OH MY GOD HE'S OOGLY: nu-Who season 8

Though it was a bit weird, since Perkins didn't really interact with Clara, and therefore couldn't have made any deep analysis on the role of the companion... I guess he was just perceptive.

Perkins was FANTASTIC, damn you for suggesting he should have died

I didn't suggest that, the episode itself did... I just felt it could've maintained the ambiguity instead of showing he was definitely alive.

yep, I was overreading xpost. I just briefly envisaged an alternate universe where F Skinner was chosen instead of Capaldi, which didn't seem totally implausible as I watched the last episode. it seemed like he might have been *considered*.

not the worst of men, I suppose, but I find him quite tiring.

capaldi still superb tho, now my favourite doctor easily, overcoming the prejudice of childhood sentiment towards Tom Baker.

I don't mind Frank Skinner as a presenter/comedian, but I thought he was quite pants in this. No way would they let him be the Doctor.

Feel someone should mention how amazing Clara looked this episode.

i guess no one wanted to be That Guy but yes, i was wondering why she changed back into her Vargas girl outfit just minutes after having changed into vintage silk PJs and then i was like "oh, there is a pretty good non-diegetic reason for this"

is one way to put it

as in "a non-digetic reason for the dads"

I liked the pajamas. Wish the Doctor had also been wearing them while they solved the mystery.

What was he talking about, alone in his bed? 99%? 75%?

The percentage he was certain that nothing weird was going on.

Really enjoyed this episode -- I like Capaldi best when he hits the sweet spot between heroism and bastardliness (but staying closer to bastardliness).

And the offhandedness of the last scene was great - the almost anticlimactic "Oh yeah, and then we saved everyone" against that weird coloured sky.

Feel someone should mention how amazing Clara looked this episode

I could mention it, if you want.

does anyone else find the dialog mixed too low compared to the F/X and music? I always have to turn my TV way up to hear what everyone is saying, then I get deafened by the music.

Have you tried messing with the audio settings on your TV? Somehow I set mine so dialogue is fore-grounded.

There should definitely be a 'turn off Murray Gold' option on the red button.

And replace him with random snippets of Fourth Doctor incidental music.

yeah, I assume the problem is related to the show being broadcast in 5.1 and me having stereo, so the dialog on the center channel is lost/minimized. good idea suzy!

I rewound the part at the beginning where they're stepping into the train about 4 times cause I couldn't hear what they were saying. /old?

Gold completely smothered the first exchange with gran and daughter

ie he was mixed way too high and the jaunty music was completely inappropriate

i said to mr veg that the first 15 minutes made me feel like a deaf old lady EHHH STOP MUMBLING SPEAK UP NOW

Suzy's advise is very good for people who have only stereo speakers or just the TV set. Like most modern tv shows, Dr. Who has surround sound, and when that is played through a stereo system, the dialogue tends to get buried beneath the music and sound effects, because in a surround speaker set it would have a speaker of its own.

It's possible your TV set has the default sound setting as surround, but in that case you should be able to switch it to stereo, that should make the dialogue more audible. Some sets also have function called "clear speech" or something like that allows you to boost the sound frequencies alloted to human speech, using that should help too.

We've had surround speakers for a while, and I have no problem hearing the Dr. Who dialogue now, since the middle speaker is dedicated to it... But I had the same problems as you before, when I only had stereo speakers, surround sound just doesn't sit well with them.

Thanks! That explains a lot.

i enjoyed this but have v little to say other than I liked Dr & Clara on that alien beach after the climax, I think because it reminded me of Local Hero.

http://29.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ltw1xfSHIe1r2za3do2_500.gif

needs updating.

adorable though

<3

i have to say, upon reflection, the body count last week was pretty impressive

coincidence that it's the first episode at the new, later, 8:30pm time slot? (i.e. after little kids' bed times?)

the caretaker was 8.30 too wunnit?

ahh you are correct

That was good

Bristol sidings

Episode was good-not-great (female Doctor trial run) till the climax, then seeing the restored TARDIS and the Doctor going all HAM was awesome, the first time for me where Capaldi brings something that Matt wouldn't have.

