I still think, despite her daddy issues, it was really out of character for Rose to push the kid back into a relationship with his abuser. Like the man was cartoonishly evil the whole episode, no glimmer of a better man lurking beneath the surface. It feels completely one dimensional to have her be like "but he's your dad 🥺" at the end. I just don't buy it as a thing she would do.
She was also one of the most outspoken people against him. It was a weird 180. I've always assumed that whoever wrote it was in the process of sorting through "I hated my dad but now he's dead and I'm confused?" trauma
This! By the end of the episode we're just not meant to care that there is still a kidnapped baby out there somewhere. Because growing up with your daughter is totally the same as raising her. Amy and Rory should be furious and devastated but instead we just move on to the next adventure. Not to mention the Mel twist just doesn't work at all when she's a character who was only introduced in that episode and honestly only exists in that episode. She's never mentioned or seen before or after that episode so there's no weight or impact of discovering that she's really River.
Moffat almost made a habit of doing that, sadly. Into the Dalek brings up that the Doctor is still not over the destruction of his planet by the Daleks and that he sometimes acts more like a Dalek than actual Daleks...and it's not dealt with nor brought up again. Because we go straight to Robot of Sherwood. Why even do this if there's no plans to follow through? Its like nobody could decide if they wanted New Who to emaulate the original with it's strange stories with barely any overarching plot, or they wanted it do what modern shows do with plot arcs stretching over one or two seasons. So much of New Who feels, to me, confused.
I did actually dislike Haunting for precisely the reason you stated. As a Mary Shelley fan, I HATED that she was so disrespected. I didn't like that the servants got slaughtered and no one cared. The only thing I liked was the costuming. Seriously. I didn't even like the half cyber dude because I thought he was super angsty and melodramatic. So, I agree with you on pretty much the whole list. I had actually forgotten completely about some of them. XD
Mentioning Idiot's Lantern again really reminds me of the new Color Purple musical movie, which I was going along with great for most of it...and then the last 20 minutes suddenly take a hard turn into literally giving a message of "Abuse victims will go to Hell if they don't forgive their abusers and become friendly with them." Maybe that's true to the book, I haven't read it, but I definitely don't remember it being in the Spielberg film, and you'd hope people doing an adaptation now would recognize that they should change it if that was the case.
As someone who just read the book, she forgives him. It has nothing to do with going to hell. She curses him. Like in the Spielberg film. But there is a decent chunk of book after that. His life falls apart and it takes a long time and a lot of making amends and she basically is just like I forgive you because I'm happy and I don't have space to hate you. Then she states pretty explicitly she's not into men they sort of become cool. I don't love them becoming cool with each other but it was very realistic for the time period with more acceptance for Celie's sexuality.
Could not agree more with your take on the ending of idiots lantern. It's more than just fumbling the messaging, It's damnright irresponsible the way it was framed. Anyone who's ever been a victim of emotional and/or physical abuse will know how thoughtless that ending is
Daleks in Manhattan / Evolution of the Daleks is severely underrated. There are surface-level positives worth mentioning: Andrew Garfield, Hugh Quarshie, the soundtrack, the fact it's the only Dalek story written by a woman, the Cult of Skaro, etc etc. But what truly sets this episode apart is that it is very different from basically any other Dalek story we've had in New Who, and it isn't scared to deviate from what we've come to expect from a Dalek episode in order to tell a story that has a significant point to make. The union of Dalek Sec and Diagoras, two merciless and unempathetic individuals, creates a better person. The whole is far greater than the sum of its parts. The tragedy of Sec is that he was not only open to change, over the course of part 2 he actively transitions from a tyrant to a pacifist simply by observing the events playing out around him and reasoning that there is a better way. The hybrid is able to use the best aspects of both species - the Daleks' intelligence and Humanity's empathy - to strive for a better life for both species. People criticise this episode for superficial reasons - bad accents, odd-looking monster designs, corny dialogue etc - without taking the time to scratch the surface and truly understand the point that Helen Raynor is trying to make. Doctor Who is a fundamentally silly show, but with fundamentally significant lessons to teach, and DiM/EotD is a perfect example of this. It's a homage to classic sci-fi B-Movies, filled with shouty metal aliens, pig monsters, a musical number, a brain man with phallic protrusions on his face, and bad American accents. But it's also a pure distillation of the arrogant xenophobia of the Daleks contrasted with the mercy and bravery of ordinary people. It is for these reasons that DiM/EotD is my favourite Tennant-era Dalek story. It isn't just another 'Daleks invade Earth, blow stuff up, get wiped out' - it takes the time to dig deep into what makes the Daleks reprehensible, and contrasts that with the positive aspects of Humankind. There are also tired-old criticisms of this story that I thought we were well past parroting as a fandom. But just to round off a few: Q: Why do the Daleks cross people with pigs? A: Because pigs