Doctor Who season eight

[Aractus]

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Yeah, Flatliners was crazy overwritten, now that I think about it. Too much telling versus not enough showing, which seems to be a problem this series in particular has a lot of.

Regarding Missy, she falls into the same trap that Doctor Who arc villains have been falling victim to ever since the series got revived; nothing ever happens with them until the finale happens. These little scenes with her are supposed to be building tension and intrigue over who she is, but since I know the formula I have no reason to buy into that at all. Nothing of significance will happen surrounding that character until the last two episodes of the series, and potentially the last few minutes of the one before that. Since this has been the case for years, I can happily discard the teaser scenes with Missy as a waste of time, a pointless little bit of "mystery box" writing that thinks that deliberately withholding information is the same thing as giving the audience a puzzle to be solved.

A decent mystery gives the audience something to help piece the puzzle together before the reveal happens on screen. But there's no content in any of Missy's scenes, just a lot of fragmented scenes that lack any context. What am I supposed to make of that, and if I can't make anything out of it, why the hell are they bothering to include it?

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Yep, Missy's character is predictable. I already predicted that she'd collect (or want to collect) Clara.

The problem is that Moffat has such a limited world-view. In one of the Christmas specials, I think it was "The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe", the episode opens with a narrator saying that every planet celebrates the very middle of winter. Now I get that Moffat likes winter-themed episodes for the Christmas specials (he's even said that in interviews), however that line stuck out like dogs balls just because of its scientific invalidity. If a planet has seasons then, like the earth, the seasons in one hemisphere would be the opposite to those in the other. This is because they're caused by one half of the planet getting more exposure to the sun than the other half.

Ie, down here in Australia, and the rest of the southern hemisphere the winter solstice occurs on June 20 or June 21 - I know that because I've celebrated it all my life.

It's difficult to respect someone who believes that winter happens to the whole planet all at once.

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I think they ought to have quit these 'arc' things after the Bad Wolf one. Those little easter eggs actually got viewers hooked, in fact they were so subtle they had to have Eccles mention them at one point so people would notice. Then of course came the denouement, when all the stuffing fell out of it.

Since then, everyone's been expecting it. Unfortunately, it's not a trick you can pull off constantly.

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The thing I didn't like about Bad Wolf was nuking all the daleks all at once using "tardis energy".

(SPOILER)
And that brings me to remember this week's episode (Flatline). The first scene doesn't even make sense in the context of the reveal - ie "I know who did it...". But what I really didn't like was the way the doctor simply sends all the monsters away using tardis and sonic screwdriver.