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@winston   I generally agree with you.   The Space Babies were ‘cute’ on overload  (I don’t like ‘cute’, did I mention?) and their voices were young teens.   And I think a couple of times the voice didn’t quite sync with the ‘baby’ who was speaking.   So the whole thing was rather unreal.

Also, how come babies were controlling a space station?    I suppose (in hindsight) that Jocelyn   (Nan-E) might have set everything up to give them the illusion of controlling things, just to keep them occupied.   Even though Jocelyn admitted that she really didn’t know how to control the station either.

And I found the monster really rather disgusting.

Mudlark (way back) said “I guess RTD just thought ‘talking babies running a space station would be a cute idea for an episode’, and wasn’t bothered about the rationale.”     I think, possibly similar to “What if the Moon was a giant egg?”

Never mind, next episode(s) are much better.

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@ps1l0v3y0u    If you’re referring to current political events (like, the US elections/Ukraine/Gaza) I sympathise, they can be very – distracting.   Though I find I can usually switch off my real-life awareness and just immerse myself in the story.   Whatever happens in Real Life (TM) in the next few weeks, or four years, ‘Boom’ and the Doctor and Ruby will be unchanged, it will still be the same story, frozen in time, when 2024 is just a bad and distant memory.

So I tend to be fairly oblivious to ‘messages’ in the text, and in particular, I’m opposed to taking specific ‘incidents’ and widening them into generalised moral imperatives.   In this specific instance, the Doctor realised he was standing on an Anglican Marine landmine (even though programmed by the Villengard Corporation) and the way to switch it off was for the Marines to surrender.      That was entirely pragmatic; whether Gandhi would/should have surrendered to Hitler has nothing to do with it (IMO).    On the other hand, that war is often pointless and usually bad, and benefits mainly the military/industrial complex that Eisenhower warned of in the 1950’s, that is a generalised message (and one I personally agree with).    But the world is complex.    Witness the Doctor’s attack on the pointless ‘faith’ that kept the Marines fighting and occasionally dieing for – nothing, yet he acknowledged at the end that ‘faith’ was a good and sustaining thing for Mundy and Splice in their personal circumstances.

 

 

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Okay, this is the verbose version.   You have been warned   🙂

Phones implanted in hands, that’s new. But then, we had hand mines (and don’t tell me that idea didn’t start off as a bad pun, which duly turned horrific in Moff’s fertile imagination) in The Witch’s Familiar. Speaking of mines…

Battlefield scenes seem to be a theme with Moff. He (and the Who producers) do them very well, though. Mines that migrate – with what we find out later of Villengard’s MO, I guess that would be a way to increase casualties. The apprehensive way the soldiers react to the threat of an ambulance tells us all we need to know about the way this war is being fought.

I have to applaud the deft way an information dump is handled – quite painlessy to the viewer – by the two soldiers talking to each other. Interrupted by one of them stepping on a mine and the other being terminated by the ‘Ambulance’ as uneconomic to save. An extension of the theme in Oxygen, and as echoed more faintly by RTD in Space Babies. In this episode, Moff gives it a cutting edge – “The Villengard Corporation would like to extend its deepest condolences on your upcoming loss. Thoughts and prayers.” (I know I quoted that before, but it’s so savage I couldn’t omit it). Vater seems almost resigned to his imminent termination – resistance is futile. Accountancy as a war crime. (This of course isn’t new, the first instance I can recall was in an early sci-fi by George Lucas, THX 1138, where the protagonist attempts to escape a Logans Run/Blakes 7 – like society in a stolen police car, and the pursuing android police are about to capture him when the budget limit for his pursuit is reached and they are forced to break off. In that case of course, the result was beneficial.)

Enter the Doctor, and at 5 minutes 50 into the episode he steps on a land mine, where he will be stuck for (most of) the rest of the episode. Roll credits. THe sound of the Skye Boat Song in the devastated burning landscape is magnificently incongruous. Ruby is a girl with remarkably pragmatic reactions – “Why hasn’t it set off already when you stepped on it?” I thought the rationale for the flashy lights on the mine was a little bit stretched – ‘look good in a showroom’ – but if that’s the worst nitpick I can raise then this episode is solid. Villengard ‘supplying all sides in all conflicts’ is nothing new – Maxim. Vickers. Browning. Oerlikon. And so on…

(At 10:12 there appears to be a curious glitch in the editing – aerial view of the crater, with the Doc on his mine facing us, Ruby climbing the path on the right behind him, but left foreground there appears to be a man standing, looking on. I can’t account for this.)

I don’t know if it’s a good idea for the Doc to tell Ruby that the curiously heavy thing (minor nitpick, it doesn’t look that heavy to me) she’s holding is actually a compressed dead body. I have to say her reaction (or lack of it) suggests a great deal of sang-froid. (6.7 kilograms – okay, that’s realistic, I could hold that in one hand). “Are you getting scared, because you’re just babbling now”. “Okay, it’s exactly 6.732217 kilograms. I was trying not to show off.” I’m loving this dialogue. Gatwa and Gibson are marvellous in this exchange. All they’re doing is talking, but it’s mesmerising.

And Moff still has room for some funny lines – “Blindness isn’t fatal.” “You literally just said that to a dead blind guy.”

Then Splice turns up and Ruby and the Doctor are desperately trying to hide from her, the fact that her father is dead. I find moments like this far more moving than actors standing around crying and sobbing. The actors hold it in and let the audience feel the emotions for them. Just like true tension consists of waiting for something to happen rather than violent action. And then Vater’s hologram activates and Splice rushes in (doesn’t she realise he’s a hologram and dead? Maybe holograms are so common they accompany phone calls, or something). And I think, with most writers, we would be fairly sure that this wasn’t going to blow the Doctor (and Ruby and Splice and all) up, but with Moff you can never be sure, after all, didn’t Blue Idiot Guy blow a big hole right through the middle of Bill? But maybe not this time.

But no sooner has Ruby managed to wrestle Splice away from the Doctor (and his landmine) than Mundy turns up, all protective and threatening to shoot the Doctor. In fact Mundy turns out to be stubbornly stupid, in the way that only a military mind trained in correct procedures can be (in my biassed opinion). And no sooner has the Doctor persuaded Mundy that making him drop Vater’s remains would blow up half the planet, than the Ambulance rolls into view, attracted by Mundy’s shots, and shoots its probes into the Doc. This is not his day. So Ruby has the brilliant idea of grabbing Mundy’s gun and firing shots to distract the Ambulance, and Mundy redeems herself by telling Ruby to shoot her in the arm (on a low setting, which is presumably why she didn’t blow the Doc’s arm off, nice consistency there) as only actual injuries will attract the Ambulance. Which Ruby is about to do when Canterbury turns up and shoots Ruby for real. The Moff is really piling on the chaos now.

The snow is a puzzle – obviously foreshadowing something, which we will presumably find at the end of the series. The Ambulance is as useless as ever – ‘432 seconds. Patient non-ordained. Treatment withheld.’ Not a very Christian approach to things, but then it’s a product of the Vilengard Corporation, not the Anglican marines. Canterbury seems to have come to his senses rather quicker than Mundy did, reconfigures the Ambulance to revive Ruby. But the mine is still counting down…

So, the Doctor, realising the Anglican marines are fighting only themselves, tells them to surrender. (It worked on the Mummy on the Orient Express). But this lot don’t have the authority to surrender. So the Doctor has to _prove_ to them that they’ve been fighting an illusion. He sends Vater as a digital signal through the Ambulance into the network. Canterbury is reprogramming the Ambulance when it backfires and kills him. And then a swarm of Ambulances roll up chanting menacingly ‘Thoughts and prayers’ and the Interface declares that Vater has been declared a virus and deleted. And the landmine announces a ten-second countdown. And then, of course, at the last second, the mine switches off as the Vater virus gets really mad and wipes the Vilengard algorithm. And then the Ambulance revives Ruby – presumably reverting to its default programming.

Nice closing shot of the spectacular skyscape, with the four survivors lined up, Splice and Mundy clutching their respective significant cylinders. No, whatever the Doctor says, Vater and Canterbury are dead, and no amount of AI holograms can bring them back. But maybe Splice and Mundy take whatever comfort they can. And I’m pleased we got a few seconds of pleasantness at the end to unwind.

This episode finally made buying Season 15 worth it. To echo previous comments, I’d rank it as second-level Moffat, but that still makes it very good. A lot of the elements are ones that Moffat has used before, but I don’t see that as a defect – given the volume of Moffat’s previous contributions (and, indeed, the sheer volume of Doctor Who stories to date) it must be almost impossible to generate an all-original, novel, yet coherent story. And Moffat manages to rearrange the elements in the kaleidoscope so the story feels new even if similarities to previous episodes cross our minds. This was a ‘bottle’ episode, but then many (if not most) of the best episodes have been ‘bottle’ episodes. Cut down to a few characters and their interactions, which Moff does supremely well.

 

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@ps1l0v3y0u    Be interesting to see your observations.

@janetteb    I’m flattered, but slightly abashed that my comments were so brief.   Yes, it’s a classic Who story in the Moffat genre.   I think I might re-watch tonight and see if I’m impelled to fill out my comments a bit.

