8x09 Flatline (Discussion/Grading) SPOILERS!

[Count Zero]

Saturday evening yet again - time for a new episode!

This time:

Clara goes against an enemy that exists beyond human perception.

There is now a second preview clip up on the BBC website. I'm excited.

 

[Emperor-Tiberius]

Well, I enjoyed it immensly.

 

[Lonemagpie]

was good- very Sapphire & Steel with a dash of, er, Star Trek Voyager (only good)...

 

[Starkers]

A slightly better version of Fear Her. I dunno, a few nice moments and I loved the Addam's Family Tardis, but didn't think it was anything special.

 

[Relayer1]

I nearly went for 'It fell flat', but that was great.

Two on the trot !

 

[Mitty]

The Thing moment... don't think I've ever laughed so much at something in Doctor Who, ever.

Why didn't the psychic paper work on that guy? I get the feeling we might see him again... but then, maybe not.

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

It was perfect: funny, scary, intense, clever. It doesn't get better than this - or at least it rarely does.

 

[Mitty]

Request from someone cleverer than me... animated GIF of the Thing TARDIS.

 

[SeerSGB]

Much better than I expected it was going to be.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

Wow, Jamie Mathieson throws down the gauntlet with that one, that was fantastic. Interesting concept which was at turns scary, dangerous, and fun, great execution, good use of locations and just about everything was good.

OK, the FX of the small Doctor in the TARDIS could've been executed better but the idea was so fun it didn't matter. On the flip side, the flat FX were really great and sometimes freaky to boot.

A little touch I liked was the awkward goodbyes at the end because really what would you say?

 

[Guy Gardener]

(Production Meeting 4 months ago.)

"We need to sell more toy TARDIS' or someone is going to get fired!"

 

[Cutter John]

Just Meh for me. Some great tension until the aliens went 3D, then it was just another chase episode. The sonic also seemed even more of a magic wand than usual.

Clara came off well though, and the stuff with the Doctor and shrunken Tardis was brilliant.

And darnit, why couldn't we have the graffiti artist as a companion?

Good to see the Doctor finally having second thoughts about his attitude toward peoples disposability though.



Basically a bit of fluff, with some enjoyable bits.

 

[YellowSubmarine]

That was hilarious and absolutely brilliant. And they did one of my fantasies. Well, that would be two of my fantasies. Well, more like two and a half.

It was absolutely stunning. The only thing I disliked was that the flatlanders turned out to be bad guys.

And, are you kidding me? Forget the flatlanders which is fantastic in its own right. Did we actually have a toy TARDIS shitting sledgehammers and running away from a train on fingers, a TARDIS in siege mode and a... 2DIS? It doesn't get any better than that. It just cannot be any more silly.

And the whatever that guy's name was. Stellar performance. From seeing the psychic paper blank to the ending. From the moment he taunted the graffiti guy I was happy to witness every time his "soul" got exposed. Too bad it didn't even know it was getting served justice on people's flat screens.

"We need to sell more toy TARDIS' or someone is going to get fired!"

I don't think so. After this I would stay away from any toy TARDISes lest Thing came out of them.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

^ I thought it should be a 3rdis...

 

[YellowSubmarine]

Is that a threedis or thirdis?

It also did flatten things. And "two dimensions in (3D) space" sounds fine expansion to me.

 

[Gov Kodos]

That was hilarious and absolutely brilliant. And they did one of my fantasies. Well, that would be two of my fantasies. Well, more like two and a half.

It was absolutely stunning. The only thing I disliked was that the flatlanders turned out to be bad guys.

And, are you kidding me? Forget the flatlanders which is fantastic in its own right. Did we actually have a toy TARDIS shitting sledgehammers and running away from a train on fingers, a TARDIS in siege mode and a... 2DIS? It doesn't get any better than that. It just cannot be any more silly.

And the whatever that guy's name was. Stellar performance. From seeing the psychic paper blank to the ending. From the moment he taunted the graffiti guy I was happy to witness every time his "soul" got exposed. Too bad it didn't even know it was getting served justice on people's flat screens.

"We need to sell more toy TARDIS' or someone is going to get fired!"

I don't think so. After this I would stay away from any toy TARDISes lest Thing came out of them.

The old guy? That's Christopher Fairbank, and he is wonderful at playing foul, soulless, angry characters.

 

[Captaindemotion]

Great episode.

Only thing that threw me was, not having read the blurb and promotional materials in advance, I was sure that this would be a Stephen Moffat script. The whole idea of a baddie that existed in another dimension to ours seemed right up his street.

 

[YellowSubmarine]

The old guy? That's Christopher Fairbank, and he is wonderful at playing foul, soulless, angry characters.

"The whatever that guy's name was" obviously refers to the character, not the actor. I can't ever be possibly dismissive of a man doing such a wonderful job at portraying this part.

 

[Gov Kodos]

The old guy? That's Christopher Fairbank, and he is wonderful at playing foul, soulless, angry characters.

"The whatever that guy's name was" obviously refers to the character, not the actor. I can't ever be possibly dismissive of a man doing such a wonderful job at portraying this part.

Sorry, I didn't think you were dismissive of him at all. I just thought the actor's name might have escaped you. I couldn't think of the character's name without looking him up though, so that shows my attention span, I guess.

 

[diankra]

Very appropriate that Fairbanks was in this one,seeing as he had a rather good 'Oh, didn't spot that coming...' role in the final Sapphire and Steel story, and you suspect that the writer's half-forgotten childhood memory of being terrified by the S&S 'Photographs' story was the very first spark for the script.