New Doctor Who

[Jazzy G]

@CharlesTuckerTheThird

Spoiler

Sutekh is a returning enemy from the Tom Baker story Pyramids Of Mars. It's a huge fan-service thing. 

The wrong anagram thing was a heck of a (Susan) Twist. 

Internet speculation is that it's Susan dropping Ruby off at the church. 

I thought it was a decent episode. Very well executed. 

[CharlesTuckerTheThird]

8 hours ago, Jazzy G said:

@CharlesTuckerTheThird

  Reveal hidden contents

Sutekh is a returning enemy from the Tom Baker story Pyramids Of Mars. It's a huge fan-service thing. 

The wrong anagram thing was a heck of a (Susan) Twist. 

Internet speculation is that it's Susan dropping Ruby off at the church. 

I thought it was a decent episode. Very well executed. 

Oh don't get me wrong, I very much enjoyed the episode, aside from my minor gripes, it just wouldn't have been much of a review if I didn't mention said gripes! 😁

[ReturnOfTheMack]

Has this Doctor cried in every episode of this season now?

[Harry Wiseau]

he didn't cry in 73 Yards did he? i watched that one last night (i'm very behind, in fact i've only seen the space babies one and half of the Beatles one but I liked 73 yards a lot, enough to make me want to catch up properly)

[Lorne Malvo]

Doctor Boo-Hoo, more like!!

Spoiler

I don't watch it.

 

[ReturnOfTheMack]

2 hours ago, Harry Wiseau said:

he didn't cry in 73 Yards did he? i watched that one last night (i'm very behind, in fact i've only seen the space babies one and half of the Beatles one but I liked 73 yards a lot, enough to make me want to catch up properly)

True, fair enough. But he was in that for about 73 seconds.

[BomberPat]

Last episode thoughts:

Spoiler

Starting out by saying that I really dislike Russell T. Davies as a showrunner, and that the writing in this series has been extremely ropey and carried by Ncuti Gatwa's charisma - I'm cautiously looking forward to the next series, though, when the episodes will be more written for how Gatwa plays the Doctor. 

One thing RTD does very well, though, is the first half of a two-parter. Unfortunately, he reliably fucks the landing, but let's be along for the ride anyway.

Every time there's a mysterious woman in Doctor Who, the nerds in the fanbase tend to be pretty evenly split about whether it's going to end up being Susan or The Rani, and it's never either. It's the Doctor Who equivalent of WWE fans thinking that every time a female wrestler puts on slightly darker eyeliner it means she's going to become Sister Abigail. It's been interesting this time that they have been explicitly mentioning Susan since the music episode, so you've really been set up to believe it - that RTD is playing metatextually enough to do a "Susan twist" with an actress called Susan Twist, after featuring a song called "There's Always A Twist At The End" is something I can't decide whether it really irritates or me if I admire it. Perhaps both.

The other WWE comparison to RTD era New Who is that both seem to think that if less is more, then more is definitely more, so it's not enough to have one mysterious woman this series, we need at least three - Susan Triad and her many faces, Ruby's mother, and Mrs. Flood. Then there's one-offs like 73 Yards being a story about a mysterious woman, and arguably Ruby herself counts a mysterious woman. I am absolutely sick of "the companion is the most important thing in the universe, everything revolves around them/the companion is a mystery to be unlocked" series - give me the companion as a perfectly ordinary audience surrogate over another magical girl or love interest any day. 

I couldn't remember if "The One Who Waits" was ever called "he" in previous episodes - probably was, but I'd forgotten, so had started to think maybe Susan was The One Who Waits, given that the first Doctor's "Goodbye Susan" speech was him saying that one day he would come back, so Waiting could easily have become her dominant character trait. But Mrs Flood says "he waits no more", so that's out.
 

I have no idea who Mrs Flood is going to turn out to be, but it's a very ominous name. I don't think she's Susan, nor is she Ruby's Mum. I think she's going to be another of the elder Gods that have broken through since the Toymaker; maybe her role is ultimately to wash them all away with a metaphorical or literal Flood. 

