MovieChat Forums > hurricane
hurricane (1920)
Posts
What a masterpiece
Anybody watching?
We better hurry
Happy April Fools Day
Why is there a picture of The Time Traveller's Wife?
Which movie would you rather watch?
Evil Dies
Destroy it
Happy April Fools Day
Hey Laser Lips
View all posts >
Replies
August was funny for a while, but I think it's a joke that wouldn't have lasted the whole series.
She was supposed to be high maintenance, and she would be difficult for a regular teenage boy to understand and live up to, let alone an alien one. Being that the show was about the culture shock of aliens learning to live on Earth, she was fine for a character for this first few seasons. It sort of fit with the family struggling to understand Earth, for Tommy to have a girlfriend like that.
After a while though, her demanding nature might have gotten a bit annoying. So Tommy having another girlfriend, who was essentially sweet, but found him and his family weird felt a better fit once the aliens were more used to being on Earth. Then the culture shock was with a more innocent, sweet girl not understanding them. Plus all the Strudwick stuff was cool as well.
Honestly, I've never noticed the birdcage. I'll have to watch an episode to check.
Maybe just as a visual joke. Having a birdcage that serves no purpose might be a joke in itself.
On the other hand, maybe it's a reference to the fact that they were renting the aoartment from Mrs Dubcek. They did often refer to finding old tat lay around the place. Maybe Dubcek just pout it there because she didn't want it any more, and stashed it somewhere.
There was an episode where Mary brought her dog round, and was told the flat had a no pets policy. So, it'd be odd that it was there at all.
I might be wrong, but I don't remember them ever mentioning the birdcage. Probably just background decoration, that you weren't supposed to think too much about.
I didn't think of that, but you're right. Why would we assume that with the power of instant and unlimited travel in space and time all Time Lords would be on Galifrey at the time of the bomb? I think we were supposed to believe that we were all gone, but I see your point. It's a bit illogical when you put it like that.
I never liked the second killing of The Time Lords. I didn't really see the point of it. When you discovered in the 50th that they weren't really gone, that felt consistent with what had gone before. It felt like a progression of the story that had gone before. The Doctor thinking they were dead for a few seasons, and then finding out that he'd been wrong felt natural story telling. Having The Master blow them up again felt like it was done for no reason. If he didn't want The Time Lords in any of his stories, he didn't have to write them in. They were easily ignored for his time there, and nobody would've even thought about it if he didn't feature them. So why kill them at all?
I guess it was to go with The Timeless Child storyline. But that was a terrible storyline. After 50-odd years of story telling, it reeks of arrogance for Chibnall to just decide the character wasn't a Time Lord any more. I guess you could argue that it solves the problem of The Doctor having limited regenerations. But that wasn't a problem that had needed solving at the time, nor would it for many years yet. The Doctor already had multiple lives left when Chibnall was writing. Why do that at all? Other than to make your mark on the show before you left. And it wasn't even with a story line anybody liked.
"I did like the next episode just for being a bit different. I do like when the doctor isn't the most powerful person but get your point about how it will get a bit tiresome if the doctor can defeat them all, the feeling of threat will diminish. The ball game was a weak way for the toy maker to go but I do feel maestro is not dead just banished again and it makes sense if a melody can bring them out it can also banish then."
It's not so much that The Doctor defeats them. Or even the way they were defeated. It's more how easily they defeated Maestro, after they bigged him up as near undefeatable. Take when The Master first came back in the New Who era. (Series 3). People complained that he was banished by everybody saying; "Doctor" and Tennant just sort of being resurrected. But at least with that, it was a two-parter and The Master had been made look difficult to beat in Part One. And Martha had had a year to travel the Earth to set it up his loss.
Obviously, The Master was an already established villain, and you can't necessarily waste a two-part on every new villain. But it felt like The Doctor was quivvering from Maeestro for a lot of the episode, only for Maestro to be defeated by finding the correct chord on a piano. I get that it technically wasn't The Doctor who saved him, but the musical genius of The Beatles or whatever. But I just felt that they could've done it better. Maybe, instead of having The Doctor act so scared of him, they could've done more with The Beatles being there, and more to do with them being the only people who could save them. The Doctor could've persuaded them, and trained them. At least The Doctor would've looked like he was doing something proactive, rather than just quiverring from the awesome might of Maestro.
