Up to the Zygon Invasion/Inversion on the watch through
The Girl who Died, pretty good. Ashilder dying BECAUSE PLOT could have used a little foreshadowing though. Usually they're very ham fisted about that, maybe I missed it because they were being subtle for once :P
The Woman who Lived was dire. Hammier than the freaking Robin Hood episode in a plot that wanted little ham at all. It had it's moments but the dripping pork around them and so so execution made them difficult to enjoy. Also the CLARA WILL DIE SOON at the end. Just..really?
The Zygon two parter was..ok. Not a fan of "murder entire town, all fine now, no consequences, BTW you've done this like 15 other times maybe". It probably would have worked better if the oppressed Zygons had anything other than "we don't like being shapeshifted" as their motivation. Anything at all. You invaded the planet, they took you in as refugees and THIS is what you do?
Five rounds rapid callback was good, though a line about "Seriously doctor they take a long time to transform" wouldn't have hurt. Though that makes the death of the armed response team even worse, really. As far as I can tell they didn't even try to fight back.
I had the same reaction to the whole "15 times" thing, and in my head-cannon I've decided it means he wiped everyone in the room 15 times until he got the answer he wanted.
Though she (even practically with the powers of a goddess) didn't anticipate the plan(s) of Swarm & Azure. The way that they arrived (psychic teleportation? Blah) at Tecteun's TARDIS (sat in the void between Universes) felt a bit too much of a deus ex machina, in terms of mangled scriptwriting.
Your memories or your friends, and the Universe... heck of a gambit.
What's the motivation of the Grand Serpent, exactly? He's a wrong'un, but what is he pissing about with Earth's history for? What are the Sontarans giving him as part of their deal to invade the planet? It's fun watching him manipulate UNIT but it seems like the only reason he's doing it is to get him sitting in that chair at the end of the episode to let the Sontarans in because Chibnall decided someone has to be. What does he want?
Not sure I followed the big chunks of exposition the Doctors adoptive mother was laying out. The Flux was created to destroy the universe because the Doctor was interfering with stuff, and that was bad because ... I didn't understand why that was so bad the whole place had to be destroyed. The Division appeared to be entirely safe from the Doctor until they bought her into their HQ. Good job, boneheads.
As one review pointed out, Chibnall can't resist exposition even when it's not needed. Why the lines about the Doctor's memories being in a Weeping Angel for a bit before they were put in the fob watch? What use was that? It's like someone telling you the exact route they took to get to you. Oh yes I took the A4568 then the B444 oh traffic was bad and then ...
I dunno, if I'm not feeling it I'm more inclined to pick apart the inevitable inconsistencies that are probably in lots of Doctor Who, and that's mostly what I did when I watched this episode.
Grand Serpent is a great big nothing. Zero motivation, generic bad guy. And while I'm sure he's going for cold/cruel, he comes off as bored.
Dan's lady friend has a bone to pick with the baddies, so look out, I guess? I mean at this point she's probably going to be about as effective as the Doctor has been so who even knows
Agatha, I mean, Tecteun, who could've seen that coming? Only everyone. Big twist! I said we were going to get a giant infodump, and we did. The Doctor's mysterious secret origins were dumb last season and are dumber still.
Speaking of the Doctor, much like The Timeless Child episode, she's basically a helpless damsel for the entire episode and gets expositioned at. Remember when the Doctor was the man who won the Time War? "I'm The Doctor, basically, run"? The Time Lord Victorious? Christ. This Doctor couldn't win at scrabble.
Also for everyone who gets mad at Moffatt for "undoing Russell T Davies" with the 50th, well, here's the Doctor's new mum, so go get mad at him about that.
On non-plotty stuff, this episode was so...LOW energy. The whole episode was set in like 3 different rooms and a CG set, and it showed, because there was no movement, no excitement. It crawled. No running for this Doctor.
Catalase on
"Life before death, strength before weakness, journey before destination."
I haven't heard anyone get mad with Moffatt for saving Gallifrey in the 50th anniversary special. It seems to me now, as it did then, that it was a brilliant piece of writing. All it undid was Gallifrey being gone, but it did it in such a way as to maintain RTD's story and provide a springboard for new Gallifrey stories. When RTD was leaving the show he even asked Moffatt if he wanted Gallifrey back (which would have been possible via the last Tennant special, somehow).
The Master singlehandedly laying waste to Gallifrey at the end of last season was lazy, stupid bullshit, though.
I haven't heard anyone get mad with Moffatt for saving Gallifrey in the 50th anniversary special. It seems to me now, as it did then, that it was a brilliant piece of writing. All it undid was Gallifrey being gone, but it did it in such a way as to maintain RTD's story and provide a springboard for new Gallifrey stories. When RTD was leaving the show he even asked Moffatt if he wanted Gallifrey back (which would have been possible via the last Tennant special, somehow).
The Master singlehandedly laying waste to Gallifrey at the end of last season was lazy, stupid bullshit, though.
Mainly the ultra-salty Moffatt haters using it as one of many reasons to attack his stint as showrunner. I also thought it was a brilliant piece of writing. Timeless Child can eat a big one though, god awful.
I just caught up on the Village episode. I will watch the Survivors of the Flux later in the week.
I am liking the cliffhangers. Although, the first cliffhanger resolution did not really explain how they survived the Flux. I guess the TARDIS emergency dematerialized.
