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Post by nucleusofswarm on Jun 24, 2017 21:56:53 GMT
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Post by stcoop on Jun 24, 2017 21:58:02 GMT
I can't imagine too many kids listening to To The Death/Lucie Miller but there are millions who watch the show and I'd hate for it to be too much for them. There's aren't; at least not any more. Here's the most recent demographic breakdown I can find. 4-15... 6%16-34... 15% 35-44... 12% 45-54... 22% 55-64... 21% 65+... 24% As of this year Doctor Who's largest single demographic is OAPs.
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Post by acousticwolf on Jun 24, 2017 22:41:55 GMT
Managing to keep away from trailers, interviews and forum threads, most of this episode came as a complete shock to Mrs Acousticwolf and I. Ok we knew it had Mondasian Cybermen and John Simm but that was it. Oh my God... Bill! I have so many questions, no answers and can't wait for next week. Now if I can just avoid finding out who Capaldi regenerates into before it happens, I'll be a happy boy. That was just like watching Doctor Who as a boy... No clue... Just how it should be. Cheers Tony How long before the kids can watch it?
Regards
mark687
Probably when they're 25 Cheers Tony
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Post by ollychops on Jun 24, 2017 23:07:38 GMT
My god, that was a good episode. Wonderfully atmospheric and creepy, and I loved the use of the Mondasian Cybermen - I just hope that it isn't let down by the second part. I was a little surprised that the Razor guy turned out to be Simm's Master. I'd considered that it could be him, but figured that he was just going to be a lackey of the Master's. So, yeah, not a total surprise but it's a little obvious in hindsight.
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melkur
Chancellery Guard
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Post by melkur on Jun 24, 2017 23:32:21 GMT
Wasn't sure about it at first, but I really enjoyed it by the end!
I'm going to have to re-listen to 'Spare Parts' (for the first time in about 8yrs) aren't I?...
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shutupbanks
Castellan
There’s a horror movie called Alien? That’s really offensive. No wonder everyone keeps invading you.
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Post by shutupbanks on Jun 25, 2017 0:00:05 GMT
I loved it: I could ramble on as I usually do but I'm just going to leave some bullet points here.
- Missy as a female Doctor: given how much foreshadowing we got in the first ten minutes Mr Moffat is either giving us a huge hint or trolling the audience in the most astonishing way possible. - "He's 'The Doctor'": again, playing with the history of the show in a way that is clever or infuriating depending on your view of the show's history. - Using time dilation at the edge of a black hole to drive the plot - superb. Although the gravity/ spaghettification would destroy the ship first, surely? Unless the ship has an outer layer of handwavium, of course. - Cracking open the sonic screwdriver to reveal a marker: again, your reaction to that will depend on how reverent you are about the show. However, Moffat's use of humour is often used to deflect from the amount of horror he wants us to feel so by throwing in a heap of laughs we find the impact of the scary scenes even more astonishing. - Bill! I can't believe, like so many others, that they put that shot in. - The slow non-reveal of the cybermen: one thing that the revived series has done far better than the classic series is the whole body horror aspect of the cybermen. Watching Bill discover the truth of where she was was agonising. And the whole feel of the cybermen was horrible: the latex hoods with the knot felt suffocating and uncomfortable, as did the unwieldy way the patients who came for Bill walked and so on. Ms Talalay's direction was brilliant here. - Turning down the volume to deal with the patients... brrrr! - The interweaving of scenes on Level 1 with scenes from Level 1056 was brilliant. - That reveal: is that the most effective rubber mask the Master has ever worn or what? - And that cliffhanger: poor Bill! And that tear...("I am Bill Potts of Mondas - prepare to be asSIMMilated)
As a final thought, given how tight the control over how some information has been released to the public, was the reveal of the SimmMaster and the Mondasian cybermen a deliberate choice to fake us out for the actual cliffhanger?
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Post by stcoop on Jun 25, 2017 0:20:52 GMT
As a final thought, given how tight the control over how some information has been released to the public, was the reveal of the SimmMaster and the Mondasian cybermen a deliberate choice to fake us out for the actual cliffhanger? The trailers/publicity photos gave that away as well.
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shutupbanks
Castellan
There’s a horror movie called Alien? That’s really offensive. No wonder everyone keeps invading you.
