S10.E05: Oxygen

[Tara Ariano]

Quote

The Doctor and his crew get stuck in a spaceship and battle killer spacesuits.

[that one guy]

There is a promo online - I won't mention plot details to be respectful of people who want to avoid any and all spoilers. But it mentions the "fluid link," which is what the First Doctor (claimed he) was looking for/looking to fix/whatever in "the Daleks," the second-ever Doctor Who serial. References to the First Doctor era are coming fast and furious this season! I'm enjoying this because that era doesn't get enough love these days. Production values were pretty low, but the original crew had amazing chemistry! If they hadn't, there'd be no show today.

[foreverevolving]

Soo the doctor is blind.. but we all know that's temporary. (Also color me confused but.. in season 7A he healed River hand using regeneration energy, can't he just do the same to himself?; am I missing something? besides the obvious the doctor needs to be blind for plot reasons)
And What do you know, I actually really liked Nardole today!

I continue to love Bill.

Loved the ship crew, and Bill reaction to being called a racist - cause, like it or not, at the end of the day we're all a bit racist. - 12 points if you can identify the origin of that sentence.

I love the not-so-subtle repeating diss against capitalism this season. I know the doctor did it before, but never did it feel like it was happening literally every episode. Which means it is probably a recurring theme and has to mean something.

 

next week promo: the vatican?! Okay- I guess. River's diary!!!, this has to mean that either the Doctor or Missy or someone went back to the library to grab it (that has the potential to produce quite a slew of interesting fanfiction). And of course, Missy!! (she really is so fine).

Edited May 14, 2017 by foreverevolving

[tessaray]

Honestly thought this was just going to be zombies in space but they surprised me. I love that feeling.  I laughed at the fighting the suits line and then only a few minutes later got my heart stomped on.  Can't remember the last time that happened.  

[alrightokay]

This was the strongest episode of this series so far (and it was much better than Jamie Mathieson's S9 effort, "The Girl Who Died," though still not as good as his S8 stories, "Mummy on the Orient Express" and "Flatline").  The political commentary was a little heavy-handed here, and the premise reminded me a bit too much of "Sleep No More," with a human need being rationed/commoditized.  But there were some good scary moments, and the acting was strong all around.  I think that out of the all of the recent writers, Mathieson "gets" Capaldi's Doctor the best: his Twelve is a believable mix of wry and wistful, pragmatic and idealistic, arrogant and selfless, without feeling capricious or whimsical (I still love the "choices" speech Twelve gives at the end of "Mummy").  My favorite parts of this episode: the "crop rotation" lecture and the surprise drawing on the blackboard, the "gotcha" moment with Nardole and the "fluid link", the Doctor's selflessness in giving Bill his helmet, and the way Nardole was his conscience/confessor in the end.  

It's interesting that the sunglasses (which got a lot of flack last series) are now totally necessary, both because the Doctor's blind and because his sonic screwdriver got damaged by one of the "suits."  I do hope he fixes his sonic eventually, though--I liked that he finally got his own "Twelve" version!  

Spoiler

Watched the "Next Time" preview again and saw that the Doctor does use his sonic to "scan" something, so it's still functional!  Looking forward to Missy, too!

Edited May 13, 2017 by alrightokay
spoilers

[Avon.Blakes7]

Bill's getting on my last nerve; the "never-ending" questions are driving me insane! Her incessant whining is about as insufferable as Tegan's from Classic Who! "STFU girl!" ...

[Lantern7]

Good episode. I like when the Doctor snatches victory from the jaws of defeat, even when you damn well know that's going to happen. And it wasn't something he pulled from his butt. He managed to stop suit-possessed zombies by telling them that the survivors would be worth saving. And it didn't come off as trite. Thinking about it, I believe this parallels the "Go To Your Room" gambit of Nine.

Any reason for the blue guy? "We rescued a racist" is a good line, though.

ETA: Did the Doctor put Clara's life in that much danger as many times like he did with Bill? This would be a Rick and Morty thing if drugs were involved, or if the Doctor started producing heavy amounts of spittle.

[Avon.Blakes7]

4 hours ago, Lantern7 said:

Good episode. I like when the Doctor snatches victory from the jaws of defeat, even when you damn well know that's going to happen. And it wasn't something he pulled from his butt. He managed to stop suit-possessed zombies by telling them that the survivors would be worth saving. And it didn't come off as trite. Thinking about it, I believe this parallels the "Go To Your Room" gambit of Nine.

