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TheStebe

Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
1,542
London
Absolutley loved that episode!

I always love seeing the tardis getting some action time on screen and that fadeout seeing the tardis flying into the time vortex with that music was also fantastic indeed!

Effects have been on point
 

Hamchan

The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
4,964
Didn't like it. I think I'm just not a fan of Chibber's writing because everything that involved him were the weakest episodes this whole season.
 

wrowa

Member
Oct 25, 2017
4,372
I frankly barely even paid attention to this episode. Currently, I just don't particularly like anything about this season or new era of Who. I don't like the style, the stories (sole highlight for me was Rosa Parks), most of the characters and I still don't have much of an idea what kind of character Whitaker's Doctor wants to be (which is obviously not her fault, or at least not exclusively) and I'm somewhat puzzled by some of her actions. Putting less of a focus on an overarching plot might not be the worst idea, but in this case it just seems like they want too far into the other direction. It just feels kinda pointless to me.

Long story short, I'll give it some time and rewatch the season in half a year or so with adjusted expectations. Maybe then I'll come around on it. Right now I just don't really care anymore, which definitely influences my opinion negatively.
 

Plum

Member
May 31, 2018
17,273
I felt a strong authorial voice there. Doctor Who is infested with dad jokes, and being a dad I laughed at that. When I watch that with my adult kids (who never give up chattering at me) I know we'll all laugh at that.

I mean, you know this is a seasonal episode, right? It's event television. Does nobody else remember that time Clara borrowed the TARDIS core to cook her Christmas roast? Oh yeah, Series 5 wiped your minds retroactively, it seems.

A harmless joke about Christmas Dinner is much better to me than a lazy "kids today and their screens!" joke. Just feels like the kind of joke you'd hear Piers Morgan say on Good Morning Britain tbh
 

Hamchan

The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
4,964
They need to cut down on episode length next season. I have no idea what these extra minutes are adding because it feels like we have less action and less character development (especially for the Doctor) than we've ever had before.
 

Taki

Attempt to circumvent a ban with an alt account
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
5,308
The resolution was a bit naff.

I dig the aesthetics but the storylines fizzle out.
 

LL_Decitrig

User-Requested Ban
Banned
Oct 27, 2017
10,334
Sunderland
A harmless joke about Christmas Dinner is much better to me than a lazy "kids today and their screens!" joke. Just feels like the kind of joke you'd hear Piers Morgan say on Good Morning Britain tbh

Not a fan of Piers Morgan, but as I said in my post I love dialogue. I watched the episode again just now with one of my two adult kids, and when we got to that bit we just looked at one another and giggled.
 

Plum

Member
May 31, 2018
17,273
Not a fan of Piers Morgan, but as I said in my post I love dialogue. I watched the episode again just now with one of my two adult kids, and when we got to that bit we just looked at one another and giggled.

Me neither lol, but I've been forced to listen to enough Good Morning Britain (my mum loves to play it at a loud volume in the mornings) that a joke like that just makes me groan more than anything.
 

JediTimeBoy

Member
Oct 27, 2017
6,810
If there was no fleet, then why the panic of preventing the dalek from sending the signal?
We don't know that there wasn't a fleet. If you're referring to where the Doctor tricks the Dalek, I don't think she was implying that there wasn't a fleet, just that she didn't take the Dalek to the fleet. It would explain why she was trying to block the signal.


Series 7 had stories like Town Called Mercy, Power of Three, Hide and Cold War. I often wonder whether the "fans" who post here have actually watched the show.

Not everyone has to share your opinion of those particular episodes being the pinnacle of series 7, or even been good at all. Although, Cold War was ok.
 

Deleted member 3815

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
6,633
Not a bad episode, though I really liked Lin. The Wi-Fi joke could have easily been cut, it just didn't work and added nothing to the show.

Personally though I would have killed off Ryan dad at the end of the episode.

The episode also highlighted something important...Yas is wasted on Doctor Who as she was serverly underdeveloped and in this episode you could erase her out and nothing would have changed.

It also lame that Doctor Who isn't returning till 2020, all that momentum gone.
 

mclem

Member
Oct 25, 2017
13,444
Quick heads-up - Big Finish are doing a run of deals up to the seventh, but one specifically for the New Year (and therefore expiring at the end of the 2nd, i.e. 22 and a bit hours from this post) is that they're giving away the Sirens Of Time - their very first Who story (featuring 5, 6 and 7) for free.

https://www.bigfinish.com/news/v/12-days-of-big-finishmas-gallifrey-and-sirens

Edit: Oh, another short deal to tie in with the episode: Dalek Empire is discounted until the 3rd.
 