Is the only techno gobbledygook these writers know “Reverse the polarity of the X-flow”? When they say it every episode it stops being an Easter egg
It’s also super rich of the Doctor of all people to get angry about someone breaking the Time Lord oath of non-intervention. I mean clearly they’re playing god and in the wrong but I’d have phrased that argument differently
Catalase on
"Life before death, strength before weakness, journey before destination."
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BethrynUnhappiness is MandatoryRegistered Userregular
I'm trying to mentally untangle this...
Tecteun decides she's done with this universe because post-Division Doctor keeps undoing all her machinations (like what?) from behind the curtain or something. She gets in her turboTARDIS along with a bunch of genetic material she's going to take to the next universe over so she can mould it as she wants (this is also apparently the Doctor's possibly original universe?). Then she decides to destroy the first universe (why?) and sets the Flux in motion. This disrupts the Mouri in the Temple of Atropos, and around the same time Swarm is released from his prison (intentionally/accidentally?). Swarm rescues Azure from hiding (why was Swarm in super serious time prison and Azure just living a normal life?), and they return to the Temple of Atropos with their Passengers. We don't really know why they were there in the Doctor's flashbacks, but they bring Passengers along again. Azure for no apparent reason captures Diane, Dan's almost-gf in a Passenger. Claire meets the Doctor and tells her she's from the Doctor's future while "taking the long way home". Time is screwy and Sontarans are on earth.
Doctor fixes the Mouri (not quite sure how this worked?) and gets a bit of her history as Fugitive Doctor with Swarm at Atropos revealed. Swarm and Azure bugger off with Passenger after Time is fixed. Doctor also fired Vortex energy at the Flux as it was approaching Earth which stopped it (this is confusing because in the latest episode the Flux is said to be slowly moving in towards earth from galaxies away so ???? ). This angers Tecteun, who now wants to capture the Doctor (why????). Rogue Angel with the Divisions memories in it takes over the TARDIS and takes it to where Claire is (Claire having already been Angel'd back in time once). Division Goon Squad Angels have been sent to apprehend Rogue Angel for Tecteun (why, if this universe is being annihilated?), and eventually also capture Doctor. Not sure what happens to Claire after this.
Yaz and Dan vaguely Companion, get in danger, pluckily do well for themselves and act heroically in desperate times. Eustace joins them in that. Joseph Williamson built tunnels that connect different times (maybe as result of Flux), goes slightly potty wandering them and bumping into people, eventually meets Companions.
Grand Serpent is a conniving murderous bugger. Presumably jumps ship to Earth to save skin from Flux, conspires with Sontarans to get revenge on Earth again. Also intent on stopping Companions from getting back to Doctor apparently.
Bel & Vinder spend a lot of time trying to connect with each other post-Flux, because Bel is gregante.
Swarm and Azure... having failed/succeeded at Temple of Atropos, now collect more people in Passengers, take them to random floating space... thing, somehow use them to track a psychic link to Doctor who is now in the Void with Tecteun. They teleport in, dust Tecteun (why?), and cliffhanger.
Karvanista is (ex-?)Division, species bonded to Dan, trying to save him from Flux. Helped Doctor at Temple of Atropos previously during Division time. Apparently didn't have Division memories removed, but still can't tell Doctor anything (and actively hostile to Doctor at start of series). Not sure how Lupari are able to save humans from the Flux to begin with (or why covering the earth with Lupari ships protects it from Flux). Cannot time travel.
----
Sontarans and Grand Serpent seem to be generally there as B Plots for the interstitial episodes. Swarm/Azure plans yet to be revealed, but play dual major villain with Tecteun. Not sure what their original plan was (rule time itself?), not sure what their new plan is (rule time in next universe over?). No idea why Tecteun needed to destroy our universe ("I needed the energy from one universe's death to jump to another" would be a simple answer but isn't given). Companions gonna Companion, Karvanista ties into Division backstory and saves Dan.
So why are Bel and Vinder in this? They seem like surrogate Companions, mostly serving the narrative purpose of being a PoV character showing off a major-plot-relevant situation (Flux appearing, universe squishing, Ravages abducting peope for psychic link). Were they written in just for that reason, or are they going to turn out to be the Doctor's parents or something and the only reason the Doctor is the Timeless Child is that Bel gives birth outside the universe/time itself and then wormholes the child back into the universe, or something equally insane. The Doctor gave Vinder a 'direct line to us' so I'm guessing they needed a way to connect Doctor to Passenger that Vinder is now in for the finale... but both of these characters feel like more like exposition functionaries than characters the story is about.
I can't even tell if Division was actually bad because aside from Tecteun unleashing the Flux... Karvanista seems okayish, and the only Division mission we're shown is them saving the planet Time from the Ravages?
There are so many pieces of this story that seem to exist only to move characters around from place to place/time to time, and to create minor threats to allow characters to have something to do while the main plot occurs elsewhere, rather than having a larger and more cohesive thread.
I guess "saving the universe" is a big enough hook for a 6 parter, but it seems like the story has jumped around 20 places without really finding its feet, and the two best episodes seemed like they were standalones repurposed to also be part of the myth arc, and were good because they stood alone.
Chibnall doesn’t seem capable of telling a story without a hundred different jumps and more and more and more characters and it’s already collapsed under the weight without having reached the ending.
"Life before death, strength before weakness, journey before destination."
Dark Raven XLaugh hard, run fast,be kindRegistered Userregular
What the fuck was up with Kate this episode. I get that maybe some of her previous ballsy threats might come off as silly if the bad guys had actually called her bluff, but it felt like she didn't even have a bluff this time?
