This was mostly good! Thoughts below, now with 57% more footnotes.
Sacha Dawan is SUCH A GOOD MASTER. There was something very subtly off about his character right from the start - funny looks, smiling a little too wide - so I initially wasn't surprised when the villain-reveal started... but then they cut to his 'house' flying alongside the plane. Very nicely done.* Dawan's portrayal post-reveal really was marvellously deranged, too. Not quite the 'chew the scenery to sawdust' evil of John Simms, more 'lick the scenery without breaking eye contact.' I can't wait to see more of him in this role.
The story overall was much, much better than anything Chibnall wrote last season. It flowed! It was internally consistent! All the characters had things to do! But there's still one big lingering problem, and unfortunately it's the way Chibnall writes the Doctor herself.
For starters, no incarnation of the Doctor would ever be okay with her and her friends being bundled into unmarked black SUVs.** She might reluctantly allow it - the Doctor knows when she's outgunned - but she'd at least huff and complain about it all the way. She should also have found it a bit strange that O had a drop-cage suspended over the exact bit of floor the monster happened to walk across, she should have cast some serious side eye to that monster suddenly being replaced by Yaz ('no it's definitely me, Doctor, and not one of the many shapeshifting alien races you've personally encountered') and she should have at least raised a fucking eyebrow when the most powerful man in the world sprinted out of his own party to get away from her instead of just having security chuck her out.
The trick with the car mirror was brilliant though, as was her playing snap at the blackjack table (very seventh Doctor, that bit.) More moments like these, please!
* When I thought back on it, there WAS a clue earlier in the episode - O immediately recognised the Doctor when she arrived, even though he said later that she was a man last time he saw her, and C had mistaken Graham for the Doctor earlier so he couldn't have known from MI6's records either.
** And actually, how did MI6 know where to find them all anyway?
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GustavFriend of GoatsSomewhere in the OzarksRegistered Userregular
I’m just gunna run with MI6 kept a skeleton crew of UNIT going for that last bit and take my no prize
these things are Boneless, from Flatline. This Master is from a parallel world, so Missy can RIP as a redeemed hero and we can keep the Master as a mean lil prick.
They've certainly foreshadowed some parallel universe shenanigans, and while this is a definite possibility I'm not sure how I'd feel about having an alternate universe Master long-term. It feels cheap, somehow. Plus it's unnecessary IMO, I'm inclined to agree with Moffat's take that you never have to explain how the Master got out of the certain-death situation we last saw them in - they just did.
This seems to be a disguise the master is using. He could switch it off and be Missy.
I'd love that, but the plane would have been the time for the reveal. Honestly, I think the Master just did a controlled regeneration - there's precedent for some Time Lords being able to choose their next body (former companion Romana is one, and the Derek Jacobi Master deliberately aimed for a 'young and strong' body when he regenerated), but most of them either can't or won't.
They are absolutely the Voord. Their head silhouettes are unmistakable. God, what a random alien species to bring back.
This would be funny, on account of
I just got around to reading Cornell's The Four Doctors comic miniseries, which the Voord are a large presence in.
Speaking of Paul Cornell, I subscribe to his e-mail newsletter. He's got a regular section in it where he talks about what's going on in his personal life, in particular the ups and downs of raising his son, who's autistic. In the most recent issue, Paul revealed that he's discovered he is autistic himself.
Amongst the things I still have to do is set up a Chromecast link between my iPad and a doohickey I've bought for the back of the TV (mostly to get BritBox on the big screen). My initial attempt at sorting that failed spectacularly, but the realisation that resulted, well, it's been a bit life-changing.
I realised that, as I was failing to get the instructions to work, I was tensing up, and I had a kind of emotional anticipation of something terrible and undefined happening if I couldn't get this task completed. ('They'll all laugh at me' from school was somewhere in the back of my head.) This is often the case for me and fiddly jobs. But this time, having been thinking a lot about Tom's condition lately, I realised that the feeling was very close to the sensation I get before flapping. (The autistic practice of having something like a fit when, in my case, I anticipate something exciting ahead and go to a sort of 'mental work space' where I can daydream future developments, and plot fiction. I've done that all my life and until we started researching Tom's autism I had no idea what it was.) I realised that starting to flap would make the tension go away.
And so a penny dropped that's been hanging in mid-air for decades. My mother revealed to me, in her dementia, that she'd been told I was autistic. I've flapped all my life. I react to complex tasks with fear and pressure. I have to take highly emotional TV shows slowly and carefully, when I've got enough energy to deal with the drama. I've had to learn social interaction as a set of rules (which I'm now pretty good at, but there are occasional glaring exceptions). Tom got those genes from somewhere. (Caroline says from both of us, actually.)
