Series 14 spoiler-free review

Subject: Series 14 spoiler-free review
Author: Huinesoron
Posted on: 2024-06-26 20:32:24 UTC

Now that the full series is out, I wanted to give my spoiler-free thoughts on the eight episodes. Don't worry, spoilery thoughts on the finale will follow. :D

Space Babies

The weakest of the series, which makes it a baffling decision as the opener. Apparently some people loved it, but the science was a shambles, the Doctor leapt to many many conclusions, the CGI was uncanny, and SPACE babies.

The Devil's Chord

The second weakest, unfortunately. I cannot fault the acting, and it did suffer from still having to explain things (the sonic, for instance), but it also made weird choices. I've already complained about this, I think. :D

Boom

MUCH better. Not the greatest episode, but far better. The plot beats strung together a lot better than in Devil's Chord, and while the physics didn't really work the way the script claimed, it still worked.

73 Yards

Might be the best episode of the series? The plot was fun, and the way Ruby used the main feature of the plot to her advantage was cool. The ending was a bit... vague on how it actually worked, and RTD is not helping in interviews about what she said.

Dot and Bubble

A very clever episode with something - actually several things - to say. The twists were very deliberately out of nowhere, for all that there are small hints seeded throughout.

Rogue

So much fun. Apparently even more fun if you actually watch the show Ruby brings up, because there are specific references seeded throughout. And yes, that character being introduced is very deliberately extremely familiar.

The Legend of Ruby Sunday

Pretty good. The Doctor spends a lot of time running between two plots that seem to have no bearing on each other, but which he has just randomly decided are connected. The reveal at the end had me rocking with surprised laughter while the rest of the family stared at me in bafflement.

Empire of Death

Maybe the only episode which didn't say its own title, though I might just not remember it. A very RTD finale: high stakes, the companion rather than the Doctor stuck in the middle of it, and an ending to the series arc plot that doesn't quite satisfy. This particular ending left a huge blazing "but that doesn't work", which we can headcanon into sense but it would be nice if it had actually hung together. But overall it was good!

More, and spoilery, thoughts on the finale when I get a chance, but overall I liked the series, liked the cast, and wish some of the scripts could have been better.

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NuNuWho by Huinesoron on 2024-05-15 08:15:36 UTC Reply

So Doctor Who has been revived again, without... actually being cancelled first. Series 13 of "Doctor Who (2005-2022)" was the last; now we're back on Series 1 of "Doctor Who (No Years For You)".

At the same time - and as far as I can tell, the reason for it - the show has switched from airing first on BBC1 to releasing on Disney+ and (for the UK) BBC iPlayer at some godsforsaken hour, and then airing on BBC1 many hours later. That means the US actually gets to watch it first, while we in the UK either wake up to it or catch it on the TV most of a day later.

I've been saying that Doctor Who sold out to America/Disney, but that's not... really true. Certainly, they're intending this to be an entry point for a huge new American viewer-base - the first episode of "Series 1" (aka Series 14, aka Season 40) starts with a heavy-handed infodump of What The Heck Is This Show - but the first two episodes make it clear that "sold out" is not accurate.

My spoiler-free review of the first two episodes: if you're an American who's been waiting years to have easy access to the quirky British "wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey" sci-fi show you've seen all the memes about, you are likely to come out of these episodes going "that is not what I thought I was getting". And same, my friends, same.

Now it's time to bring River back, because... spoilers!

Yeah, so I have Thoughts.

Overall Impressions

Starting with this because the rest is coming out quite negative... Kaitlyn and I agree that Ncuti and Millie are fantastic actors. They bring a huge energy to the screen and work well together (even if I can't shake the idea that Ruby Sunday is actually Clara Oswald attempting to cosplay as Rose Tyler). When they get a script by someone other than Uncle Rusty I think they'll be fantastic.

Space Babies

How many times do you want to hear Ncuti Gatwa say "Babies... space babies!"? Because I guarantee he does it more than that. Which is weirdly racist/othering, because they're a) not actually babies (they're about seven years old) and b) not especially 'space' other than being currently in space. They want to be on a planet. They just can't be.

