Spoilers S10E06 "Extremis" Review, Discussion and Grade Thread

[Venardhi]

How omniscient would these aliens need to be to create this simulation?

My assumption is that they can't actually control the simulation, they can only tell it what to simulate so they can gather data.

Why does Extremis make everyone kill themselves? No idea.

Because they are part of a simulation meant to help someone invade the real Earth. The only moral thing to do in that situation is to disrupt the simulation and ruin their data.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

This episode had so many plot holes, I can hardly count them. What happens if someone else comes up with the same number of plot holes that I do?

Rubbish.

 

[Skipper]

Maybe he was doing an Argentinian accent?

By the way, not at all. It's the classic accent used by someone who repeats an Italian phrase learned phonetically. He put the emphasis on the wrong words. But at least it wasn't something translated by Google.

 

[Romulan_spy]

So what is the Doctor going to do with the Vault? Is he going to let Missy stay inside it for 1000 years and then just let her out? The scene at the very end where he says that something is coming and he is blind, almost implies that he might let Missy out early, hoping that she will help him against the coming invasion.

 

[Jax]

Average for me...

The concept is interesting for sure and very Matrix esq but the execution was lacking. It potentially sets up an interesting arc with a new enemy but this season so far has suffered from lackluster episodes despite Capaldi, Lucas & Mackie being excellent themselves in every episode. How long was the simulation running for? how long have these aliens been waiting & planning their invasion? So we know 100% now that The Master is in the vault though we have no idea how Simm's version of the character will return.

I am not enjoying the Doctor being blind, it really hampers the pacing of his scenes. I simply don't buy the lack of explanation why The Doctor cannot use his regeneration energy? not too mention, you're telling me he is unaware of any technology in the entire Universe at any point in history that could restore his sight?

 

[Photoman15]

Did you miss the part where Nardole stuck his hand outside the projection area? Anything simulated cannot get outside. Those are simulated signals. They are not real EMF (or whatever) transmissions. They exist only inside a computer as equations and their effects only exist inside the computer through computations.

It would be like a character in a video game who has a transmitter trying to send a signal to your actual receiver!

There's no real "mail" inside my computer but I can simulate mail and have the computer send it out to the real world. And someone/bot can take over my computer and send multiple spam emails out to the real world from the 1s and 0s in my computer

 

[Mr. Adventure]

Because they are part of a simulation meant to help someone invade the real Earth. The only moral thing to do in that situation is to disrupt the simulation and ruin their data.

Maybe that's the subtext though the episode isn't clear about that. All of the Doctor's examples seem to imply it's about knowing you're not real not about stopping an invasion. The Doctor knows that to be true but I'm not so sure about others.

It's like Super Mario figuring out what's going on.
Deleting himself from the game, because he's sick of dying.
Those pretend people you shoot at in computer games.
They think they're real.
They feel it.
We feel it.

It seems like he would say something else if they were sacrificing themselves to save the real world.

 

[TommyR01D]

I simply don't buy the lack of explanation why The Doctor cannot use his regeneration energy?

Indeed, there is little compatibility between Moffat's treatment of regeneration before (The Angels Take Manhattan, The Witch's Familiar) and the Doctor's continued impairment here.

 

[tomalak301]

I really liked this episode, at least the concept of it. It was like Doctor Who meets The Matrix. However, considering there is another show with time travel that's been giving me a headache this year, I think Doctor Who is slowly approaching that point. Also, I agree with the Doctor being Blind thing making no sense. If the regeneration count as been reset, doesn't that mean the regeneration energy should be at full capacity right now?

 

[Mr. Adventure]

I am not enjoying the Doctor being blind, it really hampers the pacing of his scenes. I simply don't buy the lack of explanation why The Doctor cannot use his regeneration energy?

Maybe it does work but was beyond the scope of the simulation?

 

[Marten]

Wasn't it all very Moffat-y? Intriguing mystery, some good character moments along the way, and finally an explanation that makes no sense.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

Wait I got it! The aliens real world attack is going to be a copy of the Veritas with psychic paper, everyone reads it sees the numbers match and then kill themselves. The simulation was just to see if it would work.

 

[The Laughing Vulcan]

Wait I got it! The aliens real world attack is going to be a copy of the Veritas with psychic paper, everyone reads it sees the numbers match and then kill themselves. The simulation was just to see if it would work.

But in the real world, people don't kill themselves, they just get bored at another David Blaine piece of crap magic.

 

[Kitty Worrier]

Did they have Pope Benedict (and not Pope Francis) because the simulation started before he resigned in 2013, or is "present day" with Bill set around 2012-2013?

 

[tomalak301]

I'm not ultra religious, (I go to church) but I thought the scene where Bill and Penny were going to start the date and then the pope walks in was one of the funniest scenes I've ever seen on this series.

 

[cultcross]

I really enjoyed the basis of the story, a secret which is so devastating it causes both priests and scientists to be suicidal. That's a great idea. I even kind of like the idea that the secret is that we're in a simulated world playing out the end of the world and actually helping the architects of that end. I buy the nihilism there, the existential crisis that drove people to suicide on learning the truth. I'd even buy that someone in the simulation wrote the Veritas book, if it was established it had been running long enough for that to happen.

But here's the problem - how do you map that story onto an episode of an ongoing TV show? How do you reveal that the entire world including your star is actually a simulation, an alien dream world, and end up still having a show next week? It's tricky, and I'm not sure the show quite pulled it off. The fact that this Doctor was not, in fact, our star but a digital copy of him is necessary to avoid the huge reveal that the whole universe of the show is fake, but it simultaneously cheapens the entire premise.

I think this was a great sci-fi toned Dan Brown movie plot, and enjoyed it for that, but it wasn't quite there as a Doctor Who episode.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

Did they have Pope Benedict (and not Pope Francis) because the simulation started before he resigned in 2013, or is "present day" with Bill set around 2012-2013?

I believe Pope Benedict IX was the female pope who wove a spell on the Doctor with her castanets. I don't think the current pope was named in the episode.

 

[Jax]

I'm not ultra religious, (I go to church) but I thought the scene where Bill and Penny were going to start the date and then the pope walks in was one of the funniest scenes I've ever seen on this series.

It was a great scene.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

It was funny especially after trying to convince Penny that there was nothing to feel guilty about.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

Wait I got it! The aliens real world attack is going to be a copy of the Veritas with psychic paper, everyone reads it sees the numbers match and then kill themselves. The simulation was just to see if it would work.

Wouldn't work because the reason people were killing themselves was because they weren't real as proven by the numbers test.

But here's the problem - how do you map that story onto an episode of an ongoing TV show? How do you reveal that the entire world including your star is actually a simulation, an alien dream world, and end up still having a show next week? It's tricky, and I'm not sure the show quite pulled it off. The fact that this Doctor was not, in fact, our star but a digital copy of him is necessary to avoid the huge reveal that the whole universe of the show is fake, but it simultaneously cheapens the entire premise.

While I can see this being an issue for some people, I had no problem with it. I'm always interested in a medium that tries to present a story by unprecedented or unique means. It's no coincidence that Big Finish stories like Live 34, The Natural History of Fear, and Home Truths are among my favorite audio plays because they subvert storytelling in that way. "Extremis" ranks up there with them for the same reason because I think it executed that premise just right.

I believe Pope Benedict IX was the female pope who wove a spell on the Doctor with her castanets. I don't think the current pope was named in the episode.

Yup, correct on both parts.