Doctor Who TV Show • Page 13

ahh but now it's asking me to sign in. I don't have cable =(

 

Jodie's acting really shines watching The Ghost Monument a second time, her telling the dude to "take one of your heroic naps" is just wonderful as is her genuine relief/awe when she finally sees the TARDIS

on the other hand the plot seems a lot weaker and more full of holes on rewatch, very interested to see how the first non-Chibnall episode plays out

 

What did everyone think of this week's episode? It was a whole lot bolder and more delicately handled than I was expecting and the characters of all four leads are finally starting to flesh out. It reminded me a whole lot of Vincent and the Doctor which is one of my favourite eps

 

I haven’t been able to watch it yet :| I’d been watching on BBC but for some reason i can’t anymore so idk lol

 

Watched it last night and wow! The writing was so much better then the first two episodes. The fact that it was about Rosa Parks was brilliant and very timely. I found it to be very moving. It was probably my favourite Doctor Who episode for years.

Malorie Blackman wrote the episode. She’s actually the author of my favourite book Noughts & Crosses so I’m super happy for her to get the opportunity to write this episode and then to execute it so well. Brilliant.

 

Do you have iview in your part of the world? That's how I've been watching since the second week. I hope you enjoy episode 3, it's a really striking change!

I haven't read any of her work (bar the DW short story she wrote for the 50th anniversary monthly thing), but this episode was very lyrically and beautifully written, I loved it. Guessing we can attribute the more sci-fi elements that didn't quite work to Chibnall's co-write (mainly talking about the villain) but that really didn't bother me much in the grand scheme of things

 

Yeah, the villain didn't really do anything and had vague motivations, but I didn't mind because 1. The real villain was 1950s racism and 2. It allowed Rosa Parks and the team to shine.

As for Malorie Blackman, she's a black British author who has written some great older children / young adult novels that are quite popular. She usually explores weighty social and ethical themes which I like. Noughts & Crosses is my favourite book as I mentioned before and I would highly recommend it. It explores racism in a clever way but it's also a compelling and moving story. She also does quite a lot of sci-fi - the most recent book I read by her (Chasing The Stars) retold elements of Shakespeare's Othello but set on a spaceship!

 

Pretty watchable episode again, but the villain was kind of poor. His motivation was really vague and he probably just added more plot holes than anything.

For example, if he had that gene mod thing which stopped him hurting people, then there was nothing stopping them just trapping him for a couple of days. He couldn't do anything.

He was also resolved by just zapping him into time, which seemed bit easy. I'm sort of guessing he might make an appearance later on. Seems a bit strange to have this vague, sinister guy (who was pretty good in a lot of ways), only tease at his backstory and then send him somewhere else.
Overall, it felt like an episode where they were trying to cram a bit too much in. There just wasn't time to explore the Rosa Parks stuff (which is obviously where they wanted to be) and the villain (to justify why they were there).

 

They pulled this off much better than I thought they would. I tend to not like the episodes that take place in the past as much, but this one follows along with one of the notable exceptions - the Van Gogh episode, in that it is really telling the story of a historical figure who did something incredible, but had no idea the impact they would have while they were doing it. I shed a few tears at the end when they showed Rosa getting her award from Clinton and realizing just how much one person can really change history. I also think it was impressive how they handled Ryan coming to terms with what it was like during this time. My only complaint is it was kind of obvious they weren't quite sure what to do with Yaz in this episode, since she obviously wouldn't be welcomed with open arms in this setting, but also wasn't really the focal point here either. I'm not sure I buy that she would've been allowed to sit in the white section of the bus, especially when we see she had to evacuate the hotel. But it's a minor complaint.

As for the villain, I think it was intentional that he didn't really have any legitimate motivation. Since he was there as the personification of racism, he was not supposed to be understood or to have any clear reasoning or motivation behind his actions.

 

Definitely agree with this.

 

This is quite a good little article about how faithful this adaption of the Rosa Parks story was to reality. What shocked me though was at the end it says that Malorie Blackman was the first black writer of a Doctor Who episode. How can we have been going for this many years since the reboot without a black writer? Another example of how far we have to go.

