Rate and Discuss: The Power of Three

[Perry Vale]

since most viewers are probably aware...

Can you please keep such comments to spoiler threads please, you've no idea what most viewers are aware of.

[egdcltd]

Can you please keep such comments to spoiler threads please, you've no idea what most viewers are aware of.

Especially those of us who avoid all trailers and prequels of the next episode. And anything else that might give stuff away.

[Stuart Wallis]

Sorry chaps.

[Dirk Gently]

And yes, with half the population going into v fib for that long, it would result in a lot of brain-damaged people wandering around...

Would anyone notice these days? They're called teenagers aren't they?


7/10 from me. It was good but the ending was too rushed in a "blink & you'll miss it" way.

The Pond's domestic life setting was an interesting story line that seemed to work really well, but I was a little annoyed at all these boxes being left everywhere for a year. That's just so unlikely. In a hospital they would have been rounded up & stored or thrown away, no left on in-trays & on medical supply shelves for a year!
And why was Alan Sugar sending apprentice wannabes out to sell something that was freely available to anyone on the planet? That was just shoe-horned in just to make it look more grounded in todays TV & looked crass to me. Although I did like the Brian Cox bit, that was relevant to the story.
And why did the orderlies have weird mouths? I really expected that to be explained...unless it was & I blinked & missed it.

Loved the tribute to the Brig. Really nice touch having his daughter appear to run UNIT. Mark Williams was excellent as ever.
This series is looking to be a consistently good one, lets hope it continues.

[Anthony Williams]

This story had its flaws. There's no doubt about that. And by "flaws", I mean "bloody great plot holes". But I'll start with the good.

There was something wonderfully nostalgic about this episode. The idea of Amy and Rory having a house, with Rory's father making regular appearances returns to the feel of the RTD-era that I've come to realise that I actually really miss. The Earth-bound invasion, complete with TV news reports and celebrity cameos helps this feeling along. I know that we had the last RTD-era story only two and a half(ish) years ago, but this really, really captures the feel of that time well.

Outside of this, the inclusion of Kate Stewart was a lovely one. One thing I'm sad about Who post-2005 is that it never brought the Brigadier back while Nick Courtney was still alive - I'm sure he'd have been willing to do it (and he did come back in the Sarah Jane Adventures, after all!). But here, we get the next best thing now that Nick has sadly passed away. The character was a fitting tribute to one of the men who was a childhood hero for many of us. I do hope that we see more of her going forward.

Likewise, the Shakri were a great monster/villain/thing. Great concept - something that the Doctor fears as a Gallifreyan bogeyman. I hope this race is revisited at some point, and we see them in a bigger, better and nastier form.

Unfortunately, the plot holes are absolutely gaping in this one. Who the hell were those orderlies? And why were they kidnapping people and taking them to the spaceship? I mean, what did they need them for? That was never, ever explained. It's one thing for Moffat and co. to make comments about "filling in the gaps yourselves" - but that's hard when they're as massive as this.

And then there's my pet peeve. Something I really, really hate. The Doctor saving the day with a wave of the sonic screwdriver. Urgh. Lazy, lazy, lazy! How hard would it have been to have him flick a few switches on the spaceship? I think the sonic is great when it's used sparingly - although I still think that the best thing JNT had done was to destroy it to remove the temptation.

Overall, the frustrating thing is that this story just had SO much potential (as most of Chibnall's do), that was just never realised. I don't know whether or not he was rushed in writing it, but it definitely came across as half-baked.

[Si Hunt]

On second watching, the sonic ending bothered me less, but I noticed a few more of the other things that didn't make sense. Ant's right, why were the people being taken to the spaceship? What were those people about with the cubes for mouths? The girl was mentioned to be a "droid on lookout" or something, but she was given huge emphasis and then forgotton. Also at least four or five months passed while she was still sat there in the hospital, didn't anyone notice??

You'd think they don't actually read the scripts before they make them!

On the plus side, Matt Smith was absolutely brilliant! "Would you mind moving out the way dear while I..." (to the cube)

Si.

