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daibhidcWell, that was ... interesting.
There's something very odd about a Doctor Who story where the interstellar megacorp turns out to be the victim, to the extent that even when I figured out "The System" had sent the call for help, I assumed it was being exploited by management in the same way the workers were, and the Doctor was going to free both it and them from their lives of drudgery. Nope.
And it's even weirder when it starts off being one of the most devastating critiques on capitalism in DW history -- a society that could be fully automated, but gives humans tedious repetitive jobs because it doesn't know what else to do with them and expects them to be grateful -- but then turns out to be that most curious of things, a Doctor Who story that hasn't noticed its own politics. Instead we're told Kerblam is going to fix things by giving more jobs to people. No, the problem isn't that automation means people don't have jobs, the problem is that they still have a system where people need jobs. The problem is that they haven't used this automation to create the Culture. Putting more people on pointless conveyor belts isn't fixing things.
(And the fact it's Basically Amazon, which we all know is one of the worst employers out there, doesn't help.)
Anyway, enough of the political stuff, which TARDIS Eruditorum will doubtless be saying better, because that aside, I liked it, and the fact the bad guy caught me completely by surprise was part of that. And it caught me doubly by surprise because I assumed Kira and Charlie were safe as soon as I realised they were The Guest Cast Love Story, so I was totally taken aback when Kira was blown up.
I liked the continuity nods with the fez and Agatha Christie, but for my money the best Doctor moment was the look of absolute devastation on her face when she was told she wasn't allowed to climb on the conveyor. It was a rather Eleveny moment, especially after the fez, but Jodie managed with a single facial expression to convey something Matt would probably have needed to at least say "Aw, really?" for.
And I liked Dan, even if I spent far too long trying to figure out where I recognised him from before thinking "It's Lee Mack. How could I not recognise Lee Mack?" Mind you, as soon as he said he had an indestructible pendant that was given to him by his daughter, I thought "Oh. Bye, Dan."
So not a bad episode, but ... odd.
ETA: Actually. the more I think about it, the more there's something very skewed about the morality here -- the Doctor does not appear to be overly concerned that the System killed an innocent woman to make a point, or if she is she's putting the blame on Charlie for putting it in a position where it felt it had to ... which Charlie could probably claim applies to him as well. And I'm not entirely sure why the Doctor had to get all the robots to detonate their bubble wrap, much less why she had to do it while Charlie was still standing in the middle of them and then try to get him out of the blast. It looks like they were shooting for "hoist by his own petard" and accidentally hit "the Doctor has just killed at least one and, depending on how you view the robots, arguably hundreds of people".
There's something very odd about a Doctor Who story where the interstellar megacorp turns out to be the victim, to the extent that even when I figured out "The System" had sent the call for help, I assumed it was being exploited by management in the same way the workers were, and the Doctor was going to free both it and them from their lives of drudgery. Nope.
And it's even weirder when it starts off being one of the most devastating critiques on capitalism in DW history -- a society that could be fully automated, but gives humans tedious repetitive jobs because it doesn't know what else to do with them and expects them to be grateful -- but then turns out to be that most curious of things, a Doctor Who story that hasn't noticed its own politics. Instead we're told Kerblam is going to fix things by giving more jobs to people. No, the problem isn't that automation means people don't have jobs, the problem is that they still have a system where people need jobs. The problem is that they haven't used this automation to create the Culture. Putting more people on pointless conveyor belts isn't fixing things.
(And the fact it's Basically Amazon, which we all know is one of the worst employers out there, doesn't help.)
Anyway, enough of the political stuff, which TARDIS Eruditorum will doubtless be saying better, because that aside, I liked it, and the fact the bad guy caught me completely by surprise was part of that. And it caught me doubly by surprise because I assumed Kira and Charlie were safe as soon as I realised they were The Guest Cast Love Story, so I was totally taken aback when Kira was blown up.
I liked the continuity nods with the fez and Agatha Christie, but for my money the best Doctor moment was the look of absolute devastation on her face when she was told she wasn't allowed to climb on the conveyor. It was a rather Eleveny moment, especially after the fez, but Jodie managed with a single facial expression to convey something Matt would probably have needed to at least say "Aw, really?" for.
And I liked Dan, even if I spent far too long trying to figure out where I recognised him from before thinking "It's Lee Mack. How could I not recognise Lee Mack?" Mind you, as soon as he said he had an indestructible pendant that was given to him by his daughter, I thought "Oh. Bye, Dan."
So not a bad episode, but ... odd.
ETA: Actually. the more I think about it, the more there's something very skewed about the morality here -- the Doctor does not appear to be overly concerned that the System killed an innocent woman to make a point, or if she is she's putting the blame on Charlie for putting it in a position where it felt it had to ... which Charlie could probably claim applies to him as well. And I'm not entirely sure why the Doctor had to get all the robots to detonate their bubble wrap, much less why she had to do it while Charlie was still standing in the middle of them and then try to get him out of the blast. It looks like they were shooting for "hoist by his own petard" and accidentally hit "the Doctor has just killed at least one and, depending on how you view the robots, arguably hundreds of people".
no subject
Date: 2018-11-20 02:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-11-20 04:26 pm (UTC)Also, putting it on on Sunday evening, a time that is traditionally at the whim of whatever overrunning live event or oddly-timed one-off is on in the afternoon, is not doing favours for people's viewing haabits