"Hey guy I suspect of being a malevolent alien, please stop or I'll tell on you. By the way, here's how I'm protecting myself against what I think you're using to kill people, so don't circumvent that or just, y'know, conventionally murder me!"
What the fuck was up with Kate this episode. I get that maybe some of her previous ballsy threats might come off as silly if the bad guys had actually called her bluff, but it felt like she didn't even have a bluff this time?
"Hey guy I suspect of being a malevolent alien, please stop or I'll tell on you. By the way, here's how I'm protecting myself against what I think you're using to kill people, so don't circumvent that or just, y'know, conventionally murder me!"
It was a very dumb reveal. I would have bristled at it currently, but they should have had her just take her licks, and then reveal next episode that she knew everything and put it all together, here are your handcuffs, here are your 5 rounds rapid, also I called The Doctor, she's here to deal with you now, fuck you very much. That would have been a cool reveal.
Instead she just threatens to call The Doctor for help, when we the audience know that The Doctor has her hands full being captive and overwhelmed and out of her depth every fucking episode of Chibnall's entire fucking run. It's an empty threat without the gravitas it deserves. Comically, I imagine she then immediately went back to her office and sat at her desk and checked her emails until the work day was over.
As we're approaching the end of this miniseries I'm frustrated at trying to figure out which storylines are being finished off, and which ones were still just seeds for the 3 specials releasing next year. Because who doesn't want more Chibnall next year?
The yearly check-ins with Dan and Yaz being adventurers were not only the best but most coherent parts of this mess of a mini-series.
They were the most fun, certainly, but still, at the end of it I thought about half the stuff they did and wondered what the point was. See the soothsayer, follow his instructions, and then the dog says well I can't do that so ... what was the point?
The yearly check-ins with Dan and Yaz being adventurers were not only the best but most coherent parts of this mess of a mini-series.
They were the most fun, certainly, but still, at the end of it I thought about half the stuff they did and wondered what the point was. See the soothsayer, follow his instructions, and then the dog says well I can't do that so ... what was the point?
Someone wanted to do the whole “Great Wall is visible from space” gag without stopping to think of the implications of graffitiing the wall that early in history, and were clearly stopped short of being allowed to depict the vandalism being done on the actual wall itself since that’s culturally offensive
"Life before death, strength before weakness, journey before destination."
Tecteun decides she's done with this universe because post-Division Doctor keeps undoing all her machinations (like what?) from behind the curtain or something. She gets in her turboTARDIS along with a bunch of genetic material she's going to take to the next universe over so she can mould it as she wants (this is also apparently the Doctor's possibly original universe?). Then she decides to destroy the first universe (why?) and sets the Flux in motion. This disrupts the Mouri in the Temple of Atropos, and around the same time Swarm is released from his prison (intentionally/accidentally?). Swarm rescues Azure from hiding (why was Swarm in super serious time prison and Azure just living a normal life?), and they return to the Temple of Atropos with their Passengers. We don't really know why they were there in the Doctor's flashbacks, but they bring Passengers along again. Azure for no apparent reason captures Diane, Dan's almost-gf in a Passenger. Claire meets the Doctor and tells her she's from the Doctor's future while "taking the long way home". Time is screwy and Sontarans are on earth.
Doctor fixes the Mouri (not quite sure how this worked?) and gets a bit of her history as Fugitive Doctor with Swarm at Atropos revealed. Swarm and Azure bugger off with Passenger after Time is fixed. Doctor also fired Vortex energy at the Flux as it was approaching Earth which stopped it (this is confusing because in the latest episode the Flux is said to be slowly moving in towards earth from galaxies away so ???? ). This angers Tecteun, who now wants to capture the Doctor (why????). Rogue Angel with the Divisions memories in it takes over the TARDIS and takes it to where Claire is (Claire having already been Angel'd back in time once). Division Goon Squad Angels have been sent to apprehend Rogue Angel for Tecteun (why, if this universe is being annihilated?), and eventually also capture Doctor. Not sure what happens to Claire after this.
Yaz and Dan vaguely Companion, get in danger, pluckily do well for themselves and act heroically in desperate times. Eustace joins them in that. Joseph Williamson built tunnels that connect different times (maybe as result of Flux), goes slightly potty wandering them and bumping into people, eventually meets Companions.
Grand Serpent is a conniving murderous bugger. Presumably jumps ship to Earth to save skin from Flux, conspires with Sontarans to get revenge on Earth again. Also intent on stopping Companions from getting back to Doctor apparently.
Bel & Vinder spend a lot of time trying to connect with each other post-Flux, because Bel is gregante.
Swarm and Azure... having failed/succeeded at Temple of Atropos, now collect more people in Passengers, take them to random floating space... thing, somehow use them to track a psychic link to Doctor who is now in the Void with Tecteun. They teleport in, dust Tecteun (why?), and cliffhanger.
Karvanista is (ex-?)Division, species bonded to Dan, trying to save him from Flux. Helped Doctor at Temple of Atropos previously during Division time. Apparently didn't have Division memories removed, but still can't tell Doctor anything (and actively hostile to Doctor at start of series). Not sure how Lupari are able to save humans from the Flux to begin with (or why covering the earth with Lupari ships protects it from Flux). Cannot time travel.
