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Post by Queen E on Sept 7, 2012 15:45:30 GMT -5
Which I'm assuming will be more fun than snakes on a plane.  |
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Post by Anne, Old S'cubie Cat on Sept 8, 2012 22:45:25 GMT -5
This episode, while cute, was rather uneven.
Amy seems to be in a holding pattern, again, or still. Rory is coming into his own, and I did love the back-and-forth with his dad, but he and Amy aren't really working as a team. That makes me sad.
The Doctor isn't on the price guide tech thingy? He doesn't exist? Is he being erased from the universe?
I was not happy that the Doctor left the bad guy trapped on his space ship to be blown up. Yes, Solomon committed Silurian genocide, yes, he was evil, but since when is the Doctor the Executioner? And since when does the Doctor relish seeing someone die? I hope there will be some sort of dealing with it, because he's becoming more and more of the Daleks' Predator and less of a good man going to war.
Also, having Queen Nefertiti go off with the Great White Hunter struck me as rather squicky. Very H Rider Haggard and all, but it felt off. Not to mention that she was already married... and dammit, I'm also very tired of the Doctor apparently being irresistible to women. What is he, Time Lord catnip? Gah.
ETA: Furthermore, according to the accounts of the day, Nefertiti and Akhenaton were apparently devoted to each other. I mean, there's art of her sitting on his lap, for pity's sake. So having her describe her husband as boring just doesn't make sense. Grumph.
I... don't know how I feel about this season. It's making me uncomfortable. Nobody is acting in ways that make sense. Also the two episodes so far have been kind of choppy, and that's not good writing. I'm reserving judgement.
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Post by Queen E on Sept 10, 2012 1:29:15 GMT -5
This episode, while cute, was rather uneven. Amy seems to be in a holding pattern, again, or still. Rory is coming into his own, and I did love the back-and-forth with his dad, but he and Amy aren't really working as a team. That makes me sad. The Doctor isn't on the price guide tech thingy? He doesn't exist? Is he being erased from the universe? I was not happy that the Doctor left the bad guy trapped on his space ship to be blown up. Yes, Solomon committed Silurian genocide, yes, he was evil, but since when is the Doctor the Executioner? And since when does the Doctor relish seeing someone die? I hope there will be some sort of dealing with it, because he's becoming more and more of the Daleks' Predator and less of a good man going to war. Also, having Queen Nefertiti go off with the Great White Hunter struck me as rather squicky. Very H Rider Haggard and all, but it felt off. Not to mention that she was already married... and dammit, I'm also very tired of the Doctor apparently being irresistible to women. What is he, Time Lord catnip? Gah. ETA: Furthermore, according to the accounts of the day, Nefertiti and Akhenaton were apparently devoted to each other. I mean, there's art of her sitting on his lap, for pity's sake. So having her describe her husband as boring just doesn't make sense. Grumph. I... don't know how I feel about this season. It's making me uncomfortable. Nobody is acting in ways that make sense. Also the two episodes so far have been kind of choppy, and that's not good writing. I'm reserving judgement. Heh. Time Lord catnip... Seriously, though, I know exactly what you mean. The pacing for these first two episodes is really off. Until the last 10 minutes, I could not for the life of me figure out why Rory's dad, Nefertiti, and Ridell, plus the Ponds, were all together. It's rather like Chibnall (the writer of this episode) said "You know what would be cool? Dinosaurs! On a Spaceship! With Nefertiti! And Lestrade! Whoops, maybe there should be a reason. OK, gene chain! Shooting! Incredible disturbing gender and racial politics! YAY!" That being said, the themes that the episode tackles are something that Chibnall seems to return to a lot; he wrote "42," which was about sun pirates, and the "Hungry Earth/Cold Blood" two-parter, with the whole, "we can share the earth, oh, no we can't because humans suck." There is a misanthropic tone to his episodes that is a tad off-putting. What I liked: 1) Mr. Weasley Rory's dad (Brian Williams, heh) sitting outside the Tardis, drinking coffee, eating a muffin and staring at the earth...and then deciding to travel. That was a nice grace note. 2) Amy calling Ridell on his attitude. 3) Pretty much everything with the triceratops...even though it was a bit sentimental. Final thoughts: I really do like Matt Smith's Doctor now, but I still think there is a certain coldness that just didn't exist in the Davies era. Also, for all his faults, I think Davies era hung a story together better than the Moffat era. Moffat loves puzzles, and there is a lot of fun in seeing how these episodes hang together as a season. Yet taken separately, they often feel thrown together...plots, characters, situations that don't quite intersect; they are perhaps introduced to serve the larger arc, but at the episode-level, it feels sloppy. Compare that to the subtle references to "bad wolf" in season 1, the throw-away references to "Harold Saxon" in season 3, or the Doctor-Donna arc. Even in the most crowded episodes (The Stolen Earth/Journey's End), everyone had a reason to be there and something to do. OK, I'll stop now. |
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Post by Queen E on Sept 12, 2012 10:21:59 GMT -5
Oh, and one more thing I liked: I thought the robots sounded familiar: It was David Mitchell and Robert Webb, from "Peep Show" and "That Mitchell and Webb Look." They did this:
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