14:20 I actually don't think it's impossible to have a character be both a well-realised character and a mystery box. When we first met River Song in the 'Silence in the Library' two-parter, Moffat *nailed* this. Both the mystery and the character were front and centre in that story. (Sadly he later fell into the same trap he did with Clara - focusing more on River the mystery, while River the character devolved to a catchprase-spewing caricature. But he *did* manage it at first).
Everyday things Doctor Who has made deadly: Plastic (1973 onwards) The Weakest Link and Big Brother (2005) Christmas decorations (2005) 50s TVs (2006) Scarecrow (2007) Statues (2007 onwards) Shadows (2008) Water (2009) WiFi (2013 and 2020) Bubble Wrap (2018)
@@Mgooy thanks, I've been wanting to do this for a while for some reason but when I actually commented my mind went blank beyond the obvious eg: Autons and Weeping Angels. Also there's specific TV shows in Bad Wolf.
Yeah, this is where Series 7 started to go downhill for me. I love Clara as a companion post-Day of the Doctor, but in Series 7B, she really had it rough. If they had just got rid of the multiple introductions and the whole "Impossible Girl" mystery, and simply introduced her as the school teacher working at Coal Hill who just so happened to come across the Doctor shortly after losing Amy & Rory, it would've worked so much better and Clara, as a character, would've been much more warmly accepted than she had been initially. Honestly, Series 7B Clara and post-Day of the Doctor Clara felt like two very different people to me.
Funny side note, there was a movie made in the mid ‘90’s called Downtime that acts as a sort of bridge between Web of Fear and Bells of St. John. It’s not an official release, but it just happens to include the Brigadier, Sarah Jane Smith, Victoria Waterfield, UNIT, and yes, the Intelligence, our first introduction to a much younger Kate Stewart. It’s very old Who style effects w/‘90’s style production, but rather good for all that. There are even some scenes that will remind you of School Reunion.
I like 7B Clara, we get to see her flesh out over the rest of the season. The doctor doesn't treat Clara as anything but a mystery box but that's kinda the point. The show itself does give Clara quite some depth but people keep on mistaking the doctor treating Clara like a mystery box to the show treating Clara like a mystery box.
At this point in the show, we're seeing the show through the Doctor's eyes. And Clara had no personality in season 7, she did nothing to make us reevaluate that we should discount the Doctor's POV. And then he got all weird and flirty with her at times, which made it worse.
I think the best interaction between Smith and 'Clara prime' is with her as a young girl on some swings in the trailer/prequel minisode for this episode.
Personally, I think Clara was something of a missed opportunity. I mean, come on. She's all throughout his time stream, this could've been a really interesting and unique companion dynamic.
After The Snowmen, After the mini prequel films, finally The Doctor locates a Clara. There is much we don't know about Clara and why she has appeared twice (three times unbeknownst to The Doctor) on 3 separate timelines. She APPEARS typical when he finally finds her, although perhaps she found HIM while dialing tech support back to the 12th century (we find out how towards the end of the 8th series). I really enjoyed this one. A LOT. I love that it caught up with our era and our common creature comforts and exploited them to the fullest. I thought it was clever. I thought it didn't insult the intelligence when the lights went on in the immediate vicinity during a citywide blackout, the single shot from location to TARDIS to location, the reveal at the end (I know you don't like those mystery boxes. I don't mind as long as they lead to a good payoff). It's fine if nobody shares my enjoyment of this episode. Fans tout eps I find to be a complete waste of time. Diversity is the spice of life :)
I've always loved this episode for some reason. I think I just have a lot of fun watching it, seeing Smith's curiosity for Clara and his new costume and Tardis. Plus I love a lot of moments of it like the airplane scene, riding up the shard, the bit where the Doctor and Clara ride out of the Tardis by the Thames and the show acknowledges that people do notice the Tardis when its in a busy place. :)
A good critique, as usual. For me this story is OK to watch but not great overall. An additional point about Clara is that, from what I've heard, the actress didn't know her character any better than the viewers did: Moffat didn't let her into his secrets, so she was blindly following the script. No wonder she seems inscrutable: there's actually nothing under the surface. I think the whole Clara experiment was a mistake, and she should have started and finished as the character we see in "The Snowmen", with no other incarnations or Impossible Girl nonsense. Moffat was trying to be too clever. The function of Doctor Who companions is to be ordinary people (from whatever era they come from), contrasting with the Doctor and the other lifeforms he encounters.
Victorian Clara was good because she could be the ultimate fish out of water and ask all the questions without just being seen as a bit thick as she genuinely wouldn't understand what's going on in 21st century Earth. Modern day Clara is a sassy plot device.
yeah Jenna did state that her character was kept secretive and she just sort of went along with it in series 7. series 8 onwards though she said she got to know this character more and that's why series 8 and 9 Clara felt like a normal person but started to develop (felt like a brand new character so she could grasp Clara more). Basically Moffat kept series 7 Clara all secretive and mysterious so Jenna or anyone else didn't really get the character. But i think Jenna did the best she could and she's become my favourite actress in recent years.
@@EmpireEmployeeRick: Yes, I liked Jenna Coleman; and I wasn't criticizing her, I was criticizing Moffat's treatment of her character. Steven Moffat was probably the best writer that Doctor Who's ever had, and perhaps even the best showrunner, but nevertheless he had flaws and made mistakes, not being superhuman.
@@jonathan.palfrey I 100% agree! Moffat is just like any other writer, he has good and bad episodes/ characters/ arcs etc. I completely agree with what your saying :)
It makes sense that Jenna wouldn't know the truth about her character, because Clara wasn't supposed to know until she puts it together in The Name of the Doctor. But Moffat didn't give Jenna anything to work with until then either.
Clara - u nailed it!... best character review on her I have seen... and why she didnt work. You can have mysterious characters, but you have to give them depth - I don't think Clara ever had any - which is a shame because she was actually really good - but maybe Amy was a hard act to follow??
They should’ve given the Spoonheads some sort of obvious paralysis power to explain why people don’t run. Like, they flick their hand and then you can’t move. It’s such an easy fix.
The hacking people thing is quite linked as it directly part of the solution (when the robot doctor increases one of the workers obedience so he would listen to his boss)
I have seen on several sources that the Victorian Clara was supposed to be the new companion. If that is true, then Bells of St John might have been written before they decided to change her character. When they decided to go with The Impossible Girl story arc, they patched the script to have Clara and the Doctor not know each other. They just forgot to put in the character development for Clara, because is was supposed to have already happened. I have to agree this episode fell short. The worst crime was the poor development of Clara. I thought the ride up the side of the Shard was absurd but fun. At the time it was the newest and tallest building in London.
I personally love this episode. Love the introduction to Clara who is my personal favourite new who companion (mainly because i love jenna herself). also love the idea of killer wifi. love matt's new costume and i think its just a fun, clever little tale. 8/10
I haven't watched this episode in a long time, but I don't remember having a lot of positive feelings about it. I think the 'remote controlled feelings' storyline could have been a great way to give clara some characterization - two birds, one stone! Have people be uploaded, but they carry on, only their emotions and reactions are being controlled by the network. Give Clara some characterization by having one of her kids be tagged, and acting strangely and she notices! Then she has a reason to work with the Doctor, and we how this Clara feels/relates to events/people. I like her much more with 12, but that could also be because once the Impossible Girl storyline is done, it stops being relevant to the story, and she gets to be her own person.