I disliked the Time Window stuff. Felt like a naff cop-out of the "UNIT can't time travel" thing by giving them a way to be in the scene without "technically" being there, and was a masterclass in new made-up technobabble. There was a whole thing with the Doctor saying that "time is memory", and that the image is so much clearer than it normally would be in a Time Window (which was meaningless, given we've never seen one before) because the memories were so strong - so when people were freaking out about how nobody could see Ruby's Mum's face, the most logical explanation was that nobody had ever seen it, so nobody has any memory of it, and if time is memory, then it would be disappearing.

It'll be some other magical explanation, I'm sure - I'm still not entirely clear how Susan Twist's character was present in multiple times and places, other than as a trap to lure in the Doctor, and I don't suppose the "how" matters, but her being scattered throughout time and space makes me think that maybe the real person beneath it all is Ruby's Mum, and that's why she's flickering and not quite fully present in the past, because she's been somehow cut from that time and place and scattered across many more. But then I don't think Susan Triad is Ruby's Mum either, nor do I think it's going to turn out to be the Doctor's granddaughter Susan, or Mrs Flood. It might be that Susan Triad is just another false identity created by Sutekh to manipulate whoever the real person is, and that person is going to turn out to be Ruby's Mum,

Speaking of Sutekh, the reveal was absolutely hilarious. "Harriet Arbinger" was one of the shittest reveals imaginable, but to follow that up with "it was the wrong anagram!" and then revealing something that very much wasn't an anagram made me laugh out loud. And that's not a great scene, given that Doctor Who masterfully bypasses all my usual distaste for nostalgia for nostalgia's sake, and Pyramids of Mars is maybe by favourite Doctor Who story, so the reveal of Sutekh shouldn't make me have to pause the show until I stop laughing. Sutekh's still voiced by Gabriel Woolf, though! There's that nostalgia buzz again.


I have no faith that the second part will be any good, because RTD's track record is setting everything up brilliantly and then resolving it all with the power of love and "I do believe in fairies". But I'm interested to see what he does with Sutekh, and how (or if) they resolve the series-long issue of new Gods and the rules changing and all that. I also expect that we do actually meet Susan in the next episode, or that a hint towards her is given for the next series, because I don't think RTD would purposefully bring her up and tease the audience about her and not deliver on it. I just don't think any of the characters we've already met are Susan. I think it would be really nice if Carole Ann Ford just makes a small, almost inconsequential, appearance in the next episode, unseen by the Doctor. Hell, go even more meta and get Roberta Tovey (who played Susan in the Cushing movies, and is the daughter of George Tovey, who was in Pyramids of Mars) in a supporting role too if they can.  

One thing I will say is that Jemma Redgrave is phenomenal, maybe my favourite part of this episode. She plays Kate Lethbridge-Stewart as this really commanding figure of authority, but always with a sense that she's barely holding it together, that even though she knows more than most people that she's completely out of her depth next to the Doctor, so there's always this anxiety and fear just bubbling beneath the surface. Always an absolute joy to watch her.

 

[DavidB6937]

That was a really interesting read. Admittedly I don't get too involved in discussion or articles about Who because I find it all a little too picky and overwhelming. The fanbase can really ruin stuff sometimes and I find I do actually enjoy it more away from all that. But it's interesting to read a breakdown like that.

[Harry Wiseau]

On 6/17/2024 at 2:35 PM, ReturnOfTheMack said:

Has this Doctor cried in every episode of this season now?

And again! 

 

The Mrs Flood mystery remains intriguing, and I'm not quite sure why Ruby could make it snow. 

