SpaceScotsman

This was a very creepy episode, and as a standalone sci fi fantasy horror piece it works well. But it doesn't feel trek. Here's my conspiracy: With the dramatic different in tone, direction, the repeated references to section 12, this is a Poorly Disguised Pilot that the producers were using to test the waters for an x-files like section 12 spinoff.

Overall, I did not enjoy it. I don't seek out this kind of film normally, and I might have enjoyed it if it had led to anything interesting happening, but ultimately it has not left them with any further progress. All the dramatic moments between the away team and the "others" they hallucinated were basically "then they woke up and it was all a dream", so no relationship progress there. And within themselves, aside from more unresolved trauma, Spock seems no closer to aligning his human and vulcan selves, La'an hasn't really learned anything new about her violent tendencies she didn't already know from the last episode, and Kirk never even got to have the chat with his family because the network apparently cut out.

Agreed about Rose's jealousy.

On Rose and Mickey get along really well - it felt a bit too quick after her pouting at the end of last time. Given what I remember happening over the course of the remaining episodes, they should have done a bit more to cement Mickey's place on the team, rather than it feeling like he's just there for a little bit. That Cleopatra episode sounds like it would make a nice story of its own.

Doctor as the "Romantic Hero" does work well. On the actual romance itself, I tried to ignore the whole "I met you as a 10-year old just as many minutes ago".

This was a pretty good episode. The humour of this one feels very 2000s, in a good way, almost Scooby-do esque sneaking around. The contrasting ship and castle set design is nice, and for once the show doesn't simply use time travel to jump to somewhere, it plays an integral part of the episode's plot.

The clockwork robots is a great idea. The ticking broken click is a fantastic way of building tension, it easily gets in your head as some of Moffat's other monsters have. The inclusion of an AI that goes off the rails because of improperly bounded instructions is very timely, and that remark about the meatship smelling like nice bbq is perfect dark humour, and fits the whole body horror theme going on in this series.

The kid version of Mme Pompadour is not great at acting, but her adult counterpart played the role really well. This episode is a nice follow-on from the previous episode where the Doctor spins out a bit thinking about grief and ageing companions - this time much accelerated. I hadn't made the connection before, but this whole story feels like a protoype for Amy Pond's introduction.

While the Tardis is "locked in events", once the link is fully broken, I think at that point they could easily have pre-programmed the Tardis to go back in time and pick him back up, rather than needing to use the fireplace, but then we wouldn't have had the tragic ending. The final scene is a nice way to loop back around and tie everything together, it leaves me wanting to know more.

Overall, this is a good self-contained monster of the week show, and has some important messages about mortality and stop making stupid AI!.

Random things I noticed:

• Noel Clarke didn't get an intro credit. He's just tagging along, not part of the main cast, I guess.
• The weird gallifrey mind meld is back!
• It looks like the outdoor scenes are filmed in the same place as the end of last episode. A nice way to save on production costs.
• We got a "but… doctor who?". ding ding ding. Again, an idea that Moffat ends up developing a bit more in his series later on.

Vulcans can be arrogant, but they also have some personality to balance it out. I think part of the problem is we haven't seen much, other than a sliver of backstory at the end of the episode

I do think the away team section needed another pass, either on the writing or the direction. It had some action moments, but at the same time it didn't feel like anything the away team actually did carried any impact,and never that they were in any real danger. The only bit that actually felt it had real energy was the archeopteryx getting punched in the face.

I have mixed feelings about this episode.

The A story, with the diplomacy, philosophising about how to encounter and deal with new species, I enjoyed a lot. The ending of the time loop was rather inevitable, it being a time loop set in the past, but it worked. It was a difficult choice and it had to be made. "Pike must suffer" I guess. The translation system leaking information through subtle differences in grammar is a nice idea, it felt a bit underused as a concept though, would have been a good topic for Uhura to explore. This kind of political, philosophical, with a hint of sci-fi, story is exactly what I want from Star Trek. More of this please.

The B story, down on the planet, with the dinosaurs, didn't grab me. First off, I don't understand why they couldn't just fly the shuttle right to the wreck, why did they need to deal with the Rex? Other than getting the drive, this entire section could have been cut and the episode would not have lost anything. I get the feeling the VFX artists had a lot of fun with that section though.

Overall, it was an okay opener. Extra remarks:

• Our new vulcan is a flanderisation of vulcans, and not in a good way. "I am familiar with all earth dialects". Really? All 7000+ of them? I hope they get their comeuppance at some point soon.
• Pelia's voice seems much raspier this season. She makes another DW reference. Didn't work for me, it felt a bit too obvious and in your face. If they're going to keep making these, something more subtle might have worked, particularly for this episode given DW has had a few dinosaur episodes.
• I am really enjoying the Scotty vs Ortegas game. Looking forward to more of this
• La'An's business looks interesting, though I hope wherever this goes is distinct from the stuff we've already covered with Bashir, Una, and Khan.

If it does leave a big crater, I really hope this doesn't inspire (persons who shall remain nameless) to start developing rodding tech.

I both love and hate this. At least here we can hand wave it away as "alien computers"

I think Antony Head was pretty good in this one, but I agree not as good as he was in buffy.

I watched SJA as it aired, and from what I remember there wasn't much if anything that related to this episode. Even K9 wasn't really in it.

I have mixed feelings about this episode. From a nostalgia bait front, it hits just right. Especially the reveals of SJ and K9. Though again, would have been better without the "next time" spoilers. Anthony Head is absolutely perfect for the role - from the downright evil treatment of the kid in care at the start right down to the tempting offer he gives at the final confrontation. There's also a lot of humour sprinkled throughout - Teachers living in the school, "I'm the tin dog ". A really nice moment from the doctor as he reveals how he feels about travelling and being around humans.

