Doctor Who – Series 12

[Dave]

Well, that was a lot of fun, I thought. One of the good things about the show is that it can support so many different styles of story, and I thought they did a Bond-esque spy romp quite well (with a touch of X-Files thrown in).

Everyone seems a little more comfortable in their roles now and there’s a bit more meaningful character development than last series.

Plus, I liked the late reveal, which I didn’t see coming at all.

(And the ‘hiding behind the sofa’ gag made me chuckle.)

As good as anything from the last series.

Topic

[Ben Saunders]

Better than the last series, but that really is not saying much of anything. The dialogue and the clunky exposition and the shit humour still absolutely reeks of Chibnall, his “style” is just atrocious. Much much much more serviceable than the previous series though, would have been the highlight if it was broadcast in 2018.

Making a big deal of Ryan and Yaz missing things in their real life is a bit bizarre with the whole time machine thing. Showing the Doctor working on the underside of the TARDIS like it’s a car doesn’t make any sense since the police box shell is a disguise. The Doctor is happy that they managed to transport the TARDIS without damaging it… it’s virtually indestructible, remember? I doubt a mirror would refract a death ray like that.

Chibnall manages to do NEITHER “show, don’t tell” OR “tell, don’t show” in the car scene. One minute and one half into the scene, the Doctor feels the need to inform us that “somebody’s driving this car, and it isn’t me!” despite that being abundantly clear to everybody. There is so much unnecessary expository dialogue in this show, it’s very clunky and amateurish. It’s show AND tell.

Based on the trailers, Chibnall seems to have done a complete 180 on his stance from the previous series, of wanting this show to establish its own identity without having to rely on old monsters and the like. This annoys me on an ideological level right now, but if this series proves to be an improvement on the last, I will concede the point.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

I really enjoyed it. Definitely the best thing of the Chibnall era so far (though that isn’t saying much). It felt a lot better thought out and put together than anything from last series. Most characters had something to do, and though Graham was sidelined somewhat, it was fun having O ask if his only job was to provide a running commentary, because it came at the time I was starting to think the same thing. So there is something of a fun self awareness there that was missing last series.

I also laughed a lot through this one, there were a lot of clever little lines and gags that lightened what could have been a too serious spy episode.

I was shocked to see Stephen Fry’s character killed off so quickly. Hopefully he comes back again somehow as that seems like a completely wasted opportunity to not be able to include him more.

Equally was surprised to see Lenny Henry in the same episode. I for sure expected the two big name guest stars they had be trailing to be in different episodes. Though it did feel like he was playing a sort of poor mans Idris Elba, I enjoyed his performance more than I was expecting to.

Chibnall still needs to work on his writting a bit. Dialogue is a bit funky, and as Ben has pointed out, too much show and tell. Whilst there’s times its necessary (if Vor is the Google/Facebook of this story, no-one would ever follow up hearing the company name with “the search engine” as Ryan did – but it is needed for the audience) there is a lot where it isn’t necessary. But the rest of the dialogue felt better than before.

Ben, to your point which I have seen mentioned in other places too

Making a big deal of Ryan and Yaz missing things in their real life is a bit bizarre with the whole time machine thing

This wouldn’t be the first time the show has addressed stuff like this. With Amy and Rory it happened from time to time especially as they’d go away, come back and go away again etc. Otherwise they could in theory leave for a year and come back and not have missed a day. But they’d have aged in that time and too much of it causes problems.

And the Doctor has never been great at getting people back to the right place and time. Maybe The Doctor and this team of companions have decided to try and keep things simple by allowing time back home to pass at the same rate it does for them whilst there away, and to only go off for a week at a time or something … a bit like with Bill and Ted, you can’t leave and come back a week later to the point you left.

Re the Master … I love that that came as such a shock and they were able to keep it under wraps. I’m not sure how I feel about him being back so soon after the last appearance (its only been 13 episodes even if it has been a couple of years) but I’m a sucker for a reveal like that so I’ll let it go for now.

This episode genuinely has me quite excited for this series now, and I can’t wait for the next episode on Saturday. Hopefully they’re able to keep it up for the next couple of months.

[Lily]

Yeah I enjoyed that. The killer self-driving car has been done before I’m sure, but otherwise it was all good stuff.

I always try to stay strictly spoiler free to the point I don’t watch trailers or ‘next time’ clips, so was somewhat annoyed at my local radio station talking about it this morning before I’d had a chance to watch on catch-up. With Stephen Fry, Lenny Henry and the Master in one sentence it still did surprise me in the end which was a nice twist.

