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I liked that episode more than most people did I think, but that may be because it's just been awhile since the last season and I'm always eager for more Who. I'm sure it's more of the usual "oh they didn't really die because of XXXXXXXXX" but it could be a pretty crazy story if they are dead and the Doctor has to pull some real hardcore time shenanigans to outright undo it, even if those shenanigans aren't the literal murder of an innocent child.
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Sep 20, 2015 13:12
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AndyElusive posted:I thought the B plot of Doctors Wife where House just basically mind fucks Amy and Rory was interesting. Rory going mad inside the halls of the TARDIS gives me the heebeegeebees. Yeah, that is properly messed up. Just a hall full of different version of dead Rories. Kind of the same idea as the Girl Who Waited but turned into even more of a Nightmare. It's worth remembering that although Smith's run was generally full of wacky hijinx and the Doctor kicking rear end, there were quite a few absolutely dark and unsettling episodes.
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Oct 2, 2015 20:51
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Chokes McGee posted:Let's Play is pretty good Yup, I'll join this  . RAW GDT is always a fun read, RAW is almost always a terrible television program.
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Oct 16, 2015 11:27
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CobiWann posted:During the whole Katie Holmes/Tom Cruise fling in 2005, Holmes had a significant role in The Dark Knight, but while watching the movie every time Holmes came on screen I found myself saying “oh, that's Katie Holmes.” She was in Batman Begins, get your act together CobiWann  .This was actually one of my favorite episodes this season, and got the biggest laugh out of me so far with the Viking just snapping the Doctor's Sonic Sunglasses and him just being like "Well, we're going with the Vikings!" Also, I'm surprised no one has pointed out another quick little moment of Clara acting just like the Doctor. I'll make an  transcription of this exchange that happens after the Vikings have been turned into goo on the ship and Clara and Ashilder are talking to the vile leader of the Mira, after Clara has pointed out that she has super advanced tech with her (broken sonic sunglasses) and that the Mira shouldn't go to war with them:*Evil leader takes a swig of testosterone and adrenaline harvested from the Vikings* Clara: Okay, you mashed up Vikings to make warrior juice. Nice. Ashilder: They what? Clara (not missing a beat): Why play god? *Evil leader philosophizes about how farmers are gods to cattle, etc.* Clara: You're not a farmer, you're a thief. Caught in the act. Ashilder: I don't understand! Mashed up? What are you saying?! Clara: Hush. Go, now. Go find Vikings on other planets. Blah blah blah... Ashilder: You'll pay for what you've done here today  .So in summary, a little girl has seen a big group of the strongest warriors in her village, warriors she worries about whenever they leave and hugs when they come back, turned into goo and then watches a guy drink her cherished elders, and Clara basically says "Shut up, I'm talking." I could totally see Twelve having this same reaction and conversation. It's also interesting to note that Clara doesn't really want to try to bring the Mira to justice for the mass murder of innocent Vikings, and that the Doctor similarly doesn't care about proper revenge. One humiliating fight and a blackmail video is getting off pretty light for killing a dozen or so people. Remember, the bad guy in Dinosaurs on a Spaceship got directly killed by the Doctor and the worst thing he did was kill a bunch of hibernating lizard people and take over their ship (though trying to enslave Cleopatra wasn't too nice either). Oh, and we just saw the Doctor step headlong into a bootstrap paradox to save Clara. Aliens kill a bunch of Vikings, and Clara wants them to just go away and the Doctor's #1 plan is to have everyone hide in the woods for a week. It's a sensible enough response given what they know about the big picture, but even if they weren't trying to sell running away to Vikings I think most villages would be pretty salty over having around a third of their population slaughtered like cattle. CobiWann posted:Good news? I'll go ahead and attribute that to the patented Maisie Williams bump.
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Oct 19, 2015 06:07
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CobiWann posted:Sorry, I get the movies confused. You see, Kevin Conroy is my Batman. This is a very right opinion, so all is forgiven. One thing I'm looking forward to in the next episode is finding out who Ash gives the second magic immortality box to. Even better if she still hasn't given it to anyone at the start of the next episode, and we see her journey towards deciding who gets it, or whether to give it to anyone at all. Bonus points if Clara dies/appears dead and the Doctor really gets his world rocked on whether to make her functionally immortal.
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Oct 19, 2015 17:37
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twistedmentat posted:They were in NYC, so its pretty safe when WW2 comes along. And Amy became a mystery writer. I think it'd be an interesting departure if a companion found something more interesting or exciting than the Doctor and left him, and we got to saw him try to cope with that. If nothing else, that could be a fun episode with the Doctor winning the companion back at the end. Like, there's not really a crazy monster or threat, it's just the Doctor vs. the idea that someone's just not that into him anymore.
