ValueSubtracted

Yeah, I fully expect the final "deal" to be rather toothless.

The fact that I didn't claim a station in Euclid is proof that I wasn't really thinking things through. We'll be around once you get there!

I think I got a stomach bug or food poisoning

I feel you. I've been going through it this weekend, myself. Flu season came early.

In Picard, she becomes a vigilante and ultimately kills Bjayzl out of revenge even after Picard explicitly challenges that choice.

And you believe the show was endorsing the fact that she did it? Portrayal of an act is not an endorsement of that act. Seven did plenty of shady stuff on Voyager, from trying to take over the ship to disobeying orders and waking up the Vaadwaur.

That distinction matters to me: not “nobody ever does wrong”, but the narrative still knows that the means require moral scrutiny.

You seem very determined to make the case that the new shows don't provide that, but I simply don't agree.

Doesn’t NuTrek glorify Section 31, which is basically just that?

Arguably in the movie, though they didn't do anything particularly immoral in it.

Beyond that, not even a little bit. They're still the bad guys.

NuTrek would probably use it to 9/11 Romulus’s sun’s core and wipe their home world out just to stir up drama.

If you have to conjure examples out of thin air, it's possible your argument isn't as strong as you think it is.

And even then...they got there in the end. It was rather the point of the arc.

Do you have any particular examples of the "the ends justify the means" attitude you seem to think is so prevalent now?

it’s a bit of a reverse rug pull, given she never actually “dies”, unless I am misremembering something.

I was thinking the same thing - I guess being locked in another universe is the equivalent of death, at least from everyone else's perspective, but it's still rather weak.

It's hard to know what to make of this, which I suppose means it's time for an RTD finale!

There's some stuff in here that I like a lot - the normalization of the "ghosts" in society is at once silly and realistic, and a very RTD idea. The Doctor quietly assuming control of the situation depite nominally being Torchwood's prisoner, culminating in his little standoff with Yvonne. Torchwood's whole "restore the British Empire and defend the borders from aliens" vibe probably works better now than it did at the time. Oh, and the idea of building a skyscraper just to reach a spatial anomaly is great. I like the Void Ship, and it only occurred to me today that it was probably designed to be reminiscent of the spheres on a Dalek.

But there are also plenty of things that I think could have been executed better. The "ghosts" are a neat concept, but sort of a bad fit for Cybermen, since they're the one villain that have a very distinct way of moving, and the ghosts aren't like that. The big, goofy levers in Torchwood Tower are silly, especially when you can apparently operate them remotely with some haxxing skillz we haven't seen the likes of since "School Reunion." The set design is uninspired, especially when we get to the paned windows that definitely don't belong on a skyscraper. A lot of the episode seems a little undercooked.

But it's engaging, and sets the table nicely for next week's Cybermen/Dalek war. I'm looking forward to revisiting that one.

Five days later, I've finally brought myself to watch it. Here's what I've got.

This is "Doctor Who" trying to do an episode of "The X-Files," and falling flat on its face.

It's brightly (and flatly) lit, when it should be dark and moody.

Murray Gold's score is unusually lifeless, and seems to strike the wrong tone more often than not. Give me some mournful cello while they're in Chloe's room, examining her drawings.

It tries to blend a story about aliens with more "mature" themes like child abuse and depression, and isn't terribly successful.

The "all it needs is the attention of the world" riff was basically done several episodes ago (and better) in "The Idiot's Lantern."

Just a complete failure on damn near every level.

But at least they do a better job of "mature themes" a few years later with "Night Terrors," and of evil drawings with "Flatline."

Yeah, I'd like to see a comparison of switching to permanent DST and continuing with the twice-annual changes.

I wouldn’t mind if it was solved through introspection and realization

I think that's what happened, at the end of the day. Princess Thalia is fictional, but she's representative of personality traits La'An has suppressed since she was a child.

I don't remember a cogent explanation for the planet, either - it didn't bug me, but it is an omission for sure.