DW: Victory of the Daleks--Reaction Post
Apr. 18th, 2010 12:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
amberfocusI am sort of at a loss on this episode.
My reaction to the first two were generally favorable, though they had their problems, but this one I was pretty disappointed in. I know Doctor Who likes to use sketchy science, but there was nothing even slightly plausible about airplanes in gravity bubbles in space. First off those airplanes would not have been powerful enough to even breach the atmosphere of Earth. They weren't even jet engines, for crying out loud. The pilot's would have been overwhelmed by the exhuast fumes that would be trapped in the bubbles and would pass out or lose visibility through the bubble from the smog. Even with oxygen tanks there would not have been enough air to make it from Earth to space and back again. And there was no way they could have gotten there in time. They didn't even try to make it plausible. It was like someone had the idea of, "Ooo WWII spitfires in space and lasers shooting at them," and ran with it. Or rather tripped with it. And the CGI? Seriously, did they get their budget cut? Because CGI this season so far has been horribly obvious and a terrible joke.
Honestly, I don't care if Amy wears super short mini skirts or any of the hoohaa that's been going on about that. Let's face it, they're still longer than Leela's outfit or many of Jo Grant's. But the fact that not one person in that war room raised their eyes at her short skirt felt very off to me. I mean Queen Victoria certainly commented about Rose's attire in Tooth and Claw because it was extremely inappropriate for the time period. Someone should have made a comment here. Amy does not have her own TARDIS key yet, so no perception filter, so no hiding the fact that her long, long legs were almost fully on display. Also, there seemed to be an awful lot of women in the war room. I know they participated in the war as nurses and drivers, but would they have actually been in a war room during that time period other than making tea or something? I'm not sure, but as insular as the big boys were during that time period, I have a hard time believing it. If anyone knows for certain I'd be interested in knowing.
Amy doesn't remember the Daleks. Okay, so there have been a lot of theories floating around out there and I think the one I like the most is that Amy is actually from the 1990's and not this century. There was a screen cap of Rory's hospital ID that said it was issued in 1990, and it was pointed out that the vehicles in her hometown were all older models, no new ones, so I think that's probably why she doesn't remember the Daleks stealing Earth. It hadn't happened yet. The Doctor is rubbish with time travel for a Time Lord so it's possible, especially during regeneration sickness, that he wouldn't have been paying attention to the actual date he picked Amy up on. What I don't get is when she didn't remember he didn't ask her right then when she was from. It's the first thing I would have asked.
Amy saves the day--again. Um...yeah, I mentioned I didn't want to see Wesley saves the ship becoming a recurrent theme. This is a pattern already and I don't like it. I love Amy, but this is the sort of behavior that annoys people after a while and makes people roar about Mary Sues. The Doctor should save the day, the assistant should assist, and when needed save the Doctor from his idiocy and once in a while save the ship. Also, I did not like the Doctor leaving Amy behind on Earth when he went to the Dalek ship. The safest place for her would have been the TARDIS if that was what he was really worried about. Not, as she said, London in the middle of the Blitz.
Technicolor Daleks--oh good grief, they look ridiculous and this is on a species that already looks like pepperpots and has a toilet plunger for an appendage. They didn't need help looking any more ridiculous than they already do. On a good day I don't like the Daleks as monsters on Doctor Who. I've never thought they were even slightly scary (and I've been watching since 1974 and seen most of what is available from before I was born, so that's a lot of Dalek eps) until they learned to fly and even then my reaction was more to roll my eyes than anything else. The only thing that made them even remotely good characters was the way that Nine and Ten reacted to them. Eleven let me down here. I was just...disappointed in how he dealt with all of it. It was unconvincing.
I liked the idea of the android, but not the execution of it. Look kiddies, remembering the one who got away can stop a bomb from going off. Yeah. Right. And the fact that the Doctor let the android bomb go at the end, no reprogramming, no you better come along with me (and how awesome would that have been, really? An android as a second companion on the TARDIS?). No, let's just let this bomb go swanning off and hope (because the universe is good and fair) that the Daleks won't be back to restart him in the future. Hmm...that might actually be a plot point. We'll see. Also, the whole positronic brain thing made me go "Star Trek, Data," and knocked me out of the show for a moment.
