Remove the funny comments? I can’t believe you’ve done this, lol.
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Well sometimes they are funny, sometimes they are a bit silly…
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I may have just forwarded the TG transcript for Inferno to my friend, we’re watching all of classic Who in order. She uses transcripts for episodes I lack a copy with subtitles for.
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You should invite to join the Guide and the forum.
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So my thoughts finally.
I did really enjoy it. My thoughts on Joy’s fate at the end are in the Religion in Doctor Who thread but, in brief, I thought that part was lovely.
I enjoyed the whole Time Hotel concept and Gatwa was wonderful.
I was disappointed that Trev got killed off so quickly, even if he sort of came back later on but for me, and here’s where I inch out on that limb all by myself, I was also disappointed that the story was paused for 20 minutes to sit in a grotty hotel room…
Firstly, I think that whole sequence meant we didn’t get enough of Nicola Coughlan as Joy. She was touted as the big guest star and then is not even in it for a good third of the running time. This has always been a bit of a bugbear with me in that modern Doctor Who often seems to waste, in my opinion, decent guest stars.
I’m also not really with all this ‘BF give Anita a spin off stuff’ because as far as I could tell that part implies the Doctor doesn’t get to do anything interesting for that year. He just pootles around the hotel. He just lives an ordinary life.
So it was fine but I’d much rather have spent more time in the Time Hotel maybe exploring some other time periods when trying to work out what the suitcase was.
I still gave it 4/5 because I really did like the ending and thought the bits with Joy were excellent. I just don’t really get the hype for the Anita part.
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I’d like a that kind of spinn-off. Like, the big adventure of the Doctor going to the groceries 
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Seems the slower, more character focused stuff is often not your preferred thing to watch, so not caring for the Anita section doesn’t surprise me. You seem to want the plot, the action, all that sort of stuff more. Not a bad thing, or a criticism of your tastes, just an observation I’ve noticed. Correct me if I’m wrong of course.
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Well, the original plan was to have the Doctor travel across the world, looking for a door to the Time Hotel in other hotels, but they had to change it due to budget constraints. And that’s when they came up with the Anita stuff.
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Or it’s because they needed to fit a particular origin story in there…
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So that would be the 14th Doctor Adventures then 
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The Anita segment I did really like but it harmed the other plot and the other plot harmed it. Felt like two cars welded together for me. Not to “that should have been the whole episode” things but… Yeah, it should have been. Or not as large a part of it as it was.
Anita was great and the Doctor seemed to think so too. So could he pick her up for adventure? No, she can have a job though. Why? Because she’s not Ruby/Belinda levels of pretty? Sorry, that probably sounds catty but it’s the only thing I could think of as to why the Doctor wouldn’t then adopt her as a companion.
Usually we meet characters who’d make great companions who don’t join. Donna first time round felt real in turning him down. Astrid, Rita and others died. We all have different opinions on best companions who never were but here the Doctor wholeheartedly approves of Anita. As far as he’s concerned, she’s got “it”.
The Doctor loves her, but the suits in charge want a hottie leading the show, so she never gets her shot.
Look, I’m being purposefully facetious. What I really have a problem with is just that it’s not dealt with well in-story and so my mind turns to production and admin considerations. She doesn’t go with him because she’s not Belinda Chandra who is due to join soon. Behind the scenes stuff shouldn’t be at the forefront of my mind watching a story. So it failed to engage me, almost all the way through.
Like I said upthread, I’d need to rewatch and there are probably more graceful reasons I didn’t pick up on but the whole thing (while liking that thread in isolation) just didn’t meld together well at all for me on that first watch.
In fact, it actually made me a little bit angry.
I’ll report back (possibly with my tail between my legs) when I’ve rewatched 
(Should add by the way, I happen to think Anita is attractive)
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It does make you wonder if there’s more planned for the character, probably why so many are thinking she’s Flood. Because it does seem odd to develop her by stopping a story for a third of it, only for her to just not go off with the Doctor, or for that to just be it for her. I think if it does end up going nowhere I’ll be more disappointed, even if I don’t actually personally think she’s Flood.
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Hmm. I wonder about this - I imagine you’re basing it on my opinions of Heaven Sent and Listen, along with this. I’m not sure it’s true at all actually just that these examples haven’t chimed with me. That said, I can’t think of any examples that did work for me at the moment - although I’m sure as hell going to try to think of some 
.
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Now that you mention it, those examples are what I had considered, maybe not consciously that specific.
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Did you watch Unleashed? Moffat said that Anita was supposed to only have one scene (and it is the actresses’ first TV appearance!) but they liked her so much they extended it.
Of course that might be a very positive spin on something which was out of their control (the budget issue) but I hardly think she was not taken with him because she wasn’t pretty enough.
Maybe the Doctor thought he’d save Joy and travel with her?
Also maybe Anita was being a bit too friendly, kept asking if he was married, that he thought he needed to not lead her on 
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Me neither, as I said in my post - I was being very facetious given that the only reason he didn’t that I could ascertain was that the actor hadn’t been cast as the new companion.
And no, I didn’t watch Unleashed. I couldn’t face it, I disliked the episode that much that I just wanted to get on with my Christmas. I will give it a go, and I’ve read what Moffat has had to say in DWM. But those production changes aside, the story still didn’t work for me.
What happened was the extended appearance for Anita without any real pay off ended up smacking of being artificially extended because of behind the scenes changes.
As I say, very fond of Anita and it was my favourite section of the episode. But it stuck out like a sore thumb and I hated how she was brushed aside.
Especially as the hype I’d heard and read from people who’d seen it beforehand was how utterly wonderful the Anita thread was I just couldn’t see it myself.
It could have been perfect, it was bungled (in my opinion).
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Anita was my favourite part of he episode, but I agree with both @deltaandthebannermen and @ChrisStokes that is doesn’t actually work for the episode. It feels out of place and take up far too much of the runtime for being basically a plotless detour. I also would hav preferred more time in the Time Hotel. Unfortunately I just don’t think they had that much plot. It felt to me like they were trying to stretch a short story to fit the runtime of a special, which is basically always a bad idea, but I understand you don’t always have the time to completely start over with a new idea.
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I think you could probably rewrite the story to have Anita and Joy be one character.
Instead of Joy staying at the hotel she could’ve taken a job there to ensure she was always alone on Xmas.
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Yeah. I don’t see why the characters couldn’t have been combined. Anita was as alone as Joy.
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I liked the subplot with Anita, it was a really good sequence - but it absolutely killed the momentum of the story for me. I had pretty much forgotten about why he had to wait that year.
Plus the “point” of that sequence was for the Doctor to deal with Ruby leaving him, that was how I read it at least - but it was 
% the Doctor’s choice for Ruby to leave, she all but begged for him to let her do her thing for a bit and then keep going on their joint adventures.
Having the characters of Joy and Anita “merge” and do a rewrite of the script would have done wonders I reckon.
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