Doctor Who

Hmm, I liked this episode better than the last one, but I still prefer the earlier ones this season, I think.

Also, this is pretty much unrelated, but is it just me or is this season (apart from trying really hard to traumatise Bill, weee) going harder than usual with the fact that the Doctor's (apparent lack of) reaction to people dying around him creeps people out?

I liked this episode overall, but they kind of dropped the ball from how great the last one was.

I really don't think the Monks' definition of "consent" is the same as what people seem to believe it is. It's hardly consent as we would understand it. They're using their simulation-derived knowledge of future existential threats to Humanity in order to blackmail the entire species into servitude. I don't know why no one in this episode gets it. They show up at the eleventh hour of a major Human crisis, land their pyramid-ship-thing in exactly the spot that would cause Humanity to believe that it's end would come as the result of self-inflicted nuclear annihilation, and offer salvation at the cost of Humanity's self-determination. As was made very clear in the last episode, they're using that thread-computer to simulate the entire past and future history of the Human species. There's no reason they couldn't just hand over the information and let us solve the problem by ourselves.

Also, why does their machine start going haywire when the Doctor rigs up that bomb to sterilize the lab? The last episode proved that the Monks are capable of simulating the Doctor, and so presumably this action of his would have at some point been made known to them. Or did they think so simulate everything EXCEPT the exact scenario that they settled on using to blackmail Humanity? And why would the events of an independent simulation be influenced by what the Doctor was doing in the real world at that very moment?

The machine didn't go haywire because the Monks were losing.

It went haywire to convince Bill that she and the Doctor were winning - so that she felt more confident and the Doctor's revelation about his sight would sting even more, likely pushing her over the edge enough to accept the "consent".

My theory is that the servitude of the Earth was never their plan. Their plan was to control the Doctor through his companion, and thus access his time machine.

It frequently feels to me like the Doctor is keeping humanity dependent on him. I don't think that's meant to be his intention, but his continued insistence that humanity take no steps in defending itself, or developing defenses for itself, and that Earth just let him handle everything is hard to read any other way. I know humanity in Doctor Who suffers from collective author-induced-idiocy, but still.

His statement "this is your planet, you can't just give it away" actually made me laugh out loud, given how many alien races humanity (mostly unknowingly) shares the Earth with at his insistence.

There a difference between allowing aliens to live on the planet and surrendering control of the planet.

Hell, they technically did give it away when they made him President of Earth.

Though the fact that it's something he doesn't really want, and would never keep (and therefore wouldn't abuse) means he's perfect for the job.

...where was Unit during this episode? This is usually their thing isn't it?

There's something horrifying about how, casual the Monks are about wold conquering.

They sit back and research various planets, watch how they're going to burn, step in at the past moment and offer to trade destruction for domination, but it's only worth it for them if the natives really want this deal, otherwise they'll not even bother invading the planet or just giving the salvation as charity, they'd just shrug and bugger off to the next planet in need while the planet burns behind them.

Also I hope the next episode opens with a third date with Penny which gets interrupted yet again.

Secretary-General of the United Nations. What UNIT stands for may have changed, but if I'm not mistaken the they're still bankrolled by the UN. The monks aren't doing a subtle invasion, but a blatant power grab in broad daylight centered at the crossroads of the U.S., Russian, and Chinese militaries. At that point there's not much for UNIT to do but call the boss.

edited 28th May '17 12:12:27 PM by TheAirman

Random observation: Bill is five years younger than Pearl Mackie.

Something kind of just clicked for me and I came up with an episode concept that I'm really surprised no one's done so far.

Okay, so the Sontarans are supposed to be in an endless war with the Rutan, but the Rutan only showed up once in the show, and they've barely been referenced (if at all) in the revived series, with the Sontarans having changed to just loving war.

What if the Rutan had taken control of the Sontarans a very long time ago? I mean, how difficult could it possibly be for a race of shape shifters to usurp leadership of a race of near-identical clones? What if the Rutan had sent a spy in, specifically to suggest the clone thing? And what if the Rutan plan to destroy the Sontarans was to break them by revealing that the Sontarans had been achieving Rutan objectives almost the entire length of their war? That the entire war was a false flag operation, just to ruin the Sontarans as a species?

Does this make sense to anyone else?

