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"Face the Raven" Grade and Discussion Thread

Grade "Face the Raven"?

  • Souffle girl

    Votes: 36 35.6%
  • The Impossible Girl

    Votes: 34 33.7%
  • Good

    Votes: 19 18.8%
  • Decent

    Votes: 7 6.9%
  • Rubbish

    Votes: 5 5.0%

  • Total voters
    101
  • Poll closed .
I'm generally avoiding spoilers, but was spoiled by a thread title here that Clara's departure would be very clever and sad. Vague, but enough.
 
I miss not having epsiode numbers on the review threads I seems to take me longer each week to find the right thread.

Anyway it was decent but I don't need to see Lady Me again and I won't miss Clara.

She came across as half deranged with a death wish, which is probably the come down from how Danny Pink ended up. The Doctor should have left her on earth with a good therapist long before she got to this point.
 
First thought: Well, it's nice to know Timewalker can go back to watching Doctor Who now.
:lol:

Yeah, hopefully this time it's not a "ha-ha, just kidding" ending.

I'm looking forward to seeing who the new companion will be.

Well, that episode was "rubbish". The plot was stupid, the ageless woman got over on the Doctor way too easy (and of course she's working for some vague bad guys), and the death was ridiculous. I mean, I'm glad Clara's dead, its the only good thing this episode did, but when you actively dislike the character, the type of death they went with doesn't effect you at all. I was just hoping it would be a bit darker, more sudden and with less attempts to tug on the heartstrings. As it is, it was a stupid episode where one good thing happened, but the good event was done badly.

I guess if I had to say one more good thing about it, Rigsy was ok. He was the only good character in the episode outside of The Doctor.
Hey, the bird was okay (I like ravens, crows, and magpies).

Although I didn't like the character much, the most shocking death in Doctor Who is Adric's in Earthshock. We even get a silent credit role with camera focused on his broken mathematical star.
For me, the saddest part was how Adric was so proud of that star (received as an award for mathematical ability), and probably something Adric would have wanted the Doctor to have to remember him by, but the Doctor was forced to destroy it in order to ram the gold fragments into the Cyberleader's chest unit. So the Cybermen's actions not only claimed Adric's life itself, but also the tangible remnants of Adric's memory.
I thought it was pretty obvious that Adric gave the Doctor the star to use as a weapon against the Cybermen. Adric had no intention of dying.
Well, that was back when it was part of the show's lore that Cybermen are allergic to gold, and Adric's Badge of Mathematical Excellence had gold on its rim.

Adric had acquired some stuff in his travels, but the only things he had from Alzarius were his badge and the marsh-belt his brother gave him.

If we're comparing Adric's death with Clara's, Adric's was the more poignant and the one that actually had a point to it. Adric almost succeeded at the task he'd set himself, and when he realized he was going to die, he didn't whine and complain - just expressed regret that he'd never know if he was right, and faced his death square on. And in the end, he did succeed in saving Earth - just not the way he'd planned.

Clara basically died because she tried to get clever with a verbal contract and never considered that she should have read the fine print. It was a dumb way to die, and while I was watching it, I was thinking about the Eighth Doctor, asking for knitting to pass the time.
 
Nearly a week later, and honestly, I find Clara's death to be largely underwhelming. It really just doesn't work, for me. Too melodramatic, and not enough actual emotion to stem through.

Not even a callback to "Run, you clever boy...".
 
First thought: Well, it's nice to know Timewalker can go back to watching Doctor Who now.
:lol:

Yeah, hopefully this time it's not a "ha-ha, just kidding" ending.

I'm looking forward to seeing who the new companion will be.

Well, that episode was "rubbish". The plot was stupid, the ageless woman got over on the Doctor way too easy (and of course she's working for some vague bad guys), and the death was ridiculous. I mean, I'm glad Clara's dead, its the only good thing this episode did, but when you actively dislike the character, the type of death they went with doesn't effect you at all. I was just hoping it would be a bit darker, more sudden and with less attempts to tug on the heartstrings. As it is, it was a stupid episode where one good thing happened, but the good event was done badly.

I guess if I had to say one more good thing about it, Rigsy was ok. He was the only good character in the episode outside of The Doctor.
Hey, the bird was okay (I like ravens, crows, and magpies).

