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Doctor Who Series 9 |OT| Let Zygons Be Zygons

Cat

Member
The more I reflect on this episode, the more I dislike it, especially with that scene with the soldiers being tricked. Also, it felt scattered and dragged in taking too long to set up for next episode.
 

Grizzlyjin

Supersonic, idiotic, disconnecting, not respecting, who would really ever wanna go and top that
I thought this was pretty sloppy. Not as bad as the kids in the forest episode from last year, but pretty close.
 
"I've seen the business plan" is a bollocks quote, as with a company like the BBC you just never know. RTD was saying shit like this during Series 2, saying the show was indestructible, but then during Series 3 it came dangerously close to being cancelled once RTD left, he had to fight for them to do the showrunner switch thing, as for a good time the BBC plan was to wind it off when RTD was done - that's how fast things can change back and forth.

It's good that he's confident, though! And I think if the rumours are true and there's a whole lot less Who next year it'll actually do the show good.

Wait didn't RTD leave after S4 specials?

The fact it was almost cancelled that early is nuts to me.
 

Mr-Joker

Banned
The Zygon episode was bad and there was moment where I got bored.

Also the solders deserved to die if they fell for an easy trap.
 
Wait didn't RTD leave after S4 specials?

The fact it was almost cancelled that early is nuts to me.

During Series 3 RTD got particularly sick. Between having a longer-term illness that year, Torchwood and Sarah Jane Adventures, he was spread extremely thin. This is why some massive swathes of Series 3 have some really rough quality issues -- the most impacted episodes allegedly being the Dalek two-parter - because he didn't have as much time to edit and do his passes on things. Similarly, this is why the finale has problems in its conclusion - he wrote it in a rush, and by his own concession wrote The Last of the Time Lords in about six days, because he was running so far behind from being sick earlier.

RTD had always intended for Series 4 to be his last, but in the period when he was sick during Series 3 and without his knowledge the BBC - and RTD's peers like Producers Julie Gardner & Phil Collinson - began to make mid-term plans to wind the show down after Series 4 alongside him leaving, because the Series 3 disarray was, to an extent, proof that without a strong runner the show couldn't function properly. When he was better, he allegedly swept back in and unravelled all those plans and was the first person to approach Moffat to ask him if he'd be interested in taking over. When it became clear Moffat would need a year to get a new production team into place (when it emerged that Gardner, Collinson and other key figures would also leave with RTD), he proposed the year of specials tacked on the end. That's sort of why Journey's End has that 'all companions together' thing, because when it was originally conceived, it would've been the end of that era. Gardner and RTD stayed for the specials, but by the time all the plans shifted Collinson had already accepted another job, so he didn't produce the last 4 stories of the RTD run despite doing the entire previous four years.

So, yeah - for a brief period there, the show was in serious jeopardy, yeah.

RTD had a history on the show of waltzing into BBC Board Rooms and reversing decisions in order to 'save' bits of the fandom. When the show relaunched in 2005 and was successful, the Big Finish license renewal was coming up. The BBC intended to cancel the license; RTD quite famously interrupted the discussion about it and told the merch people not to worry about Big Finish, that he'd take care of it; and the way he took care of it was to do quietly absolutely nothing and let the renewal go through. He did a lot of stuff like that over the years.
 
Journey's End was such a perfect ending to the RTD and Tennant era. End of Time was like that final episode of Star Trek Enterprise where the penultimate episode was a good ending and the final episode was like
getting electro shock therapy whilst bathing in battery acid- a bad idea all round.
 

Philippo

Member
I am always impressed by Clara's outfits and fashion they're always spot on, although i personally loved her more teacher-y look from previous seasons.

Episode was pretty shit, dat Evil Clara tho, so sexy.
 

Philippo

Member
I must admit, my biggest takeaway from this is that Zygon!Clara is the sexiest person to ever appear on this show by a wide margin.

My God Yes.

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That red lipstick is pure madness.
 
I thought all the episodes so far had been good, but still not classic defining DW episode in this (or last) season, I do think last week episode came close but it was really not tight enough, too many conflicting characteristic in Ashildr/Me character that really can't be resolved by "I was blind but know I see" mentality.

