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thomassounness
Reviews
Science Fiction Volume One: The Osiris Child (2016)
Landscapes are actors too
Just wanted to add, for a budget production, it felt crisp, clean, original and distinctively different. The landscapes added to that. Yes there were twangy accents, but it's the future so just roll with it. Better than I expected in many departments.
Good sets, realistic effects for 2016. Good costuming. Plenty of guns doing gun things. The dirt was fine really well. In the middle there are some plenty dirty prison folks. A mesmerisingly dirty uniform. Properly filthy.
There were only a couple of clunkers for me, and it didn't take the storyline too far off track.
Worth viewing on a lazy Sunday afternoon when the weather is lousy and you can chat about the quality effects with a mate. 8 stars.
Doctor Who: The Doctor Falls (2017)
Disappointing and Indulgent.
** Spoilers **
There was a lot of over enthusiastic plot driven drivel through this episode. The result of which is a turgid display of pyrotechnics associated with psychobabble
I know that there was meant to be pathos, I saw only indulgence in all performances except that of Missy.
Ms Gomez surpassed Mr Capaldi by a fair margin in this endpiece. I enjoyed the art of that circularity, and wonder/hope/pray how Missy might possibly return.
Some of my grumbling Issues are:
* The cleverness of the Time dilation due to a black hole as a temporary plot device was remarkable in it's first delivery, however subsequently it is stupid or is ignored.
For example, the stationkeeping of the ship is stupid, if the engines are at the bottom of the ship, are they not spending their fuel at a far faster rate than the top of the ship. So how can the ship spend thousands of years with thrust using volumes of fuel, and we see the rapid evolution taking place and aging of the buildings taking place, yet there is only *one* evolution burst of cybermen taking place
* The decision not to use the lifts but for the Cybermen to burst THROUGH the hull plate numerous times looking for this small patch of unadulterated humans. Both mondasian cybermen and upgraded evolved cybermen. Yet Billy, an original version Mondasian cyberman survives a One to Many battle against a hoard of sheet covered, basic and evolved cybermen. That stretches credibility greatly.
* The Doctor's connection to Billy just makes no sense to me. A promise of longing for her company I can get. But a promise to keep her safe which does not deliver anything really. He promises what he cannot achieve, yet says he does not lie. Yet he also knows the Cybermen's programming cycles are, predicting when they retreat to return on a different war like footing. That shows a deep ignorance of how the wetware conversion of cybermen is, (which is bloody obvious one would thought) and deep understanding of how their programming works. Again, the inconsistencies annoy greatly.
* The Pilot/Heather - back again - in that way - oh, what an annoying mcguffin. Disappointed is not the word. Bloody poor way to stitch up another Clara like ending into this series. The companions should show human frailties. Not godlike resurrections.
* While the Master's demise is poetic justice, I did find it also of poor writing even though it is a clever outcome. Far better for the trip to the Master's Tardis to take place, it's repair, then it's return to disgorge a Missy before taking off in their pathway of destruction. No, I see so many better ways of writing that particular vector.
I really think that the writing is poor, indulgent and I wished that the arcs and characters did their pathway better.
Matt Lucas was wasted. Sigh.
Farewell Mr Capaldi. I had high hopes for you, and unfortunately you were not able to deliver them despite some very engaging acting. Gravatas and Acting should have been your legacy, but instead it is poorly shaped plots that seemed indulgent of actors seeking more simplistic activity rather than something that reflects a more suitable doctor who-niverse revelation. Mr Capalidi is not as young as Matt Smith nor as athletic as David Tenant. He should not have been trying to be that type of energetic actor. I do not know who our new doctor is going to be, but I am set up to be disappointed in him or her already.
I deeply regret that this was not a better episode. The bones are superb, the delivery is indulgent and distorted. 4/10
Doctor Who: Hell Bent (2015)
Concluding a 2 parter of such size and immensity, is very hard to land
I rate this as excellent and worthy of a 10/10.
Excellent because the multitude of threads are held together - and there are a multitude - at this stage of the Universe that is Dr Who, there are so many threads that it is impossible to trip over massive issues and obstacles - yet this episode manages to dance it's way through a very complex back-story fairly well. The threads that are feints, or distractions, are relatively consistent from the start of the season to now - that the confusion or holes are beautifully rendered and where imperfectly visible, they only slightly mar the experience of watching Capaldi perform a Prime version of a completely classic Dr Who (with some darn fine rock chords).
The few cries I had of disappointment were echoed by my household fellow whovians cheering - so my view of these discontinuities clearly were not entirely right. But - meh, it's a small thing.
Snippets are:
Ashilder/Me clearly was sitting in the ashes of Gallefrey still immortal and still circling around the legacy given by the Doctor. Surely that is an example of the Prophecy being correct? What else would an immortal do at 5 minutes to the end of the universe.
The prophecy of the Hybrid is only heard from other's saying it (Davros etc.,), so the direct statement is never heard, only other's statements of it. I sense an opportunity to send in a lawyer to prise apart exactly who said what when. Also, the gestation of the hybrid is never explained, just that the rumors and the speculation remains sound, and the validity of this rumor is based on the time lords own crypt thinkers all concurring with this. It's an unfinished issue.
Missy in setting up Clara/The Doctor as a union through time and space is cute, but it does not cut it for me. The ego of the Master/Missy is far too self centered to be only an observer of the chaos created by the hybrid of the Doctor (a warrior race leader of time-lords) and Clara Oswald (a warrior race leader of ... um ... yes, just what please?) Unfinished, but not unsatisfyingly so.
The Doctor fires a gun to save Clara - breaking one of the longest lasting rules in Dr Who - and the reason for this, that Clara is between heartbeats - that's not enough for me. The Doctor never fires a firearm. Never harms another and never panics. He panicked here, now and it does not feel right. Why is Clara so bloody important other than the fact that the Doctor considers it so.
This is presumably the first time that Me/Ashilder has been able to travel through time - and if Me/Ashilder has been walking through 4.6 billion years of the universe to get to Gallifrey then the remaining billions of years of the universe to get to the final moments, then surely there would be more glee at doing this unforgivable thing, or less glee at having done the standard thing. The plot that is Me/Ashilder is much MUCH less clear now, and stands as a massive Chekhov gun. It feels like a spin off series is now able to be played, two spunky girl sidekicks spinning through the universe in a chameleon circuit stuck 50's diner ... and that prospect excites me and shudders me. But, Ashilder has her hair down and what does that mean for the oldest living entity in the universe?
Take home issue - the Master/Missy deserved to be part of this story, and it was a shame that our most loved/hated Gallifreyan was not there.
Doctor Who: The Woman Who Lived (2015)
Strengthening
The tawdry humour is the let down, as is the inclusion of the RayBans and the thrumming guitar - but this is the feature of all the doctors, their little characteristics that speak to a time and a place and a character type.
Other than this, the movements of the timelessness people, those that watch and those that walk through time one day at a time vs those that walk through time and space at the whim of the Tardis, that is the theme that is is being developed here. An arc has started, and it is one similar to that of Captain John Harkness (Face of Boe) and the Master ... all elements that show a view of the universe from those who travel through it with a nigh timeless manner.
The showing of a new tapestry, a new field of combat - that of the citizenry of the planet - now that is interesting ... I look forward to finding out how this is played out. Much speculation is in my mind and that I enjoy.
But fire breathing lordly lions ... for crazy sake, what a waste of a noble looking character on so brief a role.