Doctor Who Thread VI: "The Very Model of a Gallifreyan Buccaneer" [SPOILERS]

[Kato]

So, my thoughts on the new episode?

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It was good. Overall pretty entertaining. There's really nothing major wrong with it and I'd be happy if the new season had more episodes like that.

Though, a few things did bug me.
1) It felt like the story was more written for 11 than 12. Maybe it was just the humorous tone but it's just what I connect so much more with Smith than Capaldi (yet). I guess I just need some more time getting used to it. I can live with him being wrong on the matter (though it's a bit weird how it really seemed to be of no consequence)
2) I can't get over how this reminded me of Men in Tights. I mean, no, they didn't rip it off but "light hearted take on Robin Hood" makes all my neurons shout "Mel Brooks!" During the tourney I couldn't think anything but "I lost? Wait a second, I'm not supposed to lose. Let me see the script!"
3) Convenient arrival of Marian. Without any twist.
4) That STUPID golden arrow thing. You know, if they had said "we'll shoot it down with the arrow" by hitting the engine or something and not start with this radiation leak stuff, it would have been fine. Not great, but okay. But we help it get into orbit by hitting it with an arrow because it needs a little more gold? I just can't get over that.

Next week might be creepy. We'll see...

[Brother Oni]

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It was good. Overall pretty entertaining. There's really nothing major wrong with it and I'd be happy if the new season had more episodes like that.

Though, a few things did bug me.
1) It felt like the story was more written for 11 than 12. Maybe it was just the humorous tone but it's just what I connect so much more with Smith than Capaldi (yet). I guess I just need some more time getting used to it. I can live with him being wrong on the matter (though it's a bit weird how it really seemed to be of no consequence)
2) I can't get over how this reminded me of Men in Tights. I mean, no, they didn't rip it off but "light hearted take on Robin Hood" makes all my neurons shout "Mel Brooks!" During the tourney I couldn't think anything but "I lost? Wait a second, I'm not supposed to lose. Let me see the script!"
3) Convenient arrival of Marian. Without any twist.
4) That STUPID golden arrow thing. You know, if they had said "we'll shoot it down with the arrow" by hitting the engine or something and not start with this radiation leak stuff, it would have been fine. Not great, but okay. But we help it get into orbit by hitting it with an arrow because it needs a little more gold? I just can't get over that.

Next week might be creepy. We'll see...

With regard to points 1 and 3...

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1: while I agree he does act more Eleven-y the fact that he's fencing at all shouts out Three to me (although Robin must be a really bad fencer if he got beated by someone with a spoon...)

3: The Doctor left Robin a present, as evidenced by his last line when Clara told him to admit that he liked Robin.

Totally agreed on 2 and 4 (my wife had to hit me with a pillow to shut me up when 4 happened as I was being an archery nerd).

[Kato]

With regard to points 1 and 3...

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3: The Doctor left Robin a present, as evidenced by his last line when Clara told him to admit that he liked Robin.

Ah, I guess I missed that bit

No arguing on the spoon bit but I could stomach that. I guess a proper sword fight would have worked just as well (wait, the new series doctor using a proper weapon? Preposterous idea!) but the tone made it somewhat work. (Also, assuming Robin didn't mean to kill him in earnest maybe he took it easy on someone armed only with a spoon)

[dehro]

Ah, I guess I missed that bit

No arguing on the spoon bit but I could stomach that. I guess a proper sword fight would have worked just as well (wait, the new series doctor using a proper weapon? Preposterous idea!) but the tone made it somewhat work. (Also, assuming Robin didn't mean to kill him in earnest maybe he took it easy on someone armed only with a spoon)

well.. we've had swordfight with the 10th doctor...I liked the +2 spoon of duelling prowess.

So far I was moderately impressed by the season opener, I liked the second episode quite a bit but this third episode is a turd.

Spoiler: I have a number of issues with this episode.

