Friday, December 2, 2011

Booyah Bitches (Xmas Edition)

Yes, the next installment is out and all the signs are that C---------n Blue will be finished sometime before the Mayan apocalypse, proving that the production schedule is still ten times more efficient than anything starring Eve Myles and John Barrowman. (And please remember to delete that semi-colon at the end of the filename. Otherwise it just don't work. Tch, amateurs I have to deal with...)

0:04 - Oh, "pure evil". I though you said "you're evil" and was surprised how well Vlyn took it, all things consider.

0:36 - what a prick tease Gelver is when it comes to teleport duty. Unless maybe it's the Evil-Dead-style supernatural delay. Hmmm. Can you tell someone else came up with this cliffhanger?

1:19 - I love how the theme music has that last, wailing note that sounds like Murray Gold keeling over and sighing "I am SO freaking stoned..."

1:33 - "You should really try this self-harm stuff more often." Hah! You can tell I wrote this before slashing my wrist open, can't you? Again, huge props to Gelver. He and Palleen should get their own Will/Grace style sitcom! Only, you know, funny.

2:07 - I'm being way too visual again. Damn.

3:22 - Try and spot how many lines I knicked from Harvest of Kairos for this single scene. I mean, "keel section". Never heard that anywhere else in the English language, and here it is...

4:04 - The cast are making this a lot funnier than it was written down. I seem to have written this bit solely to be used as exposition in Next Time... trailers.

5:23 - Yes, you might be able to spot where I come down on in that Nightmare of Eden dialogue debate.

6:14 - Whoa. I totally stole that from Moffat and the Weeping Angels. I never even noticed it before. Well, the explanation. The whole "disappearing out of sight" business was mine from the start. Ahem. Moving on.

7:03 - Gosh this makes me sound clever...

9:13 - I did mention this episode would be 90% explanations, didn't I? That might be why the Doctor goes "GOODY! I LOVE EXPLANATIONS!" very loudly around this point.

9:31 - Oh yes. Alexis. I'd forgotten he was in this. Bugger.

10:31 - Vlyn, are you phoning your performance in? Or is that a cutting Vincent Savage impression of being hastily edited from poor stock footage? Or is she talking over the communicator? Hmmm. Let's go for the latter.

11:41 - Brilliant acting from the imposters, I think you'll agree. Convincing. But slightly off.

13:14 - Emma's explanation of the TARDIS = hilarity. "It's... nice." LOL.

14:33 - No, the Transfer Scoop does NOT resemble Amelia Pond's backyard. No matter what the music may indicate.

15:37 - Isn't odd that the bit Amber bigs up as funny is the most tedious bit of the plot? I'll just say that this is cunning characterization. Because it is. HAHA.

16:38 - Aquitar! WOOOHOO! Up yours, B7 Enterprises!

17:32 - "Why not?" "Because they want to kill us. And are very goal-orientated." Heh. I wrote that.

19:27 - Nigel, stop stealing the scene! It's my own fault, but really...

21:09 - Amber stumbling over her words isn't in the script. But, hey, it's not Richard Briers (or even Dude-Playing-Alexis) levels, so we can live with it.

23:03 - Wow. Alexis delivers a joke properly. That showed me.

23:22 - Eep.

24:15 - I have no idea where that music comes from but it's... very excitable...

25:12 - "I missed those." Smooth.

25:46 - And now the long awaited cliffhanger to part two. Slightly better in my head, but the Doctor has good reason to sound bored. Alexis, however, doesn't and Vlyn still seems to be represented by a dodgy mobile phone connection. Oh well. At least Emma sells the moment.

25:57 - MY APOTHEOSIS IS REINFORCED! MWAHAAHAHAHAHAHAH!

26:34 - Um... Dio wasn't in this episode. Hello? Hello?!?

Well. That was nice, all things considered (though killing off Eljay and leaving Alexis alive does rank up there with clicking on a sparacus thread in 2005 as "Biggest Regrets of the 21st Century"), and I can be proud of making a shitload of exposition and monster chases at least mildly diverting and a few mysteries left unresolved. Certainly, hand on my heart, this is better paced than a few Pertwee six-parters and the comic performances here might have made Night Terrors bearable if they were in the cast... but maybe not. Night Terrors WAS weapons-grade shite. Hopefully Jared will like it if nothing else.

Now, let's all just pray that the next two parts are released before anyone else important dies. You realize when part one came out, Lis Sladen, Nicholas Courtney and an iota of respect for Mark Gatiss were still alive?!?

Oh well, at least in quality not quantity, Darker Project delivers.

13 comments:

Jared "No Nickname" Hansen said...

Hey, out of curiosity why do spambots ravage my blog but not yours? Is it because yours is relatively active? Or has there just been too much credit card info shared on mine?

Arco Chamber said...

Could be the former. Didn't you have one of those adds in the format at some point? Maybe that got you onto a register or something.

In other news, Moff doesn't think he'll bring back RS next year. He did some skits for the DVD showing the Eleventh Doctor being the one to send River to the Library to die.

So. Yeah. That was a total freaking waste of time, all things considered. And he wants to delay filming of the series because he doesn't get a nostalgia buzz from screening it in the first half of the year and wants it all in the last months of the year just like the good old days.

He also refuses to do anything to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary on the grounds no one cares.

