3 weeks till new Who!

[Nellisir]

I am from the US, and while I do sometimes find it difficult to catch certain phrases or understand some slang terms (snog box went over my head), this one was pretty clear to me on the first viewing. Didn't cause any confusion for me at all.

Sometimes I'm not 100% on what they said, but I get almost all the idioms and slang. I thought snog box was hilarious.

 

[sabrinathecat]

If you have to go to that much length to justify something, there is lacking in the writing department. If the audience has to make that many assumptions, there is lacking in writing department.
This sounds like a politician or con-man. "If you keep talking fast enough, you can baffle them with male cattle excrement."
And there is a limit to the time stretch. If you say "two seconds", and it takes more than twice that, you've blown it. Sure, 2.5-3 seconds, no biggie. But 10? That's like the cheap old westerns where the revolver shoots 18 bullets without reloading.

 

[Mallus]

If you have to go to that much length to justify something, there is lacking in the writing department.

Description of what actually occurred on-screen != justification. Also, I wouldn't have had to go to such lengths if some folks had paid better attention!

If the audience has to make that many assumptions, there is lacking in writing department.

One assumption (and barely even that). One != many.

This sounds like a politician or con-man. "If you keep talking fast enough, you can baffle them with male cattle excrement."

Do you want to talk about Doctor Who, or just meander for a spell in the folksy style of Will Rogers?

(not that there's anything wrong with that)

 

[Herschel]

When a supposed "critical eye" is actually blindness....

 

[MarkB]

I think the importance of the psychic link in the TARDIS trips is being underestimated. Note that, while the TARDIS makes its own way into the pocket universe, when it emerges it materialises within the portal that the psychic link was opening.

My interpretation was that the TARDIS might well have been unable to escape the pocket dimension on its remaining power, but the opened portal provided an easy exit for it. There wasn't an explicit explanation of that, but it seemed obvious to me at the time.


I do feel that the story beats in the episode felt rather awkward. It seemed like it ought to have been the story of the two 'monsters' separated across the dimensions, and that it would have been a fine story of bad first impressions and eventual understanding, if only it hadn't all been crowded out by the Clara-and-Doctor stuff.

The role of the experimental time traveller was also unforgivably marginalised - this is a pioneer of human-developed time travel, and she barely even gets a few lines of dialogue. Once she's been saved, she plays no further part in the plot and is reduced to standing around awkwardly in the background while people talk over her.

 

[lin_fusan]

MarkB, I agree completely. That's pretty much what I meant/said when I enjoyed the episode up until the rescue, and then from then on it was really clunky.

 

[Tonguez]

I think the importance of the psychic link in the TARDIS trips is being underestimated. Note that, while the TARDIS makes its own way into the pocket universe, when it emerges it materialises within the portal that the psychic link was opening.

My interpretation was that the TARDIS might well have been unable to escape the pocket dimension on its remaining power, but the opened portal provided an easy exit for it. There wasn't an explicit explanation of that, but it seemed obvious to me at the time.


I do feel that the story beats in the episode felt rather awkward. It seemed like it ought to have been the story of the two 'monsters' separated across the dimensions, and that it would have been a fine story of bad first impressions and eventual understanding, if only it hadn't all been crowded out by the Clara-and-Doctor stuff.

The role of the experimental time traveller was also unforgivably marginalised - this is a pioneer of human-developed time travel, and she barely even gets a few lines of dialogue. Once she's been saved, she plays no further part in the plot and is reduced to standing around awkwardly in the background while people talk over her.

Yup thats my reading of it too, the psychic link provided the TARDIS with an easy door and Hila Tocarien lost in time and the Lonely Monsters both deserved to have two separate stories not one shared 45 minute blah

 

[JustinAlexander]

Were we watching the same episode? The psychic opened the portal, but couldn't keep it open long enough to get the time-traveller AND the Doctor out. Thus the TARDIS and Clara to the rescue. Second time around, the psychic opened the portal to drop the Doctor in and give him time to locate the monster, then the TARDIS swooped in to pick them up. Admittedly the TARDIS might've been unnecessary the second time, but at least they knew it would work that time.

Yup. That would be another explanation that might have worked in an episode that was better written: The TARDIS can get in-and-out fast enough because all it's doing is picking up the Doctor (whereas if it had to drop him off, wait for him to locate the alien/Hila, and then leave it would take too long). It's got some problems (why can't the TARDIS drop him off, leave, then come back and pick him up?), but it would at least provide a functional explanation.

