Doctor Who -- The Forum is Regenerating

[Castel]

If she dies within the next couple of episodes her infection won't really matter. But wasn't the Doctor infected as well? 

I don't know if this thread will ever get picked up again, it sort of seemed like a traditional spooky tale, where at the end it's revealed that the bad guy won and is coming to get the audience. I feel that that's been done a lot before (not necessarily in Who). Those stories are never picked up again to explain why the bad guy doesn't end up coming to get the audience. If they choose not to pick up on it, you could posit that nothing in the episode happened at all, other than the villain recording himself. Just a constructed story that the Sandmen invented almost out of whole cloth because they know that people have heard stories of the Doctor.

Doctor Who has a wide enough universe for such stories...when the stakes aren't as high as they seemed to be with the Sandmen. 

Of course, it could be easily picked up later, like with any major enemy, the problem is whether anyone wants to touch this enemy or idea ever again. They're not exactly the Weeping Angels, and the completely jumbled solipsistic morass  of the episode only makes it worse.

 

[red snow]

managed half the second part of the zygon story. The only highlights I'm seeing is that Jenna Coleman got to do some acting and the visualisation of how the shared mind/body works.

[alguien]

Enjoyed this one, for the most part. Kind of thought of it as a "Halloween" episode. Reminded me of this short horror film I saw on io9 last year--bit of a metafictional device where it turns out they're infecting "us" the audience the whole time. Fun, but I don't think it ever needs to be revisited. One could just hand-waive it away saying that the dust miscalculated. 

 

(unless we all wake up with sand-eye-snot monsters tomorrow)

[Jon's Queen Consort]

I liked it. It's the first series that I liked all the stories. Maybe not all of them equally but I liked them all. Great Series!

[Jon AS]

I  think I'm in the process of breaking up with the show. This most recent episode seemed to rely mostly on the gimmick to paper over a thin plot, flat characters and particularly stupid monsters.

And it may be an odd moment to complain about it, but can we maybe have some real science in this science fiction show from time to time? I realise it's supposed to be accessible to kids, but even then, constantly saying "science is like magic, don't bother trying to understand it" isn't necessarily the best approach IMO. Hell, even the Doctor complained about things not making sense.

 

Barring a dramatic turnaround in the last stretch, I'm not going to pay a premium to see the episodes as they air next season. Maybe I'll give them a try once they show up on Prime or Netflix. Shame, apart from what at this point feels like a majority of his stories, I really like Capaldi in the role.

[alguien]

Per Mark Gatiss:

Steven’s asked me if I’d write a sequel to this one, which I find in a ‘yeti’ way very exciting. There’s a bit of a history of groupings. There’s two Mara stories in Peter Davison’s time. Two yeti stories. It would be nice to. I’d love to. I think the idea is good and the monsters are great so it would be quite nice. I suppose you’d have to do a Web Of Fear-type thing where you ask where else could they go?

But the Doctor loses in this episode. And that’s an unusual place to be. And so it also needs some closure.

[polishgenius]

And the monsters are great.

 No Mark, they really aren't.

[williamjm]

Per Mark Gatiss:

But the Doctor loses in this episode. And that’s an unusual place to be. And so it also needs some closure.

I think the idea of the Doctor losing does have potential as a conclusion for a story, but the problem in this case is that we never see the effects of that loss (of course, this will change if they do make a sequel) so there's no emotional impact to it and it's quickly forgotten about.

[Jon's Queen Consort]

I just found this http://9gag.com/gag/aDmvP6B on 9gag. So it seems that according to a '80s comic books the Doctor's name is something that I have no idea how it is pronounced.

[dog-days]

Enjoyed that episode until the end, which was lost in schmalz. Sad strings en masse are one of my pet peeves, especially when combined with slo-mo. 

Apart from that, the teleport bracelet was a nice way of creating a cliffhanger. Enjoyed Ashildr - she's turned into quite an interesting character, especially now she's escaped from her introductory period, and doesn't have to sustain the whole episode. 

