Quote Originally Posted by Avaris View Post
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Regarding the episode, I think it's the best opener to a season yet (which isn't necessarily a high bar to beat, but still...). I hadn't figured out the plot twist until the reveal, though I appear to be the only one who ddn't!

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Little annoyed with the Skaro ret-con: would like to see it explained how it still exists. However I'm going to argue in favour of the having the daleks forget the Doctor.

Granted, part of the appeal of the Daleks is their shared history, but in recent years their fear of the doctor has become a major theme in all their appearances. This diminishes them... their plans are always going to be restrained and designed to avoid him... without that fear, they become much more dangerous. It also gives more peril for the main characters: as the daleks point out, they've never taken the chance to kill the doctor, possibly because of what he is to them. Now they can.

In general, this is another part of the change in tack that Who is taking, to free itself from past history. The Doctor is famous, and it is expected that people will have heard of him and react accordingly. IMO recent years have seen the Doctor become too known, where he can defeat foes simply by saying 'look me up'. That doesn't seem healthy for the series long term, better for him to be forgotten.
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I expected her to have an eye-stalk pop out of her forehead, not be a full on dalek, but yhea it was obvious something was up.

And I fully agree with you on the rest. It was cool when 10th pulled the "You're in the biggest library in the universe, look me up." thing, but it's become to common. Everyone knows the Doctor nowadays, and it's getting frustrating. It's okay with some of his classic enemies, but really, all of time and space knows who he is now. Also daleks without their healthy respect for the Doctor who just goes out to exterminate whatever gets in their way? Yhea, that might turn out awesome, especially since they're clearly at full power now and there's just one (possibly two) time lords left in existence... so I can totally see this as a setup for 11th death (and 12th's introduction) in the future. The daleks don't remember the doctor, so aren't cautious around him, which ends up forcing him to sacrifice himself to stop them.


Overall I hope this season keeps this up, because if it does it'll be awesome.