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Now this is more like it. This one grabs you from the get-go, and it doesn’t let go. Don’t you just *know* that an ambulance is not going to be good news? “The Villengard Corporation would like to extend its deepest condolences on your upcoming loss. Thoughts and prayers”. The Moff’s irony has an edge on it that could cut steel.

These are, I guess, the same militaristic churchmen as in The Time of Angels.

And – that was intense. The Doctor just spent 40 minutes standing on a land mine trying to trick it into not going off. And the irony – that the soldiers were fighting nobody and being killed by their own defensive weapons – that was trademark Moff. Does that make the Vilengard Corporation more evil than Skynet?

That was definitely up to Moff’s standard. The interaction between the Doctor and Ruby was deftly handled (by the script and by the actors). And NO signs of anything having been Disneyised or cutesified in this episode.

And if my comments are brief, it’s because I was too mesmerised watching to stop and note anything down.

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Now this is definitely looking like an improvement. The Beatles impersonators are – good enough, I thought. They look and sound near enough to the originals that I could accept the illusion.

Well that was a better episode. Certainly – different. I thought the villain was a little bit naff, actually, but I’m being picky here – certainly a better villain than most of Chibs’. And the battle of music was original. I’m sure the episode was crammed with musical references that went right over my head.

The music itself, I didn’t find particularly good. I guess it was – adequate enough to carry the storyline. And the storyline was quite straightforward, just a series of skirmishes between the Doctor (and Ruby) and the Maestro. But I kept wishing for some really good music to appear (of course, ‘really good’ is so absolutely subjective even stating my opinion of that might start a minor war. Still, I think I’m going to listen to Strawberry Fields/Penny Lane/A Day in the Life after I’ve posted this. Yes I know it’s anachronistic by a couple of years, I don’t care).

Reading the various comments – I was surprised that somebody even bothered to object to the Maestro’s gender (non-gender?) status. The character was obviously as camp as a row of frilly pink tents – but that’s hardly new in the music scene. Besides which, as a non-human non-terrestrial (?) identity, why would it have a gender? The status of the actor is irrelevant as far as I’m concerned. Come to that, I have only – just this minute – realised that Ncuti Gatwa is gay (cf his interview in ‘Attitude’ referenced by Juniperfish). I must be slow on the uptake, but so far as I can tell it doesn’t show in his portrayal of the Doctor, therefore it doesn’t matter to me. (I accept that it may matter very much to him).
Tbh I thought RTD’s thinly-veiled comments on refugees and abortion in Space Babies were far more likely to cause eruptions in some circles, than a bit of ambiguous trans-gendering. Shows how much I know.

Anyway, definitely better than Space Babies. And the next ep is by the Moff. I hope it lives up to the anticipation.

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@janetteb   We seem to be fully in agreement on Tardis ranking.

I suppose this is technically a ‘first’ episode, I tend to think of it as ‘second’ since The Church on Ruby Road precedes it in the DVD set (though TCRR is numbered ‘0’ in the set).   Also, I found Space Babies a bit gross.

I’ll have to see if the next ep can re-engage my interest.

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@janetteb

“Exeter I thought. That is near Cornwall. I love Cornwall. What the hell. We’ll go to Cornwall.” I love that!

Generally, main road signage is quite good. Though, with respect, I wouldn’t choose a large Mercedes for the trip. On my trip I was lucky enough to score a Toyota Aygo X – dreadful styling, but extremely tight turning circle, good visibility forwards and a big screen for the backup camera. The rental company kept trying to persuade me to upgrade to an auto and I kept politely refusing. An excellent car for Cornish country lanes…

Public transport vs rental cars? Well, anywhere well out in the country, I’d always take a car. In big cities (or their suburbs), public transport, every time.

I rented from Paddington this last time, which turned out to be a mistake. Before departure, I had plotted a route out of London on Westway (A40) then a bit of the notorious M25, then through country lanes to Hastings. That worked fine. On the way back, I had plotted (with Streetview) the last bit of inward route which included some twiddly bits near Paddington to get to the hotel underground car park where the rental place was located. I just had large-scale road maps, not street maps. So I ended up on the A4 (Great West Road) not the A40 (Westway). There were bits of overpasses and stuff that seemed vaguely (misleadingly) familiar until I recognised the Natural History Museum around 4pm and realised I was on the wrong road altogether, some miles southeast of where I ought to be, at the start of the rush hour, with no street maps, no idea quite where I was, not sure which way I was facing and not even sure which direction was North, and I was getting desperate for a ‘comfort stop’ (in rush-hour traffic? Not happening!). Eventually I headed in (what I hoped was) north-west hoping to come across the A40 which (after a few meanders and loops and going round Shepherds Bush roundabout three times in the wrong lanes) I finally did. Made it into the underground car park at five to five after the most traumatic hour of my entire trip, by some miracle there was no-one behind me, nobody in sight, I yanked on the handbrake, raced into a corner and watered the London Metropole Hilton.

So that way exceeded any little misadventure I had in France, though the car was undamaged.

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On my first viewing (probably a good sign that I almost immediately want to burst into print…):

This is really weird wild and wacky – but in a good way. I like the conversation between Ruby and the Doctor, she asks entirely logical questions to which the answers are, of course, wildly abnormal.

And then they’re in dinosaur-land with some fairly serviceable CGI dinosaurs, and RTD has some fun with the old stepped-on-a-butterfly trope. I sense this is going to be a fairly light-hearted episode.

I have to say this iteration of the Tardis is a huge improvement on the last. (Still rates second compared with 12’s, though, IMO).

I’m not sure I care for the space station full of human babies driving around in wheelchairs and talking in (ADR’d) young-teen voices. It is kind of surreal but – coming on top of the goblins – it appears Who is regressing to young childrens’ level. Except – the situation soon becomes more serious, with the introduction of Jocelyn (Nan-E). Actually, I could read a heap of political allegories into the story at this point, which I resolutely refuse to do.

I like the way Ruby goes after the Bogeyman – she seems to be turning into a reincarnation of Ace. And then she gets dribbled on with bogeyman-stuff. Well it happened to Amy (The Beast Below). It happened to Clara (into the Dalek). Seems to be an occupational hazard for companions.

I’m ambivalent about this episode. Don’t love it, don’t hate it. Ncuti is fine as the Doctor, his enthusiasm is infectious and he has none of the annoying habits of his predecessor (I mean Jodie not Tennant). Ruby is, likewise, quite okay as a Companion. But this and the previous episode both seem to be aimed at a very young target audience, which is a bit disconcerting after Tennant’s three, in particular Wild Blue Yonder.

Side note: I really don’t care for the Doc’s sonic screwdriver.

I’ve just read through the comments in this thread and I agree with the bulk of the observations.

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Well, well. Doctor Who meets the Muppets.

The first quarter was definitely Christmassy, goodwill to all, with Doctor Who as a sort of Santa doing good deeds. All the (human) characters were believable and just nice, pleasant people.

Then we’re deep into Muppet territory with the goblins, or maybe it was more reminiscent of Labyrinth, though David Bowie was a far more personable Goblin King than Jabba the Hutt.

The Doctor singing his way out of danger, though – that’s a new one.

I’m fairly neutral about this episode – it didn’t really grab me, didn’t put me off. I could watch happily it again though I don’t really feel motivated to.

Ncuti Gatwa has enough personal magnetism to carry the role of Doctor. And Ruby seems adequate (we’ll see how she develops as a companion), though she doesn’t – so far – have the same level of individual character as (IMO!) Amy or Clara or even Rose 2 in Star Beast.   I notice Ruby did the standard walk-around-the-Tardis almost exactly as Rose (1) did two decades ago, I’m sure that was intentional.

So far so good, we’ll see how Episode 1 goes (The Church on Ruby Road was Episode 0, according to the DVD set).

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@nerys    I often find  Satellite View  (in Google Maps) is a lot better at showing tracks, than the regular map view.   Though it does depend a lot on the terrain.    And of course I’m talking about viewing it on a laptop with wifi Internet, which is probably a non-starter in the mountains  (unless you saved the screen previously).

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@winston I love large-scale maps e.g. the Ordnance Survey’s 1″ to the mile. In 2013 when I first ventured into France in recent decades, I got a huge Michelin atlas and photocopied all the relevant maps (about 20 of them), ditto for Italy and Switzerland. And that was how I navigated. In 2017 the rental had a GPS, stuck in French but that was okay, and I did use that for half a day going cross country. The rest of the time it spent muttering ‘Calcul une nouvelle itineraire’ as I sailed past its instructed turn. Unfortunately as I approached my final destination (Nice station) where I did want to use it, the voice switched itself off, which just left the on-screen display which zoomed in to the next intersection – this was not helpful in Nice traffic when one ideally needed to get in the correct lane several hundred yards in advance.
One other rental had GPS of which I managed to turn off the satnav function and put it in ‘mapping mode’, with the unexpected benefit that Mrs D was fascinated by it. Mrs D is not normally happy with winding roads and tends to say so vehemently, I was approaching the Colle Delle Finestre and its 47 hairpins with extreme trepidation, however when I pointed the GPS out to her she was so fascinated seeing each hairpin approach (which she duly warned me about) that she forgot to complain. Score a win for GPS in-car entertainment.
This most recent trip, I did pre-plan a route from the south London suburbs to Hastings through country lanes avoiding almost all towns and most main roads. Makes for interesting driving. Got lost in London though.