Looking forward to next week.

[(deleted)]

I still haven’t watched any of series 11. They’re all piling up on the planner as a massive box set. Partly because my DW enthusiasm is on a temporary leave of absence, partly because I really like the idea of watching the entire Whittaker era in one go when it’s over, in a Netflixy kind of way. I got the feeling in the Smith era that I was really losing out by keeping to the one-a-week pace rather than just waiting for a bit. As an experiment I saved up and watched the last Capaldi series in one go at the end of 2017, leading slap bang into Twice Upon A Time, and got so much more out of it by being patient and giving it that focus. So I’m doing that on a grand scale with a whole Doctor’s era.

[Flap Jack]

Yeah, I thought that was pretty great. It was well paced, the action was good, the characters all made an impression, the monsters were sufficiently threatening, and I didn’t see the reveal at the end coming either. Let’s just hope part 2 sticks the landing!

I think the only complaint made here that I agree with is that the dialogue is frequently overloaded with unnecessary exposition. Not a big deal and the cast to their best but it always comes across as awkward.

It can be easy to fall into the trap of nitpicking every minor incidental detail of Doctor Who, CinemaSins style (e.g. Ben assuming that a death ray can’t be reflected by a mirror, or that the blue box being a disguise would make it impossible for there to be wires hanging out of the bottom of it), and conclude that because you’ve uncovered X number of trivial complaints, that’s enough to make the episode bad. But that’s a bad outlook to take with sci-fi shows or with fiction in general. Those nitpicks don’t really matter individually and they don’t really matter collectively.

Also, it’s a minor point, but I’m glad to see the return of multi-parters and the return of giving stories an overall title. Of all the things for Russell T Davies to bring back from the William Hartnell era, making multi-parters all have individual titles with no overall one was always a bizarre choice, and equally bizarre that it persisted through the Steven Moffat era. Having to refer to stories like ‘Extremis/The Pyramid at the End of the World/The Lie of the Land’ is just annoying.

[Ben Saunders]

>and conclude that because you’ve uncovered X number of trivial complaints, that’s enough to make the episode bad
Not how it works, don’t say that it makes you sound thick

[Ben Saunders]

The “nitpicks” come later, and aren’t the heart of the argument of anything, it’s just shit I noticed, if you read my posts about Star Trek episodes I actually liked, I say the same shit. I don’t dislike the episode because they did a visual gag of the Doctor working on her TARDIS like it’s a car. I hate the clunky writing and overabundance of stinky exposition, and the annoying “humour” and the like

[Flap Jack]

That’s cool, it can just be hard sometimes to tell how much is in the “stuff I noticed” column and how much is in the “stuff I have a serious problem with” column.

Obviously you know that you’re not making these minor observations as a thesis about how bad the episode is, but people have built media careers doing just that, so it’s not too strange.

[Ben Saunders]

Yeah, as much as I love RedLetterMedia, having actually finally watched the Next Generation movies, I now know that most of their “criticisms” are just nitpicks or them getting hung up on things that don’t really matter, etc. I always knew that with their prequel reviews, but seeing them do it more and more often is pretty disheartening. Final straw was them parroting the myth that Lucas doesn’t deserve any of the credit for the OT in their RoS review. I now realise they’re just a bunch of boomers complaining about bullshit. Still funny, though, I still like them, just I discard a lot of their opinions and much prefer to have my own.

CinemaSins on the other hand I have always viewed as strictly comedy, people taking that channel seriously is their own fault in my eyes. But I also haven’t watched them in about seven years, I know their content has gotten progressively worse over that time, as I checked in very occasionally for a couple years following.

[Dave]

I think often with these minor nitpicks there can be a tendency to look for them once you’ve had a negative reaction to something, as part of gathering evidence to back up your feelings. When they’re often just incidental silly little details that don’t really matter either way.

Not saying that’s what’s happening in this case, but I’ve seen it with other things where people who don’t like something try to ‘prove’ that it’s bad by rolling out a huge list of insignificant nitpicky shit that isn’t really related to whether it’s good or bad overall, it’s just ammunition in an argument.

