'Boom' has Moffat back in the writer's chair - Doctor Who review 

I KNOW IT’S NOT GREEN SCREEN!!!! Somehow the fact that I called the digital effect of the background green screen when it was an LED projection has become the single most frequent comment, which is infuriating because my not knowing that does NOTHING to alter my criticism that it didn’t look good. A playlist of videos covering the issues with the BBC and transphobic reporting: ru-vid.com/group/PLmWFOeT2jEofVIDW9X3OL7GqWuX3Dxopu

Ah, the Doctor is once again anti-Capitalism... the natural order has restored.

As a person who did grow up in a "just turn your brain off and take it on faith" sort of conservative Christianity, I have absolutely made comments like the one the Doctor made when I was angry, and then had to backpedal later on. Because of my personal experience and Ncuti's delivery of the line, I thought in the moment that he said what he did out of stress and frustration. I think that is absolutely going to hit folks differently depending on their own experience.

In the behind the scenes, Moffat actually calls out that original landmine scene as his inspiration. He was so disappointed that Baker got off the landmine so fast.

While disliking the Faith critique isn't invalid, it's important to remember, even taking out the fact half of the planet will be destroyed, the Doctor and Ruby are about to die so not only is he already stressed but also he's found a solution to the problem and is thrown off by the demand for proof, it's an example of someone who doesn't believe but normally respects a faith is put in a situation where an intrusive thought is brought to the surface and not without at least some motivation, remember she literally shot him and didn't care if he died which what led to Ruby almost dying.

As a forever disabled person the Eugenics Ambulance was terrifying.

RE: the child... I represented several children in the YFZ Ranch case, and I can tell you that those kids had very limited real world knowledge. Their knowledge was limited to what their cult told them. So her character actually resonated with me.

This episode's pacing and suspense were nuts! It didn’t feel like a 42 minute episode. It felt way shorter. I am very happy with this episode. Moffat at his best.

I see what you mean, but i do think it's more of a personal thing, the issue you had. Like in a different Moffat episode, with "are you my mommy" and the gas mask zombies. If you assume they can't be cured, then find out they can later they can, the complaint of "i didn't like kids getting hurt, lol how many kids got hurt!" until the reveal that everybody lives, then saying "oh, they're ok. That makes rewatching easier but it's a flaw of the original story" to me doesn't track. Here, having a hologram of a soldier who was killed by the ambulance as a character/plot point, you need to kill that character, and making the audience care about the man so they understand him and his hologram is part of the story. Needed cruelty, if you will. I think its more of a trust issue. Chibnal broke your trust by being so needlessly cruel so much that when something bad happens, it feels like more of the same and messes with your enjoyment of the episode. Sounds like you need faith in RTD to not mess up. Not blind faith though lol

Now more than ever, the tragedy of 13 not getting a Moffat episode is felt

As a former person of faith, I LOVED that the Doctor called them out on their bullshit and then backpedaled at the end. I read it as him criticizing the institution that got them there in the first place, not the faith itself. Doing whatever your leader tells you is encouraged in religion and it *does* blind you (I know from experience) It's the powers in charge of these religious groups that are the problem, not faith. As for the kid, I agree they clearly wrote it for a younger actor. My head canon is that she's just so indoctrinated she doesn't think of death the same way we do. It's like her dad's in the other room to her

for me i didn't mind when we found out later about the childs perception of death, what bugged me was there was no 'my dad is dead moment'. First she didn't know he was dead and then when i assume she did she was just looking through photos hapily. Even with the understanding that 'dead' doesn't mean 'gone' for her I feel like there still would have been a sad moment of realisation when she knew she was never going to see her dad again until she died. Also it annoyed me that no one told her what happened, and she had to figure it out herself. I feel like the doctor would have said somthing, or mundy.

