Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Richards" data-source="post: 7892628" data-attributes="member: 508">Episode 3:  "Orphan 55"I liked the Dreg monster design, for the most part.  I liked the design of the vehicle the resort people were in that crashed.Let me think...yep, that's about all I liked about this episode.  The concept of a vacation paradise you can only get to via teleporting from anywhere across the cosmos (which sounds like it would be pretty expensive and/or require a lot of power but can apparently happen merely by placing six coupons together) was pretty stupid.  Graham gathered the six required coupons but the teleport took him, the Doctor, Yaz, and Ryan so they all got the 2-week vacation - what would have happened if, say, Graham had assembled his six coupons in the middle of a crowded Grand Central Station or something?  Free vacations for all?The whole competing "Mom doesn't pay enough attention to me so I'm going to blow up her life's work" attitude vs. "I'm going to completely ignore my daughter to spend time building this great project...for her!" attitude was pretty silly.I'm still trying to figure out how a life form that breathes oxygen and exhales carbon dioxide evolves to do the exact opposite.  (Because of global warming, apparently.)  So what exactly happened?  Global warming killed off all the plant life on the planet and the atmosphere ended up choked with carbon dioxide from all the people alive who still insisting on breathing, so they had to evolve?  That's... I don't think that's how that would work.  (Are there no oxygen breathers on this orphan world?  If not, you're going to have the same problem in reverse once all the carbon dioxide gets converted to oxygen by the Dregs.  Then what?  Do they evolve back to oxygen breathers again?)  And while I certainly don't mind allegories in Doctor Who to get a point across, this one was bludgeoned at the TV viewer to a ridiculous extent.  They might as well have ended it with, "Well, that's the end of tonight's story; now I'd like to lecture all the viewers about the horrors of global warning for several minutes."  I guess subtlety was not what they were going for.  And I really doubt anyone who's not already behind the "global warning is bad" message is going to have their opinion swayed by an episode of Doctor Who.I thought that was awfully nice of the Dreg to just stand there and breathe oxygen in the Doctor's face to refill the oxygen supply on her arm (instead of eviscerating her like they were doing to the rest of the resort folks).  And it was sure sporting of the Dreg to just walk right into the cage and get locked up rather than attack the Doctor there at the end.And watching the episode I actually started wondering if the writer got paid a hefty bonus for every "heroic sacrifice" he was able to put into the plot.  (That would have made an interesting drinking game.)I see there will be a Cyberman episode later this season.  Maybe that one will have some decent writing behind it.  I'm underwhelmed so far this season.  Still, next week has Nikola Tesla in it - that should be interesting.Johnathan</blockquote>

Verification