The Pyramid at the End of the World

[MissRori @missrori]

I really enjoyed “Extremis”, but I think this was a big comedown from that thanks mostly to the saggy, padded, illogical script, which didn’t hang together in terms of the story or the characters’ decisions, which this thread has had a lot of thoughtful commentary on (positive and negative, I must stress).  I’m glad I watched it but I was expecting too much after the somewhat similar “Zygon Invasion”, methinks.  I see what the writers were getting at in bold strokes, but they missed the mark in the detail work.  If the story and characters were more compelling I could overlook a lot of the little flaws — I mean, I loved “Heaven Sent” and wasn’t particularly bothered by all the tiny details regarding how the dial worked — but I couldn’t.  Ha — a bunch of little mistakes adding up to big trouble!  😀

Now without going into Next Time trailer details (feel free to chew those over with me on the spoiler threads, because I’m all ears), I can see where this whole story arc might turn out to be mostly a big ol’ mess of simulations and such.  It seems the writers have written this story into that kind of corner with the “all is lost” cliffhanger.  But unfortunately, if this is mostly an alternate reality, how much of it will affect the season surrounding it?  Will the Doctor still be blind and there will need to be another reveal to Bill?  Will Bill get any big character development in the “real” world?  I can imagine many fans elsewhere being livid about the rug being pulled out from under them three weeks in a row.

I also wonder if this storyline was originally conceived as the season finale, given that the revival’s previous three-parters all came at the tail ends of seasons (3, 4 if one counts “Turn Left” as a part one like “Extremis” is, and 9).  It has similar scope and scale, is thick with this season’s motifs (truth, eyes, “villains” who aren’t actually evil, promises, imprisonment/release, exploitation), resolved a major arc with the confirmation of who was in the Vault,  involves a fan-favorite villain, and pivots on how far the companion/Doctor relationship has come.  And apparently it was supposed to feature Kate Stewart, but her actress had a scheduling conflict.  Perhaps the powers-that-be realized that this storyline as a whole wasn’t quite Big Finale material and decided to move it to an earlier point in favor of coming up with something crazy awesome for Rachel Talalay to direct instead.  😉

[Whisht @whisht]

@tardigrade – I’d second @Thane15 – I think quite a few of us are loving and also having problems with the last couple of episodes, so do please keep posting! If this is only “everything is awesome!” then I may only ever post music (maybe that’d be no bad thing).
As mentioned, but maybe I wasn’t clear – I watch and have nits to pick then watched again and those nits mainly went away but other nits sprang out!
[grrrr Dr activating digital bomb timer but cant see tumbler numbers… leaveitleaveitleaveit nits nits nits].
However my issues are piddling little details and I’m really enjoying (and learning!) from the slightly higher discussion here about any flaws!

But when I watch next week, I’m going for the ‘hot air balloon’ approach and just seeing where these episodes take me!

😉

As I’ve tagged Thane – thanks for the Bowie, not heard that one before.

Oh, and I accidentally left a slightly cryptic remark about myself that may have caused eyebrows to rise. I mentioned that I was finally sober (or similar).

{ahem}

So, there was some footy on over the weekend and, well, all I can say is that I hope my neighbours are ok as there may have been some shouts and whoops at high volume from my flat. Followed by some slightly joyous swearing.

Pedant may or may not know what I’m babbling on about – if he does he’ll know the colour of the ribbon she wore, for this is the merry month of May.
(Apologies if I’ve misread your affiliations!)

;¬)

anyway, finally coming back down to a normal haze of thinking!

[MissRori @missrori]

(hmmm)  Looking over all these posts here and elsewhere, would it be safe to say that this is so far the most-poorly-received episode so far in Series 10?  Up to now I think “Smile” sort of had that reputation for being a bit thin, and “Extremis” was pretty controversial, but the sheer amount of complaints coming down on the logic and common sense gaps in this episode are really noticeable.  :/

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @pedant]

@whisht

No dog in the fight (more of an East London persuasion), but never get tired of seeing Money Launderers FC lose.

I got the impression the specs could help with the digital stuff, but the not the tumblers. Odd things that can see the outline of a pyramid but not a person. Actually, the specs display looks a bit like Battlezone, if you remember that arcade classic…

[Anonymous @]

@missrori @whisht @pedant @tardigrade

Yes, MissR I think it probably is/has. I sort of speculated this would be….problematic. I don’t find it so but the “nitsleaveitleaveitnitsstopscratching” is a fair and just thing -@whisht -aaand everyone else who had a problem (big or small) with this.

Here, though, we get decent….conversations….that’s the word I’m looking for. We don’t go  “hey! You. Moffat sux” but offer something comprehensive -or not. Just, “this ep didn’t work for me”, which is fine.

I suppose I get edgy about one of my favourite shows. Mates are always having a go about that: “dude, it’s just telly, chill.”

I don’t do chill. Well, I do it better than Mum 🙂

Right, it appears to be cold. About 22 degrees. Whoa. Need a jacket and it’s raining….:(

Thane

 

 

[Whisht @whisht]

@pedant – I know you didn’t take it wrongly, but still, apologies for the assumption on my part.

I’m still a bit groggy.

No defenders on the bench. The main defender having 30-odd mins of playing time this season…
My Man U and Spurs brothers were curious how it would pan out (and they both wanted me to be happy!)

;¬)

thanks for not taking my presumption wrongly.

[Anonymous @]

@whisht

True -if “everything is awesome” then what are we doing here? It’s important to stay ‘open minded.’ Half the time I get dad or mum to explain their ideas to me about the episode. Episodes like The God Complex, I’ve only just had the determination (read: guts) to see because it seemed so weird, creepy and outlandish and didn’t make much sense to me at the time! In fact, I’m still confused by that episode. I think it’s claustrophobic.

I think that conversation are good. They’re not designed to change people’s minds, just offer a different perspective which is really nice. Other Forums on other topics I’ve been on are all like one person dominating the entire conversation -or also they have, like, 50 rules. I think “being kind” is the best rule -or only rule you need to have.

I put on a 2nd version of Shadow Man on the Music Thread. It’s not everyone’s favourite Bowie thing or era but since 1971 it still works for me. I’m telling my mates I was born in the wrong decade . To live during the 60s and 70s to the 80s and have this stuff? So awesome. Not that there’s bad stuff out there today -often there’s so much it’s hard to listen to it all 🙂

@arbutus Mum was saying she did her best to listen to the score for this Ep and said she found it “sly” -don’t know what she meant really. But she also explained that during the Munk’s invasion they used percussive sounds a lot like the Silence. That clicking and whirring? She said it’s the most subtle score all season, in her opinion. What do you think Miss?

Anyway, I’ve missed the first bus, better crash off.

Thank you everyone,  from Thane

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @pedant]

@whisht

There’s nothing like a shared disdain for Spurs to build bridges.

@thane15

If your grades take a nose dive, there’ll be hell to pay.

 

[wolfweed @wolfweed]

As noted by others elsewhere online…..

They don’t use Google. Search engine of choice is GriffinFinder…

3614 combination may be a reference to Cher’s LP ‘3614 Jackson Highway’…

Bill’s jacket has Okinawa embroidered on the back. The Okinawa campaign was a fight between the US & the Japanese.

 

[MissRori @missrori]

@thane15  Hmm, I can’t say I thought the music was subtle, but then the whole episode was a doom-n-gloom buildup, and again I knew it was going to have an unhappy ending, so that affects things.  😉

Actually, I think a big problem with this episode was that it tipped its hand to the real crisis (the lab) way too quickly.  It would have been more exciting to figure things out with the Doctor.

@blenkinsopthebrave, I agree that Bill hasn’t been with the Doctor long enough — at least onscreen — for love to completely ring true at this point.  As DoctorWhoTV.co.uk has pointed out more than once, if one only goes by the televised canon, she’s had only two off-world trips (not counting the chase in “The Pilot”, which was a special case) and one journey into Earth’s past.  Granted, the Doctor has the Vault/Missy to look after and wet blanket Nardole keeps reminding him of that — never mind that the TARDIS has been pretty good about coming back on time even with the odd side trip on the way.   But then there’s their here-and-now adventure, “Knock Knock”, in which she felt he was an annoyance for his protectiveness, his hanging about with her friends — just unpack my stuff and go please!  The site points out that while she is smart and kind, she has no imagination, no eagerness to take advantage of everything the Doctor has to offer her, little wonder.  This may have been to differentiate her from people like Amy and Clara, but there is a sense that she still sees him as a tutor more than anything else.  Someone to learn from, not love.  She is not attracted to him romantically of course, and she doesn’t return his familial affections all that well bar the occasional hug.  This is a major reason I suspect this storyline was originally conceived as a season finale.  A few more episodes, a few more adventures, and her need for him would have rung more true.

Why did it take so long for her to figure out he was blind, and why didn’t she press the “What’s wrong” issue with him further?  She sees him at the university whenever she’s there, presumably, and would have seen him in his glasses all the time and wonder why.

Also, I agree there is a Doctor-y vibe in her deciding that it’s best to save everyone she can by asking the Monks to restore his sight.  Despite the fates giving him a hard time for his hubris and his sheer foolishness in letting Nardole leave the TARDIS and enter the contaminated lab, he really is the only person smart enough to stop them based on the evidence in this episode, which more or less proves that Earth is the Planet of the Pudding Brains, just like he thought from the very beginning.  😉  Two bad choices and I can see where this one did seem less bad.

(Aside: I don’t recall where I saw this pointed out, but his blindness really didn’t make that much of a difference until he got locked in the lab, thanks to his foresight in fixing up the sonic specs and willingness to ask questions of others.  On a good day he’s arrogant and brilliant!)

But attitude is important too; there’s also cruelty and cowardice there in her choice, if one thinks about it.  She lacks the courage to face danger without the Doctor by her side, to face the consequences of choosing to let him die even though the Monks appeared on the verge of just giving up.  She tells him he “better save” her planet.  She’s placing all the responsibility for what happens next on his slim shoulders.  She’s not going to help him, she doesn’t say “We’re all in this together.”  She is effectively establishing a condition for her making the deal to save his life and doesn’t consider that, given what they’re up against, he might not be able to to pay up no matter how much he wants to.  Is she going to blame him, resent him if his ability to help is compromised?  If so, that’s not very noble or kind.

Let’s compare this to the Doctor wanting to save Clara in “Hell Bent”.  They’d enjoyed years and years together, her becoming a vital partner to him, almost as clever and smart even.   He owed her his lives, even his homeworld.  He already couldn’t imagine facing the universe without her or accept the inevitability of the grief he’d have to endure as far back as “The Magician’s Apprentice” and when she finally faced the grave in a most unjust manner he couldn’t bear the prospect of it (“What about me?”).  She told him he’d just have to accept it and be brave and keep being kind.  After all, she had to face the consequences of her hubris.  But he was too emotionally broken by this — and the perils he faced in the dial — to hold to that; he was still too scared, too lonely.  So when faced with the chance to save her from the grave after all, even at the risk of all of time and space being destroyed, he decided to take it.  And he did intend to extract a price for it from her — the loss of her memories, so he could drop her off on Earth alive and safe, which was the one way he felt he could move on without her by his side.

And everybody including Clara regarded him as a selfish monster for his actions, for risking everyone else’s safety just to save one person no matter how important they were.  No one but Clara cared how he felt and had suffered; everybody else was more important than him.  Why couldn’t he have just contented himself with soup and rescue from execution, realized that there were others who loved him?

So now Bill decides to sell out humanity to the Monks because she won’t consider she can take up the metaphorical sword of the Doctor and apply what she learned from him to this situation, because she’d miss him even though she was just as likely to push him away as not, because she expects to be repaid by him.  She isn’t just saving him because he’s a precious life by virtue of his very existence.  It’s a well-meant choice, probably the best choice under the circumstances, and well, the show does need a protagonist…but she hasn’t quite learned the lessons he has to teach her entirely.  Not yet.

Virtue is only virtue in extremis…from the looks of things, she’ll have a chance to redeem herself next week with such a choice, but will she?

@steffstaff I have to say I liked your running commentary.

Whew, that’s enough for now.  Hope to be chatting under Spoilers/BBC Approved Spoilers shortly as we ponder what’s to come…  😉

[blenkinsopthebrave @blenkinsopthebrave]

@missrori
Yes, I think I agree with everything you say about Bill’s actions and responses and motivations (as she is written) in this episode. But, as you say, there is next week. I have high hopes that we well all collectively gasp in adoration about how it all comes together.

[MissRori @missrori]

@blenkinsopthebrave  If they can pull all of this together in a truly satisfying way it will make up for a lot.  If they can’t though, the last four episodes will have a lot of heavy lifting to do — especially with regards to Bill’s reputation.

[tardigrade @tardigrade]

Thanks to those encouraging me to continue commenting- to be clear I don’t feel ostracised in the slightest due to making negative comments on an episode- my reluctance to make further negative comments was my own, though a preference not to add too much negativity to the thread, since there are doubtless positive things to be said. I don’t want to be the one who comes and tells someone who enjoyed something that they shouldn’t have enjoyed it, and here are the reasons why…

Just to unpack one of my earlier comments- there are random effects that led to events playing out as they did (the broken glasses being a major one). But perhaps the Monks simulated a number of possible futures and found a likelihood of disaster regardless of how things play out- perhaps if the lab tech doesn’t break her glasses then, they could break later on the bus, or she isn’t delayed and accidentally steps in front of that bus. The Monks have shown they can simulate the Doctor, so even the actual scenario of him intervening and needing himself to be saved might have been amongst those possible threads. That could potentially make it very difficult for the Doctor to do anything to save the situation, as his possible moves could have been foreseen. That might be a reason to release Missy- to add her special brand of chaos 🙂

@missrori

would it be safe to say that this is so far the most-poorly-received episode so far in Series 10?

For me personally, I’d be struggling to find an episode in the Capaldi run that I felt was weaker. I didn’t take issue with the acting by the way- Peter and Pearl, in particular, were up to their normal excellent standards, but they were let down by the writing, and perhaps some budgetary constraints that left holes in the plot & logic. I’m aware of the intensity of effort that goes into making a season and that corners sometimes need to be cut, and unfortunately that can sometimes become obvious. For myself, when there are issues like the ones in this episode, it takes me right out of the experience and the emotional notes of the story are largely lost on me too.

[MissRori @missrori]

@tardigrade  Oh, I agree with you that there were just too many issues with the script and story in this one for it to be satisfying.  The actors can only do so much, though with Capaldi that’s quite a bit!  I think you’re also onto something about budget issues — some of the special effects were quite poor (especially the withering plants).

The Monks have shown they can simulate the Doctor, so even the actual scenario of him intervening and needing himself to be saved might have been amongst those possible threads. That could potentially make it very difficult for the Doctor to do anything to save the situation, as his possible moves could have been foreseen.

Absolutely!  And going into this knowing it was part two of three made it worse for me, as it killed all the suspense.  This was ultimately an unstoppable march to doom, as many part ones (and occasional part twos) are, and trying to pin the tragic ending on the Doctor’s hubris — rather than, say, Bill’s good intentions but also her selfishness and fear, because he was willing to accept the consequences and die — didn’t work given what we and he knew the Monks were capable of all along.  Why, he was just a poor lamb to the slaughter, really…

And again, his mistakes may have contributed to the unhappy end, but so did everybody else’s often dumber mistakes.  We’re supposed to wag our fingers at the Doctor for his hubris and Bill for her faith in him, but Earth really is the Planet of the Pudding Brains and he really is the only one who can save it in times like these.  Heck, Clara chewed him out in “Kill the Moon” (by the same writer) for his having faith in her and humanity’s intelligence and ability to make the choices he would in a crisis and leaving them to decide their fate instead of just doing what HE thought was best based on what he believed would happen — arguing that because he has effectively adopted Earth as his home world, he has just as much a say in what happens and duty to protect it as any human.

Edit: Also, “Oxygen” just a few weeks ago was a far more effective, intelligent story about the Doctor’s flaws getting the better of him and his having to face the consequences as a result.  The situation he ended up in was all his fault, and no one else’s, and he knew it, and he faced it.  Even “The Zygon Invasion” did a better job of showing how the Doctor’s flaws could trip him up (i.e., his not paying enough attention to Clara to realize she was a little bit off…).

[Missy @missy]

Still reading all your posts.  All I can say at this moment is that I enjoyed it very much.

Loved the comment  by Bill , that she wouldn’t have voted for the president – “he’s orange.”

[tardigrade @tardigrade]

@missrori

I think you’re also onto something about budget issues — some of the special effects were quite poor (especially the withering plants).

I was also thinking that budget might have meant a more realistic airlock system wasn’t implementable. Even some sort of token effort like a decontamination spray would have been better than doing nothing meaningful. The physical design of the lock mechanism was also clunky- it looked like something lifted from the first Doctor’s Tardis. Budget (and time) constraints don’t only show up in the CGI.

@missy

Loved the comment by Bill, that she wouldn’t have voted for the president – “he’s orange.”

She was only chided a couple of weeks ago for colour-consciousness towards the blue-skinned. Now she’s exhibiting bias against the orange-skinned :). I guess the other myriad reasons she might not have voted for this (purely fictitious I’m sure 🙂 ) president might not have played so well though.

[CountScarlioni @countscarlioni]

@ichabod   I think “power” to the monks is freedom to make effective choices, so their idea of “love” is just what the Doctor says it is: “Love is — slavery.”  Well, he should know: he was recently shown increasingly enslaved (and perverted from his natural, chosen course) by one hell of an obsessive love for his former companion.

That makes good sense and is extremely well put!

@devilishrobby  really cant shake the feeling there’s something we’re all missing but for the life of me I can’t put my finger on what it is.

I have a similar sense, particularly as a key point in the episode is the misdirection the Doctor points out, “Look, look over here at the pyramid!,” when the main action is in a lab in Yorkshire.

@missrori   She lacks the courage to face danger without the Doctor by her side, to face the consequences of choosing to let him die even though the Monks appeared on the verge of just giving up.

I’m unclear why the Monks would give up. They’ve already gone to a lot of trouble and they’re surely in it for the long haul. Why would one small setback deter them?

 

 

 

 

[Anonymous @]

@missrori

The site points out that while she is smart and kind, she has no imagination, no eagerness to take advantage of everything the Doctor has to offer her, little wonder…

Well at least we can take a deep breath and say “this site doesn’t necessarily think that!” 🙂

Yes, you see, I don’t quite follow that.

Consider this: are our semantics incorrect? Have we cooked the ideas in such a way that our expressions don’t actually match what we’re thinking? Are we even indicating linguistic connectives, precisely and pragmatically?

So, to: “little wonder”? As she stepped cautiously and gently onto the Thames with a look of pure joy and excitement on her face? As she said: “I’m going to try everything here!” followed by her sitting on her own when her tutor (essentially her guardian) didn’t save, and couldn’t save, a child? Hmm.

Puro-is-puzzled. But that’s OK! Moving along…..

In my opinion, Bill has created large defences around her physical and psychological space. She’s finely covered in armour. She’s sensitive and self-protected. If @missrori you feel

“she doesn’t return his familial affections all that well bar the occasional hug”

then are we failing to determine any subtle modulation towards this man? At times she’s aloof,  and yet in her expressions we see the gradual creation of trust for this almost (but not quite) omniscient figure. In her very first conversation with the Doctor she assumes nothing from him. She says: “am I done?” expecting nothing, requiring nothing. She conveys thoughts very differently to the mile-a-minute Clara, who, I might add was despised as a character (on the interwebs) because she was either too chatty; too arrogant; too sophisticated or, in a parallel universe, unsophisticated. Her foster mother isn’t as bonded to Bill in the same way Clara’s mother was, Amelia’s aunt or even Rose, whose relationship with her mother on screen was philosophically heterodox. Very little Rose felt was inimical to an integrated Western viewpoint.

Bill’s life is different. She possesses intellectual independence and an almost unruly style of pragmatic thinking: she’s self aware, quite cautious and aware of others (see how she gently questions Penny. Twice). In The Pilot she immediately asked about the Doctor’s box: “how did you get it in?” Her thoughts are not always our thoughts: her intermediaries are different. She’s outwardly concerned about her sexuality -not in way that is obvious or demonstrates shame; but one can see she’s experienced a gradual separation from an orthodox behaviour pattern which undercuts her potential to speak about this with her mother, for instance. Hers is a naturalistic cosmology, in my opinion. What does that have to do with anything? It means that how she demonstrates outer-awareness, self-reflection and logic is different to other characters in the show. She has an intellectual duty to the Doctor even if it contradicts the traditional verities of her pre-imagined faith in society, aliens, or the Pandora’s box of inquiry to which the Doctor introduces her.

So, to the point of her  “eagerness ” which also puzzles. In Smile, Bill isn’t just eager, she’s enthusiastic, rambunctious and positively euphoric with discovery: she reaches for the algae lunch, she doesn’t stay put in the Tardis, she asks questions about the vardi, decides what’s a “proper” robot and shouts with glee arriving on a “proper spaceship” in Chasm Forge.

Personally I don’t agree that Bill has a “lack of imagination” either. This isn’t incorporated anywhere in the previous episodes or in The Pyramid (@cathannabel I agree ‘Pyramid’ is a better title!). In fact when you screen shot both her grades (poetry and physics) and recognise the passage from Isaiah (she uses in one of her highest-ranking papers) one can see Bill is freeing herself from censure, is expected to think ‘outside the box’ and proposes unique ways of looking at traditional scholarly ideas. With the Doctor she learns about Aristotelian and Socratic intellect and thought. Having tasted this she doesn’t want to return to the status quo and yet when faced with the death of others around her in this episode and knowing the Doctor will die, she summarily makes a choice: one of faith and profound duty which condemns her to taking away the Doctor’s free agency. In her imagination the earth will lie devastated. Her feel for this absolutist future permeated her decision.

Clueless of regeneration, stuck in a truly nightmarish scenario she feels she’s the only authoritative expositor. It is here, where her fully modulated (up to this point) personality with intellect, faith and emotion snap together giving a fuller picture of who she has now become. All the previous episodes act as a jigsaw to this moment.

To me, this is the categorical imperative in the state-of-play within Bill’s life. She’s experienced a type of papal patronage (and we had a larger than life actual pope) from the Doctor who nudges her with scholarly repute. At other times she’s amazed at his unsuppressed ego and optimism. She implicitly trusts the Doctor but it is in this episode that his hubris activates that which we all face (and have faced at key moments in the exposition of our Western and non-Western development): the warring adherents of reason and love; science and faith; theology and philosophy.

So it is through Bill’s choices, her underdeveloped knowledge of the Doctor’s capacity that we see her: in darkness we are revealed. In confusion there is darkness. Unlike others, I’ve not found this second part to be “saggy and illogical.” Rather I see this as a play on our own esoteric tradition involving power, consent, duty, hubris and the condemnation of proposed, traditional definitions of love and the supernatural. The monks may be “also-rans,” yet  some of our biggest challenges emerge from small echoes or disparities of that which feels ‘wrong.’ Only later are they re-evaluated as serious threats. This episode, like much of the past decade (in RL) has underscored an implicit negation of free will and grace. Bill removes the Doctor’s free will and her grace at a moment where she is convinced there is no alternative.

I would strongly suggest that these points in our own life also come when least expected. And will we be ready? This is the narrative strand of the episode, in my opinion. It isn’t without “off beats” but it presents a brave and thoughtful paradigm from which to converse about our own global political and social-sexual realms.

Kindest,

Puro.

[MissRori @missrori]

@countscarlioni Well, the clocks were moving backwards again… but you do have a point that either way the Monks were still dangerous.  Still, I think I’d accept the Doctor’s loss and fight them myself rather than sell out everybody…

[MissRori @missrori]

@thane15 Deep thoughts as always Puro.  But if she takes the Doctor’s free will, doesn’t that make her no better than the Doctor was when he planned to mind wipe Clara, or later Bill herself, for their own good, when he felt there was no choice?  Hmm.

[tardigrade @tardigrade]

The phrase “Clueless of regeneration” from @thane15 has reminded me of a point I was going to raise. I’m not sure whether @thane15 intended this, and this was alluded to earlier by a couple of people in passing, but I’ll make it explicitly…

The Doctor was actually keeping two secrets from Bill- his blindness was only one. He also deliberately declined to tell her about his ability to regenerate when asked- he should have been able to survive the conflagration in the lab by regenerating. If she knew that, then she wouldn’t have needed to ask for the Monks’ help. His inability to confide in her may literally have cost the Earth.

[Steffstaff @steffstaff]

@tardigrade the established lore on time-lord’s and their ability to regenerate is somewhat iffy when it comes to continuity – but we have over time learned that if their injuries are too severe, or if their hearts are damaged, or if they die instantly before the process has a chance to begin then they can’t regenerate… So I suspect exploding along with the lab would have ticked all three of those boxes!

Someone should have told the executioners last week this!

[MissRori @missrori]

@tardigrade  I don’t think him not telling her about regeneration would have made much difference under the circumstances.  He was about to be blown to pieces at worst.  At best, well, Erica wouldn’t have been able to immediately get his body out of the room as it was burning.  He would have been flayed alive with burns, his lungs seared to a crisp and/or poisoned by smoke inhalation; he would have easily asphyxiated without precious, precious oxygen.  All that could easily  be too much for regeneration energy to overcome before his whole body shut down.  We know that in the alternate future of “Turn Left” he managed to drown; if the damage is that severe and that quick regeneration can’t do much of anything.  I think he would have mentioned he could regenerate to Bill if he thought it was possible for him to do so at that moment.

[Anonymous @]

@missrori -that’s quite a description there! 🙁 Golly!  I doubt that in Bill’s terror she would understand the concept of regeneration? Nice if she could but…earth….dying. Maybe she’d expect this to be an ‘excuse’ by the Doctor so she doesn’t ‘consent.’ ?  Certainly the question remains: “who is at fault?”

@tardigrade indeed, yes, the Doctor lies. How much has he learned, I often wonder (since Season 5 for instance?)

<-_->

Thane and the Puro

 

[Anonymous @]

@missrori sorry about that. Darn me for not reading from the top!

Oh absolutely, this is the tipping point of the conversation: the 2000 year old Doctor needing to protect the world from the vault (and the vault from the earth) by mind-wiping Bill and separating this out from a very hazardous situation. She’s confronted by corpses (and then there’s the munks! 🙂 ), perhaps 20 years old and her experience in The Pilot was the most exciting day of her “existence.” In other words limited experience, steeped in a very short but powerful tradition of learning confronted by every single life form (even “the slops of water from which we came”) dying. I think I’d choose “love” too!

Wrong, yes, but this is the moment of plurality: coming at the apex of Episode 7: her eagerness; shyness (I think she has a shy quality there in amongst the sometimes-brash exterior); her belief that the Doctor is sightless because of her. That he lied to protect her. That she cares for him -they spent a good portion of Christmas together – indicates a very familial environment (hell I want to see no-one at Christmas! Last Christmas I was entirely alone and orgasmic with relief of skipping the cooking; the guests; the heat. Right, sorry, droning on again). She’s both secure in some areas of her life and in others, plans are stalling……like the planes in this episode 🙂

I thought of addressing the powerful thoughts she’s experiencing here? She runs from the Trio of corpses and then shortly thereafter hears that the Doctor is blind: “I lied.”

She says: “you stupid, stupid idiot,” steps back, steps forward and runs to the Munks. The emotion, the adrenaline of panic is running riot through her system. She’s not a soldier. She feels she’s a:

“nobody. Who am I? I don’t represent anyone!”

If the Doctor lies and sometimes has to go through the same experience over and over before settling upon a better choice then I think we should give a young girl several chances to do the same.

Great conversation!

Kindest, Puro

[Miapatrick @miapatrick]

@steffstaff, @missrori @thane15: re: regeneration. There is always a sense of the idea he might not regenerate. That he has regenerations left was made explicit (if anyone had missed the episode where he was gifted them) by his comments about the sight restorer.
(and I repeat, this episode would have been a great time to have the sight restorers on him.)

When Davidson’s doctor died he was worried he wouldn’t regenerate, and Bakers doctor came back- troubled at first. When River died it was because she knew he wouldn’t regenerate in that blast. The executioners last week seemed to be going for overkill, so to speak. Stop both hearts, cut off all three brainstems, and then lock the body in a box for a thousand years. They might just have been too fancy to execute via a big massive explosion. And, to be fair, it was the master.

But also, as people have pointed out, if he’d just said ‘don’t worry, I’ll come back with a different face body and personality but I’ll have all my memories and be broadly the same sort of person, I do it all the time’ could she believe him when he’s just be lying for (we don’t know how long) about being blind?
considering her feelings for him. How long was he acting as her tutor before he took her travelling? I agree with thane15, they have a complex relationship, she is a complex person. She lost her mother before she could know her, and still talks to her. She has an uneasy, sometimes, relationship with her foster mother, who, nonetheless, worries about her, and still has her, at 26, living with her, and even worries that Bill will end up in the bad choices with men that she herself seems permanently enmeshed in. Which is also pretty funny because Bill’s all shrugs, and well, I’m into women, no danger there, and here she is in a complicated relationship with a dangerous man who’s lied to her! Her responses to the places he’s taken her have been of wonder, quickly followed by fear and distress.

I also see no reason to think the monks would have given up. That particular doomsday scenario was averted. But I can’t think they would have simply thought, oh well, century after century of planning down the drain. They’d think, our biggest obstacle is either dead or disorientated for a while, lets hang on for the next one. True, they’ve exposed themselves, but they’ve killed everyone (but Bill) to whom they’ve openly communicated.

But at the end of the day Bill would have lost someone who took a fatherly (grandfatherly) interest in her. Who saw her potential when she was serving chips and crashing lectures, who punched out a racist for upsetting her (when he specifically said he didn’t want any of that going down) who took orders from her in Thin Ice. And what was her choice there? Free the beast, and deal with whatever comes after. The Doctor risking his life and losing his eyesight is the kind of decision he makes, not the greatest strategy, but he put her first because he felt responsible for her. There is enough in their relationship now for her to act out of love, and besides, there was love for the planet there as well. ‘You’d better save my planet’. Somehow this counted as a pure motive and not strategy or fear.

[tardigrade @tardigrade]

@steffstaff @missrori- Despite his description of what he was creating as an explosion (and that wouldn’t have been of much use anyway- that may simply have released the pathogen), it was really closer to an ethanol fire- the depiction I think was actually fairly accurate- more of a “whoosh” than an explosive blast- and it would go out basically immediately without an oxygen supply. He wasn’t going to be blown to pieces- at the very worst he may have been horrifically burnt (as @missrori graphically describes), but not beyond a condition where regeneration would likely have been impossible. If he remembered not to breathe in during the short conflagration (or preferably covered his head in a wet cloth- it’s a plant lab- there’s water and he has a minute to prepare), then I’d expect it even to be survivable in the short term – if he did that and wet himself thoroughly all over (with water I mean 🙂 ) and curled up in the foetal position on the floor away from the immediate flashpoint, then he might not even need to regenerate to survive, assuming her or Erica could get oxygen to him afterwards (and as we’ve seen the Doctor can survive quite a while without oxygen)- I’d think his sonic would make short work on a pane of glass- hit the resonant frequency and watch it shatter. Remember the previous episode and the conditions that had to be met to execute a Time Lord and it’s not a simple matter- it’s hard to see all three of his brainstems getting fried, even if he took no particular precautions. Certainly he (and the Master) have regenerated from worse trauma.

The Doctor telling Bill her about his ability to regenerate right at the decision point may well not have worked- as @thane15 suggests, she might have felt she was being deceived. But if he’d told her previously about his ability, he may well have been able to reassure her that he’d survive (even if that wasn’t a sure thing).

@thane15

How much has he learned, I often wonder

I guess you get a bit set in your ways when your age is measured in millenia.

[MissRori @missrori]

@thane15  Well, Bill may not have much time to make better choices before she’s gone; I don’t think anyone knows if she’s going to make it to the Christmas show yet.  There are only five episodes left in the season, and I think next week is her one chance to carry the day.  Hopefully she will make the best choices this time.  It’s also a mark against the idea that we’re still watching simulations at this point — if all this was just fake, then Bill won’t have made any real character progress since “Oxygen”.

Indeed I think one reason the Doctor didn’t want to tell her he was blind — and he could have yet still hide it from the rest of the world, when one thinks about it — was because he didn’t want her to feel guilty about it, because he knew it was his fault she was in trouble.  He had nothing but bad choices where his relationship with her was concerned: Let her know and leave her with guilt, or hide it from her but risk that lack of knowledge getting them into trouble, and in the end…one choice led to the other, and things fell apart.

Sometimes all we have are bad choices…

EDIT: Or, he could have just got his eyes fixed, or further upgraded the sonic sunglasses.  A lot of fans elsewhere are getting really annoyed that he hasn’t just done the former. All of time and space in that box, his own people to return to, and he can’t get to a good sawbones?  If the show would just explain why he can’t get his eyes fixed, it would make a huge difference.  As it is, it does feel like a cheap device for drama at times.

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @pedant]

@missrori

You seem to be trying to analysis Bill’s choices as rational, when the explicit aim of the Monks was to punish reason (the UN dudes fear was quite reasonable, given how outclassed the B52s and subs were, and the generals were trying to strategise, an act of reason).

Bill suddenly found herself promoted to President-by-proxy, while the mentor who has plucked her from the kitchen and given her all her dreams, then shown her wonders beyond compare – by far the most powerful person she had ever met, and who had chosen her to knock around with – was in mortal danger.  I very much doubt the Monks were being honest when they say she acted out of love. What mattered was that her decision was entirely emotional.

Moffat doesn’t waste time with wordy explanation. We have seen that Bill and Doc have been knocking around – at the very least – for several months. Everything needed to understand this episode was there, it’s just that Moffat writes in sentences, not paragraphs.

Useful lesson there.

Also, why the hell are you so obsessed with what other sites think? Who cares? Christ, the Graun has people who think “Well, that was no Robots of Sherwood” is still funny.

[MissRori @missrori]

@pedant  I think you have a point about what the Monks really want.  It will be interesting to see how that plays out next week.

As for other sites, well, I do like to check out other opinions to compare and contrast.  I’m more io9 and AV Club than the Graun myself.  There’s a lot of chaff, but no small amount of wheat too, and I found it interesting how our issues with this episode aren’t that different than those the more casual viewers who frequent those sites had.  🙂

[Steffstaff @steffstaff]

oooh I don’t know @tardigrade – I feel as an audience member and fan that I’ve entered into an unspoken agreed contract  with the makers of Doctor that I will never assume a regeneration is possible when a scene of jeopardy is introduced!

[Anonymous @]

@pedant  @missrori @tardigrade @miapatrick

Moffat writes in sentences, not paragraphs

Yes, in my opinion this is Bill’s biopic. Actions stemming from actions marching into decisions.

We have been told “I can never see again” -regarding the eyesight. To me, these key words are not inexplicable but suggest something serious: or he’s improvising as “the idiot in a box” with a sonic. 🙂

In my opinion, the stories, the thematic bars and measures mark the dominant beats of the episode. I tend not to worry exactly how the Doctor might have survived the fire -whether covered in a wet blanket or not (or is that Nardole? 🙂 ). To me it is this: he may have died or regenerated. Instead his sight is returned -the motivations for which enrich the story more.

In fact, with the monks simulating away and the Doctor losing his eyesight -was that part of the munk’s strategy/sim occurring in Oxygen? He tried to repair his eyes…it didn’t happen. Why not? Maybe it just didn’t work –  was it Cath or another poster who mentioned Tennant’s regeneration scene and the ‘lost hand’?

Could we consider: he can never “see anything ever again” but can ‘observe’: from Sherlock: “as usual you see but do not observe.” I wouldn’t think that any television, anywhere, has used blindness as a “cheap trick” or stunt @missrori.

I expect in the Doctor’s case -in humans too -his other senses are more alert.

In losing one thing, we often gain another. Also with all “of space and time in his box” have the other  sites forgotten that the Tardis gives him what he needs? In this instance a different type of sight was required. In Moffat’s stories treasures are earned and the lessons hard.

@miapatrick “Free the beast, and deal with whatever comes after”

Yes, this has been her experience. Also she has sufficient imagination to think: “have we sentenced Greenland to death?”

Frequently the Doctor has said: “well, yes if that happens…..that’s why I don’t dwell on it” -he’s got a sorta plan, and limited time in which to do it. This is expedient Doctor. And if the companions learn from their tutor, then Bill is also using expediency.

Puro

 

[Anonymous @]

@missrori yes, I think I said that he doesn’t want her to feel guilty, via:

“[That] he lied to protect her.”

With what you said:

There are only five episodes left in the season, and I think next week is her one chance to carry the day.

Yes, that’s possible: or one way to see it. But again, to me, this is her dark hour, her own darkness reveals the inner-self. The intersection of faith and reason; love and slavery; ethics and personal want(s) -the warring Trio within Bill’s own beating heart. Should she be ANY different? Could there have been other options? I don’t see that -despite the Doctor’s pleading.

And I suppose I also ask, is it essential for this character to somehow ‘redeem’ herself by episode 12/13? I mentioned Moffat’s lessons -not all are so easy to pass as the Doctor’s poetry and physics papers. But he’s tried to “teach her everything.”

