OH MY GOD HE'S OOGLY: nu-Who season 8

The Doctor ends up shooting folks in the head with unrestrained glee far more than the Brig does (cf eg Day Of The Daleks)

― Starland Vocal Gland (sic), Wednesday, 17 September 2014 08:18 (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

It's true!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzmnPs64K74

last five seconds of that video made me LOL

Can't help wondering whether it will appeal to ten-year-olds though.

― Camaraderie at Arms Length, Tuesday, September 16, 2014 5:07 PM (2 days ago)

I watched the last episode with my 6 year old niece. This is the first series she has watched. She is very vocal about what scares her and what doesn't so we didn't have too many concerns. Even as I realised that this was probably the scariest episode for a long while. She hid her face into my partner's arm a couple of times (the scene in the bedroom) but enjoyed it immensely and I am happy to report there were no nightmares after. I watched Dr Who at that age - hiding from it is part of growing up, right? Me and Mrs Kraudive def. enjoyed watching it with her.

My favourite comment from her, without any prompting, when the titles came up at the start and the end: "I really like this music a lot y'know." My kind of girl.

Only just caught up with this - I loved it, the thing on the bed scene was superb -- reminded me of Whistle and I'll Come to You a little bit. Agree that the end was a bit cloying and let it down, but not as much as some of the love-saves-the-day endings...

Did anybody else expect it to be about the Silence, though, seeing as it was called Listen and they explicitly mentioned "the silence at the end of the universe", and uh, I would say that making people forget you is a pretty perfect way of hiding?

Abslom Daak!

Only just caught up with this - I loved it, the thing on the bed scene was superb -- reminded me of Whistle and I'll Come to You a little bit.

With you there, of course!

http://www.tor.com/blogs/2014/09/the-horrifying-truth-about-the-matt-smith-years-of-doctor-who

catching up 3&4, both excellent I thought. good-v good writing and capaldi superb. opening to Listen was fantastic, and I quite liked the end - soft and slow, stepping between the characters and the interrelations of time and fear. loved that so much was left unexplained round the edges of them.

haven't seen this evening's yet.

that's dumb

(xpost obv)

I thought this ep was the best of the season so far. The pacing was a bit too fast though, there were so many plot turns they didn't really much time for any breather moments, I think the episode would've benefitted from extra 10 or 15 minutes. But still, I really liked plot twists in the finale; it wasn't too hard to guess who the Architect is, but when they revealed the purposed of the heist, it was a really nice moment, the sort of thing Dr. Who (which is never really an engineer series but a humanist one) excels in. (Reminds me of The Invisibles too... "And now it's a rescue mission.")

SPOILERS!

One thing I didn't get though... The Doctor is a time traveller, and the Bank of Karabraxos was apparently the most famous bank in the universe, so wouldn't he have known it was destroyed in a solar storm?

fast pace felt right for the 'heist' thing. Ignoring the emotional theme was more or less exactly the same as that Quatermass-type one in the haunted house from a season or so ago this was *again* good, tho perhaps below the others for me - less room for Capaldi, and the look of the bank was a little dull (2, 3, and 4 have excelled at that sort of thing - especially the dalek episode).

Performances were good but it was very predictable - not least to anyone who's seen Paradise Towers...

I'm pretty sure the foyer of the bank, specifically when it shows people being killed by the solar storm, is the same matte as the Foyer of the library in Silence In The Library.

RED KANGS RED KANGS RED KANGS ARE BEST

so, wait, how did they get the cases and such in there again

This threatened to be the first real clunker of the series, but managed to be breezily silly enough that the nonsensical action didn't matter. Kind of a makeweight episode, though. Clara was given nothing.

The Doctor is a time traveller, and the Bank of Karabraxos was apparently the most famous bank in the universe, so wouldn't he have known

Every single Doctor Who story ever* falls apart if you posit this. The entire history of time and space is too much for anyone to know, especially someone who forgets his own age and writing a word on a blackboard - assume he hasn't heard (all of the details) of something unless the story tells you otherwise.

*except for half of S25 and S26 and lots of NAs**

(**actually Tuomas would probably like these a lot, on that principle)

also: they had to be amnesiac so that the thing that could read their minds ... wouldn't know they were going to save it?

Quite liked the look of this ep, some of the sets were v cool visually.

Lol'd at the magician line

so, wait, how did they get the cases and such in there again

Doctorin the Tardis

also: they had to be amnesiac so that the thing that could read their minds ... wouldn't know they were going to save it?

