AudienceofOne

There's a reason also (apart from nostalgia) that the two companions brought back were Ace and Tegan. Tegan especially because she literally marched out of the TARDIS and said she'd had enough of the violence and death and that travelling with the Doctor simply wasn't fun anymore. And the Doctor felt this accusation so deeply he did in fact just up and leave and so when she turned back to potentially talk it out with him and have a further discussion, he was just... gone. While there's no canonical reason for Ace's departure - she was there at the end when the show got cancelled but not in the terrible film I'd prefer to forget existed - they also imply she and the Doctor had a similar falling out and she chooses to leave because travelling with him isn't right for her anymore. So Chibnall - and I actually love this about his era regardless of its other problems - portrays companions as people whose paths intersect with the Doctor for a brief period but who then move on with their own lives. It's a definite improvement on Moffatt who thought that people (read women) would have to die to leave the Doctor because the character was no more than an avatar for his own childish misogynistic fantasies. It's actually very healthy for Yaz, as it was for Martha, to just realise the time is over and leave. And then join a support group in Yaz's case, which I wholeheartedly support.

This is the Dalek Invasion of Earth but The Dalek's Master Plan is even more apropos since it involved the Daleks trying to take over the solar system. It's notable for its devolution into a crappy redux of the awful The Chase and for the reappearance of the Meddling Monk, the First Doctor's Timelord antagonist. It's also notable for the death of no less than two companions and a great arc for Stephen who, from surviving episodes, seems one-note. He's not. It's just that most of his character beats are lost. He comes out of The Dalek's Master Plan jaded and traumatised and ready to quite the TARDIS because of what he sees as the Doctor's cavalier attitude to the lives of the people around him. It's one of the reasons he eventually decides to leave. What was my point? Oh yeah. Timelord nemesis and Daleks trying to take over the solar system and destroy the Doctor. So very apropos.

I mean the Doctor regenerates and he made his TARDIS look like hers so... instead of bellowing about being the Master everywhere just claim to be the Doctor instead. How would people know when the conceit is that he literally looks like a different person anyway. And if the Doctor now looks like the Master and has the Master's consciousness then the Doctor isn't the Master, the Master is the Master. He even has the same face? What difference is there with the Master claiming to be the Doctor and this new regenerated Master-mapped Doctor claiming to be the Doctor? It's exactly the same. This was done 80% for romp purposes and 20% for metaphorical purposes (the Master doesn't want to defeat the Doctor, he wants to be the Doctor). To achieve what the Master wanted to, he should have regenerated the Doctor to look like the Master while still being the Doctor so she had to go about in the world being blamed for the Master's crimes.

If I can offer a no-doubt controversial opinion, it's because his first season was a simple character-led narrative that let his moments breathe and tried to tell human stories. And people - and by that I mean super loud Whovians with megaphones - hated it because they grew up on Moffat's nonsense. So Chib went, "Okay, you want nonsense. Here it is". And that's what we got. Loud, frantic, nonsense. Nothing that happened in the last three years was any sillier or more convoluted or less character-driven than the Moffat era. Nothing. It was a lot less misogynist though, which is one thing going for it. I actually quite liked the first series he wrote. It doesn't compare to the best of NuWho but it was good solid television overall.

Doctor Who at this point is basically nonsense wrapped in 150 pounds of nostalgia and covered up with a bunch of sound and fury signifying nothing. It's fun, that's for sure, just so long as you don't think about it. Like, at all.

The whole philosophy had me asking myself, "what IS a Belter?" Is it just someone who survives in a low-gravity environment? If their culture is one of wage slavery in the belt then what does it mean to have self-determination but still be a Belter?

I've been the one defending this season from accusations of pacing problems but honestly the pacing in this episode was terrible. Maybe there were post-production issues around a certain skeezeball who shall not be named but it was like the season built up to a climax of everyone being reunited but instead just skipped over it quickly, went straight into falling action and then built up quickly to a cliffhanger that seemed unrelated to most of the season's back half. When Naomi launched herself out the airlock into space, that was such a perfect episode ending. The battle with Drummer turning on Marcos should have happened in episode 9 with the ending of that episode being Naomi spinning into darkness. Then episode 10 should have started with her being rescued, skeezeball's brain explosion and then everyone reconnecting properly. Then we could have spent the last half of that episode on whatever was going on with the Martian faction, the Belters and the rings at the end. The pacing in this episode reminded me of the second season where things went both too slow and too fast at the same time. Don't get me wrong, this is still the best show on TV by far. And I understand they were dealing with having to edit a character out. But I can't say this was my favourite season all up. Also why spend a good 10 seconds in slow motion of watching TLS with a weapon he's definitely going to use to shoot his own father and then not have him shoot his own father? Chekhov is generally considered right on this issue.

This sounds like B5 to me. If I remember correctly, mass drivers were banned because of the damage they could do.