Any reason for the blue guy? "We rescued a racist" is a good line, though.

ETA: Did the Doctor put Clara's life in that much danger as many times like he did with Bill? This would be a Rick and Morty thing if drugs were involved, or if the Doctor started producing heavy amounts of spittle.

More times it would appear. As dumb as she'd come off at times, Clara seemed to be an integral part in the peace treaty with the Zygons. In "Warlord," the Doctor was technically dead and she would have been stuck in that undersea lab. Clara was as close to death as you could get without dying due to treachery of Ashildr. This take me back to the 1st real victim in "Earthshock;" Adric gone! It was shocking at the time; a companion? Oh the humanity. ...

[Bruinsfan]

Have any other companions been abruptly killed off like that? (I know the Ponds were eventually, and River died in her first appearance though she refused to let that interfere with repeated returns to the show...)  The producers must have hated Matthew Waterhouse.

[John Potts]

I quite liked the episode, but it reminded me of Star Trek at it preachiest (hell, we even START with "Space... the final frontier"!). It didn't help that it came hot on the heels of Smile, where we have a similarly, "Sloppy programming causes the system to turn murderous" plot. But what exactly was the space station there for? If it's a tourist attraction, then it's not going to be very profitable to kill your customers: if it's some scientific station, then why would you charge the people who are working under threat of death if their credit runs out and if it's something else, then... you might have mentioned what. I have no inherent problem with preaching communism (though I doubt the BBC is going to freely share this episode with everyone!), it just seemed a little too pleased with itself for doing so. And if capitalism is so EEVIL, then I really doubt a handful of people protesting at "The Head Office" are going to bring the entire system crashing down!

...OK, that got more political than I meant it to. Did like the "We rescued a racist!" line because as Avenue Q has taught us, Everyone's a Little Bit Racist! 

16 hours ago, foreverevolving said:

Soo the doctor is blind.. but we all know that's temporary.

I'll be impressed if they maintain it for the rest of the series and only fix it with regeneration (they almost certainly won't, though).

[Primetimer]

To run out of air is human; Jamie Mathieson gives us something divine.

View the full article

[TexasGal]

Ok, can someone explain why Bill wasn't really zombified?  I assume it had to with her non-functioning suit somehow but was tired and couldn't be bothered to go back and try to decipher what he said.

[Chyromaniac]

The blindness is an interesting development.  Up until now, The Doctor's health has always been kind of binary - he's either perfectly well, or dead/regenerating.  In a way it makes sense - you can't exactly get "winged" by a Dalek.  The only exceptions I can think of are reeeeeeeally old Eleven who had to use a cane, and Ten getting his hand chopped off (which was apparently still under warranty, so no big deal).  Even in those cases, there weren't consequences that lasted beyond the end of those particular stories.  Maybe I'm forgetting something (particularly from Classic Who, which I'm less familiar with), but this really does feel like new ground for the show.

Otherwise, as cold and calculating as it was, I have to admit that it does make sense to measure oxygen in terms of "breaths" instead of the standard sci-fi trope of X hours or minutes.  As they say on the show, oxygen usage is at least partly a function of what you're doing, and you use up more in periods of high stress or activity.  Of course, not every breath is the same either - but overall I liked that it was a unique new way to do a deadline/countdown plot.

[truther]

Loved the premise and most of the episode -- the witty banter, especially, was terrific.  The Doctor, Nardole and Bill were a good trio.  Likewise loved the idea of a coldly calculating mining station (@JohnPotts) whose bottom-line owners simply offed their employees once they became too costly.

The ending left me shaking my head, though.  Tons of questions, like why send a ship with replacement workers if you're killing off the too-expensive-to-maintain ones already there?  Why did Bill not die, exactly?  (I heard something about the Doctor zapping the suit so the charge wasn't strong enough or something.)  How come nobody else got to come back to life?  It seems like this show often starts out great and then, when it looks at its watch and sees it's time to end things, just sort of has the Doctor talk quickly about a lot of mumbo jumbo and presto, happy ending.

The breath counter was a great idea but with one huge problem -- why not turn off the artificial gravity?  Then they could float and push themselves around the station and use vastly less O2.  

