The Valeyard

Not a bad episode. Not a great episode. Felt very padded. Next week's episode looks interesting. Hoping the finale will kick this season up a few notches. It's been pretty lackluster overall.

Ropes Pierre

I think she writes pretty astute lyrics regarding breakups and complicated relationships.

In the spirit of your honest and personal non sequitur, i don't understand why they eliminated the bar car on Metro North.

Xiroteus

One thing, why would everyone forget? Talked about how they did before. Meaning thousands of years ago before records were kept and lost over generations? How are people going to just forget unless there is some odd magic or something involved.

wmansir

He specifically referenced the Tunguska event of 1912 being the last time the tree thing happened, so presumably he meant some kind of mass amnesia rather than it being lost to history.

The tree ring doesn't make much sense because presumably every tree from that year would have the ring from that growth spurt, but on the other hand the extra trees are shown magically transforming into pixies at the end, so maybe none of the existing trees should have it. Whatever, a wizard did it.

The Valeyard

Episode 11 of 12 - The Series 8 finale begins…



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Keith6601

That was awesome!

Easily my favorite episode of the season by far. Capaldi was fantastic, Clara was actually enjoyable and everything involving 3W, Missy and Heaven/Promised Land was so smooth and not convoluted making it easy to follow but still a great reveal.

I'm torn as I want the next episode now, but it's the last until the special and then who knows how long before the new season.

Jackskeleton

You know, if you want the reveal to be a surprise that it's a certain villain, you shouldn't pimp out your PR with so much photos of the twist. Even the trailer had the cybermen and it just sort of felt like color by numbers.

Xiroteus

I didn't even know about the Cybermen, appears I did well with avoiding everything.

The Valeyard

I really enjoyed this one. The Cybermen have been plastered all over the place since last week's teaser so I wasn't expecting such a huge reveal for the cliffhanger.

Strafe

That was absolutely the best episode of the season... until the cybermen reveal turned it from an interesting concept, to standard Doctor Who dumbfuckery. I should have known it'd be one (two!) of the old tropes they repeatedly keep falling back to.

Xiroteus

Part of me thought.......Cybermen again? These old villains never seem to be gone for good.

Jackskeleton

So let me get this straight.

The Cybermen have been uploading the minds of everyone who has died on earth, and putting them into this sort of world in a ball, pushing them to delete themselves so that they can take over the body and come back as cybermen from beyond the grave?

Kdogg

I think they are only pushing the people who will be cremated to delete themselves. Cybermen are mechanized people. The still need the mind or soul or the body is useless. I would not be surprised if the next moral dilemma is what happens to the minds if the doctor stops the invasion.

I'm not sure I like the return of the Master. I liked his "redemption" and death arc. After the kiss I really thought they were going to force River Song back into the story.

Rex Power Colt-Robot Man

Superman07

I enjoyed it, but would have enjoyed it more if I had not seen the trailer.

The sitting skeletons were especially creepy.

Mixed on Missy and the big reveal. I still think the handling of the character across the season was still handled oddly. I think it could have been a person a week going through the process, with each person revealing a bit more about it.

Will be interesting to see how they resolve the Clara/Danny situation.

Timber

The sound mix is still horrible I see. I went and watched it after the good words here but when Missy was talking and saying he knows who she is I could barely hear her. At least she didn't actually reveal it to a little later when they were outside and I could hear what she said.

JasonF

I don't think they would



I really liked this episode. And the Doctor's line to Clara -- "Do you think I care for you so little that betraying me would make a difference?" -- may be the most beautiful and life-affirming thing I have ever heard.

wmansir

No need to spoiler guys, Valeyard only did it because he posted before the episode finished in the US.

I found this episode kind of meh. It had a lot of good stuff but I just didn't get into it. Knowing it would involve the cybermen, again, probably soured my outlook from the start.

Regarding how/why the dead are being taken, the first character we saw being interviewed in the afterlife was the cyborg/robot from the first episode set in the 1800s on earth. There was also the soldier who was from some point far in the future, somewhere out in space, and her body had been shrunk to microscopic size at the time of her death. That's quite a range.

Jay G.

You're forgetting that The Master was originally brought back via a last-minute twist reveal cliffhanger in Series 3. So it's been done before.

Missy being the Master was common speculation at the beginning of this series, due to Missy being short for Mistress. However, when Missy said she was a Time Lord The Doctor had abandoned, I briefly thought that meant it was someone else, since when we last saw The Master, he was willingly pushing the Time Lord Council back into the Time Lock.

Of course, we now know Galifrey wasn't destroyed, so maybe The Master escaped from where Galifrey is trapped, and so Missy now becomes a key to The Doctor locating it?

The Negasphere is specifically called Time Lord technology by The Doctor, so it's not surprising it can reach out through time and space to collect minds. I'm thinking those examples may have been straight mind grabs instead of bothering with the bodies, since Missy seemed interested in getting information about The Doctor from them. The one death we say in present day London (the security guard), Missy didn't bother interviewing him.

JasonF

Good point.

Gizmo

Best episode of the season so far...but The Master reveal was boring. Why can't be just have new villains?

Shazam

DW has its tropes, it lives and dies by them.

But there have been plenty of new villains, such as the Absorbaloff.

Unclejosh

Does anyone else have a problem with the video of this show. It is the only show I have seen where it seems like it is doing that weird fast motion thing some TVs do for film to look like video. All the past episodes were fine, but this season I have noticed it and not sure what is going on.

I am watching on BBCA via Verizon Fios.

The Valeyard

Isn't the show shot at 25fps/50hz? Maybe there's something up with the conversion process? I never noticed it before this season either. I usually watch via other means but occasionally, I'll watch the episode again on BBC America (on Direct TV) and noticed the speed up this year.

JasonF

I always watch via BBC America on Comcast and never noticed any speed-up.