I think you all hit on everything wrong with this episode, season, and run. I don't have anything to add to it.
I do, however, have some points of, "Hey this is the thing you did that I liked and wish you'd do more often!"
The Doctor figures out everything about The Grand Serpent just from the fact that he's not sweating and how he carries himself. Look at that! The Doctor figuring things out because she's clever and well-traveled is actually a lot of fun! Maybe she should do that more often!
The Doctor uses Passenger, Swarm and Azure's weapon, against The Flux. She uses the bad guys' weapons against them! Wow hey that's clever, boy wouldn't it be fun if that happened more often?
I liked the multiple Doctor tactics, though I didn't like the lack of explanation as to how that happened, nor that it was all over the place, but I liked that she actually rescued herself from The Grand Serpent.
I liked the Ood offering refreshment and The Doctor immediately refusing it, seemed to be a wink at the old Tennant Ood 2-parter, and I think they maybe even used the same lowball glass.
BethrynUnhappiness is MandatoryRegistered Userregular
That Ood is now just chilling out in the void on what looked a lot like a TARDIS in full bloom, wondering what to do now.
...and of course, as always, Kill Hitler.
+4
Options
Dark Raven XLaugh hard, run fast,be kindRegistered Userregular
Doctor is probably kicking herself for not finding a way to murder the Ood too
Joking of course, that would require object permanence aaaayyy
Oh brilliant
+1
Options
Zilla36021st Century. |She/Her|Trans* Woman In Aviators Firing A Bazooka. ⚛️Registered Userregular
I enjoyed it, I think, on the whole. I always try to keep in mind how hard it is now to make stuff under COVID safety protocols, and even 'bad' Who is better, or at least more entertaining than 90% of other TV shows, IMO.
As a die-hard obsessive fan, though, I am probably very biased.
Like, 90% of the universe is just dead now?? The doctor just genocided three races, except probably not really, but like, that's what we're led to believe? She murdered all the sontarans after getting mad at that guy earlier in the season for doing that?
Time is a living sapient being who is also sort of evil?
What?!
+7
Options
Zilla36021st Century. |She/Her|Trans* Woman In Aviators Firing A Bazooka. ⚛️Registered Userregular
I have no idea WTF RTD is going to do with the show when he comes back. It's fun to think about, though, after THIS.
I have no idea WTF RTD is going to do with the show when he comes back. It's fun to think about, though, after THIS.
It will be funny to see how RTD MacGyvers his way out of it.
I still have to watch the last two episodes. He is going to have to find some way to reboot. Make this a branch of The Doctor's timeline that gets undone, but have her and a her companion's remember it.
Make it a messy reboot. There are still remains of the old timeline.
They could make the Doctor wake up one day and notice that all the planets are back like the Flux never happened and that she regenerated and she/he has to figure out what happened.
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.
With that scene I sensed the implication that Kate was flattered by 13s regeneration, in that it could be perceived to be a bit of a tribute given the similarities e.g. Slightly older authoritative woman with a blonde bob
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.
I mean the writing does explain this. In the flashback Atropos scene the Doctor tells both of them that they will be put to death if they surrender, and if they don't will be sentenced to something they consider worse: eternal imprisonment or loss of identity. Also Tecteun specifically said she released Swarm and Azure to distract the Doctor and end the universe as part of her plan to move to a new universe that hadn't been affected by the Doctor's meddling.
I assumed the Flux only ran trough part of the universe. It couldn't have hit everything.
I'll have to watch those last two episodes.
Considering that last Flux wave was meant to be the one that finished off the universe, and that all the races had converged into the last region of space not yet hit by the flux, and that back in episode 1 the flux already hit our solar system and the earth only survived due to the Lupari shield....
Catalase on
"Life before death, strength before weakness, journey before destination."
+2
Options
BethrynUnhappiness is MandatoryRegistered Userregular
Again, they had no idea (or were incapable of giving us an idea) where the Flux was.
In an early episode it's shown right up against Earth and the Lupari shield, and the Doctor, just outside that, releases Vortex energy from the TARDIS into the Flux.
Then in episode 5, the universe is shown to be several galaxies wide and Tecteun says it'll will end on Earth.
Y'know it really is saying something that the Ravagers and the planet Time and The Dark Times and the embodiment of Time are more easily grasped and have an actual tie-in to old Whovian lore than the fucking Flux and Division and Yaz and everything else going on.
