Doctor Who

[Space Gibbon]

Stuff that doesn't make sense for me - we saw people from all the different time periods this season going to Missy's afterlife. How did she manage that (okay, obviously by sci-fi mumbo jumbo) and why are the Cybermen only attacking one point in modern-day London? Also, didn't some of the people we saw die have their bodies disintegrated? And weren't some of them alien robot things? How were they to become Cybermen?

I didn't think this episode did a good job of establishing Missy's plan. I think a good two-parter has to establish what's going on to a better extent by the end of the first part. What's Missy's endgame here, and why is she using Cybermen? Is she just doing all this to mess with the Doctor?

[Fury4k]

we saw people from all the different time periods this season going to Missy's afterlife. How did she manage that (okay, obviously by sci-fi mumbo jumbo)

She's got a time machine...

[Mogster]

Well,

She is a Time Lord Lady and the matrix is Time Lord tech. It's not too much of a stretch to assume it can pluck consciousnesses from across time. Also it's only said that the dead can feel what's happening to their bodies, not that they need the bodies to exist. They're there to be transferred to new bodies after all, which answers your other question. It doesn't matter what species the conciousness comes from.

I thought it was superb. I'd kind of guessed that last reveal, but there was a nice little fake out early in the episode that threw me off the track for a while. It sucks that the monsters were all over the trailers and promo stuff, but the reveal was still really well done. And yes, it dealt with some really dark concepts that actually unnerved me a bit. Roll on next week!

[Fury4k]

It was great wasn't it. Really reminded me of classic Dr Who at it's best. And I'd managed to forget it was Cybermen until just before the reveal so that was nice.

[Darren]

The bit where they explicitly said their consciousnesses were uploaded to a Gallifreyan matrix and showed said matrix was a slight hint.

Thanks. I completely missed that, probably one of many parts the kids were talking over.

[governmentyard]

You allow them to talk while Doctor Who is on?

[Darren]

It's impossible to stop them. We make the family in Outnumbered seem evenly matched.

[pranny]

"shut up, shut up, shut upp!" I'm sure that resonated with a few families.

[HarMGM]

Well, that was all a very promising start to a finale. You get the sense Moffat is much more at ease with writing two-parters despite his reservations when talking about them. That reminds me: it's also quite nice to have a Doctor Who two-parter again for the first time in 3 years.

It's also quite a relief to finally have Gomez revealed to be the Master. I know some people have complained that she's not a new villain but to be honest, i'd rather have Michelle Gomez as a recuring Master seeing as she's the perfect foil for Capaldi going by this episode. If she had been an original villain it would probably be a one-and-done kind of deal. Plus, Who villains often thrive on reinvention and the Master has been in need of one ever since John Simm started firing lightning bolts out his arse.

The Cybermen being treated as the reveal isn't that surprising though. It's clear they needed something of a red herring to keep the audience guessing who Missy was. The Cybermen as mystery villain is a nice way to put the audience on the wrong only to have Michelle Gomez give an incredibly watchable bit of exposition and reveal herself as the true villain of the piece. Looking forward to next week to see if she can stack up to the great Roger Delgado in the evil villain department.

[Mr Cochese]

Loads of that still made no sense by the end. Maybe the Doctor should have a look at what's in his hand.

[Reidles]

Maybe the Doctor should have a look at what's in his hand.

I considered this for a moment while watching. It could happen, but I'd be surprised if it went that way.

The episode itself was utterly fantastic and so very pleased about Missy's true identity. In the past, my main grumbles about Moffat's writing are:

Trying to hard too get a laugh

The script going too fast with little exposition time

His reluctance to tackle some real Who lore or iconic bad guys.

This episode did everything to smash those grumbles. I was particularly pleased about the Master reveal, as I'd hoped it (after some very convincing theories by a poster on here way back at the beginning of the year when Missy's character was first publicised, ages before Deep Breath aired). RTD's problems aside, he wasn't afraid to really tackle some of the famous antagonists, flesh them out, as well as make a large impact on the Whoniverse. For better or worse.

