Doctor Who s08

[Aractus]

Unfortunately, I have to say I noticed a few holes in the plot myself, even on first viewing. The ones already mentioned, though I'm sure they can be handwaved away for the most part. However there are a couple more serious ones (to me) that I saw:

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And they have to do with the Zygons. When Elizabeth I meets her Zygon doppelganger, it's clear she has never encountered the creatures in her life. Shortly afterwards she reappears to capture the Doctor(s) and remarks that her alter ego is 'indisposed', giving the impression that she herself is the Zygon commander enough to fool the Doctor - who is not only familiar with the aliens but the Tennant version is, ah, familiar with the real Elizabeth (granted, he has trouble telling human from Zygon apart, but still). She even appears comfortably familiar with their plans and technology. Yet in a sudden switch that takes everyone present by surprise, she reveals herself to be the real Queen Elizabeth, having killed the commander earlier. Did she really learn enough about the Zygons, their technology, their plans etc, in the time between running off and reappearing in the forest?

Come to that, if she was the real Elizabeth all along, why did she keep up the ruse of being the Zygon commander when the Doctors are released from the cellar? As far as she knows at that point, the only people present are the Doctors and Clara. Okay, she might have been suspicious of Clara, but the Doctors didn't seem to mind her being around and there could have been the usual introductions etc.

Then we come to Kate Lethbridge Stewart, which is sort of the reverse of the above. It turns out that from the very start, from the moment we meet her, she is a Zygon duplicate, revealed only when she and Clara enter the Black Archive and are met by more duplicates. Was there really a need to unmask herself at all at that point, if the objective was to retrieve and reactivate the Vortex Manipulator? Why even co-operate with the Doctor's plan at all; he was trapped in the sixteenth century, safely out of harm's way for their invasion?

Further to that point: how did she connect the Doctors being taken to the Tower, the Vortex Manipulator and a string of numbers etched into the cellar (i.e., how did she know what to look for and where, plus their significance)?

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Those are the main ones that leaped out at me, at least, striking me as jarring and perhaps worth another draft to iron them out. On the other hand, there were many points that I picked up on as touchingly clever:

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The business at the end about the Doctor wistfully musing about being the curator himself is actually foreshadowed earlier in the episode. Elizabeth's letter to him reads, in part, "In this capacity I have appointed you as curator of the Undergallery". So he already is the curator and could very well become Tom Baker as they discuss.

Tom Baker's cameo as the curator was delightful, but did anyone notice his earlier input to the episode? As the Doctor, Clara and Kate enter the painting room for the first time, about 25 minutes in, you can just about make out Tom's voice finishing the line about something being "untouched".

I want to see more John Hurt! A spin-off Time War series perhaps? He was born to play the Doctor! Continually berating his successors for the more annoying of their mannerisms - delicious!

Billie Piper was great in this. I always found Rose annoying and practically cheered when she left, but I really enjoyed this Bad Wolf version.

I think they missed a trick at the end, actually, although the dream bit with all the Doctors was a nice touch. If you've seen An Adventure In Space And Time, there's a moment at the end when William Hartnell is standing at the console and looks up to see Matt Smith looking back at him. It's a nice little moment, reassuring Hartnell that his Doctor was in safe(ish) hands. I think it would have been a nice little touch if there'd been a mirror of that moment in this story, with Smith at his console looking up to see Hartnell looking at him. That way the two specials would connect on that level. Ah well.

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Here are some more that I noticed:

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The doctors meet each other because the WMD ("the Moment") creates a portal that brings them together - who summoned the other 10 incarnations, why, and how were they brought together? That whole sequence was poorly thought through and I would have preferred if it had been left out.

When the war doctor regenerates he begins to become the Ninth doctor - however it is cut way short. This is unnecessary, because Eccleston's likeness is used in the episode as it is, and so could have been used better in the regeneration sequence. I would have liked to have seen the war doctor regenerate into a younger 9th doctor, just as the 8th doctor regenerated into a younger war doctor.

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Tom Baker's cameo as the curator was delightful, but did anyone notice his earlier input to the episode? As the Doctor, Clara and Kate enter the painting room for the first time, about 25 minutes in, you can just about make out Tom's voice finishing the line about something being "untouched".

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That wasn't Tom, that was just some man handing Kate the tablet. He looks completely different to Tom. I think we'll see his character again in the upcoming series.

I want to see more John Hurt! A spin-off Time War series perhaps? He was born to play the Doctor! Continually berating his successors for the more annoying of their mannerisms - delicious!

I would like to see more of the 8th doctor, and John Hurt's doctor. There were many moments I loved - like the gizmo that 10 "made himself" and calculating how to disintegrate the door.

I think they missed a trick at the end, actually, although the dream bit with all the Doctors was a nice touch. If you've seen An Adventure In Space And Time, there's a moment at the end when William Hartnell is standing at the console and looks up to see Matt Smith looking back at him. It's a nice little moment, reassuring Hartnell that his Doctor was in safe(ish) hands. I think it would have been a nice little touch if there'd been a mirror of that moment in this story, with Smith at his console looking up to see Hartnell looking at him. That way the two specials would connect on that level. Ah well.

Or yes even a younger Hartnell before he ever started his space-time adventures is a stolen TTC. And on that point, I really would have appreciated the galifrians calling the TTC by its correct name and not by the doctor's pet-name for it. Is it really that difficult to say "Time Travel Capsule" or "Type 40"? Hell even the War Doctor could have been the one to be "grown up" and say it.

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I am only ten minutes into the first episode, An Unearthly Child, and I am already hooked.

An Unearthly Child is a great episode - mostly because it was fully filmed twice, which was not the norm in 1963 (and also they didn't have a concept of what a "pilot" was either). So what you got was a polished version of the episode. Many of the "classic" stories are easily forgettable, but there are plenty of really great ones too.