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  • I have to say, to me, this is as much an instant classic as "73 yards" and "Dot and bubble". Maybe even more so. This one warrants a rewatch or two. So bloody good!

    I don't usually do this "immediate reaction" thing, but what the hell. This episode was quite exciting, so I'm going to nerd out.

    • No need for spoiler tags in these threads, people should know what they're getting into!

      I don't think I'm quite as high on it as you are, but that was a lot of fun.

      I’m getting flashbacks to “Idiot’s lantern”

      For sure - I know that's not a terribly well-regarded episode, but this was a good execution of that basic premise. I thought a lot about "Flatline" as well.

      I like how the segregation was handled with seriousness, but wasn’t turned into a hamfisted Teaching Opportunity.

      I've often thought that there's a core tension with addressing civil rights issues on DW - they're important, and they absolutely should be addressed...but they also run the risk of dominating every single episode in which they're relevant (which, unfortunately, is a lot of them). I think it was handled pretty well in the Whitaker era, and that continues here.

      F—, the giggle…!

      A blindingly obvious connection that I didn't expect (mainly because I don't spend a lot of time speculating). I'm actually glad RTD continues to lean into these incomprehensible beings that play by their own rules.

      The (fictional) fans were lovely, and tragic, and clever

      I look forward to the rage of people who feel like they've been attacked. The fans were a lot of fun, and I fully expect to see them again in "Wish World." It just seems like they have a larger role to play, and their whole deal seems to overlap with Mrs. Flood's.

      All in all, a really deftly-handled episode. A fun, one-off story that also manages to further the Doctor/Belinda relationship, and continue to seed the season-long arc.

      My biggest complaint? Logan, the diner employee. I feel like this show has a long history of trying and failing to write natural-sounding American dialogue, and Logan unfortunately got the worst of it. The time period helps to paper it over to an extent, but it bumped me almost every time he said more than a handful of words.

      • I spoiler tagged this in part because between iPlayer and BBC One the show has such an incremental release schedule, and perhaps most because my watch notes were so long. I don't want to leave a foot long first post that scares others off 😄

        I look forward to the rage of people who feel like they've been attacked.

        Oh, as far as I have seen Reddit Who is about to explode 😂 I thought this was a very mild, even gentle depiction of Whovians. A bonus re RTD's recent comments on "democratising" cosplay is, now you can just wear your store bought merchandise and be one of the honest-to-canon fans.

        I hadn't for a second thought that they might reappear later in the season. Maybe they'll reenact the Wilderness Years in the finale, saving the Doctor from Mrs Flood's "cancellation". I mean, it's not going to happen, but that would be a very meta thing to do, and in keeping with the fourth wall breaking. Also, it would totally fly over casual viewers' heads.

        In terms of the "American" accents, I'm not a native English speaker, so a lot of that detail goes by me unnoticed. By now I know that if I can tell a specific American dialect is spoken in a TV show, it's probably a fairly ludicrous parody to native speakers 😉

        • I thought this was a very mild, even gentle depiction of Whovians.

          Oh it was, but...Reddit's gonna Reddit, and the internet's gonna internet.

          In terms of the “American” accents, I’m not a native English speaker, so a lot of that detail goes by me unnoticed.

          Honestly, it's not even the accent. I think the guy's accent was...adequate (full disclosure, I'm Canadian, so I can't judge US accents too harshly). But the dialogue often seems just a little stilted to me, with word choices that don't quite seem to align with what an American would say.

          The most egregious DW example to me is from way back in "The Poison Sky"/"The Sontaran Strategem", when the ostensibly American Luke Rattigan kept ranting about how "clever" he was, which is simply not something an American (or Canadian, for that matter) would say. Nothing in this episode rose to that level, but it just seemed a little off.

          • the dialogue often seems just a little stilted to me

            Ah, right. Reading back now I see you were talking about the writing, not his reading of it. That probably comes from Davies' British vocabulary, and the fact(?) that there is no American involved who could've given it a language checkup.

            Not even the Disney liaison bothered to comment on it apparently, and if you believe some of the online fan discourse out there, they dictate everything that goes on screen 😄

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