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Oct 22, 2015 02:11
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The bad guys being allowed to run away after killing and drinking like a baker's dozen vikings still bugs me, so I have a few questions for those much more well-versed in Who-history than I am: 1. What are some other examples of times that the bad guy (or guys) in a Who story were able to get away with their lives after killing someone? You don't need to list all the Master/Mistress episodes, or include a "He killed a guy, but it was all an accident/misunderstanding, the alien is really nice guys seriously." situations. I'm talking outright villainous actions, followed by the equivalent of beaming up to their ship and cruising away. Also, if their hijinx didn't lead to death (or a fate worse than death) then they don't qualify for this, but they may qualify for... 2. What is the least villainous/evil action taken by a character that led to the Doctor causing his/her/its death? Obviously this includes things like the Doctor fiddling around with something to make their weapons shoot at themselves or whatever, and it includes situations where the only way to save a lot of people was to compromise the villain to a permanent end. I don't think you can include accidental deaths caused by the Doctor though, because I'm sure there's been the equivalent of a super-happy Nun that's died because the Doctor flipped the wrong switch or didn't figure out what was going on fast enough. I'm just curious what people's responses to those two questions would be.
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Oct 23, 2015 07:43
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Say what you will about Sam the swift, he has a killer five minute comedy set. Also, I got a kick out of our favorite new immortal saying "10,000 hours is all it takes to master any skill. 100,000 hours and you're the best there's ever been." It's an idea that you see toyed around with in most stories involving immortals, but it's a classic notion for a reason. In one lifetime you could conceivably become the best in the world in one area with enough practice and motivation, with near infinite lifetimes you can definitively become the best in all sorts of things, provided you aren't obscenely stupid. I can see how spending more than 11 years practicing archery (as in 11 years of time shooting at a target, not counting the time you spend eating, sleeping, etc.) cut her off from caring about humanity, to say nothing of losing loved ones, children, and the truly awful stuff that she ripped out of her diaries. I'm looking forward to seeing what else she's picked up with another couple of centuries to work with. We're definitely seeing her again with how that episode ended. NowonSA fucked around with this message at 11:27 on Oct 25, 2015 |
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Oct 25, 2015 10:55
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Cleretic posted:Well I wasn't in love with that episode, and thought it was a bit all over the place, but it was hanging on Maisie Williams' performance and she nailed it. I love that she's not even necessarily a worst-case scenario for what happens when you make a completely normal person immortal; the weight of years wore down on her, and her mind's just not built to handle it. Yeah, she's very far from a worst case scenario. It's pretty easy to imagine everything from crazed serial killer to attempted conqueror of the world. Robbing dudes, being willing to kill people who want to kill you, and building up random legends on the battlefield is pretty tame stuff. It's very easy to build up a fortune as an immortal and start looking down on ordinary humans, and we're lucky that's basically the only immortality pitfall she fell into. And yeah, Maisie rocks, but then I've basically always thought that.
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Oct 25, 2015 11:32
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I'm late to the party, but how did no one say The Vincent who lived? That's the story that should've been told  .
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Oct 30, 2015 08:11
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Sorry J-Ru, it's xenophobia all the way down. Only with actual xeno aliens this time. I can't imagine the church soldiers would be persuaded to enter by doppelgangers of family they don't actually know at all, though it is Who so anything is possible. Unless we get some impressive twists in the next episode, I think I'll have my least favorite two-parter of the season on lock after next week. Osgood's magic box is the only hope for saving this premise, and also humanity.MrL_JaKiri posted:I'm pretty sure we've seen no still-living still-free humans, yeah. Having literally no humans in the entire story would be a good enough mind-bending twist to put me back on board as well. Just Zygons frying Zygons and it somehow making sense. Good post Jakiri, good to know more about the situation in the U.K. We have a lot of the same views/issues in the U.S. as well, we freak out about your regular old illegal immigration, god forbid we actually have to take in refugees who don't have thousands of dollars to spend flying over and going through our convoluted immigration process. Appropriately enough considering the show, time is the essential component to making a parallel to horrible real-life stuff not turn people's stomach. I can watch Nazi stuff, whether factual or as a Zygon-style sendup, with a cold detachment, but the constant ISIS/terrorist referencing here bothered me as well. I liked that Units super ultra top-tier special forces were fooled by a mom who wouldn't say what her