Doctor Who 12x03 "Orphan 55" full reaction
Added 2021-04-17 23:58:22 +0000 UTC"Now suck your thumb until the hallucinations stop. And remember, they're not real bats."
Comments
What do I say about this episode.. A fair idea but executed about as badly as one might have come to expect at this stage. I was starting to believe they were actually doing it on purpose by this point. Previously the intention was to defund and relinquish support till the show was finally cancelled at the end of classic who. I don't really believe this the case this time, however it's still hard to believe that there could be this lack of talent available. I once coined this era as contempt for the human race with dad jokes. When it comes to Who, I am a possitive person, honestly I am. But dang they're making this near on impossible with this run. Again, so on the nose, that splint is never coming off. Dregs.... (of humanity) hard eye roll Again! The two generation green haired (the natural world) father and son. (Our children are the future and we have to listen to them.) True, but about as subtle as a sledgehammer to the nose. Estranged mother and daughter. (Not living up to one's responsibilities. To busy focusing on building infrastructure while what's more important is burning to the ground around you.) They don't care about proper character development because they are just there as empty symbolism. Thats why they don't make much sense and appear underdeveloped. I don't understand the art direction for the era. Either it's over saturated with CGI with little character development or plot. Or shot like this one, the balance is all akilter. They are right about dregs, dregs of the barrel with this one.
Daryl
2021-05-30 08:28:23 +0000 UTCI should add to this, as I forgot, the mind wipes in Spyfall feel completely out of place after how the series has previously addressed this. 10 did it against Donnas wishes and gave her no choice, he forced it on her, for her own good, but he did not handle in it well at all. 12 adressed thiswith Clara, coming to realise he didn't have the right to make that choice for someone else, they choose together for the greater good of both. And then with Bill where 12 couldnt even bring himself to do it in the face of having suffered such a memory loss himself of someone he cared greatly for. So to have 13 so callously and again without permision just use it casually seems totally out of the Doctors character development and ignores all the development of the character preceding it. Lazy careless and without any thought. Which oddly enough pretty much sums up the entirety of the writing, directing, editing, acting and writing of Orphan 55 too. It still amazes me this script got the green light at all given its multitude of very obvious issues. It gives the impression not even the production team or actors cared for this and put little to no effort into it at all, as to a bad script they added poor performances, terrible direction, poor lighting, awful editing, and did it even have a soundtrack?- I cant recall it at all. An utter mess of an episode, but I wish I could say this was the low point of Chibnal Who, adly though I cant. And amazingly he is still in the job!
BobBob
2021-04-21 03:48:31 +0000 UTCMy internet was out so you are spared a lengthy review of Spyfall- all I'll say here it was as good as its got wthout actually being good. Its derivitive of better stories preceding it, especally them on the run, but the Graham/Yaz/Ryan scene lacks any of the insight or character building the exact same scene between 10, Martha and Jack have. Its a waste of Lenny Henry who just fades out the narrative. And I hate the cameo from Stephen Fry as all he is there for is to say' oh look how misogyinistic and stuffy the UK government is'. Only we had a female PM years ago, many of our leading MP's and office holders are women, and until recently in the Scottish Parliament the two top parties were led by women (one of them in a same sex marriage and she was the Tory!) and the third party leader was a married gay man. So the whole Fry bit seemed about 4 decades out of date. But they were determined to make yet another look how awful men are presuming she cant be the Doctor if not a man comment. And the Master I can barely watch, I disliked the Simm Master for the same reasons the actor did- to over the top and ridiculous, and this is the Simm Master times a thousand. And is he supposed to be after Missy? If so there is no narative or development link between the two versions. And the Doctor using the Master ethnic appearenace against him withthe NAZI's of all peple is just unfathomably bad. But then I suppose it fits with this Doctors inexplicable utter void of morality. And as ar as I can tell the two historic female characters are there to tell people they were important historic wpman we should know about, they affect nothing, they only seem to be there so three powerful women can emerge from the white light at the end like superheroes and thats their entire purpose in this. Kind of patronising and insentive lip-service considering what these women actually achieved and especially how one of them met her end at a Nazi shooting squad. When it comes to this episode, Orphan worst ever, its awful. Simple as that. Plotting, pacing, setting everything is awful. The direction is laugh out loud bad- theres no life or plants or trees on this planet except in every background shot, the Dregs look ok when glimpsed in flickering light and dark corridors but exactly like people in cheap suits if you shoot them in broad daylight as they do. We never see the Dregs and the characters in the same shot when they are outside after leaving the vehicle, we get told the Dregs are all over the vehicle, we can even hear them, yet they when they all get out, not a Dreg to be seen, then suddenly we get a shot of just them in plain daylight all on their own looking awful. The editing is equally amatuer hour and hard to fathom how this got through. And the makeup department needs shot for that cat person thing, we've had decent cat people on Who before, why does this one look like facepainting from a childrens party? We only get ten episodes a series now, there should never be any as poorly conceived, written and produced as this. The characters dont make sense either- the green haired father/son just eat screentime without ever getting more than a very cursory character outline. Why does everyone have to go looking for Benny? And that entire journey is a painful waste of time in a big circle to no purpose. Ryan/terrorist girl is so badly written and performed its hard to look at the screen, was that thumb sucking from Ryan at the end meant to be moving? its so bad I actually wept tears of laughter when it happened- and if he cared that much why didnt he insist the Doctor go back and rescue them in the TARDIS? Yet again no one calling out this Doctor for her callousness and lack of caring about others lives. She'd rather spend her time preaching at us. The mother/daughter thing? Am I really meant to buy they are mother daughter? Or that her feeling abandoned turned her into a terrorist bombmaker out to revenge herself on her own mother? Why is the entire resort run by one women and a sidekick? How? How does the 'ticket' get into and transport them from a moving TARDIS anywhere in space and time, and know how to get them back? Stuff just gets into the TARDIS these days no trouble. Transmats it seems can now teleport across all space and time without contraints, why do people even need spacehips any more? The virus that infects people and machines is dumbly introduced and poorly executed. The Dregs themselves are they intelligent, sentient, the Doctor can talk to one and be understood, yet at all other times they seem like animals- which is it or is it just as the plot needs again? And there is no reason at all why the Doctor at the end couldnt have used the TARDIS to go back and save the mother and daughter, she just doesnt want to so leaves them to die, preferring instead to give a direct at audience preachy lecture on the dangers of climate control (this entire oh this planet is really earth reveal was also done way better in the 6th Doctor era, and the reveal is done in almost exactly the same way only its a Russian underground this time instead of the London underground, so even that is another Chibnal ripoff of a better Who story). And the entire this is only one possible future undermines everything else weve been told especially in NuWho about how the future and time travel works- unless the TARDIS skipped into a parallel universe the future is set in stone. So guess the Great and Bounteous Human Empire, the solar flares forcing countries to flee earth and colonise space, the spread across the galaxy and New, New York, none of that happened? Or in a parallel version? Who knows, the episode doesnt care enough to explain itself at all, just stomps all over whats come before with no regard. The only thing this episode cares about is hammering the viewer over the head with its enviromental story with all the subtly of Greta Thornborg sitting on your head hitting it with a hammer yelling "Climate change is bad". Oh and Yaz is in this episode, probably, hard to tell.
BobBob
2021-04-20 13:07:34 +0000 UTC