[clack]

The basic world-building premise of the episode won't hold up under scrutiny, but this is DW we're talking about, so whatever.

What I do appreciate about 'Oxygen' is that the premise was developed dramatically. We were presented with the concept of the automated, breath-regulated spacesuits and instead of moving on, Moffat-like, to the next idea, we got to see variations in how this basic premise jeopardized the characters.

It is so much more satisfying to see the implications of one idea inventively teased out and developed, than to see a jumble of concepts, however clever, cobbled together.

[rur]

1 hour ago, truther said:

 Why did Bill not die, exactly?  (I heard something about the Doctor zapping the suit so the charge wasn't strong enough or something.)  How come nobody else got to come back to life?

The Doctor knew that Bill's suit was malfunctioning, so he determined that it wouldn't accept/support the full charge necessary to kill her. He knew that she could be revived, but he couldn't tell her because the suits were listening. 

[call me ishmael]

4 hours ago, John Potts said:

But what exactly was the space station there for? If it's a tourist attraction, then it's not going to be very profitable to kill your customers: if it's some scientific station, then why would you charge the people who are working under threat of death if their credit runs out and if it's something else, then... you might have mentioned what. I have no inherent problem with preaching communism (though I doubt the BBC is going to freely share this episode with everyone!), it just seemed a little too pleased with itself for doing so

I thought it was some sort of mining station and that they had decided that these particular workers had ceased being productive so they were killing them off rather than wasting oxygen.  In theory the new workers would be more productive.

[clack]

54 minutes ago, call me ishmael said:

I thought it was some sort of mining station and that they had decided that these particular workers had ceased being productive so they were killing them off rather than wasting oxygen.  In theory the new workers would be more productive.

That bit made zero sense. Oxygen is expensive, but the fuel costs in transporting a ship full of replacement workers millions of miles is cheap? And how can you gain productivity if you have to train a whole new crew?

Plus, I might have missed an explanation for this, but what happens when the new crew sees that the old crew have been murdered by the company?

Edited May 14, 2017 by clack

[Enigma X]

I usually hate all reboot Doctor Who episode set in space. This was no exception.

[John Potts]

25 minutes ago, clack said:

That bit made zero sense. Oxygen is expensive, but the fuel costs in transporting a ship full of replacement workers millions of miles is cheap?

Yeah, that's what bugged me - if it's about saving money then simply not resupplying them is undoubtedly the cheapest way to do it. And I invariably find it weird when a repressive regime is tumbled by a handful of people protesting to Head Office (it would be nice if that WAS how repressive regimes were toppled, but history suggests otherwise).

I did actually quite enjoy the episode, but it required more than usual suspension of disbelief.

[penguinnj]

I am enjoying the season, but they have seemed a bit "light." I still feel like we are waiting to get to the meat of the season which I think will start next week with Extremis.

[Llywela]

10 hours ago, Bruinsfan said:

Have any other companions been abruptly killed off like that? (I know the Ponds were eventually, and River died in her first appearance though she refused to let that interfere with repeated returns to the show...)  The producers must have hated Matthew Waterhouse.

Katarina and Sara Kingdom both died while travelling with the First Doctor - both during the 12-episode epic The Daleks' Masterplan

7 hours ago, John Potts said:

I quite liked the episode, but it reminded me of Star Trek at it preachiest (hell, we even START with "Space... the final frontier"!). It didn't help that it came hot on the heels of Smile, where we have a similarly, "Sloppy programming causes the system to turn murderous" plot. But what exactly was the space station there for? If it's a tourist attraction, then it's not going to be very profitable to kill your customers: if it's some scientific station, then why would you charge the people who are working under threat of death if their credit runs out and if it's something else, then... you might have mentioned what.

It was a mining station, mining copper ore from a nearby asteroid, and the people being killed were employees who weren't productive enough. It's the kind of anti-capitalist message Who has preached numerous times in the past, and no doubt will again. A very atmospheric and exciting story - but, as usual, the details really don't stand up to much in the way of scrutiny

3 hours ago, rur said:

The Doctor knew that Bill's suit was malfunctioning, so he determined that it wouldn't accept/support the full charge necessary to kill her. He knew that she could be revived, but he couldn't tell her because the suits were listening. 

I'm presuming, then, that she was never actually dead, but only unconscious - although why she then still had a zombie 'scar' after being revived I don't know. The suits seemed to be electrocuting their occupants. If she was actually dead, there would be no reviving, not after so much time had passed.

