Yaz - the least necessary member of the cast. She literally seems to be just there in the background, as though they hadn't noticed her sticking around. (Yes I know DotP delved into her family history, but other than her ethnicity essentially no actual characterisation was involved in or developed by that connection)
Whilst I agree with Forbin on the Ryan issue being overdone, it again humanizes our TARDIS crew and reminds us that they are a family - moreso than ever since the days of Ian, Barbara and Susan or Tegan, Nyssa and Adric. And it needed resolving. Ryan has been "angry young man" for a while and he needs to move past that. Graham did a good job connecting with him but only some form of closure with his dad was going to finish things, so here we go. As for the rest of the ep, brilliant! The Dalek is a genuine villain again with its ability to puppeteer humans even bereft of its shell (is it worrying that I found Dalek!Lyn oddly sexy?) and the junkyard Dalek casing was pretty cool especially once pitted against the army. Jodie finally got a proper villain to play against (Tim was too much of a pushover) and it was nice to see that her use of the holographic communication wasn't just to intimidate the Dalek ("I want you to see how serious my face is right now") but also to reassure Lyn that she'd save her. Cute Brexit gag, although since UNIT is a UN force the UK budget shouldn't really shut down the whole shebang. Perhaps if they'd also mentioned that the current US President thinks aliens are "fake news"? Nice shout-out for GCHQ though. I'm gonna miss Chup's view on this one
She seems to be playing the role of "Doctor's sounding board/person who asks her questions" more than anything. I know they can't give Graham too much physical stuff but Yaz should be handling the investigations, as a cop. Now that the Ryan/Graham family drama is out of the way, perhaps she can get some more screen time. It's a shame the BBC limited this series to only 10 eps, 2-3 more could have rounded her out more (having introduced her family in Arachnids and fleshed it out a bit in Demons). There's a lot more Asian history to go into that Brit audiences could benefit from.
It's supposedly 'unified' rather than 'UN' ever since the reboot. But yeah, it was grating to have a major continuity plot point boil down to a satirical throwaway line. In the same way, the family that had to 'have a conversation' was very, very weak. Apart from that, I think this was a good episode. It didn't quite rise to annual special level for me. But I certainly enjoyed the Reconaissance Dalek and the puppetmaster business; and the visuals of the Dalek on the wall were amazing. That the solution revolved around the Doctor outrunning a Dalek blaster, however, was just silly.
Okay, so we've gotten "The Dalek Episode" out of the way, following an impressive body count. Nice to see Charlotte Ritchie get to do more than play the vicar's wife in Call the Midwife. And, as others have pointed out, we can finally get over the Ryan&Dad soap opera.
It fits in with the sloppy way the UK government handles aliens, though. Remember when a room full of top UNIT officials were killed by the Slitheen? And then the government let Torchwood handle things with no oversight until they got themselves massacred, before putting UNIT back in charge?
Yaz is the muscle, Ryan is the looks, Graham is the heart. The Doctor, of course, is the wildcard. I hope she gets more to do soon as well, but after ten seasons of the cute female companion getting all the attention and random black guys getting shat on by the Doctor, I can live with a change.
Q.v. Edna Mode, in The Incredibles (starts at around 1:20): A scarf killed Isadora Duncan (and probably hundreds/thousands of people we've never heard of). The Doctor ought not to let vanity get in the way of safety or fan-wank, IMO.
Prob best place to put this: RIP Terrance Dicks AKA Uncle Terry. He co-wrote a lot of early Classic Who, and ALL the original Target novelisations of the classic series. Got a ton of these on my bookshelf. He pretty much invented the "wheezing, groaning sound" meme of the TARDIS materializing. True, he did write Warmonger, which had pretty much everyone trying to rape Peri or mentioning her pert assets, but hey the Whoniverse is full of scum. Five only noticed her cleavage at the point of death, so he's a good guy.
In a world where Who hadn't reached German TV, translated versions of Dicks novelizations were my first encounter with the franchise as a child. Möchtest Du ein Gummibärchen? Gummibärchen? Nenn mich nicht Gummibärchen!
Is it bad that I didn't even need my very rusty German lessons from age 13 to translate that? Gummibärchen does sound more like a jelly dog however. And also brings back memories of these little fuckers:
The Doctor will be back on New Year's Day 2020! Series 12 kicks off with James Bond parody "Spyfall". Trailer: Looks a bit more action-packy than last series and Chibbers has said he's bringing back some two-parters. Be the first series where Chup isn't around to mock my geekiness though.
Meh. Some very awkward scenes, and frankly the plot and dialogue didn't make a lot of sense in several cases. And it still has major pacing issues IMO. A lot of this is just bad craftsmanship. Stephan Fry is shot from behind and characters later claim that he was shot by a beam like the guy in the car. But he plainly wasn't; must have been an old version of the script. The Australian agent delivers exposition that he should not have any access to and that is basically useless, and while the later twist gives some explanation for this, it does not explain why nobody calls him out on it earlier. The matchbox idea is literally thrown away without even a close-up. The bomb hardly hurt anyone -- and left them in exactly the same situation they would have been in without a bomb! And why are they on the plane in the first place, from our main antagonist's point of view? Who, by the way, just seems to be a male version of what we've seen before, where the character deserves so much more innovation than that. And so on.
seems to me like several somewhat interesting pieces slapped together without following the instructions - rather like an episode of Titans. But I rather liked the character reveal at the end, regardless - seems well cast anyway.
You did? As far as I can tell so far, you seem to be in the majority. But I can't agree. It seemed disjointed, not as in deliberate, but as in an actor unsure about what to do with his role.
I haven't been a mod here since the 00's. I mean, I can control changing the title on my own threads, but we all can do that.
