RE: Timu's Doctor Who and Torchwood Reviews (spoilers!)
12-26-2023, 06:39 AM
dr 14 s1 e3
third of the 2023 specials, featuring the 10th Doctor as the 14th Doctor and Donna Noble as Donna Noble
third of the 2023 specials, featuring the 10th Doctor as the 14th Doctor and Donna Noble as Donna Noble
Show Content
Spoiler
today in doctor who:
the year is 1925 and they have invented the television. the very first image to be broadcast is of course a puppet getting its face melted off by studio lights. i assume this is just a thing that happened in real life.
unfortunately, the toymaker, an omnipotent godbeing who exists beyond the universe and for whom physics and matter and energy are meaningless, gave that puppet a soul, and thus its insane giggling from the television recording is now imprinted in every television screen, forever. phone screen. computer screen. every screen. because the first television screen had a cursed puppet on it. even though the manufacturing of any screen has nothing at all to do with what happens to the first screen. also all these screens have the giggle sound even though that should be associated with speakers and not all screens have speakers attached to them.
then, in 2023 the super tv satellite has gone up, the one able to connect internet and tv to literally anywhere on earth. specifically because wifi is now global and is able to affect all humans, everyone is going insane. wait i thought the giggle was on the screens, not the wifi signals? and no one went insane before this point, just only right at that time?
anyway, this allows the tv screen giggle to affect all people's brain to become violent and irrational (and more so if they already were). in fact, if you overlap the brainwave pattern associated with this mental madness and the musical notation of the cursed giggle, youll find that they match perfectly. and no one figured this out for 2 days until donna figures it out two seconds after looking at all the info
im choosing to think of this as the toymaker altering the way logic would apply here, rather than choosing to think of this as dumb. no one really questions it, and i barely questioned it until i thought about it some. however, everyone stops being crazy the moment the toymaker is banished back to the playtime universe so, yeah, convoluted but within reason for the toymaker's powers
the dude is literally here to have fun. and honestly, so am i and i am having fun! the point is to be silly and illogical, so yeah! i like it !
yeah, thinking of it like that, im glad the show managed to embrace the absurdity that is standard for the show, and even make it a plot point kinda!
anyway... so how did the doctor beat the toymaster this time? so first the toymaster murders the doctor with a laser, but instead of regenerating like normal, the next doctor, doctor #15 pops out of him like an amoeba dividing, while the other half remains unchanged as #14. they say " oh! bigeneration! i thought that was just a myth!" and immediately move on.
meanwhile in 1950 when the 1st doctor regenerated into the 2nd doctor...
fans of the show "wtf?? regeneration? he just turns into a different guy? he could just do that this whole time?" so that reflects how i think about bigeneration and im choosing to get over it now because, honestly, why not. maybe they'll explain it more later. maybe not. but for now, sure okay bigeneration is a pleasant surprise because now there are two doctors
so while the toymaker doesn't necessarily follow the rules of physics, he follows the rules of play. he must accept any challenges to games, and he literally would not and could not cheat
meaning that now the two doctors can challenge him to a game and it will be 2 vs 1, which is a great advantage
they then proceeded to choose a game where being a team of two is a disadvantage.
they played catch.
rules.
throw the ball at each other.
1a. you gotta throw in a way that is feasible for the next player to be able to catch
if you drop the ball, you lose.
2a. you gotta catch balls thrown at you that are feasible to catch. ie, no dodging the ball instead of catching them
you must play using your regular human physical abilities. thank goodness or the toymaker could just teleport to never lose
so in a game with 1 loser, if you ignore physical prowess, you got a 2/3 chance of the toymaker winning. shoulda picked a different game! also doesn't help that during the times that the doctor throws to the doctor, he throws it like a maniac. "hey im on your team!"
