So... hey

[Wrathchild]

Is this thing on? Do people still have arguments here or have you all grown up and started listening to classical?

A few of you may remember me from such forums as, well, this one, but it's been nigh on a decade since I last signed in. I checked out when Mr Harris and friends declined to visit Adelaide in 2008. I still wish I'd been able to see that tour, but they've been back twice since and made it quite easy to forgive and forget.

 

[phlogiston]

It's Wrathy!

It's a little bit more...sedate...than it used to be. There's maybe half a dozen of us, and it's really sporadic.

I think Facebook and like has stolen the bulk of the "social" aspect that forums like this used to have.

Anyhoo, welcome back! Whatcha been up to?

 

[Wrathchild]

I won't lie to you, old sport. The last few years have not been kind. Losing a parent to the big C will do that, but I've been muddling on as best I can and making each day up as I go along. Sold the family home last year and got myself a bachelor pad on the other side of town, which I've spent a king's ransom making access friendly. I'm also studying again after a long time out of the loop and hope to carve a niche for myself as 'the horror and disability guy.' Part lit crit, part cultural studies and a bit of creative stuff in between times.

I'm busier than I've been for two decades, but I still find time to listen to new stuff, old stuff and get to as many gigs as I can. Mustn't grumble .

 

[Lord Tim]

Wow, nice to see you, man! Sorry to hear about your parent, that sucks.

Shit, everyone's checking in lately - next thing you know Spawny will resurface...!

 

[Winmar]

Wrathy! Glad to see you back here. And sorry to hear about you parent too.

I think we need to go check the rules of the drinking game thread after all this activity!

 

[Wrathchild]

Thanks, chaps. It's good to see you all and to be reminded that some things don't change.

By rights I should have come back in 2011, when my reason to be upset and disappointed with Maiden no longer applied, but I never found my way home. Forgive me. At least now I can say I have twice roared along with Fear Of The Dark amid a crowd of thousands and cried rugged, manly tears as I watched Adrian play the Les Paul Goldtop he bought when he was seventeen.

None of the forums I've frequented in my absence have been as welcoming or open minded as this one. Apparently it's verboten to prefer any KISS lineup over the originals, to enjoy the Blaze era Maiden albums or name Tony Martin as your favourite Sabbath singer. I've been called a contrarian and a bitter fuck because some people can't deal with a challenge to the received wisdom. It's all much ado about nothing, but I don't half get tired of defending myself against people who claim to be fans of the same bands. Sigh...

Thanks also for the condolences. Grief never really goes away, you just put it to one side, keep calm and carry on. The one positive that's come from it is I'm now closer to my Dad than circumstances have ever allowed before. I do wish he'd stop trying to marry me off though. I genuinely enjoy being single, can't imagine life any other way and have a lot of slutting around left to do. Ideally another forty years worth, before I drop dead of exhaustion with my face frozen in a Joker-esque smile .

In closing, Doctor Who has been unwatchable drivel since that mugging git Smith took over the TARDIS and the man who cast him made the scripts too glib, self-referential and flippant for their own good, JJ Abrams and friends have restored my faith in Star Wars, and you all need to listen to Threshold, Vanden Plas and Shadow Gallery. Off you go.

 

[Lord Tim]

Gotta back you up here - Tony Martin is my favourite Sabbath singer too. I *love* Dio, don't get me wrong, and he was one of the reasons I got into metal in the first place, but wow... listen to Devil and Daughter or really anything from Headless Cross or Tyr and tell me that isn't incredible. That range and power... argh! So good! I could see why Sabbath purists would hate it and honestly, it's probably terrible "Black Sabbath" music, but whatever it is, it's my favourite era, followed very closely by Dio's. (I'm noticing a lack of reference to Ozzy here. )

And yes... fuck Moffat. What a mess. Hopefully Chris Chibnall gets it back on track. His Doctor Who stuff has been... ehh... and his Torchwood stuff was pretty awful, but Broadchurch is fantastic, so.... yeah. We live in hope..!

 

[phlogiston]

I've been called a contrarian and a bitter fuck

To be fair, you've been called that here as well.

And I'll hear nothing bad about Capaldi's Doctor. Some of the individual episodes, yeah, maybe they're not all they could be, but Capaldi's portrayal of the Doctor is everything the Doctor should be, and I'm gutted that he's leaving.

 

[Wrathchild]

True dat. Thankfully here I was allowed to like what I liked without being run out of town by an angry mob armed with pitchforks and torches. 'You're not a real fan if you don't think the original KISS is better than all the others', 'The Blaze Maiden albums were terrible, you should be banned for even mentioning them.' Oh, do bugger off.

Peter Capaldi is a brilliant actor and a superb Doctor, easily the best the new series has had to offer, but he's wasted on those scripts. Moffat's writing is too clever by 'alf, and falls prey to the problem most genre TV has suffered from since Joss Whedon made it popular. 'Oh aren't we cool, hip, trendy and self-aware? See how we make annoying smart arse remarks every time we draw breath and undermine the whole situation we're in?'

 

[Lord Tim]

THE MOON IS A FUCKING EGG! AND A DRAGON HATCHED! AND MADE ANOTHER MOON EXACTLY THE SAME! AND LET'S IGNORE ANY OF THE CATASTROPHIC GRAVITATIONAL THINGS WE MENTIONED ALL EPISODE WHEN IT HAPPENS! NO CONSEQUENCES! AGAIN! HOORAY!

Fuck off, Moffat. Seriously.