I'm autistic.
I don't know how much I'll be using that word about myself, because I'm incredibly privileged and comfortable and my mode of being hampers me not at all. (Indeed, the flapping has really helped my writing.) And I don't want to waste NHS time on a diagnosis. But I felt that saying that out loud might help someone else reading this. And I'm going to keep saying it online, whenever it's appropriate, on that basis.
Phew, quite a revelation from a bit of dodgy tech. It's given me new insight into how Tom reacts when he's challenged by something new. I don't know quite what to do with it otherwise.
I'm not autistic myself (AFAIK), but I am neuroatypical in a way I've never been able to pin down to my own satisfaction, so it's nice to know that I'm somewhat in the company of my favourite writer for my favourite show.
On a different topic, while I wasn't spoiled on the ending of Spyfall part 1, it was a close thing because the very next day I had a recommended video on my YouTube homepage with a super-spoilery title and thumbnail. Is there anything really major like that in Part 2? Because I can't watch it until Thursday.
Spyfall part 2 was, again, OK, I guess. It was full of bits that just didn't seem to work, or that I just didn't understand were there. Chibnall genuinely seems to have difficulty in putting together a satisfying story in its own right.
Lenny Henry just kinda walks away at the end? The Nazis shoot up the floorboards and then they and the Master just leave without really looking any further? And the Doc and Ada were under the floorboards but a different bit of the floorboards so they're OK? Pointless.
Also I fel like having three companions means none of them get any reasonably satisfying arcs because there's not enough space.
On the good side Whittaker remains good and the aliens were a really nice effect. Production values and the sheen of quality were all top notch.
Librarian's ghostLibrarian, Ghostbuster, and TimSporkRegistered Userregular
So like,
Are they ever going to address what the Doctor did with the Master's Tardis? Is there going to be some future episode where she has to use it and has it hidden in a corn field or something? You'd think with how rare and possibly dangerous a Tardis is to leave sitting around, she'd want to put it somewhere safe.
I'm sure a better writer or showrunner could make it work, but Chibnall seems to have a terrible hold on how to make the companion's characters come across. That old dictum about describing a character without saying what they do or what they look like as a way of testing how they've come across leaves me struggling for ways to describe Ryan and Yasmin, and most of what I can say about Graham is Bradley Walsh's inherent chirpiness coming through.
And because they're badly presented and have no real arcs (beyond Graham's widowhood and missing his wife) they just sort of struggle for elbow room to do stuff during the plot. Their actions rarely seem to stem from their character, so their characters don't come through. I mean, they're nice, and well acted, and brave as companions always are, but what else?
Compare to, say, Rose, Donna, or Amy. All pretty well-defined in their first episodes and you always felt the writers and RTD had a solid idea of who they were. Rose is kind of gobby, impulsive and sure the Doctor is her chance for something better. Donna is also gobby, abrasive, kind of yearning to know more about everything and absolutely not having any of your funny business, mate. I don't think it's the present companion's actor's fault, but RTD could give a satisfying arc to a one-episode supporting character and Chibnall fails to manage it for his main characters.
Are they ever going to address what the Doctor did with the Master's Tardis? Is there going to be some future episode where she has to use it and has it hidden in a corn field or something? You'd think with how rare and possibly dangerous a Tardis is to leave sitting around, she'd want to put it somewhere safe.
Is this actually the first time we've seen
the Master's Tardis in the new show? I can't recall it before now with John Simm or Missy.
Are they ever going to address what the Doctor did with the Master's Tardis? Is there going to be some future episode where she has to use it and has it hidden in a corn field or something? You'd think with how rare and possibly dangerous a Tardis is to leave sitting around, she'd want to put it somewhere safe.
Is this actually the first time we've seen
the Master's Tardis in the new show? I can't recall it before now with John Simm or Missy.
- 'Aliens want to use human (but only human!) DNA for storage' just eclipsed 'the moon is an egg' as the show's dumbest plot contrivance ever. I don't even need to explain why it doesn't make sense because there is literally no way it can make sense.
- Ada Lovelace and Noor Inayat Khan each deserved a whole episode to themselves, not being crammed into this mess and given less personality between them than a stale scone.
- What, exactly, was the deal with the Kasaavin? Like, what was wrong with their home dimension? Was it crowded? Too close to the train tracks? How was living inside human DNA (???) supposed to improve things for them?
