Empress Of Mars (Grade & Discussion Thread)

Back to a (mostly) stand-alone episode, though there are rumours of a little something special within...

 

Please be Mark Gatiss on a good day, please be Mark Gatiss on a good day...

He did pretty good with Cold War, so here's hoping he'll repeat with that level of quality.

 

Well, this was a slice of cheesy rubbish. Very poor.

 

Some of the dialogue surrounding the Colonel's execution reminded me of Klingon conversations.

 

Well, that was a better version of The Mummy than I expect the Tom Cruise version to be... and a nice return to form after the Triptych Of Dull WTFery. So, the regeneration has actually started, I'm thinking. (It would actually make sense of the regen energy light show in Lie Of The Land if Bill did in fact shoot him with the live rounds from that one guard who forgot to swap to blanks, and he just covered it up with the line about "was that too showy". It would be more logical if the bacteria from Pyramid were doing him in still, but that would then leave the lightshow as egregious shitshow, so I'd rather it was the bullets...)

 

I'd head about the Alpha Centuri cameo but didn't expect Ysanne Churchman would be back to voice it. At 92 she's the oldest actor ever to (sort of) appear in the series.

 

And the SECOND I heard the voice I actually yelled out loud "Alpha Centauri!"

 

It was ok, hopefully the remaining episodes will be as good as the start of the season. I'm just finindg the middle of this season not as strong as the start.

 

Aside from the lame and very unnecessary opening (the cold opening should have been seeing the message from orbit and then ending with "Friday" rushing towards The Doctor), I largely enjoyed this episode. Sure it's a typical runabout adventure, but I liked the Victorian mishmash (more so than I thought I would) with all of its pompous and arrogant superiority. Godsacre's turn of honor and unintentionally appealing to Iraxxa's sense of Ice Warrior honor was a nice turn, if predictable. Not the worse Mark Gatiss has written ("Victory of the Daleks") but not the best he's written either ("Cold War").

I loved Alpha Centauri's cameo, complete with Yvonne Churchman's surprise return and Galactic Federation tie-in! May have been the highlight of the whole episode, even if I couldn't stand Alpha Centauri in the Peladon stories.

One thing I don't get: What was the whole point of the TARDIS whisking Nardole away, which forces him to free Missy in order to get back to Mars, if The Doctor just looks her up again? I thought the point would be The Doctor takes Missy along with him before she decides to break away with her own mischief after next episode. Further, why would Nardole would be so willing to let her free after being so stubborn about The Doctor keeping his pledge to guard her in the Vault? And speaking of which, why were they gallivanting about in the first place? Not that I wanted to stay Earthbound, but Moffat isn't staying internally consistent.

Spoiler: Teaser for next week

For some reason, I thought the Mondasian Cybermen would be in "The Eaters of Light" but they seem to be appearing in the finale. Just as well because I rather see what Rona Munro brings to the new series without having to work with an existing alien.

 

The TARDIS knows something's wrong with him - he's regenerating already, and it only knows one other Timey...

 

Perhaps this is building up to something for the finale, but I can't make out anything of substance which was hinted or established here. Certainly for the purpose of this episode it just felt like filler.

 

So, the best of Gatiss' three episodes for Capaldi by far but still almost completely mediocre. I'm really hoping that this is it for him on the series as he's been hinting recently.

 

Not Gatiss at his best but far from his worst. Was very choppy to begin with (Gatiss does struggle with 42 minutes sometimes) but got better once it settled down. Pretty standard Who fare but done well and gains points for Redcoats Vs Ice Warriors, Pauline Collins' cameo and Alpha Centuri!

I do like the idea that he's already regenerating, and that would retrospectively make Lie of the Land slightly less annoying!

 

For me, it was the most Pertwee-esque episode I've seen in a while. Enjoyable old-school Who, IMO, complete with the utter jerk of a human commander and the random coward who redeems himself at the end.

And Alpha Centauri was the icing of the Pertwee cake!

 

The writing felt sloppy in some places and the end was convoluted. That design for the Ice Queen was weird too. It's a Gatiss episode alright.

However, this episode was more enjoyable than the good ones we've seen this year. This Season has been amazing so far, but I was bored to death in all 8 Episodes. Empress of Mars was the exception. What a delightful episode! I barely noticed time passing by... It's Campy Doctor Who and I would be lying if I said I disliked seeing that Alpha Centauran in the end. God, I love when Nu-Who closes "the loop" with Classic Who like that.

This could easily be a Classic Serial too. It doesn't even look like it was written for Twelve. Get a weird outfit for Capaldi, shoot this thing in 4:3 in a 16mm camera and it would feel indistinguishable from any Classic Episode. Even the weird "plastic ball" bodies feel like something from that Era. If Gatiss bails out after Chibnall takes over, I will miss these types of episodes so much...

 

when some-one writers a story for Doctor Who - do they do the complete thing (well barring any re-writes by script editors etc) from story outline through writing the actual film script?

 

Well, couple of things.

Overall, middling, but better than last week

I was reminded of the 1964 movie of First Men On The Moon, which opened with a present day expedition finding a Union Jack on the Moon.

Had an old series feel, which is OK, I guess. Liked seeing Alpha Centauri, and pleased they brought back the voice actor.

Theory about Missy: she grows very tired of all the feels, and reverts to an earlier save point, hence John Simm.

ETA: the imperialist dialogue was a bit on the nose. The TARDIS moving itself may have been set up by Missy for such an eventuality.

 

I thought it was excellent. Gatiss's scripts are a mixed bag at best and this was one of the better ones. Love the setting, the return of the Ice Warriors, the fate of the Colonel and the Alpha Centauri cameo.