anyway they beat the toymaker without any trickery or cleverness. just by throwing a ball better
--------------------------------
Timu — 12/13/2023 11:10 PM
Timu — 12/15/2023 6:42 AM
Digimon World Enthusiast Jac ?? — 12/15/2023 6:48 AM
Timu — 12/15/2023 6:49 AM
Digimon World Enthusiast Jac ?? — 12/15/2023 6:55 AM
--------------------------------------
there is a guy who gets turned into a puppet. so we have his human head photoshopped onto a puppet body and that was fun
there's a scene where a voice calls for help from a dark corner, and Donna says "okay, i'm coming to help, but if this is a trick, I will kill you."
and that is exactly what happened. It was the mother puppet (and kid puppets) and they attacked Donna so Donna smashed the mother puppet to pieces against the wall and threatened the children puppets to back off.
it was great
Some elaboration on the 'madness' that has overtaken the human population... have you ever had intrusive thoughts? it is made clear that the violence and anger is inside everyone, the madness just gets rid of the rationality and morality that people use to change their minds, to be willing to see reason, to not let the intrusive thoughts win, to not act impulsively, to choose to do the right thing instead. "it makes everyone think that they are right"
the Toymaker held a fun puppet show that had a brief recap of major events since the season 4 with the tenth doctor and donna's original run. it is a great scene
https://youtu.be/zmVXpjT3hL4?si=zKNBpfxFYi2nreJZ
i appreciate that they are treating what happened to the three companions of the moffat era (seasons 5 to 10) with like, not just ignoring what happened to them, cause, while yeah they technically survived and ended up living a life of some sort, what happened to them was still tragic. what happened to Donna back in season 4 was tragic too. and while the flux storyline tv episodes for doctor 13 weren't great enough to be memorable, what happened in them, the events that took place in them, still happened, and weren't insignificant. for the doctor, what happened to his lost companions and during the flux and timeless child, was traumatic. and the show just moved on. and in the 14th doctor era he's slowing down, seeing his old friend again, and finally talking about and opening up about the harrowing experiences they've gone through.
it's sorta unclear how much the personality changes when the doctor regenerates. "it's like becoming a new person. like dying and then some new person goes sauntering away" the incarnations have different personalities and mannerisms but their main core heroisms and memories and brainpower stays the same. but it is clear that recent events have some degree of influence over who a timelord regenerates into. the young and goofy 11th was with his friend clara, and changed into 12, a cranky old man, because he knew with clara he didn't have to pretend to be young and goofy anymore. Yana Master saw 10th doctor and said 'well if you can be young and charismatic, so will I" and that's what he became as the Saxon master. Saxon master was 50% women for a while and apparently enjoyed it enough to become the Missy Master (that wasn't stated in the show, but in audio or novel or something).
so when Doctor 13, having just gone through the flux and timeless child and whatever it was that happened in the 59th anniversary special, the doctor regenerates into Doctor 14. who is tired. who needs a break. is exhausted. who wants to see his best friend. but he can't take a break. the universe is constantly under threat by all this bullshit and he can't stop but then he performs binary fission and gets Doctor 15, who is perfectly happy and willing to let doctor 14 retire peacefully and to take care of the universe with his own duplicate tardis.
I love that a doctor gets a happy ending. they found a way to give some characters a happy ending. Doctor 14 lives with Donna and her family now, with his own tardis, and he still goes on little adventures every now and then but now he has a home that isn't just the tardis. I love happy endings.
Overall Rating:
Main Villain: The Celestial Toymaker
Births: television, 14th doctor, 15th doctor, 2nd Tardis
Deaths: two guards were turned into bouncy balls, an artillery crew, an unknown amount of people killed each other, and the toymaker was banished back to the under universe, and the 14th doctor
Birth Rate: there is an unknown net loss of life
Moral of the Story: uhhh idk maybe when you're choosing a game to place the fate of the unvierse all in on, choose a game where your 2 against 1 advantage is actually useful.
