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

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.

This was so much fun!

not a single episode would i allow my 5-yr-old to see, that's for sure

giant hand pulling me backwards thru a train tunnel??? gggggnnnnhhhaaaah

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.

This is a good thing.

Time travelling future Danny is definitely part of an overarching plot, but given the kind of knots Moffatt usually ties himself up in when he attempts an overarching plot, I'm welcoming the scaling back of that side of things.

This is the best nu-Who season fwiw.

This is the best nu-Who season fwiw.

Absolutely. No competition.

I dunno, it's been arguably the most consistent, and the most well-paced, but there hasn't been a story anywhere near the calibre of say The Empty Child, Blink or Human Nature yet.

Listen.

Good, but not up there.

I agree with Chap, this season has been the most consistently good, but so far there hasn't been a really classic episode, none of the episodes have had that extra inch that pushes them beyond merely having a good concept and a good villain. Also, several eps, particularly "Listen", have been marred by having an overtly long and finger-pointing end monologue that explains what the episode was about, even though it was already obvious without the monologue.

(also the TV version of Human Nature is p weak)

I disagree (not read the book).

there hasn't been a story anywhere near the calibre of say The Empty Child, Blink or Human Nature yet.

The same could be said for virtually the entire Moffatt era.

Yeah, I kind of agree with that. Moffat definitely did his best writing for RTD.

Though Eleventh Hour is probably the best regeneration story ever.

IMO Moffat's strengths as shorunner have been in the longer plot arcs, which have definitely been better during his run than during Davies's. That's exactly why I was mourning the seeming lack of those during this season; we haven't had any individual episodes as brilliant as the best of the Davies era, but neither have we had the sort of intriguing series-spanning plots that made Moffat's first two series so watchable.

Also, the "Elevent Hour" was a premium example of how to do a good end monologue: it was short, snappy and established the new Doctor as a force to be reckoned with. Compared to that, this season's closing monologues have been closer to those scenes that always came at the end of Masters of the Universe, where He-Man explained to the kids what was the moral of this week's episode.

i'd rather watch capaldi and coleman hanging wallpaper together than any shenanigans you could cook up with gillan and smith

intriguing series-spanning plots that made Moffat's first two series so watchable.

See I found the season arcs hopelessly convoluted, distracting, and shoddily resolved mostly (the one in Smith's first season was OK).

I think it makes a difference that I grew up on Old-Who; I expect Dr. Who to be almost an anthology series with minimal to no continuity between stories. I know in this age of boxsets you have to have some kind of 'arc', but I think this is the first Moffat season to achieve an agreeable balance between that and self-contained episodes.

The same could be said for virtually the entire Moffatt era.

Also the RTD era, once you take out the Moffatt episodes