And a final comment on GPS – one of my favorite photos from my trip is of a blue sign which says ‘Unsuitable for motor vehicles 500 yds ahead’ and below it, in angry black and yellow, ‘IGNORE SAT NAV No Vehicle Access to Warleggan Village’ I sense the voice of experience speaking. You can see it for yourself, go to Pantersbridge crossroads in Cornwall and point north in Streetview. The Googlebot did actually go 500 yards up this road and it is possibly the narrowest lane in Cornwall.

By the way, OS maps can be viewed on-line at streetmap.co.uk, but they’re completely outdone by the French and Swiss, both of which have scrollable zoomable maps of the entire country (at geoportail.gouv.fr and map.geo.admin.ch ) and very impressive maps they are too when zoomed in. They’re identical with the paper hiking maps you can buy in shops in the relevant areas.

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@ps1l0v3y0u    You are correct about the A-Z.    But (I seem to recall) there was some earlier confusion with grabbing books off the stacks and trying the code on them (I need to re-watch to figure just what they were doing).   My suggested procedure would, I think, have been far the quickest in finding duplicates.    The A-Z would have been an exception, in that there might have been some uncertainty in how to list it  (unlike most books where title – author is unambiguous); I would have dealt with that by putting it on one side (along with any other ‘ambiguous’ volumes, I suspect they would only amount to 3 or 4 total) and just including them visually when stepping through Pile B.

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@ps1l0v3y0u     Sherlock and algorithms – I’d have to point out that my suggested method of comparing the books is last-century stuff.   Dating from the 80’s when everyone had a home computer running Basic and wrote little programs on it.   Probably the default these days would be to use a spreadsheet but – in 99% of applications – that’s absurd (and clunky) overkill when a text editor would suffice.

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@nerys    In hindsight, I should have phoned the Emergency Assistance number as soon as I was established in my hotel room at 1 a.m.   (They are 24-hour I think).   I expect they would have had a new car lined up by the time I finished breakfast.   But I was too tired to bother, and the subsequent confusion was all my fault   (they were far too polite to say so).

It was not so much a cheaper room, as a massive discount on an existing one.   Whether the rates and rules changed after midnight, or my reappearance convinced him I was genuine, or what, I don’t know, but I wasn’t going to question it.   It may also be a cultural thing – here in NZ we don’t have a ‘haggling’ tradition.   If the price is x dollars, I either pay it or not, it feels almost insulting to suggest the seller lower his price.   So by that time I was expecting to pay the 540 Euros (ouch!), the discount came as a complete but welcome surprise to me.

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@nerys  Umm. Well, in the hope that Craig will pardon the bandwidth… I picked it up from Valence TGV station, I had a Fiat 500 booked but they ‘upgraded’ me to a MG ZS. The 500 would have been ideal for narrow Alpine roads, the ZS less so. Some cars, I can tell precisely where they are on the road; others, I have some trouble accurately judging how close to obstacles it is, and the ZS was one of those. This was, paradoxically, not so much a problem on the high passes – where the road tends to have ‘soft edges’ and on single track places you slow down and crawl past the oncoming car. Such it was on the Col de la Cayolle. The problem arises down on the flat, where narrow two-lane roads have brick walls right at the edge of the carriageway. So I was approaching this nominally two-lane bridge (it had a white line down the centre) on a slight curve, with another car coming the other way, I thought I’d better keep well right and misjudged it, there was suddenly a shocking amount of violent banging and crashing and I found myself upside down. (The right-hand stone parapet wall – about 2 feet high – sloped down at the end making a perfect launching ramp. The car launched off that, across to hit the left-hand wall upside-down, and skidded to a stop perfectly parked in the left lane except facing the wrong way and – upside down. The other driver must have reacted promptly to avoid colliding head-on with me). So I undid my seat-belt, landing on the remains of the back window which was all over the inside of the roof, causing my only injuries, and crawled out through the driver’s window which was open. A very kind lady and her daughter from the adjacent house brought out a deckchair and sat me down. I insisted on crawling back inside to retrieve my camera, coat, suitcase etc. An ambulance arrived and the paramedic checked me over, said I seemed to be okay, but on conferring with a doctor strongly urged me to go to hospital and be checked over. A couple of young policemen questioned me – quite politely – breathalysed me and took a drug test (standard stuff).

So there I was, in the middle of nowhere, with no transport, and even if I managed to get to where I was booked that night (near Castellane) then next morning I’d be in the middle of a different nowhere with no wheels – so Nice sounded like the best bet (also, I was booked just 20km from Nice the following night). So I accepted their kind offer of an ambulance (so long as they brought my bags!) and they stuck a neck brace on me, strapped me down to a stretcher and off we went 60 miles to Nice. A long and winding road, by the time we reached the hospital I was busting. Me (to doctor, urgently): “I need to pee!” Doctor (doubtless used to American tourists): “No no, it’s free!” Me: “No, not ‘pay’, pee!” And that is verbatim. So they kept me in for about 8 hours, doing all manner of scans, X-rays and blood tests, I think they were a little disappointed to find nothing, gave me a tetanus shot and discharged me about 10pm – I suggested they might like to keep me in for observation, the doctor said ‘Why? There’s nothing wrong with you!’ I did ask the desk if they knew of any hotel that would be open at that hour, and they wrote down a hotel on the Promenade des Anglais (which sounded a bit swank to me, but still…)

How do you tell an absolutely top class hotel? – you walk in at midnight, past the Lamborghini Countach on the footpath with cones and ropes around it, barefoot and dragging your luggage behind you, looking like you’ve just been in a car crash, walk up to the immaculate young man behind the desk and ask if they have any inexpensive rooms – and he doesn’t blink, he doesn’t sneer, he isn’t icily polite, he is genuinely understanding and sympathetic. Unfortunately, all their inexpensive rooms were taken, the cheapest they had was 540 Euros. (Gulp). So I thanked him and asked if there might be anywhere less expensive nearby, he suggested I could try the Ibis, half a kilometre away. The Ibis was a lot less swank and hence a lot less polite – ‘Have you any rooms?’ ‘Have you a reservation?’ ‘No’ ‘Then you don’t have a room.’ He did suggest I try the Magnon, but by the time I found that it was firmly shut. It wasn’t a cold night but it was starting to rain so I assessed my options. I could sleep in a bus shelter but they were mostly taken by ladies waiting for customers. Or, my credit card could afford 500+ Euros even if I couldn’t, so back to swank hotel it was. I approached the immaculate young man and said “I will take that room, if you still have it” and he said “Wait a minute, I’ll see what I can do” (tap tap tap on his keyboard) “The best I can do is 200 Euros.” I almost hugged him.

Next morning I rang the car rental Emergency Assistance number, they asked where was I (Nice) and where was the car (I didn’t know. Somewhere between the Col de la Cayolle and the Gorges de Daluis, probably, but I failed to mention that). So they said, wait and they’d call me back when they’d arranged a new rental. Well, they didn’t call back, and I kept pestering them, frustratedly battling with dodgy travelSIMs, my own phone company’s exorbitant global roamimg rates, Skype (intermittently working) and my difficulty understanding European English accents in a noisy environment, until the afternoon when they mentioned the Nice police had no knowledge of the car and the penny dropped and I finally realised they were looking for the wreck in Nice. (I think their procedures require them to ‘find’ the old car before they give you a new one). Luckily the sheaf of papers the hospital gave me on discharge mentioned the location of the ‘incident’, and within an hour of me telling them it they rang back with a rental car at Nice airport and offered to send me a taxi. I declined the taxi since for the last few hours I’d been watching trams going past with ‘Aeroport’ on them. And there was minimal delay at the rental desk, Emergency Assistance had arranged everything. The moral is, give them all the information requested and let them do their job.

After that, as I said much earlier, everything went without a scratch.

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@janetteb @winston @nerys My recent travels (as I probably mentioned already) included two weeks driving an Opel Corsa around the Alps and two weeks of a dinky little Toyota Aygo in south of England country lanes, without putting so much as a scratch on either (for the first time ever). Boring. But as winston commented, all the best stories tend to involve some sort of disaster. Quite coincidentally, I was musing today on all my ‘best’ stories, and realised that every single one of them, without exception, was heralded by some untoward happening or minor disaster. For example the rental car that immediately preceded the Opel, which lasted less than 24 hours before I launched it off a low wall and landed on its roof, and the drama that followed – now *that’s* the story I’ll remember.

Fiction writers and news reporters know this of course. Was there ever a Who episode where nothing disastrous happened? Or as Mark Gatiss put it (in the DVD commentary for Sherlock Season 1), we’ll never see the weekend the Doctor went to Margate. (I assume Margate is the epitome of uneventful seaside towns).

