The Witch's Familiar
Sep. 27th, 2015 09:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
daibhidcExcellent.
I mssed the first few seconds, and thought I'd missed a lot more somehow, until I realised this was just Moffat's thing that you don't start part two by resolving the cliffhanger, you start somewhere else entirely and sort the cliffhanger out later. And the ongoing Clara-and-Missy double act was fun. Having Missy play off the companion highlights both her similarities and differences to the Doctor; he'd probably come up with very similar plans, except he'd put himself in danger.
Clara inside a Dalek. Now there's an interesting idea... (Oh! And later on we get the scene where the Doctor can see the Dalek and can't hear Clara, whereas in Asylum, he can hear Clara and can't see the Dalek. Neat.)
Dying Davros continues to be excellent, especially where he and the Doctor are bonding. I liked the latest reworkings of "Am I a good man"; Davros asking it to the Doctor, and then the reversal of the "good Dalek" line with "You're not a good doctor". It's almost a shame that it's an insane plan and he goes back to ranty evil mode. But only almost.
The insane plan ... Honestly, I'd be very happy if someone could rig a device that gives the Moff a small electric shock every time he writes the phrase "regeneration energy" in a story that isn't about regeneration. And a larger one if it's preceded by "The Doctor's hand glows with..." But I did like the payoff with the foreshadowing about the Dalek sewers. Less sure about it being the Doctor's plan all along; I'd prefer it if he'd just been lucky - if you're going to have the Doctor make speeches about how he's not a larger-than-life hero but just an eccentric wanderer, maybe you should actually write him that way more?
(And this wouldn't just be a fluke, there's a strong throughline in a story where the Doctor falls into a trap because he has compassion for the Davros, and then the trap fails because the Daleks don't have compassion for each other.)
And then we finally get to the cliffhanger of the Doctor pointing a gunstick at Davros. And it turns out that of course he didn't. Never even considered it. I'm sure there's a school of thought that this is a copout, but I was reading some convincing cases last week that "Would you kill baby Hitler?" is a rubbish moral dilemma anyway, so lets skip it entirely. Instead, the Doctor shows compassion, and ... the Daleks become hate-filled killing machines who know the word "mercy" exists .. I guess?
Okay, maybe it doesn't exacly work if you examine it, but it's still a nice scene.
I mssed the first few seconds, and thought I'd missed a lot more somehow, until I realised this was just Moffat's thing that you don't start part two by resolving the cliffhanger, you start somewhere else entirely and sort the cliffhanger out later. And the ongoing Clara-and-Missy double act was fun. Having Missy play off the companion highlights both her similarities and differences to the Doctor; he'd probably come up with very similar plans, except he'd put himself in danger.
Clara inside a Dalek. Now there's an interesting idea... (Oh! And later on we get the scene where the Doctor can see the Dalek and can't hear Clara, whereas in Asylum, he can hear Clara and can't see the Dalek. Neat.)
Dying Davros continues to be excellent, especially where he and the Doctor are bonding. I liked the latest reworkings of "Am I a good man"; Davros asking it to the Doctor, and then the reversal of the "good Dalek" line with "You're not a good doctor". It's almost a shame that it's an insane plan and he goes back to ranty evil mode. But only almost.
The insane plan ... Honestly, I'd be very happy if someone could rig a device that gives the Moff a small electric shock every time he writes the phrase "regeneration energy" in a story that isn't about regeneration. And a larger one if it's preceded by "The Doctor's hand glows with..." But I did like the payoff with the foreshadowing about the Dalek sewers. Less sure about it being the Doctor's plan all along; I'd prefer it if he'd just been lucky - if you're going to have the Doctor make speeches about how he's not a larger-than-life hero but just an eccentric wanderer, maybe you should actually write him that way more?
(And this wouldn't just be a fluke, there's a strong throughline in a story where the Doctor falls into a trap because he has compassion for the Davros, and then the trap fails because the Daleks don't have compassion for each other.)
And then we finally get to the cliffhanger of the Doctor pointing a gunstick at Davros. And it turns out that of course he didn't. Never even considered it. I'm sure there's a school of thought that this is a copout, but I was reading some convincing cases last week that "Would you kill baby Hitler?" is a rubbish moral dilemma anyway, so lets skip it entirely. Instead, the Doctor shows compassion, and ... the Daleks become hate-filled killing machines who know the word "mercy" exists .. I guess?
Okay, maybe it doesn't exacly work if you examine it, but it's still a nice scene.
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no subject
Date: 2015-09-27 08:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-09-27 09:27 pm (UTC)I think Moffatt's said somewhere he doesn't have a plan, he's just got ideas which he plants, and if he can work something off them, great, if not they're just there. (River Song herself was one of these.)
Which is equally impressive.
no subject
Date: 2015-09-27 11:15 pm (UTC)