I think something worth noting with the faith thing is that this is very specifically targeted at the anglican church, which is a state instiution in the uk. We do not have a seperation of church and state here. The king is the anglican equivelent of the pope basically. They dont tend to use that power in the same way but offically thats what the line is. So faith here isnt just in a higher power but also in a state intiution, see them using divinity to mean authority, so to me as someone who is british and was raised anglican it reads way more as targeting the ties between that church and the state and how it can manifest as blind faith in the church also being blind faith in the state. And then having his convo with Splice at the end being a statement of the vaule of faith on an interpesonal level when disconnected from the state or possibly organised religon as a whole. Im not saying your issue with it here isnt valid but there is a nuance here with that cultural context which i wanted to clairfy

A subtle character/story beat I love is the Doctor, despite the danger he's is in, asks Ruby to prioritise trying to help Vater, not only does this choice help to show his selfless heroic personality but also Ruby finding the flesh urn not only deals with the Doctor's balance, holding it ends up saving the day. His selfless action was rewarded, which reminds me of a underrated moment in the Two Doctors when 6 thinks he's going to die but drops everything when he thinks Peri is in danger and that act rewards him with the information that confirms he's not going to die.

Moffat should just write a bottle episode every couple years and everyone will be happy

Even if Vater’s plot relevance *as a father* doesn’t become clear until sometime after his on-screen death, I’d still argue that his attempt to appeal to the ambulance’s nonexistent humanity establishes the Villengard algorithm and its threat really well.

I think he didn’t attack faith but challenged those with faith. The scenario in which we are talking about, the church was militarised and ordained ministers were soldiers engaged in killing and war. The morality of those with faith from the start was in question. I don’t think the doctor would have had issue with those with faith if they were not engaged in war since I think we have seen the doctor being sincere and friendly to other priests in other story’s, he ever worked for the Catholic Church (granted in a virtual world)

When the doctor criticised faith I winced at that burn. I'm not a follower of religion of faith so I loved that line but man that was quite the atrack. My dad (who is a practicing priest) loved that line too. As he puts it "I've seen too many people blindly follow the bible and not take into consideration that it was written for a society that hasn't existed for 2000 years". I personally see that comment aimed at people who blindly follow faith without question. Doing so leads to trouble either for yourself or others you interact with. If Monday does return as a companion I hope they explore that aspect. Faith is not a bad thing to have, so long as you don't blindly rely on it

About the twist with the girl's perception on death, it reminded me of an episode of BBC Ghosts were a character "moves on" (basically death but for ghosts) and this other character who she was close to is acting like he doesn't care and just wants to have fun but when he's confronted he's just like "Guys, I've been here thousands of years, I can't break down every time someone goes, I deal with it my own way." And it changes everything about how he was being before.

When I was younger it scared the hell out of me when my aunt said she can't wait to die so that she can be with her lord. This was about 24 years ago and that has stuck out to me. I had the same reaction to the kid but I also came around to it as it circling back to the 'life is cheap' line from the Doctor being familiar with Villengard. Her father got special permission to bring her to a battlefield which is wild. People around her die all the time and they're all deeply religious. Very common religious belief that death is just a transition and that a lot of religious people look at it with joy. That mixed with the AI simulants means no one's really gone, I guess. That's how I took it but also it was kind of grating to watch in the moment lol. I agree.

I'm surprised the Doctor never tried to get Ruby to go back to the TARDIS, maybe trick her into activating the Fast Return which he has doubtless set to take her back home if something irrevocable happens to him. If half the planet was going to blow up, the TARDIS would be the *only* safe place.

Loved having Moffat back, it brought something to the series that I've felt was missing up until this point. Also, shouldn't there have been more mines on that minefield? It was a real Dawn Summers situation with the kid, meant to be younger but was played by an older actress

I did thought of the needless cruelty when the blind soldier was killed in the intro, but very quickly the episode gave him a lot of attention. Especially with the doctor giving Ruby the order that he isn't in a situation that bad, that the person screaming had priorities. Neither had much trouble with the faith rant. Very early the episode established that it was a religious war and seen how pissed the doctor was getting when he thouth Ruby was gone, he picked on the one thing he blamed the whole situation for his friend's end. It was a corporation manipulating people, but faith was the thing it took advantage of and the whole army used as a justification for their actions. As for the kid, I had a reading early that reminded me of the Eaters of light. Seen how the soldiers acted as teens and the kid as an even younger kid, thought it'll be that they had an even slower emotional maturity. That the two centuries of war had made them lack an inportant part of development that made them immature emotionally.

Classic Moffat, comes back, instantly kills the companion 😂

Early on I understood the way the girl was acting. I felt she was a home schooled child who was brought up with great faith which gave her her defined, structured, "innocent" view of the world. Plus she was not scared to go out into the battlefield alone as that had probably been her life since birth her saying he is not gone he is just dead just confirmed the way she had been acting, for me.

