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Doctor Who Series 10 - At Least It Will Be Better Than Class

It was a pretty good episode. I wasn't expecting to like Bill, but she surprised me. Not annoyingly precocious, not instantly in love with the Doctor and not going to live in his pocket.

Matt Lucas is unnecessary (in most contexts, not just in Doctor Who).
 
Dull episode this week. Started off like it could have been good with humans forced to smile and act happy, but most of the episode was just the Doctor and Bill walking around an empty planet while he gives exposition, and eventually figures out that there's a reset button in the robots. Some okay ideas (the robots were just trying to help!) but ends with the Doctor telling the humans to pretend to be happy for the rest of their lives in case the robots they live with kill them. What kind of an ending is that, really?

And why was Rani's mum in the future?
 
I really enjoyed it up until the last ten minutes. The ending was a letdown. "Turned it off and on again" must've been used a few times before.

But I liked the robots, I liked Bill and I loved the use of the science park in Valencia. Someone obviously watched Tomorrowland.

Was that Ralph Little at the end?
 
Maybe I just had really low expectations after In The Forest Of The Night but that was pretty okay? I actually kind of liked the atmosphere of The Doctor and Bill walking around the creepy future colony (which looked cool). The "robots tried to do good but killed everyone because of their programming" thing has been done to death, though, including in the previous episode and yeah the ending was a bit of a let down (was the problem ever actually solved?).

Bill continues to be good and Pearl Mackie plays her really well and of course Peter Capaldi keeps betting better WHICH IS REALLY FUCKING ANNOYING.
 
I liked the part where a child was sad about his mother being dead but the Doctor reset the robots and that took the cihld's grief away somehow.
 
Yes it was Ralph Little.

I don't think they always need to be happy, since the robots had never seen grief before it was a problem, when the robots were rebooted grief and anger were already on display, so they wernt new things, just the status quo.
 
Bill's questions about the Doctor were posed better by Amy Pond, IMO. I get that they're trying to draw in new viewers, but you'd think that at some point the Doctor would just come up with, "Why does it look like a police call box from 1963? Because that's how I like it, now shut up and show me your tits."

Well... not so much with the "show me your tits" part, but you get the idea.
 
Another episode with a really thin plot (basically The Beast Below but less interesting) but good Doctor/Bill stuff. It was good that they tackled the issue of the Doctor killing people since some previous companions haven't really reacted to the deaths of "bad guys."

But the way it tackled racism was a bit disappointing. They brought up slavery at the start so I thought it might have been a theme of the episode, but the only racist character was the completely cartoonish, over the top villain. They mostly did the 'Shakespeare Code' thing of saying "look, lots of black people in London in the past!" and not dealing with it. I'm not sure you can start an episode by saying "slavery existed at this time" but then show a black policeman (I think that's what he was meant to be) in the background in 1814?

AND WRESTLERS IN 1814 SURE WOULDN'T HAVE DONE SUPLEXES AND SLEEPER HOLDS.

The thing in the vault sure knocked three times, didn't it?
 
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I was glad at first that they addressed racism and weren't just going to have Bill happily wander about in the past like there was no problem... erm, but then they did. I mean, I don't know what the demographics were really like back then, but those street scenes had more black people than modern day London. Something that could've been tackled in a mature and subtle way was overdone, much like RTD used to with all his gay characters.

That aside, the plot was pretty standard, but the location and the interactions between Bill and the Doctor were enough to entertain me. Some of it was covering old ground, but what I do like about Bill is she really challenges the Doctor and doesn't just take all the weirdness for granted like some companions have.
 
Well that was weird. The first half was really good: creepy atmosphere, Poirot as the villain, Bill's friends weren't too annoying and the Doctor was fun interacting with them. But then the wooden daughter/mother was a bit weak and I was thinking "well it's a bit harsh to kill off all five of the students and how is Bill going to explain that to their parents?" So the wooden girl "restored" them after eating them alive which didn't really make sense and and house collapsed and the Doctor was just like "oh well, that's the end!" and it was over. Also, what the other episodes this season have done well is the Doctor/Bill relatonship whereas in this one there wasn't much of that at all and in fact Bill did literally nothing in the second half of the episode. So yeah, a letdown I'd say sorry if I'm too negative.
 
I found the beginning a bit blah. It might have helped if they'd had a bit more fun with it and acknowledged that they were using every horror cliche in the book. But David Suchet was very good in the climax and I liked the daughter/mother twisty bit.

Are we supposed to have any idea who's in that vault? Have I missed anything?
 
We're not supposed to know, but they're strongly hinting that it's John Simm's Master as he was shown in the "coming this series" trailer at the end of episode one and last week whoever was in the vault "knocked three times" like the Master did when he had drums in his head or whatever that thing was. And this week he played a happy tune when he heard about young people dying (since the Doctor didn't add that they were saved by a magic reset button.) But at this point I think there will be a shock twist and it won't be him and it'll be Clara or something.
 
The other rumored twist is that it's the First Doctor in the vault (to rumor-ed-ly be portrayed by David Bradley following on from his turn as Hartnell as The Doctor). This could tie in with the reappearance of the 1963 version of the Cybermen, and those things might also tie in with Bill calling The Doctor "grandfather".
 
I assume Bill's mother will show up at some point, too. Since we saw the Doctor had taken a photo of her and they keep reminding us what she looks like so we'll recognise her when she eventually appears.
 
I thought the episode was the weakest we've had so far (although it was nowhere near as bad as the last part of 'Smile'...) but it was still OK.

The pacing felt really weird? Like it had a really slow start but once things actually started to happen it seemed like it was over instantly. IT WAS WEIRD.
 
That's kind of how I've felt about every episode this series. Like the first 35 minutes is walking about trying to figure out what's going on (to various degress of entertainment) then in the last ten minutes they say "ACTUALLY THIS IS THE PLOT" and it doesn't really make sense but it's resolved so quickly you don't have time to think about it.
 
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