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Robin Hood was halfway inbetween Men in Tights and the dancing morons from Shrek. It was a little too over the top. In fact as much as this is a children show, I had too often the feeling I was watching something geared towards... well.. very young children.
The whole thing with the ship being disguised as castle and basing whatever plot it's crew felt (for whatever reason) it needed to enforce, on earth myths that somehow warped into truth... all in order to somehow meld in the scenery didn't make a great deal of sense.
The golden arrow boost at the end is just... I am as happy as anybody else with suspending boatloads of disbelief.. but this??? I would expect such a thing to fly (pun not intended) in a cartoon aimed at a 4 year old. Anybody beyond that should be ashamed for believing the whole thing to be even remotely... possible? likely? plausible, passable?? it's frustratingly maddening and almost nerdrage inducing.
on another note.. radiation leaks cause eternal mild summer??? Somebody should tell the Japanese they're doing it wrong.

The Doctor has spent more than half the episode playing keepie uppie with the idiot ball whilst simultaneously juggling the inane and zany, childish, silly and aggravating balls for no apparent reason. I'll give him a 10 for effort but it felt out of character and place, completely fabbricated and pretend.. and that's hard to swallow when he's standing in the middle of a humorous take of yet another fabrication that is part of the world's cultural frame of reference.
I'm also starting to think that Capaldi may not be suited for zany and lightweight the way either Tennant or Smith were. I can totally buy him as a Doctor with gravitas, inner turmoil, doubts, anguish and regrets.. occasionally displaying humour, wit and snarky sarcasm, but... getting into a hissy fit over who gets to grab the keys? Really? it's just weird and his acting doesn't seem to fit in with such inane antics as, say, Matt Smith was capable of pulling off without looking either out of character or stupid. Capaldi in some ways made me think of that old grandpa who is trying to be cool with the kids and spouts random expressions he's picked up from MTV.
I'm trying to understand if they should just have left Robin Hood alone and done something completely different and if that has tainted my perception highlighting all the very bad things that showed in this episode, or if this episode, irrespective from it's main plot, just shows inherent flaws that may well be all over this season but were particularly glaring this time around.

In conclusion: I'm perfectly capable of watching even the lamest drivel and shut of most of my brain, but if I have to sit up halfway of a Doctor Who episode being either annoyed by what's on screen or jarred out of the narrative by something monumentally stupid and implausible even within the context of a Doctor Who episode... then something has gone wrong with that particular episode.

[Kato]

Well, you are free to have your own opinion and obviously I can see how the episode might have been too light hearted/stupid to enjoy if you look for something else but...

on another note.. radiation leaks cause eternal mild summer??? Somebody should tell the Japanese they're doing it wrong.

... Too soon? (Stupid as that part was. Which reminds me, Rusty also had a radiation leak. is it the season of radiation leaks? Maybe there is a purpose behind it)

[BRC]

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So, I think the point of this episode was to keep exploring the whole "Is the Doctor a Hero" question, by introducing the cheesiest, most heroic hero of them all, Robin Hood.

All in all, I liked it, but I think they overplayed their hand a bit.

The early sections, where they are trying to make it seem like the Doctor is right about Robin Hood and co. being fake by having Robin and the Merry Men play to the legends with eerie precision. It would have worked, but then it turns out the doctor was WRONG, Robin Hood WAS real, and the legends just happen to be perfectly accurate about everything.

As for the Arrow, yeah, that was the stupidest thing ever.

Like, I get the basic idea. Gold is highly conductive, so building replacement parts out of Gold makes as much sense as anything else.

but then, it wasn't that they needed PARTS made of gold, they just needed a certain amount of Gold in the engine apparently? I would have preferred if they'd done some technobabble about how the ship used Gold for Fuel or something, that would have made sense. This just seemed like they slapped it on so they could do the whole "EVERYBODY WORK TOGETHER BECAUSE WE'RE BUDS NOW!" ending.

Or, here's an idea.

The Ship is going to explode and destroy half of england. However, once the Sheriff (Who is controlling the Robots) dies. The Doctor gets to a computer, pats himself down "MY SONIC! I NEED THE SONIC!"
Thonk, an Arrow sticks out of the wall with the Sonic Screwdriver tied to it. Robin smirks, the doctor laughs, grabs the screwdriver, and does something to a computer, changing the ship's course so it heads straight up instead of flying over England.

