Doctor Who Social Club

I kind of enjoyed this, at least the first half.

On the first half, It was alright. The big thought I had was - if this whole Whoniverse thing doesn't pan out, RTD and Bad Wolf would be great fit for doing a live action reboot of Captain Scarlet. A massive sci-fi weapons battery in the middle of a London disguised as a skyscraper is very spectrum.

• Using the time hotel's doors was a great plot device to bridge from the last episode. It's one of those times that make you go "well, why didn't they use that big deus ex they had a few episodes ago...". This time they remembered!
• The bone beasts were alright, but I feel like the explanation didn't really make much sense, and surely they could have found a better name than "bone beasts".
• The box that exists outside of time is a pretty scary concept, that you could end up stuck for eternity in a non-space, with no escape. I don't know that I would have made the same choice given those circumstances.
• In the week between episodes I rewatched the old series serial which introduced omega. I didn't really feel like the big bad we saw here was the same one. Omega, to me, seemed kind of stuck and abandoned and redeemable with a bit of work, here it was an eldritch bone beast that could speak.
• On seeing everything start to come back from the wish world, I had forgotten that rose hung out / worked at Unit, and seeing that she was basically denied out of existence is pretty blunt, but I am glad it was pointed out. The doctor's new skirt dress was fantastic.

The "epilogue", I guess you could call it, was not great. I think I would have enjoyed it most if they had wrapped it up after Ruby notices that poppy has disappeared. It would have been tragic, it would have been emotional, it would have had punch, it would have been a pretty clean ending - just sometimes you don't get the happy one.

• I really don't like that Gatwa only had 2 seasons, he should have been allowed more.
• Getting 13 in for a cameo was unexpected, and I quite liked the dig at it usually being 10 that turns up, but I don't really get why she was there. The regen (?) into Rose(?) is weird, but very much RTD's thing. There have been a LOT of cameos and references recently, and I feel like Doctor Who really shines best when it acts as a set of mostly independent sci-fi anthologies with maybe a little bit of overarching story. When it gets too up itself with the self referencing fanservice I am beginning to feel it weakens my enjoyment of it. The middle of this past season had the best episodes for this very reason.

Also, a thought that occurs as I type this - they had a Susan foreman reference not too long ago. She is established as being a descendant. But they're sterile, so can't have kids let alone grandkids? I know this is a timey wimey thing, and I really don't want to encourage yet more cameos and self referencing, but surely this should have at least merited a mention. I really like the idea that you have a race of sterile people somehow trying to fix things, (I recently read The Old Axolotl, which touches on this concept) so why didn't they do anything with it.