 

I've watched this series / season a bit out of whack, watched the first two then had a break then watched a couple out of order and maybe missed one but I loved 73 yards and was enjoying Rogue until my eldest said how the character was just Captain Jack with a different actor, then I really really enjoyed the first part of the finale but wasn't overly impressed by part two. I liked bits like the memory TARDIS from Tales from the TARDIS but it seemed (and I'm saying this as someone who has only heard about Marvel endgame rather than see it myself) a bit marvel endgame. I really wanted and continue to want to like it, Ncuti is so good as the Doctor but the old reset the world thing seemed a bit pants. Does everyone who was dead and came back remember it a bit like Kate? Lots of questions, I'm looking forward to the Christmas one and will need to rewatch this and a few earlier in the series, much better then the Chibnall stuff but I really rather foolishly set my mental bar really high for how good this would be. 

 

73 yards was still ace though and I liked it had a little tie up in this

[Jazzy G]

Spoiler

It had something of a "Lord Of The Rings" ending to it, where everything was wrapped up and dealt with and there was still about 15 minutes of the episode left. It was fine. A lot of the showrunners have this knack of doing a brilliant job setting the finale up in the first part, then ballsing it up. Moffatt was notorious for it with his magic reset button in the finale during his tenure.

I do feel like this series has been hamstrung by both only having 8 episodes, and Ncuti being unavailable for some of it due to his still being involved in Sex Education, so them having to do two "Doctor Lite" episodes. It may have been less jarring if they weren't back to back.

Great write-up, Pat.

[CharlesTuckerTheThird]

Thoughts on Empire Of Death (SPOILERS):
 

Spoiler

+ Sutekh, despite being the wrong Egyptian God, was suitably terrifying.
+ The spoon thing. I did think about putting this as a negative, but then I remembered this is Doctor Who and silly bollocks is what this show is about!
+ The T.A.R.D.I.S dragging Sutekh along like a very bad dog. Because he was.
+ Ncuti Gatwa's performance as the Dust Of Death crossed the universe was exactly what I wanted. The Doctor is supposed to be this ultimate guardian of all creation, and being confronted with what he would consider as absolute failure would be harrowing for him. 
+ Dust Of Death.
+ The payoff for Ruby's storyline. 

/ I wasn't sure whether or not to put this as a + or a - so I put it in the middle, but Louise seemed to get past her long-lost daughter turning up a little quickly for my tastes. I'll admit it was getting towards the end of the episode and had to wrap it up, but they could have had her seem a bit reluctant while meeting the rest of the Sundays or be a bit more quiet. This is more a personal preference though.

- More Susan Blue Balls. Either bring her back or don't!
- Mel getting Sutekh'd. Don't be messing with Mel!
- There were a few points where I could practically hear RTD going "Dammit, I wish we had a guy who couldn't die because he's a fixed point in time and has fought Egyptian deities before. Unfortunately, Barrowman couldn't keep it in his pants....."
- The next season doesn't start until 2025.
- RTD using the wrong Egyptian god. I know I said this last week but it still bothers me, dammit! I KNOW YOU KNOW WHO THE GOD OF DEATH IS RTD!!!

All in all, an excellent finale that wrapped up everything it needed to. I give it 4.8 Sharaz Jek's out of 5.

[BomberPat]

Finale thoughts:

Spoiler

It had all the best and the worst of Russell T. Davies. In the heartstring-pulling game, he's better than anyone, and he manages to hit all the right nostalgia buttons in a way that feel natural and not just smashing the "REMEMBER THIS?" button - the shot of Mel just resting her head on the Seventh Doctor's sweater while she was falling asleep spoke volumes without having to actually say anything at all. It's blink and you'll miss it, but maybe my favourite moment of the entire episode.

I didn't really like the design of Sutekh. Turning him into a big CGI monster just made him feel less of a genuine threat to me, because it limits the amount of physical interaction he can have with the Doctor (or anyone else), and makes you constantly aware that you're watching an effect. Cheap as it was, I actually love the character design on the original Sutekh too, so it's a shame to throw that out entirely.