Doctor, Clara, and Robin make a daring escape, the ship flies up and explodes, everybody cheers.
"It's just a shame" Robin says, "That we couldn't return any of that gold to the good people of Sherwood"
"Well", says Friar Tuck, "We did get some of it back", pulls out the Arrow, everybody laughs.

"WE CAN WORK TOGETHER NOW" and "THE ARROW IS IMPORTANT!" without the stupid "SHOOT THE ARROW AT THE ENGINE TO GIVE IT MORE POWER!"

[Calemyr]

Spoiler: Robots of Sherwood

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All told, the only thing that really got my ire was the arrow. It makes no sense at all. A golden arrow wouldn't fly well, hitting a ship in a landing strut isn't going to give it an extra shot of fuel, there was far more gold already in play than that puny arrow, and the purpose of the gold seemed to shift with each telling - was it needed for a replacement matrix, sealant to close the leaking core, or fuel? All it really does is tie an alien spaceship to a main staple of the Robin Hood legend - the contest. (I did like how readily the Doctor copped to cheating, however.)

I like what they did with Robin and co, personally. The whole "laughing so much because bravado is the only thing holding you up" is a very understandable translation of the mythos, not to mention the whole "Marion inspired me to become this, I am not by nature a hero" spiel. Though I am curious whether the midget or the giant was supposed to be John Little. (Also, a change up from previous Doctors - Ten or Eleven would have given the bard some sort of medicine, Twelve just says "you have six months to live" and then twists the knife a little bit afterwards.)

The villains were a pleasant breath of fresh air, by virtue of being open and without malice (for the most part). They weren't evil, really, they just wanted to repair, fuel up, and get going. Granted, they thought of humanity as a disposable resource to that end, so they're hardly good, either. They didn't betray their human ally either (or at least, they didn't do so outright, he wrote schemes for himself that they probably never agreed to), which is always a nice change as well. And the human accomplice was not a witless dupe, either.

Once again, the Doctor gets things wrong (he's done it in all three episodes so far: neither Clara nor the half-faced man wrote the advert in the paper, Daleks can change if allowed to, and Robin was not an accomplice of the Sheriff's). Half the time it isn't even Clara that corrects him, which is good because nobody likes it when the companion is a better Doctor than the Doctor. Wasn't exactly a fan of the forced parallels between Robin and the Doctor, but the final conclusion was a one I liked: "We may know we are not heroes, but we are legends both and with luck those legends will inspire true heroes."

The whole rivalry between the Doctor and Robin was a bit overdone. Contrary to what some have said, I don't think it would have worked as well with Ten or Eleven. They would have been shrill and offended, but Ten would have let Robin take lead (as much as he could bear, anyway, similar to the way he worked with Jackson Lake) and Eleven would have tried to manipulate him into either exposing himself as a robot or truly embracing his legend. Twelve is the only one in the revived series thus far that I could see actually sabotaging himself in a bid to assert his dominance. Given that Twelve is not as comfortable in his skin as his recent predecessors, and still doesn't seem to know who and what he is yet, it may well be that his innate dominance is fundamental to his identity and he is more threatened by any loss of it than the others were.

I think Marian was a fake-out - we're led to believe that the locket was the Doctor's gift, when reunion with Marian herself was the gift. He timing wasn't "convenient", it was choreographed, by a master drama queen who knows how to play an audience.

All told, a fun, silly episode that had some good, refreshing stuff. And Doctor who is guilty of worse than that arrow. Much, much, much worse.

[Androgeus]

Guys, the arrow pushed the ship in to earth orbit because the amount of energy needed to fire that golden arrow that distance in that amount of time is a tad silly.

[Aotrs Commander]

Guys, the arrow pushed the ship in to earth orbit because the amount of energy needed to fire that golden arrow that distance in that amount of time is a tad silly.

