Oxygen (Grade & Discussion Thread)

Discussion in 'Doctor Who' started by TommyR01D, May 12, 2017.

?

How do you rate this episode?

Poll closed May 20, 2017.
  1. The Final Frontier

    11 vote(s)
    20.0%
  2. Great, Isn't It

    31 vote(s)
    56.4%
  3. Capable of Simple Tasks

    12 vote(s)
    21.8%
  4. Two Stars

    1 vote(s)
    1.8%
  5. Gave Me the Trots

    0 vote(s)
    0.0%
  1. TommyR01D

    TommyR01D Captain Captain

    Joined:
    Oct 28, 2011
    Location:
    UK
    Space, the final frontier.
    Final because it wants to kill us.
    Sometimes we forget that, start taking it all for granted - the suits, the ships, the little bubbles of safety - as they protect us from the void, but the void is always waiting.


    Will the fifth episode be a breath of fresh air?
     
    Last edited: May 13, 2017
  2. Brefugee

    Brefugee No longer living the Irish dream. Premium Member

    Joined:
    Oct 12, 2007
    Seriously? The episode isn't on for another 36 hours and you still can't write more than a few words about it. Can't say I am particularly surprised by this though.

    It would be nice to see someone else be given the actual chance of starting a thread this series.
     
    Mr Awe and The Nth Doctor like this.
  3. StCoop

    StCoop Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

    Joined:
    Aug 11, 2006
    Location:
    Dublin, Ireland
    I swear if the Space Zombies are cured at the end of the episode I may kick my TV screen in...
     
  4. TommyR01D

    TommyR01D Captain Captain

    Joined:
    Oct 28, 2011
    Location:
    UK
    It's odd that after a fairly standard haunted house episode we go straight to (presumably) a zombie romp. All we need now is for Extremis to be a sex comedy.
     
  5. Brefugee

    Brefugee No longer living the Irish dream. Premium Member

    Joined:
    Oct 12, 2007
    You've just added a video of tonights episode and not felt like responding to my comment.
     
  6. Professor Zoom

    Professor Zoom Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Sep 16, 2004
    Location:
    Idealistic
    In fairness, what is there to respond to? You made your position quite clear. (Though the video was always there)
     
  7. Brefugee

    Brefugee No longer living the Irish dream. Premium Member

    Joined:
    Oct 12, 2007
    Oh there are a few things he could have said.

    Actually it was added in yesterday evening.

    But you're right, I made my point and I'll make it again next Friday morning when a review thread appears and again after that if need be.
     
  8. publiusr

    publiusr Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Mar 22, 2010
    Location:
    publiusr
    Haunted spacesuits? We sawthat in the Library. Before that even.

    I think they used to havesomebody at a space center wearing an Apollo suit--who would jump out at folks
     
  9. Professor Zoom

    Professor Zoom Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Sep 16, 2004
    Location:
    Idealistic
    By the time I clicked on the thread it was already there.

    But, what is your point?
    For frak's sake, it's just a review thread of TV show. Does it really matter who puts it up and when?
     
  10. Brefugee

    Brefugee No longer living the Irish dream. Premium Member

    Joined:
    Oct 12, 2007
    Of course it doesn't matter.
     
  11. Professor Zoom

    Professor Zoom Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Sep 16, 2004
    Location:
    Idealistic
    Your previous posts seem to contradict this. They read like it matters to you.
    If not, then, I totally don't understand your point.
     
  12. Brefugee

    Brefugee No longer living the Irish dream. Premium Member

    Joined:
    Oct 12, 2007
    Then I apologise for giving you the wrong impression and confusing you.

    Just because someone makes a post like I did, doesn't mean it actually matters to the person making the post.
     
  13. The Nth Doctor

    The Nth Doctor Infinite Possibilities... Premium Member

    Joined:
    Jul 20, 2000
    Location:
    Lost in a temporal and spatial anomaly
    The video was edited in eight hours after Dimesdan's post

    Yeah, that will annoy the hell out of me, too.
     
    Brefugee likes this.
  14. Mr Awe

    Mr Awe Vice Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Jan 15, 2002
    No, it was not there at first.

    I'd suggest that anyone who wants to do a better grading review thread to do so. People can always choose the grading/review thread they prefer themselves.

    I mainly just use these threads to read reviews, post mine, and just see what others thought. I don't need all of the extra info up front, but I know that many do like all of that. Whoever does these threads should take the general considerations of the group into account. Or, someone else can start their own.

