Realtime Observations – Doctor Who – Legend of the Sea Devils

2022-04-17 
  • Why can’t anyone do convincing cracking animations in VFX?
  • This is, uh, some acting that people are doing.
  • John Bishop!! Oh wait, I’m thinking of John Noble. Still, welcome back.
  • Legend of the Orange and Teal LUTs 💤
  • Hijacked jewelry. 😆
  • Oh no, it’s one of those big-eyed dogs. Sea pugs.
  • They coordinated a net trap while talking to the sea devil for a second? I mean, they do show them in the background ever so briefly, so… alright.
  • These things are SUPER silly looking. Even for Doctor Who. Modern Who, at least.
  • Not only are they silly looking, but they… don’t move their lips, and do like Wheeljack does where some shit just glows and it represents them ‘talking’. What a bizarre throwback of a design.
  • Oh, okay, okay, I had to pause and go look. These can’t look THIS bad by accident. And sure enough, I was unfamiliar with Pertwee’s Third Doctor adventure, quite literally “The Sea Devils”. Alright. Fine.
  • Sure, let’s abandon Dan centuries away in this VERY TRUSTABLE time machine that literally got pulled off course by a stray geomagnetic anomaly. 😉
  • Oof, some bad stunt man work when that guy gets tossed over the the ship. You can see the actor grab the edge and pull himself over. Not quite Luke Skywalker on Jabba’s barge, but geesh. 😉
  • Steven King burn outta nowhere. Damn.
  • WHOA, what was up with that time vortex animation? That was cool. Looked like almost caves of time. That was neat.
  • Not really into the whole relationship thing they’re trying to pull with Yaz. I wasn’t crazy when they tried to do it with Amy, either. (Even if I do love me some Karen Gillan.) Just doesn’t feel right. The Doctor/Rose stuff was pretty great, though. But that just clicked with the right combination of actors and writing. Natural chemistry after a looong time together, I think? Just haven’t felt anything like that on-screen since then.
  • CHOMP.
  • Pullin’ out some nice visuals in this ep.
  • Who doesn’t keep an ear in a box?
  • We’re on a surprisingly long bit of exposition once we get underwater.
  • A gem with infinite powers, you say? An Infinity Stone, you might say?
  • What about the TARDIS? I guess we’re going BACK on that ship at some point…
  • Okay, it’s the Soul Gem. (Soul was orange, right? Or was it yellow?)
  • Told you we’d be back on it. But… HOW?
  • The Doctor is doing a LOT of heavy lifting on the exposition, even for this show.
  • Everyone’s got decent sword-fighting skills, apparently.
  • “Don’t let the swords touch your skin.” — advice you can use even in real life.
  • “Is it always like this at sea?” — how awkward.
  • Dan just slaughtered five sea-pugs at once after we got done chastising the other guy for killing one dude.
  • “Yeah! Hopefully. Probably. Definitely. One of those.” — my favorite kind of Doctor dialogue. 🙂
  • Despite being a surprisingly simplistic story, it still feels like this whole “will they won’t they” nonsense is something we don’t have time for. But I’m betting it’s planting seeds for the next episode.
  • Ah, I see.
  • Aaaaaaaaaahahaha. Thank god THIS guy is with us to pop in out of nowhere and save the day. 🤣 He was kept alive specifically so the Doctor didn’t have to do the Heroic Sacrifice thing. Just pops into the shot like the Kool Aid Man and takes the cable. No argument from the other two.
  • Hey, an ocean view without a dramatic sunrise/sunset — how quaint.
  • I think “Our Flag Means Death” has made me less judgmental of pirate ship scenes taking place on a set.
  • “I can’t fix myself…” — shit, I thought this was like an “I’m dying” thing, knowing this is her last couple eps of the series.
  • The Doctor’s reasons for not getting “fixed” to someone is the same reason I wouldn’t choose to have a pet again. (Probably.) And that’s kind of what it would be like for a time lord and a human, honestly. Except their “pets” last at best 80 years, not including the 15-20 years before they’d meet them.
  • Next ep looks crazy. Could do without the Master, though. I really don’t like this Doctor’s version of The Master. The guy is WAY too vicious and cartoonishly unhinged for my tastes.
  • I’m always interested in seeing how they handle the regeneration process, though. Smith to Capaldi was jarring and sudden.

Not fantastic, but not terrible. Inoffensive is a good word. Shame she’s leaving; she finally feels ‘comfortable’ at this this point.

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