I'm impressed with this episode: Historical with sci-fi twist, which in my opinion the best so far. And a pretty suspenseful episode too.
Worst episode by far.. I really hope we found the bottom here and that all others are better. I've loved the season so far but this episode reached a new low.
It just didn't make sense. The aliens introduce themselves and instantly the Doctor just knows that smoke from the tree is toxic and the prison can be fixed with a simple piece of that tree and poof everything is great again.. Even the effects were bad. The most toe-curling though, was King James. This guy -who played Nightcrawler in XMen 2 like a boss- got a stupid kids-comedy kind of role bordering to slapstick goofiness. Really, walking into a rake would have been fitting for his character.. Bad episode!
I'm scared for the next episode. it's written by Joy Wilkinson too.
no more historical episodes please. never thought I say this, but I'll even miss matt Smith.
I wish Doctor Who would present itself as serious. It doesn't have to be silly or absurd all the freaking time. They've got a likable cast and Doctor but it's just so..... Ugh.
A slightly panto Doctor Who episode. It's fine. But I've been disappointed all series because I was hoping that the weird childish-serious tone that Moffat introduced with Matt Smith, rather than the playful-serious tone of R.T.D. with Eccleston, would go away under Chibnall, but instead it feels like a more distilled version of Moffat, where serious and legitimate problems affecting humanity are presented but whimsily and above water for kids. I'm in my late twenties, and R.T.D. feels more relatable now than Moffat and Chibnall have throughout their productions. R.T.D. treated us teens like adults, and then Moffat and Chibnall came round and progressively infantilized the narrative and fantasy so that we couldn't really grow up with it, which has been an uncomfortable aging-backwards, often patronizing experience. I can only imagine that at some point the show will be properly Disneyfied by the B.B.C., return to R.T.D. levels of adult narrative and fantasy, or be cancelled.
This was a tough one. A few part were really good and a few were not so good. Alan Cumming who I normally find brilliant was less than as King James. I first gave it a 6, then a 7. I would have gone 6.5 if I could have.
I somehow miss the cheer and blissful past Doctor Who usually portraits.
It seems the in my opiinion way too many historical episodes are all dark and grimm. Where is the brilliant characters?
King James was just portraied as a fanatic idiot... Even Victoria who banned the Doctor from the Realm was portraied in a better Light than him. (And I really don't like Victoria)
Do we really need a reminder on why religion is evil? Yes, the greatest atrocities in history were commited in the name of gods.
And it'd be nice if dunking had been the worst, the church had invented in the name of it.
And the comment about being patronized was a bit uncalled for.
Yes, it happened and yes it still does. But one might think you'd know you'll get patronized in most past times when being a woman.
But who gives a fuck when you can get drowned to "see if you are a which" at any given time? Seriously who?
It was an okay episode but pretty generic. I liked the king James character and his conversation with the doctor when she was tied up, and i liked the evil woman's involvement in the episode, but not much else interesting was going on. I liked the doctor's gender being brought up.
It's hard to get a read on 13, especially since she hasn't really been tested yet, or more specifically her morality.
With more companions, there's more chance for something bad to happen to them. She doesn't care about that. The companions don't understand the true danger of traveling with the doctor, and the doctor partially knows that, she partially knows more than other doctors about warning the companions about the danger. Which she did in the beginning, and to her that was it, that's all that was necessary to warn them, and then anything that happens to them was their own responsibility. Partially hers yes she would think, but also partially on them. It gives her less guilt than previous doctors if anything happens to the companions. So she's learned from past experience, but i think it's kind of in the wrong way.
She's more fun loving than 12, but she's taken some of his compassion, and she's taken from previous doctors the desire not to be alone, but this time it's currently even stronger than the others, as she's taken three companions.
We haven't seen her be very angry though or have moments of darkness like previous incarnations. She's much more lighthearted. I do like it. She's also passionate about wanting people to change and to do good.
Even when that woman said she'd go after her friends, she didn't react with anger or darkness, but shock, she was confronted with evil, and she seemed a bit unused to it. I think this incarnation wanted to leave a lot of the previous darkness and melancholy behind.
