[TV] Doctor Who - Page 37

Just enough sentimentality with the breath on a mirror thing/delusion of Amelia to make me miss him while not making me miserable and hate Capaldi. Good way to end 11 all around.

that regeneration was bad.

If it's because he didn't bleat on and whine about not wanting to go, I actually love it. It was touching enough while not trying to hammer in emotional impact with fists made of ham. We're already going from the youngest Doctor to one older than any of the Nu-Who Doctors; if they tried to tear out your heart and stomp on it I can imagine a lot of 14 year old girls dropping the show entirely.

If you want to complain about the absurdity of regeneration nuking, while I personally thought it was awesome I can see why it might turn some people off.

I love how Moffat managed to place everything that was in Matt Smiths run in there, the Daleks, Cybermen, Weeping Angels, the Crack, nice mix without getting the feeling that it was forced. I actually liked the part where there was less drama when he was going to regenerate. I don't think they could have forced drama in there with the way the episode was written and as you said, it's touching enough to give people feels. I don't think they could have gone with a regen like 10's cuz fangirls will drop it.

It felt like the episode was "weak"? It felt draggy at some parts.

So the crack never fully healed? When he did the big bang again, the crack was still there and the Time Lords found it eventually and wanted to go in.


And I hate how word was going around that Moffat will tie loose ends with that episode when it didn't. Like how they saved Gallifrey in the 50th Anniv Movie and then suddenly when you watch the End of Time Parts 1 and 2, Gallifrey was still out there getting shot and shit.

Yeah and now they got a new plot weapon, the Gallifreyans can just open a crack and send the Doctor help.

The crack was described as a scar - even if the universe was remade I guess that part was, too. I actually liked that it finally answered the question of 'who caused the Tardis to blow up' unless that was explained in season six somewhere and I missed it. It's been a while since I watched that.

I don't think they'll be opening up the weak points forever - I'm pretty sure the goal is still to go bust Gallifrey out someday. And there were a bunch of nice little things, like the little boy asking him if he'll come back with Amy's theme playing and Eleven being the one to drop his bowtie.

I thought it was pretty good! I can see why you think it felt weak though. If there's one thing that annoys me about Moffat it's that he's very liberal with randomly tacking years onto the Doctor's life. Jesus, just throw in a hundred years between every visit why don't'cha.

I've only watched a few episodes of Classic Who, so I don't have anything to say about the 12 and 1 comparisons.

I will say that forgetting how to fly the Tardis is probably just the result of The Doctor being whacked out of his mind post-regen, like 10 and 11's first moments.

The reason why his regeneration was powerful enough to nuke all the Daleks was because it was the first in a second set, which is a rare and powerful thing, also likely that the Time Lords added some extra spice to it just for that occasion (see the Night of the Doctor short for evidence that they can influence regeneration).

Likely, this is also causing his memory problems, it's an entirely new set of regenerations, so it's likely that a lot of stuff will get lost in the transition. It'll be interesting to see if they handwave it all away in the first couple of episodes or whether it becomes a recurring issue and the Doctor is drastically different afterwards. The theory that he's acting like the first holds more weight than normal because he IS the first in this line of regens, so the parallels to Doctor #1 are not accidental.

The reason I really didn't like this episode was that it felt like it was so obligated to tie up all the loose ends of the 11th's through lines that it took up way too much of the story doing so, leaving a barebones story for the actual episode overall. I mean it's really just the Doctor sitting in 1 town the entire time, Clara getting sent home twice but through plot contrivances returning at 300 year intervals, and cameos by all the bad guys (but the Daleks are, as usual, the only ones that actually matter).

Anyway, it'll be interesting to see whether or not Gallifrey manages to return or if they're just going to sit there in the parallel universe the whole time. It showed they can open new cracks (the one in the sky), but both cracks closed by the end of the episode, so it's still uncertain. I have hope for Capaldi because he's a great actor, but I'm not sure about the way the story is going, looks like we'll have to wait ~6 months to find out, in true Dr. Who fashion.

Edit: Also, 1 more thing: I still hate Clara. The actress is fine, but the character is just a cipher of "what a companion should be" based on all the ones that came before them without any personality of her own. She somehow knows everything about the Doctor after a couple of episodes and we're never shown how she knows these things. Even before the "Name of the Doctor" episode where she went through his entire timeline and thus arguably knows him better than he knows himself (but this sentiment is NEVER manifested because goddammit that'd make her interesting). She gets in trouble at exactly the right times for the plots, she helps out with words and not actions at the exact right time in the plot, etc.

Compared to Rose, Martha, Donna, and Amy she's nothing. They all had interesting family dynamics on top of a much more headstrong personality that lead to actual clashes with The Doctor quite frequently, This episode was the first time we saw her family and they were pretty much just played for one gag, and she's never done anything to upset The Doctor. Compare Rings of Ankheten (or whatever) to The Beast Below as second episodes for the companion. Amy takes such strong action that The Doctor wants to throw her out, but she ends up saving the day. Clara ends up saving the day because of a leaf and a speech. She doesn't actually DO ANYTHING, just talks about stuff and it magically works.

In this episode again, the only thing worthwhile that she does is talk into the crack and somehow convince the Time Lords that The Doctor is worth saving. FUCK, if it was that easy to communicate, why hadn't The Doctor already explained the situation through the crack? I thought it was damn near impossible to talk back and forth without some massive translator on their end because of the distortion. All she serves as is a massive, gaping plothole and a failed attempt at an audience insert character.

Why couldn't the daleks just shoot him twice like River did at Lake Salencio and stop his regeneration. \

As far as companions, nobody is as awful as Rose Tyler and her awful family (even worse when you bundle in Mickey.)

That's just my opinion, though. I like her, not as much as Amy/Martha/Donna and maaaybe Rose/9 but certainly more than Rose/10.

Pretty meh special overall in my opinion. Still haven't answered how Clara still exists as a functioning individual rather than echoes despite jumping into the Doctor's timestream and deciding to introduce a whole new family for her instead of just reusing the family she was a nanny for (did I miss her leaving them or something?). Biggest loose end and likely one Moffat doesn't know how to solve yet.

Also, did Old!Doctor forget he has a time machine that lets him return at the exact moment he left or what? No reason not to say a proper goodbye/have a few last adventures with Clara offscreen. Instead, ditch her again. Way to go Doctor, dickness accomplished..

Why Daleks didn't drop the tech field during the time they controlled Tasha Lem and just vaporize the planet, I have no idea. Then again, these are the same Daleks that built the perfect prison for the Doctor that could be opened by the sonic screwdriver.

Still, an interesting setting and a way to solve the regeneration problem, even if it was a pretty obvious solution. If the crack can just teleport around, though, they might have done that earlier instead of trapping the Doctor for hundreds of years (they could hear Clara, surely they could hear him when he talked around the crack the first time).

But hey, it's sci-fi, there's always issues.