Speaking of Sherlock, I have one quibble with the plotting: In The Blind Banker, all the books from two flats are delivered to Holmes’ flat and Holmes and Watson try to find any books which the two big piles have in common – with predictable confusion. BUT – Sherlock is highly computer literate. Surely it would be obvious to make two lists and write a quick’n’dirty little script to compare the two lists, that’s what computers are really good at? But wait, there’s an even quicker way. Just list all the books in one pile in a text editor, one per line, e.g.
Moby Dick Melville
Bourne Identity Ludlum
Sign of Four Doyle
da Vinci Code Brown
and so on, each title doesn’t have to be complete just so long as spelling is accurate. Then, pick up each book in Pile B in turn and type a keyword from its title into the editor’s search box and it will instantly light up if there is a match. No programming required!

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@ps1l0v3y0u You may well be right about Rose (2). I had assumed that the final scene with 14 and the Noble family was a farewell, effectively losing track of him, the same way 10a was ‘lost’ with Rose(1) in another universe. But of course in Dr Who this is not a foregone conclusion, as we saw in these three episodes (and the preceding one), old characters come back all the time.
So that was a reckless assumption on my part.

I’ll soon find out, I’ve got the next season on order.

As for the Vlinx, it seems (from comments made in some of the DVD ‘extras’) that it is an all-new creature. Whether it will be linked back to some previous creature – we shall see.

The Vinvocci were fun. Much helped by Sinead whatever-her-name-is (Keenan, I googled) ‘s air of exasperated frustration. Wouldn’t mind seeing them back

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@craig – sorry to bother you, but a ‘drnikhilmehta’ just did an elephant-sized dump of cancer spam in ‘Companions Past and Present’.   May I suggest amputation?

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Just re-watched The Giggle. I notice I didn’t post anything on first watching, and this is because – as an episode – it was neither remarkably good nor awful (as far as I was concerned). The plot was well acted, with great CGI sets, but it seemed a pretty run-of-the-mill action episode otherwise – it just didn’t grab me. (Btw, I never saw the Toymaker in previous series).

It was a nice if slightly cloying happy-families send-off for Fourteen with Donna’s family – but how long was that going to last, since he hasn’t actually regenerated does that mean he’s now immortal? And there are TWO doctors at the same time in the same universe (the previous 10a was of course off with Rose(1) in a separate universe). Though multi Doctors is not a new thing so I suppose that’s OK.

I was disappointed to see so little of Rose(2), when she was introduced with a fanfare in The Star Beast. I would have liked to see her in Wild Blue Yonder (yes that was strictly a two-person ep, so it would have had to leave out Donna. It would have worked exactly as well. I’m not indulging in Donna-hatred here, I’ve got over that, but we’ve seen Donna in – what – ten episodes and Rose(2) only in one, plus a tiny cameo here.

The Vlinx – where did that come from? Is this some character from OldWho or from the comics or radio (which I know nothing about)? [Paranoia mode ON:] Is this due to some Disney requirement to have at least one alien monster in every episode? [/Paranoia] I’d better stop now, there are too many stupid rumours swilling around the Internet already. The reference to ‘social media’ Internet distortions and misrepresentations was painful but apposite, it’s only got worse over the last couple of years (and that’s as political as I’m going to get).

Doctor 15 – I like him on first acquaintance, he has an infectious personality. But why doesn’t he have any trousers?

I do like it that the Tardis didn’t feel it necessary do destroy its interior this time around. Does it only do that if a Doctor regenerates inside it? (Besides, with what the new set must have cost, it was never going to redecorate this early).

On the whole, this three-episode ‘series’ had two decent episodes and one (IMO) outstanding one – Wild Blue Yonder, so a step up from recent years. Be interesting (for me) to see where the next season goes (I’ve got the DVD set on order) – you all know how it went by now, I guess.

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@janetteb   I conceived an instant dislike of Donna when she burst in on the Doctor who was (IIRC) in shock following the loss of Rose, and instantly started addressing him in accusatory terms as if he was guilty of some crime.   It took me quite a long time (you know what they say about first impressions) to soften in my feelings towards her.

I do agree that losing her memories was rough.   But then most of the Doctor’s companions came to a sad ending one way or another.

There was a considerable similarity between Donna’s case and Rose in Season 1 (when she absorbed the energy of the vortex), only in Rose’s case Nine took the energy from her and that caused him to regenerate.   And, come to think of it, Clara was faced with the same fate as Donna, besides being dead, only she switched it so that the Doctor was the one who forgot.

And the other almost universal feature of nuWho is that the Companion’s tragic ending is somehow softened in a subsequent episode.   Which I intellectually distrust but emotionally approve.    So yes, okay, I like that Donna got her memory back.

I think it’s a tribute to the skill of the writers that these similarities weren’t glaringly obvious (to me at least), they’ve only just occurred to me now that I’m calling them to mind.

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What was the point of the Newton sketch? I thought that was the sort of thing Chibs did.

Donna just reminded me why I disliked her for a long time. Pours coffee in the Tardis console and now she’s blaming the Doctor for it. I would not hire such a liability. But fortunately (for me), my dislike has subsided to occasional minor irritation.

I’ll say right now, the blue ship – and especially its long corridor – was awesome (and that’s not a word I use lightly). Visually beautiful and nicely detailed. Notice the little indicator lights blinking in the cylinders as 14 and Donna drive past. Such a contrast to the rusty old robot. And it’s delightfully puzzling and mysterious as to what is going on.

(Who says the aliens would have used decimal counting? Eight or 16 (i.e. multiples of binary) are far more likely bases, or 12 (which is far better for arithmetic since it has factors of 2,3,4 and 6. We only use base-10 because of the pure chance that we happen to have four fingers + thumb).

But still, nice bridge and pilot’s console. The way the camera keeps moving slowly while looking at 14 and Donna gives a suggestion of [something] watching them – suitably spooky.

So when fake-14 and fake-Donna appear, it’s almost an anticlimax. But very well realised. It was a nice touch that they had to learn how reality works in this universe – for example, that his tie kept on existing after he took it off. I must admit to getting confused as to who was who – I cheated and read the transcript at intervals.

And though I said last time that much of the intrigue was lost once you know the punchline – I found the plot is still interesting, and the CGI is still absolutely breathtaking.

 

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Although I’d forgotten much from my first viewing a couple of months ago, it’s interesting that the comments I wrote this time were often the same, almost word for word, to what i wrote then. Similar scenes evoking identical reaction, or subconscious memory of what I wrote? Anyway, I’ve edited out most of the word-for-word repetitions.

Okay, right from the start – Ten and Donna – it’s like RTD just pushed ‘Reset’ and the entire Chibz era disappeared. (Well, Moff too, I suppose, if I’m honest). But this feels very RTD. Director: Rachel Talalay. Yay! The old firm’s back! (See what I mean?)

In the years since Donna’s first unfortunate appearance (boy did I hate her for years for that!) I’ve gradually grown to accept her. I’m actually pleased to see that Donna’s settled down with her fella and they have an absolutely gorgeous daughter.

The Meep looks entirely Disney cute alien. It speaks perfect English for someone presumably out of range of the Tardis’ translation circuits. And the Wrarths also look exactly like bug-eyed Disney villains.

I do like the sonic screwdriver’s new function of generating a virtual screen. Not a new idea, may have been used on Who before for suit-generated displays, but very nicely realised. The Doctor’s exchange with UNIT’s new adviser – which is basically an info-dump – is just so much more natural and better staged than anything in 13’s era.

The Battle of Donna’s House is every bit as dramatic and exciting as Chibz’s cosmic destructionfests, which demonstrates bigger isn’t always better, there’s a law of diminishing returns. All this is a score of Wrarths attempting (apparently) to kill one Meep. And isn’t it odd that Shaun’s taxi didn’t suffer any damage from the close-range Wrarth gunfire? And the Doc quite rapidly deduces that the Wrarth aren’t the villains in this.

‘Activate the initialisers! Brandish the gravity stanchions. Calibrate the flight deck!’ Could it possibly be that RTD is gently taking the Mickey out of Chibz’s technobabble?

I have to say the way the dagger drive generates burning fissures through the streets, which then close up when the Doctor and Donna (and Rose) reverse the startup, looks very cartoonish.

The way the regeneration energy doesn’t kill Donna because she has shared it with her daughter Rose is ingenious, in Rose’s case very blatantly a metaphorical validation of ‘non-binary’ people (although that’s purely a coincidence of phrasing with no actual meaning), but I can live with that. I did gag a bit on the stuff about Donna and Rose just being able to let all the excess energy go because they weren’t male, come off it RTD, stop bringing gender wars into it. And the whole sequence is a bit Disney-fairytale, with its happy resolution.

I suspect that in ealier incarnations of Who (the Moff’s tenure, or even RTD’s prior tenure), Donna might have died from the regen energy. That she didn’t this time – is this a symptom of Who now being more ‘family-friendly’ or Disneyfied?

The new Tardis interior is a vast improvement on 13’s, though very bare and plain compared with Twelve’s. It’s huge, and gives plenty of space for the actors to do their thing, unlike the cramped interior of 13’s.

