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

i liked the extended clip, and i am
a sucker for nick frost

I'm sure Santa will be revealed to be an alien, right? (With possibly a little wink that maybe it was the real Santa Claus after all.) That's what they've done to all the other mythological creatures in the show, so why not him?

The President of the Earth thing bothered me a bit, because it's never been established that any politician besides maybe a few British ones even knows who the Doctor is, right? How did they get countries like Venezuela or Iran to accept that this supposed alien with a Scottish accent should have that power? Maybe if people would still remember the events of the season 3 finale, you could justify it, but they pressed the reset button on that.

my impression was that The Doctor was U.N.I.T.'s nominee and everyone was like "OK you guys would know best"

Well yeah, but considering how some countries feel about the UN, I doubt everyone would just let them decide.

I guess the idea is people think readjust their priorities in the face of an alien invasion, cf http://img3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20090731013009/watchmen/images/5/5d/Alienmonster.jpg

Sorry, badly put together post. Just woke up.

Basically the whole episode had this really forced way of getting to the moral choice at its climax: the Doctor is named the King of Earth out of the blue, Missy's whole complex plan was there just to get the Doctor to admit they're not that different, etc. The plot didn't have the sort of natural flow that would make these twists seem inevitable, you could pretty much see the writer pulling the strings.

(xxpost)

The two-parter that opened season 6 had the Doctor helping out Nixon so yes, some other heads of state besides British ones have encountered him.

black helicopters, blue police box

That was the worst Nixon impression I've ever seen, btw.

Panto Nixon, panto Churchill.

at least Nixon was the only bad thing in his story; the Churchill Dalek story was bad enough to be in season 2

Ironsides Dalek was cool.

(So was it asking “would- you- like- some- TEA?”, though that was a riff on Power Of The Daleks’ “We- Are- Your- SER-vants,” but I hadn’t recon-watched Power then.)

bbc america going all in with a reboot-a-thon leading up to this year's wobs special at 9pm xmas day

Christmas Specials back to being forgettable and mediocre again, I see.

SHADDUP I HAVENT WATCHED YET

:)

Then what are you doing clicking on this thread? ;)

nah this was good. it's not the best christmas special but it did the job. and I was happy with the resolution which everyone had been wondering about.

I really enjoyed this

The 'don't look' dream crabs idea was a bit meh and nebulous but that middle section with Clara and Danny holy crap I was a bit of a mess after that, unexpected teariness. Also got lots of feels when Clara hugged Capaldi Doc on the sleigh that was v nice

Nick Frost was a lovely Santa, and I loved the ending

this was at least the second-best Christmas special ever

This was the best Christmas episode I can remember, mainly because it was just a fun base-under-siege story with festive trimming. Nick Frost as Santa could have gone very wrong, but having him as a brusque Doctorish-figure really worked. I really wish the episode had been called Tangerine Dream, though.

this was great fuiud

really glad they're keeping Clara around. She grew into a fantastic character over the course of this season.

The emotional character bits (Danny telling Clara to wake up, Clara hugging the Doctor, the final scene) were nicely done, but the crab story itself was pretty standard and predictable, and it felt like there was way too much exposition by the Doctor and Santa to explain things that were obvious already. Also, if the crabs didn't want people to realize they were dreaming, why did they include themselves in the dream? Why didn't they just give everyone normal, happy dreams, like the one Clara first had?

But yeah, I was glad to see Clara stick around. Though the granny Clara scene felt almost too much of a meta thing to play on the viewers' expectations: "This is her last episode, time to say goodbyes... Gotcha, no it isn't!"

she's had like, 5 goodbye scenes now. wonder how she'll really leave when she does?

don't buy for a second that danny is gone for good either.

also saw some grumbling that her age-ing makeup was poor but I thought it was pretty good, better than the bad green screen on the sleigh. still, totally enjoyable all the way through.

This ruled

Those crabs were creepy as HELL

otm

i have been watching reruns from tennant/rose and tennant/donna (and smith & capaldi)

i forgot that slade song had been used in other christmas specials :D

I thought we were all "Boo on true wub" gooey-eyes, how am I supposed to know what to think now.

BTW Clara/Doctor/the others never had head wounds, even more like the Inceptions now.

I really hope they're not still dreaming.

One of the people I was watching with is a hardcore Buddhist and she was loving the layers of dreams.

When Clara and the Doctor start to leave after getting out of the first group dream, they both have vampire-style puncture wounds in their temples often obscured by hair. I assumed they were also there in subsequent dreams.

The tangerine at the end made me think they were still dreaming and they're going to retcon next season. Except they probably won't, but I want them to.

how awesome if whole of next season is dreamcrab

"Also, if the crabs didn't want people to realize they were dreaming, why did they include themselves in the dream?"

Yeah, but then you wouldn't have an episode... Also, it does fit the internal logic - by putting themselves in there, the crabs make people think they can defeat them. Also the crabs are cool.

also rewatching random matt smith eps mixed in with capaldi eps it is starkly apparent that the whole smith vibe was WEVE ALL EATEN BAGS OF SUGAR WEE WIBBLY WOBBLY TIMEY WIMEY ZINGFEST

i still find all the pond timeline stuff v exhausting, it's just so hard to give a crap when none of it is apparently real

and that girl who waited episode still annoys me

i like smith still, but everyone is just so tiring

I iked the 'dreamy weamy' joke in this

I thought the writing was vasty improved this season although I know people who disagree with that (they are wrong)

They are super wrong

mega wrong

I keep reading ppl talking about the never ending misogyny of Steven Moffatt and I'm just like "... are you even aware of old-Who and do you really think turning Rose into a quip-driven cypher who is endlessly panting after The Doctor is a feminist statement"

i still find all the pond timeline stuff v exhausting, it's just so hard to give a crap when none of it is apparently real

ssh nobody tell her

"Also, if the crabs didn't want people to realize they were dreaming, why did they include themselves in the dream?"

Yeah, but then you wouldn't have an episode... Also, it does fit the internal logic - by putting themselves in there, the crabs make people think they can defeat them.

But wouldn't it be much better if people wouldn't even realize there was any threat, so the crabs could consume their brains in peace? And you could still have had an episode, the Doctor could've realized the threat by some other means, and the actual crabs could've been spared for the episode finale.

That was fun! Nice and throwaway, in a good way.

Now the writing seems to have definitively improved, it would be nice to see Moff stop using his favourite story tropes (being trapped in a dream reality, fake out endings, "Don't! Do! X!")

Enough monsters who either will or won't attack depending on whether or not you sense them.

Possibly my favorite part of the episode was the bit with the station manuals

Enough monsters who either will or won't attack depending on whether or not you sense them.

Yeah, it seems that ever since Moffat came up with a genuinely cool and scary new monster in the Crying Angels, he's been trying to pull off the same feat again, with diminishing returns. I guess he realized the Angels themselves became less effective the more he used them, so this season we've had monsters who don't attack you if you don't breath (Deep Breath), or don't look at them (Listen), or don't have any guilty thoughts (Time Heist), or don't think of them (Last Christmas), i.e. variations of the original Angel concept, all based on childhood fears and superstitions ("if I just don't think about the monsters under my bed, maybe they won't be there at all..."). It's a neat concept but it's overdone by now, nothing they've tried has surpassed the original Angel episode.

Liked the shop assistant companion-proxy. And her list ("Thrones marathon").

They should adapt Mark Gatiss's novel Nightshade into a two-parter, that's a great monster

Blink is, like, the best episode ever. I don't think it's a problem Moffat hasn't liven up to that standard again. No other Who-writer ever has.