Unfortunately, it doesn't actually work in the episode-as-poorly-written: Before the situation is just "pick the Doctor up", we're told the TARDIS can't do it because of X. After the situation has become "just pick the Doctor up", we're told that the TARDIS can't do it for the exact same reason. Then Clara calls the TARDIS a cow and suddenly the reason no longer applies.

The only explanation I can think of is that it's maybe a dialect thing - you're in the US? Maybe you guys found it a bit harder to catch what they were saying (they do speak fast), but it was pretty clear to me. It was very explicit that it was a "we can go in for only a few seconds" thing, and very explicity not a "we can't go in at all" thing.

I understood the line of dialogue. It's still bad writing.

I think the importance of the psychic link in the TARDIS trips is being underestimated. Note that, while the TARDIS makes its own way into the pocket universe, when it emerges it materialises within the portal that the psychic link was opening.

That's my personal fan-wank.

As I mentioned before, there are a lot of explanations which would have worked within the structure of the episode with only minor changes. Which is why it's so terribly unforgivable that the episode was so poorly written as to not include any of them.

And because this post hasn't gone on long enough: any critique of the writing in Hide that doesn't favorably mention the real heart of the episode --ie, where it stops being a period ghost story and becomes a brief history of the Earth's whole history-- and the lovely, affecting lines given to Clara (and the Doctor's fumbling response) is lacking in the worthwhile criticism department!

It's a decent couple of lines, but it's not explored in any meaningful depth. It's also flawed by the fact that the entire sequence is another example of the episode breaking its own rules: You can only photograph the ghost if the psychic is present. The Doctor leaves the psychic behind and continues photographing the ghost.

Cut the line that establishes that rule. Or bring the psychic with. Or have the doctor apply a filter to the camera. (The filter could even be the blue gemstone that's used as part of the seance.)

This is the most frustrating thing about the bad writing this season: Most of it would be really trivial to fix. There's simply no excuse for the scripts to be this sloppy or the conclusion to be this weak.

 

[JustinAlexander]

Re: "Journey to the Center of the TARDIS".

Nice to see a conclusion that actually makes sense and isn't just pulled out of a hat as a deus ex machina. And there are a lot of really nice details (like hearing Susan explain the TARDIS acronym). On the other hand, some of the individual elements in the episode felt rather forced ("THE HISTORY OF THE TIME WAR") and there are a couple of significant holes, starting with the Doctor forcing the salvage team to help him but then never actually expecting them to do anything or needing them in any way.

There's also some incredibly disjointed editing in here combined with some poor directorial choices: Clara running away from an explosion and then the explosion simply disappearing. Clara running away from a monster but really just moseying while peeking into various TARDIS rooms and giggling. The Doctor running past someone who needs to be saved, leaving it so that only the brother can save him. Et cetera. The visual handling of the ash-creatures in the first half of the episode was also very derivative of last week's monster-of-the-week.

The key sequence in the Eye of Harmony is also inexplicably flawed: First, the poor directorial decision of having the Doctor run past the "android" brother. Second, in a scenario where "we can only stay for a minute" you have the Doctor stop halfway across the catwalk in order to casually discuss the thing that's killing them. (What?) Third, "as long as we interrupt the timeline this can't happen" doesn't make any sense. Yes, you can make it so that they don't get joined at the shoulders when they burn. But that doesn't mean that you've negated the actual physical process of burning up.

Also: You can't have the Doctor say, "If you help me get her out, you get the machine. (...) Right behind those doors is the salvage of a lifetime." And then later say, "Salvage of a lifetime. You meant the ship. I meant Clara." That doesn't actually track. Either you were offering them the TARDIS as a fee (which makes no sense) or you're referring to Clara as a machine and offering her as the fee (which also makes no sense).

 

[MarkB]

One thing I've always respected about Doctor Who is that, despite being a genre show and having perhaps the greatest level of opportunity in the form of the TARDIS, the series has only very rarely used the Big Red Reset Button method of plot resolution. I was not impressed to see it used here.

Whilst I did like the occasional references to previously-mentioned TARDIS areas, I'd have loved to see a little more - stumbling into a length of Davison-era TARDIS corridor, or finding the old Tertiary Console Room from the Baker era.