- I gather that they caught a certain amount of heat for casting a non-white guy as Sir Isaac Newton.
- The "mavity" joke was perhaps not as uproariously funny as RTD thought it was.
- "There's something on this ship so bad the TARDIS ran away?" The HADS system goes back to the Troughton Era, I believe.
- "No one ever has. Not ever." How does he know that no one's ever been to the edge of the universe? I mean, for aught he knows, the Master used to go there for lunch every Thursday.
- I like the slow reveal that there are duplicates. "My arms are too long."
- "We came from the nothing." "We are not-things." OK.
- "You don't know where you're from." So it looks like the Timeless Child stuff is still in play.
- "Why does he trouble with someone as stupid as you?" Donna's an interesting character, because a lot of the time you want to strangle her, but every so often she comes up with some deep insights.
- "I invoked a superstition at the edge of the universe..." That's a set-up for something.
- "Hello, me old soldier!" So good seeing Mr. Cribbins again, mixed with sadness because I know that this is the last time we'll see him.
- "In loving memory of Bernard Cribbins, 1928-2022" Sad. Wilf is my favorite character that was created for the new show, and a lot of that was due to the performance of Bernard Cribbins.
Overall: A pretty good episode. I don't usually go for "who's really who" stories, but I enjoyed this.
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We should have our DVD of these episodes on Friday.
Having watched this one a second time, I'm ready to upgrade it from "pretty good" to "very good".
I gather that they caught a certain amount of heat for casting a non-white guy as Sir Isaac Newton.
Eh, that story's apocryphal anyway. I honestly had no memory of that scene. I remembered the general gist of this episode, but none of the specific details. It was almost like watching it for the first time.
The "mavity" joke was perhaps not as uproariously funny as RTD thought it was.
Yeah, not only did I not remember the set-up, I think I completely missed th call-backs the first time through.
So it looks like the Timeless Child stuff is still in play.
Of the three... oh, let's call 'em "concepts"... introduced (into canon) during the Chibnall era (the Fugitive Doctor, the Division and the Timeless Children), the Timeless Children is by far my least favorite. I'll have more thoughts to post about the Fugitive Doctor (and perhaps the numbering as well) on Wednesday. (I'll bet you can't wait.)
Donna's an interesting character, because a lot of the time you want to strangle her...
Like when she spilled coffee on the brand new TARDIS console, for example.
That's a set-up for something.
Obviously.
So good seeing Mr. Cribbins again
I remembered that Cribbins had died before these specials aired, but I had completely forgotten about his cameo appearance here, so that came as a nice little surprise.
Wilf is my favorite character that was created for the new show
Hmm... I may have to give that some thought. I can tell you that Graham is amomng my least favorite.
Of the three... oh, let's call 'em "concepts"... introduced (into canon) during the Chibnall era (the Fugitive Doctor, the Division and the Timeless Children), the Timeless Children is by far my least favorite.
I like a lot of the Doctor Who revival, same as I like a lot of the original show, but conceptually, it started going downhill when they needlessly foisted "last of his kind" syndrome on a character who didn't need it and for no really good reason. The more they try to make the character unique in the universe, ironically, the more (for me) the Doctor loses what made the character unique in the first place.
But this ep is quite good compared to anything I've seen of the current season, which does feature an interesting companion, but wasted a Beatles cameo, and... we probably shouldn't have skipped ahead to this year's Holiday Special which, even for a Christmas episode.... Let's just say you only have to bring the crackers, because it provides an abundance of cheese. It also skips through a subplot that provides a lot of character-development potential which might have helped me be interested in this incarnation.
it's a pity, because the season's set up, as I argue here, was decent (includes my original comments on "Wild Blue Yonder").
YLYMV