are readily available, intelligent, omnivorous and docile yet capable of violence when provoked. Crossing people with pigs creates an army of slaves that the Daleks can use for their own purposes, without needing to waste power or resources designing a new life form from scratch. Q: Why do the Daleks want to fuse with humans? A: 3/4 of them don't. Sec is a visionary who sees past Dalek dogma and recognises the potential of Humankind. The rest of the Cult disagree, there's even a scene where they question him before his hybridisation and he has to argue his case, and then the rest of the Cult go on to betray him once the Hybrid becomes a pacifist. Q: Why is the episode set in Manhattan? A: Manhattan in this era was a stark representation of the inequalities present in Human society, the horrendous juxtaposition of the conditions of the rich compared to the poor, and the heart of rapid industrialisation at the expense of Human lives that defined the early 20th century, it's ideal for paralleling how Humans of a lower-class are trodden on by the upper-class with how Daleks perceive themselves to be superior and all 'lesser' life forms as expendable - a fact that contributes to Sec's transition from tyrant to pacifist when Caan ruthlessly guns down Solomon, a man who Sec respects for representing the exact aspects of Humanity that he wanted to harness. I'd honestly recommend rewatching this episode to those who haven't seen it in a while, it's great fun but it also has a cutting point to make that is still (sadly) just as relevant today, if not more so.
I agree whole heartedly. You should add that Sec looks that way when hybridised is because he has forcefully shoved his own body onto an unwilling host. He looks like a Dalek mutant planted on top of a regular guy's head because that’s literally what has happened. The others are just human hosts with dna being pumped into them. Complaining that the designs look goofy is like complaining about the unrealistic medicine in Star Trek. It’s a feature, not a bug.
Yeah I never understood the hate for this two-parter, as a child I loved it and now as an adult I appreciate it even more. The Cult of Skaro are such a unique idea and brought a refreshing change to the Daleks in the stories they appear in, people say they’re getting bored of the Daleks but when they finally get a new coat of paint they complain that the Daleks are acting different.
Thank you! I love this two-parter, and was heavily confused when I started getting involved in the online fandom and realised how widely disliked it was
14:00 Tbh I think it does work a bit better since it displays River's initial perspective on time travel and how it is _so_ different from The Doctor. With 20 years of planning and anticipation, her very first thought is quite simple, the classic "go back in time and kill Hitler" cliche. I wouldn't really consider it a "historical" episode, but rather the historical aspect is simply because of the out-of-universe cliche. River has had 20+ years to think on this and has never once considered the danger to the fabric of time or anything. Sure, she doesn't know the specifics, but this gives us insight into how she thinks about things, because people who have never seen Doctor Who in real life discuss this and bring up the paradox problems it creates. River does not think about that or care. She's a bull in a china shop of the laws of time. It pairs extremely well with the Time Lord Victorious stuff with Ten, because it shows that she's starting from that perspective. The mere possession of the ability to travel in space and time, even stolen, is enough for her to instantly view it from the perspective of "I can, I will, I'm in charge". Using "kill Hitler" is simply the easiest shorthand for this entire concept. Morally, if not for all the paradox problems, it would be a heroic act. However, it shows the person doing it doesn't understand or respect how time works and flows. Without any of Doctor Who's specific names or rules regarding these things, we all recognize how the Nazis are even in real life, a fixed point in time. You can't meddle with that even if you have the ability because not only does it create a time paradox of you having no reason to do it if you do it, but also if you were born after WW2 you are guaranteed to be temporally aborting yourself, everyone else born after WW2, and so much more. Going back in time to kill Hitler is easy shorthand for "this person is a heroic killer, but also an idiot who has no idea what the hell they're doing". Like Deadpool. The setting and everything _does_ serve the plot, but the plot isn't about the setting. It's about establishing River's starting point and how she's developed from her time with The Doctor and her parents after/before this, showing River Song's devil-may-care personality at its core without any of the education or growth that's forced her to be smarter. She grows from "I'm going to blow up the entire fabric of space and time because I don't understand any of that despite it being a thing most people can intuit on their own" to her "spoilers" thing, and it makes sense because her personality hardly suggests that she's the type who would naturally be cautious or wise about obeying the laws of time. Basically, it serves to show us the core of River Song, without any of the growth or education she'll later have. It's River's worst and best personality traits on display at full force without any of the filtering that later knowledge and experience will give it. It shows us her true self using a classic time travel cliche, a heroic killer who acts first and thinks later.
Speaking as an historian, I love let’s Kill Hitler. It’s Moffat showing why time travel plots about killing Hitler are ridiculous, and then he spins it into a 1930s style farce with River being a gay icon. It’s an insane episode but I think that makes it work.
