Doctor Who!!~

Carlie

CltrAltDelicious
AKA
Chloe Frazer
The second half of series 7 is the only part of Moffat's era that I actually liked the whole way through thanks to Matt and Jenna working so well together. I really wish Clara would've been a companion for all of series 7 because she and 11 deserved a full season together.
 

Ⓐaron

Factiō Rēpūblicāna dēlenda est.
AKA
The Man, V
One can hope that they'll change the terms of the license at some point to allow past Doctors to appear in Big Finish audios. I mean, the show's been running again for eight years already. Eccleston almost certainly won't come back but I'm sure you could get Tennant and Smith to do some.

Also I don't know if Smith and Coleman are supposed to have as much chemistry as they do but they have a shocking amount, to the point where I can legitimately see why people would ship them.
 

Carlie

CltrAltDelicious
AKA
Chloe Frazer
Also I don't know if Smith and Coleman are supposed to have as much chemistry as they do but they have a shocking amount, to the point where I can legitimately see why people would ship them.

Thanks to tumblr before I started watching DW I was already aware they had a large fanbase so I was determined just to see them as friends because I wanted more of the Ten/Donna dynamic, who are best friends. Despite my best efforts I still ended up basically shipping them because they just have so much chemistry together.


They should have left like that in The Day of the Doctor.
 

The Twilight Mexican

Ex-SeeD-ingly good
AKA
TresDias
That was a fan edit. Convincing, though.

As for Eleven and Clara, I prefer not to ship them, though I can see why others would be tempted. Like Ten and Donna, they're just basically perfect, but it's the fact that they're like that but not a thing that really makes them special, I think.

Still, I'd take that over another second of River any day. I liked her well enough in "Silence in the Library"/"Forest of the Dead," but as that mysterious, one-off woman we'll never see again who The Doctor gets to know when we aren't looking. Bringing her into the program as a major character right away during Eleven's time was the most self-indulgent mistake of an idea ever.

Really, what made her more special than any other woman he's fallen in love with that she needed to be there all the fucking time and everything had to revolve around her? The Doctor falls in love all the time, River; you weren't the first, you won't be the last, honey.
 

Claymore

3x3 Eyes
I have to respectfully disagree since I absolutely love River and what she brought to both the show and 11.

And as much as I do like Clara and 11, I just don't like modern Clara as much as Asylum or Victorian Clara. :(
 

X-SOLDIER

Harbinger O Great Justice
AKA
X
I think that post-Name of the Doctor modern Clara will be even more excellent, since she's not all "impending mystery" and she and the Doctor are just proper pals. I think that this little clip shows that off a bit.

5 Days...




I like Clara, because she's the little light that's turned on when he's having a moment where he doesn't quite connect the dots yet, and the way that the two of them operate together like that is what I like about their chemistry so much.



X :neo:
 

Ⓐaron

Factiō Rēpūblicāna dēlenda est.
AKA
The Man, V
Nice review. I agree with most of what he says. (One point where I disagree is that while I would have liked Eccleston to come back, I'm not sure the episode would have been more interesting with him than with Hurt. There may have been a couple other points as well).
 

Ami

Playing All The Stuff!
AKA
Amizon, Commander Shepard, Ellie, Rinoa Heartilly, Xena, Clara Oswald, Gamora, Lana Kane, Tifa Lockhart, Jodie Holmes, Chloe Price.
Only five more minutes to go until the Christmas episode! :D
 

Carlie

CltrAltDelicious
AKA
Chloe Frazer
As I haven't seen the full episode since I found a stream 30 minutes into it I will post my thoughts once I view the whole thing. I will however post some quick thoughts on Eleven's regeneration,
Matt and by extension Jenna did a great job with the material they were given but quite frankly said material was crap. Eleven's regeneration was so underwhelming and just lacking emotion. It was meh.
 

