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truther

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Posts posted by truther

  1. I'm just watching this series now, sorry to be 4 years out of date 🙂.  Generally I like it, with a few quibbles (and I wish they'd stop shooting people in the head all the time).  But I just need to get off my chest that the decision to destroy Deimos strikes me as one of the most strategically idiotic ideas in human history.  I have no idea how anyone with even an ounce of common sense would possibly think it was a constructive thing to do, no matter their background or perspective, especially coming so soon after the Donnager.  It takes me out of the show to think that the people governing Earth are halfwits.  I'm kind of hoping Mars pulls a Starship Troopers and fires Deimos' remains back to Earth and destroys Buenos Aires or something.  

    Also that Martian gunney needs to get it together.  Her attitude to her superior officer is appalling.  

    And with all those scenes of Alex going through the simulation and but never succeeding even using the real data, I was expecting him to discover some kind of hidden flaw in the actual battle, like that the real stealth ship was on autopilot or that his display had been compromised -- something to suggest the assault was some kind of charade they'd been tricked into doing.  It's weird how sometimes on this show things are super convoluted and not as they appear, while other times just as simplistic as they seem at first glance.  

    Finally, loved Amos' pedophile insight specifically and his overall development generally.  This show's characters are a little hit or miss for me; Holden, for example, is very one-note and it's telling that they use scenes with his mom talking to Chrisjen to give him any depth.  He and Miller together remind me of some sweeps week network show awkwardly pairing people from different programs, like The Murder She Wrote Lady Visits Hawaii and Hires Magnum, p.i.  Amos, on the other hand, seems a really fleshed-out guy with a fascinating backstory.  

  2. Just finished this.  My post contains spoilers.  I really enjoyed it a lot but also agree with many of the criticisms people have offered here.  The show is at its best when Assane is doing one of his public schemes -- the Louvre heist, the (completely OTT) Belgian Congo lady, the delivery bike chase, etc.  When you sit back and think over some of the broader arcs, that's when things fall apart a bit.  Better not to think so hard and just enjoy the ride.  

    The whole idea of Assane as a master of disguise makes no sense.  Especially since the show makes racism and its dehumanization of people of color a recurring theme.  Guy's a big, handsome black man -- not one of those witnesses would ever have noticed subtle differences in his nose, cheekbones, eyebrows, or whatever other stuff he was manipulating through makeup.  He might as well change his shoelaces or sock color - nobody, literally nobody, in Assane's world would have cared.  Once Assane won the auction at the Louvre his cover was blown and his photo would have been everywhere.  Even on the TV show everyone would immediately have pegged him as Assane in makeup, just as we did.  

    It also seemed quite convenient that teenager Raoul suddenly turned into a Lupin fanatic just because his moderately estranged dad gave him the book to read at the start of the show.  

    Really surprised the prison nurse didn't have a photo on file of the prisoner Assane was supposed to be, let alone a medical file with things like height and weight; ditto the guards who would have escorted a shanked prisoner to and from the infirmary.  Nobody wondered who this guy was they'd never seen before?  

    I sympathized with Claire quite a bit.  Lots of people spend their lives in dysfunctional relationships trying to redeem somebody they suspect they'd be better without.  It's good to see her keep at it, though she's gonna be pissed when she finds out what Assane's hijinks have done to her son.  Maybe Chapter 2 will be titled "Can Pellegrini Kill Assane, Before Claire Gets to Him First?"

    • Love 6
  3. Maybe I'm taking this too seriously but isn't this the second week in a row the guest judge has been one of Chris' former students?  That's a real conflict that I don't think is fair to the other contestants.  Or, really, to Chris, even though I don't like his attitude very much.  (Witness his joke about how he should have given a better grade.)  

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  4. Glad to see this show again and I agree with everyone's comments above, even the ones that aren't entirely consistent (if that makes sense).  It seems like a good group of people and yeah, unfortunately it was pretty clear who was being sent home.  It's a real shame to come halfway across the globe for one 28-minute episode.  

    Hopefully Chris replays the episode in his mind and figures out that he's not as strong a contestant as he thinks he is.  

