Haven’t seen a discussion post for the new special, so I’ll get the ball rolling. Thoughts, insights, bits you loved… let it all out.
Wife and I loved this episode, just so great. Hate that Jodie didn’t have writers and stories as great as this. My wife did find a bit of a plot hole though. This story takes 15 years later right? Donna got married 15 years ago, assuming she got married not long after the meta crisis. So Rose should be 13 or 14 at the oldest. Rose clearly is in her late teens.
Here’s the cover of the second half of this story in the comics. Meep didn’t mess around.
Wait, is this an old comic?
Yep. Apparently first published in April of 1980.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Doctor_comic_stories
My issue, pictured above, is a 1984 reprint by Marvel in America.
Loved it. It was fun, cheesy at times, but also down to earth where it mattered. Also a big fan of RTD giving a big middle finger to everyone who complained about Jodie’s era being too “woke.” I find it kinda funny that RTD did more with a female doctor in one episode than Chibnal did in 3 years, and he didn’t even have a female doctor.
Only complaint is the resolution to the metacrisis where they just get rid of it. Feels a bit hand-wavy and also the one thing in the episode that I felt was a bit preachy. Loved the stuff before it though, with Rose inheriting it.
Of course it was hand-wavey. It’s RTD’s Doctor Who. :)
Chalk it up to the DoctorDonna needing fifteen years or so to finish the calculation that would solve her problem, which it turns out needed two processors running in parallel.
RTD and hand-wavy plot shrugging. Name a better duo. Still a fun special all the same.
This episode was like RTDs whole run - generally good but with some almost unbearably cheesy moments
Donna spilling the coffee was both hilarious and baffling (is the console lactose intolerant?). That was definitely the TARDIS herself setting that up as a thinly veiled excuse to take them both somewhere.
Lol, to be fair I feel like every modern showrunner has had that issue. Moffat especially tended to have finales that were basically just “let’s hold hands and hope things work out.”
Its the journey, not the destination that matters.
I loved it, personally! David Tennant and Catherine Tate felt like they’d been away for a month or two rather than 15 years, and it’s so nice for Doctor Who to just be fun and funny again.
I know some people didn’t like the “let it go” resolution, but also that’s just Russell T. Davies I think. You get utterly bonkers ideas (Beep The Meep on primetime TV as a big comeback monster!) a political point of view that he’s not afraid to completely smash you over the head with, and an out-of-nowhere hand-wavy resolution that fixes everything (remember when the Doctor became flying space Jesus and then they erased the human race getting genocided back in the day?)
Also I loved the conversation in the cab:
“How’s Nerys?”
“She’s fine.”
“Since the accident?”
“She’s not fine.”
“It was her fault.”
“She’s been fined.”
ALSO I really like the new TARDIS interior. Someone on another site described Tennant running around it as like a dog with the zoomies lol.
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The Doctor has long been about inclusivity and it’s nice to see it addressed and managed like only Who can.
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I was howling after that car conversation!
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And the new TARDIS has a coffee maker! Totally making a Janeway meme about that one.
Janeway: Coffee. Black.
serves pumpkin spice coffee with 9 sugars
Janeway: …
She doesn’t give you the coffee you want, but she always gives you the coffee you need
Oh yeah I didn’t mean that as a dig at the inclusivity at all, I loved it. I just meant I really enjoy how much RTD does not fuck around when it comes to making a statement lol.
Also it’s a very TARDIS move to have a coffee maker built into the console, and also have the console violently explode on contact with coffee.
Here’s how I interpreted that scene:
The TARDIS knows how Donna was fired, it knows she’s a bit clutzy, and it knows she takes subliminal suggestion, especially after being recently demetacrisised. It also misses her and needs her to stay with the Doctor for a while longer. So, predictably, Donna spills her coffee on the console, and the TARDIS is all like WHOOAAAA, oh my, I’m falling, I’m on fire, look at the sparks, we could go anywhere!! Heehee.
Also, I think 14 is the first regeneration since the show came back who didn’t immediately blow the TARDIS up upon regenerating, so it had to take care of it by itself!
There’s coffee in that TARDIS.
