I think if the show becomes a cycle of repeated character beats for every new Doctor it might as well close up shop entirely. If you really liked those moments in past Doctors what you want to do is rewatch those episodes, not demand new episodes contain the same moments, duplicated.
That's not to say 13 and her companions couldn't use more character development.
That's like saying you should re-watch old episodes of <random show pops to mind> Quantum Leap because hey, you know how he's going to react probably to the new stuff, no need to see it again. Plenty of stories work well on those beats, not that I want no different reactions at all.
Did 13 even get mad? Must have, but it being a bit more memorable wouldn't be amiss. Those moments linked above were pretty good, no?
It also might be the same overall character beat, but different reactions. 10 is tranquil fury. 11 is moments of near boiling over before catching himself and dialing it back. 12 is angry eyebrows. They're all pissed off, but each have always handled it in their own unique way which adds to their character, both as The Doctor as a whole being, and the individual.
"The sausage of Green Earth explodes with flavor like the cannon of culinary delight."
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TraceGNU Terry Pratchett; GNU Gus; GNU Carrie Fisher; GNU Adam WeRegistered Userregular
I think 13 could use a little bit more of the god complex the doctor has always seemingly had though.
I dunno if the Doctor has always had a god complex. They've always thought themselves very clever, but that's not quite the same thing. I don't think 5 had it, or 2 or 6. Probably not 3 either. I haven't seen enough of 1 to know.
Each Doctor is a different person, but they're all the Doctor. All the recent ones have had some moment where they figure out that they've changed in some ways, but others are non-negotiable (generally attached to some speech about defending the innocent). Jodie hasn't really had that, and it wouldn't take much. Just a reaction from an enemy when they realise who they've picked a fight with would do. Like the Atraxi realising oh shit we pissed him off, run away.
Tim Shaw just thought she was some annoying woman who got in his way. The Doctor's reputation has gone all the way from 'god' to 'who?', and it's a little jarring. I think part of it's just down to not encountering any established foes. Once she runs into the Daleks or Cybermen, I expect some of it will come back.
I could see some potential in really addressing the reputation. She meets some familiar enemies who are told that she's the Doctor but don't believe it. Not because she's a woman, but everyone knows that the Doctor is seven feet tall, kills men by the hundreds. And if he were here, he'd consume the EnglishDaleks with fireballs from his eyes, and bolts of lightning from his arse.
Then she beats them with a sonic screwdriver made from Sheffield Steel.
I thought the first episode contained a decent Doctor ethos moment.
When people need help, I never refuse.
The Atraxi moment was fantastic, and I think honestly every time they tried to hit that same beat again it didn't work as well and felt like an inferior copy.
Yeah, sometimes you get enemies who fear the Doctor because they've already met and gotten their asses kicked, sometimes you get ones who've just heard the stories, and sometimes you get ones who haven't heard of the Doctor before and don't know what they're getting into. We're just seeing a lot of the latter recently.
Intentionally so. Having a new Doctor be essentially a new thing for aliens to encounter provides at least as many interesting opportunities for stories as having the Doctor be recognised by everyone and famed throughout the universe.
The latest series is supposed to be a jumping on point for new viewers and a course correction for the show, doing away, at least for these ten episodes, with long running intricate plotlines and the sense that the Doctor was something other than a traveller getting into adventures. I think they kind of fluffed a lot of things this season, but I'm fine with them taking the character in a relatively new direction compared to the universe in peril and the Doctor is at the centre of everything seasons we've had with Moffat (though I liked those as well).
The theoretical idea that we can still get good stories and moments while divorcing the god complex and the reputation and anything else is fine. It’s totally possible.
This incredibly milquetoast season isn’t it. It’s just boring and watered down. Whittaker deserves better
Finally watched the finale. It was a good episode, but it didn't have the oomph of a series finale. Sure, the Earth was in danger as a finale should do, but to me it felt kinda "Eh, so what? Do we really care about the Earth?" For all the impact it really had on the story. It was a great part 2 to episode 1 of this series, so I guess it kinda fit as the finale.
Next series I hope is her being pushed into lonely god territory, her companions backing away until it's just Graham who ultimately pulls her back from the brink of Old Testament Godhood. I could wait until 2020 for something like that.
Edit: As far as I could tell, Graham was the only companion. The other two were there to explain the story when The Doctor and her companion split up each episode.
Graham would have been even better if he had (finale):
Followed through with his intent to kill Timmy. He (and anyone else) was justified and it was the best course of action no matter how you look at it (unless you're the Doctor) and it set up a good bit of character tension with them being opposed to each other instead of course he falls in line with her. He was still the best out of three by a large margin, though.
They did address The Doctor's reputation, btw. That was the whole point of the Season 6 finale and was referenced several times afterward, how The Doctor was erasing his footprints wherever he could. It was also a big thing in the Season 7 opener when he wiped the Daleks' memory of who he was.