The episode lost me where they implied killing the Doctor was worse than being Hitler. It also did that obnoxious Moffat Holmes thing with the constant "oh but really" back and forth between River and the Doctor. I also really didn't like the way they incorporated River and the additional fake-human mechanism...overall I just don't like that episode. I agree the above positives are there, but they're overwhelmed by the negatives for me.
@@Stile4alydamn so did the Kingsman film steal that? Still I love the line to the fanatical religious woman. I'm a Catholic wh*** enjoying congress out of wedlock with my black Jewish boyfriend who works in a military abortion clinic. So hail Satan and have a wonderful afternoon.
Best line in all of Dr Who was in that episode. And River said it. "Well. I was on my way to this gay gypsy bar mitzvah for the disabled, when I suddenly thought, “Gosh. The Third Reich’s a bit rubbish. I think I’ll kill the Führer.” Who’s with me?"
IMO the criticism of LKH as “not engaging with the historical setting” is off base because, while it may not deal with historical detail about the makeup of society in 1930s Germany, it is absolutely ABOUT our modern society’s relationship to stories set in Nazi era Germany - to the point that I don’t think you could necessarily set it anywhere else. It’s a story about how ludicrous attempts to do “SF time travel plot with Hitler” inherently are, through critiquing the logic of the Tesselecta being a punishment machine that goes back in time and decides to hurt people who are already dead for the things they did that made the Tesselecta want to go back and punish them in the first place. The Doctor outright mocks their logic and points out how ridiculous this is; and Hitler is the archetypal “if you could go back in time and kill X…” thought experiment - you kinda HAVE to do it with him. But more cleverly still, of course, is that it’s relevant thematically to the rest of the season. Going back down a person’s timeline to kill them before they do the acts you disapprove of … is exactly what Kovarian and the Silence are trying to do to the Doctor throughout the Smith era, especially S6. I also disagree with the assessment of Eaters of Light as forgettable and as not doing anything with its setting. It riffs quite a lot on Pictish mythology in multiple forms, there’s the depiction of Roman imperialism and what they do to the lands they conquer, there’s the idea of challenging modern audiences about the sexual identities of the ancient world, and there’s a rerun of the Zygon Inversion conflict between two sides which uses the unique potential of different languages and the TARDIS’ lip-sync translation circuit to prompt us to think about communication in conflict and what our war rhetoric sounds like.
Unquiet Dead is very mid for me but holds a special place as the theatre scenes were filmed were I work! 😂 Same acc applies to New Earth, but…erm, anyway!
Eaters of the Light is one of my favorite episodes of doctor who ever. It makes me cry. Idk Im weak. Theres the who thing with missy and how she doesnt get it and how the doctor is like “you never listen to the music. Its a good bill episode and I love bill Also It does my favorite thing where the ending sucker punches to the beginning with the girl and the hill and the music and the ghosts Also that the crows used to talk all the time and the doctor is like, they don’t dont anymore because their crabby, but we learn they are actually just remembering Karns sacrifice forever
It wasn't a perfect episode, but the way Bill gets her assumptions handed to her, and the scene with Missy at the end is incredible. Even the point that war--especially war of this period--was made so much worse because the two sides didn't speak a common language. More was good about it than bad, IMO.
Empress of Mars: counting this as a historical seems dubious. I like it, but it's iffy. Feels more like an honorable mention. Witchfinders: Alan Cummings, a good setting and an evil tree. This was a fun romp. A little bit of history, a little bit of characterization and some mad sci-fi ideas. Let's kill Hitler: A title in search of a story. Basically a collection of bits, setting up the coming season, none of which really come together to make an actual story or even something that stands on its own. Some bits are fun, but as a whole, it's a mess. Eaters of light: New Who is not good at one off monsters and as soon as the demon dogs show up, this episode gets blah. Legend of the sea devils: again, I love a romp. Monsters vs Pirates. I forgive some flaws as they were filming during a pandemic. Plus, I hate putting the Doctor in a romance, but 13 and Yaz are the best one.
Easy guess that The Idiot's Lantern would be so high. The top spot was just a nothing episode for me, but you made good points that it was worse than a nothing episode. Funny that the two to sideline important historical women are from the Chibnall era. I kind of love the absolute mess that is Let's Kill Hitler. It's not good, at all, but I have a lot of affection for its arbitrary contrivances and camp.
