Appreciation for the new disaster bisexual doctor.
Decent enough ep. The tone seemed a bit muddled, as they seemed to be going for a spooky vibe while simultaneously keeping the “lighthearted” mood they were pushing last episode too. Kind of threw me off. I liked the baddies, though, and I appreciate a story where the sonic or TARDIS can’t be used to just magic out a solution (except for the TARDIS Ex Machina at the end, I suppose). Also was very happy to see Wilfred! I was entirely unaware they had gotten scenes with him before he passed and was just expecting references. Overall I enjoyed it and am looking forward to next week!
*One little minor technical nitpick - if there’s literally nothing outside the ship, and the captain wasn’t wearing a helmet, how did they decompose?
Some anaerobic gut bacteria that happens to be able to survive vacuum? It was an alien…
Enjoyed this tense episode. What bugged me was the overuse of “The Volume” in the wide corridor shots. Like early blue screen work, it’s distracting and takes you out of the action. Once they slip into the real sets, everything looks better. At any rate, a great callback to “Midnight” and good to see Wilf!
People rag on the Volume just as much as they rag on “too much CGI”, the same they used to say “too much green screen” or “too many rubber suited aliens”. It’s all just storytelling tools, and you either suspend your disbelief or you don’t based on the strength of the writing. If you can show me a seemingly endless corridor with giant hydraulic pistons that reconfigures every ten minutes, and that’s actually a part of the story, that’s pretty damn great in my book, no matter how it looks.
And just for the record, I thought this looked great too.
Easily one of my favourite episodes in years. I’m a sucker for creepy monsters, cosmic horrors and monsters whose origins are only vaguely hinted at and this had all of that. Overall much more polished, better-paced and intriguing to me than The Star Beast (which I still liked!). This was Doctor Who back at its best for me.
Managed to go into this without any-trailers/spoilers/etc. Hated the “Children in Need”-esque intro, it felt like the ye-olde cartoon before the movie starts.
I can understand concerns about this being the second of only three Tennant/Tate episodes, that it’s the anniversary and we want big celebrations and megabucks worth of explosions and monsters and all that. Instead, we get a full episode with the two stars and their talent, no distractions or crawling through attics. PS. Sylvia and Wilf still - and always will - be awesome.
This was like RDT’s and Moffat’s lovechild, like Midnight and Event Horizon and Alien. Confidently slow-paced with great writing and time for running around, and still having time for a proper ending rather than a magical macguffin arse-pull.
Properly loved it.