Like, at the very least, this isn't the first time Time was a person (an Eternal by the name of Time called upon 6 to be her champion, which he agreed to by regenerating into 7 and declaring himself Time's Champion), and the Dark Times are an established thing in Who, though I think instead of the Moori shackling Time, past credit has gone to Rassilon for creating the Web of Time to shackle Time and end the Dark Times (but like, we're talking about Rassilon). So like, at least Chibnall is going to an old Who well of interesting things, and going back to explore that more. I know he's a Who nerd so I'm not too surprised at that direction being taken, but fuck man, can you just tell Doctor Who stories now and then? Can you quit fucking up what is a pretty easy recipe for success with Who?
1. Have the Doctor find a problem
2. Have the Doctor misdiagnose the problem
3. Have the Doctor realize they've misdiagnosed the problem at the last minute
4. Have the Doctor address the actual problem
5. Alternatively, have The Doctor's companion(s) actually solve the problem and/or properly diagnose it, showing The Doctor that their companions have insight and intuition that they sometimes lack.
Like I'm as bored with formulaic writing as the next person but like just fucking try it once, Chibs.
I came to this thread to see if the latest season was worth watching and it seems like that's a No
But all the references to a Passenger with no context made me think that was the name of a new timelord and I think that might be a halfway decent idea for a special. The Doctor travels around a bit with a younger time lord called The Passenger or The Companion, learns them the ropes and teaches them the universe is just a fun place to explore and be kind in. Then the new timelord can go off and might turn up occasionally or found their own spin-off TV show for the kids or w/e
I honestly really liked Passengers and the twist that they were simply a storage medium for hostages within an arms reach of two people who could atomize anything in the room, rather than some other extra big bad that hadn't displayed their abilities yet. Just having a hostage in the room that represented millions of people inside of it was really disturbing.
A lot of the stuff surrounding Swarm and Azure and Passengers is actually pretty compelling but was hastily thrown together and stretched out across the miniseries to the point where you don't get to do any real exploring of who they are or what they are and instead you just have to accept that they're a thing. They feel more like something that Chibs should have been teasing here and there throughout his run and then after The Doctor finds out they're Dark Times bad lads really lay in the dun-dun-dun. If The Division and the Timeless Child bullshit had just not become a thing, and they had gotten free of some construct Rassilon had made, and The Doctor had to contend with Rassilon and his mistakes in this season instead of all this extra stuff, I think that would have been more interesting. Throughout her conversation in episode 5 I kept thinking, "Damn this really feels like Rassilon, why didn't they just use Rassilon?"
Again, they had no idea (or were incapable of giving us an idea) where the Flux was.
In an early episode it's shown right up against Earth and the Lupari shield, and the Doctor, just outside that, releases Vortex energy from the TARDIS into the Flux.
Then in episode 5, the universe is shown to be several galaxies wide and Tecteun says it'll will end on Earth.
I don’t think Chibnall has a very good grasp of distance, or space, or volume. Between the Flux location and the whole mass of the fleet vs the universe thing
Catalase on
"Life before death, strength before weakness, journey before destination."
Starts off sounding like a generic taskforce type organisation, and then you realise, oh wait, they're splitting the universe apart
Division has the benefit of being a pre-existing word in the English language
"Life before death, strength before weakness, journey before destination."
+3
Options
Dark Raven XLaugh hard, run fast,be kindRegistered Userregular
A very minor thing in the finale that really pissed me off was the back to back scenes of
the Doctor telling the Grand Serpent that the Sontarans have made a lot of alliances and that they never end well, and then the Doctor saying "wait, the Sontarans are offering an alliance? That never happens!"
Just incredible. I'm sure the intent behind these moments is not contradictory, but the way it was presented sure felt it!
A very minor thing in the finale that really pissed me off was the back to back scenes of
the Doctor telling the Grand Serpent that the Sontarans have made a lot of alliances and that they never end well, and then the Doctor saying "wait, the Sontarans are offering an alliance? That never happens!"
Just incredible. I'm sure the intent behind these moments is not contradictory, but the way it was presented sure felt it!
I’ve compared Thirteen to Janeway before. This…does not help.
"Life before death, strength before weakness, journey before destination."
