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jayembee

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So, this evening my wife and I watched "Boom" and "73 Yards". As I said before, I was at the point of passing on watching any more of the current episodes, but my wife wanted to get caught up, and I felt I should at least give Moffat's episode a shot.

Both episodes were among the best episodes of DW I've seen in years.

We're wondering if the Anglican Marines are connected to the Church military force headed by Iain Glen in the Moffat/Smith 2-parter "The Time of Angels"/"Flesh and Stone". I did a cursory look around, but found nothing to indicate any explicit connection, though I did find a mention that the Villengard company was mentioned (but didn't appear) in one of Moffat's earliest DW scripts, "The Doctor Dances". And apparently, Varada Sethu, who plays Mundy in this episode has already been cast to be a companion next series. But not Mundy, which is a shame: I liked her.

I was really pulled into "73 Yards", wondering what the hell was going on, and impressed with how damn spooky it was. It felt like a Whovian twist on Davies' mini-series from a few years back, Years and Years, with its story of the rise of a populist, and dangerous, politician. [On edit: I guess Davies hadn't gotten it out of his system. ;)]
 
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NeilO

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So, this evening my wife and I watched "Boom" and "73 Yards". As I said before, I was at the point of passing on watching any more of the current episodes, but my wife wanted to get caught up, and I felt I should at least give Moffat's episode a shot.

Both episodes were among the best episodes of DW I've seen in years.

... And apparently, Varada Sethu, who plays Mundy in this episode has already been cast to be a companion next series. But not Mundy, which is a shame: I liked her.
It seems that so far RTD has been trying to show all different kinds of Doctor Who episodes. Each one has been quite different from the others. So, maybe he is going with the "something for everyone" by the time the season ends.

As far as Varada Sethu, here is a BBC instagram post with the intriguing line by RTD (hit the right arrow to see the words):

We'll find out exactly what it means next season ...
 

NeilO

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By the way, here is a link to any old article (January 31) about Moffat writing or not writing an episode.
"The truth is, if I say anything negative about Doctor Who it goes everywhere, like boom, everywhere, right?


"It doesn't exactly bring joy to the world that I just say something negative about Doctor Who. The fact is, it's fine without me."
What a teaser, telling us the titles of his episodes without telling us he is writing any.
 

Adam Lenhardt

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On the technical front, does anyone else find the Disney+ stream to be anemic? I know Disney sucks generally (just one of the many reasons why I remain a staunch supporter of physical media), and indeed I have to give everything I watch "the Disney bump" for audio. The problems for the MCU content are well documented. But I find the overall soundscape this season to be rather poor. The bass especially is lifeless. Contrast this with the previous season's audio (also on Disney+) which I noted to be especially great.
I'm used to watching new "Who" on Spectrum's crappy, overly compressed BBC America cable feed taking 25 progressive frames and turning them into 60 interlaced fields, so the quality of the Disney+ streams is incredibly robust by comparison.

We're wondering if the Anglican Marines are connected to the Church military force headed by Iain Glen in the Moffat/Smith 2-parter "The Time of Angels"/"Flesh and Stone".
I believe they are different parts and maybe different eras of the same organization. In "A Good Man Goes to War", the Church troops at Demons Run were specifically referred to as Anglican Marines.
 

jayembee

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It's starts off as just another horrifying satire on social media (and "influencers") addiction, and was thoroughly saved by the ending. (Didn't The Doctor say in "The Last Chord" that there's always a twist at the end? ;) ).

But most of all, I have to take back the comment I made in an earlier post:

"Nothing against Ncuti Gatwa, but while he nails the silly half of The Doctor's character, he doesn't seem up to the task for the more serious half (unless it's Davies not giving him anything in that vein to work with)."

Boy, was I wrong. Part of me wants to think that Davies intended for viewers to underestimate Gatwa's ability to present gravitas in order to make this episode's ending all the more powerful.
 

NeilO

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Yes, quite a powerful ending there. This one was shot in the first block with "73 Yards," which is part of why he wasn't in it as much as you might expect.

The Susan Twist mystery increased a little more.
 

Adam Lenhardt

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Yes, quite a powerful ending there. This one was shot in the first block with "73 Yards," which is part of why he wasn't in it as much as you might expect.
I thought they still managed to avoid a Doctor-lite episode though. Even though the story was told from the guest star's point of view, the Doctor still had quite a bit of screen time. I'm sure shooting the vast majority of his scenes from a static camera with a flat background allowed them to crank through far more pages in a day than would otherwise have been possible.
 