I think the idea was largely inherently silly whichever way you looked at it. Aside from making them work together for the shot (which was good), that whole thing was the low point of the episode. (I was sort of expecting it to have to bounce around inside the ship until it hit the right point or something, not just clink off the side or whatever it did, at the very least.)

[dehro]

Well, you are free to have your own opinion and obviously I can see how the episode might have been too light hearted/stupid to enjoy if you look for something else but...

... Too soon? (Stupid as that part was. Which reminds me, Rusty also had a radiation leak. is it the season of radiation leaks? Maybe there is a purpose behind it)

heu.... I actually was thinking of Godzilla (and/or kaiju in general) more often than not being born from nuclear waste... I had genuinely not thought about real life nuclear accidents...

I don't mind lighthearted.. I just question whether Capaldi is the right Doctor/actor for it, or if it was just this particular episode that was not very well written, or indeed acted.

[Piggy Knowles]

With the exception of the arrow nonsense at the end, I loved this episode. Nothing too much to say beyond that - I just really found it enjoyable across the board. And while everyone seems to be saying that the fencing reminded them of 3, my first thought was 4 in Androids of Tara...

[Pex]

With all the hooplah about gold, I was hoping for an easter egg at least reference to Mondasian Cybermen.

[Arcane_Secrets]

While I know that this is Doctor Who, involves 'timey-wimey', and routinely makes Star Trek physics sob painfully in a corner, I still had a couple of questions that came up thinking about it for a while:

1) Why do the Daleks bother verbalizing at all amongst each other instead of just using Dalek wi-fi?

2) If beholding the image of a Weeping Angel puts the angel in your head, why don't the Weeping Angels find some way of tricking people into sending a SETI-style response with Weeping Angel images briefly embedded? This way they could take over civilizations that have just enough technology to receive the signal and display it on 'television', but aren't smart enough to not fall for this as a trick.

[Eldan]

Given that the Tardis translates all languages for us, maybe what we're hearing is just a translation of Dalek Wi-fi?

[Ninjadeadbeard]

Huh. Weird. I usually feel like this board is pretty harsh on Doctor Who. But now I hear everyone praising this one?

Really!? This one? I thought it was okay. Just okay. The previous two were much better, if awkwardly executed.

[Kato]

1) Why do the Daleks bother verbalizing at all amongst each other instead of just using Dalek wi-fi?

Maybe Daleks never discovered wifi? Maybe they know that if they implement wifi/antennas in their armor some smart person will figure out how to hack them and turn off their life support? Maybe wifi wasn't a thing when the Daleks were invented back in the sixties? Maybe the Daleks like to shout like idiots at each other to seem more like good old German nazis? Who knows.

2) If beholding the image of a Weeping Angel puts the angel in your head, why don't the Weeping Angels find some way of tricking people into sending a SETI-style response with Weeping Angel images briefly embedded? This way they could take over civilizations that have just enough technology to receive the signal and display it on 'television', but aren't smart enough to not fall for this as a trick.

Meh, the whole updated set of angel abilities doesn't work very well with logic... Though, we have no idea if the angels are even that interested in such a huge increase in numbers. What would they gain by turning all their prey into copies of themselves?

Huh. Weird. I usually feel like this board is pretty harsh on Doctor Who. But now I hear everyone praising this one?

Really!? This one? I thought it was okay. Just okay. The previous two were much better, if awkwardly executed.

Well, opinion is split. And it's not like we're always harsh on Who. It's actually rather diverse most of the time, I felt.

[Eldan]

I didn't like it too much, for one. Robin was really grating. To really pull of what they were going for, I think, they would have needed an actor with more Charisma.

[Karoht]

I received a wedding gift yesterday.
A watercolor of circular Gallifreyan on a starry sky. Translation?
"G-E-R-O-N-I-M-O"

I will be proudly displaying it at my wedding, next to our guestbook.

[turkishproverb]

Huh. Weird. I usually feel like this board is pretty harsh on Doctor Who. But now I hear everyone praising this one?

Really? I've found people tend to get harsh if you say anything bad about current Who on here.

Haven't seen the new ep, yet, but opinion from various people seems split.

