I'm not sure what went wrong with The Lie of the Land really, perhaps it was the conclusion, but it felt like it had a LOT of potential and never quite lived up to it. Glad it's the lowest of the Monk trilogy!

Thin Ice deserved higher! Love a good old fashioned historical romp. The problem with Knock Knock was a couple of the tragic supporting actors and that awful ending. It had a really good premise that should have been far better executed.

should have been AT LEAST top 5 :angry: I'd say top 3 but I haven't watched the episode more than once.

07. THE PYRAMID AT THE END OF THE WORLD

 

 

Average: 8.05

Highest: 11 (Spinning Adam), 10 (Michael, dalekturret)

Lowest: 6.5 (dandy*), 6 (PeteFromLeeds)

 

One of the longest episode titles I've ever seen, The Pyramid at the End of the World is the middle part of the Monk trilogy and is also your 'middle favourite' and is in the middle of this rank! The episode starts with a 5,000 year old pyramid appearing overnight in a disputed area of Turmezistan (a made up area previously seen in the Zygon Invasion/Inversion) between the American, Russian and Chinese forces. The Secretary-General of the UN recruits the Doctor, as President of Earth, to help and the forces unite through their leaders. The Monks are occupying the Pyramid and are causing every clock in the world to display a time that is counting down to midnight. The Monks are able to easily deflect military attacks and show to the Doctor, Bill & Nardole and the leaders their computer simulation which shows that the Earth will be lifeless within a year. They can stop the disaster but only if they get consent. The Secretary General offers consent but is disintegrated because he did it out of fear rather than love. In the meantime, two scientists have accidentally created a super-bacterium capable of destroying all living organisms and it is about to be vented into the atmosphere. The Doctor realises the threat may be biological (rather than military as the Monks want them to believe) and so travel to the lab he works out the Monks have been watching. The Doctor & Nardole arrive but Nardole is sent back to the TARDIS, he collapses in there after being contaminated. Meanwhile, the leaders give their consent but are disintegrated as it was a strategic move. The Doctor crafts a bomb to sterilise the bacteria and destroy the lab but is trapped inside as he cannot see the lock to free himself, having been blind in 'Oxygen'. Bill, representing the Doctor, offers her consent to the Monks and insists they restore his sight. The Doctor regains his sight, escapes the lab and the Monks now control Earth...

 

This was an interesting episode as there were two threats going alongside each other within the episode. I liked that what brought the end of the Earth was a small stain of bacteria as it felt very real and very dangerous. The two scientists were great too, particularly Erica who I'm sad we didn't get to see more of! It would have been interesting to see her in The Lie of the Land, seeing as she played a hand in creating that dystopian future. There were a number of good ideas within the episode, another highlight being the use of the doomsday clock. It helped to create a lot of tension as the end of the Earth drew nearer and nearer. The ending was spectacular as the Doctor's blindness finally paid off to create a moment where I really was on the end of my seat! Bill being the one to give consent was great as it helped to show more of her normal character, by wanting to save the Doctor without thinking of the consequences. Whilst I can't point out a major flaw with the episode, it wasn't perhaps special enough to gain a 9 or a 10 for me. It perhaps would have been good, as I said for The Lie of the Land, to gain a greater understanding behind the Monks. Following Series 9's Zygon stories though, writer Peter Harness is very good at writing Doctor Who style modern day end of the world thrillers!

 

Your comments:

 

Joseph: Not quite as good as the episode before and the pacing was a bit messy but I really liked what we saw of the Monks in this episode, and their need for consent. The lab stuff was interesting too and I loved how the two locations became interwoven with each other. The idea that the Doctor's blindness could kill him in the lab was brilliant, and it felt realistic that Bill would give consent to save him.

 

HarryEzra: I personally thought this had a lot going on at once just needed to be simplified a bit. I rather liked the monks though still on the whole my least favourite of the three parter.