- 'Gallifrey is destroyed' wow what a shocking plot twist that was in 2005. Oh and I can't wait to hear the truth about this 'Timeless Child,' I'm sure the Doctor that fought in the Time War and witnessed unimaginable atrocities on both sides is going to be really devastated that her government once lied to her about something. I have every faith that Chris 'Aliens need our DNA for storage' Chibnall is going to stick the landing on that one.
I could go on all night but I don't see the point. This episode was a jumbled, half-hearted mess, a torrent of mismatched ideas that individually sounded cool but were never presented with the skill or care necessary for them to be cool. Thank god we at least have six back-to-back non-Chibnall episodes to look forward to now.
Are they ever going to address what the Doctor did with the Master's Tardis? Is there going to be some future episode where she has to use it and has it hidden in a corn field or something? You'd think with how rare and possibly dangerous a Tardis is to leave sitting around, she'd want to put it somewhere safe.
Dany The Doctor sort of forgot about the Iron Fleet Master's TARDIS.
I mean, they never really made it clear why they needed data storage, but DNA data storage is totally a thing. It’s just really prohibitively expensive - the link notes that storing a minute of high quality audio would cost, like, $100,000 at 2018 prices
The thing that's getting me about the writing so far in Chibnall's run is that the Doctor just isn't very clever. The times she's supposed to be clever - you can tell when they are because the music swells and the bad guy looks angry - the cleverness sort of just falls apart under the slightest examination.
Why did the Teutonic perception filter getting shut off work? The Master wouldn't look like what the soldiers thought he looked like, so why did the immediately grab him?
Walking up to Barton and just dumping everything she knows on him to surprise him wasn't clever, and it didn't result in anything clever and I don't know what the point was other than as a way to get everyone on motorcycles.
Something as simple as bouncing back 9 months ago and rewiring the macgizmo, then leaving a 'get out of crashing airplane free' card for the companions negates most plots on the show which is why other showrunners haven't really done it. It's obvious, not clever. Which I guess was really the only way out since what were those things, anyway? Usually with new aliens we get some rules about them that make them terrifying, then the Doctor turns the rules around to trap them and we cheer at how clever it all was. We never got any information about the things, so I guess a big shrug on beating them also worked.
I'm cranky we never got any sort of acknowledgement about the Master's turn at the end of Capaldi's run. Not even during the big 'when will you stop being evil?!' speech.
I like Whittaker, and I want to like this run, but so far it's just boring. A lot of being informed of what characters are, instead of being shown it. I don't know that I'd ever accuse this show of being subtle, but man was Barton's speech about as subtle as a brick. I agree with the idea and I still rolled my eyes so hard I saw the inside of my own skull.
Side gripe: wasn't Ryan's sole big characteristic last season that he had dyspraxia? But then didn't this season open with his friend saying he was usually able to make the sort of basketball shots he was missing, yeah? Did that whole thing just get dropped, or did I miss something. Or is this just even lazier writing than I thought.
I mean, they never really made it clear why they needed data storage, but DNA data storage is totally a thing. It’s just really prohibitively expensive - the link notes that storing a minute of high quality audio would cost, like, $100,000 at 2018 prices
That's pretty cool, I hadn't heard of that! Plus, in a literal sense, data storage is what DNA is already used for anyway. The problem is that there's no attempt made to sell it as a plausible best option for the Kasaavin. Like, why DNA and not any other data storage medium in the Doctor Who universe? Why human DNA and not that of any other organism? And if their conversion had succeeded, what next? Do they then just have an entire planet of 8 billion comatose humans who now need round-clock-nursing by Barton's elite unconverted few (who we also never get to see, by the way)?
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Andy JoeWe claim the land for the highlord!The AdirondacksRegistered Userregular
Why did the Teutonic perception filter getting shut off work? The Master wouldn't look like what the soldiers thought he looked like, so why did the immediately grab him?
Oh definitely, if a bunch of Nazis came across a dark-skinned guy they didn't recognize wearing a German uniform I'm sure they'd all take him out for drinks.
Why did the Teutonic perception filter getting shut off work? The Master wouldn't look like what the soldiers thought he looked like, so why did the immediately grab him?
Oh definitely, if a bunch of Nazis came across a dark-skinned guy they didn't recognize wearing a German uniform I'm sure they'd all take him out for drinks.
except she explicitly went to the trouble to set him up as a double agent, not as a 'random' dark skinned guy. Either it was lazy writing, or the Doctor, of all people, decided that throwing specific dark skinned folks to the Nazis was a-ok.
