I live in Cardiff and I see filming a decent amount, particularly near my work. And I remember being in the office one day and looking out and I saw that dwfilming person and a bunch of fans, and I was like, I assumed y’all were in your late teens. They were all mid-late 20’s and older. Like girl don’t you have a job.
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It is sad to me that this story is probably the worst ranked tv story ever 
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Slept on it all. Still feel bad about it. I’m going to go on and on about the Rani getting ate by the skull for the rest of time. Whole episode was a disaster but that just stabbed me in the heart. Archie Panjabi pls come back I’ll do anything for you anyyyythinggggg
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It’s not, at least not yet. I shared earlier that there are 4 new who stories below it, not considering classic who where there could be lower.
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genuinely curious for peoples thoughts on this:
I’ve seen a lot of 13-fan twitter saying they feel gaslit that everyone loved Jodie’s performance, when she was written the exact same way as under Chibnall.
I really, really, disagree.
13 under Chibnall was childish, argumentative, illogical, preachy, insecure.
13 in Reality War was hopeful and energetic, but kind, wise, and comforting too.
She was everything I think Chibnall tried to make her, but done well. The writing was just better in this one episode and made me believe in her as the Doctor more than her era ever did. She was the Doctor I wanted her to be.
Thoughts?
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Don’t worry, Mrs. Flood probably went and grabbed her when she took off with the time ring…
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I think its ridiculous tbh. She was written there exactly how she was written during her era.
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Having recently rewatched a lot of Thirteenth episodes, I strongly disagree. Her appearance in RW worked because she was written as Chibnall did. Hope and energy is what makes her her.
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Yayyyy choosing to believe this <3
As for 13? I thought RTD got her characterisation bang on. I’m not convinced by ‘she was better in this scene than any of her own episodes’
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Pleaseeeeeeee. I want her. I was so ready to just ignore everything else and have fun looking at her. What a wasted casting
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Yay! My first forum.tardis.guide disagreement.
I feel like I’ve officially arrived. Ly all.
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I did like the inclusion of the Rani having a time ring btw. That was a nice detail
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Oh ye o55 and legend of sea devils are below 2
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You say ‘time ring’ I think BENNY!!! so that kept me happy for a second
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Watch the Time Ring actually be her wedding ring and when the Master shows up next season (played by Barrowman), he says something like “you killed my wife” and reveals a matching ring.
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Billie is playing the TARDIS not Doccy Who.
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I loved the time ring!! see, this is just the beginning, soon benny will be on our screens, mark my words 
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Next day and I still can’t decide what I think about this episode. This thread is fascinating because I find I’m agreeing with almost every post I read both negative and positive (at least the ones that aren’t just calling it dogshit… 
)
People here should know by now that I want to go into Doctor Who and come out of Doctor Who with positivity so I will start with what I did like:
- Rani vs Mel - absolutely what I wanted (although Mel’s perm looked super strange).
- The two Ranis gag.
- I grew to like Archie Panjabi even more rewatching Wish World and then The Reality War.
- Some great gags - I’m wearing tweed; I’m wearing nylon!
- Ruby confronting Conrad
- The UNIT tower fighting the Bone Beasts was stupid but brilliant. The scenes inside with the ceiling crashing down and people rushing around was actually pretty thrilling and when the entire tower started to turn - hilarious!
- Ncuti Gatwa was superb throughout. I especially loved the bit where he shed the pinstripe suit to stand in his pinstripe skirt outfit. I am so envious of Gatwa because that outfit on anyone else would look ridiculous but on him, it looked ■■■■■■■ amazing.
- JODIE! Yes, that was brilliant (even if it wasn’t entirely clear what her purpose was).
- Anita! I didn’t really get the love for her in Joy to the World but was very excited to see her back.
- The scene where the Doctor and Belinda repeatedly folded Poppy’s jacket and we realise it is getting thinner and thinner. (If only Poppy’s part in the story had ended there…)
But what are the things that niggle me…
- Belinda. Totally done dirty. Set up in The Robot Revolution as no nonsense and determined. The new Tegan we all decided. But no. Literally side-lined every time Ruby turned up and shafted into a reality where she was a mother. Putting her in the Zero Room with Poppy was unforgivable frankly and I would love there to be some sort of right to reply with RTD for him to explain his thought process. I always advocate the audience accepting the choices the writer has made with the narrative but this was a rare occasion where I think he has completely misjudged what he has written.
- The entire Poppy thing. As quite a few have said, I just didn’t care about her. The entire Poppy thing should have ended when she disappeared and Belinda forgot her. Ruby could be stuck with the memory maybe - or maybe even that would disappear. It felt like as someone else has said, RTD couldn’t make his mind up and it just felt like poor writing - the Doctor’s a dad, no he isn’t, yes he is, no he isn’t. Belinda’s a mum, no she isn’t, yes she is.
- On the flipside, though, of the mother thing, my wife did say that being a mum shouldn’t be undervalued and she feels it often is in society. People want children but want to maintain the same life they had before - and that just wanting to be ‘a mum’ is looked down on. She felt there was some worth in Belinda being a mum but admitted that, as it wasn’t part of who she was from the beginning, that it didn’t come off well.
