Doctor Who 11x05 - 11x08 Thoughts
Dec. 10th, 2018 07:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
iariaI have been liking the season - Thirteen is great, as is having a full TARDIS - but it's been missing something. I like it but I'm not really engaged with it? I think it's the writing that's the letdown for me. The resolution to some of the episodes has been rather lackluster too.
11x05 'The Tsuranga Conundrum
+ I enjoyed this one. I love the Pting and how the Doctor dealt with it. I love that there was no actual villain in the episode. Astos was great and I loved all his interactions with the Doctor. I wish he'd lived. The mpreg storyline was unexpected but I love that the concept exists on this show now and I liked that Graham and Ryan were paired with Yoss.
11x06 'Demons of the Punjab'
+ Another episode I liked. I loved this Doctor line: "Because love is a form of hope and like hope, love abides." The final confrontation between Prem and Manish was really well done. I loved Graham's goodbye to Prem. Ryan's calm "that was cool" to being teleported into the ship was great.
+ I like that it wasn't the aliens who were the danger but humans reacting in hatred and fear. This episode had a lot to say that was very resonant to what is happening in the world today.(Repeating history.) I love the truth about the aliens and the deeper meaning behind them - that you can always choose to be better. They were a species of assassins but when their world was destroyed they chose to change, to become something else, to witness those who died alone. That was all great.
11x07 'Kerblam'
+ I liked it until the end. I thought the twist that the corporation/management/robots weren't the bad guys for once was great. I love the reveal that the AI was the one calling for the Doctor's help. I liked the two workers. Our mains were good. I liked that the Doctor got put on janitor duty - I thought it was off at first but then with the AI and Charlie reveals you realise that the AI was trying to put her right at the source of the problem and it becomes a great little bit of foreshadowing.
+ But the end reveal of Charlie being a terrorist and how it got conflated with his activism was really muddled and poorly done. Unless this was meant to be a very pro-capitalism/corporation, 'the real bad guys are the activists/millennials' type thing, in which case, what? But I don't think it was, just poorly planned. Charlie did have some actual points and they should have added a different activist character to differentiate the two points.
Slade being terrible to his workers is glossed over once it's revealed he's not the threat and has been researching the disappearances. That doesn't actually change how terrible a manager he is!
Then there was the fact that the Kerblam AI murdered poor Kira to try and teach Charlie a lesson and this is never really dealt with. The Doctor has no reaction! WTH? This is pretty worrying!
And even if the AI was calling for help the conditions for it's human workers was genuinely not good, and that was also glossed over at the end. So, yeah. Enjoyable for most of the episode, terrible end.
11x08 'The Witchfinders'
+ Meh. Not really anything to say about this. I'm rather bemused about the way Thirteen keeps splitting up her companions and sending them off. I keep hearing previous Doctors voices telling their Companions not to run off. And occasionally she does it in ways that make me go 'really?' Why would she send them back after the reanimated corpses instead of doing that herself? That seems the more dangerous option!
11x05 'The Tsuranga Conundrum
+ I enjoyed this one. I love the Pting and how the Doctor dealt with it. I love that there was no actual villain in the episode. Astos was great and I loved all his interactions with the Doctor. I wish he'd lived. The mpreg storyline was unexpected but I love that the concept exists on this show now and I liked that Graham and Ryan were paired with Yoss.
11x06 'Demons of the Punjab'
+ Another episode I liked. I loved this Doctor line: "Because love is a form of hope and like hope, love abides." The final confrontation between Prem and Manish was really well done. I loved Graham's goodbye to Prem. Ryan's calm "that was cool" to being teleported into the ship was great.
+ I like that it wasn't the aliens who were the danger but humans reacting in hatred and fear. This episode had a lot to say that was very resonant to what is happening in the world today.(Repeating history.) I love the truth about the aliens and the deeper meaning behind them - that you can always choose to be better. They were a species of assassins but when their world was destroyed they chose to change, to become something else, to witness those who died alone. That was all great.
11x07 'Kerblam'
+ I liked it until the end. I thought the twist that the corporation/management/robots weren't the bad guys for once was great. I love the reveal that the AI was the one calling for the Doctor's help. I liked the two workers. Our mains were good. I liked that the Doctor got put on janitor duty - I thought it was off at first but then with the AI and Charlie reveals you realise that the AI was trying to put her right at the source of the problem and it becomes a great little bit of foreshadowing.
+ But the end reveal of Charlie being a terrorist and how it got conflated with his activism was really muddled and poorly done. Unless this was meant to be a very pro-capitalism/corporation, 'the real bad guys are the activists/millennials' type thing, in which case, what? But I don't think it was, just poorly planned. Charlie did have some actual points and they should have added a different activist character to differentiate the two points.
Slade being terrible to his workers is glossed over once it's revealed he's not the threat and has been researching the disappearances. That doesn't actually change how terrible a manager he is!
Then there was the fact that the Kerblam AI murdered poor Kira to try and teach Charlie a lesson and this is never really dealt with. The Doctor has no reaction! WTH? This is pretty worrying!
And even if the AI was calling for help the conditions for it's human workers was genuinely not good, and that was also glossed over at the end. So, yeah. Enjoyable for most of the episode, terrible end.
11x08 'The Witchfinders'
+ Meh. Not really anything to say about this. I'm rather bemused about the way Thirteen keeps splitting up her companions and sending them off. I keep hearing previous Doctors voices telling their Companions not to run off. And occasionally she does it in ways that make me go 'really?' Why would she send them back after the reanimated corpses instead of doing that herself? That seems the more dangerous option!
