S09.E04: Before The Flood

[NeenerNeener]

 

What's next week again?

 

Maisie "Arya Stark" Williams as a Viking, I think. Another 2 parter. They showed a random bit of it during The Last Kingdom. 

[Bruinsfan]

I had so hoped from the peek we got at her before the beginning of the season that she would turn out to be someone from the Doctor's past, or at least related to a former companion or ally and raised on tales of the Doctor.

 

Again with a younger man should have been cast if we want a cool Doctor. Twelve is hardly ancient and coolness is a state of mind, not a number!

Preach it. I defy anybody to name someone cooler than David Bowie, who's Capaldi's senior by 11 years.

 

4. Glad they could fridge another damsel for man pain. Especially since that man could then convince another man not to allow his unexplored man feelings to end in similar man pain. Ugh. And I don't usually get to worked up about the fridging. Kill all the chicks, what do I care? This time it bothered.

This really irked me too, and feels to me like Moffat's fingerprints were all over it rather than Toby Whitehouse's.

[polyhymnia]

Capaldi and the guitar reminded me of a moment when I was at a tribute concert (some guy that goes around doing a fabulous Billy Joel) at the local symphony.  We had my parents' tickets and they are in their late 60s/early 70s.  Most of the people around us, and the symphony goers in general, were in that age range.  When I think about that age group, I think about my own grandparents who were all spry during WWII.  So when the Billy Joel kid starts doing The Who and Stones tunes I was at first "this is too young/hip for the room" but it immediately dawned on me "you dolt, all of those rock groups are the same age as your parents AT LEAST."

 

Capaldi is even younger.  So not only can he just be cool at that age, people that age can still even think that they are hip and cool.

 

(I don't love the sunglasses or the guitar because I do think they are being a bit shoehorned into the plot.  I think one or the other, or at least spacing them out and easing them in, would be better.)

 

For some reason, him speaking directly to the audience didn't bug me as much.  It was almost like a hallucination at the beginning.  Who is he talking to?  Is he talking to us?  Bennett?  Himself?  Maybe I was just really tired when I watched it.  I thought the segue into the theme song was fun.

 

ETA:  I would love a back story about the guitar, though.  Maybe something subtle (yeah, I know).
 

Edited October 13, 2015 by polyhymnia

[John Potts]

I agree with Angora (and others) who liked it OK, but not as much as part 1. I don't think it would be better as 1 part since I thought part 1 was excellent - what it could have done with was more development of what the Sea King was doing and/or more of a duel (in whatever form that took) between him and the Doctor (IMO). Though I agree it didn't need the "Breaking the 4th Wall" bit at the beginning (though I'm glad to learn that in the Whoverse, Beethoven really did compose his Symphonies).

 

Mabinogia Unless he figured everything out after O'Donnell's death, then he chose to let her die which is pretty shitty

 

 

 

Yeah, I didn't get what they were trying there at all and wondered why they split up at all (except presumably because "we can take more damage that way!"). And since she was (chronologically) first to die (well, I think the undertaker was actually first) I didn't understand why her "ghost" didn't appear before the others (Maybe there a Ghost Union or something).

 

HouseofBeck  I was telling her to feel the vibrations on the floor, already! Deliciously scary, though.

 

That was a good moment, although as soon as he was dragging the axe I reckoned she should have been able to feel it scraping on the floor. Though I guess she did eventually (and her "Blind Vision" POV made me think of Daredevil too).

 

angora namedropping the Arcateenians made me smile the most

 

I'm ashamed to admit ignorance of anything Who related, but who are they?

 

ETA: Thanks, angora - although I have seen al of Torchwood (I think) I find most episodes utterly unmemorable. I do remember Sarah Jane meeting a glowing alien though (wasn't that episode 1 of SJA?)

Edited October 14, 2015 by John Potts

[April Bloodgate]

From seeing the Fisher King in the trailer released before the show started up again, I had hoped they were revisiting the story from Torchwood about the children sacrificed to the aliens. Such a dark story and Peter Capaldi was excellent in it.

The Fisher King reminded me of that too. Especially the sound effects.

[angora]

John Potts, the Arcateenians have never appeared on Who proper, just the spinoffs. On Torchwood, Tosh was seduced by an Arcateenian in "Greeks Bearing Gifts," and on the pilot of The Sarah Jane Adventures, Maria saw one visiting Sarah Jane in her garden. I don't know why the reference delighted me - maybe BECAUSE they've never been on actual Who?

[Tara Ariano]

In case you missed it, here's the Previously.TV post on the episode!

 

I Am The TARDIS Cloister Bell
The ultimate warning system will no longer be silent, even when it probably should.

[dr pepper]

the "fisher king"? that's a piece of the arthurian portfolio. he's The Man With The Wound That Would Not Heal. His function is to hang out at his castle, to weak to do much more than toss a line into the water, until some hero, perhaps a knight on a quest, comes by and fulfills some requirement. There seems to be no logical reason for the alien to be called that.

Edited October 18, 2015 by dr pepper

[rur]

the "fisher king"? that's a piece of the arthurian portfolio. … There seems to be logical reason for the alien to be called that.

