DOCTOR WHO-BOOM spoilers

 

DOCTOR WHO-BOOM

 spoilers

Hmmm. Let’s see. SWAT is looking really great tonight. High stakes, intrapersonal relationship issues, huge action, realistic people and characters, and followed by FIRE COUNTRY and then the always excellent BLUE BLOOD.

 

After last week’s two episode disaster, if this week’s DOCTOR WHO is awful, I have some tough choices to make about giving up on 2024 DOCTOR WHO and a character I’ve followed for five decades (and not just on TV: in comics, books, audios, and role playing) and an actor I really admire and love. Let’s see if this is written by RTD if I should go into it wary. Oh, wait, this is Moffat’s? Gosh, hell naw.

 

Okay, it looked more serious and I can’t deal with the 6 minute to 8 minute of advertising on watching live TV so I guess I’ll give this torturous Doctor Who show another go, another try. If it’s bad, it will hurt. It will hurt giving up a show that once gave me so much gratification. Please, be good. Is that too much to ask the greatest premise in the world to be?

 

Okay, I might be done.

 

What’s wrong, you might ask?

 

This is better written and directed, less silly, and more serious minded.

 

Much of it doesn’t make sense. Again. The spoiled truth is that no one wants a war, not even big business. It makes no sense that dying means more buy when more life means more customers. No one needed proof of an enemy before participating in a war? If that’s not stupid enough, there’s the whole idea of not letting patients recover because it would take too much time. Again, no one human questioned that.

 

 

Oh, right, Moffat explains that. The humans fighting this war are all sort of clerics, Anglicans or something. His message is that faith is stupid. The Doctor even says as much. Faith. Is. Stupid. That’s the message and the Doctor mocks faith.

 

Enough is enough. Moffat and RTD are both atheists who know nothing. They are not fit to write messages to us, the audience. The Doctor even calls Mundy faith gal to insult her.

 

Another bit of nonsense is that the Doctor is once again a god like being. Here he is on a landmine and gets shot by the faith gal, Mundy AND the Ambulance Machine and he is not thrown at all. He stands his ground, literally. He can take all thrown at him. While crying. A lot. Tears flow. Gosh, this is bad again. Again. It’s disguised as better and even is a bit more superior to the crap space babies and worse Devil’s Chord. The characters, Mundy, Splice and her dad, his co hort Carson (?) who has to demonstrate for us what a land mine does by stepping on it and becoming fodder (is this Doctor Who by the numbers?), the guy who likes Mundy---James (?) called Canter (?), all of them are well written and drawn, unusually for Moffat (at least under his own era) but not for RTD1 (2005 to 2008 which had some of the best drawn characters in all of DW history). SO this feels like it’s good.

 

It’s not. It’s cheap and dragged out and dragged on. It’s, at least a 20 minute story spread out over 46 minutes minus the great theme music and opening and closing credits. It takes place in one spot and tries to give you the impression that it’s epic. It’s not. It’s cheap. It looks good but to look at that one set for that amount of time….no, just no. DW needs to MOVE. And I wished the Doctor moved and get killed so we can be put out of our misery this show inflicts on us.

 

I do have a choice now. Stop watching this shit or not.

 

Oh, and let’s not forget the mine somehow has turned the Doctor into an explosive force that can level half the planet and kill everyone. Sigh. He’s not a god. He does not have that power. A Time Lord is not a space time event. Get over that. It’s more lazy writing.

 

Ruby is shot. That’s truly shocking and one cares for her because, here, the Doctor does care for her and she emits a lot of human qualities---protecting the little girl, not wanting to shoot Munday (the Doc makes a stupid joke about Munday marrying Ruby so he can say Ruby Munday Sunday or something?), and in general reacting how a companion or “WE” would react, even being grossed out by holding a smelted human.

 

As sci fi this makes little to no sense. The set up makes no sense, the background makes no sense. There is no enemy. The big business wants to perpetuate a war against nothing to keep people buying.

 

Enough of this liberal crap garbage. If the set up were right, it might make some sense. Mud monsters? How can the Doctor, who knows there are such things, mock that and detect that without investigating? Because that would take the script moving to a new location and a new effect. This is much cheaper to have the Doctor just guess at it all and connect to the Ambulance via its own wire that is shot into him. And he also seems to be able to make an AI bound its own boundaries and act like a human. Gosh, this is poor. Bad science fiction, bad TV.

