Doctor Who - Kerblam!
Nov. 22nd, 2018 01:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatJust finished watching the apparently controversial Doctor Who episode Kerblam!. Why controversial? These are the reactions:
1. Urgh! Infuriating Kerblam! I need a protest button.
2. Half-way amusing Amazon satire which takes an weird twist into Middle-Dicksonian Territory...which later Dickens disowned
3. Workplace satire with an infuriating right-wing ending
4. My favorite plot so far...
5. I think it had a lot of plot holes and I didn't like it due to the plot holes..just did not work
Guess which one I agree with?
Number #5 - the plot does not work. Peter Tighe, the writer, really has to work on his plotting and execution. A lot of the story didn't hold together or make much sense. I kept wondering during it -- okay you have robots, so why aren't the robots during the automated or menial tasks, while the humans are supervising? Less people would be needed and far more cost effective. Also that's how it is done in most of these places. And, I feel like I've seen this done before, elsewhere, but far better. Either a Twilight Zone episode, Outer Limits, Star Trek, something. It felt very familiar. Although not predictable, because the plot makes no sense.
I honestly don't think the "right-wing" message a lot of folks picked up on was intentional or really that evident, I think it was just clumsy writing. The thematic pattern this season has been against violence as a solution for problems -- which is a direct outgrowth from the previous seasons. At the very end of the previous season, the Doctor loses people due to his own and others violent actions. Or use of violence to resolve things...either to punish, seek vengeance, justice, whatever. He/She has learned that mercy matters, and violence solves nothing. Doesn't matter what the problem is -- the use of violence causes more harm than good and ends with disastrous consequences, also never furthers your agenda. If anything it taints it.
* In Demons of Punjab -- the younger brother ends up killing his last remaining family member and for what? A split country and racial hatred? How many lives were lost over what amounts to nationalism and religious divisions? The aliens (aka Demons) in the episode are bearing silent witness - because they lost their planet going down a similar road.
* Kerblam! -- the antagonist's motives may be a bit more pure or along the lines of the audience's sensibility, but the actions are no less destructive. Yes, from Charlie's perspective, Kerblam is a capitalistic nightmare come to life -- with Robots supervising poor manual laborers who get 10 minute breaks and lives are regimentalized, while many others suffer. The robots are taking the jobs. Few get any, and those who do...are happy to have just that job. It's horrible and must be destroyed. But, not through violence...that makes it worse. He loses the woman he loves and his own life...accomplishing little. And if the packages went out -- how many more would he kill? As the Doctor points out there are other ways...and to a degree they do change things, the heads of the corporation agree to use more human workers and less robots, and make it less automated. Is it fixed? Hardly. But Charlie's method was not better - but worse. (That's what I think was the intended message, but it got a bit lost.)
And as much as we'd like to blame the system or outside forces for our decisions or the decisions of our fellow humans, at the end of the day -- we are responsible for them, not an automated system we've created to make our lives easier, or for that matter technology. This theme was a bit clearer but also got a bit lost.
What I liked? The bubble wrap. Clever.
But I found the rest of the episode a bit boring to be honest. And yes, yes, the big corporate monster that eats up the little guy..okay, I'm wondering if the people critiquing the Corporate Monster have ever worked for the Corporate Monster? I have, they aren't that bad. Actually Corporations are a heck of a lot better places to work than Universities or Publishing Houses, or small dot.coms or small non-profits, or in some cases -- Public Agencies.
Any organization, big or small, that is run by human beings is going to have issues. Why? Human beings are selfish assholes. Or so I've noticed. And capable of wonderful and horrible things at the same time.
I don't think the episode was set up to bash Amazon or On-Line Retail Giants similar to Amazon (of which there are more than a few). It was trying to show an balanced view of a huge retailer and how if you go too far towards automation or let the system run everything...things can easily go haywire.
I really don't think it had an economic/political perspective, so much as an anti-violence one. But again, I can see why others did see it that way and expected it. It was a bit hard to follow and muddled in places. I had troubles following the whole conveyor belt bit...which was vaguely amusing, but mainly reminded me of the movie Tron and Wreck-it Like Ralph.
Overall? Eh..not one of the better episodes. It's very hit and miss this season. I've liked three of the six episodes that aired. I skipped one -- because big scary spiders.
Also, as an aside, I really want to like Jodi Whittacker as the Doctor, but much like Capadali before her - she's not doing much for me either way. I miss Matt Smith, David Tennant, and Eccleston. It's probably telling that my favorite was Eccleston.
