Board 8 > Scarlet Ranks User-Nominated Episodes of Television: Season 2

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scarletspeed7
10/19/19 6:25:15 PM
#202:


Doctor Who - "Midnight"
Nominated by: Inviso


Was I alone in not expecting too much of this episode? Stuck in the valley between a Steven Moffatt two-parter and the big season-ending episodes, the Russell Davies-scripted episode had the appearance of a placeholder. It's even about the Doctor and Donna enjoying a bit of vacation time. What could be slighter? And yet, I don't think this season has produced a better episode than Midnight. I certainly can't think of a tenser one.

I don't want to use comparisons to shows I haven't rated to describe this list, but allow me just one. Midnight does for Davies' Doctor Who what The City On The Edge Of Forever did for Star Trek. It's similarly tragic, but beyond that places our hero in a situation where he does everything right and still founds himself overwhelmed by forces he can't control. He's no less heroic for it, but we now know he has limits. Two hearts and all, the ordeal makes him seem all the more human.

Writing: 10/10
Characterization: 6/10
Scarlet Factor: 10/10
Overall Rating: 26/30

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scarletspeed7
10/19/19 6:27:19 PM
#203:


Random.org has decreed that next up is... Six Feet Under - "That's My Dog" (Nominated by: KBM)

29 Points:
Lost - "Walkabout"
28 Points:
Star Trek: The Next Generation - "The Best of Both Worlds, Part 1"
27 Points:
Sherlock - "A Scandal in Belgravia"
26 Points:
Frasier - "The Ski Lodge"
Doctor Who - "Midnight"
25 Points:
The Walking Dead - "Too Far Gone"
23 Points:
Flight of the Conchords - "Love is a Weapon of Choice"
22 Points:
Doctor Who - "Gridlock"
20 Points:
Simpsons - "Homer at the Bat"
Star Trek - "The Menagerie, Part I"
19 Points:
Quantum Leap - "Raped"
Boston Legal - "Shock and Oww!"
18 Points:
Weird City - "The One"
16 Points:
Girls' Last Tour - "Accident/Technology/Takeoff"
The Mary Tyler Moore Show - "Chuckles Bites the Dust"
12 Points:
Rick & Morty - "Meseeks and Destroy"
10 Points:
Agents of SHIELD - "4,722 Hours"
9 Points:
V - "Pilot"
7 Points:
Angel - "Dead End"
3 Points:
Beast Wars: Transformers - "Code of Hero"
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Inviso
10/19/19 6:40:11 PM
#204:


Whoa whoa whoa whoa.

Series 3, for all its flaws, has Human Nature/Family of Blood, and Blink. Gridlock is only the best episode of the typically-weak first half of the series.
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Inviso
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scarletspeed7
10/19/19 7:47:36 PM
#205:


Six Feet Under - "That's My Dog"
Nominated by: KBM


Well, that episode was particularly bonkers in the emotions department. I think it has a lot to do with the fact we can all relate to exactly how David feels and we are unable to wrap our minds around how someone could act like the mugger. We follow a certain code of rules or social norms, when someone does not follow them also we don't know how to understand it like what happened to David. This guy doesn't want money and he doesn't want the van he just wants to terrorize David and basically do his best to ruin his sense of self and safety.

Honestly, after this show, I have never looked at the actor who played the mugger quite the same and I get a little queasy when I see him in other things, I'm just uncomfortable with him. The trauma David endured is then shown to affect him greatly in the next episodes, and he does something we would all do, try and ignore it and rationalize it away.

Honestly, this episode is one of my least favorites to watch. The front half is actually surprisingly dull outside of a pretty darkly hilarious Peter Krause moment, and the back half is extremely uncomfortable. I respect the gravity and darkness of this episode, and the attempt to convey a trauma in a strangely surreal and at the same time real way. But I just don't enjoy this in the slightest.

Writing: 7/10
Characterization: 8/10
Scarlet Factor: 1/10
Overall Rating: 16/30

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scarletspeed7
10/19/19 7:51:52 PM
#206:


Random.org has decreed that next up is... The Outer Limits - "Small Friends" (Nominated by: Lopen)

29 Points:
Lost - "Walkabout"
28 Points:
Star Trek: The Next Generation - "The Best of Both Worlds, Part 1"
27 Points:
Sherlock - "A Scandal in Belgravia"
26 Points:
Frasier - "The Ski Lodge"
Doctor Who - "Midnight"
25 Points:
The Walking Dead - "Too Far Gone"
23 Points:
Flight of the Conchords - "Love is a Weapon of Choice"
22 Points:
Doctor Who - "Gridlock"
20 Points:
Simpsons - "Homer at the Bat"
Star Trek - "The Menagerie, Part I"
19 Points:
Quantum Leap - "Raped"
Boston Legal - "Shock and Oww!"
18 Points:
Weird City - "The One"
16 Points:
Girls' Last Tour - "Accident/Technology/Takeoff"
The Mary Tyler Moore Show - "Chuckles Bites the Dust"
Six Feet Under - "That's My Dog"
12 Points:
Rick & Morty - "Meseeks and Destroy"
10 Points:
Agents of SHIELD - "4,722 Hours"
9 Points:
V - "Pilot"
7 Points:
Angel - "Dead End"
3 Points:
Beast Wars: Transformers - "Code of Hero"
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PumpkinCoach
10/19/19 8:17:17 PM
#207:


Gridlock is my favourite episode of the new series - just an incredibly suprising, humanistic, and hopeful episode of ordinary people making the best of a rough situation through community. Rare for this sort of story and rare for Doctor Who, there's not really a monster. The Macra are there, but are completely incidental. There's no evil for the doctor to fight - just systemic issues, and the mistakes (even if well-meaning) along the way that brought us to this point. The episode constantly wrongsteps the viewer into thinking it's going one way, before showing it's not that sort of story, and the Doctor gets it wrong.