 

Happy with last night's episode mainly because there was more Sheffield.

 

really did not like this episode, there wasn't even an ending! the paper-thin Trump analogy just shoots the biggest spider, The Doctor locks some of the rest in a room, and ???

some nice character moments throughout and the CGI was really surprisingly good, but god Chibs needs to second draft these stories or something

 

I honestly wondered if I'd fallen asleep or something. I realised this morning that I couldn't remember how that got resolved at all. Glad I'm not the only one who thought that felt a bit unfinished.

Mostly entertained by the episode. I'm still finding some of the casting a bit awkward though. The family of the police officer felt really off to me though. The accents and mannerisms seemed weird and then the characters themselves seemed a bit plastic. Like, the whole dynamic felt a bit forced so that she'd have good reason to stick around with The Doctor.

I did enjoy seeing Park Hill and the Supertram though. Wonder how much someone paid to get the flats mentioned by name though. Pretty sure they're still redeveloping large parts of Park Hill, because it was far too large to do it in one go.

 

Same here. It kind of made me roll my eyes when I saw reviews that didnt get that his motivation was racism. That's it.

 

I actually liked Yaz's dad a lot, I thought he was pretty funny and he reminded me of Jackie Tyler a bit

the guy who played Trump-who-wasn't-called-Trump was god-awful though

 

I guess I could see an argument for the ending being half baked, but idk that I think it was unfinished. What else is there to really show? My only real complaint is that I think the doctor locking spiders in a room to slowly die over time is a strange work around for her killing them herself. And then also I don’t need to be reminded every week that the doctor doesn’t like to use guns. It made sense in this context though so it wasn’t a big deal for me, and Ryan being the one to be like “oh she’s not gonna like that” was a fun moment. As for the villain himself, I’m not sure you can really call it a thinly veiled comparison to Trump because I don’t think they were trying to veil it, since they directly compared them.

I’m starting to really like all these characters too. I’m enjoying watching Ryan warm up to Graham, and it was nice to see Yaz given more of a chance to shine. Her mom was very likable and I thought her Dad was funny. I do kind of miss when the companions had a family grounding them back to Earth, so I wouldn’t mind seeing them appear a little more.

 

Yeah, the end of this was awful and not satisfying at all. Very disappointing and didn't make much sense.

I feel like we're going to see this Trump character again. Agree with @mattfreaksmeout that they weren't trying to hide that comparison.

This was the problem that left the episode unfinished. The Doctor didn't solve the problem. In fact, if she left them there, she did kill them which made her no better than the Trump character.

 

Well but I'd say it's not that it's unfinished. Like they explained everything (it's better to let them die a natural death), but still just seemed a little off.

I also think we could see this character again, since they've set up him running in 2020.

 

well, having The Doctor actually address the root problems that caused the situation would be nice. she never calls out the pointless scientist lady for doing experiments on spiders and then not making sure they're dead before they get dumped, which was super lazy writing and felt like it was handwaved away to make a one-sided "american businessman BAD" moral instead of addressing the fact that both parties were kinda in the wrong. the huge toxic landfills are still there which means the problem isn't really solved at all, seeing as any old spider could just wander down there and mutate and start the whole thing over again. also, her big solution was to lock the most nearby spiders in a room, let them suffocate to death or eat each other (which is arguably morally far worse than just shooting them) and leave? what about the spider she left in the apartment next to Yaz's or any of the others that were running around London at the time? I say unfinished because it literally felt like we were missing a scene where the episode-long problem actually gets, y'know, solved

 

It's not really a natural death for them to be locked in a box until they die though. Also, they kept going on about how the spiders could keep on growing too. That panic room was filled with food, so did they get bigger and bigger, then suffocate/starve?

There was something odd about the American too. That whole scheduled bathroom break and the strange phone calls. I'd guess that might be pointing at a bigger story arc and a return for him, unless it was some other affectation being used to mock Trump?

 

Damn ok yea this was kind of unfinished. I didn’t think about the landfill just being left there.

 

Christmas episode got canned

 

That was announced at Comic Con, they’re doing a New Years episode instead for the 11th episode.

 

Latest episode was classic Who. So far I’ve liked all of them except for the spider one.