I liked it. It was better than the first half. One of this Doctor's best episodes. The only thing I didn't like was the laser shoes.
The list of requirements for actors auditioning for The Master:
* must have sufficient chaotic energy
* must have aggressively sexual chemistry with whoever is playing The Doctor
I'm happy to say that they've chosen the perfect person again.
Jodie has such expressive eyes. She gets so much incredible acting done just through looks, communicating so much without saying a single word. The little details in her performance? The nuance? I don't wanna sound like a cheesy old white lady but that shit is breathtaking, bro. I love, love, love her as The Doctor. I truly hope she sticks around for a couple more seasons because I can't imagine having to say goodbye to her.
I found the laser shoes to be SO over-the-top ridiculous (actually same goes for Ryan piloting a whole ass plane via an app), but then I remembered that this is Doctor Who and that stuff kinda comes with the name, so I guess I'm giving it a pass.
I like the fact that the companions finally called out The Doctor for being so cryptic. Thirteen in her own way seems to be running from her past even harder than the previous incarnations, thinking that if she just ignores it, it'll all be fine. Well, the past came to bite her in the ass big time in the last 2 episodes. She can't outrun the darkness forever. Eventually, it'll all catch up to her and when that happens, the companions got a big storm coming.
Also, the Timeless Child is something I've completely forgotten about and honestly I kinda thought the writers have too but now Chibnall is referencing it again? I see you with your continuity, Chris. I see you. Nicely done.
Bloody Hell… Chibnall has proven us that he can write! Sacha Dhawan’s performance is AMAZING, pure gold. First, I just want to apologise to Chris Chibnall. He’s proven to us that he can write an amazing Doctor Who story. Full of references to stuff that has happened before as well as establishing a new and ambitious story arc. Dude went big and I really hope he can pull this off. I loved the little references to Classic Who, from the Contact psychic-thing to the Fourth Doctor’s regeneration story. I think Chibnall finally understood the word “legacy”, an important thing for a long-lived show such as Doctor Who. And apparently… everything we know is a lie! The Doctor saved Gallifrey from the Last Great Time War and held it in a parallel-pocket universe and during that time, this version of the Master found out a truth so dark and horrible that he made the Time Lords pay for a crime we are yet to learn about. This stuff is big. A truth so old and dark that it probably involves the Founding Fathers of Gallifrey themselves. Are they back? Omega? Rassilon? The Other? Why did the Master need to punish all the Time Lords? Did he really do it? It’s an interesting story arc and I can’t wait to find out. And about the episode itslef, it was a very round premiere. Very well-written, the performances of both Jodie Whittaker and Sacha Dhawan were amazing. I can see the Doctor and the Master in both of them, their friendship and their history together. The companions were cool too. We still got a lot of questions to answer! Series 12 looks like is going to be fun. Oh, yes!
The story is actually quite nice when you look at both episodes together, at the end of the first one I wasn't very impressed but I'm glad it changed. Some don't like the new writing, I don't know, it's just a bit different, two episodes is a bit too soon to judge IMHO. I can't leave out that I really like the improvement in CGI and sets compared to the 11th Doctor, looks great on a big screen.
Chibnall still can't conclude a story to save his life. (Even his rightly lauded Broadchurch had weak endings). Slightly less logic fails in the second part but the second part suffers from being generally kind of boring when The Doctor, Master or Daniel aren't on the screen.
Sasha Dhawan is the Master I like the least so far (only comparing him to the Modern ones - Still haven't watched classic in full, so I can't make a really full comparison - given the different budgets and the fact that TV has a higher quality in general now compared to the time the original show aired this wouldn't be fair anyhow).
I think he took the crazy a bit too far in the beginning and instead of starting in control and spin out of control when his plans don't work out he started out as an average crazy person and became calmer when the story needed him to stop and build a few coherent sentences - so the audience could understand what was going on.
After getting that off my chest I have to say, that after the in my opinion very poor start with Part One I was positively surprised by this Episode.
It really felt like Doctor Who again. I still can't get behind her calling the companions "fam", but I don't have to like everything.
I am a bit unsure if I like the Episode because the last season was such a sh***fest or if it was really good - But I guess I will only be able to tell when I rewatch it after some time (probably short before season 13 comes out).
the writing of this show is so dubious. Where are the emotional stakes! This is dw, the whole of humanity is /always/ under threat, if you don't make us care about specific humans it doesn't exactly matter. the companions & their families are too thin for us to care.
The master just seems inexplicable, which, I guess is a little in line for him, but the whole problem of why he's both desperate for the doctor's attention about gallifrey & yet wants to kill her lol.
Also... the doctors gender. By casting a woman, they want a nb doctor made explicit. but 10's "well just us girls" in fires of pompeii which is just accepted by the priestesses & passes without comment vs 13's "marvellous apparating man, I mean, lady" where the doctor seems more fixated on performing the right gender than the audience does, doesn't really match up to the lack of care the doctor has used with performing their gender previously
here the sequence of events is fine but the execution of all the details falls short and it really lacks that certain spark that turns a show from serviceable to great
So, are we going to find out the origins of the Time Lords. Interesting..
https://www.bbvaopenmind.com/en/technology/visionaries/ada-lovelace-original-and-visionary-but-no-programmer/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noor_Inayat_Khan
and here's the real history (as opposed to the herstory we get in this episode) an hilariously inept spy and a junior assistant credited with something Babbage had done years earlier.
How did the Master survive the destruction of the generation ship? Who cares. How did the Master go from being ready to die with their friend to fighting the Doctor? Who cares. Why is the Master suddenly trying to outright kill his friend of two millennia? Who cares—certainly not the writers.