And I’m really disappointed that Rose didn’t get to see the interior – or accompany the Doctor on further adventures. I thought she was going to become a Companion. (I think she could certainly have fitted in to Wild Blue Yonder instead of Donna. Not better, not worse, but same role essentially. I only say ‘instead of’ rather than ‘as well as’ because WBY is very much a 2-piece play).

And we just *know* Donna is going to spill coffee on the console, don’t we? Donna never changes.

Overall, though it seemed to be aimed at young teens, I found this ep quite entertaining. And easy to follow the plot.

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@janetteb I feel your pain 🙂 I’ve done that many times – written a screed and then clicked away for a moment and ‘lost’ the page, for example.
What I do now (if it’s going to be a long post) is write it in a text editor, then just copy & paste it into the forum edit box.

I just watched The Star Beast, by the way. Might post on that soon.

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@janetteb Yes, I found I had to keep referring to Chrissie’s transcript to try and keep things straight.

Did you watch Eve of the Daleks? It’s a lot less complicated (and it’s only got 3 Daleks in it, I think). And no Cybermen/Cyberlords/whatever. I’d rate it Chibz’s best.

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(And a re-watch right after Eve of the Daleks and Sea Devils): Oh dear. This is another Chibz pizza-deluxe-with-everything. It ends up (or starts out) confusing, and it’s hard to really care when you don’t really know what’s going on. Oh, and the sheer amount of ‘explaining’ by the Doc (chief offender, still) and the Master and everybody else just adds to the confusion.

We seem to be getting rid of Dan very early on in the piece – why? It’s nice to see Ace again (and I expect those who were watching in Tegan’s day would say the same for Tegan), but it does feel a bit as if they were written in just so they could make an appearance.

Yaz has become a very capable and resourceful companion.

I did like the cameos of the past Doctors from before the gap – that was a visually impressive scene. (Why none since McGann, I wonder? Too recent? Or does Chibz have a prejudice against RTD/Moff Doctors?)

And now we’ve suddenly got Graham back, for no apparent reason. Why? Did Graham ever give off vibes of heroic saving-the-world impulses? Dan could have done the job, and better than Graham I think. However, it was nice to see Doctor Ruth back (even as a hologram).

On the whole, the second half (after the Doctor was forced to regenerate into the Master) seemed a lot more coherent than the first. But why Rasputin, what does he have to do with it? (I have the impression Chibz just thought ‘Rasputin and the Winter Palace, cool, let’s chuck that in’. And the same goes for the Cyber-planet and the Qurunx – all just to power the regeneration machine? Why does it need that much power? Oh, just because it makes for cool CGI effects? Why couldn’t the Master’s much-more-powerful Type 75 Tardis do it, don’t Tardises have a power takeoff?
And the same for having Daleks *and* Cybermen. There’s enough plot material here for several episodes, all jumbled together.

Back in the days of RTD it was not unusual for the season-ender/specials to be turned up to 11. Only thing is, 11 is Chibz’ default setting, this feels like 15. The reason I recall Eve of the Daleks and Legend of the Sea Devils is because I have a mental picture – a gestalt – of them. My mental picture of PotD is – [confusion].

Re-reading my previous comments on these episodes, it seems I liked Eve of the Daleks, liked Sea Devils better this time around, but Power of the Doctor not so well. It may be that my recollection led to anticipation that wasn’t quite fulfilled.

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I see I was quite critical of this episode when I previously viewed it. I guess I was in the wrong frame of mind.

This time around, expectations were lower, and I wasn’t expecting a precisely constructed plot. Just switching off my critical streak and going with the flow, I found it a passable episode. Nice mystic atmosphere, and the music helps enormously.

The Sea Devil is a bit rubber-monster, but I’ve seen worse, and there’s a bit too much exposition by all concerned.

I did like the pirate queen, she looked a very determined and resourceful character.

There were all sorts of minor impossibilities, like when Yaz and Dan hoisted the Sea Devil up in a net – what was the net suspended from? Or, how did the pirate queen manage to hang Dan and Ying Ki up by the ankles when she’s alone and armed with a sword? But I can overlook those for the sake of the story.

Very much stolen from James Bond 007, the way the master-villain Sea Devil gives the Doc and Yaz a tour of his lair and explains his plans. And look – an underground/underwater base – quintessentially James Bond.

The Doc, Yaz, Dan, pirate queen and all, seem to be jumping from ship to ship with great abandon – howcome none of the Sea Devils stops them? There’s an awful lot of glossing over tricky details of practicality in this episode. The only way to watch it is to ignore it and just go with the flow.

So, very atmospheric, great production values, a plot so full of holes it would sink faster than Ji-Hun’s ship, but overall quite watchable. I found it more diverting than Curse of the Black Spot, which I guess is a modest recommendation.

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@winston I missed almost all of Blakes 7 when it first screened. Years later, in the late 80’s, there was a re-run of the entire series on TVNZ. My boss took a dim view of the way I rocketed out the door at 4-45 on Thursdays (of course he didn’t notice that I was far more relaxed about finishing every other day), if I was lucky with the buses I could just catch the start of B7 at 5.30. Obviously there was no way I could tell him I was watching an old sci-fi series. I thought 5-30 was a bit early timeslot to be screening B7, it’s not exactly aimed at the kiddies, someone in TVNZ must have finally noticed because the finale – Blake – didn’t screen, no explanation given, it finally screened weeks later at 10pm.

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I just watched an episode of The Prisoner (the old Patrick McGoohan series) – Living in Harmony, which was a Western, and quite untypical of the rest of the series. Actually, considered purely as a Western, it’s not bad. I think they just wanted to ‘do’ a Western. Many sci-fi and fantasy series seem to do that, sooner or later. Doctor Who did with A Town Called Mercy, which was pretty good IMO. I can call to mind Farscape – Home on the Remains; Firefly did one with actual horses, I seem to recall (though I think I’ve heard it said the whole of Firefly was just a Western with spaceships); Red Dwarf – Gunmen of the Apocalypse.
I don’t know if Star Trek ever did a Western (Google says yes). Anyone know of any others?

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@janetteb Good luck! It will be interesting to see what you make of it.

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Eve of the Daleks – rewatching after Revolution of the Daleks (and skipping over the Fluxes)

Hey, this is really good. Some well-sketched characters and not too much of the emotional stuff. (I think the emotions should come from the audience and not from the actors talking at length on screen). I do like the interplay between the Doctor, Yaz and Dan. And we’re right into the action with the Dalek – but importantly, it’s a finite threat. And they all get dead before the titles – that’s new.

And we’re into a deadly re-run of Groundhog Day. But with deja vu. By the way, I can’t help noticing there’s lots of Running Through Corridors, but I forgive Chibz that because it’s very well justified by the plot.

Nick is nearly as annoying as Ryan used to be, though possibly a bit more capable than Ryan initially was. And Sarah’s mum is, I suppose, in the Doctor Who tradition of appalling associates’ mothers.

What I don’t get is why the time loop resets when they get killed. And – which one of them? Does it reset when the last humanoid is killed? And why is the loop a minute shorter each time? I suppose it’s logical that, IF they aren’t killed on the last iteration, then the time loop won’t reset and they all survive.

I thought the time-loop was a little confusing but not too hard to follow. It wasn’t as precisely logical as, say, Blink. For a series whose main protagonist owns a time machine, nuWho has actually dealt with the possible local convolutions of time travel surprisingly rarely. I can bring to mind The Day of the Doctor, and The Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon, Blink of course, maybe Time Heist, a small one in Hell Bent, The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang maybe, and that’s about it. Maybe my recollection is patchy. (As for oldWho, I don’t know enough to judge).

Anyway, as episodes go, I found Eve of the Daleks a lot more coherent than the Flux episodes which preceded it. The Doctor has vastly improved from early episodes, with far less tendency to babble unintelligibly, and Yaz and Dan make excellent Companions.

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Revolution of the Daleks – second impression.

This is not a bad episode. (I skipped Ascension of the Cybermen and The Timeless Children, this time round, I seem to remember they were a bit apocalyptic. So how the Doctor comes to be in jail, and how the gang are inhabiting a Tardis disguised as a house, I can’t remember. I do recall the GCHQ Dalek from, I think, Resolution, a season back).
1
This Tardis has a vastly improved interior over the Doctor’s (how could it not?). Yaz is becoming quite capable, in fact so are the rest of the gang.

I have to say Robertson is 100% correct (if predictable) in his reaction to the Dalek – ‘incinerate it!’

Captain Jack wins the prize medal for total lack of taste when he says ‘nice upgrade in here’ (it’s the Doctor’s Tardis he’s talking about!).

The episode could have conveniently lost fifteen minutes of the Doctor angsting about her identity and history, and doing personal relationships with Ryan et al (at which she is remarkably awkward, it has to be said). And I’m starting to find Graham annoying, I find it hard to believe that he and Ryan can be sneaking around a Dalek ship, babbling away.

