I don't know if I should put spoiler space in, because most people would have had a chance to see it by now... but I will anyway. (Reminder, if you see a lot of blank space on the main page, like below, then I have hidden text you need to go to the full post to see.)
Overall... uh, rather odd, and makes a complete mess of continuity. And... actually, I rather prefer the Five(ish) Doctors Reboot... but I'll talk about that later.
So we have a rather prosaic view of a battle on Gallifrey. Yes, we know the Daleks = Nazis, but did we really need the World War II, attack on the city, imagery? If you remove the 'pew pew' laser sounds, that sequence could easily fit into generic action war story of any time. Where was the Never Child and all that stuff? Instead, just 'zap zap'. And then we get the War Doctor... who's done terrible things? We are told? He doesn't seem that broken up about it, except when the script calls for him to remember that he'll be killing a lot of people. And 'Bad Wolf' girl? Really?
Then Tennant and Smith, and ho-ho-ho Queen Bess. And Zygons. Because the Zygons are threatening. Really. Honest. Not at all useless, even when there was over an hour dedicated to them. I suppose we should be glad there wasn't a Skarasen and it's milk. But that whole Zygon plot was just stupid. And pointless. And at the end, just dealt with off-screen, that's how exciting and important it was.
So there was plenty of time to retcon the entire Time War... I guess. So he did blow up the planet until he changed time so he didn't, and all his selves were involved... how did he pull that off? "Hey, past selves, just pop over here to save Gallifrey in your future, but try not to know about it when you become John Hurt." What? And I guess this counts as the first on-screen presence of Peter Capaldi. I have no idea if they'll explicitly address that 9th, 10th and 11th are now 10th, 11th, 12th... I can see it not being addressed, but I supposed Moffat will give some off hand comment about it. I don't mind that Hurt had to regenerate as part of the price he had to pay, but did they really need the comment about the ears?
So some decent performances, but you might be able to guess that I'm not that impressed about it. Some nice moments... but they were just moments. Overall... it feels like another Moffat near miss-fire. Close,but not quite...
Next time: You know what... I hope the regeneration happens earlier than in the last second, but later than the opening act (as per the movie). Give us a nice mix of Smith and Capaldi... but it probably won't happen like that.
[END]
Monday, 25 November 2013
DW: The Day of the Doctor
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4 comments:
What I thought was odd about the Zygons was that after all the times the Doctor has defended the Earth from Alien invasion, he then just hands 50% of the Earth to the Zygons? What other kind of deal would the Zygons go for?
And "You can't remember if you're Human or Zygon" Oh really? So either you just wiped my Zygon memories (effectively killing me) or you have just implanted them into an innocent Human, either way, not sure I really have an incentive to work out peaceful solution.
There a brand of ethics (can't remember which) that talks about how to create things fairly, such as laws. It is fair if unbiased people think it is fair, where unbiased is people don't know what demographics they are in. Is this law fair to women if you might be a woman? Fair to the aged if you might be?
This reminded me of that.
And I took it as 'you will get your memories back in a bit once this is worked out.' not a permanent thing.
"Don't worry, I'll only mindrape you for a short while"
Yeah, that sounds so much better (and I did get the temporary impression from the script too).
It can't be mindrape, because he's a good guy and the script didn't condemn him, so anything he does is excusable.
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