Doctor Who!

[Liesmith]

I agree, though I did really love the earlier episodes--it just felt like there was never any real progress. I think this can be summed up in one of the final scenes of the finale: Clara is thanking the Doctor for making her feel so special on the travels, and Capaldi has this completely bewildered look on his face before thanking her for the same. His complete confusion somewhat mirrored my own: why is she thanking him? He pretty much treated her like crap the whole season, and wasn't there for her when she needed him most (he even handed off responsibility for Danny's emotions to her. What a dick move!).

I was really hoping there was more to this two-parter. As it is, we still have no idea whatsoever of why Missy chose Clara, of all people. I kept thinking she was chosen because Missy knew she'd have the courage to jump into the Doctor's timestream to save him, and wind up knowing everything about him. At that point, we'd have a human who knows every little detail about the Doctor's entire life (including where he stashes his TARDIS keys)...and we've seen countless times how easy it is to extract information directly from a human's mind in this show. Clara would've been the ultimate sleeper agent to allow Missy to pull off all kinds of mischief (even stealing one TARDIS key would be a big deal).

But instead of any of that, it's just "I chose her because I knew you'd do anything for your friend." I must be odd, because I literally can't even.

[Wolfie]

We've seen her TARDIS... on several occasions. You just had to pay attention. Missy has/had a red phone booth.


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At least, that's what the rumors and half the fandom say. Plus the red phone booth has shown up in at least half of Missy's appearances.

[CooksACarrot]

I do hate how the second the Master became a woman, everything she has done has not been for a grand scheme of her own, but entirely in relation to the Doctor.

[Liesmith]

The Master has always been that way in New Who: he targeted Earth solely because it was the Doctor's pet planet. The only real exception that I can think of is when he was trying to cure himself of the Drums.

Now, they've retconned the Master (understandably) to have been a childhood friend of the Doctor, so the schemes still focus on the Doctor, but with a different perspective.

The whole thing is basically The Killing Joke, so casting a pall of sexism over the plot seems very misplaced.

[stevedj]

...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?

And this is what scares me the MOST about whatever may lie ahead in future episodes. They have set the stage that they can now bring ANYONE back from the dead...

[Wolfie]

...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?

And this is what scares me the MOST about whatever may lie ahead in future episodes. They have set the stage that they can now bring ANYONE back from the dead...

I thought that was a power granted solely by the bracelet and that it only had enough power for one trip, for one person. Danny used that power to bring back the little boy, once again showing his selflessness and redeeming himself for killing the boy the first place.

[CooksACarrot]

You might be right, Liesmith, I might be remembering those episodes wrong, I'll have to rewatch (YAY!).

Shouldn't the Doctor maybe deal with the existential crisis of a world where everybody now knows that every religion is a lie, the afterlife was real (but might not be anymore), and everyone they ever loved has been turned into a monster? That seems almost as bad as anything else The Master did.

[Liesmith]

I thought that was a power granted solely by the bracelet and that it only had enough power for one trip, for one person. Danny used that power to bring back the little boy, once again showing his selflessness and redeeming himself for killing the boy the first place.

That's all true, I just felt like it was completely out of left field, and it didn't make sense with everything else we were shown about the Nethersphere. I'm willing to accept that Missy can walk out using the bracelet, because that's the only way she can enter it to begin with. I'd even be willing to accept that Danny has one "Get out of Jail Free" card because he blew up while wearing the bracelet (though that's one hell of a stretch). I just don't see any reason why the kid would be able to suddenly have his perfectly healthy physical body again, just because Danny gave him a +1 Bracelet of Dude Ex Machina, because the kid's body was never transferred into the sphere.

Shouldn't the Doctor maybe deal with the existential crisis of a world where everybody now knows that every religion is a lie, the afterlife was real (but might not be anymore), and everyone they ever loved has been turned into a monster? That seems almost as bad as anything else The Master did.

I agree that it would be a really interesting story to tackle, but I think the following is a representation of how Steven Moffat would react to hearing that idea:


The implications of this finale are really extreme, and there's no paradox cleanup like in the Toclafane episodes. It's also extremely ethically gray that Danny ordered every single Cyberman to commit suicide, knowing full well that each one was a person who was back from the dead, and knowing that some of them still had their emotions (there's no way Danny was the only one, unless that kid he sent back is basically Dexter). Compound that with the fact that suicide is an unforgivable sin to some religions, and you have Danny literally damning billions of souls to Hell for no good reason.

Here's how I would handle it:

1) Missy gives The Doctor the Nethersphere, and there's no mention of Cybermen at all in the episode. The Nethersphere has a copy of the mind of every human who ever died, anywhere in the universe, and it has the ability to bring them back...given enough power.

2) The Doctor plugs the Nethersphere into the heart of the TARDIS and begins bringing people back by the thousands, making them wink into existence with perfectly healthy bodies at wherever they died.

3) Clara tells the Doctor that the resurrections are causing chaos and tells him he should probably ease off. The Doctor just starts laughing, more and more maniacally.

4) The Doctor shouts "Everybody lives, Clara. Just this once...Everybody LIVES!" and slams his fist down on a button in the TARDIS. Everyone in the Nethersphere is resurrected simultaneously.

5) The Doctor looks directly into the camera and says "btw call me the Valeyard."

