Doctor Who: Cold Blood

[carmen_lj]

This evening I watched a lovely BBC show what calls itself Doctor Who.

• A quick yay at last week: boo at Amy disappearing for ages; yay at Rory's quieter and calmer curiousity; yay at Nasreen and how the Doctor treats her like The Latest One and it is great; yay at the wee kid and his Holmes quotage; yay at SCARY CHURCHYARDS; omg I think this might be a Chibnall script that is not cack.
  
  
• Amy does pickpocketing and rescuing of herself, hurrah!
  
  
• It all looks a but Planet of the Daleks in that big underground bit. Minus lolarious melting daleks and plus lots of frozen reptile people.
  
  
• Is homo reptilia actually an improvement on Eocenes or Silurians or SEA DEVILS? Mostly I don't much care about this Exciting Continuity Issue, especially since they're going on about 300 million years ago and I'm pretty sure there were about no ape-like dudes bouncing around the planet back then. (I would like to think this constant need to Get Dates Wrong is a cunning injoke by this point.)
  
  
• Circular guns, woot!
  
  
• "The humans killed them." Yes, Doctor. They did. AND SO DID YOU AND YOUR EX-BOYFRIEND. But don't mention that, you wouldn't want them to get the wrong idea.
  
  
• I assume the masks are there cause they're like dead fashionable for these dudes, and save money on scales onna face make-up.
  
  
• "We're not monsters, and neither are they." OH, I DO NOT CARE IT IS BEING OBVIOUS. It reminds me SO SO MUCH WITH GLEE OF PERTWEE. Even down to the SLEDGEHAMMER THEMES. TRULY THE SPIRIT OF MALCOLM HULKE LIVES.
  
  
• Totes love how Amy is dead excited about The Future and "Oooh, do we share the planet?" This makes me happy. Aaaw, please do not all end in FIRE AND DEATH AGAIN.
  
  
• Um, should Amy really be giving away the Australian outback?
  
  
• It is a bit like a gorgeous loveletter to the Pertwee era where they've squished up season eight and seven and extracted the Master and UNIT and six hours then mixed in the shiny goodness of ELEVENTY.
  
  
• I am so, so happy that they've got an awesome number of distinct characters on both sides with all different sorts of agendas and how, despite the Doctor's faith and optimism in both species, he is asking something INCREDIBLY TRICKY of them all. And yet we can see how it could possibly work (if, y'know, there weren't all them governments getting in the way), at the same time as we know how it's going to all fall apart.
  
  
• HE IS BLOWING GUNS UP WITH HIS SONIC LIKE HE BLEW UP MINES IN SEA DEVILS SO I MIND LESS IT IS V MAGIC WAND AT THE MOMENT, YES.
  
  
• "As legend or prophecy or religion, but make it known somehow this planet is to be shared." I love that a bit: epic storytelling to save the world! Plus, a better plan than blow them up, blow them up again or do sod all while the apes and reptiles kill each other.
  
  
• OMG NASREEN ISN'T GOING TO DIE. She's going to be EPIC instead. I mean, okay she's staying for the dude she's just found but also she's going to so make this actually work in a thousand years, ain't she? ILU NASREEN.
  
  
• STOP KILLING RORY SHOW.
  
  
• THAT WAS HORRID. EVEN THOUGH THE DOCTOR CALLED RORY GORGEOUS. I assume the engagement ring will somehow MAGICALLY BRING HIM BACK PLEASE. I am mostly V Sad we are losing Team!Eleventy!Amy!Rory. I did not cry a little bit, obv.
  
  
• OMG A BIT OF THE TARDIS.
  
  
• That was seriously awesome. A tense and atmospheric first part followed by an epic, theme-laden part two. NASREEN DIDN'T DIE. Can't believe Chibnall wrote it.
  
  
• Trying V Hard not to be Bittercakes about the lack of Rory next week, cause it looks quite good and also Bill Nighy, yay!

Comments

[drho.livejournal.com]

The Doctor in bondage in caves with a ginger and a companion death: it was like a mixed tape of Five's era. I loved that.

I may have to punch that crack in the face, though.

[calapine.livejournal.com]

There was a mention of celery too!

[fannishnonsense]

*sobs*

[calapine.livejournal.com]

HORRIDNESSES!

[fannishnonsense]

They better fix it! Or I'll... cry more. But, they have to fix it, right? Right?

[calapine.livejournal.com]

I assume, yes.

[fannishnonsense]

Well ok, yeah. But in the meantime... *sniffles*

[calapine.livejournal.com]

HE BETTER. Or I shall be writing Letters of WHIIIIINE.

...

I have pretty much convinced myself he's coming back; it's going to be a horrid shock if he doesn't.

[pontisbright.livejournal.com]

I am forgiving them for killing Rory because it's fixable, right? RIGHT? *sniffs* Oh, Amy waving at herself, and not realising. Woes.

Love letter, that's exactly what it is. Last week I was a bit 'eh' about quite how referential it was, but I was being a nana. Who is at its best when it remembers bits of itself. Love how the 2-parteriness gave it room for there to be real development for a big guest cast. And Nasreen didn't die! Instead she is so kicking arse in 1000 years. Hello, lovely political nudginess about how immigration might be of positive value to a society!

Also: MARVIN THE PARANOID SILURIAN. Yeah, so much love. And some crying.

[calapine.livejournal.com]

I am forgiving them for killing Rory because it's fixable, right? RIGHT?

I ASSUME.