By now I'd be crying that they should bring back RTD, but he's quit TV altogether to look after his boyfriend, who's got cancer.

Things just plain suck.

Arco Chamber said...

Whoops. Wrong id. Never mind.

Matthew Blanchette said...

Indeed... kindly quit your whinging; at least we've got a season guaranteed, rather than some horrid hiatus no one knows when will end. :-P

I think it might be a smart idea; if you think of it, the general best seasons of the old series aired in the autumn, no? I think Moff might be onto something with that...

...and bring back RTD? Forbid! I'd rather the ghost of JNT come back and start pissing all over the program than that.

Matthew Blanchette said...

Things do not suck; in fact, things generally sucked more back in '08-'09 than they do now.

Kindly cheer up, Ewen. :-P

Arco Chamber said...

Get your own damn blog, then. I don't need to justify my opinion to anyone - the fact we've got a self-confessed slacker and compulsive liar as a showrunner making entire decisions on whims (including the publicly admitted failures of the NPD and the River Song story arc) who announces he doesn't actually want to make too much Doctor Who because he gets tired easily pisses me off.

It's not as if I don't know the hassle it is writing DW scripts and getting production schedules in order, as this post is all about. If a loser from Dulwich Hill can get a work ethic together, the Grand Moff has no excuse.

Why the hell should I cheer up to satisfy appeasist mongrel lepers like yourself who are so far in denial they're buried underneath the sphynx itself?

I liked 08 and 09 more than 11. At least RTD bothered to write stories rather than snatching up a children's book off the shelf and refusing to even change the title...

Matthew Blanchette said...

I can't seem to recall what NPD is... but this interview conducted in the '90s (which I'm guessing you might've already read) has lowered my respect for the Moff, a bit: http://nzdwfc.tetrap.com/archive/tsv43/onediscussion.html

...you might be happy to know, though (though I seriously doubt it) that there's a Caves of Androzani ref in the new special, somewhere.

Matthew Blanchette said...

Also, "appeaser"? Do I look anything like Neville Chamberlain, to you? :-P

Matthew Blanchette said...

...and, as an addendum, I'm really not much of a blogger (as you could probably tell by my long-dormant blog on here), but this guy is; you might like him: http://tardiseruditorum.blogspot.com/

(Incidentally, since Season 19 was delayed for a year due to Peter Davison's commitments to his sitcom Sink or Swim, why aren't you excoriating him for being lazy and not doing both at once?)

Matthew Blanchette said...

Also, sorry to clutter your comments; Merry Christmas. :-)

Arco Chamber said...

I can't seem to recall what NPD is...
Lucky you. I refer to the New Dalek Paradigm, the fat iDaleks. Moffat was quoted as upset (yet unsurprised) no one liked them and, curiously enough, has since written the old gold Daleks blowing them up - TWICE! - while Mark Gatiss was fed to living skulls.

but this interview conducted in the '90s
Actually no, but I have heard of it. Thomas Cookson described it as typical 90s fan self-loathing, which sums it up. Remember, pre-2005 Moffat's entire DW catalogue was a hard-to-find short story about Professor Candy saying how utterly crap EVERY SINGLE ASPECT of Doctor Who was. RTD meanwhile had at least been "uncool" enough to put a whole book to his name.

...you might be happy to know, though (though I seriously doubt it) that there's a Caves of Androzani ref in the new special, somewhere.
Well... I'm not UNHAPPY about it... but I don't think it would change my opinion of the story. The reference to Seven Keys of Doomsday didn't make me love Night Terrors...

Also, "appeaser"? Do I look anything like Neville Chamberlain, to you? :-P
Neville Chamberlain bought Britain time to re-arm. What have you done on the "plus" column?

but this guy is; you might like him
I know of him, but I admit to avoiding the blog - mainly because just as I'm enjoying it, it all stops. I'm waiting till he's finished a few more Doctors.

(Incidentally, since Season 19 was delayed for a year due to Peter Davison's commitments to his sitcom Sink or Swim, why aren't you excoriating him for being lazy and not doing both at once?)
...no.

If Season 7 was delayed cause Matt Smith was doing Party Animals 2: Electric Boogaloo, I wouldn't be complaining about the production team, would I?

But since it's been delayed because Moffat has OUTRIGHT STATED he's
a) too knackered to keep up the red hot white pace that made him unable to do a mere 13 episodes in one go (which RTD managed four times, as well as producing twin sister shows simultaneously)
b) not doing much Sherlock at all
c) delaying things purely out of nostalgic spite rather than for any real logistical reason - he even says ratings would not be improved by any such change, it's just because he wants to go back to his childhood when it was all at Christmas

It annoys. Especially as he just admitted he's more worried about the show failing under his stewardship because it might affect his reputation on TV. That's right, if he can find a way to exonerate himself from blame, Doctor Who can go to hell, apparently.

Is it too much to want the showrunner to actually enjoy making the show instead of a chore he is trying more and more desperate plans to avoid producing?

Yeah. Merry Christmas.

Arco Chamber said...

Oh, and while I admit to my usual exasperation we couldn't just email each other, my only REAL annoyance is the comments are not about my awesome radio play but a bone-idle Scottish git's ego-tripping.

Matthew Blanchette said...

Well... guess I'll have to check out your awesome radio play, then. :-)

Have a happy Christmas Day!