After the first part, I said to a friend that I never really get on with RTD season finales because it's always about how the fate of the entire universe, life, space and time itself hangs in the balance, and at no point do I believe that he's actually going to kill off everything and destroy the world, so every effort to increase the stakes just makes it more obvious that he's going to find a magic reset button, which is usually some kind of "I do believe in fairies" saving the day with the power of friendship, or inventing a new magical power or device for the Doctor to use, and we got all of that in this episode. Moffat did a lot of this too, but his strength was making the stakes personal - even if all of time was being destroyed, you cared because of how it impacted on Amy and Rory, and because even the "solution" might still have personal stakes for them, it wasn't just making everything okay again.

I'm a sucker for UNIT-heavy stories, and the tipping point for me was when it looked like they were killing off Kate Lethbridge-Stewart - I didn't believe they'd do it, and then when more and more central characters got wiped out by the death dust, it just became more obvious. But all of the scenes at UNIT HQ were tremendous.

An amazing bit of very RTD writing in this one too, was the Doctor saying about the size of the TARDIS' perception filter, and it turning out to be 73 yards. It has all the feeling of a big reveal, of explaining the mysteries of that episode, or at least of connecting them, but it does no such thing. It gets all the dopamine hits of "oh, I understand that reference!", but does nothing to actually connect them, it's just saying the same thing twice. Saying "Bad Wolf" every episode isn't a narrative arc, saying "73 Yards" in two episodes doesn't do anything to actually draw a line between them, but it really feels like it does so long as you know the audience aren't going to stop and think about it. I don't know if he approaches it that cynically or if he really thinks he did something there.

Speaking of 73 Yards, Ruby's actions in that episode appear to have achieved absolutely nothing, as we still end up with the mad Welsh Prime Minister anyway, apparently! And, in trying to solve the mystery of who Ruby's Mum might be, it's taken the Doctor this long and the reign of a despotic Prime Minister to think that he could just run a DNA check. I get emails offering me one once a week, but it never occurred to the Doctor, even though the TARDIS has repeatedly been used to check people's DNA in the past and, as it happens, UNIT seem to have their own comprehensive DNA database too? Daft writing.

I liked the idea of Ruby's Mum being nobody important - it feels like consciously aping The Last Jedi's reveal of Rey's parents being nobody special, but without a JJ Abrams to come lumbering in and retcon it because he didn't understand it. I would have preferred if they'd left it at that, with their eyes meeting in a coffee shop but without them forming a relationship, I just don't think it was particularly necessary, though I understand why that would be the happy ending a lot of people wanted, obviously. Beyond that, it just doesn't add up - the idea that "she's important because we thought she was important" only stretches so far; it's a bit ridiculous to think that Sutekh would be so hung up on that mystery when there's millions of kids who don't know their parents, and "we think she's important" doesn't explain how her memory is enough to cause reality-bending snow to fall, or any of that stuff. It was a nice idea that didn't feel thought through.

It also felt like too much of it had been a mystery for it's own sake - why was this ordinary 15 year old girl in a spooky cloak and dramatic pointing at signs? How did pointing to the sign "name" Ruby when there was no one there to see it? There was no mystery over her name anyway, so it felt a bit like the episode of The Simpsons where Homer discovers that the "J" in his name stands for "Jay".

I like that Mrs Flood still hasn't been resolved; I assume she's some other kind of God, either a Storyteller or, because of the name, a kind of personification of the Great Flood Myth - I thought that would come into play here, that she would be involved in washing away Sutekh's dust.

Similar to the Ruby's Mum scene in a coffee shop, I had hoped for something with Carole Ann Ford in this episode - it doesn't need to be a big grand reunion, but I thought there could be something really nice in her appearing in a crowd scene, her and the Doctor meeting eyes, and then one or the other getting lost in a crowd so they don't meet. Don't draw too much attention to it, just show that Susan is still out there, but whether it's a coincidence that they were in the same place or if she's been waiting for the Doctor all along can be left up to the audience to figure out.

 

All criticisms aside, it was a good series - average episode quality never dipped below average, nothing was egregiously awful. Ncuti Gatwa is great, and I'm looking forward to a series more explicitly written with his Doctor in mind. Just no more magical mystery girl companions, please.