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Post 2 of 3: Reactions to Doctor Who
No plot talk, and not a lot to say either; there are moments of glee (Rory gets the best line EVER in "In all fairness, the universe did explode") and moments of "okay, now you're both setting up and paying off distant plot points."
But on the whole, I found it choppy and unsatisfying. Yes, I know it's an unfinished story; it's most likely not going to be resolved until the end of the season. The whole season, not the mini season.
And wow, is that a British view of America. I'm more amused than anything else, but the entire country isn't really vast, paranoid, and gun happy.
ETA: Spoilers in comments
But on the whole, I found it choppy and unsatisfying. Yes, I know it's an unfinished story; it's most likely not going to be resolved until the end of the season. The whole season, not the mini season.
And wow, is that a British view of America. I'm more amused than anything else, but the entire country isn't really vast, paranoid, and gun happy.
ETA: Spoilers in comments
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I confess I laughed most at 'Legs, Nose & Mrs Robinson' / 'I hate you'... *snickers*
(Reminds me, I need to get a good cap of River in her jeans for icon purposes because DAMN does she look mighty fine in them!)
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Come to think of it, America is actually vast. Just not vast and empty like *that.* (Although "name the shooting spot" was turning into a bit of a party game. Hello, Hoover Dam!)
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America's certainly vast compared to little old Britain!
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Same here. I wrote on my blog this morning that the script was Moffat doing his best Brannon Braga. "The Impossible Astronaut" had the aimlessness of a late Star Trek: Voyager or a Star Trek: Enterprise episode. It's easily Moffat's weakest Doctor Who script.
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I hold enough faith that in retrospect it's going to get better, when joined up to other episodes. But as a standalone, its only real attraction is in introducing the silence (meh) and a general attitude of "How ya gonna get out of that one, Batman?"
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My main problem there is when the Doctor brings young Kazran forward into the future to meet his old self, because that should blow a major hole in everything we'd seen over the previous forty-five minutes. The Doctor had already rewritten Kazran's life. Now, he's rewritten it again, only we don't get to see how Kazran's life unfolds in this new version of history.
I hold enough faith that in retrospect it's going to get better, when joined up to other episodes.
In spite of my negative reaction to the episode, I agree with this. Months down the road, after the thirteenth episode, we'll go, "Ah-ha! That's how it all fits together!"
But as a standalone, its only real attraction is in introducing the silence (meh) and a general attitude of "How ya gonna get out of that one, Batman?"
I applaud Moffat for having enough confidence in his audience and his position that he feels that he can start the season off with a rather incident-free episode. Yet, I also don't feel hooked by what I saw.
Without seeing the second part, I don't know what could have made this first part structured better and more engaging. I feel like we needed to see more of the Silents. I also feel that we needed something that suggested that they're bad/threatening (other than evaporating Joy, because that seemed completely random) and that they have a plan that the Doctor must thwart. I can understand why the episode ends with the astronaut (because we'd seen an astronaut do bad things at the beginning), but I don't feel a connection between the Silents and the mystery surrounding the little girl. Maybe there's ultimately not a connection and these two plots will run in parallel.
Based on the rapturous reactions to the London and New York premieres, I wonder if the BBC erred by not showing the episodes as a two-hour season premier.
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I can.
1) More of the buildup of The Silence as a villain (as opposed to an event of some sort) through the last season.
2) Not solving the problem of the big bad by the end of this episode. That whole "You're under hostile occupation and don't know it/problem solved!" *really* bothered me.
3) Fewer smash cuts in the cull and capture scenes and a more organic shift than "suddenly three months later/next breath new scene/next breath new scene" set of transitions.
4) More of a buildup to the little girl/Amy being told she will bring the Silence into the world/the pregnancy whatever at the end.
I think the BBC SERIOUSLY erred in not having a 2-hour premiere, although frankly I can't imagine what he can do in hour 2 that will make hour 1 come across less like plot notes and more like a plot.
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I'm glad I have enough knowledge of the characters from the last season to expect payoff this season, but, yeah, VERY weak script, IMHO. Plot notes vs plot is an excellent description.
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Still. Meh!
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Or, really, any build-up of the Silents as a villain. Other than vaporizing Joy and acting menacing toward Amy in one scene, the Silents were just creepy aliens.