The whole time they were building up Vater's character in the beginning I was constantly thinking "please don't just be a cruel death character" and was very disappointed when he died. But the elation I felt as he became more and more important to the plot and saving the day was hugely satisfying. For me, this is the best episode since Heaven Sent. I was completely captivated the whole way through.

The thing with Moffat is that I think he does better when there's at least someone above him telling him no.

That scene where Ruby was putting her foot down about handing the casket to the Doctor really reminded me of someone else and it took me about two hours to realise it was Clara. Ruby was just straight up Clara-ing in that scene. Not an issue really, just...Moffat seems to struggle to write a woman who's not basically Clara or River.

Ncuti was amazing here. I felt like the slower, more contained quality of this episode gave him room to perform and lean into his doctor. It felt like he and the story were able to breathe and create a nice rhythm.

13:45 ish. "They're cousins! Identical cousins and you'll find... You'll lose your mind, when cooooousiiiins! Are two of a kind!"

Having faith doesn't automatically make you stop thinking on your own, but it gives you an option to, and unfortunately many people choose that option...

For the faith issue, it seemed to me more that the Doctor was calling her out for being lawful-stupid-paladin at the time. Yeah, the Doctor definitely espouses a scientific worldview (not denying the supernatural, though, but attempting to study it and understand it) but in this specific case we had a character who *was* making stupid decisions out of faith. For the kid having a different view of death, what stood out to me was her interacting with the hologram, in a way which suggested to me that people in this world often interact with holographic AI constructs of their dead loved ones. She’s probably got a holo of her mom back home that she talks to and so for her, her parents really aren’t gone. It’s sort of like if ghosts were perfectly normal things you see every day, and it’s expected that the ghosts of deceased loved ones will pop in from time to time for a chat. Grandma’s “dead”, yeah, but she still sits in her rocking chair and tells stories of when she was young, just like she did when she was alive. And really, this sort of thing is soooooo very Moffatt. He’s used technological ghosts and afterlives quite a bit.

The Doctor lashing out at faith makes me think of The God Complex. Maybe faith creeps the Doctor out because of guilt that they've abused it before, fear (knowing?) that they'll abuse it again, and the nagging suspicion that they might be abusing it right now.

funny you mention the green screen in this episode, because there isn’t one aha. they actually used a big LED screen (sort of like the volume) but i know what you mean, it is noticeable, particularly at the end of the episode.

It's actually been confirmed that Varada Sethu will be playing a different character next season. Per RTD: "That's the end of Mundy Flynn's story, so quite how Varada returns will be revealed next year." I'm a little disappointed since I thought we were finally getting a companion who's not from contemporary Britain, but holding out hope that this could still be the case with the new character. I enjoyed the episode overall but it kind of felt like Moffat just put all of his well-received episodes in a blender.

My reading of the doctor’s comments about faith was that he is very opposed to organized religion and how it can be used to justify war. Conversely, he is pro individual faith: what people need to be able to carry on. The Doctor needs to believe those he’s lost are not gone, which he agrees with Splice at the end of the

The girl watching the photographs while being oblivious of the surroundings felt off.

Karen gillan and her cousin caitlin blackwood are uncannily similar looking now but I get your point about identical twins 😊

I myself was glad the show had the guts to go as hard as it did against the faith of Mundy. It was a level of intense opposition that you don't see often, especially in American media so it was refreshing.

This episode was all I ever wanted for this season. I've just not emotionally connected with the show much since Capaldi left, so it was so nice to feel that love again for the show (and the Doctor -- Ncuti really clicked into place as the Doctor for me here). 😍

I read his attack on faith as an attack on the idea of having a holy war essentially or going to war for your faith, but still embracing the idea of believing in something just not causing harm with that some thing

12:30 BTW it wasn't a green screen. in most of the "bad" CGI shots on the beginning, it was a huge LED screen displaying the background in real time. on later scenes inside of the pit set, it was a huge painting. I don't know why the background felt so disconnected, maybe it's just the crew getting used to filming on a volume. I think it was mostly a post-production thing, they maybe edited it too much, to the point of making it look fake. but the scenes did not, in fact, use green screen.

