Watched The Tsuranga Conundrum and yknow what it woulda been perfectly fine and average with some great bits if it didn’t have a weirdly pro-life sideplot 
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I’ve always wished I loved this episode, it’s a great example of Moffat writing which 100% lands emotionally, but that I struggle with logically if I think about it for even a second. The main thing is the Statue Of Liberty, that is a gamble not worth taking just for the visual, because it makes a nonsense of the one rule about the Angels, they can’t move when observed. Am I meant to accept that the goddamn Statue Of Liberty walked from Ellis Island through Midtown and not a single one of the millions of inhabitants glanced up? Come on, Steve, you know this is gibberish. And the second thing is Amy & Rory’s stated reason for being unrecoverable, it makes absolutely no sense, not even a little bit. If you have a time and space machine, and are unable to land in a specific place and specific year, how about you land in freakin’ Vancouver ten years previously and do a bit of gardening until it’s time to take an analog train to NY to meet them when they arrive and bring them back to the TARDIS, everything’s sorted. I love that last scene, and it does make me cry because I absolutely love Amy and Rory with 11, it’s a rare perfect TARDIS team, but I can’t really rate the episode too highly because these things get in the way of my enjoyment. Sadly!
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I quite agree. There was a lot of story to pack in. It could have worked wonders. The Weeping Angels’ scheme was chilling, made sense for their weird biology and was well thought out but there was no space to build the scares and atmosphere with the Angels (much easier in Blink because the story was straightforward - relatively speaking). Yes, I really do think it could have been a great two parter. Still needed to ditch the Statue of Liberty angel though.
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I think Praxeus is very underrated. I feel like a lot of the disappointed sentiment comes from the word “plastic” being used in proximity to the word “Auton” but that not being what’s up with this plot. And apparently that was the original intention, but Chibs felt they already had enough legacy stuff going on this season (fair), so they did something else instead. I personally really like the globe-hopping mystery feel, with things that actually matter to the plot happening in the different locations (not the usual DW trope to add scale of just going “BUENOS AIRES 1517 AD” and then showing a guy in a set saying one thing and never coming back to it haha); the fam members each do some important business, Graham is very funny in this one, Yaz is very proactive, Ryan cuts open a bird haha. The amoral scientist reveal is good for me, they are predicting a global pandemic just a second before we got one, the body explosion effect is really horrible (compliment), love the astronaut and husband and The Doctor being like “I’m a romantic.” This one also has a modernized throwback feel, this is kind of an updated Pertwee plot, but again with S24-style gaudy violence sitting with slapstick moments. I dig it, this one could also make a great Target novel, really expand on Suki and the different locations. 3.75/5
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Just finished The Daleks Master Plan…
SARA KINGDOM WHY DID YOU DIE LIKE THAT
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I was responding to your thoughts on The Power of Three there.
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I actually wrote a topic here when I watched it a while ago. Almost perfect episodes
It is so close to being the perfect episode, but unfortunately, the ending falls so flat
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There is one glaring plot hole though, or at least something both unexplained and difficult to make up a reason for at this end haha: who sends Jake the text from Adam Lang asking him to “FIND ME”? It doesn’t seem like that could be Adam, and it isn’t from a number he recognizes, and Suki doesn’t have a good reason for wanting anyone else to know about what they’re up to? Fix it in the novel lol.
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You’re in luck, there’s a fair bit of Sara Kingdom stories from Big Finish set in the middle of DMP. The main places to find these are the Companion Chronicles and Early Adventures.
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Didn’t she die though? What happens in those audios?
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Listen to them… There’s a reason for everything
(I could tell you but it’s a bit of a spoiler and they’re like really good. Really recommend them)
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What @Jae says, but for most of them, they’re also just set bewteen Parts 7 & 8 of the TV serial when the Doctor, Steven and Sara are on the run from the Daleks.
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Even though I’ve resigned myself to not getting the ‘all visual media’ badge, I’m still determined to watch as much as I can.
As such, I’ve decided to get Zygon: When Being You Just Isn’t Enough out of the way once and for all. Twelve minutes in and… y’know, even after Breach Of The Peace, I somehow still wasn’t prepared for just how accurate the term ‘softcore’ would be in relation to this one.
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Sunday afternoon, watching Terror Of The Autons. I love Jo Grant so much, but basically everything about her introduction bums me out lol, from Liz Shaw being written out unceremoniously, to Jo Grant being explicitly intended to “pass you test tubes and say you’re brilliant,” to her getting immediately captured and hypnotized, to everybody talking down to her in Part 2, and her blurting out info to save their lives and then getting the Twisted Ankle™️ in Part 4 ughh.
But their chemistry gets warmer as the season goes on, almost before the end of this story, and Delgado as The Master is just pure fun from the second he hops out of that horse box, the dude in a lunchbox is just deliciously macabre. Robert Holmes knows inherently to put The Master in a business setting, and establishes the “Colonel Masters” convention, which is always silly and always fun, and there are umpteen perfect lines.
I adore the gremlin doll. The police car cliffhanger. The plastic mascot men. The heavy synthesizer sting every time The Master is revealed. It is wild to compare the continuous CSO/green screen and studio sets here with the 16mm high quality location stuff in Spearhead, the previous season opener, but I do still like this one! 3 & Jo have a strong assortment of outfits. 3.75/5
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I still feel like we ought to see more time lords showing up looking like this, rather then the usual time lord attire…
Liz Shaw’s exit was a really bad one, though. I hate her being shuffled off between seasons. And yeah, Delgado was just pretty much amazing from the moment he appeared.
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They make up a different Time Lord character for this guy in the EU, Adelphi, but he could’ve been Narvin, if they’d only thought ahead!
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Your comments re: Jo are certainly very valid. She’s amazing, yet is poorly handled to start. Love her chemistry with Pertwee from hereon in, however.
Terror of the Autons is a story that I’ve always found fun, yet very much a poor cousin to Spearhead. Over time, however, I’ve seen more and more to enjoy in it. Holmes’ script is simply bursting with ideas. I regard it much more highly these days. 
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The White Witch Of Devil’s End: The Cat Who Walks Through Walls
I’m probably becoming a broken record as I keep going back through these canon-adjacent productions and reacting with “I wasn’t expecting this” but… yeah, doubly so in this case. I lost my cat (or maybe the cat lost me) earlier this year, and seeing Olive describe her relationship with her familiar, I am now actively sobbing.
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Just finished The War Machines and with it Season 3. It’s so fun to see the first Doctor in a proto-UNIT story, and I enjoy it a ton, it has become one of my favorites just from this watch!
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