Not true. Now get off my lawn.
Spoilers The Goblin Song! What the heck did I just watch! And what are your thoughts?
- Thread starter Qonundrum
- Start date
Holy crap, good catch.
I'm not exactly a fan of musicals (yay for team noMusicals? :\ ), only the hippie song ever piqued my interest beyond "puke", it's not like every episode will have characters belch out into song as well, but I'll maintain that the perspective of the baddies is what really elevates this into something innovative. Plus, they're monsters, they're supposed to be tacky, this adds a unique flair and even worldbuilding to then, and the lyrics work from their perspective. Some of the detractors I've watched videos on miss that point and the Doctor always comes in and saves the day - at the most basic level, that's the plot. Hopefully the voice will be modified to sound less distinctively human (with autotune?), but something about the song just hits all the right notes... pun was not intended...
The lyrics are okay, from the perspective of the monster. It looks like there may be more than one baby for the goblins to eat, which answered one of my questions - but that's from one of the tv show tabloid sites.
Ah, but what gets one interested in entertainment in the first place? What expectations do we have? That's where the fun begins. After all, the box of cake reads "chocolate fudge" but we bake it and it tastes like peach raspberry with essence of skunk gland... I think there are some not-unfair expectations and I'm pretty sure there are peopple of multiple age groups other than all them ol' folx, but I've sat through far worse in a few YT videos I don't care to want to see again as well...
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My apologies; I didn't have "spoiler" tag up for this one (I had for the others, ugh - not sure why, but the song itself does reveal its contents so I'm glad people didn't look. The rest of my direct response is spoiler-free, but the thread might have some spoilers dotted about.) I'm definitely not blaming anyone wanting to wait, but a lot of people - both fan and not-a-fan - were understandably curious for Ncuti's first proper story and what's it about, and the show is ramping up promotion big-time to draw interest.
There are definitely other bits, for which not all I've found and haven't looked up since, never mind the veracity of those outlets. There are still bound to be some big surprises for the episode either which way.
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I don't care. I didn't like it.
The Youtube comments came through. The singer is named Christina Rotondo. Definitely gonna revisit her outside of Doctor Who.
Definitely a great voice. Would love to hear her a capella... not as fond of the backing instruments - though that's down to individual genre preference, but it's amusing that the video makers embed closed captioning...
A very fair point as the content irks me as well - it is gross. Despite a take that feels new... At the same time, aren't we supposed to hate the monsters and the song sets that up with aplomb, and arguably this didn't need to be on Christmas day - quite a few perspectives, but how far are they drawn and/or caricaturized (as for any character). I wonder how it will be in the context of the full story and not just the clip; if it's true that the flux wiped out all the universe except for Earth and what's left are goblins from the center of the Earth and other regurgitated fairy tale fluff, that'll get limiting fairly quickly. I know all sci-fi and fantasy* do engage in inspiration, and friends poohpoohed "The Orville" while I found some episodes to genuinely innovate on some tropes used before, especially early on, so the line between rehash and innovation differs for folks as well and the older we get the more we've seen it all, and yet... but I digress into a digression again.
* RTD has already said his new show is more fantasy-based, and with time travel, any future showrunner can easily reinstate the universe and defluxify it as easily as any other reset button. So if we dislike it now, it'll eventually get rebooted again. The show has soft-rebooted itself many times... who is right, those who will dislike some of six decades' worth of a show (with a high enough story count) or those who give every last episode a solid 10/10 because they love it all, which is also possible since some people say they hate it all so it's all 0/10 to them...
TBH, I'm going to be a downer here.
What happens all the times the Doctor isn't there?
Uh huh.
Being a grandparent has softened me considerably to the ideas and images of children being harmed that I can't watch the news about Gaza or indeed participate in that thread (I'm saying that for me, not condemning anyone else for doing it).
So, sorry, not my idea of fun.
What happens all the times the Doctor isn't there?
Uh huh.
