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being-of-rain · 6 months

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My thoughts on Wild Blue Yonder! A little late because the time between the 60th anniversary episodes almost exactly lined up with a visit from my girlfriend. We had a great time, and watched this episode together, but I didn't want to take enough time away from her to write this!

When I saw some EU fans joking about how the episode was going to be an adaptation of Scherzo, I wasn't prepared for how many similarities it had. And it was soooo good. I love some really fucking great Doctor Who. I loved the horror aspect, I loved the duologue aspect, I always love a mystery opening act where the Tardis team has to search for clues and theorise about where they've landed. Oh and a shape-shifter who takes on someone's whole identity and thoughts is a concept that always tickles my fancy.

One of the few nitpicks I have is that I'm not quite sure how the countdown/shifting corridors and the robot connect: if they're part of the same self-destruct system, why is the robot seemingly much older than the ship? If they're not part of the same system, why is there a countdown to the moment the robot presses the button? Why not just have the ship destroy itself, and why would the ship need to 'reconfigure itself to become a bomb' if it had a self-destruct? But (much like Heaven Sent, which the solitary shifting setting is reminiscent of,) the small logic hiccups don't really take anything away from how good the episode is.

A slightly larger nitpick is that the ending isn't the strongest, with the TARDIS coming back right when and where the Doctor was thinking that it should, and then the Doctor realising he picked the wrong Donna because of a miniscule detail (that the audience couldn't pick up on, so it feels a bit of a cheat and a cheap emotional shot). So some of RTD's most common flaws there, but again the negatives really don't stack up to much compared to the quality of the rest of it. Also, I didn't notice the Tardis screen at the end that showed a scan of Donna's arm until my rewatch, and, in classic me fashion, it put me in mind of a random Dr Who EU story. In this case, Project: Nirvana where the Doctor reveals that the Tardis automatically scanned someone coming onboard and flagged an eldritch-monster-shaped issue with her. It does make me wonder if the Doctor thought to scan Donna himself, or if the Tardis did it (and he took the credit, perhaps trying not to think about how he might never have noticed).

But that's enough with nitpicks, what are some other fantastic bits? The throwaway phrase "goosebumps like Braille" is rad as hell, and would've made a great episode title I think. I've had ideas before about the Doctor's compulsion to think and solve problems in front of him being a direct threat, so it was cool to see that idea here. The Doctor worrying about 'invoking a superstition at the edge of the universe' at the end was a vague but incredibly compelling hook for future plots, and infinitely more interesting than the Meep's final line from the previous episode. I love all the tiny subtle ways the not-things were off and unsettling, as well as all the ways that were so over-the-top that I was laughing through my shocked horror.

The Timeless Child and Flux references were fantastic peeling back of the Doctor's emotional walls, and it was nice tying in with what is technically the show's previous season, even though it came out 2 years ago now. Also... it's a little hard to mention those references without dunking on Chibnall in comparison, who didn't tap into the Doctor's emotional state anywhere near as intensely in several years as this episode did in one scene (You could tie this into the Doctor regenerates into what they need/opposite theories, with Thirteen being a relatively repressed Doctor and Ten Point Three being a relatively expressive Doctor). It was particularly nice to have the show actually establish what the consequences of the Flux actually were, because god knows Thirteen's episodes weren't interested in doing that. On my rewatch of series 13 a few months ago, I was amazed at how basically every element of the Flux is confused and contradictory, and at the end my brother and I were convinced that the Ood in the Division ship (or God Ood as we started calling him) must have reversed the very almost total destruction of the universe, because the show simply refused to acknowledge any of that destruction itself. I guess they split the difference and said half the universe. But unpicking the bizarre illogic of the Flux is a whole other post.

Keeping in mind that the next episode hasn't come out yet, Wild Blue Yonder feels wildly out of place in the middle of an anniversary trilogy. A trilogy where the bookends are RTD modern-day blockbusters filled with fan-favourite character returns and niche villains from the show's long history, and the middle is a limited-cast sci-fi psychological/eldritch horror. But that absurdity detracts from the episode in absolutely no way whatsoever.