 

"The Magician's Apprentice" made me start wondering if we were going to have Arthurian allusions or an Arthurian arc sometime this season. (Because: For no good reason, that title got me thinking about Mary Stewart's books about Merlin.) And "Under the Lake" as well as the Fisher King raised my suspicions once again. Where it's going to go, though? No idea. The Doctor usually does show up at the time of someone's greatest need, though. Maybe we're just supposed to be content with that. 

Edited October 15, 2015 by rur

[Llywela]

"The Magician's Apprentice" made me start wondering if we were going to have Arthurian allusions or an Arthurian arc sometime this season. (Because: For no good reason, that title got me thinking about Mary Stewart's books about Merlin.) And "Under the Lake" as well as the Fisher King raised my suspicions once again. Where it's going to go, though? No idea. The Doctor usually does show up at the time of someone's greatest need, though. Maybe we're just supposed to be content with that. 

Well, it was already established in Battlefield way back in the '80s that the Doctor is Merlin...

[Which Tyler]

You think that's going to stop Moffatt?

[Llywela]

You think that's going to stop Moffatt?

Haha. No. But worth throwing it out there, though, just for the link to the spec.

[AudienceofOne]

And since she was (chronologically) first to die (well, I think the undertaker was actually first) I didn't understand why her "ghost" didn't appear before the others (Maybe there a Ghost Union or something).

 

Yeah, that bugged me. She died in the past so should have shown up at the same time as the guy from the "race that gets conquered". DrWho uses an in-universe theory of time travel, which means that causality is a thing (i.e. it doesn't create a new universe from the change). 

 

Also, the O'Donnell ghost showing up first would have freaked everybody out and increased the confusion and suspense. I don't know why the writing team didn't leap on that.

[Mabinogia]

That really was a missed opportunity, in many ways. O'Donnell, having seen her own ghost, knowing she will be dying could have been fascinating. It would have eliminated the Doctors dick move of only giving a shit once Clara was next on the list because he could have said, remember, we saw O'Donnell's ghost, she had to die to protect the stupid time stream that doesn't matter once Clara is at risk. (yep, still pissed about how that little bit of nonsense played out) and it would have just been really, really interesting. Oh well, Moffett isn't into interesting only flashy "shock" value. And he's not even terribly good at that anymore. I mean, really, seeing the Doctor's "ghost" was kind of cool sort of, but also painfully predictable so not at all shocking, and that it wasn't really a ghost but just the hologram trick again...duh.

[elle]

I am still unclear about this, if the Doctor did go back in time and found out the reason for the signal, then why did he not "fix" the signal and stop the unnecessary deaths in the future.  Timeline be timey-wimey.

[Pete Martell]

The intro was unnecessary. It just helped pad out a two part story that could have been done in one.

 

The Doctor was wearing his coat but he still had his hobo hoodie on underneath.

 

Lunn going off and leaving Cass translatorless shows how the setup isn't viable for a proper military, only for some progressive non-military military which takes care to not get itself involved in anything dangerous and military-like.

 

O'Donnell being a Doctor fangirl and the Fisher King (why did the writers choose to use that name?) knowing all about the Time Lords and what they're all about brings up one of my gripes with NuWho. The Doctor is the most important, most famous person in the universe. Everybody knows about him. Go into any alien diner, drive-in, or dive and regardless of where they are in the space-faring alien pecking order they will know about him and those pesky Time-Lords. It makes the universe seem to be a small, cramped, and inbred place rather than vast, open, and full of mystery.

 

I totally agree. Throughout the second episode I kept thinking, "This should have been one episode." To pad time, not only did they have that speech (which Capaldi mostly salvaged), but they then went on to have various other speeches that went on forever and had no emotional resonance, because I've heard them so many times before in New Who. 

 

I just don't care that much now about lengthy diatribes to The Doctor about morality, because they never go anywhere. In this particular story they just reinforced what caricatures the supporting characters were. Bennett spends an episode and a third being the cliche scared geek until the woman he loves dies, and then he gets the big "how dare you, don't you care about us" speech, so we'll feel some sort of dramatic power. The problem is that the Doctor repeatedly gave all of them the option to leave (albeit while saying he thought they should stay) and then suggested that O'Donnell not leave the TARDIS. She chose to go and she died. The decision to not mention any of this just made her seem even more like an irrelevant fantasy figure for the male characters. 

 

I cringed at her scenes with the Doctor in a way I haven't since Moffat had Matt Smith making out with random women in his last series. These fangirl squee scenes are so played out, and frankly I thought the actress just wasn't that good. I didn't think the guy who played Bennett was all that good either. Or Pritchard. But the roles were so poorly written, who even knows. 

 

The only two characters I actually had an interest in were Cass and Lunn. I was impressed that they had such a no-nonsense relationship and that they had a close bond which didn't have to be romantic. And then sure enough they had to reveal their love at the end, even though I didn't see any hint that they had those types of feelings for each other. I was flabbergasted when Bennett said Lunn had always been in love with her. 

 

If anyone ever asks what heteronormativity is - it's that scene. 

 

I did like that Prentis character. I wouldn't want to see the Trivolians too often but I enjoyed their backstory and the complete weirdness of them here. They would have been perfect on The Sarah Jane Adventures.

Edited February 13, 2016 by Pete Martell