Doctor Who

[PlasmaCow]

The previous episode ended with the threat of the Doctor being teleported someplace nasty, and the demand that he hand over his Confession Dial.

I suppose that does add up, but I think a little more explanation as to why someone went to all that trouble is still to come in the finale - especially as the trailer showed Maisie Williams will be back again for it.

[Darkflame]

Yes a little more is needed.

Incidentally; He said he traveled only about a lightyear didn't he? near the start? Before commenting on the stars being wrong?
I think I remember that.

Which means he was likely transported a real small distance - just a meter or two - into the confession dial pocket dimension thing.
Which was then carried manually where-ever.

[Merrymaker_Mortalis]

And randomly plonked in the middle of Gallifrey.

[Darkflame]

Indeed.
Although the dial could have had many,many,many adventures inbetween.

[Ptangmatik]

Maybe behind the 'harder-than-diamond' stuff was a portal into the time lock in which Gallifrey was stuck?

[Robo4900]

Except Gallifrey isn't in a time lock, it's in a secret place. Whether this secret place is somewhere in space, or in a pocket universe isn't clear, but it's somewhere out there.

[Merrymaker_Mortalis]

I feel pleased that I called that Clara's exit felt off and that I reckoned it'd be The Doctor having to forget Clara and she being separated for her own safety.

I thought it was cute that Clara has Me as her companion. And when Clara eventually dies, Me has a TARDIS to travel with.

I prefer this finale to last series' because this wasn't built up like last year's. Last year's felt anticlimactic. This year's felt appropriate.

I think some people will call fowl play at cheapening Clara's initial exit. However, those events still happened and will have to. Clara is graced to be able to delay it as much as possible. It also concludes the "Clara Who" arc.

Hoping for a male companion next series. Might be funny if it's romantic, but I think it would be bad and would be bad for the Riversong relationship.

This was part 3 of the "Goodbye Clara" set. Kinda funny.

[tbug]

That was never Rassilon just now

Surely.

I mean, the guy's a lot of things, but never a wimp.

[Arclight_Dynamo]

Interesting. I don't really know how to feel about that. Good episode, really... but it did lay on the "Clara's oh so super-special" thing pretty thick, one last time. Maybe it's because she never clicked with me, but I didn't buy that the Doctor would go to such lengths. Seemed a bit much, really...

[Darkflame]

I think that was a good end to maybe the best overall season of New Who.
While the season arc wasnt much, it had nearly end-to-end great episodes. Also quite brave of them to end on a character piece rather then a big epic thing.

Also, you can see Moffet toying with the fandom. On screen gender change of a timelord, and acknowledging (even if ambiguously) the whole half-human thing from the tv movie.
Personally, I loved both bits - but you can bet theres some people pissed of

[Necabo]

This episode was weird

Not sure what to think of it, watching it I found it a bit of a mess to follow with a lot of questions hovering about.
Personally I found it unnecessary to bring back clara, but tbh if moffat wanted her 'alive' this was a pretty good way.
It was just that for all plotlines it closed, it opened a few more:
so how did gallifrey escape the pocket dimension? And did they do a big cleanup?
are we gonna see clara and me again? I hope maybe only in passing
Is the doctor going to look for gallifrey now or what?
Does he in the end know that it was Clara? knowing Moffat, they will never tell us.

I loved the ending though, the doctor back to his confident 'I can take on the universe' mood (and the music cue ) it made me pumped for next season.

Christmas looks fun ?! Love to see how Peter Capaldi handles river song

[Robo4900]

I liked the episode. The cheapening of Clara's death was a little hard to swallow, but I got past it.
Also, does this mean the Doctor is just leaving Gallifrey hanging in the future? Is he going to do anything about that? I thought that the Doctor saving/bringing back Gallifrey was a whole... Thing the Doctor was trying to do...

Anyway, great season(Definitely the best Moffat one), and the Christmas episode looks like it'll be fun.

That was never Rassilon just now

Surely.

I mean, the guy's a lot of things, but never a wimp.

That did seem a little strange to me. I mean, I guess it showed just how much weight the Doctor's word carries among Time Lords. Maybe he'll come back with a vengeance at some point.

[biscuits]

I've been a little reluctant over this series. Moffat's been living up to his reputation for straggly storylines for a great deal of it. Those last two episodes though...Heaven Sent scared me more than any episode has since Blink and Hell Bent was just genius. Nice to see a little glint of the War Doctor here and there. I also quite like the idea that Gallifrey is just sort of...back.

I was talking to someone about Clara dying and about how Moffat had genuinely killed a companion. Like, killed them dead. He said you'd have to go back to like, Troughton, to find the last time that happened. As much as I'm starting to come round on Clara, it'd have been kinda cool for the Doctor to actually move on for once.

Also...Christmas...RIIIVVVEEEERRRRR!!!!

[Merrymaker_Mortalis]

There's quite a debate about Clara's fate.
It's the same as The Day of The Doctor.

The events still happened and the effects are still in place. Just, we have acquired a bit more information on the situation.

Personally, I would have hated if Clara's final farewell was only in Face The Raven because something really felt off. It felt forced the scenario to kill her off (like the Ponds in someways. Like the Universe was bending over backwards to make people be stupid so these people would be doomed).
There's still doom, and I disagree that Clara flying away with Me for a time hurts. In fact, it is complete.

