Doctor Who S10

[MadAmosMalone]

I'm with Miss Kitty in that I liked the first ep a little better than the second one. Still you make a valid point about the Roddenberry Monster aspect of it. Only one I can recall offhand was the Crystalline Entity. Just the mere fact of one of those things wandering the galaxy is pretty terrifying. The Pilot's monster of the week story is far less interesting than an exploration of the thing's origins or implications of its existence. The thing took on a Dalek without working up a sweat after all. If there are more of them out there that could be significant.

[MadAmosMalone]

I think Thin Ice is the weakest of the three episodes so far. Still much better than most of the episodes from last year IMHO. I do really like Bill as a companion. She offers a lot of opportunity to explore some of the nuances of the companion role and some of her conversations with the Doctor are real highlights of each episode.

[The Romulan Republic]

I think Thin Ice is the weakest of the three episodes so far. Still much better than most of the episodes from last year IMHO. I do really like Bill as a companion. She offers a lot of opportunity to explore some of the nuances of the companion role and some of her conversations with the Doctor are real highlights of each episode.

Thin Ice is the only one I've seen thus far this season, and my view, in brief, is that its a fairly typical Moffat standalone- not really bad, but not really good either. It reminded me of The Beast Below quite a bit, but I actually preferred Beast Below back when I saw it.

I agree though about Bill. She seems to have a good mix of enthusiasm and adventurousness, cautiousness, compassion, and willingness to stand up to the Doctor that will make for a good Companion. And yay, no flirting with the Doctor (as far as I could tell)! I also like that they acknowledged the issue of her race when traveling to past eras without making it all that her character was about.

She's already a step above Clara in my estimation. I think she'll do well.

And one more time that the fan whining about a casting decision turned out to be premature. You'd think that after bashing Craig as Bond, Ledger as the Joker, and Affleck as Batman, the internet whiners would have learned to reign in their vitriol more often until they actually see the character/actor in action.

[MadAmosMalone]

I also thought of Beast Below when watching this one. But this episode wasn't written by Moffatt was it?

I hafta admit, before the new episodes began and while I still was reserving judgement on Bill, I kinda thought of her as what Chuck might call a "politically correct valu-pak." I'm glad to see she's got real personality of her own and, as you observed, not flirting with the Doctor. I didn't hate Clara but what I didn't especially like about her was that she was basically a combination of every other female Moffatt character ever written.

[The Romulan Republic]

I also thought of Beast Below when watching this one. But this episode wasn't written by Moffatt was it?

No. The author is Sarah Dollard.

I hafta admit, before the new episodes began and while I still was reserving judgement on Bill, I kinda thought of her as what Chuck might call a "politically correct valu-pak." I'm glad to see she's got real personality of her own and, as you observed, not flirting with the Doctor. I didn't hate Clara but what I didn't especially like about her was that she was basically a combination of every other female Moffatt character ever written.

It bothers me that people make that assumption whenever a character fits more than one minority demographic. I mean, its not like gay black women don't actually exist on Earth. In fact, if you look at the stats, there are literally millions of them. So why shouldn't they be present in fiction too?

Obviously, black lesbian is not enough to make an interesting character by itself, but since there's a lot more to Bill than that, or to any competently-written character, its clearly not a problem.

Edit: To be clear, when I referred to Moffat, I was referring to the style of the show under Moffat as producer/head writer.

[Dînadan]

I agree the episode wasn't bad, just not particularly memorable. There were some good bits such as when Bill asked the Doctor about how many people he's seen die and how many he's personally killed, and the bit with the vault was interesting, but overall the episode was a bit, hem, thin.

It was also derivative of 'Kill the Moon', but at least it wasn't as facepalmingly stupid as that was. It also cribbed from 'The Shakespeare Code' - remember the whole kill a butterfly in the past change the present and the 'omg I'm black that's going to be a problem' thing was brought up there as well, but that said at least the latter is excusable as Bill wouldn't know about Martha bringing it up and in the case of the former the whole 'You've forgotten your friend Pete' gag was good (assuming it is a gag and there wasn't really a Pete and we all too forgot him ;P).

[MadAmosMalone]

One thing that I forgot to comment on earlier was the Doctor's line; "I've never had time for the luxury of outrage." Wait a minute? What?! The entire Tennant era was all about his outrage wasn't it?

[J!!]

Yeah, I caught that too, but remember rule #1

[MadAmosMalone]

The Doctor lies! Ah! Got it.

[The Romulan Republic]

One thing that I forgot to comment on earlier was the Doctor's line; "I've never had time for the luxury of outrage." Wait a minute? What?! The entire Tennant era was all about his outrage wasn't it?

Maybe he sees his prior incarnations as in some sense different people? Ten's personality, for example, is certainly quite different from Twelve's.