----
Sontarans and Grand Serpent seem to be generally there as B Plots for the interstitial episodes. Swarm/Azure plans yet to be revealed, but play dual major villain with Tecteun. Not sure what their original plan was (rule time itself?), not sure what their new plan is (rule time in next universe over?). No idea why Tecteun needed to destroy our universe ("I needed the energy from one universe's death to jump to another" would be a simple answer but isn't given). Companions gonna Companion, Karvanista ties into Division backstory and saves Dan.
So why are Bel and Vinder in this? They seem like surrogate Companions, mostly serving the narrative purpose of being a PoV character showing off a major-plot-relevant situation (Flux appearing, universe squishing, Ravages abducting peope for psychic link). Were they written in just for that reason, or are they going to turn out to be the Doctor's parents or something and the only reason the Doctor is the Timeless Child is that Bel gives birth outside the universe/time itself and then wormholes the child back into the universe, or something equally insane. The Doctor gave Vinder a 'direct line to us' so I'm guessing they needed a way to connect Doctor to Passenger that Vinder is now in for the finale... but both of these characters feel like more like exposition functionaries than characters the story is about.
I can't even tell if Division was actually bad because aside from Tecteun unleashing the Flux... Karvanista seems okayish, and the only Division mission we're shown is them saving the planet Time from the Ravages?
There are so many pieces of this story that seem to exist only to move characters around from place to place/time to time, and to create minor threats to allow characters to have something to do while the main plot occurs elsewhere, rather than having a larger and more cohesive thread.
I guess "saving the universe" is a big enough hook for a 6 parter, but it seems like the story has jumped around 20 places without really finding its feet, and the two best episodes seemed like they were standalones repurposed to also be part of the myth arc, and were good because they stood alone.
You're thinking of this like it's a story. It's not. It's 50 minutes of things that Chibnall thought would be cool to have happen next.
If the lupari can’t let humans die, where the fuck have they been the past hundred times Earth’s been invaded? Also there’s only 7 billion of them, so it seems like no one has checked Earth’s population on google recently. About a billion short there.
Dark Raven XLaugh hard, run fast,be kindRegistered Userregular
Ah Chibs. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me thirty nine or more times, shame on me.
I'm genuinely up to the point of hoping RTD's era opens with Capaldi waking up from some terrible dream right before be regenerates. Ideally into Jodie Whittaker as the Thirteenth Doctor, not written as an incoherent lunatic this time.
Dark Raven XLaugh hard, run fast,be kindRegistered Userregular
I don't understand how this can happen. Surely someone, somewhere, has to look at the series outline and say hang on a minute, this is fucked.
It's not a soap, they don't need to make this up as they go, they had time to plan it out. And this is the condensed version! They cut out all the filler episodes to get this. This is the nothing but substance version of the story. We're not missing any vital context that got cut, this is the whole thing.
What an utter waste of time, effort and talent.
At least they didn't do a lazy reset button to fix everything at the end - just left everything ruined forever. :tell_me_more:
But hey, he's got three specials left. Maybe this is where it suddenly gets good, eh?
Oh brilliant
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BethrynUnhappiness is MandatoryRegistered Userregular
Well that left me confused and sad. I understood all the events of the story, I just don't understand why I was being told the story.
OK, so, stupid bullshit from the episode and dumb bullshit we're left with at the end of the season.
Half the universe is destroyed and also apparently all the Daleks, Cybermen and Sontarans got killed by the Flux. Odds that this will matter or be referred to in future: 0%.
Sontarans ruled over Earth for several years. Odds of this being mentioned again: 0%.
Division is gone, I guess, even though it had agents everywhere and controlled everything or whatever, because one person died? And that one person was the Doctor's adopted mum, whose death the show didn't even mention again.
The unstoppable villains were killed instantly by their boss, who wasn't mentioned before the last twenty minutes of this show, who is Time, or ... something? I dunno. The Doctor just watches it happen, as is now traditional.
The motivation of the unstoppable villains was revenge on the Doctor, but also they have a boss who was ordering them to destroy the universe and they failed?
Bel and Vinder got back together, and I still don't really understand what they were doing in this story. If you popped them out and gave most of their tasks to Yaz or Dan, or just skipped some of them, would anyone give a shit? And did their emotional journey really land home hard enough to make anyone care?
Everyone and literally their dog seems to have been in Division at one point or another.
The dogs who are humanity's protectors all die off-screen, after the very first time they've ever actually tried to save humans. So they a) never bothered to help before now and b) they're all dead now so they can't try again.
The Flux, an unstoppable destructive force that threatened the whole universe, was defeated by sucking it into, firstly, the Tardis, which survived without permanent harm and b) eating a few ships and then being sucked into a Passenger, which also seemed fine afterwards. Also doggo ships were immune to it. Come on, it's either an unstoppable force or it's defeated by a big pocket. How can something that was eating billions of planets be slowed down by eating a few ships? Are there more Dalek ships in the universe than planets?
The professor died, which was sad, but which didn't actually seem to bother the two people he'd spent three years with very much. How can a death land as an emotional moment if no one seems to give a shit?
Gallifrey being destroyed and the Timelords turned into Cyberman/Timelord hybrids ruled over by the Master seems to have had no long term impact on the Doctor. The not so subtle hint at the end about the Master coming back means we'll see him again but what was the point of sending a wrecking ball through all that?
We now have a Doctor origin story, which no one asked for and which turned out to be shit anyway.