I'm a victim of an abusive father and that makes #2 even harder to watch. So yes I agree with your list and your reasons and I was really abused. I was hit on my head with a pipe and my hair pulled on and that's not all. I don't like to talk about it and I don't like to see it in my entertainment. And this is triggering me just typing about it. But to defend Rose she never got to spend as much time with her dad as she wanted and I can see that but it's not right. I love doctor who and I've been a fan since the 70s but some episodes are just really hard to watch
Like she said in the video, it makes sense for Rose as a character. The problem was everything else around it, the tone set, the doctor not saying anything, framed it as a good thing as well.
I find "A Town Called Mercy" much more enjoyable if you imagine that it's the backstory to the simulation Kryten's playing in _Red Dwarf's_ "Gunmen of the Apocalypse".
I just wish they'd thought to take out the scene of Bill realizing the TARDIS is translating for her after it was moved to so much later in the season, so now it looks like she'd just been assuming the whole time the aliens really were speaking English.
I liked Eaters of Light because it was so small-scale and felt like a nice break from Moffat’s typical “the world is going to end” episodes during his era. And I think it ties in well with Twelve’s running storyline vis a vis soldiers, since a big part of the ep is realizing that all the soldiers on both sides are really just children.
As a Scottish person, the idea of setting a story based around the legend of the singing mountains is such a fun idea, tying it to The Lost Legion to create a fascinating sci-fi answer to both mysteries. It should be treated similarly to Agatha Christie's disappearance in "The Unicorn and the Wasp" In my mind, no real historical message to be found just Doctor Who having fun in answering a famous (all be it to Scotland) mystery. On another note, I always thought there was an incredibly important reason why "A Town Called Mercy" is a Western. It's because it's CALLED MERCY. A pre "Day of the Doctor" Doctor has to look at an Alian Doctor, one who committed genocide to win a war, banished himself to earth, and uses the humans he picked up as his emotional support pets, showing them incredible futuristic technology to wow them into liking him and in spite of all that, become the sheriff of mercy and rally mercy to protect and save him, thus proving to himself he's still worth something. If you want a historical fact to bolster the narrative the incredible sense of community small towns must have had to survive the lesser arias of America should surface, but does it need that to be a good episode? I guess one question for you is what counts as not "utilizing" a setting well and does it need to? Don't get me wrong I love a lot of your takes but you use this argument a lot in this video when I think it could be made more clear. I would argue that "Fires of Pompeii" like a "Town Called Mercy", does nothing with its historical setting bar set the stage for a moral battle between characters. Mount Vesuvius is only pertinent to the story enough to give The Doctor and Donna a moral battle, and The Mob Mentality of Mercy is only pertinent to the story enough to give The Doctor a moral quandary. Why are these different? On the opposite standpoint, you've gone on record saying episodes like Robots of Sherwood and Curse of the Black Spot are guilty favorites. They have little to no actual historical information bar the fake depictions of highwaymen and pirates found in modern media. (Sidebar you're the reason I now LOVE Robots of Sherwood) Why do they get a pass? If a historical setting is only there to bolster the individual characters instead of giving any real historical context, is an episode any lesser for it and is this a bias we give historicals because we expect them to depict known facts of the past accurately that we forget all episodes of Doctor Who are fictional. Any historical setting is by definition fake the same way Satellite Five or Demons Run is?
Thank you for explaining why the ending of Idiot's Lantern strikes such a wrong note. It had bothered me too, but not for any reason I could put my finger on until now. Writers of historical fiction don't have carte blanche to ignore present-day sensibilities for the sake of period detail; quite the opposite, they have a responsibility to show why things needed to change and examine whether or not they've changed for the better.
Well said. People will often defend things as "historically accurate," but you can make a historically accurate thing without the narrative voice framing the bad things as fine. All the characters can suck and have historically accurate bad takes without the narrative condoning it. Well people who make these sorts of excuses won't be able to pull it off, if they can't see the difference. The abuse issue in Idiot's Lantern wasn't really related to the historical context (If I recall the way it was dealt with and approached by the historical characters does feel like something that was more normalized in that era, so maybe a little), but you get the same sort of thing with abuse narratives.
Absolutely. IMO, I think Moffat sorta got there in the end. Maybe not in plot/stories, but definitely character. It wasn’t perfect by any means, but at least he was able to craft characters w/ a little more depth than a stereotype/fantasy lmao
I don't think Mary shelly being inspired by the events of that episode isn't something I considered as a problem but the doctor saving Percy because he's too important seemed incredibly undoctor like
I read it as the Doctor refusing to sacrifice one person, because everyone is important. In his case he's a figure of history that has to be preserved, and he is an artist, and art should be preserved. The Doctor upholding the laws of time over potentially meddling for the greater good is what the Doctor has always done. Percy Shelly isn’t even the most important/famous artist in the room and therefore it seems like it’s only fair to let him die, for the greater good. The only one who stands up for him is the Doctor and that is exactly what the Doctor would do.