Being a grandparent has softened me considerably to the ideas and images of children being harmed that I can't watch the news about Gaza or indeed participate in that thread (I'm saying that for me, not condemning anyone else for doing it).
So, sorry, not my idea of fun.
Just saw a bit of it on YouTube, and… sod that.
Won’t be watching, it really *isn’t* in keeping with Who, and it’s been a nice run but Forty years is long enough for me to pay attention to the show I guess.
Wow really? Let's not pretend this is the first time Doctor Who has placed children or even babies in danger or anything.
Directly? In so overt a manner? With Callous humour?
Go find me some examples. Only one I can think of that came close was the boy going through the ice after stealing the sonic, and that wasn’t a baby, and pissed me off then. Stormageddon? Sure. Maybe. But also not in any way comparable. Melody Pond? Well, we already knew how that would turn out, and wasn’t under actual threat of life or limb. Before that, what… Audrey?
This isn’t *just* placing them in danger. It’s grotesque.
Torchwood edgelord shit.
A terrible song, but I won't hold it against the episode. Its easy enough to mute the TV. Its funny, because I loved the musical number in The Giggle (apparently that was done to a Spice Girl's song?) but this Goblin thing is more of what I'd expect when I hear "Doctor Who musical number".
Yeah... that speech Seven gave to Morgaine? The one about the kid looking up at the sky and it's eyes turn to cinders?
That happens a lot of the time when the Doctor doesn't show up.
Or God.
Unless you're hinting that the Doctor has deliberately put the baby in this situation? In which case, spoiler that shit.
If not, this baby is likely to be fine.
Or genetically modified into a psychotic assassin that will fall in love with its target and one day die without their lover even recognising them.
Does the Battlefield speech, a truly great piece of dialogue about the futility and horror of actual Nuclear War, feature an actual child shown on screen?
I don’t think it does.
As to River, we *know* she leads a full life to adulthood.
As I say, nothing remotely comparable to this effluent in this song and most likely this episode.
Well, that's all right then.
More importantly, no one was going to kill and eat her, not as a child. Not specifically because she was a child either.
And that’s the point, is the specificity of it all.
I grant that ‘sapient species eating sapient species a.k.a cannibalism’ and ‘harm to children’ are two of my personal triggers, but they are also generally taboo.
Doctor Who can sometimes *hint* at the terrible things happening, or might happen, and it can be suggestive — but a song and dance number? This is a level of bad taste — on Christmas Day no less — that makes The Two Doctors and Revelation Of The Daleks look tame in comparison.
It is *shit* and a blind spot Davies sometimes suffers from. Bad taste horror shenanigans he got away with in CoE because it was (a) Torchwood, and (b) benefitted from the longer format and the performances elevating the writing, and completely failed with in MD despite it still being Torchwood, and having excellent actors wasted in.
I don’t think he understands the mindsets of parents (very necessary for a family show like who) or even children anymore. I don’t think that’s anything to do with whether he’s a parent himself or his sexuality — Gareth Roberts had an *excellent* handle on parenthood, fatherhood, and children after all. (Even if some people don’t like Closing Time, it’s incredibly rare and unusual to show a *father* the way that episode did. I can’t even stand Corden, but Who makes him bearable. Just.)
If the show hadn’t jumped the shark before, this cheap and nasty Buffy Tribute Goblin Song is where it’s hitting those waves.
Personally, I was far more horrified in Into the Forest or Forest of the Night or whatever that one from Capaldi's first season where magical fairies turned the entire world into a giant forest. In that episode we have Clara advocating child suicide just so the children won't miss their dead parents. Now that's some fucked up shit, coming from the show's moral compass no less.
So yeah, in a show that gave us that I'm not going to clutch pearls over alien goblins singing about eating a baby.
No, because of an officially release excerpt from an episode I haven’t seen yet.
And I’ve been watching a while.
Do parents not read stuff like Hansel and Gretel to kids any more?
Do kids not watch The Witches?
Do kids not watch The Witches?