"Who will the next Doctor be?" videos are usually pretty insubstantial, but verilybitchie makes a pretty compelling case. Also (and this has nothing to do with the current season) I am formally switching to "unreserved enthusiasm" for RTD coming back.
Wiping out the Sontarans seems more morally dubious than wiping out Daleks and Cybermen. Daleks and Cybermen are unfeeling monsters. Sontarans are just a nation of sadistic assholes who like conquering people, similar to, say, the British Empire. They have emotions and stuff and aren't 100% evil (Strax).
Jeez, that finale. I kept pausing it in the last 10 minutes trying to figure out how they were going to explain everything satisfactorily, set up for next season, and suggest a changing of the doctors. By 3 minutes left, I was still doing that and getting more annoyed. I'm glad most of the supporting cast got a couple of seconds to tie things together, but this was a heck of a messy experiment.
I don't have anything substantive to add that hasn't been mentioned by much more learned Whovian Scholars in this thread, but I will say I did enjoy the Ravager's makeup (even though they just looked like fancy doughnut frosting with crystals growing out of their heads), the smarmy villain deliveries of both Ravagers and Serpent, and I think the Sontaran humor was spot on and provided some much needed levity, even when everyone was getting murdered by antimatter. The Passenger Form concept was pretty cool, too, even if it was nonsense.
So did I miss something somewhere in this miniseries? Is the TARDIS okay now or is it still sick or WTF? There was no mention or hint of it at all in the finale.
So did I miss something somewhere in this miniseries? Is the TARDIS okay now or is it still sick or WTF? There was no mention or hint of it at all in the finale.
It looked like it was having a virus, cancer, or parasite. I think they are trying to kill the TARDIS and get a new one.
So did I miss something somewhere in this miniseries? Is the TARDIS okay now or is it still sick or WTF? There was no mention or hint of it at all in the finale.
It looked like it was having a virus, cancer, or parasite. I think they are trying to kill the TARDIS and get a new one.
Well, okay, yes, that's what I'm referring to. I'm asking if that got cleared up. Because it worked just fine throughout the finale, and there was no black goop anywhere and the doors were in the right spot.
Dark Raven XLaugh hard, run fast,be kindRegistered Userregular
The TARDIS was dying because of the lack of guys standing on things on that one planet in Episode 3. Now that there are more guys standing on things, the TARDIS was healing (though not entirely fixed) by the end of the series.
If that sounds poorly thought out / communicated by the show, add it to the list! :tell_me_more:
Oh brilliant
+3
Options
Zilla36021st Century. |She/Her|Trans* Woman In Aviators Firing A Bazooka. ⚛️Registered Userregular
The TARDIS was dying because of the lack of guys standing on things on that one planet in Episode 3. Now that there are more guys standing on things, the TARDIS was healing (though not entirely fixed) by the end of the series.
If that sounds poorly thought out / communicated by the show, add it to the list! :tell_me_more:
Yeah it is Ood they didn't find time to talk about that at all in the script. Or perhaps there was some mention of it. but it fell victim to the merciless degree of editing, as witnessed in the final broadcast.
The TARDIS was dying because of the lack of guys standing on things on that one planet in Episode 3. Now that there are more guys standing on things, the TARDIS was healing (though not entirely fixed) by the end of the series.
If that sounds poorly thought out / communicated by the show, add it to the list! :tell_me_more:
Oh yeah, where were things left regarding the Time Monitors or whatever they were? I honestly don't remember. Was everything peachy with them?
Posts
I do, however, have some points of, "Hey this is the thing you did that I liked and wish you'd do more often!"
The Doctor uses Passenger, Swarm and Azure's weapon, against The Flux. She uses the bad guys' weapons against them! Wow hey that's clever, boy wouldn't it be fun if that happened more often?
I liked the multiple Doctor tactics, though I didn't like the lack of explanation as to how that happened, nor that it was all over the place, but I liked that she actually rescued herself from The Grand Serpent.
I liked the Ood offering refreshment and The Doctor immediately refusing it, seemed to be a wink at the old Tennant Ood 2-parter, and I think they maybe even used the same lowball glass.
Joking of course, that would require object permanence aaaayyy
As a die-hard obsessive fan, though, I am probably very biased.
Time is a living sapient being who is also sort of evil?