Basically he was having the Goku effect. The Silence came for him and his friends because they were scared of him, so he needed to stop being a scary tale everyone knew already.
They did address The Doctor's reputation, btw. That was the whole point of the Season 6 finale and was referenced several times afterward, how The Doctor was erasing his footprints wherever he could. It was also a big thing in the Season 7 opener when he wiped the Daleks' memory of who he was.
Basically he was having the Goku effect. The Silence came for him and his friends because they were scared of him, so he needed to stop being a scary tale everyone knew already.
Maybe she should get off the telly then and stop selling DVD sets.
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Zilla36021st Century. |She/Her|Trans* Woman In Aviators Firing A Bazooka. ⚛️Registered Userregular
Really enjoyed the new years special.
It turns out UNIT's biggest enemies were never the Daleks or the Cybermen, it was Brexit all along.
"All UNIT operations were put on hold following financial dispute and subsequent funding withdrawal by the UK's major international partners."
This helped to establish the Daleks as being even more of a threat. One Dalek can even last being buried back in ancient times and build himself a suit/tank.
Dark Raven XLaugh hard, run fast,be kindRegistered Userregular
That was a bit of a redundant plot point, yeah...
the other two pieces teleport to the one in Sheffield, alerting the Doctor in the process. Seemed like the whole point of that was to have an excuse for the Doctor to notice?
That aside, I loved this episode. Very nicely done, everything I'd wanted from it.
I've been a big fan of this year's series, but the special's main storyline really did not do it for me. Jank!Dalek was an amusing look, though, and Graham continues to almost make me cry sometimes bc of how wholesome he is.
The music was also, like, upsettingly bad considering how much I've enjoyed Segun Akinola's work so far? It felt like someone asked a person who clearly doesn't write Murray Gold music to write Murray Gold music, which I suspect happened.
If you hack a Kaled into three parts it dies. They're not ruddy jigsaws, they're living organisms. They didn't even need to hack it into three parts, just bury the thing and say oh well it went into stasis or something then revived under the UV lamp. An annoying bit of pointless flummery at the start that seemed there purely to have a couple of nice exotic location shots pulled from stock footage.
Also annoying: the threat of the Dalek fleet coming to Earth. They've come to Earth more times than I can count, they've definitely got the address, why would the scout's message get them here when they already know and have attempted to invade dozens of times?
I'm trying not to do that thing where you pore over an episode and look for logical flaws as a substitute for criticising the storyline, the characters and so forth, but when you're dealing with an enemy that's very familiar to the viewer anything that flies in the face of what went before is going to stick out. I'm fine with a Kaled being able to control people and build itself a new shell, all totally OK.
The Ryan character work was good, and Graham got some good scenes. Yaz was still horribly underserved. The fight against the soldiers was pretty good, and reminded me a lot of the fight against the guards in Dalek in terms of getting across how dangerous one Dalek actually is.
The 'clamp a microwave to it' plan seemed silly but OK fine Daleks have been taken down with sillier plans.
If you hack a Kaled into three parts it dies. They're not ruddy jigsaws, they're living organisms. They didn't even need to hack it into three parts, just bury the thing and say oh well it went into stasis or something then revived under the UV lamp. An annoying bit of pointless flummery at the start that seemed there purely to have a couple of nice exotic location shots pulled from stock footage.
Also annoying: the threat of the Dalek fleet coming to Earth. They've come to Earth more times than I can count, they've definitely got the address, why would the scout's message get them here when they already know and have attempted to invade dozens of times?
Yeah, I was waiting for the fleet to get back to them:
"EARTH-IS-READY-FOR-INVASION!"
"REALLY? HAS-THE-DOCTOR-BEEN-EXTERMINATED?"
"NO, SHE'S-RIGHT-HERE. HANG-ON, I'LL PUT HER ON."
"Hi guys, still protected!"
"YOU'RE-ON-YOUR-OWN-PAL, WE'RE-NOT-THROWING-ANOTHER-FLEET-AWAY."
As for it still being alive, I agree it didn't need to be hacked to pieces in the first place, but they at least established how hard they were to properly kill with Missy and the Dalek sewers thing.
At least we got an enemy that had heard of the Doctor (which I was wondering about, it might have been 'killed' before the Daleks found out about her), that was all I wanted. Not capitulation, but just a hint of 'Oh shit, this is serious.'
If you hack a Kaled into three parts it dies. They're not ruddy jigsaws, they're living organisms. They didn't even need to hack it into three parts, just bury the thing and say oh well it went into stasis or something then revived under the UV lamp. An annoying bit of pointless flummery at the start that seemed there purely to have a couple of nice exotic location shots pulled from stock footage.