@@intergalactic92 oh yeah standing up for one lone person like that is very doctor like but the reasoning is the issue. It really didn't come across as an everyone is important thing
"Well. I was on my way to this gay gypsy bar mitzvah for the disabled, when I suddenly thought, “Gosh. The Third Reich’s a bit rubbish. I think I’ll kill the Führer.” Who’s with me?" That gets quoted a lot in my friend group and I love Let's kill Hitler for that moment. The banter in this episode is just so fun overall.
If historical accuracy is a factor in ranking these things, then Robot of Sherwood is easily the worst historical episode of Doctor Who ever made. That said, Let's Kill Hitler is probably THE worst episode of Doctor Who ever made, so... Also, if you want to talk about insulting and dangerous historical narratives: Victory of the Daleks, and its lionisation of racist, concentration camp advocate and war criminal Winston Churchill is a fairly serious one (though, of course, by no means unique to Who given how British culture refuses to acknowledge the man's crimes and puts him on our fucking money).
Genuinely surprised that Victory of the Daleks didn't make the list anywhere. It's best ideas are both warmed over and underused, giving the Doctor such a strange extended relationship with Churchill is bizarre, and while I'd say its only a historical for the visual of biplanes vs spaceships, that would suggest there's a greater point to the episode than that. As an episode overall it's weaker than most of the list, I think, and I feel it benefits even less from its nature as a historical than the likes of Let's Kill Hitler or A Town Called Mercy.
This is my WORST 10, 10. The Unquiet Dead Ghosts trying to be scary, and failing. 9. The Unicorn and the Wasp Whose idea was it to combine a storyline about giant killer wasps with one about Agatha Christie? 8. Demons of the Punjab A painfully slow retelling of the plot of Twice Upon a Time. 7. The Idiot's Lantern The television zapping away people's faces would have been a terrified concept, if it weren't undercut by the laughable cartoonish villain. 6. The Eaters of Light The only bad episode of series 10. But it is quite bad. 5. The Vampires of Venice Should have been called "The Fishmen of Venice". 4. The Woman Who Lived Clara and Me are two of the most poorly written characters in New Who, and yet we get stuck with them for the entirety of this episode with basically nothing else happening. Oh joy. 3. The Shakespeare Code This episode genuinely infuriates me. Between the Doctor casually tossing aside Martha's fears about racism, him stanning for JK, and him friendzoning Martha so hard, 10 really does come across as a massive douche. And yet he is framed as the hero... ugh. 2. Legend of the Sea Devils If Chibnall told us he finished the script for this in a day, I'd believe him. 1. Lets Kill Hitler Hate the premise, hate the retconning of Amy now apparently having a friend she had never mentioned before, hate the two dimension depiction of River, hate the "action" sequences, hate the obvious Doctor death fake out, hate River needing to exhaust her entire regeneration cycle to save the Doctor... pretty much hate the whole damn episode.
My girlfriend is a big fan of classic mysteries but also has a phobia of wasps. She was legit mad at me for _getting get into Doctor Who at all_ when we got to that episode 😭. Also, Shakespeare Code came out in 2007. I agree that it's a bad episode but you can hardly blame it for endorsing Harry Potter. Rowling hadn't started with her terf nonsense and it was generally considered a progressive series at the time.
I personally feel Legend of the Sea Devils is the worst ep Doctor Who has ever made. Painful viewing. The first time I've finished an episode and gone - wtf just happened? Nothing interesting or of substance.
It’s funny. Ben Browder was the one American to star in Farscape as it shot in Australia. He guest stars on Doctor Who at a time where American guest stars are basically nonexistent and continue to be so for SIX years.
Very good points. I still like Villa Diodati and Legend of the Sea Devils, but anyway, they do have problems. Nothing to say about the Idiot's Lantern, I probably hate it as much as you do.
OH WOW. I love series 10, especially for what it is in the Doctor’s story and the companions are fun together with him (let alone how Bill and Nardole, but Eaters of Light and Empress of Mars are my two biggest attention losers pre-Chibnall. I had no memory of what these episodes did after their original airings and one HBO Max binge, and because of my ADHD I wasn’t sure if it was a me thing or if it was the fault of the episodes. And frankly now 4 months removed from a second rewatch, and seeing your opinion and a response I got earlier from bringing this up on a different video, it really just feels like they weren’t good episodes to begin with and bored me. And frankly for them to be the bridge between the Monks trilogy and the finale sucks even more that it’s just a black hole between two better parts of the season. I tried to get people to gush about these episodes in Facebook group posts and most of the praises were for the general season.
As a history nerd I don't really mind most of them, Idiots Lantern and Crimson Horror are the only one's that I take much issue with. They're easily the highlight of the Whittaker era, though Haunting does sit in a weird space currently where I enjoy it but some frustrating choices make it more of a guilty pleasure rather than a story I could confidently say I enjoy.