As a person who has come out of a faith…I dislike the walk back. I dunno.The kid’s inability to process death and what’s happening shows a true danger of ONLY relying on faith. But that’s just my interpretation and opinion. It makes the kids actions make sense.

actually, this episode is probably a televised first for doctor who! it uses neither a green screen nor the quarries, the set uses props and The Volume, which is like a moving digital background so the actors have a better immersion of the space they're in

I agree with your point about the age of the child, i was bothered by her insistence on the hologram being literally her father. It doesnt make sense she wouldnt have seen the techology before that and at least get a brief explanation of what it is and how it works at the age she is :/

I see the issues you raised and have thoughts: 1. Unnecessarily cruel: I disagree that showing him as a father was excessively cruel. Even if we didn't get more about the family dynamic, I have no problem with the story showing a soldier as a person with a life outside their job. War has ripple impacts outside those immediately on the battlefield. Not enjoying every moment is kinda key to the message of the story. It should hurt. You should feel awkward and discomfort watching a story like this. 2. "Faith": The doctor's speech annoyed me also, but my issue is ultimately with everyday English--that we use the same umbrella term for "blind faith" and a more critical rational faith. I understood the doctor's rant as geared primarily toward "blind faith" but that would sound clunky in this context. However, along the issue of faith, I don't love how they explained the reason for war narrative. If they were going to show the soldiers questioning what they've been told, we should've seen more overt thought stopping cliches. When these doubts aren't actively pushed away nor do they seem to change their behavior, and we don't get a sense that there's any opposition to the war, it makes the people of this world come off as dumb and 2-dimensional. So I guess Moffat still struggles to write characters that aren't like him/how he sees himself. 3. Kid: I agree she looked too old for the role, but not for her conceptualization of death. Coming from the Bible Belt and knowing military and farm families, that's not too far off; it's a coping mechanism. Her character raised questions that weren't really answered: (1) What did she mean by "gathered her up"? Was that literal or euphemism? Seeing how the soldiers died, that line made me think of for-profit healthcare systems. I would have liked a little more information about what wider culture these soldiers believed they were going to war to protect. So either change that line or show me a quick scene or montage, maybe with the memories slideshow, that tells me about their world outside of the battlefield. (2) Why was she there? The line about getting special approval didn't cut it for me. That just felt like lazy writing. Maybe in this world, people of a certain class fight the wars; the families follow the soldiers and live on base. Show a few other children and caregivers in the background. That was just a quick off the cuff alternative I thought of while typing this, but it fixes her character except for the actor looking too old to be so impulsive; we don't need a dead mother or the kid's line about the meaning of death. It would also add to the anti-capitalism/war-profiteering message. This is what I hate about Moffat's writing! It's so easy to flesh out/fix these characters, but it requires seeing diverse people as dynamic and complex.

You're right, Vater dying wasn't needless cruelty...it was needles cruelty. 😋

While I love the actors and their energy - I’m having trouble with the speed of the intimacy of their relationship. It just comes off as unearned and “love bomby”. Like if any new friend spoke like this to me I would expect that they spoke to everyone the same way and that our friendship was not actually genuine but just performative. I dunno - it just feels like Moffat and company took a shortcut on building the foundation of this relationship in order to drive it as a finished vehicle which actually makes the characters feel vapid and superficial. And I hate that because this friendship would be top tier if it had been actually built.

Re faith: I will always love and remember the quote from Delenn in Babylon 5: "Faith and reason are like shoes; you can walk much farther with both than just one." As I've grown up, I've learned that faith doesn't just mean religion or faith in a higher power, but can also be faith in core principles where it isn't possible to reason out a solution. In particular, an approach of pure reason will frequently run into the problem that the future is deeply unpredictable, you can't even reliably predict odds. Thus, to make any decision you need some faith. Anyone who claims otherwise isn't being entirely honest.

No, I think you got it right the first time: the child actress was too old for the role. For the Faith position to be a different world view from the future, it should have been explained by one of the adult characters, not the child. As written, played by a younger actor, the faith expressed being admired by the Doctor still works, if expressed by a child. Showing up his jaded nature after living for thousands of years compare to the innocence of a child.. This is not saying that her dad didn't go to heaven, but people of faith still grieve when their loved ones die. They don't just say: "oh well, I'll see them later as if they have just walked out of the room.

I thought the 10 year old, was just scared of admitting to herself was a death happened. She isn't ready to deal with so she tells her the angel story over and over again, especially as she lives on a battlefield, it gives her hope. Only watched it once, before watching your review.