Likes: 5,677
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Post by shutupbanks on Jun 25, 2017 0:22:51 GMT
As a final thought, given how tight the control over how some information has been released to the public, was the reveal of the SimmMaster and the Mondasian cybermen a deliberate choice to fake us out for the actual cliffhanger? The trailers/publicity photos gave that away as well. Ah, must have missed something: I knew that Bill had the unit on her chest but I missed where she was converted.
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shutupbanks
Castellan
There’s a horror movie called Alien? That’s really offensive. No wonder everyone keeps invading you.
Likes: 5,677
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Post by shutupbanks on Jun 25, 2017 0:43:30 GMT
Another thought: is this going to be the story that explains where Missy gets the cybermen tech for her army from Dark Water/ Death In Heaven?
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Post by Audio Watchdog on Jun 25, 2017 0:51:24 GMT
First thing first, Rachel Talalay deserves another crack or two at feature film directing. She does more with less than a lot of directors. Mood, atmosphere and pace, she keeps a rather slow moving first two acts interesting and humming along. And speaking of which, keeping the plot on a slow burn with cross cutting across time periods was really well handled. This is very much a typical style Moffat script except with everything cranked up to 11. IF Bill isn't rescued from her fate, well, the 12th Doctor really will have a terrible record with companions. Loved everything with Missy. Even with dodgy make-up & dialect I liked John Simm more in this incarnation than I did at any point under RTD. I'm in no hurry to see 12 leave but bring on next week.
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Post by relativetime on Jun 25, 2017 3:56:40 GMT
This was a brilliant episode, though I am worried that it might delegitimise Spare Parts, and thus Big Finish, in many other fans' eyes...
I have to say, though, I never thought I'd be thrilled by Simm's Master, but if this little snippet is what we can expect in the next episode, I'll have to reconsider my opinion of his incarnation of the Master.
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Post by omega on Jun 25, 2017 6:16:23 GMT
Holy. Crap. That final shot of the converted Bill letting out a tear that comes out of the eye piece won't be forgotten. Definitely not an episode for the kids. I liked the touch of the orderlies having the voice unit, with the Stephen Hawking-like type pad.
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Post by Timelord007 on Jun 25, 2017 7:30:13 GMT
Phenomenal episode, tense, scary, dramatic & emotional, please Moffat don't ruin the brilliant build up here with a naff cop out reset button conclusion as this episode has the potential to be a classic.
I have to rate this 10/10
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jun 25, 2017 8:13:33 GMT
The TV show tending towards bittersweet rather than deadly endings for companions has never bothered me since their audience skews a lot younger than the BF audience. I can't imagine too many kids listening to To The Death/Lucie Miller but there are millions who watch the show and I'd hate for it to be too much for them. I like that the show always has this gleam of optimism even in the darker endings. This is a very important point - a lot of younger viewers (still) watch Doctor Who, and Bill's 'death' would be a lot for them. It would be very brave to have her as a Cyberman permanently, but I personally don't think that will happen ... ... which may well open the door for people to say that Moffat has again pressed the reset switch. I've never understood why people blame Moffat for that, as if it has never been done before. He didn't press the reset switch with Amy or Rory's fate, or Danny Pink. I'm remembering Peri's fate at the hands of Ycarnos, Romana 2 apparently been buried in the Movellan grave; the companion certain the Doctor had died only for him to actually still be alive happened on a regular basis during the classic era. Surely it's a standard rule of drama that the audience is supposed to believe their heroes are slain, only for them to emerge unscathed afterall. To blame Steven Moffat for that is ... interesting! I don't think you can reasonably compare most of those situations to what Moffat does, which is take characters who are actually physically dead, and bring them back. And he did do it for Danny Pink, even if only temporarily. Peri is a good comparison, and so is Captain Jack, so RTD was not immune. I really hope Bill stays dead though.