I'd agree with most of these, especially your number one pic. I was looking forward to Legend of the Sea Devils. The Sea Devils and Silurians are my favourite DW monsters. I've lost count of how many times I've watched Doctor Who and the Silurians, The Sea Devils and even Warriors of the Deep (not the best episode, but it has it's moments.) Honestly, so many of Jon Pertwee's stories have engaging storylines and sincere messages about humanity and I love them. Legend of the Sea Devils had absolutely none of that.
My apologies Vera, I reread what I wrote and it comes off as snide when it wasn't my intention. It's just the auto-subtitles skipped the word, and I wasn't sure if the algorithm would be tripped or something. My bad, I'm not sure how that stuff works. ❤ Listened to your Pay More, Get Less video earlier today and you mentioned something about not being able to say "Enshittification" without tripping the algo so I guess I lept when I should've looked. 🤐
I quite enjoyed The Eaters Of Light myself, but one thing that I can’t help but fault it it on is that they missed a golden opportunity to cast Karen Gillan as the Pict leader and establish that Amy’s resemblance to her and to the soothsayer from Fires Of Pompeii (who’s clairvoyance is attributed to “a rift in time”) was down to the same “spatial genetic multiplicity” (caused by The Cardiff Rift) that caused Gwen Cooper to resemble Gwyneth from The Unquiet Dead.
Oh, no, Eaters of Light is in fourth place! But, that's okay. It's your list, and no one else's, and I agree with every other placement, especially about Mary Shelley. The fact that Frankenstein was likely at least partially inspired by the birth of her stillborn baby, and her husband's horrified reaction, makes it even more insulting.
I also dislike Haunting for the same reasons. There are very few things in history that are created by one individual or a few individuals, but sometimes there are great leaps, mostly of imagination, whether it be literature or mathematical concepts. To rob one of the few known creators of this while still doing the greeat men of history just rubs me the wrong way. (I also disliked the recent Isaac Newton open for related reasons, but that's a much longer tangent)
I actually really like the series 3 Dalek 2-parter, specifically because it's one of the few times in new-who the Daleks have felt like actual characters, as opposed to mindless robots that shout exterminate constantly. Sec's whole revelation about evolving the Dalek race, the rest of the cult of Skaro rejecting it and plotting and scheming behind Sec's back and betraying him, unable to let go of the basic Dalek ideology, which in the end leads to their destruction. The scene of, I think it's Khan and Thay, talking about Dalek Sec is one of the best character moments for the Daleks in the revived series, just that small moment of Khan looking around to see if anyone's listening before answering Thay's question. It also may not amount to much, but I do like the setting and the kind of atmosphere it lends to certain scenes. Maybe it's because of the scenes of the Daleks experimenting and conversing in a way that isn't just "SEEK! LOCATE! EXTERMINATE!", or maybe it's just because of how badly the Dalek's were treated by Moffat, that makes me really appreciate Daleks in Manhattan/Evolution of the Daleks.
I’m sorry the witch trials simply shouldn’t be touched by a show like doctor who for the same reason any historical genocide shouldn’t. I know witches are a fun supernatural fantasy trope and doctor who can absolutely play with that. But the actual historical witch trials were as horrific as history gets. And doctor who just isn’t built for it
I would have put "Victory of the Daleks" (season 5, episode 3) on this list, merely for its "romanticized presentation" of Winston Churchill. I would have liked to have seen at least some acknowledgment of him being, shall we say, a complicated figure, for all of his standing up to the Nazis, he had some pretty terrible tendencies of his own. He was certainly not some kind of heroic figure without fault like the episode tends to paint him.
Sea Devils nearly made me stop watching Doctor Who. The enormous gaps between episodes made the pain worse. I had to chalk most of it up to Covid issues and the havoc it wrought on production in many other IPs I watch. The Covid excuse and the 2 cut episodes ruined Flux too.
I'm going to get a LOT of pushback on this... but dammit, I LOVE Let's Kill Hitler. It always makes me laugh, but it also makes me cry, for all the wonderful scenes between The Doctor and River Song. It also sets up a critical plot device for the end of season 6 of thew new era.
Am I the only one who could never properly follow the story of A Town Called Mercy? I zone out every time I rewatch it cuz its so boring. The only amusing bit is Susan the horse, but that's it.
Daleks in manhattan could’ve been better if they had shown how a LOT of Americans supported fascism and the nazis prior to Pearl Harbor and tied that in with the fascistic nature of the daleks
I get you aren't overly familiar with Classic, but The Romans, I mean the Gunfighters isn't good, but The Romans!! Please get familiar with Classic, so you can do that tripe down where it belongs!!