Here's a potentially helpful alternative way to frame the better-on-a-second-watch issue with regards to the daughter's behavior surrounding death. We find out at the end that she actually does understand that her father has died, but she has this different and interesting perspective on it (we still don't really know if it's her character's perspective or the prevailing cultural perspective; either way is interesting). BUT, if we had found that out at the beginning, then we would get to see two conflicting perspectives on death play out over the course of the episode as people are dying and characters react to those deaths. Imagine the character moment that might have been if Ruby had been hit much harder by Vater's death than his own daughter was, because Ruby is really thinking about the absence of her own parents. The interesting thing about seeing the different cultural perspectives of different time periods, places, or alien races is to see a story in which contrasting viewpoints each get their arguments across. But Splice's viewpoint here is hidden for the sake of a (frankly not that impactful) surprise, at the expense of the audience engaging with the viewpoint clash for the duration of the episode.

I felt the resolution of the episode felt kind of cheap and some of the direction and editing was really distracting to me.

I like that sometimes art making you uncomfortable and then soothing your concerns is a really thrilling experience.the second time with edges worn off is more pleasant and enjoyable as an experience, but is it as fulfilling? The hurt makes it work for me.

Not the same, but as a classical music buff, I kind of expect not to 'get' certain pieces (i.e., long romantic and post-romantic symphonies, certain pieces written in more modernist idioms) the first time. All I ask for, on first hearing, is for the composer to give me the incentive to listen again. And I have a similar feeling towards certain works of *literary* fiction, where re-reading is kind of expected (and where you can go back even during the first reading). But I agree that different criteria apply for a TV episode. It's one thing for subsequent viewing to enrich your experience, give you more than you picked up on initially; but it's different if what felt like a major problem is only fixed at the end. It's not a deal-breaker for me, especially in the age of streaming where the option for re-viewing can almost be taken for granted; but it is a minus

Let's just call this new season "New new who"

Is his name Vater, the German word for Father, or do I not remember it right?

13:58 They already confirmed when the episode aired that Varada Sethu is not playing Mundy again, when she becames the companion it will be a different character

What I've realized starting on ep.4 was that, im really enjoying the way Ncuti Gatwa says Ruby's name. He's always super excited!

I'd rate it a 9.5/10. Best episode of Doctor Who since Extremis. Pros: - Ncuti was INCREDIBLE. With the scripts RTD has given him so far he hasn't being given a lot of opportunity to do a lot of dramatic acting, so it was refreshing to see him get the opportunity to properly let loose. - The speech critiquing people who use faith as an excuse to go to war was a piece of brilliance, easily the best Doctor speech since the one in the Zygon Inversion. - The anti-capitalism commentary was also spot on, and maps to all the arms dealing going on in the real world. - The ideas of ambulances vacuum sealing bodies into tubes and mines that make the people standing on them the explosives are exactly the kind of wacky sci-fi ideas I watch Doctor Who for. - Moffatt somehow managed to pull off the resolution of a man's love for his daughter defeating an evil algorithm come across as triumphant, and not corny. Cons (admittedly all nit-picks): - I don't get how the man at the start of the episode managed to get himself blinded, considering how we later find out that the only threat in the episode was technology that instakills you. - With all the religious wars going on around the middle east at the moment, Ncuti's comment about Ruby living in one of the few times in history without a religious war doesn't track. - We didn't get much time to get to know Canto, so his death had very little impact on me (although I'm fully aware this may be readdressed if Mundy comes back as a companion and we get to know more about him, as was the case with River Song)

Moffat writing a Capaldi episode starring Ncuti.

12:30 this episode was not filmed on green screen, it was filmed against an LED screen (like the ‘Volume’ used to film the Mandolorian) this is mentioned in Doctor Who Unleashed

Also, can we talk about the "Dad" thing? I'm really loving that we're (finally) gonna be exploring that aspect of the Doctor's character (or so it seems). I'm not super enamored with the fan-theory that Ruby, herself, is Susan... but I would like to see more of that parental dynamic explored. And Ncuti Gatwa definitely seems more than up to the task of being a Dad-Doctor.

They could have added one line to say kids age differently in this time of the future. The space babies were older than they looked, this kid can be younger. It would just take one line and wouldn't feel so weird. Still enjoyed it, Gatwa is so talented.

