Power of the Doctor

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Dazzle1
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This was in my opinion the best story with Jodie Whittaker

Very fast paced not too preachy.

Besides the return of Tegan and Ace, we get cameos from all the actors who played the Doctor in Classic who are still alive (except Tom Baker) and all the actors who are still alive and could be on earth including William Russell who played the first Doctor's companion Ian Chesterton
Damselbinder

I thought this episode was absolute, staggering balls. About the same level of quality as the standard Chibnall tentpole episode, basically. Spoilers from here on.
Spoiler
There was just way, WAY too much going on, to the point where everything felt like a subplot. The poor editors at the BBC were obviously struggling to assemble the footage in a way that made sense. That for me was the biggest single issue - while none of the individual plot points were all that bad by Dr Who silliness standards, the way they were mashed together made it all seem ridiculous. Even with the feature length, it wasn't enough. There are several concepts here that deserved an episode by themselves:
1) A rebel Dalek who interprets his own race's doctrine of genetic purity in such a way that he thinks the Daleks themselves must die
2) The return of two former companions who both left the Doctor under pretty fractious circumstances, especially Tegan, who is the only companion I can remember who left because she was just appalled by the horror and violence of a life travelling with the Doctor.
3) The Master stealing the Doctor's body
4) The Master somehow killing EVERY SEISMOLOGIST IN THE WORLD (I doubt it was meant to be literally all of them, but the dialogue effectively implied this as far as I can remember??)
5) The Master uniting the Cybermen and the Daleks over their mutual loathing of the Doctor

As for 1), the rebel Dalek gets immediately and unceremoniously killed. This is also relevant to 5), because the idea is that the three villainous factions team up to defeat the Doctor and everything. But the Daleks do literally all of the work. They are entirely responsible for tricking and capturing the Doctor, and once they have her at their mercy, their alliance is now completely redundant, because they already have what they want. They could have just killed the Doctor right there and told the Master and the Cybermen to go and fuck themselves. I understand why the Cybermen are teaming with the Master, because he's enhancing their technology something fierce, but what the hell are the Daleks getting out of it OTHER than killing the Doctor, which they accomplish ENTIRELY WITHOUT THE HELP OF THE OTHER FACTIONS?

2) By the end felt almost entirely pointless to the episode itself. Both Ace and Tegan got some nice moments with holograms of their respective Doctors patching up their relationship with him and -

STOP THE PRESSES - sorry yes I've just reminded myself that the Doctor implants Yaz, Tegan and Ace with subcutaneous AI holograms of herself which JUST SO HAPPEN to be useful just then and those holograms get way more done in the episode than the Doctor herself okay - START THE PRESSES

- it's fine, but you could cut them out of the episode entirely and basically nothing would be lost.

3) I... THINK this was the A-plot? Like, in principle that was the A-plot? The Master does a thingy so that the Doctor regenerates into him? Like, she turns into Sacha Dhawan? What I was expecting was some sort of combination of their personalities; like the Doctor's goodness would influence him in some way - like a sort of Superior Spider-Man situation. But... I think Sacha Dhawan was acting a little differently? Like he was more coldly threatening than unbearably "I'm da jokah baybee"-manic like he normally is, but that doesn't feel like he's fused with the Doctor, that just feels like he's acting like a slightly different species of freak. And then his plan is, what, to ruin the Doctor's reputation? I mean don't get me wrong, the Master can certainly be petty, but as a friend of mine described it: "that's My Little Pony-villain tier shit". And he does exactly one thing which - which I don't know how he does it? Like the editing really doesn't make it seem like he's done it off screen. He just arrives somewhere where there's a war and goes "haha that was me I'm the Doctor and I did that war" to a news camera. And he never does it again, and we never see any consequences, and I DOUBT VERY MUCH THAT RTD IS GONNA BE PICKING UP THAT PLOT THREAD.

Then when he changes back because of course he does he goes "Doctor don't make me go back to being me" and I'm like "oh fuck that that was SO UNEARNED" - that is the most BASIC BITCH shit you can do for a villain body swap episode and they didn't even pull THAT off! And you know why they didn't pull it off? Because the Master just looks like the Master! No-one treats him like the Doctor - ever, at all, so it's not like that one episode of Buffy where Faith gets Buffy's body and she's freaked out by how people are suddenly being loving and kind towards her which she's never experienced before and -

- bruh remember that bit in Angel season 4 where Faith shows up and Wesley is acting as her watcher again but it's Angel, so he's cool now so he and Faith have this awesome dark version of Buffy and Giles' dynamic and -

I'm getting distracted again.

Okay point is it doesn't make any emotional sense at fucking all. Like - like wouldn't it have made more sense if the MASTER had regenerated into Jodie Whitaker? Give her the chance to do some different fucking acting for one thing.