1 hour ago, clack said:

That bit made zero sense. Oxygen is expensive, but the fuel costs in transporting a ship full of replacement workers millions of miles is cheap? And how can you gain productivity if you have to train a whole new crew?

Plus, I might have missed an explanation for this, but what happens when the new crew sees that the old crew have been murdered by the company?

Best not to examine the details too closely, or it all falls apart. That's the hallmark of the Moffat era. It's like an impressionist painting - looks beautiful from a distance, but as soon as you step close to examine the detail, it just becomes a huge mess!

[Mabinogia]

Another fun episode. I don't care that the storyline doesn't make sense because it never does on this show but it's easier to take when the characters are fun to hang out with. Liked the space crew enough to care that they were getting killed off (which is more than I could say for Bill's roomates last ep). I am glad, though, that they weren't brought back. Too much of that and all the tension is lost.

Enjoyed Nardole tagging along. They do make a good trio.

As far as the cost savings concept goes, perhaps they were already sending out a ship of supplies, so throwing on some replacement crew wouldn't cost a thing. The replacement crew could be willing to work for less. My company is going through this, not the killing off part (though I wouldn't put it past them) but the finding ways to get rid of the higher paid, lower producing (aka, older) employees and replacing them with younger, eager, just out of school kids desperate to pay off their student loans. Or hell, maybe the "replacements" weren't even human. If "corporate" managed to make the suits a little smarter, why would they even need humans in them at all? Replace the human workers who require oxygen and wages and sick leave, etc, with robots.

I still love Bill and her questions. I loved her jumping up and down and saying it didn't feel like space. She is exactly how I'd be if I were the Doctor's companion. I'd be touching everything, asking a million questions, and standing around all gobsmacked about everything.

Really curious to see how the blind Doctor storyline plays out.

[tennisgurl]

I don't know guys, I think this episode was telling us that Capitalism is Bad or something, I couldn't really tell, the message was just so subtle...

Yeah, Who is never exactly subtle about its social commentary, but this one was basically smashing us over the head with the message so hard I feel like I have bruises. But to be fair, at least I understood the message in this one, I still have no idea what the lesson we were supposed to learn from the Murder Emojii episode was, and the story itself was pretty strong with or without the message.

The weirdest part of the message was probably the ending, and the whole "your worth more dead than alive" thing. So, this corporation decides to get all their suits to kill their employees instead of just, like, firing them? Are pink slips not a thing in the future? Would the trip to call them back home cost THAT much? It just seemed so pointlessly evil.

The atmosphere was creepy, and space suits with the dead bodies were unsettling, and I liked the crew enough to want them to survive and feel bad when a few of them didn't make it. I also continue to really enjoy Bill and her dynamic with the Doctor. He seems so much lighter with her, even when things are serious or angsty. I cracked up at her being mistaken as racist against blue people (clearly a Kree) and her trying to make it better and digging herself in deeper. I still find her very endearing, even as she's getting more used to things.

Nardole was a fun addition to the story. She, Bill, and The Doctor are a good team. I miss when we had a three person team *pours one out for Amy and Rory*

No way do I believe that the blindness will be sticking around, but I'm interested in seeing if they do anything cool with it for at least an episode or two. I'm still really liking this season!

Edited May 14, 2017 by tennisgurl

[call me ishmael]

8 minutes ago, tennisgurl said:

The weirdest part of the message was probably the ending, and the whole "your worth more dead than alive" thing. So, this corporation decides to get all their suits to kill their employees instead of just, like, firing them? Are pink slips not a thing in the future? Would the trip to call them back home cost THAT much? It just seemed so pointlessly evil.

I am NOT going to try to pretend that this makes a lot of sense.  But as I understood it they all should have been dead before they sent out the distress signal and the reason for that was that if they were all dead they wouldn't be using up oxygen which was expensive.  Basically, the only reason any of the zombie's were around was that the final four hadn't been killed and therefore needed to be eliminated before the replacement crew arrived.  The whole thing had to do with life being cheaper than oxygen but since the Doctor hooked things up so that if the final ones died the station would explode that calculation went by the wayside.  

[clack]

Someone -- the writer, Moffat, whoever -- had a bee in their bonnet about replacement workers, otherwise that big plot hole could have been easily filled.

