#DWS10SPOILERS

[anotheruserwithnoname]

Belated thoughts on The Doctor Falls

(Spoilers, obviously)

A late “review” owing to me being out of down and offline for the Canada Day long weekend. Now to make up for lost time...

I make no secret of nor do I apologize for the fact I was very disappointed with Series 10 as a whole. I stand by my opinion that it is - taken as a whole - the weakest season of 10 we’ve had since the series returned. BUT, in the 9th inning, Steven Moffat managed to score a home run, even though it was more of the “players fumbling to catch the ball” inside-the-park homer than a “knock it out of the park” blockbuster. It ranks a solid 3rd behind The Name of the Doctor and Hell Bent among Modern Era finale episodes and for the most part left me smiling (albeit a sad smile).

More thoughts after the break:

I’m going to get the negative stuff out of the way first.

I have mixed feelings about how Bill’s fate was handled (not the fate itself). I love the fact that Moffat managed to come up with a way to get Bill out of her dilemma and reunite her with Heather in such a way that promises future adventures (Big Finish and Chris Chibnall take note). It’s great that we finally got a pair of Moffat companions (including Nardole, though more on him in a moment) who basically survived their time with the Doctor. However, I wish Moffat hadn’t copied what he did with Clara and Ashildr in Hell Bent: making the companion immortal and sending her off on adventures with an immortal companion of her own (only difference being the romance direction: with Clara it was separation from her OTP; with Bill it was reunion with her OTP). I spoke to a few friends who watched it on Saturday and they were very upset by this. Not because they were Clara fans (believe me, they aren’t - in fact they pretty much hated Series 8 and 9) but because it was so similar to what happened last season. And I am annoyed at people saying that this is setting up the spinoff everyone wants, when that’s exactly the same thing they said with Clara and Ashildr in 2015! (That said, I agree with everyone who says getting the four together would kick ass. Big Finish, again take note.)

I also wish Heather had been referenced more during the season. If she was supposed to be Bill’s OTP, why was she basically forgotten for 10 episodes? As a result, while it was great to see Heather return, it still had a feeling of deus ex machina about it that was unfortunate. And any viewers who missed The Pilot and jumped on late - they were screwed figuring out what the heck that was all about with the woman made of water. 

One last negative was the fact we were left with no real resolution for Nardole. We saw him setting off with a bunch of kids and a girlfriend(!) but the impression given is they were still dead because they’d be spending their time moving up the ship and eventually the Cybermen would regroup and get ‘em. I hope Moffat plans to resolve this at Christmas because I felt the story wasn’t completed. This one I’d hate to have to leave to Big Finish to flesh out but perhaps they’ll have to.

OK - negative stuff over. Time for the positives.

Despite the fact I disliked World Enough and Time on the whole, I said I loved the opening and the closing minutes of that episode. Well, The Doctor Falls was basically all “opening and closing minutes,” (you can take that literally as virtually every scene felt like a teaser or cliffhanger and the longer running time flew by) and it was great and exactly the type of episode I was starved for this series. Had Series 10 had more of these I might have even joined the chorus of those calling Series 10 the best, even without Clara.

Despite the criticism I just stated, I loved how Bill and Heather were reunited (read my complaint again and the bottom line is I wanted there to be more of them) and Pearl Mackie gave her best performance ever as Bill. The character had a shaky start in my opinion, but Mackie was exemplary and Bill stands proud with the other iconic companions because of it. She’ll go far.

And Matt Lucas was great as always, and in some respects I’m going to miss Nardole more than Bill (ironic since I hated Nardole in the 2015 Christmas special). That’s nothing against Bill or Pearl Mackie, but even though he was shoehorned in to a good chunk of the season, Lucas just felt right once it was decided to make him a proper companion, and that was something that occurred to me way back in Return of Doctor Mysterio. I’d say Lucas would go fear but the guy’s already gone far. So I’ll just say he’ll go farther.

The Master Twins were amazing and had terrific chemistry and while I don’t believe for one second that this is the end for the Master (the Missy incarnation, perhaps), it was a unique resolution to Missy’s arc that I’m sure had many going “why hadn’t we thought of that?” I also found it fascinating to see how the Saxon Master reacted to having a female incarnation (despite the Doctor’s comments last week, Saxon seemed to suggest Missy was his first/only female version). He wasn’t that thrilled about it, really, which caught me by surprise. It added an unexpected depth to their meeting. I only wish we saw Simm regenerate into Gomez but then maybe that opens the door for another incarnation, if Missy is truly the final Master. I kind of hope she is, because it would be great to think that in the end, after teasing the concept for 46 years, the show finally made good on the promise of redeeming the Master. Plus, let’s be honest, male or female, who could follow Michelle Gomez?