Regarding your question about whether something being better on a second watch makes the issues you had on first watch redundant; I'd be interested to know if you've watched the seventh Doctor story Ghost Light yet and if so, what did you think of it on first watch? That's a story a lot of people agree is baffling on first watch, but that you need to watch it multiple times in order to get your head around it and see how great it is.

32:00 I don't know, I feel like there's a diffrence between being expected to do homework to watch a show, and needing to finish an episode. Obviously, how it made you feel the first time you watched it is important context when giving a review, but I don't think it's fair to call them mistakes when all the information you need is contained in something you can watch in one sitting.

the doctor who youtube channel released a behind the scenes vidio featuring 'mundy' and the actor said somthing about being excited to further explore the character so i assume she's going to come back as her. Also to add to doctor who's dopleganger situation peter capaldi also played the roman dad in the fires of pompai

I get what you mean about the "second viewing shouldn't be needed to fix the first", but I think there can be a real difficulty to make that work. For your first example, of the potential needless cruelty of showing the character - that feels like it's just scarring from the Chibnall era, and there isn't really a way that the setup could have worked in a different way to avoid emulating that style. Personally I really enjoyed the episode, although I don't think it lives up to Moffat's best - partly just because it felt like it had so many of his previous elements as either writer or showrunner combined in it. Murderous ambulances? The Doctor Dances. Anglican Marines? The Time of Angels. Companion apparently dies? Nearly every episode as showrunner. Solve the problem with suggestions of surrendering? Mummy on the Orient Express (although I appreciated that being undermined with Mundi legitimately pointing out se didn't have authority). The love of a parent conquering all? Closing Time/The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe (although here I was happier to buy it with Vater actually being an AI with humanity added; it felt more plausible he could win through than in those other stories). But it completely removed my concerns from the last episode of Gatwa's performance always being a bit too at-11 - this is a real powerhouse showing from him, and Gibson gets some strong stuff too. And the escalations all felt thrilling and earned, and the plot actually felt coherent and present, and... yes. I'm so glad to get an episode that really gets all the basics very, very right. Fingers crossed for more of this calibre!

The favorite part of the episode for me is that he didn’t just flash the sonic screwdriver at it & disarm it. Very much like the Second Doctor, he had to work his way through everything with nothing but his knowledge & wits, ie Heaven Sent. And speaking of Heaven Sent, that is an episode I I didn’t get on the first viewing. I had to watch it about 3 times before everything made sense to me. All in all, one of my favorite episodes in a very long time.

loved it - the script was a Banger Ncuti's performance was explosive and I found it really fascinating how it handled what Ruby and the Doctor would do in a hopeless situation without any chance of surviving and how the Doctor was furious at the humans for letting their religious fanaticism made them being tricked into going to war against a non-existing foe for the sake of money

I think there's a HUGE difference between what Boom does and what you describe with Hasbin Hotel. The former may noy explain things upfront, but it does reveal the necessary information before the episode ends, whereas the latter demands you consume supplementary media in order to get that necessary information. One is a complete story within itself, whilst the other is not, and I think it's a mistake to conflate those two very distinct ways of storytelling.

I was slightly disappointed about the resolution of this episode, it keeps building in tension but then the overall situation is solved pretty quickly through convincing the AI to attack the system. It just seemed a bit rushed to me (which is a common criticism I have of Moffat’s writing tbh). Hearing you enjoyed it more on the second watch does give me hope that I might be able to look past this more later on but right now it’s stopping me from loving this episode as much as other people seem to.

I'm not sure when it began, but the first "identical cousins" thing I remember was _The Patty Duke Show,_ back in 1963, when I was a kid. Jeannie, in _I Dream of Jeannie,_ had a fraternal twin sister who sure looked and sounded like an identical twin; and Samantha, in _Bewitched,_ also had an identical cousin. But that's all from American television. What British television was doing at the time I've no idea.

This felt like a rejected script from series 7 that Moffat brushed off, clicked "find and replace" the name of the companion from Clara to Ruby, and then turned it in to RTD who made minor adjustments to fit the new series. Also the little girl was probably written for like a 5 year old in mind but they cast someone older instead out of convenience/necessity.

It would be so nice to have a companion who isn't from modern-day earth again. I wish they would go a bit harder than human from the future but I'll take what I can get.