So anyway, at the end we have this emotional scene where Ryan and Graham leave. Which is a promising development, or would be if the next series wasn’t the Flux. The Doctor and Yaz are a far better proposition (if only the Doctor would talk less). And the episode ends with Graham and Ryan setting off on further dyslexic-falling-off-his-bike adventures about which I couldn’t care less.

So overall, not a bad episode, but could have used some cutting. As I recall, the RTD and Moff years didn’t have these long soap-opera talkfests of personal relationships.

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[Whoosh!] That was me zipping overhead from Revolution of the Daleks to Eve of the Daleks without touching down on the way past.

@nerys As I recall it, this season was six unrelated stories with a background apocalyptic universe-wide disaster, all highly confusing. The Weeping Angels one was far the best, I think, but it got undercut by the overarching series theme.

@winston Coincidence you should post this at this time, since I have just this moment finished Revolution of the Daleks. I wouldn’t say I’m liking the Doctor more, maybe getting a little more used to her loquaciousness, and the Fam (ugh!) are getting a little better – well, a quantum leap better since Ryan and Graham just quit so Yaz is the one that’s left.
Is this where Dan appeared. I certainly found him a much more appealing companion than Graham. I thought the Karvanista idea was kind of quaint, though utterly ridiculous – howcome the number of Karvanistas exactly equals the number of humans? If a human dies, does his personal Karvanista dematerialise? But anyway, your post almost persuades me to watch at least this first episode. Maybe.

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@janetteb Um driving lessons. Did the Doctor ever give driving lessons in anything but the Tardis? (And Mattdoc, I think, always left the handbrake on).
I can probably safely tell this now – when I first worked for Ministry of Works in Rarotonga, my girlfriend (now Mrs D) and I only had bikes. There was a visiting engineer due in on the Sunday plane, for whom the MoW rented a little car – I picked it up on the Friday, and it was parked outside our flat waiting for me to meet him with it. And my gf kept asking me ‘give me a driving lesson in it’. Eventually I weakened and asked “Can you drive?” and she said “Yes.” So off we set, across the deserted golf course (which is laid out around the radio station with huge masts and guy wires as hazards). So – we were obstacle-dodging on the golf course (where we shouldn’t have been) in a car which I shouldn’t have been driving at that time, never mind my gf who should never have driven it, if we cracked up on one of those guy wires I could think of absolutely no story that wouldn’t get me even deeper in it. After a brief but agonisingly long excursion we successfully made it back in one piece. So I said to gf, “When did you drive a car before?” “I said I could, I never said I had!”
All I could do is laugh, for a first-time driver she was quite good. Her motor-bike experience doubtless helped.
Best of luck with son2.

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@janetteb I meant, a spoiler has to undercut an element of surprise. Not literally what I said. The opposite in fact. What a surprise 🙂

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@janetteb I’m fairly certain the identity of the writer can’t be a spoiler. I think a spoiler has to disclose an unexpected character or event in the plot of the episode itself, thus generating an element of surprise. Take the episode I’ve just watched, ‘Fugitive of the Judoon’ – I don’t think ‘It takes place in Gloucester’ could be a spoiler, or ‘Ruth is a tour guide’, since any other town could be substituted without affecting the plot, as could any other occupation for Ruth. The identity of Ruth would be a major spoiler, as would the result of the final confrontation. (I hope I haven’t trod too near the line…)

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@janetteb The Master was definitely in the very last story of Seven and Ace, Survival.

Do I take it from your previous post that Moff is doing the Christmas special? Or am I reading too much into it?

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@ps1l0v3y0u I think that’s quite a good summary. Voyage of the Damned – I though Kylie Minogue made that episode. There was something refreshing about Astrid Peth’s slightly naive enthusiasm, and she managed to not be annoying (which is always an occupational hazard with such characters).
Christmas Carol was, as you say, made by Michael Gambon, and had the fantastic twist that keeping Abigail on ice was not from evil intent, but well-intentioned because she only had a few days runtime left.

Dr Mysterio was fun. Like Husbands of River Song before it (and remembering that I watched all these in sequence one after the other with only a day or two in between) it suffered from following the climactic Heaven Sent/Hell Bent so could only be an anticlimax. But it was a good parody of the Batman/Superman genre.

Last Christmas – aside from being great fun – was, I think, as precisely plotted as Blink. A little confusing on first watch through, (not surprising since the Dream Crabs relied on deception), but I think the clues were there and it all followed logically and satisfyingly.

Twice Upon a Time – also slightly anticlimactic after World Enough and Time/The Doctor Falls, but entertaining enough, even if the Doctor hardly needed to do anything (“It isn’t an evil plan. I don’t know what to do when it isn’t an evil plan!”) And I did like, very much, that the Doctor’s memories of Clara were restored.

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@janetteb I think The End of Time deserves a second chance. It has a lot of good things in it – the climax was the sort of three-way duel between the Doctor, John Sim’s Master and Rassilon, where we’re not sure which way they’re going to jump. Sarcastic spiky green people. The Master turning all of humanity into replicas of himself. And so on.

I agree that Last Christmas was the best of the specifically Christmas specials. And Husbands of River Song definitely the weakest – though it had a sweet ending. (I keep confusing it with The Wedding of River Song, for obvious reasons connected with the title, though the two are nothing alike. My favourite line from the latter – “River Song didn’t get it all from you, sweetie”. (That has to be taken in context to get the full implication of that).

The Next Doctor – yes I agree that was pretty weak. I did like Rosita, the (Next) Doctor’s assistant, even though he seemed to be blind to her affection for him. Seems to be almost a theme for RTD Doctors. And I do agree about the giant stompy robot. The Moff did seem more conscious of the problem – as with Day of the Doctor – KATE: What’s our cover story for this? OSGOOD: Er, Derren Brown. KATE: Again? OSGOOD: We’ve sent him flowers.

@ps1l0v3y0u I do have to agree, Time of the Doctor started out really well (I loved Tasha Lem) but it sort of faded later, the siege was rubbish. Fugitive of the Judoon, in a Moffat season, would count as a middling ep, probably not worst of season. In a Chibz season it seems much better by comparison, such that nitpicking Ruth’s police box seems like – nitpicking. And wasn’t it nice to have a proper Tardis interior as a change from the Crystal Grotto?

@winston I actually agree with about half of your list, and the ones where I picked a different episode, I would still happily watch your pick. Oxygen, as janetteb commented, is depressing but very good. World Enough and Time/The Doctor Falls come in the same category – with less expert writing they would be too gloomy to watch, as it is they are compulsive viewing (at least for me). (Yeah I know they’re Moff episodes so excluded from comparison, this is just an aside remark from me 🙂

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@janetteb I wouldn’t say The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe is a _bad_ episode. It just didn’t do anything much for me – I guess that’s a matter of personal taste.
In general those vaguely Dickensian ones (Lewisian ones?) don’t appeal to me. One that I did really like – which surprised me – was A Christmas Carol.

Of the specials, I really like about half of them. The Day of the Doctor, Last Christmas, The Time of the Doctor, and so on.

Some of them are tied right into the ongoing plot (such as those I mentioned), others are standalones and have no bearing on the series, such as The Doctor, The Widow and the Wardrobe, Return of Dr Mysterio, A Christmas Carol, etc etc.

The Tennant finals – my reactions are mixed. The Next Doctor is one of those forgettable ones. Planet of the Dead was fun, I loved Lady Christina. The Waters of Mars was just too angsty for me. The End of Time, I liked, I thought Timothy Dalton was excellent as Rasillon (ever notice what a masterful voice he has?), I liked the clash between him and The Master (I think this was the best of the John Sim – Master eps if you discount World Enough and Time), and I thought the spiky green people were fun – Sinead Keenan does ‘exasperated’ relly well. Didn’t much like the way Wilf managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, and Ten got a bit too emotional.

@nerys I see you too have a minor problem with finding really good episodes not written by Moffat 🙂 I do agree about Eve of the Daleks – far and away Chibs’ best episode, I think.

Vincent and the Doctor drew me back to Who, exactly as it did you. I’d somehow drifted away after the first couple of Amy episodes (The Beast Below, I think), then – in a completely different non-Who-related forum – I saw a reference to the Louvre scene – and I’ve always liked Bill Nighy (the curator) – which caused me to watch the episode, then jumped back to the start of Season 5.

I do love Last Christmas – sarcastic dwarves. Santa pointing out how unlikely he is. Dreams within dreams. Unlike you I absolutely loved Hell Bent, particularly the diner scene where you’re not sure which of them actually knows, until the last moment – Moffat does those multi-layer scenes so well.

@ps1l0v3y0u You’re being cryptic again. What’s ‘AU’?

I do agree about too much exposition and the preferability of ‘show not tell.’ Whitdoc is a particular offender in the talking-too-much stakes. I thought Rassilon (I assume you’re talking about The End of Time?) got away with it, mostly because of Timothy Dalton’s delivery. It’s a gift a few actors have, of imbuing their words with significance. I thought the Tesselector was a brilliant invention, though its raison d’etre – taking revenge on bad people – seemed somehow both petty and a vastly insufficient justification for such a sophisticated piece of technology.