 

Spinning Adam: This episode slayed. The storyline, the monks (and how they saw the types of consent), the danger etc. :wub: the situation the Doctor was in to make him admit of his blindness was well executed too.

 

Forgot to mention in my comment, it felt much like the feel of the Zygon two parter. I feel like seeing how that faired in the series 9 rate (unless anyone remembers of course)

There never was a Series 9 rate, it was still in the latest round of the Least Favourite thing but that was based on the opinions of like 7/8 people lmao (which is why it didn't continue)

Knock Knock was a cheap and boting horror movie rip with cheaper ending. I could tell thi as soon as I saw the trailer of a man pretending to grab his own head. Awful.

06. THE PILOT

 

http://cdn.images.express.co.uk/img/dynamic/20/590x/secondary/doctor-and-bill-doctor-who-893220.jpg

 

Average: 8.09

Highest: 10 (Michael), 9.5 (dalekturret)

Lowest: 7.5 (Slick), 7 (HarryEzra, PeteFromLeeds)

 

The Pilot kickstarted a whole new series of Doctor Who and introduced Bill as the new companion. The title is a recognition of the intention to treat the series as a mini-reboot to attract new viewers, as pilots are normally the first episodes of TV shows as a way of testing whether they will work or not. The Doctor & Nardole are living/working at a university and Bill Potts becomes the Doctor's student after he notices she attends all his lectures despite only working in the university's canteen. Bill develops an attraction to Heather, a student who has a defect that results in a star in her eye. Heather asks Bill to inspect a mysterious puddle, Heather leaves and a voice states that a search for the pilot has begun. Later, Heather tells Bill to look into the puddle again and Heather vanishes again. The Doctor notices that the reflection is not a reflection after all. Bill is chased by a moving body of water, soon taking the form of Heather, which eventually forces her & the Doctor into the TARDIS; they realise it is interested in Bill. They land in Australia where water-Heather follows them to. They travel to a planet far into the future but water-Heather follows them there too. The Doctor believes the water is from an alien ship that made Heather its pilot because she wanted to run away. He travels through a battle between the Daleks and the Movellans and the water-Heather takes a shot intended for the Doctor & Bill. Bill convinces Heather to let her go. The Doctor attempts to wipe Bill's memories but she stops him, becoming his new companion.

 

This was a solid first episode and, while I prefer big story events like The Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon and The Magician's Apprentice/The Witches' Familiar, it is important to have episodes like this to help reintroduce the show to new audiences. This episode was very successful in that regard as we got to see the world of the Doctor through Bill's eyes and her discovery of the TARDIS being bigger on the outside was beautifully shot and acted by Pearl. The chase from Heather was also a good idea as it allowed the show to highlight what the TARDIS can do, by moving location, travelling backwards and forwards in time as well as going to different planets. The plot was perhaps a bit overly simple and it is pretty amusing that the enemy starts off by being a basic puddle (!) but it is necessary for the show to have episodes like this, especially after many comments that Moffatt's era has been too complicated. Having lived with the Dalek scene for around a year, it did feel quite clunky fitting that in but I probably would have been annoyed if we say never had a time frame for when it was set! It sort of set the tone for the series in that it was solid but not outstanding. (edit: just wrote that comment without realising Joseph said the exact same thing!!!)

 

Your comments:

 

Joseph: Strong opening episode, love the introduction to Bill and the mystery of the Vault is set up well. The puddle wasn't the most exciting threat but I guess episodes like this often lack on the plot side in favour of setting up the new companion, and they did that brilliantly so no complaints I guess. The Dalek scene felt a little bit pointless and a way of shoehorning in Pearl's introduction scene from last year, but it didn't detract from the episode. Ultimately it kinda set the tone for the rest of the series - solid, enjoyable episode but not a classic.

 

HarryEzra: Nice good episode to start the series with. I liked Bill in this episode although we are never enticed by her until the later episodes. I like her story with Heather too who was a nice character to have.