For me, the saddest part was how Adric was so proud of that star (received as an award for mathematical ability), and probably something Adric would have wanted the Doctor to have to remember him by, but the Doctor was forced to destroy it in order to ram the gold fragments into the Cyberleader's chest unit. So the Cybermen's actions not only claimed Adric's life itself, but also the tangible remnants of Adric's memory.
I thought it was pretty obvious that Adric gave the Doctor the star to use as a weapon against the Cybermen. Adric had no intention of dying.
Well, that was back when it was part of the show's lore that Cybermen are allergic to gold, and Adric's Badge of Mathematical Excellence had gold on its rim.


Actually those were a different species of Cybermen, they were not from "Pete's World" but were proper Cybermen from Mondas where they originally came from in the old series. That species of Cyberman were allergic to gold.

This episode was Oscar worthy compared to last week's piss weak effort.
 
Nearly a week later, and honestly, I find Clara's death to be largely underwhelming. It really just doesn't work, for me. Too melodramatic, and not enough actual emotion to stem through.

I pretty much agree. The more I think about it, the more I feel like the episode was just an overly convoluted way of reaching the ending. Death by a metaphorical Rube Goldberg machine.

In retrospect, I feel that a structure like "The Almost People" would have worked better -- normal story development, with Clara's sudden and unexpected death in the last two minutes. I think the episode's actual structure robbed the climax of any drama.

Not even a callback to "Run, you clever boy...".

We'll probably get that in the season finale.
 
We just now finished watching the episode, and I had no idea what was coming.

"Let me be brave"

:wah:


Oh my God! I cried like the big old baby that I am.

:lol:

If this indeed is her final episode, I can live with that ending. I guess from reading this a lot of people were lukewarm on Clara, but I loved her. I enjoyed her character very much.

Godspeed, Clara Oswald.
 
Full script for the episode:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/writersroom/scripts/doctor-who-series-9-ep-10

So the Doctor didn't just leave body her in the street with no thought for her family. Given the extra length of the last two episodes a shame they couldn't find a minute more for this one.

I figured that Rigsy dealt with her body with Me's help.


That is what I suspect.

Why was there white flash of light when Clara was hit with the raven? The other guy didn't have that happen.
 
Full script for the episode:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/writersroom/scripts/doctor-who-series-9-ep-10

So the Doctor didn't just leave body her in the street with no thought for her family. Given the extra length of the last two episodes a shame they couldn't find a minute more for this one.

I figured that Rigsy dealt with her body with Me's help.


That is what I suspect.

Why was there white flash of light when Clara was hit with the raven? The other guy didn't have that happen.

Two possibilities really...

1. Drama...

2. Some weird timey-wimey way Moffat is going to un-dead her in the finale, send her to a faraway world with Danny Pink or similar...
 
I figured that Rigsy dealt with her body with Me's help.


That is what I suspect.

Why was there white flash of light when Clara was hit with the raven? The other guy didn't have that happen.

Two possibilities really...

1. Drama...

2. Some weird timey-wimey way Moffat is going to un-dead her in the finale, send her to a faraway world with Danny Pink or similar...


I hope not because that sounds quite wanky if it is true.

Also wasn't the sleep infection inside her still?
 
Also wasn't the sleep infection inside her still?

We don't really know how after that episode this was. For all we know, the adventure her and the Doctor were on just before this episode was immediately after they left the commander back at her base.


Yeah but the Doctor said the process had already started inside her and that he'd have to fix it later.
 
Full script for the episode:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/writersroom/scripts/doctor-who-series-9-ep-10

So the Doctor didn't just leave body her in the street with no thought for her family. Given the extra length of the last two episodes a shame they couldn't find a minute more for this one.

I figured that Rigsy dealt with her body with Me's help.


That is what I suspect.

Why was there white flash of light when Clara was hit with the raven? The other guy didn't have that happen.

Having just done a rewatch. The man was hit in the back, away from the camera, so no way to know if there was a flash. The flash wasn't that strong with Clara.
 
I figured that Rigsy dealt with her body with Me's help.


That is what I suspect.

Why was there white flash of light when Clara was hit with the raven? The other guy didn't have that happen.

Having just done a rewatch. The man was hit in the back, away from the camera, so no way to know if there was a flash. The flash wasn't that strong with Clara.


Also she never took off the harness she had on while dangling out the TARDIS..
 
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