I loved this episode. Very atmospheric, more so than "Knock, Knock" with a better conclusion, although there wasn't much to the space station characters. Loved the opening scene in the exterior of the space station with the terror of the moment as Ellie tried to tell Ivan her wishes to have a baby together, only to die unheard. I do wish the episode fully committed to no sound in space instead of the muffled sounds, some of which would probably be heard in the suits but certainly not all (such as the hatch operations). We did get some sense of that when Bill lost her helmet and became oxygen deprived, but that was more of a unique situation because it showed her slipping into unconsciousness from her perspective (which was a cool sequence, by the way).
I was worried that when Bill "died" that the episode was setting up to reveal that all of the space station personnel didn't actually die and they would be revived when Bill would inevitably was revived, but thankfully i was wrong on that count. The Doctor's explanation for how she didn't die was a bit hand-wavy, but it's better than the alternative.
I liked the Borg parallel of the suits tossed in with the capitalism of maintaining oxygen supply, although I was annoyed that the suits stomped. Can we for once get a hoard without any stomping please? But at least The Doctor's sonic screwdriver was removed from action early on in the episode, not that that will last for subsequent episodes.
That being said, the whole episode would've worked better if it didn't have bookend scenes (aside from the cold opening) with The Doctor's Earthbound situation. While I loved the glimpse of The Doctor giving an irrelevant lecture about dying in space in an agriculture class and how that speech was recalled later on in the episode, I'm still tired of The Doctorbeing forced to stay on Earth instead of just exploring in time and space. The Vault MacGuffin isn't that interesting, but at least it'll be supposedly dealt with in the next episode. I wouldn't mind this particular scenario so much if Moffat hadn't already did the Earthbound companion scenario three times already. I
really hope Chibnall moves away from this set-up when he takes over.
No, it was not there at first.
I'd suggest that anyone who wants to do a better grading review thread to do so. People can always choose the grading/review thread they prefer themselves.
I mainly just use these threads to read reviews, post mine, and just see what others thought. I don't need all of the extra info up front, but I know that many do like all of that. Whoever does these threads should take the general considerations of the group into account. Or, someone else can start their own.
There's really no point rushing to do these if you're not going to provide what many users are looking for. Just doesn't make sense.
Absolutely. I've done them in past but I haven't done them this season because these threads keep coming up far sooner than I would post them (I posted them on the day of the episode). I don't mind someone else doing it as long as there's a bit more information for the episode in the initial post than some random sentence, and posts the poll right away.