And speaking of absurdity; the mounting hype and talk of big things happening in the next episode, on top of bringing back a long-forgotten old villain and a long-awaited new Doctor, is just making it more and more ridiculous that the episode is called The Giggle. I can't wait for it though, I'm really enjoying these specials.

#my thoughts #dw spoilers #donna #ten #suuuch a good episode #hard not to dunk on Chibnall when I say I'm enjoying TV Dr Who much more than I have in ages

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ecoamerica · 1 month

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casputin · 2 years

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Is anyone else slightly disappointed with the new companion announcement?

I'm sure Millie Gibson will do a fine job, but was I the only one under the impression that Yasmin Finney was going to be joining as the full time companion moving forward? Which was going to be exciting for a few reasons:

1) if Yasmin really is playing Donna's daughter as is speculated then what knowledge does she possess through half remembered fairy tales told by her mother. Love the idea of a companion knowing things.

15: this is an Ood, they-

Rose: Yeah, yeah, an Ood, we've all heard about them. Enslaved race, hive mind, communicate through orbs that replaced the brain, super peaceful, we love the Ood in this household.

2) a trans companion for a generation to properly fall in love with, rather than just being there for 3 episodes.

3) an all black TARDIS team. Instead we have another pretty cis white girl. She does feel awfully Billie Piper 2.0. It's almost as if RTD is scared to go too far from formula, which is very unlike him.

If both Yasmin and Millie end up travelling together with Ncuti then I take the majority of this back. They are near as dammit the same age, and both from Manchester, so could reasonably be bezzies (or even girlfriends which would be a little more in line with RTD) in which case I'm not as annoyed. But with how fresh Yasmin's casting was, the announcement featuring Millie seems like a step back.

And I want it to be known this is not an attack on Millie in the slightest. Just a sharing of disappointment from the new announcement, in much the same way I was disappointed that they made David officially Doctor 14, and RTD said the reason the clothes regenerated too was because he didn't want David to be wearing women's clothing.

This is, of course, despite the fact that Jodie regenerated into Peter's costume and, more importantly, Sascha pulled the look off very well, and there wasn't a scintilla of drag about it. It's not like she wore a dress and fishnets as part of her costume - it was a somewhat androgynous look. T-Shirt, Trousers, suspenders and coat? How womanly - Tennant certainly would've looked ridiculous. It just pisses me off because there would've been so much less focus on the costume had he regenerated with her costume.

I also recall comments made last year RTD made about only gay people can play gay people, which, as we know from Kit Harrington recently, is an incredibly dangerous sentiment, and can actually reduce roles, because by the same metric you say only straight people can play straight people. We absolutely need more diversity on screen, that is a definite, but I do think this is a very dangerous thought, but anyway I'm going slightly tangential here - I suppose my main point is that I'm worried about what RTD is going to do with Doctor Who (and tbh I was worried from the initial announcement).

Millie is good. Ruby Sunday is bad.

Yasmin in good. Ncuti is good.

David in 'women's' clothing is good. David being 14 is bad.

Concerns good. Making a final judgement before we see the product bad.

So I will be happy to be pleasantly surprised by what's in store. And happy for anyone to comment with their own thought. Sorry for long post!

#doctor who #yasmin finney #ncuti gatwa #russell t davies #rtd

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leam1983 · 1 year

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Playing "Mafia: Definitive Edition" and...

It's interesting, in its own way. As to how that is, consider the fact that it's an open-world that isn't open. Not really, at least.

You technically can roam the map to your heart's content while you're driving, and the game simulates everything more fleshed-out and purpose-built open worlds do. There's pedestrians and they react to you, you're free to interact with the game's systems as much as you'd care to - but you're not really expected to do any of it.

For the most part, Mafia is an open-world game that has a laser-eyed focus on its story. It's not at all concerned with letting you soak in the sights of its distaff counterpart of the Roaring Thirties' San Francisco, and actually really cares about what you'll make of Tommy Angelo's story of power, greed, perdition and regret.

Compare and contrast with any of Grand Theft Auto's peers: outside of mission trigger points, you're free to do absolutely whatever it is you'd care to do, in most cases. In Mafia, there isn't anything except the main quest, and the world instead serves as a tone-setter, rather than a tool or a separate character.