    I have to admit, though, to being a little intrigued they brought up gender issues again.  They covered that theme a lot last season.  The chief judge is obviously a woman and the first season winner was female and many (most?) of the assistants are women, so there seems to be quite a bit of representation in the field.  Plus the contestants largely seem to be on the more aware-end of the spectrum.  These aren't bros doing bro stuff with their bros, you know?  I honestly don't know anything about the glass blowing industry but it's never struck me as a [toxic] masculine profession and nothing about this show seems to suggest it would be.  Just wondering if anyone more familiar with the field can shed some light on why the show would have as a recurring theme the idea of women glass blowers fighting to be seen and heard?  Who's holding them back?  (And apologies if this has already been covered elsewhere.)

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  5. 17 hours ago, peachmangosteen said:

    I honestly don’t even think the person set out to kill her. It really seemed like it was an accident. I believe Cassie came at the person and that person pushed her off and then she fell backwards. I wish it would have been an actual attempted murder tbh.

     

    17 hours ago, Fireball said:

    True "hoodie" pushed Cassie and then she stubbled over the edge, so just an accident.  However, one would think Cassie falling from that height should be dead.... An attempted murder or murder would be more interesting. I don't know why I got it in my head that's what happened.

    I think I've just talked myself out of even finishing watching this.  

     

    15 hours ago, Mabinogia said:

    That's why you got it in your head, because it would be more interesting because if it's not murder, this is a show about a bunch of horrible people carrying on with their horrible lives after someone accidentally put one of their classmates in a coma. 

    Once I realized this wasn't a murder mystery, and it wasn't the love letter to ballet that Center Stage was, and it wasn't well acted or well written and I wasn't going to get great dancing I just went online to find out who the pusher was then when I was done. It did not inspire me to continue watching. 

    Uh oh, I think you all have started a rush for the exits!

    I watched a couple more episodes last night and it doesn't get better.  In fact it makes less sense now that it did before.  

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  6. I've made it through this ep so far.  Agree with the general tone of the comments -- I can't tell if this show is bad, or so bad it's good.  The only things keeping me interested are the ballet, my need to know who did it, and the location shots of Chicago.  

    A few specific issues in no particular order:

    1. As the show moves on the editing seems to be favoring the actors who can actually act.  The actor playing Bette is lightyears ahead of some of the other kids, and I wonder if they didn't adjust the storylines accordingly.  

    2. The Gossip Girl-esque voiceover narrations are really weird, because half the time they don't actually add anything.  There'll be this broody, moody show for half an hour and then suddenly somebody else starts talking about random ballet stuff, but it doesn't contribute to the plot in any way.  They should replace it with some middle-aged guy talking about socks one time just to see if anyone's paying attention.  

    3. The "conversations" in this show drive me crazy.  Every single interaction ends when somebody drops a snide comment and then walks away, while the other person stands there silently (or walks back into their bathroom stall).  Every single time.  

    4. Neveah's kind of a selfish brat,  Her dad's dead, her brother's in a wheelchair, her mom's in jail, and she's pissed about how it affects her dancing.  You know who else in her family has trouble dancing?

    5. Everybody is so uniformly awful to everybody else (with maybe one or two exceptions) it's hard to believe they can even function in society.  I was actually laughing when June confessed to the random guy at the bar because for a moment I thought this show was going to go in a very interesting direction -- where their insular ballet world was utterly dysfunctional and sociopathic but outside that bubble was a real world of normal people.  

    • Love 10
  7. We caught this last night.  It was hilarious!  So many great lines and scenes and the actors clearly all seem to have a great time being with each other.  Especially loved the "revolting" slime.  Why would anybody put that in a trifle to begin with?

    Does anybody know why Prue was in crutches?  

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  8. Nice little interview with Laura in the Guardian today.  Pretty standard stuff -- she chooses to accentuate the positives and not bother with the social media trolls -- but good to know she's doing well.  And she really likes Matt Lucas.  My personal favorite bit was about Dave wanting all the other bakers to do his wedding cake.  

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  9. On 11/29/2020 at 10:37 AM, valen said:

    It also doesn't seem to make sense that the characters keep interacting with known or suspected killers. It's dumb and too dark for the series. This series works best as romantic comedy with some light drama. The scenes with Mel and Jack that focus on their relationship, her grief, and his PTSD work the best. The drug stuff is just too dark and is jarring compared to the scenery and the rest of the storylines.