Also annoying: the threat of the Dalek fleet coming to Earth. They've come to Earth more times than I can count, they've definitely got the address, why would the scout's message get them here when they already know and have attempted to invade dozens of times?
I'm trying not to do that thing where you pore over an episode and look for logical flaws as a substitute for criticising the storyline, the characters and so forth, but when you're dealing with an enemy that's very familiar to the viewer anything that flies in the face of what went before is going to stick out. I'm fine with a Kaled being able to control people and build itself a new shell, all totally OK.
The Ryan character work was good, and Graham got some good scenes. Yaz was still horribly underserved. The fight against the soldiers was pretty good, and reminded me a lot of the fight against the guards in Dalek in terms of getting across how dangerous one Dalek actually is.
The 'clamp a microwave to it' plan seemed silly but OK fine Daleks have been taken down with sillier plans.
It was fine.
This was a quintessential episode of the chibnall season, good when your watching it, but the more you think about it afterwards the more it falls apart.
I mentioned it in the Christmas thread but (and to be fair all of new who does this) slow moving unstoppable juggernaught does not mesh themeatically with a dalek also flying around like a jet fighter. This is especially bad this episode because we see a Dalek engaged in an actual fight with an actual military unit in what is a very effective tick in the slow moving juggernaught column.
Speaking of which a Dalek can enagage a platoon of soldiers and a tank with no problems but cannot stop six people glueing a microwave to it. Daleks have been stopped plenty of times by dumb stuff (explosive baseball bat) but it seemed especially bad because of the immediate juxtaposition.
The regen thing is dumb. What’s even dumber is that somehow a Dalek can spatial shift it’s other body parts to itself, can’t it not “Spatial shift” where ever it wants? Why take over the woman?
The worst thing is there’s a clearly better idea for an episode they stumble upon and don’t use it. A case-less dalek loose in a sewer, picking people off Alien style would of been great, and a pretty unique dalek story
When the soldier called the Dalek a drone, because there’s no way they could of guessed the Army losing to a single drone would be hilarious when they were filming this
Yes, yes, intelligence organisations putting on a big smiley face and making jokes is sometimes chilling and blah blah blah but I lolled. A government department making a competent joke about a contemporary piece of pop culture is cause for celebration in these days of hiring non-existent companies to ferry our goods.
I agree, the episode does fall apart when you think about it.
The Dalek fleet he is calling probably isn't around anymore.
That could have made a far better ending to the episode, have the Doctor take the Dalek to the ruins of the fleet, all dead and destroyed centuries ago. Could have even ended it on a cliffhanger for the next series, Dalek escapes ready to rebuild the empire. you know something to hang the next series framework onto?
Favorite Dalek scene ever is still them meeting the Cybermen and talking all sorts of shit back and forth and then winning with four Daleks versus thousands of Cybermen.
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It was nice to see them make a Dalek threatening again, if even for a short while.
I was a bit disappointed by the ending to be honest.
I was really hoping the Doctor would accede to the Dalek's demands and deliver it to a Dalek fleet, a handful of seconds before one of the Doctors before her had taken it apart.
Maybe, specifically to the Dalek fleet in orbit around Gallifrey on the last day of the Time War. They could have splice in the Day of the Doctors ending as she's spacing the squid. right before the Dalek crossfire wiped them all out.
In the alternate universe where this special was a two-parter near the start of the season and then they went on to make more stories with character development, threats that had real-feeling stakes, and the Doctor being a competent badass every few minutes, this was a great season of Doctor Who.
Edit:
Although, the one scene does work much better in a season-closer.
Book-ending the season with the Doctor and a Dalek building their iconic accessories out of bits and parts in a Sheffield steel mill was brilliant.
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Five wouldn’t have been five if he behaved that way.
That's not to say 13 and her companions couldn't use more character development.
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Did 13 even get mad? Must have, but it being a bit more memorable wouldn't be amiss. Those moments linked above were pretty good, no?
If you want 13 to have more character development, I agree. Getting ultra mad and scary isn't the only option.
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Tim Shaw just thought she was some annoying woman who got in his way. The Doctor's reputation has gone all the way from 'god' to 'who?', and it's a little jarring. I think part of it's just down to not encountering any established foes. Once she runs into the Daleks or Cybermen, I expect some of it will come back.
I could see some potential in really addressing the reputation. She meets some familiar enemies who are told that she's the Doctor but don't believe it. Not because she's a woman, but everyone knows that the Doctor is seven feet tall, kills men by the hundreds. And if he were here, he'd consume the EnglishDaleks with fireballs from his eyes, and bolts of lightning from his arse.
Then she beats them with a sonic screwdriver made from Sheffield Steel.
The Atraxi moment was fantastic, and I think honestly every time they tried to hit that same beat again it didn't work as well and felt like an inferior copy.
