S10E06 Extremis (20.05.17 Spoilers on Broadcast)

{Spoiler}I am literally angry that this episode exists, but I could have let this go if not for Moffat’s comments about the translation. It would have fallen into the Kill the Moon category for me, insultingly and aggressively stupid, but not something on which I would dwell long after the after the fact. Up until now the season had been simply so effortlessly brilliant and entertaining and after the three-parter, I don’t hold out hope that it can be salvaged. It broke the back of my interest in the season. Drove a stake right through its heart. The whole thing made me think of a passage from Hitchhiker's: "When you're cruising down the road in the fast lane and you lazily sail past a few hard driving cars and are feeling pretty pleased with yourself and then accidentally change down from fourth to first instead of third thus making your engine leap out of your bonnet in a rather ugly mess, it tends to throw you off your stride in much the same way that this remark threw Ford Prefect off his."

Moffat’s explanation infuriated me. To recap from further up the thread, when asked why the TARDIS didn't translate the Pope, Moffat answered: Well, the scenes just worked better with the Pope speaking Italian and being translated. I did write in the Doctor saying he didn’t really need the translation, and Nardole suggesting that he play along out of courtesy – but it glitched the scene, so I lost it in the edit. In fairness, the Doctor’s translation ability has wobbled before, so it’s just having another off moment. I tell myself it’s because of the blindness, and the concentration involved in interpreting the world through his sonic sunglasses. (Hooray, they’re back – a nation cheers!)

!@#$ you, you condescending !@#$h He shares the Trumpian inability to ever acknowledge a mistake. Also, with the advent of Pyramid, we have two episodes in a row that don’t make sense because they’re missing scenes. It’s sloppy. If it’s such a recurring problem, don’t structure the expository information around a scene that may have to be cut. Also, what kind of sycophants is he surrounded with that he came away from the scene with the impression that it “worked” in any meaningful way?

And it’s not even a good or interesting scene. It’s just Moffat saying, “Look at how clever and funny I am!” It doesn’t advance the plot. The Vatican is what you use when you're out of ideas. What, were the Illuminati already booked? Didn’t the Vatican have anyone who speaks English any better? Most polyglots I know speak better English than I do. I would hope that that would have someone on staff who speaks English better than Super Mario: "Itsa me, the Cardinal!"

I don’t think it is even per se a bad episode. In a vacuum, I certainly wouldn’t loathe it this way. It’s just that it collects everything I despise about Moffat’s writing and showrunning into a perfect storm of awful. He’s a great writer when he has someone to rein him in, but in the absence of that… To steal a line from Diana Trilling “I would freely trade 80 percent of his technical virtuosity for 20 percent more value in the uses to which it is put.”

I complained about the episode to a friend, and a couple days later I was praising to idiotic plot to Tekken 7, and he responded with: I find it funny that you will forgive certain franchises anything for nostalgic reasons but write off other ones for the slightest transgressions of plot or characterization

I replied: I suppose it's because Tekken has always been ridiculous, what with its space ninjas and boxing kangaroos and fighting pandas. It's never pretended to be anything else. If Katsuhiro Harada were gaslighting me on my television every week, deflecting questions with glib, sarcastic non-answers and explaining why the latest !@#$up wasn't really a !@#$up, but rather makes perfect sense if placed in the context of something not even hinted at on screen, then I'd probably hold it to a different standard.

Ugh. The simulation. Was this something written before the Matrix came out and recently discovered in a bottom drawer? Even Overdrawn at the Memory Bank, famously lampooned on MST3K dealt with virtual reality in a more thoughtful way.

Also, humans are rubbish at random numbers. (I remember reading that when asked to place random dots on a grid, over time the pattern generated by humans tends to generate an X) Computers are literally thousands of times better at it. (Though it is something of a Who trope to hinge the plot on a fact that’s unambiguously wrong.) On top of that, it’s incredibly stupid that it would cause that level of ontological angst. Isn’t this a thought that everyone who is even mildly curious has had by the time they turn thirteen? It's dumb footnotes to sophomore philosophy bull!@#$.

The biggest surprise is that it wasn’t some kind of nested simulation. That’s already a cliché, but at least it would have added some surprises to the episode. Congratulations, Extremis. You’ve given this less thought than The Thirteenth Floor.

!@#$ the ghost of River song. I did like her in Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead, but I have grown to loathe her so much. Hearing “Hello, sweetie” is like listening to nails on a chalkboard. If you wished for Benny on a Monkey’s Paw, it would give you River Song. My dearest hope is that Chinball retroactively erases her from continuity.

Pity that the Doctor hung Harriett Jones, Prime Minister out to dry, but I’m glad to see that he could intervene (again!!!) to forestall the death of a mass murderer. Also, did that switcheroo fool anyone? The Doctor isn’t the prisoner?! Quelle surprise! Knock me over with a feather.

Also, the wording at the end was just plain dumb. The Doctor tells them to google “Cause of Death, the Doctor”, which should return results like “Spectrox toxemia”, “Fell off a telescope” or “Gently bumped head against TARDIS console.” Haven’t we had enough of people running away when discovering what a bad!@# he Doctor is?

And !@#$ the monks! Doesn’t Doctor Who have enough monks already? Jesus Christ.

The episode was the shaggiest god!@#$ dog I've ever seen.

It doesn't happen nor does anything carry through from it to  the others (except the Date that doesn't happen again and isn't mentioned after)