They're also deeply lost in the Uncanny Valley, because they used CGI to make them talk. So their lips move in time with the words, but don't often manage to look much like lips when they do. It's creepy and very distracting.

I was also very, very offended by the science of "the airlock door is partly open, the Doctor jumps into the airlock... and is sucked against the closed part of the door". I just... what?

We also-also start with a really overdone & badly-scripted infodump on the Doctor and the TARDIS. I get that it's for a new audience, but... the 2005 series didn't even use the name "Time Lord" until the second episode, why did we need to just dump everything on Ruby in tell-don't-show mode? Then there's a weird excursion where Ruby steps on a butterfly and Back-to-the-Futures herself into a Silurian, then the Doctor revives the butterfly and shifts her back. Which a) probably ate a load of SFX budget, and b) since when does Doctor Who care about the butterfly effect?! But whatever.

In terms of plot, it was fine. Weirdly, after making sure to slap down the Timeless Child stuff from 13's era in the Specials, they've now made it a core part of 15's character and how he connects to his companion. Um... 'kay? But yeah: were it not for "space babies!" and the uncanny lips, this would be a standard middling-to-bad episode. As it is, it's a really rubbish intro to the new series.

The Devil's Chord

This was better, but still makes a load of baffling decisions. Like, why would you make and advertise an episode about the Beatles, and then barely have the Beatles in it? Why would you have a Beatle tell the Doctor a chord, and then have the Doctor need a chord from a genius, and not connect these? Why are we resolving this situation in the 60s when it was established as starting in the 20s, and there's no timey-wimey reason the resolution would echo back? Why did the Doctor feel the need to take Ruby and show her her own destroyed future? (Answer: so that the TARDIS would be locked to only go back to the 60s, because they realised the above question had no good answer.) Why does the Doctor now know, on no basis other than "my legions are coming", that the Maestro is part of "the Pantheon" - or has he just made up that name to sound smart? (I mean... checks out.)

The plot was definitely better. I mean, it made no sense, but in a Doctory sort of way, and had far fewer logic leaps than the previous episode. The CGI on the music tentacles was... Kaitlyn called it 'very 90s', and I can't argue, which is weird when there's now Disney money in play. And while the musical number had me going "what" the entire time, it wasn't actually bad.

Though Kaitlyn is extremely offended that the mysterious lost chord which takes a genius to rediscover is just a tritone.

Overall Impressions, Redux

Kaitlyn says that these episodes feel more like The Sarah Jane Adventures than Doctor Who, which I agree with. It makes me wonder whether Uncle Rusty is planning to use the "Whoniverse" banner to also run a more adult show, along the lines of Torchwood... aaaand yep, looks like he did indeed confirm they were planning a UNIT show. We'll have to see whether the younger tone of the main series continues, or whether it's just Rusty Gonna Rusty. The next episode is by Stephen Moffat, so... we'll see.

Series 14 spoiler-free review by Huinesoron on 2024-06-26 20:32:24 UTC Reply

Now that the full series is out, I wanted to give my spoiler-free thoughts on the eight episodes. Don't worry, spoilery thoughts on the finale will follow. :D

Space Babies

The weakest of the series, which makes it a baffling decision as the opener. Apparently some people loved it, but the science was a shambles, the Doctor leapt to many many conclusions, the CGI was uncanny, and SPACE babies.

The Devil's Chord

The second weakest, unfortunately. I cannot fault the acting, and it did suffer from still having to explain things (the sonic, for instance), but it also made weird choices. I've already complained about this, I think. :D

Boom

MUCH better. Not the greatest episode, but far better. The plot beats strung together a lot better than in Devil's Chord, and while the physics didn't really work the way the script claimed, it still worked.

73 Yards

Might be the best episode of the series? The plot was fun, and the way Ruby used the main feature of the plot to her advantage was cool. The ending was a bit... vague on how it actually worked, and RTD is not helping in interviews about what she said.

