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TV Doctor Who ST | This Thread Is Bigger On The Inside

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Another episode, and another round of crying. Good lord, this Doctor is absolutely and completely broken...

Also: so, I have to ask, but... The Shalka Doctor in the line-up?!
 
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I don't think my expectations for a season finale were ever that low. Holy shit. Ncuti is undoubtedly a great actor, shame his Doctor is written... like this. I really wanted to go into this with an open mind but after one disappointing episode after another, I'm already at a point where I hope the show survives long enough for a more competent showrunner.
 
Quoted by: Tye
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oomoepoo said:
I don't think my expectations for a season finale were ever that low. Holy shit. Ncuti is undoubtedly a great actor, shame his Doctor is written... like this. I really wanted to go into this with an open mind but after one disappointing episode after another, I'm already at a point where I hope the show survives long enough for a more competent showrunner.
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This wasn’t the season finale… That’s the next two episodes.

Are people really not liking this one?? Huh. I thought the last few episodes have been fantastic! I was very worried about this season for a bit after Space Babies and the ending of The Devil’s Chord, but everything after that has been great to me for the most part.

Though I was a bit disappointed that the Chuldur wedding didn’t end up being a polyamorous wedding between all of them like I thought was being implied at first, lol.
 
oomoepoo said:
I am aware, that's why I said my expectations for the season finale. Becaus after this episode they are infinitely low :LOL:
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Ah, guess I misunderstood. What’s been so disappointing with this season for you that has caused your expectations for the finale to be so low? Besides Space Babies, of course, ’cause I certainly understand that one, lol.
 
Tye said:
Ah, guess I misunderstood. What’s been so disappointing with this season for you that has caused your expectations for the finale to be so low? Besides Space Babies, of course, ’cause I certainly understand that one, lol.
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Well, on the one hand, the only episode so far that I could wholeheartedly say was "decent" with no ifs or buts for me was Boom. Every other episode had more or less heavy problems, really preventing them to go above average. On the other hand I'm mostly desillusiuoned by the big talk about how big, exciting and different the new season was supposed to be, it turned out to be pretty mediocre and I already know that I do not enjoy finales written by Russell much.

I really wish I liked all of this more but it's been a slog for me.
 
Quoted by: Tye
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oomoepoo said:
Well, on the one hand, the only episode so far that I could wholeheartedly say was "decent" with no ifs or buts for me was Boom. Every other episode had more or less heavy problems, really preventing them to go above average. On the other hand I'm mostly desillusiuoned by the big talk about how big, exciting and different the new season was supposed to be, it turned out to be pretty mediocre and I already know that I do not enjoy finales written by Russell much.

I really wish I liked all of this more but it's been a slog for me.
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Huh. Can’t say that matches my experience at all. Boom was the episode that turned the season around for me, but everything after has ended up being better than it so far. 73 Yards and Dot and Bubble were both episodes that I couldn’t stop thinking about after watching, and now Rogue was a more traditional episode but I feel like it was the best display of the Fifteenth Doctor’s character yet, and we got the best and most prominent gay male representation we’ve ever had on the show with it as well (which is kinda sad that it took this long to get anything even remotely like that, really). But, y’know, to each their own and all that, I guess.
 
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The season is fun, but just... Super average I guess? There's genuinely great stuff in there, but I'd argue 13/Flux was the same, some great stuff but ultimately that series was average in the end as well. 15 is just completely and utterly broken as a character, I barely know Ruby as a character despite her having an episode exclusively to herself and the episodes are mostly just... Whatever? They're not series 11 levels of boring mind you, but Russell really got high on his own series 4/Tennant farts with the specials and followed it up with a mostly 'meh' series so far. The fact that Chibnall made the better anniversary episode (which wasn't even an anniversary episode mind you) over the actual 60th anniversary is really telling for me personally.

