Doctor Who Revival S8E1 -- Deep Breath (boxed spoilers until it airs on the West Coast)

Cafe Society
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You’re a bit biased, though aren’t you? You’re probably just angling for a cabinet position in the Independent State of Eyebrows! (Am I wrong, or is this not the first time I’ve called you out on this?)

Ok, I loved it, too. Mind you, I loved Matt Smith at first, and I grew tired of him after a season, but somehow I don’t see that happening with Capaldi.

Some thoughts:

The Doctor breaks his very first promise in his new body, letting someone die immediately after vowing to protect her. Not an auspicious start for him, and I wonder how this will effect his new personality.

He flirts with a dinosaur. I kind of wish they’d kept her around for a few episodes and made her a companion. They don’t all have to be humans, you know!

Capaldi is such an amazing actor; he’s really head and shoulders above everyone else, to the extent that at times he seemed like was in the wrong show. Doctor Who’s had some fine actors, but it usually relies on an anti-naturalistic, hammy, mugging-for-the-camera style of acting. (Which is what makes this possible.) Peter Capaldi chews scenery with the best of them, and he rants and raves like a mad alien, but he seems incapable of doing so without absolute sincerity and naturalism. He doesn’t rant and rave like a mad alien in a sitcom, but like a mad alien really would rant and rave if he were standing next to you in real life.

In contrast to the above-mentioned acting, the stuntwork in this was really bad. I know Capaldi’s too old to be jumping and diving, but when you can’t even show him dangling from an elevator without cutting him off at the waist, it might be better to cut the stunts out all together. Sylvester McCoy had to dangle off a cliff by an umbrella for no reason whatsoever and still made it look more convincing than this!

For all the important dramatic resonance of the ending, why exactly did the bad guy have to die at the end again? Couldn’t he have just changed his mind about killing people for their organs? Couldn’t the Doctor have gotten him some cloned organs? The Doctor himself pointed out that the Droids (Isn’t that a Lucasfilm trademark? When did it become generecized?) weren’t wonton sadistic killers; they showed restraint and killed only when they had to. They seemed eminently rehabilitatable. Does this Doctor kill even when he doesn’t have to? Does he just enjoy murder?

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Ha!! Funny thing is I made my name after Hugo Weaving’s eyebrows in “Lord of the Rings”, but it works just as well for Capaldi! That scene had me laughing so hard!

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I really was looking forward to this, but unfortunately felt let down by the sound, leaving Capaldi barely intelligible at times.

The fight scene in the restaurant basement had no tension, and the dinosaur was completely the wrong size. Instead of quite a large animal, it was the size of Godzilla.

Did one of the characters reference the tyranosaur’s size at some point?

I’ve never watched classic Who, but if what Hamster King says about the growing T. rex in the Rani’s Tardis is true, then there has to be a connection.

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Yeah, Madame Vastra said that dinosaurs were really that size. Jenny interjects about the fossils, but Vastra corrects her and says that all the fossils we found were basically toddlers.

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My thoughts exactly.

This was definitely an interesting episode. I’m not sure I remember Vastra being such a bitch in her previous appearances, though - she’s emotionally distant to and manipulative towards her wife, treats Clara like an interloper trying to steal the Doctor from her, and generally just spends the entire episode acting like she’s better than everyone else. And the idea of her having such an open relationship with the police is just bizarre, though it did make for one of the better comic relief lines in the episode; “She called the police? Why don’t we ever do that? We should start!”

I did like the ambiguity that they never showed whether the clockwork robot jumped or the Doctor pushed him - it looks like the Doctor’s moral compass is going to be a big part of this season’s arc.

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My thoughts:

  1. Big thumbs up for the new opening title graphics. Big thumbs down for the new opening title music. I’m sure I’ll get used to it, but right now there’s better fan stuff on YouTube, IMO.

  2. Big thumbs up for Capaldi. I’ve been a fan of his from his Malcolm Tucker days on The Thick of It, and I’m sure he’ll be a massive success. He’s got great comic timing and the absolutely crucial ability to go from silly to serious in the blink of an eye. He definitely doesn’t disappoint in this episode.

  3. Big thumbs up as well for Jenna Coleman. I must admit I’ve never really liked Clara, but I wasn’t entirely sure why until this episode. Previously, each companion has gone through a well defined, and, IMO, very important, character arc during their first few episodes. First there’s enthusiasm, then doubt, then fear, then serious second thoughts, then reconciliation…or something like that. They don’t always go through every step, and when they do it’s not always in that order, but there’s always some kind of arc to let viewers know that the companion is well aware of what he/she’s getting into. With Clara, it always felt like they just jumped straight to stage 5, without anything leading up to it. Thus, the relationship between Clara and Matt Smith’s Doctor always felt kind of forced, and I kept wondering “Why do these two care about eachother so much?”**

In ‘Deep Breath’, it felt like a fresh start. The rapport they have with eachother feels real and it makes a huge difference. Of course, it also helps that she actually had something to do for once :slight_smile:

  1. They really need to hire a decent fight co-ordinator. Maybe they could get the guy who did The Raid? :slight_smile:

  2. Not very intrigued by Missy and the paradise bit. It’s pretty obvious to me, for reasons stated by other posters upthread, that she’s supposed to be the Rani. I’d love to be proven wrong, and even if I’m right I’m sure Moffat will do something characteristically inventive with her, but I never thought she was a very good villain in the Classic series so I’m not particularly enthused about her now.