A very poor season opener, first half was bad, this second episode has some good bits but some other very cringey scenes (laser shoes, ok for a laugh, not for several uses).
The return of the Master was a good surprise, but poor writing in general made this double episode boring
i watched these 2 episodes together so i can't review separately, but so far i think it's the first time i feel the episode is actually going somewhere since the change of showrunner.
i don't know if chibnall needs a longer runtime to produce a good story and so he's better at 2-parters, or if he just listened to complaints, but a lot of things i haven't liked about the writing under him seem to be not as bad or somewhat fixed here.
it's the first time we actually get to See this doctor i feel. the higher number of companions is a fun dynamic, but it felt like it'd resulted in them sucking what little characterisation was given to the tardis crew ("fam", i guess) with no leftovers for the doctor until spyfall. and for once, she isn't completely useless; the fam (yea i know) still seem somehow way more actually useful that she is, and she still resorts to her main strategy of "i'm going to find the bad guy, ask them questions and then just tell them i'll stop them until they're scared enough to stop. what do you mean do i have an actual actionable plan?", but she also did some deducting on her own rather than ask for all the answers, and had to figure out how to get herself out of situations, so i suppose points for that.
probably, the return of the master helped give her something to reflect her character and identity off of. i don't know how i feel about this iteration of the master being *that*angry rather than amused, but i guess for now it's worked. (using the nazis and racism to trap him though? weird move).
i liked the dynamic of the companions feeling that they are left in the dark by the doctor and know nothing about her and it makes sense, since even as an audience we know nothing about this iteration. one could argue it was intentional then to make her so little developed before these episodes, i'd just call it a nice save.
i feel like the aliens were quite an good enemy with an ok resolution. i think the first time we see them as light in australia worked quite well to make us fear them. during the previous season, i rarely could feel the stakes but i think here it felt a bit more tangential.
i don't mind the goofiness, the spy film parody vibes in the first ep, though if the laser shoes were ok at first when they tried to make us believe they could take down and scare a bunch of men with guns that went to far past silly territory and into writing shortcut territory.
liked to see yaz ryan & graham working and struggling as a team, liked the doctor going back in time and picking up companions there (is it just me i feel like we hadn't had an adventure in the past in a while?). i guess the separation and being with temporary,new company worked in her character's favour, allowing the doctor to be in control and show her capability.
the master reveal i feel was rushed maybe? tbf i'd had it spoiled so i knew, but maybe the doctor could have slowly picked up that something was up without actually figuring it out right away, rather than have the master fully reveal himself after 1 suspicion.
all in all i suppose introducing some type of bigger arc finally other than stupid easy to trap tim shaw is making it easier to look forward to this season, and feel like something's actually at stake this time.
Yeah, nothing for me, unfortunately. It's ok but not really good.
The problem is that I just don't care about the story, mainly because I think that it makes very little sense.
And I find that childish and narcissistic villain just boring :o
Regarding the recap:
There was one cool thing though: Ada Lovelace. I immediately thought of her when I heared the name Ada but didn't expect that it would actually be her (she's the only Ada I know). But when Charles Babbage was introduced it became obvious :)
And the other cool thing was the picutre of Alan Turing at the end when the pictures of persons involved in the development of computers were shown.
I was kinda hoping that we would meet Alan Turing in later episodes but it doesn't look that way. At least I can stop watching then :D
And some notes about the "BS" story:
Imagine that there's a month between watching the first episode and this one. I was SO afraid when I watched that. Like I had to take a pause for the first time after 11 seasons because it was so weird, and I was unsure if I really want to continue or not. Never ever had that doubt since I know and love Doctor Who. The previous season wasn't bad but it wasn't good either. Just there was too much fable and lessons (things the show hadn't had for an awkardly long time, I must say) while the execution failed most of the time. But I very much liked the idea that, after Moffat and all the thrown-out-halfway story arcs, there's a whole universe out there, waiting to be discovered. And now, we are back again. The few things that actually worked in season 11 being forced into the set of sorrounding I thought the show just moved on from after many years. I was afraid already at last years resolution, when Chibnall got pushed to bring back the daleks. Now there's more of the familiar things, just with Chibnall's tone of the last season? That's like, I don't think that would work, at all. Though, I must say, this episode got good? Can it? Or just my expectations were low? I was surprised I liked it, and was happy nonetheless.
Maybe, just maybe, Chibnall can make work his own ideas while he's being pushed to go back to the Moffat way, and ratings still low and people still uncapable of accepting Doctor is played by a woman? He's so much dancing on a thin line, and I so wouldn't be in his place. I root for him. Second episode gives me reason I should. Buckle up.
If you could extract the Black Mirror retread part of the plot, and break some new ground instead, you might have an interesting episode here. Sadly this was not the case.
WTF the lazer shoe parts are terrible. Who came up with this shit and why didn't anyone stop it! Not impressed with the new series, but still hoping it'll get better. Or they'll cancel it and get a new show runner and doctor.
this episode was better than entire season 11. please get new non brit blokes , Ryan is annoying AF
Shout by dewdropvelvetBlockedParent2020-01-08T01:38:17Z
This was better than episode one, but Jodie Whitaker is just so terrible. Like watching paint dry. No charisma no matter who else is onscreen and she doesn't act like a doctor the way Missy or even River did.
On the plus side, there were a lot of deep references that remind me of Moffat, though they ran through them pretty quickly, so I don't know that this season will have sustained enough themes or not yet.