Something like: the mine is played out and is to be closed, it would be expensive to transport the miners back to Earth, therefore capitalist logic dictates that to save money the miners are to be killed.

Instead we get one group of workers being replaced by another -- a scheme that would end up costing much more than any supposed savings.

[call me ishmael]

1 hour ago, clack said:

Someone -- the writer, Moffat, whoever -- had a bee in their bonnet about replacement workers, otherwise that big plot hole could have been easily filled.

Something like: the mine is played out and is to be closed, it would be expensive to transport the miners back to Earth, therefore capitalist logic dictates that to save money the miners are to be killed.

Instead we get one group of workers being replaced by another -- a scheme that would end up costing much more than any supposed savings.

I can't believe I am defending Moffat but they needed that aspect for two reasons.  First, so that the remaining workers would believe the Doctor that they were being set up and secondly because if the company didn't want the mine to continue running there would have been no leverage in the end.  As someone said up thread (sorry, can't remember who!) this is one of those plot lines I think we have to pretend makes sense or the whole story goes.

[benteen]

Another really good episode which I've come to expect from Jaime Mathieson, whom I hope remains with Who after the new showrunner comes in.

Definitely a creepy atmosphere and the exterior of the station reminded me of Deep Space 9.  Loved the Doctor's commentary and class lesson in the beginning.

I didn't care for the anti-capitalism theme in this episode but I found the idea of capitalism run amok to be interesting.  Though the oxygen limit don't make sense and three thousands breaths is not much at all.

Loved Nardole's response to hearing that the corporation doesn't consider the station to be profitable anymore.  "Yeah, workers dying would probably do that" or something to that effect.

Very interesting ending with the Doctor and I'm curious how long it will last.

[jhlipton]

15 hours ago, John Potts said:

I'll be impressed if they maintain it for the rest of the series and only fix it with regeneration (they almost certainly won't, though).

I guess I missed something because it looked to me like The Doctor's sight was coming back.

10 hours ago, John Potts said:

I invariably find it weird when a repressive regime is tumbled by a handful of people protesting to Head Office (it would be nice if that WAS how repressive regimes were toppled, but history suggests otherwise).

It wasn't just them that toppled the regime, it was a whole bunch of thems.

[PWHCHCH]

. 

4 hours ago, jhlipton said:

I guess I missed something because it looked to me like The Doctor's sight was coming back.

It wasn't just them that toppled the regime, it was a whole bunch of thems.

The colour of his eyes returned. But still blind. I'd quite like to see him blind for the rest of the season and it's his blindness that forces him to regenerate. 

Edited May 15, 2017 by GSManiac

[benteen]

4 hours ago, GSManiac said:

. 

The colour of his eyes returned. But still blind. I'd quite like to see him blind for the rest of the season and it's his blindness that forces him to regenerate. 

It would be an interesting change for his character to deal with.  To me, Moffat missed a golden opportunity a few years back to see the Doctor deal with the fact that he was on his last regeneration.

[darkestboy]

Some good ideas but strangely the weakest episode for me to be honest.

The political satire was fine but not as effective as it could've been and the whole premise of having to buy oxygen to survive or whatnot didn't really land for me.

Bill got put through the ringer though and Nardole is definitely improving as a character but the guest cast were wasted a bit.

The Doctor's blindnesss though is interesting, 7/10

[that one guy]

On 5/14/2017 at 11:01 AM, call me ishmael said:

On 5/14/2017 at 6:46 AM, John Potts said:

But what exactly was the space station there for? If it's a tourist attraction, then it's not going to be very profitable to kill your customers: if it's some scientific station, then why would you charge the people who are working under threat of death if their credit runs out and if it's something else, then... you might have mentioned what. I have no inherent problem with preaching communism (though I doubt the BBC is going to freely share this episode with everyone!), it just seemed a little too pleased with itself for doing so

I thought it was some sort of mining station and that they had decided that these particular workers had ceased being productive so they were killing them off rather than wasting oxygen.  In theory the new workers would be more productive.

It was for copper mining on an asteroid. Which really doesn't sound profitable! The expense of getting people into space and keeping them supplied outweighs the value of copper, which is a very common element. There's a reason pennies were copper and dollars were silver. This is why space mining will probably not be at thing, at least not a human thing. Robots, maybe. But that tracks with the show, so, realism! Essentially,there was a production slowdown, and the station was operating at a loss. Because resupplying people in space is expensive, it was decided to kill the crew (to preserve air and food supplies) and send new miners. Kind of like laying off your workers temporarily when the orders aren't coming in, except more so.

