Empire of Death

[syzygy @thane16]

@juniperfish “ …Bad Wolf” …. Oh very noice!

[has.ayres @t2662]

Hi guys i have the torchwood books series for sale 🙂 Just click the link to take you to my vinted

https://www.vinted.co.uk/items/5014249064-torchwood-doctor-who-books-1-15-and-19-with-archives

 

[dwnerdfrommars @dwnerdfrommars]

@krathoon I agree. This season is far away from what Doctor Who truly was.

[WhoHar @whohar]

@miapatrick

in this light of this I do have a first Pratchett recommendation: going postal. It’s very much on this theme.

I’ve just finished reading this. Most excellent, and I’m now going to go onto Making Money and then Raising Steam. I went on t’interwebs and discovered a whole Discworld Reading Order “map”. It’s a whole new world I tells ya! Anyhoo, thanks again.

@ps1l0v3y0u

And, keeping with the literary theme, I also picked up a copy of The Mabinogion.  Only skimmed it so far, but it also looks great.  Thanks.

[ps1l0v3y0u @ps1l0v3y0u]

@dwnerdfrommars

The series… 4 good, 2 questionable, 2 (the finale) bad. My theory is it all takes place within a reconstituted Matrix (DW NOT Keeanu Reeves).

I still have a few spare straws if you need something to clutch.

@whohar

My familiarity with The Mabinogion is cursory. The story of Tigernos, whose horses keep being stolen and cuts off the arm of the monster responsible is pretty remarkable… the British riff on Beowulf and Grendel??

[Dentarthurdent @dentarthurdent]

So in the first four minutes, RTD just killed *everybody*. Like, not just impersonal universe destruction like the Flux, but all the characters get turned to dust individually.

(10 minutes later) I was wrong, Sutech’s dust of death *is* destroying the whole universe. This is going to take one hell of a Reset button.
The ‘everybody’s dead’ reminds me of Red Dwarf Episode 1 –
LISTER: Where is everybody, Hol?
HOLLY: They’re dead, Dave.
LISTER: Who is?
HOLLY: Everybody, Dave. (and so on)

We do get an explanation of ’73 yards’ – it’s a perception filter (aka the Somebody Else’s Problem field?)

I have to admit, this whole story has got me intrigued, even though I understand very little of it.

I have to say the piles of dust remind me even more strongly of Episode 1 of Red Dwarf. As in:
LISTER: Oh, this is terrible. And why is it so dirty around here, Hol? What is this stuff?
(dips his finger in another pile and tastes it.)
HOLLY: That is Catering Officer Olaf Petersen.

 

Okay, I have to admit I did love the way they trapped Sutech, corny though it was.

And that was one hell of a Reset button.

Ruby’s encounter with Louise – I’m all intrigued to see how RTD handles this. Moff would have handled it brilliantly (IMO), let’s see how RTD does 🙂
Okay, he did all right.

So, happy ending after all. And Mrs Flood remains a mysterious character.

So, as final (double) episodes go, it was – middling.   Not terrible, not outstanding.

[janetteB @janetteb]

@dentarthurdent the Red Dwarf quotes made me laugh aloud and I have seen that episode so many times, “everybody is dead Dave”. It is the droll way he says it. We quote that often, along with, “there’s an emergency going on” in that same flat voice.

I really need to do a re watch of the last two episodes. As usual I think my reaction to the ending is influenced by all the wonderful bonkers theorising that goes on here. Nothing could ever match up. On third or forth viewing I can usually appreciate the episodes for what they are and not see them through the filter of my expectations. I was hoping that Susan would be Susan but at least Susan the granddaughter was talked about. It is all about continuity or rather the lack of in Dr Who. she is a timelord, she can regenerate. there are infinite story possibilities there as yet untapped.

Agreed on first watch it was middling. RTD has done many a worse series finale but overall series as a good start and I am so excited for the Christmas Special.

cheers

Janette

[Dentarthurdent @dentarthurdent]

@janetteb    I haven’t read all the posts in this forum (but I will).    But this double-episode has so many details in it, I’m sure a re-watch (or several) will bring up all sorts of things I overlooked first time round.   Especially in the time window.

