I think I’ll just be happy when the season’s done, which is sad but there you go. Sometimes it’s a chore to watch under this showrunner but I find I can’t abandon it. Anyway…
Usually, before watching the new ep, I have to dodge the DWC and FB to steer clear of opinions. This time, I took a sneak peak ahead of just the voting and although there were only about 20 votes, 70% was 5/5, so that seemed hopeful.
Having watched the ep, the first impressions for me would be A) another good set up episode, which this season seems to excel at. This time for the big Cyber two part finale. B) seemingly less Chibnall writing all around, which helped. Better over all interaction between characters, more or less. No blunt object messages flying about.
The first half was harmless enough, spooky house, the TARDIS crew barging in on the villa– which really is the height of rudeness as they’re specifically and knowingly crashing a private party, just to “make sure they write like they’re supposed to”. And then Jodie gets all judgmental when she finds them goofing off. She has met writers before, hasn’t she? I think so.
I know that it’s supposed to viewed as an incredibly important writer’s weekend at the villa but yeah, kind of ridiculous that Jodie just decides to show up there to freeload for no good reason and oh! something funny is going on, what a coincidence. Ghosts AND a Cyberman! But aside from that, I can’t really find it in me to place a ton of importance on the future of humanity all depending on this weekend. More on that later.
Funny thing– the crawling, choking, skeleton hands, I totally forgot all about them as soon as the Cyberman showed up. I mean, I know Shelley was in the basement making the house fool people, ala perception filters but I can’t even remember what the deal was with the hands or if we ever got a good reason as to why they were crawling around choking Ryan (except good taste, I guess). I’ll get to the stooges soon enough.
It’s very rare to see an interesting Cyberman– that’s almost unheard of, so kudos here. As soon as he showed up, everything else was forgotten. I found it interesting that he killed the nanny, and Fletcher, but not the baby. Thank god he didn’t of course, as that seemed to be a weakness that Mary was trying to exploit later when talking to him, until of course he turned the tables and he went on to talk about slitting his own children’s throats, so…why didn’t he kill the baby? Too harsh for the kiddies in the audience I’m thinking, although mentioning he slit his own kid’s throats was okay?
So the ending was interesting to me as far as the interplay between Jodie and the pets. Sure, it established we have a big two parter coming, fine. I felt some of Jodie’s reasoning was a bit in and out. Ryan had a point about saving Shelley’s life at the cost of untold millions in the future. Jodie counters with Shelley inspiring countless thousands of others in the future… well…sorry, that seems a bit flimsy. Sure, him being killed might affect the timeline, OR maybe not at all. What about Fletcher and the nanny? Nah, servants — who cares? At the very least, the debate could have raged on but Jodie put her foot down and muzzled the pets. She also let a good chunk of her annoyance show once again when her judgment was questioned by Ryan. This week, her lesson was delivered with anger — and I do find it odd that the only times I find her emoting with any real passion, real honesty, was when she saw Gallifrey dead and when she lashes out at the pets.
As for Yaz, she was around. Ryan was his usual useless self, but he did manage to get out his trademark line about getting it all sorted, bless his heart. Graham was once again comic relief. Have you noticed that we’ve grown accustomed to them stumbling around blindly? Just part of the furniture and it’s kind of a relief this week that there wasn’t some horrific social message, gaffe or insult? Made the whole enterprise seem nicer. More “consequence free”. I do worry about the possibility of letting the show wear one down so that one starts “getting used” to the way things are and mistaking it for massive creative improvement.
As for Jodie, aside from another flash of annoyance at Ryan, she once again tries to ditch the cosmic barnacles so she can go after the Cybermen at the end but they remain attached to the hull. I think we’ve already seen the best of what Jodie brings to the table, much like we’ve seen the best of what Chibs has to offer. The best thing I can say about her is that Jodie plays the part of the character known as “The Doctor”.
So, to sum up, decent set up for the finale, at least no preaching, abandoned ghost story, interesting Cyberman, companions still useless, Jodie still trying to get rid of them.
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