Post by reelreviews2 on Jun 5, 2017 17:42:36 GMT
Just when you thought things couldn't get any worse this season, Moffat and his team have found a way to alienate Doctor Who fans even more. It is no exaggeration to say their latest material, the "Monk trilogy" set of episodes, got the absolute WORST reception throughout all 12 years of the Doctor Who revival, and possibly the disgrace of being the most hated Doctor Who story of all time.
Look at the reviews online and the critical response. The numbers do not lie:
From Wikipedia:
"The Lie of the Land" received....multiple critics finding the episode to be the poorest story in the series to date.
The episode was watched by 3.01 million overnight, the series' lowest overnight rating in its history, after the rating of 3.10 million for Battlefield in 1989.
From: www.geekgirlauthority.com/
“Lie of the Land”: worst episode of Doctor Who in the modern era? According to what I’m seeing online, I’m not the only recapper/reviewer who thinks it might be.
From the Daily Mirror:
With no back story, no actual story and hopefully no future stories, The Monks threat fails to be anything more than scene dressing.
And I'm skipping right over the fact the Monks stopped mid-escape to apparently wipe everyone's memories of the entire affair.
To be blunt, I wish they'd do it to me as well.
The first third of the episode is a nonsensical fake out, which even though the episode was written by Who stalwart Toby Whithouse - I can smell Moffat 's twisty signature all over it. I suppose the true victim of The Lie Of The Land is writer Toby Whithouse. He's penned some of the very best Doctor Who episodes, including my personal favourite School Reunion.
But he really did get the short straw here. Come in and write the final part of a trilogy, where he's pretty much blocked in storywise by the writers of the previous two. He's tried to save it but I'm not sure he stood much of a chance.
From digitalspy.com:
Possibly the most divisive troika in sci-fi fiction since the Star Wars prequels, Doctor Who's Monks trilogy rounds off this week with 'The Lie of the Land' Bill's love for her late mother proves to be the pure thought she needs to fight back against the Monks. "She's filling her mind with one pure, uncorrupted, irresistible image!" yells a victorious Doctor. "And it's broadcasting into the world because it can't help it!" Erm... OK. That love wins out over brute force and terror is a very Doctor Who message, and you've always got to be a bit flexible on logic with this show, but this resolution doesn't make a lick of sense even going by the episode's own rules.
From GeeksofDoom:
This episode is a mess and in a lot of ways. First, the setup of the last two episodes is wasted. After establishing the conspiracy thriller as the dominant theme of the Monks Trilogy, that theme is overly abandoned. The occult cabal controls through the manipulation of existing social mechanisms and norms. It also requires collaboration by those willing to profit by the new order. This is the sort of thing that John Carpenter showed us quite effectively in They Live.
Rather than take that route however, this episode quickly goes for blunt, overt dystopia. The Monks are seen in public and are actively in control. The number of collaborators is reduced from many acting continually out of self interest, to one person cursed by a single choice. Sometimes the inversion of ideas is an effective tool; here I do not believe it pays off.
Worse yet, the story never seems to get completely clear about the Doctor’s role in the new regime. We’re shown propaganda featuring the Doctor, but that only makes sense in one context: Doctor Who as a popular TV show. We trust the Doctor because we are fans of the show. It is completely unclear how the general populace relates to the Doctor within the show. Indeed, the show most often uses the anonymity of the Doctor as a basic trope. So why would the Doctor be an effective propagandist for the new regime? It makes little sense, except to shock Doctor Who fans.
Time is also working against this episode. Showing us anything or anyone interesting in the new future of the Monks would require more time than one episode allows, and this storyline must be wrapped up this week. So, we get a play in four acts. Act One shows us the worst of what the new regime offers. Act Two reintroduces the Doctor and explains what’s been happening since last week. The third Act provides some critical back story, courtesy of Missy. Finally, the last Act provides resolution. There are no extraneous characters to speak of. The Monks themselves are just visual props. Do they even get a line of dialogue this week? It all just rushes by.
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From reading dozens of comments online from fans who had the misfortune to watch this pile of dung, it appears the damage to Doctor Who's reputation is permanent and scores of people are regretting their decision not to sit out this season. I've even read several fans state flat out that they reached the end of their rope with this episode, and won't be able to watch the show again until Moffat is gone. Perhaps the only silver lining here is that it looks the BBC is so desperate to salvage the franchise that the decision has been made to get rid of 'Bill' BEFORE the Christmas special. If this rumor is true (fingers crossed!) fans won't have to wait until 2018 and after the Doctor's regeneration to watch the show again, so we won't need to pretend that Calpadi regenerated off screen like the third and ninth Doctors.
In any case, to those who had their memories of the Twelfth Doctor ruined by this episode, I feel sorry for you, but I can't say I didn't warn you.
The biggest failure here, however, is Steven Moffat as "showrunner". If Moffat has ANY decency at all, he should hang his head in shame and issue a public apology after last weekend. Moffat has literally ruined an iconic 50+ sci-fi franchise and caused its ratings and popularity to plummet to their all time rock bottom, even WORSE than what they were when the show was originally cancelled in 1989. Indeed, his stuff is so bad, he makes the Sixth Doctor and Mel Bush look like Shakespeare in comparison. Look at what you've done to Doctor Who, Steven Moffat. Take a long, hard look at the total destruction and zero credibility of this great franchise, and let it sink in.