So, massive, fundamental shifts in the known universe and the Doctor's concept, for ... no, I don't really see what's been gained. It's just a fucking mess. When RTD and Moffat handed over the keys to the show it was in pretty good nick each time, a few dings here and there, but nothing fundamentally broken. Chibnall is going to be handing over a square box of wreckage after it's been through a compactor.
How much more of this shit have we got? Three specials over a year? The next one of which stars the Daleks, who seem surprisingly healthy, you know, considering, but hey gotta use them and no one else for the holiday special, apparently.
It's the first time I can remember being angry at the show, I think. There are episodes I've not liked much before or directions it's gone in I thought weren't particularly fruitful, and I've been bored by the show before, but a huge amount of talent and money is being given to Chibnall and he's just pissing it away.
How much more of this shit have we got? Three specials over a year? The next one of which stars the Daleks, who seem surprisingly healthy, you know, considering, but hey gotta use them and no one else for the holiday special, apparently.
It's the first time I can remember being angry at the show, I think. There are episodes I've not liked much before or directions it's gone in I thought weren't particularly fruitful, and I've been bored by the show before, but a huge amount of talent and money is being given to Chibnall and he's just pissing it away.
It's interesting how subjective that is, because I can see the issues with this season and the last few but I've also enjoyed the overall ride, whereas I got quite angry at a few episodes/seasons during the Moffat era.
I guess that's par for the course for Doctor Who fandom though, we're all individuals who will respond differently to different parts of the show *shrug*
I'm only 23 minutes in so far but....good lord this episode is a fucking *mess*
EDIT: Ok episode finished. I think Bogart covered the salient points but my somewhat messy immediate thoughts:
This plot was nonsensical. It's like he took multiple episodes of plots and ate the scripts and whatever order the lines got crapped out in was what made the final episode. The Doctor's in 3 pieces? Apparently? Lets jump back and forth between SO many groups of companions in SO many locales following SO many plot points that need resolving?
Once again, Thirteen is left to race through really fast dialogue like Ten on steroids, because Chibnall's entire concept of the Doctor is hyperactive David Tennant. It showed whenever he had to write for Matt Smith, and it shows every time he writes for Jodi. Just make her technobabble and quip really fast, in lieu of an actual personality. Like, Doctors Eight through to Twelve I can describe personalities for. And all the exposure I got of McGann was the MINISODE. Thirteen? She's awkward and talks alot. And is about as consistent in morals as Captain Janeway, which is not a compliment.
Jericho was a great character from a great actor. But the dude spent like what, five years? With Yas and Dan? That's longer than Yas has been with the Doctor at this point. And neither of them give a shit about his death.
After two whole seasons of critique that Yas has no personality and does fucking nothing, he introduced Vinder, Bel, Jericho and Diane, and brings back Kate, to do more shit that Yas could have done. So her entire contribution to this entire goddamn series was to moon over the Doctor like a lovesick Martha, but with less personality
Yas's whole "you're finally getting the hang of this" line to Dan is kinda dumb cause again, you've basically known him longer than the Doctor now. The two of you should have like, shorthand, and the Doctor should be the one now trying to fit back into your dynamic. But Chibnall's a hack so we're totally getting Doctor and Yas and Dan is the new guy.
Vinder was ok I guess? Likeable enough guy. But besides his beef with Grand Serpent did he really contribute *anything* that couldn't have been dropped?
Bel I liked too. Likeable actress, spunky character. Making her unborn child conscious and sentient through tech has some moral implications that were clearly not thought out, though. Like holy shit, really think about that for a minute.
Grand Serpent was suuuuuch a pointless character. We didn't have enough villains between the two Ravagers, plus their boss, plus a whole bunch of Sontarans?
It was nice to see Kate again. Though she also literally contributed nothing other than to have someone to play against Grand Serpent, who himself was pointless
On the subject of Kate; this Doctor literally showing up and talking to you for about five seconds makes you like this regeneration in particular? I mean you had a lovely heart to heart with Eleven, phwwooooah, Twelve, you saved the world together multiple times. But yeah. THIS Doctor you like. Sure.
How are a couple of fleets of ships and one construct prison guy more mass than the entire fucking universe? What?
So the Doctor's mum is dead, I guess? Do we care? I guess not?
The Ravagers unceremoniously killed by their boss like a bunch of toadies after being so goddamn promising. Also I really hate that apparently "Time" is a person? And like an evil one at that?
So despite the fact that the Sontarans have literally been frying panned this entire miniseries, the Lupari are so useless that 7 billion of them got absolutely wrecked inside their own ships. Uh. I think mankind is better off without them as our protectors, honestly.
If the TARDIS has any brains at all, she'll eject that fob watch into a fucking sun and spare us all the melodrama.
Good god. RTD is going to need to reboot the universe again to recover from this shitshow.
Catalase on
"Life before death, strength before weakness, journey before destination."
If he had half a mind to, RTD could do an effective reboot just by saying "So... remember that alternate dimension with alternate 10 and Rose? Let's see how they cracked on, shall we?"
"The sausage of Green Earth explodes with flavor like the cannon of culinary delight."
casually triple-genocided the Daleks, Cybermen and Sontarans, right?
If we include the Lupari that’s four in one ep. Worse than the (perceived) last day of the Time War.
Also the whole universe is dead right? Except earth? But also the Flux hit our solar system so we don’t have a sun or moon anymore either right? We shooting for five genocides?
"Life before death, strength before weakness, journey before destination."
Ok. So, there was not some kind of reset? Way to screw things up Chib.
