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Doctor Who [Spoilers]

Missed a trick by not putting a TRRROOOOLLLLL from Trollhunter in tonight's episode, but The Actor Kevin Eldon made up for it with one of his typically eccentric turns. At last, the mirrors plot from Poltergeist 3 is put to good use. Thinking big, the villain was an entire universe - a bit Sapphire and Steel, but at least the Doc saw eye to frog with it by the end. "Ah luv me sonic!" Yeah, we noticed! Can't say it wasn't different - I wasn't bored, and yet again Bradley Walsh makes me go misty.

Next week: the grand finale. Already?!

Just finished watching it and agree that it was very reminiscent of Saphire and Steel.
Certainly the most complex and thought-provoking episode of this series so far.
 
I'm aware of the pantomime reference, my point is that King James was portrayed in a negatively stereotypical "camp" manner, and Plankton seems to have dismissed my comment as unworthy of serious attention.

Sorry when you talk about camp are you takling about kitsch/panto or effeminate behaviour by a male? It is DW after all and its always been a tad pantoesque. As for the performance i dont know much about Cummings but it didnt strike me as being particularly over the top.
 
Missed a trick by not putting a TRRROOOOLLLLL from Trollhunter in tonight's episode, but The Actor Kevin Eldon made up for it with one of his typically eccentric turns.
He does somewhat stand out. Even under all those prosthetics,
 
Yes, some people are camp (and not all of them are gay) However making a character camp as a way of indicating their sexuality is lazy writing in my opinion.

TBH I didn't really pay attention to it a I was surfing the net as well at the time. Didn't notice anything particularly OOT though.
 
People are allowed to be camp you know! :)
How gracious of you to "allow" people to be gay, but you are missing the point of the argument.
Yes, some people are camp (and not all of them are gay) However making a character camp as a way of indicating their sexuality is lazy writing in my opinion.

Exactly my point. And "camping it up" for cheap laughs is just as lazy in terms of writing - it's not the sort of behaviour that encourages a more positive presentation of a section of the species that has been either told they are ill, sinners or something to be feared or laughed at.
 
How gracious of you to "allow" people to be gay, but you are missing the point of the argument.


Exactly my point. And "camping it up" for cheap laughs is just as lazy in terms of writing - it's not the sort of behaviour that encourages a more positive presentation of a section of the species that has been either told they are ill, sinners or something to be feared or laughed at.

fucking hell who pissed on your chips in this thread?
 
Shades of Douglas Adams with that frog. Could easily have been mice.
 
The frog seems to be controversial, but otherwise this was a well-received episode, possibly because it's the first where everyone has really settled (just took nine episodes!) and it felt like it was its own thing at last. For a show about grief, they could have been dour and depressing, but the fact they went wacky instead is a far more original way of dealing with it. I thought it was probably the best so far (supplanting the witchfinding), but then again, I like that story where Bertie Bassett was the villain.
 
Yes, apart from the frog, I thought it was the best yet. I guess the frog was knowingly and even "ironically" rubbish, bur it was still a touch silly. Much to like, all the same.

Only real downsides otherwise for me were the continued overuse of the Sonic Screwdriver, and the setting - 21st century Earth again!
 
Shades of Douglas Adams with that frog. Could easily have been mice.
There were a couple of sly Adams references - "The frilly bit of Norway", etc.

I agree, frog aside, it was the best one yet. But the frog was crap. It wasn't even a convincing frog. Hartley Hare was more realistic.
 
(ABOVE) Hartley Hare was far stranger than anything in the Whoniverse
 
It's all a bit derivative though. Mirror as a portal?
I know it’s difficult not to be but I did groan at ‘the frilly bits’ and no, lets not leave the frog aside. It was the shittest thing I've seen in Dr. Who for decades.
Actually, I thought the crap Specsavers pilot hud in the ship eater episode was a budget low until I saw that. Oh... and the lanterns. They were cutting edge weren’t they. Where did they get the props - The Range?

It looks filmic because whoever is doing the post and grading is doing a great job of making this stuff look high budget. But the frog. Imagine if it had been an animated frog Mary Poppins style. That would have actually been brilliant.
 
