They dropped them on to the platform
Off topic, but: Can I just say I continue to find the use of the verb “drop” to interchangeably mean both cancel and release immensely confusing. Every time I read the word I need to think carefully about what is actually being said.
played in a rather Klingon-like fashion
With all the hissing, I was thinking more along the lines of a feral cat.
I really like Donna’s energy. Her no-nonsense attitude instantly complements 10’s hyperactivity. I think of 10s various companions, Donna is my favourite. Throughout the episode Donna keeps the Doctor grounded, and human, and helps to use this episode as an important epilogue for what happened with Rose at the end of the last season. Donna is often very acerbic, but when push comes to shove, she has her priorities right, and she has some stand out lines: “you’re a doctor, can’t you help”; “You need someone to stop you”.
Her decision to not follow the Doctor is a refreshing change from Rose who just discarded everything to join him, and I can emphasize a lot more with it. She needs to grow a bit before she’s ready to join the doctor anyway, the running gag of Donna not even recognising the past invasions is a great joke that almost breaks the 4th wall.
Production wise, I was not surprised to see them reuse the santa mobsters, gotta keep that budget low. I was surprised though with the tardis chase scene, the visual effects were pretty good there. This is the introduction of Donna’s theme in the background music, and I like the energy that it has. The giant spider monster actually looks pretty good and scary, but its let down by the over the top acting from the humanoid half sticking out the front. The final scenes with the water was miniatures! It looks pretty cool, we don’t see enough of that. It looks so much better than CGI water, which is notoriously hard to get right.
Random extra thoughts:
I’ve never been really sure how I feel about Doctor and Rose together. Plot wise it doesn’t make much sense, they are completely different species, and it’s been pointed out previously to them multiple times how they couldn’t ever grow old together. But Tennant and Piper have good chemistry, so I enjoy it for that.
The Cult of Skaro, in its prime, is one of those concepts that merits its own episode. War-gaming as the enemy as a way to find tactics to beat them. Alas, even now I’m getting flashbacks/flashforwards to the dodgy prosthetic makeup to come.
I was a bit late on replying here, busy week.
I enjoyed this final episode with Rose, and it is a nice send off to her time with the Doctor. She gets to declare her love, she gets to stand up to the Daleks, and she saves the world with the doctor.
On the battle between the Cybermen and the Daleks, I enjoyed the pairing. On one hand we have an enemy that is emotionless and perfectly rational, and another whose entire philosophy is one of hatred to others. One minor complaint I have is a battle between metal beasts doesn’t offer very much in the way of voice or physical acting, so it doesn’t feel as energetic to watch. Getting good dialogue is important, and we had some of that. I enjoyed that the cybermen managed to trick the Daleks into identifiying themselves through wordplay. Cyber!Yvonne gave me an interesting insight, she retains much of her identity post upgrade, I think this implies she was an emotionless psycopath to begin with. It fits her character well.
In the quieter moments at Torchwood there is a lot of good acting, body movements, between the human characters. It felt very human in the face of battle. Not so much the scenes with the wider public though, cybermen wandering through empty streets, they felt a little incongruous. I noticed that Doctor was pushing Pete to join up with Jackie, which felt a little contradictory against his whole “they’re not the same person” schtick in the parallel earth episode earlier in the season, but the final resolution of the family getting together again is very sweet.
I did initially think that Jake & Mickey’s resistance didn’t do a very good job, but I forgot about the plot point of people debating whether they were alive. Political debate leading to inaction feels pretty spot on.
Despite enjoying the run-around chaos thus far, the climax of the episode annoys me. Those damned levers, which we already know can be controlled digitally, end up causing Rose’s “death”. The doctor’s eagerness to send rose away, feels out of character given we’ve seen him grow to love Rose. Even if there was a threat of her getting dragged in, the fact that a couple of magnets could save her from the void does kind of imply he could have moved her, and anyone else who wanted to stay, far away from the tower (in the tardis, for example) and they would have been fine.
Maybe I missed something in the article, but what is the title even talking about? What’s the “winning formula” it mentions? What’s being rewritten?
