loved all 3 episodes, liked the change of pace with the current 2-parter. I loved the pre-prepared tactful apology cards which the Doctor messed up of course, blunt lack of tact is his thing, shades of the first Doctor :yahoo:

That was one of several good jokes in the episode. The Peter Andre one was another.

OK episode with a killer ending scene, but did ultimately feel a bit filler-ish and I agree with Dandy that the ghosts didn't feel scary enough (particularly as they didn't seem to have any supernatural powers or ways of killing other than with weapons/controls?), but the human characters were all strong (and unsettling in some cases, they don't all seem entirely innocent somehow), and the Doctor's cue cards situation was genuinely funny.

 

I'm still a bit uncertain about a lot of the story so I hope next week can end this in as good a fashion as The Witch's Familiar did!

Perhaps it's because it came after such an impressive opening two-parter but I really didn't think much of Saturday's episode. The pace was very slow and I was actually bored in places waiting for something to happen. Some episodes really benefit from being two-parters - so far, this one doesn't look like one that needed to be fleshed out. Hopefully we've got a treat of an action-packed second parter to come.

Bit disappointed, the whole thing just fell to pieces it just felt flat as a pancake in the end, it had some boring bits in there, I just wanted to turn it off half way through, but I muddled through it. Probably the weakest double episode of the lot.

Yeah, it was pretty rubbish. The abandoned town scenes looked low budget and out of place against the scenes in the base and that element just fell completely flat. I assumed last week that the doctor would be in the chamber thing and sure enough he was... actually in trying to find things to write about it, I'm really realising how much of a nothing episode it was.

Knew it. I can always tell a shit Doc Who episode from the previews alone, which is why I didn't bother wasting time with watching either part.

I think I might have liked this more if it wasn't so...confusing, it all seemed a bit cop out-ish tied together by some big infodump in the last five minutes and a shoehorned villain (that looked quite naff), and the Beethoven stuff...I just didn't really get it (I might just be misunderstanding stuff). It wasn't without it's good parts (all of the ship sequences were pretty great), but a wasted opportunity definitely.

 

Dunno what to think about next weeks as Doctor Who and history are a bit 'hit and miss' (but Maisie Williams yay)

I liked the episode but there were parts that felt rushed or unresolved.

 

The ghosts I thought were genuinely scary, especially when the deaf character was being followed by the ghost with the axe. There were some great moments but I thought the Fisher King needed more time to feel like a real threat and the ending felt a little rushed and thrown together.

 

The Beethoven stuff though......did anyone else understands the relevance of this to the episode?

 

I agree it wasn't the strongest two parter I've seen but there were some really good moments in this.

I thought the second part was much better than the first, mainly because something actually happened. It did feel rushed and confusing and I'm not entirely sure I actually understand it all, so it really would have benefited from the first part being much shorter and the plot from this episode stretching across them both with more explanation.

 

I always enjoy the 'timey wimey' elements in Doctor Who so appreciated it for that, but I don't really think it was used as well as it could have been.

Have to agree that I was anticipating a lot more after the slow build-up last week and from the preview. There seemed to be a lot of 'back to the TARDIS', 'back to the Farraday cage' moments which felt like stalling rather than progressing the plot. I was hoping for more from the Fisher King too rather than just a confrontation with the Doctor, only for him to be swept away in the flood. It would have been exciting to see it in the actual base.

 

Nevertheless, there were some great moments, particularly surrounding the deaf character and indeed the moment with the ghost chasing after her was fantastic. Again, I thought the development of Clara was very exciting, with her becoming more and more like the Doctor. I thought the line of 'Die with whoever comes after me, you do not leave me!' was particularly interesting.

 

I would say the series opener was the better two parter but it was an enjoyable story, just not something I'll keep coming back to.

 

The Beethoven stuff though......did anyone else understands the relevance of this to the episode?

The intro was basically saying, a Beethoven fan might travel back in time to meet him and get him to sign all of his sheet music. However, Beethoven might never have actually existed and actually just used the sheet music that the time-traveller took with him. This means that Beethoven didn't actually compose the music, yet the time-traveller didn't either so who actually wrote the music?

 

The relevance to the episode was that the Doctor realised what to do because of the appearance of his ghost and what the ghost was saying. Yet, the ghost only appeared and only said those stuff because the Doctor knew it had already happened. The appearance of the ghost/what it said had no independent origin. The ghost came from the Doctor making it appear but he only got that idea from the ghost actually appearing.

Very disappointed for this episode. The first part set up the story well and generally quite strong but I didn't really enjoy the conclusion.

It might have been the influence of all the negativity of reviews in the thread that made me "pre-judge" the episode but I also was a bit underwhelmed by it. The episode just didn't seem to have the quality of "moving along" a lot of the time. Still not worked out what the series arc is yet though...

 

Next episode's trailer looks interesting ish. I'll put it on the thread if I remember later ;)

 

Edited October 12, 20159 yr by Adam's Stories😍

I think the arc is slowly but steadily building up to Clara's demise, it's not been any more than subtle at the moment, but the scenes where people / the Doctor keep informing her she's becoming too familiar with danger are an indication it'll be going somewhere by the end of the series.

The arc is going to be the ELECTRIC GUITAR.

I really enjoyed it, loved the time-loop chicken-egg which came first plotting, the dialogue was fine, the characters good, amusing bits, the major downside to me was the Monster-of-the-week look of the alien baddie, a bit too old-skool for these days, but still a decent episode.

Urgh. Horned helmets. What a schoolboy error

Loved that Donna Noble relevance.

Good god what was that, bit of a messy episode, I really don't know if it can re-cover from it next week. The only part that intrigued me, the Doctor recognised Anya from somewhere else, at the very start, I like to know where they are going with that, that was an oddball of an episode. The names of the vikings made me laugh though, Lofty, ZZ Top :lol: etc, etc,

I really enjoyed that episode. A decent Viking romp with a twist. I'm very interested where it is heading and who Arya (I can't remember her name in the episode!) is or turns into. Is it something Gallifrey related as Davros alluded to in the earlier episodes?

 

Plus I agree about Clara - she is looking competent/bolshy/vulnerable - not a good mix in Dr Who.

I really enjoyed that episode and would place it above the previous two. While I'm still not a massive fan if Peter's Doctor, his historical stories have been a lot better than the previous ones.

 

There was a nice balance of the fun and the dark and I did like the training segment. However, it did feel odd that it was the Doctor leading this considering he's not really a violence battle man but oh well. It was pretty dark that all those Vikings were killed which could have made the villain really good but I think the person who played him did it a bit too over the top, playing it more like something you would see in the classic series.

 

As for Maisie Williams, obviously she has been placed at the forefront of all the promotion and I'm not surprised why because puting her in that historical setting makes it hard to seperate Ayra from your mind, which isn't necessarily a good thing. The titles of the episodes meant that I wasn't particularly shocked by the ending but it's interesting to see where it will lead into next week and I wonder if it could be compared with the Doctor saving the child Davros ie could her character become ultimately evil? The explanation of why he had that face was actually quite nice (I thought it may been unnecessary) but it was very out of the blue. Why choose that moment to realise when they'll have been lots of other people he could have tried to save and I especially wonder how newer viewers felt watching it. :lol: