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rosencrypt · 7 years

Text

I saw Doctor Who!

Some impressions below the cut.

- Within the first 5 minutes, Moffat has Bill insult fat people and complain about brainless models. Classy.

- Bill is super gay. As gay as can be without ever actually using words like ‘gay’ or ‘lesbian’ or in any way explicitly acknowledging it :P

- I initially had ‘lesbianism as a lure’ down, because it seemed as though the alien mimic was pretending to be a fellow lesbian (Heather) to capture Bill. Which is obviously kind of iffy. But then it turned out that what’s actually happening is that Heather, while possessed (?) by an alien spaceship, is using the alien technology to find Bill because she likes her! Which is nice. I wonder if things seeming malicious but actually either being friendly or just acting according to their nature (’it’s not evil just hungry’) is going to be a theme this series. So far it seems more likely to be the opposite, with apparently friendly things (Emojibots, the consent pyramid) being dangerous (then agian, the Emojibots ARE just acting according to programming...), but we’ll see.

- Bill, like Clara and Amy etc., seems like another companion who is A Mystery (tm) - she’s adopted, and appears to be her own mother. Who are her parents?? Where did she come from? Is she The Master??? The Doctor says the TARDIS and his memories of River and Susan compelled him to come back for her, so does that mean they’re related??? Is she Susan’s granddaughter???? Or daughter, if we’re contridicting Big Finish canon????? Yeah obviously not but the question of her parentage remains. I was concerned the Vault was going to be a red herring and the real reason the Doctor took his lecturing post was so he could monitor Bill, but if he’s been there 50 years that wouldn’t make sense unless there’s Weird Plot Shit going on. Actually, what’s the bet that the photo, the Doctor, and Bill are part of a stable time loop - the future Doctor will take the picture in the 90s and contact his earlier self to tell him to come to Bristol and wait for her? Maybe Bill got lost in the past at the same time the Vault appeared.

...you know what, I’m definitely overthinking this, and what actually happened was that he was imagining River and Susan chiding him to be nicer (which seems odd for River, for whom compassion is not a defining character trait, but who cares a lot about a select few friends and her family...NO, stop thinking that, not everyone has to be related), and the TARDIS took a liking to Bill, which clinched it. It is odd that she hasn’t confronted him about the photo yet, though. Clearly they’re setting up another episode down the line.

- I like the Vault thing, but it’s a bit close to the Cabinet of Souls from Class. It’s also another of Moffat’s arbitrarily long time skips. Not there’s anything inherently wrong with that, but he does seem fond of them.

- Speaking of recycled plot devices, it’s another alien spaceship that wants a pilot (or is it a passenger? The episode seems confused).

- Wait, if Heather wasn’t possessed until just before she started turning into water/oil and stalking Bill, why was she acting so obviously suspiciously before? That didn’t look like acting awkwardly because of a crush; all the signs indicated she was already alienificationified. This episode covers...what, a term and a half? Did Bill and Heather develop their relationship at all off-screen? We only see them exchange about 100 words. I appreciate that Heather can’t be too relatable if Moffat is going to use the twist that she’s not evil, but the result is that the revelation she has a crush on Bill seems completely random. Would it have killed him to have her be just a bit more emotional? Or show her going through Bill’s Facebook pictures or something?

- What species exactly uses time-travelling sentient oil in their spaceships?? Ships that are accurate enough to detect anyone anywhere in all of time and track them literally anywhere within seconds? And the Doctor isn’t interested in finding out who they are and what they’re doing? That seems like a writing cop-out.

- Lots of Rose parallels here (chips, every day the same, single mother, Doctor-has-been-alone-for-a-while-and-here’s-a-new-special-person thing, etc.). Which makes sense; after last series, which had possibly the most continuity-heavy opening episode ever, this one has been marketed as a new beginning and an ideal first episode for new viewers. All this stuff worked in 2006, so it’s worth a go in 2017. Bill‘s mother doesn’t compare to Jackie, though.

- The alien spaceship is a pond! Oh, how clever you are, Mr. Steven :P

- The spaceship/Doctor and Heather/Bill parallels are pushed too, but that’s such a common episode concept I’m not going to complain about it.

- Why does the Doctor care about intelligence and stuff now? That's a bit mean. I like that he invited Bill in because of her curiosity, but his insistence that she attend every day at 6pm no matter what and warning that he’d dismiss her if she ever got lower than a First seem a tad demanding. One of the classic appeals of Doctor Who is that a companion could be anyone, even YOU, and adding an academic requirement spoils that fantasy. For that reason, I’m going to say Rose (the episode) is a more successful starting episode, simply because although both characters are relatable (both have dead-end jobs, both want more than their provincial lives, both meet the Doctor due to incidental run-ins with aliens and become his friends because they have some character trait he’s impressed with), I find it easier to imagine that I could survive an Auton invasion than that I could get a First on every essay for like 9 months.

- The Doctor 'educating' a black woman has potentially unfortunate implications. In context it seems basically fine - she wants to study at the university, he’s a lecturer; it makes sense - but I hope the teacher/student thing doesn’t become a running theme. It’s uncomfortably reminiscent of the Four/Leela ‘I will educate you out of your savagery, bemoaning your martial skills and ruthlessness even while I rely on them for my own benefit’ situation. ofc with Leela the ‘savage’ thing did become a term of endearment and source of banter between friends pretty quickly, but I’d rather they avoided the Pygmalion idea altogether tbh.

- These Daleks are completely incompetent. Not that that’s new, but 4 shots at Nardole, all of which miss?

- Why are they new series Daleks if this is the Movellan war?

- Ah, so the Movellans are only here as window dressing. That’s a disappointment. It’s like the classic Daleks in Asylum, the Cybermen in series 8 and Gallifrey in series 9; Moffat loves sort of bringing things back, but not actually using them at all in any meaningful way. I hope the Tenth Planet Cybermen (I hesitate to call them ‘Mondasian’, since ALL classic Cybermen are Mondasian in origin) are the focus of their episode rather than being similarly discarded.

- How many other contemporary Doctor Who stories have been set in Bristol? I believe this is the first at Bristol University, but if he’s been there the last 50 years he’s had to be very careful not to cross himself on any other visits. This also raises the question of how if he’s been there since the 60s and lecturing as the Doctor people like Rose, UNIT, the Master, LINDA etc. haven’t found him before. Isn’t Time Lord telepathy meant to be pretty good at that kind of thing? Like Clara being at Coal Hill School, it’s a one-off continuity gag that serves no real purposes and invites a lot of unfortunate questions.

- Bill and Nardole are fun. I liked the cinematography. The Vault is a neat series arc setup. All in all, I’m cautiously optimistic.

#ANDYPOSTS #DOCTOR WHO

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