Oh, please.
Sep. 19th, 2006 11:48 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
icepixieRTD: Alien planets are "too expensive."
And a Slitheen ship crashing into Big Ben isn't? Or a massive CGI wereworlf? Or the sun blowing up and incinerating the Earth? I'm sorry, that doesn't fly. Try again.
P.S. Avast, me hearties! *walks around with peg leg and parrot*
And a Slitheen ship crashing into Big Ben isn't? Or a massive CGI wereworlf? Or the sun blowing up and incinerating the Earth? I'm sorry, that doesn't fly. Try again.
P.S. Avast, me hearties! *walks around with peg leg and parrot*
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Date: 2006-09-20 12:58 am (UTC)I mean...completely awesome spaceship!! *flails* LEAVE. EARTH.
Similarly, he can be pretty imaginative on Earth--I loved TEotW--
Right. That was actually the episode that sold me on the show for the very reason of the great imagination.
but DW is, by its very nature, basically free verse. Hence lots of us getting pissed off about the unnecessary restraints.
Well, yeah!
Argh. Maybe he'll go over to Torchwood full time and leave someone else in charge at DW. (I know they're bringing in Gary Russell, who was in charge of the Big Finish audios, over as script editor this season. He has a massive fondness for Gallifrey and alien planets, so maybe we'll see more!)
Nice!
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Date: 2006-09-20 01:06 am (UTC)Thanks! From here (http://empty-ambition.livejournal.com/42128.html).
I only know RTD from DW and Casanova, but in both instances, he's tended to go off the reservation. The last hour of Casanova has some seriously weird stuff that made me blink and say "Huh?!?" I still haven't figured out where it came from, because it sure isn't history!
Never saw Casanova. Probably won't from that description.
And with DW, I feel like he's already shown what little range he has, and is now running out of ideas--not that the ideas he's written himself have been all that fabulous. (A friend on another forum pointed out that a lot of "Doomsday" was basically like a little kid playing with his action figures, and I have to agree. Sure, you want kids to be able to watch, but a show with this much history shouldn't be constantly down on their level. Not when you want the adults to watch, too.)
Yeah. *sigh* What started me out with really digging this show was the whole "this is a different morality - get used to it or go home" thing. To me that's great science fiction: something that will take you out of your comfort zone or perceived social norm. Many times the show had an unsettling edge to it. But a lot of S2 seemed more going through the science fiction motions. Eh, I still watched and loved most of it because I was already hooked.
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Date: 2006-09-20 01:16 am (UTC)I've been hooked on DW for 20 years now, so the idea of it going downhill is literally painful. The morality of the show's always been quite consistent, until we got flaky mood-swings-on-a-dime!Ten, which is where my problem centrally lies. It got to where I'd watch each episode hoping that it would be the one without the "You won't thwart me!" egomania, and then it would inevitably appear and I'd be thinking "And....there it is. Sigh." I'd so hoped that the final scene with Harriet in TCI was a fluke (and I could deal with that if I'd thought he was right. But I don't). :(
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Date: 2006-09-20 02:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-20 02:12 am (UTC)I had such high hopes after TCI--writing off that last bit with Harriet as a fluke, which I clearly shouldn't have done. He was so much fun, though, otherwise--a little goofy, able to be serious when necessary, but that sense of wonder was fantastic. I watched it...I don't know how many times before the series started in April! And then they went and turned him into Mr Takes-Nothing-Seriously-Until-You-Cross-Me, and I'm still hoping they'll fix that next year. It made him almost impossible to watch, and that's a shame.
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Date: 2006-09-20 02:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-20 02:48 am (UTC)Oy. Yes.
Right. That was actually the episode that sold me on the show for the very reason of the great imagination.
Same here. "Rose," eh. TEotW, hell yeah.
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Date: 2006-09-20 02:48 am (UTC)I found it particularly interesting, though, that he says the ratings are always lower for unearthly eps. Hmmm. Might be sadly true--he probably has a point about the niche market of even Star Trek and Star Wars. I think, too, whether because we're scifi geeks or Americans we think of Doctor Who as science fiction, whereas to a lot of Brits I think it might be more fantasy-horror, closer to Buffy than Trek.
In any case, I have to say...I don't know that any alien planet could get me half as excited as I'm to know they shot part of the Shakespeare ep for next season at the Globe!
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Date: 2006-09-20 02:56 am (UTC)Casanova really worked for RTD though, I think. He has a very limited range--which consists, basically, of Buffy Lite--but he used it for good here. I think, honestly, that RTD finds it hard to meld interesting SF stories and the more emotional stories he really wants to tell, and he doesn't have to fight that here. He's funny one moment and then incredibly sad the next, and it works in ways that it doesn't (IMO) on DW.
And David Tennant is awesome in it. I think he probably suffers from poor directing on DW, and here he doesn't, and he really shines. (And he has an amazing rapport with Laura Fraser, which doesn't hurt.) And hell, if nothing else--it's gorgeously costumed and designed. :D
ITA with your whole second paragraph.
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Date: 2006-09-20 02:58 am (UTC)Man, I wish DoonaRose's Chem!Ten had been the real one...
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Date: 2006-09-20 04:56 am (UTC)And I'm totally out of the loop, and you've probably seen this ages ago, but.. woah (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/5271054.stm).
On the scrapped Rose spin-off: "It spoils Doctor Who if we can see Rose... if we see as a concrete fact that her life continues to be as exciting without the Doctor," he said.
