So I guess next episode the Doctor dies for real, huh? Good on Moffat for finally going through with that (yeah, I know the episode wasn’t written by him).
And Clara in the beginning felt somehow off to me—a little too ‘I want an adventure!’-bouncy.
I liked Capaldi’s Doctor well enough last season, but enjoy the added on excitability these past few episodes; I just hope he doesn’t end up overcompensating.
Not much of a fan of the sonic sunglasses so far, though I applaud the decision to get rid of the screwdriver, it’s just too often been used as a deus ex machina. Maybe instead of one virtually all-purpose gizmo they could give him a couple of gizmos for specific situations, with well-defined uses he’s got to apply cleverly? Maybe something he doesn’t always carry, so that we’d get some moments of having to make do without the thingamabob?
But all my crotchetyness aside, I thought that was a pretty damn good episode, and if this beginning is any indication at all for the rest of the season quality-wise, it seems we’re in for a treat.
Maybe not - it wouldn’t be the first time Sexy Thing took him someplace he didn’t expect to be. Heck, sometimes he just pulls the lever and lets her decide where to go.
Well… except Four looks and sounds completely different than Twelve?
In “Genesis of the Daleks”, the first time the adult Davros meets the Doctor and the second time he meets him in Davros’s timeline, the Kaleds and Thals don’t know that there is intelligent life on other planets, in fact, they don’t that is even possible. They certainly don’t know about Time Lords or Gallifrey. The first time Davros meets the Doctor, in the hand mine field, the Doctor never says “by the way, I’m an alien”. All young Davros knows is that some strange weirdo rescued him.
Later on, after “Genesis”, Davros knows about alien life and the Time Lords, but not until after that.
There’s a throwawy line that the Daleks re-created it.
In-cor-rect.
The Daleks are a living species, even if heavily cyborged. They do produce new daleks, although we don’t know the details (I’m not sure I’d want to, frankly). The Sontarrans are a one-gender race reproducing solely by cloning these days, for all we know that’s true of Daleks, too. Or maybe they have 14 sexes and at least three different ones are required for new Daleks to be made. We know nothing of Dalek reproduction.
And the indeed-they-are-revolting sewers would seem to indicate that they CAN survive without the shell, they’re just in a very sorry state without it.
I’ve thought so since I first watched “Genesis of the Daleks” in the 1980’s, but what do I know?
Confirmed in beginning of 2nd episode, which also explains Missy surviving the end of Season 8.
Between TARDISs and vortex manipulators, it’s clear the Whoniverse has multiple forms of time travel. The TARDIS also has other sorts of Time Lord tech on board. It wasn’t so much “let me show you time travel” as “let me show you what this machine can do you don’t know about.”
Again - there is more than one way to travel in time.
Unless the GotD Davros, who didn’t know about alien life and had lived his whole life with random bits of different tech showing up due to the thousand year (or more) war, didn’t connect “alien guy named the Doctor” and “gadget tossed to me by a crotchety old guy, who looked completely different, in a hand mine field when I was kid” until long afterward.
This seems reasonable to me.
I think send the Confession Dial out was to convince other people he was going to die. Particularly Missy (who for consistency, should be called “The Missy” as counterpart to “The Master” but whatever). In Missy’s warped mind only SHE is allowed to kill the Doctor and if someone else threatens her life she’ll come to save him.
The Doctor is going up against the Daleks, and against Davros, and while he can’t take an army he certainly wants backup. Who better than another Time Lord? In that context, enlisting the Master/Missy as ally makes sense, sort of like the enemies the US and USSR teaming up against Hitler in WWII. But what’s going to get Missy on his side? Only a threat to his life. So… he sends out a Confession Dial, telegraphing that “my life is in danger and I don’t expect to survive - I really mean it this time!”. Missy “falls” for it and comes along/rides to the rescue.
How do you know Colony Sarff isn’t a life form native to Skaro? Or engineered from a Skarian life form?
No.
^ This. It makes the less a one-note prop.
QFT
She’s a potential immortal (fuck it, she IS immortal - like Captain Jack, even if you kill her she comes back) in a universe where her own kind are largely absent. She’s bored. What the heck does she have to do with her time but find ways to amuse herself?
To get Missy’s attention and get her to come along somehow. For all we know, that Confession Dial is blank, or has a note saying “ha-ha! Fooled you!” or a recipe for Gallifreyan warble cookies on it.
Less a handwave than the complete lack of explanation of how go from Simm’s Master being exiled in the time lock with the rest of the Time Lords to Missy’s existence, or Missy’s “I’m back, big surprise” and likewise no explanation.
The Daleks have tech far, far in advance of our own. Maybe reconstructing a planet isn’t that huge a deal to them. Or Skaro-forming another to look just like their old home planet.
Again, QFT.
The screwdriver was also destroyed in “Smith and Jones” to defeat one of the Slabs, but it was back by the end of the episode. Screwdrivers come and go
I second the motion to have River shoot them.
If you want to see stagey and theatrical Doctor Who watch a copy of “The Aztecs”, which very much does look like a filmed stage production. The pacing of the Old Who serials was different than modern shows, but the Baker years are in many ways much closer to modern TV than the Hartnell years.
The best part of “Traken” is the bit at the very end where the Master finally gets a new body.
OK, folks, let’s think a little deeper on this one.
A Dalek’s squishy bits are extremely vulnerable. If you’re a Dalek you don’t want them exposed accidentally. You don’t want the armor bits popping open anytime someone hears or says the word “out” or “open”, otherwise you’ll have an entire race of people like that guy at the end of “The Long Game” whose forehead pops open every time someone snaps their fingers around him.
So, as a safety measure, perhaps it takes a very, very deliberate command to open to shell, as opposed to a paniced OutOutOutOut!!! sort of thought.
This about this a bit differently.
The Magician (Doctor) wants an Apprentice (Companion) - someone he regards as a fellow intelligent being that he is interested in teaching and watching grow into another magician. The Doctor picks companions that are intelligent, brace, and courious and encourages them to be more.
The Witch (Master/Missy) wants a Familiar (Pet) - because she does NOT seem Humans as her equal, more like a relatively intelligent but still lower animal. She wants an audience, test subject for experiments, and possible lunch She explicitly tell Clara that she regards Humans much as Humans regard dogs.
Most people would not give their life to save a dog, and a lot of them might be downright callous about killing dogs. But the Doctor not only puts himself at risk to save Humans that are in danger, he HAS given up a life for a Human on occasion (an example being Wilfred Mott, which is why Ten wound up regenerating into Eleven).
The Doctor sees Human beings as people, the Master does not.
She DID say at the end “I just got a clever idea!” when surrounded by Daleks.
Although it wouldn’t be a Doctor Who thread if I didn’t question the wisdom of having a profoundly deaf crew member on an underwater oil rig with only one other person able to sign.
Hmm. Muddled, and still felt rushed for what was almost two hours, it never felt like it earnt its resolution, and Clara’s BUT WHAT ABOUT ME? bit was awful. A long run for a short slide, essentially, and the sonic sunglasses look stupid; let’s hope for more from Viking cyborgs.
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I don’t mind the two-part format. Heck, I remember the days when virtually everything in the show was 4-parts, had even more padding back then, most of the time.