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

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)

yeah I get it it was just more overt this time, I guess.

It was pretty overt in the whole Impossible Girl arc too: the Doctor takes Clara as his companion because he's interested in her, due to having met her twice in the past already... But the reason why Clara appeared in his past is because she jumped inside the Doctor's timeline in Trenzalore, and that wouldn't have happened if she hadn't become his companion.

Or the whole

Or the whole BAD WOLF thing in the first season: Rose writes those words because she had seen them as a graffiti, but it turns out the person who wrote the graffiti was Rose herself, travelling back in time. So where did the BAD WOLF code originally come from?

I was ok with it, but I think it jumped out a little more than usual. Provoked kitchen-table argument here:
Fiancee: no, that doesn't work at all. She called him because he wrote the note which he only wrote because etc
Step-daughter (16): it only doesn't work the first time, but time is a kind of loop and it works after that.
Step-son (12): NO IT'S ALL FINE WHAT'S THE PROBLEM
Me: everyone otm all at once.

(I then played Time Becomes by Orbital and no-one liked it)

akm, Douglas Adams also addresses it in Life, the Universe, and Everything (which was originally the script of a Doctor Who movie, so it's relevant):

http://www.realhhg.com/hhgpage.php?page=time

I liked that a lot, although I always enjoy the silly futuristic ones with a Grant/Wagner vibe (like the Simon Pegg one, and, er, the one with the traffic jam that no one else likes). I also like that "shut up" appears to be the new catchphrase.

As someone mentioned, a Capaldi/Barrowman team up really needs to happen.

WANT

Eh. I'd be happy with a full season without any explicit callbacks to previous ones.

This last one was fun. Got a real '70s scifi feel from those bank corridors.

I think "a thing" is starting to be the new catchphrase too.

yeah I like that one. it would have sounded annoying and affected coming from Tennant or Smith