son's birthday was. Also interesting that the "disguise as family" trick was first used to prevent a drone strike (which the Doctor didn't want to have happen, and since we want everyone to like, just get along man, we don't either), and then used to wipe out their attackers face to face. Ultimately, the best we can hope for is that everyone realizes forcing Zygons to not look like Zygons is a pretty lovely thing to do to an entire race. Aside from an unfortunate New Mexico town where the humans drew FIRST BLOOD the victims have been active combatants or Zygons who didn't want to get on board the "take over the world" train.P.S.: This is the least suspenseful cliffhanger in Doctor Who history: a missile launched at the super-advanced Air Force One-level plane that the Doctor's on. I hope the pilot just takes a slight evasive maneuver, hits a button to deploy one of the 5 anti-missile countermeasures he has (flares or chaff are always fun), and all we see the Doctor do is fall around the cabin a bit Star Trek style. I thought we'd at least see the plane explode, I mean c'mon! NowonSA fucked around with this message at 07:28 on Nov 1, 2015 |
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Nov 1, 2015 07:25
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One little story beat that would have gone a long way would have been for us to actually meet a few normal Zygons just going about their business. Maybe they've been picked up by UNIT, maybe the Doctor's just gone to them for their input or by following a false lead, or maybe that's who Kate runs into in New Mexico with one little Zygon family still there cleaning up and ashamed of what the others did. Then you have those Zygons talk about how lots of them have issues with being forced to stay in another form, how the ability to shapeshift is a core freedom and part of the Zygon way of life that the Doctor just ignored. You could get really poetic with it, like "Imagine you could be anyone, you could fly through the sky or run with the Zebras (just because I want to hear that English pronunciation of Zeb-ra), and then one day you couldn't." We could see them actively denounce the actions of ZISIS, and maybe even see them do so in Zygon form so every sucker monster we see in the episode isn't evil. Meanwhile, in the "picked up by UNIT" scenario you see that hey, maybe generalizing about a group of people/aliens and imprisoning them when they've done nothing wrong isn't a cool thing to do. But two little girls who get kidnapped and killed is all you need, right? Yeah, that covers that whole perspective that is said to be the majority position of the race. Gotta have time to show those nasty Zygons frying up people and being shifty!
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Nov 1, 2015 19:43
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MrL_JaKiri posted:The Doctor didn't have anything to do with the content of the treaty though? Ah, fair point. I was more thinking about how he made them all forget whether they're human or Zygon, and it's reasonable to assume that if they're integrating Zygons into human society they'd have to do so in human (or animal) form. The best case is that he saw the treaty ordered them to permanently adopt one form and said "Yep, no problems there."
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Nov 1, 2015 23:33
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On the "they need to keep Clara around to refresh the image" front, Osgood said that Zygons no longer need to do that, so she could be either Human Osgood or Zygon Osgood. So they went ahead and kept Clara alive for ~reasons~, and given the writer I don't expect them to be good reasons.
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Nov 4, 2015 06:26
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Neddy Seagoon posted:That's only for the appearance. They still need them cocooned to keep tapping their minds for memories and knowledge. Eh, I thought they made a big deal about Zygons being able to do that remotely and whatnot. Like copying the drone pilot's family or the soldiers' loved ones, at best they're pulling that off right before they exit the church. And Osgood's point is specifically about how a Zygon can keep copying someone after the original has died, since she's saying that's what she could be doing if she's a Zygon. I dunno, I guess I just want to make sure everyone knows that amongst all the other crappy writing, you have Schrodinger's Zygon cloning abilities where they simultaneously need a human subject and are able to copy from your mind through a drone video feed.
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Nov 4, 2015 08:55
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Eiba posted:drat good Doctor Who. Well, we've got a Zygon in our midst folks. You know what to do. Get your guns, face him down, then let him kill you because he turned into your momma. But yeah, to sum up briefly why I think it was xenophobic at best and racist at worst: We saw a blatant alllusion to the Zygons as terrorists and ISIS in particular, we never saw the supposed Zygon majority's point of view beyond watching an apparently ineffectual leadership get killed, and what we did see throughout was generally poorly written so even if it wasn't meant to create that impression, no real effort was made to avoid it. Of all of the above, not seeing the peaceful majority is the biggest issue for me by far. Even 24 had some episodes where you'd see a downright nice Muslim family help Jack, or Jack torture someone who turned out to be innocent and see that torture isn't always ideal, and this was from a show made shortly after 9/11 when everyone was like hell yeah, torture all the dudes .
