Spoilers The Reality War grade and discussion thread

[The Laughing Vulcan]

I haven't refreshed this page since 6:45, when there were only two posts.

I'm just taking a wild guess that there is at this time a conversation in progress at least ten posts long discussing the inevitablity of a 14/16 Two Doctors episode.

EDIT: Colour me surprised!

 

[FredH]

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.

I admit I had previously assumed it was a crazy rumor and would never happen, but I guess it’s a way of symbolically bringing the modern series full circle if this turns out to be the end. The Rani makes much of how “you’re really just insects to him,” and there’s a hint of her not being entirely wrong when he

Spoiler

finds he does want to see Omega

, so Billie Piper represents a firm, final negation of that: no, the Doctor does identify with us in the end.

Also, after all these years, it’s nice to know that I don’t actually have to say “OH-muh-ga.”

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

Piper Doctor can presumably meet Piper Rose at some point. I think she's a good enough actor to pull off all the Doctor's mannerisms.

As for child Time Lords. there's always the looms - the technology of which they shared with the Kryptonians at some point perhaps.

 

[Tuskin38]

The next story is going have David Tennant too isn’t it? How could he not it’s too obvious

 

[Daedalus]

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.

That was a nice touch

 

[jaime]

Dude literally killed himself to make Belinda a single parent, and finally see what Rose Tyler looks like in the shower. Jus’ sayin.

 

[FredH]

I'm just taking a wild guess that there is at this time a conversation in progress at least ten posts long discussing the inevitablity of a 14/16 Two Doctors episode.

How about the inevitability of a 16/older-Rose reunion?

 

[Tuskin38]

Dude literally killed himself to make Belinda a single parent

She’s not single huh

 

[David cgc]

Interesting that she's credited as "Introducing Billie Piper" and not "Introducing Billie Piper as the Doctor," like usual.

 

[cultcross]

If I'm being charitable, there is some connection between the heart of the TARDIS/vortex and Rose Tyler per The Parting of the Ways which could be handwaved as a clever explanation for this arse pull next season.

But come on. This show's at its weakest when it gets caught up in its self indulgent claptrap and now the Doctor herself is the embodiment of that.

 

[Qonundrum]

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.

Pretty much. Some are now saying that non-fans need to write the show. Just having a script editor where stories can actually have enough of the important bits ironed out and without lazy writing, especially when they only make 8 stories a year (which amounts to 16 episodes in classic Who's run, and while nobody's perfect, they in the 1960s-1990s didn't have script writing technology that sorts out characters and scenes in the way we do now ("Final Draft" being a noteworthy example), never mind databases, AI script generators that rehash old stuff like for that Trek movie idea I asked for but it reeked "Motion Picture meets First Contact", etc).

I don't really get the sterile thing, is that just from the time war. We know they weren't before.

"Time can be rewritten"? Another continuity fail, in a show loaded with them over the decades (hence that quote and "fixed point of time", just in case)? At which point, does the story itself make it easy to roll with the changes?

Speaking of that no Susan or explanation for her appearances.

I got the impression her appearance was just a vision or memory flashback. RTD nailed the idea, though I wish Chibnall had thought of it. His use of Ian was pretty good.

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 recall a YT channel citing an article stating things wouldn't be fully resolved. Which is unsurprising. Some never will be.

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

Chibnall had his moments of decent stuff, he had cast her as well, and as Jodie's Doctor more often came across like Tennant's, were people wanting more of the same tired of the same?

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.

"Mad" as in "angry", "crazy", "insanely cool", or what? I doubt that reveal explains her look on her face when Eccleston dished up and out at that convention when he's telling everyone to get sacks! Well, actually it didn't and couldn't have, but still.

 

[Qonundrum]

If I'm being charitable, there is some connection between the heart of the TARDIS/vortex and Rose Tyler per The Parting of the Ways which could be handwaved as a clever explanation for this arse pull next season.

So many theories were posited by people over why x and y elements existed and those amounts of thought were seemingly far more than what transpired in the episode. There was a lot needing clever explanations and all people got was this arse pulling.

But come on. This show's at its weakest when it gets caught up in its self indulgent claptrap and now the Doctor herself is the embodiment of that.

On the plus side, it all vindicates the bulk of the 80s. Even "Dimensions in Time", which had to be self-indulgent.

Interesting that she's credited as "Introducing Billie Piper" and not "Introducing Billie Piper as the Doctor," like usual.

Probably. Given he, after turning into one of those static lightning globe things from Radio Shack circa 1995, morphs into her and she then parrots a line 13 might say. The mid-30s might like what's to come, if the show is renewed. The bigger interesting thing is why everyone was telling longer-time fans to come back to see... what they saw. And will the same happen in 2027, if not some time after.

 

[FredH]

Piper Doctor can presumably meet Piper Rose at some point. I think she's a good enough actor to pull off all the Doctor's mannerisms.

As for child Time Lords. there's always the looms - the technology of which they shared with the Kryptonians at some point perhaps.

Yeah, but supposedly the Looms generated adult bodies from the get-go. I suppose there’s no reason that can’t be retconned, though.

 

[Gepard]

Haven't watched the episode yet, but I did see the regeneration clip and boy oh boy they are completely out of fucking ideas aren't they. Like holy shit.

 

[kirk55555]

Did we ever get an explanation as to why The Doctor saw Susan in a previous episode, or was that just RTD being a prick?

Anyway that was a a garbage episode, and tying the "emotional" core to fucking Space Babies was deranged. The "sterile" thing only makes sense of what The Master did at the end of Flux, since obviously timelords/Galifreans were having kids regularly before that (The Doctor counting the kids he'd "killed" ending the time war just being one example), but I don't understand why it would matter because all the Timelords except The Master, Doctor and Rani were supposedly killed then anyway.

I liked seeing the Hotel woman and the 13th Doctor again, and I'm even fine with the (I'm assuming) 16th Doctor (if The Doctor can take the face of some random person from Pompeii they can certainly take one they know a lot better). That said, I'd have had a much worse reaction if the face had been, say, Clara's

Being overly generous, I'll give it a 4/10. Ncuti will go down just like Whitaker as a Doctor who deserved a lot better, although Ncuti probably got a slightly better run then Whitaker did.

I'm not interested in the "land and sea" spin off, but if we actually get any new series with the 16th Doctor I'd watch it, although I'm absolutely sick of RTD2 as an era of the show.

 

[Chaos Descending]

Well. Literally everything about that was awful, and a possible sign of mental illness on the part of the author.

 

[Samurai8472]

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.

Time Lords being infertile dates back to the classic era. It was going to be part of the Cartmel Masterplan that Time Lords lost the ability to reproduce normally, so they used genetic Looms to reproduce.

 

[Chaos Descending]

Time Lords being infertile dates back to the classic era. It was going to be part of the Cartmel Masterplan that Time Lords lost the ability to reproduce normally, so they used genetic Looms to reproduce.

Never once mentioned on the TV show though. In fact the Doctor has stated that he had a family and children. And of course there's that whole "granddaughter" business from the very first episode.

 

[cultcross]

What was this genetic explosion thing they referenced that made them all sterile? Was that part of a story I've filed under too stupid to remember?

 

[jaime]

She’s not single huh

She and Poppy 3.0’s father are not together, and all the dialogue with her mother makes it very clear.