excellent and then the heaving barf of exposition at the end was just godawful
― erry red flag (f. hazel), Sunday, 14 September 2014 06:10 (nine years ago) link
The first 40 mins were good enough that the wrap-up didn't quite spoil it for me, but it was certainly a letdown. I felt a kind of dual tension throughout the show -- regular tension because the story was so strange and gripping, but also an annoying fanboy meta-tension about whether it would end well (thinking "FFS you better stick the landing on this Moffat"). The blanket scene was amazingly done though - genuinely creepy.
― Chuck_Tatum, Sunday, 14 September 2014 07:09 (nine years ago) link
yeah god blanket thing gave me the full creeps
― difficult-difficult lemon-difficult (VegemiteGrrl), Sunday, 14 September 2014 07:14 (nine years ago) link
So, who was the figure under the blanket in the end? Who wrote 'Listen' on the Doctor's blackboard? Did they really land on Gallifrey - presuming that's where young Doctor and the barn was?
Lots of recycled ideas (Midnight, Girl in the Firelplace etc), but quite effective and atmospheric and well-paced.
― painfully alive in a drugged and dying culture (DavidM), Sunday, 14 September 2014 08:46 (nine years ago) link
Thought this was really very good until Gallifrey being accessible again came up.
dgaf abt the circularity and exposition tbh, it's almost as much of a Moff CLEVARR trope as it was with Rusty.
― and she's crying in a stairwell in Devon (aldo), Sunday, 14 September 2014 09:28 (nine years ago) link
Just realised that the offhand Where's Wally joke foreshadows the ending - nice. (Also: good joke.)
― Chuck_Tatum, Sunday, 14 September 2014 11:25 (nine years ago) link
This was enjoyable but mostly empty. Good for Danny for finally standing up for himself, though.
― stacked as fuck & imposing (DJP), Sunday, 14 September 2014 15:24 (nine years ago) link
I thought Orson gave the soldier figure to Clara to give to Danny to start off the Pink family time travel business? I suppose she could just tell him how she knows he was called Rupert and get him in to the Tardis that way (that's gonna happen, right?), but the soldier would have been neater and more meaningful than giving it to the young doctor.
― ledge, Sunday, 14 September 2014 16:21 (nine years ago) link
Also, opening monologue was badly written (lions aren't perfect hunters, they often don't get their lunch; pufferfish don't have perfect defenses, they can get eaten.) And I hope that's the end of awkward dating scenes.
― ledge, Sunday, 14 September 2014 16:25 (nine years ago) link
Maybe the doc's going to hand the soldier back to Danny.
― ledge, Sunday, 14 September 2014 16:28 (nine years ago) link
Also: I've never had that dream.
― ledge, Sunday, 14 September 2014 16:29 (nine years ago) link
Until...now?
― Ned Raggett, Sunday, 14 September 2014 16:35 (nine years ago) link
Too many boxes under my bed now, no space for monsters.
― ledge, Sunday, 14 September 2014 16:55 (nine years ago) link
Or... Each box has its own monster
― stacked as fuck & imposing (DJP), Sunday, 14 September 2014 16:55 (nine years ago) link
Each box IS a monster.
― Ned Raggett, Sunday, 14 September 2014 17:09 (nine years ago) link
the bed is the monster O_O
― difficult-difficult lemon-difficult (VegemiteGrrl), Sunday, 14 September 2014 17:52 (nine years ago) link
No YOU'RE the monster and you're terrifying an innocent bed.
― Ned Raggett, Sunday, 14 September 2014 18:02 (nine years ago) link
:O
― difficult-difficult lemon-difficult (VegemiteGrrl), Sunday, 14 September 2014 18:05 (nine years ago) link
Soldier started in box in childrens' home. Clara takes it from box, gives to Danny. Danny hands it down to Orson. Orson gives it back to Clara. Clara gives it to baby doctor.