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Nov 5, 2015 06:29
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adhuin posted:Is everyone else reading the fifteen times like this? Ah yeah, I thought it was 15 uprisings or something at first, but that makes much more sense. It also explains why the Doctor's speech was so heartfelt and convincing (aside from it just being the Doctor), he'd been practicing it a bunch. On the other hand, he says that about her comment on how she can't forget that the boxes are empty, and that seems like the kind of thing you only realize after the Doctor's convinced you not to use the drat things anyway. By the way, kudos for coming to a far more sensible interpretation than most reviewers who literally analyze Doctor Who episodes as part of earning their daily (hy)bread. I do wonder about the Doctor's comment about thinking she'd been dead for a month though, I think we're meant to assume that it just felt like ages to him but with Doctor Who you never know  . It's certainly a notch in the theory that Clara's already dead or has gone through some crazy trauma, and we're seeing the Doctor catch up with her before it happened, but then again you can throw that theory out for any companion at any time, particularly with the whole River relationship opening the door to time-disordered shenanigans.This episode definitely didn't fix the issues with the first part, but I got a kick out of Capaldi putting a pretty bad script on his back and just carrying it all on his own to ensure there's at least one truly solid part in there. I mean, that speech had to be written too, but that was a Moffat speech if I've ever heard one, so still no credit to Harness in my mind. Jerusalem posted:On an unrelated note, anyone else think it was pretty lovely of the Doctor and Osgood to abandon that captive Zygon, the pilot and presumably the commander and whatever soldiers she had left who might have been onboard to die in the plane explosion? Again, I think that was more a matter of the writer forgetting about them once their scenes were done - Harness tackles some interesting issues which in turn get some fun discussion going, but unfortunately I think his reach exceeds his grasp. That was my first thought when that sucker blew up, like "Great the Doctor and Osgood lived, guess the pilot, crew, and soldiers are just poo poo outta luck! Chalk it up alongside the casual murder of Unit Soldiers, random humans in London being swept up by a dude, and literally an entire New Mexico town as things that just don't matter. NowonSA fucked around with this message at 05:25 on Nov 9, 2015 |
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Nov 9, 2015 05:11
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TinTower posted:Can someone please explain the "Clara is dead" theory to me? I don't get it. Someone else will post the long version, and I know they already have earlier in the thread. Basically the theory is that the Doctor has seen Clara die, but unlike when he saw Amy and Rory's gravestones and decided that it was definitely 100% impossible to see them again because shut up that's why, he's going back and having adventures with her despite knowing that she's eventually going to head to her doom. This is based on him looking at Clara slightly more wistfully than usual, him being more willing to bend or break the rules of time, and the occasional odd comment he throws out there, like how he said he spent a month thinking Clara was dead. For my money, the first episode makes a LOT more sense if the Doctor's seen Clara die right before it. He sees that, sends off his will, goes to party for about a month, makes a big scene that none of his time-traveling enemies (such as davros) can miss, and waits for one of them to show up to kill him. 11 moped on a cloud because he felt that he couldn't see Amy anymore, but she did live a full life with Rory so he was just depressed, not suicidal. The Doctor in the first episode of the season really seems to have given up on fighting and living, and so far we haven't really seen an explanation for that aside from "Davros remembers that you once left him to die." I mean, the shame could have driven him to basically giving up, and that's how the episode was framed, but you never know. We're coming up on the last few episodes of the series, and it wouldn't surprise me if Clara dies at the end of episode 10, and eps 11 and 12 show the Doctor interacting with past Clara as we've seen through the season after he gave saving her his best shot and couldn't. Missy may pop in with a new threat and claim (possibly truthfully) that she can save or did save Clara, but the Doctor won't see her again unless he stays out of Missy's way, or I dunno, Missy'll be doing something or other for sure. So yeah, this turned out to actually be the pretty drat long version. The short version is it's typical wild speculation about Doctor Who stuff. NowonSA fucked around with this message at 12:53 on Nov 14, 2015 |
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Nov 14, 2015 12:50
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Infinitum posted:Serious question is there some broadcasting law regarding firearms only being able to be fired a certain amount of times per episode? For shows aimed at kids? Yeah, it was especially blatant in this episode with them not even trying to shoot the monsters. Like, at least do literally one special effect shot where they're firing away and the sandman just repairs the holes you shoot into it, it's not that hard guys. Pretty weird episode overall, going to be interesting to see how they do a second part where they're back in present day. Edit: Oh it is a one-off, that makes much more sense. At the same time, it's kind of bullshit that the Doctor was just literally outsmarted by eye gunk that will go on to wipe out a significant portion of the human race before people realize "hey, this video really is killing everyone who watches it, lets delete it forever." Add another notch to the "Doctor talks about death and Clara in the same breath" toll too, him yelling Ngata that they wouldn't thank her for running out to die for them and then saying "Nor you Clara, to die to die." NowonSA fucked around with this message at 11:47 on Nov 15, 2015 |
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Nov 15, 2015 11:41
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Irony Be My Shield posted:While the ending was cheap I don't really mind the possibility of a future threat being left hanging. They do that occasionally (eg in Blink). I ask for so little Doctor Who, please give me this: have Clara's exit as a companion be caused by a villainous plot by the eye-gunk Sandmen. She's already been infected too, so there you go. Make it happen. But yeah, Blink was absolutely amazing and this episode was just kinda okay for me. I'd actually put Zygon Inversion above it, though Zygon Invasion remains the worst episode of the season in mind. Most of the season has been either good or great though, so there's that! Man I really wish they could have made the sleep pods deadly with something besides sentient dust. Granted everything other interesting negative consequence of removing sleep, like living nightmares and the like, has been done before, but it really bugged me to watch them run in horror from the "blind but not really blind" eye-gunk.
