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shadowkatWell, I actually watched an episode within 24 hours in which it aired. Usually it's fourteen days later. Also, dear BBCAmerica, please stop airing the last five minutes of Doctor Who within the same time slot as Class, because my DVR keeps cutting it off. In order to see the last five minutes, I had to start DVRing Class. No haven't watched any episodes of it yet, in part because I'm annoyed that I have to tune in order to see the last five minutes of Doctor Who.
1. Overall, the episode was okay. The dialogue and plot were on the wonky uneven side of the fence. My attention kept wandering during it. I had troubled following the dialogue and the plot at various points. (One of the guest actors had guest-starred on Call the Midwife a few weeks back, so that sort of...gave me a flashback to Call the Midwife. I also thought, there must not be that many actors in England, they seem to pop up on the television shows. ) I'd seen the plot done somewhere before...it had a deja vue quality to it that I can't quite place. And, I'm not sure, but I think it has been done better elsewhere...here there was a plot element that just don't quite work for me.
Don't like the villains. Although I'm beginning to think they may be more ambiguous than originally suspected. And there's yet another reference to River Song -- ie. The Pyramid.
Oh, and the theme of the seasonal story arc is becoming rather obvious. It's definitely about agency or choice and consent. Just not quite sure yet where the writers are headed with it.
2. My difficulty with the plot...was that it wasn't clear what was meant by consent.
In the story, the humans who have power over earth must give the alien monk beings consent to take dominion. That's the only way the earth will be saved and not destroyed. Because the aliens have determined that only consent given out of love and freely given, not coerced, will enable rulership. You can't rule people who fear and hate you, only those who worship and love you. Okay, so consent must be pure and out of love, not fear, not coerced in anyway...and not I'm guessing out of self-interest (?) or with any strategy or plan behind it. They must simply ask for the aliens help.
People with power: the UN Secretary has power, although I'd say his power is a matter of opinion. (The British obviously think he has power, the US doesn't. If this was a US series, he wouldn't be in it. The President of the US would be. (I guess Alec Baldwin wasn't available?) ). Actually this bit was rather interesting -- that the people assigned power over our fate, are the Doctor, The General Secretary of the UN, three generals of various governments, and Bill (because she's a representative of the Doctor).
Anyhow, when he asks for their help to save the world, it isn't pure because it is out of fear. When the three military people ask, it isn't pure because there's strategy, fear, and a desire for the planet to survive behind it. But, and this is when they lost me, when Bill asks the aliens to make the Doctor able to see...in order to save the Doctor's life, out of fear for him. That's pure? How so? She is doing out of fear -- granted out of fear for the Doctor, but how is this any different than the UN Secretary General asking for their help not to have the world end? She's also doing it out of self-interest -- she doesn't want anything to happen to her friend who she cares for, could care less about the consequences to anyone else or what it means. She is doing it out of love...but is her love for the doctor any more pure than the the others love for their families and those around them?
I think my problem with it...is the writer appears to be saying that saving the Doctor or in this instance making him able to see in order to save himself is more pure than well saving the world. Okay.
Much of the plot did not work for me. Why were only those people with the Pyramid?
(I guess the writers didn't want to bring in fictionalized versions of our current leadership?) And why would anyone in their right mind ask a bunch of corpse like monkish aliens, who they'd already been told were tasked with taking over Earth, to help them or provide them with consent to take over? I mean you'd have to be really desperate. Particularly someone like Bill who has some knowledge of what it is like not to have rights.
3. I think I know where the writers are going with this...they are definitely exploring the theme of agency or having no choices, or no will. Either it is taken from you by force, coercion or by your own choices. In each episode...it's a bit different. But in several, the victims have to a degree chosen to be victims, they've freely given up their agency in return for something.
Oxygen -- the people on the spaceship agreed to the terms. They also agreed to put on the life-saving suits, which were actually killing them and coopting their bodies as corpses. In a way this was foreshadowing for the last two episodes. Where the evil alien monks that look like corpses, take over the bodies of the clerics in Extremis, and appear in the clerics garb in Pyramid. The human form they take is a corpse, because they see humanity as corpses, due to all the simulations they've run.
Smile -- similarily is about people handing over their choices and agency, inadvertently to robot slaves without realizing the consequences. They wanted the robots help, and it came with a deadly price.