[Stuart Wallis]

Would anyone notice these days? They're called teenagers aren't they?

Politicians.

[Zbigniev Hamson]

All a bit "meh" really. Not really much of a story to grab hold of, not much really happening. A nice central idea of mysterious things appearing and not doing anything, but then not really very much done with it.

Oddly enough (for me) I don't really see the big deal with these "plot holes" that people keep mentioning. The aliens (whoever they were) were studying humans to find their weaknesses, so it's perfectly understandable that they might want a few physical specimens to examine first-hand, and what better place to be able to acquire these than from a hospital? The girl android was given an explanation, although a rather brief one. And why shouldn't the orderlies have cubes for mouths? I don't see why that needs explaining any more than why Zygons have suckers on their heads.

Anyway, since I found it all rather meh, I'll give it a middle-of-the-road 5/10

[Jason Thompson]

This episode had some good ideas but came across as a very bitty effort, consisting of a whole bunch of disparate ideas thrown in and not really mixed all that well. So this will be a bit disjointed too.

I liked:

Kate Stewart. No, there was no need to have a character descended from the Brig, but god it was lovely to see and made me smile.

The lovely scene between the Doctor and Amy about stopping. It was nice to see the two characters realise they both had totally different views on the travelling they do, with Amy seeing it as running away from her mundane life and the Doctor as running to new and exciting things, and each thinking the other saw it the same way.

Mark Williams as Rory's dad. Hurrah!

I didn't like:

'Hello lefty!'. It was bad enough but just about acceptable to have the Tenth Doctor going 'bad-oom-BAH!' before running after the Carrionites in The Shakespeare Code, but the silly dance here was just absurd on a whole different level.

The 'how long was I gone' gag was too obvious.

The blink and you miss it just reverse everything with the sonic resolution. Yes, it needed to be quick, but there was a time when the Doctor knew how to use his hands to operate spaceship controls!

The fact that a total disaster such as one thrid the population of the Earth having heart attacks is undone and apparently just involves a whiole bunch of people just getting up and looking a bit dazed. If your heart stops for that long you're in a pretty bad way when and if it starts going again. But it seems to be standard in the new series to have a total disaster happen and be undone rather than have a race to stop a total disaster happening.

I was indifferent to:

The lack of explanation for things like the taking of bodies, the weird orderlies and the girl. It would have been nice to have the full story, but nothing wrong with a few unanswered questions. A better question would be why the cube, designed and set up to give humans a heart attack, stopped a Time Lord's heart, and why it only stopped one and not both.

Overall some nice ideas but just poorly executed and a bit forgettable really.

[Zbigniev Hamson]

2 little points re: death toll.

1) Brigadier Daughter Stewart estimates roughly a third of the population of Earth was "killed". So that would be 2-3 billion.

2) Sophie Raworth then talks about the "millions" of recovering people being treated.

So that could mean anything up to 99% of the people "killed" by the cubes actually stayed dead, with only a small percentage actually recovering. This simultaneously solves the problem of how unlikely it would be for everyone to be fine, whilst also giving us the biggest death toll since Logopolis (probably). Which is nice

[Jason Thompson]

I can't remember 100%, but wasn't that news report only referring to the people in Britain being treated, which would indeed only be millions if about a third of them were affected?

[Rob McCow]

I can't remember 100%, but wasn't that news report only referring to the people in Britain being treated, which would indeed only be millions if about a third of them were affected?

I think if you asked the writer, he'd probably say 'Who knows, who cares?!'

Oh dear. This should have been brilliant, but there were too many crappy things in it. The crappiness accumulated like a snowball going downhill until we get 'Oh it's the Shakri oh they're evil ah well better turn them off then bye bye.'

There were some absolutely superb moments, such as the Doctor's chat with Amy on the banks of the Thames, the first wave of the cubes coming to life and the trailer for next week's episode.

The centre of the story seemed to be similar to The Lodger, where the Doctor is unable to cope with everyday life. Shouldn't this have been a Craig episode?