At least you could have given as The Five-ish Doctor two, damn it 😭
EvilChameleon said:
Ah, flashing back to the heady days when we (posters on GallifreyBase) thought the Dutchess might be the Rani. Good times.
Good episode!
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I genuinely feel that The Rani passed along with Kate O'mara, Big Finish introduced The Second Rani, used her once after that and haven't touched the character since 2015. Which honestly is the most un-Big Finish this they've done since they love pumping stories out with such characters. But it's fine if the character is put to rest, there's so much potential out there for new characters. Plus Time Lords/Gallifrey is tiresome anyway 🤭
 
Shadow said:
The Rani passed along with Kate O'mara, Big Finish introduced The Second Rani, used her once after that and haven't touched the character since 2015. Which honestly is the most un-Big Finish this they've done since they love pumping stories out with such characters. But it's fine if the character is put to rest, there's so much potential out there for new characters. Plus Time Lords/Gallifrey is tiresome anyway 🤭
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IIRC, the Rani has some legal issues attached to the character, Briggs mentioned that once in an interview. Basically, the creators passed away and now the rights are in some kind of limbo.

I'd welcome the return of some other Timelord that isn't the Master, as long as they have an interesting idea for them... Though admittedly I'm kinda drawing a blank when it comes to the Rani, given how the Master behaves in the new show 👀
 
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I might be alone/in the minority for this opinion but I really appreciate the experimental nature of this season so far. I think the increased budget has allowed RTD/Bad Wolf to do this.
 
If you're really against killing somebody, banishing them to unknown planet in unknown dimension doesn't seem a very big step up to me. Unless their transporter is set to filter for fruit trees or something, maybe they just show up in a barren desert and dehydrate.
 
Quoted by: Tye
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JoshuaJSlone said:
If you're really against killing somebody, banishing them to unknown planet in unknown dimension doesn't seem a very big step up to me. Unless their transporter is set to filter for fruit trees or something, maybe they just show up in a barren desert and dehydrate.
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I think the point of the Doctor wanting to make them suffer like that was that he’s finally snapping now. There was also the comment from him at the end saying that he can’t stop and has to keep moving despite what happened, which is exactly what this Doctor was supposed to have stopped doing after the timey-wimey “therapy” from Fourteen via bigeneration.

In that sense, I don’t understand why people are saying Fifteen has been “broken” this whole time, because it’s only now that he’s clearly starting to crack again. Of course, there is the crying in pretty much every episode—which doesn’t mean he’s “broken”, by the way; emotions aren’t a defect, and this Doctor is finally letting himself feel things without bottling everything up the way past incarnations did (especially Thirteen)—but I suspect there’s something up with that that may be addressed in the finale.
 
My problem with the Season: the average quality is very high (I'd say higher than S2, S3, S7, and everything by Chibnall), but it feels like a disjointed collection of random episodes. Swap Boom with Dot and Bubble and literally nothing in terms of character's arc or plot development changes, because there are no arc and no development. Whereas I feel the best Doctor Who series work not only on an episode-by-episode base, but as cohesive narrative pieces as well. Series 1 was about the Doctor leaving the Time War behind thanks to Rose and Rose gaining trust in herself thank to the Doctor, plu we had little arcs with Rose's family, Adam and Jack, Series 5 was about Amy healing and we had the crack arc, Series 8 centered around the Doctor-Clara(-Danny) relationship.
 
Looks like there is a special Tales of the TARDIS episode that broadcasts on BBC Four 4 hours before Empire of Death drops on streaming services (so June 20th, 8pm for the UK). It is likely related to the finale as it features Fifteen and Ruby. As it is a Tales of the TARDIS episode, this is probably UK exclusive as it only exists on BBC iPlayer.
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Theory crafting time: What if this is them looking back on the previous adventures we've seen in the season and them picking up on oddities such as the large time gaps and the fourth wall breaks and how that may relate to the finale. This sounds crazy but I wanted to put it out there regardless, even if I don't fully believe it myself.
 
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I started watching old season 7 from 1970. It is weird how with a change to color and in production methods from one year to the next it still looks old, just in a very different way. I'd seen almost nothing of Pertwee until this, so my first impression was that I kind of expected him to have a deeper voice, but maybe that's just the sort of impression a guy flaunting a cape gives off? The Autons in the first story seemed totally Halloween Michael Myers. Blue jumpsuits, blank faces, no talking, not going down from a barrage of bullets.
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This season's frustrating because of the first four episodes I've seen, there's so many different issues, but no big one that's easy to point to?