Dana Scully

Special Agent
AKA
YACCBS, Legato Bluesummers, Daenaerys Targaryen, Revy, Kate Beckett, Samantha Carter, Matsumoto Rangiku
k well

it was far less terrible than i thought it would be and for the most part i enjoyed it

- the biggest no for me was "the time lords come in PEACE" uh doctor lol you literally EXILED YOURSELF (as eight) because you were so fed up with their bullshit and you have repeatedly called them as bad or as worse as the daleks are we even watching the same show i mean really

- also nothing about trenzalore no longer...makes any sense?
So the Doctor stopped his death on Trenzalore:
-So his grave was never on Trenzalore
-So Clara could never have jumped into the Doctor’s time stream
-So Clara never got splintered through time and space
-So Clara never met the Doctor in 19th century London
-So the Doctor never went to find Clara
-So none of Series 7 makes sense.
this is the problem when you rely entirely on timey-wimey to resolve your plots moffat

- that said i was okay with the explanation for the silence and the cracks, even though i think it was a bit weak

things i genuinely enjoyed:
- reference to matt's eyebrows
- handles, who was basically eleven's wilson
- crotchety old man eleven
- peter capaldi
- KAREN GILLAN CAMEO AWWWW
- plus all the other little nods to eleven in the end scene
- jenna's acting, particularly in the christmas scene after eleven ditches her AGAIN JFC DOCTOR CLARA YOU SHOULD HAVE KICKED HIM IN THE BALLS

anyways atm i just feel overwhelmingly neutral towards the ep
 

Ryushikaze

Deus Admiral Parsimonious, PHD, DDS, MD, JD, OBE
AKA
Tim, Ryu
Eh, the paradox isn't that problematic. Yeah, it's a blatant paradox, but there's precedent for it happening when the Time Lords were around, and they did exert their influence here.

Also, to no surprise, the Doctor got a new set of regenerations.

Because that's why the 13 regeration limit was introduced way the fuck back in the 4th's tenure, to break it.

Also, it's a lot better than Space Titanic, and IMO, better than EoT.
 

Ⓐaron

Factiō Rēpūblicāna dēlenda est.
AKA
The Man, V
Wasn't as enthralled with this as I was with the 50th as there were some parts that kind of dragged, but I thought it was a pretty solid end to Smith's tenure and liked his final scene.

re: the Trenzalore thing
I presume that his death being overwritten just overwrites his death and not any of the other events that happened there, and it's possible the death of Eleven still counts as "a death" since he was given a new regeneration cycle. Of course I'm not sure if we'll ever see any of this addressed in episodes and I'm also not sure if Moffat says any of this if it'll be worth believing him
.

re: the Time Lords
it was pretty clearly stated that the High Council were bad and the others were good? Of course it's entirely up for debate who'd be in control after the events of EoT, but I guess this episode throws us a pretty big hint.

I do have to say that
the Silence's heel face turn basically came out of nowhere and while the narrative gives an explanation it still felt really sudden and forced. They didn't end up having much of an impact on the plot either. And apart from the opening scene on Trenzalore did we even see the Weeping Angels at all? The episode kind of forgot about them.

In all I'd give this about a 7 or 8 out of 10.
 

X-SOLDIER

Harbinger O Great Justice
AKA
X
We've got most of the questions answered, and I rather loved the episode, but I'll put in my issues first.

• We don't know how they're able to get away from Trenzalore without having the Doctor's TARDIS monument remaining there & the scars of his timestream left behind. I'm rather curious to see how this is addressed. I'm thinking that we might be able to address a little bit of this based on how his new regeneration affects him (forgetting everything and all that), but that remains to be seen, and the fact that this was an episode of answers that didn't answer that kinda bothered me.

• If the Timelords sent through the Regeneration energy, they'd have to have known that this was the right universe, but it doesn't exactly make it clear why they'd have been willing to do that, but not attempt to breach the gap. Additionally, it begs the question of just how functional is life on Gallifrey now, since it was seemingly frozen as a result of the 50th, but now they're broadcasting.

That being said, BOTH of those things might be addressed early on if they decide to show what happens to allow him to show up and help freeze Gallifrey during the 50th. If that's the case, I'll be rather pleased, but for now they're irking me a bit.


Now, on to things that they did quite well.