[Calemyr]

Really? I've found people tend to get harsh if you say anything bad about current Who on here.

Haven't seen the new ep, yet, but opinion from various people seems split.

We've got all sorts, here. The only opinions I've seen get really blasted are those that hate (or appear to hate) the current run unconditionally. This is a discussion on a topic we supposedly enjoy, so unequivocal haters tend to be called out. Most of us (I think) recognize that there's a lot of good in there (even in the bad episodes) and certainly a good bit of bad (even in the good episodes). And, frankly, at the end of the day the show is one thing and only one thing: dumb fun. To claim anything more is to set yourself up for disappointment.

As for the current episode, it's a pretty good one. There are a couple real groaner moments, and some question on whether Capaldi has the right sort of flair for an episode like this, but it's pretty darn fun all around and a great episode if you believe in the MST3k Mantra.

[jedipotter]

1) Why do the Daleks bother verbalizing at all amongst each other instead of just using Dalek wi-fi?

Wi-Fi? The Daleks don't even have radio...lol.

You can go back to their creator for this.....Davros was a very LE type guy who loved it when people would say things like ''I will do as you say!''. So when he created the Daleks, you can bet he added that. And that just makes it deep set in the Dalek base code.

And it is great for intimidation too...

2) If beholding the image of a Weeping Angel puts the angel in your head, why don't the Weeping Angels find some way of tricking people into sending a SETI-style response with Weeping Angel images briefly embedded? This way they could take over civilizations that have just enough technology to receive the signal and display it on 'television', but aren't smart enough to not fall for this as a trick.

Well, they could do this....but maybe they don't need too. If they get enough 'food' using normal ways, they don't need to do anything else.

And it does not seem like Weeping Angels have much society or culture or infrastructure for that matter...

[Aotrs Commander]

Wi-Fi? The Daleks don't even have radio...lol.

You can go back to their creator for this.....Davros was a very LE type guy who loved it when people would say things like ''I will do as you say!''. So when he created the Daleks, you can bet he added that. And that just makes it deep set in the Dalek base code.

And it is great for intimidation too...

Sometimes in the earlier shows, they also had a certain rhythm as well: "SEEK! LOCATE! EXTERMINATE!" chanted as they went about hunting people. I had been half-expecting something like that in the last Dalek episode, actually, and was a bit disapppointed when it didn't happen.

[Brother Oni]

And it does not seem like Weeping Angels have much society or culture or infrastructure for that matter...

I'm inclined to agree as their very nature limits co-operation. The most organised they've been is setting up that hotel 'farm' and crashing that spaceship into the tomb.

[dehro]

I'm inclined to agree as their very nature limits co-operation. The most organised they've been is setting up that hotel 'farm' and crashing that spaceship into the tomb.

and that made about as much sense as a marshmallow suit of armor

[Kato]

and that made about as much sense as a marshmallow suit of armor

A marshmallow suit of armor sounds delicious. (Until you start sweating). And warm. And bouncy. I don't see a problem with this.

It's a good argument against the angels ever doing anything sensible, really. Quite honestly, I'm not sure if they should be able to develop a speech given their limitations. I mean, once they have one, I guess they could communicate but getting to that point...

[Brother Oni]

It's a good argument against the angels ever doing anything sensible, really. Quite honestly, I'm not sure if they should be able to develop a speech given their limitations. I mean, once they have one, I guess they could communicate but getting to that point...

Well Angel Bob proves that they understand speech, although they have to borrow someone's body to use it.

[Calemyr]

Well Angel Bob proves that they understand speech, although they have to borrow someone's body to use it.

It did take them three attempts to achieve it, however. Clearly communication isn't a priority for them, and honestly in most cases they're better off working alone. (The Byzantium and Battery Park being two major exceptions.) Most of the time they're virtually invulnerable, super-fast hunters who kill their prey with one touch, with their only vulnerability outside observers. That's not a sort of predator I'd expect pack mentality from.

