AudienceofOne

I'll shut up then. This shows that the two eras really are blurring for me. I'm sure I remember one of the later doctors scanning things with it. But it certainly couldn't open doors, that was new.

In fact it's new that the screwdriver opens things, especially doors. This was a NuWho thing because RTD said he didn't want the Doctor to be stopped by doors. Traditionally it was more like a scanner, although it could do computer things too. Writers have had a love/hate relationship with it for 50 years where some writers love it and expand the number of things it can do (sometimes to ridiculous levels) while others hate it and even get rid of it completely.

Firstly, the pros: I love that pop culture at least has been hard-core propping Tesla while condemning that thief Edison to the waste bin of history. It's about time. Every time someone says Edison "invented the light bulb" I want to hit something. Edison did nothing but steal other people's inventions. As a consequence I really liked the comparison here between the aliens and Edison. It worked really well. Edison is nothing but a scrounger who used his financial power to force people with real ideas into servitude. This really worked for me. The cons: The directing. Seriously, the directing was bad. Especially the blocking and scene transitions. Like everyone else, I don't understand who Dr Who could possibly have bad directing or unpolished scripts with the development time it has and the small number of episodes. It stuns me. I mostly watch kdrama these days and they produce between two to three hours of incredibly well-directed television per show PER WEEK. How can Doctor Who not produce 13 hours a YEAR?

I was going to try to avoid 'going there', mostly because this episode really was as woefully written as people say it was (but nowhere near as bad as some Moffatt-era episodes in that it had a coherent theme and we knew what was happening at any particular point). But I thought that too. Moffatt's Doctors in particular never shut the f**k up. If anything, this Doctor talks less.

She said that orphan planets were often created when the elite destroyed everything and left, leaving everybody else behind to die. These were the remaining people who couldn't afford to leave, not the entire human population. And since the planet was regenerating it could be seen as possible for humanity to move back in. Not that I want to defend this episode too much - it was extremely badly written.

Chib is very much an old-school Who writer and his Doctor is far more in line with Classic Who than with Moffatt in particular (but even RTD). This 'family' and 'bumbling scientist' themes ( and her outfit even ) are heavily redolent of the second doctor in particular and the fifth doctor as well. Even with one "companion", the Third Doctor too was very much about found family and the first Doctor of course was travelling with his actual family. The Doctor travelling with one female companion was actually only a small chunk of the original show; mostly he travelled with a much larger entourage. Most writers of Who in the modern era grew up with Baker's Doctor and they have tended to try to recreate their perceptions of that era rather than the show as a whole. I have no idea where this sudden essay is going. What was the question? Oh, yeah, this has more to do with Chib's Classic Who approach than her sex, although it was inevitable that this point would be made. I believe that if they hadn't opted for a female doctor we would have still gotten this setup from Chib, assuming he would have been interested in taking over the show. Which is to say, and this is possibly slightly off topic, Moffat's penis issues really do have a lot to answer for overall.

I have no mental delineation between the original and Nuwho really (except in cases where their break from canon in Nuwho confuses and annoys me - i.e. knocking about 1000 years off the Doctor's age in the first series and Moffatt deliberately forgetting that Timelords recognise each other at all times in every regeneration) so could I point to something in Nuwho? I don't know. But this is actual canon. He speaks many languages himself, including all Earth languages. And he has, on at least one occasion when the TARDIS was broken or something, communicated in those languages without it. But I couldn't tell you when. Pretty sure it was NuWho but can't be sure.

Also the Doctor doesn't rely on the TARDIS, the Doctor actually speaks English and, as far as I'm aware, all Earth languages. She doesn't need the TARDIS for that kind of translation; it's more for her companions and for situations where she's on an unknown planet or comes into contact with a completely unknown species. But, honestly, despite being guilty of it myself, getting angry at Doctor Who for going against its own mythology and canon is like yelling at the wind for changing direction. The show has lasted so long by not caring about its own mythology. And, yes, that's bad writing but that ship sailed when they decided the 6th Doctor actually knew Rassillon or possibly was Rassillon idk, it was stupid and it broke their canon and that was in the 80s.

The. moon. is. an. egg.

Nothing in the entire universe is 'talkier' than Moffat's Doctor Who. So I'm going with 'not for me, no'. Sacha Dhawan is an amazing Master. I didn't get it at first because at the end of Part 1 he was just chewing scenery but once he started layering it was amazing. I'm kind of disappointed he's benched for now because I enjoyed him on screen so much. And he and Jodie have a perfect chemistry. I liked this episode a lot more than the first half (lazer shoes notwithstanding) as the spy stuff didn't do it for me. Always? It's why Timelords can always recognise each other and know where each other are at all times - except when the plot demands that they don't.

I hate this NuWho nonsense that the Doctor can't recognise other Timelords on sight. I hated it in Moffat's era and I hate it just as much now. I mean, yeah, we get great twists like this but it overthrows about 50 years of canon. Having said that... ... I guess Chib like the rest of us are happy to pretend that Missy nonsense never happened. I think that contradicts my original statement, oh well... Nobody expects logic either from the show or from fans.

Literally the death of a middle way. I really liked this season's themes about the simply nobility of fighting compared to the messy compromise of peace and the inevitable politics. Life is simple and easy when you have a clear unconpromised goal to work towards - terraforming, Belter rights, defending Earth - but gets messy and complicated when you're forced to work together with other groups to try to achieve something together. From Mars falling apart because it lose its purpose, the OPA re-radicalising because it couldn't handle getting what it wanted, and Avasarala herself being compromised by the need to maintain a public image while doing her work, the season was about how we can't handle the muddy, complicated world of peace. And then they contrasted it with Ilus seeming to be the problem in microcosm but eventually working through a combination of idealism, justice and sheer hard work. I don't think The Expanse has ever been so thematically on point or coherent (the pacing in this season was much better) but that doesn't mean it was as enjoyable to watch. Which in itself mirrors the show's themes.

Holden's entire plotline this season is just "nightmares I have had". We can now add 'falling dreams' to 'eye poking' and 'trapped in darkness'. In fact, I once had a terrible nightmare that I went skiing into a cave and I was trapped in darkness with cliffs on both sides and when I woke up the room was pitch black and I didn't know if I was awake or asleep or if I was really in the cave or not. So I get Amos' nightmare and now I can add Holden's too. Falling is such a primal fear; maybe something we get from our primate past (and more than one character was falling out of control this episode). So are bugs and so is being trapped. So I'm starting to wonder if this is just a cynical appeal to our primal fears or something more deliberate. That what waits outside of our comfort zone is our nightmares. I saw it as the other way around. She confused Murtry's honest pragmatism for Amos'. That he cared about her and his crew but was just being pragmatic. And so she expected them to respond the same to the same impetus. But Amos' honesty and pragmatism has never been self-serving. Murtry's is. Murtry sold her that being amoral and homicidal was an acceptable and understandable compromise and so she didn't realise how far she'd drifted from who she thought she and Murtry were (like Amos) to how they really were.

He was only one. week. from. retirement. Fun fact, I can't even put eye drops in my eyes so Holden poking into his was worse than the slugs, sorry. This episode really drove home that everyone is fighting over nothing. The worlds they're fighting over? Are nothing but Siren songs.

History suggests we already are - there are reasons humanity is often compared with a virus. For me, though, what became starkly clear over the course of this season is not just that we're programmed to factionalise and fight but that often we're fighting over nothing. The fight over Ilus is a fight over nothing.