I feel like I was a bit of a nasty pants in my review this week. The episode was dire, but perhaps I got a bit carried away with my haughty snub nosing & didn't really try to find the diamonds in the muck. There were a couple, rough ones perhaps, but diamonds nonetheless.
I very much liked the 'will we see him again' moment when the Dr & Martha paused before getting back into the TARDIS; very much a Doctor Who moment. I can't remember too many 'will we see/ meet XYZ again' moments so far in the new series.
I also liked the Daleks conspiring against Sec like naughty school boys. The eye stalk nervously scanning the tunnel was hilarious. It was silly, I laughed, marvellous!
That'll do..it was still bollocks. Exactly 40 years on ('67 to '07) 'Evolution' is entirely unworthy of sharing the initials of the original 'EOTD', the sublime 'Evil Of The Daleks'.
Warmest fuzzies!, The Lucozer.
Showing posts with label Evolution of the Daleks. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Evolution of the Daleks. Show all posts
Monday, April 30, 2007
Sunday, April 29, 2007
Flagellation Of The Daleks!
What a load of rubbish. As the Co-Pilot rightly said, so much of this episode was for pure effect and was lacking in subtlety, originality & inspiration. This was best exemplified by DT's 'just kill me then' speech in Hooverville. Poor Davo, he's been doing so well but even he, when confronted by such melodramatic dialouge, can't make it look behind it's shoulder so he can run away! Dalek Sec was abominable in every respect, the mask looked silly and it might as well have been Eric Roberts' head up the octopuses bum. He might actually have done a better job (gulp!) with this most awkward, wrong footed creation. EOTD, like the 1996 telemovie, is an uncomfortable mix of the Anglo and the American. The mix could work, but once again it's not given a chance because of the peddling of tired cliches and stereotypes. The faux-American elements just come over cheesy, grating and painfully forced. Tallulah being the prime example among many.
EOTD stumbles from set piece to set piece with lashings of 'shock' and 'awe'. Actually, there's not really much shock. It is painfully obvious from the start of each set piece which emotions we are going to be led by the nose to feel. If there is any uncertainty, as the Co-Pilot rightly says, the bombastic incidental music soon leaves little doubt. The dialouge was for the most part so ridiculously overblown and 'plotty' that moments that could potentially mine rich emotional and dramatic veins are laughed out of the loungeroom and out the back door in shame. Dalek Sec too, cow udder for a head (nice one CP), waxing emotional in a dodgy New York drawl? Funny for about two seconds until you realise this is meant to be serious, months were spent creating this tosh and that I expect so much more. The last ten minutes or so seem like an escalating joke among stoned teenagers...and then this could happen..ha ha...and then then that could happen...haha, that's f&*^king ridiculous, no no, how about this...The zenith of the stupidity was the chained Sec being led onto the stage S&M gimp style on his hands and knees. Unspeakable. Daleks as masters and slaves..ooh er!..Oh how they laughed and slapped their thighs in the Production Office!
Doctor Who is eating it's own tail, or maybe it's eating something else's tail? With it's Frankenstein referencing and Back To the Future aping, it seems to perpetually set itself up as the vaguely annoying, idolising geeky younger cousin to these things. Not even as an equal. Doctor Who shouldn't be bowing and scraping to the likes of Buffy or Back To The Future. Doctor Who should be setting it's own standards and needs to come up with new ideas, not fourth-hand rehashes. If it must reference other things, they should be more obscure and more subtly threaded into the story; analogies of tales from mythology, cult movies, it's own rich past even (rather than it's own wobbly previous season as the Co-Pilot pointed out). What is needed is elements with more to offer the story than what the Co-Pilot and I have derogitarily dubbed the 'fabulous effect'. The Simpsons finds a marvellous balance of the obscure and the obvious with its cultural and pop-cultural references. Doctor Who hasn't got the balance right yet.
Last week it looked as if we had a noble failure on our hands with this two parter. This week was so ridiculous that I can no longer give the nobility box a tick. I feel this story had the fractured clunkiness of lots of script editing (or adding) around it's flashy bits. All that said, I'm waving my pom poms for DT right alongside the Co-Pilot and I liked the fact that Laszlo remained half pig. Actually, I can't say that I want my 45 minutes back despite the dressing down I've dished out. Some shameful, twisted part of me still managed to enjoy this mess at some level. It certainly had some whizz bang. I think I should get a cat scan.
Love, Lucozer.
