Spoilers Doctor Who s15 (or 2) [[spoilers!]]

[Necropolitan]

Belinda asked for it when she had been freed of the mind control and had just been told that she had had a daughter, that she didn't remember.

When? I watched it twice, it was after Ernest Borgnine was revealed to still be alive.

 

[Staffan]

Is that Billie Piper?

Yes.

I did enjoy this finale, it explained things satisfactorily including the Bone beast.
I didnt like the giant skeleton design of Omega, was hoping theyd give a nod to his old armoured form.

There's been a lot of giant skellingtons going around: Sutekh, Bone Beasts, Omega.

There's another interesting tidbit that I thought of, if they're going to shake things up with Doctor Who. Back when Chibnall quit, JMS mentioned he had inquired with the BBC about doing Doctor Who. Apparently he wasn't what they were looking for at the time, with one of the reasons being that he wasn't a resident of the UK, so he wouldn't be able to work there.

However, a few weeks ago he announced that he had fixed things so he now is a resident of the UK and can live and work there, and he's currently planning to split his time between the US and the UK, and is looking for work in Old Blightey. So, I'm wondering if he's angling to take over once RTD leaves.

 

[Necropolitan]

Yes.

There's been a lot of giant skellingtons going around: Sutekh, Bone Beasts, Omega.

There's another interesting tidbit that I thought of, if they're going to shake things up with Doctor Who. Back when Chibnall quit, JMS mentioned he had inquired with the BBC about doing Doctor Who. Apparently he wasn't what they were looking for at the time, with one of the reasons being that he wasn't a resident of the UK, so he wouldn't be able to work there.

However, a few weeks ago he announced that he had fixed things so he now is a resident of the UK and can live and work there, and he's currently planning to split his time between the US and the UK, and is looking for work in Old Blightey. So, I'm wondering if he's angling to take over once RTD leaves.

RTD's response:

 

[Omand]

@Necropolitan not trying to be snarky here, but you may need to go back and watch it a third time.

While I will agree with you that the set up was not as clean as it should be (last week was definitely a brain-twister), they did eventually provide exposition through flashbacks.

Right at the end of the episode when the Doctor asks Belinda to remind him about Poppy (as they are talking in the living room after he is hit on by Belinda's mother), the reminding is made up of flashbacks to many of the other episodes this season. Each of those flashbacks starts with Belinda reminding the Doctor that she needs to be back by May 24 ,,, they then go on to provide more context than we originally saw.

That context is she needs to be back to her parents house to take over watching her own child since she is on nights at the hospital and her parents usually watch, but in this case her parents are off to a music event so she has to be back in time (no pun), no exceptions.

This also matches up with other scenes during this season where Belinda was shown back in the hospital where she worked and she was visibly frustrated when not getting off work on-time, or where she was shown rushing out of work. We had no context about that at the time (aside from perhaps being a nurse holding things together when the doctors overlooked things, aka the stereotype of nurses being the backbone of any heathcare system). Now we are provided context.

Even the Doctor being Poppy's father during the wish phase makes more sense after we have full context (and I did not think about this immediately, but it came together while formulating my thoughts for this message). Conrad based his wish world on his version of an ideal world, which was some sort of 1950s paradise (sort of) with defined gender roles, etc. Belinda as an unmarried single mother cannot fit into that model, she must be paired up. Conrad has no clue about her original partner, but does know she travels with the Doctor, so of course the Doctor is now her husband and Poppy's father. Both the Doctor and the Rani jump to the wrong conclusion about Poppy's origins because they cannot remember (the Doctor) or don't know/don't care (the Rani) about Poppy's original history.

Is it too convoluted? Perhaps.

Too clever by half? Probably.

But if you step back and reflect it does fit together and make a coherent whole with some rough edges.

Now with that all said, I would say it could and should have been cleaned up a bit.

Cheers

 

[Necropolitan]

Is it too convoluted? Perhaps.

It's not only too convoluted, it serves no purpose.

'Omega' (who looks and acts nothing like Omega) got less than 3 minutes before The Doctor pulled out a gun and shot him, meanwhile that absolute waste of time got most of the episode devoted to it.

It would be like if Sutekh were killed off in the opening of Empire of Death and then the rest of the episode was dedicated to explaining the weirdness around Ruby Sunday only to instead reveal it was because Sutekh banged into the part of the time vortex that had the day she was born in it.

The next Companion should be a normal person and not a mystery box.

 

[Hussar]

That doesn't make any sense.

Welcome to time travel. Are you new?

But, in any case, claims that the Doctor somehow forced Belinda to be a mother have been nicely shot down by others who are far better at this sort of thing than me.

---------

I enjoyed that. I REALLY hope we get some more time with this Doctor because I really enjoyed him this time around. I know, 2-3 seasons is about all any actor gets with being the Doctor, but, these seasons are seriously short. I would really like to see the next season be about 12 eps long.

 

[trappedslider]

I did not see that coming. Wow.

(I'm a huge fan, and I can't wait to see where they take it next season. So. Many. Quesions.)

did you miss this thread?

 

[CleverNickName]

did you miss this thread?

Yyyyep.

 

[Donald]

Also note: The tag just said 'Introducing Billie Piper' and did not include "as The Doctor", so something is up there.

I saw that too.

I'm probably missing something but for Bi-Regeneration shouldn't Tennat & Ncuti have to rejoin to regenerate properly? Mrs Flood didn't seem too concerned, so maybe not. But Rose could be just temporary to get the two halves of the Doctor back together. That will be an interesting reunion.

 

[MarkB]

Of all the dangling threads this season, what I find most annoying is bringing back Susan for some very brief scenes that may have been entirely in the Doctor's mind and then not following up on that. Bringing her in for such a brief, meaningless cameo feels worse than not ever seeing her again. It really felt like they were intending to follow up on that and just didn't for some reason.

I'm probably missing something but for Bi-Regeneration shouldn't Tennat & Ncuti have to rejoin to regenerate properly? Mrs Flood didn't seem too concerned, so maybe not. But Rose could be just temporary to get the two halves of the Doctor back together. That will be an interesting reunion.

That wasn't stated or even implied as far as I recall. Once they split they became two entirely independent fully-fledged time lords.