(NB: I'll be filling in the holes where I did not get previous episode reviews up before starting the blog. Right now I think I'll time them for Saturday Morning/Afternoons, but that may change. This is the original text, not edited for dates.)
It’s the Sunday after Whoday, so it’s time for my regular feature on the episode. I’ve been doing these in my brief thoughts live blogging manner rather than synopsis and reaction, but that may change in the future. As always spoilers abound, so if you haven’t watched don’t read yet.
This is the second part of a two parter, so we’ll be looking at the story as a whole at the bottom.
Here we go:
1) A passion for Beethoven!
2) Yay classical music and the Doctor!
3) Where's Beethoven?
4) His family hasn't heard of him?
5) He doesn't exist? Nooooooooo!
6) The Bootstrap Paradox.
7) I'll google it.
8) He brought all his scores to get signed?
9) He copies them all out?
10) The Doctor is Beethoven?
11) Amp...volume up!
12) Rawk our, knocks on the door by fate!
13) And guitars in the theme!
14) And here we are...before the flood.
15) I think the Doctor likes O'Donnell.
16) 1980 by taste.
17) Pre Saxon, pre Ministry of War?
18) Aww, cute excuse.
19) It's bigger on the inside fangirling!
20) She can be so prim and proper, too.
21) They totes love each other...and she doesn't know he feels the same way. Oh shit.
22) Height of the cold war, this is a training ground...and there's the ship.
23) Only it's not the pilot...it's a hearse.
24) For...the Fisher King
25) No markings.
26) And there's our Tivolian, the funeral director.
27) What was she looking at?
28) And here's some updated Tivolian history.
29) My first proper alien...and he's an idiot...
30) That sounds incredibly disgustingly kinky and not in a good way.
31) Awww...how sweet. Lunn wants to know how to make Clara feel better.
32) The Doctor is saying something different...
33) Ring ring ring...phone call!
34) Oh damn...that was brink of crying Clara.
35) Don't self analyse, Doctor.
36) ANGRY CLARA!
37) Oh goddess, the feels.
38) I know these feels.
39) Great acting from Clara.
40) And...Oh Hades, the Fisher King is gone.
41) And there's numbers...burned into...
42) WHAT THE FUCK?
43) Inside of Capaldi head and not a fuckity fuck to be seen.
44) And...He's opening the Faraday Cage.
45) Shades of The Almost People.
46) Landscape to portrait mode so easily. Love modern tech.
47) New message.
48) What?
49) What?
50) WHAT?
51) The chamber will open tonight.
52) Clara sarcasm. I like that dig.
53) O'Donnell is being left behind?
54) Two people want her to stay behind.
55) And the Doctor...I do not like that look.
56) Oh no...dead Prentice.
57) Holy tracks.
58) And scream. Holy Hades.
59) DO NOT SPLIT UP!
60) DO NOT LOOK!
61) DO NOT BREATHE!
62) GAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
63) Good lord it's hyuge!
64) O'DONNELL, DO NOT STEP OUT!
65) You stepped out!
66) Why?
67) Damn it I liked you!
68) Oh, O'Donnell :-(
69) *crying now*
70) Oh, pissed is pissed.
71) Too much Danny Pink in his dialogue.
72) O'Donnell ghost :-(
73) And she sees the phone, of course.
74) Bye bye phone.
75) Oh, that's too Time Lord Victorious.
76) And...Cloister bells.
77) And...we're still in the valley, 1980.
78) 30 minutes into the past.
79) He's alive! No, he's just not dead yet!
80) You can't just go back and cut off tragedy at the root.
81) We don't have that right.
82) Oh.
83) Oh...
84) Ohhhhhh.....................
85) :-(
86) And now we know what she looked at.
87) Oh, O'Donnell.
88) Lunn wasn't allowed inside the hearse, and so he's immune to the ghosts because the message isn't inside him.
89) And Cass does not like that idea one bit.
90) Pissed Cass is pissed.
91) Tick tock tick tock...no choice now, gotta face the Fisher King.
92) Didn't need anyone to translate that? Neither did I.
93) And now he's ready.
94) Spookily lit church.
95) And into the basement...
96) Introduction time.
97) That voice...
98) Sounds like The House at first, but...
99) Corey Taylor from Slipknot!
100) Stomp stomp stomp.
101) And the chamber is powered on in the base. Shit.
102) A conclave of ghosts...
103) Lunn walks into their midst, and...they can't touch him.
104) Drain oceans, and enslave humanity...typical plan.
105) And the Doctor is recognised as a Time Lord.
106) There's the phone.
107) IT'S A TRAP!
108) Where's Admiral Akbar when you need him.
109) In shadow, terrifying.
110) In light...fucking terrifying!
111) Clara, you've been out Clara-ed.
112) Fucking hell, the thing is like 9 feet tall!
113) It LOOMS!!!
114) Oh, mouth...that does not look...nope, won't say.
115) Clara, you're splitting up. You said not to split up.
116) Idiot...at least you admit it.
117) Oh god.
118) This is the worst.
119) I mean, chase scenes in slo mo are horrible.
120) But this one makes sense because she can't heat.
121) And the tension is killing me.
122) We can hear him...Cass can't.
123) Oh, mouthy!Doc.
124) So Seventh Doctor.
125) Violation of the laws of life and death.
126) This is where your story ends.
127) No no no.
128) Cass, do something please.
129) Feel the floor...
130) Neat effect, this...
131) NICE MOVE!!!!!!
132) Sneaky Doctor!
133) That's the thing about knowing you're going to die...you've got nothing left to lose.
134) Fisher King outside...HUGE!
135) LOVE the costume!
136) Reminds me of the haemovores and the Destroyer.
137) The Doctor lied!
138) Shock horror.
139) Bye bye dam?
140) Bye bye dam.
141) Opening...
142) Bye bye fisher king.
143) And...It's the Doctor. Who was surprised?
144) And now the ghosts are heading away...to...
145) The Faraday Cage.
146) And Doctor!Ghost was...a hologram. Of course.
147) Memory wipe.
148) Oh, Bennett.
149) :-(
150) The doctor doesn't understand, but he's sweet about it.
151) Clara knows. Personally.
152) Empathy from the Doctor.
153) Oh, wow...Bennett...
154) Awwwww....feels!
155) *sniffles*
156) Reverse engineering the narrative.
157) When did I first have those ideas, Clara?
158) Who composed Beethoven's Fifth?
OK, my thoughts...
We had an amazing supporting cast, and I genuinely cared for everyone save Prentice the Tivolian and Pritchard the cockwomble from the petrol company. It was genuinely upsetting to see O’Donnell die. I was very much broken up about it...because Bennett apparently never told her he loved her...and she never told him. Though it was obvious. So that ending scene, where he asks Lunn to please tell Cass to tell her the truth was so poignant and beautiful...and to see the Doctor at a loss on how to handle things, but actually be humane about it (his tone of voice was actually wounded when he said ‘I don’t understand) was such growth from him.
So much Seven these past two episodes...shades of Battlefield and The Curse of Fenric throughout. The Fisher King was part of this too, with a costume design that evoked the Haemovores and the Destroyer with much better budgetary allotments.
Capaldi was brilliant, and I love that music has become such a big part of the Doctor’s personality again. Jenna was also very good, doing a lot of great facial acting and really emoting strongly. I loved Corey Taylor’s voice as the Fisher King...those screams were amazing.
Storywise...ups and downs, but reasonably strong. Not as powerful as the series opening Dalek story, but still solid Who. Base under siege is a standard trope, and as far as I’m concerned, this did it better than Warriors of the Deep by far.
And next week we get Maisie Williams :-)
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