DOCTOR WHO-TIME HEIST

 

DOCTOR WHO-TIME HEIST

“No, I’m an amnesiac robbing a bank, why would I be okay?”

 

“Oh is that why you call yourself the Doctor? Professional detachment.”

 

God, no. Please, no. Don’t make me watch this. I have to say the last time I watched this (the one and only), I found I didn’t care about one single aspect of this except maybe one of the guest starring roles/actors. I found it boring, cliché, and trying too hard to be OCEAN’S ELEVEN, either old or new.

 

I didn’t care about the Doctor, Clara, or the situation. Not even during the McCoy Era the first time round did I care LESS. I wanted DW to just end and put me out of my obsession with a show that had gone dragging on from 2009 to 2014 without many good episodes and without merit but with a low quality of tone, script, dialog and care.

 

Danny. Clara. The Doctor. Which one is the most obnoxious. Not Danny. This Doctor seems to be stalking Clara to come with him on his kind of a date. He really, like Matt’s Doctor, seems to have no clue about women and dating and make up. Which is stupid and not funny. Clara wants, for her unlikable part, to flaunt that she has a date and is so, oh excited she’s living a life and subtle in that she wants the Doctor to feel he is not. She really doesn’t want to be with the Doctor but with Danny, who isn’t all that likable as I first thought on the first go around of this crap. Well, let’s be fair: Danny is a ton more likable than Clara and this Doctor (or the last Doctor---Matt-- for that matter, too).

 

The phone on the exterior of the TARDIS is not supposed to ring as established in Moffat’s (still think RTD didn’t rewrite Moffat?) THE EMPTY CHILD/THE DOCTOR DANCES but here it does and the Doctor doesn’t think it strange.

 

The Doctor…doesn’t like not knowing something? Well, since when? He likes to find things out but finding out new things used to stimulate him and not knowing used to sometimes drive him.

 

I also find maybe I’m looking too hard for things not to like? And yet, there’s nothing really that bad here but I find I’m not engrossed at all in this. It also feels straining to be dangerous, grim, miserable, and morbid and sort of succeeds at all of that. That’s not enjoyable. Not in DW to this extreme. WHY does the Doctor think they have to continue robbing the bank? I already forgot.

 

For some reason this also has a bit of MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE and worse, the mundane, glum, grim 1999 version of THE THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR. Eek.

 

Again, though, beyond being morbid, there’s nothing really terribly bad here. Yet.

 

I just don’t care about it.

 

Okay, the person who hired them to rob the bank left the cases in the bank? No. As Clara asks, we realize that doesn’t make sense. Nor does having your memory wiped erase guilt you might feel on the spot. They are guilty, memory or not. This makes no sense. Again.

 

Psi IS an interesting character. Needs his own show. Time traveling in a box. I’d watch that.

 

How does Sai having a lot of faces make them easy to read? She can’t see her own face and read it; she’s already know her own thoughts. That makes no sense, either. Is it me or is this writing just the sucky-est?

 

Does this feel a bit like INTO THE DALEK?

 

 

I like Psi so, of course, he has to die. And Clara claims Psi died for nothing? Uhm, he just saved her life. Why can’t the TARDIS land during a solar storm in a vulnerable bank? It’s supposed to be impregnable and should be able to do that. Why is navigation impossible in a solar storm? 

 

Anyone also thinking that the Doctor is behind all of this? It’s not that obvious but it just feels like that.

 

Okay, so…what? The Doctor was the architect all along.

 

Let’s look at this:

 

She departs from the vault, but the Doctor reminds her to give him a call one day if she has any regrets. Shortly after she leaves, the Teller arrives, and the Doctor convinces him to scan his mind to find the memories that were blocked.

 

In a flashback, an elderly and dying Ms Karabraxos — now no longer the richest person in the universe — calls the Doctor on the TARDIS in Clara's flat, and tells him of her regret. The Doctor is then shown preparing all the elements of the time heist, revealing that he himself was the Architect. Because much of the bank's security was based on sensing a criminal's guilt, wiping the recent memories of the heist participants would reduce their chances of being caught. The ultimate goal of the plan was to bring the Teller, who was telepathically linked to Karabraxos, to the Private Vault after she left, so as to allow him to unlock a combination safe. Inside, they find another alien, a female member of the same species as the Teller, chained within the safe. The Doctor points out that they have six teleport devices, allowing them all to escape the bank before it is wiped out. The Doctor takes the creatures to an isolated planet to live out their lives free of telepathic "noise" and then returns Saibra and Psi to their respective times and places after having lunch. Finally, the Doctor returns them to Clara's flat moments after they have left to allow Clara to continue on her date. Right after she departs, he declares with a smug grin, "Ha! Robbing a bank! Robbing a whole bank. Beat that for a date..."

 

 

Does that make any sense?

 

Okay, I like that he told a joke about Ceasar of Borgia (possibly at the same time that one of the major cable networks was doing a high profile expensive THE BORGIAS series) and I like that Psi wants to work with the Doctor if he will rob a bank and behind Clara’s back, the Doctor signals a CALL ME hand signal to Psi. Sai likes the Doctor romantically it would seem but leaves anyway and hugs him. She also fake punches his arm and he holds it. There are a couple of jokes here that work.

 

Clara leaves for her date. The Doctor, revealing that he does want Clara for a date, exclaims to no one, “Beat that for a date.”

 

 

Not sure what to make of this. It seems to both make sense and not make sense. It is not bad, nor good. It’s sort of just there. Capaldi is weak in most of this episode, pontificating, the writing trying to make us not like the Doctor. He doesn’t even like himself it would seem and for a being as old as he is, well, that makes him a bit insane and not likable. Again. For someone that old, he should be smarter and more well adjusted. Next time is even worse with the one of the worst DW stories ever THE CARETAKER.

 

Not sure what to make of this one, TIME HEIST: love or hate it or like it and loathe it. It’s not a fave.

 

At least Psi survived. Now, he’d make a great companion.

  

 

 

BTW Capaldi is pretty bad in most of this to be honest.