Clara dies because she's a smart arse and too reckless.
Clara gets her own TARDIS and companion because she want to be The Doctor.

Both arcs are satisfied. It's also funny, like The Doctor, she's taking the long way round to her death.

[biscuits]

I guess I struggle trusting Moffat to actually maintain that she will die eventually. Like, I can just see him finding a way for the TARDIS to remove the time lock and then some other reason for her to not come back. I would like to see her face her death. I really loved the way she bravely faced the consequences of her actions. I want to know that she doesn't value her life over the fabric of the universe, like how she was willing to strand the Doctor in a volcano to save Danny. Though I mean obviously you can't blame her for not wanting to die, but when you've set up that she's taken responsibility for her actions, it's kind of an anticlimax to go back on that.

[Merrymaker_Mortalis]

She defied The Doctor wiping her memories. She took control over her exit. Almost the same with Amy, she chose to be with Rory.

[biscuits]

I don't think she's had that much problem taking control recently. It's taking responsibility that she's not been good at. She looked pretty serious about it though. I think I trust her. I just want to see it happening. I have no reason to think it won't. About the death missing something though. I quite liked how sudden it was. It gave a real feeling of shock so you could sympathise with The Doctor. Sometimes when the exit is wrapped up too neatly you forget that the Doctor is losing his current best friend.

[AlexAshman]

And the twist at the end? I HATED that. It meant that an already bad episode wasn't even canon(And therefore, watching it was pointless), and the weird meta nature of it just doesn't feel right to me. Also, what happened about Clara and the whole eye sleep thing? Or did I misinterpret that? (Which is quite easy given that the episode made no sense)
Honestly, this is the worst case of the "It was all a dream" trope I've ever seen, and IMO the worst episode of Doctor Who I've ever seen(Overtaking 1966's The Gunfighters).

I actually fell asleep during the sleep episode and missed the twist. I didn't realise until now just how meta I was being.

[Merrymaker_Mortalis]

At least the Sleep episode was more interesting than Cold War. That's one episode I never gotten into.

[Robo4900]

I thought Cold War was pretty good until the ending(Which felt like it would have had "Temp ending; to be rewritten" on the script).

[Darkflame]

Reminds me, given we only have the Christmas episode followed by a long break again, people suffering from Dr Who withdrawal might like to check out the current "Silver Surfer" comics by Dan Slott. Really quite blatantly Who-inspired, but also pretty darn fun.
(free issue here; https://comicstore.marvel.com/Silver-Su ... omic/33712 but you need a marvel account)

Also been really enjoying "The Liberians" this season. It doesn't quite pull of the emotional drama that Who can, but it does have the same sort of inventive crazyness's at times. The last few episodes have been especially good at new twists on old ideas.

[PlasmaCow]

some finale thoughts:

So I think Clara running off with her own Tardis and not facing death is the only truly daft bit, the rest I can pretty much cope with.
I think it would have been far far better if the Clara the Doctor was telling the story to was in fact just another of the many "reincarnations" of Clara and had no idea who he was.
The rest of the story is fine - even if it did feel very rushed in places, Moffat is getting worse at cramming important dialogue into split second moments where you can barely catch them being said.
But Clara should have wiped the Doctor, then instead of running off in a tardis of her own, should have taken her inspiration from Danny Pink's double sacrifice (both as cyber-danny and in sending the young boy back from the dead) to sacrifice herself to protect the fabric of reality from the Doctors grief at loosing her.
Me being around at the end of time was kinda weird. It fitted the storyline well enough though, but I think Me would have had enough of living after living most of the life of the universe rather than running off on new adventures with Clara.
I'm curious what'll happen with Rassilon and his high council being exiled close to the end of the universe. Would've been more obvious who Donald Sumpter was playing if they'd brought Timothy Dalton back, but I guess the story will be he and John Simm's Master killed each other when/as they returned to the time locked Gallifrey, hence they've each regenerated.

The series as a whole has been pretty excellent though and I agree it's probably been the highest average quality that Moffat has produced to date. The return to detailed two-parters as opposed to flimsier one-offs that served a major connecting series plot line is definitely a positive move. The Zygon Invasion & Inversion in particular were the stand-out pairing.
Heaven Sent may actually be the closest to a horror theme Doctor Who has gone since Blink.

[Darkflame]

Heaven Sent was the most horrific idea, but I think quite a few other episodes would falls under the horror category.
Listen, for example, Id say was a horror.

"I agree it's probably been the highest average quality that Moffat has produced to date. "

Or RTD.
I dont think any of the early New Who series came close frankly.
For me this just had 1 dud episode, and most of the rest just nit-picks.
There was normally more then 1 dud episode in every other season from what I can remember.

Might even be the best average quality of Who ever, but I am still only upto the 3rd Doctor in classic who.

[Merrymaker_Mortalis]

I thought the forth series of RTD was strong since it had episodes like The Library. But it also had a few duds.

Best series of the revived series for me.

I don't mind Clara running off because I did feel Face The Raven was missing something. I left that episode feeling disappointed, and not sad.

Seriously, who reacts to a death with disappointment?

[PlasmaCow]

Seriously, who reacts to a death with disappointment?

Game of Thrones fans?