I had thought the situation on Mars was more of an 'opportunist making money as empire collapses' situation. They don't care what he does with those ships, they just want the money for their own ends and their dream of Mars is dead.

Only because I want the show to go out on a high!

Amos doesn't want to get off the shithole planet Earth. He wants to get back to the place he belongs, which is with the Roci. This whole season has been about people trying to go home again, realising that home doesn't exist or that they've changed too much, and trying to get back to where they really belong now. The fact that Amos literally says that you can never go home again nor really leave because it doesn't exist anymore but you always take it with you is the point. In fact, whenever the show switches to Amos the writers seem to really nail their theme better than with Naomi. I mean, I get it, they can't be back where they belong till the end of the season thematically speaking. But having Naomi literally stuck in self-imposed isolation helplessly watching her past threaten to destroy her present is a bit on the nose for me two episodes running. I think the biggest problem might be that Holden doesn't need to go home again because that's always been his arc and so he's just waiting for everyone he loves to catch up with him. Anyway I enjoyed most of this episode but am very ready for everyone to reconnect and the fact I said that about last week's episode is an issue. Still, the Expanse is the best thing on TV. By far. But it might be better if next season is its last.

I'm just ready for everyone to be back together. That's it, that all I got.

It's a hard habit to break. Once you start doing it, it's not easy to stop. And I imagine there's a part of her that's scared of getting that emotionally dependent on someone again.

I personally think Cyn is the absolute worst of the bunch and was glad his "It really hurt that I had to repeatedly stab you in the back" schtick didn't result in some kind of nonsense redemption but instead got him dead. I actually liked this episode in multiple ways, not the least of which because I think that Filip and Naomi are now working together and that whole sequence at the end was planned. It made no sense for Filip to suddenly demand a command, he only did it because his father would knock him back (also I suspect because he wanted to see for himself that his father really was the narcissistic his mother told him he was). This whole scheme to send the ship to destroy the Roci is a plan that Naomi and Filip have cooked up. Also, to detour off the Ship of Shits, I don't believe the Zmeya would blow itself up if it still had the protomolecule, it's definitely been offloaded. I understand that all our cast had to try to Go Home Again or have Conversations With Dead People or something but I want everyone back together now, thanks. Well, except for Alex. He can die horribly.

Well he saved her for one thing, brought her to the ship. Clearly had some romantic notion she'd join them. So it's not entirely sudden. He's a typical petulant teen with Mummy issues when he's not being a typical petulant teen with Daddy issues. But it was Cyn (sorry I don't remember his name) standing up to his father that gave him the shock to the system he needed. Remember that Naomi said to him that his father "wouldn't die for you but would ask you to die for him" and then when Marcos asked him to throw his mother out an airlock, someone finally brought attention to the fact that his father could have done it himself but was trying to get him to do it as a power play. All of that combined with seeing a respected Belter woman being friends with his mother and talking about her saving everyone's lives has shifted his perspective enough that he's willing to talk to her. I still think he's an annoying little idiot and a murdering POS but it worked for me.

That episode was amazing btw. AHAMAAAZZING.

I don't think he cares tbh. These kind of people just want to prove they're better and/or smarter than others. They never believe the cause they're supposedly fighting for. They're just manipulators and con artists who want to win. Whether the Belt rallies behind him or not is only relevant in whether they can do him personal harm. Which they probably can't. He did this entirely for the moment at the end of the episode where he can portray himself as the saviour of his people. He could not give a shit about what happens afterwards. And his son's an idiot.

I loved this episode, although I didn't have any more philosophical epiphanies from it. But I also hate how each of these episodes seem to merge effortlessly into each other and once again I'm regretting diving into the season now rather than waiting and binging. When I found out about this delightful news, I thought "well, at least he's not a romantic lead so I guess I can put up with him being a pilot or having Bobbie slapping him over a head for a season". And then they literally put him into this plotline where some poor woman had to kiss the bastard. So, yeah, it was a struggle. I don't hate Naomi and I don't hate this plotline thematically but in execution I'm also a little annoyed at her lack of planning. Although - to her, she's still a Belter going into Belter territory and I guess she thought she would still be seen as one of them. And I agree with everyone else who said she had to at least try. Parent/children yes but, also, I feel like there's a strong theme of people trying to go back to the past because things are changing so radically around them. Everyone's trying to regain something they've lost out of a sense of nostalgia or a sense of instability. It kind of reminds me of Blank in Grosse Point Blank trying to go home to his reunion to find himself again. And if you remember the tagline of that movie was basically, "You can never go home again".

