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chicafrom3Once again, watched it as it was airing and again after I got it off work, just to get the "live" experience and the "full attention" experience.
I really enjoyed The Star Beast but as an episode of Doctor Who I liked this one much more. The steadily ramping tension! The body horror! (Oh god the body horror) The mindfuckery! The vague Scherzo-ness of it all! The terrible CGI! (The CGI was so bad. I loved it.) The nonsequitur cold open!
The absolute body horror of this one, my God. I can't harp on this enough. When the Doctor not-thing goes "oh, i see. when something is gone it keeps existing." and then crab walks and warps itself into a melty plasticine mess, the way my skin crawled. Ughhhh (in the best 'this is sci-fi horror that will stick with you' 'Scherzo is one of my favorite stories for a reason' way).
And it led to a scene that very much resembled the Spiderman pointing meme.
On first, "I'm technically working", watch, during the intercutting scenes of the Doctor and Donna talking to each other while working on repairs, I was trying very hard to figure out what was going on. Weird stylistic choice? Flashbacks/flashforwards? Directorial choice to indicate that they were being affected by the ship's atmosphere? And then "my arms are too long" and I lost it. (On rewatching, knowing what was coming, there's several indications of what was going on but they would be absolutely impossible to pick up on without knowing ahead of time. Which is exactly how you should do foreshadowing, so well done!)
Also in that same scene, the Doctor waxing poetic about the possibility of the TARDIS spending forever on an outcrop by the sea was really lovely.
I assume the thing about superstition at the end of the universe etc. is going to directly tie into the end of this episode (the hook for next week's episode)/the thing we've known about next week's episode for ages, i.e that
Shoutout to the Flux/Timeless Child scene. A really natural, thoughtful way to incorporate acknowledging that (and advising a certain subset of the audience that no, it will not be retconned away). Yes, it still affects the Doctor. And because it's the Doctor, they will do everything they can not to dwell on it if possible.
Also shoutout to the horse-thing captain, who sacrificed her life to prevent the not-things overtaking the universe. We thank you for your service and your cleverness.
And I would be remiss if I didn't pay tribute to Bernard Cribbins' scene at the end, which we have confirmation is his final scene in the series (and, I believe, his final televised performance). Wilfred Mott, you will be missed; you made quite an impact on this show and this fandom.
If I have any complaints, it's that the music was overwhelming (is that a Murray Gold issue or an editing issue?) and that it still doesn't feel like an anniversary event, just a Doctor Who episode. Which would be fine, I like Doctor Who just for being Doctor Who, except that all three episodes are being promoted as an anniversary event and, you know, what was the point of bringing back Tennant and Tate if not to celebrate the 60th?
Still one more episode to go before we can fairly judge that last point, so I'll hold off.
In the meantime, this is a really good creepy episode, and Tennant and Tate did a great job playing off themselves, always a difficult thing to do. I'm going to be having nightmares about giant-arm not-thing Doctor for a while, I think...
I really enjoyed The Star Beast but as an episode of Doctor Who I liked this one much more. The steadily ramping tension! The body horror! (Oh god the body horror) The mindfuckery! The vague Scherzo-ness of it all! The terrible CGI! (The CGI was so bad. I loved it.) The nonsequitur cold open!
The absolute body horror of this one, my God. I can't harp on this enough. When the Doctor not-thing goes "oh, i see. when something is gone it keeps existing." and then crab walks and warps itself into a melty plasticine mess, the way my skin crawled. Ughhhh (in the best 'this is sci-fi horror that will stick with you' 'Scherzo is one of my favorite stories for a reason' way).
And it led to a scene that very much resembled the Spiderman pointing meme.
On first, "I'm technically working", watch, during the intercutting scenes of the Doctor and Donna talking to each other while working on repairs, I was trying very hard to figure out what was going on. Weird stylistic choice? Flashbacks/flashforwards? Directorial choice to indicate that they were being affected by the ship's atmosphere? And then "my arms are too long" and I lost it. (On rewatching, knowing what was coming, there's several indications of what was going on but they would be absolutely impossible to pick up on without knowing ahead of time. Which is exactly how you should do foreshadowing, so well done!)
Also in that same scene, the Doctor waxing poetic about the possibility of the TARDIS spending forever on an outcrop by the sea was really lovely.
I assume the thing about superstition at the end of the universe etc. is going to directly tie into the end of this episode (the hook for next week's episode)/the thing we've known about next week's episode for ages, i.e that
spoilers
?the Toymaker, who bends reality and narrative causality in all sorts of ways, is coming back
Shoutout to the Flux/Timeless Child scene. A really natural, thoughtful way to incorporate acknowledging that (and advising a certain subset of the audience that no, it will not be retconned away). Yes, it still affects the Doctor. And because it's the Doctor, they will do everything they can not to dwell on it if possible.
Also shoutout to the horse-thing captain, who sacrificed her life to prevent the not-things overtaking the universe. We thank you for your service and your cleverness.
And I would be remiss if I didn't pay tribute to Bernard Cribbins' scene at the end, which we have confirmation is his final scene in the series (and, I believe, his final televised performance). Wilfred Mott, you will be missed; you made quite an impact on this show and this fandom.
If I have any complaints, it's that the music was overwhelming (is that a Murray Gold issue or an editing issue?) and that it still doesn't feel like an anniversary event, just a Doctor Who episode. Which would be fine, I like Doctor Who just for being Doctor Who, except that all three episodes are being promoted as an anniversary event and, you know, what was the point of bringing back Tennant and Tate if not to celebrate the 60th?
Still one more episode to go before we can fairly judge that last point, so I'll hold off.
In the meantime, this is a really good creepy episode, and Tennant and Tate did a great job playing off themselves, always a difficult thing to do. I'm going to be having nightmares about giant-arm not-thing Doctor for a while, I think...
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