NeilO

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From the preview to next week's episode it appears the Susan Twist mystery will be front and center.

As far as this week's episode. It was lots of fun.

Maybe I need to watch the scene again, but
Rogue replaces Ruby in the trap at the end, sacrificing himself. Earlier he just added the 5th alien to the trap. Why didn't he do an exchange with Ruby then? Or coordinate with The Doctor to do that?
 

Adam Lenhardt

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From the preview to next week's episode it appears the Susan Twist mystery will be front and center.
Yes. After being subtle through the first half of the season, the last couple episodes have deliberately drawn a lot more attention to it.

As far as this week's episode. It was lots of fun.
I really enjoyed the dynamic between the Doctor and the bounty hunter. I wouldn't mind if he ends up recurring like Jack Harkness did back in the day.

On the other hand, I still don't know how I feel about the race blind approach the show is taking these days for historical episodes, casting the characters and extras from Britain's multicultural present instead of reflecting its relatively homogeneous past. In 1813, slave trade in the British Empire had only been abolished for six years. The Mughal Empire in India was still decades away from its final collapse. The approach feels like a way to tell fun frothy stories in the past without dealing with the complexities of Britain's class system and colonial empire.

Complicating the matter in this case is that the episode is an explicit tribute to "Bridgerton", which is also set in a multi-cultural, post-racial early 19th century England. But in that case, it's something of a full-on alternate history, with Queen Charlotte being very openly and publicly black when marrying George III, leading to a rapid societal transformation.

I'm all for greater representation in "Doctor Who", but I wish that would mean telling different stories about different groups of people instead of telling the same old kind of stories about the same groups of people with just different casting. "Demons of the Punjab" was a strong example of what that could look like.

I also wasn't sure what to make of the music at the ball, which was all modern pop songs rearranged as instrumentals for period instruments. Perhaps the aliens brought the sheet music with them?

Maybe I need to watch the scene again, but
Rogue replaces Ruby in the trap at the end, sacrificing himself. Earlier he just added the 5th alien to the trap. Why didn't he do an exchange with Ruby then? Or coordinate with The Doctor to do that?
Yeah, the logic there didn't hold up. If it was possible to do a clean one-to-one swap like that, I would think the Doctor would have done it to save Ruby without hesitation.

On the other hand, I thought the writers did a good job explaining how Ruby was able to fight off the alien trying to steal her appearance.
 

jayembee

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My wife and I enjoyed the episode. We, too, wondered if Rogue was being set up to be a new Captain Jack.

I'm afraid, though, that I'm not following Neil's question. As far as

Yeah, the logic there didn't hold up. If it was possible to do a clean one-to-one swap like that, I would think the Doctor would have done it to save Ruby without hesitation.

Even though the Doctor was able to expand the parameters of the trap to increase the number of creatures it could accomodate, it's not clear to me that the Doctor knew that a one-to-one swap could be made. Even though the Doctor monkeyed with the trap, Rogue better knew its capabilities.

On the other hand, my wife and I thought that the Doctor's essentially shrugging off the possibility of being able to search for Rogue seemed way too un-Doctor like. Especially given that he reprogrammed the trap to send the Chuldur to "a barren dimension with no living beings". It seems like he (or the TARDIS) could've narrowed the search parameters considerably.
 

NeilO

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My wife and I enjoyed the episode. We, too, wondered if Rogue was being set up to be a new Captain Jack.
Even though the Doctor was able to expand the parameters of the trap to increase the number of creatures it could accomodate, it's not clear to me that the Doctor knew that a one-to-one swap could be made. Even though the Doctor monkeyed with the trap, Rogue better knew its capabilities.
My point was for the earlier action by Rogue when he put the 5th in there. He could have coordinated something with The Doctor so they could have swapped the 5th for Ruby. But maybe closer viewing would indicate that would not have worked.
 

Adam Lenhardt

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For longtime fans who watched the classic series, the reveal of the Big Bad will be a real "Oh SHIT!" moment. But those who haven't will be scratching their heads a bit, because "Pyramids of Mars" was a very long time ago.
 

NeilO

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So, BBC had these special versions of classic Doctor Who episodes with a wraparound Tales of the TARDIS. They were not available for view in the US. I had heard that there was going to be a new one with the current team covering an episode. 10:1 the episode they would be covering is "Pyramids of Mars"
 

NeilO

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NeilO

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Just finished the finale. I like it. It ends with a nice teaser of sorts for the next season or the Christmas special.

that Ruby's mother really was just a normal underaged girl. She was only important because they made her important. Nice touch.
 

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