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Spoilers Arachnids in the UK grade and discussion thread

How do you rate Arachnids in the UK?

  • Total voters
    82
Kelthaz said:
Fair enough, but that doesn't change anything. The Doctor is fine with gassing them, but freaks out about shooting them. It's hypocritical.
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What???? It was explicitly stated that it was about ending their lives humanely rather than cruelly. There was no way they could be allowed to live -- indeed, their own gigantism was making them suffer as well as posing a threat to humanity -- but it was a choice between giving them a peaceful end and inflicting a violent one.
 
Ghost Wolf said:
Gas chambers do NOT evoke a peaceful end.
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We're talking about spiders, not humans. Surely many people here -- myself included -- have had to face the decision to euthanize a dying, suffering pet to spare them further pain. And spiders are far simpler, less intelligent organisms than cats or dogs, so it's pretty bizarre -- and in horrifically poor taste, given the anti-Semitic mass murder committed in Pittsburgh just two days ago -- to compare this to the Holocaust.
 
Christopher said:
What???? It was explicitly stated that it was about ending their lives humanely rather than cruelly. There was no way they could be allowed to live -- indeed, their own gigantism was making them suffer as well as posing a threat to humanity -- but it was a choice between giving them a peaceful end and inflicting a violent one.
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To paraphrase the 5th Doctor, "There's no good form of death."

The plan doesn't make sense. Don't kill the spiders by shooting, but it's ok by gas? Gas is no more humane than shooting. The one the guy shot died really quickly. And, does it really matter? Are the spiders conscious? We assume the regular version aren't.
 
The plot itself was meh, and the ending felt rushed. I continue to like the character work done with the Doctor and companions, and it was nice meeting Yaz's family. Could have done without Trump Lite, who made me groan at how on the nose they got with him.
 
The characters are fantastic. I loved every scene in this episode that had nothing to do with the plot.
 
Christopher said:
Why in the world would you presume that? It's not like the panic room was permanently sealed. They were able to unlock it the first time, so they could do it again. The panic room was just to contain them until Jade could deal with them properly, which would obviously take much less than 6 months. She's got this whole lab that specializes in spiders, that has experience with euthanizing them humanely and has the resources to do so, and the whole thing is partly her responsibility in the first place and thus she should be involved in cleaning it up. How does it make any sense at all to presume she'd just sit back and do absolutely nothing for 6 months after that door was locked? Especially when we knew from her dialogue that it was important to her to end spider lives humanely?
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Is this not the problem? Is not the toxic garbage pile and Jade's growth serum - explicitly said to work on the principle of constant growth as immortality - going to make the spiders get bigger over time? Like the giant one? Either they all get so big as to not have enough air to breathe, they all suck the air out of the room or crush each other in a limited space like the panic room. And while there is the easy out of the sonic screwdriver, the door needed Robertson to open it and he sure as hell isn't going to do it. It just seems like they never quite connected the dots for Jade to solve it - in retrospect, I'm sure you're right about the line, but in the moment? I didn't make that connection back and it wasn't clear - or just leave them in the room and forget about them. It's very odd.

Christopher said:
What???? It was explicitly stated that it was about ending their lives humanely rather than cruelly. There was no way they could be allowed to live -- indeed, their own gigantism was making them suffer as well as posing a threat to humanity -- but it was a choice between giving them a peaceful end and inflicting a violent one.
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It seems very un-Doctor like for the resolution of this situation to be a shrug of the shoulders and leaving the spiders to die or be euthanized. Why not Pied Piper (Bum-packed Bass Blaster?) them into the TARDIS and take them to Spider-Mondas? It's odd. I can deal with it. But there's something off about it.
 
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BritishSeaPower said:
It seems very un-Doctor like for the resolution of this situation to be a shrug of the shoulders and leaving the spiders to die or be euthanized. Why not Pied Piper (Bum-packed Bass Blaster?) them into the TARDIS and take them to Spider-Mondas? It's odd. I can eat with it. But there's something off about it.
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They would all be doomed to grow gigantic and die from asphyxiation. All of them, and any progeny they produced, no matter where they were taken. Not to mention, they would probably mess up the local ecosystem wherever the Doctor decided to resettle them.
 
BritishSeaPower said:
It seems very un-Doctor like for the resolution of this situation to be a shrug of the shoulders and leaving the spiders to die or be euthanized. Why not Pied Piper (Bum-packed Bass Blaster?) them into the TARDIS and take them to Spider-Mondas? It's odd. I can deal with it. But there's something off about it.
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It does not seem Doctor-ish at all. To just lock them up and let someone else find a way to kill them that is supposedly more humane.
 
SolarisOne said:
They would all be doomed to grow gigantic and die from asphyxiation. All of them, and any progeny they produced, no matter where they were taken. Not to mention, they would probably mess up the local ecosystem wherever the Doctor decided to resettle them.
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No, she could've taken them to a planet with a higher oxygen content. That's the limiting factor. Although, realistically, it would be hard to find a place where they could survive. But, the ending was not well thought out.
 
Mr Awe said:
No, she could've taken them to a planet with a higher oxygen content. That's the limiting factor. Although, realistically, it would be hard to find a place where they could survive. But, the ending was not well thought out.
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One of the themes of the episode was about how one change affects an entire ecosystem, something that was directly mentioned in the episode. Introducing a new species into an ecosystem always changes it drastically. Just moving animals to a different region has major consequences, like a certain species of frog that ended up in Australia and now many species are going extinct. Moving on to an alien planet is going to be a disaster.
 
The "move them to a planet with a higher O2 content" idea struck me as wel, but yes they would need a food source. Also, doubtful she could have gotten the TARDIS in time to save the Momma - I did wonder if it's possible to jury-rig an oxygen candle (thanks QI!) like the ones they use for emergency O2 on planes? Thought perhaps sodium chlorate might happen to be in the toxic fumes from the landfill, but then I dunno how big a candle you'd need for a spider that big - the airplane ones only last about 20 minutes for humans.
 
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