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Doctor Who Series 9 |OT| Let Zygons Be Zygons

ag-my001

Member
Liked all the callbacks.

1) Diner from Impossible Astronaut.

2) Cabin from the 50th.

3) Weeping Angel moving when a body blocked the camera view.

4) Reconstructing Clara from the "holes" left, a la the Great Intelligence.

5) and a bunch of others that have already been pointed out.

Enjoyable overall. For those who say we learned nothing of the Time Lords, two things. First, Moffat has said it was a mistake to demystify them in the past, so don't expect much. Second, they are scared. They are back in the universe but hiding. They seem naive in wondering why everyone hates them. They want to avoid another war so badly they'll do pretty much whatever the Doctor tells them to. I'd say that's something in the way of development.

My only disappointment was that diner Clara wasn't a time splinter that would 'save' him by helping him move on, but sadly that wouldn't fit with what they went with.
 
I'm getting a bit sick of every prophecy being about the Doctor.

EDIT: Wait, why was the Doctor running away because of the hybrid prophecy again? I'll have to go back and see if they answer exactly why he was running.

That line from Ashildr to him, and his reaction to it, very much suggests he ran from Gallifrey because he was afraid he was the Hybrid in the story they told him.

So I guess not only did Moffat insert Clara into the Doctor's timestream (having her point out which Tardis to steal) and then put her under his bed during a formative moment in his childhood, but he made the Doctor's choice to run from Gallifrey dependent on the Hybrid prophecy he invented for this season's big hook.

Going forward, we have a Gallifrey at the end of the universe just kinda standing pat, a Sisterhood of Karn that's kind of annoyed at him, and a High Council of Gallifrey floating around space all sorts of embarrassed, ashamed, and pissed off.

And Missy.
 

tuffy

Member
It's weird how an episode set on Gallifrey much of the time would get regeneration wrong in a couple of spots. Any weapon that kills Time Lords instantly doesn't leave them any time to regenerate, so they just die. That's how it was back in "the Deadly Assassin" and "Turn Left", and why the Dalek death ray had to only graze the Doctor in "the Stolen Earth".

So the Gallifreyan firing squad shouldn't have needed to use up all the lives the Doctor was given, nor should the general have gotten back up again when blasted with his own staser pistol. Time Lord weapons should be especially good at killing Time Lords outright, after all.

I would've preferred those scenes if they'd treated regenerations a little less like extra lives in Super Mario Bros.
 

Trike

Member
This episode was a big letdown. I don't really have much more to add than that. I think this is a worse exit for Clara than Face the Raven would have been. At least the kept the theme of making Clara unnecessarily important until the end.
 
I'll have to side with the people that hated this episode. I was watching it with my family, and we were silent for most of it, until we started heckling it toward the end. The Time Lords are lame as hell whenever they are actually shown, and Rassilon was handled much better in "The End of Time". Things were dragged out like crazy, and the entire Gallifrey segment indeed felt like just an afterthought designed to explain how Clara is back. And I hate that Clara has become the most important companion of all time, and more over, is still alive.
 

Magwik

Banned
I would've preferred those scenes if they'd treated regenerations a little less like extra lives in Super Mario Bros.
I actually liked it. Went well the the "regenerations are like the man flu" line
From the viewer perspective it's built up and this grandiosise life changing thing
To the time lords it's just a slight inconvenience like getting a cold and then going back to business
 

M.Bluth

Member
Ok, I liked parts of it and really hated others.
I really like the idea of the Doctor trying to go back and save Clara, I think they handled how far he's gonna go pretty well, and while I'm not all that thrilled about the whole memory wipe thing, it fits. The relationship had to end and the two must part ways for good.

But I would have preferred if they weren't so explicit about having Clara go on adventures with Ashildar as her companion. I mean, yes, I get it, Moffat, it's cool you're securing future work for those actors at Big Finish, but if you're gonna have that, be a bit vague with it, man!

Funnily enough, I rather like that the Doctor arrived to Gallifrey at a point where he couldn't care less about it. The whole Rassilon thing was weird, though.
 

OmegaFax

Member
Thought this was the best episode of Capaldi's run. Normally not a huge fan of the show and this episode got off to a slow burn but found it incredibly entertaining. Though, the story had a few problems. It doesn't really address Missy or "The Day of the Doctor" or how many regenerations the Doctor had left ... though, Missy is mentioned and the Doctor returns to the barn. It weirdly tied a lot of things together but it was in references and not resolutions. Seeing another TARDIS was neat. The Doctor and Clara's exchange was touching. There was a lot of heart in their scenes ... though, it felt a bit much after a while.
 

Blader

Member
To be fair, if you thought the Hybrid thing went nowhere, you weren't watching at all anyway.

It's actually a pretty interesting payoff to the Doctor and Clara's relationship imo. The "arc" of this season -- and really S8 as well -- wasn't building to some external big threat, it was building to themselves.
 

liquidtmd

Banned
Its hard to care about Gallifrey or the Time Lords generally outside of the Doctor because their depiction is usually of being Prequel Jedi-esque politically incompetent twats.