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Nov 15, 2015 12:00
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Aside from Clara dying from Sandmen, I'll also bump this episode way up in my rankings if Missy gives the Doctor poo poo for the time he got fooled by dust and a billion people died. Well, probably more like a million, since no matter how you dice it that movie isn't going to create all that many victims. It's clearly meant to be more a Twilight zone-y twist though where they're saying aha, I got you too television viewer!
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Nov 15, 2015 12:10
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Irony Be My Shield posted:'Rasmussen didn't want to fight The Doctor directly so he created a false narrative where he lost so The Doctor would leave' is an interesting angle as well. I think that's actually a pretty great plan. Yeah, aside from "Shoot him as soon as you see him, and never stop shooting." making him think he's won and then following through with your evil plan is probably the best way to handle The Doctor. Lots of villains try to do this, but then unveil how they've duped him while he's still there, so then of course he's going to think of a way to beat them. The closest thing to this I can think of on the top of my head is murder on the orient express, where an AI uses the Doctor and the guy behind the AI gets off Scott free. If you want an example of a pretty good 12th Doctor episode where the bad guys (mostly) win at the end, I'd put that right at the top of my list. I also just had a totally goofy Doctor Who fan idea pop into my head that I laid out below, please ignore it if that sort of thing isn't your cup of tea. I'd love to see a Moriarty-esque villain who is close to the Doctor's intellectual equal and lures the Doctor in for his own purposes. Maybe he pretends to be a good guy all along, or he just pretends to be defeated, but he uses the Doctor's presence to study the Tardis and become able to jury-rig up a basic form of time travel of his own, maybe one that has significant flaws like only being able to be used once before having to be rebuilt from scratch at wherever you end up. Basically, someone who is able to cause near Master-level carnage while still only being a human or a very smart alien, and working with very primitive technology compared to the Doctor but being ruthless in its use. Hell, we've seen the Doctor go through boatloads of time in the past, do a season finale two-parter where he locks the Doctor up, and the Doctor doesn't get rescued (and he does need to be rescued) until after he's been stuck there for a year or more. Now you've made a fresh new baddie for the Doctor to deal with and we get to hear Capaldi go off on a rant about how he had nothing to do for a year but think of ways to make the bad guy pay. I'm just using "he" as a catch all by the way, the bad person could be female, alien, robot, whatever. If you want to get really then do a story like that where he's adventuring with his new companion from the present day after Clara's departure, they have a few episodes of adventure (or most of a series if you're being really ambitious), then they're in the 1400s or something and run into the past version of the new companion, at which point the "present" version KO's the doctor, chains him up, and goes off to cause havoc in the Tardis. You could even have him drop off the "past" version in the "present" using the Tardis to set the whole thing up, basically do another Bethoven paradox deal. The endgame of this is whoever the next companion is, they need to really work to earn the Doctor's trust and he keeps getting paranoid when they're doing something as minor as making a call on their cell. If they run off with the Tardis and cause havoc, 12 could also have guilt about allowing that to happen.It's too bad Clara's been around too much to do that kind of deal with her, because she's gotten more Tardis training than any other companion I can recall and would have at least a prayer of using it on her own.
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Nov 17, 2015 07:02
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Jerusalem posted:Haha, River Song is actually what came immediately to mind for me Yeah, it'd basically be an undercover River-level talent. Oh Doctor, please save me! ~Pockets crazy Dalek tech~. Roach Warehouse posted:The details are wildly different, but to my mind that hits most of the same story beats as the Professor Yana reveal and subsequent TARDIS theft/rigging. Ah, yeah I knew there'd been something similar but couldn't put my finger on it. I mean with hundreds of episodes of course they've done "someone dupes the Doctor and steals the Tardis" before, so they might be better off with "Doctor's in chains, bad guy is causing havoc with his non-Tardis time machine." What appeals to me is doing it with a new character who isn't a Time Lord, just a once in a generation genius. The Master even did the whole "Imprison the Doctor for years" thing, although that ended up being undone. The more I think of it the more I love the idea of setting up a secretly-evil companion, and the longer it lasts the better. It'd be pretty amazing to see the Doctor react to being completely deceived and owned (well, temporarily owned) by a human as well. I'm sure they could do little clues along the way that most people only catch after the big reveal too. I rather miss them setting up big plot threads that pay off at the end of each season/series, like they did with 11, and after all kinds of crazy high stakes, world (or universe) threatening finales, a smaller-stake one where the Doctor has to deal with a very intimate betrayal by a member of his favorite race appeals to me. Imagine the reaction if this companion betrayal results in a regeneration as well, and what kind of crazy Doctor we'd get out of that  . Or if the betrayal happened in the last few minutes of a season, and we cliffhanged on a regeneration and the reveal that the lady we've all liked (and the typical audience surrogate) just broke everyone's heart. Bonus points if the companion doesn't know that the Doctor can regenerate, that'd be a bit hard to keep under wraps but it'd make for a great OH poo poo moment for the bad guy. I guess overall there's just a lot of interesting paths you could go down, and a dark companion is one of VERY few ideas they haven't explored. I doubt we're going to get the Valeyard anytime soon, this is kind of the next best thing.
