Spoilers The Reality War grade and discussion thread

[The Nth Doctor]

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Almost forgot to put up the thread again, although this time because I'm on a trip for a funeral.

What are people's hopes and expectations and dreads?

I expect we'll get explanations for bi-generation, the nature of the Pantheon, and what The Rani wants from Omega (we already know what Omega wants).

I hope we get resolution to wonkiness of reality and all things mavity. Even as one of the few people who hasn't been annoyed by mavity, I want to see it resolved because its existence has clearly been leading up to this moment.

Speaking of the specials, did we ever find out who Beep the Meep's boss is? We assumed it was The Toymaker but I seem to recall that didn't turn out to be the case. I'm curious to see if that's resolved.

Lastly, I do dread a little what great secrets about Gallifrey will be revealed. I figure The Fugitive Doctor will appear as I think her appearance in "The Story & the Engine" was only a tease and not mere cameo. I worry Davies might explain too much about her and, as I just mentioned in the "Wish World" thread, I want her to remain an ongoing mystery for years to come. I seem to recall Davies mentioning when he took over, but before any episodes aired, that he loved the character and didn't want to explain too much so I hope he sticks with that promise.

 

[Qonundrum]

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Almost forgot to put up the thread again, although this time because I'm on a trip for a funeral.

The incarnation or the franchise? Amazing how much blab there is across the internet.

What are people's hopes and expectations and dreads?

I expect the season to be over and for all we know it might have a tie-in to the Battle between Land and Sea spinoff to tease audiences with.

I expect we'll get explanations for bi-generation, the nature of the Pantheon, and what The Rani wants from Omega (we already know what Omega wants).

Will they be good?

Omega and the Rani are easy to explain, so I suspect there will be a left turn out of the blue.

The Pantheon is likely just a placeholder. Like what the Legion of Doom was to the Superfriends.

I hope we get resolution to wonkiness of reality and all things mavity. Even as one of the few people who hasn't been annoyed by mavity, I want to see it resolved because its existence has clearly been leading up to this moment.

Hopefully it won't be like the explanation for Ruby Tuesday's localized snowstorm.

Speaking of the specials, did we ever find out who Beep the Meep's boss is? We assumed it was The Toymaker but I seem to recall that didn't turn out to be the case. I'm curious to see if that's resolved.

It's probably a P'ting. If it is Toymaker and they kept the actor's identity under tight wraps, that's even more fantastic.

Lastly, I do dread a little what great secrets about Gallifrey will be revealed. I figure The Fugitive Doctor will appear as I think her appearance in "The Story & the Engine" was only a tease and not mere cameo. I worry Davies might explain too much about her and, as I just mentioned in the "Wish World" thread, I want her to remain an ongoing mystery for years to come. I seem to recall Davies mentioning when he took over, but before any episodes aired, that he loved the character and didn't want to explain too much so I hope he sticks with that promise.

It'll either be really big, a damp squib, or somehow manages to be both rolled into one.

 

[cultcross]

Spoiler: Leaks

Leaks really be accurate don't they be

 

[jaime]

So much wrong. So so much.

Gave it a 2 on this chart, because I don’t like the wording for zero.

We are past scraping the barrel, there’s a hole in it, we are under the ground and RTD is just…. A tosser, tbh.

Anyone else think that’s it? Shows not coming back? That’s just one last eff you in some casting on his way out the door?

 

[cultcross]

That’s just one last eff you in some casting on his way out the door?

Laurence Fox as The Doctor

 

[Samurai8472]

Here we go again.

Spoiler

Andrew's going to have snipers outside his home.