[Ben Saunders]

I was going to make a point similar to that. It’s not really “evidence gathering”, it’s more… once you’ve decided that you fundamentally dislike something, these kinds of nitpicks will annoy you more than they normally would. I’m not really using them as ammunition to say “the episode is bad because of a shit visual gag”, it’s just “I didn’t like the episode, and I found these things a little ridiculous”. I pick up on stuff like that in things I DO like all the time, and I often mention them, but I’m much more willing to forgive them, if the actual thing in question is something I fundamentally like and enjoy. I’m definitely not trying to “prove” that the episode is bad because a car mirror reflects death ray but windows don’t, it’s just something I think is silly. I would still think it was silly if it happened in The Doctor Falls or something.

[Dave]

Yeah, didn’t mean to make it sound as pointed as that – I’ve done it myself with stuff I don’t like. Once I don’t have that investment in it I find myself rolling my eyes at all the little minor stuff that bugs me, which I would have shrugged off if I’d been more engaged and enjoying it overall. It’s natural I think.

[Ben Saunders]

I liked the music, and Lenny Henry. So there.

[Ben Saunders]

I do think there are much much much better Spy pastiches out there though, Chuck, Deep Space Nine, Austin Powers etc. To me, the Doctor Who episode ISN’T a “spy pastiche/parody”, as some people are claiming, it’s just an episode that uses such iconography and a couple of gags relating to that. To call it a pastiche or a parody, you’d have to say it’s not a very good one, since it doesn’t particularly concern itself with being a beat-for-beat spoof or commentary on anything. It’s just a spy STORY more than anything else, it’s not Austin Powers or Doctor Bashir I Presume.

None of that is a complaint about the episode – since I’ve already seen all of those spy pastiches which are all so excellently done, I don’t really need nor want to see Doctor Who attempt it. It’s more just a commentary on how other people have reviewed the episode. If you go into this episode expecting a full on parody/pastiche/spoof, I would think you’d come out of it rather disappointed.

[Ben Saunders]

It’s as much a Bond pastiche as Mechocracy is a parody of the 2016 US presidential election. In that it isn’t.

[Ridley]

Whey Sacha Dhawan from CITV’s Out of Sight whey. Glad he’s not a one and done character either.

Don’t see myself not struggling through this Chibnall series as with the last one though. And my inability to quite articulate why is so useful for an Internet forum.

[si]

i thought it was great, and anyone who disagrees with my opinion is a prick because I know better than everyone.

I didn’t dislike series 11 as much as a lot of other people, but that managed more characterisation in one hour than the whole of the last season. Looking forward to the rest of the series. Fine, not everything makes sense, but if you’re just watching and not over-analysing everything (which, as Doctor Who fans is, admittedly, unlikely), I thought it was fantastic.

[Nick R]

One of the biggest things that stuck out to me this first episode was that they’ve clearly been paying attention to the complaints that Yaz got too little to do.

Based on the trailers, Chibnall seems to have done a complete 180 on his stance from the previous series, of wanting this show to establish its own identity without having to rely on old monsters and the like.

The scene where O talks to Graham about his bookshelf of notes on the Doctor also suggested to me that this series is going to get more involved with linking to the past. Looking forward to seeing how the companions react to learning about Gallifrey and the Doctor’s previous faces!

To me, the Doctor Who episode ISN’T a “spy pastiche/parody”, as some people are claiming, it’s just an episode that uses such iconography and a couple of gags relating to that.

The episode’s music – at least in the tuxedo scenes – can definitely be described as a John Barry pastiche, though.

[Ben Saunders]

Again, while I liked the music, if it’s going for out and out “pastiche”, it’s a very watery one, and not the best Bond music pastiche out there. I do not think it’s going for pastiche, though, just taking inspiration from that music and having one or two similar themes that remind you of it. If something was going to go full out on the pastiche front, I would want it to go a little harder. But again I don’t even think that’s what it’s going for, so it’s not much of a complaint.

I’ve seen so many people say things along the lines of “it’s good if you don’t overanalyse it!” or “it’s good if you don’t have any expectations/don’t take things too seriously”, which to me reads dangerously close to “turn your brain off” or “better than nothing” style thinking. Like why are you giving this high budget, primetime, national institution of a television series such leeway? You really ought to be expecting a base level of quality from it. There are so many other things I could be watching, so for something to just be “alright” is a little bit of a waste of my time.

[Lily]

I tend to give Doctor Who more leeway as they’re trying to be all things to all people. It has to be sci-fi, but not to a point it confuses people, it has to be light but not a comedy, has to be enjoyable for children but not a kids show, has to tackle topical subject but not lecture, and generally be something that is for whole family enjoyment. With that in mind, I can live with a few rear view mirrors reflecting death rays. Sure, you wouldn’t get that in Star Trek, but Who isn’t trying to be that.

