Doctor Who Series 8 (SPOILERS)

I've already rationalized that "kill the moon", was really a dream The Doctor had from eating nothing but jelly babies for dinner one night.

Well that was awesomely creepy.

Oh, my, yes! That's what I'm talking about!

I'm having trouble with a thoughtful comment that can cut through this thought: why the fuck didn't the asshole get his comeuppance?

Because, as the Doctor said, sometimes people who don't deserve to die do, and people who do don't.

Outstanding episode!

IMO, we've had two stellar episodes this season: Listen and Flatline.

Most of the episodes this year have been middling or downright stupid (like Kill the Moon), which is a shame given that Capaldi could probably do so much more.

Maybe Missy claimed him as soon as they left.

This is one of the things I like about the show. It tends to avoid the particular cliche of "Okay, now the annoying guy's gonna get it."

Yeah, I liked this one. I wouldn't say it's among the best, and it did... wait for it... lack depth, seriously, but it was fun and very likely provided images that will be an instant classic. It also was very Third-toFifth-Doctorish, with Clara channeling Sarah Jane several times; possibly never more than when she reacted to the shrunken TARDIS by deciding to look around the neighbourhood in Bristol, as she might stumble onto whatever shrinks alien spacetimevessels on the street, which is exactly what happened.

^Also loved the "Addams Family" bit.

I'm starting to think that one of the main reasons everyone loved Tennant was not just because of his charisma and portrayal of the Doctor, but because he had some pretty damn fine scripts in comparison to Smith and Capaldi.

Yes. Moffat makes some great episodes, but he can't keep up the quality throughout a season. (He also can't get an intelligible story arc right for his own episodes, but I think that's a separate problem.) In fact, I'm beginning to suspect it's not so much that Moffat isn't a match for Davies, but that they're missing a Julie Gardner.

Tennant had some abysmal scripts, he just managed to elevate them through being so damn fun to watch, and also pulled off the campy portrayal well when needed.

Tennant had two bad scripts, New Earth and another I just forgot.

Idiot's Lantern, and Love & Monsters, Fear Her, Daleks in Manhattan / Evolution of the Daleks, The Lazarus Experiment, The Unicorn and the Wasp.

So, eight bad scripts.

Daleks in Manhattan was the one I meant. The others, while not brilliant, are considerably better than the worst scripts of this and the last seasons.

I do not agree about last season but I do agree about this season. This season, I doubt I will ever watch a single episode again, it's that bad. Last season, not so much.

^You'r a big fan of the original show, like me.

I find thinking of it as (a) a new show coincidentally named "Dr Who", (b) a kids' show, or (c) kind of like British version of DW: Voyager makes me enjoy it for what it is (dreamed up by suits for their misconception of fans). Heh, I'm even worse than most of the old timer fans, having acquired a long dislike of overused daleks (garbage cans w/plungers, and 'retired' more times than Favre), cybermen (not even a bit scary, the Borg were scary, these guys are a generally for me a skipit, though the parallel univ. where Rose and Mickey found something they wanted was a bit fun), can't rewatch anything with River in it, find preoccupation with all the domestics very tiresome, find "action" (running and splosions) a poor substitute for 'concept' etc.

So enjoy, ya old fart, you're not as bad as I am. Plus, there's less padding, much fewer OTT or cutout villains, and they hardly chew the scenery any more, and the scenery that is present doesn't look a bit like effects cooked up in a well-equipped basement studio.

Oh how I miss six or seven episode long serials of the original series!

Ah, yes, like my favorite, Troughton, in War Games? Hah.

Trees! Well done, all around.

So, pre-finale tally:

Great
Deep Breath
Listen
Time Heist
Forest

Ok-ish
Half of Into the Dalek
Half of Robot of Sherwood
Mummy on the Orient Express
Flatline

God-awful
Half of Into the Dalek
Half of Robot of Sherwood
The Caretaker
Kill the Moon (should count at least double)

Incredibly uneven, but 4 great ones that really were great. If Moffat manages, for once, not to crash his story arc pay-off into the next tree, it'll even be half of a watchable season.

thought it was a bit muddled, but as always, I liked the character interaction and Capaldi and that's all I'm really watching for.

I REALLY want to see Jenna Coleman in a high quality and successful American series when she bows out. I LOVE her personality and performance.

Where the hell was the entire population of London?

Remaining indoors as directed by the authorities?

Yeah, like that would ever happen.

Episode was an all out stinker. Silly plot, some awful scenes and, as a Londoner, it really pushed believability (not least that it seems to take only five minutes to get from South Kensington to Trafalgar Square and and there suddenly seems to be very no narrow streets and few obvious landmarks in the entirety of their little trip around). Nah, second worst of the season for me after Robot of Sherwood. Even Capaldi couldn't save it.

So the concept here was that, whenever there's going to be a massive solar flare, trees know it's coming, and throw off all semblance of natural science to cover the planet overnight?

And the Moon is an egg.

On another note - can even Scottish people understand Scottish accents?

Something for Forbin:

Absolutely, positively NSFW.

It went over fine at my office.