Doctor Who 2018 S11*

I called her performance Muppety before, but this also works!

Truly terrible, again. I don't have the strength or the will to enumerate all the ways this sucked (I started fast forwarding towards the end), but the bit where the Dalek octopus made the outer Dalek casing out of scrap metal parts in a junkyard was beyond stupid!

So, working with a blowtorch, hammer & anvil, beating metal into shape etc, was sufficient to make a fully functional Dalek that had: an internal interface for the creature, powered electronics, rocket engines for flight (and fuel), as well as built-in missiles and targeting systems!!! Who writes this stuff?! Oh right, the same dude that wrote the Doc making a high-tech sonic screwdriver/tricorder from melted spoons! Urgh!

 

No, U.N.I.T. have been sacrificed for a cheap anti Brexit jibe, I bet the higher ups at the Beeb were chuffed with that bit of propaganda.

 

Apparently they don't need UNIT anyway with half a dozen 'helpers'.

Just saw the last Capaldi episode with the first Dr . Looked like a masterpiece in comparison.

 

We enjoyed the Dalek one. Didn’t quite get the Siberia/Island connection, but it was a fun story and filled an hour.

 

I marvel at just how many problems the episode had, the plot holes, the writing, the pacing, the force fed political agendas, the acting, I'm tempted to re-watch it just to list all the faults, but there are so many from beginning with a multi ethnic Anglo Saxon Britain whose inhabitants destroyed a Dalek, but didn't think to burn it's body, forgetting previous episodes where Dalek flesh seems to decompose pretty rapidly, people who could travel thousands of miles across the globe centuries before the great voyages of discovery, robbers who didn't rob their victim, as did nobody else who passed his body as he lay there, teleporting Dalek flesh, the Doctor scanning the first archeologist, but conveniently not the one with a Dalek under her coat, etc., etc, finally we finish at GCHQ, entirely failing to grasp that the main purpose of GCHQ is gathering other peoples signals and that Cheltenham is NOT some huge transmitter or transmitting station with dishes aimed into deep space, a schoolboy error by the Dalek.

I kept hoping at least one of the companions would die as a belated Christmas present, but was left disappointed, a missed opportunity.

 

Come back series 24, all is forgiven.

 

Dear God, that was a badly-written piece of trash. The episode wasn't too hot, either.

Terrible things:

The portentous opening and closing voiceover/Game of Thrones-lite action. What happened to the other Dalek body segments that were buried, by the way? And if those historical events (and the existence of the Custodians) were so well-known that a junior archeologist was aware of them, how come UNIT didn't secure the buried parts while it still existed?

Bombastic music (did an uncredited Murray Gold return for this episode?).

The Doctor being annoyingly obtuse for plot purposes: not scanning both archeologists, not working out that the Dalek was seeking its weapon, or where it would travel to broadcast the signal. What difference would it make if it did this, anyway? The Daleks presumably already know Earth's location. Do they need a Scout's go-ahead to invade en masse? Why? They haven't before.

Ryan's dad spontaneously working out that they could use his microwave (that Ryan carried into the TARDIS for no apparent reason) to defeat the Dalek, a creature whose existence he had learned about approximately six seconds before.

All the soap opera-esque father/son stuff, which sucked the momentum out of the story; RTDavies incorporated that sort of thing much more effectively.

The "No Wi-Fi? We'll have to have a convesation!" "joke", which landed like a bellyflopping Beluga. Props to the BBC for saying "Netflix" rather than "iPlayer", though.

Wacky science. C'mon, I can swallow the Doctor constructing her screwdriver out of some spoons and Alien Magic Crystal, but a Dalek with a power source, rockets and flight technology out of some big cogs and farmyard equipment...this wasn't Christmas Day, I hadn't consumed enough rum and eggnog to roll with that. Also: selective vacuum corridor in the closing sequence (either the TARDIS shields are down, in which case everyone would be simultaneously frazzled and sucked out into space, or they're not).

The Doctor doing her "woohoo! Best gig ever!" thing after melting (as she thought) the Dalek didn't really sit well with her "we must respect all forms of life, even murderous alien psychos" shtick from the rest of the season.

Nice to see more of the TARDIS interior in this episode, but the big crystal "fingers" that rise and fall with the time rotor aren't in synch and look a bit rubbish.

Good things:

Quite liked possessed archeologist lady. The "must remember what a Rel is" gag worked. The Time Vortex shots in this season seem well-realized. Junkyard Dalek was cool, though they should have kept it comparatively low-tech; I like the fact that Scout Dalek's attention to detail extended to "hmm, mustn't neglect to have some flashing lightbulbs on the old noggin".

 

Lowest ratings for a 'holiday' special since the reboot in 2005. At 5.1m overnight viewers, the ep had the second worst figures of the entire season. Not even the (contractually obligated) Daleks could spark any interest in this bore of a season.

 

Ratings have been (inexplicably) good all season, though, no? Not sure how it’s doing in the US.

