Doctor Who 9x9 Instant Reaction Post
Just finished watching Doctor Who, "Sleep No More".
I have to say, I really didn't like that one.
* The hand-held shakycam and jerky editing started making me motion-sick from the very beginning. You're know you're not off to a good start when an episode is _literally_ making people queasy.
* The camera style also made the episode hard to follow - there are a lot of points where it's hard to keep track of who's where, and whose eyes we're supposed to be seeing through at any given moment.
* I find it hard to believe that there's no such thing as an intelligent race without sleep. This is the Whoniverse, we've got sentient machines, plants, rocks, and astronomical objects. Is sleep really _that_ universal?
* About the only thing I knew about this episode in advance was that lots of people found it confusing. And I thought, silly Doctor Who fans, always complaining that this show for twelve-year-olds is too difficult for them to understand. And now ... I'm honestly not quite sure what was supposed to be happening in this episode.
* The "science" and "logic" were wobbly even by DW standards. There's a lot of pulling conclusions out of thin air based on very little evidence. (How do we know the machine is unspeakably evil? How do we know that they're eyedust monsters? How do we know they're blind? We just do, OK?) When the Doctor started complaining that it felt more like a sci-fi/horror story than something real, I absolutely agreed. I thought that was going to lead to us finding out that there was a good reason behind the wobbliness, that the story was unconvincing not because it was a weak script, but because it was a _trick_. Except, if that's what they were going for, then it didn't quite come off.
* So, drat it, I'm going to have to go look up one of those "explain the episode to me" blog posts to make sure that what I think probably happened is right.
* And I think that the reason this episode is confusing is not because the concepts are particularly complex or difficult (like, say "Pandorica/Big Bang"), but just because it's so unclear in the way it's presented. Which is _exactly_ the problem that I have with "Ghost Light", one of my Least Favorite Episodes Ever. "Hard to follow" and "clever" are not necessarily the same thing.
* Or possibly, I'm just cranky because Mark Gatiss made me carsick. Maybe I would have found the story more engrossing and less confusing if I hadn't been distracted by sensitive inner ears. Who knows?
This entry was originally posted at http://c-carol.dreamwidth.org/46451.html. Please comment wherever.
I have to say, I really didn't like that one.
* The hand-held shakycam and jerky editing started making me motion-sick from the very beginning. You're know you're not off to a good start when an episode is _literally_ making people queasy.
* The camera style also made the episode hard to follow - there are a lot of points where it's hard to keep track of who's where, and whose eyes we're supposed to be seeing through at any given moment.
* I find it hard to believe that there's no such thing as an intelligent race without sleep. This is the Whoniverse, we've got sentient machines, plants, rocks, and astronomical objects. Is sleep really _that_ universal?
* About the only thing I knew about this episode in advance was that lots of people found it confusing. And I thought, silly Doctor Who fans, always complaining that this show for twelve-year-olds is too difficult for them to understand. And now ... I'm honestly not quite sure what was supposed to be happening in this episode.
* The "science" and "logic" were wobbly even by DW standards. There's a lot of pulling conclusions out of thin air based on very little evidence. (How do we know the machine is unspeakably evil? How do we know that they're eyedust monsters? How do we know they're blind? We just do, OK?) When the Doctor started complaining that it felt more like a sci-fi/horror story than something real, I absolutely agreed. I thought that was going to lead to us finding out that there was a good reason behind the wobbliness, that the story was unconvincing not because it was a weak script, but because it was a _trick_. Except, if that's what they were going for, then it didn't quite come off.
* So, drat it, I'm going to have to go look up one of those "explain the episode to me" blog posts to make sure that what I think probably happened is right.
* And I think that the reason this episode is confusing is not because the concepts are particularly complex or difficult (like, say "Pandorica/Big Bang"), but just because it's so unclear in the way it's presented. Which is _exactly_ the problem that I have with "Ghost Light", one of my Least Favorite Episodes Ever. "Hard to follow" and "clever" are not necessarily the same thing.
* Or possibly, I'm just cranky because Mark Gatiss made me carsick. Maybe I would have found the story more engrossing and less confusing if I hadn't been distracted by sensitive inner ears. Who knows?
This entry was originally posted at http://c-carol.dreamwidth.org/46451.html. Please comment wherever.