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Effect

Member
Oct 25, 2017
4,945
Watching the New Years Day special and I'm so annoyed we have to wait a full year before the next season. I really enjoy this cast and this special. When it this season hits the emotional beats it knocks them out of the park and this episode is no different.

Overall I enjoyed this season a lot. It's been pretty different from the past seasons and 13th is very different at times but I really like her and can't wait to see more of her.
 
Nov 1, 2017
8,061
It was nice to see them get rid of the toilet plunger on the Dalek and the metal design looked pretty good.

The rest....I wanted to like but can't say I was enraptured.
 

Blader

Member
Oct 27, 2017
26,605
RTD and Moffat had previously tried to sell the Daleks as a threat where even a single one was enough to bring down an entire planet, but the actual execution always fell flat. Here, for the most part, it felt like the first time where you could believe one Dalek was enough to take Earth.
 

Halbrand

Member
Oct 27, 2017
19,615
I kind of loved this episode. I've been down on all of Series 11 but the Dalek was really well done here and in a unique way that felt really threatening. Felt more like Doctor Who with the Dalek, Unit, and 13 herself seemed more like the Doctor. This was Jodie's best episode by far.

"Next stop, everywhere" at the end reminded me of River's line. We got the now traditional shot of the Doctor through the Dalek lens.

I still have some complaints though. The supernova that sucked out only the Dalek was kind of unbelievable though, and 13 still seems a little incompetent. Yaz basically had nothing to do in the entire episode. I didn't like the scene with the Wi-Fi cutting out.

This could have just as easily been a Christmas special, might have been even better as one. Especially with Ryan's dad visiting.

Hopefully Series 12 is much more like this episode than Series 11.
 
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DangerMouse

Member
Oct 25, 2017
22,402
^
Yeah, there was a lot in it to make it really feel at home.

Watching the New Years Day special and I'm so annoyed we have to wait a full year before the next season. I really enjoy this cast and this special. When it this season hits the emotional beats it knocks them out of the park and this episode is no different.

Overall I enjoyed this season a lot. It's been pretty different from the past seasons and 13th is very different at times but I really like her and can't wait to see more of her.
Yeah, I gotta say I really liked this special episode a lot. The first scene with Ryan and his dad might have been a tad longer than needed to fit in a bit more Dalek, but otherwise I thought it was quite fun. I agree, the big problem is that the wait is sadly going to be so long to build any momentum. Would have enjoyed the feeling of going into season 2 off of this.

Like Mr. Joker said, I really liked how they did Lin's side. Those action bits with those rock beats as she did her stuff under its control, loved those scenes, familiar but still loved it.
And 13 when she realized it was a Dalek and gave that "oh shit" look at the console. And when she finally said the line to the Dalek.
LOL damn at the phone call about Unit. Also. for some reason I always love when characters end up talking to a help line lol.

"Don't take with alcohol or you'll grow an extra head" LOL
The no wifi line actually did make me chuckle lol. The mom saying "conversation" rather than the more "we'll have to talk" or whatever felt a bit more cumbersome than natural maybe though lol
 

Halbrand

Member
Oct 27, 2017
19,615
Take it with a big grain of salt but one rumour about the plot is about a Dalek without a shell and it goes to find one in Sheffield.

There's definitely a redesign. The warriors in the trailer are Siberian.

I wouldn't be surprised if it's the Dalek driving the car in the car chase.
I called it
 

moriquendi

Member
Oct 27, 2017
464
For me a strong season, but not incredible. Many seasons seem to have some very high highs and very low lows. This season was fairly consistent, but had no individual incredible episode.

I very much like Jodie's doctor. I liked the companions. With three companions some didn't get as much focus, but I enjoyed the chemistry and interaction between them. I like the change from the (for the new series) near standard of one companion.

I'm excited for the next season. It will be a very long wait.
 

milamber182

Member
Dec 15, 2017
7,714
Australia
Enjoyed it but the internal logic didn't work for me.

If a dalek
rebuilds a dalek shape out of scrap metal, that shape isn't suddenly immune to modern rifle and tank rounds- there's a limit to what a human pawn can make out of common materials in a scrap yard. Not to mention anti-tank rounds? And rocket launchers? It was a plot point that it recovered a standard dalek cannon, but the rest of it?
Also, why is the Doctor so relieved at
, following the fight at GCHQ, having stopped a signal broadcast to a fleet she knows no longer exists?
Why does nobody recognise a picture of a dalek in a history book when they've been invading the UK on a regular basis? By this point you'd think 'look for time travelling alien tanks' would be ingrained in the mind of any historian and pasted in the staff handbook of every employee of the MOD.
For that matter, why does the British army not know full well what it is considering the previous stories? And if they only suspected a drone, why are they deploying a tank rather than sharpshooters/signals/IT specialists?

