ReviewEngines of War - Novel I want to preface this review by saying this is easily the most consistent novel that I've read for the marathon thus far. It's even paced. The plot is understandable, with just enough twists to keep things interesting. The tone is closest to the tv show thus far. It's not insulting. And the one off companion is written to be very likable and makes an impact on the reader, even if you already know her fate going in. It's a perfectly fine Doctor Who story. Which is kind of what's wrong with it. I've said it before and I'll say it again. If the War Doctor is to be anything other then a poor McGann replacement then he needs to be written as an actual anti-hero.
This Doctor is piratically down right cuddly in comparison to the likes of McCoy or even McGann in certain stories.
Also the Time War is so sterilized to what it should be, especially if you've ever dipped your toes into the Virgin New Adventures. If there was ever a point when a Doctor Who story should be grim and gritty this is it!
Like the book goes on and on about how far the Time Lords have fallen, but like they're no different from how they appeared in the classic series. So what if they wipe out an entire solar system to stop the Daleks? They wiped out an entire solar system just to hide their dirty laundry before!
It undermines the narrative if the thing that drives the Doctor to murder his entire planet is nothing more than a few Time Lords being their usual jackass selves and the death of one companion he only just met.
Like that doesn't justify him going to such extremes.
I'm sorry Hurt fans, but really nothing I've come across in the EU has warmed me to his existence. The idea, given the circumstances, had potential but the execution has really let the character down.
---- Oh two more things... the idea of mutating Time Lords into zombie oracles is good. I'd keep that.
And we never do find out why Karlax wants to kill the Doctor so badly. He's not a character from the show, so you'd think establishing his motivation would be important.
|
|
|
Post by bethhigdon on Jul 10, 2024 21:23:20 GMT
Hurt 11th Review
The Last Day - Minisode
A short little prologue for the 50th. I haven't much to comment on as it doesn't really show much. We see the Fall of Arcadia through the eyes of a foot soldier, but it's disoriented as the webcam footage keeps cutting out, showing things out of order, and showing hallucinations/premonitions.
One of the more fun fan theories is of the the brief glimpse we get of the foot soldier which shows a skeleton. The other characters theorize it's either a premonition of the future or a hallucination caused by the webcam being hooked directly into the brain, but the fanon idea is that the foot soldier really is a reanimated corpse and that the Time Lords have gotten so desperate that they've started bringing the dead back to life to keep fighting.
It's a neat idea, but it's not ever expanded on. Not in the series proper nor the EU to my knowledge.
|
|
|
Post by bethhigdon on Jul 11, 2024 16:26:50 GMT
Hurt 12th Review
Day of the Doctor - TV Story
This is the only story in the marathon thus far where the War Doctor works as a character and I've been sitting here trying to figure out why. Because he's not actually written any differently here from his previous appearances, and then it hit me... that's exactly what's wrong with the previous stories.
Day of the Doctor is supposed to be the end of this Doctor's character development/arc. Every other appearance, because they are basing their interpretation off this one performance, presents him fully formed already. He's no longer given the arc that he needs. He's not growing. Any future appearances needed to present this Doctor as different as possible to his actual on screen appearance in order to reflect that change and they just didn't.
Rather then being a dynamic character as suggested in the story, he's retroactively become a static character instead.
It also helps that Moffat takes Hurt's age into account and works that into the themes of the story. Something that wouldn't have the same impact with McGann or Eccleston as they're not that much older than Tennant. It's that stark contrast between Smith/Tennant and Hurt that manages to justify Hurt's inclusion into the story.
The contrast between appearing younger but being older, vs appearing old but being younger, works itself into the over all narrative to show such a chance in character and provides agency to Doctor's regeneration that wasn't there previously. Which helps to further cement just how traumatic the Time War was to him.
As for the episode itself. It's still holds up. There's some dated effects/editing choices that are starting to show their age and of course the usual over done paradoxes that define Moffat's writing. But it's presented with such cohesiveness and style that it winds up being one of the better stories of the Moffat era.
It is arguably more of a celebration of the new series than the show as a whole, but that's not so much of a problem now that we have Power of the Doctor to balance things out. Shame about Chibnall undoing all of the plot points/themes/development that this story set up though. So it's a bit of a give and take I guess.
|
|
|
Post by bethhigdon on Jul 11, 2024 21:58:28 GMT
Hurt 13th Review
Doctor Who Evergreen - Miscellaneous
Doctor Who Evergreen was a series of award winning portraits of each of then-existing mainline incarnation of the Doctor made by the artist Jeremy Enecio for BBC Studios. They have since been used for promotional materials through the years with new Doctors being added to the series as needed.