So -- it goes back to Missy and the Doctor at the beginning of Extremis, or even the Doctor and River in Library...where someone consents for someone has to have dominion over them in order to survive. The person that they agree to taking "dominion" or "control" over their lives is someone they "love" or "trust".
Going back to Knock Knock, the landlord entraps his mother, and everyone who enters the house...they trust him, they sign an agreement, and in the process give him dominion. (By the way, they apparently shoved Bill losing all her possessions in that house under the rug.)
Pilot is another example -- Bill's friend has to consent to be taken over completely by the alien transport device. And in order to take Bill with her, Bill has to "consent" to being taken over and transported. If Bill does not "consent", she won't lose her agency and won't be taken over. She comes very close to doing so...to be with her friend.
I think Thin Ice is the only one where a being was captured and entrapped without any consent involved.
The Doctor in each of these instances questions the lack of agency and issuance of consent.
4. Poor Nardol, we knew you well. I'm not sure if he is dead or not. Although this poses a question, why does the toxin affect Nardol but not The Doctor? Aren't both made out of living organic materials? I thought if anything Nardol was less so, because "robot".
They sort of explain it, but I couldn't make much out of the explanation.
5. Well now we know why they blinded the Doctor and kept him blind, and had him keep it a secret. (Although that also didn't quite work, it's fairly obvious in various places that he is blind. I kept wondering why people couldn't figure it out.) Felt a bit contrived...and ironic, oh Bill dooms Earth to alien rule so the Doctor can see again and save himself?
6. The alien monks are very similar to The Silence. What's interesting about them is the whole consent bit. And how they don't want to rule in fear. Nice exchange of dialogue there:
Doctor: Why do you need consent?
Aliens: Because ruling by coercion and fear doesn't work in the long run, it's better if people give you their love.
Doctor: Of course.
General Secretary: Then why do you look like corpses? Hard to love corpses.
Aliens: We took a form you'd be comfortable with...think of us as guardian angles.
One of the other characters: You thought we'd be comfortable with corpses?
Aliens: You are all corpses to us.
Yes, and we'll consent to have you take over...that is a great idea.
I don't know, this plot has problems.
Ranking:
1. Pilot
2. Extremis
3. Smile
4. Pyramid at the End of the World
5. Thin Ice
6. Oxygen
How many episodes does Doctor Who have? Is it ten a year? Or six? Or thirteen? I'm guessing ten.
1. Overall, the episode was okay. The dialogue and plot were on the wonky uneven side of the fence. My attention kept wandering during it. I had troubled following the dialogue and the plot at various points. (One of the guest actors had guest-starred on Call the Midwife a few weeks back, so that sort of...gave me a flashback to Call the Midwife. I also thought, there must not be that many actors in England, they seem to pop up on the television shows. ) I'd seen the plot done somewhere before...it had a deja vue quality to it that I can't quite place. And, I'm not sure, but I think it has been done better elsewhere...here there was a plot element that just don't quite work for me.
Don't like the villains. Although I'm beginning to think they may be more ambiguous than originally suspected. And there's yet another reference to River Song -- ie. The Pyramid.
Oh, and the theme of the seasonal story arc is becoming rather obvious. It's definitely about agency or choice and consent. Just not quite sure yet where the writers are headed with it.
2. My difficulty with the plot...was that it wasn't clear what was meant by consent.
In the story, the humans who have power over earth must give the alien monk beings consent to take dominion. That's the only way the earth will be saved and not destroyed. Because the aliens have determined that only consent given out of love and freely given, not coerced, will enable rulership. You can't rule people who fear and hate you, only those who worship and love you. Okay, so consent must be pure and out of love, not fear, not coerced in anyway...and not I'm guessing out of self-interest (?) or with any strategy or plan behind it. They must simply ask for the aliens help.
People with power: the UN Secretary has power, although I'd say his power is a matter of opinion. (The British obviously think he has power, the US doesn't. If this was a US series, he wouldn't be in it. The President of the US would be. (I guess Alec Baldwin wasn't available?) ). Actually this bit was rather interesting -- that the people assigned power over our fate, are the Doctor, The General Secretary of the UN, three generals of various governments, and Bill (because she's a representative of the Doctor).