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Nov 17, 2015 11:13
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Jerusalem posted:Face the gifs Good stuff as always. This really is the best way for Clara to go out, being reckless and screwing herself over. If I had to guess as to how Clara ends up with a happier ending then dead on a street, I think it'll have to do with those streetlamps projecting what you expect to see, and maybe the Doctor figures out a way to save her and amps up the streetlamps to project a full illusion. Given the show, I highly doubt that detail was provided without it being meaningful. I actually think that'd be a pretty fun regeneration episode, with the Doctor taking the death for Clara and regenerating. Then you either have Clara stepping away on her own in shock from what she forced him to do, or she sticks around and we basically get a full emo Doctor Who for awhile. No way that's how it goes down because we've gotta be getting more Capaldi though. The non-regeneration option would be a far-future Lady Me wanting to make amends and making the Doctor go back so she can take it instead. Basically it's a Steins;Gate situation where the person in the present has to see a death, but the time traveler has to fake it while saving who they want to save. Maybe the Doctor does go on most of the adventures this season with Clara after he's seen her death (though we know that at least the Viking one happened before her death) as a super-depressing way to spend more time with her, though I think that's more likely to stay just a wacky fan theory. It's hard to think of a funner way to build to the season finale than a crazy solo adventure with a grief-stricken Doctor, followed by past Clara walking into the Tardis and then TO BE CONTINUED. Overall a drat fine episode, if Capaldi was just allowed to do a full Zygon Inversion level Doctor speech to Lady Me then it would've been utterly perfect.
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Nov 22, 2015 02:08
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DoctorWhat posted:"Steins:Gate"?? Please, we call that Saving Crono. Yeah, there's certainly a fair number of examples, it wouldn't even be the first time the Doctor's done it. That's basically how the Doctor gets around River "killing" him after all.
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Nov 22, 2015 02:48
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With two episodes remaining, and no less than three deus ex machina options that could be involved in saving Clara (stasis chamber, memory-wiping drugs, perception-altering streetlamps), I am VERY confident that Clara isn't actually dead, but this event is going to be the major factor in ending her tenure as a companion. Ultimately, I think the Doctor pulls a combination of those deus ex options and time traveling back to the street to put Clara into stasis or otherwise save her immediately. Tell me it isn't a total Doctor Who thing to see the Doctor teleport out, followed by the Doctor dragging Clara into the room and saying "Don't worry, I can fix this." I see it as very plausible for the Doctor to secretly manage to swap her into that stasis chamber or save her in front of people and make them forget it, maybe after going off on other adventures happen earlier in her timestream, and ultimately figure out a way to save her. After she's saved he refuses to bring her along anymore because of how she's been behaving. If the hybrid stuff is actually building to something, maybe he puts just enough Time-Lord mojo into her to allow one regeneration. I'd still prefer it if she's kicked out of the Tardis even in that scenario though, it's been too long since the Doctor just ditched a companion instead of losing them to ~tragic circumstance~. In a perfect world, the next episode is the Doctor abducted by Missy and doing crazy things that almost lead to Gallifrey, and the finale is him deciding to give time the finger and explicitly showing that most of the season he's been traveling with Clara after he's seen her die, maybe with a quick montage, and then we get to the latest one from the Doctor's POV where he figures out how to save her during the adventure, pops back to the timeframe of "Face the Raven," and then the days of Clara and the Doctor properly end after that. Pastamania posted:Loved this episode. It's about time after a run of turds we've sat through recently, Yeah, the costuming and the dial being handed off are solid indicators that we're dealing with different timelines. It's something that's been theorized pretty much all season long, but it's also a fun little thing that hasn't really been explored. It also strikes me as a bit of an answer to the whole "Why doesn't the Doctor just meet Amy and Rory a few months later in New Jersey or wherever and arrange for some gravestones" complaint. Maybe we find out that he could have reunited with them at any time, but during their last adventure he saw Rory and Amy die one time too many. Seriously, he saw each of them die or get written out of time like, 3 times. Each. And that's not counting the times he didn't see it like in The Doctor's Wife! So he goes to mope on his cloud not because he's lost Amy and Rory forever, but because he feels like he's poison to everyone around him. Now that Clara has died, in a very sick and perverse way she became the perfect companion for him, because he knows she's going to make it out of whatever trouble they get into and doesn't have to worry as much about keeping her safe. In the past he hasn't been able to put himself through being with a companion after he knows their ultimate fate, but after whatever happens in the next episode he just decides that the mental anguish is worth it to spend more time with her and give her as full a life as he can. Lots of episodes take on further meaning and significance if he's traveling with her "out of order," but a standout for me is the Before the Flood episode, because once he sees his "ghost" name Clara as next in order he knows that he has to save her or he's REALLY broken the timestream and maybe blown up the universe with a paradox. Oh, and I think that he's going to admit what he's been doing to Clara and then drug her with Retcon to make her forget it. If they want to go for more of a depressing end for Clara, then that's going to be one of the last times the Doctor and Clara speak to each other, and she really does get shaded to death. Sorry for the extra long post this time, it was a really good episode and it really got me thinking, and I didn't want to do a double post or anything.