7 месяцев назад
Thank you for this channel, and I genuinely loved this episode. This is the first full length video of you I've watched, and I love your intensity, and willingness to give your opinions even if they might be unpopular. What I mostly love about your channel is *you*, and the steps you've take to be your truth. I'm old and cynical, but getting to see your fearless discussions of the reality is genuinely comforting and inspiring. Your closing is really sweet, and offered some much-needed comfort. Thank you again for this channel.
Ways to improve Legend of the Sea Devils: -Give some color and a more "Chinese alligator scute" texture, and remove the whites of the eyes (and make them more oval)...and maybe a "spoonbill" element for the mouth -Rather than an absurd jump, have the flying ship drop a rope -Hide the Hua-Shen a little better at the start so it's spookier, and improve it's looks/textures for the built-up reveal -Zheng Yi Sao & her second husband (Zheng Bao) had policies for protecting women from mistreatment (maybe genderswap Ying Ki to let this show, and have Madam Ching adopt her at the end) and distributing wealth equally (they also banned invading friendly towns, which could have been something she adopts as a policy at the end of the story) -Replace the fictional "Sin Ji-Hun" with someone like the legendary "Jang Bogo" (a Korean maritime leader who rose from commoner roots, fought to end slavery, and was so influential in 700's Korean politics as to play Kingmaker during a rebellion)
That's a fair point against Villa Deodati. It's the same reason I hated the film "Saving Mr. Banks", it all but shouted that PL Travers just copied the Mary Poppins character from her childhood nanny
I would say going off your criteria, Curse of the Black Spot was objectively the worse Historical. They took what was considered Histories least redeemable Pirate Henry Every famed for (Very bad things) and murdering women and children, and essentially ignoring what he did for "Oh famous pirate vanished" When historical evidence show he and his crew disbanded and escaped to the Colonies in New England. At the time of the episode, I was just as upset as you are over the Idiots Lantern, because I had just read a historical book about Piracy of his era, and he was by far the worse. Many other crews were highly redeemable people, not him.
I definitely disagree with you on The Witchfinders (quite an underrated story that I only have an issue with how the story resolves itself which is a bit... quick) and The Haunting of Villa Diodati (I don't think this story is disrespectful to Mary Shelley personally) but I can understand the other placements and your reasonings even if I enjoy some of those other stories like A Town Called Mercy and Vampires of Venice!
Personally I don’t find anything wrong telling a story, that could be told in the present time, in a historical setting. The Doctor has a Time Machine so why not have episodes like Kill Hitler, that mainly is Rivers origin story set in the 30s instead of the present or future? With a Time Machine why not utilise all of history to tell stories that isn’t period bound. But I do agree that the historical characters like James 1, Mary Shelley etc should do be better utilised, factually correct (except for the SCIFY stuff) and contribute to the story and not just be there because of the time period.
I try not to think about Let's Kill Hitler much. It lowkey makes me hate 11 when I do. I just - they're dicking around in Nazi Germany and there's not one acknowledgement of the holocaust. The doctor does not seem to really care. The episode makes some cheap "hey guys nazis are bad" jokes and leaves it at that.
A while back I gave someone a list of the best few episodes to watch if you don't watch anything else. I put Haunting of Villa Diodati on the list purely because she's a fan of Mary Shelley, with the note that this one isn't as good and is from a bad era. And I agree about Mary being the 'big name'. Everyone knows of Frankenstein. I couldn't name one thing that Percy wrote. The only reason anyone (outside of poetry circles) knows who he is today is that he's Mary's husband. Any yeah, everyone is important has always been his attitude.
Re: Vampires of Venice: This episode was interesting because it's the only one that starts to explore the dynamic between the Doctor and Rory. And then it never really gets explored. It's dropped for the entire run. And the main fish woman plays off Matt Smith VERY well. Too bad the rest of it is so meh.
Am I the only one who actually likes Evolution of the Daleks? I really love the side characters we're introduced to and the notion of Hooverville being in the shadow of the Empire State Building. Also the idea that the daleks stagnating forced them to want to change is fascinating to think about. Is it a perfect episode? No. But its one that I find myself enjoying more with every rewatch.