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@janetteb Interesting list. We seem to broadly agree on most, but far from all – which is as it should be.

Was The Beast Below Moffat’s worst? – probably. I can’t think of any worse ones. Um, how about The Doctor, The Widow and the Wardrobe (checks – yep that was the Moff’s). I’d say that was his least good in the sense of, just not having anything notable or memorable about it. (And if that’s the worst I can say about Moff’s worst ep, it just shows how high his standard is).

So what, in your view, was RTD’s worst? Personally I won’t say Love & Monsters, not because I wish to avoid a rocket from ps1l0v3y0u, but because I have a soft spot for the little fans’ social club – it reminds me a bit of this website, actually. What fans do when they’re not fanning. I can’t really find a RTD ep that I consider to be unusually bad.

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@ps1l0v3y0u @winston @janetteb @nerys

I can’t resist a list like that, or rather, making my own.

Best non-Moff eps. (By the way, was there any season to which the Moff contributed in which the best ep of the season was NOT one of his?)

Season 1 – The End of the World was fun, visually, and satisfied the classic sci-fi trope of space aliens. Parting of the Ways was epic, Rose as Bad Wolf was visually stunning. But Dalek was an excellent ep too. I find it hard to judge – maybe I’ll give it to Dalek.

Season 2 – Girl in the Fireplace. (Oh hang on, who wrote that? – the Moff. What a surprise). Then, Army of Ghosts/Doomsday, both for its emotional impact and for the pissing match between the Daleks and the Cybermen (“Daleks, be warned. You have declared war upon the Cybermen.” “This is not war. This is pest control.”)

Season 3 – Blink, by a mile, and we all know who wrote that 🙂 Shakespeare Code was fun, but I think I have to give it to Human Instinct/Family of Blood.

Season 4 – I’d say, Midnight, very narrowly edging out Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead. (I think this is the ONLY season where the best ep was not by Moff).

Season 5 – Nothing outstanding. I’d be split between Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone and The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang but all those were Moff so I can discount them. Next best I’d say Vincent and the Doctor.

Season 6 – A cracker of a season. The Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon and The Wedding of River Song were Moffs, and equal best (IMO) with The Doctor’s Wife and The Girl Who Waited. The Doctor’s Wife was brilliant, but then The Girl Who Waited was so tragic in its dilemma – I just have to give them all first equal. I’d be useless as a judge.

Season 7 – Asylum of the Daleks (Moff again, as was The Snowmen and The Name of the Doctor, and does The Day of the Doctor count as part of this season?). Which leaves A Town Called Mercy (Toby Whithouse), Cold War (Mark Gatiss) and Hide (Neil Cross) – I’d pick A Town Called Mercy, just. (“Everyone who isn’t an American, drop your gun.”)

Season 8 – Listen (but that’s Moff, as were Dark Water/Death in Heaven) so Flatline (Jamie Mathieson) with Mummy on the Orient Express (also Jamie) as close runner-up.

Season 9 – Last Christmas, The Magician’s Apprentice, The Witch’s Familiar, Heaven Sent, Hell Bent – all Moff. Which leaves Face the Raven and The Zygon Invasion/Inversion, of which I’d (narrowly) pick the latter. Except the Moff shared a writing credit on those too. Okay, Face the Raven (I’m pretty sure Moff had a hand in that too, but his name isn’t on it).

Season 10 – Extremis. Oh, Moff again. Ditto World Enough and Time/The Doctor Falls. Which kinda really just leaves Oxygen, Jamie Mathieson again. Eaters of Light was quite good too.

(And now the bar gets abruptly lowered to just a couple of inches above the ground…)

Season 11 – It Takes You Away, I suppose.

Season 12 – Fugitive of the Judoon, definitely. Resolution was not bad. Can You Hear Me – I must watch again, refresh my memory, it might be okay. And Villa Deodati I seem to remember was – okay.

Season 13 – Umm no. I can’t. Village of the Angels was the only one that had any good bits in it at all.

If we consider the specials that followed, Eve of the Daleks was actually *good*. I seem to recall Power of the Doctor was – okay.

And of the three Tennant specials, Wild Blue Yonder – by a mile. Really good. The bar just went back up to normal height.

Of the various specials Christmas and otherwise pre-Chibz (i.e. pre-Season 11), of which there were a plethora, I’d rate them Day of the Doctor (by a mile), Last Christmas, The Snowmen, The Time of the Doctor, then (rather sentimentally for me) A Christmas Carol – all by the Moff(!) – then Planet of the Dead by Russell T.

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Started to watch Nikola Tesla’s Night of Terror, got about ten minutes in and got totally impatient with the contra-historicness of it.

So I skipped on to Fugitive of the Judoon. Now that is a much more promising episode. Can’t help feeling that Ruth’s job as a tour guide in Gloucester is probably hard work (could have been much worse, could have been Luton). But Ruth is an appealing character.

The Judoon I find utterly obnoxious (but I suppose that’s intentional). The Doctor alternately intimidating then cajoling the Judoon commander just didn’t work for me, why would it work on a space rhino? – she should choose one approach and stick to it.

Captain Jack – where did he come from? Mistaking Graham for the Doctor is quite a good joke though. Though the episode does show signs of Chibs’ throw-everything-at-it approach to plotting, it is still reasonably coherent. Though, since Jack then teleports out and his whole walk-on appearance was apparently just an occasion for fan-service and to leave a cryptic message for the Doctor, I’m a tad cynical about that.

The lighthouse is a very photogenic set. Location scouts did a good job there.

I have to say, I really like Doctor Ruth. I did quite enjoy the way Ruth ‘introduced’ Whitdoc to her Tardis, a reversal of roles is always entertaining. Forceful and determined, though Whitdoc does her best to undermine and undercut her in Whitdoc’s usual annoying way. If you’re having a showdown with your old enemy, last thing you need is interference from ‘we never use guns’ Whitdoc.

All the stuff about Ruth and Whitdoc being in each others past (or not) is all gobbledegook to me. Was it ever resolved?

So, a 95% good episode. Probably the best of the season. Not least because the threat is finite, specific and localised, not some apocalyptic doom which threatens the whole Universe.

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@winston @janetteb The Doctor’s Wife is a favourite of mine, too. Just makes me wish Neil Gaiman had taken over as showrunner when the Moff retired.

Anyway, I’ve been very spasmodically working through the Chibz years, which is to say, just watching the episodes that really appeal to me, which amount to about three per season 🙂 Started watching Nikola Tesla’s Night of Terror but my geek side rebelled after about ten minutes (‘that’s wrong – and that – and that was someone else’) so I skipped on to Fugitive of the Judoon which was excellent, I’ve posted a comment in that echo.

And in between, re-watching The Prisoner, the Patrick McGoohan series. They still hold up pretty well, I think A, B or C is the best of the early eps.

So I think I’ll hie me off to the Winchester to take up ps1l0v3y0u’s implied challenge on ‘best non-Moff eps’.

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Oh dear, this is not going to be good.

The Doctor is still talking too much, in this case to herself. Why did Chibbers make her so talkative? It’s as if her brain won’t work unless her mouth is moving. 🙂 And her talking (on a recording) to Ryan and Graham and anticipating what they’ll say is really annoying. It’s a feeble echo of the Doctor’s recording in Blink, but with no rational explanation.

And I really, really don’t like taking liberties with historical figures, such as Ada Lovelace. I think it devalues her. And having the Doctor give us long wordy biographies of historical people is just annoying. Does Chibbers think the audience are totally ignorant?

And I don’t like the psychopathic Master who likes randomly killing people. I’m not sure how true that is to previous incarnations of Masters, maybe it is.

Ryan smashing his phone – and Graham’s and Yaz’s – is really immature. A whole lot of people in this ep seem to have been hit with galloping immaturity.

Okay, so my tolerance in Part 1 seems to have abated somewhat 🙂 Also, it’s all kinda gloomy and depressing, compared with the upbeat Part 1.

Quite why Chibbers had to bring the Nazis into it I have no clue. I did have to have Noor Inayat Khan named for me, there weren’t any other clues as to her identity, but how many historic figures is Chibbers going to mess with? And how did the Germans manage to shoot holes in the entire floor without hitting the Doctor and Ada? Why didn’t they just take up the floorboards? Why did they leave afterwards instead of taking Khan into custody? That scene makes no sense at all.

(“I never use Facebook unless forced” – Barton. That got the biggest cheer of the episode from me, it just reminded me I have to google Facebook so I can wipe all the unwanted cr*p off Mrs D’s phone for her.)

“I’ve always wanted to return to Paris.” “It’s not at its best. Nightly bombing raids. Millions dead.” SINCE WHEN? The Germans never bombed Paris after 1940, why would they? They were in occupation. The Allies didn’t bomb Paris, it wasn’t a strategic target. I call BS.

Graham’s MI6 laser shoes – really. How absurd can one get. I’m afraid this ep has completely lost me.

Barton’s DNA – don’t tell me this is going to be another Cyberman ep. I’m so over Cybermen (and the Moff had the last word on them, IMO). Why not Skynet or the Matrix, it would make a change? Oh, and contra Barton’s claim, human (or any) DNA would make an absolutely useless data storage system. This is just technogobbledygook. (I see I liked the idea 2 years ago but now I’ve gone right off it. I must be getting more cantankerous with age).