I realise the modern series trades on not having too many references to what has gone before but if you're going to joke about UNiT disappearing in budget cuts and a callcentre offering to redirect calls to the armed forces, it seems a bit odd that any government memory of what UNIT regularly engaged in sizeable battles in London with has disappeared, especially as a Dalek fleet appeared over the city not that many years ago!

I loved the idea of a Recon, special ops dalek out of its shell still being a major threat, that was cool. I think they could have made more of the fact that it still thought of humans in medieval terms rather than a lazy 'quick absorb-the-internet catch-up a-la Ultron'.

I thought at first the Dalek rebuild was a bit far-fetched, particularly the ability to fly... but then I remembered the 3rd Doctor was confident in his ability to fix the TARDIS after the Time Lords neutered it and he built the flying Whomobile with 70s tech.
 

milamber182

Member
Dec 15, 2017
7,714
Australia
I enjoyed the episode but I feel like a quicker pace for non-historicals would make the show more exciting, especially for episodes where the script is lacking.
 

Paradox

Member
Oct 28, 2017
679
Hmm, That was kinda like trying to watch Broadchurch while someone flicks over to Doctor Who during the ad breaks. Timelordchurch

This really sums up my biggest problem with this era and/or Chibnall particularly. Everyone points to the 'emotional character moments' and talks about how Chibnall is clearly returning to RTD's style of putting character above plot. But it's always done so awkwardly and barely ever weaved in to the main narrative that it just never lands for me.

Yaz talking about her family in Ghost Monument. The Graham/Grace stuff in Arachnids. Ryan talking about his mum in Tsuranga. It all feels like these sudden hard cuts to 'drama' before switching back to Doctor Who. As you say, its like turning over the channel its so stark. And maybe it's not the worst thing, but it's incredibly inelegant. Like, think back to Rose's arc across Series 1. Rose, Dalek, Father's Day - they all feature emotional beats for her, but also play in to that episode's narrative. And Chibnall doesn't seem to want/be able to do that.
 

MrKlaw

Member
Oct 25, 2017
33,038
Very up and down episode again. Nice tense build up and then a funny but overlong and slightly off-tone WiFi gag. Checkov's oven was obvious from the start and made no sense whatsoever.

Large army squad wiped out but then the doctor reverts to the OG method of simply running up behind a dalek and then pushing it about.
 

Halbrand

Member
Oct 27, 2017
19,615
Yaz talking about her family in Ghost Monument. The Graham/Grace stuff in Arachnids. Ryan talking about his mum in Tsuranga. It all feels like these sudden hard cuts to 'drama' before switching back to Doctor Who. As you say, its like turning over the channel its so stark. And maybe it's not the worst thing, but it's incredibly inelegant. Like, think back to Rose's arc across Series 1. Rose, Dalek, Father's Day - they all feature emotional beats for her, but also play in to that episode's narrative. And Chibnall doesn't seem to want/be able to do that.
I was just watching Dalek from Series 1 and was just thinking something similar. Rose causes the Dalek to both "regenerate" and change for the better after the Time War, and she does the same for the Doctor over the course of the series. The regeneration into Ten feels very much in response to Rose.
 

APZonerunner

Features Editor at VG247.com
Verified
Oct 28, 2017
1,725
England
I was just watching Dalek from Series 1 and was just thinking something similar. Rose causes the Dalek to both "regenerate" and change for the better after the Time War, and she does the same for the Doctor over the course of the series. The regeneration into Ten feels very much in response to Rose.

RTD said in his personal head-canon that he thinks one regeneration can be influenced by the experiences of the last - so specifically he suggested that the Tenth Doctor was a direct response to Rose and even ended up with the accent he did in a subconscious attempt to be attractive/pleasing to her. Moffat raised this theory again in some panel somewhere and furthered it by suggesting that the Twelfth Doctor was Scottish out of a sort of subconscious affinity for Amy. One can extrapolate this further, obviously - Missy was very important to Twelve, so maybe that's why we ended up with the switch for Thirteen, etc.

I've always liked this idea though, especially the suggestion that it's just subconscious and can't be helped.
 

Halbrand

Member
Oct 27, 2017
19,615
RTD said in his personal head-canon that he thinks one regeneration can be influenced by the experiences of the last - so specifically he suggested that the Tenth Doctor was a direct response to Rose and even ended up with the accent he did in a subconscious attempt to be attractive/pleasing to her. Moffat raised this theory again in some panel somewhere and furthered it by suggesting that the Twelfth Doctor was Scottish out of a sort of subconscious affinity for Amy. One can extrapolate this further, obviously - Missy was very important to Twelve, so maybe that's why we ended up with the switch for Thirteen, etc.

