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8x09 Flatline (Discussion/Grading) SPOILERS!

What do you think about the episode?


  • Total voters
    105
<<He said "I've got our bench" but with BBCA time compression it might be even harder to understand. >>

I wanted to ask this last episode. I noticed in the mummy episode that everything felt oddly rushed even down people's movements as if it had been sped up. Do they do this for every episode?

And I clearly heard "what up bitch" and my captioning said so. Yet another thing to hate about Danny Pink.
 
After watching the Addams Family scene again, it got me thinking, particularly the part where he first "rights" the TARDIS. If he can tip the TARDIS up the right way, I'm not sure why he didn't stick his entire arm through the hole and stand it up (which would have been a much more amazing effect if they could have pulled it off). Just sticking his hand through almost made it more difficult than i he'd used his entire arm. Unless he's worried the hole is going to shrink even more.

It seemed like they "forgot" both doors can open. He could've gotten his whole arm through if he opened both doors.
 
He tried when they first squeezed out in the parking lot. The other door wouldn't open.
 
Was just browsing GB. Anyone else notice the shape of the windows behind Missy?

What about them?

The way things are going with Missy I guess this season is being used to set up her storyline for next season. I get no hint the last 3 episodes are designed to wrap up her mystery. Good episode again (Loved the Addams Family Hands bit) & hopefully Doc Who can build on from the last two episodes into the final 3.
 
Oh yeah, this one was pretty good. An interesting premise with Clara essentially filling in for the Doctor, recruiting her own companion for the episode and dealing with the alien threat even including her taking responsibility for a ragtag team of mostly redshirts (who were actually wearing green). While not exactly the first time we've seen a companion fill in for the Doctor, indeed one could argue that was the entire premise for SJA, it's still an interesting concept and made for a really fresh and entertaining angle for the episode. The alien entity from a 2D universe was a cool idea, and the Doctor showing up at the end and finally dealing with the aliens was a defining moment of awesome for Capaldi.

Criticism though, Danny is really starting to become a pointless part of the show. Maybe they are building to something, but really all he does in the episodes now is basically serve as Clara's mother hen, wanting her to stop going on all the dangerous adventures. And now instead of lying to him, Clara's just ignoring his phone calls. They don't really have much of a relationship going on, and I don't understand why one of them hasn't broken it off. And while I'm not typically what one would call a "shipper" it did seem to me that Clara and Rigsy had more of a spark between them in one episode than her and Danny have all season. A relationship between them would be more interesting to watch and less torturous than Clara and Danny has been.

The arc with Missy is touched upon slightly this week, with Missy indicating she "chose" Clara for something. Presumably this means she's the one in the shop who first gave Clara the phone number for the TARDIS and got the ball rolling.

Finally a nitpick. At the end, when the TARDIS becomes a cube, I'm assuming this is because without any power the chameleon circuit is no longer working and the TARDIS has reverted to its natural form. But we saw in Name of the Doctor that the TARDIS's default form is a tube. Why is it a cube here instead?
 
Finally a nitpick. At the end, when the TARDIS becomes a cube, I'm assuming this is because without any power the chameleon circuit is no longer working and the TARDIS has reverted to its natural form. But we saw in Name of the Doctor that the TARDIS's default form is a tube. Why is it a cube here instead?

No, the cube is the TARDIS's "Siege Mode". Right after the Doctor's abortive attempt to move the TARDIS off the train tracks (resulting in it falling back onto the rail) he slides under the TARDIS console and yanks a lever to put the TARDIS into Siege Mode, which turns it into the cube shape and ensures "nothing gets in, nothing gets out", and which presumably protects it from getting hit by the train.

The TARDIS is forced to remain in Siege Mode due to a lack of power, until Clara tricks the monsters into recharging it.
 
Now I'm wondering what it might actually be like to encounter a 2d species. Surely this has been covered in sci-fi before?

Of the top of my head... TNG - The Loss

Most famously, Edwin Abbott Abbott's Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions is all about a fellow named A. Square from a two-dimensional universe who ends up travelling both to "Spaceland" and "Pointland." It's excellent and hilarious.
 
AND I NAME YOU THE ♫♪♫♪BON♫♪♫♪E♫♪♫♪LE♫♪♫♪SS♫♪♫♪!!

Yeah, that's about how I felt! :rommie:

You're not the only one, check out this real caption from tonight's episode:

Although far less humorous than that, the closed captioning rendered "I name you the Boneless!" as "I name you the Virus!" which (unlike the "bench" caption) sounded nowhere near what the Doctor is saying.