It will be funny to see how RTD MacGyvers his way out of it.
I still have to watch the last two episodes. He is going to have to find some way to reboot. Make this a branch of The Doctor's timeline that gets undone, but have her and a her companion's remember it.
Make it a messy reboot. There are still remains of the old timeline.
Did we see the moon blow up? It was behind the shield. Or is now made up of doggo ships, who knows
The more I think about that episode the more bewildered I get. It had a few good moments but there's so much leftover nonsense it is truly baffling.
I'll have to watch those last two episodes.
Then in episode 5, the universe is shown to be several galaxies wide and Tecteun says it'll will end on Earth.
Like, at the very least, this isn't the first time Time was a person (an Eternal by the name of Time called upon 6 to be her champion, which he agreed to by regenerating into 7 and declaring himself Time's Champion), and the Dark Times are an established thing in Who, though I think instead of the Moori shackling Time, past credit has gone to Rassilon for creating the Web of Time to shackle Time and end the Dark Times (but like, we're talking about Rassilon). So like, at least Chibnall is going to an old Who well of interesting things, and going back to explore that more. I know he's a Who nerd so I'm not too surprised at that direction being taken, but fuck man, can you just tell Doctor Who stories now and then? Can you quit fucking up what is a pretty easy recipe for success with Who?
1. Have the Doctor find a problem
2. Have the Doctor misdiagnose the problem
3. Have the Doctor realize they've misdiagnosed the problem at the last minute
4. Have the Doctor address the actual problem
5. Alternatively, have The Doctor's companion(s) actually solve the problem and/or properly diagnose it, showing The Doctor that their companions have insight and intuition that they sometimes lack.
Like I'm as bored with formulaic writing as the next person but like just fucking try it once, Chibs.
But all the references to a Passenger with no context made me think that was the name of a new timelord and I think that might be a halfway decent idea for a special. The Doctor travels around a bit with a younger time lord called The Passenger or The Companion, learns them the ropes and teaches them the universe is just a fun place to explore and be kind in. Then the new timelord can go off and might turn up occasionally or found their own spin-off TV show for the kids or w/e
A lot of the stuff surrounding Swarm and Azure and Passengers is actually pretty compelling but was hastily thrown together and stretched out across the miniseries to the point where you don't get to do any real exploring of who they are or what they are and instead you just have to accept that they're a thing. They feel more like something that Chibs should have been teasing here and there throughout his run and then after The Doctor finds out they're Dark Times bad lads really lay in the dun-dun-dun. If The Division and the Timeless Child bullshit had just not become a thing, and they had gotten free of some construct Rassilon had made, and The Doctor had to contend with Rassilon and his mistakes in this season instead of all this extra stuff, I think that would have been more interesting. Throughout her conversation in episode 5 I kept thinking, "Damn this really feels like Rassilon, why didn't they just use Rassilon?"
They’re impressive sounding names. Techteun sounds like a Timelord foot fungus.
I don’t think Chibnall has a very good grasp of distance, or space, or volume. Between the Flux location and the whole mass of the fleet vs the universe thing
Choose Your Own Chat 1 Choose Your Own Chat 2 Choose Your Own Chat 3
Just incredible. I'm sure the intent behind these moments is not contradictory, but the way it was presented sure felt it!
Make 14 the Valeyard.
I don't have anything substantive to add that hasn't been mentioned by much more learned Whovian Scholars in this thread, but I will say I did enjoy the Ravager's makeup (even though they just looked like fancy doughnut frosting with crystals growing out of their heads), the smarmy villain deliveries of both Ravagers and Serpent, and I think the Sontaran humor was spot on and provided some much needed levity, even when everyone was getting murdered by antimatter. The Passenger Form concept was pretty cool, too, even if it was nonsense.
It looked like it was having a virus, cancer, or parasite. I think they are trying to kill the TARDIS and get a new one.
Well, okay, yes, that's what I'm referring to. I'm asking if that got cleared up. Because it worked just fine throughout the finale, and there was no black goop anywhere and the doors were in the right spot.
Did Chibs forget that thread entirely?
If that sounds poorly thought out / communicated by the show, add it to the list! :tell_me_more:
Oh yeah, where were things left regarding the Time Monitors or whatever they were? I honestly don't remember. Was everything peachy with them?