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

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.

Just realised that the offhand Where's Wally joke foreshadows the ending - nice. (Also: good joke.)

This was enjoyable but mostly empty. Good for Danny for finally standing up for himself, though.

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.

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.

Maybe the doc's going to hand the soldier back to Danny.

Also: I've never had that dream.

Until...now?

Too many boxes under my bed now, no space for monsters.

Or... Each box has its own monster

Each box IS a monster.

the bed is the monster O_O

No YOU'RE the monster and you're terrifying an innocent bed.

:O

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.

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.

Of course I know what happens when one presumes.

Orson? I swear I heard it as Awesome Pink.

Hahah I heard that too. (The Bon Voyage sign clearly says Orson though.)

"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.

clearly the best of the series so far, and one of the best of the show ever.

...

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."

And since when could a TARDIS land on Gallifrey and not instantly draw guards to the scene within minutes?

shabogans dude, no guards around

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.

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.

shabogans dude, no guards around

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.)

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.

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.

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?

oof that's a rabbit hole and a half

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.

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"

"the series itself didn't even invent regeneration until 1974 "

hartnell regenerated in 66!

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.

pretty sure they didn't even call it regeneration until the change from 3 to 4?

that's what I'm saying

it wasn't until 1996 that the Doctor regenerated on his own, without the assistance of Time Lord technology or mysticism

It was filmed in Canada, which is the zero room of Earth countries.

Anybody give a shit about the re-appearance of the Sanctuary Base SB6 space suit? No. Good call

did it say SB6 on it? I didn't notice.

rewatched this tonight, think it's still excellent. only dangling plot hole being what was on Danny's bed.

that's not a plot hole.

it's unexplained

ambiguity is not error.

(it's another kid trying to scare Danny. unless maaaaaaaaybe it's not. but it probably is.)