I didn't notice this the first time. At the end, Kate and Colonel Ibrahim are holding hands. Meaningful?
Spoilers Empire of Death grade and discussion thread
- Thread starter The Nth Doctor
- Start date
Oh, I noticed that right away! You go, Kate! Woo-hoo! 
Actually I noticed earlier that when they were all getting up from being blown over, that Ibriham picked up Kate, that's cool, but then he picked up rose and gave her a hug.
Maybe he's just a nice guy?
Maybe he's just a nice guy?
She has met more Doctors than Nicholas Courtney did.*
I can see why one would think that considering how important a character she has been of late. However, she only appeared twice during the 11th Doctors era, when she also met Ten and the War Doctor.
Then, she appeared in three episodes during 12's run, all in seasons 8 and 9.
Then she disappeared for almost four seasons and didn't show up again until the final 2 episodes of season 13/The Flux. Since then, her appearances have been quite prolific, appearing in four of the last six 13th Doctor episodes, and four times just since RTD took over.
*The Brigadier definitively met five Doctors, six if you count in Dimensions in Time. (I know, I know. But, along with the references to the Shalka Doctor and Downtime, RTD opened that can of worms in the Tales of the TARDIS where he had the Seventh Doctor comment to Ace that their last adventure together saw "the Rani up to her old tricks". Just another piece of the jigsaw puzzle that the Toymaker made of the Doctor's history.)
Kate has met all of the modern Doctors except Nine, including the War Doctor, for a total of seven.
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I liked how the first part of the episode created a totally hopeless situation, you could just feel the devastating.
I did not care much for how it was resolved, I just felt cheated.
When Matt Smith defeated the Silence with the Apollo landing broadcast, it really felt fantastic to see a hopeless situation like that have such an out of box solution. This just felt rushed and empty to me...
I did not care much for how it was resolved, I just felt cheated.
When Matt Smith defeated the Silence with the Apollo landing broadcast, it really felt fantastic to see a hopeless situation like that have such an out of box solution. This just felt rushed and empty to me...
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How could I have forgotten about The Five Doctors? *hangs head in shame*
Delta & the The Bannermen is legitimately my favorite 7th Doctor serial. Its my favorite version of the 7th Doctor (the one who was actually The Doctor, not the one who felt like an evil emotionless mastermind pretending to be The Doctor), and the story is fine overall. My second favorite 7th Doctor story is The Happiness Patrol, and third is Battlefield. I also like Silver Nemesis a lot, and I guess I'd put Rememberance of the Daleks at the fifth spot if I was doing a top 5. I'm not saying this to be contrary or anything, its actually what I think so I found it a bit funny how opposite we are in opinion.
As for the show in general, Classic Who is generally better then RTD Who anyway in my opinion. Then again I generally prefer the show when The Doctor is the main character, the companions are generally not super special "impossible people", and the stories don't constantly take place in modern UK (although I give the 3rd Doctor a pass for that), so it makes sense that I'd prefer Classic who. I still like NuWho alot, with Mofatt's era being my favorite NuWho stuff and the 11th Doctor being my second favorite Doctor after 6, but there is just something special about Classic Who that NuWho rarely matches.
LOL, it's easy to do. I almost forgot about Battlefield!
Oh, we’re not so opposite as you’d think. I like Delta fine as a novelisation, but the staging whenever I try to watch it never keeps me focused these days. I don’t think he became emotionless… far from it to be honest, mind you. Happiness Patrol grew on me, and I have always liked Battlefield (though due to a timing error on a VHS I didn’t get to see the opening scene until it was released on DVD. For years I watched it over and over starting with Zbrigniev answering Bambera’s “who was that little man?”) and could easily make an argument for it being my favourite, if I have such a thing. I never had a problem with Nemesis, but I only watched it once prior to its VHS release and mostly read the book. Watching it again, some bits don’t land so well — but as one of the few eight years olds watching the show who actually knew who Courtney Pine was (I suspect) I have an attachment to it. To be honest, my like for Ace turned up with puberty, and that’s always going to give me a heavy bias. As to Remembrance’s general rep with fans, yeah, it’s good — but Greatest Show was better. XD
I didn’t get to see Dragonfire until the official VHS release. And I’m with Cartmel… release the hairy underarms cut. lol.
I don’t mind things like Clara/Impossible Girl in the new show — it borrows from Sam in the Eighth Doctor books quite heavily — but when RTD decided to have every other companion love the Doctor, and stripped away the relative assxuality of the character, it represented a sea change that doesn’t really work the more you look at it. It took Moff a while to roll it back organically — River Somg both showing the only way you can have a ‘romance’ with the Doctor really work, whilst outright having her state on screen precisely why it shouldn’t happen and won’t really work.
It is astonishing how often we had Wales doubling as everywhere else in the UK, London particularly, rather than using modern techniques to have Wales double as alien worlds. Can’t believe they couldn’t find a decent quarry more often.
(The Death Zone is in Wales of course. But the planet of the Cheetah People was oddly more convincing that a lot of modern alien worlds.)
