I liked Judy a lot, too. She had such good intentions, but she can't keep track of 10,000 people. I wonder if she sends all of the employees a gift on their birthday?
I liked the fact that she really wasn't remotely evil, just a nice woman trying to do her job.
Mind you, I thought for a while they were doing something clever with it not being the people, but "the system" that was evil. Then they pulled that twist, which was more clever in plot terms, but worked less well thematically.
Okay, I enjoyed this one. It had some real tension in it, and it wasn’t at all obvious who or what was the villain of the piece. And it seems that, in contrast to earlier stories, Team Tardis may actually have made some long-term changes somewhere. Not only do they prevent a colossal act of mass murder, it looks like the galaxy’s unemployment problem is going to be at least slightly solved
( ... )
I'm glad I'm not the only one who really liked it, despite some flaws that get more obvious the more I think about them. I'm not surprised if it's sparked a lot of debate on what kind of statement it's making, just because I don't think it knows what kind of statement it's making. Thematically, it is kind of a mess. It seems like it ought to be saying something, but who knows what. Which I think is definitely one of the flaws. But, yes, provoking discussion is not a bad thing, at least.
The opening scene in particular definitely reminded me of "Greatest Show in the Galaxy," much to my delight. The robots had me thinking more about "Robots of Death" -- it's the voices, I think -- but I can see them harking back to that ep, too. Although, as someone pointed out in a comment on the Dreamwidth version of this post, Seven and Ace would have blown that whole place up at the end. :)
And I agree with you on the robots probably not having individual sentience. And on the Doctor not cold-bloodedly murdering Charlie. She actually does
( ... )
I definitely liked it, and I think it’s the most enjoyable story in what’s been so far a rather downbeat season. It still has some glaring faults, for all that. If you assume that the computer system = the capitalist system, then what you get is a story that says that capitalism isn’t really that bad, those running it are well-meaning at heart, and the real danger comes from leftists trying to violently destroy it. I’ve also read a critique about how it ties in with the other themes of this season - how we’re shown a universe where there’s systematic injustice at every level of society, but all one can do is tinker around the edges, not make widespread and permanent changes. Other, more subtle and positive readings of the story are possible, though
( ... )
I kind of doubt that was meant to be the theme, but, yeah, it's disturbingly easy to read that way. I really thought it was going to be "even when the people running the system are well-meaning, the system itself can end up being intolerable," which would have worked very well, but... Well, I have no idea what was in the author's mind, but it feels to me like whatever they were going for, thematically, it got buried under an attempt at some clever plot twists, instead. Figures. We finally get an actually good plot this season, and it comes at the price of disturbing incoherence in other areas.
I headcanon the Doctor's reaction (or lack there of) at the system about Kira the same way, but I really feel like I shouldn't have to.
I enjoyed it too, though less than other recent ones. I was surprised that Charlie turned out to be behind it and very pleased to be so surprised!
We had the same reaction to Dan: we looked him up on IMDb and came up with nothing, but all three of us thought he looked familiar.
Progeny got a package today and was walking around with bubble wrap saying, "Normally, I'd pop this, but after this week's Doctor Who . . ." and I never heard a single pop!
My fix-it for the efficiency monitoring, after the fact, was that the system was so occupied with trying to stop Charlie that it really wasn't sparing much computing power at all for watching the workers who seemed to be ok at that moment. They were busy watching Charlie and trying to figure out how to get to him-and they did.
Ha! Well, that definitely answers the question of whether it successfully made kids afraid of bubble wrap. :)
And I guess that works as a fix-it, although I don't find it entirely satisfying. I'd rather preferred what we see of the place matching what we're told about it. But that's a very minor point, really, even as things that bothered me about the episode go.
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Mind you, I thought for a while they were doing something clever with it not being the people, but "the system" that was evil. Then they pulled that twist, which was more clever in plot terms, but worked less well thematically.
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The opening scene in particular definitely reminded me of "Greatest Show in the Galaxy," much to my delight. The robots had me thinking more about "Robots of Death" -- it's the voices, I think -- but I can see them harking back to that ep, too. Although, as someone pointed out in a comment on the Dreamwidth version of this post, Seven and Ace would have blown that whole place up at the end. :)
And I agree with you on the robots probably not having individual sentience. And on the Doctor not cold-bloodedly murdering Charlie. She actually does ( ... )
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I headcanon the Doctor's reaction (or lack there of) at the system about Kira the same way, but I really feel like I shouldn't have to.
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We had the same reaction to Dan: we looked him up on IMDb and came up with nothing, but all three of us thought he looked familiar.
Progeny got a package today and was walking around with bubble wrap saying, "Normally, I'd pop this, but after this week's Doctor Who . . ." and I never heard a single pop!
My fix-it for the efficiency monitoring, after the fact, was that the system was so occupied with trying to stop Charlie that it really wasn't sparing much computing power at all for watching the workers who seemed to be ok at that moment. They were busy watching Charlie and trying to figure out how to get to him-and they did.
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And I guess that works as a fix-it, although I don't find it entirely satisfying. I'd rather preferred what we see of the place matching what we're told about it. But that's a very minor point, really, even as things that bothered me about the episode go.
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