You know what, I’m sticking with my opinion. Even if it isn’t those specifically, I’d like to see some familiar villains back. Who wants to see a Batman reboot with no Joker?
:raises hand:
At least with Doctor Who. I don’t want the Daleks or Cybermen to ever appear again.
There’s a very real likelihood that the New Year’s episode will have a returning villain. But nobody seems to know for certain which it is, they’ve managed to keep a lid on it very successfully, and it may be a bait-and-switch and be another new villain after all.
The Vashta Nerada would be a great choice. The Doctor said in Silence in the Library that they existed on every planet.
Why was I denied 9th Century Saxons throwing down against a Dalek? WHY? OK, that was cool and fun: loved the home-made Dalek casing, and nice to see the Doctor being the Doctor. A bit much soap opera and not enough Saxons vs Dalek, but a fun watch.
A rather disappointing effort in the New Year’s episode, I thought. Yet another Dalek episode (possibly driven by legal requirements, as speculated elsewhere) which I could have done without, but at least this one managed to be menacing. Ryan’s Dad turned out to be more interesting and well-developed than I expected - and Ryan actually demonstrated some emotions! Who knew this was possible? The Brexit joke was fairly heavyhanded but was at least useful for explaining why UNIT weren’t involved. Chekhov’s Microwave/Oven (which really needed a “third kind of heat”) came in handy as expected. It was all fairly standard Doctor Who fare.
That said, I found the “Let’s slice up the Dalek, bury him only about a foot deep in faraway lands and force generations to sit next to it” approach (which makes you wonder how they managed to have descendants, as “sitting next to a hole all the time” would tend to hinder one’s dating life) a bit weird and pointless. And where the episode really went full-tilt into T3h Stoopid was the ending (here be spoilers, FWIW). The Doctor’s big plan was “open the door to the vacuum of space and hope the octo-Dalek gets sucked off Ryan’s Dad’s back without Ryan’s Dad going out too”? Really? That was the best plan she could come up with? I suppose it was necessary to give us Ryan’s big “I need my dad” speech but otherwise it was idiotic from an in-story viewpoint.
The question I kept asking throughout the episode, every time the Dalek mentioned summoning the “Dalek fleet” was: is there a Dalek fleet? The Dalek fleet seems to get wiped out with some regularity and at last check the Daleks were having a bit of difficulty. The one buried on Earth would have no knowledge of all the battles that had gone on during its absence. I half expected the Dalek to send out the message only to discover that there was no one there. Furthermore, when the Doctor volunteered to take the Dalek to the fleet, she did so in a goddamn time machine. Why not drop it off with the fleet just in time for one of the many times they got slaughtered (such as when Rose disintegrates the entire fleet in “The Parting of the Ways”)? That would have been more sensible, interesting and fitting than the “selective space vacuum” approach.
Overall I think Chibnall is more interested in character development than sci-fi storytelling, which is why the best scenes in the episode were between Graham and Aaron and the conversation in the café (and the opening conversation between the two researchers). Once again the alien invasion seemed to be the vehicle for these scenes rather than these scenes fleshing out the main alien storyline.
Heartily agreed. From the illustrations it looks like they managed to get it tied down, but HOW? :eek: Show me the berserkers, Chibnall!
Anyway, for a Dalek episode that was pretty damned good, I thought. Proper body horror too - reminiscent of Sarah-Jane and Donna having alien lifeforms clinging to their backs.
Excellent ep.
Be there stupid? Of course. But with a good story and good characters well played I don’t notice or care.
The thing that keeps bugging me is that none of the Muggles seem to have any idea of what the TARDIS or the Doctor are. Okay, she looks different now, but the big blue box has been in the news enough during Ten, Eleven, and Twelve’s runs that the average person (especially in the UK) should recognize it. Did I miss a mass amnesia spell or something?
Was there a Dalek fleet to summon in the first place? In my opinion the Doctor didn’t know, but she wasn’t going to take a chance.
Is U.N.I.T. disbanded? I think they have gone deep underground and taken all the alien/other-dimensional artifacts with them. There is no way Kate Stewart or Petronella Osgood would let such secrets be handed over to just anybody.
Good point.
“Pending review”, IIRC, but you’d expect them to secure as much of the dangerous stuff as much as possible against political numptyism.
The Black Archive is below the Tower of London, iirc? The current reigning descendant of Queen Victoria will keep it safe if so.
But does that solve the problem? As far as I can tell, the only reason our heroes don’t just Ex-Ter-Min-Ate that Dalek is because it’s on that guy’s back; taking both of them to a time of imminent slaughter will — yes, sure, granted, kill the Dalek; but won’t it also kill the guy it’s piloting?
I don’t see that it can readily shed that guy while still in the TARDIS; it can then be killed straightaway like I was just saying. So, what, just watch as it puppeteers that guy into walking off the TARDIS and then — uh, hope? But if you suction it off of him and into space, you’ve killed two birds with one stone.
[David Tennant]
Waaaaall, killed one but not the other, t’be precise; sort of the point, really.
[/David Tennant]
I mostly enjoyed the episode, but you’d think people would know what a Dalek looked like by now.
This part is very inconsistent. It’s seemed to me that they’re very much “sneaking around” all through 13’s tenure so far, when the fact that there are aliens and such has been well-known in past seasons (for instance, with Voyage of the Damned, where everyone (in Britain, anyway) KNOWS that Christmas is dangerous because of alien invasions). Not only is the Doctor known to the public, he’s been instrumental in taking down governments (“Don’t you think she looks tired?”) and contributing to Earth’s official defenses (the whole invasion arc in Capaldi’s last season). But it’s like the Doctor, the TARDIS and the Companions are totally anonymous and unknown this time around.
She dropped him off at Skaro, I think, just after the Seventh Doctor’s boobytrapped Hand of Omega went off (hence supernova).
The bit with Lin horrified in front of the mirror was pure horror, and bonus points for not sexing it up: her possession shown as vile, intrusive and terrifying, and the Dalek was a nasty slithery little shit for seeming to enjoy it. Mind you, now Lin is going to have to do a fair amount of explaining to Plod.
That creepy smile Lin had when the police pulled her over seemed very much a Dalek smile.
I was gonna nitpick about berserkers being Danes rather than Saxons, but since Sheffield was later under the Danelaw and Jorvik is only an hour up the road, having Danes and Saxons set aside their differences to trash a Dalek would have been fucking awesome. Dropped the ball on that one, Chibnall.
It’s literally in the script of the episode that various unlikely rivals grouped together to defeat the enemy! 