I was fearing another bland Black Orchid and was quite surprised by the sheer intricacy of the plot, the flashbacks and flashforwards really added a great deal
to what would have otherwise been a quite boring story. I figured it was the vicar when promo pix were released some time
ago but I didn't reckon he'd actually be the giant wasp, I reckoned it'd be some sort of twist on genetic engineering.
The Slapper and the Flapper
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 ushas the rani |
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mother/father
Posts: 285 17 May, 2008 6:59 PM |
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doloras |
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mother/father
Posts: 280 18 May, 2008 8:29 AM |
That was HILARIOUS. I'm sure Larry will hate it (because the Evil Renegade is Serious Business) but for me it was sheer lulz (as the young people say) from
beginning to end.
I really thought the butler was going to do it. The Stacks - the site for
Faction Paradox fanfic and other fanworks
"Larry was with us in spirit" - Kate Orman
(for more of my messed up thoughts on culture, magick and revolutionary politics) |
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doloras |
#2 | |||
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mother/father
Posts: 280 18 May, 2008 8:48 AM |
Larry's review, summarised:
Agatha Christie was, in fact, shit. The job of Evil Renegade is to subconsciously mould the children of mindless chav scum into superior beings such as myself, and Gareth Roberts FAILS FAILS FAILS at that. I would of course do much better. Everything was much much better when I was a teenager and 80's Who made me the fine figure of a man that I am. Why aren't I recognized as a genius? The Stacks - the site for
Faction Paradox fanfic and other fanworks
"Larry was with us in spirit" - Kate Orman
(for more of my messed up thoughts on culture, magick and revolutionary politics) |
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ReverendSalem |
#3 | |||
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little sister/brother
Posts: 28 18 May, 2008 11:00 AM |
Ouch. Serious burn on LM, there.
Anyway. Bits that made me react:
Last Edited By: ReverendSalem 18 May, 2008 8:29 PM.
Edited 1 time.
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doloras |
#4 | |||
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mother/father
Posts: 280 18 May, 2008 7:42 PM |
Also, the fact that EVERYONE in the bloody house had some great secret going on. That, of course, is a standard convention of all classic detective novels. If everyone has a secret, then everyone will be looking shifty and suspicious and hiding the truth and finding the actual murder is much more difficult. Not that I think Larry reads this forum and if he did he'd care what I say, but I do in fact think he's a genius, and it frustrates me immensely to watch him wasting his time and energy writing bitter, pompous reviews of Evil Renegade when he could be doing what he does best. He should get over the fact that the BBC won't hire him and go back to building his own, better universe. The Stacks - the site for
Faction Paradox fanfic and other fanworks
"Larry was with us in spirit" - Kate Orman
(for more of my messed up thoughts on culture, magick and revolutionary politics) |
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bthogg |
#5 | |||
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cousin
Posts: 122 18 May, 2008 8:46 PM |
I thought it was a really nice touch that the only person who didn't have a flashback that subverted what they said they'd been doing was the murderer.
(Mainly because I used this as evidence and thus got to get it right, which I enjoyed.)
Excellent episode overall, taken on its own terms as a comedy piece homaging a specific genre. Though I do agree with the "Agatha Christie was in fact shit" part of LM's review. Because she was. |
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felice |
#6 | |||
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Posts: 331 18 May, 2008 10:01 PM godmother |
Fun. I would have enjoyed it more as a pure historical, though - the giant wasp was particularly silly, taking "aliens are all hybrids of Earth animals
crossed with humans" to new depths, and had the worst transformation sequence in Evil Renegade history.
ReverendSalem wrote: Hey, he's the Ka Faraq Gatri, remember? "Nice guy - if you're a biped". If it's not human (or close to it), then it's fair game. Cf the Sycorax, who he was perfectly happy to allow to go off and enslave alien races to their heart's content, as long as they don't mess with Earth. |
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doloras |
#7 | |||
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mother/father
Posts: 280 19 May, 2008 12:44 AM |
Well, I think we all have an unconscious preference to people who look like the people we grew up with. Among humans it's a subconscious racism that you
have to work hard at to get over - I suppose even a Houseworlder who's gone renegade and turned his back on his culture likes to surround himself with
those Lesser Species who look more or less like Houseworlders.
The Stacks - the site for
Faction Paradox fanfic and other fanworks
"Larry was with us in spirit" - Kate Orman
(for more of my messed up thoughts on culture, magick and revolutionary politics) |
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bthogg |
#8 | |||
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cousin
Posts: 122 19 May, 2008 7:17 PM |
Personally, I've always liked the theory that every species sees the Houseworlders as looking fairly similar to them. There's plenty of evidence
against it, sadly, but it's a great idea.
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Curufea |
#9 | |||
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cousin
Posts: 65 20 May, 2008 10:30 PM |
As the first sentient species, I understood that the Great Houses influenced the universe to favour the humanoid shape in the first place.
And on a side note - the ep was chock-full of tropes for the genre. Including grabbing a sword from the mantelpiece. It's a classic. |
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ReverendSalem |
#10 | |||
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little sister/brother
Posts: 28 21 May, 2008 12:49 AM |
felice wrote:Come to think of it, that purple mist transformation did all look a bit Charmed, didn't it? |
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LPTepesh |
#11 | |||
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little sister/brother
Posts: 4 21 May, 2008 11:47 AM |
An alright episode, and probbaly my faviourite of the season so far, but it did feel rather like a single part Poirot , and as Larry said, they
never feel long enough "for a competent murder mystery", and sadly it wasn't as good as many of those. If the current ER was full of intersesting
original charactors and plots then I expect I would have liked this attempt a lot more, but sadly it seems more to just highlight the problems observed every
week.
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