Basically, Oswin and VictorianClara were actual characters, but ModernClara was more of a plot point until after we found out what the answer to the mystery was (and FWIW, I didn't really like the answer we were given much, either).
14:40 It's also that he was working on this, Sherlock series 3 and the Fiftieth anniversary at the same time; he's gone on the record wishing that he'd let one of them go.
Moffat said himself, he’s disappointed in how Series 7 went because he was too focused on Sherlock at the time. The BBC messed around with the series splitting it in half again. I get they wanted it to be a ‘special Series’ because it was the one leading up to the 50th hence the new titles being nostalgic and giving everything a new feel in the snowmen but the whole series felt so jarring and uneven. I try to remind myself that in asylum of the daleks that Claras story starts here and we will find out by the name of the Doctor why. I could ramble on... the tile for starters really bares nothing to the entire episode itself apart from a few minute scene at the start! I do really like this episode as I love those Earth bound alien stories but what was the point of introducing Clara’s diary and this family for none of it to even matter by Time of the Doctor. Suddenly she’s a teacher, has a flat and her dads a different actor 🤦🏻♂️ who we never even see again yet he was a big part of her life.... why did Clara become a teacher? Why did she leave the mainlands? I know there was a book that explained these things but onscreen it’s never addressed and it’s these little things that grind my gears. Moffat can’t really do companion families justice, expect for Ponds in the Tardis with River and the Doctor.
As I understand it, the original plan was for The Snowmen Clara to be *the* Clara but they got cold feet (pun intended :P) and made her yet another feisty young modern-day UK companion. That's why we get this whole thing where they have to backpedal to establish who *this* Clara is. Personally I wish they'd stuck with the original plan - we already had an affinity for that Clara and a good feel for who she was. re: Clara becoming a teacher, the show kinda implies that it's a natural outgrowth of her interest in children. But I suspect it was largely down to the same thing: She wasn't originally meant to be *the* Clara and they were left trying to backfill some actual character for her. Overall I think it was probably the right call though - it fleshed out her character well and established interconnections with the wider setting that opened up story options.
My theory has always been that Moffat was too busy with the Fiftieth to really showrun the back end of season 7. It was such a HUGE deal, in a way that we've mostly forgotten.
Maurine T yeah I can agree with that. I think he spoke about how stressful he found it on a video the on the Doctor Who fan show on TH-cam; he said he didn’t even know who was going to be in it when they asked him to write it! Crazy!
Making Clara this incredible mysterious, nigh cosmic being was a mistake! That's the Doctor's role. The role of the companion is to be our point of view; To be a stand-in for us mere mortals!
Just little things about Clara annoys me. Her family mainly. These kids never show up again in series 8 OR series 9. Her family never shows up ever again apart from 2 lines from her nan in series 8. Something that RTD distinctly did better in my opinion were fleshing out the families and side characters of companions.
I didn't at the time and I don't now have any problem whatsoever with the mysterious, un-fleshed-out character of Clara. It's always amusing for me, therefore, when other people do.
6:01 There's a rather fun Doctor Who novel called "Only Human" which explores a similar idea. It features (amongst other things) a pharmacologically-advanced human society who've developed instant mood-regulating drugs and whose habitual reaction to any emotional stimulus is to hit the right button to tamp it down. This proves roughly as beneficial as you might imagine when they have to respond to man-eating monsters...
Alright here me out, here’s a better plot than just inserting herself into the doctors timeline for Clara. A combination of the multi-verse, and the particles that zapped Donna into the tardis. We already know about the multiverse from Eccelstons era, so it’s not that big of a jump to assume that there are multiple other earths. The story goes that a few of the Claras on other earths have a bit of those particles in her, and one day when she’s a small child, the particles activate and she gets sent through time, honing into the doctors universe. But there’s not enough particles to fully transport her to the Doctor, so she gets plopped somewhere in his timeline. That’s why Oswin was dead before the doctor found her, why would she zap herself back just to get murdered? And this way also tied up loose ends for why there aren’t more. And the Clara the Doctors with doesn’t have to be called anywhere cause she’s already in the Doctors timeline. Whatcha think?
The wifi thing is a fear upon many. People are afraid how much control it has over you. Or literally Hoovering your soul. Controlling you. Changing you. It plays on that. The weird continuity from the snowman and bells of st John being so far apart but it's also the next eppisode and it being the same villain, is the same between the husbands of river song, and doctor mysterio.
Loved this when I first saw it, but I haven't seen it since. Might be a good time for a rewatch. Lots of neat ideas, especially the set up for Missy (which it might not have initially been, but it got retconned and there's no reason it can't work), and the use of the Great Intelligence. But, I am very biased in favor of Richard E. Grant. I'd have loved him as the Doctor, like he was in Scream of the Shalka. Clara's intro reminds me a bit more of some of the classic series companion intros, where we have a random person and don't get a lot about them right away (Dodo and Katarina especially).
The fundamental definition of a statue is that it can't move. The fundamental definition of a shadow is that it isn't physical. These monsters are built around contradiction. *How is soul sucking in any way thematically relevant to Wi-Fi??* If the Slitheen sucked out and stored human minds, it'd be equally as generic and disconnected a gimmick.
@@k1tkat-kate The problem is that's an abstract concept. Its not a fear, it's an annoyance. A statue doing the one thing it fundamentally isn't supposed to do is scary. Wifi sucking your soul is abstract. There's nothing about that which is particular to the wifi.
This episode kinda reminds me of Westworld, how the main villain lady whips out an iPad and can edit everyone around her like they’re hosts, just reminds me of the behind the scenes of the park. I half expect her to say “come back online” “would you lie to me Dolores?” Random comment lmao. Watch Westworld everybody.
i do think the little girl regression part did have some (albeit quite loose) resonance to the theming. the wifi is all about connectivity, security and privacy. to imagine a child being ‘hacked’, physically and emotionally disconnected from her protectors fits somewhat into it. i would have liked to see it played out a bit more for sure, but i dont agree it is entirely unrelated tbh.
15:18 I dislike that moment especially because how they give her computer skills in the show implies that she should have relatively top tier computing skills and they do nothing with it ever. Even into Capaldi's run they never show her being proficient with any kind of tech, alien or otherwise. Wasted opportunity.
I always thought the reason it’s never used later is because all the people that were “hacked” were reset to factory settings, so Clara is back to knowing very little about computers
@@minatoarisatofrompersona3440 I suppose that's a good explanation but I still would have liked for Clara to keep the knowledge. Like, explain that she kept the knowledge because it's the doctor that pulled her out of the system and not the corporation.
I never got to like Clara. Personally, I think she's one of the worst companions in Doctor Who history. However, this isn't a reflection on Jenna Coleman. I later much preferred her as Bonnie. If only Bonnie had replaced Clara...
I agree with the point about Jenna. it certainly isn't her fault. she did the best with what she was given for sure and has become my personal favourite actress in recent years with stuff she's done recently. :)
@@calumbishop7082 I don't think that that's down to the actor so much as the writing, though. Clara does a lot better during Twelve's run, but she also doesn't actually get fleshed out as a character until Twelve's run. For most of her run on 7B you could've just swapped in Amy and no-one would've noticed the difference.