And then there was Peter. What can I say? I mean, his speech about kindness is one they’re going to be quoting for years. And I hope the other Doctor actors are ready because just as with the Pandorica speech and the Zygon Inversion speech, they’re going to be asked to recite it forever. I’ve given up on awards, but Peter Capaldi is in my opinion the best actor to ever pilot the TARDIS, and I’m not just saying that because he’s the incumbent and I liked Whouffaldi. No - all the actors who have played the Doctor were amazing (yes, even him - whoever you want “him” to be). But Capaldi is the best. And I am including Sir John Hurt as I say that, with no disrespect intended to the late legend (or any of the others).

The regeneration - I mean, wow. And to see him repress it. That’s new and will make the Christmas special absolutely fascinating to watch from a performance perspective, alone.

David Bradley as the First Doctor? I don’t know about that. This isn’t 1983 when Richard Hurndall could step into William Hartnell’s shoes because no one had DVDs of any of Bill’s episodes. Apparently we’ve already had some viewers state confusion on Twitter over who this old guy is. I’ve no doubt that David Bradley will do a good job, but recasting an earlier Doctor, especially one with such a different acting style... jury is out. Much as I like Bradley I actually would have been more in favour of Sean Pertwee appearing as his dad. Ask me again on December 26.

Finally, of course, me being a Whouffaldi fan I cannot end this without mentioning the Clara flashback. I can’t begin to express how important this was. For her to have been omitted ... while it might have worked from the memory block perspective, it would have made the sequence feel incomplete. Does it mean the Doctor remembers Clara? Actually, we know that he does to a degree already - he says so to Clara herself in Hell Bent that he remembers their adventure together and has been able to piece together a lot about Clara, and at the end of the episode he sees Rigsy’s portrait of her, so he now remembers her face and, thanks to the diner, her voice. But then again - he would remember her face and voice from the diner if it was a “fresh” memory, right? Instead, he remembers her as she was in Last Christmas. So is it possible that Bill’s tears did more than give Twelve a stay of execution? That they - or the fact the Doctor is mid-regeneration - have undone it. Time will tell. I’m aware of certain tabloid reports today (also mentioned on the BBC) and I refuse to get my hopes up. But maybe it was foreshadowing. Or Moffat simply realized that to leave Clara out of a roll-call of every Modern Era companion would have made him look like a dick. Either way, we got a final direct reference to Clara to end the season on. (And River fans got one too, so everyone’s happy.)

One of these days I’ll do a proper postmortem on Series 10, going into detail as to why I didn’t care for it as a whole. But for me the finale hit all the right notes and leaves me looking forward to Christmas, even though a sad milestone awaits.

PS: Because there seems to be a lot of people harping online about Clara’s appearing in the flashback and the potential for her to appear at Christmas (of the “don’t bring her back ever” variety) let me state for the record that as far as I am concerned Bill Potts and Nardole are welcome to reappear or be referenced any time. Hopefully they’ll get a nod at Christmas.

[anotheruserwithnoname]

So is Jamie’s fate in the comic strip canon?

(Small spoiler for The Doctor Falls; major spoiler for the DWM storyline The World Shapers)

One of the coolest moments in The Doctor Falls was when we see Twelve calling out past encounters with the Cybermen. One of them was “Marinus” (of Keys to Marinus fame). This isn’t an error: the Doctor is referring to the Sixth Doctor DWM comic strip story The World Shapers! This marks the third time Steven Moffat has allowed an element of DWM’s comic strip to get into canon (previously, an image of comics trip character Abslom Daak appeared in Time Heist, and The Lodger was based upon a comic strip story, though that wasn’t a “canon transplant”).

But here’s the thing, and this is a major spoiler for anyone who has yet to read The World Shapers (and now might because it was referenced). I’ll put in a break here out of courtesy.

In The World Shapers, The Sixth Doctor is reunited with an elderly Jamie McCrimmon. During the story, Jamie is killed. (This was the first time the DWM comic strip felt brave enough to kill off a well-known companion, even though this wasn’t that long after Jamie appeared in The Two Doctors on TV.)

So by making The World Shapers canon, basically, does this mean Jamie’s fate is canon now, too? Food for thought.

