Flatline

[Anonymous @]

@missy

pop back up to Forums (top of page and second from the left); this leads to a series of ‘lists,’ one under the other.

At the top of the list it says ‘the 12th Doctor’.

Click on that.

After you do that, you’ll then see each of the episodes from last year.

Click on that ep: Time Heist.

All the other 12 eps are there too from Deep Breath onwards.

Hope that helps

Kindest,

puro.

[Missy @missy]

@purofilion

found it. thank you so much, you are a star.

cheers,

Missy.

[IKB1 @ikb1]

I’m a first-time poster in this Forum, so “hello” and I hope someone can answer a question! I recently watched “Flatline”. Before The Doctor dispatches the 2d/3d “monsters”, he says something like “I name you The Boneless”. I am almost certain that a similar “naming” happened in an earlier series. Or am I thinking of another show entirely – not Doctor Who? Does anyone recall this “naming” as a way of (or as part of) defeating adversaries? Thanks for any help!

[winston @winston]

@ikb1     Hello from Canada and welcome to the site. It is a great place for Who fans and lots of fun to explore and read bonkers theories.

Maybe the episode you are referring to was in series 3 with the 10th Doctor and Martha Jones when they visit Shakespeare and battle the witches. At one point the Doctor says to the witches “I name you Carrionites” ( not sure about the spelling) and explains about the power in a name. Anyway I hoped that helped.

[IKB1 @ikb1]

@winston  Hello from USA. Thanks for the welcome! I believe that your reference is the one I remember. Thank you so much; it was driving me crazy since I knew I had heard it before! At the time I had first heard it, I had wondered if that “naming” was “borrowed” from some historical or literary mythology/witchcraft tradition. Thanks again.

[Missy @missy]

@ikb1

Hello and welcome;

Missy

[IKB1 @ikb1]

@missy Hello. Thanks for the welcome!

[Missy @missy]

@ikb1

Not at all, have fun.

Missy

[Dentarthurdent @dentarthurdent]

Flatline

Now we’re cooking! Right from the off – in the first 60 seconds we’re right into the action, man pulled screaming into the wall.

And after the credits – oh Clara, you liar (hint: don’t talk too much when you’re making outrageous lies, it’s a dead giveaway). But the Doc’s too preoccupied to notice, his readings are – ish. Clara:  Don’t give me -ish.   And then we have the shrunken Tardis door and the oh-so-cute mini Tardis. This is delightful.

I love the exchange between a testy Clara “Yes. I get it. You’re excited. When can I go home?” and an intrigued Doctor “Could you not just let me enjoy this moment of not knowing something? I mean, it happens so rarely.”

So Clara goes off to look around and runs straight into a missing-persons mystery.

Riggsy manages to be a surprisingly sympathetic character, while still convincing as a juvenile delinquent (or whatever they’re called these days) – or at least a graffiti artist.

And – I can’t help laughing along with Clara at the adorable baby Tardis. And the lifesize Doctor peering out of the doors is – weirdly disconcerting.

Clara is making the most of her promotion – “I’m the Doctor” (Doctor – inside his Tardis – “Don’t you dare”) And it’s fascinating listening to Clara talking to Riggsy with interspersed sarcastic comments by the Doctor. I love that Clara virtually introduces Riggsy to the Doctor (“Doctor, Rigsy, Rigsy, the Doctor.” “Hullo, barely sentient local”)

So then she *really* has to introduce Riggsy to the Doctor. (Doc: “You really do throw your companions in at the deep end, don’t you?” – and I’m absolutely unsure whether the Doctor is talking to himself about Clara, or talking to Clara about himself as the companion, or talking to Clara about Riggsy, or all of those…)

And just when we thought every bit of mileage had been extracted out of ‘Bigger on the inside’ –
RIGSY: It’s bigger. On the inside.
DOCTOR: Do you know, I don’t think that statement’s ever been truer.

The whole scenario is rich with possibilities and this episode uses them to the full. As when Danny rings up –
DANNY [OC]: Who was that?
CLARA: Er, that’s just a guy on community support and I’m helping him find his auntie. [Oh Clara, that was brilliant]
DOCTOR: Nice. Not technically lying.

A disconcerting moment when the charmless Fenton fails to see anything in the psychic paper.

Then it turns out the mural in the subway – wasn’t a mural at all.

The nice lines keep coming – CLARA: I just hope I can keep them all alive. DOCTOR: Ah, welcome to my world.

Then we have a good bit of classic sci-fi where the Doc tries (via Clara) to figure out how to communicate with the 2-D creatures. But then they pick off another victim. So it’s retreat to the tunnel (did anyone not see that coming? 🙂

Then things get really tense, with the 2-D’s finding out how to materialise themselves into 3-D. And the obnoxious Fenton is turning from an obstacle into a menace, grabbing the baby Tardis from Clara and dropping it down a shaft.

The Doctor has to put the Tardis into inert ‘siege mode’ to avoid being squashed by a train. Clara, Riggsy and the appalling Fenton climb down into the tunnel and Clara stops the next train. And here’s a nice bit of detail I never noticed until now – as Clara is talking to the driver about ramming the obstruction, Riggsy trots back and climbs into the train. So then Riggsy gets to drive a train! And Clara gets creative with her hair band and the drivers’ control handle. Nice bit of heroic problem-solving there. But the creatures 2D-ise the train into the tunnel wall.

So then Clara finds the Tardis siegemode cube and has the brilliant idea (despite the obnoxious Fenton’s derogatory comments) of getting the creatures themselves to energise it, courtesy of a 2-D decoy door painted by Riggsy. Well deserving the Doctor’s verdict: I don’t know if you’ll ever hear this, Clara. I don’t even know if you’re still alive out there. But you were good! And you made a mighty fine Doctor.

Then we have one the better ‘I am the Doctor’ speeches, delivered as only Capaldi can: I tried to talk. I want you to remember that. I tried to reach out, I tried to understand you, but I think that you understand us perfectly. And I think you just don’t care. And I don’t know whether you are here to invade, infiltrate or just replace us. I don’t suppose it really matters now. You are monsters. That is the role you seem determined to play. So it seems I must play mine. The man that stops the monsters. I’m sending you back to your own dimension. Who knows? Some of you may even survive the trip. And, if you do, remember this. You are not welcome here. This plane is protected. I am the Doctor. And I name you The Boneless.

The final scene is beautifully written. (Never mind the obnoxious Fenton, as the Doc said, maybe the wrong people survived). But the verbal fencing between Clara (who knows she did well) and the Doctor (who is reluctant to feed her ego) is delicious.
CLARA: Yeah, but we saved the world, right?
DOCTOR: We did. You did.
CLARA: Okay, so, on balance
DOCTOR: Balance?
CLARA: Yeah, that’s how you think, isn’t it?
DOCTOR: Largely so other people don’t have to. [Nice line, Doc!]
CLARA: Yeah, well, I was you today. I was the Doctor. And, apparently, I was quite good at it.
DOCTOR: You heard that, did you?
CLARA: Yeah, but the power was going off so I suppose you were delirious. You didn’t know what you were saying.
DOCTOR: Yes? (The Doctor’s ‘yes’ is ambiguous)

And the final exchange is classic – (Even if the Doc stole the last line from Mae West, as chatokeya’s transcript points out)
CLARA: Come on, why can’t you say it? I was the Doctor and I was good.
DOCTOR: You were an exceptional Doctor, Clara.
CLARA: Thank you.
DOCTOR: Goodness had nothing to do with it.
Clara’s reaction is beautiful to watch.

And a final shot of Missy, watching with approval, which adds another layer to the episode. I love these multi-layered stories.

This is an absolutely delightful episode and a joy to watch all the way through. I’m perfectly happy with Clara being pushed into acting-Doctor-for-the-day, but this is a far more natural and in-character situation than the out-of-character shenanigans of Kill the Moon. And this episode hangs together well (given the 2-D monster premise). The biggest nitpick I can find is that Riggsy and Clara wasted too much time just chatting in the cab of a DMU that was steadily accelerating when they should have been jumping off before it gained too much speed – which is surely tiny.

 

[Dentarthurdent @dentarthurdent]

Random thoughts on re-watching ‘Flatline’ – I see the last post was also by me, so I’ve edited out most of the repetition.

The Doctor hacking into Clara’s optic nerve and giving her an earpiece is a really clever way to keep him involved, and a fount of many witty moments. I absolutely *love* the way Clara uses the mirror on the wall to give the Doctor a ‘what did I tell you?’ look. Nice acting.

And I do like Rigsy. Appealing personality, well cast.

The scene in the flat is a bit reminiscent of Sapphire and Steel type spookiness (prompted by the music also). The flattened door handle is when it gets really scary.

The weakness of psychic paper is that it needs a mental ability exceeding that of cabbage (or the braindead loathsome Fenton) to have any effect.

The audio-visual link gives a good opportunity for coaching Clara on ‘how to be a Doctor’. The Doctor at this stage assumes the 2-D things are not (intentionally) malevolent. That didn’t last long. I’d forgotten how scary it was with George getting flattened, and then 3-D ‘people’ erupting out of the floor. These 3-D monsters are learning fast.

And I would happily kill Fenton, was there ever anyone you would wish less to share a lifeboat with?

Of course Rigsy would know how to drive a train (and I’m not being facetious there). I have minor physical quibbles with the train scene (to do with speed and acceleration) but nothing too serious. What I find more puzzling is, there are two trains involved, with headcodes A113 and 2M65 – the first nearly runs over the Tardis, the second is hijacked by Rigsy and Clara. What is supposed to have happened there? Did something get too tightly edited?

Then Clara has a genius idea that lets her and Rigsy save the day. I have to say this is much better done than the usual contrived ‘minor character X’s unique ability saves the day’ trope.

Nobody does “I AM THE DOCTOR!” more magnificently than Capaldi.

And the whole end sequence with the Doctor and Clara is beautifully written. “Why can’t you say it? I was the Doctor and I was good.”
“You were an exceptional Doctor, Clara. Goodness had nothing to do with it.”

[janetteB @janetteb]

@dentarthurdent Great reviews, both of them. I must have read the review a year ago but really enjoyed reading it again. It is an excellent episode, great characters, great story, great dialogue. The concept of the Doctor being trapped in a tiny Tardis is unique as are the 2d “monsters.” Lots of original ideas. Rigsy is a well written character and I was glad that he appears again. Having someone in peril that we are already invested in really pays off in the next series.

This episode also does a good job of humanising welfare recipients and was made at a time when the government was demonising those on welfare. It is a good example too of show not tell. We don’t need some heavy handed moralising at the end to get the message. We have absorbed it though the mechanisms of the story.

Cheers

Janette

 

[Dentarthurdent @dentarthurdent]

@janetteb   Yes, I did like Rigsy as a character.   This greatly helps in Face the Raven to justify Clara taking such a risk to save him – I would have been much more impatient with that if he had been unlikeable.   (I know that feeling is morally unjustifiable but I think it’s natural).    And it made for even more pathos in the final scene with Rigsy sadly tagging the abandoned Tardis as a memorial.   In fact all the ‘chain gang’ were decent characters with the exception, of course, of their boss Fenton.   Though they even gave him a couple of decent lines – RIGSY: “Everyone’s out to get you, aren’t they?”
FENTON: “In this case, they kind of are.”    Have to admit, he was right about that.

And I firmly agree with you about excessive moralising, it makes me cringe even on occasions when I agree with the message.    There used to be some Western (can’t remember which) in which, at the end of every episode, the hero would sum up the moral of the story in a few well-chosen words – I stopped watching that series quite quickly.   Show not tell…

[janetteB @janetteb]

@dentarthurdent Yes. The problem with heavy handed moralising is that you loose the people you won over with the message in the story even if they are totally “on board” they will be offended because they feel as though they are being patronised and if they don’t agree they might have been influenced but the moment they realise that they will turn against the message so the heavy handed moralising looses all sides of the audience. For me the glaring example of this is Rosa which packs a narrative punch through the story then totally undermines it at the end with the heavy handed moralising. My heart sank at that moment, sitting in a room of people who had been completely engaged with the story. The heavy handed ending lost them even though they were totally in agreement with the sentiment and quite a few never watched another episode of Dr Who. If only the writers had trusted ot the ‘show” and not felt the compulsion to “tell”, because the story sold the message so well. Another one of my Chibnell gripes.

I found a lot of U.S. tv series were very heavy handed. Noticed that with kids shows when the boys were young. Australian and English shows packed the message into the story whereas the U.S. shows tended to have to tell the audience and it was just so off-putting. (and the message was usually great just the delivery that was the issue)

cheers

Janette

[Dentarthurdent @dentarthurdent]

@janetteb    Obviously I entirely agree with you about the heavy-handed bit.   For example, the ‘plastics pollution’ episode (‘Praxeus’ was it?) turned me off – and I’m a greenie and a leftie!    Actually I’m a cynic when it comes to a Message – any time I’m ‘explaining’ things to a meeting the sceptical streak in my mind is thinking ‘are these people really swallowing this?’ *even when, so far as I know, what I’m saying is accurate*.    That’s why I really liked A Town Called Mercy which showed a much more nuanced approach to good and bad.