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BethrynUnhappiness is MandatoryRegistered Userregular
edited December 2021
Some other fascinating choices of writing:
Azure delivers a monologue to the Doctor of what they're going to do to her as revenge as being things they suffered due to the Doctor. Except it seems Azure was just... living out life as a human, having nothing of the sort done to her. And as far as I can tell, Swarm was just timelocked or something like that. Presumably Tecteun was the one in charge who put them there, but she seemed entirely unconcerned about their release.
Karvanista is declared to have a brain-cyanide capsule for if he talks about Division. This is not considered important or a problem for either the Doctor or him, it just serves as a reason for him not to tell her about Division.
The Doctor figures out the Sontaran's ambush, and then is asked by the more moral companions "so, we're going to stop them?" The Doctor's better plan is triple genocide of her enemies.
Diana. Just, what on earth was going on here? Azure seeks her out personally for capture. Then forgets about her in the Passenger. Everyone else the Passenger captures is used for psychic link to the Doctor (???) to get Swarm and Azure to the void, but Diana is left behind for no apparent reason. Once Vinder is inside, Diana has already found a way of escaping, but hasn't used it because? Once they are outside Passenger, they are in a featureless void plane(???), and use the beacon to tell the Doctor where they are. But then are sucked into the Passenger again. TARDIS arrives on featureless plane, Doctor monologues to Passenger, who is apparently waiting for a command but also just sucked DI/Vinder back inside without a command, and then TARDIS hops inside Passenger to pick up Vinder and Di. What was the purpose of this scene? And then Di solves the problem by saying the Passengers have huge tracts of land inside just waiting to antiFlux or something. Because rather than being a Damsel in Distress, instead she is now a Deus Ex Machina In Distress. And then because Dan has signed up to be a Companion for the specials, cancels date because he was "late," being a mature adult and all that.
The Grand Serpent is... put on a tiny 1x1 metre asteroid in space as punishment. Where presumably he will die without sustenance. I understand that they wanted to mirror Vinder's exile, but this was just an execution without having them pull the trigger.
Jericho died because he threw his transmat ring on the floor (why?), and a Sontaran, seeing the door close, shot the ring rather than at Jericho. This isn't heroic sacrifice, this is murder by writer for pathos.
If this was written as it was conceived, there's no excuse, this was dire. I really can only hope they had a 10 episode season planned and then had to cut it down to 6 due to BBC/Covid and the editing was merciless.
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The Woman who Lived was dire. Hammier than the freaking Robin Hood episode in a plot that wanted little ham at all. It had it's moments but the dripping pork around them and so so execution made them difficult to enjoy. Also the CLARA WILL DIE SOON at the end. Just..really?
The Zygon two parter was..ok. Not a fan of "murder entire town, all fine now, no consequences, BTW you've done this like 15 other times maybe". It probably would have worked better if the oppressed Zygons had anything other than "we don't like being shapeshifted" as their motivation. Anything at all. You invaded the planet, they took you in as refugees and THIS is what you do?
Five rounds rapid callback was good, though a line about "Seriously doctor they take a long time to transform" wouldn't have hurt. Though that makes the death of the armed response team even worse, really. As far as I can tell they didn't even try to fight back.
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Who's gonna fuck up the landing more on the concept? Doctor Who or STDisco?
Your memories or your friends, and the Universe... heck of a gambit.
Not sure I followed the big chunks of exposition the Doctors adoptive mother was laying out. The Flux was created to destroy the universe because the Doctor was interfering with stuff, and that was bad because ... I didn't understand why that was so bad the whole place had to be destroyed. The Division appeared to be entirely safe from the Doctor until they bought her into their HQ. Good job, boneheads.
As one review pointed out, Chibnall can't resist exposition even when it's not needed. Why the lines about the Doctor's memories being in a Weeping Angel for a bit before they were put in the fob watch? What use was that? It's like someone telling you the exact route they took to get to you. Oh yes I took the A4568 then the B444 oh traffic was bad and then ...
I dunno, if I'm not feeling it I'm more inclined to pick apart the inevitable inconsistencies that are probably in lots of Doctor Who, and that's mostly what I did when I watched this episode.
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Dan's lady friend has a bone to pick with the baddies, so look out, I guess? I mean at this point she's probably going to be about as effective as the Doctor has been so who even knows
Agatha, I mean, Tecteun, who could've seen that coming? Only everyone. Big twist! I said we were going to get a giant infodump, and we did. The Doctor's mysterious secret origins were dumb last season and are dumber still.
Speaking of the Doctor, much like The Timeless Child episode, she's basically a helpless damsel for the entire episode and gets expositioned at. Remember when the Doctor was the man who won the Time War? "I'm The Doctor, basically, run"? The Time Lord Victorious? Christ. This Doctor couldn't win at scrabble.
Also for everyone who gets mad at Moffatt for "undoing Russell T Davies" with the 50th, well, here's the Doctor's new mum, so go get mad at him about that.
The Master singlehandedly laying waste to Gallifrey at the end of last season was lazy, stupid bullshit, though.
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EDIT:
Oh boy, sometimes Twitter delivers.
I am liking the cliffhangers. Although, the first cliffhanger resolution did not really explain how they survived the Flux. I guess the TARDIS emergency dematerialized.