Absolutely loved this ep (tremendously memorable villains, bizarre and unprecedented way of isolating the Doctor so of limited help, great showcase of Clara managing to save the day) but can someone explain that last exchange for me? 'Goodness had nothing to do with it' went completely over my head

Because inherent "good" has nothing to do with Doctoring as he sees it. The ability to see opportunity, the space between good & evil, to restore balance sans emotion...that's Doctoring, and that's what Clara did. DUN DUN DUN

effects in this were v fun & trippy

tiny tardis giant doctor was great

Ah ok thanks for that. I conflated it with the companion-bails arc they've muddled/discarded, I thought that dialogue had to do with that conflict

Yeah I was really impressed with the effects too! Though now I will expect Cenobites to come out of a seiged Tardis

that was all kinds of good... banter, TARDIS weirdness, creepy aliens. loved it!

muddled/discarded

this arc is addressed and advanced in several scenes this episode

great ep yeah. you can see why, as with Cross last year, Mathieson was immediately commissioned for a second episode to precede his first

i think the dr's "goodness had nothing to do with it" is part of the concern that Frank Skinner raised last ep, re "it changes people" and Clara previously "addiction". the dr is concerned he's changing her, and not for the better, and for her own good he's going to be the one who puts an end to her stint.

But then how do you carry that through to there ever being any other companions in the tardis ever?

oh yeah, and btw, this was an amazing episode. I am going to re-watch the series and skip robot of sherwood, which I think tipped me early into under-appreciating the following eps.

Seems like a common view of this series is it's been better as a show, but it might be losing it's children-friendly episodes. (i.e. low on monsters)

is there any evidence for that - i mean is there any evidence that those are more children friendly? all the anecdotal evidence here and elsewhere suggests that children are enjoying this series as much (if not more in some cases) than others. that's on a, ahhh, 7-14 scale I think. With a rigorous sample size of about 6.

fair do. i'm only going on my kids who have lost interest, and random twitter chat. (RTC was overwhelmingly +ve after last night)

that sounds like a better sample than mine! shame tho. capaldi has been great. his little dance of pleasure after having accomplished that awkward TARDIS moving sequence was v amusing.

If anything, I feel this series has been a bit too kid-friendly: all the episodes so far have been pretty much been standalone stories about the monster-of-the-week, there's not much of an overarching plot... We've had a few glimpses of "Missy", but so far they've been kinda incomprehensible, and haven't really tied into the plots of the individual episodes except in a most superficial way. I know Moffat has been criticized for his needlessly complex and long plots, and I can see the point with something like the "Impossible Girl", but OTOH I hope he hasn't responded to the criticism by making the series completely episodic. My favourite series is still number 6, where I think there was a good balance between standalone episodes and the longer plot arc (the cracks in the universe) that managed to tie with the invidual episodes without overwhelming.

So far the only proper multi-episode arc has been for Clara's character development, which has been handled really well, but that kind of a thing should be business as usual for a TV show, not the main seasonal plot. Though yesterday's episode seemed to hint there's a connection between "Missy" and Clara (possibly she's a future incarnation of her?), so maybe Clara changing and starting to act like the Doctor is tied to the "Missy" plot? Maybe Clara becoming "the Doctor" in this ep was not just a reflection on her psychological change, but a hint that she will eventually evolve into something like the Doctor, i.e. Missy?

Or maybe Missy's supposed to be the "benevolent" flipside of the Doctor? The Doctor she can't save everyone, some folks have to die so that others can live (this theme was most obvious in the Dalek and Mummy eps), but so far the people Missy has saved are ones that the Doctor couldn't. That would also tie in with Doctor's comment discussed above, that goodness has nothing to do with being the Doctor. Maybe Missy is like a version of the Doctor who thinks she can be good, that she can save everyone?

"that managed to tie with the invidual episodes without overwhelming them"

Is Missy supposed to have anything to do with the anthropomorphic tardis we saw in that episode

I feel this series has been a bit too kid-friendly

It is a show for children. Feel like this season has really ramped up the horror actually, I was genuinely creeped out by this one.