Gosh I loved this episode so much. I almost don't know where to start on everything that was packed into it. I feel like it needs an essay to tease out everything. So I'll stick only to my main takeaway and that is Amos' character who is so nuanced and so complex and so beautifully fleshed out over five seasons so that he's grown as a person but still makes sense as a person. It's kind of like - there are two kinds of monsters in the world. Those that think that because they're monsters everyone else is and so every monstrous thing they do is justified. And those that know that there are others who aren't monsters and when they encounter them they want desperately to protect them so they can stay in the world being not-monsters. And Amos is the latter and I love that about him. He's a monster who almost aggressively respects those who have the ability to not be monsters and we get a backstory that sums that up in such little screen time. It's perfect. Honestly the writing in this episode was magnificent and reminds me why I love this show so much and why I wait all year for it to finally be released.

So the theme of this season is wanting to go home but being too late? Of trying to recapture the past and it always being forever out of reach? That's a sad theme but if there's any show I trust to do it justice, it's this one. Oh God I've missed this... what is it?

That was how I read the text myself so I'm glad someone else did too. I saw this as about her seeing the possibility of a new kind of life, one that suits her better than anything available on Earth and it suddenly being sharply taken away from her just as she was starting to embrace it. It's possible people are just slightly traumatised from the way in which the last show runner treated female characters and are reflexively drawing on that experience to read this text. I hope so because that's the sort of nonsense Moffat would pull and, as I said, I expect much better from the Chib.

This. I hated this so much. This was not who Sarah Jane was and it speaks to the misogynism that creeped into NuWho due to Moffat. I personally didn't read the text in the same way as others in regards to Yaz, however I can see the possibility of this plotline now that people have pointed it out. I don't want it in any way, shape or form. While I have issues with Chib's middle-of-the-road calmer Who, his gender issues are far less problematic than Moffatt's and frankly I was expecting better than this. And a crazed obsessed lesbian plotline is the last thing we need. I wish male writers would stop sometimes and just think things through.

I really enjoyed this episode; it was a perfect rollicking New Year's special. I'm still not thrilled with Chib's Doctor retcon but thankfully it only got mentioned tangentially and so I can pretend it never happened for a while. RTD remains the very very best at characterisation and you can tell when one of his characters is on screen. Jack Harkness is amazing and I would love to have him back full time. He just has so much energy and heart. This is possibly all true but her character is the one that is still on an arc they can explore. Graham and Ryan don't really have a narrative arc other than coming together as a family and having fun with the Doctor and as a consequence that arc is long done. Yaz's screen presence may be a little too low key and her character a bit too pleasant for an apparently gung ho cop but there is at least aspects of her character they can still explore. I know people like Graham but if they spend less time on his folksy meanderings through the universe we may get some better development of other characters. And I still think he was only there so the viewers who can't cope with the Doctor being a woman can still have an old white man to watch. Yaz may not interest me that much as a person but I think this was quite a good change.

Cameron looks so much like Isobel that in the first season I regularly got confused as to which was which. I just thought it was typical casting director predilection for tall blondes but maybe it's deliberate. Yip I mean, this segues into my main criticism of the show overall. ALL the relationships feel shallow. Every single one of them. And part of the reason is this They jump into a scene for people to deliver pertinent angsty dialogue and then bounce right out again. It's shallow. But it also results in me never knowing who knows what or who has told who what. We just have to assume that now Maria knows everything. But does she? What specifically was she told? And how? We have no idea. This is a far nicer way to put it than I would have, which is keep your superstitious nonsense off my science fiction show. I mean, it may be a ridiculous science fiction show with bad science. But at least it's still science. Speaking of crappy science - does the Serum of Alien Death and the Serum of Alien Life need to be ingested, injected into the veins, or pumped straight into the heart. Because they keep doing all of those things and it's annoying me far more than I should.

Show started off with a hot af Lone Cowboy allusion and that distracted me for a good half an hour, which means it took me that long to realise this show isn't about anything. Yeah, I have this issue too. It seems like the airforce cut loose their alien investigation years ago - probably because they had a bunch of aliens in prison and no evidence of any further alien threat - and Jessie Manes has been running an illegal offbook operation. This means that now that Noah has been revealed and eliminated, Jessie Manes is the sole point of threat and he's no threat at all really. If they're not worried about exposure, imprisonment and experimentation then where is the point of conflict? It just becomes about who is speaking to who right now and whether so and so will end up together or not. Basically it becomes a soap opera. The show has actually done a really good job with Rosa. In the season 1 flashbacks, they portrayed her as this cool offbeat older sister. Now that she's back it's clear that she's just a lost and messed up teenager with poor coping skills. I have to give kudos to the actor, they've done a great job on showing the Rosa that Liz saw as a 17 year old and the real Rosa that Liz now sees with adult eyes. In fact I think the show is doing characterisation better on a number of fronts this season judging from these two episodes. Yeah, Michael always blames Alex for leaving but he's also tried to put Alex in a 'just sex' box several times. Alex clearly needs more from Michael than Michael is willing to give right now. Hence Alex's several attempts to talk or be friends while Michael has only just gotten around to admitting to his friends that he and Alex were even a thing. One thing I liked about this episode surprisingly were the Michael/Liz moments in the holding cell.