Ngl I kinda disagree w you on the idiots lantern. It was always the key example in my memory of ten and rose doing a silly little historical galavant. And i thought the silly-but-unsettling 'horror' aspects were very on brand for that era of doctor who . Regarding the ending I thought it was very in character for daddy-issues Rose as well as ten who tended to give a lot of second chances. Especially considering how the time lords somewhat mirrored the abusive father in the sense they acted horrifically out of fear and a sense of powerlessness and futility in the time war. Maybe I don't remember enough details but I really can't fault the ending for giving the dad a second chance for being scared and abusive in the face of something he couldn't understand that was actively attacking his family
I think you're giving Legend of the Sea Devils too much credit, it's also very badly directed, horribly edited, and the effects are shoddy in a way that's inexcusable
Me and my wife have been binging modern Who since Christmas and I was honestly surprised at how much I really enjoyed Daleks in Manhattan this re-watch
Mary Shelley is not more important than Percy Shelley in literary influence, he is considered by many to be the best of the English Romantic poets of the 19th century. They worked in different fields and she is definitely bigger with the sci fi crowd but he's a titan on his own.
I think the worst thing about bad historical is when they waste a historical figure. This is the reason I dislike Day of the Doctor as a historical, it really doesn’t do Elizabeth I justice and it limits her potential to be used again.
Someone wake me when they start doing pure historicals again. At this point, it would be novel. That or one with Mary Anning, because that episode write itself.
Given your complaints about Let's Kill Hitler having mostly to do with the fact that it actively chooses to not engage with its historical setting, I struggle to understand why you count it as a historical episode
In regard to Time Travel in general, All shows and movies seem to steal agency from the creators. Classic Who implies H G Welles' was a plagariast on all his novels. Star Trek 4. Fiction at the Time, Transparent Aluminum, Did it get invented back in 1989 or Did a time traveller show the Creator transparent aluminum? It's real now supposedly.
Plagiarist is an incredibly strong (and slightly unfair) word. That would imply he came across a book of alien stories and photocopied it for later reference, as opposed to seeing a variety of sci fi stuff (too many things to list) all of which ended up in separate stories. This is called taking inspiration. HG Welles is almost a separate trope entirely, he often shows up in time travel shows, seeing stuff that inspires his stories. It’s almost an inside joke. Some of the stuff he portrayed was ahead of its time so it’s kind of a way to offer an explanation. I never saw the harm but I’m used to that sort of time travel joke. To say that shows belittle these real world figures or remove agency, feels weird to me.
The worst part of A Town Called Mercy was that it was part of a season with 2 episodes that were crying out to be 2-parters (The Angels Take Manhattan and The Power of Three), but instead of making one of those stories better, we got this boring one
I don’t disagree with the ending of idiots lantern being a bad story/message about abuse. However I understood that the conversation at the end of the episode is about the future, and they say the young boy is the future. When they tell him to go after his dad the message is that people like his father, who symbolise the soon-to -be defunct past, need to be welcomed in the new world too. There’s some stuff there about the impacts of the war and how his father was also harmed by the machismo patriarchal society that created him. There’s queer subtext too, pretty much confirmed by the writers saying they were going to make the boy character gay originally, and this hyper-masculine, aggressive father written up in the mid 2000s is a caricature of the roots of homophobia. The story, from that 2000s perspective,has the(subtextually) gay child inherit the unfortunate but somewhat inevitable burden of having to be the one to build the bridges for his father to cross, to educate him and welcome him to the future. I think it still wasn’t done great. It felt like they had a few ideas they failed to mash together, and the way they framed the husband was above and beyond the man of the house archetype and the implied physical violence is where they lost the ability to land this ending. But I still get it, I can see it being the product of a queer showrunner in the 2000s who most likely felt the responsibility thrust upon himself to educate and show patience to the people around him
I don't love "The Haunting", though I do disagree with the whole "being disrespectful to Mary Shelley" thing. The trope of "let's use a historical figure and invent a sci-fi reason to serve as their inspiration for a story has been done a lot. They did it with Charles Dickens, they did it with Shakespeare, Van Gogh, etc. Honestly, I was terrified watching "Rosa" thinking they'd do something stupid like that which THANKFULLY they kept their distance. I guess you could argue that in those cases, they met up with them in the middle of their careers, but I don't think it's that fundamentally different. As for "The Idiot's Lantern", I get what they were trying to do with that ending. Family is important, and I can see an argument that the father may not have ALWAYS been like that. He actually seems not monstrous in the opening scene before their nana has her face stolen. Perhaps the crisis pushed him to do things they never thought possible. But in the rest of the episode, he becomes such a cartoonish irredeemable prick that it's impossible to feel sympathetic for him. And yes, no matter what circumstances may have led him there, they don't excuse his actions which were textbook abuse. He does not deserve an olive branch, especially when he hasn't done anything at all to redeem his actions
There is a MASSIVE difference between what was done to Mary Shelly and how the show handled Van Gogh, Shakespeare, or Dickens. In those cases they were all established already and it’s only implied that the events of the show influenced a single work of many. Mary Shelly (despite deserving far more notice for her work outside of Frankenstein) is ultimately known for just the one thing: and that’s the thing the show implied she didn’t think of.