This was a really good finale. It was well paced, the stakes for the crew felt strong, and it was a great timey wimey time travel sci fi story.
Regarding the stakes, one of my criticisms of prequels was that, as fans, the future is fixed, but here it felt a lot more tense. Even though we know scotty doesn’t die, I was half expecting one of the Uhuras to have to sacrifice themselves to save the other, which felt a substantial risk, and it really helped sell the episode.
CRG did great acting here, and did justice to “the same character but at different points in their life” - the confidence in future!uhura stood out.
I was very confused about the black hole / white hole’s scale - I was suprised at the final act when they’re basically right up against it, and the holes turn out to be roughly the same size as the enterprise itself. I think it could have been established a little better at the beginning, but that’s a minor annoyance.
The midwife aliens are the same being as DS9 prophets, I guess, they spoke to Uhura in song because they would know she can interpret that, where they knew to speak to bajorans in poetry and scripture.
I liked the little preview of future!enterprise’s looks, especially seeing a few background characters from different species.
Overall, great finale to an okay season. I hope the final season has loads of episodes just like this one.
The “ghosts” are a neat concept, but sort of a bad fit for Cybermen, since they’re the one villain that have a very distinct way of moving, and the ghosts aren’t like that.
I wonder if at some point during the plot’s development the “ghosts” were meant to have whatever was left of the alt-universe people post-conversion reaching out. There’s a lot more they could have done with the ghosts here.
It’s a decent start to the finale. Rose’s monologue at the start is okay, but it’s a bit of a reverse rug pull, given she never actually “dies”, unless I am misremembering something. At the start there’s a bunch of TV spots, which are cringey to watch, but pretty spot on for british daytime TV. I guess they would have been social media spots now. The ghosts as a whole are a nice “monster of the week” idea, but they’re not really used much beyond a setup for cybermen. It’s a very RTD thing to include people getting used to them because of the desire to want to hold on to loved ones. I enjoyed Jackie in this. Her explaining the ghosts to the Doctor, her whole back-and-forth about knowing more than he does. I do think 10 was a bit mean to her, probably still feeling that slap a few years ago.
This incarnation of torchwood is a nice side effect of the doctor’s meddling centuries ago, a kind of butterfly effect, and it feels a bit more impactful across this series than a random phrase like “bad wolf”. Torchwood here gives everyone psychic training, and I love it, a proper approach to operational security - See a problem, immediately call it in. Which makes the pointless digitally controlled Levers in the room literally signposted as “LEVER ROOM ->” all the more annoying. But seeing the doctor and co wandering around Torchwood and all the banter therein is fun. I like the idea of a void ship being a way to reintroduce Daleks even if it’s a bit out of nowhere, and the doctor’s metaphor illustrated by the cracking glass was some nice sci-fi theory.
There’s a lot of continuity stuff in this episode. I noticed Rose and the Tardis were parked up next to a sarcophagus, a nice reference to a past adventure. When the cybermen appear they cut through plastic, again a nice reference to classic doctor who stories. I had forgotten completely that Freema Agyeman was in this episode, that was a pleasant surprise.
Random back of the envelope maths fact: The energy coming through the rift is stated at “5TW” I guess about an hour, give or take, for a “shift”. Given e=mc^2 that gives a mass passing through the rift of around only 200 grams. Which seems like not a lot for a bunch of invading cybermen.
I don’t have much to say on this one. It was alright. Nice to see La’an make some forward progress in her own issues. When I saw the flat planet going through space I thought for a brief moment we were going to get a Discworld parody/crossover. I didn’t mind this diversion so much, given that it was grounded in some kind of reality, and continued the story we had already started much earlier in the series. I do think everyone should have caught imposter pike much earlier on.