 

Spinning Adam: this was actually a great way to introduce the series.

 

http://www.colindsmith.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/DoctorWho_ThePilot.jpg

The Pilot was really refreshing, a little bit lacking in terms of the actual plot but I loved that we saw everything through Bill's eyes.

The Pilot was a great intro episode to the series and Bill as a companion. Really enjoyed it!

I think The Pilot was well laid out especially for those new to the show. I do recall better series openers but it wasn't awful or anything.

05. SMILE

 

http://cdn.iview.abc.net.au/thumbs/460/zw/ZW0979A002S00_58f94f954a76a_1280.jpg

 

Average: 8.14

Highest: 9 (JosephStyles, Michael, Burbe, PeteFromLeeds)

Lowest: 7 (Slick, Chez Wombat, Spinning Adam)

 

Who would have thought that an episode by the writer of 'In the Forest of the Night' featuring EMOJI ROBOTS would have been Top 5?? The episode sees the Doctor give Bill her first proper trip in the TARDIS and the land in the future on an off-world Earth colony. However, the colony is empty except for nanobots called the Vardy and emoji bots. The Doctor suspects they've arrived before the full colony ship is due but is curious that no pre-colony crew is around. The Doctor & Bill soon discover the bones of the humans being used for fertiliser. The Doctor realises that if the Vardy sense they are not happy, they will be consumed and so they have to smile to escape. They locate the pre-colony ship and plan to overload the reactor to destroy the Vardy before the colonists arrive. However, Bill discovers a young boy and they realise that the ship IS the colony ship. They realise the Vardy were programmed to make the colonists happy and so they monitored the emotional state of them. When a member died naturally, it created grief that the avatars each colonist had, did not recognise. The Vardy took this as a sign of disease and so killed anyone displaying unhappiness. The colonists prepare to go to war with the Vardy which the Doctor is unable to prevent so he resets the Vardy to their original state.

 

This definitely surprised me as actually being far better than I had expected. It was a brilliant concept in that you cannot be unhappy otherwise you will die. Overall, it was quite creepy and made the emoji bots actually quite good. The fact that most of the episode was a two-hander between Bill and the Doctor really helped to establish Bill as a character as well as the relationship between the two. Bill had more characterisation in this episode than Clara did in the whole of Series 7B!! The excellent first half was slightly let down when they discovered the colonists. It all suddenly became very rushed with the colonists jumping immediately to violence without any development of character. Then you have the idea of malfunctioning health technology which we have seen numerous times before in the show (The Empty Child, The Curse of the Black Spot) and also the horrible solution of just resetting the Vardy. This is only a short-term solution as what is to stop the same thing happening again? For all we know, the Doctor leaves them to all die as well! It is a really strong episode before these parts though and so with a better ending, it could have been a 10/10 episode for me.

 

Your comments:

 

Joseph: I really enjoyed this one, partly due to the fact it was almost a two-hander for a lot of it. Peter and Pearl's chemistry sells the episode brilliantly, and Bill is such a breath of fresh air, with no strings attached - just a young girl who wants to see the universe. I liked the Emojibots, which were nowhere near as cringeworthy as they could've been, although the solution of basically hitting the reset button was what lets it down.

 

HarryEzra: I loved this episode would have been a 9 if the ending was done better. None the less, I loved the chemistry between Doctor and Bill and the care they had for each other was really nice. I also loved the dark undertone to this about how robots can't tell emotions and if you are sad they have to kill you.