 

They've pretty much halved since the first episode, if it wasn't Doctor Who there's a good chance it would have been axed, as it is they are taking a whole year off, but are unlikely to sort it out as the current team and cast just aren't up to the job, hopefully whoever replaces the current team will have some talent for sci fi and lose the political baggage as well, though it's the BBC so probably not.

 

I don’t really see any “political baggage”, just an uncreative showrunner and a dull version of the Doctor. I like the Doctor being a bit of a git.

 

I've noticed that many people are now saying 'political' when what they mean is 'political correctness' - which are two different things (and kind of annoying). The show is now filled to the gills with hamfisted, in-your-face PC infusions. It really pains me to point this out because I'm as progressive as you can get, but when such material draws so much attention to itself with no good narrative reason, it really does a disservice to anyone who's just interested in a decent, 'organically' developed story.

I don't think so. The sycophant media outlets keep crowing about the good ratings. The ratings for Capaldu's last season were dire and by comparison, the ratings for this season are a bit better, but they nearly halved. The holiday ep managed just 5.1m while Tennant's first special had 9.4m overnight views, Matt Smith's 10.3m and Peter Capaldi's 6.3m. Voyage of the Damned (2007), with Tennant and Kylie Minogue, earned 12.2m overnights! When you consider increases in population since 2005, then no, the ratings aren't good.

And speaking of sycophant media, have a look at Rotten Tomatoes. Dr Who has a 94% critics rating (!), while the audience score is 24% (!!!). What does that kind of disparity tell you? That's almost as bad as the score disparity for The Last Jedi: 91% vs 45%.

The media these days are too scared to be critical of media giants like Disney or the BBC for the fear of having their access taken away (screeners, publicity, invites, news, etc). And I won't even go into the behind the scenes bot wars!

 

I made it through to Resolution (barely) but not looking forward to another season really. It just didn't seem to grow at all and stayed stuck about where it got by the second or third episode. There were three or four okay episodes and as many plain badly written ones... where can they go next that would be interesting? Could this Doctor get pregnant? Could this Doctor get pregnant by one of her past selves? Nah, guess that wouldn't be safe viewing for the kiddies. Then again, I wouldn't have had the gender change but gotten Peter Dinklage for a different perspective. What was the gain from this supposed to be again? We got a man giving birth in one episode we could've had anyway... oh no, this is turning into Red Dwarf! Heck, just have a cross-over special and be done with it then.

 

I think this 'special' might have been the worst of the series so far. Truly awful writing and acting and the plot...blimey what a mess. As you say you could spend ages listing all the faults, but a few things that crossed my mind:


The opening scene immediately rang a bell. Something was so dangerous they split it into three and scattered it around the globe, to be guarded for eternity? It’s exactly the same as the Justice League movie with the three mother boxes. Even to the extent that two were being guarded and one was discovered by accident.

Then the whole Dalek controlling someone was very reminiscent to Alan Moore’s Superman story.

After these obvious steals I found it very difficult to get on board, especially as someone is able to make a Dalek body seemingly in a few hours from some old junk.

As for the resolution. Really? That’s the best they could come up with, suck it off? That was such a dangerous thing as logically it would more likely pull them both out rather than pull the Dalek just off his back.

The whole series has been so incredibly badly written and the acting ranges from cringworthy to just about acceptable. If the BBC wanted to kill the franchise then they seem to be going the right way.

They need to get a talented show runner in who understands sci-fi, hire some decent writers and I’m afraid re-cast the whole lot.

 

The Doctor Who spin off "Class" is overall much better done than this latest series, if anyone wants a fix of something to clear the palate after this current series.
As I said before, my five and a half year old quite likes it though, or at least the non "talky" bits.

 

Class is pretty dreadful too. If anything, I'd take The Sarah Jane Adventures over this.

 

It really is for kids...no one over the age of 12 admitted!

 

I can't imagine kids being interested in this. If I was 12 I'd have been bored sh*tless for the first 30 minutes! lol

It really doesn't feel like it's being aimed at the classic Dr Who fan though does it? I saw the ep last night. Rolled my eyes at the dalek reveal but I played along. About mid way through I thought "Not much time left to wrap this up" and then of course it went into high gear and all was resolved.

It was mostly hurried and boring though. I feel like I'm in a bad relationship and I don't want to get a divorce because of the kids so I expect I'll be tuning in for 2019 anyway.

 

I forgot it was on and went out on a night drive of terror in my 69 year old Dodge.

 

There is no 2019. They put so much effort into season 11's 10+ episodes that they need to take a year's sabbatical to be ready for 2020.

 

I was wondering what the ratings were like. Not good is it. I think the reboot has really run it's course and it really needs a bit of a rest. We've had 14 years of this "reboot" and at some point you have to figure, ideas are going to run out. Unfortunately, it's probably a good money earner for the BBC so there's going to be a need to keep it going while it still brings in money from international sales.

 

I also think that the 'one Dalek' thing has been done before, as in the episode from 2005 called 'Dalek' where they have found that one remaining Dalek and what happens, which I think dealt with the idea of a single Dalek survivor far more intelligently and interestingly.

 

Ah maybe that's the rest it needs!