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Spoilers The Giggle grade and discussion thread

How do you rate The Giggle?

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    73
guess I did pretty good avoiding spoilers because the bi-regenertaion twist caught me TOTALLY off guard! About a week before the special, I saw thumbnails for videos on YouTube (which I resisted the temptation to play) with blurbs supposedly quoting RTD this special would fundamentally shake up DW lore. From that I pondered the idea we'd learn that the Doctor is a Celestial like the ToyMaker, maybe one that never fully developed their powers when discovered by Tektuon in "The Timeless Children". How that came to mind, shoot, I have no bloody idea. I just figured RTD would delve heartily into the Timeless Child concept and add his own layer to it since interviews revealed him liking Chinall's take on the mythos.

Then, when 14 requested that Donna and Mel pull at his arms, I figured they were just going for a different look to the regeneration effect, Tennant would just kinda' "peel away" (not in a gory gruesome sense) to reveal Gatwa beneath. Yeah, even as I imagined that, I knew they would NOT let that be the final image we saw of Tennant, but occasionally some of us have weird ideas in the heat of the moment knowing full well the imagined notion will not fly.
 
Ever since the classic story, "The Two Doctors," in which we saw a more grey-haired Second Doctor, I always wondered if there were alternate versions of past Doctors that did not regenerate but continued onwards having adventures and grew older. I thought such a thing would be possible via alternate timelines in which the Doctor turned left instead of right, but bi-regeneration gives an excuse for past Doctors to exist in the here and now without the need of a timescoop or whatever plot device that can merge timelines.

So now not only are there different Doctors across time, but also different Doctors in the same time as well.
 
I saw some of RTD's comments about "the gift of the Toymaker" and...man, that is truly a terrible idea. The idea that every Doctor survived their regeneration and got their own TARDIS with them also is awful, as it completely takes away from the trauma and finality of the given regeneration. I'm warming to the idea of Fourteen being the only "peaceful" Doctor et al, but the idea that all Doctors being so takes away from the actual point of the bi-regeneration itself which, I thought was about the Doctor earning some much needed rest?

So yeah, I rather dislike the idea of what is happening there.
 
Captain_Amasov said:
My guess is that at some point, once the 14th has "healed", they'll just merge back with the 15th. Kinda like a stretched out version of what happened between the Watcher and 4th Doctor befor becoming the 5th.
Click to expand...

It’s exactly what happened with K’Anpo Rinpoche, so why they made the Doctor into a spin-off of himself here was… unnecessary at best.
 
Emperor-Tiberius said:
I saw some of RTD's comments about "the gift of the Toymaker" and...man, that is truly a terrible idea. The idea that every Doctor survived their regeneration and got their own TARDIS with them also is awful, as it completely takes away from the trauma and finality of the given regeneration. I'm warming to the idea of Fourteen being the only "peaceful" Doctor et al, but the idea that all Doctors being so takes away from the actual point of the bi-regeneration itself which, I thought was about the Doctor earning some much needed rest?

So yeah, I rather dislike the idea of what is happening there.
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Even less at stake now. Need an army? Shoot the Doctor, get two, then four etc…
Very silly. Instantly makes the new guy seem like an impostor, not least as he spent the whole time forced to do PE having forgot his kit. Would that have happened if one of the Doctors had been a woman? I doubt it.
Stuff happened in this episode that if it had been Moff, various corners of fandom would be calling for heads on platters.
Moff would have stuck the landing better and made it *mean* something though.
Whole anniversary has been RTDs love letter to his own run. Alas.

Tardis being split in two is also… unpleasant. That’s a *person* there. Easier to apologise than to ask consent though.
Sigh.
A real let down, and a waste of potential.
At least if the leak had been fully right, and the toy maker had pulled fifteen backwards in his own timestream, then some of the dialogue would have made sense and the moment could have carried some weight.
Retroactively eradicating the end of every regen episode is also unpleasant. Those sacrifices mean nothing now.
 
For all his flaws, at least both his Doctors' ends felt final and all. Accepting of their fate. I love that aspect especially in Eleven's case, who delivered one of my favorite lines ever ("I will always remember when the Doctor was me!") in such an emotional wallop, just beautiful.

Again, I guess I wouldn't mind it so much with Fourteen being that one incarnation being the one who split (which is already asking for much, but it is a 60 year old show after all) from Fifteen, but the idea that all of those incarnations existing at the same time is beyond idiotic, as it renders each Doctor's regenerations themselves as a cheat. The emotional attachment is lost.

Also, is this meant to be RTD's way of adressing the aged Patrick Troughton in The Two Doctors and Tom Baker's Curator in Day of the Doctor? Cause, sure, but...those stories explain why they're like this, and I much rather like the idea of untold Second Doctor stories as an unwilling CIA agent, and Tom Baker simply being a reused face of the Doctor's in the distant future.
 
One major critique of the episode itself is, we didn't get nearly enough the Toymaker or his games, in my opinion. Much time was wasted in UNIT and the bi-regeneration concept than the games themselves, and I'd much rather we had more times on that stuff.

I guess what I mean is, the episode itself is a major wash. It's not bad (I was certainly entertained throughout, even when I didn't like the concept of bi-regeneration) and its certainly way more enjoyable than anything (and I really mean anything) in the Chibnall era, it still wasn't very good in the sum of its parts. I wanted more Toymaker, maybe a bit more Mel and a lot less lore exploration (maybe completely cut out the duplicate TARDIS).
 