Don't get me wrong, I'm far from massively irritating Doctor Who pedant, who thinks it should have a strong continuity, on par with Start Trek or something; but I do like it when writers aren't afraid to shake up some of the fan's favourite characters or lore. Equally, I love Moffat and it's just frustrating because we all know how good he can write. And how bad. So it's great to see him seemingly devote more to the flow of the plot, rather than let us know how much he's enjoying himself. He did this in the 50th, for probably the first time, and the results were just as good.

This setup could go the way of Utopia and Sound Of The Drums, but I'm pretty sure that it won't. Really looking forward to next week.

[joeplus]

There were some nice bits to that, but overall was kind of underwhelmed.

Thought it got very muddled at the end - normally even if I misunderstand bits I can pick it up. With this one I still don't really know why or how there are Cybermen in London, or how that relates to the Nethersphere, which is a floating glowy Timelord football? And everyone's small inside it, or just a mind-state? Roll on next week.

Missy is fantastic though.

[Commander Jameson]

So am I right in thinking that the Nethersphere is a...

Tardis

?

I definitely enjoyed that episode APART from all the Clara and Danny bits. After all this series, I couldn't care less about them. But I did like the premise of the episode, the double door reveal (although I'd seen the on-set pictures earlier) and Missy's performance. Capaldi was, as usual, excellent. He's right up there as my favourite NuWho Doctor now.

[Harsin]

It's this.

http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/The_Matrix

[Lag]

The Doctor observes that it's "a matrix data slice, a Gallifreyan hard drive, Time Lord technology" and Missy posits that one could "upload dying minds to it, edit them, rearrange them, get rid of all those boring emotions..."

[Gabe]

I'm not sure whether I enjoyed that or not, though I'm interested in how things will wrap-up next week:

1. Regardless of whether Danny is dead/alive/whatever, there's no way Clara can continue, is there? Either there will be a heroic sacrifice by her or it'll be quite mundane and she'll get Danny back and decide enough is enough and leave.

2. Her relationship with Danny is odd, anyway. At the end of the Forest of the Night she chose to be with the Doctor, rather than Danny (a choice she's made a lot), despite that - from the character's point of view - the Doctor might have had his theory wrong and the Earth was going to burn.

3. The Cybermen reveal was good (obviously we all knew they were coming at some point).

4. There wasn't enough Capaldi. He didn't really have any opportunity to shine. Liked the swearing line.

As somebody who only started watching because of Smith - and said quite adamantly in this thread that I wasn't interested in Capaldi - I'm very happy to say I was completely wrong to be so dismissive. I think he's been great once he found his own take; he has a great comic timing and delivery but he also pulls off the deeper, more thoughtful stuff. I hope he's the Doctor for a while yet.

[Hello Goaty ♥]

Capaldi is just how the doctor should be. I love it!

[Mogster]

I love his threat of hitting the guy with his shoe.

[SqueakyG]

I'm confused about some of the plot points.

I love the idea that people's minds have been uploaded at the point of death to a Gallifreyan hard-drive, so they think they're in the afterlife (though I'm not entirely sure if they are just digital simulations of minds, or somehow really them.) I like the idea that these digital minds - once willingly erased of emotion - will be uploaded to Cyberman bodies.

But what I don't understand is: who are the Cybermen physically? Missy says "Upload the mind, upgrade the body." Whose bodies? Is Missy stealing the corpses of everyone who dies and fitting them into Cyberman exoskeletons? How? By what large-scale operation is this being achieved? Missy says "All the graves of planet Earth are about to give birth," suggesting that everyone who has ever died is going to rise as a Cyberman. But how? I'm totally confused. How has she fitted Cyberman exoskeletons onto billions of corpses in graves? Where has she obtained billions of Cyberman exoskeletons from? And why do they need human skeletons inside them at all?