And as for the crack at the end when the TARDIS vanished, (uses valley girl 80's voice) like oh, my gosh, SM, subtlety is so your middle name. I would never guess, not ever, that the running theme throughout season five is the giant crack that you keep inserting unobtrusively into each episode. Let's see, the one in Amy's wall, which was okay, because it was the plot of that episode really, but the one on his scanner in the TARDIS, the one on Space Ship England and the one in the war room had so darn much attention drawn to them it was like being hit over the head with a cricket bat. Okay, maybe the one on the scanner wasn't quite as obvious but it did stay on it for a few seconds, but the other two were not in any way subtle. I liked the subtley of Bad Wolf being woven through series one, and Torchwood through series two. I don't remember the exact theme of season three other than "Ten is Emo and missing Rose," but I'm sure there was one to do with Harry Saxon (or maybe that was just it, mentions of Saxon and posters and stuff). Season Four of course was, "She is Returning," which was not so sledgehammery, though more obvious than the previous three seasons. But this is just blatant which makes it no fun.
After watching this episode, do you know what I want to see at the end of season five? I want to see the shower scene from Dallas where Pam wakes up and finds Bobby showering and realizes the last year was all a dream. I want to see Ten waking up after Waters of Mars and realizing that it was all just a dream (he went to dream with the Ood, after all) and that he was shown a possible future of what might happen if he cocks things up. (Or Ten2 waking up in Pete's world to find Rose in the shower and telling her all about this crazy dream he just had). Barring that, please, please, please let the next few episodes be better. I want my excitement back. I want better written episodes. I think Matt Smith can do this, but he needs better material. I'm not even sure David Tennant could have saved this episode. Heck, I'm not even sure Christopher Eccleston could have saved this episode.
I think I'll go watch Rose now and remember how it's supposed to be done.
My reaction to the first two were generally favorable, though they had their problems, but this one I was pretty disappointed in. I know Doctor Who likes to use sketchy science, but there was nothing even slightly plausible about airplanes in gravity bubbles in space. First off those airplanes would not have been powerful enough to even breach the atmosphere of Earth. They weren't even jet engines, for crying out loud. The pilot's would have been overwhelmed by the exhuast fumes that would be trapped in the bubbles and would pass out or lose visibility through the bubble from the smog. Even with oxygen tanks there would not have been enough air to make it from Earth to space and back again. And there was no way they could have gotten there in time. They didn't even try to make it plausible. It was like someone had the idea of, "Ooo WWII spitfires in space and lasers shooting at them," and ran with it. Or rather tripped with it. And the CGI? Seriously, did they get their budget cut? Because CGI this season so far has been horribly obvious and a terrible joke.
Honestly, I don't care if Amy wears super short mini skirts or any of the hoohaa that's been going on about that. Let's face it, they're still longer than Leela's outfit or many of Jo Grant's. But the fact that not one person in that war room raised their eyes at her short skirt felt very off to me. I mean Queen Victoria certainly commented about Rose's attire in Tooth and Claw because it was extremely inappropriate for the time period. Someone should have made a comment here. Amy does not have her own TARDIS key yet, so no perception filter, so no hiding the fact that her long, long legs were almost fully on display. Also, there seemed to be an awful lot of women in the war room. I know they participated in the war as nurses and drivers, but would they have actually been in a war room during that time period other than making tea or something? I'm not sure, but as insular as the big boys were during that time period, I have a hard time believing it. If anyone knows for certain I'd be interested in knowing.
Amy doesn't remember the Daleks. Okay, so there have been a lot of theories floating around out there and I think the one I like the most is that Amy is actually from the 1990's and not this century. There was a screen cap of Rory's hospital ID that said it was issued in 1990, and it was pointed out that the vehicles in her hometown were all older models, no new ones, so I think that's probably why she doesn't remember the Daleks stealing Earth. It hadn't happened yet. The Doctor is rubbish with time travel for a Time Lord so it's possible, especially during regeneration sickness, that he wouldn't have been paying attention to the actual date he picked Amy up on. What I don't get is when she didn't remember he didn't ask her right then when she was from. It's the first thing I would have asked.