6) Surprise series finale, fifteen minutes into the episode. The entire rest of the running time is just a closeup of Capaldi's eyebrows.

[RocketScientist]

Shouldn't the Doctor maybe deal with the existential crisis of a world where everybody now knows that every religion is a lie, the afterlife was real (but might not be anymore), and everyone they ever loved has been turned into a monster? That seems almost as bad as anything else The Master did.

I agree that it would be a really interesting story to tackle, but I think the following is a representation of how Steven Moffat would react to hearing that idea:


The implications of this finale are really extreme, and there's no paradox cleanup like in the Toclafane episodes. It's also extremely ethically gray that Danny ordered every single Cyberman to commit suicide, knowing full well that each one was a person who was back from the dead, and knowing that some of them still had their emotions (there's no way Danny was the only one, unless that kid he sent back is basically Dexter). Compound that with the fact that suicide is an unforgivable sin to some religions, and you have Danny literally damning billions of souls to Hell for no good reason.

If the first thing I bolded is true, then the second thing I bolded is irrelevant.

[Liesmith]

True, and it's not a belief that I share-- what with being a heathen and all. Still, I think it was a dick move on Danny's part to order everyone to commit suicide after it's been established that it's possible for people to still be themselves after Cyberization. Aside from the Cybermen who attack the plane, I don't remember seeing any attacks on humans at all.

And why was the Nethersphere running out of power? What was powering it before, and why couldn't the Doctor just plug it into a dwarf star or somesuch?

And why didn't he mention the bracelet's ability beforehand? He just walks into the diner at the end and says "oh, PE finally figured out he can use the bracelet to come back?" So the Doctor knew how it worked, so it's presumable that he also knew the Nethersphere was running out of power...so he was willing to let Danny (and billions of other minds in the Sphere) vanish permanently if Danny couldn't figure it out.

I'm usually willing to cut Doctor Who a ton of slack on things like logic and continuity, but the writing on this two-parter was so internally inconsistent and outright baffling (and many of the huge implications are never even mentioned, as CooksaCarrot pointed out), it just rubs me the wrong way.

[CooksACarrot]

I'm just finding Moffat more and more willing to ignore stuff so that he can pull out a huge gimmick, and slap us upside the head with a big surprise (that is only a surprise because it has never been brought up and comes out of left field).

Does that mean that Missy had to die every time she entered the Nethersphere, and then was resurrected with exactly the same body? That raises a whole host of other problems.

[Wolfie]

It also opens up the possibility that she isn't gone, just stored.

O_O

[CooksACarrot]

There is no way she is gone, a Master of some sort will return.

[RocketScientist]

I think Moffat has lost what little mind he ever had. Dude needs to go back to being a writer and let the grownups run the show.

And yeah, the beam that took Missy out looked just like the beam did when she transported from the plane. I doubt she even had to regenerate.

[Liesmith]

I agree with everything ya'll just said. They need to find a young, hip writer who can bring something new to the table...someone with bold, new ideas for the show's direction. I guess what I'm saying is they should hire me to tell them to hire Joss Whedon.

[CooksACarrot]

Because what Whedon needs right now is ANOTHER fandom on his plate. As long as they don't hire J.J. Abrams...

[Liesmith]

I would be perfectly OK with them hiring Max Landis. I don't know if he knows anything about Doctor Who, but he's got a passion for writing, and he could probably get Elijah Wood to cameo.

[RocketScientist]

Zack Whedon, then? I think he's free. If they got Abrams, I'd have to bail. And throw up. Not necessarily in that order.

[CooksACarrot]

But who doesn't love lens flares, Apple Stores and shallow character development?

[Wolfie]

Don't forget losing all previous character development from one episode to the next.

[RocketScientist]

While he proudly announces that he doesn't understand the source material? Yeah.

[CooksACarrot]

Wait, I thought that was Tim Burton...

[RocketScientist]

Well Abrams did say it.

"I never got Star Trek." No kidding.

I like Burton's Batman a lot more than Nolan's though. So... Don't even get me started on gritty reboots.

[lingrem]

When people like Science-Girl died via that device that Missy used.... didn't they turn red? When it was used on Missy, it was blue - which was the colour she used when she was transporting herself off the plane. At least, that's how I remember it. So she's definitely not gone.

I think Clara is pregnant. She was going to tell the Doctor something at the end, and didn't. Danny's dead, but we saw his lookalike descendent in an earlier episode.

[RocketScientist]

Yeah, that seems probable. I figure a lot of it's going to get fixed or erased at Christmas, anyway. Because "it can't end like that," according to Santa. I think I'm going to have to give this whole season another watch sometime. It seems like basically nothing happened other than Clara turned from nice and boring to obsessive, mean, and boring. That and "look, The Master's a girl! Now everybody talk about how The Doctor could be a girl, too." Was the season really all we-don't-know-where-we're-going-with-this filler?

I will be really happy if they implement whatever plan RTD came up with to incorporate Capaldi's previous Who-verse appearances. And for the love of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, let the women in the series be developed and written by someone who's actually met one. I think currently they're being written by Dalek monks on a distant moon.

It occurs to me that if I'd written the ending of Burton's Planet of the Apes, I wouldn't admit it. The rest of the movie was alright, but the Ape Lincoln bit was awful.