The child revealing that she knows what death is works for me as we're in the same position as the Doctor to that point. We don't look down on his reaction as we're sharing it.

it's not green screen. It was filmed on The Volume that they use for shows like The Mandolorian. All screens.

I loved this episode. 1 because it's a good episode and 2 because it shows me that this season can still do serious epsiodes and it won't always feel like a kids show.

They didn’t use blue screen on this episode, they used the Stagecraft led screen system that was used on The Mandalorian.

The faith thing I find really interesting. I read it more as an attack against dogmatic faith, especially in the context of organized churches (like highly structured things like the catholic church) or blind allegiance to a military cause. Ruby being confused about the church having/being an army and the Doctor replying that our time and church structure is just a blip further solidifies this reading to me. I do agree that the Doctor goes a bit too hard against faith, especially due to their general appreciation for all aspects of life and culture, but it didn't feel entirely out of line even with the back peddling later. Honestly though, it felt more like a 12 speech than anything else we've got out of Gatwa from his version of the Doctor. I do agree that this is the best episode of the season, and joins Wild Blue Yonder in my list of actually spectacular NuNuWho episodes.

It's really clear to me that these first 3 episodes would have benefited from maybe another 5 or 10 script revisions. Especially Boom. It was nearly structurally perfect. I wonder what was stopping them from waiting just another week or so for a better script

I can absolutely see the elements of Rose and Clara present in Ruby, but I'm not picking up any specific Amy Pond influences. Anyone care to elaborate?

100% the kid is written younger than she appears, and the Doctor will go back to see them when she's correctly aged or playing older than she is. They just don't have the luxury of Karen Gillan and her strong family resemblance younger cousin to pull the switcheroo with this time. Edit- to hit on the larger issue, this is why novelists have First Readers and steadily expanding groups for each major draft, so the author is constantly getting feedback from people who are seeing it with new eyes. Seems to me the dialogue in the action scenes with the kid (and the other issues you brought up) could have been solved with some edits and a bit more time. The edit of some of the action felt weird too, like there may have been more dialogue for the kid and the proto-boyfriend that got cut, leaving them sounding one note). Edit Edit- lol I was totally duped during the end credits, I thought that was a single truly large rat until the very end.

Did Moffat have a bad experience with an ambulance?

I really enjoyed the episode for the most part. There were points I didn't realize I was holding my breath until I exhaled in relief. I had to reflect on the comments about faith as I am a person of faith myself. I've never loved how Moffat's military are the Church, and there was a bit of a feeling in the script that faith is ok for kids (the daughter) but the adults (the soldiers) should know better. For me and many of the people of faith I know, faith is not blind or naïve, but something that is tested, stretched, and proved repeatedly throughout their life. After reflection, I can respect that this is a depiction of how bad things can be when religion is too enveloped in worldly things and principles, like war and financial profit.

To add context on the faith issue, the UK is largely agnostic and non religious so we tend to be more critical of organised religion. Not to say no religious people are in the UK, loads are. But it is more widely challenged and vus so is the idea of faith. I understand this may be uncomfortable for other cultures but I do think it's good for anyone to be challenged. I think on last national statistics it was something like, 60% of people identify as agnostic or no alining with any religion, 15% identity as spiritual or believing in a higher power but not any organised religion and 25% identity with an actual religion. However the studies I have looked at about this could be better and I suppose it's a hard thing to gather data on

I dont think its fair to ding an episode for a plot turn that then gets improved within the same episode. I can totally get behind the faith thing being an issue if the Doctor then didn't clarify his stance until a future episode - but the fact that he clarified his stance in the same episode means that the episode did what it needed to do in my opinion.

"So we're starting on real good footing" I see what you did there

In the Doctor Who Unleashed behind the scenes episode for Boom, they show that there isn't much green screen at all (if any) in this episode. They're actually using those LED screens that Disney uses for their Star Wars shows, including the entire sky and the TARDIS interior being visible from the exterior. Your issue with the visuals isn't cheap green screen at all, you're actually taking issue with very expensive LED panels.

Moffat’s an atheist. Like everyone else, he’s free to criticize faith. While I was growing up, many religious people used the media to proselytize their brand of religion without being challenged. Now there is push back and I’m glad. When I was young I never knew non-belief was an option. I don’t think religious people are stupid. I used to be one and I know I didn’t gain any I.Q. points when I realized I no longer believed. I also didn’t lose my morals. Love your reviews.

