Two-minute Time Lord

A check-in after November 5, a promise about Empire of Death, and thoughts about the way forward.

In case you missed me on The Incomparable’s Doctor Who Flashcast, here are some last-minute thoughts about TLoRS and where it fell down prior to the season finale.

This is a double edition of 2MTL covering “Dot and Bubble” and “Rogue,” two episodes that were absolutely tonally identical and left you feeling exactly the same way after each of them, amirite?

We’re catching up on the Discourse about a loved and hated mysterious episode. I’m still on Team Love.

Finally, I catch up on “The Devil’s Chord” and hold two opinions at once.

“Pace and energy” and high concepts give way to a man with a foot on a landmine for the duration of the story. Tension-filled bottle episodes are rare for Doctor Who, although there are a lot of parallels between this one and 2009’s “Midnight.” How does Steven Moffat’s return to Doctor Who fit with his showrunner’s current experiment?

“Would you like to see the baby?” Your answer probably had a lot to do with how you received “Space Babies,” but the first-or-second episode of new Series 1 had a LOT to cram into a too-small container, and that was an issue as well.

The first episodes of Series 1 (not counting the Christmas Special) have finally launched, and there’s RTD upon RTD on top of more RTD in “Space Babies” and “The Devil’s Chord.” We’ll look at these episodes individually soon, but going that hard was a gutsy, even necessary choice.

In which your interlocutor admits that he wishes to hear less of a composer he loves.

After “The Church on Ruby Road,” there should be no question that Ncuti Gatwa will master the role of The Doctor. However, we do need to address the fact that this is now a show with goblins and flying wooden ships….