This is an odd episode. It’s another one that seems to want to mix humour in - with an opening joke about lowercase d-doctors, references to the cat nuns, and the “right angle parking” of the tardis bit. But it also goes into some dark topics - missing children, abusive parental relationships, loneliness. But none of it really comes together. The acting doesn’t help - the kid actor is pretty bad, even by kid actor standards, and the dialogue on the TV news sequences is awkward. I’m also at a loss of what the story is even about - the aliens spend an eternal childhood in space, so they makeup their own imaginary worlds, which doesn’t at all mesh with the SCP-085 plotline. The sequence with the doctor racing with the olympic flame is maximum cheese, and would be a great ending if it had been a “fun” episode all along instead of trying to also be serious. The ending feels pointlessly enigmatic, as if to telegraph “oh but travelling with the doctor is always a risk”, but that was the whole point of the previous episode too so the writers are repeating themselves a bit.
Random note: It’s supposed to be in summer for the olympics, but at times you can actually see their cold breath because they filmed in winter. They had doctor and rose comment on how cold things are to try and cover for this.
Maybe she was an undercover romulan, sent to report if enterprise go too close to finding the cloaked ship, and now that Reeger is likely no longer a threat, and enterprise probably isn’t going to want to follow up, her job’s done so she’s off.
M’Benga covering for Kirk is really good, I like that the setup for this was laid a couple of episodes ago. Kirk fighting on behalf of the crew to keep them from doing war crimes - it shows the level of camaraderie this crew has, which admiral reeger likely never experienced, and helps continue to cement Kirk as a member of the enterprise.
I really enjoyed this one. The core moral dilemma of orders versus morals, captured in a strong A story and a decent B story. Genuine character growth, and an out for M’Benga that made sense, was in character, and felt justified. The direction was really nice, it captured the tense nature of the episode. The treknobabble for the A plot was pretty decent, and in the B plot I enjoyed the cave set - it felt used and full, not bare like they sometimes do. I really enjoyed the acting here - the Andorian leader gave me a hint of cardassian in his analytical takedown of humans, and the badmiral was really enjoyable from his upbeat arrival to steady decline into madness. The two Kirks getting along really well was enjoyable, and the synchronised walk and talk at the end was a nice way to wrap up the episode.
From this season’s approach, I’m guessing this episode drawing from old war films, in particular I am getting flavours of submarine hunts, chasing after wakes, and handling big questions of WMDs, the sanity of the chain of command. This is exactly the way I like those references embedded, allowing the trek to shine through, rather than the gimmick taking over.
My only immediate quibble in this episode was when Uhura went Rambo in the caves, it did feel like the Andorians went down a little easy, but I wasn’t that bothered by it. A’Sha leaving is fine, I guess, she didn’t feel very present throughout the season anyway.
Please, more of this type of episode.
Human infested cities. Cat infested cafés. Cattle infested farms.
The characters are definitely the stand-out of this episode. It’s interesting as RTD explores the idea of fans-in-the-plot in the recent episode “Lux”, but it was done a lot better here. The Linda portions of the episode are far better than I remember them.
I am not a fan of this episode. It starts off feeling like a clip show, develops into something of a comedy episode with ok jokes, before ending on some dark drama. The direction kind of feels all over the place - found footage, clip show, musical, or traditional episode. And I’m not sure who Elton was actually recording his video for. Is it his own therapy? Breaking the 4th wall? Or is he intending to share it online?
The ultimate message of this episode is that the doctor is dangerous, and being around him is dangerous. The takeaway seems intended to set up the fact that there are consequences and that not everything turns out alright in the end for the doctor. This doesn’t add anything to the series as we’ve already seen this happen plenty of times.
I did enjoy Peter Kay as the monster, he carries this over the top energy that sells him as the kind of man who could just walk in to a place and take charge. All the existing Linda members feel real and grounded, and there’s some good acting. Seeing the whole group grow from the conspiracy minded folk that we saw one instance of in the very first episode of the DW reboot to this community that makes art and music is really nice. The domestic aspect of Jackie’s life sans Rose was nice to see, and if there’s one big takeaway from this episode that means anything, it’s her becoming a bit more three dimensional.
I won’t comment on the conclusion, because the conclusion is stupid. Overall, I think this episode failed for me mostly from the direction and lack of a clear justification for the plot.
Random extra thoughts:
I agree that Pike’s retrospective of his alternate life was a good idea to explore - its the kind of thing that older trek series would quickly shuffle on after that week’s episode (like O’briens stint in virtual jail). Pike has done a lot of thinking about coming to terms with his vision of his own future, so thinking about his alternate future was a necessary next step.