As for why they don't broadcast their image or pull stunts from that, I'll borrow something I read from Terry Pratchett's book Carpe Jugulum. In it he points out that vampires are not really "family oriented" because they are virtually immortal. Their children are not heirs to their legacy, but competitors for the same food supply. The same applies here. Saving the species, supercharging the existing population, or reproducing when it's beneficial to them (such as via Amy), all that makes sense. Spawning an entire galaxy of Angels, on the other hand, would only result in a galaxy of Angels slowly starving to death as they hunt their prey to extinction.

[jedipotter]

I saw Deep Breath!

Spoiler: Deep Breath Review

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Just an average episode, over all. Though the first new Doctor episode is always a bit slow, after all the Doctor can often take several minutes just to get dressed, let alone wandering about and being all unstable.

The T-Rex is awful, I guess they just though every 9 year old watching would just go crazy and like coloplise on the floor in glee. And I guess the The Paternoster Gang is just there so Clara has someone to talk too.

This episode does have the classic Doctor Who focus problem. The Doctor goes to Victorian London for no reason and then finds the Half-Face Man by no effort of his own. And then the Doctor decides to stop the Half-Face Man. What is missing is the lead up of ''oh look murders'' or even ''hey who killed that T-rex''. No one, least of all the Doctor seems to care about any of that....until after he finds the robots.

Clara takes the regeneration kinda hard, considering that she has met other Doctors and knew about it before it happened. But I guess you could say she did not believe it or maybe was just not paying attention.

You get the classic ''the Doctor wanders around not sure who he is''. Ok, it's kind expected in the first show of a new Doctor.

The newspaper advertisement was one of the worst examples of railroading ever. Ok...so ''someone'' wanted to keep the Doctor and Clara together. So they put an add in the paper, for both of them, hopping they would both see it and both go to lunch at exactly the same time. But why would you think either of them would even read the paper, let alone read the ad section? Sure they needed the two main characters to get back together, but they could have done this a better way: like having the Doctor 'wander' back to the gang house and then have find a ''free lunch coupon'' after a mysterious knock on the door. And then have the two of them railroaded to the plot for the rest of the episode. You might as well just say ''whoever'' just set up the whole episode(it would be great if it was the old CIA).

So then the Doctor has his confrontation with the Half-Face Man, and runs away. This is, of course, a classic Doctor Who problem: why does the Doctor just not stop the bad guy right away? Other then there are a couple minutes left in the show? It makes no sense for the Doctor to run.

Spoiler: The Pointless Gun Problem

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So, yea, if the Doctor would just carry around a Veneusain Distengeratior Blaster he could just shoot every bad guy he encounters and save the day all nice and easy. And save lots more lives too. But the Doctor does not use guns...blah, blah, blah.

And, ok, it is a kids show, so you don't want the Doctor shooting monsters, aliens, and such. This might brainwash kids into thinking that is right to shoot monsters, aliens and such. Or the kids might see the Doctor shoot the Alien from Planet Z, and then think it is OK to shoot the mail man. So the Doctor runs and defeats the alien, monster or whatever in some long drawn out wacky way. And often the Doctor uses indirect violence like when he ''reverses the polarity of the neutron flow and zaps them with a negative space blast that destroys them. So when the Doctor does mass murder with pretty CGI effects, it's OK...but to just shoot with a gun is wrong.

But, ok, say you still don't want the Doctor to have a gun. OK. But then why does he not get a stun pistol? Or any other type of non-lethal zapper? All he needs to do is go to the year 4000 and grab something. How about a ''time stopper' that freezes them in time? Or how about going to the year 9000 and getting an alignment changing ray?

And if you wanted to be all kiddy about it, the Doctor could just carry around kitten balls from the planet Kattatus that turn into real, live kittens when thrown and make even the most evil person give up and be good.


There just is no reason for the Doctor to not have a weapon....

So then Clara gets her whole don't breathe scene, and it is a nice enough seen. It is well done, tense scene. Even if everyone knows Clara is not really in any danger and is just pretending she is in danger....but then that is TV. It does at least have some Clara character development.

The Paternoster Gang sure is useless in the big fight. Do they even take out a single robot? Even Strax with his big gun.