I agree that there are some episodes that have been outstanding, with perfect writing and everything, but I don’t expect that every week. All I ask is an hour/45 mins of enjoyable entertainment. Series 11 fell short on that too often, with plots that didn’t make sense, over explanation and just shitty scripts.

I don’t expect every episode to be a masterpiece so as far as I’m concerned, an hour of enjoyable telly is meeting expectations.

[pfm]

Seeing as Lenny Henry’s in it (and brilliant), it’s worth reminding ourselves of one of the best Doctor Who parodies of all time –

They obviously won’t cast him now, but he WOULD have made a great Doctor.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

That was pretty good.

[Lily]

Nice, another Doctor/Dwarf link, as I’m pretty sure that was Paranoia with the beard?

[By Jove its holmes]

Some bits of it was very “Paul Jennings”.

Have you ever, ever felt like this?

Good old Round the Twist, without a shirt. When I was a pubescent boy watching the first Linda actress, I really wished Tamsin West was in a bra and knickers without a shirt and trousers without a shirt.

[Dave]

That was alright I thought. The main plot was wrapped up a little too easily and neatly, but there were some nice details and the Gallifrey stuff has potential.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

I really enjoyed that. Really felt like a Doctor Who story, and was a lot of fun.

As to the main plot being wrapped up too easily, as I was watching it reminded me of how easily Kryten defeats M-Corp, but is that really any different to how a lot of Doctor Who episodes are wrapped up. 40 mins of running around with 5mins at the end of the Doctor talking and waving a sonic screwdriver around?

It would have been nice seeing some of the stuff she was saying, but at that point it’s not really necessary. She solves it in a very Doctor Who way, and saves the plane in a very Bill and Ted way to boot.

One thing this episode did, and more so than even last week, was highlight there is absolutely no need for Graham, Ryan and Yaz. Last week, the only benefit they get from Ryan and Yaz going to see Barton is they get an invite to his party … which the Doctor manages by fiddling with the guest list anyway.

This week, they did even less. Just ran around Essex and shot lasers from Graham’s shoes. Nothing they did had any consequence on the story or outcome. And in both episodes the Doctor has found other companions. O last week, and Ada and Nor this week.

I really enjoyed the interactions of the Doctor and the Master. I hope that isn’t the last time we see Sacha Dhawan in that role. He did a cracking job, though it I’d like to see some more unique characterisation of in his portrayal, but I guess he can only work with what he is given.

Nice little nod to Logopolis in there too.

Nice to see them pick up the threads of The Timeless Child that were left dangling in episode 2 of last series. Hopefully we get a little more push on that with the new Gallifrey stuff that’s been revealed. However I worry this story will probably last at least another series and it won’t be mentioned again for a while. Did I read somewhere Chibnall had a 5 year plan? I sort of hope not because they have never been very successful in the past.

Barton’s speech was a bit heavy handed, a bit too evil villain. Sort of reminded me of the great speech the nan gives in the final episode of Years and Years, only much much worse. Like, yeah we get it, technology is bad ok! But I guess they’re writing for all audiences that might not ever consider that stuff.

Still, an exciting and thrilling story. Still better than most, if not all of series 11. Especially the Chibnall written episodes. Not quite up there with anything Moffat might have written but not far from it story wise.

[Lily]

I really enjoyed that.

[Dave]

Bill and Ted did get mentioned in our house as soon as Ryan started seeing the signs.

And the video was quite ‘Blink’.

The Logopolis reference made me laugh too.

[Dave]

Did I read somewhere Chibnall had a 5 year plan?

Yes but currently that only equates to two and a half series.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Yes but currently that only equates to two and a half series.

?

Yeah good point.

On other point, Jodie is feeling more and more like the Doctor now too. In performance and characterisation.

[Dave]

Yeah I felt like there was a bit more confidence and general comfort with the character in this story. The ‘snap’ scene from episode 1 got a genuine laugh from me and I thought she handled the more serious stuff towards the end of this episode well too.

[Ridley]

Not quite up there with anything Moffat might have written but not far from it story wise.

Chibnall can only ever match Davies or Moffat by copying them (eye em oh).