I personally think faith is an intersting angel to tackle. As sombody he has studied philosophy ethics and Christianity it is possible and important to discuss faith in both possitive and negative lights. Its a fact of life, it should be talked about.

The Doctor's criticism of religion in this episode was more to do with blind faith without critical thinking. Which is very much a fair critique of the negative aspects of religion and of religious faith itself. Mundy and the entirety of the Anglican Marines in this episode just blindly believe that there's an enemy to be fought. They believed it was some kind of enemy that lived in the mud or the fog (an unseen enemy). The hardware was set up to only give treatment to those that were believers (withholding treatment for others based on religious beliefs has been attempted by religious people in regards to LGBTQ people for emergency and non-emergency situations for instance). The fact Mundy suddenly needed proof that the enemy DIDN'T exist but just blindly believed they did exist without proof (common double standard and you get from religious people who want you to disprove god with proof but accept god without proof). All things that's seen in various hardline conservative religious groups and presuppositional arguments for religious beliefs. Add in the very empty "Thoughts and Prayers" motif that's throughout this episode, and the religious critique is very strong and honestly very fair. And at the end when the Doctor speaks more softly about faith, it's more about how it's fine to have faith, but never let it blind you to reality and have it go so far as to harm yourself or others in the process. Be critical in your thinking and never be blinded by your faith.

The ratio of "time spent emoting about how bad the situation is / philosophizing / quipping / rambling way off topic" to "time spent even considering what steps to take to actually solve the super immediate problem" was just way, _way_ off base for me, and kept pulling me out of the story. It just made it feel like the characters had no initiative, no attention span, no sense of priority, no actual, practical investment in not dying horribly -- or in not letting a small child die horribly. It made them all feel like a bunch of un-heroic bystanders in their own story.

Verada Sethu's character was great. Having 'presence' is a good word for her, I'm really looking forward to seeing her again.

Walking back the anti-faith diatribe actually pissed me off even more. You nailed my issue with it, especially being called a mindless tool. This shows up in SF often, but here, he was talking directly to camera, so it seemed like he was including the audience in his contempt, not just the character and he actually says, "Do you GET, GET, GET it?" So while I appreciate why you think the heavy-handedness was necessary for this kind of allegory, and I think I even agree, it was undermined for me by this line, because it seemed to imply that some members of the audience, the non-religious, can figure out what's going on, but that the religious ones, and Anglicans in particular, are too stupid and need to be walked through it. The Anglican marines had appeared before and it didn't offend me, because I didn't identify with them -- they are ridiculous. But here, I felt like the show was trying to implicate me in the evil it was criticizing, but not because I live in a world where I pay taxes to support arms deals, but because of my faith. No subsequent viewing will fix this for me. But the kid didn't bug me. She clearly has been raised in a more sheltered environment with a narrow world view. If anything, it is yet again, a dig at the Anglicans.

I will preface this with, that I agree with you, that the Doctor should not have been this aggressive about faith in the first place. As an atheist, one of my major Problems with Religion in general is how it is, in my opinion, always or at lest most of the time set up, on an organisational level, that people not thinking for them self is the preferred state of being, else it wouldn't have been a big deal, that laymen got to read a version of the Bible for them self in their own language. That still allot of religious people think for them self, seems to me more despite of the faith than because of it or as something unrelated.

The Doctor's view of faith makes perfect sense. He's a person who thinks his way out of a situation-a troubleshooter, essentially (and if you get that joke, ten thousand bonus points). He would certainly be uncomfortable with relying on faith for anything.

I think it depends on the type of story you're trying to tell if narrative issues should count. We as an audience are strangers to these worlds and cultures, much like the companions and sometimes even the doctor are. We're not meant to understand some of the strange ways they might have, and normally thats when the companion or the doctor asks question on our behalf, so we can understand whats going on. So imho either it's not written ideally because no one explains things to us or we're not meant to understand it immediately.

"Identical cousins are an oddly common thing in fiction... I don't know why." I blame Patty Duke.

I didnt like the countdown at the end. Up until that point, i had no idea how or when 15 was going to get out of it. But as it counted down, i knew that something would suddenly save the day right before it explodes, which is what happened. However, I LOVED Gatwa in this episode. His face showed everything beautifully!