― JimD, Sunday, 14 September 2014 18:54 (nine years ago) link
That much is clear. Orson handed it to Clara along with some spiel about time travel in the family and great grandparents and possibly a knowing look. I thought that was an obvious setup for Clara to hand it back to Danny to set the whole thing in motion, now I presume the Doctor is going to be the one to do that.
― ledge, Sunday, 14 September 2014 19:00 (nine years ago) link
Of course I know what happens when one presumes.
― ledge, Sunday, 14 September 2014 19:02 (nine years ago) link
Orson? I swear I heard it as Awesome Pink.
― Hakeem Olajuwon Howard (Leee), Sunday, 14 September 2014 21:49 (nine years ago) link
Hahah I heard that too. (The Bon Voyage sign clearly says Orson though.)
― Ned Raggett, Sunday, 14 September 2014 21:57 (nine years ago) link
"No, it is actually is Awesome Pink. My granddad Ariel insisted."
I thought that was an obvious setup for Clara to hand it back to Danny to set the whole thing in motion
But she already DID give it to Danny. Or do you mean you expected her to give it to adult Danny? Adult Danny already had it, he kept the one she gave him as a child. She couldn't have given it to him again or he'd end up with two of them.
Unless you just expected her to put it back in the toy box so that her earlier self could find it there and then give it to young Danny. But that'd be a pretty pointless loop closure.
― JimD, Sunday, 14 September 2014 23:53 (nine years ago) link
clearly the best of the series so far, and one of the best of the show ever.
― akm, Monday, 15 September 2014 00:23 (nine years ago) link
...
― difficult-difficult lemon-difficult (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, 15 September 2014 00:39 (nine years ago) link
Just did not like the characterization of the Doctor this episode suggests. And since when could a TARDIS land on Gallifrey and not instantly draw guards to the scene within minutes? Even if Clara made it out before they got there, the Doctor would be like "oh yeah, that time I was scared in my bed and a TARDIS materialized in my bedroom and they never figured out who it was, let's just forget that happened, it couldn't be important."
― erry red flag (f. hazel), Monday, 15 September 2014 01:57 (nine years ago) link
And since when could a TARDIS land on Gallifrey and not instantly draw guards to the scene within minutes?
shabogans dude, no guards around
― dave matthews' gland (sic), Monday, 15 September 2014 05:29 (nine years ago) link
In retrospect, I like this a lot more than I did upon immediately watching it. I think Clara's monologue near the end brings it down but the chain of events linking Clara and Danny together being driven by the Doctor's irrational fear was kind of great.
― stacked as fuck & imposing (DJP), Monday, 15 September 2014 05:44 (nine years ago) link
She couldn't have given it to him again or he'd end up with two of them.
Right, and that would prove she's a time traveller. Alright she could just invite him into the tardis but using the soldier would be a nice & classic bit of paradoxical loop causality time travel shenanigans.
― ledge, Monday, 15 September 2014 07:10 (nine years ago) link
Shit, even if he was raised in a Shabogan household, it's not like they're gonna forget a TARDIS turning up in their house. They're Shabogans, not Outsiders. They know what a TARDIS sounds like.
― erry red flag (f. hazel), Monday, 15 September 2014 13:44 (nine years ago) link
I like these hints at the doctor's youth. They've never done this before on the series and it's the one outstanding missing part of his life; other than the scenes with him and the young master in The End of Time, I can't think of anything else.
No idea what a Shabogan is.
"I think Clara's monologue near the end brings it down"
This may depend on how much you like her but I thought that monologue was excellent.
― akm, Monday, 15 September 2014 15:03 (nine years ago) link
I thought Clara on the date from hell and Clara interacting with young Rupert were done much, much better than Clara interacting with the child Doctor.
Also, I don't really need details on the Doctor's childhood. It mostly works in this case because it ended up being the engine driving the plot of the whole story (and it was intentionally vague and short) but unless it's directly informing/influencing a wider story, I don't need to see what the Doctor was like as a child.