Amy saves the day--again. Um...yeah, I mentioned I didn't want to see Wesley saves the ship becoming a recurrent theme. This is a pattern already and I don't like it. I love Amy, but this is the sort of behavior that annoys people after a while and makes people roar about Mary Sues. The Doctor should save the day, the assistant should assist, and when needed save the Doctor from his idiocy and once in a while save the ship. Also, I did not like the Doctor leaving Amy behind on Earth when he went to the Dalek ship. The safest place for her would have been the TARDIS if that was what he was really worried about. Not, as she said, London in the middle of the Blitz.
Technicolor Daleks--oh good grief, they look ridiculous and this is on a species that already looks like pepperpots and has a toilet plunger for an appendage. They didn't need help looking any more ridiculous than they already do. On a good day I don't like the Daleks as monsters on Doctor Who. I've never thought they were even slightly scary (and I've been watching since 1974 and seen most of what is available from before I was born, so that's a lot of Dalek eps) until they learned to fly and even then my reaction was more to roll my eyes than anything else. The only thing that made them even remotely good characters was the way that Nine and Ten reacted to them. Eleven let me down here. I was just...disappointed in how he dealt with all of it. It was unconvincing.
I liked the idea of the android, but not the execution of it. Look kiddies, remembering the one who got away can stop a bomb from going off. Yeah. Right. And the fact that the Doctor let the android bomb go at the end, no reprogramming, no you better come along with me (and how awesome would that have been, really? An android as a second companion on the TARDIS?). No, let's just let this bomb go swanning off and hope (because the universe is good and fair) that the Daleks won't be back to restart him in the future. Hmm...that might actually be a plot point. We'll see. Also, the whole positronic brain thing made me go "Star Trek, Data," and knocked me out of the show for a moment.
And as for the crack at the end when the TARDIS vanished, (uses valley girl 80's voice) like oh, my gosh, SM, subtlety is so your middle name. I would never guess, not ever, that the running theme throughout season five is the giant crack that you keep inserting unobtrusively into each episode. Let's see, the one in Amy's wall, which was okay, because it was the plot of that episode really, but the one on his scanner in the TARDIS, the one on Space Ship England and the one in the war room had so darn much attention drawn to them it was like being hit over the head with a cricket bat. Okay, maybe the one on the scanner wasn't quite as obvious but it did stay on it for a few seconds, but the other two were not in any way subtle. I liked the subtley of Bad Wolf being woven through series one, and Torchwood through series two. I don't remember the exact theme of season three other than "Ten is Emo and missing Rose," but I'm sure there was one to do with Harry Saxon (or maybe that was just it, mentions of Saxon and posters and stuff). Season Four of course was, "She is Returning," which was not so sledgehammery, though more obvious than the previous three seasons. But this is just blatant which makes it no fun.
After watching this episode, do you know what I want to see at the end of season five? I want to see the shower scene from Dallas where Pam wakes up and finds Bobby showering and realizes the last year was all a dream. I want to see Ten waking up after Waters of Mars and realizing that it was all just a dream (he went to dream with the Ood, after all) and that he was shown a possible future of what might happen if he cocks things up. (Or Ten2 waking up in Pete's world to find Rose in the shower and telling her all about this crazy dream he just had). Barring that, please, please, please let the next few episodes be better. I want my excitement back. I want better written episodes. I think Matt Smith can do this, but he needs better material. I'm not even sure David Tennant could have saved this episode. Heck, I'm not even sure Christopher Eccleston could have saved this episode.
I think I'll go watch Rose now and remember how it's supposed to be done.
