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Spoilers Empire of Death grade and discussion thread

How do you rate Empire of Death?


  • Total voters
    55
Yes.

That's the point.

Sutekh isn't focused on all the other incredible stories going on, because they aren't important to him. Life is just insects.

Ruby isn't important to him. Ordinarily.

But she's important to the Doctor, so she's important to Sutekh.
But...

Either or.

Either you are one hundred percent absolutely right, or they had grand canon shattering plans of coincidence and audacity but Millie had to jump ship and their upside down world reaffirming Machiavellian plot was cornholed.
 
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The Mel fan club gets another member!

I've seen Bonnie's live shows multiple times. I've long been a fanclub member!

My dad bought the Trial Of A Timelord VHS boxset when I was a kid. I remember the first time watching it I was so happy when Mel turned up and suddenly we had a companion who wanted to be there.
 
Well, that season was overall slightly better than Flux, without the excuse of being made during Covid lockdowns. I was hoping we might get the more recent RTD of Years and Years and It's a Sin but we got the RTD of Miracle Day and the Tennant season finales.
Actually, I'm rather thankful this series was at least better than all of Miracle Day. Man, that was a hard watch to sit through.

As for the Flux... Yeah, this was way better, though the Angels episode was almost grand with a great cliffhanger, the Sontaran one was half-great, and that's about it. Plus, Ruby Sunday trumps Dan & Yaz, and doesn't even break a sweat to do so.
Considering the scene of Mrs. Flood showed her surrounded by snowfall, I'm guessing the answer lies with her existence and why she's watching Ruby.
But why didn't the Doctor question the snow occurance whenever Ruby's origin were in question?

Come to think of it, Boom's narrative crux in the climax makes no sense. If that PM made DNA testing compulsory and as such her match were there for centuries, why didn't the Ambulance retrieve that same data from then?
See, that was what I was hoping for this series but it still felt very much like Davies of old. True, certain episodes like "Dot and Bubble" and "73 Yards" are distinctively more like Davies of now than of old, but overall, the structure and conclusion of the series was Davies of old. Hopefully you're right in your hope that Davies' writing continues to progress towards Years and Years and It's a Sin, but I don't expect more than baby steps.
I think that RTD is simply looking at Who in a different way than he does those other shows. I don't think the Army of Ghosts RTD was the same writer that did Second Coming but remarkably he was. As such, i had little expectation that we'd get a more mature look at Who, quite the opposite.

In fact, I'm surprised how much of this series was experimental. Both of the examples you gave are indeed an evolution of Davies and not just him reacting to the Moffat era (which in a lot of ways, this episode seems to be doing exactly that - and not exactly successfully either). And yet, he has to make the Doctor a joyful, gleeful, optimistic character, even his own contradictory statements of doom and gloom, cause that's how he sees him, and always will.

At this point, the best, most positive development for me would be if he just wrote a multi-Doctor special. Which will never happen, because that's also not him.
A great way of looking at it.

Mel with Colin's technicolor nightmarecoat and Syl's ? sweater were moving moments. Was the Memory TARDIS created in this episode?
I still think the Memory TARDIS is the afterlife of Fourteen's TARDIS, which died long after Fourteen, well, died? Anyway, I do think the Doctor being able to fascilitate a strong connection and basically allow it to exist might have originated here, sure.
 
I think @The Nth Doctor summed up my feelings about this. Every aspect I kinda loved and hated at the same time. That Ruby's mum wasn't special was both great and incredibly disappointing. The reset was obvious the moment everyone died which kinda sucked all the drama out of it.

Overall it was something of a mess, which doesn't mean I hated it, but after the great part 1 I was hoping RTD would stick the landing better than he did.

Ncuti and Millie were great, and Sian Clifford nailed her short but incredibly powerful scene (and I thought it was a great misdirect from RTD re the baby), loved Bonnie and the idea that Sutekh was hanging onto the Tardis this whole time didn't bother me unduly. The Doctor defeating Sutekh with a bungee cord was, as with every other element of the episode, at once fantastic and awful.

Ruby surprising her real mum and then everyone becoming best buds, and then them calling her real dad out of the blue feels really tone deaf by RTD (but does feed into his need to give characters what he thinks they need no matter how unrealistic- see Rose getting her dad and her Doctor, sort of).

And I have to say again, Yasmin Finney is incredibly wooden and it's unsurprising that she got next to nothing to do (though her playing on the tablet while everyone else, even Lenny, were blazing away at Sutekh was just hilarious)

A slight damp squib of a finale, though it didn't annoy me the way Last of the Timelords did. And I'm so over "Teh whole universe is at risk" endings, but I've enjoyed this season a lot and I don't think there's been a single episode I hated. Hell I even quite enjoyed Space Babies.
 
Was it ever explained why Ruby has a Manchester accent? How long was she in that area before she was fostered in London? That seems a heck of a distance for social services to relocate a child.

The episode made little sense, but then that's nothing new. The main thing I ask is that it entertains and isn't egregiously bad like The Flux. This one seemed mostly like an MCU infinity Saga knock-off with the solution being a nod to Alien.
 
Yes.

That's the point.

Sutekh isn't focused on all the other incredible stories going on, because they aren't important to him. Life is just insects.

Ruby isn't important to him. Ordinarily.

But she's important to the Doctor, so she's important to Sutekh.
We'll have to agree to disagree. But, no, doesn't make any sense. He literally couldn't see the mom's face. He tried and failed. :shrug:

And, because it was so important to Ruby, the mom's face should've stood out from the background that she didn't care about.
 
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