Way to kneecap Capaldi. What a waste of potentially the best Doctor ever.

At least there's no lemonade taps in the house right? "I knowwww "

 

[phlogiston]

Yeah, but then again "Heaven Sent".

No, you're right. The moon one and the Robin Hood ones were shite. Can't think of a clunker outside of those ones though. The rest have been pretty solid.

 

[phlogiston]

Wait, I stand corrected. That Forest of the Night one was also pretty bad.

 

[Wrathchild]

I jumped ship after Listen when I finally realised Doctor Who, and television in general, had become a chore rather than something I genuinely enjoyed. Why this didn't occur to me during the gobshite Smith years I have no idea.

 

[Lord Tim]

So many of those episodes were frustratingly close to being actually good but there was just always something that made you go "oh for fuck's sake."

The biggest issue is I just don't care anymore. Say what you like about Russel, but when he was running the show, even though some stuff was childish, and he absolutely got carried away too much in places to make things a spectacle at the expense of the story, you cared. You may have yelled or got angry at what he did, but you cared. The characters and their decisions made you feel *something*...

By the time we got Peter in the role, I'm just burnt out with it all. Everything is so self-referential and full of gags, nothing has any lasting consequences - no one dies anymore, and if they do, they come back, or they have a convenient "oh this person WILL die but they can spend eternity here and not face the big build up to their death we were expecting after all" story. How many times did Rory die in Series 6? 7 or 8? And "yes that is the Doctor, and yes, he is dead" ... well except he wasn't. Again and again. (Maybe he can be brought back by the power of love? Or remembered back to life? )

No consequences, no pay off to arcs, and even with the arcs now it's largely forgotten about for most of the season until someone remembers at the end and they go "OH FUCK! Uhh... so yeah, we didn't talk about it so let's cram everything into the last 20 minutes. Doesn't make sense? Ahh but wait until NEXT season... where it may or may not be explained, and if it's not it's 'left up to the viewers to decide' or it meant something that could be misinterpreted as something else (if you're grasping at straws). That's bound to keep the fans happy! Right?"

And the characters now are so inconsistent. Again, no lasting consequences. The Doctor runs off for 200 years and comes back as if it's only been a day to him, and yet he can't spend a day on Amy and Rory's lounge without going nuts, or he's a changed man in a week because of an adventure. Or he'll stay on a planet for THREE HUNDRED FUCKING YEARS defending it instead of trying to find a solution, or going stir crazy, and he's basically just slightly older looking at the end. Seriously? Everyone is now inconsistent and obvious plot devices, or one of 4 archetypal characters, added in with dialogue from Press Gang and the gags from Curse of the Fatal Death and that's Moffat Who.

I miss *my* show.

 

[Wrathchild]

All of the above. All day, every day and twice on Sundays.

The biggest disappointment is that a Moffat script was once the highlight of a season, even if their structures and tropes were all pretty much the same (faceless monster repeating the same phrase over and over). Blink was a masterpiece though, and having the Weeping Angels appear twice more to play out the same old thing really diminished their appeal.

By the time Moffat took over, his approach had got old and you could see right through it. That, coupled with my wanting to throw Matt Smith down a mine shaft, made a show I once loved feel like very hard work. Series 5 was okay in spite of Smith, but 6 was mostly unwatchable (The Doctor's Wife notwithstanding) and I don't remember much of 7. I could revisit it if I wanted to (the DVD set was one of the last things my mother gave me), but four years on I haven't even opened it.

Enter Capaldi, a great actor as well as a fan, who brought with him a ray of hope that things would improve. Yeah, no. Moffat only has so many tricks in his bag, and there's not much even the best performer can do to jazz up a tired formula.

 

[Southy]

HOLY SHIT!! A discussion in a thread!!!!


Welcome back Wrathy ole pal, sorry to hear how hard life has treated you of late. Glad you are coming out of the darkness, and glad you saw the lights were still on here.

 

[Spiff]

I finally started watching Doctor Who a few years ago. I think Matt Smith was still the doctor. I started from when it rebooted (I never watched it when I was a kid and have still only seen two or three of those episodes) and loved it for the most part, but it might be one of the most inconsistent shows I've ever seen. I checked out halfway through Capaldi's first season, even though I thought he was great. I just had other stuff to watch and forgot about it.

Re: KISS, Paul-Gene-Bruce-Eric (either one) will always be my favourite. I like Tommy a bunch and saw them a couple of times in Norway and Denmark back in 2013 which was fun.

 

[Lord Tim]

+1 for that KISS lineup

 

[Wrathchild]

Any KISS lineup without Peter Criss is a winner for me. Can't stand the guy. If I could, I'd go back in time and prevent his parents ever meeting, but that's a bit difficult with siblings .

I'd include the current roster if Paul's voice wasn't shot and Tommy could do a decent job with Vinnie or Bruce's solos. He's paid to do an adequate Frehley impression and he manages quite well, but ask him to play anything from a better guitarist's bag of tricks and he's completely at sea.

 

[phlogiston]

... it might be one of the most inconsistent shows I've ever seen.

That it is.

I'd include the current roster if Paul's voice wasn't shot and Tommy could do a decent job with Vinnie or Bruce's solos. He's paid to do an adequate Frehley impression and he manages quite well, but ask him to play anything from a better guitarist's bag of tricks and he's completely at sea.

I have no opinion on any particular KISS lineup. They've never really my cup of tea. But in all the interviews I've seen Tommy looks like one of the nicest guys ever, and all of the other guys, past or present...aren't.