(BTW Marinus has another bit of significance to comic readers as it is where an alternate-timeline Twelfth Doctor goes insane from grief after Clara betrayed him in “Dark Water” - instead of forgiving her as happened in the “true” timeline - as told in the Titan comic book miniseries “Four Doctors.”)

[anotheruserwithnoname]

There is precedent

I’m going to be discussing the news reported yesterday regarding the possible return of somebody very special in the Christmas episode. I’ll put a spoiler break here if you’ve managed to avoid Who fandom on the Internet over the last 24 hours.... (And I’m keeping my tags generic too.)

So a lot of us are rightly excited at the apparent news that Jenna Coleman is to return as Clara in the Christmas special in some capacity. On the one side this comes as no surprise: returning companions is a thing in regeneration episodes, and it was already reported on Twitter some weeks ago that Eddie’s Diner (where the finale of Hell Bent was filmed) had been booked in July for shooting. More on this in a moment.

Right now of course there are folks who are a bit dubious because the return of Clara was first reported in a tabloid. And while the tabloids have been pretty accurate of late, people still remember things like when the tabs announced that Bill Nighy had been cast as the Eleventh Doctor and Kylie Minogue was going to play a Cyberman. And it doesn’t help that there are some media outlets who make no secret of their dislike for Doctor Who, or at least the Capaldi era. So it’s hard for some to give the tabs any credence.

But then a BBC2 announcer reported it and now people are questioning if the news is in fact true and in a series marked by rather major leaks (the cliffhanger of The Doctor Falls surprised few, and the BBC itself spoiled the return of John Simm and Michelle Gomez), it would be rather fitting for the return of Clara to be subject of yet another leak.

And there is precedent for the BBC to do this. Recall back in 2005 that someone at the BBC went and destroyed Russell T Davies’ plan to make the regeneration of the Ninth Doctor a surprise by announcing days after episode 1 aired that Eccleston was leaving.

And it’s also possible that Moffat & Co are allowing or at least tolerating these leaks as long as the big one - the identity of the Thirteenth Doctor - is protected. Since filming on the Christmas special is supposed to wrap up in the next week or so and there has been no announcement of who is playing the new Doctor, I get the feeling they’re trying to keep it a secret until Christmas. Good luck with that but I hope they can, honestly.

(Now watch, they’ll announce it or it’ll leak this afternoon!)

My personal view is if the diner is indeed a filming location, and if Jenna Coleman (who last we heard was up in Scotland filming Victoria S2) is brought down to Cardiff for a day or two, I can’t see how they’ll be able to keep her appearance a secret unless everything she films is in the studio and they just use the diner facade for establishing shots or something...

PS: You’ll note I was being a bit more careful with spoilers on this one than the item I posted earlier where I said outright I don’t see speculating about Clara returning to be a spoiler (again because of precedent). It’s a matter of semantics. This time I’m directly addressing news reports that Jenna is returning, so that carries a bit more spoiler weight.

[anotheruserwithnoname]

A few thoughts about Empress of Mars (and that trailer after!)

Spoilers here for both Empress of Mars and, because I’m discussing the Next Time trailer, Eaters of Light. Page break first in part because I have a few followers I understand may not have seen the episode live tonight.

Not a bad episode, sort of middle of the pack in terms of Mark Gatiss’ contributions. The concept of a secret British expedition to Mars in the Victorian era is certainly a neat one. Here are some general thoughts.

1. So why exactly was the Doctor at NASA in the first place? The episode seems to indicate they went to Mars because of the probe finding the message.

2. I know there was an arc reason, but I got a bit annoyed at Nardole being sidelined again. That was once too often this season.

3. I’m not a Twissy shipper and never have been, so I’m not sure what to make of that moment near the end. I also am not sure why some folks are saying it foreshadows his regeneration. I didn’t see that. But the scene is what it is and I have no complaint ... because of something that I saw about 60 seconds later in the trailer. More on that in a moment.

4. I’m glad the empress wasn’t as hammy as the trailer last week suggested. The cringe-inducing “Rise my Ice Warriors!” moment is still there, but the rest of the episode she’s fine and makes an interesting character and her dynamic with Bill was unexpected, if sadly underdeveloped. We could have used a few more scenes around this.

5. The episode felt like a very old-school Who episode. Interestingly the last time I saw a Who episode that really felt like it came out of the 70s or 80s was Cold War, the previous episode with the Ice Warriors. (Though thankfully they didn’t have them lose their armour this time around).

6. Sadly, despite Victoria’s Ferdinand Kingsley being a guest star, they decided not to make any in-joke related to Jenna Coleman. We do see Queen Victoria, but the image is of Pauline Collins who played her in Tooth and Claw (this followed Ian McNeice’s photo cameo as Churchill in Lie of the Land); I would be very interested to find out (maybe someone can ask Moffat if they attend any Q&As) if any thought was given to using an image of Jenna in the role. Different network, obviously, but you never know.

7. So much for Moffat saying the whole Series 10 was going to be pitched to newcomers when one of the best moments of the episode features a character last seen on TV in April 1974. I love the fact they got the original voice actress for Alpha Centauri to come out of retirement (she’s 92!) to record a few lines.

8. On the other hand, the idea of an Ice Warrior being a servant while at the same time planning a resurrection hits a bit too close to Gatiss’ earlier Victory of the Daleks which the same thing happen. If I had to make a single big complaint about the episode, that would be it.

9. (Late addition) I just found out that Frozen, the one film the Doctor remembers of the ones mentioned ... debuted the week the 50th anniversary special aired in 2013! Coincidence?

And then there’s the trailer for Eaters of Light. Among the usual “jeopardy and sinister moments” that you expect from a Next Time trailer we see a raven uttering the name Doctor. Considering that this is Episode 10 of the season and the last Episode 10 we had was Face the Raven ... I cannot imagine that this won’t be some sort of Clara reference. Or at least a reference to how she died. It just can’t be anything else unless Moffat (and Rona Munro, the writer) are really intent on trolling the fans. I’m very excited to see how that plays out. While I do not expect anything near the perfection of the previous Raven Trilogy ... I hope these last three episodes (if they end up themselves forming a trilogy) are still excellent.

[anotheruserwithnoname]

Spoilers ... not so sweet

(Ironic as it may sound - spoiler warning for World Enough and Time and to a degree The Doctor Falls.)

I’m not sugarcoating the fact I disliked “World Enough and Time”. I explained why in another post, but the tl;dr was I was hoping for something on par with Heaven Sent and I didn’t get it. Maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised. Does anyone even remember what Da Vinci painted next after finishing the Mona Lisa?

Anyway, I might have been more receptive to the episode, even with its boring “marching in place” middle act, had there not been virtually zero surprises. OK, there were a few dialogue things that were unexpected. and while I predicted early on who Razor really was (the pantomime accent immediately reminded me of one of Anthony Ainley’s disguises in the Davison era and once I made that comparison, it clicked immediately) the actual reveal was well handled.

But everything else was spoiled. Bill being converted. The regeneration bit. The return of Sim. The return of the original Cybermen and Mondas. And for the most part, this wasn’t due to overenthusiastic fans broadcasting tidbits they’d learned. Most of this was done by the BBC itself. Months ago they circulated the photos of Capaldi meeting the Cybermen. Which not only spoiled the episode - it also spoiled the outcome of that fake regeneration a few weeks back.  And we’ve known for months that Simm was returning, too. And then just a few days ago the BBC de facto spoiled the Bill-being-converted bit by releasing a photo showing the Doctor tenderly reaching out towards the chestplate of a Cyberman.

And it’s going to happen again next week. The Next Time trailer for The Doctor Falls pretty much took out all the mystery for me, and I’ve refused to look at the main trailer, but the damage was done. Makes me wonder why I should even bloody bother to watch the episode, you know?

This isn’t the first time. Two years ago after Heaven Sent aired, those of us who were too emotionally drained to turn the TV off found ourselves viewing a Next Time trailer that spoiled Clara’s return, just as the Next Time trailer for Face the Raven pretty much showed us everything related to Clara’s death. And even before Face the Raven aired we were already seeing promos sans Clara for The Husbands of River Song. And the fact is the BBC green lit Jenna Coleman announcing before S9 began that she was leaving. It is not uncommon for actors to do more than one series at a time (Peter Davison did two series at the same time he was on Doctor Who), so reports of her filming Victoria would have not made a difference (if she had stayed with the show there would have been plenty of time for her to film a good portion of Series 10 between Victoria S1 and S2). Imagine the impact of Clara’s death in Face the Raven if we didn’t know she was leaving.

Two years running, the finales of the show have been spoiled by the BBC themselves. What happened to keeping things quiet? When Missy revealing herself as the Master was an actual surprise? When Karen Gillan and Matt Smith’s late-day cameos bookending Capaldi’s arrival came out of nowhere? When John Hurt turned to the camera at the end of S7 and everyone screamed? When the BBC hosted public showings of Asylum of the Daleks yet was still able to keep quiet about Jenna’s early bird debut?

