Dr. Who

[Ironwood]

Which would be fine if he even had the courage of his convictions, but he doesn't because he doesn't care.  What did we see about Gallifrey ?  What did we learn ?  What bits of interest were there ?  Was the Doctor supported by 'the people' in that scene because he was one of them before his promotion to Timelord ?  Who were they ?  How does it work on that planet ?  Was that his mum ?  His Nurse ?  His Landlady ?    So he went MAD and left the planet ?  Wasn't that The Master ?  Are you just dicking with us now ?

What was the Hybrid ?  Why did it matter ?  What did it do ?  The Universe split in half ?  Why didn't it ?  Did it ?  Does it matter ?  What happened ?  When did he get the prophecy from and who and why did he put any stock in it ?  How did the Dalek get in there ?  What was bad enough that it was a sad suicidal Dalek ?  How did the Weeping Angels get caught AND still manage to go superfast behind Clara ?  Why did it catch them ?  They're just stone, right, you said so in your first episode.  But then retconned it in your second.  Then you fucked a chicken in your third.  You utter, utter Scottish Smug Cunt.

The wee Viking lassie survives into the heath death of the universe ?  Why ?  Did she really stand in the ruins of Gallifrey ?  Since everything dies what does that matter ?  She can fly a TARDIS with a manual ?  She can't even remember her fucking name.  Clara's not dead ?  Was it the niceness of the ass and firmness of the tits that keep her alive ?  Or was it the slightly upturned and sharp nose or the doe eyes ?  How does that chip technology last ?  I get that you can fix yourself, but it's mechanical on some level ?  It lasts forever ?  The TARDIS turned into a diner ?  Isn't that retarded ?  Like, utterly ? 

He can't remember Clara, except that two seconds later Clara makes it clear who she is and runs away.  So, what's the point.  What's THE POINT ?  WHAT'S THE POINT ??  WHAT IS THE POINT ?  DOCTOR WHOO ?  WHOOOOO   WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO?

He thinks 'more and mysterious questions' are in any way fulfilling.  A constant cocktease by a bearded lady.

I'd really like a season where The Doctor runs around foiling some clever enemies in a clever way and a companion can be there and explain it to the kids, but won't need to for the adults because it'll actually make some form of sense.  I'd like us to get the fuck off this Fairy Tale Shite because Fairy Tales don't make any cunting sense and that's why we call them fucking fairy tales.

[Tmon]

...I'd really like a season where The Doctor runs around foiling some clever enemies in a clever way and a companion can be there and explain it to the kids, but won't need to for the adults because it'll actually make some form of sense.  I'd like us to get the fuck off this Fairy Tale Shite because Fairy Tales don't make any cunting sense and that's why we call them fucking fairy tales.

This so much this.  I've only kept watching because I enjoy watching Capaldi tear his way through even the shifty stuff.

[HaemishM]

The whole Ashildr chip thing makes no goddamn sense anyway. If she's the only entity that survives until the heat death of the universe because of the chip that he put in her, wouldn't all the cunts who had that chip in them originally, the original race he stole the chip from, wouldn't they all be there too? I mean, it's the same fucking technology, so saying that's keeping her alive would mean that whole race could never have been wiped out, right? Little details that like that are SO infuriating because you may not think of them when you are watching the show other than a "Wait a minute..." but the more you think about it, the more they really drive you fucking nuts. And this three-parter (plus the other 2 episodes with Ashildr) are entirely constructed of total and utter bullshit. The Hybrid thing was total bullshit because in the end, it didn't matter either because none of them actually said who or what the Hybrid was. Gallifrey was completely fucking wasted, it wasn't even material to the story other than as an excuse to bring Clara back and then immediately forgotten. And you'd think if they could put the Doctor in the confessional and make that whole thing work, they'd 1) be able to find the missing Tardis with Clara and Ashildr and 2) be able to circumvent whatever the goddamn crow thing was because it didn't last to the heat death of the universe but Ashildr did and....


AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Goddamnit, it's such incredibly terrible, lazy fuckstupid writing.

[Evildrider]

I thought they stated what the hybrid was... it was the combination of Doctor and Clara.

[Khaldun]

Yeah, the idea that if you put a chip from a Mire into a human being they survive everything until the end of Time just seems stupid. It's that easy, then? Particularly since Ashildr herself says that she can be killed--she doesn't have regenerations or anything of the sort. 20 billion years or whatever is a fucking long time to avoid having even one serious accident.