Dot and Bubble

A very clever episode with something - actually several things - to say. The twists were very deliberately out of nowhere, for all that there are small hints seeded throughout.

Rogue

So much fun. Apparently even more fun if you actually watch the show Ruby brings up, because there are specific references seeded throughout. And yes, that character being introduced is very deliberately extremely familiar.

The Legend of Ruby Sunday

Pretty good. The Doctor spends a lot of time running between two plots that seem to have no bearing on each other, but which he has just randomly decided are connected. The reveal at the end had me rocking with surprised laughter while the rest of the family stared at me in bafflement.

Empire of Death

Maybe the only episode which didn't say its own title, though I might just not remember it. A very RTD finale: high stakes, the companion rather than the Doctor stuck in the middle of it, and an ending to the series arc plot that doesn't quite satisfy. This particular ending left a huge blazing "but that doesn't work", which we can headcanon into sense but it would be nice if it had actually hung together. But overall it was good!

More, and spoilery, thoughts on the finale when I get a chance, but overall I liked the series, liked the cast, and wish some of the scripts could have been better.

hS

I really liked "Dot and Bubble"! by Neshomeh on 2024-06-27 02:36:12 UTC Reply

I think that's the only one that didn't leave me dissatisfied in some way. It hits hard and leaves you with lots to think about.

"Rogue" is nearly as good in a very different way, that being fun shenanigans with time travel plus aliens. And yes, can confirm the Bridgerton pastiche is hilarious, since I'd just started watching that when this ep aired! The amount of fangirling/fanboying is delightful. ^_^ I don't actually remember what bugged me about it; it was something minor. Anyway, I hope the guest character will be back!

"Empire of Death" does say its own title, via the Big Bad or one of the lackeys, I think.

The ending makes me even more annoyed at "73 Yards" for lampshading the lack of real explanations for things, like that makes it okay. "Haha, you want things to make sense? Nerds!" Jeez, sorry for caring. {= /

Overall I would say the good outweighs the bad, though! I'm definitely still on board for the next season!

~Neshomeh

On episode endings [SPOILERS this time] by Huinesoron on 2024-06-27 09:38:10 UTC Reply

Nice catch on the title-drop; I'm not sure we've ever had a season where they title-dropped every episode before. It's certainly never been so prominent.

SPACE Babies aside, I feel like the endings have been the weakest parts of most of these episodes, so I wanted to share my thoughts on them specifically.

Space Babies: "The snot monster is people too!" I don't know why the Doctor concluded this. The snot monster is functionally a fire alarm - it makes the kids do what the system wants by scaring them - but we don't assume our fire alarms must be sentient. I'm also, still, really really annoyed by "the partly-open airlock sucks the Doctor against the door, not towards the opening".

The Devil's Chord: okay, but seriously: you don't crow about 'needing a genius', and then a) only explicitly connect that to the Doctor (not the Beatles), and then b) have the task given to the Actual Beatles be 'add one note to the mysteriously floating chord, no penalties for failure, just try again'. I'm also frustrated by the fact that we established early on that history had changed (the Doctor says "that didn't happen", something about Finland) - but never went back and fixed it. I guess the Cold War was hotter now, oh well, on to our next adventure right???

Boom: kiss kiss. It was quite silly that the emulated human had access to the entire global weapon operating system, but... literally the point of the episode is that the weapons are built on the cheap and badly, this is exactly the sort of stupid design flaw we should expect. (As a side note, why didn't the Doctor do anything about Villengard? Because he already did, back in Stephen Moffat's first episode.)

73 Yards: How did it all work? Magic. Kate told us that to our faces: UNIT carry salt now, remember? Empire of Death later establishes that 73 yards is the radius of the TARDIS' perception filter field, so presumably the episode combined two effects: a magic trap which blipped the Doctor out of existence, and the TARDIS pulling Ruby back from the end of her timeline to try and avert its Doctor's disappearance. In that light, the question of 'what she was saying' is clearly wrong: the people who encountered Her witnessed her entire timeline at once, it would drive anyone to run screaming. (It's quite funny that she says 'yards' - Britain has been metric for long enough that even I don't use yards much, and Ruby is much younger.)