- I did think, on reflection, it was odd that in Wish World we are shown women in purely domestic roles with a very 50s attitude of ‘have a job until you get married’. This was in the bit between the Doctor and Ibrahim about Kate; and reinforced in the scene with Belinda and her mum. It was actually something I’d missed on first watch so it fell into quite sharp relief when the end of The Reality War has Belinda being made a mother effectively because the Doctor and Ruby decide it is what should happen. It’s just a really weird contradiction that I find hard to believe no one pointed out.
- What the hell is the point of Rose Noble? She was brilliant in The Star Beast and now is just wallpaper, sitting in the background of scenes with literally no more than two lines and no real justification for her even being part of a top secret government organisation. She was erased because Conrad could literally not imagine her but all the disabled people (and a drag queen it seemed) just got relegated to a tent city. They just got forgotten but Rose got erased. That didn’t seem particularly consistent to me. Were all the gay people also erased? The two things just didn’t seem to be consistent.
- Teasing Susan a second time with literally no payoff was really bad form. RTD is a fan. He knows how important she is to the show and fandom.
- Bringing back Omega was also really stupid and making him another CGI beast like Sutekh was pretty short-signted. Two iconic villains from the classic era have now been relegated to roaring monsters removing all nuance and subtlety from their characters. RTD is clearly oblivious to how these choices are going to be received. I wasn’t overly fussed when he did it to Sutekh but doing it twice over suggests a hint of arrogance that I’m not ever fond of ascribing to the writer. Too often I would see people complaining about the choices Chibnall made but none of those were, to me, as egregious in terms of honouring the classic series as Sutekh and Omega. Want to talk about disrespecting Hartnell with the Fugitive - you’ll get no truck from me; want to suggest RTD is disrespecting Gabriel Woolf, Robert Holmes, Bob Baker, Dave Martin, Stephen Thorne, Johnny Byrne and Ian Collier and, you know what, I’m probably going to be standing right next to you with a pitchfork. Omega as a giant skull thing is right up there with CyberBrig as far as I’m concerned. Ugh.
- Now I never ever do this but hold on to your hats guys but I’m going to talk about optics… I know I’ve rankled at the reactions to the ‘politics’ of previous episodes but this episode did it to me twice and it surprised me that I had this reaction.
- FIrst off - two Ranis and the incarnation played by an Indian actress is the one who gets eaten and the old white woman gets away.. Hmmm. Second - the Indian companion gets shoved in a box with her ‘child’ and then, as I’ve talked about, manipulated into being a mother without her consent. I can’t quite believe I’m typing this stuff but if it struck me - ME, of all naive political people - goodness knows it must have struck others.
- Billie. Hmmm. Yes, my immediate reaction was - and I NEVER do this - ‘we’ve jumped the shark’. It just seems really, really gimmicky - especially when we don’t know what the future holds. What a ‘hoot’ apparently. No Russell. It’s disappearing up your own proverbial. It’s making your second time round seem more and more like you just want to celebrate and play in the toybox you created. Your treatment of classic series stuff was hugely respectful first time round. Now it seems just fan service for the sake of it. Throw any old nostalgia at the screen and the fans will be happy - not how it works, RTD, not how it works.
- Now, it could be brilliant and I will watch it. I’ll never be one of those ‘it’s not for me any more’ types simply because, at its core it’s still Doctor Who and I still love it - even this episode entertained me. But it may possibly rank as the worst decision any showrunner has made in the 60+ years Doctor Who has existed.
It was amazing watching this in the cinema and I’m glad I had that experience especially for such a WHAT THE ■■■■ ending.
I do think time will mellow people on this one a bit. There was a LOT to absorb and emotions were already high going in. People were always going to be disappointed - even angry - about how the Rani, Omega and Susan were handled. People were holding out hope that Gatwa wouldn’t regenerate. Some went in already hating this season - probably not fair to think the story had any chance of winning those people over. Others went in having thought this season was a step up from last year.
I am hugely sad to see Gatwa gone but we’ve had Doctors with short runs before and it doesn’t mean they are any less important than the other Doctors. He was phenomenal as the Doctor and for all the ups and downs of his era there have been some superb stories in both seasons - 73 Yards, Dot and Bubble, Boom, Rogue, Lux, The Well, The Story & the Engine and, yes, Interstellar Song Contest (I liked it a lot, so sue me). He will live on in the EU just as 9 and 6 have done. We don’t know where Billie will take us - if at all. We’ve still got The War Between Land and Sea to look forward to.
And, hey, people are going to be talking about this for a long time, whatever they think about it. Every story and every season and every era is going to be somebody’s favourite. Don’t ever let one part of the show stop you from watching. You never know what’s around the corner. Express your dissatisfaction but lets try not to rain on anyone’s parade. Time heals all wounds after all.
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And I’m one of them 
She acted exactly like how she acted in her era , I thought she was very in character.
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I get what you mean.
I really liked Ncuti, in the physicality there were often moments that felt very Doctory to me but all in all there was something missing to make me completely click with his Doctor. I don’t know if it’s the lack of time (fewer episodes, lots of doctor lite) or the stories or, like you said, the absence of defining clothing style.
Also, I always cry at regenerations but not rhis time because I was so annoyed by all the wasted potential this episode (Belinda, the Rani, Ruby…) and I was worried at who was going to appear if anyone at all that it didn’t help.
Actually, knowing the regeneration in advance helps being fully in the moment and saying proper goodbye rather than this sideration I was feeling
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