This introduces the version of Clara that I do not like. She's written in a totally unlikable manner - as you say she's so shallow and empty. Jenna's performance isn't right yet (she plays it all so flippantly like she's aware she's a "feisty genre female") and she and Matt bring out the worst in one another. It took until Deep Breath before I actually cared about her. I still quite like the episode as it felt quite fresh at the time, it had a nice spring vibe - I do like the plane interlude. It's very disposable but watchable.
Jenna wasn't at her best in series 7 as she didn't understand her character as moffat kept Clara a mystery, even from Jenna herself. but i still think she did well enough with what she was given. series 8 onwards though is where she's great imo
I think this could have worked better as a 2-parter: part 1 establishes what 21st Century Clara is actually like, and builds up the whole wifi threat, but *doesn't* show the Spoonheads, we just know that *something* is happening to people offscreen. I feel like the thing with the wifi sucking people's minds out was probably an attempt to play into fears about internet companies gathering information on people, that kind of thing. It could probably be rewritten to do that better, especially if there's more time for build-up Part 2 would be the more tense, action-packed part where Clara gets uploaded, the Doctor is figuring out what's going on and confronting the people behind the plot. And maybe the cliffhanger between the two parts would be the Spoonhead reveal That would give both stories more room to breathe
I'm not a huge fan of Smith with Clara- she works better with Capaldi. I think I really could have loved her if she had left after Last Christmas like she thought about doing. I think she stayed too long and I borderline disliked her in her last season. Bill was a huge breath of fresh air and she gave Capaldi a different energy to bounce off.
I love Clara to death, but you are 100% right in your analysis - this was not a good introduction. I enjoy the episode, but the Clara element of it just doesn't work well. And thank you for not Clara bashing and being reasonable and thoughtful about it. I've had enough of people not actually explaining their problems with Clara, simply resorting to "she bad, Moffat can't write women".
It's not that he can't write women. Its that he has a set number of archetypes that he defaults to. The longer you watch his work the more you noticed the repetition. In and of itself any one female character isn't bad but you look at them all together and Moffar starts to look extremely unoriginal.
What Bad Wolf said. Moffat is very talented in many ways but he also has a number of tropes that he tends to fall back on a lot. Almost all his female characters being sassy, flirty and witty is one of them. In Time of the Doctor he even extends it to the freaking *Pope.* -_-
The people to blame for modern Clara are the bBC executives - blaming Moffat is a mistake. Victorian Clara was supposed to be the companion, but the execs got cold feet on a non-contemporary companion and put their foot down, leading to a lot of last minute rewrites. The hardest hit episode probably being Gaimans, as it was written for Victorian Clara and her two child wards - and is why the rather rushed modern Clara is looking after kids of friends is shoved in there as otherwise Gaimans episode would need completely rewritten to remove the kids. Moffat did put the work in, he put the work in with Victorian Clara then got screwed by the execs. Blame should be laid where it belongs. At end of the day, showrunner or not Moffat is still just a writer for hire and the bosses are the BBC.
@@CouncilofGeeks I shall try to hunt down the source. It was in relation to the Gaiman episode and the need to rewrite it. If you watch that episode, besides needing the two kids in it, you may notice that a lot of Clara's dialogue is written in the more clipped speaking style of Victorian Clara too.
@@CouncilofGeeks Not the original article I read it in, but pretty close, conformation Id say from BBCAmerica -- 'This story was first intended to be the origin tale for the Doctor’s new companion, a Victorian governess called Beryl Montague. The Second Doctor had traveled with a companion from the same era-fittingly named Victoria-but the production team were concerned that it would cause a lot of scripting headaches to have her so far behind the times, compared to her audience. It would slow down the already tight 45 minutes of storytelling if the Doctor had to keep explaining relatively recent technological advances to her.'- now this mentions the 'production team' which would presumably include Moffat to some degree but is mainly the BBCappointed producers. And given the rather late n the day decision to make the change to modern Clara it doesnt seem likely to have been Moffats choice so much as the producers, given the work already put into establishing Victorian Clara. Source- www.bbcamerica.com/anglophenia/2018/02/doctor-who-10-things-you-may-not-know-about-the-snowmen
y'know I haven't watched s7 in a While but the first time I watched this I was directly coming off of the snowmen and twelve year old me thought that seeing the great intelligence again was awesome
NuWho Main Companions: S1-S2 = Rose Tyler & Mikey Smith S3 = Martha Jones S1-S3 = Jack Harkness S4 = Donna Noble S5-S7a = Amy Rose & Rory Williams (Maybe River Song) S7b-S9 = Clara Oswald S10 = Bill Potts & Nardole S8-S10 = The Master/Missy S11-S12 = Yasmin "Yas" Khan, Ryan Sinclair & Graham O'Brian Out of all the companions in NuWho. I like Clara with 12 the most but Clara was just a plot device with 11 so I don't like her much there.
I liked The Bells of St. John. It has a lot of great one-liners. I watch Dr. Who a bit differently as I am slow to accept new Doctors and new companions. I didn't start watching Smith's episodes until Capaldi. I really didn't care for the Ponds, so picked things up at The Snowmen then continued with Bells. It's funny because in the grand scheme of things, I preferred Clara with Smith more than Clara with Capaldi except for a few episodes. She seemed to become an equal rather than a companion and, for me, that takes away a bit of the underlying main story.
I agree with u on the the episode it is a stretch to make wifi scary they kind of sell it on the concept of someone faking a legitimate wifi network and being able to hack devices I do also agree that this introduction of Clara works better on a rewatch cause of knowing where the character goes no matter how bad the journey actually turned out to be it like we got 3 Clara primes we first get nanny Clara with Matt and no mention of teaching or in college for teaching then with peter capaldi in season 8 we have teacher Clara and we scratch our heads trying to figure out why she is a teacher then she becomes inconsistent in season 9 being whatever the episode needs her to be and Jenna to me had the best chemistry with Matt cause he really sold that the mystery box element was getting to him like he couldn't quite put his finger on the solution of the impossible girl mystery
There's another mystery box character who did work, though. River. The difference is, she knew her own mystery and conducted herself accordingly. I really think that's the key difference. And while I'm on it, why did Moffat think The Impossible Girl was such a good idea? River was already doing most of what Clara did with a hundred times more style and with a better backstory.
and the worst part is that Moffat has actually proven he can do mystery character, and quite well indeed, River song works really well the first time seeing her, and even better if you're on rewatch (ignoring let's kill hitler bc that one was a bit of a mess so lets just not think about the way they characterized her in it would imply about the character itself), so idk where Moffat went so wrong with Clara, because it really doesn't work the first time around but it starts working on rewatch
I love Celia Imrie A LOT. I still can't decide if I dislike this episode enough for her to be on my too long "guest stars who deserved better" list. Especially when she did so well with the material she got that she kind of makes it work. I go back and forth on that one.