 

Anti war I get. Anti big business that’s nasty I get. But anti big business that starts and perpetuates a war against no one, no, just no. Anti faith? It’s a bad message. Anti Religion I sort of get. Spirituality is better than religion but there’s no mention of that here.

 

And Munday is so stupid that she can’t see what Splice sees: that James loves her. What a dope. Moffat still doesn’t know how to write women. Mind you, he does all right with Ruby here, though she’s asking for her next of kin when dying as if she doesn’t know who her next of kin is. WTF?

 

There are other awk moments, too. Ruby stops to smile at another planet and the Doc stops to admire her admiring smile…WHILE he’s on a landmine and needing her to bring him a counter weight. Gosh. Dumb.

 

There’s other stuff, too, such as Ruby panics while Splice converses with her dad on AI, still not getting that dad is DEAD, gurl. While Munday says stuff, too.

 

The logic of the Ambulance, the company and the background to the war and the entire set up is faulty, too. It doesn’t make sense and is not realistic. At all. Now, if the company set up fake aliens as in an old OUTER LIMITS episode, that might have worked better in this story but that takes imagination and more money than this CGI battlefield for the entire 40 minutes.

 

 

Anti faith, anti religion, anti classic WHO, anti logic, anti business. Any pros going on here?

 

And just like RTD’s PARTING OF THE WAYS and other stories and some of Moffat’s rip off of those stories, we get another AI of Canto (James) giving us a message if something happened to him. Boring.

 

So….is the tube a casket or just their body? Both are said.

 

I like how “thoughts and prayers” are used by the villainous company as a slogan of fakeness. Oh, wait, I don’t. Thoughts and prayers are meant to be a good thing except by cynical DW fans and writers and liberals who can’t accept that sometimes thoughts and prayers are all we can give one another. It means nothing to them, which says more about them.

 

The Dad is deleted permanently. Oh, wait, he’s not.

 

Ruby dies. And in typical Moffat fashion, she’s revived! YAY!

 

Then, the music tells us we’re supposed to have one of those moments that we last genuinely had in…THE DOCTOR DANCES when the Doctor won the day and felt like he was on fire and no one died. And Ncuti tries his best to give us the joy but fails utterly. It all rings false.

 

Haven’t we seen this before? Doctor uses software to bring down a company. Only this time he doesn’t have to drive up the side of a building. And no one thought the BBC had better effects than that Disney would bring to it? Here, we’re in one place the entire time. Boring. False. False premises and an attack on faith and having faith, the most basic things our world needs to get over war and hatred. Gosh.

 

Oh wait, it is all good. The Doctor doesn’t like faith, but needs it. He tells Splice her dad is gone in a huge moment of disbelief on his part but then agrees with Splice that her dad is not gone. Nice walk back. Hug hug.

 

Then to back walk the back walk, the Doctor admits we are all dead eventually. The truth is that’s a false premise. There is no death. Too bad atheists can’t get over that. We don’t die, we just transition. Too bad they can’t tell stories about that. Instead of this total lie crap.

 

Moffat says dying defines us. Another false premise by Moffat. Dying does not define us. We. Don’t. Die.

 

This tries hard to play both sides and fails. It wants to believe in life after death but basically says there is no life after death. More clap trap crap.

 

And what is with the snow flakes? Who cares?

 

I’d have to give this a 1/10. Utter garbage? Not as bad as STAR BEAST but not as bad as SPACE BABIES and DEVIL’S CHORD. Next week looks like more pseudo entertainment.

 