 

Spinning Adam: (down a little because emojis etc.) but a decent episode other than the loose ended ending

 

 

04. EXTREMIS

 

http://keyassets-p2.timeincuk.net/wp/prod/wp-content/uploads/sites/42/2017/05/13454091-high--630x400.jpg

 

Average: 8.73

Highest: 10 (Michael, dalekturret), 9.5 (JosephStyles)

Lowest: 8 (burbe, PeteFromLeeds), 7.5 (HarryEzra, dandy*)

 

Following 'Oxygen', the Doctor is blind and wears his sonic sunglasses to give him limited sight and hide his condition. He receives an email titled 'Extremis'. The Doctor meets the Pope to deal with Veritas, a text that causes its readers to commit suicide. The Doctor, Bill & Nardole enter a secret library inside the Vatican where they find Veritas has been emailed to CERN. The Doctor temporarily regains his sight and tries to read Veritas but is forced to flee when the Monks start to appear; he loses his sight once again. Meanwhile, Bill & Nardole discover a portal that leads to a hub of portals that lead to places like CERN & the White House. They enter the CERN portal where all the scientists are preparing to kill themselves. A scientist demonstrates that every time they ask for a random number, everyone says the same one. The two go back through the portal where Nardole realises the portals are computer projections. When he steps out of the projections, he disappears. Bill follows a trail of blood through the White House portal. She finds herself in the Oval Office where the Doctor is waiting. The Doctor states that Veritas describes a demon planning to invade Earth by creating detailed simulations of it to practice invasion. The suicides have been to escape the simulation. A monk appears, Bill disappears in the same vein as Nardole and the Doctor tells the monk that Earth will be ready as he has recorded everything through his sonic sunglasses. He emails the recording to his real world self. During the episode's events, it is revealed through flashbacks that Missy is in the Vault.

 

This was a very different episode to the previous five episodes and marked a shift back to the more complicated storylines the Moffatt era has become known for. It was a very bold and brave episode that did pay off. It explored some very interesting (and dark!) themes that the show has never done before. I was very uncertain when watching it as it was introducing concepts such as religion & the Pope and the question of why are we here but the ending/solution made these worries fade away. Indeed, it is an episode that you can only really appreciate by watching the WHOLE thing and then looking back at it through reflection, know you know the full events. Therefore, it stands out from some of the rest of Series 10 by actually having a good ending!! The only problem with the ending I guess is that it showed just how powerful the monks were straight away, therefore setting them up for what should have been two explosive episodes after. However, the big promises the episode made never came to full fruition which dampened enjoyment of the following two episodes (as explored earlier in this thread). It was still a very enjoyable episode though and one particular highlight was the CERN scene which was VERY dark and unnerving, followed by the 'death' of Nardole made it quite a disturbing watch. The bits with Missy did disturb the flow of the episode though, particularly as they had absolutely NOTHING to do with the rest of the episode and were there more for Missy's arc throughout the series. These intercuts were something the series has never really done before and I wouldn't like to see something like that again.

 

Your comments:

 

Joseph: The only episode I've rewatched thus far, and that was just so I could get all the details! :lol: Extremis confused me at first, I felt lost until the final 10 minutes or so, but with my second viewing, I realised it was a pretty genius concept for an episode. The comedy scenes were perfect, such as the Pope interrupting Bill's date (!!) and Nardole's "nothing secret about it, babydoll", but the serious scenes were executed great too. For the average viewer, this was surely a total mindf*** and I know my parents were totally confused, but this is one of my favourite "confusing" Moffat stories because the concept was so unique, with the simulation. My criticism is that the scenes with Missy felt a bit out of place, and made the episode harder to follow than necessary.

 

HarryEzra: I found this episode rather confusing at first because I never got what was going on. I re-watched it and understood it more. The introduction of the monks left me with intrigue and I also liked whole virtual reality twist. Not forgetting some hilarious moments from Bill and Nardole.

 

Spinning Adam: I have a thing for storylines involving people being unsure of what's real or not, even themselves. Amy's Choice teas! The ending of the episode was great, how the Doctor recorded it all and sent himself an email :lol:

 

 

 

OXYGEN VS WORLD ENOUGH AND TIME VS THE DOCTOR FALLS

Two very good episodes sure, could have given Smile an 8 maybe if the emoji idea was more original. Extremis is something I need to watch again and I'm sure it'd be a bigger fave if I got more familiar with it.