Ultimately, each of us begs for second chances. For 10 chances. And not all are faced with walking corpse munks. Sometimes redemption takes a long time and the results aren’t always noble. It depends who’s redeemed.

Puro. G’night all.

[MissRori @missrori]

@thane15  I meant that the blindness not being curable, given what the Doctor has available to him, didn’t make a lot of logical sense.  It’s like how I or others could think of other, safer options available to him in “Hell Bent” to bring back Clara Oswald (such as commissioning a Paradox Machine), but he went with the one that would blow up the universe unless he got really lucky or something.  😉

But you’re right that his blindness really isn’t a cheap device (having the sonic screwdriver not work at the thing it’s best at might be a better example of that!).  It’s made for an interesting arc these past few weeks, and come to this crisis point.  And similarly, in “Hell Bent” he had to take the option that might make the universe go boom by way of realizing how too far he’d gone in his love for Clara.

Your point about the TARDIS taking him where he needs to be…well, we discussed this a while back with “Oxygen” — the TARDIS didn’t have to take him to Chasm Forge if it wasn’t where he needed to be at that time, at that moment.  He and his friends needed to be there, to go through what they did.  And yes, the munks probably knew about that.  He’s clearly central to their simulations.  He has made himself indispensable to Earth, not just Clara Oswald!  😀

So the real question then is, what is it that the Doctor gains for (temporarily) losing his sight and this whole dirty business with the munks?  And what will Bill gain for these experiences?  Perhaps we will find out this Saturday…  😉

Thank you for your time Puro, and I’m sorry I’m so long-winded.

[Brewski @brewski]

Well I generally enjoyed this one and was, for the most part, willing to overlook some of the logic flaws; like the very poor judgment on the part of the male lab worker.

But when the Doctor was trapped in the lab, talking to Bill, they had me screaming at the TV loud enough that they should have heard me:  “You have smart phones!  Aim the camera at the lock and have Bill walk you through cycling the combination!”

Ah well.  I was amused that they killed the moon, dead! :p

 

[Brewski @brewski]

P.S. Did anyone else think: “a ship disguised to look like a pyramid?  You mean like a TARDIS?!”

[MissRori @missrori]

@brewski Some folks at TVTropes did, pointing out that the show never has explained what happened to the Master’s TARDIS…  😉

[Brewski @brewski]

<span class=”useratname”>@missrori</span> Well there was that mysterious phone booth in the background in Dark Water.  But I suspect that was just a red hearing device.

[Mirime @mirime]

@missrori of course Clara was willing to risk the universe because she wanted Danny back. Bill giving away the Earth to save the Doctor at least makes sense from the point of view that the Doctor has saved the Earth repeatedly and without him, even if the Monks did give up, who will save the planet from the next lot who fancy a second home in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy?

@countscarlioni

I’m unclear why the Monks would give up. They’ve already gone to a lot of trouble and they’re surely in it for the long haul. Why would one small setback deter them?

This. They would just find the next point of imminent doom. They didn’t look like they were giving up, they looked like they were going back to check out their simulations.

@brewski I don’t think the Doctor has a smartphone

Missy is clearly going to be the wildcard the monks couldn’t predict, and I think even more now that the Doctor put the Veritas in the simulation. He’s got the whole thing in the email his sim version sent…

Could Missy being in the vault be pre-planned as well? (His dishevelled look is still bothering me….). Though if they could predict his blindness even though it happened off world and in the future how did they miss Missy’s incarceration?

 

[wolfweed @wolfweed]

The Master’s quadruple beat (based on the Dr Who theme & the double heartbeat of a Time Lord, which became the Archangel Network signal & Four Knocks) is the ringtone for Bill’s mobile phone in this episode & the last…

The Drumming

 

[MissRori @missrori]

@mirime  Well, as I noted above, the Doctor is indispensable to Earth.  If the Monks have been able to follow all of Earth’s history with their glow-y thread-y things, I’m sure they could spare a few to track down the Doctor.  But yes, they should know about Missy by now, whether they were following the Doctor’s movements specifically or not.  Omnipotent villains, they’re omnipotent until they’re not!  😉

As for his disheveled look in “The Lie of the Land”, well, he’s wearing the exact same outfit he wore in the Missy flashback scenes of “Extremis”, i.e. at a time when he was mourning River Song’s death and not taking care of himself.   I do wonder why he’d pull that old thing out after so many decades…

[Brewski @brewski]

@mirime  I don’t think the Doctor has a smartphone

That would have saved me a lot of screaming. 😉

[Arbutus @arbutus]

Before I get going, can I beg people not to keep referring to the “next time” clips which not everyone has seen? I believe those are considered spoilers on the episode forums (I certainly consider them as such).

@ichabod @tardigrade (and anyone else who mentioned this)  Agree about the aliens’ notion of love and consent. It occurred to me on second viewing that they keep saying consent must be offered in love (rather than fear or strategy), and they made it clear that this is because they themselves must be loved. Bill’s consent is given (at least partly) out of love for the Doctor . So there maybe be a basic communication/comprehension problem here.

I sympathize with those who felt underwhelmed by the episode. I will admit to some plot hole/logic issues here and there. For instance, I couldn’t believe that Bill never picked up on the Doctor’s blindness as she stood next to Nardole giving him a play-by-play of what he ought to have been able to see for himself.

I agree with @thane15 (Puro) that the realization of the monsters is never an issue for me personally. I also like the idea that “consent to power” is a theme that will hopefully be relevant in the next episode. (Also, @thane15, good call out on the connection to the Doctor’s lecture in the opening episode!)

Also, Puro, I enjoyed reading your thoughts about Bill and fully agree! Further, I’m not sure why anyone would feel that her depth of love for the Doctor hangs on the number of off-world trips she has taken with him. If he saw potential in her that others didn’t, and undertook to help her reach it, wouldn’t that be enough?

@brewski   Did anyone else think: “a ship disguised to look like a pyramid?  You mean like a TARDIS?!   Yes! So much so that I was very surprised it wasn’t referenced in the script.

