7x09 Hide - rating and discussion thread

[Lonemagpie]

Hm, since if there's already a rate and review thread, it must be hiding....

Neil Cross's second script this season (after Rings Of Akhaten), guest-starring Dougray Scott, and featuring a Stone Tape style (according to the Radio Times, anyway) ghost hunt in 1974...

[diankra]

A few minutes in, and...
I think we might need a Stone Tape bingo card to keep track of the number of homages/rip-offs.

[JoeZhang]

Handy he has a blue Crystal from Metebelis 3! :-)

[hammerhead]

First mention of the Eye of Harmony (and use of it) since the TV movie!

[DalekJim]

I liked it. Very offbeat and untraditional which is rare in New Who.

Thought the sentimentality was layed on too thick but I think I've complained about that every episode now so I've given up expecting different.

[Green Lantern]

*Sigh* Back to more moring episodes again.

For the first few minites, I was completley bored. Nothing really happened that got me grasped. The story was too fast and yet some how also too slow at the same time, I don't like the fact that they've given the trdis a sort of personality, and at the beggining I guessed that that it would be the doctor and Clara at the door and would then be loud and clumbsy as usual. Plus we didn't really get an explanation for why the doctor was there until the very end. It was just a bit boring, didn't do it for me. Plus the end was confusing. It didn't make any sense.

Also, did anyone notice some doctor references. In the wi fi episode, I recall Clara saying "capter 11's best" to the kid with the book, then in this episode, she said "whisky is the 11th most discusting thing ever" which got me thinking "there's a pattern forming here". Then she said "big chin" at some point which reminded me of the 11th doctor as he has quite a large chin, plus the doctor wearing the space suit the tenth doctor wore. Then in the christmas special or whatever, someone on this forum pointed out that Clara had some roses. Not this could all be a big coincidence, or these could be references to the upcomming 50th anniversary seeing 10 and Rose are comming back, plsu there's speculation that the eleventh doctor may be regenerating in the christmas special.

[Green Lantern]

hammerhead wrote:

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First mention of the Eye of Harmony (and use of it) since the TV movie!

I seem to have missed that.

Well in this case, maybe it could be suggesting that the 50th anniversary will see the return of the 8th doctor as well as what I mentioned in my other post.

[Captain_Amasov]

Green Lantern wrote:

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I seem to have missed that.

Well in this case, maybe it could be suggesting that the 50th anniversary will see the return of the 8th doctor as well as what I mentioned in my other post.

I'd heard the Eye of Harmony appears in next week's episode.

[Lonemagpie]

Well, that Dr Who was.... um... I mean, it wasn't *bad*, there was nothing *wrong* with it, it had lots of Stone Tape, Xmas Ghost Story and DW references, but it was... Well, I suppose it was just sort of... nice. A bit too obviously padded with setup for the story arc for the finale, and the ending was a bit abrupt, but it was... nice.

Also, mind you, it does prove that Neil Cross, who wrote The Rings Of Akhaten, which was fucking fantastic, has a good range in DW - hopefully we'll see more of him, if his commitments to Luther allow.

[DalekJim]

Lonemagpie wrote:

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Also, mind you, it does prove that Neil Cross, who wrote The Rings Of Akhaten, which was fucking fantastic, has a good range in DW

I think both of his episodes have annoying ham-fisted power of love endings that spoil them significantly.

[Ghost Bones]

Clearly Smith and the director have never seen Planet of the Spiders, judging by his pronunciation of Metebelis.

It was ok. Didn't make masses of sense. Much as with last week, the sets and stuff were all top notch but the story and pacing were both a bit perfunctory. Smith continues to be Jar Jar and Clara is still an empty cipher. The monster thingy was a surprisingly grotesque design for the few moments we saw it. Quite nightmarish for kids.

[diankra]

JoeZhang wrote:

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Handy he has a blue Crystal from Metebelis 3! :-)

Less handy that there wasn't anyone one set to tell him how to pronounce Metebelis, like there was with Nimon last season...

[JoeZhang]

Meh - Shrewsbury/Shrewsbury as far as I am concerned.

[Wereghost]

Somewhat spirited. I found this just as good as Cold War in its way, showing that there's life in the old dog yet.

Nice nuanced interplay between Dougray Scott and Jessica Raine. and I liked the backstory of Scott's character. The scenes between the two leads were notable for their dialogue too.

I had been thinking that this would very much be a standalone, but then we were treated to the reappearance of the motif of the TARDIS being a "cow" to Clara. Wonder what that's about, not to mention Emma's apparent mistrust of the Doctor.

As regards the TARDIS, I'm not completely sold on it having a functionally generic avatar that speaks in the first person and seems to have a purely linear experience of time. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with that, but it seems inconsistent with what we saw in both The Doctor's Wife and Let's Kill Hitler (though maybe in the latter the ship was arguably being a "cow" to the Doctor as well. Perhaps it really is a drama queen, or perhaps the voice interface is a buffer between the ship's inscrutable consciousness and limited mortal minds).

Overall, Hide was a very entertaining 45 minutes that brought us mystery, tension, humour and interesting dialogue. One for a rewatch, methinks.

(Edit: It was a little out of season, though. November 25th, but but broadcast in April in broad daylight. I wonder if it was originally meant to air last year.)

[throwback]

The Tardis is a 11th dimension sentient entity who exists within the ship. (This is mentioned briefly at the end of the Doctor's Wife.)