Horrid again. Over long, over reaching, 20 minutes of "action" in 46 minutes on one planet in one set, cheaply made. An attack on faith, an attack on business, an attack on capitalism. And what's worse, it's message is back tracked and back walked to be : Oh we all die and oh, wait, we don't, we should have faith and need it but not like it, but oh wait, everything ends, but wait, love lasts. Ruby dies and returns, a Moffat fave. The Doc is a god like figure that can if ignited blow up half the planet. He's a space time event. Gosh, what garbage. Didn't feel old fashioned at all. Moffat still can't write women well: Mundy is really clueless in a lot of this and didn't know that that man loved her. And logic? A war against ...no enemy? It might have made sense if the company faked an enemy like in the classic OUTER LIMITS episode. The Doc scoffs at mud monsters but then tells Munday he's met such beings. And again, the Doc uses a computer to stop a company as in season 7 but this time there's no money to do a good effect of him driving a motorcycle up a building so the theory that the BBC can't do effects better than Disney is wrong, too. And for the record: we don't die, we all go to an afterlife and yes, we are mostly made of love after we pass and move to the next life. I"m tired of the false premises of atheist writers like Moffat and RTD and then not to upset us they back track on their false premises to half please us. This was, in many ways, even worse than the first two stories of this season 1. I have a choice now: give up on a show that's now consistently awful in message, tone, and logic and a show and character I've loved for five decades or keep giving it a chance to upset me with wrong messages and clap trap nonsense? There were other awkwardnesses too: Ruby has to get something to counter weight the Doc's landmine weight and while doing that, takes time to smile at the planet and he takes time to admire her smiling. And Ruby talks while Mundy talks while Splice can't realize her dad is just an AI and talks to him, all while readying to die from a big bang from the great big time lord energy nonsense. The Doc single handedly gets the Ambulance infected and an AI to act like it shouldn't. This is bad TV, bad sci fi, and bad DW.

 

The only way we can survive any war or future conflicts is by love and faith and appealing to our inner selves, our god given, faith given best of our selves and think what would God do, even if we do not believe in her/him. NOT by mastering our technology via a 2000 year old Time Lord Space Time Event and talking the tech down. Faith works. Love works. Stopping a war before it starts is the answer. Any wars already in progress can stop if everyone connected to their inner selves of love and care and the spirit. Everyone can do it. Everyone.

 

OH and another thing: Ncuti tries as written, but his Doctor, in this one episode feels fake and phony. The Doc scoffs at mud monsters but has seen some like that in the past. He's a jerk now and Ncuti tries but fails in this. His Doctor in this one episode has become unlikable, preachy, a know all and a fake joy man. He feels phony and fake in this. His performance, for the first time, feels forced and not genuine. If he continues like this, he will be known, at least by me, as a terrible Doctor. Nothing he says or does feels right in this and he comes off as a total jerk who thinks he's perfect and knows everything and lets YOU and US know it. I hate his Doctor in this. And we learn nothing about him or what he thinks in this. He can talk out of his butt and often does in this and seems to change his opinion with what others think, telling them what they need to hear but what he himself doesn't believe. For example what he says to Splice about her father and then she answers he's not dead and then he agrees with that, too. He's a coward and a liar and a jerk. And we still don't know what he feels about faith, God and the afterlife, despite direct reasons in this story to confront that with us, the story chickens out and doesn't. 

 

 

 Lou wrote this and I agree 100 percent: I never liked the idea of making The Doctor god-like. What attracted me to the show was that the Doctor was fallible, he could be in danger of losing his life. Even if he did regenerate, a version of the Doctor would die. He was limited on his regenerations. His sonic screwdriver couldn’t do everything. He had LIMITATIONS like all of us. He was not a superhero with super strengths and he used his intellect to get out of situations and set things right often enough. Even though he was an alien, you were able to relate to him because just like us, there were limitations on what he was capable of… and he was on the run from his own people which he had to contend with from time to time which added interest. It seems like modern DW has taken all that away now.

 would be better if it were logical and better written and if the Doc was not so unlikable thanks to Moffat and a God like space time event and in more than once location and...and so not so faithless and if the Doc weren't a know all. Who was the villain here? The Doc? Capitalism. Sigh. Without which we would not have the tech we use to make DW, watch DW, and communicate with each about DW? Read about DW? Big business? Ditto and add in buy books about DW, audios about DW, comics about DW, magazines about DW? Faith? Faith is how this world could/would grow into a world without wars and murder IF atheists and on the other side, religious zealots would let us think like the real God rather than the God of Whatever Book they try to force down our throats. The Ambulances are the villains? Uhm, mmmm. They save lives. Seems to me that this episode has alot of poor messages, false premises and awfulness about it and it's cowardly done in a cowardly script. The military? Mmmm. When forces against a country rise up, a good military can stop that force. If the villains in ww1 and ww2 didn't get stopped by the military, where would we be? None of these liberals, who I used to admire and almost agree with, seem to think about any of that.