Then we get to the climax with the Doctor and the Half-Face Man. And it is left unknown, did the Man jump or did the Doctor push him? I think the Doctor pushed him, of course. Though this bit gets a very big deal made about it. That this Doctor will be ''dark''. As if that is new. As if the Doctor has not been a mass murder for his entire life. Like remember how the 10th Doctor killed the Sycorax leader as he ''does not give second chances''? So the Doctor killing is not exactly new...

The TARDIS: So we see the new console room. It's different, but not too much. I'm not sure I'll ever like the huge, ball room console room full of organic steampunk.

Things that Don't Make Sense: So why did the Doctor go to the Age of dinosaurs in the first place? Why was that T-Rex so huge? And why did the T-Rex eat the TARDIS? The TARDIS sure does not look, taste or smell like 'food'. And how exactly does a giant T-rex get 'stuck' when the TARDIS travels in time. It's not like the TARDIS takes buildings with it when it travels. And then why does the Doctor go to Victorian London anyway?

So the broken robots have been repairing themselves for like millions of years? They must have been really, really broken.... And does it even make sense to use animal and people parts? Why don't they just use metal, wood or anything else? The hot air balloon made out of skin is all creepy, but why not just use cloth?

If the robots kill with any kind of frequency, how have they avoided getting caught? They don't seem to have the intelligence to cover their tracks. How well does the restaurant trap really work? If say just five people came into the restaurant and ''disappeared'', how would the rest of London not notice? Even one person a day is one too many.

So how does a robot know about this ''Promised Land''? That does not sound like something a robot would know. Ok, so maybe the creators of the robot programed that in them, but why? What is the point of filling a robots memory with fluff? It's not like I'm going to add a memory chip to my Robo-Vac so it can read Shakespeare. And even if you wanted to tell your robot about the promised land or Shakespeare, you would first have to have a fully sentient robot and then you'd have to program in morals, ethics, philosophy, and everything else for a robot to understand it all.

And how does a robot go to the Promised Land anyway? It's a robot! Does the Half-Face Man have a soul somehow? Did they build the robot with a soul? Or did he get a soul from his human parts?

Missy and the Promised Land Oh, ok, sure whatever...lets have another series long mystery. It's after all a bold, new, fresh idea that Doctor Who has never done before. Sigh.

Anyway, I'd say the most likely person for Missy to be is Clara. Some strange ''future version'' or ''alternative reality double'' or whatever. I very much doubt it is the Master, the Rani, Romona, or the Black Guardian. But sure, it could be any or all of them...for no reason.

And ok, fine, lets say there is a 'Land' where someone gathers up all the souls of everyone killed by the Doctor. Well, I really hope they don't ignore the fact that the Doctor has been killing folks for 2,000 some years now. It kinda feels very lame to say ''well we won't count the billions upon billions you killed before, and we will just randomly start now with that guy and say 'one''. For example, would Lynda Moss (From Bad Wolf) be in a ''killed by the doctor land''? The Sycorax leader? The Nestene Consciousness? A couple of zillion Daleks?


Oh La La: The two women kissing....and lots of places world wide edited that out. Death, destruction, murder is all ok...but to show a kiss.....

Final Thoughts It's an average episode. It does have tons of shout outs (''Easter Eggs'') to lots of other Doctor Who stories. Though I wonder if the newer viewers even get them all.

[Aotrs Commander]

I saw Deep Breath!

Spoiler: Deep Breath Review

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Oh La La: The two women kissing....and lots of places world wide edited that out. Death, destruction, murder is all ok...but to show a kiss.....

I actually feel good that that didn't even register as a thing of even distant note until you even mentioned it. (Because it really shouldn't be, and it's dperessing in that some places in the world it still is.)

[grolim]

I'm inclined to agree as their very nature limits co-operation. The most organised they've been is setting up that hotel 'farm' and crashing that spaceship into the tomb.

Especially since, as we saw in Blink, they freeze themselves by being able to see each other. Kind of hard to cooperate with something you dare not look at, or let look at you.