This episode had a story for maybe 30 minutes, but the producers thought they had to make a Christmas special so they extended it to whole 55. Awful, atrocious pacing, I was bored for more than half of it, and then the "action" scenes were chaotic but somehow not engaging at all. This episode never felt like Doctor Who, from camera work to editing and cuts, plus the CGI was completely off.
Ruby is a poor version of Rose Tyler, but without any depth, emotion or sincerity. She looks like a character amazed by the existence of velcro. The new Doctor has something in him, but it's early days for making conclusions on him, his personality needs to be developed more, preferably beyond generic sassy and quick-footed fellow who talks too much for the sake of talking.
If the writing remains crap, potentially great actor could be ruined just like Jodie Whittaker was. Not holding my breath for better days unfortunately, I got nostalgia kick back with Wild Blue Yonder and now we're going back to dull reality I presume. This is not the opener which can get people excited for new season and new Doctor.
Dreadful episode to cap off a dreadful season. Awful storywriting, glaring holes, annoying developments and plain lack of imagination on part of the writers.
Not bad by any means, but it looks more like a half-baked university student attempt than a polished high budget episode. It's filled with lots and lots symbolism, you gotta give this episode that. Nobody is innocent in this game and the real bosses are behind the scenes. I'm a big fan of moving the plot back to 2006, also a big fan of music choices
Completely twisted, goes completely beyond the notion of "liking it" or not. I don't even know why I wanted to comment because at the moment I've got nothing to say.
I liked it, but as many commenters already said, it's not really Black Mirror type stuff and the episode misses something. The pacing is off, first half is just too slow and the latter part is not that novel. If the end emphasised a bit more the contrast between one man's sorrow (well two mens', because there's Stuart's dad also present at the end) and commercial success of Davis's film and tourism in Loch Henry, the feel would be much more fuller.
Dark, fun, horrific, serious, liberating - absolutely brilliant episode, I am rarely amazed by anything, including films and TV shows, but this has left me grinning of how simple and complex and slick it is, all at the same time.
I mean they hired Salma Hayek to play as her own virtual version in a virtual world that's depicting a virtual TV show universe.
Moral of the story: don't be a tech nerd whose CGI image would be Michael Cera and watch where your data goes. It's not like we mere mortals can do much with AI and deepfakes (well, there's maybe an axe?)
It's unbelievable how little imagination and ideas creators of this show have. Boring, stale, not even too much cliches, it's just awful, uninteresting storywriting. The character of Caleb had potential (although the concept of him was plagiarised like many things in this series, you may heard of the original one, he's called Travis Bickle), but season 3 is managing to be worse than 2.
The whole season is a proof that creators of the show didn't have any idea what to do after they finished with season 1, filling given number of minutes with almost unrelated, standalone episodes (which were in the end the best thing about this failed season).
The whole "host as a new species" concept (as well as the internal dialectics between Dolores and Wyatt) had so much potential, but when fifth rate Hollywood clowns grab the best of ideas, they turn them into a forgettable past-time, but with high budget visuals. Character of Man in Black is written appalingly, character of Akecheta completely wasted, Teddy's "path" couldn't be written by a lazier person, I don't understand how can a production grab so many actors of the highest profile and not utilise that coup, but lose themselves in "hah! I'm more clever than viewers" idiocies.
But I guess this is what happens when pretentious wanker like JJ Abrams has his fingers in a show. Stop giving this man so much power and money to spend ffs, he's singlehandedly ruining TV series as a medium and as a form of art.
This episode, like the whole show, is cliche central. Apart from all the casual, but persistent racism and moral relativism, this show, which is especially present in this episode, has dubious motivation of characters, which are copy-pasted and cliched on their own, and starking jumps quintessential for Hollywood C production of the 70s.
And remember, if you want something from someone, and you can't hack them, just get into bed with them, this works every time, even when you're socially awkward nerd who has no communication skills. Is there someone in this show who's not completely desperate?