     

    On 11/29/2020 at 12:07 PM, dubstepford wife said:

    Okay I'm back, courtesy of a lot of fast-forwarding.  I'm not sure if I watched a single Ricky/Lizzie scene.  

    Speaking of evil twins, wow @valen is right...Charmaine was all over the place.  One minute thanking Mel, the next yelling at her for "stealing" Jack, lather rinse repeat, all season long.  I figure the writers, when inevitably called out for that, are going to blame pregnancy hormones, which I guess isn't entirely wrong, but still.  That seems like a very convenient excuse for bad writing.

    I'm going to watch Season 3, but not because I think this show is good (which I legit thought it was after Season 1).  It's become a trashy soapy guilty pleasure.  

    I just finished this season and had the same reaction.  What started out as a light drama/romantic comedy turned into a dark and depressing slog about evil drug dealers.  It's got to be one or the other and if they're going to try to high-wire both types of storylines, they need better writers.  I simply don't give two craps about Charmaine's birth plan or whether Lizzie baked the pies or if Muriel is moving in on Doc if this is really a show about Jack crying, alone, over a fallen soldier or drug dealers driving their new recruit out into the forest to murder a snitch and bury his body.  It would be like Schindler's List having a side story about one of the concentration camp guards trying to get a clown for his daughter's birthday party.  

    Plus it didn't seem like anyone changed.  As others have mentioned these characters kept doing the same stupid stuff over and over again.

    By amazing coincidence a lot of people here have mentioned how they fast forwarded through the dumb parts.  So I wish Ricky and Lizzie all the best with whatever it is they've decided to do because I, also, didn't bother watching that part and finding out.

    • Love 6
  10. 3 hours ago, festivus said:

    I still like Laura and out of everyone this year, I most want to eat hers and Hermine's food. 

    This is what many of the people criticizing Laura and questioning her presence in the final seem to overlook.  The judges consistently raved about her food.  It was always delicious.  Not, "yeah it looks like crap but it's tasty enough," but rather "this is some of the best ___ I've ever had."  Laura clearly had a problem with organization, and she was a bit more dramatic than some of the other bakers, but the judges clearly seemed to love her finished products as much as anyone's.  I personally liked seeing things like Peter's understated "I'm allowing myself to feel slightly stressed," or whatever he said at one point, but let's be honest that's not riveting TV.    

    This show has had annoying contestants for years.  I'm happy that this season I liked everyone and enjoyed watching all of them.  Honestly I couldn't always say that.  

    • Love 21
  11. 3 minutes ago, irisheyes said:

    They can’t use Bake Off in the US. Pillsbury has trademarked it. 

    But they still refer to the British name in various places.  You can see the "real" name in the trophy they award, and you also hear it in at least one of the family videos they showed.  (I don't remember who, I think it was Laura's dad?  He was proud of her being on "Bake Off")  

    It's also odd that they would re-write the text for the US version and literally change the facts.  Either Peter's flatmates knew he was on the show or they didn't.  It's not that hard to get it right.  

    Anyway, good to see Peter win but I realized I was rooting for Dave.  Glad he did really well, and being locked down in a tent for 6 or 7 weeks while your wife is expecting is a very big sacrifice.  

    • Love 11
  12. I knew Hermine was going home and was not surprised at all when they announced it.  She had a bad week, didn't do anything particularly well, and made a showstopper that was ugly and inedible.  When everyone else does better . . . it's simple math.  Sorry to see her go.

    The points @dbell1 and other people are making up thread about Laura and social media are absolutely right and need to be emphasized.  These are ordinary people we're talking about, who like to bake and seem generally lovely and agreed to do a show that millions of people love to watch.  You and I are watching an entire weekend distilled down to 55 minutes of carefully edited footage.  I will gleefully mock somebody like Rudy Giuliani, who willingly debases himself, but I cannot comprehend why anyone would actually attack, even just on social media, these GBBO bakers who have literally done nothing wrong to anyone.  If you hate somebody because her mirror glaze didn't go on her cube cake properly you have serious issues.