• The Daleks. They know who the Doctor is again, and they've bested all the other forces sitting around Trenzalore with the intent of killing him. I thought it was a really good way of continuing with the bits and pieces from Asylum that made them more terrifying, and bringing them back into that "Nemisis of the Time War" that everyone loved about them from before by literally pitching them at the outskirts of starting that conflict again.

• Showing that getting Gallifrey back won't be easy. Sure he SAYS that they'll come in peace, but I don't think that he really believes that. Setting the potential of saving Gallifrey against restarting the Time War restarting really caps off what I was hoping to see from the events in DotD. He basically continues to stand between the options and not choose a side. He won't let them burn the planet, but he won't bring back Gallifrey either. He forces everyone into as much of a stalemate as he can, and does his best to keep the peace over several hundred years, knowing that Gallifrey is LITERALLY just a single word away.

• Letting Eleven get old. Seeing the Doctor finally start slowing down gives a sense that he's not entirely immortal - and showing that he can die before his regeneration starts in Night of the Doctor helps to frame his limitations really well. I've also always felt that Matt Smith did really well portraying an older Doctor, and seeing him actually become one was fantastic. He even does the little nose-tapping motion that Tom Baker did in the 50th which was clearly intentional. Also, it helps to connect with Clara's grandmother - the bits with her and Clara were lovely, and it really helped to set up the idea of her being a fantastic friend with an older Doctor, especially when he's too weak to pull the cracker on his own. Reversing the dynamic, and having a companion seeing the Doctor turn old while she stayed the same really helped to give Clara a little something extra in how she sees him. (Plus, it means that Arthur, Matt, & Karen all got to grow old and die in one of their stories).

• The Doctor always making sure to save Clara. Sure EMOTIONALLY, I hated it every time, because I love Clara and I don't want it to happen, but after Amy & Rory, you know there's no way he'd be able to bear letting anything happen to her. I also love that she talks about how she wouldn't have let him fail to find another option if he'd let her stay, because it speaks to how she believes in him, but she also believes in THEM as a team.

• Ship Teases. Being her fake boyfriend in front of her shitty parents, rolling around in the snow naked together with hologram clothes, Clara saying that she fancies him in the truth field, but still never letting them go full blown romantic. I really love the confusing, but really honest chemistry between the two of them.

• Handles. God damnit, his companion for 300 years is a Cyberman head, and I knew the episode was going to be kicking my ass when I was pouring out tears over the repurposed little guy developing a fault and telling him to link the phone into the center console before shorting out.

• Sad music. Ugh. Dreading everything every single time I hear it.

• Real answers. Lots of background for little things like the church of the papal mainframe, what the Silence were and why they worked together, how all the dots connected to everything from the start, why Kovarian would have been a fanatic about stopping him, etc. It would've been nice to see Kovarian briefly, or maybe learn more about how they'd built their time engine and managed to break onto the TARDIS, but it makes sense that they'd try to stop the Time War restarting with rather insanely zealous fervor.

• Seeing Amy. God damn they pulled that off really sneakily, and it was a beautiful cap to Eleven's run, especially seeing little echoes of her in the children he cared for. It also gave the sense that he really has gotten very old, not to mention that it's a lot like how they did the little vision in An Adventure in Time and Space with William Hartnell & Matt Smith. (Given when his hands start glowing and then fade off, I think that it looks like they played around a bit with the order of what he says and how it all fit together).



There're probably more things that I'll think of later, but I've got a hell of a headache, so I think I'll cut it off here for now (oh, and thank you Moffat for the 4th wall breaking comment from Clara's shitty mom about crying on Christmas being rubbish).

@The Silence: They were shown as being generally on his side - keeping the Stalemate and maintaining peace (not saving Gallifrey). They were with him the whole time, and it was just during the period of 300 years that Kovarian's sect broke off and attempted to prevent the whole thing, but only ended up ensuring that the events happened. All the Silence he met during the previous episodes were all from this splinter group.

@The Angels: It showed him stopping one of them with a mirror and leaving a note for them, and being as they were the first ones who made it down, it's likely that they'd have been removed/dealt with first, since they don't really come in fleets of ships insofar as we know.


X :neo:
 
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