Janeway: “There’s coffee in that console.”
Doctor: “In every crevice and cranny! That’s going to take me weeks to scrub out of there.”
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I love the new Tardis. Especially that it actually has doors to other rooms. I wouldn’t mind some color, like blue doors or something.
I hope they get to show us some of the other rooms!!! (Especially the pool)
Imagine the state of the bookshelves!
I thought that until the RGB’s kicked in when he started fiddling knobs and such. It works.
After a second watch, I really started to like Rose’s backstory especially since Time Lords can be considered non binary.
My only qualm is it felt a bit rushed, it’s too bad there wasn’t a way to slowly eldlude to why Rose is the way the are. It all got thrown at us in 30 seconds at the end of the episode.
As someone else wrote somewhere… RTD’s back, which means the carnival’s back in town. Lots of running about, flashing lights, loud music, a stunt show with exploding things and people shooting at each other, and comedy hi jinks.
I liked the small things - the time vortex having open areas with multiple paths from 13, the helping/oh-shit-nope-not-helping with the stacking, the psychic paper not keeping up, ‘she’s fine/she’s not fine/been fine’, Sylvia’s “YOU!”, Donna’s ‘WHAT THE HELL!’, the ‘you can’t know your future conversation’ up until they mentioned (again) that Donna dies if she remembers. Didn’t mind the parademons, like the idea of the Sonic having a UI (but hated the shields), loved The Meep even after they got sidelined for the big ending. Console room was kinda meh still, big and bland atm.
I have a feeling the episode was scripted and shot, then they decided on the introduction to catch us all up, hence the doubling-up. Could be wrong, though.
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I like the new intro.
So many elements across all 60 years of themes.
The breathy scraping sound in the end credits was a bit high in the mix. Really distracting. Liked it otherwise.
It sounded like throat singing. It was kinda cool.
That made me giddy. You can kinda see Disney’s new influence as far as scale. Also, Alistair Lock’s score over the episode was phenomenal.
Intro was great, no question. The whole thing was pretty good, a bit predictable. End was a little silly.
Silly is par for the course. I welcome silly, as opposed to the morose it could have been. Donna and the Doctor’s saga got some closure without becoming a complete tragedy.
a bit predictable
Someday we’ll all be completely stunned when the sickeningly adorable alien creature doesn’t turn out to be evil.
Someday we’ll all be completely stunned when the sickeningly adorable alien creature doesn’t turn out to be evil.
The Doctor hasn’t yet.
The adipose babies weren’t evil, though. Just the nanny and her methods.
It did feel a bit like we came in mid-episode. Was there any acclimation scene last season? She regenerates and he just gets on with it?
There is a Children In Need quicky that serves that function.
Ah, I did watch this. I actually assumed it was just a preview of part of the special.
There’s a also a comic that serves as the direct sequel to the regeneration.
It’s pretty disposable though. A fun adventure, but one that could have taken place at pretty much any point in the Tennant Doctor’s run. The only thing tying it to Thirteen is the spoonic screwdriver getting destroyed - twice!
Ah, excellent. Thank you.
That console exploding from a cup of coffee was a drastic overreaction, good lord what a tantrum.
The TARDIS is like a professional soccer player.
slight tap WHOAAGH, OH MY GOD I’M SO INJURED!!
Totally!! I had the exact same thought!! Bloody drama queen!!
That coffee flip from Donna was perfect though
I really enjoyed the episode for what it was. It served as a decent introduction for the Disney+ crowd without being too convoluted. Which given this was a continuation of a 15 year old plot thread was handled about as well as it could be.
My biggest complaint was how integrated Rose was into the resolution to the metacrisis. I am not trans and don’t pretend to know even a fraction of the struggles they face in our society. The normalisation of Rose throughout the episode and an acknowledgement of how even very well meaning family work to be inclusive felt very natural. However, I did not like how her being trans seemed to have been caused by the metacrisis. It felt like it flew in the face of the normalisation. The reading in the episode is Rose is only trans because of that timelord DNA influence. It felt wrong to reduce her character to being nothing more than a quirk of fate rather than just who she is naturally.