Okay uhhh where was I... okay yeah Ace teleports into a volcano to beat up daleks... and GRAHAM is there? Bradley fucking Whitford just abseiled into a volcano, did he? What the hell's he going to do to a Dalek? Present some light entertainment at them?

uuuuuhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh okay I think that's more or less everything... and then the Doctor regenerates... and turns back into David Tennant? Like, okay? Cool? I guess? Basically my opinion on this is going to depend exactly 100% on what they end up doing with it. It could turn into something cool, it could be RTD patting himself on the back way too fucking hard, it could be a misguided effort from the BBC to apologise for the Chibnall years. We'll see.
Now THAT'S what I call an INNER conflict.
Dazzle1
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How do you do that spoiler on the site, so I can respond. Not that I don't agree with many of your points. But this was watchable, unlike most of Chibnall
Damselbinder

Dazzle1 wrote:
1 year ago
How do you do that spoiler on the site, so I can respond. Not that I don't agree with many of your points. But this was watchable, unlike most of Chibnall
Put (spoiler) (/spoiler) around your text, except use square brackets instead of normal ones.
Dazzle1
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so [ spoiler] text
Spoiler
Damselbinder

Yup. Also in the full editor mode, in the icons bar just above the text with font options there's a little eye symbol with a line through it that you can use as well; it's the third icon from the right.
Last edited by Damselbinder 1 year ago, edited 1 time in total.
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tallyho
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Dazzle1
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Spoiler
Although I said this watchable, there were problems

I agree Daleks ands Cyberman working together and with the Master is a problem. The Master has double crossed them both But the Cyberman are suppose to get the human race to become the new Cyberman

No fan of Dan Lewis as a character, the most Beta Male since Turlough or maybe ever, but you write him out of story when he has been in the series. But this is a story only female may apply for hero status(sorry Graham Ace did not need your help) So it is DR Poppins, Yaz, Tegan,Ace and Kate Stewart

Tegan was never that great a companion, no major help to the Doctor, and Chibnall is being revisionist; she chose to leave, was sick of the conflict. Did like the reference to Adric, in the 5th Doctor scene.

So Unit brings former companions as consultants, well the choices are limited. If Caroline Jones was alive Liz Shaw would have been the best choice of earth based companions, same with Sarah Jane Smith. No men from Unit or John Levine was not interested.

As far as bringing back Classic companions, I would have preferred. Romana, Leela or Nyssa

The Master's motivation I have a problem with. Even the roger Delgado version at most wanted to be respected by the Doctor or have the Doctor join him. He never wanted to be the Doctor, because he felt he was superior to him

But as I said I could watch this and enjoy parts of it, something I can't say since Young Doctor Who Matt Smith
Spoiler
Alice
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when live chat is back taliho
Damselbinder

Dazzle1 wrote:
1 year ago
Spoiler
Although I said this watchable, there were problems

I agree Daleks ands Cyberman working together and with the Master is a problem. The Master has double crossed them both But the Cyberman are suppose to get the human race to become the new Cyberman

No fan of Dan Lewis as a character, the most Beta Male since Turlough or maybe ever, but you write him out of story when he has been in the series. But this is a story only female may apply for hero status(sorry Graham Ace did not need your help) So it is DR Poppins, Yaz, Tegan,Ace and Kate Stewart

Tegan was never that great a companion, no major help to the Doctor, and Chibnall is being revisionist; she chose to leave, was sick of the conflict. Did like the reference to Adric, in the 5th Doctor scene.

So Unit brings former companions as consultants, well the choices are limited. If Caroline Jones was alive Liz Shaw would have been the best choice of earth based companions, same with Sarah Jane Smith. No men from Unit or John Levine was not interested.

As far as bringing back Classic companions, I would have preferred. Romana, Leela or Nyssa

The Master's motivation I have a problem with. Even the roger Delgado version at most wanted to be respected by the Doctor or have the Doctor join him. He never wanted to be the Doctor, because he felt he was superior to him

But as I said I could watch this and enjoy parts of it, something I can't say since Young Doctor Who Matt Smith
Spoiler
yeah females only get to be heroes except




hmm... wait... wasn't there a dashing male mercenary whose unexpected presence in the story foils the Master's plans and who personally holds the Master to threat and shoots him when he gets snippy and without whom the heroes' plan would have failed? What was his name again? Minder? Linder?
Dazzle1
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Posts: 1770
Joined: 10 years ago

Damselbinder wrote:
1 year ago
Dazzle1 wrote:
1 year ago
Spoiler
Although I said this watchable, there were problems

I agree Daleks ands Cyberman working together and with the Master is a problem. The Master has double crossed them both But the Cyberman are suppose to get the human race to become the new Cyberman

No fan of Dan Lewis as a character, the most Beta Male since Turlough or maybe ever, but you write him out of story when he has been in the series. But this is a story only female may apply for hero status(sorry Graham Ace did not need your help) So it is DR Poppins, Yaz, Tegan,Ace and Kate Stewart

Tegan was never that great a companion, no major help to the Doctor, and Chibnall is being revisionist; she chose to leave, was sick of the conflict. Did like the reference to Adric, in the 5th Doctor scene.

So Unit brings former companions as consultants, well the choices are limited. If Caroline Jones was alive Liz Shaw would have been the best choice of earth based companions, same with Sarah Jane Smith. No men from Unit or John Levine was not interested.

As far as bringing back Classic companions, I would have preferred. Romana, Leela or Nyssa

The Master's motivation I have a problem with. Even the roger Delgado version at most wanted to be respected by the Doctor or have the Doctor join him. He never wanted to be the Doctor, because he felt he was superior to him

But as I said I could watch this and enjoy parts of it, something I can't say since Young Doctor Who Matt Smith
Spoiler
He is there for many 5-10 minutes in the entire show
yeah females only get to be heroes except




hmm... wait... wasn't there a dashing male mercenary whose unexpected presence in the story foils the Master's plans and who personally holds the Master to threat and shoots him when he gets snippy and without whom the heroes' plan would have failed? What was his name again? Minder? Linder?
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tallyho
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Alice wrote:
1 year ago
when live chat is back taliho
Don't know sorry that's a question for the Big Boss
(huh-HA!! Let's get it on!) [One for all you Carl Douglas fans out there. I realise that's probably just me.]
How strange are the ways of the gods ...........and how cruel.

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