I’m with you on Eleven, though not so much on Six. He’s the ‘between’ Doctor for me, where I had to stop watching as a then five year old. Davison was my first Doctor (it’s possible I started with Baker One, but don’t remember it) and Sylv was ‘my’ Doctor. Credit where it’s due though, Smith was possibly the most Doctory Doctor to ever Doctor, and Capaldi gives him a run for his money. (And echoes the original planned arc for Six.) But then, the Eight of the novels was excellent too.
Either way, I am not sure it’s anywhere near the same show now. I think RTD internalised a lot of Whophobia in his teenage years, and is still very ashamed of it even when he’s writing it…
The Brigadier met the first ten Doctors, excluding War Doctor, but including Six, Eight and Nine, all on audio (and on Nine's case, via recasting of Nicholas Courtney by Jon Calshaw), plus Ten via comic, though if we only count performed media, its just nine Doctors total. Compared to Kate meeting 10, 11, War, 12, 13, 14 and 15, making them seven Doctors overall.
Though, technically, Redgrave met more originally-casted Doctors, compared to Courtney, who met the First via the Hurndall recast, and never met Christopher Eccleston either.
*EDIT: I miscounted, its the same amount, seven v. seven!
You wouldn't have gor the Brig and Capt. Yates doing that
Yates lived in hope eternal though.
Good question. I'm not sure if there's any indication one way or the other. However, he would've met all those Doctors at other points. So, even if he didn't remember The Five Doctors specifically, he would've met them all at other times. 1st in The Three Doctors. Obviously met 2nd (as a Lt. Col.), 3rd, and 4th in normal episodes of that era. And 5th in Mawdryn Undead and 7th in Battlefield.You wouldn't have gor the Brig and Capt. Yates doing that
Perhaps not but didn't he ask Captain Yates to dance at the end of The Daemons? There was some half joking question at the end.
And that’s why Yates joined a cult on environmentalists, betrayed his friends, before finding solace in culturally appropriation.
Who says Classic Who can’t be socially relevant?
I have been away and had to wait a week to watch it.
I was 50/50 on this episode. It's alway the smae with two parters, strong first part with not so good resolution.
I can't face reading 11 pages of this I gave after 4.
Am I the only one that thought Mrs Flood is one of the Guardians?
God level being with plans for the Doctor.
I was 50/50 on this episode. It's alway the smae with two parters, strong first part with not so good resolution.
I can't face reading 11 pages of this I gave after 4.
Am I the only one that thought Mrs Flood is one of the Guardians?
God level being with plans for the Doctor.
The flip side to RTD being so very good at ramping up to a Grand Reveal, is that expectations also ramp up, to the point meeting them is arguably impossible. That said, as much surface fun as there is to be had, here, it doesn't really hold up when you think about it. I think I could previously live with the sloppy plotting in the finales because I was just having far too good a time to care, but now....now familiarity is making things feel a little more hollow.
Example: the image of Sutekh being taken for the ultimate walkies through the vortex, his claws ripping the fabric of it and bringing back all the life he'd taken, was a spectacle, but also made not a lick of sense. I mean, one swipe of a giant paw right after he's first hooked onto the lead, he's free. There's been a carelesness throughout this series, a sloppiness, and it reaches a peak, here. How much of that is the restrictions and pressures of making TV, and how much just RTD getting carried away, probably impossible to know.
Overall, much more entertaining than most of the Chibnall era, but still faintly unsatisfying. I appreciate them trying new things, even if they don't fully work out, but there's also an underlying sense of having been here before, especially in the last episode. As others have noted, maybe the universe-threatening mega-events should be given a rest. There's also the real possibility this is the early stirrings of the same kind of fatigue I now feel so very heavily with Marvel stuff. I hope not.
Still there's promise and potential, and I cross everything it's realised as the 2nd era of RTD marches on.
Example: the image of Sutekh being taken for the ultimate walkies through the vortex, his claws ripping the fabric of it and bringing back all the life he'd taken, was a spectacle, but also made not a lick of sense. I mean, one swipe of a giant paw right after he's first hooked onto the lead, he's free. There's been a carelesness throughout this series, a sloppiness, and it reaches a peak, here. How much of that is the restrictions and pressures of making TV, and how much just RTD getting carried away, probably impossible to know.
Overall, much more entertaining than most of the Chibnall era, but still faintly unsatisfying. I appreciate them trying new things, even if they don't fully work out, but there's also an underlying sense of having been here before, especially in the last episode. As others have noted, maybe the universe-threatening mega-events should be given a rest. There's also the real possibility this is the early stirrings of the same kind of fatigue I now feel so very heavily with Marvel stuff. I hope not.
Still there's promise and potential, and I cross everything it's realised as the 2nd era of RTD marches on.
When the Doctor first got the rope onto Sutekh I was expecting a throw back to the christmas special and the language of knots and ropes from the goblin ship. It still wouldn't have made much sense but I would have been happier to accept it.