I've found that, from the Smith era onwards, I've needed to turn on the closed captioning, otherwise I miss a few lines in every episode. I assume it's because, being a non-Briton, I am not as familiar with British Isles accents as the locals are.
 
I figured it didn't revert to default but basically turned into heavy (tiny) fortress with every bit of juice going into defense.
the little cube reminded me a bit of the pandorica the way the Gallifreyan inscription appeared on each facing.

Anyone can translate it? i bet it says "KEEP OUT" XD
 
Most famously, Edwin Abbott Abbott's Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions is all about a fellow named A. Square from a two-dimensional universe who ends up travelling both to "Spaceland" and "Pointland." It's excellent and hilarious.

A more recent example is The Planiverse, by the Canadian mathematician A.K. Dewdney. One of the humorous aspects of Dewdney's story is that the two-dimensional creatures could not have a complete digestive tract (since it would cleave them completely in two). Rather, they were required to excrete wastes from the same orifice by which they consumed food. :eek:
 
I voted "meh". The Doctor had some good moments, but overall it was pretty boring, and the aliens weren't very good (although the idea had potential). This wasn't horrible, but its a mostly forgettable episode.
 
I guess the Doctor has forgotten how the TARDIS shrank with him inside it in Logopolis?

Yeah it would have been nice to at least get a quick line about this having happened before.

Criticism though, Danny is really starting to become a pointless part of the show. Maybe they are building to something, but really all he does in the episodes now is basically serve as Clara's mother hen, wanting her to stop going on all the dangerous adventures. And now instead of lying to him, Clara's just ignoring his phone calls. They don't really have much of a relationship going on, and I don't understand why one of them hasn't broken it off. And while I'm not typically what one would call a "shipper" it did seem to me that Clara and Rigsy had more of a spark between them in one episode than her and Danny have all season. A relationship between them would be more interesting to watch and less torturous than Clara and Danny has been.

Yeah, you get the sense they only created the character to be another source of conflict between Clara and the Doctor, and to give her a reason to not want to travel with him. Which is a shame, because they did such a good job building up the character in Listen.
 
I really liked this episode, but I agree with The Wormhole. Danny is really starting to get annoying. He was ok when Clara was debating whether or not to go with the Doctor, but that storyline became anticlimatic so now Danny has become pointless. When he called Clara, the storyline felt like it just stalled.

As for the storyline, this felt like Doctor who that we've been missing this season, and it's on the same level of Time Heist in terms of my favorite episode of the season. What I mean is instead of the character drama, which has been ok, we actually got a mystery serving as the main plot while the character drama was more supplemental. It was the same with Time Heist, the mystery to be solved drove the plot, which is what I like about Doctor Who anyway. The monsters were really creepy and cool, and for some reason I got a TNG vibe from this show, more specifically The Loss. The episodes are kind of similar in a way. 2 dimensional aliens disabling a character (TNG it was Troi, Doctor Who was The Doctor) leaving the other characters to do most of the work.

As for the whole Missy thing, we've only seen her in just a few episodes this season right? How can a character only showing up for like 10 minutes of screen time be so integral to the arc? I'm a little worried after finding a new revelation last night. I was really hoping that we would actually see Clara as a normal girl this season, but I get the sense that she won't be. I even saw some speculation about going back to how Clara got the Doctor's Tardis number and the whole "Woman in the Shop" thing (Which I completely forgot about) and I'm worried that this series has turned into CLARA Who instead of DOCTOR Who. If my fears are warrented, than I will be glad to get a new companion soon.
 
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I definitely wouldn't have wanted a Rose Who, Martha Who, or Amy Who. But Jenna Coleman is such an incredibly charming and likeable actress that I'm not minding the extra focus on her character at all this season.
 
I definitely wouldn't have wanted a Rose Who, Martha Who, or Amy Who. But Jenna Coleman is such an incredibly charming and likeable actress that I'm not minding the extra focus on her character at all this season.

She is, but it seemed like she was the focus last season and with the new Doctor, I don't really enjoy all the focus being on the companion lately.
 
I just rewatched my BBC-A DVR and it sorta sounds like "what up, bitch" AND the closed caption ALSO say that. But I went back and watched my BBC version and it's definitely "got our bench". I can see mishearing it especially if its time compressed, but the Clsed Captions? What the hell?
 
Seriously - people need to use their mentality - The BBC isn't going to have a show that goes out at 8.30 on a Saturday night to a family audience where the only significant Black British character says "what's up bitch" to his girlfriend.

All that has happened is the close-caption for the US has done the same thing that a lot of US viewers seem to have done.
 
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