You know what they could have done that would have been much better than the Kasaavin? Brought back the Gelth. For established fans it's a cool callback, for new fans all they need to know is "they lost their bodies in the Time War and now they need ours." Two seconds of exposition, bam, done. You could still keep most of the story beats, explain the Gelth's new abilities as the result of tech upgrades from the Master, so now instead of stealing corpses via the gas lines they're jumping into living bodies via smartphones.
Then, when the Doctor is teleported back to the Gelth's current dimension, make it look like an absolute dump that anyone would want to escape, and give Jodie some great Doctor moments while she explains what happened there and how guilty she feels about her own role in the Time War.
Or, you know, do none of that and end the episode with a sign-making montage. Because that's the bit that needed explaining.
Butler on
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Zilla36021st Century. |She/Her|Trans* Woman In Aviators Firing A Bazooka. ⚛️Registered Userregular
The doctor totally went and did a 'Bill & Ted' in saving her companions there. Excellent! *Air guitar solo GIF goes here.*
Why did the Teutonic perception filter getting shut off work? The Master wouldn't look like what the soldiers thought he looked like, so why did the immediately grab him?
Oh definitely, if a bunch of Nazis came across a dark-skinned guy they didn't recognize wearing a German uniform I'm sure they'd all take him out for drinks.
except she explicitly went to the trouble to set him up as a double agent, not as a 'random' dark skinned guy. Either it was lazy writing, or the Doctor, of all people, decided that throwing specific dark skinned folks to the Nazis was a-ok.
Pick your poison.
The double agent reveal was to get the soldiers there, removing the perception filter was to make sure the Master couldn't talk himself out of it. (Dark-skinned guy in a German uniform at the last known location of a recently revealed double agent? Super suspicious, that.)
Yeah I REALLY wish they would not use Bill & Ted logic on Who. I get the temptation but it always feels like it undermines any potential drama to too great a degree. They've already got enough of a loose ruleset that they should be able to come up with something that doesn't require that. Once that's in play...shrug.
Why did the Teutonic perception filter getting shut off work? The Master wouldn't look like what the soldiers thought he looked like, so why did the immediately grab him?
Oh definitely, if a bunch of Nazis came across a dark-skinned guy they didn't recognize wearing a German uniform I'm sure they'd all take him out for drinks.
except she explicitly went to the trouble to set him up as a double agent, not as a 'random' dark skinned guy. Either it was lazy writing, or the Doctor, of all people, decided that throwing specific dark skinned folks to the Nazis was a-ok.
Pick your poison.
The double agent reveal was to get the soldiers there, removing the perception filter was to make sure the Master couldn't talk himself out of it. (Dark-skinned guy in a German uniform at the last known location of a recently revealed double agent? Super suspicious, that.)
Using someone’s minority status to make their situation worse is pretty bad tho. Like, it would not be possible if the Master was white.
Posts
The story overall was much, much better than anything Chibnall wrote last season. It flowed! It was internally consistent! All the characters had things to do! But there's still one big lingering problem, and unfortunately it's the way Chibnall writes the Doctor herself.
For starters, no incarnation of the Doctor would ever be okay with her and her friends being bundled into unmarked black SUVs.** She might reluctantly allow it - the Doctor knows when she's outgunned - but she'd at least huff and complain about it all the way. She should also have found it a bit strange that O had a drop-cage suspended over the exact bit of floor the monster happened to walk across, she should have cast some serious side eye to that monster suddenly being replaced by Yaz ('no it's definitely me, Doctor, and not one of the many shapeshifting alien races you've personally encountered') and she should have at least raised a fucking eyebrow when the most powerful man in the world sprinted out of his own party to get away from her instead of just having security chuck her out.
The trick with the car mirror was brilliant though, as was her playing snap at the blackjack table (very seventh Doctor, that bit.) More moments like these, please!
* When I thought back on it, there WAS a clue earlier in the episode - O immediately recognised the Doctor when she arrived, even though he said later that she was a man last time he saw her, and C had mistaken Graham for the Doctor earlier so he couldn't have known from MI6's records either.
** And actually, how did MI6 know where to find them all anyway?
And it is my strictest beliefs that Doctor Who continuity should make absolutely no sense what so ever
Terrance Dicks also passed away so it may have been a nod to him.
This would be funny, on account of
Speaking of Paul Cornell, I subscribe to his e-mail newsletter. He's got a regular section in it where he talks about what's going on in his personal life, in particular the ups and downs of raising his son, who's autistic. In the most recent issue, Paul revealed that he's discovered he is autistic himself.
I'm not autistic myself (AFAIK), but I am neuroatypical in a way I've never been able to pin down to my own satisfaction, so it's nice to know that I'm somewhat in the company of my favourite writer for my favourite show.
