Spoilers The Power of the Doctor grade and discussion thread

[Mr. Adventure]

Of all the Chibnall Who episodes that was one of them. Finally over, next.

I do have to admit it would've been a pretty wild watch if I wasn't privy to the surprises.

 

[JoeZhang]

It would be interesting if 14 had a different personality that ten but I doubt if we will do that..

Interview with David:

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[StarMan]

That was a fucking mess.

Best of luck to Jodie. Was a fan of hers before Who. Anyway, what the hell?

 

[The Doctor]

I shed a tear when Jodie left and a few more when Tennant stumbled back on. The episode was about the same as the rest of the Chibnall era: good in individual snippets but somehow less than the sum of its parts when considered as a whole.

She deserved better.

 

[JoeZhang]

It occurs to me that Dan is Tegan - the companion who 'nopes!" the fuck out of there - Tegan is there in the episode to show that doesn't have to be the end.

 

[Orac Zen]

I watched the episode a few hours ago. A few thoughts before I read the rest of the thread:

* As was, unfortunately, pretty much standard for Chibnall-era Who, that was an episode in which somehow, simultaneously, about 12 000 things happened and not very much happened at all.

* Not a lot of plot to speak of, which again was pretty standard for this era.

* It's remarkable how much Jodie Whittaker can do with ordinary material. I'll be sure to watch her in other projects. She's tremendously talented and I'd really like to see what she can do with writing that's worthy of that talent.

* Really hope that's the last we'll see of Sacha Dharwan's version of the Master. The performance was much too over the top for my taste. Each, as ever, to their own.

* I'd like it even more if we never, ever see the Master (or Missy or any other variant) ever again, but that's far too much to hope for. Ditto the Daleks and the pathetic lockstep-marching pseudo-Cybermen, but eh. Won't happen.

* Good to see Graham again. Best companion of this era, by far.

* Great to see Janet Fielding again. I always liked Tegan. This older but just as acerbic version was great. The "I was an air hostess in the 80s!" bit was hysterical. (Didn't mind Ace, either, which considering I pretty much skipped the McCoy era entirely is...interesting, I suppose. The baseball bat thing was overdone, though.)

* Seeing Colin Baker, Peter Davison and Paul McGann was brilliant. Ironically that may have been some of the best material Baker ever had to work with as the Doctor. What an indictment. David Bradley was good, too.

* The small character bits with Davison / Fielding ("Brave heart") and McCoy / Aldred were really nice touches that indicated that whatever else one may say about Chibnall, he paid attention back in the day.

* The Katy Manning cameo was an absolute joy. The William Russell cameo had me simultaneously punching the air and shedding tears. How utterly brilliant to see them both.

* Actually, that entire scene was brilliant. Liked everything about it.

* I'll be good and not comment on the ending. Yet.

Whether I continue to watch the show under the "new" showrunner with the "new" Doctor remains to be seen. Presumably Davies will attempt to undo the Donna character assassination - which would be a bloody good thing, not that it should ever have happened in the first place - but whether I can put up with the rest of it... Eh, I'll probably give it a go, but with very minimal enthusiasm.

Now to see what everyone else thought of it.

 

[DigificWriter]

It would be interesting if 14 had a different personality that ten but I doubt if we will do that..

The 'Tennant Doctor 2.0' will get exactly 3 stories, so there's not really going to be time for the character to have a distinct personality.

And, yes, I'm refusing to legitimize RTD's fanwank decision-making by numbering this new version of the character regardless of what the official standpoint of the franchise dictates.

 

[thribs]

You mean Tennant Doctor 3.0?

 

[Turtletrekker]

The 'Tennant Doctor 2.0' will get exactly 3 stories, so there's not really going to be time for the character to have a distinct personality.

And, yes, I'm refusing to legitimize RTD's fanwank decision-making by numbering this new version of the character regardless of what the official standpoint of the franchise dictates.

Sounds to me like you're the one doing the fan-wank here.

 

[Orac Zen]

Something I forgot in my previous post: The Master as Rasputin (complete with the Boney M classic) was absolutely abysmal.

The bad: Jodie. All this time and Chibnall is still doing the same things, cutting her legs out from under her, denying her agency. He hates her so much he has Dhawan playing the Doctor (after doing that thing where Whittaker is tied up and he explains everything again!)

Interesting perspective. Makes a lot of sense, too.

(I'm going miss Jodie - I so wish she'd had better scripts).

Agreed. What a waste.

The bad: I am so f*cking tired of daleks, cybermen and the Master. Can't we have something new?

That would be fantastic, but unfortunately there's more chance of flying to the moon by waving our arms than that happening. I so wish the Nation estate had stuck to its guns back in the day and refused to ever let the damned Daleks appear again. The current pseudo-Cybermen are pathetic, and IMO the Master should have died with Delgado. Oh, well.

 

[DigificWriter]

Sounds to me like you're the one doing the fan-wank here.

I don't work for Doctor Who and am not the one who made Thirteen regenerate into an incarnation that shares the same physical form as the Tenth Doctor for no other reason than self-indulgence.

 

[cultcross]

I can tell that he has not acted for a while as his delivery of lines was quite hammy

He was in Inside Man last week. He's one of the most prolific faces on television....