"You think you know us so well, doctor, but we're not abandoned. Not while we have each other."

The contrast between Martha and the Doctor's reaction to the hymn is great. Personally, like Martha, I'm in tears at this point. Before it, the Doctor needles them, seeing them as complacent rather than hopeful, which is a sort of story Doctor Who does, and would have been the more predictable one. I can imagine this story with Sylvester McCoy or Christopher Eccleston and they'd understand where Brannigan is coming from and it'd be an incredible episode too, but the specific imperiousness of David Tennant's Doctor here adds another dimension to it, and it starts with his tough guy posturing with the vendors at the beginning without really knowing what's going on. Brannigan's argument above is lost on the Doctor. He denies it at the start of the episode before he even heard it, and only starts to accept it barely when Martha forces the issue at the end.

I also love the set design in this episode, but ymmv and I get it. I expect Doctor Who to look a little shoddy and for its reach to always exceed its grasp and I'm into it. The future earth stories in particular tend to be more ambitious in trying to represent the variety and panoply of humanity's future on the show's limited budget, which might be why they stick out to you. I think all the carriages have a nice lived-in, personalized feel. It's a space story, but also a very domestic argument around the kitchen sink.

Midnight is excellent as well, speaking of the 10th Doctor getting it wrong, speaking of episodes that are fun to imagine with other Doctors
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Lopen
10/20/19 1:38:30 AM
#208:


At long last random.org gods have smiled on me. Feel like last list I had like 4 picks down by this point!
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scarletspeed7
10/21/19 8:54:06 PM
#209:


RNG can be dangerous.
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scarletspeed7
10/23/19 7:21:20 PM
#210:


Next episode tomorrow.
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Lopen
10/25/19 3:23:23 PM
#211:


The Outer Limits is a powerful foe. It cannot be bested in one attempt.
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Great_Paul
10/26/19 8:37:11 PM
#212:


bumpo
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It's kinda coincidental how like in most games pigs are evil.
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scarletspeed7
10/26/19 8:48:23 PM
#213:


Sorry, I've had a lot of unexpected hiccups over the last week. This isn't dead, promise!
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Lopen
10/26/19 8:53:48 PM
#214:


I was getting worried I managed to nominate something as interest killing as Breaking Bad Pilot
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scarletspeed7
10/26/19 8:54:45 PM
#215:


No, I'm looking forward to it! Never watched the show! I just have had a monumentally busy week and I lost my normal day to do this :(
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Great_Paul
10/29/19 1:14:28 PM
#216:


bumpo
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Bear Bro
It's kinda coincidental how like in most games pigs are evil.
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scarletspeed7
11/01/19 6:03:06 PM
#217:


My life has been painfully busy. I feel freedom looming though.
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Fastbreak
11/02/19 7:38:56 PM
#218:


When all else fails

Blame lopen
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Johnbobb
11/02/19 10:30:57 PM
#219:


Fastbreak posted...
When all else fails

Blame fastbreak

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Lopen
11/03/19 12:11:11 AM
#220:


I blame Breaking Bad Pilot.

Somehow.
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CoolCly
11/03/19 1:41:17 AM
#221:


personally i'm impressed by scarlet's ability to keep us on the hook

every time he posts he convinces me that an update is JUST around the corner
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Raka_Putra
11/03/19 3:19:22 AM
#222:


How meta.
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Fastbreak
11/04/19 2:40:31 AM
#223:


I know scarlet recently reviewed a Mary Tyler Morre episode and decided to comment here rather than make a topic

I'm watching some Dick van Dyke show, and it still looks good it's still entertaining, and man mary Tyler Moore sure was beautiful

This show was a gem
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Lopen
11/07/19 11:24:19 PM
#224:


Scarlet will control the horizontal and the vertical soon I believe in him
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Raka_Putra
11/08/19 4:12:56 AM
#225:


Stop playing iDOLM@STER.
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theiceisnice
11/13/19 4:53:13 PM
#226:


bump

(sry guys not a Scarlet update)
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Lopen
11/18/19 12:22:04 PM
#227:


We just gotta wait for him to realize that running that X-Men draft is a real headache

Then he'll come watch some Outer Limits to unwind
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Great_Paul
11/21/19 12:12:48 PM
#228:


theiceisnice posted...
bump

(sry guys not a Scarlet update)

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Bear Bro
It's kinda coincidental how like in most games pigs are evil.
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theiceisnice
11/27/19 11:22:19 AM
#229:


This topic is getting "Too Far Gone"
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theiceisnice
12/04/19 11:59:59 AM
#230:


The bad news is, this looks dead for now. The good news is I finally thought of a new episode Scarlet can review for season 3. Hopefully we'll get that by the end of 2021.
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theiceisnice
12/11/19 9:24:19 AM
#231:


first version of x-men draft fell apart, let's see what happens to JLA

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Fastbreak
12/15/19 3:21:13 PM
#232:


Save?

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Lopen
12/23/19 5:55:12 PM
#233:


Save.

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