I’d have preferred a ‘Lets all hold hands and the family shares the burden’ hand waving than what we got. Rose deserved more than what we got and certainly more screen time. It was quite weird the rest of the family didn’t go see Wilf. I get they were setting up episode 2, but in the context of the moment it felt really out of character for MumDonna.
To those confused about how Donna and Rose were able to ‘Let it go’ now rather than back then, Frozen wasn’t released until 4 years later so it musn’t have occurred to the Doctor… In all seriousness, I’d point to the scene from The Day of the Doctor where Clara opens the unlocked door for the ‘clever’ Doctors. Sometimes he’ll look for the best solution without realising a simple one is in front of him.
The new TARDIS interior was gorgeous, harkens back to the Hartnell console room. I loved the first thing 13 did was start running around. So much room to practise running haha.
All in all, a solid.episode with some flaws. I really liked the new style and you could feel that new budget while still having a Dr. Who charm aliens that looked like they’d been handmade. I’d put it around a 7.5/8 out of 10. Good foundation, interested to see if it is built on. It definitely makes me excited for Ncuti’s run.
her being trans seemed to have been caused by the metacrisis. It felt like it flew in the face of the normalisation. The reading in the episode is Rose is only trans because of that timelord DNA influence.
I didn’t get that at all from the episode. Where are you getting that from?
Rose is trans because that’s who she is. The metacrisis was a part of her up until she and Donna released it - which they couldn’t do while Donna was still psychic locked. And afterward she was basically the same, only without that metacrisis energy, which didn’t change who she was, it only had subtle subliminal influences that manifested in her stuffed creatures and maybe nudged her in tiny ways, but didn’t overtake her.
However, I did not like how her being trans seemed to have been caused by the metacrisis. It felt like it flew in the face of the normalisation.
I get that reading of it, but I think her “I finally feel like me” line after releasing the meta-crisis was more an acknowledgment of finally being able to let go of the 10th doctor’s maleness, not that the meta-crisis made her trans.
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It was alright but I didn’t enjoy it as much as others seem to have done. Everything was so obvious. Donna tells her daughter that she will protect her so you know this will come in play later. The coffee thing was mentioned and I immediately knew she’ll spill it. The way the “why Donna didn’t die” was a bit resolved in a weird way, she is a woman so she can “let go” and give birth, which is so weird that the Doctor didn’t think about this (he literally was a woman just before). Ultimately it doesn’t make sense, someone passes a disease to their kid it doesn’t mean that the disease is now weaker. That’s not how inherited illnesses work. I love that there’s a trans character but everything about her is just them saying that she is trans, I wanna know more about her and not just her sexuality. It was handled good in the conversation between Donna and her mother but then it went a bit overboard for my taste.
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This is nonsense, and you only think this is the case because you were focusing on it so hard. Before we knew anything about her we saw that she was a bright, attractive, and canny kid who was interested in everything. Then we saw her shed and learned she made little stuffed creatures to sell for extra spending money, and we see she wants to help this weird creature rather than panicking and running as most people might. Later Donna says she does acting in the drama club but isn’t very good at it. That’s more than we learn about most secondary characters in a single episode.
I don’t know you, so I don’t know what your experience is and won’t even venture to guess, but I can say from my own personal experience that people with trans or otherwise queer kids talk about it, especially with other parents. And it is sometimes quite a challenge for some, especially for older relatives to “get it”, even when they want to do right by their family member.
No, it’s not the only thing about Rose, but it is an important thing, especially when vast squelching chunks of society would rather not even acknowledge nonbinary and transgender people even exist. And I’m glad they were up front about it, rather than drawing it out and trying to be coy to the point of wanting to have it both ways.
Nah I agree with him. I missed it a but at first because I was only paying half attention but the whole “did you just assume the meeps pronouns” bit and the ending non binary stuff was very forced and clumsy and just distracting.
And I say that as the the stereotypical pink haired non binary gay feminist. Inclusion should be normalising making it a big deal and metaphorically winking down the camera does as much harm as good.
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well it’s not an inherited illness but yeah, the whole thing was “a human brain can’t handle that much dumped into it” which is why she had to forget. Processor overload.