There's not much to say about them, other than that they're good. I just wanted to highlight this little talked about but often seen bit of Who, and this felt like as good a place as any as part of the War Doctor's miscellaneous category.
|
|
|
Post by Alastair on Jul 12, 2024 7:24:15 GMT
I love these portraits but never had any context around them. Thanks for filling in that gap!
|
|
|
Post by bethhigdon on Jul 12, 2024 20:58:05 GMT
Hurt Ranking
Favorite Story: Death Will Not Part Us (Best depiction of the Time War)
Least Favorite Story: Ambush (It's barely a story)
1. Death Will Not Part Us - Short Audio 2. Day of the Doctor - TV Story 3. The War Master: Beneath the Viscoid - Spin-Off 4. The Black Archive #10: Scream of the Shalka - Fan Work 5. Doctor Who Evergreen - Miscellaneous 6. Engines of War - Novel 7. Neverwhen - Full Audio 8. The Last Day - Minisode 9. Servants of the Shalakor - Behind the Scenes 10. Decoy - Short Story 11. Scream of the Shalka - Novelization 12. Doctor Who Comes to MINECRAFT! - Video Games 13. Ambush - Comic
Yeah, I don't see myself intentionally seeking out more War Doctor stuff any time soon. I'm about 'Time War'-ed out. But at least we're moving on to the revival serial proper now.
|
|
|
Post by bethhigdon on Jul 15, 2024 20:57:31 GMT
Eccleston 1st Review
Blue Peter Special - Minisode
So this was a bit of promotional material for the show's return. In it a couple of kids build a trash bin to look like a Dalek. The Doctor shows up, believing it to be a real Dalek, and denigrates the bin using a Blue Peter badge.
This was Eccleston's first footage filmed as the Doctor and it's stiff, to put it nicely. Granted it's not like he's given much to work with. There's nothing here to indicate what the Daleks now represent to the character as the Time War reveal will be several episodes down the line. Nor is there any real action. The Doctor just shows up suddenly says all of three lines, flashes the badge, and then runs off. Even the Blue Peter commentators calls it 'weird', lol.
Eccleston is a wonderful Doctor but I can see why people would have doubts after seeing this first appearance and nothing else. It doesn't really sell the return of the series and as that's basically it's only reason for existing I have to kind of consider it a failure.
|
|
|
Post by mark687 on Jul 15, 2024 22:03:05 GMT
Eccleston 1st Review
Blue Peter Special - Minisode
So this was a bit of promotional material for the show's return. In it a couple of kids build a trash bin to look like a Dalek. The Doctor shows up, believing it to be a real Dalek, and denigrates the bin using a Blue Peter badge.
This was Eccleston's first footage filmed as the Doctor and it's stiff, to put it nicely. Granted it's not like he's given much to work with. There's nothing here to indicate what the Daleks now represent to the character as the Time War reveal will be several episodes down the line. Nor is there any real action. The Doctor just shows up suddenly says all of three lines, flashes the badge, and then runs off. Even the Blue Peter commentators calls it 'weird', lol.
Eccleston is a wonderful Doctor but I can see why people would have doubts after seeing this first appearance and nothing else. It doesn't really sell the return of the series and as that's basically it's only reason for existing I have to kind of consider it a failure.
Actually it was one of the last bits of in character footage he filmed. Regards mark687
|
|
|
Post by bethhigdon on Jul 15, 2024 22:57:07 GMT
Eccleston 1st Review
Blue Peter Special - Minisode
So this was a bit of promotional material for the show's return. In it a couple of kids build a trash bin to look like a Dalek. The Doctor shows up, believing it to be a real Dalek, and denigrates the bin using a Blue Peter badge.
This was Eccleston's first footage filmed as the Doctor and it's stiff, to put it nicely. Granted it's not like he's given much to work with. There's nothing here to indicate what the Daleks now represent to the character as the Time War reveal will be several episodes down the line. Nor is there any real action. The Doctor just shows up suddenly says all of three lines, flashes the badge, and then runs off. Even the Blue Peter commentators calls it 'weird', lol.