It’s also super rich of the Doctor of all people to get angry about someone breaking the Time Lord oath of non-intervention. I mean clearly they’re playing god and in the wrong but I’d have phrased that argument differently
Doctor fixes the Mouri (not quite sure how this worked?) and gets a bit of her history as Fugitive Doctor with Swarm at Atropos revealed. Swarm and Azure bugger off with Passenger after Time is fixed. Doctor also fired Vortex energy at the Flux as it was approaching Earth which stopped it (this is confusing because in the latest episode the Flux is said to be slowly moving in towards earth from galaxies away so ???? ). This angers Tecteun, who now wants to capture the Doctor (why????). Rogue Angel with the Divisions memories in it takes over the TARDIS and takes it to where Claire is (Claire having already been Angel'd back in time once). Division Goon Squad Angels have been sent to apprehend Rogue Angel for Tecteun (why, if this universe is being annihilated?), and eventually also capture Doctor. Not sure what happens to Claire after this.
Yaz and Dan vaguely Companion, get in danger, pluckily do well for themselves and act heroically in desperate times. Eustace joins them in that. Joseph Williamson built tunnels that connect different times (maybe as result of Flux), goes slightly potty wandering them and bumping into people, eventually meets Companions.
Grand Serpent is a conniving murderous bugger. Presumably jumps ship to Earth to save skin from Flux, conspires with Sontarans to get revenge on Earth again. Also intent on stopping Companions from getting back to Doctor apparently.
Bel & Vinder spend a lot of time trying to connect with each other post-Flux, because Bel is gregante.
Swarm and Azure... having failed/succeeded at Temple of Atropos, now collect more people in Passengers, take them to random floating space... thing, somehow use them to track a psychic link to Doctor who is now in the Void with Tecteun. They teleport in, dust Tecteun (why?), and cliffhanger.
Karvanista is (ex-?)Division, species bonded to Dan, trying to save him from Flux. Helped Doctor at Temple of Atropos previously during Division time. Apparently didn't have Division memories removed, but still can't tell Doctor anything (and actively hostile to Doctor at start of series). Not sure how Lupari are able to save humans from the Flux to begin with (or why covering the earth with Lupari ships protects it from Flux). Cannot time travel.
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Sontarans and Grand Serpent seem to be generally there as B Plots for the interstitial episodes. Swarm/Azure plans yet to be revealed, but play dual major villain with Tecteun. Not sure what their original plan was (rule time itself?), not sure what their new plan is (rule time in next universe over?). No idea why Tecteun needed to destroy our universe ("I needed the energy from one universe's death to jump to another" would be a simple answer but isn't given). Companions gonna Companion, Karvanista ties into Division backstory and saves Dan.
So why are Bel and Vinder in this? They seem like surrogate Companions, mostly serving the narrative purpose of being a PoV character showing off a major-plot-relevant situation (Flux appearing, universe squishing, Ravages abducting peope for psychic link). Were they written in just for that reason, or are they going to turn out to be the Doctor's parents or something and the only reason the Doctor is the Timeless Child is that Bel gives birth outside the universe/time itself and then wormholes the child back into the universe, or something equally insane. The Doctor gave Vinder a 'direct line to us' so I'm guessing they needed a way to connect Doctor to Passenger that Vinder is now in for the finale... but both of these characters feel like more like exposition functionaries than characters the story is about.
I can't even tell if Division was actually bad because aside from Tecteun unleashing the Flux... Karvanista seems okayish, and the only Division mission we're shown is them saving the planet Time from the Ravages?
There are so many pieces of this story that seem to exist only to move characters around from place to place/time to time, and to create minor threats to allow characters to have something to do while the main plot occurs elsewhere, rather than having a larger and more cohesive thread.
I guess "saving the universe" is a big enough hook for a 6 parter, but it seems like the story has jumped around 20 places without really finding its feet, and the two best episodes seemed like they were standalones repurposed to also be part of the myth arc, and were good because they stood alone.
"Hey guy I suspect of being a malevolent alien, please stop or I'll tell on you. By the way, here's how I'm protecting myself against what I think you're using to kill people, so don't circumvent that or just, y'know, conventionally murder me!"
It was a very dumb reveal. I would have bristled at it currently, but they should have had her just take her licks, and then reveal next episode that she knew everything and put it all together, here are your handcuffs, here are your 5 rounds rapid, also I called The Doctor, she's here to deal with you now, fuck you very much. That would have been a cool reveal.
Instead she just threatens to call The Doctor for help, when we the audience know that The Doctor has her hands full being captive and overwhelmed and out of her depth every fucking episode of Chibnall's entire fucking run. It's an empty threat without the gravitas it deserves. Comically, I imagine she then immediately went back to her office and sat at her desk and checked her emails until the work day was over.
As we're approaching the end of this miniseries I'm frustrated at trying to figure out which storylines are being finished off, and which ones were still just seeds for the 3 specials releasing next year. Because who doesn't want more Chibnall next year?
They were the most fun, certainly, but still, at the end of it I thought about half the stuff they did and wondered what the point was. See the soothsayer, follow his instructions, and then the dog says well I can't do that so ... what was the point?
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You're thinking of this like it's a story. It's not. It's 50 minutes of things that Chibnall thought would be cool to have happen next.
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oh well
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I'm genuinely up to the point of hoping RTD's era opens with Capaldi waking up from some terrible dream right before be regenerates. Ideally into Jodie Whittaker as the Thirteenth Doctor, not written as an incoherent lunatic this time.
It's not a soap, they don't need to make this up as they go, they had time to plan it out. And this is the condensed version! They cut out all the filler episodes to get this. This is the nothing but substance version of the story. We're not missing any vital context that got cut, this is the whole thing.