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[David cgc]

That was... a lot. It kind of felt like a less-than-the-sum-of-its-parts mashup of Moffat, Chibnall, and RTD's styles, with a lot of RTD over-the-top spectacle without the grounding emotional and character throughlines, and a complex, tricky, multi-layered Moffat plot without the generally tight set-up and resolution (and also the plot clearly reflecting the character arcs), and the things-just-happeness of the Chibnall era without... I don't know, without the Doctor being weirdly passive, which I guess makes it actually an improvement? . I felt like the extended denouement worked better than the episode proper (I can't believe I miss the Doctor's only-a-gun-is-a-weapon moralizing, but it sure led to more interesting resolutions that shooting giant skeletons with big f-off lasers), but even that felt oddly weightless and unmotivated until we got to the end and recontextualized Belinda's need to get home in time to go to work. Still, it's weird than an episode that's almost a half-hour longer than usual feels like it was cut to the bone in editing and just left the essentials to progress the plot.

Sometimes, it seems like everything since Moffat moved on has been one of those parodies of Doctor Who, like the Extras scene or the SMBC "We have to time travel into the plot hole!" comic.

 

[jaime]

Laurence Fox as The Doctor

Ok. So we’ve established it could have been worse then. Good. Gives perspective.

I’m going to have a drink. Less that RTD had before writing that steaming pile, but a drink nonetheless.

 

[FredH]

Honestly, I think people need to relax. Yes, it was pretty much full-on RTD-of-2025, which is very much not the RTD of Damaged Goods back in the novel glory days. No, it wasn’t a grand return to 1970s Hinchcliffe memories or something. But the usual “scraping the barrel/oh it’s terrible/a final FU” judgment (as opposed to “I’d have made it differently — just as I’d have made most of the series since 2005, and certainly since Capaldi left, differently”)? Come on, that’s just silly.

 

[cultcross]

Fire outfit. Not much more positive to say.

 

[jaime]

That was... a lot. It kind of felt like a less-than-the-sum-of-its-parts mashup of Moffat, Chibnall, and RTD's styles, with a lot of RTD over-the-top spectacle without the grounding emotional and character throughlines, and a complex, tricky, multi-layered Moffat plot without the generally tight set-up and resolution (and also the plot clearly reflecting the character arcs), and the things-just-happeness of the Chibnall era without... I don't know, without the Doctor being weirdly passive, which I guess makes it actually an improvement? . I felt like the extended denouement worked better than the episode proper (I can't believe I miss the Doctor's only-a-gun-is-a-weapon moralizing, but it sure led to more interesting resolutions that shooting giant skeletons with big f-off lasers), but even that felt oddly weightless and unmotivated until we got to the end and recontextualized Belinda's need to get home in time to go to work. Still, it's weird than an episode that's almost a half-hour longer than usual feels like it was cut to the bone in editing and just left the essentials to progress the plot.

That ending was tacked on. And it didn’t recontextualise. It retconned, and lied. And RTD seems to have some really weird issues.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

Well, it seems Lungbarrow has been made somewhat canonical. We also know who to blame for the Mandela effect. The former Mrs Lawrence Fox it is then.

 

[jaime]

Honestly, I think people need to relax. Yes, it was pretty much full-on RTD-of-2025, which is very much not the RTD of Damaged Goods back in the novel glory days. No, it wasn’t a grand return to 1970s Hinchcliffe memories or something. But the usual “scraping the barrel/oh it’s terrible/a final FU” judgment (as opposed to “I’d have made it differently — just as I’d have made most of the series since 2005 differently”)? Come on, that’s just silly.

We had a woman having a baby (except last episode she couldn’t re,ember it..) without consent, fathered by a gay man, without his consent, we had a big reset button that didn’t reset, we had a suicide regeneration to bring back poppy, who actually isn’t brought back, because that’s not the same character is it, and we had stunt Doctor casting…
That’s just the stuff that’s a bit offensive. There’s so much wrong with it.
Yeah, I’d have made it differently.

 

[Daedalus]

That was a very loud episode. I don't remember the soundtrack being so overbearing this season!

Anyway, the Omega thing.

I didnt mind it. He's lost every semblance of his old form and has become more of a skeletal husk, fine by me. I can't imagine his last trip to Earth did him much good anyway. (Watch Big Finish follow this up!)
The "Underverse" thing still grates, as I would expect the anti-matter universe to get a brief mention. Oh, and he ate the Rani but the Rani is OK...fine, lovely.