I guess that every outgoing Doctor will drift off in his/her very own TARDIS, and It'll be sort of like the Green Lantern Corps, with a whole fleet of TARDeS showing up in a crisis ... !

Nahhhhhhh!
 
Its nuts. I get the sentiment...but its really dumb!

Is this how it felt after watching an RTD episode live back in the days? Asking those who remember them.
 
Emperor-Tiberius said:
For all his flaws, at least both his Doctors' ends felt final and all. Accepting of their fate. I love that aspect especially in Eleven's case, who delivered one of my favorite lines ever ("I will always remember when the Doctor was me!") in such an emotional wallop, just beautiful.

Again, I guess I wouldn't mind it so much with Fourteen being that one incarnation being the one who split (which is already asking for much, but it is a 60 year old show after all) from Fifteen, but the idea that all of those incarnations existing at the same time is beyond idiotic, as it renders each Doctor's regenerations themselves as a cheat. The emotional attachment is lost.

Also, is this meant to be RTD's way of adressing the aged Patrick Troughton in The Two Doctors and Tom Baker's Curator in Day of the Doctor? Cause, sure, but...those stories explain why they're like this, and I much rather like the idea of untold Second Doctor stories as an unwilling CIA agent, and Tom Baker simply being a reused face of the Doctor's in the distant future.
Click to expand...

I do wonder if things were edited out after he decided to do Tales of the Tardis. That it was going to be a loop until RTD decided all the other Doctors could get their Cake and Eat It regen, rather than just his own favourite toy.
Mel being there makes more sense as well, as she met the Doctor before she met the Doctor.
That would still only fix some elements of the story, the Toymaker being so… well, the game of catch was *rubbish*.

It’s all being set up for a Pertwee era redo with Tennant guest starring anyway. No point in Units pet robot alien otherwise.
 
ok, while I loved the episode I don't like the idea of retroactive Bi-generation. The Bi-generation in the episode should be the first/only time, it really takes away from things if no Doctor ever really died. But, like others have said, unless its shown on screen I'm assuming that the 14/15 split is the only bi-generation.
 
Yule Cat said:
NPH was amazing! Nice to see Ten get the whole family thing. Ncuti caught me straight off - I look forward to Christmas! Nicely unsubtle commentary on when everyone thinks they're right & empathy goes out the window.
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All the various sides will think that message is aimed at the others though.
 
Generally it made whole lot more sense with Tennant as an intermediate Doctor.
The one who processed their past and basically acts as self therapy.
I tried to imagine the bi-generation with Jodie and Ncuti and while that could have been done on a technical level, she was not the one carrying the baggage and to become a retiree.
Even if it had been with Yaz instead of Donna.
David was the perfect version of the Doctor for this.
 
Well, that was enjoyable and fun. I don't mind the bi-generation per se, I accept it for what it is, a gimmick to make this regeneration different than the usual and a means of keeping Tennant around for the next anniversary special/ratings emergency. This thing about how ever Doctor's regeneration has been retroactively turned into a bi-generation meaning there are now clones of the other Doctors hanging around is something I'm less enthused about, but that comes from behind the scenes sources, not the show itself, so I can ignore it all I like.

I know RTD has denied there's a UNIT spinoff in the works, but I don't know. This episode really seemed to establish UNIT as a presence, what with their Avengers tower, command center and all the various named characters, it definitely feels like UNIT is here to stay. I know it's been confirmed we will be seeing them in the coming season, and it's possible they'll even have a semi-regular presence throughout Gatwa's run, but it definitely feels like there's something planned with UNIT.

Kind of amuses me that Gatwa was present for longer in this episode than a new Doctor typically is in their predecessor's finale and we're yet to see him wear pants. Sorry, trousers. I forget "pants" means something very different to you Brits.
 
Emperor-Tiberius said:
I saw some of RTD's comments about "the gift of the Toymaker" and...man, that is truly a terrible idea. The idea that every Doctor survived their regeneration and got their own TARDIS with them also is awful, as it completely takes away from the trauma and finality of the given regeneration. I'm warming to the idea of Fourteen being the only "peaceful" Doctor et al, but the idea that all Doctors being so takes away from the actual point of the bi-regeneration itself which, I thought was about the Doctor earning some much needed rest?

So yeah, I rather dislike the idea of what is happening there.
Click to expand...

It's not too surprising; after Zoe and Jamie were robbed of their original dramatic ending, just to be given some empty hollow saccharine "Oh we remember him permanently now" for zero story narrative to give it any weight or depth or meaning or care or other words following the word "or"? But the stuff about Donna dying if the Doctor sees her and she remembers or... Wouldn't it be interesting if Plinkett ever covered Doctor Who?
 
Qonundrum said:
It's not too surprising; after Zoe and Jamie were robbed of their original ending, just to be given some empty hollow saccharine "Oh we remember him permanently now"... but the stuff about Donna dying if the Doctor sees her and she remembers or... Wouldn't it be interesting if Plinkett ever covered Doctor Who?
Click to expand...
I don't get why Jay never watched it. You know he'd love it.
 
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