Spoilers Wish World grade and discussion thread

[Qonundrum]

Omega's Ergons. Boney and birdy

Is that a hatchet or a fez on its head? Either way it's cool, but make no bones about it, that's got to be a tie-in to the walking dino skeleton image as another botched Rani experiment because of course it is. Also, that costume is pure-dee-gross, but is in a likely better story - which isn't saying too much depending on the scene.

 

[jaime]

See, too much writing the Rani as ‘the master with tits… I mean Dalek bumps…’ because clearly the dinosaurs are a reference to Boney M.

 

[Redfern]

Omega's Ergons. Boney and birdy

Looks a bit like a "Power Rangers" or "Ultraman" adversary!

A bit more seriously, does anyone think the designer was inspired by HR Giger, trying to emulate elements like bone-like exoskeletal surfaces and striated/pleated soft tissues?

 

[Chakoteya]

Looks a bit like a "Power Rangers" or "Ultraman" adversary!

A bit more seriously, does anyone think the designer was inspired by HR Giger, trying to emulate elements like bone-like exoskeletal surfaces and striated/pleated soft tissues?

HR Giger is the Daddy of alien design now. Pun intended.
I saw touches of AT-AT walker in the patrols too.

I shall refrain from further comments until I've seen the rest of the story after next weekend.

 

[jaime]

Looks a bit like a "Power Rangers" or "Ultraman" adversary!

A bit more seriously, does anyone think the designer was inspired by HR Giger, trying to emulate elements like bone-like exoskeletal surfaces and striated/pleated soft tissues?

It was 1982/3 so very much so. Unfortunately they landed on chicken. The biomechanoid in 87 and Dragonfire was a bit more successful.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

What a bunch of tosh. I wish I gave a flying fuck about the lore of Doctor Who. Oh, my, "Omega", wow...

I've said it before but I can't wait for some showrunner who only knows Who from the new series. Either that or they run out of old series things to reference and explain.

On the positive side, um, Rani has a nice sonic. I don't know, even at its worst I've liked some elements of Who even in at its low points but this season has really lost me. I am glad others have been enjoying it but I just don't "get" the show anymore. I know, I know, just stop watching but it's hard when I have enjoyed it so much in the past, I'd love to reconnect with it.

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

What a bunch of tosh. I wish I gave a flying fuck about the lore of Doctor Who. Oh, my, "Omega", wow...

I've said it before but I can't wait for some showrunner who only knows Who from the new series. Either that or they run out of old series things to reference and explain.

I get where you're coming from with that, but Daleks, Cybermen, the Master, the Great Intelligence, Davros, Rassilon, Sontarans, Silurians, Sea Devils, Ice Warriors, Zygons, Autons and so on are all from the classic series, so reintroducing old enemies is what the modern series does. It's the new viewer who gets reintroduced to the Slitheen and the Abzorbaloff in 20 years time that I feel sorry for!

Anyway, my current opinion about Wish World is that... it has its heart in the right place. We've come a long way from the series I used to enjoy though and I'm about ready to finally give up on it.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Is that a hatchet or a fez on its head?

Looks like a brain stuck inside a crest. Could be worse, a brain in a ball on a string

A bit more seriously, does anyone think the designer was inspired by HR Giger, trying to emulate elements like bone-like exoskeletal surfaces and striated/pleated soft tissues?

Here's another Giger inspired design, Omega's helmet

I assume it's meant to be solid, but you can see the actor squish in the sides in a scene where he grabs his head. Though the squishyness makes it a tad more creepy.

 

[Turtletrekker]

Personally, I'm beyond thrilled that RTD is mining the classic lore beyond simply the Daleks, the Cybermen and The Master. Maybe that belongs in the controversial opinion thread, but here we are.

 

[Xerxes82]

So let me guess, Poppy will turn out to be

Spoiler

Susan’s mother?

I'm not convinced that line of dialogue should be taken so literally.

Spoiler

The Doctor says "I have a daughter. She's real! Do you know what means?" What he doesn't say is "She's mine." Just that she is real.

Recall, Poppy isn't from present day Earth, but space in the future. How the heck is she even ON Earth to be repurposed as the Doctor's false kid?

I think the Rani screwed up. She used the vindicator web to power her experiment. But I think Desiderium's reality altering power is leaking back along the web, rather than staying localized to Earth. Which means if the Rani breaks reality looking for Omega, she's not just destroying Earth but the entire universe across all space and time. Oops.

 

[jaime]

Popular, long running, stories of any flavour — whether it be SF or Soap Opera — will always mine their past as part of their appeal. That can be done well, or it can be done poorly. X-Men was at the height of its popularity while having little notes telling you events were being referenced from twenty years back in its pages, whereas Eastenders has turned into weird thing where most of the cast are returned characters from decades back. For two examples. (Revealing Eastenders is in fact a Matrix simulation of Earth on Gallifrey would be the best way to end that show, given its odd Who links…)

Whilst there’s the argument that it’s unfair to expect a viewer to jump in and deal with a show that has a past (like some kind of weird virginal TV show is required, where everything to know is right in front of you…) and it has some weight, at the same time viewers have been doing *exactly that* for Decades. All the people who do enjoy continuity aren’t seventy year old British folk, who have been watching since sixty-three.

It’s one of the reasons why Who fandom is to a decent extent gatekeeper free — you’re more likely to find even the grumpiest current-iteration-disliking-fans are more likely to be inviting newer people to experience the old stories, than telling them to go away and find something else.
Which, with everything on iPlayer, and reams of info everywhere these days, is exactly what the show itself is doing when it sticks in the Rani, or Omega, or Susan.