What an utter waste of time, effort and talent.
At least they didn't do a lazy reset button to fix everything at the end - just left everything ruined forever. :tell_me_more:
But hey, he's got three specials left. Maybe this is where it suddenly gets good, eh?
Sontarans ruled over Earth for several years. Odds of this being mentioned again: 0%.
Division is gone, I guess, even though it had agents everywhere and controlled everything or whatever, because one person died? And that one person was the Doctor's adopted mum, whose death the show didn't even mention again.
The unstoppable villains were killed instantly by their boss, who wasn't mentioned before the last twenty minutes of this show, who is Time, or ... something? I dunno. The Doctor just watches it happen, as is now traditional.
The motivation of the unstoppable villains was revenge on the Doctor, but also they have a boss who was ordering them to destroy the universe and they failed?
Bel and Vinder got back together, and I still don't really understand what they were doing in this story. If you popped them out and gave most of their tasks to Yaz or Dan, or just skipped some of them, would anyone give a shit? And did their emotional journey really land home hard enough to make anyone care?
Everyone and literally their dog seems to have been in Division at one point or another.
The dogs who are humanity's protectors all die off-screen, after the very first time they've ever actually tried to save humans. So they a) never bothered to help before now and b) they're all dead now so they can't try again.
The Flux, an unstoppable destructive force that threatened the whole universe, was defeated by sucking it into, firstly, the Tardis, which survived without permanent harm and b) eating a few ships and then being sucked into a Passenger, which also seemed fine afterwards. Also doggo ships were immune to it. Come on, it's either an unstoppable force or it's defeated by a big pocket. How can something that was eating billions of planets be slowed down by eating a few ships? Are there more Dalek ships in the universe than planets?
The professor died, which was sad, but which didn't actually seem to bother the two people he'd spent three years with very much. How can a death land as an emotional moment if no one seems to give a shit?
Gallifrey being destroyed and the Timelords turned into Cyberman/Timelord hybrids ruled over by the Master seems to have had no long term impact on the Doctor. The not so subtle hint at the end about the Master coming back means we'll see him again but what was the point of sending a wrecking ball through all that?
We now have a Doctor origin story, which no one asked for and which turned out to be shit anyway.
So, massive, fundamental shifts in the known universe and the Doctor's concept, for ... no, I don't really see what's been gained. It's just a fucking mess. When RTD and Moffat handed over the keys to the show it was in pretty good nick each time, a few dings here and there, but nothing fundamentally broken. Chibnall is going to be handing over a square box of wreckage after it's been through a compactor.
Happy driving, RTD!
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It's the first time I can remember being angry at the show, I think. There are episodes I've not liked much before or directions it's gone in I thought weren't particularly fruitful, and I've been bored by the show before, but a huge amount of talent and money is being given to Chibnall and he's just pissing it away.
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It's interesting how subjective that is, because I can see the issues with this season and the last few but I've also enjoyed the overall ride, whereas I got quite angry at a few episodes/seasons during the Moffat era.
I guess that's par for the course for Doctor Who fandom though, we're all individuals who will respond differently to different parts of the show *shrug*
EDIT: Ok episode finished. I think Bogart covered the salient points but my somewhat messy immediate thoughts:
If we include the Lupari that’s four in one ep. Worse than the (perceived) last day of the Time War.
Also the whole universe is dead right? Except earth? But also the Flux hit our solar system so we don’t have a sun or moon anymore either right? We shooting for five genocides?
Karvanista is declared to have a brain-cyanide capsule for if he talks about Division. This is not considered important or a problem for either the Doctor or him, it just serves as a reason for him not to tell her about Division.
The Doctor figures out the Sontaran's ambush, and then is asked by the more moral companions "so, we're going to stop them?" The Doctor's better plan is triple genocide of her enemies.
Diana. Just, what on earth was going on here? Azure seeks her out personally for capture. Then forgets about her in the Passenger. Everyone else the Passenger captures is used for psychic link to the Doctor (???) to get Swarm and Azure to the void, but Diana is left behind for no apparent reason. Once Vinder is inside, Diana has already found a way of escaping, but hasn't used it because? Once they are outside Passenger, they are in a featureless void plane(???), and use the beacon to tell the Doctor where they are. But then are sucked into the Passenger again. TARDIS arrives on featureless plane, Doctor monologues to Passenger, who is apparently waiting for a command but also just sucked DI/Vinder back inside without a command, and then TARDIS hops inside Passenger to pick up Vinder and Di. What was the purpose of this scene? And then Di solves the problem by saying the Passengers have huge tracts of land inside just waiting to antiFlux or something. Because rather than being a Damsel in Distress, instead she is now a Deus Ex Machina In Distress. And then because Dan has signed up to be a Companion for the specials, cancels date because he was "late," being a mature adult and all that.
The Grand Serpent is... put on a tiny 1x1 metre asteroid in space as punishment. Where presumably he will die without sustenance. I understand that they wanted to mirror Vinder's exile, but this was just an execution without having them pull the trigger.
Jericho died because he threw his transmat ring on the floor (why?), and a Sontaran, seeing the door close, shot the ring rather than at Jericho. This isn't heroic sacrifice, this is murder by writer for pathos.
If this was written as it was conceived, there's no excuse, this was dire. I really can only hope they had a 10 episode season planned and then had to cut it down to 6 due to BBC/Covid and the editing was merciless.
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I gotta say, reading these comments makes me feel like skipping it entirely instead.