Yeah it would have been nice to have a bit more from her, but I think they just wanted some returning cast, and personally I’d rather her be there without much role than not be there because it just makes me happy to see her come back
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Just got out the cinema and oh boy do I have some mixed feelings on this one.
The first two thirds or so was peak Who and Gatwa, Gibson and Langford all excelled as our mini-Tardis team in the wonderfully designed memory TARDIS. It was some of the most unique material the show has ever made and I was utterly gripped by this quiet, melancholy, bleak script.
However, RTD wrote it so you know the last fifteen minutes or so are a copout. I like the completely mental image of leashing an actual god and dragging it through the vortex but it really did diminish Sutekh’s threat and the conclusion to Ruby’s plot was utter shite. Nine episodes of one of the most interesting companion arcs all filling me with the false hope that we wouldn’t have just another dreadfully ordinary person from contemporary England in the TARDIS but no, it’s just a cheap tug at the heartstrings with the same narrative integrity as Davina McCall’s show from The Church on Ruby Road.
I’ll write a full review in the morning after some sleep but yeah, great episode with a botched ending.
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Very glad we got a good amount of Mel, especially with her and 6/7’s outfits
Even if Rose had almost nothing to do, I love the fact that she seems to be hanging around as a constant presence
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I absolutely read this as platonic. I tell my friends I love them all the time.
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I don’t want the companion to be the most special person ever either. However I would like a companion with anything more to them than “20 something from contemporary England”.
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Thinking about it more, yeah you’re most likely 100% right. I probably overthought that specific scene
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I chose to read it as platonic to preserve my own sanity
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I want another non-contemporary companion to be honest
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Yeah, this just wasn’t for me. I must confess I am unsure how exactly to feel about this Series even in Stories/Episodes like these there were plenty of aspects I enjoyed, this one? I am not really sure.
Gabriel Woolf still gives a stellar Performance. And Bonnie, my god probably the standout performance?
And now to the rest of it: While I can enjoy corny, I feel this way a bit too corny for my taste, the whole pointing and naming her ruby felt a bit dumb to me and overall there were plenty of Moments that left me cold. At points, it felt rather directionless and while normally I am always having a bit of issues with RTD Finales (except for his first) they never feel directionless as this one kinda did. Looking back, this second Part certainly doesn’t help how I view Legend, which tended to have way too much set up in it (and at points felt like it could certainly have done but didn’t simply to have the Sutekh Reveal around the end). And Sutekh, yeah I don’t know I had my expectations low with him, I love Pyramids and I think you can hardly top or match that, all I expected was a good resolution and I sadly didn’t got one. The way he got defeated left a lot to be desired. I will say I enjoyed the last bit a lot more, even if it went a bit corny at the start, for what it’s worth it did its job really well. And yes classic who references!!! AND TELOS MENTION!!
But yeah overall I am happy for anybody who enjoyed it, for me while I can see its Ambition it left me rather cold most of the time.
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Its been so long. Part of me was dissapointing when Varada Sethu’s companion character was confirmed to not be Mundy because she could have been a thoroughly interesting non contemporary companion after her appearance in Boom
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It would’ve been nice but this is RTD we’re talking about, that would be a little too far out of the box for him.
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I liked it. And I’m conflicted too. I’ll have to get my thoughts in order before I post more.
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As I have said a hundred times, there has not been a single good Sutekh episode since Pyramids and that is still true 
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Yeah, honestly out of the televised stuff I totally agreed, haven’t got around to any EU Material which has him, but what a shame, maybe I brought a real monkey paws curse beyond me, and he should have stayed as a one-off.
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I’m back around to being a Russell Hater. You spent an entire season giving us an incredibly cheap, pointless mystery box, with absolutely no meaningful payoff beyond Death x Death = Life and…UNIT just ran her DNA? So they could have done any time?
Also why the ■■■■ would they put guns in a 15 year old’s mobility device? We don’t want kids pointing the Sonic like it’s a gun but let’s give the real kid two MP5s in his scooter and call it “representation.”
Once again the strength of performances makes up for a really shoddy script that’s just not thought through and high on the fumes of its own cleverness. “She was important because we believed that she was important.” No, you spent the entire narrative telling us she was important, and then when it came time to pay it off, you realized you’d written yourself into a corner where no pay-off could satisfy what you were setting up. So again, like binary/non binary, we get a handwaved ending that Murray Gold can soften up with bombastic emotional music and make you feel sad.
Meanwhile, let’s just mention a grab bag of planets from classic episodes and hang up Colin’s outfit for Bonnie Langford to stare at, as if these little offerings are enough to make up for the fact that this season has been tonally all over the place, with very little meat to actually back it up. All flash, and no bang, as it were. You didn’t even meaningfully pay off 73 Yards.
I don’t know. I don’t hate this. But it’s a classic RTD finale, all herring and no breakfast.
The only meaningful thing I’m taking away is Mrs. Flood said “You clever boy” twice and is wearing the Clara Collar so maybe there’s setup.
But basically this was an entire episode full of rug-pulls that don’t reward the viewer for engaging, if anything they make the viewer feel silly for engaging.
Also Carla Sunday is possibly up there for one of the worst non-characters ever written.
I find it quite funny how we all thought that the incongruencies and weird vibes of the season were going to be something meta-narrative about television, but no, it’s just Russell Russelling. Even an anguished declaration of love at the end.
Also, like, the single Ncuti tear is already so ■■■■■■■ trite and contrived. It’s worse than the “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”
Someone else also mentioned on Reddit that basically the crux of this story was “You should all feel silly and stupid for speculating so much” and then at the end they give us a stinger that’s nothing BUT speculation fuel.
I’m gonna speculate anyway though, that pull up to the roof of the house with Mrs. Flood is such a direct visual nod to Listen, but at this point I feel like I can’t trust any signalling RTD does. At what point does it swing around to being cheap and contemptuous?
AND DON’T EVEN GET ME STARTED ON THE KATE STEWART ROMANTIC SUBPLOT F U C K ME
This is my Galactic Starcruiser moment. Prepare for a four hour video essay.
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I liked it overall more than you bc I am a sucker for a bit of fanservice (hello i am the fan. i am being serviced. i am having fun) but I actually agree with everything you said. It was just very RTD. It was big and loud and at the end of the day the plot ended with a hand wave bc the big bad monster was too big and bad and there was no other way to defeat it
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It was better than The Battle Of Ranskoor Av Kolos.
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I have a lot of thoughts and in the morning I’ll give details because it’s 2am.
But I’m VERY pissed off at no Susan appearing, and I think it’s genuinely god awful writing that she didn’t appear after all the red herrings, and when it would have PERFECTLY parallelled with Ruby and her bio mum.
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This is what I hate about all powerful gods. There is no logical way to defeat them due to their power so the writer has to come up with some random crap they pull from nowhere to defeat them. Its one of my least favorite tropes and to see it presented in this episode as if the solution was veey mystical and thought provoking is very silly. The solution was just dumb.
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The problem with this whole thing is that Russell spent an entire season priming us for a YANA moment (which is probably the strongest his finales have ever been) and then the YANA moment was just a shrug and a “Well, guess it’s nothing.”
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