Well, that was fun! Stephen Fry makes amusing head of MI6 (should have used the Melchett voice), and after a moment, I recognized Lenny Henry (a man who has played the Doctor in non-canonical sketches) too. The new actor playing the <Big Spoiler> was very good too. Looking forward to seeing how it ends on Sunday.
I loved the James Bond-ish premise, I loved the twists and turns that kept me guessing, I loved the music, I loved the deliberate effort to involve the whole cast a lot more than just trailing around like sad puppies, I loved Lenny Henry’s performance in particular. If they can keep this up in the second part, it’s a winner for me.
I know a lot of old-school Whovians have dropped off since the last series, maybe even before, but I am not an epic Who fan, just a dogged and faithful one, and so far I haven’t had any reason to leave. I like Thirteen and am enjoying Chibnall’s run so far.
And Sacha Dhawan (O) is easy on the eyes, too.
I kept thinking “he looks like a young Lenny Henry” and then it turned it was actually Lenny. Fella’s looking trim for his age!
Great stuff I thought - the Bond touches were great, and The Doctor at the card table totally cracked me up. And the reveal!
I forgot “The name’s Doctor. The Doctor”
In the words of Mr. Horse from Ren and Stimpy: “No sir, I didn’t like it.”
Well, I absolutely loved the Doctor’s new coat. But that was about it. Here’s what I wrote on my Facebook page last night after finishing watching it:
I had the same problem with this ep as I did with most of the previous season. I love the new Doctor, but I’m not loving the fact that the writers don’t seem to be brave enough to let her be the Doctor. I don’t tune in for “The Companions Hour featuring The Doctor.” I want to see her, and above all, I want to see her being the sharpest person in the room. I want to see her solving the problems, figuring out the puzzles, and being brave and resourceful. I don’t want half the episode to be devoted to what her three buddies are up to, and especially not their soap-opera personal lives. They’re nice people and all, but I don’t like them nearly as much as I like her. Frankly, I think she needs to lose at least one of them. I don’t care which one–I don’t dislike any of them as individuals–but there are just too many of them.
Also, the big reveal fell flat for me. To paraphrase an old quote: “I knew the Master. And you, sir, are no Master.” I loved Missy, and I miss her a lot. This guy, who just seemed full of rage and not much else, didn’t hold a candle to Missy or John Simm.
Not really a fan of the new TARDIS, either. I really dug Twelve’s version, and this one looks like a big ol’ radioactive spider died and went legs-up.
So yeah, not one of my favorite episodes. The weird monsters were cool and I’m looking forward to finding out what’s up with them, but dammit, give me my Doctor back. Let Jodie be the Doctor, not Doctor-by-Committee.
Yep. They gave The Master a wonderful story arc, and a great finish to his character. Bringing him back is a horrible thing.
What game was she playing?
I think she was at a Blackjack table. She, on the other hand, though she was playing Snap.
I thought it was the best episode for this character so far.
Refresh my memory, please. I do remember that Missy was killed by John Simm’s Master, and I do remember thinking that it was permanent—no regeneration, no coming back from this one. But I don’t remember exactly why I thought so. Was there a reason given for this being a perma-death?
Overall, I liked the episode, but I do agree with some of the criticism—giving all of the companions something to do kinda smothers the narrative, and we need to see some focus on the character of the Doctor sometime soon. She’s been shown to have a somewhat more hands-on engineering approach to things, like getting under the ‘hood’ of the Tardis in this episode, and I like that, but they’ve not really built on it—this episode in particular, she’s seemed sorta helpless when pointing her sonic at things didn’t work (with the ‘alien spies’, or with the bomb on the plane). I’d like to see this engineering bent as really singling her out, being used to outsmart her foes.
Also, while the devotion to an overall Arc has sometimes hurt the individual episodes of a series, I’d like to see some general direction returning.
I didn’t really like it, because:
-
Too many companions. One needs to be killed off. This was also a major problem with the last season.
-
Too many lame jokes. Unlike Steven Moffat, who was also a successful sitcom writer before helming Dr. Who, Chris Chibnall just isn’t that funny. Also, this TARDIS crew don’t really seem to have particularly good comic timing. That said, I did laugh at the ‘Snap!’ gag.
-
They brought the Master back too soon. They should’ve given the character a rest for a few seasons.
5/10
I believe there was dialogue to that effect. But coming back from seeming irrevocable death is kind of the Master’s thing. Way back in classic era Who, he reached the end of his regenerations, but kept on living just because. He’s stolen bodies from a couple of poor shlubs. He’s bargained with the Time Lords for a new set of regenerations. Permanently killing the Master just can’t be done, no matter what the dialogue of any given episode might say.