 

The finale competing for winning place. *pretends to be shocked* :heehee:

Edited July 26, 20178 yr by සුනුවිසුනු වී ඇත

World Enough and Teem to wern

Extremis was genius! Took a rewatch to totally understand it but compelling TV.

 

Hoping for a top 2 of the finale episodes, with World Enough and Time on top.

Correct top 3 *.*

:hi:

03. OXYGEN

 

http://geekyapar.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/landscape-1494348085-the-doctor-oxygen-doctor-who-e1495661982752.jpg

 

Average: 8.87

Highest: 11 (PeteFromLeeds), 9.5 (DalekTurret32)

Lowest: 7 (burbe)

 

The Doctor, Bill & Nardole answer a distress call to a mining station in space but the TARDIS is jettisoned by the station's computers. To survive, the team have to wear spacesuits capable of independent operation. They are the only source of oxygen but they measure the usage of oxygen. Once it runs out, the user must pay for more. They meet the surviving crew who warn them that some suits have received instructions to deactivate their wearers, aka killing them. The suits continue to control the dead people though and are able to spread the signal through touch. The team & the crew plan to walk outside the station to a part not updated in the computer system so that they can hide. However, Bill's suit malfunctions and she's forced to remove her helmet. To save her, the Doctor gives her his helmet. He survives the spacewalk but goes blind. The computer discovers their location and, as they escape, Bill's suit malfunctions and won't move. The Doctor leaves her behind ensuring she will not die but she is electrocuted when the zombies touch her. The Doctor reveals the breath limit is to stop people wasting oxygen, part of the company's automated profit-making system, and killing the wearers is the endpoint of corporate profit over human life. He hacks the computer to self-destruct the station if they are killed and the computers recognise this threat to corporate profits, recalculating the suits' programming. The zombies turn over their oxygen supplies to the survivors. The Doctor revives Bill as her malfunctioning suit didn't have enough power to lethally shock her. The TARDIS is recovered and they drop the survivors off at head office to confront the company. The Doctor is still blind...

 

The writer of this episode, Jamie Mathieson, wrote the two biggest highlights from Series 8 for me and so I was really looking forward to another episode from him here! It really paid off as well, becoming one of my favourites of Series 10, as well as all of yours! The pre-titles was visually amazing and brilliantly done and helped to set the tone for the rest of the episode. By really enforcing the dangers of space again, it helped create a really chilling, suspenseful and claustrophobic episode. The spacewalk sequence was particularly tense for me and really shocking as Bill, and then the Doctor, were forced to remove their helmets, exposing them to the vaccum of space. The idea that the suits were dangerous but were needed in order to survive was such a great idea, added with the limited amount of breaths. The political commentary was also another interesting addition even if it may not have been subtle. Overall, the episode contained so many interesting and new aspects that I really hope we get continued involvement from Jamie Mathieson in the future. It's one of the only non series finales where I really believed the danger that the companion was in. It showed that the companion isn't always safe, the Doctor isn't always right and there can be some real consequences for that.

 

Your comments:

 

Joseph: This is more like it! A really interesting concept with the spacesuits, and it felt brilliantly executed too within the claustrophobic base-under-siege style setting. I actually think there was more they could've done too, so perhaps a two-parter might've been good so we could learn more about the supporting characters? The Doctor becoming blind was a great twist, and I'm glad it wasn't solved quite so easily.

 

HarryEzra: I love the political undertone to this episode. Added some great character moments from Bill and doctor., particular when he goes blind. The ending made sense to me to but on the whole a rather good rewatchable episode.

 

Spinning Adam: oh yess finally a classic outerspace themed episode :cheer: I loved the idea of the future being a complete mess and people having to pay money to breathe :') the ending where it's revealed the Doctor is still blind was cool.