At this rate I fully expect the “coming soon” trailer at the end of The Doctor Falls will show us the face of the Thirteenth Doctor, a detailed description of how it happens, and probably also reveal whether or not Clara appears again.

I’ve heard rumours that Chris Chibnall plans to clamp down on this. I hope he does. You can’t always protect against leaks and people being spotted on location. The BBC and Russell T Davies had no choice but to reveal ahead of Series 4 that Rose was coming back because she’d been spotted on location so there was little point. But so much of the spoilage of the last 2 seasons was, in my opinion, a self-inflicted injury. And the worst part is trying to avoid spoilers becomes even harder when the people making the show don’t seem to give a damn.

[anotheruserwithnoname]

Benjamin Cook is one of the best-known writers for Doctor Who Magazine. He is here replying to former DWM editor Clayton Hickman who was asking about the pre-credits sequence of World Enough and Time, confirming speculation that it was shot during production of the Christmas special. (I’m not being more specific on the scene in question as there are still followers of mine who may not have seen the episode.)

[anotheruserwithnoname]

One overriding question about Eaters of Light

(Captain Obvious says, “This will include spoilers about The Eaters of Light” and the question in question is also related to the finale.)

In lieu of any detailed notes about the new episode - tl;dr I thought it was a good episode, glad to see a Classic Era writer back, Bill was great, the continued avoidance of referencing Clara is starting to feel phony - I just have one question that will probably be burning up the forums for ages:

So does Missy count as a companion now? Consider that she’s apparently, for lack of a better term, the TARDIS’ engineer now, filling a position identical to that offered to Perkins in Mummy on the Orient Express. In fact the episode establishes she’s basically living in the TARDIS now which actually puts her one up on Bill if you think about it since Bill has followed Clara’s lead in not taking up full-time residence. The trailer for next week seems to imply she’s hanging about for a bit too. Even if this ultimately ends up being a deception, it wouldn’t be the first time the Doctor has had a companion with an agenda (ref. Turlough).

[anotheruserwithnoname]

Was it just soundtrack music ... or was it in his head?

(Spoiler for “The Pilot”)

Clara’s theme song is unique from all other companion themes in one key aspect: it exists in the Whoniverse. As we know from Hell Bent, it was composed by the Doctor as a way to interpret his blocked memories of Clara. (”Memories become stories when we forget them; maybe some of them become songs.”)

So that means this is a melody he actually knows. It is in his mind, just as much as the opening notes of Beethoven’s Fifth.

I put this theory forward. We heard Clara’s theme begin to play and at that moment the Doctor relented on his decision to mind-wipe Bill. And he nearly broke down in tears. What if that wasn’t the soundtrack we were hearing. What if we were hearing what the Doctor was thinking? What if that piece of music literally was presented in lieu of us hearing Clara’s voice in a flashback from Hell Bent?

Puts a whole new spin on that scene.

[anotheruserwithnoname]

Thoughts on World Enough and Time

(Spoilers obviously)

Well, that was no Heaven Sent.

The first few minutes were fine, and the last few minutes were good, but the rest I found dead boring.

There were some things I liked. I liked the janitor guy who befriended Bill, though I figured out who it really was after about 10 minutes. Pearl’s performace was great. The Cybermen aspect was handled quite well, even though a lot of it was a total rehash of what Tom MacRae did with his own “genesis of the Cybermen” story in 2006. Disappointingly so.

And I honestly wasn’t impressed with the the music either. What was there to be played live?

I’m sorry to be a downer, but with only 3 (now 2) Capaldi episodes left, I was expecting something on par with Heaven Sent. Instead I got something closer to (for me) Sleep No More.

EDIT: OK, OK, the “Doctor Who” bit was funny. But I did say I liked the first few minutes and that’s when that played out for the most part.

[anotheruserwithnoname]

Why I think cutting the Doctor playing Clara’s theme in The Pilot was OK

Brave, or what? But hear me out. And please remember that Whouffaldi runs though my veins so deep that if you cut me I’d ... probably yell at you and make you pay for the Band-Aid. But you know what I mean.

The report earlier today that a deleted scene from The Pilot had the Twelfth Doctor on stage playing Clara’s Theme as Bill and Heather met for the first time excited a lot of folks. And rightly so. For one thing it confirms that Moffat & Co. are most definitely not sweeping Clara under the carpet. Whether it means we are in for more references remains to be seen. But to have the Doctor on stage, close to 100 years after the events of Hell Bent (assuming 24 years after THORS, as long as 70 years as a teacher, and who knows what else in-between) still having the song he composed to represent his lost memories of Clara be a part of his life, and confirming by context that Clara’s theme is romantic in nature (now let’s talk about that Cloisters conversation again) ... there are no two ways about it - this is huge.