In vague order, I don't like gross out humor, I'm sad we missed on a proper regeneration episode for 15, Ruby and the doctor's relationships feels too frictionless, the doctor's trauma was mostly relegated to off-screen and now he behaves completely different, the resolution to Devils Chord is completely underwhelming as someone who isn't familiar with the Beatles, the tardis is not only completely unused, but it feels incredibly sterile compared to every other modern tardis, there's been 1 singular non-human alien, other than boom the sets are far too plain, the doctor hasn't felt vital in the resolution to any of the stories so far and the doctor feels a bit too human.

Other than space babies the stories are fine, but other than Boom, none of them feel like the Doctor Who I want to watch, which I can't even say about Chibnall's era. For a historical episode, Devil's Chord barely gives the Beatles more than a single scene, which for a person who has no experience with them, makes them banishing Maestro feel no different from if monkeys solved the problem with a typewriter. 73 yards, in my opinion suffers from a complete lack of developing tension after the first instance of a person running away. Half the episode is then spent with the same pattern repeating, until the election segment, which is entirely based of an offhanded comment of the Doctor, rather thans seeing the impact at the start of the episode. I get the metaphor, but it's just monotonous.

I enjoyed Boom a lot because I'm a huge fan of Moffats script writing, but even then I have to acknowlege the similarities to the premise of Oxygeon and the ending of Closing time.

This is all just so weird to me because most of the these issues were non-existant in the Wild Blue Yonder and most of the Giggle, so I'm not sure why they're in the main series?

Either way, from what I know of Dot and Bubble and Rogue, they look better than the front half of the Season, but I'm assuredly less certain than I was at the start of the year.
 
Vall said:
This season's frustrating because of the first four episodes I've seen, there's so many different issues, but no big one that's easy to point to?

In vague order, I don't like gross out humor, I'm sad we missed on a proper regeneration episode for 15, Ruby and the doctor's relationships feels too frictionless, the doctor's trauma was mostly relegated to off-screen and now he behaves completely different, the resolution to Devils Chord is completely underwhelming as someone who isn't familiar with the Beatles, the tardis is not only completely unused, but it feels incredibly sterile compared to every other modern tardis, there's been 1 singular non-human alien, other than boom the sets are far too plain, the doctor hasn't felt vital in the resolution to any of the stories so far and the doctor feels a bit too human.

Other than space babies the stories are fine, but other than Boom, none of them feel like the Doctor Who I want to watch, which I can't even say about Chibnall's era. For a historical episode, Devil's Chord barely gives the Beatles more than a single scene, which for a person who has no experience with them, makes them banishing Maestro feel no different from if monkeys solved the problem with a typewriter. 73 yards, in my opinion suffers from a complete lack of developing tension after the first instance of a person running away. Half the episode is then spent with the same pattern repeating, until the election segment, which is entirely based of an offhanded comment of the Doctor, rather thans seeing the impact at the start of the episode. I get the metaphor, but it's just monotonous.

I enjoyed Boom a lot because I'm a huge fan of Moffats script writing, but even then I have to acknowlege the similarities to the premise of Oxygeon and the ending of Closing time.

This is all just so weird to me because most of the these issues were non-existant in the Wild Blue Yonder and most of the Giggle, so I'm not sure why they're in the main series?

Either way, from what I know of Dot and Bubble and Rogue, they look better than the front half of the Season, but I'm assuredly less certain than I was at the start of the year.
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I get what you are saying. I think the more experimental nature of the season hasn't landed with you and it hasn't landed with many others. It's clear that they are using the increased budget to be more experimental with the Doctor Who format rather than it being completely normal Doctor Who with a bigger budget. I will say that Rogue is traditional Doctor Who through and through and is probably why the episode really landed with many people in the Doctor Who fandom.
 