I like Doctor Who again! It's a good feeling. The last episode I really loved were the "of the Doctor" ones marking the 50th Anniversary. Those were three and a half years ago! Although the past couple Christmas specials have been pretty good. But these last few have actually been fun again! It did the show a world of good to take a year off and retool.

The Doctor being blind is interesting, and I like it in theory because I'm hungry for any portrayal of people with disabilities at all on TV. Everybody's young, pretty, smart and healthy all the time. It's grating. But we'll see how this works out in practice. 

[SoothingDave]

Loved the banter.  Story made no sense.  Why would the suits need to have energy to kill their inhabitants?  Wouldn't the people die if the suits stopped giving them oxygen? I mean, it allowed Bill to be only mostly dead, but made zero sense.

I could see a crew of workers coming, not to replace these workers, but to dismantle the mining equipment and move it where it could be productive.

[tankgirl73]

Quote

 Why would the suits need to have energy to kill their inhabitants?  Wouldn't the people die if the suits stopped giving them oxygen? I mean, it allowed Bill to be only mostly dead, but made zero sense.

That's what took me out of it. The Doctor said something like, he saw that her suit was low on energy and thus wouldn't be able to give her a strong enough zap to kill her.

But energy doesn't necessarily work like that. It doesn't mean that it will continue to do all functions, but each function at lower power. It can also mean doing each function at full power, but fewer times... until it runs out completely. The suit could just as easily have given her the full power shock knowing it would run down after that sooner. Because if it actually didn't have enough power to fully zap her to death... then after it zapped her, it wouldn't have had any power left for, you know, walking itself around. Since it did have power to walk itself around, then it didn't use up all its power, thus it could have killed her.

Bleah.

[Avon.Blakes7]

On ‎5‎/‎14‎/‎2017 at 2:54 AM, Bruinsfan said:

Have any other companions been abruptly killed off like that? (I know the Ponds were eventually, and River died in her first appearance though she refused to let that interfere with repeated returns to the show...)  The producers must have hated Matthew Waterhouse.

I think they did! He was quite an obnoxious little twit that wasn't "cared for" or about; on or off the set! lol!

Edited May 15, 2017 by Avon.Blakes7

[LoneHaranguer]

Should people with a limited oxygen supply be talking so much?

[wayne67]

Was anyone else slightly annoyed by the fact that the Doctor headed towards an emergency situation without any kind of preparation for dealing with it? It'd be nice if he sometimes brought a doctor's bag along to a distress call where people might be in peril. Plus it might be funny to play into the Doctor is supposed to "make people better" angle. 

The more you think about this episode the less it makes any sense. Wouldn't breaths be a terrible unit of measurement since every person's breath would require different amounts of oxygen? 

Oh well at least I don't have to watch Clara any more. 

[SoothingDave]

There's no need for the suit to zap anything.  Just stop giving oxygen and the people will die!

[tankgirl73]

Quote

Wouldn't breaths be a terrible unit of measurement since every person's breath would require different amounts of oxygen? 

At least at one point, the computer voice thing said "average breaths". I think when they made the oxygen purchase. So that makes perfect sense. Not only will different people breathe differently under the same conditions, but one person will breathe differently under different conditions. So they talk about typical, average, usually-expected breaths. It's not intended to be an exact count, but a good estimate. There's certainly an algorithm that one standard breath = so many cc's of oxygen, but they just don't refer to it by those measurements because the breath count is more useful. Presumably if an individual has a breath usage which is quite far off the average, they'll be aware of that and adjust for that.

Quote

There's no need for the suit to zap anything.  Just stop giving oxygen and the people will die!

That, I agree, is the part that didn't make sense.

[Llywela]

2 hours ago, tankgirl73 said:

That, I agree, is the part that didn't make sense.

That, plus how Bill could survive and be revived - surely if the suit believed it had killed her, it would have shut down the oxygen and she'd have suffocated, and it was far too long for her to be revived unimpaired under those circumstances. And if she was still alive but unconscious, the suit would know she was still breathing, and would take steps accordingly - which it clearly had enough power to do, since it kept her moving with the rest. I'm not sure 'malfunctioning suit' is a good enough explanation!

