Mummy on the Orient Express

[Lori S.]

An interesting episode and concept, if ultimately nasty in concept. I liked this one.

[Travis]

I feel I'm just repeating myself and it would be easier to just write one review and cut and paste it.

Capaldi is brilliant, the story was very clever and a lot of fun ( so many 'Oh, I know that guy! Where have I seen him?!' moments), I think what they're are doing with Clara is interesting but have to see the pay off before I decide how well it's being done.
A lot of story threads and I can't decide if they are a bunch of separate threads or one big thread.Wait and see.

Only gripe, I wanted this to be a Clara-lite episode, with the Doctor by himself while she was off sulking.

Who else wanted to see Perkins become a companion, but one that just stays on the Tardis and putters around fixing things?

[Lori S.]

I wouldn't mind Perkins, and the Doctor invites him on!

Yeah, I was hoping Clara would stay home too. The commercials seemed to hint at her not really being there. You won't believe the rush of disappointment I felt when she appears ...

[Travis]

Yeah, I was really looking forward to seeing Capaldi on his own.

Not that Clara wasn't looking fetching in her little flapper dress, but after the end of 'Kill the moon' it was too rushed having her back.

[Lori S.]

And the singer at the beginning? Bland and not very good. If they were going to keep within the time period the music was imitating, then her voice should have been in front of the music and not overwhelmed by it. Definitely not one of Gold's better attempts.

[Robert]

Another mess of moments that didn't really hang together as an episode.

Clara & the Doctor's reconciliation (of sorts) seemed forced and rushed. She should have stayed away and kept her distance longer, until a threat so big forced them back together later in the series, IMO.

Perkins puttering in the TARDIS would have been interesting.

Capaldi's Doctor softens a bit here, comparatively. More do to a change up in how the writer's handling it than any intentional plan, it seems.

Moffat needs to set aside grand, dark master plans and focus and producing solid episodes every week. This season is feeling forced and artificial.

And we really need a rationale and soon of why this incarnation is angry, mean, hateful, and, well, broken. He seems far more broken than post-Time War, and with no explanation as to why yet. And "he's just different, alien" isn't going to cut it.

And am I the only one that felt someone saw Galaxy Express (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaxy_E...) and said, "cool. Let's rip that off for Doctor Who."

[Travis]

Robert wrote: "Another mess of moments that didn't really hang together as an episode.

Clara & the Doctor's reconciliation (of sorts) seemed forced and rushed. She should have stayed away and kept her distance l..."


More like 'Okay, Russell had the Titanic in space...what can we do?'

I agree the stuff with Clara feels rushed. There's no sense of the time between episodes. People say "Yeah, haven't seen you in a week.', but everything feels like it's happening very quickly. Hard to get a handle on her teaching career or relationship with Danny.

and we were told why he's so angry. It's the eyebrows.

[Sarah]

Long time lurker here.

I really don't understand all the Moffat hate. Are his seasons perfect? Absolutely no executive producers seasons were perfect in the entire run of the series. Is he re-using ideas from other sci-fi/fantasy shows as well as past Doctor Who episodes? So is everyone else. I'm just glad that _when_ he does, he uses the good stuff.

Season 6 was, admittedly a huge mess. However he it showed that he was more willing to play with the core concept of the show (time travel) than anyone else has been. The. Entire. History. Of. The. Show.

IMHO he is so very much better than RTD. Moffat is not relying on "prophecy" and "portents" to cover the extremely large holes in his stories (I mean the Master brought back by potions? Rassillon relying on a soothsayer? Time Lords are _supposed_ to not believe in this crap--as put forward by 9, 10 & 11 as well as earlier Doctors).

David Tennant was cute, as was Matt Smith, but they are gone now. Better to concentrate on the current Doctor who doesn't particularly care if the people around him like him or his decisions (even to some extent Clara) just so long as he gets the job done & I can see that he is starting to consider saving humanity as a _job_. So anger & annoyance I am not surprised at.

In the end, I think this is the best season so far in the new series, however I am withholding my full opinion until I can watch it as a whole. I think it will hang much better as a whole than as a bunch of individual episodes.