Overall Rating: 9.8/10. i also liked this episode a lot. I think i liked it juuust slightly less than the last episode though. I really appreciate that they gave the doctor emotions about all the stuff that has happened to them. and a happy ending. love happy ending. Alternate moral of the story: sometimes people just need a break.
today in doctor who:
the year is 1925 and they have invented the television. the very first image to be broadcast is of course a puppet getting its face melted off by studio lights. i assume this is just a thing that happened in real life.
unfortunately, the toymaker, an omnipotent godbeing who exists beyond the universe and for whom physics and matter and energy are meaningless, gave that puppet a soul, and thus its insane giggling from the television recording is now imprinted in every television screen, forever. phone screen. computer screen. every screen. because the first television screen had a cursed puppet on it. even though the manufacturing of any screen has nothing at all to do with what happens to the first screen. also all these screens have the giggle sound even though that should be associated with speakers and not all screens have speakers attached to them.
then, in 2023 the super tv satellite has gone up, the one able to connect internet and tv to literally anywhere on earth. specifically because wifi is now global and is able to affect all humans, everyone is going insane. wait i thought the giggle was on the screens, not the wifi signals? and no one went insane before this point, just only right at that time?
anyway, this allows the tv screen giggle to affect all people's brain to become violent and irrational (and more so if they already were). in fact, if you overlap the brainwave pattern associated with this mental madness and the musical notation of the cursed giggle, youll find that they match perfectly. and no one figured this out for 2 days until donna figures it out two seconds after looking at all the info
im choosing to think of this as the toymaker altering the way logic would apply here, rather than choosing to think of this as dumb. no one really questions it, and i barely questioned it until i thought about it some. however, everyone stops being crazy the moment the toymaker is banished back to the playtime universe so, yeah, convoluted but within reason for the toymaker's powers
the dude is literally here to have fun. and honestly, so am i and i am having fun! the point is to be silly and illogical, so yeah! i like it !
yeah, thinking of it like that, im glad the show managed to embrace the absurdity that is standard for the show, and even make it a plot point kinda!
anyway... so how did the doctor beat the toymaster this time? so first the toymaster murders the doctor with a laser, but instead of regenerating like normal, the next doctor, doctor #15 pops out of him like an amoeba dividing, while the other half remains unchanged as #14. they say " oh! bigeneration! i thought that was just a myth!" and immediately move on.
meanwhile in 1950 when the 1st doctor regenerated into the 2nd doctor...
fans of the show "wtf?? regeneration? he just turns into a different guy? he could just do that this whole time?" so that reflects how i think about bigeneration and im choosing to get over it now because, honestly, why not. maybe they'll explain it more later. maybe not. but for now, sure okay bigeneration is a pleasant surprise because now there are two doctors
so while the toymaker doesn't necessarily follow the rules of physics, he follows the rules of play. he must accept any challenges to games, and he literally would not and could not cheat
meaning that now the two doctors can challenge him to a game and it will be 2 vs 1, which is a great advantage
they then proceeded to choose a game where being a team of two is a disadvantage.
they played catch.
rules.
throw the ball at each other.
1a. you gotta throw in a way that is feasible for the next player to be able to catch
if you drop the ball, you lose.
2a. you gotta catch balls thrown at you that are feasible to catch. ie, no dodging the ball instead of catching them
you must play using your regular human physical abilities. thank goodness or the toymaker could just teleport to never lose
so in a game with 1 loser, if you ignore physical prowess, you got a 2/3 chance of the toymaker winning. shoulda picked a different game! also doesn't help that during the times that the doctor throws to the doctor, he throws it like a maniac. "hey im on your team!"
anyway they beat the toymaker without any trickery or cleverness. just by throwing a ball better
--------------------------------
Timu — 12/13/2023 11:10 PM
Quote:||ill finish this tomorrow im sleeping.