Take Cyberpunk 2077's Night City. There's a ton of jank in the systems involved, but you get the sense that the city formerly known as Coronado Bay has a ton of stuff going on that doesn't directly involve you. Most of it's ancillary, sure, but you'll come across cordoned-off crime scenes, protests in front of the local prison and the occasional attempted arrest, among other things. Lost Haven has none of this, but the setting and attention to detail more than compensates adequately. You do indeed get a sense that the Salieris and Morellos are holding on by a thread of corruption, greed and hubris, and that the city is as much an environment as a byproduct of said environment. It manages this without side missions or collect-a-thons, and with a map screen that remains focused on one, simple goal: in-world navigation.

Mafia feels like what happens when your dev team is dead-set on prioritizing diegesis, and doesn't have any lick of a trace of concern as to some expected "gameplay value" ballpark. It's twenty missions long at about an hour each if you're generous or criminally shit at working a Tommy gun like I am, and it bows out quickly and cleanly. It's proof positive that short campaigns aren't an ill to be eradicated from the medium, not when properly-executed ones are as easy to revisit as a good book.

That's where the game stumbles a bit. Andrew Bongiorno brings a lot of gruffness and a tiny bit of expected Americano-Sicilian swagger, with a clipped delivery that could've come straight out of a Bogart vehicle. Every moment Tommy Angelo is onscreen feels rooted and authentic. Unfortunately, the same can't be said of his partners-in-crime Paulie Lombardo and Sam Trapani.

Picture the idea of the characterization of an Italian-American Prohibition-Era goon as a spectrum of sorts. If we're generous and place Tommy Angelo on one end, the opposite end would have to house Who Framed Roger Rabbit's Smartass Weasel. I'd love to say that Paulie and Sam are on the same level of characterization as Tommy, but there's several instances where I was left thinking that even a streetwise and otherwise-uneducated caporegime would've sounded more natural than these two. It's like you spend half the game lugging caricatures of yourself around and have to sort of buy into their exaggerated reactions for the sake of fitting in. If you mentally pictured them as nasally, high-pitched and a little too much in love with their scabrous job, you've got it in one.

It's a surprise, too, seeing as you've also got characters like Sarah Marino and Frank Colletti, who look and sound exactly like you'd expect them to in-context, with Frank earning special marks for sounding exactly like a first-generation Sicilian immigrant with a tardy, if flawless command of English and decades of professionalism to account for.

As to how I know? I was raised in Saint-Léonard, in Montreal proper, and grew up hearing several male voices that sounded exactly like Colletti's. The kind of guy who speaks Italian on the daily since his birth, but who seriously hit the books after emigrating to Canada, to the point where they could give enunciation pointers to lifelong English speakers.

The story being told, however, won't reinvent the wheel. If you've played Mafia Prime, if you will, then you're familiar with it. It's your typical "rags-to-riches, then almost back to rags and in a body bag" affair that echoes everything from The Godfather to The Untouchables to every single True Crime special on the Castellamarese War that's ever hit the History Channel. If your knowledge of the Roaring Twenties' criminal intelligentsia goes beyond just Al Capone, you know exactly what to expect. It's told in really interesting cinematic vignettes, as well as in gameplay segments that really don't reward your trying to think your way out of things. You're a triggerman for a Capo, and that's all there is to it; so get to ducking into cover and blasting heads and legs off. If that's what you came here for, you're bound to be pleased.

Of particular note is the fact that the remake of a game dating back to 2004 comes with location-based damage that doesn't try to reach the gory depths of The Last of Us: Part II, but that still isn't shy about letting you kneecap rival fedora-wearing and pinstripe-sporting gentlemen using a twelve-gauge. There's no dismemberment action on offer, but several mixtures of physics-based and canned animations that give your unfortunate victims a fair amount of personality in their final moments.

As you'd expect, physics systems like this have a few fun bugs on offer. If you're playing the Hotel Corleone mission, try and get enemy soldiers to tip over the couches they're huddling behind for cover. They'll let out hilariously inappropriate death screams, as if tipping over the chair's back and flopping into its offered pillowy crevice required a scream you'd associate with falling down the Grand Canyon...