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no subject
Date: 2010-04-18 08:17 am (UTC)Non the less, episode 3 was awful. Very bad writing. I can't blame the actors because I think they did well with what they were given. Fingers crossed for the next episode.
no subject
Date: 2010-04-18 09:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-18 10:37 am (UTC)After watching this episode, do you know what I want to see at the end of season five? I want to see the shower scene from Dallas where Pam wakes up and finds Bobby showering and realizes the last year was all a dream.
I made a similar observation in the comments to my reaction post of The Eleventh Hour which led to
Enjoy....it's a hoot! :D
no subject
Date: 2010-04-18 12:01 pm (UTC)From all of the reviews I've read, it seems like fandom generally liked the episode, so I was feeling bad that I thought it was a bit crap for pretty much all of the reasons you said.
I enjoyed the first episode. The second episode was okay. This one was just rubbish. I miss getting lost in the episode like I would with Nine and Ten. You'd sort of forget you were watching, you were so caught up in the episode. (With exceptions, of course, tinkerbell!jesus!Doctor)
When Amy walked out of the TARDIS, the first thing I said was "Oh, brilliant choice there, Amy. Not like you're going to have to run or anything." Not even thinking of the whole "It's the mid 40s, the miniskirt doesn't exist" thing.
I started viewing with Nine, and found the Daleks to be quite scary. When I went back and watched old Who, not so much, but Nine and Ten made them scary. Perhaps, as you said, it's in the Doctor's reaction to them. But the reboot? It's yet another thing Moffat's gone and pissed on. "Oh, alright, I have to have certain things in the show, but damned if I'm not going to take away the things everybody knows and change them so they're mine." I like the idea of a Dalek reboot, but, if anything, wouldn't they return to the way they were back in the day if they were being purified?
no subject
Date: 2010-04-18 04:15 pm (UTC)To answer the question on the history- during the war in both the US and the UK you had a higher percentage of women in HQ type jobs. This was a direct result of needing as many men as possible at the front. Having not seen the episode yet, I can't say with 100 percent certainty that it meets that level of historical accuracy. I will say that it's not unreasonable to have women doing things other than serving tea. ;)
Last two things- Churchill knows the Doctor. Which means he is not unused to companions of the Doctor being in..interesting attire. :) Military situation, people would not directly question Amy if Churchill accepts her presence.
Final- sounds like Amy not remembering the Invasion of the Daleks is a specific plot point, not an omission. I'll have to watch and see.
no subject
Date: 2010-04-18 02:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-18 03:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-18 03:23 pm (UTC)I wanted to give Eleven a few episodes to find his own feet and voice, because last night he seemed too much like Ten on crack. But based on the reactions I've seen from people who are watching a few episodes ahead of me, it doesn't seem like I'm going be getting there.
no subject
Date: 2010-04-18 03:47 pm (UTC)Watching early trailers of the new Doctor/companion left me feeling appalled, not intrigued. I haven't watched Eleven, don't have any interest in Eleven/miniskirt!Amy, and really have no intention to watch the series.
Now, back to reading the wonderful, wonderful Nine/Rose and Ten/Rose fics my favorite authors excel in writing!
no subject
Date: 2010-04-18 05:52 pm (UTC)I would really love to see this all be a dream. But I fear we might be stuck into a dream that's quickly becoming a nightmare. Hopefully everything will work itself out.
no subject
Date: 2010-04-18 08:35 pm (UTC)Okay, RTD did some pretty poor dalek episodes, but you had Chris and David's brilliant acting to make up for it, so with one of them I might have just been able to sit through last nights episode, but Matt just stood there for most of the episode and lacked that great energy the previous Doctors had, I really do hope next weeks episode is a lot better, because I really want to like it and I dont see that happening if the episodes carry on the way they are.
no subject
Date: 2010-04-19 07:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-19 05:49 am (UTC)Mighty Morphin Power Ra- wait...
Date: 2010-04-19 07:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-19 09:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-23 03:38 am (UTC)I remember CE's performance in Dalek made me cry. It has such emotional resonance. I learned so much about The Doctor and Rose in that episode. This was drivel, a waste of time. It made Dalek's Take Manhattan look good.
no subject
Date: 2010-04-23 04:21 am (UTC)But i miss Nine/Rose, too.