EOTD stumbles from set piece to set piece with lashings of 'shock' and 'awe'. Actually, there's not really much shock. It is painfully obvious from the start of each set piece which emotions we are going to be led by the nose to feel. If there is any uncertainty, as the Co-Pilot rightly says, the bombastic incidental music soon leaves little doubt. The dialouge was for the most part so ridiculously overblown and 'plotty' that moments that could potentially mine rich emotional and dramatic veins are laughed out of the loungeroom and out the back door in shame. Dalek Sec too, cow udder for a head (nice one CP), waxing emotional in a dodgy New York drawl? Funny for about two seconds until you realise this is meant to be serious, months were spent creating this tosh and that I expect so much more. The last ten minutes or so seem like an escalating joke among stoned teenagers...and then this could happen..ha ha...and then then that could happen...haha, that's f&*^king ridiculous, no no, how about this...The zenith of the stupidity was the chained Sec being led onto the stage S&M gimp style on his hands and knees. Unspeakable. Daleks as masters and slaves..ooh er!..Oh how they laughed and slapped their thighs in the Production Office!
Doctor Who is eating it's own tail, or maybe it's eating something else's tail? With it's Frankenstein referencing and Back To the Future aping, it seems to perpetually set itself up as the vaguely annoying, idolising geeky younger cousin to these things. Not even as an equal. Doctor Who shouldn't be bowing and scraping to the likes of Buffy or Back To The Future. Doctor Who should be setting it's own standards and needs to come up with new ideas, not fourth-hand rehashes. If it must reference other things, they should be more obscure and more subtly threaded into the story; analogies of tales from mythology, cult movies, it's own rich past even (rather than it's own wobbly previous season as the Co-Pilot pointed out). What is needed is elements with more to offer the story than what the Co-Pilot and I have derogitarily dubbed the 'fabulous effect'. The Simpsons finds a marvellous balance of the obscure and the obvious with its cultural and pop-cultural references. Doctor Who hasn't got the balance right yet.
Last week it looked as if we had a noble failure on our hands with this two parter. This week was so ridiculous that I can no longer give the nobility box a tick. I feel this story had the fractured clunkiness of lots of script editing (or adding) around it's flashy bits. All that said, I'm waving my pom poms for DT right alongside the Co-Pilot and I liked the fact that Laszlo remained half pig. Actually, I can't say that I want my 45 minutes back despite the dressing down I've dished out. Some shameful, twisted part of me still managed to enjoy this mess at some level. It certainly had some whizz bang. I think I should get a cat scan.
Love, Lucozer.
Devolution of the daleks
The worst Dalek story ever...the most 'Schlocktor Who' of all (New Earth and Runaway Bride might be jealous of this 'honour' but f**k them).
This is akin to a cartoon, from the terrible masks to the cardboard dialogue.
The case against:
Soloman was one of the few redeeming features in this debacle, but as he makes his stand against the Daleks one remembers the president from Rise of the Cybermen last year and feels disappointed at the obviousness of the recycling that is going on. New ideas please team.
Why does the Doctor offer his life in a grandstanding moment? It seems that this, like much of this story, exists purely for effect. Subtlety is so much more the domain of Doctor Who and this kind of macho "I am a selfless hero ra ra ra" bollocks, undermines the wonder of the show and its protagonist. If that sounds po-faced and superior, well maybe it is.
Dalek Sec is truly awful. The actor seems intent on evoking the best-forgotten memory of John Lumic. His performance is uncooked, scurvy-inducing ham.
Other evocations of last seasons early Cybermen 'opus' are reflushed through the script - the idea of 'mining' humans, being one obvious example. Another being the re-pillaging of the Frankenstein mythology. Get some new ideas please team - you have the keys to the castle...
Murray Gold as usual fills the space with Hollywood cliches...for Christ's sake man, listen to Brian Eno for a bit...let the audience find the meaning of the scene for themselves...with your pizzicato stabs and outrageously butch choir...stop telling us how to feel!...for the most part we are intelligent viewers. We'll get there ourselves. In all faireness, even the great Dudley Simpson started to run out of ideas, having to write a score every week, so maybe this is a critisism pointed at your superiors Murray. Perhaps they should give you a break. You could write maybe a third of the season's scores (it is true than now and again you have written some absolutely lovely stuff) and bring in a couple of other musical tyros to have a go at the rest.