Anyhow, when he asks for their help to save the world, it isn't pure because it is out of fear. When the three military people ask, it isn't pure because there's strategy, fear, and a desire for the planet to survive behind it. But, and this is when they lost me, when Bill asks the aliens to make the Doctor able to see...in order to save the Doctor's life, out of fear for him. That's pure? How so? She is doing out of fear -- granted out of fear for the Doctor, but how is this any different than the UN Secretary General asking for their help not to have the world end? She's also doing it out of self-interest -- she doesn't want anything to happen to her friend who she cares for, could care less about the consequences to anyone else or what it means. She is doing it out of love...but is her love for the doctor any more pure than the the others love for their families and those around them?
I think my problem with it...is the writer appears to be saying that saving the Doctor or in this instance making him able to see in order to save himself is more pure than well saving the world. Okay.
Much of the plot did not work for me. Why were only those people with the Pyramid?
(I guess the writers didn't want to bring in fictionalized versions of our current leadership?) And why would anyone in their right mind ask a bunch of corpse like monkish aliens, who they'd already been told were tasked with taking over Earth, to help them or provide them with consent to take over? I mean you'd have to be really desperate. Particularly someone like Bill who has some knowledge of what it is like not to have rights.
3. I think I know where the writers are going with this...they are definitely exploring the theme of agency or having no choices, or no will. Either it is taken from you by force, coercion or by your own choices. In each episode...it's a bit different. But in several, the victims have to a degree chosen to be victims, they've freely given up their agency in return for something.
Oxygen -- the people on the spaceship agreed to the terms. They also agreed to put on the life-saving suits, which were actually killing them and coopting their bodies as corpses. In a way this was foreshadowing for the last two episodes. Where the evil alien monks that look like corpses, take over the bodies of the clerics in Extremis, and appear in the clerics garb in Pyramid. The human form they take is a corpse, because they see humanity as corpses, due to all the simulations they've run.
Smile -- similarily is about people handing over their choices and agency, inadvertently to robot slaves without realizing the consequences. They wanted the robots help, and it came with a deadly price.
So -- it goes back to Missy and the Doctor at the beginning of Extremis, or even the Doctor and River in Library...where someone consents for someone has to have dominion over them in order to survive. The person that they agree to taking "dominion" or "control" over their lives is someone they "love" or "trust".
Going back to Knock Knock, the landlord entraps his mother, and everyone who enters the house...they trust him, they sign an agreement, and in the process give him dominion. (By the way, they apparently shoved Bill losing all her possessions in that house under the rug.)
Pilot is another example -- Bill's friend has to consent to be taken over completely by the alien transport device. And in order to take Bill with her, Bill has to "consent" to being taken over and transported. If Bill does not "consent", she won't lose her agency and won't be taken over. She comes very close to doing so...to be with her friend.
I think Thin Ice is the only one where a being was captured and entrapped without any consent involved.
The Doctor in each of these instances questions the lack of agency and issuance of consent.
4. Poor Nardol, we knew you well. I'm not sure if he is dead or not. Although this poses a question, why does the toxin affect Nardol but not The Doctor? Aren't both made out of living organic materials? I thought if anything Nardol was less so, because "robot".
They sort of explain it, but I couldn't make much out of the explanation.
5. Well now we know why they blinded the Doctor and kept him blind, and had him keep it a secret. (Although that also didn't quite work, it's fairly obvious in various places that he is blind. I kept wondering why people couldn't figure it out.) Felt a bit contrived...and ironic, oh Bill dooms Earth to alien rule so the Doctor can see again and save himself?
6. The alien monks are very similar to The Silence. What's interesting about them is the whole consent bit. And how they don't want to rule in fear. Nice exchange of dialogue there:
Doctor: Why do you need consent?
Aliens: Because ruling by coercion and fear doesn't work in the long run, it's better if people give you their love.
Doctor: Of course.
General Secretary: Then why do you look like corpses? Hard to love corpses.
Aliens: We took a form you'd be comfortable with...think of us as guardian angles.
One of the other characters: You thought we'd be comfortable with corpses?
Aliens: You are all corpses to us.
Yes, and we'll consent to have you take over...that is a great idea.
I don't know, this plot has problems.
Ranking:
1. Pilot
2. Extremis
3. Smile
4. Pyramid at the End of the World
5. Thin Ice
6. Oxygen
How many episodes does Doctor Who have? Is it ten a year? Or six? Or thirteen? I'm guessing ten.
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Date: 2017-05-29 09:06 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2017-05-29 03:04 pm (UTC)