But, hey. I'm not a writer.
I understand the reason of the exposition, and I guess getting most of it out of the way in the opening episode was better than keep doing it all series, for the sake of the new fans. It'd get tedious if every week they had a convuluted conversation, where we learn something new about The Doctor. Because long time fans will already know all of it.
It may seem like I am moaning, but I do enjoy Ncuti's Doctor and Ruby Sunday. More so than I enjoyed Whittaker as Doctor. So I am hoping to see the series find it's stride more.
May just be a coincidence, or badly planning, but in Space Babies The Doctor comments that he was scared of the monster, and that felt unusual for him. In the next episode, he acted like there was nothing he could do to stop the villain, then went off to hide whilst sulking for a while that he had given up.
Ruby quipped that he wasn't the score to hide, but I wondered what she was basing that on? It's all he seems to have been doing so far this season.
Having said that, I do like Ncuti as The Doctor and Millie Gibson as Ruby Sunday. I think they both have the needed charisma, and have a chemistry with each other.
They're trying to play Ncuti as being more positive a chracter, after years of The Doctor mourning The Time Lords. That's not a bad thing. Though, I do wonder if they're overdoing it. Do we really need a song and dance number in every episode?
When The Toy Maker did that Spice Girls number, it felt in chracter. And NPH had the charisma to pull it off in a camp way, whilst still looking menacing. To a less extent, The Master doing Ra-Ra-Rasputin was the same. By the time you'd got to The Church On Ruby Road, and The Goblins all doing that song, it felt out of place. And was so poorly written a song, it was almost funny. The characters all doing a big dance number at the end, just for the sake of them making a silly; "twist at the end" joke added nothing, even to a song that was about music.
But I find Ncuti to already to be an improvement on Whittaker. Who I thought was a bit miscast in the role, though she tried hard. And, in he defence, was given terrible scripts to work with. I am at least enjoying Ncuti,
And now I mention the music, the whole; "I'm going to eradicate all music, and then the world will eventually come to an end" felt a bit underwhelming as a plot. Felt like it belonged more in a 1960s Batman epsidoe, or an 80s dance like Flashdance or something.
Episode 1 was okay, but not brilliant for me.
I think, as a long time viewer, the exposition felt like overload. But, I can see why they did it. They're trying to explain the show to the new fans in the Disney+ era. So it was necessary, but jarring for people who already know the show.
Though technically his second episode, this felt like the story that introduced the new Doctor more than The Christmas Episode did. (Which seeme more interested in introducing Ruby, and establishing her story.)
The Space Babies felt like a weird idea, and the villain wasn't massively fleshed out as a character. But that's okay for an introductory episode where they're establishing The Doctor. Because the story is a bit in the background, whilst we're establishing the new Doctor. I don't think the Space Babies is anything we ever need to revisit, but as a background story it was okay. Most of the stories/villains in a Doctor's first new episode never really feature again. Them being background to an introduction is kind of the point.
I wasn't sold on The Beatles episode. I didn't really like Maestro as an enemy. It felt like a retread of The Toy Maker episode. Which, I know is deliberate because they're hinting at it leading to something. But, there's only so many times you can hype somebody up as being damn near unbeatable, and then defeat them with a contrived plot device. The Toy Maker being treated as god-like, then getting defeated by a game of catch felt silly. But at least NPH had the charisma to pull it off, and The Toy Maker abiding to the rules of the game was in character. Maybe they could've defeated him with a game more complicated than a game of catch, but hey ho. Here, The Doctor phyiscally ran and hid, and quivered that there was no ways he could win. Then in the end, Maestro was defeated and all their evil was undone because somebody played the piano.
I'm one for going to bed early.
I am as likely to fall asleep it I started watching a film at 1am as anything.
I dunno if it counts, but there was a horror movie in the 1970s called The Driller Killer.
View all replies >