Mystic Muse's Magnificent Masquerade Random Banter #225

[Anonymouswizard]

When you say "the beginning" do you mean from An Unearthly Child or from Rose?

Well the Doctor has just kidnapped his granddaughter's teachers. (Yeah, An Unearthly Child, and when the visual quality holds up the black and white footage can look really good. I like black and white.)

What strikes me is that while Rose attempted to get you to watch it via action set pieces and alien threats, the first ever episode instead pulls a fakeout, setting up the plot of Barbara and Ian investigating who on earth Susan's grandfather is, he's a doctor but Doctor who? It's only when they enter the TARDIS does it change to being clearly science fiction, even the Doctor's entrance seems more like a creepy old man trying to stop people investigating him.

It actually works a lot better, especially with the serial format (which I really wish nuWho would use). The episode spends all it's time building to a climax, and then ends on a cliffhanger as our seeming villain has stranded everybody in an unknown place and time.

But I will save the rest of my analysis for when I've finished the serial and started a 'let's watch' thread.

[Fyraltari]

In other news I've started watching Doctor Who from the beginning. Might make a thread for it.

Good luck with that! Took me three years.

It actually works a lot better, especially with the serial format (which I really wish nuWho would use). The episode spends all it's time building to a climax, and then ends on a cliffhanger as our seeming villain has stranded everybody in an unknown place and time.

The serial format is nice but it has its flaws. Classic Who is very clearly padding in a lot of places and the need for several cliffha,gers a story really hurts the stories at times. Especially the ones who are just blatant fake-outs ("Oh no! The doctor's drowned." [next episode] "Turns out the Doctor has the ability to hold his breath for thirty seconds. Who knew?").

But of course sometimes the writers are good enough for it to work.

[Insane Jeenyus]

Good luck with that! Took me three years.



The serial format is nice but it has its flaws. Classic Who is very clearly padding in a lot of places and the need for several cliffha,gers a story really hurts the stories at times. Especially the ones who are just blatant fake-outs ("Oh no! The doctor's drowned." [next episode] "Turns out the Doctor has the ability to hold his breath for thirty seconds. Who knew?").

You are right. Who did know. Who knew all along, of course.

[Fyraltari]

You are right. Who did know. Who knew all along, of course.

No. I refuse.

[Anonymouswizard]

Good luck with that! Took me three years.

Oh, there's a ton. But I don't find myself as annoyed as with the new ones.

The serial format is nice but it has its flaws. Classic Who is very clearly padding in a lot of places and the need for several cliffha,gers a story really hurts the stories at times. Especially the ones who are just blatant fake-outs ("Oh no! The doctor's drowned." [next episode] "Turns out the Doctor has the ability to hold his breath for thirty seconds. Who knew?").

But of course sometimes the writers are good enough for it to work.

Oh, of course there are flaws, and sometimes the stories are padded to beyond what they should be. But I've sometimes described them as 'films broken up into half hour chunks', and sometimes the clifhangers really work (generally those actually properly set up) while other times they're just thrown in without being properly integrated. They don't need a cliffhanger every episode, if they can set up the story that I'll want to know what happens next week regardless.

I think my favourite cliffhanger was in The Deadly Assassin, which ends one episode with 'a monster is coming towards the Doctor, what's he going to do' and begins the next one with 'move'. But at the same time, I still prefer a bad cliffhanger to a 'next time on Doctor What' advert.

You are right. Who did know. Who knew all along, of course.

You mean the character from those Dalek movies, Doctor Who?

[Peelee]

No. I refuse.

This response made me proud.

[Fyraltari]

I think my favourite cliffhanger was in The Deadly Assassin, which ends one episode with 'a monster is coming towards the Doctor, what's he going to do' and begins the next one with 'move'. But at the same time, I still prefer a bad cliffhanger to a 'next time on Doctor What' advert.

Mine is a tie between the one described above, and the one where the Doctor decides to dangle himself over a bottomless pit for no discernable reason whatsoever. Which is resolved by revealing that the pit is actually 3-meter deep top with nothing obscuring that fact from the Doctor’s point of view.

You mean the character from those Dalek movies, Doctor Who?

Pretty sure he means the character whose actor was credited by the show as playing ‘Dr Who’ for eighteen years.

This response made me proud.

Thank you.

[factotum]

I think my favourite cliffhanger was in The Deadly Assassin, which ends one episode with 'a monster is coming towards the Doctor, what's he going to do' and begins the next one with 'move'. But at the same time, I still prefer a bad cliffhanger to a 'next time on Doctor What' advert.

I think the one thing about Dr. Who cliffhangers was that they were always *fair*--they never did what the old 30s black-and-white serials would occasionally do and have something completely different happen at the beginning of the next episode than the cliffhanger showed.

[LaZodiac]

I'm officially in Plague Times. Our southern office closed down so we're closed down (with pay) for the foreseeable future. Heck yeah. Time to get paid to do ever so slightly more nothing than usual.

[Rawhide]

As a child, I remember dissecting the cliffhanger with my father. We were watching a children's show and he made some ominous sound about how the characters were going to get out of that ending, to which I replied that it would be solved in the first minute.

I had already worked out that children's shows put in these faux cliffhangers that meant nothing to the plot, which always got solved immediately. It was so predictable.

[Peelee]

As a child, I remember dissecting the cliffhanger with my father. We were watching a children's show and he made some ominous sound about how the characters were going to get out of that ending, to which I replied that it would be solved in the first minute.

I had already worked out that children's shows put in these faux cliffhangers that meant nothing to the plot, which always got solved immediately. It was so predictable.

