I don't know how I felt about the finale. It was depressing and it was dark and it felt very un-Doctor Who-like to me. I agree that this season really focused on Clara and it's not that I didn't like it but the show at the end of the day is called Doctor Who. I never cared enough for Danny Pink so when what happened to him happened, it didn't effect me that much. I did like him in this particular episode though. I was very sad about Osgood though. She was such a great character and I was hoping we would see more of her.
I liked the actress who played the Master. She seemed more evil than John Simm and she was enjoyable to watch but I wanted to know why the Master could change genders. I wanted there to be a reason other than "we did it because we could".
There were things about the finale I liked and things I did not and things that I REALLY did not like. I almost felt like this season was Moffat just trolling the fans and saying I did this because you thought I couldn't or shouldn't. As a whole, this is not a season I feel compelled to re-visit.
Our Death in Heaven review hit iTunes and libsyn this morning. In addition to the regulars, we were joined by Justin Haywald of the Geekbox podcast and Jess Hall of the Infinite Longbox podcast.
There was definitely some disagreement amongst the hosts. Some of us really liked the episode, while others (myself included) gave it a much more moderate rating.
I was also pretty conflicted about the finale. I know I liked it. Or at least definitely didn't dislike it. I've really enjoyed this season, think it's one of the best they've ever done, but I was always worried that Doctor Who dealing with the afterlife would be a little too odd of a fit for the show, and I think that turned out to be true.
There was just so much craziness being barely held together that it always seemed like it was on the verge of falling apart. If not for the strength of the cast, I think it would have.
THE GOOD
Appropriate threat level for a season finale. The Master and the Cybermen, the entire Earth under attack in a way that, for Doctor Who anyway, is believable. More than The Master's last plan of morphing everyone into a duplicate of himself, at least.
Missy - I suppose things could always go off the rails like they did with Simm, but so far she's striking a good balance between scheming and crazy. I could do with a little less crazy, but I was still happy with the character.
The Doctor and Clara's goodbye - I have a feeling this is going to be undone, but I thought it was great to finally have a sad, low key, awkward farewell. The hugging scene was excellent. At least until Santa Claus fixes everything in the Christmas Special.
THE BAD
"What are the Cybermen doing?" "So far, they're just standing around." Seriously? You awaken an entire army of the dead, you finally make the Cybermen genuinely scary, and then you have them putz around a graveyard for the last half hour? Moffat once said in an interview that the Cybermen are very good at breaking out of tombs, but not much else. This just proved his point.
Osgood - Too soon to kill her off. I didn't expect her to become a companion, but I thought she was a great supporting character who was needlessly sacrificed to prove how evil Missy was.
Danny - What a messy way to write him out. Once again, I have a feeling this is going to be undone or at least amended in some way come Christmas, but what was once a likable character had become insufferable in recent episodes. He wants Clara to stop spending time with The Doctor but refuses to even journey in the TARDIS once to understand what it's about, and now, with the entire Earth under attack, he decided to take some more potshots at the Doctor and his willingness to use the situation for a tactical advantage. And his idea of a good deed is sending back a child who died years ago and asking his girlfriend to track down his parents. It may seem like a good thing, but it's really more of a way to make Danny feel better, not actually improve that child's situation, a child who's going to return to parents who are now years older and have likely moved on and won't know what to make of such a strange situation.
THE WEIRD
Okay, I like the Brigadier, too, and it's a shame they didn't have a chance to bring him back to the show one last time before his death. But that was just weird and kind of uncomfortable for me. And for viewers not familiar with the character, it's an ending that has no emotional impact. I don't like the idea of the Brigadier's rotting corpse residing inside a Cyberman (and apparently soaring through the universe, since he didn't blow up at the end).
Santa Claus? For f***'s sake. It better be a good episode.
I found Danny Pink incredibly annoying, so I may have actually cheered when I saw he had been converted. 8-X
I didn't cheer but I didn't really have a reaction one way or the other. I almost figured it was going to happen. Sorry Danny Pink, but I won't miss you.