I do try to ignore alot of Clara's characterisation fault. Because I like her. I do wonder if Moffat only intended her to stay until the end of season 7. So just didn't bother thinking too deeply about building her character up. Once it was establish she would be staying on, it was kind of too late to go back change things, so Moffat thought he would just add it in later, and call it character development. Moffat made it clear about the passage of time during Amy and Rory's tenure. We know how much they aged during their travels with the doctor. Not so much with Clara though In my head alot of time had passed between the the time of the doctor and the day of the doctor. A good 5 years in my head. It accounts for Clara's change of personality and complete lifestyle change. I don't recal Clara's age even being mentioned. In bells of st John I'd say shes supposed to be no older that 24. I just can't believe a young woman of her age, intelligence, and education, and also lives with 2 teenagers is that dence about computers. I didn't even finish high school and I've got a good few years on Clara, and even I know more about computers than she did. From her schooling eara computing would have been a compulsory part of her education. Wifi wasn't really a new thing even then. I'm sorry but I'm just not buying she didn't even know how to connect to the wifi. A software or programming issue would have been much more believable. Just another little pet peeve of mine
Because prime video doesn’t put the Christmas specials in each season, I was super lost at this impossible girl stuff and even more confused when it jumped past the 50th anniversary and time of the Doctor to S8. Luckily only got halfway into deep breath before looking up and seeing it skipped those episodes
Kind of an average episode but the scene with Ms. Kizlet at the end gave me chills! The funny thing is that when I first watched this, I never saw the Snowmen! So I was so confused! 😂 I still wish that we got Victorian Clara but modern Clara had her moments. But she didn’t really click with me until she was with Capaldi. Overall, very average but a little bit underrated! Also, I prefer it to The Idiot’s Lantern. And unpopular opinion but I actually like The Idiot’s Lantern. Bells was better tho.
Dumb title, bit too 'Christmas Special' in tone, but frankly it's fun and a more interesting watch than the concept has any right being. Perfectly competent series opener, but *why did we have another series opener in the first place??* I really don't like the structure of this series.
Haha once you run out of old Doctor Who episodes to review, after enough time, we'll reach a point wherein you'll upload a review to a new Doctor Who episode and then a week later you'll be "looking back on it" in a new episode of 'Overdue Doctor Who Review'.
Im writting this comment before watching the video. I know that people don't like this episode but I like it really really much. Lets hope that Nathaniel wont destroy it to the ground xd
Actually paused in the middle of the video because I realized something? The idea that the emotional beat with the woman reverting to childhood after being restored to "Factory Settings" wasn't "in service" to anything felt incorrect to me. It took me a moment to realize. ...it made me Hate the Great Intelligence. Which, given that the Great Intelligence ends up the arc villain and has comparatively understandable motivations in "In the Name of the Doctor" was absoloutly necessary. After the sort of... Chicken or Egg confusion with Dr. Simeon and The Great Intelligence, that moment established that this entity was, in fact, still actively targeting children.
there are only 4 episodes from this half of series 7 i actually like and kind of enjoy and actually look forward to getting to on a rewatch. this is one of them. we only get the kids in small doses (i don't like kids in general and these 2 are annoying so nope) i like the concept as something truly modern that a lot of people fear which is technology taking over and controlling us. the doctor is decent in this. still don't like the costume change or the TARDIS change in this part of the series. Clara i am meh on like shes ok. bit bland at this point in time. its solid and decent for me. not outstanding but decent. sometimes that what i want. its like when your hungry and you don't want a full meal but you just want something that's still enjoyable but simple and decent and you make some toast or something. that's what it is for me. like a good slice of toast episode. weird analogy but it makes sense in my head.
For me this is part of a season that is, for the most part, unwatchable. Clara needed a full season to get fleshed out, and giving a good chunk of the season to Amy and Rory completely gutted her characterization.
It's not amazing, but kinda enjoyable. Clara is a boring blank slate who will only get worse with time and everything about her is terrible (easily the weakest companion introduction in the revival) but the plot, the global scale, the anti-grav bit... all fun. I just wish this was a standalone episode with Victorian Clara (an actual good character) learning about the modern world that doesn't have to serve as the beginning of the crappest character in the entire show and a story arc that would become so bullshit it makes this otherwise entertaining episode a chore to revisit.
I suppose I'm an average boomer (born in 1954) and I've been using the Internet since it started, so I've probably been using it longer than you have. There are plenty of other people around my age and older who could say the same.
But it is Series 7. Season 7 is referring to the first season/series of Pertwee. Season 1: Hello One Season 2 Season 3 Season 4: Bye One, Hello Two Season 5 Season 6: Bye Two Season 7: Hello Three Season 8 Season 9 Season 10 Season 11: Bye Three Season 12: Hello Four Season 13 Season 14 Season 15 Season 16 Season 17 Season 18: Bye Four Season 19: Hello Five Season 20 Season 21: Bye Five, Hello Six Season 22 Season 23: Bye Six Season 24: Hello Seven Season 25 Season 26 Movie: Bye Seven, Hello Eight Series 1 (Season 27): Hello/Bye Nine Series 2 (Season 28): Hello Ten Series 3 (Season 29) Series 4 (Season 30): Bye Ten Series 5 (Season 31): Hello Eleven Series 6 (Season 32) Series 7 (Season 33): Bye Eight, Hello/Bye War, Bye Eleven Series 8 (Season 34): Hello Twelve Series 9 (Season 35) Series 10 (Season 36): Bye Twelve Series 11 (Season 37): Hello Thirteen Series 12 (Season 38): Hello Ruth
14:20 I actually don't think it's impossible to have a character be both a well-realised character and a mystery box. When we first met River Song in the 'Silence in the Library' two-parter, Moffat *nailed* this. Both the mystery and the character were front and centre in that story.
(Sadly he later fell into the same trap he did with Clara - focusing more on River the mystery, while River the character devolved to a catchprase-spewing caricature. But he *did* manage it at first).
Everyday things Doctor Who has made deadly:
Plastic (1973 onwards)
The Weakest Link and Big Brother (2005)
Christmas decorations (2005)
50s TVs (2006)
Scarecrow (2007)
Statues (2007 onwards)
Shadows (2008)
Water (2009)
WiFi (2013 and 2020)
Bubble Wrap (2018)
Various christmas decorations (2005 onward)
Televisions (2006)
Scarecrows (2007)
Old people (2010)
Jedi Spartan 38 would help but I think you got the majority haha
@@Mgooy thanks, I've been wanting to do this for a while for some reason but when I actually commented my mind went blank beyond the obvious eg: Autons and Weeping Angels. Also there's specific TV shows in Bad Wolf.
Bubble wrap (2018)
Cars/car fumes(2008)
Snow(2012)
Yeah, this is where Series 7 started to go downhill for me. I love Clara as a companion post-Day of the Doctor, but in Series 7B, she really had it rough. If they had just got rid of the multiple introductions and the whole "Impossible Girl" mystery, and simply introduced her as the school teacher working at Coal Hill who just so happened to come across the Doctor shortly after losing Amy & Rory, it would've worked so much better and Clara, as a character, would've been much more warmly accepted than she had been initially. Honestly, Series 7B Clara and post-Day of the Doctor Clara felt like two very different people to me.
Tbh S8 is where I started to hate Clara, in S9 I actually liked her quite a bit though.
Funny side note, there was a movie made in the mid ‘90’s called Downtime that acts as a sort of bridge between Web of Fear and Bells of St. John. It’s not an official release, but it just happens to include the Brigadier, Sarah Jane Smith, Victoria Waterfield, UNIT, and yes, the Intelligence, our first introduction to a much younger Kate Stewart.
