I guess I’ll be the outlier as I loved it. It felt grand and epic, while still being deeply intimate. I could have done without his David Caruso final flourish, though.
I don’t understand the hate for Moffat’s Who, which seems to border on NMA levels at times (I mean mostly on other sites; just regular hyperbole here on qt3.) I love the Capaldi seasons in particular, which IMO has been a lot more consistent than prior series. The only ones I’ve disliked so far has been the Moon episode, the living forest one and Morpheus.
Heaven Sent was great. Love the line about the bird at the end.
While I did like this last episode, there are plenty of times where I felt Moffat dropped the ball on a Who story. Usually by becoming so enamored of the end result that he forgets to get us there in a reasonable manner.
That’s a common complaint, but I don’t think it was any better pre-Moffat.
Another big plus since Moffat took over - no companion romances. Not a huge fan of the River Song stuff, but at least she wasn’t a companion.
Don’t get me wrong. Until he took the reins, I thought his stories were the strongest in the earlier run. He did give us such classics as Blink and The Doctor Dances, after all. And yes, I am REALLY happy that he’s not trying to force romance into Doctor Who. That always felt a bit…creepy. Like watching your grandfather macking on your date.
Also, I loved his version of Jekyll and Hyde on BBC.
But since he took over Who, he seems to have fallen in love with ludicrous examples of Deus Ex Machina for story resolutions. Even Davies (who I consider one of the worst Who writers) knew enough to introduce the story to some semblance of logic from time to time.
I think a lot of people might be looking through rose-tinted (ha) glasses here. I’m not a huge fanboy; never watched the old Who, can barely remember the events of last season let alone the earlier series, but my impression of the Davies era is that there was just as much Deus Ex Machina as under Moffat (and a fair bit cheesier to boot.) I’d be happy to be proven wrong though, someone out there has probably cataloged the list of solutions that the doctor comes up with by series.
Regardless, I think this is my favorite season yet, hopefully the finale keeps it up. Also, how great is the music in the last episode?
Episode went long and got cut off here - last thing that happened was the creature caught up to him as he was pounding on the “400x harder than diamonds glass” and they vanished - what did I miss?
How did the TARDIS even get there from the secret street in London?
Still really liked the episode and the season in general has been much better than the last few. More Game of Thrones folk in the finale!
I don’t think anyone has forgotten that Davies used many Deus Ex Machina. I think the big disappointment with Moffat is that the trend has continued despite the change in showrunner AND despite the fact that Moffat’s episodes in the Davies run were very, very good and largely avoided being incoherent and reliant of Deus Ex Machinas. I also think Moffat has been actually even worse at the “big story episodes” (that develop lore/history, deal with Timelords or seasonal arcs) than Davies was, in terms of coherency. He’s been surprisingly weak at those, despite most fans expecting a big improvement when he took over. Better this season though.
There definitely was more of an effort in the first couple of seasons, particularly the 1st with Eccleston, to better explain things and to generally be more coherent. I also think the additional supporting cast helped further ground it and ensured some additional consistency.
Geez, checked wiki to see if I missed anything in the episode. Uh, guess I better track down the episode. I was wondering what you guys were talking about when you mentioned that he said the half-dalek wasn’t true.
Ugh, you missed about 15 minutes! It was an extra long episode. You should watch it rather than have it explained.
The TARDIS wasn’t there, it’s a construct in his mind that he retreats to, to slow time down (in reality he’s thinking really fast) and come up with solutions. Moffat uses the same kind of thing in Sherlock.
I hope you didn’t get too spoiled from the wiki (and our discussion.) The sequence after that is really well done.
I know the Tardis line you’re talking about (not the head-Tardis) because I was thinking the same thing, but it makes sense afterwards.
The Doctor was completely channeling Sherlock in many parts of this episode. Especially at the start with the testing of gravity, air resistance, distance to the ground/water, etc.
Yes, I thought he said he saw the TARDIS through the hardened diamond-glass - wasn’t talking about the head-TARDIS. Caught the rest of it - yep, missed a lot, thanks Rogers Cable, lol. Now the preview makes more sense. Loved the tie-in to the Hybrid! Did not expect that.
Anyone notice that Capaldi seems to be channeling Tom Baker’s Doc’s voice a little? - that seemed particularly evident in this story.
Also something to ponder, which could just be a terrible pun, a complete coincidence, or perhaps something entirely more than that:
The creature was referred to as The Veil. It had a plot of land that The Doctor was messing around with, seemingly digging a grave. Another word for a plot of land … is a yard. The Veil’s yard.
That’s either deep, or reaching. :)
I actually think that’s a cool observation, and “Veil” is a pretty unusual name for an antagonist otherwise.
Except there’s already been another (unrelated) species called ‘the Veil’ in Doctor Who mythos so it’s not that unusual.
http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Veil
Okay, with that mythical season finale filling out some of the earlier plot threads, I’ve actually come around to liking this whole little trilogy, even if the first episode initially seemed weak on its own. Classic misdirection on the whole hybrid thing, too. That was great.
I also love the nods towards the next Doctor finally being a woman. Bout fucking time! I’m still pulling for Emma Watson in a decade or two.
Loved it!
‘The Doctor is back on Gallifrey. Took him four and a half billion years to get here. What do you think he’s gonna do? Why, he’s stealing a Tardis and running away. Bye!’
Ho. Ly.
Nothing like making up for any perceived/legit mistakes in the past in writing this show. Kudos for maybe some of the best enjoyment of this show in a long while.