All things considered, Mafia: Definitive Edition is a great upgrade to a package that was starting to show its age, and an unorthodox entry into the Open-World genre. I hear its sequels take more definitive steps towards the usual chestnuts in the genre, but I haven't tried Mafia II and Mafia III yet. It feels like a faithful simulation of a period in time that's typically not confidently touched by most developers, tied together with a plot that isn't anything special, but that remains consistently entertaining.

Now I'm crossing my fingers for a hypothetical Cosmic Horror-themed DLC pack that'll never be released. The Salieri Crime Syndicate Versus the Priests of Dagon is something I'd definitely pay to play...

#mafia: definitive edition #thoughts #review #long post

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doccywhomst · 2 years

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Tbh I totally get your disappointment with Ryan's character stuff, I think there's a lot there to love already (and I do love him a lot) but I do get wishing for a bit more time spent with a character and their personality. it's my main quibble with a lot of chibnall who tbh, not enough walking the walk for the character relationships which is sad cuz of how good the bits we do get and how juicy all of the potential is, I think it just gets sidelined for more plot stuff or guest characters a bit too often. (Also probably a symptom of having such a full tardis team, the biggest in nu who)

Wanting more for a character ≠ disliking the character or wishing they hadn't been in the show or anything

One of the things I really wish they'd let have more time is his whole engineering thing! He's learning to be an engineer! So is the doctor! That would have been such a fun thing to play around with considering how similar the doctor and Ryan are shown to be already (one of the things I do love is how Ryan is one of the few people to see the doctors emotions, that she lets herself be honest with because of that & the fact that the whole of flux is because he told her to pursue her past :') brb crying)

I WOULD'VE LOVED THAT!!!!!

god.... engineering/mechanic ryan helping thirteen fix the tardis... thirteen opening up slowly over time as they work together... ryan giving her good life advice, telling her to be honest with yaz.... thirteen letting him use her tools and showing him how components of the tardis work... we could've had it all.

#chris. i am standing outside your home and looking through your window #why the fuck didnt you make ryan an engineering student

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butchtoro · 3 years

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14 24 34 for the dw asks? ^.^

14. Best regeneration?

i'm only currently knowledgeable of nuwho regenerations, and honestly i'm at a four-way tie !! from nine all the way to twelve, they all bring such different emotions and experiences that i love them all (even when eleven and twelve broke my heart TT)- but i will say, ten's regeneration to eleven, taking into deleted script pieces where the doctor discussed the master and how he went down his path vs the doctor very clearly being at the crossroads of that same path but choosing kindness over everything- it's so so good imo. i wish they kept that line in during the doc's and wilf's talk !! it would've added so much more to it !!

eleven and twelve's speeches however will stick with me the most, and have helped me a lot in rough patches frankly, so those will always get huge amounts of appreciation from me. and nine's "you were fantastic" and so was i" is just !!!! he went from being so ashamed of himself and full of hate and pain over what he had to do, to proudly proclaiming, in his last words that he was absolutely fantastic. nine is such a wonderful doctor, even in his one season.

24. Best TARDIS Team?

oooh certainly a question for the ages- i'll always land back on Mickey/Rose/Jack/Nine as my favorite, seeing their fun conversation and all of them just having a lunch together feels so nice and grounded, and it makes me wonder what they all got up to without all the huge adventures taking the lead.

the best however for me is of course the medusa cascade gang, you truly cannot go wrong with every one of the doctor's friends (in that current time) helping him and saving the universe just as he did for them.

34. Best two-parter?

my instinct is to say the empty child/the doctor dances as those are my comfort episodes (seeing the doctor truly happy and everyone surviving is something i think should happen just a little bit more for them tbh :[ ) but i really think the lie of the land/monk episodes are really stand out ones. the entire plotline of them are so unique, taking a few tropes and previously done outlines and filling them in with something so frankly intense and captivating. my first viewing (a few months back actually !!), i was really honestly shocked by so much of the stuff, my mom really enjoyed them too- esp with how the monks didn't entirely talk by moving their mouths-, and tbh when the doc claimed to be on the monks side, i got so amped and upset ndndnd n even after when he was like "lol jk" i still was annoyed a bit because of how heavy of a choice bill had to make vs the doctor being all smiles after (i have my own read on all of that but i dont wanna make this even longer ndndndn)

runner ups are ofc simm!master's episodes, the doctor falls duo, and honestly !! i enjoyed spyfall, even with my critics around some of the writing :]

thank you very much for the questions !!!! i really liked thinking over my answers ee