It’s very old Who style effects w/‘90’s style production, but rather good for all that.
There are even some scenes that will remind you of School Reunion.
In my opinion, they did a better job of giving Adam Mitchell characterisation in the Long Game than they did with Clara in the whole of series 7b.
The fact that you're going to keep on doing these after you catch up to your original reviews of Capaldi's run, is the best news I've had all week!
"did you even hear the word anti-grav?"
"Oh.dear.lord"
Great quote. Rest of the episode is a bit naff, but that but I like quite a bit
I like 7B Clara, we get to see her flesh out over the rest of the season. The doctor doesn't treat Clara as anything but a mystery box but that's kinda the point. The show itself does give Clara quite some depth but people keep on mistaking the doctor treating Clara like a mystery box to the show treating Clara like a mystery box.
At this point in the show, we're seeing the show through the Doctor's eyes. And Clara had no personality in season 7, she did nothing to make us reevaluate that we should discount the Doctor's POV. And then he got all weird and flirty with her at times, which made it worse.
I think the best interaction between Smith and 'Clara prime' is with her as a young girl on some swings in the trailer/prequel minisode for this episode.
I literally rewatched this story the other day. For me, it’s a comfort episode.
Personally, I think Clara was something of a missed opportunity. I mean, come on. She's all throughout his time stream, this could've been a really interesting and unique companion dynamic.
After The Snowmen, After the mini prequel films, finally The Doctor locates a Clara. There is much we don't know about Clara and why she has appeared twice (three times unbeknownst to The Doctor) on 3 separate timelines. She APPEARS typical when he finally finds her, although perhaps she found HIM while dialing tech support back to the 12th century (we find out how towards the end of the 8th series).
I really enjoyed this one. A LOT. I love that it caught up with our era and our common creature comforts and exploited them to the fullest. I thought it was clever. I thought it didn't insult the intelligence when the lights went on in the immediate vicinity during a citywide blackout, the single shot from location to TARDIS to location, the reveal at the end (I know you don't like those mystery boxes. I don't mind as long as they lead to a good payoff).
It's fine if nobody shares my enjoyment of this episode. Fans tout eps I find to be a complete waste of time. Diversity is the spice of life :)
I've always loved this episode for some reason. I think I just have a lot of fun watching it, seeing Smith's curiosity for Clara and his new costume and Tardis. Plus I love a lot of moments of it like the airplane scene, riding up the shard, the bit where the Doctor and Clara ride out of the Tardis by the Thames and the show acknowledges that people do notice the Tardis when its in a busy place. :)
I really wish Smith and Coleman had more really good stories. I for one think they had some pretty good chemistry, but it could have been elevated.
A good critique, as usual. For me this story is OK to watch but not great overall. An additional point about Clara is that, from what I've heard, the actress didn't know her character any better than the viewers did: Moffat didn't let her into his secrets, so she was blindly following the script. No wonder she seems inscrutable: there's actually nothing under the surface. I think the whole Clara experiment was a mistake, and she should have started and finished as the character we see in "The Snowmen", with no other incarnations or Impossible Girl nonsense. Moffat was trying to be too clever. The function of Doctor Who companions is to be ordinary people (from whatever era they come from), contrasting with the Doctor and the other lifeforms he encounters.
Victorian Clara was good because she could be the ultimate fish out of water and ask all the questions without just being seen as a bit thick as she genuinely wouldn't understand what's going on in 21st century Earth. Modern day Clara is a sassy plot device.
yeah Jenna did state that her character was kept secretive and she just sort of went along with it in series 7. series 8 onwards though she said she got to know this character more and that's why series 8 and 9 Clara felt like a normal person but started to develop (felt like a brand new character so she could grasp Clara more). Basically Moffat kept series 7 Clara all secretive and mysterious so Jenna or anyone else didn't really get the character. But i think Jenna did the best she could and she's become my favourite actress in recent years.
@@EmpireEmployeeRick: Yes, I liked Jenna Coleman; and I wasn't criticizing her, I was criticizing Moffat's treatment of her character. Steven Moffat was probably the best writer that Doctor Who's ever had, and perhaps even the best showrunner, but nevertheless he had flaws and made mistakes, not being superhuman.
@@jonathan.palfrey I 100% agree! Moffat is just like any other writer, he has good and bad episodes/ characters/ arcs etc. I completely agree with what your saying :)
It makes sense that Jenna wouldn't know the truth about her character, because Clara wasn't supposed to know until she puts it together in The Name of the Doctor. But Moffat didn't give Jenna anything to work with until then either.
This is the very reason why I liked Bill Potts more because she clicks immediately.
I miss Bill, Twelve and Missy SO MUCH.
@@maurinet2291 And Nardole
@@scaper8 the season 10 TARDIS team was fantastic
The Bells of St. John is basically The Idiot's Lantern- except actually good and doesn't have a morally bad moment at the end of the story.
It feels like it also has an element of Fear Her, but implemented better.
It also reminds me a lot of 'Downtime'. :)
Me it reminded much more at the BAD WOLF-story line episode with the ENTERTAINMENT SPACE STATION
Clara - u nailed it!... best character review on her I have seen... and why she didnt work. You can have mysterious characters, but you have to give them depth - I don't think Clara ever had any - which is a shame because she was actually really good - but maybe Amy was a hard act to follow??
They should’ve given the Spoonheads some sort of obvious paralysis power to explain why people don’t run. Like, they flick their hand and then you can’t move. It’s such an easy fix.
The hacking people thing is quite linked as it directly part of the solution (when the robot doctor increases one of the workers obedience so he would listen to his boss)
I have seen on several sources that the Victorian Clara was supposed to be the new companion. If that is true, then Bells of St John might have been written before they decided to change her character. When they decided to go with The Impossible Girl story arc, they patched the script to have Clara and the Doctor not know each other. They just forgot to put in the character development for Clara, because is was supposed to have already happened. I have to agree this episode fell short. The worst crime was the poor development of Clara. I thought the ride up the side of the Shard was absurd but fun. At the time it was the newest and tallest building in London.
I personally love this episode. Love the introduction to Clara who is my personal favourite new who companion (mainly because i love jenna herself). also love the idea of killer wifi. love matt's new costume and i think its just a fun, clever little tale. 8/10
I haven't watched this episode in a long time, but I don't remember having a lot of positive feelings about it.
I think the 'remote controlled feelings' storyline could have been a great way to give clara some characterization - two birds, one stone! Have people be uploaded, but they carry on, only their emotions and reactions are being controlled by the network. Give Clara some characterization by having one of her kids be tagged, and acting strangely and she notices! Then she has a reason to work with the Doctor, and we how this Clara feels/relates to events/people.
I like her much more with 12, but that could also be because once the Impossible Girl storyline is done, it stops being relevant to the story, and she gets to be her own person.
Basically, Oswin and VictorianClara were actual characters, but ModernClara was more of a plot point until after we found out what the answer to the mystery was (and FWIW, I didn't really like the answer we were given much, either).
Barely remember this one, there was a plane at one point... something about Wifi
14:40
It's also that he was working on this, Sherlock series 3 and the Fiftieth anniversary at the same time; he's gone on the record wishing that he'd let one of them go.