    Which segues into another interesting edit from this episode, which was Laura talking about how much she loves Matt after Matt had given her a Mel/Sue-esque pep talk.  I got the real sense this week they edited the episode to, uh, humanize Matt a bit, almost as though they were responding to viewer feedback that he simply annoyed people.  Which leads me to second what @AZChristian just said, that these people are really nice to each other.  That's always been the best thing about this show.  

    My prediction for the final - Dave pips it.  Laura will be in the running until something goes horribly wrong, and Peter will screw something up in the signature and get rattled.  

    • Love 19
  13. On 11/13/2020 at 8:31 AM, Llywela said:

    The showrunner really doesn't have as much control over the number of episodes ordered as you think. It's more about budget and production schedules, most of which is out of the showrunner's hands. He plays a part in the negotiation, but does not get the final say.

    The show has skipped years before Chibnall, for various reasons. The episode count started to be reduced before Chibnall took over. He can be held accountable for the quality of the show as written by him, but not for decisions made by the BBC for budgetary and scheduling purposes - or, in this case, for reasons dictated by a global pandemic. Let us just be thankful they are managing to film any episodes at all (and maybe keep our hopes up for the quality? or is that too much to hope for?).

    I don't know . . . in the last three years they've aired 20 episodes and one special.  Meanwhile the Great British Baking Show managed to do an entire full season during the lockdown.  I know it's apples to oranges, but at some point Who's scarcity really becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.  Nobody misses a show they never see.  

    • Love 1
  14. I'm surprised by the near-consensus in these comments.  People are making some great points, but it's disappointing to see so many people not liking this season overall.  I agree Paul is overrepresented, that some of the most charismatic bakers have been kicked off the past few weeks, and that Noel and (especially) Matt aren't quite clicking, but it's still great TV for me.  

    I like all of the bakers.  There's no drama, nobody whose presence on the screen irritates me, no manufactured crises like somebody taking somebody else's bake out of the freezer and "forgetting" to put it back.  

    Noel and Matt have to work on their act a bit.  To me this seems to beg the question of how the quarantine is affecting the show.  Matt doesn't seem to be connecting with the bakers -- other than announcing how much time is left, he just shows up in a scene and annoys the bakers, then disappears again.  Being stuck with a guy like that for weeks on end would irritate the heck out of me.  Noel had great chemistry with Lottie and is struggling without her and Mark, who seemed like one of those awesome guys who laughs at everything.  Lottie's departure really left a mark.  

    Count me among the handful who thought that Sussex Pond pastry with cream looked delicious.  I'll bet it's awesome when cooked properly.  (*Shakes fist at Prue*)

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  15. 6 hours ago, Mabinogia said:

    I doubt she would have known that. She was an orphan in the 60s . . . I don't think she would have been better off, but I can see a teenager who has lived a shitty life wondering what it would have been like, just for a moment, to live somewhere that would have encouraged and nurtured her talent rather than make her fight for it every moment. Again, this is coming from her POV which is that the Russians help each other out and are sponsored by their country . . . .

    This is much closer to how I see it, too.  I tried to be crystal clear that in suggesting that Beth wanted to defect, I was talking about her POV, rather than some objective notion that the USSR in 1968 was a nice place to live or that Beth moving there would be a good idea.  Hell, you couldn't pay me to live in Russia now, forget 50 years ago.  

    But having said that -- and now I feel like I'm back in college -- I honestly think you can solidly deconstruct this show to argue that it is, at best, ambiguous about which side in the Cold War was the "right" side.  There's so much symbolism, and so many little things, that combine to undercut the idea that Beth is lucky to be an American.  From her perspective, as a prodigy who lives for chess, she's arguably better off somewhere else.  Her mom got no help from society and killed herself.  At the orphanage she had to sneak down to the basement to play chess with the weird outsider guy.  Beth's only foray into "normal" high school life was with the Apple Pie club or whatever they were called, and they turned out to be vacuous idiots, backed up by her later running into Margaret whose best days were behind her.  Beth's adopted mom couldn't do anything with her classical piano training and only found (fleeting) happiness when she left the US for Mexico.  Her adopted dad only wanted money.  Beth was lost in Kentucky, and went to Las Vegas (symbol of American material excess) only to lose to the Russian.  She met a child prodigy who was just like her (literally -- neither had been to a drive-in) but was supported instead of ostracized.  The glamorous French model whom Beth lusts after literally talks about how she is an empty vessel for materialism, and she ends up sabotaging Beth's Paris contest with the Russians.  Beth finally wins by giving all that up in a place that would have encouraged her interest rather than lampooned it.  Etc. etc.