Yes, I am referring to Gallifrey One. Attendees usually just call it Gally. The guest list is awesome. I am looking forward to meeting Carole Ann Ford, Sophie Aldred, Wendy Cadbury, Jemma Redgrave, Burn Gorman, Bruno Langley, and the voice of Sutekh, Gabriel Woolf. You can look at the long list at www.gallifreyone.com.
I'm a little late to the game, watching the finale two-parter... I skipped quite a few of this season's episodes, basically watching them if I happened to catch them. Not a big fan of this season.
Did anyone else catch a cheap-video-camera vibe from the show, especially the handheld camera scenes? And a lot of the scenes seemed to be filmed from two angles simultaneously, not as separate setups. The lighting, as a by-product, seemed cheap and flat. Much of it had the production quality of a soap-opera, or the old school Doctor Who episodes from the 80's.
I found it really distracting to go from a great spfx scene to a soap-opera quality interior shot. Maybe it's just me.
At any rate, I think I would consider myself a casual viewer from now on, until something changes.
... Did anyone else catch a cheap-video-camera vibe from the show, especially the handheld camera scenes? And a lot of the scenes seemed to be filmed from two angles simultaneously, not as separate setups. The lighting, as a by-product, seemed cheap and flat. Much of it had the production quality of a soap-opera, or the old school Doctor Who episodes from the 80's.
I found it really distracting to go from a great spfx scene to a soap-opera quality interior shot. Maybe it's just me.
Yeah, that wonky camera vibe was a topic that we touched upon on several occasions on the Wanderers in the 4th Dimensions podcast that I'm a co-host on.
Since I'm spending Christmas at a house that doesn't have BBC America, I had to resort to other means to watch tonight's episode. No spoilers, but having just finished it...
I loved it. A much better ending to the season than Death in Heaven. It may be my new favorite Christmas special. Even the Santa thing worked.
I did like the Christmas Special, but it did start getting a little repetitive towards he end...(Spoiler) The dream within a dream within a dream thing...& the ending with Clara felt tacked on.
First off, I was so happy that they didn't use that awful Wham song. I didn't even know it existed until some Who-Nerds made the connection. Now I've heard that awful thing about a dozen times.
I liked the show quite a bit. It isn't Christmas Carol, but it isn't the "Widow and the Wardrobe" either. I particularly liked "Dream Danny". "I saved Clara. The rest of the world was lucky." Cheeky Santa was fun. The episode was more "S08E13" then a proper Christmas Special, but it worked.
I made that Wham connection and posted the connection on the Doctor Who hub Facebook page. I guess that makes it official; I'm a Doctor Who nerd.
Rebis, your previous post pretty much mirrors my own take on the episode. I will say, that I did enjoy Last Christmas more the second time I watched it. That second viewing transpired the day after Christmas and in the company of fellow Whovians (The Legion of Rassilon, a Bay Area Doctor Who fan club.) Granted, seeing it with an audience does impart a sense of camaraderie, plus the event was held at an iHOP, so not only was I watching Doctor Who, I was also eating pancakes.
I rarely do Photoshop requests (especially for a complete stranger), but this one resonated with me. The request specified the 5th Doctor, so I rolled with it, but personally I would have gone with the 2nd or the 11th due to Chitty Chitty Bang Bang having a registration plate that reads "GEN II".
Comments
The follow-up video is titled "Daemos Rising".
I liked the actress who played the Master. She seemed more evil than John Simm and she was enjoyable to watch but I wanted to know why the Master could change genders. I wanted there to be a reason other than "we did it because we could".
There were things about the finale I liked and things I did not and things that I REALLY did not like. I almost felt like this season was Moffat just trolling the fans and saying I did this because you thought I couldn't or shouldn't. As a whole, this is not a season I feel compelled to re-visit.
In addition to the regulars, we were joined by Justin Haywald of the Geekbox podcast and Jess Hall of the Infinite Longbox podcast.
There was definitely some disagreement amongst the hosts.
Some of us really liked the episode, while others (myself included) gave it a much more moderate rating.
http://wanderin4d.libsyn.com/episode-252p2-death-in-heaven
(Just roll with it.)