Hello, lovely political nudginess about how immigration might be of positive value to a society!

Nudgey like a SLEDGEHAMMER.

[pontisbright.livejournal.com]

It's Chibnall. I don't bother hoping for subtlety. :)

[calapine.livejournal.com]

I am in favour of sledgehammering cause it just makes me ridic happy the show has decided to have a political conscience again sometimes.

[sabra-n.livejournal.com]

If the episode was making a point about immigration, it was a mixed message at best, given Amy's "brilliant" idea to ghettoize the newcomers in areas humans find uninhabitable.

The message about not justifying one's own hostile tendencies by acting like war is inevitable was definitely there, though. :)

[elisi]

Very sad, but I can see why they did it. And yes, despite rather hating Chibnall for killing Rory, the story worked and didn't have enormous plot holes.

*sniff*

I'm off to watch the crack known as Eurovision now...

*sniffles again*

[calapine.livejournal.com]

There was way too much made of Teh Engagement Ring and its Survival for me not to believe he will be back. Somehow. Liken magic.

[elisi]

Magic is good. If just we believe...

(I always liked Tinkerbell!Doctor btw. *g*)

[calapine.livejournal.com]

I...did not hate Tinkerbell!Doctor. Which may as well mean I loved him given, y'know, fandom.

[elisi]

LOL!

(Tinkerbell!Doctor was so ridiculous I couldn't help loving him. However did they keep a straight face?)

[londonkds.livejournal.com]

All the evil people were still female though, which I might let slide with some people given Amy and Nasreen, but not with Chibnall given his history.

[calapine.livejournal.com]

Aye, fair point, though I think 'evil' is too strong, still it was only irrational women what messed up the chance for peace, so, yeah.

[incandescens]

Yes, but I can also see an argument for "if it had been men what messed it up on both sides, then people would be saying that if only they'd let the women talk and bond over being women and motherhood and whatever then it would have worked".

There were women who nearly made it work (Nasreen and Amy). There were women who messed it up. There were men who messed it up, too -- what if Ambrose's father had just refused to set the drill the way she wanted it?

Equal opportunity messing up chances for peace. And trying to fix it.

[calapine.livejournal.com]

There were men who messed it up, too -- what if Ambrose's father had just refused to set the drill the way she wanted it?

Not stopping someone else else's insurance policy for getting out allive is hardly in the same league as manslaughter or trying to start an interspecies war.

[incandescens]

But if I understood it correctly, Ambrose (or her father) hadn't set any way to turn it off. It was going to auto-activate and drill down on schedule (and a fairly tight schedule at that). Or did I get that one wrong?

[calapine.livejournal.com]

I thought they destroyed it at the end.

[incandescens]

They did, yes, but I don't think they'd planned to. That is, I don't think Ambrose and her father had planned out fully what to do (curse these pronouns).

And it may just have been me, but while the Silurian scientist came through on the side of peaceful cooperation eventually, I found his description of regularly taking specimens to examine for the last few hundred years, and keeping the young in suspended animation... just a bit creepy.

[iko.livejournal.com]

*tears*

Great episode with so much stuff. SO MUCH! And the bit of the TARDIS being shrapnel... well, shrapnel comes from the object that exploded. The shell fragments of whatever explodes. Which means the TARDIS is what exploded. Or contained whatever exploded.

*wibbles*

[calapine.livejournal.com]

Probably he just detachs that sign from the TARDIS then...uses it as a bomb. Yes. PERFECT LOGICKS.

[syzygy-lj.livejournal.com]

IT'S FROM A REAL POLICE BOX FROM TEH 60s WHAT GOT SUCKED INTO THE CRACK AND YOU CAN'T TELL ME ANY DIFFERENT.

[peeeeeeet.livejournal.com]

Is homo reptilia actually an improvement on Eocenes or Silurians or SEA DEVILS?

Barely. Jonjo says it is wrong Latin. And from what little I know of how the naming system works, I would have thought "Reptilia Sapiens" would have made much more sense.

[calapine.livejournal.com]

My vote is still for SEA DEVILS.

[peeeeeeet.livejournal.com]

I was hoping they were going to be called TUNNEL DEVILS

[syzygy-lj.livejournal.com]

Reptillia Sapiens would be better, yeah. I was thinking the same thing.

[wishfulaces.livejournal.com]

I love Nasreen. She is BRILLIANTER THAN EVERYBODY ELSE. Rory is NOT DEAD. Etc etc etc.

Stupid Rory. DO NOT BE DEAD.

[shobogan.livejournal.com]

IT WAS SO AWESOME AND THEN. RORY yeah I teared up.

I thought Nasreen meant she'd finally found what she was looking for beneath the earth.

[sunlightdances.livejournal.com]

*clapclapclap* An Asian person wot DIDN'T DIE. I was so happy I cried. And then Rory died and I cried a lot more. But they wouldn't leave behind an engagement ring if he wasn't going to come back to life, right? Right?

RIGHT?

[piccgirl.livejournal.com]

*sniffle*

I might be wiping my eyes. I...ugh. Engagement ring surviving=Rory's coming back. THIS IS MY HEAD-CANON, IT IS GOING TO HAPPEN.

I did love quite a lot Amy picking the pockets of the scientist. She's quite the thief- picking a lock in TBB and now this. I quite adore it.

Also, Nasreen is epic.

There seems to be quite the theme of forgetting things. I know it goes along with the crack, but it also goes back to the forget button in TBB. Curious things are curious.

And Bill Nighy next week. This should be brilliant.