I think that I will use it kind of often. 
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At least blur it…
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I assume it’s just an unfortunate camera angle
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This isn’t the first time @Tian has shared this image…
I think it’s more than just an unfortunate angle…
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Well at least Sophie Aldred looks happy in it 
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Honestly, reading that does make me think the scene where Dan dies is kinda weird.
Death by bubble wrap?
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I think the Doctor is talking about ‘the systems’ as in the various AI/robots/etc that humans exploit and misuse for their own gain.
I think it is very Doctor Who that the Doctor comes to the rescue of Twirly (the Kerblam system) because it has gained sentience and is under attack. Absolutely, it goes about it in the wrong way by killing Kira but equally Charlie is doing the wrong thing by wanting to kill innocent people.
Should the Doctor have manipulated the situation to put Charlie into a position where he has to choose whether to die - maybe not. But there are plenty of other examples where the Doctor could have spared someone’s life and doesn’t. Kerblam is not the only example.
The question as to whether the Doctor should have brought down Kerblam is an interesting one because, absolutely there are plenty of examples of the Doctor toppling big business; unfair regimes; exploitation etc but are there any examples the other way where he solves one aspect of a world’s problems but leaves others intact?
Somewhere recently I saw a comment about Carnival of Monsters where there is a pretty obvious slave race being exploited by the Inter Minoran leaders. The Doctor does nothing about that. I just wonder if there are any other examples.
But for all this debate, I still don’t see Kerblam - for any of it’s narrative faults - to be a indicator of McTighe’s suitability as showrunner. That’s kind of what I’m mainly getting at here. People hear his name and literally shudder and I just don’t get that. He hasn’t presented a story with an egregiously terrible message - just one that maybe doesn’t put it’s stall down completely on one side or the other. I think it nobly tries to tell a story of the Doctor defending an artifical intelligence which has gained sentience but loses it’s way a little in the final act.
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But has he presented anything to show that he would work well as a showrunner? He has written two Who stories. One with a confusing message that a lot of people really don’t like and one that people keep forgetting.
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But my point is everyone thought Moffat would be a great showrunners based on his stories under RTD and then when he got to do it, lots of people didn’t like it.
Is the confusing message solely at the door of McTighe? What was the script editor doing? What was Chibnall doing?
And I’d hardly say people ‘forget’ Praxeus. It’s in a season with Fugitive of the Judoon and The Timeless Child arc. it would have to do a lot to stand out. It’s no more forgotten, I would say, that Nikola Tesla or Can You Hear Me (and in fact, I had to just google Series 12 to remember Can You hear Me was in it…).
But I suppose what I’m saying is writing a story and showrunning a show aren’t the same skillset. Just because I don’t like a story or two doesn’t mean he’d necessarily be awful at overseeing the whole show; just like I enjoy Moffat’s tight scripts where that’s all he’s doing but really think he’s terrible at constructing arcs which don’t look like they’ve been made up as they go along.
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I genuinely love Kerblam and feel it’s unfairly hated (I also really like Praxeus).
When I finished watching the episode for the first time (going into it fully aware of it’s reputation), I thought ‘was that it?’
People get themselves so worked up about this episode and it really irritated me.
Also, McTighe has said he had problems with the finished episode, which he fixed (really well) in his novelisation.
As an aside, to be honest it’s a bit of a comfort watch as well for me, it’s a really lovely atmospheric episode.
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But you do want to read The Turning of the Tide again, right?
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Not at all, not at all
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This has become such a running gag at this point that I don’t think I’ll ever dare actually read it myself…
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If you read it you’ll be able to make better jokes about the story!
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But what if I end up liking it???
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Not sure if I’ve said this in the What Are You Currently Watching thread already, but I think the problem with this episode is that it’s an episode about big mega corporations that isn’t actually about big mega corporations. The whole discussion the Doc and the Bad Twist Villain have at the end is about technology and if modern advancement is at fault for being used for bad things. McTighe wants to do a commentary on that, and almost does a bit of a fakeout by making you think at the start the episode is going somewhere else. But then the episode is still set in and around capitalistic themes, and that’s just kinda ignored, which I can agree with is quite sloppy, because even if the things mentioned in the first half aren’t the point of the episode, they have still been mentioned and it would be nice if that got some kind of more explicit closure. Could have done a world of good for its popularity if the Doctor did a speechy speech about inevitable evils you have to accept, but to always try to make the best of it, to never stoop as low as the evils themselves or something I think.
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There is only room for 1 Dan in the Chibnall era. Time to erase Lee Mack from canon.
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Thanks to everyone who responded to this thread. I think I get where people are coming from even if I don’t get the same reaction to the episode. I think it’s worst sin is muddling its message. I definitely don’t think any of it makes McTighe any worse a writer than anyone else from the series.
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More soup for the real Dan.
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“Nobody needs soup more than me!”
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