We as an audience are supposed to care because the stakes are personal - I.e. he's on his home turf, its his own species, he vowed to save and find Gallifrey. Why? Why should the audience care when they are just arseholes and not all that interesting dramatically to boot?
 

Bluth54

Member
Overall I thought we got a good episode. Some of the early stuff dragged a bit but the ending with Clara and Me was a great send off.





That quote from Moffat says he doesn't know when series 10 will air (which is BS, he may not know the exactly start date but he has a general idea when it will air he probably just can't say yet).

It's not possible for them to finish a full season of Doctor Who if they start filming in April or May. They have to start filming in January to be ready by late August or September.

The best case scenario is a split season with a few episodes at the end of the year and the Christmas episode in the middle of the season, though honestly I just personally think it's more likely they want Who to just be an show that airs early in the year and they're moving it to a January or February start date from here on out.
 
What a load of crap. So much handwaving and pointless shit. Like Gallifrey was entirely pointless in the end, just a way to bring Clara back and since this show doesn't care to explain a billion other things the Doctor might as well have just pulled her from his ass, it wouldn't have changed the story.

And the Doctor didn't remember those 4 billion years or whatever it was, he should only remember about a day or so, so who gives a crap about it.
 
Welp, I told ya'll the Gallifrey episodes never work. What was the last really good episode with Gallifrey in it? The Deadly Assassin?

It's even worse now that we're expected to believe the most technologically advanced culture in the universe can't terraform their own planet, the central core of their power and knowledge is a Scooby Doo haunted house in the local VFW hall, and I wouldn't have thought it possible but Moffat somehow found something even dumber to do with Rassilon than resurrect him as an evil Timothy Dalton.

Anyways, ignoring, well, everything parading around in the clown costume of a plot, this was another character and dialog focused episode like The Zygon Inversion that utilizes good performances and pacing to keep your attention as the plot holes fly by. Overall I thought it pulled it off fairly well honestly, but a pale shadow of last week's episode.

The bits that were clever were fairly clever, and the last 15 minutes almost made up for the paper thin setup. The culmination of the Doctor and Clara's relationship being a rejection of former companion sendoffs and an acceptance that they were too much alike felt good, even cathartic. Maybe I just liked it because I felt what they did to Donna was the bigget pile of shit ever done to a companion.

Best thing this episode gives us is the velvet coat returns. Worst thing this gives us is the possibility of Rassilon and Missy teaming up for next year's finale.
 

DrForester

Kills Photobucket
I enjoyed that quite a bit.

They retconned Clara's death a bit, but I don't think it could have been done in a better way. Having her and Me flying around in their own TARDIS is a screwing with the status quo that opens up lots of new story possibilities.
 

firehawk12

Subete no aware
With the set up we had, I just don't get why Moffat didn't just do the actually sensible emotionally resonant thing: The Clara in the diner was one of the Clara's seeded throughout time, and he was seeing her for some closure. Clara deciding that her life wasn't worth the irreparable damage to space and time that her being around caused. The Doctor not being a spoiled child.

You know, stuff like that.
They could have just done an entire episode about their relationship instead of whatever it was they did. That and the whole "Me" thing with Ishelda basically went nowhere.
 
Was a pretty good finale. Capaldi had one of his best performances ever. I kind of wished that they had gone the predictable route of having him converse with a splinter instead of the usual "everybody lives" ending. Me and Clara does make an interesting duo, though. Loved the retro console room, too. Oh, and the hillbilly gallifreyans were hilariously awful haha
 
Also, Clara's transition to becoming The Doctor was solidified when the Doctor responded to her name with "Clara WHO."

Sneaky bullshit like that all over this episode. "Lay down your weapon!" (throws down a spoon)
 
I need to rewatch the three of them in tandem to be properly sure, but I'm feeling like Face The Raven/ Heaven Sent/ Hell Bent probably represent one of the Moffat era's finest achievements.
 

Hamlet

Member
Episode was a tad messy at times but I still loved it especially the last 10 minutes. Great send off the Clara if a pretty heartbreaking one for the Doctor.
 

8bit

Knows the Score
tumblr_nywyj05eYr1rylr5to2_400.gif
 
Nah, you'll need to explain that one there.

I'd call a season long tease culminating for the hybrid, the talk of the doom and destruction wrought, and the time lord's fear of it and their manipulation of the doctor as a result, just for it to be the doctor and his companion's resulting adventures as going pretty fucking nowhere personally.

It was a vague fucking prophecy the stuffy, feckless Time Lords overreacted over. And yes, it almost came true - the Hybrid of the Doctor and Clara almost destroyed the universe simply by how addicted they were to each others' company.

The running theme of the series has been how utterly unhealthy the Doctor and Clara's relationship has been. That was the season long tease - the tease of the Hybrid was just a buzzword. And if it had turned out to be just a monster, it would have been fucking DULL. Same for if it had been Ashildr.

Bad Wolf was Rose and no-one seemed to mind that.
 
I felt like a huge ass for not shedding a single tear during Clara's death.