I totally agree with your assessment of the character development of Clara! She always felt blah 😑 for me and you put into words the reason . 👍🏾
Moffat said himself, he’s disappointed in how Series 7 went because he was too focused on Sherlock at the time. The BBC messed around with the series splitting it in half again. I get they wanted it to be a ‘special Series’ because it was the one leading up to the 50th hence the new titles being nostalgic and giving everything a new feel in the snowmen but the whole series felt so jarring and uneven. I try to remind myself that in asylum of the daleks that Claras story starts here and we will find out by the name of the Doctor why. I could ramble on... the tile for starters really bares nothing to the entire episode itself apart from a few minute scene at the start! I do really like this episode as I love those Earth bound alien stories but what was the point of introducing Clara’s diary and this family for none of it to even matter by Time of the Doctor. Suddenly she’s a teacher, has a flat and her dads a different actor 🤦🏻♂️ who we never even see again yet he was a big part of her life.... why did Clara become a teacher? Why did she leave the mainlands? I know there was a book that explained these things but onscreen it’s never addressed and it’s these little things that grind my gears. Moffat can’t really do companion families justice, expect for Ponds in the Tardis with River and the Doctor.
As I understand it, the original plan was for The Snowmen Clara to be *the* Clara but they got cold feet (pun intended :P) and made her yet another feisty young modern-day UK companion. That's why we get this whole thing where they have to backpedal to establish who *this* Clara is. Personally I wish they'd stuck with the original plan - we already had an affinity for that Clara and a good feel for who she was.
re: Clara becoming a teacher, the show kinda implies that it's a natural outgrowth of her interest in children. But I suspect it was largely down to the same thing: She wasn't originally meant to be *the* Clara and they were left trying to backfill some actual character for her. Overall I think it was probably the right call though - it fleshed out her character well and established interconnections with the wider setting that opened up story options.
My theory has always been that Moffat was too busy with the Fiftieth to really showrun the back end of season 7. It was such a HUGE deal, in a way that we've mostly forgotten.
Maurine T yeah I can agree with that. I think he spoke about how stressful he found it on a video the on the Doctor Who fan show on TH-cam; he said he didn’t even know who was going to be in it when they asked him to write it! Crazy!
Making Clara this incredible mysterious, nigh cosmic being was a mistake! That's the Doctor's role. The role of the companion is to be our point of view; To be a stand-in for us mere mortals!
12 is nearly here I'm excited give me my grumpy space grampa
Love this episode, especially the score. 👍👌
I've always liked this episode. It's fun and engaging with mag and Clara excelling
Just little things about Clara annoys me. Her family mainly. These kids never show up again in series 8 OR series 9. Her family never shows up ever again apart from 2 lines from her nan in series 8. Something that RTD distinctly did better in my opinion were fleshing out the families and side characters of companions.
I didn't at the time and I don't now have any problem whatsoever with the mysterious, un-fleshed-out character of Clara. It's always amusing for me, therefore, when other people do.
Also brings the fabulous costume change! 👌😉
6:01 There's a rather fun Doctor Who novel called "Only Human" which explores a similar idea. It features (amongst other things) a pharmacologically-advanced human society who've developed instant mood-regulating drugs and whose habitual reaction to any emotional stimulus is to hit the right button to tamp it down. This proves roughly as beneficial as you might imagine when they have to respond to man-eating monsters...
Alright here me out, here’s a better plot than just inserting herself into the doctors timeline for Clara. A combination of the multi-verse, and the particles that zapped Donna into the tardis. We already know about the multiverse from Eccelstons era, so it’s not that big of a jump to assume that there are multiple other earths. The story goes that a few of the Claras on other earths have a bit of those particles in her, and one day when she’s a small child, the particles activate and she gets sent through time, honing into the doctors universe. But there’s not enough particles to fully transport her to the Doctor, so she gets plopped somewhere in his timeline. That’s why Oswin was dead before the doctor found her, why would she zap herself back just to get murdered? And this way also tied up loose ends for why there aren’t more. And the Clara the Doctors with doesn’t have to be called anywhere cause she’s already in the Doctors timeline. Whatcha think?
The wifi thing is a fear upon many. People are afraid how much control it has over you. Or literally Hoovering your soul. Controlling you. Changing you. It plays on that.
The weird continuity from the snowman and bells of st John being so far apart but it's also the next eppisode and it being the same villain, is the same between the husbands of river song, and doctor mysterio.
I have a bit of nostalgia for this episode 7B was the first Doctor DVD I got and I loved Clara and Matt but I get why people don't like it
Same
The Wi-fi works as a quirky sci-fi idea, not as a scary monster.
Loved this when I first saw it, but I haven't seen it since. Might be a good time for a rewatch. Lots of neat ideas, especially the set up for Missy (which it might not have initially been, but it got retconned and there's no reason it can't work), and the use of the Great Intelligence. But, I am very biased in favor of Richard E. Grant. I'd have loved him as the Doctor, like he was in Scream of the Shalka. Clara's intro reminds me a bit more of some of the classic series companion intros, where we have a random person and don't get a lot about them right away (Dodo and Katarina especially).
The fundamental definition of a statue is that it can't move.
The fundamental definition of a shadow is that it isn't physical.
These monsters are built around contradiction. *How is soul sucking in any way thematically relevant to Wi-Fi??* If the Slitheen sucked out and stored human minds, it'd be equally as generic and disconnected a gimmick.
It could be thematically relevant if you're part of an older generation that views an abundance of technology as a loss of humanity...
@@k1tkat-kate The problem is that's an abstract concept. Its not a fear, it's an annoyance. A statue doing the one thing it fundamentally isn't supposed to do is scary. Wifi sucking your soul is abstract. There's nothing about that which is particular to the wifi.
This episode kinda reminds me of Westworld, how the main villain lady whips out an iPad and can edit everyone around her like they’re hosts, just reminds me of the behind the scenes of the park. I half expect her to say “come back online” “would you lie to me Dolores?” Random comment lmao. Watch Westworld everybody.
i do think the little girl regression part did have some (albeit quite loose) resonance to the theming. the wifi is all about connectivity, security and privacy. to imagine a child being ‘hacked’, physically and emotionally disconnected from her protectors fits somewhat into it. i would have liked to see it played out a bit more for sure, but i dont agree it is entirely unrelated tbh.
15:18 I dislike that moment especially because how they give her computer skills in the show implies that she should have relatively top tier computing skills and they do nothing with it ever. Even into Capaldi's run they never show her being proficient with any kind of tech, alien or otherwise. Wasted opportunity.
I always thought the reason it’s never used later is because all the people that were “hacked” were reset to factory settings, so Clara is back to knowing very little about computers
@@minatoarisatofrompersona3440 I suppose that's a good explanation but I still would have liked for Clara to keep the knowledge. Like, explain that she kept the knowledge because it's the doctor that pulled her out of the system and not the corporation.
I never got to like Clara. Personally, I think she's one of the worst companions in Doctor Who history.
However, this isn't a reflection on Jenna Coleman. I later much preferred her as Bonnie. If only Bonnie had replaced Clara...