[Travis]

I never got the Moffat hate myself. Seems to be one of those things that the internet came up with and people just went along with.
His era has its flaws, but every era does.

I have no problem with Capaldi's Doctor, but I'm a cheap date as far as Who is concerned. I love them all.
Capaldi's Doctor is very old school, and I can see that shaking up new Who fans, after years of cute and young, I was ready for an old grumpy Doctor.

While I don't have a huge amount of faith that the finale will solve everything ( when has that ever happened?) so far I'm finding this season to be really solid and it's flaws are minor.

[Lori S.]

Part of the Moffat hate has to do with things he's done with the show, and things he's said outside the show. I'm no fan of his, and more than ready for him to be gone, but I've been a fan a long time, and he, too, shall pass. Hopefully soon...

This has been a great series and I love the older, grumpier Doctor. I don't see him as hateful, just frustrated and annoyed by the short sightedness of the humans around him (now who does that remind you of? Hmmm?) It's had some bumps along the way, but on the whole, I find I'm paying more attention to the stories now that the silliness has calmed back down.

[Mark]

Lori wrote: "Part of the Moffat hate has to do with things he's done with the show, and things he's said outside the show. I'm no fan of his, and more than ready for him to be gone, but I've been a fan a long t..."

The irony is that the show was never as popular prior to it being axed in 1989 as it is now. As someone who is old enough to remember hiding behind the sofa from Troughton's Doctor back in the late Sixties, I can tell you it's a great deal better in terms of special effects. I think what's maybe happened is that TV drama has moved on, and it's become more populist. There has to be more than one thing going on. In earlier threads there are comments about the relationship of Clara with a love interest. This never would have happened. There's just a touch of detergent (soap-opera) to every drama series on TV these days. Multiple threads of stories to keep us all hooked. Moffat cut his teeth as a writer on a children's drama, then a (very) adult sitcom which worked because of intertwining soapy narrative arcs - and he won awards for it.

The drama, action and sci-fi space (pun not intended) has moved on a lot in the last 2-3 decades. When Star Wars came out in 1977 no one believed the industry pundits who said that the Saturday evening TV schedule would change from cowboy movies (the excellent IMHO The Oregon Trail probably its last hurrah) and dramas to sci-fi, but it did - almost overnight. Whereas the most recent three Star Wars movies are greatly unloved by us original fans, Doctor Who continues to be loved by older fans, and has broadened its appeal hugely. The rules of TV scriptwriting may have changed, but The Doctor has remained true at the core.

Didn't mean to border on the pretentious - I'm just a tad passionate... :-)

[Lori S.]

:)

[Robert]

I have some critiques of Moffat, but don't conder myself a Moffat hater. I've seen that on the Internet, and I'm not even close.

I'm just constantly frustrated that a writer who has given us some of the best episodes when he was just a writer, and quite a few good ideas and moments as a show runner, seems to produce the show in a way that continues to frustrate me, and not in a good way.

This season may turn out alright as a whole, but it is really struggling to stand up on an episode by episode basis, IMO.

[Mark]

Robert wrote: "I have some critiques of Moffat, but don't conder myself a Moffat hater. I've seen that on the Internet, and I'm not even close.

I'm just constantly frustrated that a writer who has given us some ..."

I think any writer or producer is always going to face criticism from some quarters when dealing with something as loved as DH.

At times I have to say that I've struggled too. Capaldi's a fantastic actor, and he is doing some great soliloquys courtesy of the writing team, but some things are cheesing me off. Kill The Moon had the kind of scientific inaccuracies that drive me crazy: disinfectant spray bottle not exploding and then freezing in a vacuum; giant creature flying in a vacuum and being heard across 240,000 miles of vacuum. Argh! Mind you, I never had a go at Star Wars having loud battles in space... Maybe my disbelief is much harder to suspend as I get older.

[Travis]

Mark wrote: "Robert wrote: "I have some critiques of Moffat, but don't conder myself a Moffat hater. I've seen that on the Internet, and I'm not even close.

I'm just constantly frustrated that a writer who has..."

applying real science to Doctor Who...?
Next try applying real history.

But, don't blame me when your head explodes.