Doctor Who Megathread

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I didn't care much for "The Giggle." I thought it was cramming too much into 50-minute story. Lots of good moments on their own, but when everything was put together, the final product... was not what I would call "cohesive." Lots of tonal whiplash and unexplored ideas as a result.

I am glad that there were few details of the bigeneration and the TARDIS duplication. Either it's able to be written off easily with few implications, or it's Not A Good Look with a lot of Not Great implications. Given 15 is described as "older" and does not "have the baggage" of 14 because he "went through rehab" as 14, I am of the stance that 14 eventually becomes 15... no "two separate Doctor" entities scenario.

The ending did make me cry (specifically, the scene in the TARDIS), but... long-story short, I say it is a corny and poorly-built conclusion for the 14th Doctor (and corny for "the Doctor's retirement" in general). Such is the nature of having so little time to start and finish an arc.

Regardless, I liked "The Giggle" because it was fun and had good character moments. 6.5/10 or something ig


Christmas special review coming later.

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Christmas special review coming later.

7/10. Gatwa is charming through the whole episode.

I have seen that RTD wants to make the world of Doctor Who more "magical" - as if it wasn't already. If anything, "magic" will probably become the quick handwave instead of some kind of technobabble... while technobabble is basically "magic" anyway, it forces the story to justify why some extraordinary thing is happening, versus... magic. Even the swiftest explanations help a great deal. Such "magic-y" handwaving was used in the Christmas special to explain the motives of the goblins.

[Perlen vor den Schweinen]

Christmas special review coming later.

7/10. Gatwa is charming through the whole episode.

I have seen that RTD wants to make the world of Doctor Who more "magical" - as if it wasn't already. If anything, "magic" will probably become the quick handwave instead of some kind of technobabble... while technobabble is basically "magic" anyway, it forces the story to justify why some extraordinary thing is happening, versus... magic. Even the swiftest explanations help a great deal. Such "magic-y" handwaving was used in the Christmas special to explain the motives of the goblins.

I thought Moffatt already did that schtick?

I had RTD's comments from this article in mind when writing that post:

Radio Times: Doctor Who boss says show is "taking a sly step towards fantasy"

Much of Doctor Who's "sci-fi" is very soft to the point of being fantasy, but it's always been this way from its early days. From RTD's comments + "The Church on Ruby Road," a "genre shift" sounds more like a way to say "the weird concepts will have less explanation."

Matt Smith's tenure played into the "fairytale"... uh, vibe. I'd say that is what was "magical" about it.