Although I've often found Clara a frustrating character, I was enjoying her almost without reservations this series. I'm sorry that her recent risk-taking arc led to such an abrupt if not totally unsurprising terminus, rather than to greater power/a changed nature/not being dead. She was a character with a lot of potential, which I don't think the script writers were every really able to properly exploit. Largely because her many-stranded past was either obliterated or just forgotten about. She ended up as Icarus - I would rather she'd been Prometheus. 

 

[Maltaran]

Enjoyed that episode until the end, which was lost in schmalz. Sad strings en masse are one of my pet peeves, especially when combined with slo-mo.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who thought that was overdone.

[mormont]

And it may be an odd moment to complain about it, but can we maybe have some real science in this science fiction show from time to time?

...what science fiction show would that be?

With rare exceptions, 'Who' has always been science fantasy, really, in both modern and traditional incarnations. I mean, the central concepts are all like that. The TARDIS makes no sense scientifically and nobody has ever seriously contended that it does: the 'science' of how it can be bigger on the inside has always been of the most hand-waving might-as-well-be-magic sort, as is most Time Lord tech.

If you're looking for a show that takes the science seriously, not just as window-dressing for telling monster stories and fairy tales, you probably do need to watch another show.

[williamjm]

Enjoyed that episode until the end, which was lost in schmalz. Sad strings en masse are one of my pet peeves, especially when combined with slo-mo. 

Apart from that, the teleport bracelet was a nice way of creating a cliffhanger. Enjoyed Ashildr - she's turned into quite an interesting character, especially now she's escaped from her introductory period, and doesn't have to sustain the whole episode. 

Hidden Content

 

It wasn't a bad episode, although I'm not sure the ending really had as much impact as it perhaps should have done

The problem with a show that repeatedly shows the main characters being saved at the last minute, often with the help of contrived explanations that don't fit with the rest of the show, is that when a main character makes a mistake and actually faces the consequences of that action then that ironically also feels a bit contrived. Like Amy and Rory's departure from the show I think having to try to follow the twisted 'logic' behind why they can't escape their fate this time does distract a bit from the emotional impact of the episode.

I did like Clara and Jenna Coleman's performance, although as you say she only really came into her own once they'd moved past the confusing and poorly thought-out 'impossible girl' storyline.

[All-for-Joffrey]

The ending was plenty impactful for me. Then again Clara is my second favorite campaign after Amy/Rory. Honestly this was the saddest I've been watching a Doctor Who episode. I had what happens to Clara spoiled for me at the beginning of the season (from an actual news site discussing Jenna Louise Coleman's departure, ugh) but I wasn't sure if we were already at the penultimate episode and they drew it out enough that I kept thinking "ok, maybe there's a way for Ashildir or the Doctor to intervene and stop the raven," even though I knew it wasn't going to happen. I never knew I'd hate Maisie Williams so much. > : )

ETA: I do hope at some point down the line when Coleman's schedule is free they'll remember that Clara has multiple incarnations and bring her back to save the doctor's life again. That could be a neat episode -- especially if it's not long after Clara prime is dead. Maybe even have her back in the Christmas episode? 

[Jon's Queen Consort]

 So according to doctorwhotv.co.uk Arya sent Doctor to

Gallifrey: Trapped in a world unlike any other he has seen, the Doctor faces the greatest challenge of his many lives. One final test. And he must face it alone. Pursued by the fearsome creature known only as the Veil, he must attempt the impossible. If he makes it through, Gallifrey is waiting… http://www.doctorwhotv.co.uk/heaven-sent-official-synopsis-77809.htm

Two questions:

• Does Clara's death means that there will be no futurePink? 
• IF irc there was a picture of her dressed as a waitress https://40.media.tumblr.com/3c4863b8364b416ae0e37a5250926377/tumblr_inline_nts8sxUSms1tasr7i_540.jpg in a series 9 shooting. Does it mean that she comes back or is another Clara?

and one remark. If IRC she is only the second companion who died on screne after Adric. 

