In Which We Finally Get An Episode Not Written By Chris Chibnall

[astrogirl2]

New Who! And my DVR seems to have stopped glitching out on me at random the way it did in the last few episodes, so that's nice.

Comments

[anonymous]

This is another episode where I found the story stronger than you did. After all, the plot has all too much resonance with real-life events. I thought it odd that no-one spotted a bullet wound on that holy man's body, or did I miss something? And even though the aliens didn’t turn out to have caused any deaths, I did wonder how Yaz felt about uncanny things having affected her family not just once, but twice, and this time in a very personal way. And yes, I did think of Father's Day, but I also got flashbacks to Curse of Fenric, what with Ace meeting her grandmother

[astrogirl2]

I thought it odd that no-one spotted a bullet wound on that holy man's body, or did I miss something?

It seemed like no one looked too closely, and just assumed it was the blue alien stuff that did it. But now that you mention it, it does seem a little odd that the Doctor, at least, didn't notice.

I’m now wondering if Thirteen has a constant snarky commentary on people and events around her playing out in her head, which she only just manages not to blurt out due to her resolution to be nice.

I kind of like that thought, actually. It really does seem to me like she's making a conscious effort to be nicer, but surely regeneration hasn't changed her that much that she's not still thinking snarky things.

Do Time Lords just lack any gender identity?My guess is, yeah, basically they do. Or by and large, anyway. I mean, we did see that general who regenerated from a man to a woman and said something about it being nice to be back to normal again. But I'm inclined to read that as just being about what she's most used to and prefers

[anonymous]

The review I was reading pointed out that good hasn’t really won out over evil much this season, which is what I meant by dark. In Demons and Rosa, the Doctor has no choice but to let terrible events go ahead. In Ghost Monument, she has to collaborate with pretty shady people in order to win a very shady race and get to the Tardis, and is then stabbed in the back by the race organiser; it’s just luck that the Tardis turns up after all that. In Arachnids, the real villain of the piece, the billionaire, seems to get off scot-free, the Doctor acting as if there’s nothing she can do about him despite the fact that he’s broken laws (someone pointed out that Yasmin could have arrested him, but never does so). And even in the first story, the victory over Tim Shaw is spoilt by Grace’s death. Plus, the stories take place against a larger backdrop of a universe rife with oppression, hatred and injustice, against which the Doctor can only fix small things, never the greater problems. Even those assassin aliens are like this: faced with the

[astrogirl2]

Whether this is actually darker than other things we’ve seen in NuWho, or even classic Who, is another matter,

I guess it's a different sort of "dark" than what I'm usually thinking of when I think about dark moments in Who, but when you lay it out like that, it certainly sounds pretty dark. And I think everything you point out is true. (Heck, in the last bit of my post above, I started to say there was a theme about "the power of love" and then I stopped, thought about it, and changed it, because love, while still important, doesn't seem to have any real power here in terms of actually making things happen in the world.)

I think I actually like, once in a while, to see the Doctor focus on small-scale problems like this, or to see an acknowledgement that she can't or won't or shouldn't fix everything. (I mean, I liked "The Fires of Pompeii.") But having that basically happening in every single episode doesn't seem like a great pattern.

[jhall1]

I enjoyed the episode. It was an interesting choice of setting. It's a piece of history that I suspect most British people without an Indian or Pakistani heritage know far less than they should - myself included. I see that the writer was Vinay Patel who, by his or her name, presumably has a family link to the Indian subcontinent. I wonder if he/she was inspired to write the episode from the film "The Viceroy's House". (I originally assumed that Vinay was a female name, but I'm not sure why.)

It was arguably quite a brave choice of subject, given that even today there's a lot of tension between India and Pakistan. I wondered how the episode would be received by the more fundamentalist Hindus and Moslems who watched it in the UK.

They're sort of like the invisible monster in "Vincent and the Doctor" that I'm always forgetting actually existed in that episode. They're not what the story is about.Yes, I thought that too. With both episodes, it seemed to me that the episodes only had monsters/aliens because it was Doctor Who and that

[astrogirl2]

I know nothing about Vinay Patel, but judging from the name, yes, I'd definitely guess there's a reason why they were the person to write this one!

And if most British people know very little about the history of that part of the world, I might suspect that we in America know even less...

Yes, I thought that too. With both episodes, it seemed to me that the episodes only had monsters/aliens because it was Doctor Who and that the stories might have been better if they hadn't been shoehorned in as a distraction from the real subject.

I sometimes wonder if we'll ever get a pure historical with no aliens or monters (or alien monsters) in it ever again. Surely there's still room in the show for that sort of thing.

They clearly didn't worry enough about continuity to ensure that the same weirdness would be caused this time as on that occasion.Well, there wasn't the kind of interference in this ep that there was in that one. Still, it's interesting how the whole thing with the "Reapers" that was so important in that ep got dropped

[jaxomsride]

I quite enjoyed the episode and it did make a change to have one that was not set in either America or Britain.

Oddly enough another British series Who Do You Think You Are informed me as to the effect of the Separation into India and Pakistan. With my errant memory for names, I can't remember whose ancestor was also affected by the conflict.

The true monsters in Spiders and this episode are the humans.

[astrogirl2]

The true monsters in Spiders and this episode are the humans.

Indeed, although I think this one did that better.

[qwentoozla]

I liked this episode much better as well. The plot actually worked in this one, I felt invested again. The aliens were not super necessary, but they did look awesome. I loved the Doctor's excitement about getting to do henna too.

[astrogirl2]

I do suspect that if I hadn't been so disappointed by the last couple I mght have been less thrilled with this one, but, as I say, I'll take it!

Whittaker's Doctor does enthusiasm so well. :)

[aelfgyfu_mead]

I just loved it; it was my favorite of the season so far. I didn't find the plot thin at all, to be honest, but very powerful. I felt so much for all the characters, including all the ones we only had for the one episode, and even Manish, who went so horribly wrong.

I was on the verge of tears at the end. I've been wanting more Yaz, and of course I still want more Yaz, but I felt like I got a much better.

I also enjoyed that even while they had a lot of heavy things going on, they had a lot of humor, too: the henna (and the grandmother criticizing it at the end!), the Doctor's uncertainty about what she's supposed to do, the Doctor's muttered regrets when we know she didn't really regret a thing.

And I love when they get history right (as far as I know!); I don't mind if they're a bit blunt about it.

[astrogirl2]

Maybe "thin" isn't quite the right word for describing how I feel about the plot, although I'm not sure what the right word is. It's not a particularly plot-driven story, anyway. Which is not necessarily a problem.

And, yes, more Yaz is always good!