[Arbutus @arbutus]

@whisht     Arbutus Jr. follows the British and European football fairly closely, so I hear a fair amount more than I would have in times past. Having interpreted your words and extrapolated things from them, I think Arbutus Jr. would ask you this question: “Are you Wenger-in or Wenger-out?”  🙂

[lisa @lisa]

@brewski

Yes Yes Yes  the Pyramid!    I’ve   0   interest in the psychology of Bill !   She’s a human

and like the rest of us we all have pudding head issues.   We are all hoping that because

the Doctor took a shine to her its cause she has more valuable critical thinking skills.  So how

many times has that been the theme in the companions.  I’m thinking always!

But the pyramid !   It has interesting abilities on the level of a Tardis.

It reminds me of a scene in “Journey to the center of the Tardis” with the spaghetti lights and orbs.

Those that looked at the next episode preview saw something that actually may relate to 1 of those.

I’ve been getting a serious Tardis vibe about that pyramid too!  However its probably wishful thinking.

But if it actually does shake out that way-  which is super doubtful – I want it to be Rasilon’s Tardis!!!

 

 

[lisa @lisa]

@brewski

Well I guess I lost the post in my  spelling edit but I was saying that I’m with you on the Tardis!!!

It reminded me of a scene in the “Journey to the center of the Tardis’  in the room with the

spaghetti lights and orbs.    I couldn’t care less about the psychology of Bill.  She is like all the

Doctor’s companions in that she was picked because of her special critical thinking abilities.

I wonder which companion would have made different choices from hers?

I’m thinking the story still would be written the same.    But that Pyramid has the same level of

“skills” as a  Tardis.    So if it shakes out that the pyramid is  a Tardis then I hope it’s Rassilon cause

that would be such a great twist!

 

[Mirime @mirime]

@lisa @brewski how many monks have we seen? I seem to recall at some point it being said you need six people to properly pilot a Tardis…

Without checking I seem to remember there being at least five in the glowy string room.

[lisa @lisa]

@mirime

So looking it up on Tardiswiki  that particular room in the Tardis is called the

‘Architectural Reconfiguration System’.

Its purpose is to reconstruct particles to your needs.    Isn’t that really a lot like ‘simulation’?

Yes,  properly piloting the Tardis according to 10 takes  {I think he said} 6   🙂

[wolfweed @wolfweed]

If anyone wants to pore over the plot holes, the transcript of the episode is now online…

TPATEOTW transcript

[ichabod @ichabod]

@missrori  Hell Bent:  everybody including Clara regarded him as a selfish monster for his actions, for risking everyone else’s safety just to save one person no matter how important they were. No one but Clara cared how he felt and had suffered; everybody else was more important than him. Why couldn’t he have just contented himself with soup and rescue from execution

Because he’d become obsessed with somehow keeping his mayfly (“someone he can’t bear to lose”) alive indefinitely despite her inherent “fragility”.  He been pushed well beyond reason, which I heard Moffat say in several interviews at the time.  Clara did her final “save” by asserting her right to deal with her own life’s end (to the Fisher King in Before the Flood — “You’ve stolen their deaths from them”, bad!).

(Bill’s choice)  She’s placing all the responsibility for what happens next on his slim shoulders. She’s not going to help him, she doesn’t say “We’re all in this together.” 

That didn’t seem “off” to me.  I also see her feelings about him as affection for a distinctly “eccentric” (!) tutor, but not partnership in any deeper sense.  She’s hardly fought her way through time and space as Batman’s Robin here, partly because he hasn’t offered her that kind of closeness (Clara; River; still fresh losses).  Bill is brash and lively, but she’s still in a sort of eager “ride-along” situation, not a partner who’s trying to be like him.  I think her choice is strategic (whatever the monks think), and it’s to save her planet, still her home, and everything on it from being sludge.  She knows the Doctor, blind or not, is our best hope of defeating the monks eventually, but she certainly doesn’t see *herself* as his shotgun-rider in that endeavor.  So she tries to save what she thinks she can, in hopes of giving the Doctor room to do a fix somehow later on.

@thane15  I’ve not found this second part to be “saggy and illogical.” Rather I see this as a play on our own esoteric tradition involving power, consent, duty, hubris and the condemnation of proposed, traditional definitions of love and the supernatural.  Bill removes the Doctor’s free will and her grace at a moment where she is convinced there is no alternative.  I would strongly suggest that these points in our own life also come when least expected. And will we be ready? This is the narrative strand of the episode, in my opinion.

This episode ripped right along for me and swept me with it.  “Bill’s grace” — she is also “blind” here, isn’t she?  To all that the Doctor is and can do (no fault of hers; he’s deliberately kept her “in the dark” in order to try to keep a mutually “safe” distance between them).  And how provocative that a young POC woman, who reflected on slavery in “Thin Ice” with the particular awareness that would come with being dark-skinned in white cultures, has just assented to slavery for humankind — under extreme duress, and to salvage *some* future from the prospect of *no future*.

Is that failure?

@missrori  But if she takes the Doctor’s free will, doesn’t that make her no better than the Doctor was when he planned to mind wipe Clara, or later Bill herself, for their own good, when he felt there was no choice? Hmm.

Clearly, we are still chewing that conundrum over in this series, aren’t we?  What are the proper responsibilities of power; where do they begin and end?  Though I don’t think he was going to memory-wipe Bill for her safety, as with Clara (nobody’s chasing Bill), but for his own (“No one must know I’m here; I’m in disguise”).

@thane15  Puro   If the Doctor lies and sometimes has to go through the same experience over and over before settling upon a better choice then I think we should give a young girl several chances to do the same.

Yes.  She’s growing, the way we grow — take action, rather than just stand there: and learn from the consequences (though you might not like what you learn).

@tardigrade  His inability to confide in her may literally have cost the Earth.

I’d say it was a choice not to confide; not to risk more of that damned unpredictable, painful, and ultimately doomed closeness.  So many of us make similar choices so often . . .

@miapatrick  Bill’s . . . in a complicated relationship with a dangerous man who’s lied to her! Her responses to the places he’s taken her have been of wonder, quickly followed by fear and distress.

True, I think — she’s a lover of wonder, but no thrill-seeker.  She has challenges in her own life to deal with — orphan, fostered, a bit shy (as someone else pointed out) under the surface confidence.  I find the appeals to her mother a lovely vein of child-like vulnerability underlying her quick, sturdy practicality.

@thane15  Puro  This is expedient Doctor. . .companions learn from their tutor, then Bill is also using expediency.

Wow — yes!  For a moment she really *is* his “representative”, making the dangerous choice that offers possibilities rather than the one that shuts everything down for good.

[Author]

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