Doctor Who!

[RocketScientist]

With every episode, I'm seeing him resemble more and more of the other Doctors. In this one he also reminded me of both 1 and 10 at different times.

[RocketScientist]

Other than that awful Queen cover by the screech owl woman, I liked this week's episode. Jelly Babies? Check. Someday I may find out what black currant tastes like, so I can stop envisioning those black ones as tasting like licorice.

[Lurks_In_Shadows]

Really only a little different from a black grape. Maybe not quit as sweet. A little stronger flavored.

[Wolfie]

Just saw the episode last night (was at the Renn Faire Saturday and didn't get home til 11 pm and had to work all day Sunday...)

I liked it. Go Doctor and his over-abundance of well deserved and earned arrogance. ("Give me one minute with him and you won't have to worry about it again" or something along those lines).

[Wolfie]

No opinion on last week's episode?

[RocketScientist]

I haven't actually watched it yet. Was busy last Saturday and with the cat sick this week, I haven't gotten round to it. I think I've missed a few shows this week, actually. I'll let you know.

[Wolfie]

I haven't actually watched it yet. Was busy last Saturday and with the cat sick this week, I haven't gotten round to it. I think I've missed a few shows this week, actually. I'll let you know.

Busy last Saturday? How dare you!

That's ok, it'll come back on right before the new Who on Saturday.

[RocketScientist]

OK, now I've watched it. What was the deal with the sister? I don't even get that. She was hiding in a bush made of sparkly beings, or...? The little kids were both cute and obnoxious (as kids are, so well done), and damn, Danny is stubborn. "I don't want to play with the Doctor. I want to stay home and watch telly."

[someone]

This weeks Episode...
Epic?
Sad?
Interesting?
I mean holy moly...

► Show Spoiler

Cybermen and the Master?

And did they really just

► Show Spoiler

kill Danny Pink, pe math teacher

?

I honestly can't wait to see part 2, almost as exited as now with our beloved Goblins Comic!

[Wolfie]

Saw it last night. Called what happened to Danny when they blanked the screen. Dammit.

Clara is starting to surprise me. She's got depth!

Also, Missy didn't surprise me much... The Doctor's reaction to her during the whole episode did. Though his constant missed Spot checks amuse me to no end. "I keep thinking I'm missing something"... well duh!

[RocketScientist]

Did Clara really think "I'm going to kill myself as soon as I know it's you" was going to work? Derp, Clara.

Also, Clara and Missy seem like good and evil versions of Mary Poppins to me.

[lingrem]

Also, Clara and Missy seem like good and evil versions of Mary Poppins to me.

That is possibly one of the best descriptions and comparisons I have EVER heard!

[Wolfie]

Holy Finale's Batman!....

What did y'all think?

[Patdragon]

It was ok. Some bits were quite fun and plot reveals were good but it felt like the flow was a little off, can't quite put my finger on how tho.

[RocketScientist]

Frustrating. Mostly good, but frustrating.

Spoilered in case Carrot or someone else drops in before watching.

► Show Spoiler

1. I demand that "science girl" be resurrected at once to be our new companion.
2. Also Danny. Fix that.
3. For a while there I felt like I was watching Bond vs. the (Nicholson) Joker set among the Walking Dead. I'm not sure if that made it good or bad.
4. Missy got a little too over-the-top maniacal laugh for me by the end there. I tried to like her, but it wasn't really happening.
5. I quite enjoyed the Brigadier-cyberman at the end.

Still processing the rest of the episode in my brain.

[Wolfie]

It felt rushed to me. Missy wasn't fully realized as a character, IMO. Devilishly unhinged, yes. But not fully realized. I think we'll see her again... somehow. The Master always pops back up.

The did need to explain the whole spore thing a bit more... and yes. #1 is a must RS.

[RocketScientist]

You're right. It did feel rushed. And maybe like they stuffed too many elements into the same episode. If Missy had been my first introduction to the Master, I would be most unimpressed with her as a nemesis.

[CooksACarrot]

Ok, I've seen it now.

I liked Missy as the Master, although not as well as I liked the last Master. Missy wasn't really a nemesis in this one, in my opinion. It felt more like the introduction of the Master wasn't so much to have a nemesis so much as to say 'Ah Ha! The Master, that is a bone for long term fans!,' something thrown into a plot that was going to happen in any case. Even the bit with Galifrey (spell checker corrects to Gallimaufry which is marvelous) didn't actually CHANGE anything, everything was exactly where it was before except with an added dose of depression.

I think we finally got a little more depth out of Capaldi's Doctor beyond just brooding, although we returned to that at the end. I blame writing for this more than acting, Capaldi just hasn't been given enough to work with. I think after the darkness of Smith's Doctor (shut up, he was extremely existentially terrifying, a Doctor who had chosen to forget why he didn't kill), a gritty reboot Doctor was the wrong way to go.

