The Final Doctor Who thread (expect spoilers!)

Basically the nanofield was an excuse to do House Of The Dalekzombies. Or The Walking Daleks. Fun idea, anyway, and not so much an excuse to save money as a they can look like we do moment.

Also.. it wasn't EVERY Dalek ever - what happened to the upgraded Apple iDaleks (ooh, pretty colours) from last series?

It was a reasonable episode. For some reason I now expect a Pond Life between each episode since the Doctor dropped them off.

Didn't mind the instant fix since it was a misunderstanding by a very stubborn Scottish girl, that she was doing Rory a favor tossing him out because she believed that having children was his heart's desire when it was always her. Honestly, ever heard of adoption or surrogacy? Maybe the Doctor knows of a time when artificial wombs were all the rage and any two cell samples could make a baby.

Interesting twist. A Dalek classified insane because it retained it's human soul. Interesting way to sample the actress who is going to be the next companion.

The Special Weapons Dalek was among those Rory found in the Asylum. However it never "woke up".

The iDaleks (actually known as Paradigm Daleks) where all in the dalek parliament scene, although some have had their colour tweaked, most notably the red drones, which are darker and more metallic.

I was wondering if the white "Supreme" dalek on the podium was actually an empty case belonging to the "Prime Minister".

On Amy's fertility - this could be tied to how they are going to be written out.

Question: we find out that the hacker girl was converted into a Dalek by the nanites after all, but didn't realize it.
She displayed a very impressive level of hacking ability
So granted it would have worked against the story, if the nanites were able to convert her into a dalek, couldn't she have hacked them to reverse the process???

Also wondering what sort of long term effects will impact the Doctor and Amy

Not a fan of the Dalek-bots myself because of the appearance as well as the un-Dalek-like behavior, but then Oswin made the comment about how the Daleks grew stronger out of fear of the Doctor, and I realized that same fear could just as easily be the motivation behind the creation of the Dalek-bots and their un-Dalek-like behavior.

My main question coming off of the episode was: If they have the tech for the nanocloud and it's so effective.. why isn't it used as a weapon? Just turn it into a bomb, lob it at a planet in the form of a meteor and... tada. Dalek planet.

Overall though a decent episode. I kind of agree that the Pond Life stuff build up and instant 'quick fix' resolution came off as kind of cheap, I'm guessing it was largely in part because there's only so much time left to use them and only so many episodes? Idk. It just felt kind of forced.

It was also a lil silly, to me, that all the Daleks in the asylum are rusted out and decrepit. I mean, the whole impetus was that the Daleks were too -scared- to go down to the planet because the inmates were the scariest, most frightening daleks that were too off the hinge to keep around. I would've loved to see -some- kind of mad daleks running around and instead we're treated to the equivalent of breaking into a retirement home. The 'insane' daleks were barely a threat to anyone, being worried about them escaping was just a bit... silly.

The 'twist' was a smidge too obvious though. I'm actually kind of surprised, usually Moffat is kind of clever, witty, etc. This was just kind of hamfisted. I mean it wasn't too bad but there were just too many hints. He kept asking her about the milk, she had no arm band, they talk about how the transformation process messes with perception, the one guy didn't even know he'd died. By the time he gets to her door you're just wondering what it is he's going to find on the other side or that she would've changed right in front of him or something but it was waaaay too obvious something was up.

I get why it was done, basically a set up to wipe the Dalek's obsession with him, but Moffat has shown he can do better. As it was it was a decent episode, though probably the most lackluster of any season opener since he took over the show. Not that he needed to -top- The Eleventh Hour or The Impossible Astronaut, but it's certainly not even close to equal with either of them. The set up, the premise, the twist, the 'drama', are all just... kind of weak. I'm really kind of surprised Moffat wrote it, I'm normally pretty gaga for his stuff.

So apparently Oswin is the new companion. Not just the same actress playing two parts. The episodes up to when she shows up as a companion apparently will involve her evolution from being Oswin to being Clara. This according to an interview with Moffat.

Yeah, I could see their memory sort of 'resettling' so instead of explicitly the Doctor being their archnemesis they just fit 'timelord' in the space where History says they were stopped.

It does just feel too simple and easy a fix and probably something a future writer is just going to discard down the line. But eh.

I enjoyed the episode. It was fun. Story was decent, acting was decent. Like the woman who is to be the new companion.

I haven't seen anyone mention it anywhere else yet, but I wanted to throw out couple of what I assume to be homages in this episode:

The beginning when we see Oswin inside her "retreat space", looking at the boarded up door and turning up her music to cover the sound of the Daleks outside? Totally I Am Legend there. (I'm referring to the Vincent Price classic. The Will Smith one may have the scene as well but if it did, I've forgotten it, plus it totally blew the original story by changing the ending. The 70s Omega Man also may have had it, but the overt 70s-ness of it has burned it from my mind... but in a good way!)

The scene with Amy under the influence of the nano-cloud transformation, seeing the Daleks as people? Very Carnival Of Souls I thought, although this isn't as solid an obvious ref as the first.

It makes sense that if Moffat was after making the Daleks "scary again", he'd drop in a few refs to scary films. I like that both were there just long enough to establish the moment, without over-using them.

Dinosaurs! On a Spaceship!!

How gloriously ridiculous was that

I did notice, second time he's started talking to someone as they are listening to classical music he helped work on......new pattern or red herring?

it was a decent episode, though felt a bit like just running the gears. The set up was good, I liked the ark idea and the character mix was good albeit a little too "just randomly bringing you, except you're the exact perfect person we need". Nefertiti at least was just tagging along but Riddel and their Dad was a little too convenient with the needing a big game hunter and a 'shared gene thread' (or whatever) to pilot the ship. I did like the character interaction though, Riddel -was- good but I think how he was included was just a bit weak.

The villain was just too weak too. I mean for gods sake he may as well have had a mustache to twirl. Just completely uncreative. Which is a shame, I liked his style, but he was just a one off one dimensional villain.

There was some potential here too. They had a great smoking gun in the vid log that described how all species were thriving -except one-. That could've easily been the Silurians. Rather than have Solomon mass murdering them he could've simply come upon a ghost ship, Amy and the others even ponder if there was a plague that wiped them out. Instead it's just a throwaway line that means nothing.

The end was a bit shocking too. That's something I'd expect out of the 10th doctor, it just seemed a bit vindictive. I mean, yes, he deserved it. But the Doctor just so rarely openly murders someone (that's neither Cyberman nor Dalek) >> Was also a bit disappointed that Solomon's ship had no defensive systems, you'd think as a pirate he might have had something. It would've been a nice twist if, hey, villain got away but the day was still saved. But oh well.

So, overall a decent episode. I liked it better than Asylum but it still felt lacking, like they were just running through the motions. Some things were utterly too convenient and the villain completely falls flat.