    There's really no point rushing to do these if you're not going to provide what many users are looking for. Just doesn't make sense.
     
    The Nth Doctor likes this.
  15. CaptainWacky

    CaptainWacky More than meets the eye Rear Admiral

    Joined:
    Apr 30, 2000
    Location:
    CaptainWacky
    Best episode this series. I've found each of the other four pretty disappointing (usually due to lack of a decent plot) but I had no real complaints this week. Good story, good space zombies, good Doctor/Bill stuff...even Nardole was good (not that he was bad before, he just got so little to do that I wondered why he was in the opening credits.) Hope it continues like this.
     
  16. Brefugee

    Brefugee No longer living the Irish dream. Premium Member

    Joined:
    Oct 12, 2007
    And now the poll has appeared!

    Well I enjoyed it, seemed a Borgish, but for me that is no bad thing.
     
  17. Emperor-Tiberius

    Emperor-Tiberius Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

    Joined:
    Jul 30, 2005
    Location:
    Kavala, Greece
    I'd say this was comfortably the best episode of the series, thus far. Finally the plot cought up with the characters, and it was nice to see a tense outer space story that also highlighted the Doctor's need to go out there more often. Its really a nice change of pace, the character emphasis. Very RTD-like.
     
    Chaos Descending likes this.
  18. The Nth Doctor

    The Nth Doctor Infinite Possibilities... Premium Member

    Joined:
    Jul 20, 2000
    Location:
    Lost in a temporal and spatial anomaly
    I loved this episode. Very atmospheric, more so than "Knock, Knock" with a better conclusion, although there wasn't much to the space station characters. Loved the opening scene in the exterior of the space station with the terror of the moment as Ellie tried to tell Ivan her wishes to have a baby together, only to die unheard. I do wish the episode fully committed to no sound in space instead of the muffled sounds, some of which would probably be heard in the suits but certainly not all (such as the hatch operations). We did get some sense of that when Bill lost her helmet and became oxygen deprived, but that was more of a unique situation because it showed her slipping into unconsciousness from her perspective (which was a cool sequence, by the way).

    I was worried that when Bill "died" that the episode was setting up to reveal that all of the space station personnel didn't actually die and they would be revived when Bill would inevitably was revived, but thankfully i was wrong on that count. The Doctor's explanation for how she didn't die was a bit hand-wavy, but it's better than the alternative.

    I liked the Borg parallel of the suits tossed in with the capitalism of maintaining oxygen supply, although I was annoyed that the suits stomped. Can we for once get a hoard without any stomping please? But at least The Doctor's sonic screwdriver was removed from action early on in the episode, not that that will last for subsequent episodes.

    That being said, the whole episode would've worked better if it didn't have bookend scenes (aside from the cold opening) with The Doctor's Earthbound situation. While I loved the glimpse of The Doctor giving an irrelevant lecture about dying in space in an agriculture class and how that speech was recalled later on in the episode, I'm still tired of The Doctorbeing forced to stay on Earth instead of just exploring in time and space. The Vault MacGuffin isn't that interesting, but at least it'll be supposedly dealt with in the next episode. I wouldn't mind this particular scenario so much if Moffat hadn't already did the Earthbound companion scenario three times already. I really hope Chibnall moves away from this set-up when he takes over.

    Absolutely. I've done them in past but I haven't done them this season because these threads keep coming up far sooner than I would post them (I posted them on the day of the episode). I don't mind someone else doing it as long as there's a bit more information for the episode in the initial post than some random sentence, and posts the poll right away.
     
    PhotoBoy and Brefugee like this.
  19. Lonemagpie

    Lonemagpie Writer Admiral

    Joined:
    Jan 31, 2007
    Location:
    Yorkshire
    Hilarious, still not original (the Library spacesuits, and the suits really behaved like Borg/Cybermen - but I *liked* that - and it was a bit overly preslytizing, which actually works while there's an election in a month. But overll, really good, with great lines from the Doctor. The cliffhanger makes the description given for next week's episode make a lot more sense too...
     
  20. StCoop

    StCoop Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

    Joined:
    Aug 11, 2006
    Location:
    Dublin, Ireland
    Well played BBC. On the left a shot from the trailers on the right the shot from the episode.

    [​IMG]

    So does this mean he's going to stay blind until the pseudo-Regeneration scene in Episode 8?
     
    Starkers likes this.