But, I’m actually glad it was cut, and I will tell you why with two words: Donna Noble.

Partners in Crime was an excellent - if bizarre - reintroduction to Donna. It followed The Runaway Bride, where she first appeared. And both have something in common: both ended with amazing references to Rose. “Her name was Rose” was one of the best closing lines of any Christmas special. And Rose’s actual cameo in PIC - successfully kept unspoiled - had jaws dropping around the world. Not till Jenna Coleman’s early-bird arrival in Series 7 was this really replicated again.

But in both cases, it completely sucked the oxygen out of the room with regards to introducing Donna. Now, Donna was a strong character to start with. And Catherine Tate was already an established celebrity who could hold her own. But the fact is once Rose appeared on screen in Partners in Crime, no one was talking about Donna anymore. It distracted everyone. And I remember reading one comment saying that it meant that Donna was just another placeholder companion until Rose came back, just like Martha was. Ouch.

The same I think could have happened with Bill if Clara’s Theme had been used to introduce her in such an overt way. They were introducing a brand-new companion, one that everyone was excited about - and they use someone else’s music to do it? It would have been a total distraction, not to mention a bit disrespectful to the Bill character. As it was, the use of Clara’s theme during the mindwipe scene at the end distracted a lot of people too, for much the same reason. It was a Clara reference - wow! And I was one of those going wow, too! But because it was so subtle, and was so strongly tied to the Doctor’s character development, I think it worked better and served the introduction of Bill better than having Bill and Heather be introduced using Clara’s romantic theme which would also technically become “their song.”

The official party line for why the scene was cut is they wanted to do a faster-paced montage to introduce the characters. Fair enough. And I definitely want to see the original scene; I can’t imagine it not being included in the Blu-ray set later on, and it’ll probably become as instantly iconic with fans as the Danny scene from Girl Who Lived and Ashildr’s backstory from Women Who Lived. But I’m actually finding myself parting company with some of my fellow Whouffaldi fans by saying I am actually glad it wasn’t in the episode. Not this particular episode which had another job to do, which was to introduce a new character who was supposed to carry on from Clara and, possibly, hopefully, even transition to the Thirteenth Doctor.

That doesn’t stop me from hoping that later in the season there might be a scene where Twelve starts playing a few notes, though...

[anotheruserwithnoname]

My two hopes for Empress of Mars

Now that the Monks trilogy is over with and things are barrelling towards the season finale, I have a couple of (tongue in cheek) hopes for Mark Gatiss’ possibly final Doctor Who episode.

(Since there may be those trying to avoid details about this weekend’s Doctor Who, I’ll put a spoiler break here.)

Hope #1: That the said empress isn’t quite as hammy as she comes off in the Next Time trailer. Because, I mean, damn! (That and if they’re going to have someone do an Empress of the Racnoss impersonation they might as well get the Empress of the Racnoss to appear!)

Hope #2: So as I understand it, the story involves a group of soldiers invading Mars in the name of Queen Victoria. I’m not expecting a Clara reference (it’s only in my headcanon that Victoria is a Clara echo, after all), but I’ll be disappointed if Mark Gatiss doesn’t insert some sort of meta joke referring to a certain TV show! Especially since one of Jenna Coleman’s co-stars, Ferdinand Kingsley, is actually guest-starring. I mean, I know it’s kind of low-hanging fruit for a gag, but still!

[anotheruserwithnoname]

A huge Clara reference was filmed for Ep. 1 - but cut

The Radio Times is reporting that a longer version of the scene where Bill and Heather first meet in the club was filmed.

It had the Doctor on stage performing on his guitar.

He would have been playing “a heavy metal version” of Clara’s Theme.

This was actually filmed. Which means it could show up on the DVD as a deleted scene later.

Sadly, it was cut because they wanted to do a montage for their first meeting instead.

Read more here.

I’m of two minds on this. On the one hand introducing a companion using another companion’s theme would have sounded a bit odd so from a storytelling and character-introduction perspective (shades of Martha being overshadowed by Rose), this was probably a good call. The later use in the mind wipe scene was better. But on the other hand it means that we now semi-canonically have confirmation that that song is still part of the Doctor’s life.

And it means now we have to start to get after the powers that be to not only release a Series 9 soundtrack, but a Series 10 one as well.