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Nov 22, 2015 11:08
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Neddy Seagoon posted:He can't actually get to them though. New York's spacetime around the era they got zapped to was hosed up six ways to Sunday by the Angel's constant feeding. It's more like that sneaky little bit on the Elysium when you see Eleven's suddenly got his jacket back on and tells Amy she needs to remember. Yeah, I don't expect them to commit to Amy and Rory's departure being even partly the Doctor's decision, it just would be a way to address a criticism I've seen pretty often. It could just as easily be solved with some technobabble about how since the Angels zapped them back and they were like, just in a paradox, the combined effect means that they can't board the Tardis. We've seen the Doctor be very resourceful in the past, and Eleven ends up chilling on Trenzalore for hundreds of years so waiting a bit doesn't seem like an issue. I don't think it's beyond his means to suggest that he could travel to another place in the world at a time when Amy and Rory are around, hop a plane or car to New York, find them, and pick them up. Ultimately the big takeaway is that it's really hard to just "write out" a companion unless you kill them, and even after Clara got hit with a death sentence that persists across all of space and time myself and others are expecting her to come out of it alive. Rose got shunted to a parallel universe and still came back. Donna had a "remember the Doctor and your head literally explodes" sendoff, and made another appearance. That's why I'm hopeful that the Doctor really is hopping back through Clara's timeline, because that's something he should always have been able to do with any companion and I'm hoping to hear from the man himself why he never does so, until (hopefully) now. It seems obvious that it's a combination of not wanting to change a future he's seen and it being painful to travel with someone when he knows what will happen to them, but best to hear that with solid writing and Capaldi chewing the scenery. Valeyard posted:Series 9 Episode 11 Never Forget 
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Nov 22, 2015 13:01
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The_Doctor posted:<Amy and Rory come to on an empty New York street. It is night time and raining. As they stand and look around them, a car's headlights flick on them suddenly from a distance before pulling up by them. A man gets out of the car and walks quickly towards them.> It's the Doc! He's okay! He's trapped in the past but he's okay! It really does work.
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Nov 23, 2015 01:24
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Yeah, as much as we can talk about how a writer or a producer or a showrunner is doing a bad job, very few people get to the point of being involved at that level on a T.V. show without a fair amount of talent. The few that do are always pretty noticeable, there's certainly no shortage of bad comedy shows and horribly made movies, but generally if you made it to the top echelon of the entertainment industry you know your poo poo. There's also the fact that the product they're producing can vary wildly based on how they've changed and the hundred-plus other people involved. The same guy that made The Sixth Sense made The Last Airbender, after all. Basically, sometimes you need to whip up a 50th Anniversary script in about two weeks to remind the people in charge to keep those cars full of money coming to your door.
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Nov 24, 2015 14:07
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CobiWann posted:Next up - The Doctor faces the greatest challenge of his many lives... So this makes greatest challenge/worst day #58, right? Also yeah, watch Jessica Jones, Tennant's awesome in it.
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Nov 27, 2015 06:41
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CobiWann posted:Too soon? I like that it works on multiple levels. You better step up your game J-Ru, I never would have believed it but right now I don't think you have the title of "best Doctor Who gif of the year" sewn up. At least you'll always have "Best avatar made for me" in the bag  .
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Nov 28, 2015 05:35
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I suspected what the twist was literally from the beginning, and when everything kept aligning with that I allowed myself to hope, and then yep they really went for it. I definitely had a  moment when I realized he was punching his way through the super-diamond, which I caught on to just before they showed it.So much to break down and analyze, and what a cliffhanger for the next episode! Edit: And I guess it's lucky for the Doctor that in the death-castle full of resetting rooms, only the diamond in the final room doesn't reset! I wonder what message he might have left if he knew he was creating a copy of himself as a last resort, what he'd try to convey to break the cycle, etc. NowonSA fucked around with this message at 12:06 on Nov 29, 2015 |
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Nov 29, 2015 12:01
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Fil5000 posted:That conveys the plan, doesn't help if breaking the wall proves impossible, just keeps him locked in the loop. Yeah, as something left for your copy to remember when they come up to the big ol' wall (at least, before it's got a man-sized hole punched into it) BIRD makes sense. I'm just curious what he'd have put down there if he wanted his next version to go down a different path. Maybe "no 12"?
