Which Who story have you watched in 2011?

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Kieran
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Which Who story have you watched in 2011?

Post by Kieran »

Yes, tell us each time you watch a Who story in 2011.

Tell us what it is, and even a little opinion on how good/bad/meh/timeywhimey it was.

I have started the year with the 2 part tale: The Time Of Angels.

My second favourite of Matt's debut year. An awesome tale. 8)
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JamesA
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Re: Which Who story have you watched in 2011?

Post by JamesA »

Incidentially, I have just finished watching the episode that introduced us to the Angels.... Blink.

Also worth pointing out that it featured Tennant quoting "timeywhimey", but more importantly is that to me it has lost absolutely none of its fear factor nearly 4 years since it was first shown.
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Re: Which Who story have you watched in 2011?

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Just re-watching The Beast Below. Really noticing just how bow-legged Matt Smith is. Bow-tie and bow-legs, works a dream.
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Re: Which Who story have you watched in 2011?

Post by Kieran »

JamesA wrote:Incidentially, I have just finished watching the episode that introduced us to the Angels.... Blink.

Also worth pointing out that it featured Tennant quoting "timeywhimey", but more importantly is that to me it has lost absolutely none of its fear factor nearly 4 years since it was first shown.

Absolutely! Blink will probably remain an all-time favourite of mine. It feels fresh each time I decide to pay it a revisit.

I haven't had much time to watch...anything, really. However I did pick up the new DVD release of Meglos, and gave that a viewing.

Always been a strange one for me as it doesn't fit in with any other story in the season...But it is a watchable tale, even if there's nothing to majorly recommend.
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Re: Which Who story have you watched in 2011?

Post by HStorm »

Currently re-watching The Next Doctor. It's a really good concept for a story, and David Morrissey offers a wonderfully sympathetic portrayal of Jackson Lake. What a shame the episode doesn't focus on him more. In many ways it would have been so much better if the Cybermen and that ridiculous ode-to-gargantuanness-ending had been left out of it altogether. Meanwhile Miss Hartigan is yet another smug, ultra-relaxed-sounding femme fatale who seems to have a never-ending supply of peaceful-looking smiles to bestow while the masses are dying around her. There seems to be at least one female character with that exact personality every season.

In the scenes with Morrissey, David Tennant gives one of his best performances here, properly careful and restrained, without the silly bug-eyes and throbbing neck yelling that he was prone to going for with weaker scripts.

One of RTD's better efforts with the pen, but the grotty, over-the-top scenes with the giant Cyberman spoil it hugely, once again emphasising the writer's lazy habit of contrivance and undeveloped plot-resolutions. In this genre, he couldn't carry a coherent plot if it was strapped to his back.

Still the bits that are good are very good, and it was easily the best of the Xmas specials up to that point, so... 7/10. Though only just.
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Re: Which Who story have you watched in 2011?

Post by HStorm »

This morning I've gone back to the mid-80's and watched The Caves Of Androzani. Peter Davison's final hour as the Doctor and surely his finest, although the script cheats somewhat to get the absolute best out of him; it's clear from the Doctor's snappier dialogue and more assured behaviour that it was written with Tom Baker in mind. The Fourth Doctor was always a more pro-active and self-confident figure than the slightly breathless charmer of his fifth incarnation, and that clearly does wonders for Davison's own confidence.

In any event, it's a brilliant story, the best of the 80's by a significant leap. It's brutal, subtextual, insightful, and has a cynical edge that the modern series in all its self-aware quip-heavy zaniness would never dare to imitate. The characters are a cast of opportunistic, morally-bankrupt achilles-heels, everyone on both sides of the Spectrox conflict clearly out only for themselves. Even Sharaz Jek, the scarred idealist, is more consumed in angry self-pity and his dangerous lust for Peri than he is in altruistic aims. Morgus and Stotz are two of the most ruthless, greedy and animalistic villains the series ever gave us, and even a less hideous figure like Salateen finds time to laugh at his impending survival when he realises that the Doctor and Peri are likely to die in his place. Morgus' soliloquy style of expressing his innermost thoughts to the camera takes some getting used to, but it works a lot better than many other instances of it happening in series history. In fact, apart from House Of Cards and The Mrs Bradley Myteries, this is the only instance I can think of off the top of my head when actors talking to the camera really works. (Well, Knightmare as well of course, but then that's not quite the same thing; breaking the fourth wall works on KM because KM's a gameshow and so it needs a host.)

The plot has enormous amounts to say about society's hunger for resources, and the avarice and political corruption this leads to. Whether it makes it altogether realistic is questionable - if political life were truly this cutthroat, we'd have a full state funeral every fortnight - but beyond doubt it makes for one of the most gripping, hard-edged stories in Dr Who's history, almost trying to emulate the darkness of its sister show Blake's 7, and a story rounded off with one of its more poignant regeneration scenes (only slightly distracted from by the very blatant position of the camera to look down the inside of Nicola Bryant's shirt as she cradles the Fifth Doctor's head - John Nathan-Turner, you really knew how to make a good story seem tacky...).

Not only Davison's finest hour, but also probably Nicola Bryant's, and the series' finest hour of the 80's. Most significant of all, it was also Bob Holmes' best-ever script, even beating The Talons Of Weng Chiang. When he returned to the series two years later, the dismal quality of The Trial Of A Time-Lord showed just how much his growing illness had robbed him of his former talent in between times. A shame then that Caves wasn't left to be his swansong.

Definite all-time classic, 10/10.
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