[anotheruserwithnoname]

Thoughts on Pyramid at the End of the World

(Spoilers, obviously)

It took to episode 7, but Series 10 finally gave me an episode that I can call great. Although I had a few minor issues, this was a good one. I’m not going to apologize for being disappointed with the series up till now, but this one hit the target.

- The monks’ plan was a bit easier to parse this time around.

- Erica to be a new companion, please, Mr Moffat or Mr Chibnall. I got very strong Osgood vibes from her which is a good thing. If she doesn’t become a companion, maybe Moffat can steal another idea from RTD and have her get a job with UNIT so she can show up in the Chibnall era.

- That said, Bill was fantastic this episode. Ironically she’s doing stuff in this episode that Clara was condemned for doing. I wonder if anyone realizes that?

- Nardole was great as well and had some great lines. “...and beer” might be the ad-lib of the year. (It had to be an ad-lib).

- Although they are mentioned, why UNIT isn’t involved in this makes zero sense. Something I found interesting: UNIT used to mean United Nations Intelligence Taskforce until the real UN complained in 2005 and they were forced to make it “Unified”. But they were able to use the UN name and symbols in Pyramid ... is it possible UNIT might be allowed to go back to its original name?

- I was upset by a teaser Doctor Who TV posted on Thursday that suggested a line of dialogue might decanonize Kill the Moon (ironically another Peter Harness episode). Of course decanonizing KTM is to decanonize TwelveClara. But all the Doctor does is use the metaphor “dead as the moon” to a group of people in c2017 who aren’t supposed to know what the moon really is ... that line decanonizes squat. And it’s another reason I won’t be reading nor soliciting teasers going forward.

- For the record, I watched the episode in Canada and could detect no line of dialogue that might have been cut post-Manchester in a UK showing. I assume we saw the same version over here then.

Anyway, good episode and the first one of the season I liked top to bottom (which has the knock-on of making Extremis better too). Roll on episode 8.

[anotheruserwithnoname]

So what is in the vault?

There’s been a lot of speculation regarding what is in the Vault the Doctor and Nardole are guarding. With the latest issue of DWM out in the UK giving a timeline for when we’ll find out, I thought I’d give my guesses.

Obviously there will be spoilers as I’m going to mention things that have already been spoiled by the BBC and others. I’m also going to include a major spoiler from the final episode of Class so if you’re following that show on BBC America and don’t know what happens in the finale, you might want to skip this one.

First, who won’t be in the vault: River and Clara. River because Nardole is too antagonistic towards whoever is in there, plus it would be rather cruel for the Doctor to lock his wife away. The same applies to Clara: why would the Doctor lock another woman he loved away in a vault? I also can’t see it being the First Doctor because it would make no sense to do so.

So who might be?

1. The Simm Master: Not really a shocking one, but considering DWM is saying we’ll find out what’s in the vault during Extremis and I believe that’s the start of the Missy storyline during which the Simm Master is expected to return, it sort of makes sense. It could also be Missy herself but that would be a bit dull.

2. A Weeping Angel. This would be a huge disappointment, but when Extremis was produced everyone assumed Class would be a massive hit, and there had to be a reason why the Weeping Angels were suddenly parachuted into the show’s Series 1 finale rather than something Patrick Ness created. Moffat has also said he wants a second series of the spin-off. I wouldn’t put it past him to try and tie things into the finale of Class.

3. The Thirteenth Doctor: Not exactly sure what he’d have to gain from it, but if they’re planning to introduce the next Doctor in a unique way, that’s one way to do it. Points against this is I can’t see them introducing Thirteen in an episode not written by Chris Chibnall.

These three I wouldn’t be surprised about. The Simm Master one is in fact my assumption at this point in time. But here’s who I hope is in the vault:

4. The Twelfth Doctor: Moffat loves his timey-wimey and I could totally see Twelve imprisoning his future self, perhaps to prevent regeneration, perhaps to prevent the coming of the Hybrid, or perhaps to prevent the coming of the Valeyard. It would be wild for them to reveal that the individual seen so far in Series 10 isn’t the Doctor, but I think that’s a bridge too far. That said - remember the gangers?

[anotheruserwithnoname]

You call S10 to be worst modern DW so far? Worse than RTD's episode where the woman got turned into a paving stone, but TennantDoctor let her live, because she could still give her boyfriend a blowjob? Worse than Tennant's Floating Fairy Jesus Doctor? I'm amazed... and glad that I've never been into DW for the shipping, as it unfairly pits characters against each other whom the Doctor has the right to love in different ways. If DW must be overwrought soap opera, let him be polyamorous!