So then the Doctor drops Ada Lovelace and Noor Khan back to their respective timelines. Given Khan’s fate, that was a bit – cold. “Bonne chance” – yeah right.

If Part 1 was a B, this is a D.

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@janetteb I’d never seen Sacha Dhawan before that episode. But I agree he would have made a great Doctor. He’s got personality.
One thing that did ring false to me, was the Master’s glee at the prospect of instantly disposing of the Doctor. That’s not how the Master operated at all. Ultimately, he always wanted to beat the Doctor, enjoyed making the Doctor suffer a bit, I think he also wanted the Doctor’s (unwilling) acknowledgement that he (the Master) was a worthy / superior opponent. There’s no way he would be satisfied with just ending the Doctor, just like that.
As for the plot, I think some of it looked like Chibbers’ attempt to show that he could do James Bond. As such, it wasn’t a bad attempt.

By the way, the airliner with the phony rear cargo ramp, I’ve got a much better solution than a faked-over A320 – make it a Boeing 727, BAC 111 or DC9, all of which had genuine rear passenger airstairs. Admittedly they’re all obsolete by now, but there probably exist a number of low-hours examples which would make suitable corporate jets for VOR. [/geek mode]

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Okay, I just watched Spyfall again 2 years later. So my impressions are almost fresh. I think it holds up well.

– Spyfall starts off really well and quite intriguing. Then the Doctor gets all annoying and patronising with ‘C’ to the point where I want to shout at her.

I do like “O” (the Master), he’s got some personality. The Doctor is still being annoying. But the farmhouse sequences are really good and scary.

The white ‘ghosts’ are an intriguing puzzle. Aliens of some sort, obviously. But what has happened to Yaz? And I did find it a bit – strange that the amateur spies Yaz and Ryan could successfully (well, kinda, Ryan escaped) pull off a mission in the heart of the high-tech ‘enemy’ headquarters.

I absolutely agree with O’s verdict on the crystal-grotto Tardis – ‘ridiculous.’

The party on the VOR estate – the Tardis group look distinctly over-dressed (and hot!) in their formal gear, that is not California party gear I think. And it transpires that Yaz and Ryan had been spotted on camera in VOR HQ. And anyway, Graham and Ryan going all juvenile over their roulette ‘winnings’, and the Doctor mistaking baccarat (?) for Snap, are just embarrassing. “O” and Yaz look to make a nice couple, though.

So, telling Barton to his face that you’re ‘on’ to him at his own party may not be the wisest idea. None of the Tardis crew are exactly James Bond. So then they all jump on motorbikes (taking time to put on helmets, of course) and pursue. Barton shooting at them out of his car is just so non-Bond-villain though, doesn’t he have people for that? The whole chase sequence doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. And Barton drives into his hangar, and doesn’t notice the huge doors opening again behind him as the Doctor and friends sneak in? – seriously? And, he is qualified to fly an A320 (looks like) single-handed – something no A320 is certified for, I think. Except his has been modified to have a clamshell rear door, military-style, for no apparent reason.

I have to say the revelation of ‘O’ as the Master caught me completely by surprise. But the I don’t think Chibbers gave us any clues at all, so that was maybe cheating. The CGI of the crashing plane is really not very good (such CGI’s never are). But then the last shot implies that the Doctor (and friends?) are all imprisoned in tentacle-land so the entire sequence from the party onwards was an illusion? That would account for the car chase etc etc being a caricature of a Bond movie, though I find that a little unsatisfying.

Still, a good episode, very watchable.

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@robertcaligari I am NOT saying FX are more important than other factors, in fact they can’t compensate for inadequacies elsewhere (though some producers try). I don’t disagree with you. If it doesn’t need FX then it doesn’t.

Army of Darkness was a product of Sam Raimi, who, along with Rob Tapert, founded Renaissance Pictures which for five years produced the Hercules and Xena TV series around Auckland where I am. For that period they were virtually the whole of the New Zealand film industry. They were famous for their goofy / campy humour and their mastery of budget (cheap) special effects. (There is a continuous uninterrupted camera move in one episode that I still cannot explain, it could have been done with a very tiny drone but this was 20 years before small drones were a thing.) But generally their FX were – just adequate to support the story (with the exception of a few really painful rubber monsters). You could generally overlook the clunkiness if the story of the week was good. And the musical score was generally very good, which helped a lot to set the mood, I’d rate Joe LoDuca as better than Murray Gold.

When I say an ‘adequate’ level of special effects I mean adequate, not lavish. I’m not talking about Independence Day levels of excess, in fact too much CGI and not enough story is an embarrassment. I’ve got the remake of Total Recall – the original with Schwarzenegger had adequate FX, the remake has awe-inspiring CGI and it falls flat for me because too much CGI just overwhelms the story.

The FX need to be adequate for the scene. If it’s two people arguing in a hotel room then the FX required are absolutely minimal. If one of them runs out the door and gets hit by a car then the effects for that need to be – adequate. Or you can do it off-camera like in Father’s Day or Dark Water, which is equally effective. Either way you do at least need a real car.

Example of barely adequate props – almost every single gun in Blakes 7. And the space battles. B7 got its appeal from the personal clashes and sarcastic dialogue between (usually) the crew. Red Dwarf got away with FX that were hardly any better (in its early eps) because it was a comedy, I think audiences’ expectations of ‘realism’ are far more relaxed for a comedy, you’re looking for laughs so the perils don’t need to be so convincing.

@ps1l0v3y0u “Any story can crippled by acting, production, or effects (remember Capdoc on the prop horse in The Woman Who Lived?) but Whovians like to think the show lives or dies by the script/story.”
Well yes, that’s about my point. I thought the prop horse was – adequate. I’m not a horse person, sometimes our demands for ‘realism’ depend on our other fields of interest. For years, things to do with cars and driving on TV were often painfully bad – for me.
I’d agree that Who is mainly about the story. But since the advent of nuWho (i.e. ‘Rose’) I think the level of FX has generally been adequate to support the story. For example Smithdoc riding his old bike up the side of the Shard – not the most convincing, but near enough to not drop me out of the story with a snort.
The CGI blue spaceship in the Tennant/Donna story (can’t remember its name now) was an exception in the other direction, where the CGI was absolutely beautiful, but it supported rather than detracted from the story. The desert farmhouse with the Gallifreyan gunship looming over the Doctor in Hell Bent was another visually beautiful scene that enhanced a fantastically good story.
I hope the increased budgets (which have permitted better FX/CGI) can be matched by the writing. Um, Disney. Remains to be seen.

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@nerys I’m sorry I missed your reply, I wasn’t ignoring you 🙂 Just semi-sentient recovering from my trip. Like you, I’ve been ‘woke’ (ugh!) on climate change for a long time. The world can’t keep absorbing more people with a higher standard of living (and hence energy and materials consumption) forever. The old traditional methods of controlling the population viz. wars and epidemics are quite rightly considered inappropriate these days. Partly I think it’s also a spectacular failure of economics – the only successful economies seem to be ones that are continually growing and demanding more people or generating more waste. Howcome the economists can’t devise some regime that works with a static or shrinking economy without massive job losses and the like?

But then I’ve just been to France and England for a month with no excuse other than taking a holiday, so who am I to judge?

I do hope your in-laws in Calgary are all right and the wildfires are back under control.

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@devilishrobby Well, I only know Whitaker from Doctor Who, so to me she’s an awfully hammy actress. Everyone who’s seen her in other productions says she’s good, so I’ll just conclude that she was possibly slightly mis-cast (I think a ‘darker’ character would have done better) and certainly mis-directed and had some awful scripts. (“I’m the Doctor, sorting out fair play throughout the Universe”. Aaaaaarrgh! The bathos! Of course she was new to the role and famously hadn’t watched any previous Who’s – blame Chibbers for that – but I’m pretty sure Capaldi or Smith or Tennant would have demanded a rewrite of that line.)

@robertcaligari I haven’t seen either of those episodes which you quote. But I have this theory that a successful production requires a certain basic level of adequacy in each aspect e.g. script, acting, sets, sound, special effects etc. And any one of those that falls too far below the basic level risks distracting the viewer. So long as each of those meets its ‘adequate’ standard, the viewer can basically ignore it and direct their attention to the really good bits of the episode, whatever they may be.
Old Who (and Blakes 7) suffered from effects that were often so bad they did risk ‘dropping the viewer out’ of the story. I think FX generally got ‘good enough’ some time around the start of nuWho.
Of course the earliest oldWho had the advantage of being viewed on tiny black and white TV’s which had the huge advantage of hiding many defects. I do agree that the craftsmen did a remarkable job for the budget they had. Though mention of the budget and black and white TV’s brings to mind Ridley Scott’s ‘Alien’, where he thought the ‘alien ship’ set looked so hokey and unconvincing he shot all the close-ups on ‘helmet cam’ played back through an old monochrome monitor with lots of ‘interference’ – and very convincing it was too.

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