Did you see Futurama's Saturday Morning Fun Pit? Specifically, the Berry Burglar's attempts to get the Sugar-Blasted Purpleberry Puffs?

[halfeye]

As a child, I remember dissecting the cliffhanger with my father. We were watching a children's show and he made some ominous sound about how the characters were going to get out of that ending, to which I replied that it would be solved in the first minute.

I had already worked out that children's shows put in these faux cliffhangers that meant nothing to the plot, which always got solved immediately. It was so predictable.

The Adam West Batman was particularly cheesy in that regard. The show was quite good otherwise (as a kid), but the cliffhangers were totally forgetable.

[Anonymouswizard]

I think the one thing about Dr. Who cliffhangers was that they were always *fair*--they never did what the old 30s black-and-white serials would occasionally do and have something completely different happen at the beginning of the next episode than the cliffhanger showed.

Oh, there was almost never the 'and in the intervening week the Doctor has procured a parachute' problem, and you were always shown how the characters got out of them, they just sometimes hid important bits of information.

I think the worst I ever saw was them replacing the cliffhanger, cutting away to another scene, and then showing the solution, but you did get to see the solution. Another good thing was that serials didn't always have to end on a cliffhanger, in fact I remember surprise when I first saw Revenge of the Cybermen, because GotD implies that the Time Lords are returning the Doctor to his TARDIS.

As a child, I remember dissecting the cliffhanger with my father. We were watching a children's show and he made some ominous sound about how the characters were going to get out of that ending, to which I replied that it would be solved in the first minute.

I had already worked out that children's shows put in these faux cliffhangers that meant nothing to the plot, which always got solved immediately. It was so predictable.

I never noticed that, but honestly I didn't watch a lot of kids TV as a kid. I've seen more as an adult.

[Bartmanhomer]

I'm healthy and not worried anymore.

[Peelee]

I'm healthy and not worried anymore.

That's a potentially dangerous mindset. You shouldn't worry about getting it for how it will affect you. You should be worried about getting it for how it will affect others who are far more susceptible to it.

[Bartmanhomer]

That's a potentially dangerous mindset. You shouldn't worry about getting it for how it will affect you. You should be worried about getting it for how it will affect others who are far more susceptible to it.

Ummm....huh?

[Sermil]

I think the one thing about Dr. Who cliffhangers was that they were always *fair*--they never did what the old 30s black-and-white serials would occasionally do and have something completely different happen at the beginning of the next episode than the cliffhanger showed.

Wasn't just 30s serials. I remember an episode of Dukes of Hazzard where they were trying to stop some thieves who had accidentally stolen an irreplaceable musical instruments, maybe a violin. (It was in a car the thieves had taken, and they didn't know the violin was special, something like that.)

Anyways, the thieves found the violin in the trunk, were playing around with it. One of the thieves holds it like a bat and the other pitches a baseball towards him; the ball is coming towards the first thief and just as he is swinging and about to ruin the violin forever -- cut to commercial. When the commercials are over, they replay the scene -- but now the thieves suddenly think better of actually throwing the ball and are more like "Huh, maybe we can get a few dollars for this old thing."

Stupidest cliffhanger ever. Still remember how stupid it was 20+ years later.

[Peelee]

Ummm....huh?

This was written for teens, but even in you're in your 20s or 39s it's still valid.

Spoiler

Show

[Bartmanhomer]

This was written for teens, but even in you're in your 20s or 39s it's still valid.

Spoiler

Show

Ok. I understand.

[Anonymouswizard]

Snippet from an actual argument:

'I wouldn't go to the cinema.'
'But I've still not seen The Color Out of Space. It's on at 12 on a Tuesday, the place will be practically desserted.'

[Aotrs Commander]

I don't think I have ever seen such a manic case of global herd-behavior hysteria ever. I'd say "serious, not cataclysmic" again, but it's clearly pointless. The gorup-stupid has decided The Apocalypse Is Now, so damn the torpedoes, apparently.

I am now counting down until the time in which people start burning the infected somewhere, and then everyone else starts doing it, because they read/heard/watched on social media that someone was doing it. and decide that this is the only solution.

I genuinely will not be surprised at all if this happens.



Let me put it this way. I have never felt more removed from humanity as a species as much as now, and I've know I was never human since I was, like, four.

And yes, I'm being completely and genuinely deadly serious here.

[Fyraltari]

[Nope, nope]

[LaZodiac]

I’m sorry, what?

You've somehow managed to miss that Aotrs is a lich and not actually a living human being. This sort of thing happens sometimes.

[2D8HP]

So this afternoon my boss called a meeting and told us that our apprentice is being furloughed for three weeks starting tomorrow, but the rest of us are “essential City and County of San... [Lankhmar] disaster service workers” and still have to work regular shifts or more, and to carry our city I.D. badges going to and from work now as cops may start enforcement of “shelter in place”.

I had already signed out a vacation hour to buy St. Paddy’s Day fixings for the crew tomorrow, and went to Safeway and stood in a very long line along with what seemes a third of [Lankhmar] as the shelves were stripped by folks preparing for siege.

The public libraries, my favorite gameshop, and the schools are now closed, tomorrow the bars and brew pubs will be closed as well, restaurants will be "take out only".

So much change, so fast!

[enderlord99]

(this post has been edited, rather than deleted, so I don't become at-fault for someone else double-posting.)

[Fyraltari]

[Nope, nope]

[enderlord99]

(this post has been edited, rather than deleted, so I don't become at-fault for someone else double-posting.)

[Fyraltari]

[Nope, nope]

[enderlord99]

(this post has been edited, rather than deleted, so I don't become at-fault for someone else double-posting.)

[Fyraltari]

No. He's a lich.

This clarifies nothing.