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Nov 29, 2015 12:40
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I could see Smith or Tennant being able to perform in this episode quite well, but I don't think they would have been able to pull off the ending quite as well as Capaldi does. I actually think it would have been very fun to see Smith's young looking and mostly happy-go-lucky Doctor get serious and be shown enduring some true suffering. Instead of going into it after Clara's death, go into it after he's just been regularly outmaneuvered, and he's all jokey-jokey through like 75% of the episode, then he gets to the wall, connects the dots and gets serious. Knowing how they went with 11's character though, he totally would have just been joking it up as he was repeatedly punching a wall and dying, manic laughter aplenty.
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Nov 29, 2015 14:00
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Neddy Seagoon posted:I think Smith would've done furious as well. He was very good at dropping the smiles and jokes for quiet seething fury when he needed to. Yeah, that's how I'd of liked to have seen him handle it, there were just so many moments where he kept the smiles and jokes that I wouldn't put it past the writer/director of the episode to go that way too. I think that would have been a pretty valid approach, the Doctor unflappable and punching away smiling and laughing because he's realized a way to "win". Or some combination of fury and jokey smiles. They could've made the episode about someone trying to get him to reveal his name, since they kept teasing that during 11's tenure. I mean that ultimately built up to a decent but not amazing payoff, but I think it would've hyped us up more along the way if in the middle of a season we had this episode and we were just like drat, he'd rather go through THAT for two billion years than say his name, Trenzalore is going to kick rear end! I definitely think this has to be the best episode of the season, it's so good it's got me wanting to see other Doctors in the same situation which is always a sign of quality in my opinion. I'd love for the finale to top it though!
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Nov 29, 2015 14:15
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Astroman posted:Yeah, but like LividLiquid says, it's not a "real" room, castle, sea, diamond wall, etc. It's a construct made by the Time Lords inside a tiny device. It's basically a virtual world, so things like physics as pertains to the diamond or the skulls displacing the ocean are meaningless. Why didn't the water erode the castle? Why didn't the Doctor, mortally wounded by the monster, just regenerate instead of clawing his way up the stairs to burn himself out? Why didn't he take 2 more minutes to scrawl a larger note than "BIRD"? Along these lines, it's possible that the entire experience was a simulation that the Doctor experienced. The knowledge of one of his childhood fears and Clara's portrait could support this, although the Time Lords could just as easily have done their homework. It's much more compelling as a real thing he did in a custom-built Time Lord (or whoever made it) trap though.
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Nov 29, 2015 14:45
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Senor Tron posted:I wonder what happened in the occasional cycle when The Doctor gouged himself on a shard of glass when jumping out of the window or something similar. The entire thing was set up to create a constant situation. The Doctor always has the same memories and experiences, and he always responds the same way to the same stimuli. That stimuli (The rooms and the veil monster) never change because they're always resetting. It's a bit like re-watching a Who episode, it's always going to play out the same way. The only significant changes along the way are him noticing an increasingly large passage of time, presumably seeing more and more skulls, and the increasingly big hole in the diamond wall. To think of it another way, if you were in a groundhog day situation where you were constantly reliving the same day but you had no knowledge or memory to inform you that was the case, you'd do all the same stuff in the same way and at the same time. The Doctor just encounters enough clues to realize he is in a loop and uses that fact to beat a system that is very heavily rigged against him.
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Nov 29, 2015 15:11
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PriorMarcus posted:In the behind the scenes videos Mofffat clarifies that the entire episode is a fictional construct inside the Doctor's own confession dial. This actually doesn't surprise me at all, I suspected that they wouldn't want to pull the trigger on the ongoing Doctor being a semi-duplicate of the original. I like that Dr. Who can give us CGI and cheesy rubber suits at times, and other times they decide to copy an actor's face for a skull prop because why the hell not.If they ever cancel Dr. Who and want to go out with the Doctor dying, there's certainly room for him to do all kinds of crazy heroics while mortally wounded now that they've shown him living for a day and a half after getting all burned up.
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Nov 29, 2015 23:21
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Dabir posted:Even retroactively helps explain Ten's farewell tour. Yeah, there's been a fair number of times where he's hanging on for awhile in bad shape before regenerating, so now that's covered as well.
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Nov 29, 2015 23:37
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I also have to give Heaven Sent credit for making his return to Gallifrey feel earned. It's hard to picture a harder path to Gallifrey than two billion plus years dying and replicating yourself. I'm anticipating us finally seeing the Doctor making some stone cold "I did worse things than you can possible imagine in the Time War" decisions, only to be saved by one last Clara vision or something. I'm still holding out hope for the season to have been out of order too. He might get a limited memory wipe somewhere in the process too, since he did recognize Ashildr when he first saw her but didn't know from where.
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Dec 1, 2015 07:26
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