[smorbie]

On 5/14/2017 at 1:27 PM, John Potts said:

Yeah, that's what bugged me - if it's about saving money then simply not resupplying them is undoubtedly the cheapest way to do it. And I invariably find it weird when a repressive regime is tumbled by a handful of people protesting to Head Office (it would be nice if that WAS how repressive regimes were toppled, but history suggests otherwise).

I did actually quite enjoy the episode, but it required more than usual suspension of disbelief.

When any show feels the need to become political, my interest drops accordingly.  For one thing, I noticed there were commercials.  I believe that's capitalism in action.  No, I don't want to venture into economic theory or any political discussions.  I was just pointing out the hypocrisy.  But, I really do hate political agendas in any shows.  And generally I will quit watching because of it.  Dr. Who, you're on report.  Watch it!  You still have my good graces left over from Matt Smith, but I've dropped many, many other shows for less that what you did.

Edited May 17, 2017 by smorbie

[wayne67]

12 hours ago, tankgirl73 said:

At least at one point, the computer voice thing said "average breaths". I think when they made the oxygen purchase. So that makes perfect sense. Not only will different people breathe differently under the same conditions, but one person will breathe differently under different conditions. So they talk about typical, average, usually-expected breaths. It's not intended to be an exact count, but a good estimate. There's certainly an algorithm that one standard breath = so many cc's of oxygen, but they just don't refer to it by those measurements because the breath count is more useful. Presumably if an individual has a breath usage which is quite far off the average, they'll be aware of that and adjust for that.

I missed the average breaths part... but I find the concept odd that a computerised/capitalistic society would have such a non standardised unit of measurement for a commodity. Oh well I'll just fanwank it as a poorly designed and run mining station. 

I'm kind of curious why Doctor Who seems to be dissing capitalism. Is it just because he has no money? and essentially has his magic machine make/steal anything he wants. 

[RobertDeSneero]

3 hours ago, wayne67 said:

I'm kind of curious why Doctor Who seems to be dissing capitalism. Is it just because he has no money? and essentially has his magic machine make/steal anything he wants. 

The Doctor is dissing the commodification of human life.  Some might argue that unfettered capitalism leads in that direction.  Whether that is true or not is a topic for another forum, but is certainly something that would wind up a character who believes you should never be cruel.

[Mabinogia]

13 hours ago, wayne67 said:

I'm kind of curious why Doctor Who seems to be dissing capitalism. Is it just because he has no money? and essentially has his magic machine make/steal anything he wants. 

For someone who doesn't actually need money to survive I would imagine capitalism would seem a strange and rather stupid concept. Hell, I do need money to survive and I think it's a stupid concept and often wonder how we got to the point.

[truther]

16 hours ago, smorbie said:

When any show feels the need to become political, my interest drops accordingly.  For one thing, I noticed there were commercials.  I believe that's capitalism in action.  No, I don't want to venture into economic theory or any political discussions.  I was just pointing out the hypocrisy.  But, I really do hate political agendas in any shows.  And generally I will quit watching because of it.  Dr. Who, you're on report.  Watch it!  You still have my good graces left over from Matt Smith, but I've dropped many, many other shows for less that what you did.

Surely we can all agree that there is a Valles Marineris-sized canyon of difference between running commercials during a TV program and killing your employees when they become too expensive to maintain.  It's not hypocrisy to teach lessons through fables, anecdotes and hyperbole.  

[smorbie]

No, but it is hypocrisy to preach about the evils of capitalism when you are benefiting from it.

[LoneHaranguer]

On 5/17/2017 at 11:33 AM, Llywela said:

That, plus how Bill could survive and be revived - surely if the suit believed it had killed her, it would have shut down the oxygen and she'd have suffocated, and it was far too long for her to be revived unimpaired under those circumstances.

Too long for current medical technology, but not necessarily for futuristic life-support suits. Theoretically, she'd have at least an hour or two, more if the suits are also dropping the temperature, as they appeared to be, before she actually died.

[Ceindreadh]

5 hours ago, smorbie said:

No, but it is hypocrisy to preach about the evils of capitalism when you are benefiting from it.

The BBC doesn't air commercials. 

[smorbie]

Not during the shows, but my understanding is that the shows are bookended by them.