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The latest series is supposed to be a jumping on point for new viewers and a course correction for the show, doing away, at least for these ten episodes, with long running intricate plotlines and the sense that the Doctor was something other than a traveller getting into adventures. I think they kind of fluffed a lot of things this season, but I'm fine with them taking the character in a relatively new direction compared to the universe in peril and the Doctor is at the centre of everything seasons we've had with Moffat (though I liked those as well).
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This incredibly milquetoast season isn’t it. It’s just boring and watered down. Whittaker deserves better
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Next series I hope is her being pushed into lonely god territory, her companions backing away until it's just Graham who ultimately pulls her back from the brink of Old Testament Godhood. I could wait until 2020 for something like that.
Edit: As far as I could tell, Graham was the only companion. The other two were there to explain the story when The Doctor and her companion split up each episode.
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Basically he was having the Goku effect. The Silence came for him and his friends because they were scared of him, so he needed to stop being a scary tale everyone knew already.
Maybe she should get off the telly then and stop selling DVD sets.
"All UNIT operations were put on hold following financial dispute and subsequent funding withdrawal by the UK's major international partners."
"... We're on our own!"
That aside, I loved this episode. Very nicely done, everything I'd wanted from it.
The music was also, like, upsettingly bad considering how much I've enjoyed Segun Akinola's work so far? It felt like someone asked a person who clearly doesn't write Murray Gold music to write Murray Gold music, which I suspect happened.
Also annoying: the threat of the Dalek fleet coming to Earth. They've come to Earth more times than I can count, they've definitely got the address, why would the scout's message get them here when they already know and have attempted to invade dozens of times?
I'm trying not to do that thing where you pore over an episode and look for logical flaws as a substitute for criticising the storyline, the characters and so forth, but when you're dealing with an enemy that's very familiar to the viewer anything that flies in the face of what went before is going to stick out. I'm fine with a Kaled being able to control people and build itself a new shell, all totally OK.
The Ryan character work was good, and Graham got some good scenes. Yaz was still horribly underserved. The fight against the soldiers was pretty good, and reminded me a lot of the fight against the guards in Dalek in terms of getting across how dangerous one Dalek actually is.
The 'clamp a microwave to it' plan seemed silly but OK fine Daleks have been taken down with sillier plans.
It was fine.
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"EARTH-IS-READY-FOR-INVASION!"
"REALLY? HAS-THE-DOCTOR-BEEN-EXTERMINATED?"
"NO, SHE'S-RIGHT-HERE. HANG-ON, I'LL PUT HER ON."
"Hi guys, still protected!"
"YOU'RE-ON-YOUR-OWN-PAL, WE'RE-NOT-THROWING-ANOTHER-FLEET-AWAY."
As for it still being alive, I agree it didn't need to be hacked to pieces in the first place, but they at least established how hard they were to properly kill with Missy and the Dalek sewers thing.
At least we got an enemy that had heard of the Doctor (which I was wondering about, it might have been 'killed' before the Daleks found out about her), that was all I wanted. Not capitulation, but just a hint of 'Oh shit, this is serious.'
This was a quintessential episode of the chibnall season, good when your watching it, but the more you think about it afterwards the more it falls apart.
Speaking of which a Dalek can enagage a platoon of soldiers and a tank with no problems but cannot stop six people glueing a microwave to it. Daleks have been stopped plenty of times by dumb stuff (explosive baseball bat) but it seemed especially bad because of the immediate juxtaposition.
The regen thing is dumb. What’s even dumber is that somehow a Dalek can spatial shift it’s other body parts to itself, can’t it not “Spatial shift” where ever it wants? Why take over the woman?
The worst thing is there’s a clearly better idea for an episode they stumble upon and don’t use it. A case-less dalek loose in a sewer, picking people off Alien style would of been great, and a pretty unique dalek story
"No."
Graham closes door.
Graham rules. Nothing else to add.
Yes, yes, intelligence organisations putting on a big smiley face and making jokes is sometimes chilling and blah blah blah but I lolled. A government department making a competent joke about a contemporary piece of pop culture is cause for celebration in these days of hiring non-existent companies to ferry our goods.
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I am terrible at cryptic crosswords and will likely get none.
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PSN: Bizazedo
CFN: Bizazedo (I don't think I suck, add me).
I was a bit disappointed by the ending to be honest.
Maybe, specifically to the Dalek fleet in orbit around Gallifrey on the last day of the Time War. They could have splice in the Day of the Doctors ending as she's spacing the squid. right before the Dalek crossfire wiped them all out.
"Gosh I'm sorry, this is where the Dalek fleet was. You know, before I got there last time."
Even so, this was easily the best Doctor Who episode of 2019, and I don't think it'll be topped as that.
Edit:
Although, the one scene does work much better in a season-closer.
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