I wasn't going to view but my missus put it on. Trippy s**t not good, clever or otherwise just plain s**t .
A whole universe (with all the potential of said universe) manifests in some dull Scandinavian hamlet and is so further dull no one notices the family is missing. Cue some emotive stuff from the comic who is bizarrely the only actor worth watching and yawn another episode over too soon.

Please can a dalek shoot the doctor ASAP and force another total reboot .
 
I wasn't going to view but my missus put it on. Trippy s**t not good, clever or otherwise just plain s**t .
A whole universe (with all the potential of said universe) manifests in some dull Scandinavian hamlet and is so further dull no one notices the family is missing. Cue some emotive stuff from the comic who is bizarrely the only actor worth watching and yawn another episode over too soon.

Please can a dalek shoot the doctor ASAP and force another total reboot .
A bit harsh, but I agree that Bradley Walsh has been a standout in this series.
 
No need for chip pissing or aggression here--I know most contributors here well and nobody is anti-homosexual.

I don't watch Dr Who, but the historical James I was portrayed by his contemporary opponents as irritatingly (and inappropriately) effeminate.

https://tudorstuartperspectives.wordpress.com/2015/11/20/the-effeminate-king/

The point of recent posts isn't his sexuality, merely the presentation of it for cheap laughs (as far as I can see), and discussion of this episode seems to have taken a life of its own.

On behalf of Tigerhawk (my other half) I can say that James' over-the-top performance may have been done in the style of panto, but came across as a negative manner. Not everyone sees Panto, or gets the why it seems so popular. It seems that there are people who see one point and people who see another. But swearing at people who have another opinion to yours is not a reasoned or logical response. May I suggest this particular episode of Doctor Who not be discussed further? We don't want it to get out of hand...
 
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The point of recent posts isn't his sexuality, merely the presentation of it for cheap laughs (as far as I can see), and discussion of this episode seems to have taken a life of its own.

On behalf of Tigerhawk (my other half) I can say that James' over-the-top performance may have been done in the style of panto, but came across as a negative manner. It seems that there are people who see one point and people who see another. But swearing at people who have another opinion to yours is not a reasoned or logical response. May I suggest this particular episode of Doctor Who not be discussed further? We don't want it to get out of hand...

I didn't swear at him it was an exclamation of my frustration that camp in the effeminate sense = negativity, it doesn't in my experience.

I agree, although fun, DW has been poorly written and lazy this season. I didn't particularly find James OTT, he was hardly Larry Grayson or the truly lovely John Inman in my opinion.

Camp people get an awful look of stick, even these days, which is wrong. I apologize if I've upset Tiger and Dino and I'm happy to withdraw from this thread.
 
It wasn't the swearing at Tigerhawk (I've heard that expression before, and I know what it means), it was the swearing in general (it detracts from the argument when used by either party), it was the OTT portrayal that got some people annoyed, and then the apparent (deliberate or not) offhanded responses by some here or elsewhere that annoys people. Here endeth the sermon, and onto more pleasant pastures!
 
Nobody needs to vacate the thread and no topic need be dropped, we just need everybody to assume that everybody else is all right even if they're 'wrong' on some particular point.

Please.
 
I meant that we stop discussing one episodes portrayal and continue with the rest of the brilliant Doctor Who...
 
That was a great episode, I really enjoyed it.... until the frog appeared. It was great again after that too.

"Grandad"

I'm not crying, you are....
Like I said...not getting out alive...
 
I meant that we stop discussing one episodes portrayal and continue with the rest of the brilliant Doctor Who...
One thing to add, which seems to have been overlooked amid the fray - I particularly liked the way James' "divine right" mentality was scripted, and portrayed. Very low key, ie someone with the absolute confidence in his own special-ness and thus no need to trumpet it (see what I did there?). Had they painted him the other way it would inevitably have drawn contemporary parallels, and that subtlety would have been lost.

Anyway - that frog really was crap. And there's a logic-hole there - if it kept appearing as that which someone missed the most, when it was just the Doctor and it, surely it should have appeared as that which the Doctor yearned for most? That could have had enormous potential.

Unless the Doctor really misses an unconvincing frog*.

*and not of the Officer Crabtree from 'allo 'allo type. We can move on from camping it up now.
 
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