Sums up one of the most egregious issues with Doctor Who recently (and don't forget, in the first two parter they pulled the 'oh noes, the Doctor is totally going to die AGAIN guys!'). Beyond which, considering the Doctor just demonstrated recently that he can make immortality pills, I fail to see why anybody being dead would actually be a problem anymore.

This episode was okay, I guess, aside from that? Not a whole lot really happened. Personally I've been trying to hold back judgement on episodes until both parts are released. I will say that the Doctor seemed terribly undynamic this episode; things constantly happened around him, but he didn't seem to have the slightest effect on any of it.

Also, the splinter group/immigrants/integration of two cultures/MAD principle symbolism was weird. I have a feeling that they're trying to call an analogy to something specific, but all I'm getting is bits and pieces of a lot of different little things. Is there something British they're nodding to, or is it just a general-purpose aesop?

 

Watched the episode. Pretty terrible, to be honest. The fact that the plot could only unfold by dozens of people being given gigantic idiot balls to hold speaks to how weak it actually is.

Let's just get it over with, forget it and move on.

 

Really enjoyed it. Removed the reliance on idiot balls, and just sailed through on good writing and character interaction. Capaldi's big speech at the end might be the best thing he's done as the Doctor, IMO.

 

Watched it. Basically the opposite of the first part. Really awesome, well-acted, and satisfying to its conclusion.

The thought that it took the hilariously terrible first part to set this up will always sour this for me, however. Which is a huge shame.

 

While it was better than the first, I wasn't really feeling the episode. Then, Capaldi's speech hit and it changed my perspective. Great acting, I could feel the tears on Capaldi's voice.

 

Capaldi's speech at the end is the greatest moment the 12th Doctor's had so far. The depth of emotion he conveyed was really something else.

The rest of the 2-parter was pretty underwhelming. It's a shame such a high-caliber speech wasn't included with a better episode overall.

 

Dat monologue. Capaldi is such an excellent actor it makes my head fucking spin.

It's a damn shame that they're not writing him some mind-blowing material, because he has chops and then some.

 

Give it time, this season has had some pretty good material(some rumors say that Capaldi is partly responsible) so hopefully they add on that and ramp up the quality next season

 

I think I need to watch tonight's episode again...I was online while watching it, and by the time it had finished I felt like I'd missed some significant details.

The found footage format was pretty interesting, and seemed to work pretty well. You wouldn't want it every week though. Quite spooky in places, although the monsters themselves...were very much in the classic Who tradition, shall we say? Last shot of the episode was definitely the creepiest.

As it stands atm, not bad, but more an interestingly standard episode than anything special.

 

The best thing about this episode was the next time trailer. Doctor Who in Diagon Alley!

Note that the TV trailer is different. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5W4ePv6HBdk

 

Okay, watched it again and it does make more sense than I thought (as far as Who ever does, natch), I just hadn't been paying proper attention.

Spoiler

I'd missed the lines about it being a virus, so was baffled by the conclusion; once I'd read up on the episode and realised that the footage was intended as a video, I was confused by why the villain would explain it all at the end, but on rewatching it I realised that he says he's going to broadcast it all across the solar system, so everyone is kinda going to be forced to watch it anyway.

I still think it's more interesting for the concept behind it than anything else, but I've resolved my biggest problem with it.

 

I watched the episode. Did I miss something? Nothing got resolved, did it? Humanity still about to be overtaken and all that?

 

Here's hoping Clara finally fucks off for good in the next episode, the trailer certainly looks like she might.

 

TL;DR: Maybe.

It probably depends on how you interpret the villains last lines about broadcasting the video across the entire solar system. If he's beaming it everywhere at once...then yeah, looks like. If his plan relies on people watching it, thinking it's just a video and showing it to other people, Ring-style, then probably not. It would only go so far before people started realising what was going on. Also depends on whether he had the chance to broadcast it before the station crashed into Neptune. Finally, the Doctor and Nagata both get off the station, so who knows what they tell the authorities?

Quite apart from all of that, the episode is set in the 38th century. In previous future set episodes revolving around humanity, the vast majority have been set in the 51st century. Lot of humans around in those episodes who don't appear to have been turned into sand men.

And apart from all of that...how funny would it be to have Clara leave the series by just randomly dissolving into a pile of dust in the middle of the remaining episodes?

 

It just felt incomplete, because The Doctor and Clara just kind of fucked off without actually solving the problem.

 

Eh. Of all the cases that could be left unsolved, of all the enemies that the Doctor couldn't best, did it really have to be sand people? Not even the cool kind of sand people. Just sort of ... sentient eye scum.

 

Is anyone else disappointed in the current season? The first two where rather boring, and aside from Missy and the awesome Dalek Clara 2.0 scenes it felt a bit weak. I started watching the viking episode but was cringing so hard U stopped, does it get better?

 

Better? Slightly. Is it worth it? Kind of. The past couple episodes were painful except for Capaldi's excellent monologue. This last episode was reminiscent of some old Who effects, but I thought they tried to stuff too many elements to it while relying on verbal narrative.

As the doctor says in the end, "It makes no sense."