[Jon AS]

...what science fiction show would that be?

With rare exceptions, 'Who' has always been science fantasy, really, in both modern and traditional incarnations. I mean, the central concepts are all like that. The TARDIS makes no sense scientifically and nobody has ever seriously contended that it does: the 'science' of how it can be bigger on the inside has always been of the most hand-waving might-as-well-be-magic sort, as is most Time Lord tech.

If you're looking for a show that takes the science seriously, not just as window-dressing for telling monster stories and fairy tales, you probably do need to watch another show.

There are degrees to that, though. There's a huge difference between evoking a feeling that things make sense, for lack of a better term, and a sense that the technobabble is mostly there to paper over plot holes. It's usually one of the big differences between a good Star Trek episode and a bad one, for example. One is smart, the other lazy, and I feel that Doctor Who has been leaning heavily in the direction of lazyness for quite some time now.

There's also a difference between the basic concept of a show ('this spaceship can travel faster than light/through time') and the driving forces of individual episodes. The former is just background, the latter is what gets us engaged in the stories.

 

It's not a hard and fast rule, obviously, strong aspects of an episode can make up for weaker ones, so maybe it's just that the show as a whole isn't working for me any more and I'm simply trying to latch on to a few things I can easily point to in order to explain it.

[williamjm]

ETA: I do hope at some point down the line when Coleman's schedule is free they'll remember that Clara has multiple incarnations and bring her back to save the doctor's life again. That could be a neat episode -- especially if it's not long after Clara prime is dead. Maybe even have her back in the Christmas episode? 

They seem to have pretty much ignored the multiple-Claras plotline since it was first brought up, although it was a neat idea it didn't really make much sense. I suppose there is the potential for that to change, it might make some sense for The Doctor in his grief to try seeking out some of the other Claras. 

If IRC she is only the second companion who died on screne after Adric.

I think this would depend on how you define 'companion'. In recent years we've seen the on-screen deaths of Captain Jack, River and Danny Pink who have all travelled with The Doctor, River in particular has travelled with him a lot even if we don't see most of them. 

[dog-days]

 

They seem to have pretty much ignored the multiple-Claras plotline since it was first brought up, although it was a neat idea it didn't really make much sense. I suppose there is the potential for that to change, it might make some sense for The Doctor in his grief to try seeking out some of the other Claras. 

Wouldn't be against the chance to meet another Clara. Coleman's first appearances as a Dalek and Mary Poppins were pretty fun; Asylum of the Daleks, in particular, is a favourite episode of mine. It was only after we met "the real" Clara that the writing for her lost its spark, and reverted to the Moffat trope of having lots of third person testimony about how wonderful and special a character is, which takes up the time that should be spent on letting them be wonderful and special. Then the writing finally starts getting its act together, and she's killed off. 

If they do bring her back, I hope it's more in the spirit of "soufflé girl" - that is, a light, unlaboured cameo - rather than bringing her back for another drawn out goodbye. 

Like your point about the difficulty of finding an uncontrived way of removing companions from the Tardis. 

[Arataniello]

 

If IRC she is only the second companion who died on screen after Adric. 

Sara Kingdom can potentially also be classed as a "companion death", the first in fact, long ago during the first Doctor's time.  She appeared and died in the Daleks' Master Plan.

Conceivably you could also class Katarina as a companion death (if companion = someone who travelled in the Tardis with the Doctor.)  She appeared in the story set in Troy (The Myth Makers) and died in the following story (The Daleks' Master Plan).

[sifth]

So Clara died trying to save the life of a man, who's life wasn't even in danger to begin with? I liked her final speech, but when I really stopped and thought about it, the writing was just stupid.