Dot and Bubble: It's only purity if it's from the purity region of Finetime; otherwise it's just sparkling racism. It's kind of weird that the survivors just... get away with being horrible people? They go off to found a colony, they're fine. But I think that's part of the message too, because rich kids.

Rogue: No questions. I liked the payoff on the combat earbuds. (The reason Rogue is so very Jack Harkness Redux is that John Barrowman turned out to be A Huge Problem. Quite funny that RTD chose to so blatantly replace him; I wonder whether it was partly to draw attention to Barrowman's actions.)

The Legend of Ruby Sunday: "I bring Sutekh's gift of death to all humanity." Oh my gosh this was so fun. I was cackling like a loon. Sutekh?? Really?! I have the DVD of that old story; it includes a whole spoof documentary about Sutekh, so all I could think was "I bring Sutekh's gift of cookies...". Disappointed that it wasn't Susan, though maybe that means she's coming next season. Carole Ann Ford is still alive and all.

Empire of Death: Okay, so yeah. Sutekh hung to the side of the TARDIS for a thousand years or so in the time vortex, but this time doing so was fatal? Why, exactly? And Doctor, "bringing death to death" doesn't sound as cool as you think it does. My best explanation for this is that by killing Sutekh in the vortex, the Doctor wiped the effects of Sutekh's actions from history, though that doesn't explain why everyone still remembers. Nor does it explain why he died, nor why the Doctor jumped straight to murder as a solution. (It's as bad as that time Thirteen decided treason against Space Amazon was a capital crime.)

But also, what was up with the Ruby reveal? Her mother is just nobody, fine. So why did the Doctor's memories of his encounter with her keep changing? Why did it keep snowing? Was Ruby just So Adopted that she broke reality because the Doctor told her she was special?

My best guess here is a combination of Sutekh and that time window. When the Doctor landed outside the church, Sutekh sensed the future use of the time window. Maybe he didn't understand what it was - he just felt the Doctor and Ruby were there one and a half times each - or maybe he knew exactly what it was, and how desperate the Doctor must be to use it. That convinced him that Ruby Sunday must be ~~super special~~ (and therefore a threat). The snow Ruby kept manifesting was actually Sutekh trying to force her memories to manifest in reality, so that he could figure out who she was.

Does that line up with what the Doctor said? Not really, but remember Rule One: the Doctor lies. Specifically he lies to make Ruby feel better. (Just like he lied about thinking she shouldn't go and see her birth mother; that's not a conversation you have after you take her directly to the woman, so it was either a lie or the Doctor really not understanding humans... or bad script-writing.)

hS

To clarify re. "73 Yards"... (And then some spoilers, but not the first paragraph I don't think) by Neshomeh on 2024-06-27 14:38:11 UTC Reply

I'm fine with "BTW we're acknowledging magic now." But magic still has to have some rules, even vague ones! The part that bugs me is when Kate says something about how we make stuff up to make random occurrences mean something. a) Granny Weatherwax said it better, and b) the phrasing of it really made me wonder if it wasn't RTD going "I don't have to explain things, the fans will headcanon it for me, the nerds." I mean, yeah, some of us will, but some of us don't have the spoons, and anyway it's rude for a writer to blatantly pass the buck like that!

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Spoilers now!

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Re. "Dot and Bubble": I'm fully convinced they're all going to die out there. They have zero practical skills. Plus, the Doctor wouldn't have been so upset about not being able to save them if he thought there was a chance they'd be totally fine, right?

I should say, it did confuse me a little that the explanation for everything going wrong was Rampant AI, cuz it didn't quite seem like that's where we were heading (and the fight scene with the Dot was silly, up until it wasn't). It's at least a functional explanation, though.

Re. "Rogue" (sort of): I'm still a bit mad about Barrowman. {= ( The whole thing confuses me, but only really because of the timing. The entire cast of Torchwood were quite open about the dude's sense of humor, and it seemed weird to me, but I chalked it up to Brits being maybe less uptight than Americans about nudity/sexual humor?? Anyway, it just surprised me that his antics became an issue later rather than sooner. And then he had to go and be snitty about it. RIP queer icon.