I agree with the point about Jenna. it certainly isn't her fault. she did the best with what she was given for sure and has become my personal favourite actress in recent years with stuff she's done recently. :)
Honestly she really doesn't work alongside Matt Smith's Doctor. She does a lot better alongside Capaldi.
@@calumbishop7082 I don't think that that's down to the actor so much as the writing, though. Clara does a lot better during Twelve's run, but she also doesn't actually get fleshed out as a character until Twelve's run. For most of her run on 7B you could've just swapped in Amy and no-one would've noticed the difference.
This introduces the version of Clara that I do not like. She's written in a totally unlikable manner - as you say she's so shallow and empty. Jenna's performance isn't right yet (she plays it all so flippantly like she's aware she's a "feisty genre female") and she and Matt bring out the worst in one another. It took until Deep Breath before I actually cared about her.
I still quite like the episode as it felt quite fresh at the time, it had a nice spring vibe - I do like the plane interlude. It's very disposable but watchable.
Jenna wasn't at her best in series 7 as she didn't understand her character as moffat kept Clara a mystery, even from Jenna herself. but i still think she did well enough with what she was given. series 8 onwards though is where she's great imo
I completely agree about Clara.
The Impossible Girl encounters the tinfoil hat conspiracy.
I think this could have worked better as a 2-parter: part 1 establishes what 21st Century Clara is actually like, and builds up the whole wifi threat, but *doesn't* show the Spoonheads, we just know that *something* is happening to people offscreen. I feel like the thing with the wifi sucking people's minds out was probably an attempt to play into fears about internet companies gathering information on people, that kind of thing. It could probably be rewritten to do that better, especially if there's more time for build-up
Part 2 would be the more tense, action-packed part where Clara gets uploaded, the Doctor is figuring out what's going on and confronting the people behind the plot. And maybe the cliffhanger between the two parts would be the Spoonhead reveal
That would give both stories more room to breathe
I'm not a huge fan of Smith with Clara- she works better with Capaldi. I think I really could have loved her if she had left after Last Christmas like she thought about doing. I think she stayed too long and I borderline disliked her in her last season. Bill was a huge breath of fresh air and she gave Capaldi a different energy to bounce off.
I love Clara to death, but you are 100% right in your analysis - this was not a good introduction. I enjoy the episode, but the Clara element of it just doesn't work well.
And thank you for not Clara bashing and being reasonable and thoughtful about it. I've had enough of people not actually explaining their problems with Clara, simply resorting to "she bad, Moffat can't write women".
It's not that he can't write women. Its that he has a set number of archetypes that he defaults to. The longer you watch his work the more you noticed the repetition. In and of itself any one female character isn't bad but you look at them all together and Moffar starts to look extremely unoriginal.
What Bad Wolf said. Moffat is very talented in many ways but he also has a number of tropes that he tends to fall back on a lot. Almost all his female characters being sassy, flirty and witty is one of them. In Time of the Doctor he even extends it to the freaking *Pope.* -_-
The people to blame for modern Clara are the bBC executives - blaming Moffat is a mistake. Victorian Clara was supposed to be the companion, but the execs got cold feet on a non-contemporary companion and put their foot down, leading to a lot of last minute rewrites. The hardest hit episode probably being Gaimans, as it was written for Victorian Clara and her two child wards - and is why the rather rushed modern Clara is looking after kids of friends is shoved in there as otherwise Gaimans episode would need completely rewritten to remove the kids. Moffat did put the work in, he put the work in with Victorian Clara then got screwed by the execs. Blame should be laid where it belongs. At end of the day, showrunner or not Moffat is still just a writer for hire and the bosses are the BBC.
I’ve seen that it was originally going to be Victorian Clara but I can’t find a source that the BBC mandated this couldn’t be the case.
@@CouncilofGeeks I shall try to hunt down the source. It was in relation to the Gaiman episode and the need to rewrite it. If you watch that episode, besides needing the two kids in it, you may notice that a lot of Clara's dialogue is written in the more clipped speaking style of Victorian Clara too.
Petty Tyrant yeah that’s the source I found and Gaiman didn’t say it was because of the BBC.
@@CouncilofGeeks Not the original article I read it in, but pretty close, conformation Id say from BBCAmerica -- 'This story was first intended to be the origin tale for the Doctor’s new companion, a Victorian governess called Beryl Montague. The Second Doctor had traveled with a companion from the same era-fittingly named Victoria-but the production team were concerned that it would cause a lot of scripting headaches to have her so far behind the times, compared to her audience. It would slow down the already tight 45 minutes of storytelling if the Doctor had to keep explaining relatively recent technological advances to her.'- now this mentions the 'production team' which would presumably include Moffat to some degree but is mainly the BBCappointed producers. And given the rather late n the day decision to make the change to modern Clara it doesnt seem likely to have been Moffats choice so much as the producers, given the work already put into establishing Victorian Clara. Source- www.bbcamerica.com/anglophenia/2018/02/doctor-who-10-things-you-may-not-know-about-the-snowmen
I enjoyed all the episodes in 7B. Col War was a weak spot but even that has good entertainment value.
y'know I haven't watched s7 in a While but the first time I watched this I was directly coming off of the snowmen and twelve year old me thought that seeing the great intelligence again was awesome
river was a better mystery character then clara
NuWho Main Companions:
S1-S2 = Rose Tyler & Mikey Smith
S3 = Martha Jones
S1-S3 = Jack Harkness
S4 = Donna Noble
S5-S7a = Amy Rose & Rory Williams (Maybe River Song)
S7b-S9 = Clara Oswald
S10 = Bill Potts & Nardole
S8-S10 = The Master/Missy
S11-S12 = Yasmin "Yas" Khan, Ryan Sinclair & Graham O'Brian
Out of all the companions in NuWho. I like Clara with 12 the most but Clara was just a plot device with 11 so I don't like her much there.
agreed 100%. i mainly like Clara as i adore jenna, but i just think her and 12 was amazing :)
It feels as if they got rid of Amy and Rory simply because, well most Doctors have more than one companion.
I liked The Bells of St. John. It has a lot of great one-liners. I watch Dr. Who a bit differently as I am slow to accept new Doctors and new companions. I didn't start watching Smith's episodes until Capaldi. I really didn't care for the Ponds, so picked things up at The Snowmen then continued with Bells. It's funny because in the grand scheme of things, I preferred Clara with Smith more than Clara with Capaldi except for a few episodes. She seemed to become an equal rather than a companion and, for me, that takes away a bit of the underlying main story.
I agree with u on the the episode it is a stretch to make wifi scary they kind of sell it on the concept of someone faking a legitimate wifi network and being able to hack devices I do also agree that this introduction of Clara works better on a rewatch cause of knowing where the character goes no matter how bad the journey actually turned out to be it like we got 3 Clara primes we first get nanny Clara with Matt and no mention of teaching or in college for teaching then with peter capaldi in season 8 we have teacher Clara and we scratch our heads trying to figure out why she is a teacher then she becomes inconsistent in season 9 being whatever the episode needs her to be and Jenna to me had the best chemistry with Matt cause he really sold that the mystery box element was getting to him like he couldn't quite put his finger on the solution of the impossible girl mystery
I'm already at clara?!?! That means I dont have much left to go. Sad face. Ok here we go.