Ok so it's time to say a few good thing about this episode, because frankly I could go on and on about its flaws.
I never thought I would say this, but the best thing about Doctor Who at the moment (apart of course from the fact that it is on our screens at all - and for that I must praise you my favourite aunty, Russell T.) is David Tennant. David, I am falling in love with you big time. You look like a man constrained by crappy scripts. You look like a man who could do anything with the right material. Please don't leave yet....I am a converted cheerleader to your cause.
Other good stuff...the line: "You told us to imagine, and we have imagined your irrelevance" was a fabulous shaft of gold, where most else was dark.
Other random thoughts:
1) How many himbos can there be in one episode?
2) Did Paul (Showgirls, Basic Instinct) Verhoeven have a hand in this shite? If not, why were the production team trying to emulate his unbelievable drivel?
3) The story was so ridiculous and over the top that I found myself praying that a buxom swiss farm girl (sorry about the sexist stereotype, chums) would come down from the hills and start milking Dalek Sek's teats! Alas no such pleasure.
4) The crap sentimentalism of Tallulah, waxing lyrical about the wonders of New York left me laughing at the shallowness of it all. If you are going to set a story in New York, and go on about how fabulous it is, show us New York's wonders don't tell us in a CGI homage (City of Death lavished Paris upon us and we went away contented)
Anyway. This sucked. Thankfully the trailer for next week looked sexy as!
Kisses
The Co - Pilot
This is akin to a cartoon, from the terrible masks to the cardboard dialogue.
The case against:
Soloman was one of the few redeeming features in this debacle, but as he makes his stand against the Daleks one remembers the president from Rise of the Cybermen last year and feels disappointed at the obviousness of the recycling that is going on. New ideas please team.
Why does the Doctor offer his life in a grandstanding moment? It seems that this, like much of this story, exists purely for effect. Subtlety is so much more the domain of Doctor Who and this kind of macho "I am a selfless hero ra ra ra" bollocks, undermines the wonder of the show and its protagonist. If that sounds po-faced and superior, well maybe it is.
Dalek Sec is truly awful. The actor seems intent on evoking the best-forgotten memory of John Lumic. His performance is uncooked, scurvy-inducing ham.
Other evocations of last seasons early Cybermen 'opus' are reflushed through the script - the idea of 'mining' humans, being one obvious example. Another being the re-pillaging of the Frankenstein mythology. Get some new ideas please team - you have the keys to the castle...
Murray Gold as usual fills the space with Hollywood cliches...for Christ's sake man, listen to Brian Eno for a bit...let the audience find the meaning of the scene for themselves...with your pizzicato stabs and outrageously butch choir...stop telling us how to feel!...for the most part we are intelligent viewers. We'll get there ourselves. In all faireness, even the great Dudley Simpson started to run out of ideas, having to write a score every week, so maybe this is a critisism pointed at your superiors Murray. Perhaps they should give you a break. You could write maybe a third of the season's scores (it is true than now and again you have written some absolutely lovely stuff) and bring in a couple of other musical tyros to have a go at the rest.
Ok so it's time to say a few good thing about this episode, because frankly I could go on and on about its flaws.
I never thought I would say this, but the best thing about Doctor Who at the moment (apart of course from the fact that it is on our screens at all - and for that I must praise you my favourite aunty, Russell T.) is David Tennant. David, I am falling in love with you big time. You look like a man constrained by crappy scripts. You look like a man who could do anything with the right material. Please don't leave yet....I am a converted cheerleader to your cause.
Other good stuff...the line: "You told us to imagine, and we have imagined your irrelevance" was a fabulous shaft of gold, where most else was dark.
Other random thoughts:
1) How many himbos can there be in one episode?
2) Did Paul (Showgirls, Basic Instinct) Verhoeven have a hand in this shite? If not, why were the production team trying to emulate his unbelievable drivel?
3) The story was so ridiculous and over the top that I found myself praying that a buxom swiss farm girl (sorry about the sexist stereotype, chums) would come down from the hills and start milking Dalek Sek's teats! Alas no such pleasure.
4) The crap sentimentalism of Tallulah, waxing lyrical about the wonders of New York left me laughing at the shallowness of it all. If you are going to set a story in New York, and go on about how fabulous it is, show us New York's wonders don't tell us in a CGI homage (City of Death lavished Paris upon us and we went away contented)
Anyway. This sucked. Thankfully the trailer for next week looked sexy as!
Kisses
The Co - Pilot
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