I mean we are talking about a philosophy she developed over 900 years, In which everything is fleeting and the only thing that drive her is learning and improving, they could really have done some great things with that, like positioning her to be the Doctor Next big rival, that would also make sense in the context of the current season they humanized Davros a bit earlier and now they could show the corruption taking place with a new character.
_____
So what are the current theories with the hybrid thing?why is The Doctor looking for one?
 
I'm still betting on the return of Human Dalek Sec.

Alternatively, Clara becomes a Human-Timelord hybrid in the finale, and that's why she has to leave the Tardis, since that's never supposed to happen. I'm sure that's never been done before.
 

Blader

Member
You say this in context of an episode whereby we find the dramatically and quickly killed Osgood from last year is back...kinda....sorta...because of reasons.

Thats definitely a Moffat thing to do.

Huh? There were always two Osgoods from the 50th. One died last year, the second is the one we just saw in this ep.
 

hamchan

Member
I think that the church scene was easily the best of the episode, and a damned good candidate of best of the series so far.

It was dirty, psychological warfare against soldiers who weren't trained for it. Moaning that the soldiers aren't acting logically is rather missing the point.

If this had been a Torchwood episode (and, frankly, it wasn't far away at times) the soldier would have shot his mum only to find that she was telling the truth.

There's not acting logically and there's acting like people with no brains at all. You don't want to shoot something that looks like your mother, fine. But to then walk into the church with them?! One of the stupidest things I've seen UNIT do and that's saying something with how incompetent they are.

I think there were some good things in this episode. This was not one of them.
 

Dalek

Member
I just saw that Jenna Coleman is going to be a guest at the San Francisco Comic-Con on Sept 2 2016. I'm thinking of taking my daughter since she's a huge fan of Clara. Kids get in free to the convention-adults are like 50 bucks and then Jenna is charging $50 per signing/photo. I'm not wise to the convention circuit-is this normal?
 

somedevil

Member
I just saw that Jenna Coleman is going to be a guest at the San Francisco Comic-Con on Sept 2 2016. I'm thinking of taking my daughter since she's a huge fan of Clara. Kids get in free to the convention-adults are like 50 bucks and then Jenna is charging $50 per signing/photo. I'm not wise to the convention circuit-is this normal?

Seems so. There is a Rhode Island comic con and Carrie Fisher is 80 dollars and fellow Doctor Who alums Alex Kingston and Karen Gillian are 40 and 55 dollars.
 

hamchan

Member
I just saw that Jenna Coleman is going to be a guest at the San Francisco Comic-Con on Sept 2 2016. I'm thinking of taking my daughter since she's a huge fan of Clara. Kids get in free to the convention-adults are like 50 bucks and then Jenna is charging $50 per signing/photo. I'm not wise to the convention circuit-is this normal?

Peter Capaldi is charging $60 down here in the Australian convention so it's normal.

I always find it a bit weird because it's like treating these famous people like objects but I know if I was them I would totally do it for easy, fast money. Also gives some good memories for the kids.
 
I'll just say that if , one day i'll plan to kill the doctor , i'll call him on the phone first to tell him that i'm just about to kill him.

Because that's obviously the best course of action.
 

Htown

STOP SHITTING ON MY MOTHER'S HEADSTONE
You say this in context of an episode whereby we find the dramatically and quickly killed Osgood from last year is back...kinda....sorta...because of reasons.

Thats definitely a Moffat thing to do.

You definitely weren't paying attention to the beginning of the episode.
 

BTails

Member
Probably the weakest episode of the series so far for me, though I loved the reference to the UNIT Dating Controversy. I also wish the Doctor would start calling Kate "Brigadier"
 

Goldrush

Member
This episode made me realize that my favorite aspect of Doctor Who is the banter. The previous episode have a near nonsensical plot, but was completely saved by the back and forth between the Doctor and Me. This episode splits everyone apart and, despite the twists and turns, was just boring. No surprised that my favorite part was the one conversation Osgood and the Doctor had.
 