Over on Outpost Gallifrey, someone quotes Moffat as saying during Confidential that "What the Silents represent is a far, far bigger deal." Really, Moffat? I wish Moffat had gone to some effort in this episode to make the Silents any sort of deal.
Yes, it is a clever narrative conceit to have a "big bad" that the audience knows about but the characters don't, which is why I'm coming around to the idea that Moffat really needed to end the episode with the characters unambiguously recognizing and remembering the Silents than Amy shooting at a space-suited girl. (Which, by the way, I'm not convinced is real — a little girl wouldn't fit in that suit.)
As it is, the more I think about this episode, the more I feel like it was a wasted hour. I don't feel like the story has started yet. And that makes me think about the classic piece of editorial advice — if your story starts on page ten, you throw out pages one through nine. They may be cool scenes, they may have fantastic character moments, but if they're not in service to your plot, they're unwanted and unnecessary.
I need to stop thinking about "The Impossible Astronaut."
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I have to watch the confidential and find out if it's The Silents or The Silence. I kinda dig the second, so until corrected...
But regardless, WTF with "Our planet was taken over by the Silence" and "The Silence is coming"? We've just had proof that you don't actually *know* when your planet is taken over and apparently the Silence has been there for forever and a day, so it's hardly com*ing* unless -- and oh, lordy, someone has probably already done it - there's Rule 34 fic out there already.
I wish Moffat had gone to some effort in this episode to make the Silents any sort of deal.
Seriously! Lookie, big bad! All gone now.
My problem is, the more I think about it, the more the problems with it overwhelm what I enjoyed about the episode. Which is, alas, pretty much how I feel about last season too.
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An observation about that.
River is clearly proficient enough with a gun that she can safely shoot the Stetson off the Doctor's head.
But she can't hit someone in a spacesuit lumbering away in the water? The astronauts couldn't move for crap in those spacesuits. River should have easily taken down the astronaut. That assumes that River wanted to take down the astronaut.
Thus, I have to wonder if River wasn't deliberately missing the target.
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If they start portraying the average American that way--someone at the diner, say--then I'll be annoyed.
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And despite the episode being a bit choppy it places, it was deliciously good fun!
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Shots taken from Vegas to the Grand Canyon and back, plus the route from Vegas to Zion National Park.
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Trust me, get across the Mississippi, and the country is indeed ridiculously vast and desolate
I've made my point badly. Yes, huge chunks of the country look like that. My point was that it's not What America Looks Like any more than the Maine coast or the midwest farmland or LA is. They're all equally What America Looks Like, which tends not to be at all What The Rest of America Looks Like.
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I resorted to telling people I lived a two hour drive south of Canada.. straight in the middle. :)
UK locations tend to be London or some quaint little village with a massive pub.
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What's starting to amuse me is that London or the village with the pub tends to be played by Cardiff, it seems, while both NY and LA are so often played by Vancouver.
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I'm not sure this episode would have drawn me to see more if it were the first one I'd ever seen, but as I read the comments above I kept thinking of Straczynski saying to people who criticized episodes of Babylon 5 that they should trust him because they had NO idea what he was building up to. That said, it may be more of an issue if it's the first episode of a season and you're trying to pull in new viewers... but Who seems to be enough of a cultural phenomenon by now that it may not need hordes of new viewers.
Aren't Apollo astronauts pretty much always positive figures, or am I just showing my age? It seemed weird to have a scary, murderous astronaut (granted, the suit was a bit off).
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Point.
I kept thinking of Straczynski saying to people who criticized episodes of Babylon 5 that they should trust him because they had NO idea what he was building up to
Which never entirely convinced me back in the day. Just because he was building up to something big didn't mean that he didn't also turn out clunkers now and then.
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lol no worries. I know what you mean, but I am used to the western half of the country...vast expanses of breath taking beautiful nothing. Even California...the heaviest populated state in the country has areas like I described in my comment.
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haha, what part of america are you from?
oh well I LOVED IT and must say i did not find it choppy in the least. ("the pandorica opens" -- now that was choppy as hell and still is, even on a rewatch, but enjoyable nonetheless).
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(and yah i'm from the northeast too, though i've lived in plenty of stats, including palces where it is perfectly legal to carry around a loaded gun in your purse as you shop at target).