But this episode I wept for almost the entire final act. I think I made up for it.
 
A clever thing i like about the prophecy is that the 'he will burn a billion hearts to heal his own' isn't reffering to galifrey or anywhere really, its reffering to the billions of doctors in heaven sent that burned so that the survivour could heal his heart at the end of the uNiverse.
 

mclem

Member
Interestingly, there wasn't any truth to the "Doctor working backwards after Clara died to keep seeing her" theories. Which does make some of the more fatalistic turns of phrase used seem a bit odd.
 

Razmos

Member
Looking back over this series, I really enjoyed it from start to finish.

I thought The Girl Who Died and The Zygon Invasion and Sleep no More were pretty naff, but the second part usually made them better, with the exception of Sleep No More which was still a dud, but there is "wiggle room" for a few duds every series, there always is.

The 3 part finale in particular was fantastic. Clara had the best ending I could imagine for her, and these 3 episodes have firmly cemented Peter Capaldi as my Doctor. I never really grew attached to 9, 10 or 11, but the final scene with 12 putting on his doctory velvet coat and grabbing his new sonic screwdriver just made go "Yep, this is it, this is my Doctor"

It's amazing to think of how Peter Capaldi has come since his introductory series and how people were concerned that he wasn't really leaving a mark as his own doctor, and now we have brilliant episodes like Heaven Sent where people can do nothing but praise him as a fantastic doctor.
 

Johndoey

Banned
I know its been said already but really Raven and Heaven Sent worked as a strong exit for Clara, this cheapens her bravery. Also really stretching hybrid.
 

LogicGoat

Neo Member
Hi all,

I was wondering if anyone knew where I could obtain those Doctor Who Adventure games that were released ~2010. (The ones that used to be available to download on this page)

I never got round to downloading them at the time but am interested in checking them out at some point.

Thanks for any help. =)
 
Hi all,

I was wondering if anyone knew where I could obtain those Doctor Who Adventure games that were released ~2010. (The ones that used to be available to download on this page)

I never got round to downloading them at the time but am interested in checking them out at some point.

Thanks for any help. =)
They're not free but Bundlestars have them and there's a sale every few days so i'd put good odds on a discount again soon.
Bundle Stars - Dr Who The Adventure Series. They're also on Steam.
 

hamchan

Member
Interestingly, there wasn't any truth to the "Doctor working backwards after Clara died to keep seeing her" theories. Which does make some of the more fatalistic turns of phrase used seem a bit odd.

It is indeed very weird.

Now it just seems like the writers were giving a knowing wink towards the audience because everyone knew Clara was leaving.

Which is a weird thing to do in nearly every episode but maybe they wanted to make build some dread with the audience, despite the morbid phrases not really fitting with the episodes.
 

Snow

Member
Was a pretty good finale. Capaldi had one of his best performances ever. I kind of wished that they had gone the predictable route of having him converse with a splinter instead of the usual "everybody lives" ending. Me and Clara does make an interesting duo, though. Loved the retro console room, too. Oh, and the hillbilly gallifreyans were hilariously awful haha

Wonder if that was a callback to the wastelanders in Invasion of TIme.
 
Well it wasn't funny and didn't help answer my question.

I'm sorry, that was rude.

Cold open with Doctor Who driving through the Nevada desert. He stops at a suspiciously familiar diner. Clara, the waitress, greets him and he remarks that she's English. Neither appears to recognise the other. He plays a few bars of Clara's theme on his guitar, and they get talking about this girl Clara, whom he can't remember but whose presence in his life he had pieced together from the hole she left behind. There's your framing device and cue theme tune and credits.

Now in flashback Doctor Who is on Gallifrey where we left him last week. He walks up to The Barn (the only one on the planet, apparently). When the residents discover him they recognise him instantly and, despite their misgivings ("they'll kill you! ") they offer him soup. After that it all gets a bit spaghetti westernish, if spaghetti westerns had gigantic spaceships.
 

sturmdogg

Member
So why did Clara choose the diner as the setting for their last meeting? Did she know about Amy, Rory, River, and the Impossible Astronaut?
 

HowZatOZ

Banned
That episode just felt way too convoluted of a storyline. Plot lines were being thrown around and nothing was really being solved, but I guess that's Mofatt for you.
 

Rymuth

Member
Pretty much my feelings right now D:
I think I managed to process it now. :)
The catharsis of 12s feelings for Clara.
And it worked. Capaldi's the best thing this series could've asked for.

Still don't like Ashildur/Me - maybe its the character or maybe it's the acting.

I considered saying she's a useless character but she probably served as a red herring for the whole hybrid thing.
 
Hah, knew they weren't done with Clara, but still interesting that she's 'dead' and is only merely living out here last few seconds before having to head back and die.
 

Kurdel

Banned
A clever thing i like about the prophecy is that the 'he will burn a billion hearts to heal his own' isn't reffering to galifrey or anywhere really, its reffering to the billions of doctors in heaven sent that burned so that the survivour could heal his heart at the end of the uNiverse.

Didn't realize that, nice catch!
 
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