However, there's lots that also doesn't really live up to expectations. After the pretty good werewolf creature last episode, the bat gargoyle creatures look lacking in comparison. The bickering throughout just feels awkward and annoying, whether it's between Rose / SJ or Mickey. The climactic school lockdown feels over the top, with music too loud and lots of directorial adrenaline without anything much happening. Other than the teachers being eaten, which almost feels played for laughs, it does not feel like there is enough threat. The God maker feels like it comes out of nowhere and I'm still not really sure what it's about.

There's so many plot holes and annoyances here it almost seems like cheating to list them off, but I'm going to do some anyway. Why is headmaster recommending visitors try the chips, why have a dramatic K9 sacrifice only to resurrect him minutes later, why does the projector screen explode in the classroom, how has only one journalist spotted whats going on, why does a match-the-symbols puzzle game rewrite the kids brains (that's all it was, you could play a flash version of this on the bbc website), why does the whole school explode at the end - wish fulfilment for the episode writer maybe?

All that being said, I still enjoyed this episode for the cross-over of characters and the acting from everyone involved. At the end I am glad that SJ got to keep a K9 (of theseus), and in a way I am also glad that mickey finally joins them in a trio.

This is one that I haven't rewatched in a long time. There's lots of good scottish actors in this one. The plot is good. It's not one of my go-to standout episodes, it's not the most exciting, but it holds up okay.

The fantasy story of werewolves is something I could easily see them having done in the recent series. Something that shines through in this episode is some of the DNA of doctor who as an educational vehicle. I didn't know about her survived Victoria's assassination attempts or that she had a disease. Some of the comments made me look up when wolves were last seen in britain - about 200 years before victoria. More than enough time for folk stories to evolve about them. We really need to reintroduce them back to our country, there's far too many deer. They mention a great comet, but I can't figure out which one it would have been in 1540.

I really like the way Queen Victoria is played here. It would have been easy to go full pomp for a story about royals but its very understated. Which plays well considering she is in mourning. But she is still willing to stand up to the Doctor's nonsense when he starts babbling. When she starts talking about tales from the beyond, it's nice to compare this to the Doctor who has also lost his species and is in mourning, who you have to imagine would also be desperate from some kind of message.

I was preparing myself for some ungodly CGI, but actually it's pretty good. The transformation is creepy, and the actual wolf design looks great, if a bit blurry. The split-screen screen with doctor and wolf listening through the doorway was really nice.

Character-wise it's nice to see Doctor catching himself being rude, and getting used to his new self. Rose is shown competent, taking charge, which is nice against all the women cowering at the beginning. The women eventually take on some strong action later in the episode. The running "not amused" bit is some nice levity, and continues the kind of humour that Rose had with 9, but it feels a bit more playful or flirty (?) to me when she does it with 10.

Plot annoyances:

• When in human form, the monster has the same desire as the assassins - go after the queen. When in wolf form, it can break out of the cage easily. Why is it even in the cage to begin with?
• How did the wolf get out of the mistletoe library doors that the doctor closed?
• The chase scenes went on possibly a little bit too long for my liking

Fun facts:

• On BBC iPlayer, the sub track for this episode has the continuity announcer's dialogue on-screen for a fraction of a second when the episode starts.
• Doctor makes a joke about "Balamory", a Scottish kids TV show which was cancelled just as Doctor Who was being revived. Doctor who is now effectively cancelled, but in this year "Balamory" was revived with new episodes.
• The bad wolf meme rears itself again.

I forgot these were happening again. Tennants first run is a pretty good one, though upon rewatching this episode isn't the best opener.

Thoughts for this episode:

• Within the episode plot, there's some good stuff here. Lots of opportunity for angry doctor. It's a good exploration of the ethics of the lab. It has to be vulnerable people who already have incurable diseases who help to test our new treatments. They're effectively slaves in the episode but in the real world can you truly consent if you're being offered something when you're in a vulnerable position? Much less when being taken advantage of by for profit pharma companies funding the studies. The whole ethics thing might have been more impactful if we had seen a progression from something obviously harmless like single-cell brains or cultured meats (that we actually have right now), stepping slowly up to full life forms, as then there's some ambiguity about where exactly you should draw the line.
• However, the actual logic of the entire hospital doesn't make much sense if you think about it for more than a few seconds. The disinfection scene is amusing but it makes no sense. The solution of mixing a literal solution of different medicines feels like it can't possibly work. Nor really did having lifts going to a basement people know nothing about - particularly a hospital that has hidden a whole load of secret stuff would surely have spotted it. And the footprint of the whole hidden lab seems bigger than the hospital itself.
• I am not a fan of the hospital set designs. The reception for the hospital looks like an airport check in desk. The wards don't look much like hospital wards either. The CGI in the ladder and lift shafts during the "zombie chase" has not aged well at all.
• I wonder if they knew what they were doing with Bo at this point in the storyline. The idea of a silent watcher following humanity is a nice contrast compared to the doctor's often quite obvious interventions. I don't think it really meshes with who Bo ultimately is revealed to be, though. The general effects and his (their?) design are nice. The melody and themes used with the Bo meeting is really nice.
• As most of you already commented, the rose mind swap bit is quite awkward to watch, doesn't really land for me. It's good the doctor immediately clocks something is wrong, though he probably should have acted sooner. The swap isn't much better in the doctor.
• The design and acting of the various cat nurses is really creepy and well done. Ditto the infectious pustules and scab effects, very offputting. The idea of a "petrification" disease is weird, but cool.
• The circular ending is a really nice way to round off the episode and humanise cassandra's character - time travel used well here.

Two stand out lines this episode: "You're talking out your arse" and "Who needs arms when you have claws"