Elimination Game - Rachel Talalay Edition

General / off topic Forum Games
41

Well, since I did it last time, here is the group rank:

TARDIS Guide rank:

  1. Heaven Sent
  2. World Enough and Time
  3. The Doctor Falls
  4. Twice Upon Time
  5. Death in Heaven
  6. Hell Bent
  7. Dark Water
  8. The Star Beast

My personal rank:

  1. Heaven Sent
  2. World Enough and Time
  3. Dark Water
  4. The Star Beast
  5. Twice Upon A Time
  6. The Doctor Falls
  7. Death In Heaven
  8. Hell Bent

Personally, this is where I politely disagree, @JayPea - my order was quite a bit different from the collective and the eliminations were close enough I think everything outside of the top two could have been a completely different order.

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42

And all is well.

Heaven Sent is unbeatable and so are its fans.

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43

Yeah it got down to a single point before we collectively surged it back ahead lol

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44

I love Heaven Sent but I hate whenever itā€™s involved in any kind of poll or ranking cause it always wins :sob: does take a bit of the fun out of it

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45

Thatā€™s true, but it does have strengths on all fronts.

Capaldiā€™s acting, the editing, the sets - everything is so on point in this episode. I think if weā€™re looking at direction, Heaven Sent deserved the win. It might be the best directed episode of Doctor Who ever.

That being saidā€¦ Talalay is an exceptional director overall and this elimination game really helped me see that.

Dark Water/Death in Heaven has a million memorable sequences. The reveal of the Cybermen and Missy were great and well handled. The ending with Danny almost salvaged his character. And the last meeting with Clara and the Doctor was also well filmed.

@BillFiler already did a great write-up a littler farther up the thread about what works so well of World Enough and Timeā€™s direction.

The Star Beast is pretty great IMO. Talalay did some cool stuff to make the special feel well, special. She did some great stuff with Beep the Meep and working with puppets like that, let alone making them look good, isnā€™t easy. I think she nailed it though.

Twice Upon a Time has some amazing bits. Anything in the snow or with the WWI Christmas armistice was really well directed in my opinion.

Iā€™m not a fan of The Doctor Falls or Heaven Sent as much as others and donā€™t think they are quite as strong as their lead-in episodes. They have their moments, even if stuff like the Doctor standing off against Rassilon felt underwhelming and I do put some of that on the director. Still, that is quite the average with several of these being among the best of Doctor Who. No wonder Chibnall didnā€™t use her :stuck_out_tongue:

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46

I knew that Heaven Sent would win. Itā€™s a fantastic episode

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47

I do wonder how the order of eliminations might have changed if Heaven Sent wasnā€™t on the list.

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