On a different topic, while I wasn't spoiled on the ending of Spyfall part 1, it was a close thing because the very next day I had a recommended video on my YouTube homepage with a super-spoilery title and thumbnail. Is there anything really major like that in Part 2? Because I can't watch it until Thursday.
and
well
kinda yeah at this point
Also I fel like having three companions means none of them get any reasonably satisfying arcs because there's not enough space.
On the good side Whittaker remains good and the aliens were a really nice effect. Production values and the sheen of quality were all top notch.
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I never finished last season. I feel like I've got every streaming service under the sun but it snot on any of them.
Steam ID: Obos Vent: Obos
And because they're badly presented and have no real arcs (beyond Graham's widowhood and missing his wife) they just sort of struggle for elbow room to do stuff during the plot. Their actions rarely seem to stem from their character, so their characters don't come through. I mean, they're nice, and well acted, and brave as companions always are, but what else?
Compare to, say, Rose, Donna, or Amy. All pretty well-defined in their first episodes and you always felt the writers and RTD had a solid idea of who they were. Rose is kind of gobby, impulsive and sure the Doctor is her chance for something better. Donna is also gobby, abrasive, kind of yearning to know more about everything and absolutely not having any of your funny business, mate. I don't think it's the present companion's actor's fault, but RTD could give a satisfying arc to a one-episode supporting character and Chibnall fails to manage it for his main characters.
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Is this actually the first time we've seen
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I think so yeah.
Pretty cool, IMO!
just keep thinking the light's gonna fade and there's Greg going hey I'm gonna play Skyrim for 12 hours
Second year of the 13th Doctor's comic-book series from Titan begins with a crossover with the 10th Doctor's 'Doctor-lite' episode Blink.
Let's Play Final Fantasy 'II' (Ch10 - 5/17/10)
- Ada Lovelace and Noor Inayat Khan each deserved a whole episode to themselves, not being crammed into this mess and given less personality between them than a stale scone.
- What, exactly, was the deal with the Kasaavin? Like, what was wrong with their home dimension? Was it crowded? Too close to the train tracks? How was living inside human DNA (???) supposed to improve things for them?
- 'Gallifrey is destroyed' wow what a shocking plot twist that was in 2005. Oh and I can't wait to hear the truth about this 'Timeless Child,' I'm sure the Doctor that fought in the Time War and witnessed unimaginable atrocities on both sides is going to be really devastated that her government once lied to her about something. I have every faith that Chris 'Aliens need our DNA for storage' Chibnall is going to stick the landing on that one.
I could go on all night but I don't see the point. This episode was a jumbled, half-hearted mess, a torrent of mismatched ideas that individually sounded cool but were never presented with the skill or care necessary for them to be cool. Thank god we at least have six back-to-back non-Chibnall episodes to look forward to now.
Why did the Teutonic perception filter getting shut off work? The Master wouldn't look like what the soldiers thought he looked like, so why did the immediately grab him?
Walking up to Barton and just dumping everything she knows on him to surprise him wasn't clever, and it didn't result in anything clever and I don't know what the point was other than as a way to get everyone on motorcycles.
Something as simple as bouncing back 9 months ago and rewiring the macgizmo, then leaving a 'get out of crashing airplane free' card for the companions negates most plots on the show which is why other showrunners haven't really done it. It's obvious, not clever. Which I guess was really the only way out since what were those things, anyway? Usually with new aliens we get some rules about them that make them terrifying, then the Doctor turns the rules around to trap them and we cheer at how clever it all was. We never got any information about the things, so I guess a big shrug on beating them also worked.
I'm cranky we never got any sort of acknowledgement about the Master's turn at the end of Capaldi's run. Not even during the big 'when will you stop being evil?!' speech.
I like Whittaker, and I want to like this run, but so far it's just boring. A lot of being informed of what characters are, instead of being shown it. I don't know that I'd ever accuse this show of being subtle, but man was Barton's speech about as subtle as a brick. I agree with the idea and I still rolled my eyes so hard I saw the inside of my own skull.
Side gripe: wasn't Ryan's sole big characteristic last season that he had dyspraxia? But then didn't this season open with his friend saying he was usually able to make the sort of basketball shots he was missing, yeah? Did that whole thing just get dropped, or did I miss something. Or is this just even lazier writing than I thought.
Pick your poison.
Then, when the Doctor is teleported back to the Gelth's current dimension, make it look like an absolute dump that anyone would want to escape, and give Jodie some great Doctor moments while she explains what happened there and how guilty she feels about her own role in the Time War.
Or, you know, do none of that and end the episode with a sign-making montage. Because that's the bit that needed explaining.