Menu
What's new
Troll Kingdom

This is a sample guest message. Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!

Here's a thread about Doctor Who Series 8 for TK if you like

Jeez you guys.

The Caretaker
On the surface, the plot is paper thin, and the monster is naff. In a normal episode of Doctor Who this would make for a terrible episode. But thankfully this wasn't really a normal episode of Doctor Who.

This is really one of the only episodes where the main focus is on the interpersonal relationships between the main characters, rather than on the plot plot. Sure, you have something like Vincent and The Doctor where, like this episode, the monster is rather incidental - but the focus on that was on Vincent's character, not the actual main cast. Boom Town sort of tried to do it but it ended up as a wet fart. Really, you have to go waaay back to The Edge of Destruction in 1964 to get another episode with the character relationships as the focus. So it's nice to get another one.

And what I liked was that all three of the main characters, The Doctor, Clara and Danny, are kind of fuck-ups in this episode. They all make mistakes, they all screw up and it's actually really refreshing to see that. It's especially nice to have someone walk into the TARDIS and not instantly like The Doctor, but also take an active dislike. Danny walking in and seeing through to what The Doctor basically is - an old white man who tells everyone what to do because he's an old white man - and throwing that back in his face and being a massive dick about it was really interesting to watch.

So yeah, overall I liked it. I liked that it looked at the characters and said that they're all fallible and that maybe that's something they need to work on. The monster was naff, sure, but I sort of enjoyed the naffness in a season 24 kind of way.


Kill The Moon
"The Moon is actually an egg!" is a really Doctor Who idea. That thing you see every day is actually more bizarre and exciting than you think! That's what Doctor Who does.

Except, yeah, it's almost too Doctor Who an idea, and the episode never really knew what to do with it. Did it want to be the creepy monster episode with the not-spiders? Or did it want to be the moral dilemna episode about killing an innocent life? Well it wanted to be both, and it kind-of sort-of didn't really do any of them their proper justice.

I mean, I liked the episode overall. It just could have been more interesting. Ignoring the fact that the science doesn't make sense (because it never does), the main dilemna never really seems to carry the weight it ought to have. We're told terrible things are happening on Earth, but we don't really see it or get any sense of urgency out of it. At the same time, we're told that this is a super amazing last of it's kind space dragon, but since the only things in the episode we actually have to relate to it are the creepy spider parasites, we don't really get the feeling of how bad it would be for this thing to die (compare this to the space whale in The Beat Below, which we actually got some sort of personality for). So when they manage to get out of the dilemna without actually losing anything it feels all a bit weak. Especially when the moon is luckily replaced by a handy plot hole filling replacement moon so that people like me don't go "UHHH BUT THE SECOND DOCTOR LANDED ON THE MOON IN 2070 SOOOO".

Really the episode is sold on the acting, which was top notch from both Capaldi and Coleman. They've really given Jenna Coleman a lot to go with in this series and boy has she stepped up to the plate. I'm digging Capaldi's asshole Doctor, for now. If it carries on for too long (say, past the end of the series) without any development I might get annoyed by it, but for now I like it.

But I did like that, after The Doctor bogs off, it was a show that was carried by three female characters. That was neat.
 
One other thought I had about the lights going out last night, to be seen from the moon those lights would have to be entire cities, not houses, and basically you wouldn't see houses anyway, its lit streets you see from space, or even airplanes, and its not really in peoples hands to turn off street lights.
 
My problem with The Caretaker is that it's as if Gareth Roberts thinks the only way to write a "character episode" is to reduce the science fiction part of it to an afterthought (as he did in The Lodger and the truly awful Closing Time.) I like episodes that use a clever science fiction plot to explore the charcter's like 'Amy's Choice' or 'The Girl Who Waited' (Amy's Choice even managed to squeeze a great villain in Toby Jones seriously that's a great episode) which did a great job of exploring the Doctor/Amy/Rory triangle. Whereas I feel Roberts isn't willing to even try writing anything like that and just sticks a crap robot in as if he's saying "haha, stupid robots, everyone thinks that stuff's silly anyway, might as well treat it as a joke, I WISH JAMES CORDEN WAS HERE." But I might be reading too much into it.

I think the problem with the terrible science in Kill The Moon is that the episode really draws attention to it by making it a key part of the plot. Whereas in other episodes with terrible science you can ignore it because the Doctor's wearing rocket shoes and punching robot plants or something fun.

The whole lights turning off thing doesn't hold up to any analysis yeah (and Clara just ignored it anyway!) Surely only half the world would have been awake and also only half the world would have been visible come to think of it.
 
I THOUGHT THIS WAS A GOOD EPISODE. Definitely better than the last three episodes. I'm glad they showed a different side to Capaldi's Doctor at the end because I felt they'd been focusing on the grumpy/heartlessness side too much.

I'm guessing GUS was Chris Addison's character.
 
I watched the moon episode last night. I really don't know whether I liked it or not. You guys already addressed most of the positives and negatives.

I liked that it was mostly female driven, but didn't like Hermione Norris just like I never like Hermione Norris in things.

I liked the idea of using the lights of Earth to vote, but as Whisky points out, those were whole cities going out in groups, and it only would've been half the earth anyway.

I liked the idea of the moon being an egg, but another egg immediately being laid was facepalmingly convenient.

Clara's anger at the end was very well acted, but the whole egg decision had been so rushed that it was difficult to really get a grasp on where she was coming from. We'd never been made to feel any love for the baby, so I expect most of us would have been fairly unconcerned if it had died.
 
Yeah, to me the moon episode just had so much pure contrivance to it that I can't assign any re-watch-able-ness value to it. I still have not sullied my brainscape with this most recent one. I shall attend to it SHORTLEH
 
It was a good episode. I agree that it was HIGH TIME they let the Doctor be more than a curmudgeon. ALSO Clara should wear 20's costumes more often.
 
Here's a kind of "music video" thing from the latest episode with some footage from future episodes in there.

[video=youtube_share;h-OTYT02W7E]http://youtu.be/h-OTYT02W7E[/video]

(I don't know why she's called "Foxes" when there's only one of her.)
 
I enjoyed the music too. Hubby didn't catch it until he watched it again (he fell asleep on the first go-round).

I'm a little disappointed so far with the writing of the stories. They all seem to fall flat and it has nothing to do with the acting or actors. I feel a loss of excitement in the writing.
 
I was on holiday, managed to watch it in grainy spanish hotel tv, but will watch it again assuming the sky box actually recorded my stuff for me when I was away.

I did like it though, quite a good run of episodes lately.
 
Another good episode! Hope they get Jamie Mathieson back next year because he's already written more good episodes than Gatiss, Roberts and Chibnall who always keep coming back.
 
Jesus H Christ, that was fucking awesome.

I was literally at the edge of my seat watching that.

I know somewhere at the back of my mind there is something that says Clara and the Doctor will be fine, but the rest of my brain was saying, holey fuck, this is as scary as hell.
 
Loved the Doc's "Are you my mummy?" quip last week.

Tonight's one was really inventive, both visually, and in terms of having Clara stand in for the Doc. Must've scared the crap out of a lot of kids, too.

I wonder if the writer had read Flatland?

So that's what a TARDIS really looks like, huh?
 
The stuff with the tiny TARDIS could have been really cheesey and embarrassing, but it was done very well (who could resist the walking on fingers scene?) It was a Doctor Light episode yet it didn't feel like a Doctor Light episode which is the mark of a good Doctor Light episode!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top