Rosa I can’t comment on because – I’m slightly embarrassed to admit – I’ve only watched the first five minutes.   The only NuWho ep (aside from Power of the Doctor which I haven’t got yet) that I haven’t watched right through.   I get slightly wary about ‘messing with history’ anyway, I know very sketchily who Rosa Parks was, and when, five minutes in, we have Ryan who is black and a bit of a klutz in 1960’s Mississippi or Alabama or whatever, I decided ‘this isn’t going to be my idea of a fun episode’ and skipped the rest.    Maybe I was in a grouchy mood, I probably should watch it just so I can say I have.   Maybe when I get up to it again in a couple of months.

Re ‘messing with history’, for example I’m not very happy with ‘Churchill’ in Victory of the Daleks, it’s too close to home.   Whereas the same ‘Churchill’ in the completely fantastical  The Wedding of River Song was fine with me because it’s well removed from reality.    And I was fine with ‘Nixon’ in Impossible Astronaut because it didn’t have a political axe to grind.

[janetteB @janetteb]

@dentarthurdent One of the quibbles i have with the Moffat era is the depiction of Churchill as being a kindly leader. I don’t share that view of Churchill. My mother certainly did, having gone through the war being drip fed pro British propaganda. She did not even see him as the person who was willing to sell out Australia, not allowing the  tropes to come back to defend Australia when there was a threat of invasion until he was persuaded by the Australian P.M. But then when I was a teenager Mum began reading Churchill’s autobiographies and she was horrified by the arrogance and racism that seeped through the narrative. Apparently (I never read them myself) he was eager to join any little “scrap” out on the fringes of empire, keen to take “pot shots at the natives”.  For that reason Victory of the Daleks is not an episode i particularly like either, (that and the absurd space planes).  I don’t think that Moffat ever grinds a political axe and that is fine. I just don’t like it when a historical person is sugar coated.

I love the historical stories but don’t like them to mess with actual history. The “giant stompy robot” at the end of The Next Doctor really annoys me. If London was trashed by a massive cyberking in the mid 19th Century it would be written about. The dinosaur in Deep Breath gets a pass, just, because the Doctor explains, (albeit implausibly) why it isn’t mentioned in history. At least he acknowledges that it should be recorded, remembered. I prefer historical stories that tread lightly which Robots of Sherwood at least does right.

Cheers

Janette

 

[Dentarthurdent @dentarthurdent]

@janetteb   I have a much more positive view of Churchill than you do.   But my reservations about Victory of the Daleks are, partly because it does mess with history (I think you share that) and also, like you, Spitfires in Space?   How much effect does anyone think 20mm Hispano cannons would have on a Dalek ship?

Personally, whether I approve or otherwise of a historical person doesn’t really affect my reaction to seeing them in an episode.   I thought Nixon was an appallingly bad President at the time, but I didn’t mind him in The Impossible Astronaut (even though he was treated quite sympathetically).   Ditto Hitler.    I do get geekily annoyed when Tesla gets credited with stuff that rightly belongs to Marconi and Westinghouse though.

I agree about the giant robot in The Next Doctor being very awkward.   There are a number of other events that surely we would remember – the Sycorax ship in Christmas Invasion, the Cybermen invasion in Army of Ghosts, the hospital on the moon in Smith and Jones, the Master’s dictatorship in Last of the Time Lords, the gas attack in Sontaran Stratagem to name just a few.   They tend to leave loose ends in that we ‘should’ remember them but don’t.   This is quite significant if the series wants to deal with real recent historical events.    As I remember the dinosaur in Deep Breath was forgotten on fairly flimsy grounds.   Rather akin to Doug Adams’ “somebody else’s problem” field – people see what they expect to see.

So I share your preference for stories that ‘tread lightly’.   Robot of Sherwood was one such.   And the Silents would have been ‘the perfect self-cleaning con’ if the Doctor hadn’t piggybacked on the Moon landing to make people remember them.   But maybe people only remembered to kill them when they were actually in view.   See a Silent, shoot the Silent, “Who was that guy we shot?” “What guy?” “The dead one”  “Who?”

 

 

[Dentarthurdent @dentarthurdent]

@janetteb   Further thought – of course the Moff really lampshaded that in ‘The Lie of the Land’ where the History Monks erased themselves from history when they left.   That was a very ‘1984’ episode.    But surely someone would wonder about the big square of waste land in the middle of London where their pyramid was.

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