The other thing that really bugged me was how much this was a copy of an RTD episode, with all of the tropes thrown in for good measure, from the BBC News Broadcast, to wiping out a third of the planet before the resolution, to the celebrity cameos and the backdrop of Central London. We also had The Tower of London, UNIT and gratuitous-but-fun continuity. If only the dialogue hadn't been so stinky...

And then there were the unresolved mysteries. It was a bit of a coincidence that the transdimensional portal was in Rory's hospital. As others have said, what was going on with the people with grills for mouths, why were they taking humans up to the spaceship? More importantly, why did nobody care when the humans on the ship all got blown up at the end?

There are a couple of things that I never want to see in Doctor Who ever again:
- "That's New"
- The Doctor and / or companion getting romantically engaged with an historical figure in a brief throwaway scene. We've had that joke.

Could have been great, but too much junk brought it down.

[Zbigniev Hamson]

I can't remember 100%, but wasn't that news report only referring to the people in Britain being treated, which would indeed only be millions if about a third of them were affected?

I think it was talking about worldwide, but that would require checking I suppose.

edit:... yep, definitely says worldwide. So I'm sticking with my massive death toll that no-one seems to care much about theory

[Zbigniev Hamson]

More importantly, why did nobody care when the humans on the ship all got blown up at the end?

Because Amy and Rory had already wheeled them all off back to the hospital.

[Si Hunt]

I liked the bit where the Doctor berated Rory for going back to his "little job" and he retorted with "Well it's important to me."

The Kate Stewart performance was very understated and odd. I don't know weather it was great or rubbish. It was sort of like an ordinary person, not an actor, was in it.

Si.

[Rob McCow]

Kate Stewart was playing somebody's mum rather than the daughter of a hardened career officer.

Wasn't she exactly the same as Harriet Jones Prime Minister Great Britain though? But without the gag, obviously.

[Darren]

Frankly they should have written the Zygons under The Savoy story.

[Zbigniev Hamson]

Kate Stewart was playing somebody's mum rather than the daughter of a hardened career officer.

Wasn't she exactly the same as Harriet Jones Prime Minister Great Britain though? But without the gag, obviously.

Looking at how old the actress is, the Brig must have sired her before he even got lumbered with the UNIT job, at which point he must have abandoned her and her mother to be confirmed bachelor for a while, never once even mentioning her existence to the Doctor, before finally shacking up with his old flame Doris after his retirement. What a barsteward.

[Richard Brinck-Johnsen]

Let's just remember that this story is set about 10 years in the future as Amy and Rory were married in their early 20s in June 2010 and it has been referenced a couple of times in this series that they're now both over 30.

Jemma Redgrave was born in 1965 so plausibly Kate Stewart would've been born in 1975.

Of course trying to marry the mess that is UNIT dating with the convoluted time-line of the Ponds is a dangerous business so I'll stop now before I conjecture any further.

[Zbigniev Hamson]

Well... there was still no mention of her in Battlefield, which was set in the mid-90s. Or Mawdryn Undead. Anyway, who cares, 2 billion people died :P

[Jon Masters]

Looking at how old the actress is, the Brig must have sired her before he even got lumbered with the UNIT job, at which point he must have abandoned her and her mother to be confirmed bachelor for a while, never once even mentioning her existence to the Doctor, before finally shacking up with his old flame Doris after his retirement. What a barsteward.

Not the same Kate, but from Downtime and other books Kate is the daughter from his first marriage to Fiona, who divorced him between Season 7 and 8, taking Kate with her (in The Scales of Injustice)

All information taken from Lance Parkin's AHistory, and may turn out to be load of old cubes

Haven't bothered to watch this one yet

[Zbigniev Hamson]

So there's 2 Kates?!

[Rob McCow]

Oh dear Jon - that's not a good sign is it?

Never mind, I'm sure you'll get around to it eventually.

[Jon Masters]

Oh dear Jon - that's not a good sign is it?

Never mind, I'm sure you'll get around to it eventually.

Not really, just had one hell of a week - open evenings, cub first aid training, family issues - TBH I feel shattered !

[Si Hunt]

Maybe he had four daughters, and he called them all Kate.

Si.