[Fury4k]

You're over thinking it mate.

[NEG]

I really loled when

Clara told the Doctor Danny was dead and he said "And?" May he always be this much of a git

This.

Some great lines and scenes. Good dark plot concept, but I can't help feel it became a bit 'whatever' by the end. I don't care about Cybermen. I don't care about The Master...

...other then to find out how he got out of the time war loop thingy this time around. Real shame we didn't get one more John Simm Master story to have a regeneration scene imo, would have worked well against Capaldi, though personally hoped he would have appeared during Matt Smith just to call him a kid.

I suppose that just leaves Danny and Clara as the real 'oh, what's going to happen?' here. Which is certainly still better then end of the world stuff, and not front and centre as it would have been when it came to Amy and Rory.

Mr Bones to Cybermen really was great/ a real ooh! moment. Them walking out town? Not as much.

Edit: If Cybermen have their more advanced capabilities that we saw last year we do have potential for some pretty gruesome in-mass death scenes. Like that'll happen, though. They'll be stopped in the first 5 minutes.

[Comrade]

It's been pointed out that there's a red phone box shown in front of St Paul's that isn't there in reality. It seems likely that it could be the Master's TARDIS, which would be a fantastic alternative to the TARDIS we all know and love.

[Space Renegade Ulala]

Given the way they all just ran out of St Paul's (which wasn't a secret lab facility housing Cybermen tombs and Gallifreyan hard drives last time I looked), it makes more sense that she's got it parked somewhere in St Paul's, no?

[Gabe]

I suppose that just leaves Danny and Clara as the real 'oh, what's going to happen?' here. Which is certainly still better then end of the world stuff, and not front and centre as it would have been when it came to Amy and Rory.

Yeah, they haven't suffocated episodes in the way Rory and Amy did at times, which is a good thing. I guess that is in part because they haven't really had much time to develop.

That said, like Commander Jameson above, I don't really care about them as a couple. I like them individually, but I don't think their relationship has developed enough to the point that Clara would undertake the actions she did and, for me, it's ruined her character a bit and the closeness she built with this Doctor.

Anyway, what are peoples' thoughts about next week?

[Gabe]

It's been pointed out that there's a red phone box shown in front of St Paul's that isn't there in reality. It seems likely that it could be the Master's TARDIS, which would be a fantastic alternative to the TARDIS we all know and love.

I suspect that's probably just the 'London has red phone boxes' trope for the US audience rather than anything deeper than that. I wouldn't be surprised to see an old-style London bus next week, too.

[Lag]

Lots of trees will appear, destroy the Cybermen, defeat Missy and then disappear. Everyone will forget the event.

[Lag]

Edit: If Cybermen have their more advanced capabilities that we saw last year we do have potential for some pretty gruesome in-mass death scenes. Like that'll happen, though. They'll be stopped in the first 5 minutes.

St Paul's is Anglican, not Roman.

[Not Thread Owner]

Stuff that doesn't make sense for me - we saw people from all the different time periods this season going to Missy's afterlife. How did she manage that (okay, obviously by sci-fi mumbo jumbo) and why are the Cybermen only attacking one point in modern-day London? Also, didn't some of the people we saw die have their bodies disintegrated? And weren't some of them alien robot things? How were they to become Cybermen?

I didn't think this episode did a good job of establishing Missy's plan. I think a good two-parter has to establish what's going on to a better extent by the end of the first part. What's Missy's endgame here, and why is she using Cybermen? Is she just doing all this to mess with the Doctor?

If only there was a second part where some or all of these things might be revealed.

[Mr Cochese]

Doctor Who will use ham radio to ask the entire planet whether Danny should be saved and they will all vote no.

[Not Thread Owner]

Anyway, what are peoples' thoughts about next week?

I want to know how Danny comes back from the dead, ends up ditching Clara and Coal Hill, and gets a job in a supermarket in Warrington.