QuantumMechanic

Yeah, he is RISD class of 2017 and the show was filming in the fall of 2018. So he’d have been out of school a bit over a year at that point. I think one of his problems is that (looking at stuff he has out there) he has been too true to himself and isn’t adapting to the requirements and aesthetics of the specific challenges. (Though even given that I don’t know where this week’s came from.)

I think Jamall's was clearly the worst one for this week. But I think they let him stay because this was his first time in the bottom three while Kovid has been camping out there.

It was Todt Hill Woodlands on Staten Island.

But did you only have somewhere between 8 and 20 hours to work on it?

According to Wikipedia, 6'2". So I guess Christian is a shrimp!

I know I'm a horrible person, but while we were watching my wife turned to me and said "His accent reminds me of something." I immediately replied "King Julian" as that had come to me several minutes before. She said "Oh my god! That's exactly it!"

That's why I want to see Chibnall defenestrated -- so we can get compelling stories and give Whitaker something good to act to so she can really shine. And in Season 11 "heavy-handed and preachy" took the brass ring. Repeatedly. Makes for crappy TV even if you like the politics.

We're back to TRESemmé and Maybelline. Also, this year the prize is $250,000 from Pilot and another $50,000 from Blueprint. Also, CFDA is one of the sponsors.

The New Statesman has a short piece that comes down very close to where I am: https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/tv-radio/2019/01/why-isn-t-jodie-whittaker-s-doctor-who-lead-character-her-own-damn-show "Actually, there are quite a lot of things bugging me: the endless telling not showing; the complete lack of subplots; the scenes with so many characters in that they look like a publicity shot of the Polyphonic Spree; the dialogue so on the nose that it makes you sneeze. But most of those are obvious, and they’ve been there all along, and either they bother you or they don’t, and if they don’t fair enough. Lucky you. There’s another, though, that it took me an embarrassingly long time to spot – although, in my defence, it is hidden behind both the blizzard of pre-season publicity and the single best thing about the entire season." His thesis is, of course, that the "another" thing is what the question in the headline asks.

To me it's not an issue about being political or not, it's how you do it. Something can be political, even very political, and still be good, interesting writing. And something can be political, even very political, and not be dropping supremely obvious and on-the-nose anvils all the time. I wish to god Chibnall would learn that if he's going to be continuing to make Doctor Who his personal soapbox.

We've decided to start re-watching Series 5 and last night's rewatch of "The Eleventh Hour" just drives home how far this season has fallen (and yes, I know that "The Beast Below" and "Victory of the Daleks" up next are nothing to write home about).

A thousand times "yes". Chibnall clearly cares more about politics than writing a good story (I'll be charitable and assume his ideologuing is sincere as opposed to just ass-kissing the zeitgeist). He doesn't seem to understand that it's possible to make people think and to teach them lessons without dropping anvils on them.

I wish they had brought in Bill in season 9. I wanted to watch Doctor Who, not Clara Who.

Reluctance, yes, but not ruling it out out of hand. After his original "Do I have the right?" angsting and then seeing again how bad Davros and the Daleks were, Four ultimately did decide to set off the bomb in the incubator room (though IIRC he had to abandon the wires before he could do it and the bomb was ultimately detonated by a Dalek running over the bare wires).

That's over the top. But the show certainly would be better without him. Keep Whittaker and Walsh, though!

The Chibnall part would be wonderful news if true (sadly, I doubt it). I'm liking Whittaker, but she'd be so much better with better scripts. (And unsurprisingly, the best shows of the season weren't written by Chibnall.)

Killing Tim Shaw would have been a nice change from the mindless pacifism of Chibnall (the only thing mindless pacifism does IRL is get lots and lots of people killed and Chibby's advocacy of it is yet another strike against him) and made people think.

Chris Chibnall says "Hi!"

Ugh. Vanilla straight line plot. And. So. Much. Talking. Still liking Thirteen. And Graham is such a find. But overall a “is anything going to happen?” non-entity of an episode. Well, it was written by Chibnall so I guess I should be thankful it wasn’t worse.

Chibnall has said it is using an American-style writers' room.

Still liking Thirteen and Graham quite a bit. (And how could you not like Ryan's shadow puppets!). But, sadly, Chibnall is fulfilling pretty much every (low) expectation I had of him. Also, I can understand the desire to get away from The Moff's twisty, overly-cleverish style, but I think they've gone way too far the other way.

After Ryan was assaulted and basically had his life threatened when they first showed up, after Rosa Parks told them about Emmett Till and warned them to leave or be very, very careful, after the cop confronting the crew in the hotel room, and the other similar things they went through before that scene -- it was idiocy.

That's not anvilicious. Neither would having having lots of marriages be same-sex or whatever (assuming you don't have some character commenting on it over and over, especially with a bunch of And As You Know, Bob stuff). What makes things anvilicious is stuff like crappy or forced on-the-nose dialog, forced actions, having characters do idiotic things so the writers Can Make Their Special Point (like taking two non-whites, one of whom is black, into a bar that has impossible-to-miss "Whites only" signs all over the outside so that you can set up some Meaningful Moment about what a horrible thing segregation is), and other similar things. In contrast, the scene where Ryan picks up the handkerchief and grabs the guy to give it back to him and gets slapped and threatened is not anvilicious (and is in fact quite good) because it's a natural action by Ryan and a natural action by people of that time and place.

Didn't make me uncomfortable at all. It was too boring to do that, for starters. I'm fine with didactic TV when it's done well.

Presumably human, yes. Though we don't know that for sure.