[HaemishM]

But she probably skipped a lot of that time in the Tardis with Clara only that happened after and then...

If this story had a neck, I'd strangle it.

[Ironwood]

I thought they stated what the hybrid was... it was the combination of Doctor and Clara.

If they did, it wasn't clear.  Even if they did state EXACTLY that, it makes no sense.  At all.

[Triforcer]

What everyone said, plus this:  this was the first Gallifrey episode us Nu Who fans have ever had.  I can forgive the occasional shitty episode, but to waste a once in 10 years event is a fucking travesty.

[Ironwood]

YES.  IT SO WAS.  I JUST WANT TO KNOW WHO THE FARMERS WERE.

There have been quite a few 'Gallifrey Adjacent' episodes, but this was a wasted opportunity as you say.

[Khaldun]

I don't even need that spelled out. I just need the showrunner to find it interesting, rather than a bit of teasing before he gets back to his dumb, suffocating, parochial obsession with the Doctor's relationship to his companion.

Once upon a time, the companions were just audience surrogates who had personalities but no real character development. This was a bad wasted opportunity. But now the "story" of the Doctor and his companion is strangling everything else that might be interesting in the show. You know, in an odd way, Martha is a better model for what a companion could be, if they could just have avoided the dumb "I'm in love with him" schtick and given her more personality. The companions should just be interesting people who travel with the Doctor who have personalities of some kind and a small character arc, not goddamn messiahs or ultra-important assistants to an ultra-important immortal.

The first twenty minutes really could have opened up onto a great episode. What if the Doctor's struggle with Rassilon was a twisty political drama--House of Cards, Time Lord-style, that left some sort of really different status quo in its wake? A more democratic Gallifrey, maybe a more diverse group of "Time Lords" that included the Sisterhood and a few other immortals/major powers? Or maybe the Doctor wins at cost, and has to flee again? How about a season of the Doctor as insurgent? I can think of twenty better ideas for a Gallifrey-centered episode than "How will I live without Clara?" Fuck, even that premise could have been better if it played more consciously with the possibility that the Doctor is desperate to restore Clara not because he wants her back but because his ego was bruised by the Time Lords killing her and he wants to show he's smarter than them all.

[Ironwood]

If you wanna talk just about NuWho, Donna is the goddamned benchmark.   Martha was spoiled both by the in love characterisation and the fact that the actors hated each other and it showed.

Family of Blood, for example, was utterly awesome, but the weakness was Martha.  All her flaws as a companion shone like novae in that one.

[palmer_eldritch]

I really liked the Rose/Doctor stuff, even though it was a real break with the past for an old-Who fan like me. And the ending with her trapped in a different dimension was moving (before she inevitably came back, but had to happen I guess).

I wonder if Moffat was trying to show that he could do his own relationship story that is just as good.

To be honest though, I never felt much interest in the relationship between the Doctor and Clara. If they are the hybrid (which I think was one possibility suggested by the story but I don't think it gave a definite answer) then it means that the relationship between them is in some way so amazing and so dangerous that it threatens somehow to destroy Gallifrey, according to the prophecy at least. I don't think we saw any evidence of that (the Doctor told us the relationship was super amazing but that's not the same).

Although I would probably have moaned about this too, if Moffat really wanted to do a story about an amazing relationship which threatened to turn the Doctor's world upside down then maybe it would have made more sense to make it another romance instead of besties?

[Ironwood]

I wonder if Moffat was trying to show that he could do his own relationship story that is just as good.

All aboard The Failboat then.

[Khaldun]

When I think about companions, the good models for the show in the future would be:

Donna
Ace
Leela
Sarah Jane
Liz
Jamie
Zoe
Romana
Susan.

Ace, Jamie and Leela = physical people.
Donna and Sarah Jane = just folks
Liz, Zoe, Romana = intellectual equals
Jamie and Susan = bring out parental feelings from Doctor

Any of that would be good. Or someone wounded/sad/suffering, the Doctor's never had to be a healer despite his name.

[Ironwood]

Liz ?  Really ?

Ok....

[satael]

I would prefer that the Doctor would spend the rest of this first half of the next season doing some adventuring without a fixed companion and that the plots would be more or less just independent stories (from different writers). Leave the heavy plots and Moffaty twists for the latter half of next season along with the new companion whoever he/she/it/they might be.

edit: forgot that this was the end of the season already

[Threash]

There's no rest of this season is there?

[Ironwood]

No.