[Ben Saunders]

This is just dreadfully unengaging and uninteresting, I can barely bring myself to watch this. Shit humour, childish writing. This episode is filled with unnecessary cruelty. I honestly didn’t care listening to The Master give that emotional reveal. He’s a bit drama studenty, a bit substitute teacher. The companions continue to be thinner on characterisation than the darkest depths of the 80s. I’m not going to nitpick anything, but there’s a lot there if you’re looking. I wish the Doctor would stop spouting platitudes about hope and darkness every twenty minutes, it’s bordering on self-parody.

Jodie continues to seem like somebody doing a Tennant impression, but to be fair that’s also inherent in the writing. She occasionally gets good moments, but that scene of just her talking to herself just made me wish I could see a version of this scene with Baker or Capaldi.

I don’t want to, but I’ll be tuning in next week. I wonder how long I can go on saying “I hope it will get better”

[Ben Saunders]

This is like Chibnall trying to write “Doctor Who™️”
rather than writing Doctor Who

The music is good in spots

[Veni]

I can’t be bothered with Doctor Who anymore. It’s lost all the spark it once had and just churns out the most boring, dull, monotonous, and lazy content ever. I’m genuinely curious who likes this garbage, and more importantly, what is there to even like about it.

Jodie is by far the worst Doctor the revival series has seen, and I’d go so far as to say she’s currently the worst Doctor period. Inconsistent character, barren of any likable qualities beyond the absolute bare minimum, and too reliant on her crap companions to get the ball rolling.

Call me when 14 comes along.

[Ben Saunders]

Yeah, before this my least favourite Doctor actor was Sylvester McCoy, but at least towards the end of his run he was given some stellar material, even if he performed it less than convincingly. Jodie has been given VERY little to work from, and has done almost nothing to elevate any of it.

Every series of Doctor Who (since 1963) has had at least one or two right clunkers in it, episodes that make you embarrassed to be a fan. This is true for most television shows with more than six episodes per series, and is symptomatic of having so many different writers writing so many different stories. But again every season of Who so far has had one or two standouts, excellent episodes that remind you why you got into this show in the first place. Season 15… bad example. Season 16… shit. They were mediocre, but Invasion of Time, Ribos Operation and Pirate Planet had things to like. Season 17 had City of Death. Actually, fuck me, 15-21 was pretty rough, wasn’t it. Sum the odd Enlightenment or whatever dotted around, point is over the past two series we’ve really had nothing to remind us that this show can reach great heights. Good Doctor Who is a distant memory, now, and with Chibnall at the helm and these companions, I don’t hold out much hope for even an episode as good as something like the Invasion of Time, which was at least a bit of fun and had a great cliffhanger

[Dave]

over the past two series we’ve really had nothing to remind us that this show can reach great heights

I thought World Enough And Time/The Doctor Falls was a pretty great story.

I agree though that there was nothing in Series 11 that stood out as great, or even that I’d choose to watch again.

[Ben Saunders]

>I thought World Enough And Time/The Doctor Falls was a pretty great story.
We’re on series 12, that was series 10, I meant we’ve had nothing in series 11 or 12 that was worth watching. The Pilot, Oxygen, Extremis, World Enough and Time and The Doctor Falls were all great episodes in series 10, imo.

[Dave]

Oh, right. Past two series is only really one-and-a-bit then – I’m ready to give this series a chance after that opener, too early to write it off I think.

[Ben Saunders]

I thought it would be simpler than saying “past series plus-two-episodes”, but alas it was not to be. It is a bit early to call it, but that’s not what I’m doing. I would be willing to place a wager, though. Because placing a bet on something subjective sounds like a good idea.

[Dave]

Lots of Dwarf parallels this episode:

An outdoor ‘paradise’ setting clearly filmed on a grey blustery day!

A slobbering monster with more teeth than the entire Osmond family!

A terrible preachy ending that spells out the morality of what you’ve just watched!

A James Buckley guest role that gives him virtually nothing to do!

[Dave]

But yeah, in all serious that was utter guff, and a massive step down again for the show.

[Pete Part Three]

I think I’m very close to tapping out. I’m barely watching it when it’s on.

Remember those shitty things that ITV used to put on during RTD Who as competition? Well, that’s the standard we’re now hitting.

[Dave]

I’ve got Troy McClure singing “oh my god, I was wrong” stuck in my head for the entire evening now.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

I sort of enjoyed that, it had the makings of a good story there, just the execution was off.

It seemed a little obvious it was going to be Earth from about the time the explanation of what an Orphan planet is. Which is fine, I sort of liked that it was Earth. But they really started to hammer it home a little too much. We as an audience already know Earth gets fucked up. The Doctor has seen it, and has seen humanity branching out from it countless times, so just show it and leave it be a bit I think.

