Doctor Who Thread

I feel this was my least favourite episode in the series so far. That said, I think this speaks volumes about how good the series has been. Drunka's correct (I feel they could have cut down the sneaking sequence too), but I really liked the monster's design and the "gallows humour". And I hope Ashildr does return - for all that some people have sneered at Maisie Williams, I thought she was brill in this episode.

Did we not talk about Invasion? It was somewhat heavy-handed, although 'Doctor Who does political' is usually like that. Inversion, though - that was good stuff. You've got to ration out Doctor speeches but when they come, oh boy.

This was a cracking two parter and OH MY GOD Peter Capaldi. Bravo!

Peter Capaldi for PM anybody? Worra speech. Also, yay for Osgood making asthma inhalers cool!

Pah - Leonard from The Big Bang Theory was doing that years ago.*

Nothing about the Big Bang Theory is cool.

Well that was bizarre. I thought it was going to be a two-parter, then it wasn't, then the last speech was horrifying. Like an SCP memetic video thing.

It was okay, is Maisie back again next week as it sounded like her on the VO.

Big Bang is great.

Brrr. That was somewhat terrifying. A bold narrative experiment - they've done a fair bit of messing around with titles and that this series, haven't they?

Heaven Sent was an absolute banger, as far as I'm concerned. Held aloft almost entirely by Capaldi's stellar performance (which sounded like Alan Rickman at the end), it was clever, exciting and surprising.

Also, the moving castle was very videogamey, no? The combination of setting and monster felt very Dark Souls.

Can only agree with that - a pretty high-quality episode, all told. The ending, and the part leading up to the ending, were brilliant. Bit disappointed that

Sherlock Season 3:

I think it was just a way to keep Clara in it while she's dead, but I can see your point. I hadn't noticed the similarity until now, but we haven't really had an episode of Doctor Who where he doesn't have a companion, well... ever!

I was completely okay with what they did. Blinder, absolute blinder, of an episode. Loved it all. Just a little confused by how that feeds into the will-dial thing, so I'll look at that on Wikipedia now...

We didn't talk much about Face the Raven, did we? Great idea poor execution in my opinion. The overwrought style was a bit more palatable once I realised that Clara actually died, but it was still overwrought and dull at the time.

Good night sweet companion. I'll probably barely notice you're gone.

I thought Clara (or 'English Amy', as I call her) was finished as a character once the multiple copies of her in time and space thing was explained. Then I thought she was done once the Danny Pink storyline ended. Now... she really is done. It's time for a different kind of companion, methinks, or back to a pair of them.

Clara suffered from coming after the extraordinary Amy and Rory and from being based on a clever scifi thing instead of an interesting character. I don't dislike her, but I think she's pretty forgettable in the grand scheme of things.

Please be true

Well, that was an enjoyable, if not mind-blowing, end to the series. Even more bootstrap paradox/ self-fulfilling prophecy stuff with the hybrid business. The Time Lords were worried about the Hybrid, so they killed Clara in their efforts to catch the Doctor and find out what he knew about the hybrid, which made him so angry he became the hybrid. Still, I enjoyed seeing a spot of Gallifrey. And you can tell this was a Moffat finale; cameos from every monster.

Christmas:

Wow, that was very emotional. It was the closest I came to crying at a Doctor Who episode since Wilf knocked four times and the Tenth Doctor said it would be his honour (if my memory is right). Also...

Spoiler:

I never said anything about the end of the series proper, did I? Still don't have that much to say. Clever-ish, but overly sentimental.

As for this one, about as meh as most of the Christmas specials. And I still don't like River much.

This was 5pm on Christmas day, so I was expecting something childish. Silly stuff, but I enjoyed it. Always liked River, myself.

Not mind-blowing and there have been better Christmas specials, but a nice ending and a lovely way to end (?) the River Song story.

DoPo and thread necromancy! Thanks for putting up with such bad netiquette, but the new Doctor Who companion has been revealed!

Thoughts? Questions? Comments?

It's always exciting when a new companion joins, going to be very interesting to see how this all pans out.

Non-committal shrug.  I'm not the greatest fan of people who don't shut up (says the bloke with the most posts on the forum).  We'll see.

But also, as many have said, it would be nice to have a companion that's not a twenty-something-year-old woman.  A gender-neutral, a robot, an alien.  Whatever.  I guess they feel that the audience "need to be able to relate" or some such rot.

Dara O Briain would claim that it's "something for the dads". Personally, I totally agree with you, Balla, on the lack of variety front. If she's originally from 21st century England, I might well scream.