Man think how shocking the Tennant reveal would've been if that hadn't been revealed earlier. A true shock. Instead, it was the expected conclusion

Well, I knew Tennant was back in some form but I was expecting the actual new doctor at the end, not him. So still a surprise!

 

[SolarisOne]

Chibnall really can't plot a coherent Doctor Who episode, can he? Damn, I wish Jodie was staying for a season or so with RTD at the helm. Her Doctor had so much goddamn potential that he wasted. I wonder how long it's gonna be before we get another woman in the role because of the mess he made?

Tennant's back as the direct successor to Jodie, huh? At least he isn't the Tenth Doctor this time.

an incarnation that shares the same physical form as the Tenth Doctor for no other reason than self-indulgence.

If you wanna blame anyone, blame Moffat. He opened the door to that--RTD's just walking through it. Moffat pretty much made it inevitable that someone would eventually.

I'm actually neither that bothered (or excited) by it. Now if instead it were Eccleston or Smith (especially Smith) coming back, I would be bouncing off the walls with excitement right now. As it is, I'd be perfectly fine with it if they had Tennant fall down and immediately regenerate into Ncuti Gatwa's Fifteenth Doctor.

Whatever.... I'm sure both Tennant and RTD will do a fine job with whatever storyline they have for the 60th anniversary specials.

 

[cultcross]

Chibnall really can't plot a coherent Doctor Who episode, can he?

 

[Starkers]

If you wanna blame anyone, blame Moffat. He opened the door to that--RTD's just walking through it. Moffat pretty much made it inevitable that someone would eventually.

Dang Moffat really does get blamed for everything, even when he has no actual involvement!

I believe there was consideration given to replacing Colin with Troughton in the 80s, at least temporarily, so this is an idea that predates Moffat and the Curator by some time.

And I love the idea that Tennant hasn't been acting much lately

 

[JWolf]

I'm watching the Power of the Doctor on BBC iPlayer in UHD. Use just need to be in the UK or have a VPN.

 

[captainkirk]

So, uh, what the heck was that? The plot was an incoherent mess that doesn't hold up at all. All the most interesting aspects had no room to breathe. So in keeping with the episode's random and chaotic plot, here are my random thoughts:

The traitor Dalek who believes their true mission has failed was an interesting idea, I would have liked that to be the focus for one of the previous Dalek specials. In this story, there was no time to do anything at all with it.

I haven't watched much of the Fifth Doctor era, and I haven't actually seen any Seventh Doctor serials, but I liked the scene between Tegan and Five, and then I really liked the scene between Ace and Seven.

Graham kind of just pops up out of nowhere, but it was good to see him again.

Ian and Eight were the two biggest pleasant surprises for me.

Thirteen's final lines were pretty good. I liked the fact that she didn't have a drawn-out monologue and that she didn't blow anything up while regenerating.

Basically no Thasmin stuff at all, which I appreciated.

I hated pretty much everything to do with the Master. But then the only version of the character I like is Delgado and to some extent the campiness of Roberts. Why was he Rasputin? Why did he have to be captured by the UNIT? Why did he want to become the Doctor?

The Doctor says that the Master doesn't have the power to unite the Daleks and Cybermen, and yet he somehow had the power to destroy Gallifrey, which even the Daleks at their strongest couldn't do.

Why was Vinder in this story? What function did he serve that couldn't be given to one of the other characters?

The music was quite bland, as it has been for most of this era. Not having heard Segun Akinola's work in anything else, I can't say if he doesn't have the range for something like Doctor Who if it's the style he's been instructed to go with. Either way, it left no impression on me.

How did the defaced paintings factor into anything?

Overall, I'd say it's my least favorite regeneration story of the revival. It has some really good moments, but they weren't enough to save the rest which was just too bloated and chaotic.

 

[Starkers]

I think someone else may have mentioned this, but there's a theory that Vinder was supposed to be Captain Jack, which would have made a lot more sense. I can forgive Chibnall for that.

But yeah what was the point of the paintings? Or the Master as Rasputin (which frankly was a great idea if it had gone somewhere). Shame the 'good' Dalek wasn't Rusty. Still not 100% sure how the Master got Daleks and Cybermen to co-operate, and great as it was to see Graham his appearance made zero sense.

The worst thing was that Chibnall had 90 minutes to play with, there's no excuse for plot points left dangling. Just look at The Day of the Doctor and how Moffat created something far more coherent and memorable with a shorter run time and clearly a much smaller budget.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

I've come to the same conclusion after another watch of this.
"What the hell was that?"

Also yes that Boney M bit was terrible and lasted too long.... Yeah nah, changing my vote
It did have fun moments but overall as shite, shiny but shite.

C -

 

[captainkirk]

But yeah what was the point of the paintings? Or the Master as Rasputin (which frankly was a great idea if it had gone somewhere).

Great idea if it had gone somewhere sadly sums up so much of Chibnalls writing for Doctor Who. A lot of people hate everything about this era, but I find it frustrating when I can see so much potential in a lot of his ideas that just never pan out. I'd go so far as to say that on paper, a lot of his plots sound better than Davies or Moffat's. Legend of the Sea Devils is perhaps the best example of this. It's one of the best setups for an episode, and yet it's a load of old nothing.