    You can say the show glossed over all the real problems with life behind the Iron Curtain, like the fact that Soviet tanks were rolling through Prague pretty much as the Moscow tournament was going on.  But the show doesn't talk about Vietnam, or the Civil Rights movement, either, even though it starts in Kentucky and goes to college campuses and flies Beth around the world.  And every time the outside world tries to impose its Cold War ideology on Beth, she resists, whether it's at the orphanage, or the school, or with the Jesus people, or the media, or from the State Department/CIA.  She doesn't just hop out of the car to play chess on the Moscow streets - she does it right after the CIA handler gives her her talking points for the trip back to DC.  Total repudiation.  And she's happy for it.  

    • Love 12
  16. On 10/26/2020 at 8:15 PM, Neurochick said:

    This was a limited series, it was never going to have a season 2.  It had to end.  I think it was the best ending.  I mean it would have sucked if it ended with her dying drunk in an alley.  I think because there is so much darkness on TV these days, it's hard to accept a nice, simple story.  There always has to be something behind it, like the janitor had to be an abuser or something, or something terrible was going to happen because that's the shit we've been fed on TV and movies.

    Agreed.  I loved this show and I really loved this final episode.  Nobody got shot.  There was no terrible secret that revealed a hidden world of abuse that was worse than anything we could have imagined.  There weren't shadowy figures more powerful than you knew whose reveal will shock us.  Those endings would have been cop-outs because that's what every formulaic show does nowadays.  Instead we got a beautiful story about imperfect people trying their best to make sense of their lives.  Even the awesome Jolene, when she returned, they made a very specific meta point of saying she wasn't the Black Guardian Angel cliche but instead somebody Beth had helped just as much as the other way around.   

    On 10/27/2020 at 10:40 PM, AttackTurtle said:

    I loved this show.  I was very happy with how they humanized the Russians.  It started with the young boy she initially played and then they kept it up.  She always credited the janitor, but the publications chose not to include it in their stories about her. But man, when she saw his wall of her stories in the basement, I was like it’s about damn time you remembered that wonderful man.

    So much was packed into the last episode, but I loved it.  I also loved that the story didn’t go the predictable route of her being corrupted by guys.  Her adoptive mom was a head fuck for sure, but that relationship meant something to both of them at the end. 

    And this doesn’t really need to be said but the hair/makeup/wardrobe people all deserve Emmys.  

    Again, agreed entirely.  I think that scene of Beth finding Mr. Scheibel's scrapboard, and then crying over the photo, was the single most powerful part of the whole series.  And the Russians were great.  @tennisgurl mentioned the Einstein-y guy, and his reaction of genuine warmth and pleasure at having lost to the person he considered the best chess player in the world.  Just a great scene.  

    18 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

    I am so happy that we circled back to Beth's bio mom, the orphanage, and Mr. Scheibel as Beth become the world champion. I really loved this show and I thought that the ending was great.

    I especially loved her growing fan club in the USSR and how much everyone was rooting for her, and as weird as it is that she decided to just wander the streets back to the airport, I am glad that we ended where we started, with just a regular game of chess. The happy ending felt really earned to me, so I was happy to leave on such a high note. 

    I really liked how the Beth's competitors were portrayed. . . .The talk between her and the older master with the Einstein hair was especially sweet, and even Borgov gave her a full hug after she won. . . .I also loved how supportive the other woman she played back in her first match was, and how she even came back to see her later and wish her luck in her future matches. 

    I did expect to see a bit more of the cold war politics to show up . . . .She just wants to play chess and doesn't really care much about the greater international ideological implications of her games. 