Eccleston is a wonderful Doctor but I can see why people would have doubts after seeing this first appearance and nothing else. It doesn't really sell the return of the series and as that's basically it's only reason for existing I have to kind of consider it a failure.
Actually it was one of the last bits of in character footage he filmed. Regards mark687 Really? Then either someone needs to fix the Tardis Wiki or I need to get better glasses.
|
|
|
Post by bethhigdon on Jul 22, 2024 18:24:53 GMT
Eccleston 2nd Review
Her Own Bootstraps - Short Audio
I'm just going to copy the summery from the Tardis Wiki as I don't have the mental capacity to sort this plot out.
From the description this is another timey-whimey story, but unlike the War Doctor Short Trip that I listened to earlier I found this one harder to follow along.
Part of that might just be the audio quality on my phone, but I also think it's because the story is focused on two characters having a conversation for the entirety of plot while having just a single narrator... when the last story was pretty focused on keeping the point of view of one person.
That's not to dismiss the narrator, as he is good at altering his voice and making each character sound different, but switching between the Doctor's and the main antagonist's POV while on top of the time travel and telling the story out of order, just made it harder to keep up then it would have been with multiple actors or in a more viable medium.
In the end I think I got the gist of the narrative; turns out the antagonist wasn't a bad guy after all and was working with the Doctor this whole time, but the Doctor just didn't know it because it was his future. I think.... There's probably some more nuance there that I missed.
Anyways I feel like I need to give the story another re-listen to decide my feelings on it.
|
|
|
Post by bethhigdon on Aug 2, 2024 21:33:55 GMT
Eccleston 3rd Review Lay Down Your Arms - Full Audio
This was fun. The Doctor goes back to meet Bertha von Suttner, the first woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize, and in doing so becomes her music teacher and helps her stop a bunch of invading aliens from brainwashing humans as their living weapons.
The story is nothing special, basically a condensed War Games meshed with your typical NuWho historical. But it's shines just from Eccleston's performance who slips back into the role as if he's never been a way from it and its there that the real joy of the story lies.
However my personal enjoyment is hampered somewhat by the fact that in order to listen to this story I had to buy the entire bundle. As fun as the episode is, it's not worth $40 dollars, and I hesitate to say that even all three stories in the bundle are collectively worth that either. But regardless, it's annoying that you don't get a choice between the option of getting each story individually or all together. Especially as none of the stories in the bundle are really connected in any way other than by Eccleston himself.
As much as I like the Ninth Doctor and am glad that Eccleston is back, I can't bring myself to buy any more of his stories so long as they remain in this format and that's discouraging.
|
|
|
Post by bethhigdon on Aug 9, 2024 16:32:08 GMT
Eccleston 4th Review
Doctor Who Confidential: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly - Behind the Scenes
When Doctor Who came back to the sliver screen after it's 16 year hiatus, show-runner RTD also decided to debut a simultaneous documentary series to run along side the main show as a means of both promoting the series and giving fans a behind the scenes look into the production.
Episode three of the show is mostly a behind the scenes look at the Doctor Who episode The End of the World, and it focuses mainly on makeup and special effects. It's pretty much 25 minutes of everyone going "Look! We have a budget now!", while comparing the classic series to what they're able to accomplish in 2006.
This enthusiasm is also interspersed with everyone casually mentioning how much it sucks for the actors to work in costume. Like they feel obligated to mention just how bad the working conditions are but while also somehow having to put a fake positive spin on it, talking about how dedicated the actors are to their craft, rather than suggest alternatives to make those conditions suck less.
None of this is new information for me but I did manage to learn a few neat things. Cassandra was fully CGI, which for some reason I always assumed she was a puppet. It's a good effect that still holds up today despite other CGI effects showing their age.
And the second thing I learned was that the actors both fully admit to playing Jabe and the Doctor as being in love. It's not like it's subtext either, as the script does mention that they are attracted to each other, but unlike other romances in NuWho it's so subtle that it's barely a plot point. Which is perhaps why it's arguably better than later more overt romances like Girl in the Fireplace or Rogue.
Anyways it was a neat little look in for the marathon, but not anything that I would follow rigorously myself.
|
|
|
Post by bethhigdon on Aug 16, 2024 17:29:35 GMT
Eccleston 5th Review Dalek - Novelization
You know what? I've always been a big defender of novelizations using their unique format to add content and insight that couldn't fit into the original medium. I'm now questioning that stance.