Did we get a Lungbarrow reference in this regarding Time Lord sterilty? I felt like they did but it was mixed up with another event that the Rani escaped from. What was that event? I was thinking that was the Master nuking Gallifrey or the "Death Particle" thing, but that doesn't line up.

I still have way more questions, but actually liked the episode as odd as it was.

 

[David cgc]

Well, it seems Lungbarrow has been made somewhat canonical. We also know who to blame for the Mandela effect. The former Mrs Lawrence Fox it is then.

I'm not entirely sure what to make of that. So the Master made the Time Lords sterile, then blew them up (or waited them out), then cyber-converted the corpses which could still regenerate but hadn't for some reason?

Because there'd been children on Gallifrey. Relatively recently, there were kids around the last time the Doctor visited before it was re-destroyed, which means this "Time Lords can't reproduce" is something new that happened since 2015. Or this is some kind of Time Lord/Shobogan/Gallifreyan splitter nonsense, but that doesn't make sense, since if Time Lords are a class and not a species, you would always just recruit more.

 

[VDCNI]

I thought it was fine, better than last years finale for sure.

But it never really took off completely. The Rani and Omega were so easily dealt with and its always a bit lazy having one villain kill another so then we had way too long on the Poppy story which didn't feel that it had been set up enough previously and I really didn't care.

I don't really get the sterile thing, is that just from the time war. We know they weren't before. Speaking of that no Susan or explanation for her appearances.

Lots of things felt unresolved and some actors just appeared and disappeared in a somewhat arbitrary way. I assume Bonnie was busy as she only really had the Rani exposition scene. Belinda felt like a completely different character and it fell to Ruby to give us any companion presence.

I thought Jodie was excellent, suddenly she had some lines to get her teeth into rather than Chibnall blandness.

The Billie Piper thing just seems mad. Like why would he write it and why would she agree. Though I suppose it's a cliff hanger the BBC would find hard to leave hanging.

 

[FredH]

Well, it seems Lungbarrow has been made somewhat canonical. We also know who to blame for the Mandela effect. The former Mrs Lawrence Fox it is then.

True, I’m unclear how this squares with Time Lords having been previously shown to have childhoods — unless it’s that they’ve ALL been sterile since the start of Time Lord society, and most of them are millions of years old (and thus the Hartnell Doctor

Spoiler

maybe had false memories of just that incarnation, which he believed to be his first, being millions of years old

?

(The Doctor’s age counts in even the classic series I’ve always assumed were “I’m starting over from —-“ vanity restarts.)

And I do wish we’d followed up on what the recent glimpse of

Spoiler

non-stock-footage Susan

was about.

 

[Tuskin38]

Fuck that was a great episode

 

[FredH]

Anyway, the Omega thing.

I didnt mind it. He's lost every semblance of his old form and has become more of a skeletal husk, fine by me. I can't imagine his last trip to Earth did him much good anyway. (Watch Big Finish follow this up!)
The "Underverse" thing still grates, as I would expect the anti-matter universe to get a brief mention.

I kind of figured the underverse was what they used to call the antimatter universe.

 

[Captaindemotion]

I may have shocked the rest of my family, who were in the next room, by shouting “NO FUCKING WAY!” at the new face. My wife came in, I rewound and she was “but…that’s your woman, what’s her name? How can it be her?”

So, I managed to avoid all the rumours and spoilers but although I figured Ncuti probably was leaving, I hoped he wasn’t. I wondered if timey-wimey stuff would allow Jodie to provide the regeneration instead of him. Almost feels like we hardly got to know him, TBH, though when he was always very watchable. Sadly, apart from maybe Boom, I’m not sure if he ever really got the scene or speech where you went “yes, THAT’S The Doctor.” Still, he got one pretty good season and one very good one.

Good episode, very RTD, for better or worse, and, like quite a bit of this season, quite RTD-does-Moffat. And I laughed out loud at the Two Ranis “good night from me” joke. No, I’m not proud.