    So maybe this is a crazy thought, but did anyone else think Beth is going to defect?  There was a distinct theme through this show about the value of community over American individualism.  The State Department wouldn't even help pay for her trip then sent a CIA guy to tell her what to do and say, and she blew him off.  She blew off the anti-communist Jesus people.  She doesn't care about geopolitics.  She gets to Russia and sees ordinary people on the street playing chess, ordinary people following the chess tournament, ordinary people working together and cheering her on.  I imagined Beth getting out of that car at the end not for a short game on the way to the airport, but because she's finally found her happy place.  Fancy clothes and glamour got her Cleo and waking up drunk in a bathtub.  Hard work and sobriety got her the world championship and the sincere admiration of her chess rivals.  If she goes back to the US she meets the president and spews Cold War talking points at Georgetown parties.  If she stays in Moscow she plays chess with the best chess players in the world (and looks phenomenal doing it).  When Borgov said "I expect to die playing chess," or words to that effect, wasn't Beth jealous?  

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    • Love 12
  17. I tried to watch this with my kids but I just can't.  I can't.  I appreciate that it's really just a soap opera in space, but honestly if you told me I'd somehow missed the opening 5 minutes where it was explained that these people were all pulled at random off the street at the last minute to replace the real mission crew who'd been kidnapped, I would believe you.  

    • LOL 4
  18. 15 hours ago, Irlandesa said:

    But home bakers also don't have to cook and frost their cakes in three hours.  If the cake is still warm because it's hot outside, the cake gets to sit a bit longer until it's cool. 

    Yep.  For a couple years now I've wished they'd throw in an all-weekend challenge, where on Saturday morning they tell the bakers "take all the time you need, just have it ready by tomorrow evening."  As things stand it can get quite gimmicky when they bake something then throw it in the freezer so they can get the frosting or whatever on in time without it melting.  

    • Love 4
  19. 4 hours ago, GaT said:

    How can so many bakers screw up making brownies? People need to stop trying to come up with an all new version of whatever they're making & concentrate on baking a perfect version of what they're making.

    This got me wondering about the Covid bubble they're all in.  These bakers are spending vastly more time together than the bakers normally do on this show.  Everybody used to go home during the week and they'd come back to the tent each weekends.  I wonder whether all that time together is going to start having an effect on how they decide what and how to bake each week.  

    Other than that it's been good.  Except this was the first week I found myself agreeing with the people criticizing Matt.  I didn't think he really brought much to the episode, other than the same "make fun of Paul and Prue" joke he told half a dozen times.    

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  20. Yeah Netflix US definitely added the Boris cold open -- it wasn't there last night.  It's very funny, and if it followed a real Boris address then No. 10 probably wasn't happy.  And I'm with Paul Hollywood in the "scone"/"scon" debate.  They're "scons."  

    The showstopper really was straight out of Nailed It! but you know what, I think it worked really well.  Part of this show's great charm is the fact that the contestants generally seem so relatable, so having them largely mess up in the first round the way normal people baking at home would do, was refreshing, in a good way.  They all seem like nice people.  

    Also, and maybe I'm just reading way to much into it, but I noticed that in the shot of them all walking to the tent the morning after Sura knocked over Dave's cakes, Dave was walking alone, in front of Sura who was with at least 2 other people.  Yeah, that shot could have been taken anytime, but I sort of got the sense he was alot more po'd than the show let on.  Which isn't surprising, frankly, and I hope everyone was cool about it.  

    • Love 2
  21. On 3/4/2020 at 10:13 AM, DanaK said:

    Now that we are a few days past the finale, here are my thoughts and rankings (out of 10) for the Series 12 episodes. Just to note, I’m reluctant to give out 10s very often, which is why I give some fractions close to 10 and why there’s only one real 10

    * * *

    All in all, it was a really enjoyable season for me, several steps up from Series 11. It seems like the cast and crew had more confidence and the Doctor showed her darker side and had more heartbreak and pressure that she didn’t have in Series 11.

    The Doctor was more front and center this season than last and Jodie really shined. Sacha was a wonder as the Master and he and Jodie really played well off each other. The Lone Cyberman was a great villain, probably second behind the Master. Mandip was allowed to do more this season and gave Yaz some solid stuff, including some recklessness. I thought the companions as a whole were used better plot wise, though I do think 3 is too many to get a good handle on them individually

    Thanks to some recent flights on Delta, where for some reason they had the final four episodes from season 11, I had a chance to re-watch those episodes plus most of this season.  They've done some really good work with Jodie's Doctor.  My ratings would generally be a step lower than yours across the board -- 7s and 8s instead of 9s and 10s -- but I agree that Orphan 55 and Praxeus were the weakest in a season that otherwise soared pretty high.  

