Who and Trek crossed in the comics. It was Matt Smith and TNG. Their universes touched and stuck, like soap bubbles, and the contact point made a world where they were retroactively always the same world, and only Guinan could tell the difference. They resolved the threat of a Borg/Cyberman fusion alliance, then unstuck the universes, and everyone lost the memory of the whole thing. Except Guinan. It was pretty cool, and covered their canon asses.
I mean, if Susan can regenerate then it's as good a guess as any other. I wonder if they will acknowledge the Mundy character or just do the Capaldi thing?
73 Yards Holy crap. Holy living crap. Just when I thought this turd of a season was unsalvageable, along comes "73 Yards". Probably one of the best episodes of Who we've gotten in a long, long while -- if not one of the top episodes of all time. They even eschewed the standard opening credits for this one. I can't believe RTD penned it. The episode was incredibly atmospheric and so tightly written. Also, if there was any question about Millie Gibson's likeability or acting chops, this episode pretty much obliterated those doubts. I had glommed on to the identity of the mystery woman pretty early on, but that didn't take away the emotional impact of this episode. More of this please, and less of the "Space Babies" and "Devil's Chord" garbage.
Agreed on all counts. It seems to have divided opinion on the TBBS forum, between those who need some answers and those that think it's better we never really got them. What WAS the old woman saying that could freak out people and turn them against Ruby so terribly and immediately? Even her own adoptive mother? I'm not sure it was words, really. If I had to guess, it's either them recognizing the relationship between Ruby and the old woman and going mad from the paradox (though that shouldn't really affect UNIT who are used to that sort of thing) OR (more likely IMHO) Ruby is somehow linked to the Gods this series has introduced and proximity to the old woman let them see the truth about her (notice perception filters were mentioned this week...). We've known there was likely to be an election either this year or - at the latest - Jan 2025 for a while, but I doubt RTD knew precisely HOW close to the election this ep was likely to air. Albion are a very thin cover for Reform UK - kudos though for making the villain Welsh.
Next week's ep looks silly from the trailer, but RTD says it's the closest Who has ever come to doing Black Mirror so let's see.
VIBES wise? I liked it. Maybe it's the director or something but it FELT appealing...and YET.... The actual story was an entirely incoherent mess that didn't hang together even a little bit. Too late for me to list it all off tonight but damn.
A podcast I listen to made a great suggestion for a future Doctor companion, even though they admitted that it'll never happen. The companion would be someone who's a historical figure (like Christopher Marlow), and they'd introduce themselves to people, who'd have no idea of who the historical figure was. So, for example, they'd show up and if the companion was Leonardo da Vinci, he'd be like, "Hi, I'm Leonardo da Vinci." And the people would all be like, "Who?" Da Vinci would then scream, "I painted the Mona Lisa!" only to be greeted with, "What's that?" or something similar.
This week's episode was fantastic. Makes you think that it's all about social media bubbles (literally) then smacks you in the face with the real story. Haven't had chance to go back and rewatch yet, but am looking forward to for how in retrospect the episode tries really hard to make you notice. Seen a few comments from PoC online who picked up on what was going on earlier in the episode, such a great example of how it can be easy to miss things when they aren't in your face every day.
I'd assumed it was some sort of upper class/hipster douchebag thing because I'd read online that the story was originally pitched for 11 and Clara. "They won't listen to the awkward guy with the weird face and the weird outfit, but they're receptive to the pretty younger companion wearing trendy clothes that can better imitate their speech patterns" felt like a premise that could work for 15 and Ruby just as well as 11 and Clara, and when I worked in retail in my twenties I dealt with that exact sort of discrimination more often than I'd like to recall. I also try to give DW the benefit of the doubt on things like race. Was it racist that during RTDs first tenure the two saddest, least romantically desirable characters were both black, and they ended up together? Was it racist that the two most prominent black characters during Moffats run got turned into Cybermen, and that during 12's first series the soldiers he was cruellest towards all happened to be visible minorities? I think we're supposed to accept that those things are all just coincidences.
After a weak start this season is actually turning out pretty good, surprised how good Gatwa actually is in the role.
I figured out something was going on. When you've a series that take diversity Very Seriously, it's difficult to completely get away with such a twist without using a stand-in or metaphor for it, and that's something this iteration of Who seems to have a lot of difficulty with for some reason. Moment her entire social circle looked whiter than David Duke's, my spider-sense went off. It was a good episode, although I was very much rooting for the Man Traps long before she showed her true colours. I've met a few Lindy's, briefly dated one, and the universe really doesn't need them.
73 yards managed to be both good and frustrating, I was expecting a claustrophobic folk horror after the start, but it was a good tale. Boom was also very good, a couple of wearisome tropes wasn't enough to offset the tale, this is so far much, much better than the last few series.
William Russell, one of the very first companions to the Doctor (he played Ian Chesterton alongside Barbara and Susan with the First Doctor) has died aged 99. https://www.radiotimes.com/tv/sci-fi/doctor-who-william-russell-dies-newsupdate/ Bloody good run and at least he got to make one final Who appearance (if only briefly) at the end of The Power of the Doctor.