Thing was telepathically linked with security woman so if it knew she would know SORRY HANDS WAVING TOO FURIOUSLY TO DEAL WITH FUTURE OBJECTIONS

that's good, because I was going to ask how the banks director was old and dying in the present day when surely she had to have been not born yet

well, the phone *is* attached to a time machine

I'm pretty sure they've dealt with the phone thing before - the TARDIS phone can be rung from any time.

Anyway, I liked this one too.

Ignoring the emotional theme was more or less exactly the same as that Quatermass-type one in the haunted house from a season or so ago this was *again* good.

^^^ I agree with this, mostly.

oh, I liked it too, but it was only just plausible enough for a story about a trans galactic time traveling bank heist

I feel like 'the Tardis phone can be rung from any time' only gets you so far

Gallifrey is actually an entire planet of switchboard operators

Did Frobisher ever lean in to peer into that big tank like the Doctor did with the Teller?

This was a fun episode; much better than the boring Dalek one. Oddly fascinated and looking forward to Clara's dates.

in retrospect the Dalek one was pretty lame, huh?

i enjoyed the shit out of this. the Teller was fucking proper scary imo.

I liked the look of the corridors near the vault in this one. I feel like they've improved corridors.

in retrospect the Dalek one was pretty lame, huh?

nah

http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--ZOue9IUT--/c_fit,fl_progressive,q_80,w_320/j5yekz5khttskl9ezjsi.gif

I enjoyed this one a lot. It felt very 70s, especially Clara's outfit, and the bank promo video at the beginning seemed like something Douglas Adams may have dreamt up. The plot didn't bear too much close examination, but they never do. I am ready for the series arc to start explaining itself, Delfox/Karabraxos/Missy needs to start revealing herself.

Caved-in head was genuinely disturbing

Btw there's no link btween karabraxos and Missy is there? (XP to Ed)

enjoyed the corridor with different colour light as four different corridors

cyberpunk usb brain was a good joke i think

although doesn't he also use it as a projector, which, hm

the corridor with different colour light as four different corridors

Don't forget the "most greatest, most secure bank in the universe" with a huge network of man-size, ground level air-ducts with grilles that just pop off.

"Btw there's no link btween karabraxos and Missy is there? (XP to Ed)"

I doubt it. I think people are mistakenly drawing correllations just because of the slightly theatrical personalities. See also Miss Foster (Partners in Crime) and that lady that stole Amy as a baby.

room of treasures - just a room of treasures, or was any of that stuff symbolically significant?

it was cheesy

room of treasures - just a room of treasures, or was any of that stuff symbolically significant?

Significant! http://juliaskott.tumblr.com/post/98047664968/whovianfeminism-ithelpstodream-director

when are they going to pass legislation that allows you to set anyone who uses the word "feels" as a noun on fire

Yeah but the rocket!

lol @ rocket

I'm pretty sure they've dealt with the phone thing before - the TARDIS phone can be rung from any time.

Yup. When Churchill rang the Doctor in the WWII Daleks episode, he called from the 1940s and reached him in the present day, and when Clara first (mistakenly) rang the Doctor, she was in present day and he was in the Medieval times hanging out with some monks.

Though it remains unclear how the Tardis chooses the exact point in time where it connects the call... I guess in this case the Tardis somehow knew the Doctor needed to be there shortly before the solar storm, and with Clara it knew she had to reach the Eleventh Doctor because of the whole Impossible Girl thing, but with Churchill it seems to have been totally arbitratry; there's no reason why his call couldn't have been answered by any incarnation of the Doctor.

the churchill story was itself completely arbitrary and silly anyway

the only thing bugging me about this weeks: I don't actually see how it's possible for this to have happened. The Doctor only gives her his number because he went through the bank and got to that point. So her calling for him relies on him having done that. And yet he's only able to have done it because ... he already went through and did it?

normally I just handwave these things off but this time it's bugging me.

also how is the show doing under Capaldi, ratings wise? I see it's getting moved in the UK to a later slot.

It's called predestination paradox or stable time loop, and it's a mainstay of time travel fiction. Also, this is hardly the first time it's been used in Dr. Who.

(To cite just one example from recent episodes, in "The Robot of Sherwood", Clara calls Robin's gang "Merry Men", because she thinks that's what they're called. It turns out they're unfamiliar with that name, but they like it so much they decide to adopt it. However, Clara only called "Merry Men" because she hard heard the name in Robin Hood stories... So who came up with the name in the first place?)

(xpost)