Skipper93653 said:
I get what you are saying. I think the more experimental nature of the season hasn't landed with you and it hasn't landed with many others. It's clear that they are using the increased budget to be more experimental with the Doctor Who format rather than it being completely normal Doctor Who with a bigger budget. I will say that Rogue is traditional Doctor Who through and through and is probably why the episode really landed with many people in the Doctor Who fandom.
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I'll look forward to it.
 
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Season 1 Episode 7 Discussion Begins
  • Index
    • This was probably the episode I've enjoyed the most so far. Good mystery, good build up (even completely on its own without the other episodes) and it's the first time this season I genuinely look forward to the next episode. Love that Mel did not scream once, but instead doesn't take his shit and outright puts the Doctor in his place for once when he breaks down (seriously, old school Mel is painful on the ears 😂).

    Just one issue that's been annoying me this entire new RTD run, Russel I have but one request... Stop using Kate's middle name, her entire deal was that she did not want that name associated with her role in UNIT.
     
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  • Index
    • EvilChameleon said:
    So this is the same Sutekh from Pyramids Of Mars, yes?
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    I would assume so, yes, but it seems it’s not just that—the implication appears to be that Sutekh and The Beast are one in the same, too (or at least two parts of the same triad).
     
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    I feel like while television writers and showrunners can be expected to enjoy red herrings and hiding things in plain sight behind wordplay, it seems less likely that the characters they actually make do those things would actually care. "Yes, I am some kind of all-powerful god of death. But I also have fun making my false business name look like TARDIS, LOL!"

    Something I had been wondering was whether there were even more Susan Twists out there in the adventures we haven't been seeing on TV, and this episode cleared that up pretty well.

    On the whole that was a very enjoyable episode, though all "part 1"s have the advantage of not being expected to stick a landing, so we'll see how things turn out.

    Good on them for finding a role for William Hartnell's exhumed and reanimated corpse.
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    I'm not entirely sure how Ruby's birth will tie into Sutekh, but this season just feels so... rushed. We went from thirteen episodes a season for Eccleston, Tennant and Smith to twelve with Capaldi, then to ten with Whittaker and now we're down to eight with Gatwa. It feels like it only started a short while ago and it's already over and the seasons being nearly half the length without compensating for that in some way isn't good.

    If you're only going to have eight episodes a season I'm not sure the existing format works. I genuinely don't remember episodes feeling this disconnected from each other, yet I can't help but feel as though the show is suffering for it. If you only have eight episodes to work with you can't risk having so many duds in a season and you definitely need a stronger narrative thread binding the episodes than a bit of snow that occasionally falls. It worked before because there were four or five more episodes of character building and suspense that they don't have any more.

    In this last episode the show is so busy trying to establish recurring characters that it rushes through the actual point of the episode but, because the show has no time to breathe, they have to rapid fire introduce these characters with awkward interactions and mentioning their names over and over again so we don't forget them all while actually trying to tell two stories (Ruby's mother and Susan Triad) and I don't think it worked. There were moments of genuine and natural interaction (like Ruby bonding with the soldier dude over their shared Manchester roots), but I feel like they got drowned out a lot because of the pacing.

    I really hope that the first half of this two parter was awkward so that the second half doesn't need to be and that this week's episode will blow our minds. That's my hope, because I still can't get over the fact that Neil Patrick Harris dancing in the street wearing a tuxedo is far more visually striking and intimidating than a CGI dog.
     
    Shadow said:
    So with everything that happened, did 14 legit like... Just sit back and die?

    Edit: seriously Davies, what is up with Mrs. Flood!?
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    Bad news for everybody when it turns out that Fifteen hammering the TARDIS into two also left Fourteen with a spare Sutekh.
     
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    Okay, so…after Sutekh falls into the time vortex, rather than simply die, he actually ends up existing before the creation of the universe and becomes the Beast…right??
     
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    oomoepoo said:
    My expectations were low but holy shit... that was bad :LOL:
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    Setting aside the actual plot, stakes, etc...What happened to RTD's character-writing abilities? Almost everyone was a charisma vacuum. (I've never particularly liked Jemma Redgrave as Kate, but her faults are...prounounced here.)
     
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