There's another mystery box character who did work, though. River. The difference is, she knew her own mystery and conducted herself accordingly. I really think that's the key difference. And while I'm on it, why did Moffat think The Impossible Girl was such a good idea? River was already doing most of what Clara did with a hundred times more style and with a better backstory.
and the worst part is that Moffat has actually proven he can do mystery character, and quite well indeed, River song works really well the first time seeing her, and even better if you're on rewatch (ignoring let's kill hitler bc that one was a bit of a mess so lets just not think about the way they characterized her in it would imply about the character itself), so idk where Moffat went so wrong with Clara, because it really doesn't work the first time around but it starts working on rewatch
I love Celia Imrie A LOT. I still can't decide if I dislike this episode enough for her to be on my too long "guest stars who deserved better" list. Especially when she did so well with the material she got that she kind of makes it work. I go back and forth on that one.
I actually really liked this episode
I do try to ignore alot of Clara's characterisation fault. Because I like her. I do wonder if Moffat only intended her to stay until the end of season 7. So just didn't bother thinking too deeply about building her character up. Once it was establish she would be staying on, it was kind of too late to go back change things, so Moffat thought he would just add it in later, and call it character development.
Moffat made it clear about the passage of time during Amy and Rory's tenure. We know how much they aged during their travels with the doctor.
Not so much with Clara though
In my head alot of time had passed between the the time of the doctor and the day of the doctor. A good 5 years in my head. It accounts for Clara's change of personality and complete lifestyle change.
I don't recal Clara's age even being mentioned. In bells of st John I'd say shes supposed to be no older that 24. I just can't believe a young woman of her age, intelligence, and education, and also lives with 2 teenagers is that dence about computers. I didn't even finish high school and I've got a good few years on Clara, and even I know more about computers than she did. From her schooling eara computing would have been a compulsory part of her education. Wifi wasn't really a new thing even then. I'm sorry but I'm just not buying she didn't even know how to connect to the wifi. A software or programming issue would have been much more believable. Just another little pet peeve of mine
In my eyes, this is a superior version of Spyfall Part 1.
Because prime video doesn’t put the Christmas specials in each season, I was super lost at this impossible girl stuff and even more confused when it jumped past the 50th anniversary and time of the Doctor to S8. Luckily only got halfway into deep breath before looking up and seeing it skipped those episodes
I was in the same boat years ago. Separating the specials is dumb. Luckily Max doesn't do that.
Celia Imrie is very good!
You don't have the purple coat?
Kind of an average episode but the scene with Ms. Kizlet at the end gave me chills! The funny thing is that when I first watched this, I never saw the Snowmen! So I was so confused! 😂 I still wish that we got Victorian Clara but modern Clara had her moments. But she didn’t really click with me until she was with Capaldi. Overall, very average but a little bit underrated!
Also, I prefer it to The Idiot’s Lantern. And unpopular opinion but I actually like The Idiot’s Lantern. Bells was better tho.
Dumb title, bit too 'Christmas Special' in tone, but frankly it's fun and a more interesting watch than the concept has any right being.
Perfectly competent series opener, but *why did we have another series opener in the first place??* I really don't like the structure of this series.
Haha once you run out of old Doctor Who episodes to review, after enough time, we'll reach a point wherein you'll upload a review to a new Doctor Who episode and then a week later you'll be "looking back on it" in a new episode of 'Overdue Doctor Who Review'.
Im writting this comment before watching the video. I know that people don't like this episode but I like it really really much. Lets hope that Nathaniel wont destroy it to the ground xd
Actually paused in the middle of the video because I realized something?
The idea that the emotional beat with the woman reverting to childhood after being restored to "Factory Settings" wasn't "in service" to anything felt incorrect to me. It took me a moment to realize. ...it made me Hate the Great Intelligence. Which, given that the Great Intelligence ends up the arc villain and has comparatively understandable motivations in "In the Name of the Doctor" was absoloutly necessary. After the sort of... Chicken or Egg confusion with Dr. Simeon and The Great Intelligence, that moment established that this entity was, in fact, still actively targeting children.
If this were written today, it would be about 5G.
It's good
there are only 4 episodes from this half of series 7 i actually like and kind of enjoy and actually look forward to getting to on a rewatch. this is one of them. we only get the kids in small doses (i don't like kids in general and these 2 are annoying so nope) i like the concept as something truly modern that a lot of people fear which is technology taking over and controlling us. the doctor is decent in this. still don't like the costume change or the TARDIS change in this part of the series. Clara i am meh on like shes ok. bit bland at this point in time. its solid and decent for me. not outstanding but decent. sometimes that what i want. its like when your hungry and you don't want a full meal but you just want something that's still enjoyable but simple and decent and you make some toast or something. that's what it is for me. like a good slice of toast episode. weird analogy but it makes sense in my head.
For me this is part of a season that is, for the most part, unwatchable. Clara needed a full season to get fleshed out, and giving a good chunk of the season to Amy and Rory completely gutted her characterization.
It's not amazing, but kinda enjoyable. Clara is a boring blank slate who will only get worse with time and everything about her is terrible (easily the weakest companion introduction in the revival) but the plot, the global scale, the anti-grav bit... all fun. I just wish this was a standalone episode with Victorian Clara (an actual good character) learning about the modern world that doesn't have to serve as the beginning of the crappest character in the entire show and a story arc that would become so bullshit it makes this otherwise entertaining episode a chore to revisit.
Digit 4 right hand.. why no nail.polish ...
One of your nails is unvarnished?
Boomers probably found this scary because the internet is still a scary and mysterious thing to them.
Boomers invented the internet!
I suppose I'm an average boomer (born in 1954) and I've been using the Internet since it started, so I've probably been using it longer than you have. There are plenty of other people around my age and older who could say the same.
The writing was dreadful but i don’t blame the actors
This episode is sooooooooooooooooooooo average. 6/10.
Boring and forgettable. Wasted potential, too - the killer wifi idea isn't even that bad, it could have led to a creepy and engaging story.
Man season 7 is bad.
You said "series seven". You meant "season seven". Please do better in the future. This is a really easy mistake to fix but you keep making it.
But it is Series 7. Season 7 is referring to the first season/series of Pertwee.
Season 1: Hello One
Season 2
Season 3
Season 4: Bye One, Hello Two
Season 5
Season 6: Bye Two
Season 7: Hello Three
Season 8
Season 9
Season 10
Season 11: Bye Three
Season 12: Hello Four
Season 13
Season 14
Season 15
Season 16
Season 17
Season 18: Bye Four
Season 19: Hello Five
Season 20
Season 21: Bye Five, Hello Six
Season 22
Season 23: Bye Six
Season 24: Hello Seven
Season 25
Season 26
Movie: Bye Seven, Hello Eight
Series 1 (Season 27): Hello/Bye Nine
Series 2 (Season 28): Hello Ten
Series 3 (Season 29)
Series 4 (Season 30): Bye Ten
Series 5 (Season 31): Hello Eleven
Series 6 (Season 32)
Series 7 (Season 33): Bye Eight, Hello/Bye War, Bye Eleven
Series 8 (Season 34): Hello Twelve
Series 9 (Season 35)
Series 10 (Season 36): Bye Twelve
Series 11 (Season 37): Hello Thirteen
Series 12 (Season 38): Hello Ruth