Doctor Who

Yeah, I think from very early on it was clear that three companions in the TARDIS didn't work, and that Yaz was the strongest. I actually liked Graham as he brought some humour and pathos to the show, but don't really mind his absence, and I'm a bit annoyed that we can't just get some straight Doctor-and-Yaz episodes, we have to bring in another old(er) bloke. But modern Who has done okay with two companions - Amy and Rory, or times in the early days when Mickey or Jack was also in the TARDIS - but in most of those cases one was the "main" companion and the other one was more supporting so... who knows? (no pun intended)

It does feel a bit like Bishop is only there because they couldn’t convince Walsh to stay so instead of changing the shows direction they just dug up another middle aged comic to read his lines

I have now watched it, with the kids who did ok but had to cover their eyes at a few points.

I enjoyed it a lot. It was pretty non-stop, and it was a lot of setup that they need to deliver on, but it was also a lot more energetic and fun than the last few seasons were.

Not watched episode 2 yet though, so I don't know if they're managing to keep things going well.

I think if it had been an episode during the Tennant or Smith years I'd have been disappointed, but after so much sub-par Whoing around, the fact that it had the structure and form of a normal bog-standard episode was delightful. Whittaker was allowed to be clever and funny, had a brief bit of indignant rage, the wok stuff was actually fun, Waffle the Wonder Dog continues to be amazing, and the baddie (Swarm) is pretty good.

Yes, it's boilerplate stuff, yes we've seen basically every single beat of this done better before, yes the Sontaran plan didn't make any sense and they really are shit soldiers, and yes I'm utterly convinced whatever the solution is to this mystery it's gonna wind up disappointing. But at the moment it actually feels like solid Doctor Who, and I think we've mostly been missing that.

I was intensely bored by the second episode, I don’t think I made it ten minutes in before turning it off. I’ve seen every episode since the reboot (in 2005?) but I’m thinking I’ll let it go until the new team comes in. I’ve found all the lady doctor episodes to be horribly mediocre. I don’t know if it’s her or the writing or the direction or all of it.

I’m enjoying this arc so far.

Waffle is tremendous.

They really have upped the production values for this series, haven’t they?

Its a shame that Whittaker’s definitive performance is possibly her big farewell

We watched it last night. Not got a fucking clue what happened but I still preferred it to the potato people episode. A few nicely creepy turns from the weeping angels as well and it looks like it focuses on them next week. Good times.

Tell you what, it may be borderline incomprehensible, but Doctor Who has never looked so good. Some seriously impressive scenes this episode.

Yes the lava lamp was silly.

Some of those vistas were great though.

But eh, yeah. I haven't got the fucking foggiest what's going on.

The third episode feels guilty of what all the Matt Smith big arcs got wrong for me.

It was nice to see the Angels in what looked like the RE Village

I like that in general the classic enemies look more like modern updates of the vintage looks rather than the reboot designs

Yeah I really can't recall what the time agency thing (division?) is all about, or that other doctor.

The daleks and cybermen looked great however. Much prefer this look to the daleks.

They need a 'previously on...' recap bit really. I vaguely remembered something about the Doctor not being a Timelord but actually the Timeless Child or some such but I couldn't remember anything about The Division.

I looked it up on a wiki and supposedly the Doctor was an alien brought to Galifrey as a child by a scientist who discovered she could regenerate, figured out how it worked and spliced her genes into Galifreyans creating the Timelords. This revelation that all Timelords have some of her DNA is why the Master fucked Galifrey up in the previous series.
At some point she was recruited into The Division, a secretive organisation based on Galifrey and when she left they wiped her memory. Doggy fella is the only agent she's been able to track down that's still alive which is why she was chasing him at the start of this series.

And now it all makes perfect sense.

nazo

That does make sense now you've written that. I genuinely didn't catch any of that last series though but I don't think I was paying attention for half of it. Tempted to watch it again now and see.

Ah, see I'd remembered all the Division/Timeless Child crap stuff from before, but had utterly forgotten about her chasing doggo from two weeks ago.

I still think the Timeless Child revelation would have been so much better if it turned out the child was the Master, rather than the Doctor. I'm not a fan of "super special chosen one" narratives, and Doctor Who in particular could do without it.

Having an extra secret regeneration before Hartnell is cool though.