There was just so much craziness being barely held together that it always seemed like it was on the verge of falling apart. If not for the strength of the cast, I think it would have.
THE GOOD
Appropriate threat level for a season finale. The Master and the Cybermen, the entire Earth under attack in a way that, for Doctor Who anyway, is believable. More than The Master's last plan of morphing everyone into a duplicate of himself, at least.
Missy - I suppose things could always go off the rails like they did with Simm, but so far she's striking a good balance between scheming and crazy. I could do with a little less crazy, but I was still happy with the character.
The Doctor and Clara's goodbye - I have a feeling this is going to be undone, but I thought it was great to finally have a sad, low key, awkward farewell. The hugging scene was excellent. At least until Santa Claus fixes everything in the Christmas Special.
THE BAD
"What are the Cybermen doing?" "So far, they're just standing around." Seriously? You awaken an entire army of the dead, you finally make the Cybermen genuinely scary, and then you have them putz around a graveyard for the last half hour? Moffat once said in an interview that the Cybermen are very good at breaking out of tombs, but not much else. This just proved his point.
Osgood - Too soon to kill her off. I didn't expect her to become a companion, but I thought she was a great supporting character who was needlessly sacrificed to prove how evil Missy was.
Danny - What a messy way to write him out. Once again, I have a feeling this is going to be undone or at least amended in some way come Christmas, but what was once a likable character had become insufferable in recent episodes. He wants Clara to stop spending time with The Doctor but refuses to even journey in the TARDIS once to understand what it's about, and now, with the entire Earth under attack, he decided to take some more potshots at the Doctor and his willingness to use the situation for a tactical advantage. And his idea of a good deed is sending back a child who died years ago and asking his girlfriend to track down his parents. It may seem like a good thing, but it's really more of a way to make Danny feel better, not actually improve that child's situation, a child who's going to return to parents who are now years older and have likely moved on and won't know what to make of such a strange situation.
THE WEIRD
Okay, I like the Brigadier, too, and it's a shame they didn't have a chance to bring him back to the show one last time before his death. But that was just weird and kind of uncomfortable for me. And for viewers not familiar with the character, it's an ending that has no emotional impact. I don't like the idea of the Brigadier's rotting corpse residing inside a Cyberman (and apparently soaring through the universe, since he didn't blow up at the end).
Santa Claus? For f***'s sake. It better be a good episode.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/3WX4fNTX1lvvzcXJ7zlrMsT/doctor-who-adventure-calendar-2014
Looks like fun video clips all the way up to the Christmas special.
Did anyone else catch a cheap-video-camera vibe from the show, especially the handheld camera scenes? And a lot of the scenes seemed to be filmed from two angles simultaneously, not as separate setups. The lighting, as a by-product, seemed cheap and flat. Much of it had the production quality of a soap-opera, or the old school Doctor Who episodes from the 80's.
I found it really distracting to go from a great spfx scene to a soap-opera quality interior shot. Maybe it's just me.
At any rate, I think I would consider myself a casual viewer from now on, until something changes.
I loved it. A much better ending to the season than Death in Heaven. It may be my new favorite Christmas special. Even the Santa thing worked.
I liked the show quite a bit. It isn't Christmas Carol, but it isn't the "Widow and the Wardrobe" either.
I particularly liked "Dream Danny". "I saved Clara. The rest of the world was lucky."
Cheeky Santa was fun.
The episode was more "S08E13" then a proper Christmas Special, but it worked.
Rebis, your previous post pretty much mirrors my own take on the episode. I will say, that I did enjoy Last Christmas more the second time I watched it. That second viewing transpired the day after Christmas and in the company of fellow Whovians (The Legion of Rassilon, a Bay Area Doctor Who fan club.) Granted, seeing it with an audience does impart a sense of camaraderie, plus the event was held at an iHOP, so not only was I watching Doctor Who, I was also eating pancakes.
View the full episode (including the above clip) here: (NSFW - language)
That is all.
I need this book!