I sort of hope that Clara's accidental rediscovery of Gallifrey means something later down the road, preferably in terms of her being the key to finding the planet again (you could make the argument that her foray through the Doctor's timeline intertwined her with Gallifrey and that she is now psychically-linked to the planet, but only through the Doctor's timeline) but if this never gets mentioned again, I'm cool with that.
― stacked as fuck & imposing (DJP), Monday, 15 September 2014 15:13 (nine years ago) link
I feel pretty strongly that his childhood and early life should remain a mystery and not ever be shown on screen. The Doctor should be the most frightening monster on the show, and his past is only as alien and terrifying as it is unseen.
― erry red flag (f. hazel), Monday, 15 September 2014 15:26 (nine years ago) link
The Doctor should be the most frightening monster on the show
This seems like a relatively recent reading, maybe dating from that Pandorica episode? I don't think it's something I would have associated with the classic era (speaking as a non-committed fan who's seen probably only a handful of classic era stories. And who doesn't normally think too much about recent episodes more than minutes after they're over.)
― ledge, Monday, 15 September 2014 16:03 (nine years ago) link
It's not so much that the Doctor is the most frightening monster on the show as it is that who the Doctor is isn't the most interesting part of the Doctor Who universe.
― stacked as fuck & imposing (DJP), Monday, 15 September 2014 16:10 (nine years ago) link
Yeah. Like the space jockey, not the most frightening part of the alien franchise, but one of the best mysteries. UNTIL YOU TRY TO EXPLAIN IT, RIDLEYHOF.
― ledge, Monday, 15 September 2014 16:20 (nine years ago) link
How do we know that that was the young Doctor? IM MAKING YOU THINK.
Serious question: are all Gallifreyans able to regenerate, or is that a trick reserved solely for Timelords?
― Hakeem Olajuwon Howard (Leee), Monday, 15 September 2014 16:46 (nine years ago) link
oof that's a rabbit hole and a half
― stacked as fuck & imposing (DJP), Monday, 15 September 2014 16:48 (nine years ago) link
i'm not saying we need further or deep investiatigation into any of this, just that touching on it once in a while deepens the world and the character. But I liked the Cartmell stuff too.
― akm, Monday, 15 September 2014 17:00 (nine years ago) link
there is literally no point in trying to pin that down, the series itself didn't even invent regeneration until 1974 - as with almost anything in Who there are no consistent "rules"
― dave matthews' gland (sic), Monday, 15 September 2014 17:01 (nine years ago) link
"the series itself didn't even invent regeneration until 1974 "
hartnell regenerated in 66!
― akm, Monday, 15 September 2014 17:07 (nine years ago) link
They didn't really formalize the elements of regeneration until Planet of the Spiders in 1974 though. Before it was a pretty nebulous concept in canon.
― erry red flag (f. hazel), Monday, 15 September 2014 17:39 (nine years ago) link
pretty sure they didn't even call it regeneration until the change from 3 to 4?
― erry red flag (f. hazel), Monday, 15 September 2014 17:40 (nine years ago) link
that's what I'm saying
― dave matthews' gland (sic), Monday, 15 September 2014 18:33 (nine years ago) link
it wasn't until 1996 that the Doctor regenerated on his own, without the assistance of Time Lord technology or mysticism
― dave matthews' gland (sic), Monday, 15 September 2014 18:35 (nine years ago) link
It was filmed in Canada, which is the zero room of Earth countries.
― erry red flag (f. hazel), Monday, 15 September 2014 18:39 (nine years ago) link
Anybody give a shit about the re-appearance of the Sanctuary Base SB6 space suit? No. Good call
― Britain's Obtusest Shepherd (Alan), Monday, 15 September 2014 19:03 (nine years ago) link
did it say SB6 on it? I didn't notice.
― akm, Monday, 15 September 2014 21:00 (nine years ago) link