"Doctor Who" season 9 is going to be the most epic yet

I’m of two minds about the “Doctor’s memory of Clara is wiped” scenario. On the one hand, has there ever been a Companion who didn’t suffer at least as much as – arguably more than – s/he gained for agreeing to be a Companion? So isn’t the Doctor long overdue for some karma?

Again, I’m only referring to nuWho, but even including Sarah Jane, every one of them has incurred a radical change to the life they led before they met the Doctor. Arguably Rose Tyler has a far more interesting life post-Doctor than she would have stuck in a dead-end job or saddled with Mickey and half a dozen brats in a Council flat, but the choice was pretty much foisted on her.

Martha Jones? Much more of an achiever than Rose, has some wonderful adventures and a chance to grow and change, but if she’d known what the effect would be on her family, would she have consented?

Donna Noble – I know a lot of people hated her for her abrasiveness, but I rather liked her. In some respects she was the rough prototype for Clara – a no-nonsense, shoot-from-the-lip type (once she got over that ridiculous wedding scenario) who kept the Doctor focused. I thought what happened to her was in some ways the cruelest fate.

The Ponds? I suppose there are worse fates than being forced to live out your life in 1930s New York (especially after all that waiting – she waiting for the Doctor when she was a child; Rory waiting 1,000 years for her), but at least they had each other.

Yeah, I’m gonna go with Donna having her memory erased, and her poor old Gramps forced to keep the secret. Or would he tell her on his deathbed? There’s an interesting premise.

So this time it’s the Doctor whose memory of Clara is erased. Payback? Objectively I’d say it fits, but I do like the Capaldi Doctor so much better than the others that it hardly seems fair.

Then again, who’s to say it’s permanent?

But that’s not the thing that bothered me most about this episode. Next time…

No love for these?

^Two out of three, yes. In order: Tennant and Eccleston. Have seen each in other things and been very impressed (except when they let Tennant go Scottish, and then I need subtitles). Smith? Blah. Too hyper. Only watched his episodes to get to Capaldi's, and I'm going to miss him terribly, which brings me to my final nitpick:

Yes, I know there's a Christmas episode, but still...when he and Clara grabbed that whatever-it-was that she'd recalibrated while he was chatting with Ashildr and he fell to the floor, I expected that to be the End/Regeneration.

He pops up again and I feel - not cheated, exactly, because it's great to see he's still alive - but annoyed. Very annoyed. Don't like being toyed with.

They did say very clearly that the device saves lives by wiping minds, rather than kills.

I had a childhood neighbor who was as flaky and spastic as Matt Smith. It was like watching him all over again. I don't think you can teach people to act like that. It's just how their brain is wired.

plus, Me basically says she hasn't gotten the circuit working yet - not that it is broken per se

I make it a policy to not think to hard about loopy logic (or none at all) in DW, as I've noted in one form or another before, so I don't worry too much about the WTF stuff, just want to see if the thing moved me in some way (funny, provocative, touching, whatever) - just enjoy it viscerally knowing that ultimately if you think too hard about the mechanics of it then it will fall apart.

So with that caveat, I really liked it. The whole business from the soldiers refusing to fire to the Security guy's regeneration ("that was the only time I'd been male") to the business of having snuck in and got out as a boy to the old school (!) TARDIS to the conversation at the end of everything (they should have given a nod to Douglas Adams by having gotten the diner there somehow though) ...it all just felt good. I enjoyed it. That's all I really needed.

I agree completely with this.

She was the best companion in the nuWho series.

Yes, absolutely.

Tate's performance in her memory-wipe scene was so good, so powerful that I can't even listen to Gold's music for that scene without welling up.

Despite Moffat's flaws, and he has too many to count, he occasionally hits a home run.

This finale wasn't perfect but it contained probably the greatest two minutes of Who ever put to film. That entire sequence where Clara realizes just what the Doctor has done to save her is nothing short of gut-wrenching. Spectacular writing and acting all around.