Timu — 12/15/2023 6:42 AM
Quote:||some fun highlights!
there is a guy
Digimon World Enthusiast Jac ?? — 12/15/2023 6:48 AM
Quote:oh cool a guy
Timu — 12/15/2023 6:49 AM
Quote:thank you jacquerel
thats literally all i managed to write last night and i came back this morning to find exactly that and thought it was funny enough to just post as is
Digimon World Enthusiast Jac ?? — 12/15/2023 6:55 AM
Quote:you were right
--------------------------------------
there is a guy who gets turned into a puppet. so we have his human head photoshopped onto a puppet body and that was fun
there's a scene where a voice calls for help from a dark corner, and Donna says "okay, i'm coming to help, but if this is a trick, I will kill you."
and that is exactly what happened. It was the mother puppet (and kid puppets) and they attacked Donna so Donna smashed the mother puppet to pieces against the wall and threatened the children puppets to back off.
it was great
Some elaboration on the 'madness' that has overtaken the human population... have you ever had intrusive thoughts? it is made clear that the violence and anger is inside everyone, the madness just gets rid of the rationality and morality that people use to change their minds, to be willing to see reason, to not let the intrusive thoughts win, to not act impulsively, to choose to do the right thing instead. "it makes everyone think that they are right"
the Toymaker held a fun puppet show that had a brief recap of major events since the season 4 with the tenth doctor and donna's original run. it is a great scene
https://youtu.be/zmVXpjT3hL4?si=zKNBpfxFYi2nreJZ
i appreciate that they are treating what happened to the three companions of the moffat era (seasons 5 to 10) with like, not just ignoring what happened to them, cause, while yeah they technically survived and ended up living a life of some sort, what happened to them was still tragic. what happened to Donna back in season 4 was tragic too. and while the flux storyline tv episodes for doctor 13 weren't great enough to be memorable, what happened in them, the events that took place in them, still happened, and weren't insignificant. for the doctor, what happened to his lost companions and during the flux and timeless child, was traumatic. and the show just moved on. and in the 14th doctor era he's slowing down, seeing his old friend again, and finally talking about and opening up about the harrowing experiences they've gone through.
it's sorta unclear how much the personality changes when the doctor regenerates. "it's like becoming a new person. like dying and then some new person goes sauntering away" the incarnations have different personalities and mannerisms but their main core heroisms and memories and brainpower stays the same. but it is clear that recent events have some degree of influence over who a timelord regenerates into. the young and goofy 11th was with his friend clara, and changed into 12, a cranky old man, because he knew with clara he didn't have to pretend to be young and goofy anymore. Yana Master saw 10th doctor and said 'well if you can be young and charismatic, so will I" and that's what he became as the Saxon master. Saxon master was 50% women for a while and apparently enjoyed it enough to become the Missy Master (that wasn't stated in the show, but in audio or novel or something).
so when Doctor 13, having just gone through the flux and timeless child and whatever it was that happened in the 59th anniversary special, the doctor regenerates into Doctor 14. who is tired. who needs a break. is exhausted. who wants to see his best friend. but he can't take a break. the universe is constantly under threat by all this bullshit and he can't stop but then he performs binary fission and gets Doctor 15, who is perfectly happy and willing to let doctor 14 retire peacefully and to take care of the universe with his own duplicate tardis.
I love that a doctor gets a happy ending. they found a way to give some characters a happy ending. Doctor 14 lives with Donna and her family now, with his own tardis, and he still goes on little adventures every now and then but now he has a home that isn't just the tardis. I love happy endings.
Overall Rating:
Main Villain: The Celestial Toymaker
Births: television, 14th doctor, 15th doctor, 2nd Tardis
Deaths: two guards were turned into bouncy balls, an artillery crew, an unknown amount of people killed each other, and the toymaker was banished back to the under universe, and the 14th doctor
Birth Rate: there is an unknown net loss of life
Moral of the Story: uhhh idk maybe when you're choosing a game to place the fate of the unvierse all in on, choose a game where your 2 against 1 advantage is actually useful.
Overall Rating: 9.8/10. i also liked this episode a lot. I think i liked it juuust slightly less than the last episode though. I really appreciate that they gave the doctor emotions about all the stuff that has happened to them. and a happy ending. love happy ending. Alternate moral of the story: sometimes people just need a break.
![[Image: egg005.png?raw=1]](https://www.dropbox.com/s/cm0pzbv31rhi5da/egg005.png?raw=1){kind=small}