Now THAT is the Doctor Who I've been waiting on the whole season. No spoilers but...if Rogue is not the next Captain jack i shall surely riot. Absolutely no way you create a character like that for a one off.
Yeah, Rogue was a bit TOO much like Jack here but Jack wouldn't work for the role (unless this was Time Agency pre mindwipe Jack, but Barrowman's getting a bit old to play the role). I liked the gaming nod to where he got his name, as well as the fact that - up until the inspiration to "take a knee" - he was CRAP at roleplaying. Some people are complaining about the Doctor being so confident sexually (barring a few suave moments with River, Ten and Eleven came off as nervous schoolboys when it came to snogging) but he still gets flustered when the flirting moves to "about to actually kiss". The bit with the Kylie Minogue music was hilarious though.
Meh. It was an okay episode but a bit of a letdown after the previous week's smashing one. Still, the second best episode of the series so far and it's starting to wash away the taste of the first two disastrous episodes. Also disagree that the episode was purely about race instead of social media. It was definitely about both, and didn't have good things to say on either front.
I took the Kylie Minogue bit, apart from being a lot of fun, as a way of telling us that this duded also travels time and is not "organic" to 1813.
Fun episode, but we're back to a remix of the Ecclestone season and Captain Jack, this time with presumably less dick waving on set. Music wise, did we not also have a bit Eilish with the orchestra?
That was good, but is suffering from one of the problem with NuWho in that there is a tendency to go to CGI over the horror element, which shifts the tone. Pyramids of Mars had creepy mummies, this has something out of Shiang-Chi, which was impressive to see, but maybe better off spent on another episode that wasn't meant to have creepiness. Curious to see the new edit of Pyramids they've done.
Tom Baker was always THE Doctor to me because I'm of the right age that all of the show I ever saw in my youth, he was the only Doctor I had ever seen. I rewatched PoM this week to get refreshed on the Sutekh lore and it was like a warm blanket, so comfy. But that said, I have to laugh at some things. I mean, I KNOW that the show is cheesy almost by design, but still, you have the mummy-bots that are stated to be ROBOTS that are there for the purpose of BUILDING A ROCKET and....none of them have FINGERS. Just so dumb.
TBF, Osirian war rocket tech seems to work on the principle of "just put the bits down in the right places" so they only really need to be able to pick up and carry large boxy stuff.
The season of mixed feelings. It's hard for me to be unhappy with anything that injects a little more Tom Baker in-his-prime into my eyeballs, so I'm down with all those references. But some of the other "see this is all connected" stuff (the bits referencing 73 Yards for example) seem kind of....tenuous? It felt like when you're watching Star Trek and they throw in some callback (Like the episode that reworked "Balance of Terror") except that the call-back is to something that just happened (for the viewer) a few weeks ago. The nostalgia factor isn't there and without that...was it really necessary?
I've not missed RTDs resolutions one bit, that was jackalshit, and, for me, the worst episode of an otherwise decent season. Everyone dying at the start, so we're off to find the wonderful reset button of Oz then. Which also seems to have reversed Flux (sadly, not from my brain) and, I'll bet, the genocide. Somebody watched The Last Jedi and thought "I'll be having some of that", only where in TLJ it served to democratize the Force, here it, what? Nothing wrong with Ruby's mum being normal, but what about Ruby making it snow? What about what she was wearing? Off to a fancy dress party? She got dolled up, abandoned the sprog, pointed at the road sign in case someone saw, popped to the off licence for a case of WKD, and rounded off the night with a dirty kebab? Don't give us mystery boxes filled with a rock and expect us to be happy. I'll do the "cultural appropriation" inanity in its own post. It deserves it's own scorn. Oh, and a TARDIS generated from a Time Window memory. You can get away with some of these, but all of them? Nothing made much sense at all. Here's hoping the intergalactic RSPCA arrest the Doctor for cruelty to animals, dragging that poor doggy on a lead through time... And there was more than one Mel by the end, as melodrama came for a visit, segued into a mid-afternoon soap opera with ease.
Okay, the cultural appropriation bit... If you ever want to see a finer example of that most nebulous of concepts, woke, then there it was. A reasonable debate point used as a foundation for a Jenga of stupidity via a throwaway shibboleth devoid of any logic. What were the Osirans called before finding Egypt? The Geoffians? Did Harold from Accounts take a liking to name Horus? Was Sutekh once Simon, middle manager extraordinaire, putting dwarf planets into black holes in his plus-fours? Did this spacefaring civilisation, that even the Time Lords were wary off, look at the pyramids and got a polyhedral boner of such magnitude they redesigned their entire society around it? If RTD wants to tackle cultural appropriation, then you know, Dr Who, is a great vehicle for it. There's even a classic Who tale, The Pirate Planet, that would make a great starting point and you could have a really good episode that crosses the age ranges and asks some awkward questions. Or, you could chuck it in as an offhand comment to show how much of a Rick from The Young Ones you are. What would have made sense, was the Osirans polluted Egyptian society. You still get to condemn imperialism, make the Osirans the Bad Guys, but from a much more sensible perspective. But I guess that doesn't use keywords for social credit from a demographic you ache to impress, which was the actual point of it, rather than a genuine condemnation.