As seasons go, yes I’d rank this one as quite good.

 

 

[ps1l0v3y0u @ps1l0v3y0u]

@dentarthurdent

I do need to watch these 2 eps before the xmas special. Been putting it off. The finale, as I remember it, was pretty unsatisfactory, even compared with those two rather odd opening eps. Will attempt it however.

The middle of the series was first rate. Even Rogue was very entertaining. Strange about the rest…

[nerys @nerys]

All right, I made it to the end! And I was completely wrong about my surmising that Ruby’s parentage would be left unsolved (see my post in “The Legend of Ruby Sunday” thread). I thought it was touching that the Doctor tried to talk Ruby out of walking in to the coffee shop to meet her birth mother. At first, I thought he was right. All these years, and she never reached out to Ruby? But I think it was because he knew he’d lose her as his companion if she went through with it. And he did.

That was a surprise. I knew that Millie Gibson didn’t return for the following season, but I didn’t realize that she would get an actual farewell episode at the end of this season. That was lovely, yet also sad because we had her for such a short time. She and Ncuti Gatwa were wonderful together.

The episode itself was fairly good, though the personal drama is really what made it. Without that, I think it would have just been average. Somehow I didn’t find Sutekh all that scary, though the special effects were spectacular. And I did appreciate the moral dilemma Sutekh forced on the Doctor.

I haven’t read through all the posts, but I do have a quibble: Going back to the VHS tape footage, Ruby’s mother was pointing, apparently at the sign saying Ruby Road. So Ruby joyfully proclaimed that her mother really did name her. But, other than the Doctor and Ruby herself, who else was there to see it, thus giving Ruby her name? Isn’t it enough that the church where she was left was on Ruby Road?

[nerys @nerys]

@miapatrick he looked in pain when Ruby left – but was he crying? I’m not sure there were tears.

I feel certain I saw a tear stain streaked on the Doctor’s face after he turned away from Ruby in the TARDIS … but I’m too lazy to pop the DVD back in to check. Like you, I was thinking, “Has he cried yet in this episode?” And then I saw that tear stain and thought, “Yeah, he did.”

[ps1l0v3y0u @ps1l0v3y0u]

@nerys

A lot of strange reactions to this series; gen z-ers really seem to have a down on Dot say, but seem to be more forgiving of these last two eps. On the other hand everyone else execrates them. It is hard to say because social media is so divisive.

I need to rewatch the last two; got as far Legend, gave up, not good…

The new Unit…

The Time window is a yawn.

Sutekh is… very incorrect. And dumb.

Even if what is happening IS what I imagine, it’s just not good writing.

BUT things are explicable… Who, I’m afraid, is a sideshow. Worse stuff going down at The BBC.

Stories 3-6 were gems though.

[nerys @nerys]

@ps1l0v3y0u I suppose I was prepared for some level of disappointment, having to wait so long to see these episodes (because, as I have mentioned before, I refuse to subscribe to Disney+ for one program). I probably shouldn’t have read these threads, but I couldn’t help it. I wanted to know people’s opinions. However, it had been long enough that I didn’t recall a lot of the details … which was good. I did have a general sense of what people liked, and what they didn’t. I was happily surprised at how much I enjoyed “Boom,” “73 Yards,” “Dot and Bubble” and “Rogue.” They felt like proper Doctor Who stories.

“Rogue” gives us a glimpse of how RTD might have handled the 13th Doctor being a woman. The characterization may have been too overt for some viewers. RTD seemed to have an agenda with this season, and he wasn’t the least bit shy about working it in. I admit that I prefer more subtlety, more ambiguity. Leave something to my imagination, please. But, since I enjoyed those four episodes and felt they were a wonderful gift, a return to the style of Doctor Who of yore, should I complain? I think I’ll focus on remembering the good stuff.

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