#i am a master fan if you cant tell 😔 love that bastard #sorry that its so long ndndn i have many words on doctor who as its one of my og special interests from when i was younger !!!#n btw i love all the quizzes you make !!! theyre like a comforting little nook in a bustling library #or the little hidden brush on a forest trail you can rest in but still safely be on track #....i hope that all made sense lol #asks #dw

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ecoamerica · 2 months

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notoriousgrd · 6 years

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Thoughts on The Woman Who Fell To Earth...

It was nine minutes before the Doctor showed up, instead we got to know the new TARDIS team.

And when the Doctor does show up and *that* bassline kicks in, chills down the spine combined with wanting to punch the air and shout “Yes!”

The music in general, when I noticed it it was in a good way, conplimenting what was going on rather than drowning it out.

The Doctor : “I'm calling you Yaz cos we're friends now.”

The Doctor : “Can we have the lights and siren on?”

Yaz : “ 'ello, Ryan's nan!” Lots of lovely little bits like that between the new friends.

Didn't notice it until some time afterwards, but I don't think there was a single continuity reference other than mentioning regenerating and falling out of the TARDIS.

The entire look of the show has evolved again and looks fantastic.

Ryan : “You all would've done the same.” Graham : “I wouldn't.” The Doctor : “I would've”

Love that the new friends are all normal people, nobody is “special” (except for Karl, who is special and valued) and there's no ongoing mystery behind any of them.

Jodie was instantly The Doctor. No settling in, no zig zag going, just The Doctor.

The drunk chucking his takeaway at Tim Shaw cracked me up.

I did half-expect The Doctor to start playing those spoons only for them to fly off in opposite directions. (Still one of my favourite wee Eccleston moments is him throwing the cards all over the kitchen in Rose)

I felt Ryan's dyspraxia was handled well, it wasn't made a huge hook to hang a bit of plot off of. I have moments of sheer fumblyness due to CFS/ME so can appreciate someone with co-ordination difficulties being made a main character in a big show and handled decently so far.

Also the fact the alien hunter is actually listed as Tim Shaw in the credits.

Everything felt nice and grounded and real. Which I really enjoy in my Who.

My only real criticism of the episode is that I kind of knew very quickly that Grace wasn't going to survive the episode. Which was a shame as she was brilliant.

My only worry about Bradley Walsh was that I wouldn't be able to entirely disconnect him from being constantly corpsing game show host Bradley Walsh. But no, I was watching Graham the whole episode.

Great confrontation at the end, felt very Seven in giving them a chance to surrender but when they don't take it, having turned their own weapon against them. Also her while of Karl for kicking the hunter off the crane.

Loved the Doctor getting her new clothes from a charity shop, having helped at one for a while I can confirm you can find some surprisingly good stuff there.

The Doctor : "Deep breath." RYAN INHALES The Doctor : "Not you lot, me."

The microwave going ding after they’ve all vanished.

Also love that the new TARDIS team have become that through an accident.

ANd a proper cliffhanger!

I love that they've held off showing the TARDIS and the new title sequence, will get a few people tuning in just to see those I'd imagine. I've been spoiled for the new TARDIS interior, but can't wait to see how it looks onscreen.

I love the new theme it retains a lot of the original, fuzzes and distorts the bass up and has drums but instantly I prefer it to all of Murray Gold's efforts. The (deliberately blurred?) closing titles looked nice as well, somehow combining echoes of the Hartnell, Troughton, Pertwee and Baker titles I to a new whole.

Some didn't like it but I appreciated the list of upcoming actors, revealing almost nothing about the actual contents of the rest of the season.

Sure there's lots I'm missing, but yes, loved it, now top of my “New Doctor's First Episode” list and can't wait to see what the rest of this series brings.

#doctor who #spoilers

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