[Khaldun]

Liz Shaw? I liked her. Ok, not the Doctor's equal, exactly, but at least not overawed by him. Also a little bitchy, which might be another nice thing to have in the TARDIS--someone with some sharpness of tongue and temperament.

[Ironwood]

It was the equal bit that bothered me more, since you seemed to be going for 'intellectual equal'.  I disagree.   

[slog]

When I think about companions, the good models for the show in the future would be:

Donna
Ace
Leela
Sarah Jane
Liz
Jamie
Zoe
Romana
Susan.

Ace, Jamie and Leela = physical people.
Donna and Sarah Jane = just folks
Liz, Zoe, Romana = intellectual equals
Jamie and Susan = bring out parental feelings from Doctor

Any of that would be good. Or someone wounded/sad/suffering, the Doctor's never had to be a healer despite his name.

K9.   

[NowhereMan]

The Doctor finds a sad, broken Dalek; cue nonsensical plot reasons for not killing it. The two run around having crackpot adventures. There's a sad ending where the Doctor was to abandon his new companion to an ooze monster that engulfs everything (because the TARDIS is at the top of a flight of stairs and Dal'ek can't escape). The Doctor learns that not all Daleks are evil
That would be infinitely preferable for me to another season of the Doctor having another 'super powerful relationship that defines him and everything he does'. I wasn't fond of the Rose storyline at the time but it was an obvious trope and as a one off it did have some emotional impact. Please stop trying to tell some variation on that.

[Ironwood]

I love the way you're spoilering your own fantasies.  Tell me about your Mother.

[HaemishM]

The Rose thing was different because it explicitly said that the Doctor and his companion were shagging - that was a big step forward in the series evolution, IMO, because we'd all joked about it for years but this was something that they had previously not wanted to touch on. Never mind all the creepy "He's old enough to be her ancestor" stuff, it was just a different relationship. Moffat has tried his damnedest to not repeat that relationship while still trying to have the same emotional impact of that relationship and he's terrible at it. Plus, he's now managed to kill off every companion he's put with the Doctor, which also didn't need to happen. What was wrong with a companion just realizing "I need to stop having merry adventures and live a life?"

[Ironwood]

because it explicitly said that the Doctor and his companion were shagging

When ?

[Lakov_Sanite]

explicitly

/Inigo Montoya

[HaemishM]

Ok maybe not EXPLICIT, but they implied a romantic relationship on a level no Doctor had ever had with a companion before. All but explicit.

[Ironwood]

Not sure I agree.  Jo Grant was quite intense, Sarah Jane was quite intense and Romana was definitely the most with the 'possibility of hard core fucking.'

But hey ho.

[NowhereMan]

I think it's fair to say Rose was the first Romantic Companion. The others might have had something going on but Rose's arc was really about the Romance.

Moffat wants the same thing but can't just redo the companion romance so he's been looking for some sort of non-companion romance or platonic Love non-Romance companion. (the R is deliberate because it's totally overblown emotional blasting)

[Khaldun]

Jo Grant I thought was pretty much father-daughter. Sarah Jane I quite liked because it really just seemed like a professional friendship--it's only in nuWho that they gave it a romantic twist because that's what RTD did to the show. Romana is complicated--but she'd be an interesting model, a rival.

I would honestly be interested in the Doctor travelling with the Master/Missy for a short while--two or three stories worth. And have it just end with Missy walking away rather than trying to blow him up--that can be for next time after that.

[HaemishM]

I'd totally be behind an arc with Missy as the companion, but only if someone else wrote the story and they just got Moffat in to do her dialogue.

[Ironwood]

I don't think it'd work.

[NowhereMan]

It would be good for an episode where Missy rescued him from certain death at the end/left him to it and he managed to finegle himself out. There's not really any arc there beyond psychotic fascination love/hate thing. Change that (and I mean the antagonistic fixation rather than the particular way it's done) and the character of the Master is gone as a Who character.

[Ironwood]

Trouble is, they've done it.  Quite a few times.  And, yes, they work well together, since they're both Brilliant Awesome Timelords, but one of them is a FUCKING NUTCASE who's always looking to stab him in the back.  And, frankly, this new version is even more fucking mental.

So as much as I'd like it to, it wouldn't work.

[HaemishM]

Yeah, I mean you know what would happen with this creative team in charge of it. There'd be a whole lot of sexual tension because the Master is now a woman and lots of innuendo that would make Old Who fans feel slightly squidgy and then it'd resolve itself by somebody trying to kill Hitler or some shit.