There's more confidence with her too. Yeah maybe she's a bit more socially awkward, but she has more confidence in the adventures. She's lived so long and kept on surviving against everything, so she takes a lot more in her stride. Though i'd like to see her more of that old doctor darkness and wisdom sometimes.
I want to know what's special about this doctor and the companions.
In the Moffat era the doctor felt like an alien superhero, and the companions were important to doctor and to the plot.
In the RTD era the doctor felt like a heroic alien with his weird and wonderful time machine, until we slowly learned the true price to pay for all that adventuring. His companions felt like real, likeable people but unique in their own way, chosen by the doctor because they proved themselves.
That's it. All the best companions felt like they proved themselves to be there, or were destined to be there.
Where in this season is the magic? Mystery? Depth?
In the second episode of the show, they go to the year 5 billion. That's insane! And we have moments of depth as they stare at the Earth and talk about what the Earth and humanity has become. That is depth. Along with talking about how far Cassandra had fallen, and when that tree person got killed when sacrificing herself, and we saw the despair of the doctor trying to save her after they had got to know each other a bit. Where is all that depth in this season? I can only remember it in the Rosa episode, and that's it, and a deep bit of conversation in this episode between the doctor and James.
The depth i described was in the second episode of the show, and it just kept getting better from there.
At this point, we should be getting fantastic episodes commonly. Or great ones. Or at least consistently good ones. But no, for me there's only been one or two good episodes in the whole season so far.
In episode 4 and 5 of the 1st season, we saw an alien invasion of Earth, and we saw what was happening from the street level to the top levels of government. We saw the event happening on television and how it affected the whole country and how people thought about aliens. In episode 4 of this season we get a similar thing with creatures taking over, but this time it was a hotel and a few houses, and it was all dealt with swiftly with most people not knowing what happened.
In episode 6 of the 1st season we had a very deep exploration of the doctor's morality and that of the daleks, and their interesting interactions with each other, and the daleks being the doctor's oldest enemy. It was just brilliant. Where is that kind of depth this season?
In this season we had an episode about Yaz's past, in which she is hardly involved and hardly affects things, and the aliens are just some random monks that don't do anything.
There's no ambition now in the stories, characters and science-fiction. It's been replaced with trying to do political messages, of which they've been mixed. Some are good, while others have historical revisionism which undercut the message or are just wrong. Even Kerblam was a capitalism affirming episode. They focus on how tedious and unfulfilled the work is, and then at the end they say they're going to get more human workers instead of robots, and everyone is fine with that. Eh?
In the first season we went back to the past to visit Rose's dead father. We saw her character be so affected that she broke time itself to see him, talk to him, to save him from his death, as she hadn't yet learned what breaking time does, but she learned that episode. She learned the cost of death and interfering with time, and we saw the relationship develop between her and her dad and it was emotional for us and for her, and then to lose him again. This seasons equivalent episode doesn't even come close to that kind of emotional depth at all, and the creatures were more interesting than the "observer" former assassins.
I could go on and on and on.
Why not just look at what the past seasons and best episodes did incredibly well, and emulate that? Just generally? Just take them as a guide or outline about what you should be aiming for and the kind of success you can achieve? Instead, you have this mess of a season, which is probably the weakest in the whole show. It's baffling how you can mess up so much.
Was there any real reason why The Doctor had to insist that those creatures were aliens? Like, I get clarifying that for the audience, but for the 17th century people she should have kept with the explaination of witchcraft and Satan so that the people WHO DON'T EVEN HAVE TELESCOPES YET could understand and come to terms with it.
Why DOES the lassy speak of commerce?
Historical episodes seem to be the big deal this season and I can't help but find some kind of pattern in them. It's as if the BBC is trying to teach us more then just a small glimpse of history.
I'm not sure it's a good thing... It might be. Let's hope it is. I can only take this much politics in my free time.
Shout by ladysherlockianBlockedParentSpoilers2018-11-25T19:32:51Z
The idea seemed interesting, but on the whole the episode is full of rather silly absurdities. "The monster of the week" turns out to be rather disappointing and outright ridiculous. There are some good moments, such as the Doctor's comments on the plight of women in the times of king James I, the more personal scenes such as her conversations with Willow are quite emotional, but the end of the episode falls flat. I am really disappointed by "Doctor Who" episodes, sadly, it is the case with this particular story.