That said, and I’m spoilering this bit because it’s for the benefit of impatient fans like me who couldn’t wait and saw the leaked episodes:

Have you noticed that not everyone who dies ends up in “Paradise”, and there’s a very tenuous (but interesting if it continues) link between those characters who do?

  1. The reveal in the restaurant was bloody brilliant! It was, however, somewhat marred by the inappropriately timed humour. The line about the children’s menu totally broke the mood, IMO.

  2. I also liked the uncertainty about whether or not the Doctor pushed the robot out of the balloon.

Overall, 8 out of 10. A very good start, and I’m looking forward to next week.
**[sub]The big exception here is Amy Pond, but Moffat’s (IMO absolutely ingenious) ‘Girl Who Waited’ origin story allowed him to circumvent this traditional arc in her case.[/sub]

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Personal preference, but that was one of the worst parts to me. I’m not a fan of that style of writing - if you’re going to show us a scene, show it to us.

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My 15 year daughter is a huge Doctor Who fan. We’ve been watching episodes over the past few months with various Doctors, and to be honest I’ve never gotten “in” to it. She likes it when I watch episodes with her, so I do it.

So last night I took her to Grandview Theatre in Columbus to watch the season premiere. I was expecting to be bored as usual. But I was blown away; this is nothing like the other shows. The acting was much better compared to any other episode I’ve watched. Of the dozens of Doctor Who episodes I’ve watched (with five different Doctors), Capaldi is the first Doctor I actually like.

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I think they deliberately did a lot of putting conversations the writers want to be having with the audience into the mouths of the characters, with Clara being an avatar of all the fangirls and Vastra being an avatar of the writers. “Why is he so old and weird now?” vs “you know, he was never really your boyfriend”.

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I thought the Rani was a great villain who was horribly wasted in the classic series. Most Who villains are driven by a desire for power, but the Rani wants *knowledge *and is ruthlessly amoral in her pursuit of it.

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Oh, and here’s the scene at the end of The Mark of the Rani where a T-Rex embryo experiences accelerated growth inside her tardis.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xrga9a_mark-of-the-rani-2-of-2_shortfilms&start=2437

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I think I’m over the show.

I grew up with the classic series, and I’ve watched the reboot from the start. But I’ve been finding myself increasingly bored over the last few seasons, and I don’t think Capaldi is going to rescue the show for me.

The slapstick stuff is boring. If there was a slapstick moment every few episodes, that’d be fine, but every five minutes and it’s just dull. They’re repeating every storyline. Next week: Daleks. Yes, every few episodes, the Doctor wipes out the Daleks, and a few weeks later: oh, look, more Daleks. Or the bloody Cybermen. Or, amazing, Daleks AND Cybermen, bet you didn’t see that one coming…

I really don’t find myself caring any more. Too much CGI, too much fake excitement, the same stories over and over again, a distinct lack of imagination. That’s what made the classic series great: imagination, ideas, good writing. That’s what made up for the cheap sets and crap makeup.

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And of course, we all held our breath when our heroes were trying to escape the clutches of the clockwork people to see if we would be able to hold out as long, right? I couldn’t resist. I noticed that Clara’s crying did not appear to tip off the clockwork people as to her humanity, but I suppose it’s entirely possible that they had already secured some functional tear ducts.

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I thought about it, but I was on the exercise bike at the time and decided that I was in more danger by not breathing. Luckily there were no clockwork-types in the house at the time.

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You have to have a reason to like spontaneously-combusting tyrannosauruses?

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All three of the winning entries of Blue Peter’s design contest for kids were used:

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Guys, I’m not sure about this, but I think Vastra and Jenny might be married. If only the show would tell us this bluntly and repeatedly every scene they’re in instead of clearly writing them so that it’s obvious that they love each other like it’s doing now.

Wait…

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What do you want? Overt displays of affection? They’re British! Just because they are an inter-species intra-gender couple doesn’t mean that Victorian standards of conduct do not apply. :slight_smile:

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How exactly do a woman and a bipedal sapient reptile from the dawn of time contract a same-sex marriage in Victorian London, anyway?

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I thought so too. I found it to be funny and clever, tho! I like the idea of a “connected” show + audience.

Liked the inclusion of the Blue Peter designs too. I hadn’t heard about that.