Yea I used illness as an analogy. Passing something down to your child doesn’t necessarily mean it’ll get weaker. But even when accepting this, I find the resolution unsatisfactory.
The metacrisis isn’t an illness, it’s is made-up space magic. RTD can put whatever rules he wants onto it. It makes a sort of sense (in a wibbly-wobbly sort of way) that a child would act as a sort of pressure release.
Them “letting it go” at the end was a bit of a silly copout, but I chalk it up to the DoctorDonna (and DoctorRose?) having capabilities the Doctor couldn’t fathom alone. She/they just needed fifteen years or so to ruminate on it, like a complex calculation that takes years to compute.
I fully understand yoir point of view, but could it also be because their minds are linked, at least in some way, so thay instead of being focused on just one there’s two sharing the load, like, how a single core CPU could run something, but if you start doubling the cores, it makes it easier. Maybe if Rose had a child as well, that’d make it easier as well.
That console room needs furniture! It’s just a bunch of ramps and catwalks that don’t seem to go anywhere. Hopefully Donna can give it more of a homey touch - some nice lamps and wallhangings, maybe.
It would be nice if there would stack up souveniers from the adventures or whatevee the protagonists go through. But I really love the like curvy, nonlinear crosswalks.
After that spill, at least a coffee table.
The Sonic Screwdriver seems to have gotten an upgrade
Yes. Where did that come from? Did 13 get a proper one at some point? I just started her second season.
Yeah, that was a bit of a stretch. Of course, it’s abilities have changed over time based on narrative need or improved editing techniques as we see here.
Or, maybe the BBC used the money from Disney to buy some better SFX servers
That money definitely shines through to whole production: cameras, lighting, cinematography, SFX. I’m just worried how jarring it will be to go back to the show level production. Unless the episodes are suddenly $1 million a piece.
One of my first thoughts watching it was “these opening credits look expensive” lol
The whole episode looked expensive, and not just the Meep.
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Oh the episodes have been $1 million a piece for a while. One million for an episode of a sci-fi show is a bargain. That’s baseline. For reference: An episode of “Superman and Lois”, the CW show, allegedly costs roughly 1.5 million dollar. As much as I dislike a lot of the visual decisions made by Chibnall it’s clear the BBC spend money on his run. An episode in series 11-13 cost reportedly roughly 3.5 million
I was with it for the display thing. But the energy sheild…ehhh…
I didn’t necessarily hate the energy shield thingies, but they definitely could make things boring if they keep bailing out everyone.
I liked that they were clearly not impervious, and only useful as a temporary shield. The detail of them beginning to break with every impact was well done.
Yeah, gotta sell those toys somehow I guess. I didn’t hate it. I think it’ll take a bump or two as time goes on to lose functionality when narratively convenient like always it isn’t that big of a deal. It took the Doctor forever to do his Penny Crayon routine too. In a real emergency he’d still be best just running like usual.
I think it was purely just to set up for the new Disney+ fans he’s an advanced alien with a magic wand. And to shift as many units of the screwdriver before Christmas before it gets a downgrade.
If the show is proven popular, I wouldn’t be surprised for them to deepen the deal and to start seeing merch even appear in the Disney parks.
I think Disney is going to see the huge jump in viewership - especially from American fans who are glad to finally have a reliable time and place to watch it every week - and want more of it. That’s ultimately a good thing for us, but hopefully they and Bad Wolf have taken the right lessons from Marvel and Star Wars and don’t stretch things too thin.
I didn’t mind it too much. I read a quote somewhere once (I forget where, maybe one of the writers discussing the show?) which said something along the lines of “The sonic is for opening doors and moving the Doctor towards the trouble, not for getting him out of it.” which I think is a good way to use it. I mean it did get them away from the shooty bug guys, but it moved them along to the bigger trouble and he didn’t use it to solve the whole episode so I think it still works!
I had to laugh when he used it to knock down a brick wall and then later when he seems worried there’s not a good escape route, the UNIT lady does basically the same thing with an explosive round.
Maybe that’s why the Doctor doesn’t go to America very often, all the houses are made of wood lol
Thought this was delightful. So glad to be watching again after taking the last few seasons off.