And it’s not just the Master, really. How many times, in various comic books and SF series, have we seen “No, he’s really truly dead. This time for sure!”, and then the character turns up alive again after all. Just roll with it, it’s part of the genre.
Okay, here’s the embarrassing part of my post. I don’t “ship” characters. I find shippers, in general, to be incredibly annoying. I especially don’t like the idea of the Doctor having romantic relationships (hated the whole Rose Tyler true love thing).
That said, I am totally shipping the Doctor and Graham. :smack:
Yes, that’s one of the things that bugged me the most about this episode - when she got to the bomb on the plane, it was sonic-proof, and she just kind of threw up her hands and said, “I don’t know what to do!”
This Doctor has glimmerings of greatness, but it seems like everybody is afraid to let her really shine.
She has a tough shell but Graham will crack her?
Go to your room and think about what you’ve done!
What others have said here is the same for me.
[ul]
[li]Love Jodie as the Doctor. Want her to shine.[/li][li]I don’t dislike any of the companions but it’s too much as the writers keep using them too much. [/li][li]I want her to be the smartest in the room. The Snap thing, which I didn’t recognize, seems to prevent that, not help it. [/li][li]I know they have always had a loose association with science, at best, but not getting any readings really annoyed me. Say it’s an unknown configuration. Say she doesn’t know why the unstable <technobabble> manages to stay coherent. Say that the readings don’t make sense until she does <technobabble> on the sonic. But no readings on something that is visible makes no sense to me.[/li][li]I agree that the big bad was coming back and wanted the previous person in that role. I didn’t mind who it was but wasn’t done with the previous actor. [/li][li]I guess I keep wanting a mystery from my shows where if you look back, you can see the clues left, instead of a big reveal out of nowhere.[/li][/ul]
I felt like Moffat wrote great moments but not great stories and never concluded them well. I don’t think Calpaldi got anywhere near the scripts he deserved and could have done. Now I’m afraid the same will happen to Jodie.
I’m going to keep watching, of course! But I do have to pick my nits somewhere.
Thanks for the discussion!
Piling on …
Complaint one. They are writing her absent of essential Doctor features. There is alway a bit of arrogance and self-aggrandizement to the character and not only being the smartest in the room but a need to demonstrate it. She is being written as a nice person who things happen to. And the things she does actively do are without any apparent plan. What was the point of being at the party? To play off some Bond tropes maybe but nothing that was a good plan on her part? Of going up to Barton at the party and telling him that you know what he is up to? Just a reason to have a chase scene? The Doctor has reasons.
Complaint two. “Oh no my sonic doesn’t work, well then I am at a loss!” is not a Doctor reaction. This Doctor is written like someone who happens to have great technology and is at a loss if the technology fails, not someone whose mind and character are the critical superior tools. (Okay kind of overlaps with one.)
Complaint three. Maybe there’s a way to make a team of companions work but they are not doing it. I do NOT want more Companion puppy dog eyes but there needs to a a strong relationship dynamic between the Doctor and … them … there. Donna was a great example. This team of companions just isn’t delivering fun characters or fun character dynamics.
Complaint four. Missy was too wonderful of a character and her arc too good to piss on like I’m feeling this is doing. I don’t care if this is that Missy was able to regenerate again after all or a version that was between regenerations that we have not known existed, let the character rest a bit and be creative enough to come up with a new Big Bad. Missy was too tough of an act to follow so soon.
They’re relying on the screwdriver way too much. Everything gets scanned, either like a tricorder to read data or to manipulate objects. It’s so damn lazy. The Doctor should be able to work through things with reasoning, logic, and even intuition.
This Doctor still has not exercised her authority or superiority. She doesn’t seem to be in control of what’s happening. No clever plans, no deception, no watch my left hand as my right hand does this.
They have a damn fine actor in Jodie Whitaker, and they’re just wasting her.
Call me shallow, but I believe that the Doctor is supposed to be a badass. I mean, if there’s one thing we’ve learned over the years, it’s that in all of space and time, the absolute last person you want to fuck with is the Doctor. They are the Oncoming Storm. And whether it’s the writing or the acting, I’m just not getting that from Whitaker.
Take the scene in the runaway car at the beginning, and think how any other Doctor would have handled it. Eccleston, Tennant or Smith would have looked like they were enjoying it just a bit. Capaldi would have looked pissed off. But Whitaker? Whitaker just looked scared. That’s not the Doctor.
They are deliberately not making the Doctor the “oncoming storm” because that got unwieldy and a crutch. All of your complaints are also where it went wrong under Davies and Moffat, because the Doctor became a myth instead of a person.
It’s not really meant to be a series for the old-school fans, it’s moved on and begun again. They’re trying to reset for a new generation (and a new regeneration, ha), to give them something to work up from. Start small, develop a dynamic, then explore and expand.