Re. Sutekh: Not gonna lie, not knowing this was the return of an Old Who villain, I was disappointed the Big Bad turned out to be Egyptian-flavored Death. I was thinking maybe Chaos, the screaming maelstrom, sort of thing. And not visibly connected to any Earth culture, especially Egypt, cuz that's been worn into the ground. :^_^: And after all the build-up, the defeat seemed far too easy, but that's a side-effect of short seasons.

The whole thing with Ruby's mom, just, sigh. "Haha, fooled you into thinking this was more important than it is! All that mysterious stuff is just stuff; it doesn't have to mean anything. Make something up if it bothers you. That's what humans do, remember?"

Red from OSP has a video about bathos (both the unintentional kind we in the PPC are most familiar with and the modern, intentional kind), and I keep thinking this is exactly what she was talking about with intentional bathos sometimes being a symptom of writers too afraid to commit to an idea in case people don't like it. "Haha, you thought this was going to be a big emotional moment? Psych!" That sort of thing. The downside is that we become jaded, unable to care about anything, because we're waiting for the rug to be pulled at any moment. That's how I'm feeling about this, except with narrative satisfaction rather than character moments. The character moments have generally been good!

I hope they do better with the writing next season. We are here for this; please be here for us!

~Neshomeh

Third ep was better, I thought! (No specific spoilers.) by Neshomeh on 2024-05-20 14:36:21 UTC Reply

It's not without issues (the kid's behavior is strange and the ending is played more optimistic than it ought to be IMO), but it's a smaller, more character-driven story with a more serious tone, which I tend to prefer.

This season is really wearing its thoughts on its sleeve so far: anti-capitalism, anti-war, and anti–blind faith in this case. That's fine with me since I agree with them, but the first bit is a little weird coming from Disney. They talk a good game, but do they put their money where their mouse is? {= P

~Neshomeh

Agreed. by Huinesoron on 2024-05-24 10:08:27 UTC Reply

I did say they needed to take the pen away from Uncle Rusty... this was a Steven Moffat episode, and it kind of showed.

(As an aside, I didn't realise until yesterday that Moffat was also responsible for Sherlock. Kind of makes more sense of why people went off him so hard - they weren't just looking at his Doctor Who run.)

I actually find it quite funny that the philosophy of the series is now very clearly "this thing is controversial in America right now, here's a Time Lord to tell you which side is dumb and/or evil". I'm not overly surprised, mind you - Russell T. Davies has always done this (for example, Torchwood went out of its way repeatedly to explain that there is no afterlife) - but it's funny that they've done it just after going live on Disney+. (I will note that as far as I can tell, the production is still 100% BBC - Disney are only distributing.)

(Of course the show has always been "moralistic", so to speak: the second ever story was about Space Fascists and their nuclear weapons. THEY TALK LIKE THIS AND LOVE TO EX-TER-MIN-ATE.)

hS

Seen the first two episodes and it was... fine. by Iximaz on 2024-05-18 06:30:27 UTC Reply

The plots themselves felt half-baked, and though I know Devil's Chord is supposed to set things up for later in the season, it didn't set things up in a satisfying way. Space Babies was just tonally all over the place, and it was especially painful because this is supposed to be a new introduction to the show.

I do love Ncuti and Millie as the TARDIS duo, and love their dynamic so far. They've been the highlight of the new season, and I was admittedly loving Jinkx's performance as the Maestro. Lowkey dreading building up to a possible reveal that the Doctor is another one of the entities from beyond our universe, and that this is how it's all going to tie into the Timeless Child again.

Anyway, all in all, not a great start to the new series. I'll keep watching because I do want to know if my theory that Ruby is Susan's granddaughter, or Susan herself under the effect of a Chameleon Arch, is correct. (the Doctor does seem to have settled into a more familial relationship with her quite quickly, huh?) The Rani namedrop also had me sitting up and pointing excitedly (how long has it been, now?) so I'm really hoping we'll see other Time Lords starting to make a reappearance.