Did everybody forget to watch the Christmas special?

THAT, boys and girls, is what a practically perfect episode of Doctor Who is supposed to look like. The snappy wit even before the theme tells you that you're in for something special and it does not at all disappoint.

I completely underplayed my update because I've already been got a ridiculous warning point about spoilers. Do not hint about an episode's watchability or that Doctor Who survives the Christmas episode or you might get booted. There was an episode that aired. That's all I'm saying.

It's not out of habit for her to feign surprise at events she already knows about.

On the contrary, he learned not to do that this way. If anything, this makes the latter the whole point of the former, story-wise.

Yes, but she said

He didn't do that at all. You clearly couldn't follow or understand the plot of Heaven Sent.

http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2015-12-25/river-songs-doctor-who-life-in-order

Blech. This just isn't my show anymore. Love Peter Capaldi to death as an actor, but... no. I guess Doctor Who has changed too much for me.

Finally caught up with the final few episodes and Xmas special, I'll start with No More Sleep and continue when time allows...

I can see - and even applaud the attempt - and what they were going for, but "found footage" stories are chaotic by design, and "everything you've seen is a lie" needs to be handled carefully, and focussed, so you see the story from a new perspective rather than as a waste of time. Combining the two was always going to be awkward. And Keyser Soze this was not.

In some ways it reminded me of "Kill the Moon", a potentially good story just done wrong. They really ought to have raided Forbidden Planet (not like they haven't done it before), and, rather have a tedious and tepid swipe at business, have Rasmussen so terrified of sleep he's been driven to remove it. Now there's something to plumb for horror, something so traumatic in childhood that someone has decided he's going to kill sleep, and rather than succeed he's simply made the nightmares real, like the Id Monster. Imagery and noises, all formed from sleep dust. You could borrow away ("they're heeeeere...") as winks to genre, and run free with attempts to get people back behind the sofa.

Could've been awesome. Wasn't.

Hell, end it with the Doctor desperately trying to get the terrified and regressed Rasmussen to face and defeat his fears as the nightmares close in, and the vat-born grunt killing him to end it, leaving the Doctor furious and unable to vent at the grunt, as he was just doing what his simple brain could comprehend. You want a story where the Doctor doesn't win? You do it so the perpetrator is someone without the capacity to have done it out of malice.

As for the three-parter. Hmmm.

They were good and enjoyable, but, but, but.... There's too much self-referential bollocks.

I mean, I was grateful we didn't get the usual "oh, how's he going to get out of this one? Oh. Shiny fucking lights. Again." and it was nicely-planned, with some great moments, but it still reeked of self-indulgence.

Oh, lets pull out the Time Lords, show them to be the self-absorbed buffoons they are, and how much better the Doctor is. And then lets put them back in the box until we need them again. Let's stick some known faces in a cybergoth venue during the daytime. Isn't it coooool....

It's a little like hoovering up saccharine to get to a sweet, the end product is so much less from the journey to it.

The Christmas Special was the reverse, just a bloody good and fun adventure, and managed in some moments what the whole season tried. More of that please!

Basically my biggest complaint with the Christmas episode is that Doctor Who isn't the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, but sometimes looks like it's trying to be. Don't get me wrong, I love Douglas Adams and I love THHGTTG, but I love it for different reasons than I love Doctor Who. They each scratch different itches.

Oh well.

Douglas Adams wrote one of the finest Doctor Who stories of all time, City of Death. Just saying...

Yes, but it still FELT like a Doctor Who episode.

Having finally caught up on the season: that was the best season since at least Matt Smith's first season. And that was a very Third Doctor profile that Capaldi presented at one point late in "Heaven Sent".

Now I get to catch up on this thread.

So I threw myself into the "figure out the River Song timeline" swamp last night, with the intention of watching every episode she appears in over the coming days. Now I'm hung over.

Just got done with the marathon myself.
Thanks, Nova, that timeline was helpful.