I just wish it had been given a better story in which to bubble about. If it’s a serious character point, let it be told in a serious story. Let us see his job as a captain of a discovery-science-diplomacy ship lead him down that path of self reflection. Adding a comedic glamour filter on top of everything, in my opinion, cheapens the end result. It bugs me that so far we had erica/scotty needing to be drunk to learn to get along, spock needing to be dreaming / nightmaring, and now pike and co. stuck in a Q game in order to grow as people.
I actually had no idea who Deidre Hall was, though from the visual language I got the impression she was meant to be “someone important”. I assumed they had picked a random actress and were making a meta-joke about guest actors on TV shows. I was half expecting her to vanish at the very end.
One of the things I love about Star Trek is when it allows us to see the best of humanity when faced with hard sci fi, working together despite adverse circumstances. TNG exemplified the utopian vision of humanity struggling against the odds but working together to get by. Voyager took aliens-of-the-week to an extreme yet still kept space for good character interactions alongside the sci-fi. Even DS9, which in its conception is closest to a soap opera, managed to mix family dynamics with spacefaring adventure. I will accept these older series had their fair share of stinkers, but all of these series were able to blend pastiches of classic film and stories into their episodes without it being hammy and grating.
Now, this episode. The key line is “Space adventures leave little time for humans to deal with their inner struggles”. This line is important because it is wrong.
I enjoy Rhys Darby but not in this one. I’m glad they didn’t make this one be all a dream in the end and I like that the final scenes show some real character moments, but Uhura and M’Benga (and possibly also Pike) could have had their conversations in amongst non-gimmicked episodes. Also, the ship has a counsellor? Either they’re new, or haven’t been doing their job very well. How many times has Spock broken up with someone now? Didn’t care for the gimmick this episode. I fast forwarded through parts of it.
I really enjoy this opener. Martha’s introduction feels a lot more fleshed out than Rose’s. We know more about the Doctor, so its a bit easier as we’re only introducing one new character. I like that Martha feels a bit more clued in than Rose/Donna from the get go. It fits with what 10 seems to be doing, which is somewhere between an interview for a companion and being in denial about needing company. Martha’s justification for wanting to leave, having a lot of domestic trouble, is a lot more compelling than Rose’s who seemed just a bit bored with life. One thing that did bug me was the Doctor-Martha kiss, while I understand the logic of 10’s plan there were obviously better ways of transferring DNA which would be less invasive, and in a modern context this didn’t age well.
Throughout this there’s quite a high energy, mostly quick movement from scene to scene, and the threats feel genuine. The straw bit is a funny joke, and is probably peak dark humour in this episode. There’s also comedy in the curmudgeony old timer handing out the old “I’m just about to retire and relax with my grandkids”, shortly before he gets offed. Time lords needing 2-heart CPR is a fun idea as long as you don’t think too hard about it. There’s plenty of references as well. Mr Saxon. Ronald Biggs, a fugitive of the great train robbery is mentioned. Continuity around Martha’s cousin as gets thrown in.
On the sci-fi side, I enjoyed the idea of a vampire that uses shapeshifting to hide their insides rather than their outsides. Overriding an MRI scanner to output 50 KiloTeslas is a bit of a reach, considering the hospital is probably running off of emergency generators. Wikipedia tells me that’s somewhere around the equivalent of a neutron star. ACAB applies to the space police as well, I guess, though it’s a bit unclear exactly what their status as mercenaries is. I enjoyed the mask design of the judoon - space rhinos is a monster design I’ve never seen anywhere else. The whole Judoon “we’re going to do whatever we want” and the ship designs feels reminiscent of the Vogons from Hitchiker’s.
There’s a lot going on in this one and I enjoyed it.
Observation: Another hospital series opener. Rose’s second series, Martha’s, Donna’s is medical-adjacent, Amy’s climaxes in a village hospital, and Clara’s in the Dalek Asylum. Hospitals make for an interesting setting because there’s lots that can go wrong, and they can feel like very liminal spaces with all the closeness to death and white antiseptic spaces.