Okay, so I finally caught up with the last episode on iPlayer. It was a good episode on the whole, but I can't help but feel the aliens are going about this whole thing in a weird way. I like the concept, basically: you arrive with a disaster-preventing ability and you use that to get your conquestees trade away their freedom willingly. You get a bloodless conquest that doesn't breed as much resentment and most of your new let's charitably call them subjects remain intact. Ideally you want to be loved not hated — feared being guaranteed — because that'll make your rule easier, and this is the most ideal way to achieve that.

All fine, good concept, you could even play it up for some moral ambiguity. It's just... They're very transparent about how manipulative they are, yes, but they also start off by: 1) walking around as hideous human corpse things with raspy voices, 2) goading the president of the world that they're gonna take this planet and there's nothing he can do to stop them, and then 3) they murder a bunch of major leader figures for agreeing to their demands. Really working towards that love there, guys.

In the end, I mean, they do get someone who consents — by all official accounts a +1 — out of love, but it's love for someone else. Someone who is outright, as she makes the deal, planning to use the Doctor to backstab them and throw them out. I guess this is a bit justified if they're, like, space vampires who have to get "love" and are perfectly willing to loophole it, but that seems a bit of a letdown.

edited 31st May '17 5:11:13 AM by Lavaeolus

The bit in Bill's memories where there's a Pride flag unleashed the tears. I need her.

edited 3rd Jun '17 1:57:01 PM by emeriin

You know, if Missy is trying to go Cold Turkey on evil, then Simm-aster arrival might be for the sake of pusing her Off the Wagon.

Yeah, I've been pretty meh about this whole arc. And the logic has been shaky.

Yay, it's another apocalyptic Earth takeover. Are those really that popular??

I admit that Bill saving the Doctor was better done than that time with Martha though.

Bill's mother wasn't properly set up as a counter to the alien brainwashing.

And I have trouble believing those weren't Crocodile Tears especially since we don't know how long it's been.

edited 4th Jun '17 5:05:18 AM by UltimatelySubjective

This conclusion did not impress me in the slightest.

Welp, here we are, back to your standard Who fare. After a Part 1 that was suspenseful, genuinely mysterious and that had a great payoff that actually for the most part made sense, this show falls back into it's typical cheeseball writing and eleventh-hour technobabble Deus Ex Machina. Can't say I'm surprised.

I preferred it to Last Of The Timelords. And it worked for me because I loved the pictures scene in the pilot anyway.

I sort of liked the anti-climax. That the Monks method of control is so dependent on such a fragile set-up that when they lose, they erase all evidence of themselves so that they can (presumably) claim that they have never been rejected.

Yeah, it could have been done better, definitely, but it's a fascinating idea. A race of conquerors who put so much effort into taking over planets...but who give up and leave the instant things begin to go south.

And the consent thing makes more sense now. The way I see it, if you have ulterior motives, or you're consenting out of fear, you're throwing barriers up in your mind. If one of those barriers exists, the Monks can't put the psychic link in place. So they need genuine consent out of love (for something other than the Monks) because that would mean placing the link would be so much easier.

IMO, this was not a good storyline. While the twist in Extremis was nice, the rest of the three parter was just bland and the Monks were pretty forgettable.

I think that the Lie of the Land should have been two episodes.

I'm not enjoying the season overall: I really like Bill, but she deserves better than the episodes she's been getting.

edited 4th Jun '17 12:00:39 PM by lrrose

> Yeah, it could have been done better, definitely, but it's a fascinating idea. A race of conquerors who put so much effort into taking over planets...but who give up and leave the instant things begin to go south.

Sounds like me whenever I play a video game!

I have mixed feelings about adding another thing to the list of things people are unsatisfied about in this episode, but I really didn't like the Doctor's speech about Bill's mum. It felt really unearned.

So far this season is leaning heavily on ideas borrowed from other parts of the series. I expected it to be more fresh.

Two weeks ago I said that I didn't really care about the main plot of "Extremis" but I was sure that the 2 following episodes would make me change my mind about it. I was so very wrong. Three episodes in a row that were mostly "meh". Sure each had a few good moments, but the overall story just felt flat.

Bah. I missed the first few minutes of the ep, so I have no idea why Bill and the Doctor are on Mars and Nardole is back on Earth.

Probably Nardole was nagging and the Doctor was just like "What's that over there!" and then ran off to go have an adventure with Bill.

Why are they on Mars? A modern satellite probe saw something that shouldn't be there, so they went to investigate how it got there.

Why was Nardole back on Earth? The Doctor sent him to get something from the Tardis and she decided to take him back to Earth.