!!!
We can't see her with her dignity and self-respect uncrushed! Woe!
Idiot.
And did people not like The Impossible Planet 2-parter? That was my favorite episode in the history of ever. I'm going to go to my happy place now, where everybody enjoys homages to Dante...
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Date: 2006-09-20 05:03 am (UTC)If Season Three isn't an improvement over S2, then I'm heading out the emergency door.
On the scrapped Rose spin-off: "It spoils Doctor Who if we can see Rose... if we see as a concrete fact that her life continues to be as exciting without the Doctor," he said.
Aguh...gah...ack. No, I hadn't seen that. I think I remember the kerfluffle over the spinoff itself, but I don't remember hearing about that quote. GAAAAAAAAAAH. *hate spirals up another notch*
We can't see her with her dignity and self-respect uncrushed! Woe!
She wails for eternity on a Norwegian beach!
And did people not like The Impossible Planet 2-parter? That was my favorite episode in the history of ever. I'm going to go to my happy place now, where everybody enjoys homages to Dante...
I don't understand this AT ALL. How can they not like two of the three best episodes of the season? How?
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Date: 2006-09-20 05:16 am (UTC)he says the ratings are always lower for unearthly eps
I just boggle at this. Are there really people out there who will watch a CGI werewolf or CGI Teacher!Bats, but can't deal with a spooky story set on a far-out space station?
Are they really that shallow?I think, too, whether because we're scifi geeks or Americans we think of Doctor Who as science fiction, whereas to a lot of Brits I think it might be more fantasy-horror, closer to Buffy than Trek.
I see what you're saying, I think. And yet something like TIP/TSP was superficially rather similar to some Buffy eps I've seen, so I still don't get the alien planets = bad meme. Star Trek forehead aliens, sure; I can see why people who automatically hate that kind of stuff would be turned off. (Much as I disagree with them. But that's another debate.) But it's not like DW has ever tried to make its aliens look very alien...
Shakespeare does sound excellent, though.
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Date: 2006-09-20 06:32 am (UTC)Ratings: People that shallow? I may believe people are capable of the best, but I never really underestimate their shallowness either, especially when it comes to TV. *snerk* And I think certainly in American TV, the sci fi stigma is pretty broad. I find it fascinating how Lost has managed to go so huge and so mainstream, because it pitched itself as a slightly weird survival drama and stays rooted in the people...they sneak the scifi elements in the back door, so people don't freak and run away like they do from Trek or Stargate...or even BSG, which itself does better than a lot of SciFi shows by avoiding aliens and minimalizing the robots. (Which is not knocking Lost, which I adore of course, just saying I find it interesting the little differences which make a show marketable.)
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Date: 2006-09-20 09:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-20 09:20 am (UTC)As much as I started to dislike RTD, we should be fair to him. The quote about the Rose spin-off is for real, though. I posted a more than slightly ranty post over at
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Date: 2006-09-20 09:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-20 11:25 pm (UTC)Climb out the roof hatch!
I really like DT's interpretation of the Doctor (unlike...everybody else ever? apparently?), but I think the season had waaay more potential than RTD knew what to do with. Maybe he'll get distracted and wander off...
GAAAAAAAAAAH
DITTOOOOOOOO.
She wails for eternity on a Norwegian beach!
All the cool kids are doing it!
How can they not like two of the three best episodes of the season? How?
What would you say the third is? Girl in the Fireplace? Because of its inherent awesomosity? Yeah, I worry about this fanbase...
Hey, I realized last week that now that I'm free of the chains of AOL, I can download new episodes THE NIGHT THEY COME OUT! And then we can mock them together without a week's delay on my part! When does season three start, anyway? Easterish?
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Date: 2006-09-21 03:32 pm (UTC)Yes, but my point is that it is possible to use that as an exeterior shot and tehn have a story set indoors on an alien planet, with aliens, taking the place of one of the many modern-day-Earth stories. I just feel like with Old Who--let's say Fourth or Fifth Doctor era, since I've seen the most of those--the ones set in 1970s or 1980s England were more special because they were rarer than they are now. (Maybe that's just the impression I've gotten with my scattershot viewing of them.)
Lost: Lost is sci-fi? Huh. Shows how well their marketing campaign is working, I suppose. ;)
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Date: 2006-09-21 03:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-21 03:36 pm (UTC)See, I can totally understand that. Now I want to know why the article didn't mention it. *g* Implying that it means people don't like alien planets is uncool.
*makes note to go read your rant*
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Date: 2006-09-21 03:39 pm (UTC)I like him, but sometimes he's just...too over the top. Or something. He was better in Casanova.
What would you say the third is? Girl in the Fireplace? Because of its inherent awesomosity?
Nah, that one has The Magic Mindmeld of Luuuurve working against it. My very favorite is School Reunion, because of my unabashed Sarah Jane love.
Yeah, I worry about this fanbase...
Sigh.
Hey, I realized last week that now that I'm free of the chains of AOL, I can download new episodes THE NIGHT THEY COME OUT! And then we can mock them together without a week's delay on my part!
Wheeeee!
When does season three start, anyway? Easterish?
Around then. Of course, there's the Christmas special, too.
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Date: 2006-09-21 03:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-22 12:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-22 08:25 pm (UTC)*waves Fandom Addiction Fairy wand* Watch it, watch it! *g*