Actually, my opinion on this has nothing to do with shipping. And in both cases you mention, those are only single episodes because Love and Monsters occurred in the same season that gave us the triumphant return of Sarah Jane Smith in School Reunion, the first non-Caucasian TV companion in Mickey Smith, The Girl in the Fireplace (which stood as, in my opinion and that of many others, the best-ever episode of Doctor Who for a time), and the incredible Army of Ghosts/Doomsday which saw the Daleks and the Cybermen square off for the first time ever (and, yes, there was that amazing ending. No one should apologize for shipping characters and I’m a TenRose shipper as well).

As for “Last of the Time Lords”, while RTD went a bit over the top with the “floating Jesus” bit, that was still the storyline that introduced the John Simm Master who everyone is gaga over seeing again this year, plus Series 3 gave us Utopia with Derek Jacobi reintroducing the character. And it gave us Blink which is considered by many to be the best episode of Doctor Who to this day. Plus it gave us Paul Cornell’s Human Nature, Chris Chibnall’s brilliant 42 … and, oh, yes, Series 3 gave us Martha Jones. Although I’ve been critical of the character (I liked her better in Torchwood and Series 4), I’ve never said she wasn’t a significant companion.

So yeah - I stand by what I say. Series 10 has yet to give me personally anything that stands up to any of the examples I give above (even factoring in that Series 2 had Fear Her, an episode I considered the worst Modern Era episode until The Husbands of River Song). I’m still waiting for a Blink, for a Girl in the Fireplace, for a Doctor’s Wife. Oxygen was not, Extremis was not (in fact it comes close to Sleep No More territory for me). I also judge things by rewatchability and not a single Series 10 episode has inspired me to rewatch. Whereas every episode - even the crap ones - of Series 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and the specials up to 2014′s Last Christmas were watched at least 3 times by me. Series 10 stands as the first Doctor Who series that I’m not even interested in buying on DVD. If it continues this way. But the series is still only at the halfway point. We still have the return of the Simm Master and the proper reintroduction of Missy to come. Plus the Empress of Mars and Cybermen storylines. Plus the return of Classic Era writer Rona Munro. Plus while I said Extremis didn’t set the world on fire for me I also said I wouldn’t pass judgement on it till I saw all 3 chapters. To be honest I wasn’t that keen on The Zygon Invasion - until I saw it with part 2.

[anotheruserwithnoname]

Thoughts about Oxygen

Space, the Canadian network that airs Doctor Who, had a breakdown in a number of parts of Canada during the showing of Oxygen tonight. In my part of Canada we lost the last 10 minutes. My dad in Saskatchewan reported the episode went off at the midway point and came back just in time for the ending. Fortunately this is 2017 and there are alternatives. But of all times for the satellite feed to mess up! 😡

Anyway, a spoiler break first. Click at your peril.

Finally, after 4 rather mixed episodes, Oxygen delivers Series 10′s first stone classic. From the amazing effects to a life-changing event with the Doctor, this was a good one.

First and foremost, this is the episode where the Doctor’s new team finally gels. With Nardole now fully on board, and Bill asking questions of more weight than the location of the toilet, things are now at full speed. Some interesting revelations about Nardole along the way too.

Some of the politics in the episode were a bit sledgehammery but if you think this is something new for Doctor Who, I suggest checking out the Tom Baker story The Sun Makers which also gave the establishment a kick.

Of course the thing everyone will be talking about is the fact the Doctor is now blind. This also isn’t new - I recall a classic Trek episode where Spock was also rendered blind, for example. It’s a bit of a cliche but it has the benefit of having never been tried (as far as I can recall) on DW, and “plot-related blindness” is usually solved by the end of the episode. Of course we think that here too, only to find he’s still blind. This is going to open some amazing doors for Peter Capaldi’s performance and I look forward to seeing how he handles the part. Hopefully his sight will be restored before he (inevitably) sees Clara again. We can’t take promo images from later in the season at face value anymore, not since this episode included a trailer moment that had been altered to hide the Doctor’s blindness earlier.

The trailer for next week looks intriguing, including confirmation that Missy will return. I am a both concerned and intrigued at the presence of River Song’s diary, but then she was an archaeologist. (Only thing is how did he get her diary if it was left behind at The Library back in Forest of the Dead?)

Anyway, hand’s down, “Oxygen” was the best episode of Series 5 so far, and another home run for Jamie Mathieson. Next up, the ball goes back into Steven Moffat’s court....