Moffat coming back could either be brilliant or a complete circus. Either way, I'll be there with popcorn.
Crackpot Theory [Spoilers] by Huinesoron on 2024-05-16 07:34:20 UTC Reply

[The series finale. The Doctor lost Ruby about ten minutes ago, let's say in an explosion. Now suddenly she shows up alive]

DOCTOR: Oh Ruby, I'm so glad you're okay! How did you even survive that?

RUBY: Ruby? Who's Ruby?

DOCTOR: What? Babes, what's wrong? Don't you remember?

RUBY: Oh Doctor, haven't you figured it out yet? I'm not Ruby Sunday.

DOCTOR: Oh no. No no no no no.

RUBY: Ruby Sunday never existed. I... am... the Master.

Of course I have evidence; otherwise it would just be a Crackpot Hypothesis.

1/ There have been five musical numbers in Doctor Who. Three of the others were the Master. The fourth was the Toymaker with the Master in his tooth. The Master should be involved this time too.

2/ A woman's hand picked up the Gold Tooth Master. Ruby is also a woman. QED.

3/ The Doctor has been scanning Ruby and getting puzzling results. The last time that happened was when Amy Pond turned out not to be human right now.

4/ The presence or absence of Ruby Sunday has repeatedly caused major alterations to the timeline. The biggest of these was her stepping on a butterfly - which the Doctor had pretty much told her would have no effect - and Silurianising the human race. That says Time Lord to me - like back in Turn Left, when the Doctor's death caused the whole world to go to pot practically overnight.

5/ She looks like Clara Oswald cosplaying Rose Tyler. You know - the only two NuWho companions the Doctor kept across regenerations, so plausibly the ones he was most attached to. If you were trying to gain his trust, that's a great way to go about it.

So how did this happen? There's multiple options here:

a) She's just the Master. This is how she regenerated after being freed from the tooth.

b) She's a bigeneration of the Master at some point.

c) She's the Gold Tooth Master, possessing a human body like the Tremas Master in OldWho.

d) In 13's last episodes, she was briefly forced to regenerate into the Master; Ruby could be the Master half of that combination, running around by herself.

e) She's the Master's daughter, either from Harold and Lucy Saxon, or from Saxon and Missy during that one disturbing episode they had together. She calls herself the Master because the Master is dead, so she feels she's inherited the title. (This could also be the case for option d.)

The biggest hint that we're looking at the Master's daughter would be if the Doctor's daughter reappeared, which has been rumoured since forever. Bonus points if she believes the Doctor to be dead and is calling herself the Doctor, "to keep the name alive". Options c and e also both explain why Ruby became a Silurian, which is a bit tricky if she's a full Time Lord.

Obviously I will be adding evidence to this theory as it comes in. ^_^

hS

I'm no good at theorizing... by Neshomeh on 2024-05-17 20:41:41 UTC Reply

But I do have one burning question: What has it all got to do with Chris?

You know, Mr. Waites.

... Maybe nothing, it could just be another callback to the First Doctor and Susan, apparently. But then again, maybe something. Suppose we'll have to wait and see.

~Neshomeh

Space babies! (nm) by Linstar on 2024-05-15 16:40:11 UTC Reply
On the plus side, I can actually participate in a DW conversation! by Neshomeh on 2024-05-15 16:10:49 UTC Reply

But yeah, I pretty much agree with everything you said. I don't think it all rubbed Phobos and me the wrong way quite as much, but still. The look and feel is very much influenced by Disney, IMO, which is sometimes okay but often a bit cartoonish and cheesy. And the writing suffers from Davies' "because reasons" approach to plots. I was also fed up with "space babies!" by the end. ;^_^;

But the eps ARE fun, though. {= )

Maestro is extremely well performed. Maybe a tad out of place, but worth it. I'm curious about the rest of the "pantheon" even if it makes me scratch my head a bit. If the Toymaster is play and Maestro is music, then what other, say, cornerstones of sapient experience might we get?

~Neshomeh