Rate and Discuss: The Lie Of The Land

[Rob McCow]

Tell us what you think - don't lie now!

[Rob McCow]

I found last week's ep to be disappointing but this was a real return to form. A season finale special and we're not even at the end yet!

Loved the fake-out and loved the ending. Great stuff.

[Andrew Curnow]

I was a bit underwhelmed I'm afraid, it just felt a little bit... inconsequential. Oh now the Earth's been taken over - oh wait, no it hasn't.

Oddly enough I didn't actually not enjoy it, but it never really grabbed me. Dare I say it, it was done a lot better in The Last of the Timelords, which made the total conquest of the Earth feel epic.

I enjoyed Extremis a couple of weeks back, but... it didn't really add anything did it? The Doctor didn't gain any insight into the alien monks which was of any use whatsoever - and in hindsight they might have been better (if they wanted an epic trilogy midseason) making the actual 'Earth under the Monks' and 'the Monks defeated' into a two-parter after last week's pyramid opener.

All that business about the Doctor being the Monks' mouthpiece, etc... it was all just padding wasn't it? Nonsensical too - if storywise he'd been playing along there so as to gain insight and knowledge into the Monks then I'd have bought it, but actually he learns nothing (hence having to visit Missy so that she can explain the plot) so would have been better off just escaping months earlier and finding Bill and Nardole himself.

Watchable, and some nice moments of dialogue, but a bit of a letdown for me I'm afraid. It's been a very odd three-story sequence, which seems to have desperately needed to get up into top gear without somehow managing it.

Pearl was excellent though!

[Paul Clement]

Not so keen on this one but agree that Pearl's acting was excellent. She's been a breath of fresh air aftrr the recent 'super companions'.

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[Llordllama]

After two weeks of being so underwhelmed I almost forgot Who was on last night, I'm glad I did tune in as I really rather enjoyed the episode. Although, on reflection it did seem to be a bit of a 'greatest hits' from other earlier, much loved episodes.

[Martin Curnow]

Last week's trailer had me really looking forward to this and I was quite disappointed.

Best bits were the pre-credits bit and the next time trailer for the Ice Warriors.

[Dino]

If the pre-credits sequence of this episode was the first thing at the start of the Monk's story, then it would have elevated the trilogy higher.
Would have liked The Doctor to do something else on top of Bill's moment.
7 and now I feel I can vote in the last two polls as I couldn't bring myself to vote due to feeling indifferent to last couple.

[egdcltd]

Does anyone else get the impression that this episode (and I think another this season) are making comments about current politics?

[Rob McCow]

Does anyone else get the impression that this episode (and I think another this season) are making comments about current politics?

Possibly, but what comment? The whole 1984 surveillance society idea has been relevant since forever.

Plus these things are written months in advance so it would be entirely a coincidence if it had any bearing on current events.

[egdcltd]

I was perhaps a bit imprecise with current. Really, I was thinking over the past year or so. The Doctor referenced the rise of fascism and extremism, and how humanity didn't learn from the lessons of history regarding these, and later in the episode he mentioned fake news.

[Stuart Wallis]

Well again, fake news has always been here as well, at least the editorial bias, propaganda and let's make something up just to fill some column inches on light news days varieties have anyway. And yes, humans have never fully caught on to that, or to how bad a side salad of bigotry can be.

Anyway...

Andrew and Martin summed it up; sadly, the best of the story was either taken from next week's episode, or Last Of The Time Lords, and done better and more dramatically there. There's all a feeling of "we're going to win anyway" through the regulars' remembering what had happened before the change - logically it has to be, because we wouldn't! (I have to point out I've been re-reading Reckless Engineering recently, by coincidence.) And even if we didn't know what we know, the regeneration was just so blasé, something else that won't happen once history's been fixed. Only since history's been fixed, shouldn't the Doctor be blind again? Ohhh, where's the frog pills...?

Pearl's been getting better and better, I will say that.

3/10

[egdcltd]

I don't think the monks actually altered history, they just altered peoples' memories of it. A la 1984 (there was a Ministry of Truth), but with a psychic whammy as well, not just simply rewriting books. So the Doctor wouldn't be blind again, because history is still the same. People now just remember it correctly, apart from the monks who deleted the memory of their own interference.

[Alex]

This one has annoyed me quite a lot, I was enjoying it most of the way through though thought it pretty standard fare, and then they did yet another bloody "Oh No Bill's Going To Die, Except For Some Weak Reason She Doesn't" fake out. It's about the fourth time now and it's really irritating me, there's just no need and it's becoming a lazy device because they're using it so much. So only 6/10, unfortunately.

[Si Hunt]

Well it was better than last week at least, but the whole episode centred around one extremely dubious scene and I can't believe no-one has mentioned it yet.

So here we have a Doctor, that bastion of truth and justice who is "never cruel and never unkind" in the words of Terrance Dicks, except here he tricks his companion to "test her", working her up into such a stressful state that she shoots him three times in the chest. Then he laughs at her. Surely there was an easier way of proving she wasn't under the Monks influence?

Oh, and in the midst of this, the Doctor appears to force the start of a regeneration and then stop it like a conjuring trick. Since when could he do this? Regeneration used to be epic... special. Even in the new series you got shivers when the tingly orange stars started to envelope him... it was something that meant things couldn't get any worse for the current incarnation. Now, suddenly, he can start knocking one out at will and then stop it again! It's tempting to wonder if this was entirely for the trailer, but if so it's a trick you can only pull once and now even when it happens for real it will lose some impact.

I agree with who-ever said it was "an average end to a middling trilogy". The last three episodes have been average, and the story straddling them simply hasn't justified it's length. The Monks didn't even talk this week.

Si.

[egdcltd]

In retrospect, I think the three episodes would have made a decent four-parter from the classic series. Which were about 100 minutes long if I remember correctly, whereas this was 135.