The important thing for the show is — don’t get it wrong when you do that. Otherwise you accidentally look worse than something shot on a comparative shoestring in the nineteen seventies, and your high-salaried glossy superstar might look less compelling than a Liverpudlian Builder, or a Scotsman who used to put live animals down his trousers.

 

[Turtletrekker]

I've enjoyed all the callbacks so far. I've always been familiar with the original story, but I always felt the story at hand gave the viewer all the information they needed. As for the execution, I was satisfied with how the Toymaker story ended and while I agree that Empire of Death didn't quite live up to its set up, I don't write it off as the most horrible thing ever has so much of the fandom as the tendency to do. Hyperbole has become such a thing. (I can only imagine what people from today would have said of The Best of Both Worlds part 2 back in the day. There actually was some unkindness directed towards part 2 back in the day, but this crowd?) And the letdown in that story wasn't the use of classic elements, which was one of the highlights of the story for me, it was in the resolution of Ruby's arc.

 

[diankra]

Why is the Rani interested in Omega? Yep, the Doctor and Hedin, but she doesn't seem like the type to have heroes.
Also, in January 1983, it had been a bit over a year since the Three Doctors repeat reminded viewers of the character. Now it's a random name only people about 60 know.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Why is the Rani interested in Omega? Yep, the Doctor and Hedin, but she doesn't seem like the type to have heroes.
Also, in January 1983, it had been a bit over a year since the Three Doctors repeat reminded viewers of the character. Now it's a random name only people about 60 know.

I wish I was still about 60.

 

[diankra]

58.

 

[Mr Awe]

Dinosaur skeletons, WTF? No, seriously, WTF is with the giant walking dinosaur skeletons?

I've been thinking about them because they weren't really explained. At least not that I caught on to. But I'm guessing they represent various 200lb guerillas in the room that you can choose to either ignore or have doubts about.

In short, they were probably meant to inspire doubts.

What I don't get is if the plan depended on doubts, then why would doubters be reported and disappeared?

 

[Turtletrekker]

Why is the Rani interested in Omega? Yep, the Doctor and Hedin, but she doesn't seem like the type to have heroes.
Also, in January 1983, it had been a bit over a year since the Three Doctors repeat reminded viewers of the character. Now it's a random name only people about 60 know.

It's an experiment. She's tinkering with the workings of the gods just like she would tinker with mere mortals. That family at the beginning certainly were specimens in a petri dish. And it is my prediction that in this case her tinkering is going to bite her on both of her asses.

As for why Omega? Because he's not the Master or Rassillon? Again?

Bring in someone from the newer era? Who? Create a new character integral to early Time Lord lore? Last time someone did that fandom threw a connection fit for daring to tamper with what they already knew and loved.

Create a brand new villain on the spot, or even just for the season? Where is the investment? Where's the conversation? One and done seasonal Big Bads tend to elicit a big shrug from me.

The canvas of Doctor Who is so big that it seems detrimental and self-defeating to simply decide that certain parts of it are no longer relevant just because newer viewers weren't familiar with it yet. There was a time when newer viewers weren't familiar with Daleks, Cybermen, the Master, Rassillon, Gallifrey and Timelord society and history in general. I know I wasn't. My first episode was Day of the Doctor and I started that journey with very little knowledge of any of these specifics, and I never felt lost or confused.

My journey through new and classic Who was a simultaneous one. In fact, I watched Tomb of the Cyberman and Rise of the Cybermen on the same night, before ever having seen The Tenth Planet or any other Cybermen story. Didn't feel lost in the slightest.

Sorry, but the attitude of not tapping the show's own history mystifies me.

 

[jaime]

Why is the Rani interested in Omega? Yep, the Doctor and Hedin, but she doesn't seem like the type to have heroes.
Also, in January 1983, it had been a bit over a year since the Three Doctors repeat reminded viewers of the character. Now it's a random name only people about 60 know.

There’s an interesting story to be had, where the great Time Lady scientist — chemist, biologist, and geneticist, The Rani — decides to bring back her own people from a genocide; to wrest a universe twisted away from logic and the laws of physics into magic and superstation, breaking it if need be to return it to as it was, by restoring one of her peoples great scientific and engineering geniuses from the entirely separate physical universe where he was once lost: Omega, tied by biodata and history, to the only other known survivor of their race — The Doctor — with whom The Rani has her own relationship and ties of past friendship, history, and also enmity or antipathy to the point of mutual destruction on multiple occasions. A story with inherent themes of old family ties, ancient Gallifreyan History, of the undoing of genocide and extinction —but at what cost?
What of the Doctor, now cast as the great orphan and refugee of Gallifrey, though also as its greatest victim, its original sin? What of his own family, set adrift long ago on a broken Earth, after invasion by the Time Lords greatest enemy? Can Susan remind him of kinship with Gallifrey? What of that tale?

Are we going to get that story?

Well.
We can hope.

(But not too hard.)

 

[jaime]

I've been thinking about them because they weren't really explained. At least not that I caught on to. But I'm guessing they represent various 200lb guerillas in the room that you can choose to either ignore or have doubts about.

In short, they were probably meant to inspire doubts.

What I don't get is if the plan depended on doubts, then why would doubters be reported and disappeared?

Think of it not as reported and disappeared so much as harvested perhaps?

I think they’re just expensive Ergons.

 

[Mr Awe]

I love the idea of the callbacks and developing returning adversaries. I just don't think it's been done that well in the new series. Not just the current era but bringing back the Daleks and Master generally hasn't worked for me. Although I did enjoy Missy, particularly at the end of Capaldi's run.

I like the idea of bringing the Rani and even Omega back. But it can't be that interesting if it's all wrapped up in a single episode. We'll see how it turns out but given historical patterns, I'm not optimistic.