Spoilers Space Babies grade and discussion thread

[Starkers]

I enjoyed that way more than I expected to. Yes it was tres silly, yes it felt a little too much like The End of the World, yes the politics were delivered via sledgehammer (but this is RTD after all) and there was a lot of 'new viewer exposition' but damn it rattled along at a great pace, Ncuti and Millie were great, the babies were cute and the monster relatable. I liked it.

The Eleventh Hour will always be the high watermark for introducing the Doctor but this was very much in the Rose/New Earth/Smith & Jones/Partners In Crime vein....IE a classic RTD episode 1.

Would I hate the show if every episode was like this? Absolutely. Do I mind the odd one or two like it a season, not at all.

 

[Jedman67]

I liked it. I think the forced birth analogies were more subtle. Yeah the snot monster was iffy but the kids loved it.
7/10.
Great start, story a bit "meh".

Gonna watch the Devil's Chord tonight hopefully .

 

[Seven of Five]

That was a bit strange and I think I much preferred the second episode. 5/10.

I do quite like the comradery between the Doctor and Ruby so far.

 

[bdub76]

Entertaining. This could have been a SJA episode.

I’m happy Doctor Who is past its PSA years. Good to be back to fun romps.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Numbers?

6 space babies were left behind in space to die?

It's too hard to air lift 6 babies?

Or were there a billion fetuses in the hold?

Or did Nanny let 6 out at a time, who died from complications of being mutants with no health care, and then she got another 6 who died and then she got another 6... Because she needed someone to run the station? Losing 6 babies every 6 months is fine, if it saves billions o f fetuses in the hold?

Meanwhile...

Watching John Oliver right now, talking about Britain wanting to divert desperate asylum seekers to Rwanda.

Totally a PSA.

 

[The Wormhole]

I’m happy Doctor Who is past its PSA years. Good to be back to fun romps.

???
This episode certainly had a few PSA moments, and I'm quite sure with RTD in charge and writing most of the episodes this season, there's more to come.

 

[Richard Baker]

Didn't care much for this one but it was better than The Devil's Chord. The show felt like people were in the writer's room tossing out random phrases and when Space Babies was uttered everyone clapped and then desperately tried to figure out a story to go with it.

I am hoping further shows give the Doctor a chance to exhibit some gravitas, this giggling like a kid in a candy store all the time is not really doing it for me much. I don't mind a "fun" character but I think they are trying too hard to make him so different from the prior ones.

 

[nightwind1]

Space Babies... okay, that was not a solid opener for a new season. Yes, I know it's technically episode 2, but still. Ugh. I am not opposed to levity or silliness in my Doctor Who, but that was painful. I felt like I was watching a children's show, rather than the BBC's premier science-fiction flagship.

Doctor Who has ALWAYS been a children's show, that adults enjoy also.

 

[Quantum21]

I was awaiting a return to classic (modern) Who. Instead we got the worst of the last 10 years magnified into a vile, catastrophic disaster.

The new Dr is sadly weightless in presence. He seems consumed by the background of a bigger budget.

The story...aimed at 8-year olds? Every 4.5 minutes a new historical reference was mentioned to add weight but it felt out of place. It's a miracle I lasted to the end.

I just mentioned in a thread here recently that I never give less than a 1 out of 10 rating, but that just changed.

 

[Starkers]

The story...aimed at 8-year olds?

As it's always been??

Seriously, it's like people never watched Rose or New Earth or Partners in Crime? Like it or not but Space Babies is the same kind of silly opening episode RTD's always done (Smith & Jones is maybe the only exception here)

 

[Quantum21]

As it's always been??

Seriously, it's like people never watched Rose or New Earth or Partners in Crime? Like it or not but Space Babies is the same kind of silly opening episode RTD's always done (Smith & Jones is maybe the only exception here)

No it has not been aimed at kids for a long time. Maybe intelligent college age. There's fanciful, then there's silly.

 

[The Wormhole]

No it has not been aimed at kids for a long time.

Wut? As I noted earlier in this thread, all three modern showrunners have been adamant that Doctor Who is a children's show. Indeed, there was even that new article from last year where we learn RTD tore into Ncuti Gatwa for using profanity while in costume as "we can't have that from the lead of a children's show." Or hell, back when Moffat was running the show, he actually sidetracked an entire interview in order to drive the point home that Doctor Who is a children's show. Hell, the fact that it's a children's show was one of the factors for why Christopher Eccleston was drawn to it to begin with, as he wanted to branch out into children's entertainment.

While it's true Doctor Who has a large adult audience, its target audience is, has been and always will be children.

 

[Captrek]

I am hoping further shows give the Doctor a chance to exhibit some mavitas, this giggling like a kid in a candy store all the time is not really doing it for me much.

FTFY

 

[ananta]

I’m kind of shocked by just how BAD that was…

I didn’t have high hopes because I found Davies’ writing on the specials exceedingly subpar. I can only imagine had previously had somebody to rein in his excesses, but this episode was just utterly dreadful on just about every count.

I liked the sparky energy of the two leads but the script seemed like a rough first draft and one that should have been chucked in the bin rather than made its way to filming. How on earth do they hope to attract new viewers with a mess such as this? By the time the villain was revealed to be made of snot and the station was powered by FART…I was just gone. This series is really not for me anymore. I don’t think I’ll even bother with the rest of the season.

 

[Redfern]

A review by Mr. TARDIS

 

[Starkers]

Your perpetual reminder that RTD's first season in 2005 had burping wheelie bins, farting aliens and jokes about John Barrowman hiding a gun up his arse. RTD's second season in 2006 featured a woman merged with a paving slab and a joke about how she was still able to give her boyfriend a blow job. RTD's fourth season in 2008 featured cute creatures made out of human body fat...

NO ONE HAS EVER REIGNED IN RTD'S EXCESSES!

To be clear, I don't object to people not liking these episodes, hell anyone who's been on this forum since back in the day no doubt remembers that I've never been RTD's greatest fan (Team Moffat all the way) but I do object to people somehow reinventing RTD's first era as a bastion of serious science fiction.

And if you somehow argue that episodes like Rose and Aliens of London/World War III were different then I would respectfully contest that maybe you've just got older, and that in fact it isn't RTD who's changed, it's you.

 

[EnderAKH]

No it has not been aimed at kids for a long time. Maybe intelligent college age. There's fanciful, then there's silly.

OK, this is just untrue. From Aliens of London (2005):

The Doctor : Excuse me, do you mind not farting while I'm saving the world?
Joseph Green : Would you rather silent but deadly?

 

[Turtletrekker]

 

[Saul]

Yeah, Space Babies wasn't a strong episode, but having watched all the previous RTD season opener episodes I wasn't too surprised or disappointed. Pretty much expected something light and fluffy with lots of fun thrown in.

 

[Pindar]

Very average, not the best way to kick off a new season. I guees they needed all the Doctor backstory and TARDIS exposition but it felt a bit clunky to me.

All the phone your mum stuff was lifted straight from Rose.