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Post by fitzoliverj on Jun 25, 2017 8:14:31 GMT
The only surprise was opening with what I assume is the real Regeneration. (Taking place at the South Pole in 1986 perhaps...?) {Spoiler} Yes. I strongly suspect he'll look across the snow and see David Bradley, possibly even zapping him with regeneration energy....SPOILER
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jun 25, 2017 8:16:51 GMT
This was a brilliant episode, though I am worried that it might delegitimise Spare Parts, and thus Big Finish, in many other fans' eyes... I have to say, though, I never thought I'd be thrilled by Simm's Master, but if this little snippet is what we can expect in the next episode, I'll have to reconsider my opinion of his incarnation of the Master. I can't see how it would. This was a colony ship with a maintenance crew of 50 on it's way to Mondas to evacuate the doomed planet. It never got there so the events of Spare Parts happened on Mondas while the trapped ship parralels the evolution of the Cybermen that Mondas experiences. So these aren't genuine Mondasian cybermen, they're Mondasian style.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jun 25, 2017 8:18:44 GMT
This is a very important point - a lot of younger viewers (still) watch Doctor Who, and Bill's 'death' would be a lot for them. It would be very brave to have her as a Cyberman permanently, but I personally don't think that will happen ... ... which may well open the door for people to say that Moffat has again pressed the reset switch. I've never understood why people blame Moffat for that, as if it has never been done before. He didn't press the reset switch with Amy or Rory's fate, or Danny Pink. I'm remembering Peri's fate at the hands of Ycarnos, Romana 2 apparently been buried in the Movellan grave; the companion certain the Doctor had died only for him to actually still be alive happened on a regular basis during the classic era. Surely it's a standard rule of drama that the audience is supposed to believe their heroes are slain, only for them to emerge unscathed afterall. To blame Steven Moffat for that is ... interesting! I don't think you can reasonably compare most of those situations to what Moffat does, which is take characters who are actually physically dead, and bring them back. And he did do it for Danny Pink, even if only temporarily. Peri is a good comparison, and so is Captain Jack, so RTD was not immune. I really hope Bill stays dead though. You may be right. But I still feel the very essence of drama is that kind of jeopardy.Tying a young lady to a train track, leading us to believe she will die, only for her to be rescued at the last minute OR believing she has died and only finding out she escaped in retrospect. Very similar. If Steven Moffat attempted either of those, I'm sure he'd be accused to pressing a reset button. If we were never given situations where we thought our heroes were in trouble or dead, where would much of the drama be? All showrunners and producers use this, and I don't consider it any kind of weakness
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jun 25, 2017 8:20:18 GMT
The only surprise was opening with what I assume is the real Regeneration. (Taking place at the South Pole in 1986 perhaps...?) {Spoiler} Yes. I strongly suspect he'll look across the snow and see David Bradley, possibly even zapping him with regeneration energy....SPOILER It does indeed seem like he may have been suppressing a regeneration since mid-season. especially if you watched the next time trailer, which showed a close up of his hand pressing on a field of grass with regen energy coming from it
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Post by doctorkernow on Jun 25, 2017 8:25:46 GMT
Hello again.
Um...is it safe to come out from behind the sofa now? Well now, even though we had been spoilered about the Master's return this was quite a rollercoaster ride.
This episode was quite simply the best episode of NuWho so far. That is quite an accolade. My reasoning is simple. This was an episode where every department of the Who creative team was working at its very best.
It was cinematic in its design and visual effects. The plot was like Extremis, intricate but everything fits precisely into place.
As we come to expect, Rachel Talaly's direction was first class. She wrung every drop of tension in the scary scenes and really got the best out of her acting team.
The acting as we know was wonderful. The TARDIS crew, Missy and Razor/Master and even the small supporting cast were spellbinding to watch.
Special praise must go to Pearl Mackie, who has been outstanding all season. Her terror, humour and desperation in this story were all so well played.
Finally, the music added that essential element. Beautifully poignant, scary and dramatic. Can we have a Twelfth Doctor prom please?
So now I guess now, the question is can Mr. Moffatt pull off the impossible and produce another hour of Who as excellent as this? See you next week behind the sofa.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jun 25, 2017 8:35:32 GMT
And I'm guessing John Simm must be a Babylon 5 fan because he was totally playing Zathras when he was in "disguise". There were almost times when I thought it was the same actor Unfortunately Tim Choate, who played Zathras, died in a motorcycle accident several years ago. One of Babylon 5's many cast losses since it went off the air. Met him once, he was a Hell of a nice guy. But yeah, that was the best Zathras that isn't actually Zathras that I've ever seen. Anyway, outside of some of the meta dialogue, I really enjoyed this episode, and I sincerely hope that next week's follow up is equally strong. Capaldi deserves to exit his regular series on a high.
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