    My main complaints are about the show's structure.  I don't think the companions have really added much at all.  They're like the characters in the new Star Wars or Marvel movies, just sort of moving from one scene to the next without really growing or changing in any way.  Yaz, after two seasons, is just getting up the courage to do what Amy or Donna did after 10 minutes.  Ryan, in particular, is just kind of this guy who occasionally says or does something to advance the plot.  The companions have this recurring bit where they try to challenge the Doctor and she tells them to know their place because she's all old and broody and whatnot, and it seems like they've had that scene 3 or 4 times.  Even Graham, my favorite of the three, is kind of just running in place.  

    I also wish they could produce more episodes.  Twenty in three years is pretty weak.  

    But I've decided, on reflection, that I liked the ending to this season.  I'm instinctively somebody who wants things to stay as they are, so I'm not happy about the Timeless Child storyline or Gallifrey being destroyed, but the show actually pulled it off really well, with nuggets in the earlier episodes and some great possibilities going forward.  Sacha was incredible.  I'm happy about what they did this year.  

    • Love 4
  22. 2 hours ago, AudienceofOne said:

    I actually HATE this and it's a really common trope in, particularly, the American superhero genre. The writer enables the lead to be a snowflake while ensuring the dirty work happens anyway. If the Doctor's morality is enabled only by having somebody else come in to pull the trigger for her than the Doctor's morality is meaningless. 

    In this the Doctor refused to press the button but ten seconds later merely handed the button to somebody else and walked away. The idea she's now somehow free of that act is laughable. 

    My thoughts exactly.  When you have other people do your dirty work for you, you are still just as culpable.  "But I hired a hit man so I wouldn't have to kill anyone!" isn't a defense that will get you very far.  

    I thought the episode was technically sound -- (mostly) well paced, tight, coherent -- but left me scratching my head.  Backstories are generally pointless, because they take away the mystery and, as a result, make things more pedestrian. 

    And after two seasons I think it's time to call time on Yaz and Ryan.  Graham I like, and I'd like to see him hook up with what's-her-name the future fugitive.  But the other 2/3s of The Fam have had more than enough time to do something, anything, beyond make a few faces and serve as an occasional plot device and they really haven't.  You could have edited them out of this episode entirely and easily compensated for it.  

    • Love 4
  23. 23 hours ago, DanaK said:

    I really liked this. It was a good historical, spooky, funny, and wrapped in with Cyberman stuff. Plus we got a cold open

    I appreciated that we (or I for sure) could see what was going on in spite of it being night most of the time. According to the director's comments in Doctor Who Magazine, they used candlelight for light and bought special lenses for the cameras to let in more light.

    Glad you mentioned this!  I thought the lighting was fantastic -- no obvious electric lights on set, just the candles to make things really look the way they would have back in 1816.  Well done show.

    Also loved the skeleton hand,  Glad it went straight for Ryan's throat, possibly to shut him up (and save his life?).  Too bad about the dead servants but thank goodness the main characters decided, for once, to acknowledge the background characters who didn't make it.

    If every episode were of this quality I'd be a satisfied Doctor Who watcher.  It's been years, I think, since they've come anywhere near something like Midnight but I'll take what I can get.

    Though really, who tries to crash a small private party emptyhanded?    I had a very hard time believing our friends would have been accepted the way they were.  If they had at least shown up with a case of fine Italian wine or something I could have bought it.  

    • Love 5
  24. 7 minutes ago, DanaK said:

    Yaz and the officer agreed in the flashback that Yaz would pay her 50 pounds (about 63 US dollars) in 3 years if her feelings changed in that time. Yaz visited her and gave her a coin. Was that meant to be 50 pounds or something else?

    I thought the officer said she'd pay Yaz 50 pounds, but that if Yaz came around then she'd only have to pay back 50 pence.   That's the coin Yaz handed over at the end.  It's why the officer said Yaz was getting good odds.  

    • Useful 2
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