Doctor Who s8e10 - "Dark Water" [spoilers]

Morrus · Oct 29, 2014

I've marked it [spoilers] because here's a clip from the episode. Plus the trailer!

[video=youtube;OtIqFgZ0QfQ]https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=OtIqFgZ0QfQ[/video]

[video=youtube;ETCGtZUn_tU]https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ETCGtZUn_tU[/video]

Cyberman-tastic. Plus it looks like we find out who Missy is; she seems to be (from what I can make out from the above) collecting all the dead from Earth and turning them into a Cyberman army. Or something like that, at least!

delericho · Oct 29, 2014

Looks pretty good. I really hope the reveal of who Missy is is worth the build-up. I still have no good idea.

MarkB · Nov 1, 2014

delericho said:
Looks pretty good. I really hope the reveal of who Missy is is worth the build-up. I still have no good idea.

It was indeed, and I totally wasn't expecting it. But what's with the "left me for dead" revisionism? That's not how it happened.

Morrus · Nov 2, 2014

I called it exactly 11 weeks ago during Deep Breath - Missy, Master. It was always going to be the soft-intro (post Corsair) to Time Lord gender changes in the absence of an actual Doctor gender change (who will change ethnicity next, and then gender in 10 years). I would have been surprised to find she wasn't the Master. I was kinda hoping for a twist, but it went with the obvious. That said, I strongly support the gender change vehicle, predictable though it was. It should have been done, and it was. Good for Moffat!

MarkB said:
It was indeed, and I totally wasn't expecting it. But what's with the "left me for dead" revisionism? That's not how it happened.

The Master 'chose' to die but he/she is a demented villain. Of course that was the Doctor's fault. How cold it not be, from her point of view? Everything is always somebody else's fault.

RangerWickett · Nov 2, 2014

Clara and the Doctor need to read TimeWatch to learn better how to avoid paradox.

Staffan · Nov 2, 2014

Morrus said:
I called it exactly 11 weeks ago during Deep Breath - Missy, Master. It was always going to be the soft-intro (post Corsair) to Time Lord gender changes in the absence of an actual Doctor gender change (who will change ethnicity next, and then gender in 10 years). I would have been surprised to find she wasn't the Master. I was kinda hoping for a twist, but it went with the obvious. That said, I strongly support the gender change vehicle, predictable though it was. It should have been done, and it was. Good for Moffat!

The Master 'chose' to die but he/she is a demented villain. Of course that was the Doctor's fault. How cold it not be, from her point of view? Everything is always somebody else's fault.

Except that last time we saw the Master, he wasn't dead. He was blasting Rasillon back through the time lock to the last days of Gallifrey.

Or perhaps, the "cultists" who resurrected the Master in the End of Time didn't really bring him back from the dead as much as they created a (flawed), so Missy is the dead Master who took over the Afterlife.

delericho · Nov 2, 2014

MarkB said:
It was indeed, and I totally wasn't expecting it. But what's with the "left me for dead" revisionism? That's not how it happened.

There's an assumption there that this is the 18th incarnation of the Master (John Simm being the 17th). Given Moffat's love of timey-wimey stuff, this could very well be setting up for some future tragedy where the Doctor encounters the 'missing link' Master and does leave him for dead, thus effectively un-redeeming Missy.

Or it could be another plot by Rassilon - they captured the Master, tampered with his memory, forced a regeneration, and sent her back with another plan to free the council from their prison.

Or it could be simply what Morrus says: she's mad.

delericho · Nov 2, 2014

I was deeply disappointed with this episode overall. I think it would have been fine had I gone in spoiler-free, but between the teaser at the end of last week's episode and the official trailer, one of the big reveals had no impact - we knew it was going to be Cybermen, so no surpise there. Because of that, my strongest response to the episode was "Get on with it!"

Then there's more nitpicky stuff: they had a demonstration that the water concealed anything that was non-organic, and there was a skeleton in a tank right there, and they didn't ask to see what the contents really looked like?

Or the old "ask him something only he could know", when Dr Exposition had just told them they'd been scanning Clara telepathically since she came in - if it's a trick, that same telepathic scan will provide them with the answers they need.

(Also, not a fan of Dr Exposition in general.)

That said, I did enjoy the MISI fakeout, and also the "ranting Scotsman in the street" line.

Janx · Nov 2, 2014

I got no clue who Rassilon is, but I saw the Master die in Tenant's arms. Moffat should have stayed dead, and they re-used one of those other female timelord villains old-timers mentioned in other threads.

I'm not quite sure of what the 3W operation is about. Missy's making ghost cybermen, why? She's making them from volunteers (given that it's obvious what will happen if Mickey, I mean Danny pushes the button).

Unless something double-weird is going on, if the dead really are tied to their body, this may be a hook to the last Torchwood series where people weren't dying, including if really horrible stuff happened to their bodies. Thus, in similar (but different) fashion, Danny's link to his disemBody is continuation of that concept.

In other thoughts, it is strange that Danny can't think of anything else to say about Claire to prove he's really him, except the one thing he didn't get to say when Claire asked him in the beginning of the episode and he was hit by a car.

Morrus · Nov 2, 2014

Interesting that the Cybermen aren't just brains now.

I agree; we'd known about them from trailers months ago. Otherwise those Cyberman eye/tear logos on the doors and stuff would have been a real cool "Oh!" moment.