Appreciation for the new disaster bisexual doctor.
Decent enough ep. The tone seemed a bit muddled, as they seemed to be going for a spooky vibe while simultaneously keeping the “lighthearted” mood they were pushing last episode too. Kind of threw me off. I liked the baddies, though, and I appreciate a story where the sonic or TARDIS can’t be used to just magic out a solution (except for the TARDIS Ex Machina at the end, I suppose). Also was very happy to see Wilfred! I was entirely unaware they had gotten scenes with him before he passed and was just expecting references. Overall I enjoyed it and am looking forward to next week!
*One little minor technical nitpick - if there’s literally nothing outside the ship, and the captain wasn’t wearing a helmet, how did they decompose?
Some anaerobic gut bacteria that happens to be able to survive vacuum? It was an alien…
Enjoyed this tense episode. What bugged me was the overuse of “The Volume” in the wide corridor shots. Like early blue screen work, it’s distracting and takes you out of the action. Once they slip into the real sets, everything looks better. At any rate, a great callback to “Midnight” and good to see Wilf!
People rag on the Volume just as much as they rag on “too much CGI”, the same they used to say “too much green screen” or “too many rubber suited aliens”. It’s all just storytelling tools, and you either suspend your disbelief or you don’t based on the strength of the writing. If you can show me a seemingly endless corridor with giant hydraulic pistons that reconfigures every ten minutes, and that’s actually a part of the story, that’s pretty damn great in my book, no matter how it looks.
And just for the record, I thought this looked great too.
Absolutely amazing episode. Good mystery, clever answer, and it was creepy. Don’t even know where to start with the praise for this one… It’s nice to see the doctor without the sonic or the tardis, I don’t remember any episodes playing around with alien languages so it was cool to see them without the translation matrix.
Also I know some people are gonna be annoyed that the timeless child stuff wasn’t retconned, but honestly I’m happy with with they’re doing with it. Chibnall had ideas but didn’t do a good job of actually making it effect characters. For example, during Flux a few companions were stuck in the past for like 5 years and basically nothing changed about them - no trauma, no growth, nothing. RTD using Flux as a modern “time war” of sorts is exactly what I wanted from it in the first place - it’s something that gives the doctor immense guilt and we actually see that in this episode. I totally think that Chibnall’s era was horrible but if RTD can make lemonade out of lemons, I’m all for it.
But like, man that was a good premise. Good mystery, amazing setup - that moment when the doppelgangers are revealed was so well done, I thought it was just weird editing until I realized what was going on. Also the two parallel confrontations, knowing that one person in each is fake, but not knowing who it is in either group… Then turning the doctor’s need to figure things out against him… Good shit.
Managed to go into this without any-trailers/spoilers/etc. Hated the “Children in Need”-esque intro, it felt like the ye-olde cartoon before the movie starts.
I can understand concerns about this being the second of only three Tennant/Tate episodes, that it’s the anniversary and we want big celebrations and megabucks worth of explosions and monsters and all that. Instead, we get a full episode with the two stars and their talent, no distractions or crawling through attics. PS. Sylvia and Wilf still - and always will - be awesome.
This was like RDT’s and Moffat’s lovechild, like Midnight and Event Horizon and Alien. Confidently slow-paced with great writing and time for running around, and still having time for a proper ending rather than a magical macguffin arse-pull.
Properly loved it.