1. Urgh! Infuriating Kerblam! I need a protest button.
2. Half-way amusing Amazon satire which takes an weird twist into Middle-Dicksonian Territory...which later Dickens disowned
3. Workplace satire with an infuriating right-wing ending
4. My favorite plot so far...
5. I think it had a lot of plot holes and I didn't like it due to the plot holes..just did not work
Guess which one I agree with?
Number #5 - the plot does not work. Peter Tighe, the writer, really has to work on his plotting and execution. A lot of the story didn't hold together or make much sense. I kept wondering during it -- okay you have robots, so why aren't the robots during the automated or menial tasks, while the humans are supervising? Less people would be needed and far more cost effective. Also that's how it is done in most of these places. And, I feel like I've seen this done before, elsewhere, but far better. Either a Twilight Zone episode, Outer Limits, Star Trek, something. It felt very familiar. Although not predictable, because the plot makes no sense.
I honestly don't think the "right-wing" message a lot of folks picked up on was intentional or really that evident, I think it was just clumsy writing. The thematic pattern this season has been against violence as a solution for problems -- which is a direct outgrowth from the previous seasons. At the very end of the previous season, the Doctor loses people due to his own and others violent actions. Or use of violence to resolve things...either to punish, seek vengeance, justice, whatever. He/She has learned that mercy matters, and violence solves nothing. Doesn't matter what the problem is -- the use of violence causes more harm than good and ends with disastrous consequences, also never furthers your agenda. If anything it taints it.
* In Demons of Punjab -- the younger brother ends up killing his last remaining family member and for what? A split country and racial hatred? How many lives were lost over what amounts to nationalism and religious divisions? The aliens (aka Demons) in the episode are bearing silent witness - because they lost their planet going down a similar road.
* Kerblam! -- the antagonist's motives may be a bit more pure or along the lines of the audience's sensibility, but the actions are no less destructive. Yes, from Charlie's perspective, Kerblam is a capitalistic nightmare come to life -- with Robots supervising poor manual laborers who get 10 minute breaks and lives are regimentalized, while many others suffer. The robots are taking the jobs. Few get any, and those who do...are happy to have just that job. It's horrible and must be destroyed. But, not through violence...that makes it worse. He loses the woman he loves and his own life...accomplishing little. And if the packages went out -- how many more would he kill? As the Doctor points out there are other ways...and to a degree they do change things, the heads of the corporation agree to use more human workers and less robots, and make it less automated. Is it fixed? Hardly. But Charlie's method was not better - but worse. (That's what I think was the intended message, but it got a bit lost.)
And as much as we'd like to blame the system or outside forces for our decisions or the decisions of our fellow humans, at the end of the day -- we are responsible for them, not an automated system we've created to make our lives easier, or for that matter technology. This theme was a bit clearer but also got a bit lost.
What I liked? The bubble wrap. Clever.
But I found the rest of the episode a bit boring to be honest. And yes, yes, the big corporate monster that eats up the little guy..okay, I'm wondering if the people critiquing the Corporate Monster have ever worked for the Corporate Monster? I have, they aren't that bad. Actually Corporations are a heck of a lot better places to work than Universities or Publishing Houses, or small dot.coms or small non-profits, or in some cases -- Public Agencies.
Any organization, big or small, that is run by human beings is going to have issues. Why? Human beings are selfish assholes. Or so I've noticed. And capable of wonderful and horrible things at the same time.
I don't think the episode was set up to bash Amazon or On-Line Retail Giants similar to Amazon (of which there are more than a few). It was trying to show an balanced view of a huge retailer and how if you go too far towards automation or let the system run everything...things can easily go haywire.
I really don't think it had an economic/political perspective, so much as an anti-violence one. But again, I can see why others did see it that way and expected it. It was a bit hard to follow and muddled in places. I had troubles following the whole conveyor belt bit...which was vaguely amusing, but mainly reminded me of the movie Tron and Wreck-it Like Ralph.
Overall? Eh..not one of the better episodes. It's very hit and miss this season. I've liked three of the six episodes that aired. I skipped one -- because big scary spiders.
Also, as an aside, I really want to like Jodi Whittacker as the Doctor, but much like Capadali before her - she's not doing much for me either way. I miss Matt Smith, David Tennant, and Eccleston. It's probably telling that my favorite was Eccleston.
no subject
Date: 2018-11-23 02:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-11-23 02:50 am (UTC)It's hard to write a television show, you have a lot of people you have to please -- advertisers, networks, studio execs, head writers, and pesky fans.
Also only 43 minutes to do it in.