I've always liked Clara, or at least I've liked Jenna Coleman, but this head on collision with depression and death that has seemed to be her character arc this series has not been something I have enjoyed or thought was appropriate, maybe it will be fixed at Christmas, but I doubt it. She has been well acted but not well written (I could bring up the whole 'Moffat is Sexist' thing, but while I agree, I don't want to get into it right now).

The last thing Danny did in the episode (No spoilers here!) is exactly what Danny would have done, even if the whole bracelet thing came out of right field (I have a feeling there is a deleted scene there somewhere, but I doubt that it would make sense even then). Danny has been the one bright spot for me in what has been a pretty crappy series generally.

Science Girl was dead as soon as the Doctor suggested the offer. It is like when a soldier shows everybody a picture of his sweetheart back home in a war movie, there is no coming back from that.

Overall, I was not impressed but I wasn't expecting to be. The writing and stories this year have been pretty abysmal, without even a Neil Gaiman helmed bright spot like we had last series to drag us out of mediocrity. There haven't seemed to be any scripts this series that didn't have Moffat as an author, or I haven't noticed any at any rate. I think, generally, we need a new Showrunner, Moffat has run out of gimmicks (especially since he has to divide his time between this and Sherlock), and gimmicks and speeches are what he is best at. I also miss companions that could be their own people. Clara needs to react to a man, but that has been the case with both Amy and River, so it isn't surprising.

[RocketScientist]

Missy definitely wasn't a nemesis. She was Renfield as played by the Joker.

[CooksACarrot]

The Joker is a really apt analogy. In the best Joker stories, the Joker is trying to make Batman realize the darkness and chaos in his own soul.

[RocketScientist]

Did you catch the 1989 Nicholson Joker-esque music they played for her? I think that's what they were going for there.

[Liesmith]

I love Missy! She's bananas!

Spoilers!

► Show Spoiler

I saw one review of this episode where they said they expected Missy to become the Doctor's new companion by the end...and I think that would've been fantastic. We'd have finally had a new character dynamic, and we'd have gotten Missy in every episode, which is something I'm completely OK with.

Beyond Missy, the finale was kind of a letdown for me-- almost every major element which was advertised, was actually completely misleading and had nothing to do with the plot:

1) Clara confronts the Doctor at Vesuvius ("You were the chosen one!"): Dream sequence which ultimately has no effect on the plot or the characters.
2) "Clara Oswald never existed.": Just a lie Clara tells the Cybermen, which fools them for exactly zero seconds.
3) The Doctor is now President Doctor: absolutely nothing is done with this.

And check out the huge huevos on Missy, to use the Toclafane plan again, but with Cybermen this time, because paradoxes are for nerds. I thought they were going to get around the paradox issue by Missy saying "I only cyberized people who were already dead, so there's no paradox! This is a free army and no one had to die!" which would create a morally gray decision for the Doctor to make. Instead, she has her nonsensical "Cyberzombie" plan, followed by her "screw it, I'll just kill everyone with spores" plan. I feel like she could've skipped the fake afterlife part of the plan altogether.

And the part with the kid at the end made zero sense. If the Nethersphere could create fully functional human bodies solely from people's minds, then why would they need corpses to begin with? They could've skipped that entire part of the plot, and the story would've still worked (Missy would be making an army of the dead, using copies of people's minds with the emotions removed, and using the Nethersphere to replicate cyberized bodies for them), and there wouldn't have been massive plotholes and paradoxes.

Bah, such a frustrating finale. The only parts I really liked were Missy, Nick Frost as Santa, and when Clara and the Doctor where lying to each other at the end...though I don't feel that the show earned Capaldi's reaction at not finding Gallifrey. I'm pretty sure the dude doesn't care about finding it, since he spent no time trying to search for it this season.

[RocketScientist]

I agree with all of that except I could do without any more dangerously unstable. Especially on our side. I could also do without any more Clara. (Sorry, Jenna. Not your fault.)

Anything that puts me in mind of Star Wars Crapisode Episode 3 is, of course, bad.

[Liesmith]

Heh, I didn't think of it like that...Obi Wan and Missy.

► Show Spoiler

Still, they kinda glossed over the whole "Missy has a TARDIS" plot point. That seems like a BIG DEAL. Even if she's really dead (and I think there's no chance of that...I'm positive that she was hit by a trans-mat beam), that just means that there is a TARDIS on Earth in the 21st century, completely unattended. Shouldn't we be panicking? I'll get started and wait for everyone else to catch up.

[CooksACarrot]

I wanted to have Capaldi and Coleman to get better material, but the writing has been terrible. At least Smith got a little to work with, we still don't really know who Capaldi's Doctor is, and I'm not sure he even knows yet. We went from the Doctor who remembered, to the Doctor who was healing, to the Doctor who forgot, to the Doctor who...

And they really didn't properly establish what 12 and Clara get from each other, and why they were together. The Master's machinations were a little interesting, but the 11 calling cop out at the start was crap and not helpful and crap.