Blues1990

Member
The only thing that bothered me about this episode, is the presence of "Osgood". It was hard to tell the difference between the original and her Zygon duplicate, and given that one of them was knocked off by the Mistress last season, I'm so unsure who's who. If the human Osgood was killed, how come the Zygon Osgood hasn't reverted to her original form, what without access to the original pattern? (Yeah, I know she said they have upgraded their abilities, but if so, what's the point of keeping Clara alive?)
 

Dryk

Member
If the human Osgood was killed, how come the Zygon Osgood hasn't reverted to her original form, what without access to the original pattern? (Yeah, I know she said they have upgraded their abilities, but if so, what's the point of keeping Clara alive?)
This was specifically addressed in the episode. They no longer need the person to copy them but it gives them access to their memories so they still have an incentive to keep them alive.
 

mclem

Member
You say this in context of an episode whereby we find the dramatically and quickly killed Osgood from last year is back...kinda....sorta...because of reasons.

Thats definitely a Moffat thing to do.

To be fair, those 'reasons' were heavily foreshadowed, they didn't come out of nowhere!
 

Trike

Member
Another inconsistency: how are the Zygons back? Didn't the Fourth Doctor kill them all in Terror of the Zygons? Damn you Moffat, damn you to hell.
 

Razmos

Member
moreover the episode did not even mention this:

Sting_of_the_Zygons.jpg


IS NO CONTINUITY SACRED IN THIS SERIES
I have that book <3

It was my first introduction to the Zygons and I thought they were pretty cool. I have a box set of ten 10th doctor and Martha novels and they were all brilliant.

I also have 2 8th Doctor Books which I haven't read and didn't even realize I had until recently
 
I don't see the point of having a time machine if you're not going to use it expressly to mess with continuity and piss off the pedants.
 

Boem

Member
Another inconsistency: how are the Zygons back? Didn't the Fourth Doctor kill them all in Terror of the Zygons? Damn you Moffat, damn you to hell.

He didn't, just the group that was there - the rest of the Zygon fleet was coming but the Doctor just delayed them for a couple of thousand years. Continuity saved!
 
Been rewatching the RTD era seasons, and man. There's so much good stuff in them. Midnight's gotta be one of my favourite episodes of all time.
 

liquidtmd

Banned
To be fair, those 'reasons' were heavily foreshadowed, they didn't come out of nowhere!

True. But having 'two' characters with the same actor in a show is only a step away from having an evil twin where the only difference is a moustache.

Actually I take it all back and apologise - when the sexy evil twin is Clara, all bets are off
 

Goldrush

Member
I just saw that Jenna Coleman is going to be a guest at the San Francisco Comic-Con on Sept 2 2016. I'm thinking of taking my daughter since she's a huge fan of Clara. Kids get in free to the convention-adults are like 50 bucks and then Jenna is charging $50 per signing/photo. I'm not wise to the convention circuit-is this normal?

Sounds normal to me. A recent con here have ~50 for an autograph from Alex Kingston or Arthur Darvill and 100+ for a photograph. Also, bring cash as some don't accept credit cards.
 
She went there to investigate. New Mexico was where Osgood was, and got captured. Presumably this is where the Zygon "revolution" began. She went there alone because it was secret, secret.

Theory:
She already suspected that the woman she met there was a Zygon, and took it out after it revealed itself. We never actually saw her getting "zapped", and never saw a body on the ground. Zygons' gonna be tricked.

This makes tons of sense.

Anyway...

Somebody up top said this felt like an RTD episode, and not in a good way. I do really prefer the RTD years but this criticism is spot-on. And I was so looking forward to a good alien invasion story, too! I suppose part 2 could wrap things up well.

I had a hard time evaluating this episode at first, because I kept getting lost. I was sleepy when I watched it and had to re-watch later, which helped. But the editing seemed like a mess-- lots of jumps to other locales, leaving things hanging. Bleah.

Anyway, some good ideas in here, amidst the messy storytelling. Hopefully part 2 pays off.

Also, Big Finish 8th Doctor spoilers:
The Zygon body rules mess up one of the things I loved about the 8th Doctor stories and Auntie Pat.
 
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