Doctor Who S38E3 "Orphan 55" / YMMV

Alternative Character Interpretation: Yaz is shown looking askance at Ryan while he's chatting to Bella, suggesting either she's jealous or is having an interested but watchful Shipper on Deck moment.
Anvilicious: Hime hammers in the environmental Aesop with all the subtlety of a Captain Planet episode. Even by modern Who standards, and the coincidental timing with devastating wildfires in Australia, a lot of viewers felt the moralizing at the end was too much — especially the grim tone of the Doctor's speech in the final minutes, as if she were talking to the audience, not Team TARDIS. Then it got even worse when just three episodes later we got another Green Aesop story which handled its messaging less ostentatiously and was better received for it.
Ass Pull: Kane just... survives. It's not explained how she got out of the Dreg Hive, considering her only exit was blocked and the entire area was swarming with Dregs that she had made sure to draw attention to herself.
Don't Shoot the Message: Even some who agreed with the environmental message found the episode's delivery of it very off-putting, or ham-fisted at best. This episode is commonly reviled for being so preachy that it's outright Narm.
It's the Same, Now It Sucks!: Many fans were quick to note that the Earth All Along twist had been done far better all the way back in the Sixth Doctor's era with "The Mysterious Planet" — which isn't even considered one of the better stories from the classic run — and also had The Reveal happen by means of a subway station to boot.
Just Here for Godzilla: Even with everything around her going to hell in a handbasket, the Doctor is still in a bad mood — sniping at her companions, showing perky arrogance (she prefers talking to herself because others just get in the way), revealing a snarky side — was seen as the highlight of the episode, and left people excited to see her snap like a twig in future episodes.
Memetic Mutation: Vilma never stops crying out for BENNI!
Narm:
- The episode ends with an absurdly on-the-nose And Knowing Is Half the Battle speech from the Doctor on a Green Aesop that was already perfectly clear by the episode itself, with Jodie Whittaker appearing to be struggling against the urge to actually look straight at the camera the whole time. It's impossible to take seriously thanks to how artificial it is.
- Bella and Ryan saying goodbye to each other by putting their thumbs in their mouths. Even with context, it looks absolutely ridiculous and makes it practically impossible to take the intended dramatic goodbye seriously. Even Ryan looks bewildered as he returns the gesture.
- One of the side characters, Vilma, finds her partner of forty-six years, Benni, has been kidnapped by the Dregs, so she spends most of the episode tagging along with the Doctor to rescue him, constantly yelling out, "BENNI! BENNI, WHERE ARE YOU?!", in a very hammy and artificial way, and always at the worst possible time, making her scenes unintentionally hilarious. The comedy comes to a head when Vilma decides to pull a Heroic Sacrifice and she runs at the Dregs, screaming out, "WHICH ONE OF YOU HURT MY BENNI??!!!", before they eat her and the scene cuts away to Yaz gawping in shock. Vilma quickly achieved meme status in the fandom.
Special Effect Failure: This episode is widely considered one of, if not the, most technically inept of the 21st century series; Hyph3n's make-up design would have looked cheap and tacky even in a pre-1989 story, Nevi and Silas' wigs look like they came out of a joke shop, and the Dregs plainly weren't ready in time.
Strangled by the Red String: Bella kisses Ryan at the end with little build-up between them beyond some awkward friendly chemistry at the beginning and some even more awkward flirting in the van.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: The episode has loads of side characters who all get short-changed^*, with very little background as to why they're in the resort.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: So Ryan spends a considerable amount of the episode with a woman who becomes a terrorist because her mum abandoned her at a young age. The same Ryan who had a significant amount of the runtime of Resolution devoted to exploring his feelings about his absent dad, and the turmoil he went through, is now witnessing a dark mirror of himself who has gone far beyond what he ever did when he met his dad again. The episode never brings it up and it only really seems to come through in Tosin Cole's physical performance.
Unintentionally Unsympathetic: The Doctor seemingly abandons Bella and Kane to die before giving a heavy-handed speech about the environment. She has a time machine and could easily save them, but choses not to.
Wangst: Late in the episode, Sylas suddenly throws a tantrum over his father not listening to his technical advice, and storms out of the group's hideaway, despite the imminent threat of the Dregs. The only thing that had hinted at any tension between the two — and about the only thing that Sylas had done, full-stop — prior to this was a very brief argument near the start of the story over what tool to use for a minor job, meaning that Sylas' reaction comes out of absolutely nowhere, and seems to have been done purely to put him in peril for the final act.

YMMV / Doctor Who S38E3 "Orphan 55"

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