When following the original episode, this novel is pretty good. Dalek on tv is a tightly plotted and intense 45 min story that is strong enough to stand on it's own. So when the novel just retells that core story, you get also get a strong novel.
Unfortunately, when the novel stops to add stuff the whole thing just falls apart. The author decides to give you whole chapters worth of detail background information for every single side character. From the random no-named guards that die to the main antagonists. Which wouldn't be so bad, except it's all so deeply uninteresting.
Not only does it kill the pacing and tension of the story, but all the character's backstories are so deeply stereotypical and bland that I just don't care. Even for characters that I actually did want to know more about, like Adam, wind up just being so underwhelming that it makes me retroactively like the character less. It also doesn't help matters that some of the backstories lean on ablest stereotypes.
The most interesting thing here, besides the original plot, is the Dalek's backstory, but even this is wrapped up in the most pretentious obtuse prose that the emotion dampened somewhat.
Overall I don't begrudge the novel for trying something different but at the end of the day the original episode is still the definitive version of the story.
|
|
shutupbanks
Castellan
![*](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/stars/star_blue.png)
There’s a horror movie called Alien? That’s really offensive. No wonder everyone keeps invading you.
Likes: 5,875
|
Post by shutupbanks on Aug 18, 2024 10:06:35 GMT
Eccleston 5th Review Dalek - Novelization
You know what? I've always been a big defender of novelizations using their unique format to add content and insight that couldn't fit into the original medium. I'm now questioning that stance.
When following the original episode, this novel is pretty good. Dalek on tv is a tightly plotted and intense 45 min story that is strong enough to stand on it's own. So when the novel just retells that core story, you get also get a strong novel.
Unfortunately, when the novel stops to add stuff the whole thing just falls apart. The author decides to give you whole chapters worth of detail background information for every single side character. From the random no-named guards that die to the main antagonists. Which wouldn't be so bad, except it's all so deeply uninteresting.
Not only does it kill the pacing and tension of the story, but all the character's backstories are so deeply stereotypical and bland that I just don't care. Even for characters that I actually did want to know more about, like Adam, wind up just being so underwhelming that it makes be retroactively like the character less. It also doesn't help matters that some of the backstories lean on ablest stereotypes.
The most interesting thing here, besides the original plot, is the Dalek's backstory, but even this is wrapped up in the most pretentious obtuse prose that the emotion dampened somewhat.
Overall I don't begrudge the novel for trying something different but at the end of the day the original episode is still the definitive version of the story.
I wasn’t a fan of the character chapters, either. I didn’t think that the first one - detailing the life of the psychopath who tortures the Dalek - was really earned by the point that we got it, and the others didn’t really feel like they illuminated the characters in a way that made me understand them more. I thought that the characterisation of Van Statten was a little uneven until I realised that he only appeared enigmatic and omnipotent to the characters that he could intimidate and control: to the others he was just another ruthless businessman. Given that this was Shearman’s third go at telling this story, I thought it was a great novelisation but not necessarily a great novel. It definitely didn’t outstay its welcome.
|
|
|
Post by bethhigdon on Aug 20, 2024 16:55:20 GMT
Eccleston 6th Review
The Time Lord Letters: Welcome Home - Short Story
Time Lord Letters is anthology series where each 'story' is a letter written by the Doctor. Rather than being plots in their own right, most of the letters are supplement material to existing televised stories. Which is the case for this particular entry.
Welcome Home takes place at the end of The Long Game. The Doctor leaves a note for Adam's parents when dropping him off back home, because he somehow blew up their answering machine.
This just raises a whole bunch of questions. Like when would have done this off screen? Why would he have bothered? Nothing in the note clarifies anything for the parents or provides any directions for Adam himself. What the heck did he do to the answering machine? Why was he even calling instead of talking to them directly? Seems like that would be an important thing to do given the gravity of the situation. Heck there's not even an apology included just a bunch of 'He'll thank me later' bs.
All in all this seemed like a real missed opportunity. Adam's arc in the original show was one of the very few low points of the first series, and this added scene doesn't do anything rectify that narrative mistake.
However, the rest of the novel seems like a cool concept. It's very much a more than it's sum parts type deals.
|
|