There were a lot of too many forced moments. Ryan and Bella sucking thumbs at the end. James Buckley and his kid arriving just in time to save the day and having that not earned reunion.

The reveal that Bella was a bit of a terrorist to get back at her mum was just shit.

The silly virus thing that somehow means they can conveniently make the fuel they need to teleport?

As I say I sort of enjoyed it. It felt like a Doctor Who episode and one that could have worked quite well in the correct hands. It had all the right elements, just thrown together in an unsatisfying way.

I’m really like the “life on board the TARDIS” intros we’re getting under Chibnall.

I like the idea of a holiday park being built in a dome on a planet that can’t sustain life.

The monsters were a ok … nothing to write home about.
And again we’re treated to the Doctor not really giving a shit about them and leaving one in a cage to die of carbon dioxide deprivation.

I still think we’re getting some good Doctor scenes, the way she works things out and talks to herself. Her claim that other people talking to her gets in the way of a good conversation … that was nice.

Companions, again, just along for the ride. I think we need to just accept that that will be the case with this era of Who and move on. It’s a shame, but that’s what we’re getting.

I think that’s all I have to say right now.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Oh also, whilst their all stood on their TIME AND SPACE SHIP worried about the safety of Bella and her mum … why not, you know, use the TIME AND SPACE SHIP to save them. That would be a very Doctor thing to do.

Just a thought.

[Flap Jack]

I more or less enjoyed Orphan 55 as I was watching it, but it definitely seems more shit the more I think about it.

– Pretty good monster design (though perhaps a bit generic), as well as a name that is actually memorable (!), but the design for the people was extremely basic. A couple of them have green hair, and one of them is in Cats cosplay. That’s it.

– The twist about the planet was OK, but The Doctor’s speech at the end felt like it was filling time more than anything, and it was clearly directed at the audience more than the companions. Plus, the part about it being only a “possible” future was a serious cop out considering the subject matter. Doctor Who doesn’t usually treat the futures they visit like that? Also, there was a serious gap in the script where we ought to have got clarity about whether Orphan 55’s true nature was supposed to be a surprise to everyone or just to the time travellers. (Maybe I’m just misremembering bits there.)

– You could feel the painful grinding of the plot as they justified the action of having literally every character leave the safety of the dome to go look for someone (“BENNNI!!!!”) who was so clearly doomed, especially considering the fact that the monsters kept him alive made no sense.

– The villain here had the thinnest motivation and stupidest plan combination of any Doctor Who villain I can remember. And yet by the end we were supposed to sympathise with her, I guess? So bad.

– Yeah, have to agree with quinn that it’s always frustrating when they’re like “we need enough energy to teleport everyone out!” and I’m like “No, you need enough energy to teleport ONE person out: THE DOCTOR, so she can rescue everyone with HER GODDAMN TARDIS”. It’s quite a contrast when you consider the liberal use of Bill and Ted time travel solutions in the last episode.

– Anyone else confused by that bit where they were sure Ryan was dead, even though there’s no reason the system would register him as such?

– “Leaving the safe area in a huff” and “leaving the safe area to pick up a hat” definitely rank up there as cringeworthy ways characters get themeselves in mortal danger.

– Graham is a treasure as always. Protect Graham at all costs.

– Siliconia still has the better characterisation and costume design for a James Buckley guest character.

[Dave]

Plus, the part about it being only a “possible” future was a serious cop out considering the subject matter. Doctor Who doesn’t usually treat the futures they visit like that?

No, and it undermines all the Gallifrey stuff from last week immediately, because presumably that’s just a possible fate for Gallifrey too.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Anyone else confused by that bit where they were sure Ryan was dead, even though there’s no reason the system would register him as such?

Yeah that didn’t make any sense. The sensors were clearly working, so why he and Bella weren’t registering is a mystery.

No, and it undermines all the Gallifrey stuff from last week immediately, because presumably that’s just a possible fate for Gallifrey too.

It really seems like Chibnall’s who is going with Bill and Ted logic of, as time passes from your perspective, so does time elsewhere. So on the Doctor’s personal timeline Gallifrey is fucked and she can’t do sod all about it. Ditto with the survivors of Orphan 55, even if she left to get the TARDIS, by the time she’d be back, they’d be dead. Something similar happened in Spyfall that I can’t remember now.

[Dave]

I still think they should have included a line in this about how the ‘dead’ Earth farted its way out of the solar system.

[Author]

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