I've always liked this idea though, especially the suggestion that it's just subconscious and can't be helped.
That's what I'd always believed, great to hear it was definitely intended.

In Deep Breath it's said the Doctor used faces as masks to be accepted, and he was showing Clara his true face rather than putting on another young face because he trusted her.
 

APZonerunner

Features Editor at VG247.com
Verified
Oct 28, 2017
1,725
England
I mean, the real reason Tennant spoke in the accent he did and not in his own is RTD didn't want the character to do a "regional tour" with another regional accent after Eccleston, but these fannish explanations from the showrunners are cute, if nothing else.
 

TheGamingNewsGuy

One Winged Slayer
Member
Nov 5, 2017
31,453
Remember when people were thinking one of the group would leave by the end of the season. Honestly now I think the group will remain to the end of Jodie's run
 
Oct 27, 2017
1,611
Australia
I still have some complaints though. The supernova that sucked out only the Dalek was kind of unbelievable.

I mean, not really? It isn't that there's anything special about the supernova, it's that the Doctor has worked the TARDIS's forcefield that normally lets them stand by the open doors in outer space to have a Dalek sized hole in it so that the mutant will be sucked out in to the imploding star while leaving the rest of them safe. Except she can't always control the thing as well as she'd llike, so we get the mess with the hole expanding and threatening to drag the rest out as well.
 

Halbrand

Member
Oct 27, 2017
19,615
I mean, the real reason Tennant spoke in the accent he did and not in his own is RTD didn't want the character to do a "regional tour" with another regional accent after Eccleston, but these fannish explanations from the showrunners are cute, if nothing else.
Sure, the way his Doctor was written though, and him being younger for reasons both in and outside of the story, definitely seemed to be in response to Rose though. Tennant himself said this too:

I think Rose had helped him reform himself. I think Rose had influenced who he became when he regenerated into me. I think her influence was very formative for the Doctor, having come out of this terrible war and all of these extraordinarily awful things that he'd been to and been borne witness to. And that she helped him recover, helped him become the man that he re-found.
 

Paradox

Member
Oct 28, 2017
679
RTD said in his personal head-canon that he thinks one regeneration can be influenced by the experiences of the last - so specifically he suggested that the Tenth Doctor was a direct response to Rose and even ended up with the accent he did in a subconscious attempt to be attractive/pleasing to her. Moffat raised this theory again in some panel somewhere and furthered it by suggesting that the Twelfth Doctor was Scottish out of a sort of subconscious affinity for Amy. One can extrapolate this further, obviously - Missy was very important to Twelve, so maybe that's why we ended up with the switch for Thirteen, etc.

I've always liked this idea though, especially the suggestion that it's just subconscious and can't be helped.

I've also seen the interpretation that the 11th Doctor was so young and 'puppy dog like' in order to make everyone love him, after coming off the back of the 10th losing everyone. Like how baby animals are said to genetically look cute so that they aren't harmed by others.

There's also the in-universe explanation for the 12th Doctor looking old because he trusted Clara, the one person to have seen all his faces and (presumably) no longer care how he looks.

And, of course, the 13th Doctor being female in the hopes of going back and impressing Bill :)
 

Metallix87

User Requested Self-Ban
Banned
Nov 1, 2017
10,533
My favorite episode of this season, but still a lot of problems for me. UNIT "reveal", the oven, and the abrupt ending were super underwhelming. The Dalek as a threat was handled great, though. The Doctor risking everyone's lives to suck the Dalek into a supernova seemed very odd and out-of-character for me.
 

Spectromixer

Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
16,617
USA
I really enjoyed that episode. The threat of a Dalek was well done.

And now no more Doctor Who until 2020. Maybe another New Years special?
 

Htown

Member
Oct 25, 2017
11,318
Easily the best sci-fi episode of the season, though I'm not sure it's better than the historical episodes like Rosa and Demons of the Punjab.

Is that really all we get from Who until 2020 though?

I feel like this was only a New Years special instead of a Christmas special so that the show technically had something come out in this calendar year.
 

Hamchan

The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
4,964
The 2020 thing is still the biggest bummer to me.

Getting only 10 episodes of this show over 2 and a half years, yeesh. This is following the 1 and a half years that was between series 9 and 10. What a messed up production this show looks like it has.

Basically back to hoping Big Finish can fill in the long gap. Getting ridiculous that i have to keep doing that.
 

Corky

Alt account
Banned
Dec 5, 2018
2,479
It's the first time I'm happy about a gap, I don't really want to watch anymore oft his for a good long while. I'll rewatch this season later this year and give it a fair reevalution