SpaceScotsman

I\ don\'t\ know\ what\ you\ mean,\ I\'ve\ never\ encountered\ any\ annoyances.

Labour were voted in on a mandate of "change" specifically. Literally, their one word slogan used during campaigning. Now, obviously they're the single transferable party, so nothing was actually going to change, but I do want to make sure no-one forgets that was their one promise.

Pike got his "that's rough buddy" moment.

I am very glad we got to revisit this storyline. There was a lot left to explain in that dimensional prison, and using it as a finale to neatly wrap a lot of different plot threads was great. I was really interested in that guardian figure from the earlier episode, knowing now that it ended up being Batel in a kind of asymptotic time loop is pretty crazy, but it is a very poetic ending. She can't really live a life with Pike, and this is an ending that gives her meaning.

When Batel's hands started glowing for a moment I genuinely thought she was going to regenerate à la time lord. And in the end I guess she kind of did! I half expected her to start babbling about some cosmic koala when she had stars in her eyes, I'm glad she didn't. The ending took a serious tone, and that worked very well.

This episode uses what is effectively a dream sequence and those you have to be careful with. It works well here because the concept of time, cause, and effect have already been established as in play here so even if it never turned out as the actual in-universe outcome, it still feels like it has meaning. I note that the show giving us Pike's alternate future had he not (will he have had not? tenses are hard with time travel) got in the accident for me cements the fact that he really is going to end up as his future vision told him. There's no avoiding it now.

I am not sure I really followed a lot of the treknobabble in this one. I don't get how the entity managed to reconstruct itself, nor why there was a whole debate about phasers being complementary instead of additive. But as a plot device to get things moving it was serviceable. Also, just a note, if you're firing a stream of ANTI protons into the atmosphere, one would expect the antimatter to annihilate on impact with the upper atmosphere. I did find it hilarious that there's two massive red lasers with the same power as a star beaming in through the balcony and none of the natives there were bothered by it enough to get out of their seats!

The planet design was really cool, the big floating churchey architecture was giving me Halo vibes. It's interesting that the planet has no warp travel but still makes contact with alien races. I wonder if then the Feds would bother to help them out in the aftermath, or if they just left them to it. They kind of should take responsibility, given it was them that unleashed the evil in the first place. Even if it's just to loan them that eye regeneration thing for a few hours.

Overall, this was a nice finale, and given it didn't end on a pointless cliffhanger, and wrapped up most of the threads well, one of the better ones as TV dramas go.

Oh, look at that pretty twinkling shooting sta- oh shit, that's another one of elon musk's pointless billionaire space toys. I can't even relax by just looking at the stars anymore.

I really enjoyed this one.

We finally get some real movement on the Ortegas trauma that was set up earlier in the season and the solution, forced exposure therapy, is pretty wild. Ortegas managed to overcome it fairly well, which does back up the "she passed her psych eval" stated in an earlier episode. Not only does she overcome a personal problem, but she actually manages some form of diplomacy across multiple alien species. Way to go.

My biggrumble with this episode is the ending. I saw it coming a mile away, there's no practical way to end it other than finding some excuse to write out the good!gorn. I think the episode did not even need the aliens running things behind the scenes, it would have been perfectly fine to just have the spatial anomaly and a crash landing as the setup.

I hope that Ortegas remembers that La'an killed the Gorn, that will make for some nice drama later. I also hope that Ortegas remembers enough that she could try to advocate for the Gorn. While this episode wasn't quite "Darmok", Ortegas shows a lot of aptitude for cross-species communication, and that needs to be used alongside her piloting.

The Uhura-Pike drama was a bit less enjoyable. At the end of the episode pike basically says he would have stayed anyway, which undermines the whole B-Plot of the episode. If anything it should have been a Pike-Una debate. And with a more pressing need than "These people need a vaccine absolutely right now but also they can wait a couple days if need be".

The Doctor tricking Rose is a very well done scene. He acts as if he's just figured something out off the cuff of what Rose just said and then as Rose is kept busy in the Tardis he runs out and comes to an abrupt stop. It's a good subversion of the "doctor will magically solve everything" trope.

I agree we needed a bit more from the Daleks being behind the scenes on earth. We get that from Rose/Bad Wolf's meddling in history, and the spreading of the message around, but we didn't really see much about what the Daleks really did throughout history. Which is odd because at one point we hear a human say they died off ages ago - so humans at this point in time know what Daleks are... but we the audience have no clue for the context.

This was a pretty good finale and a nice send off for 9/Eccleston. It wrapped up the various story threads fairly satisfactorily, it managed to be exciting enough, and there were plenty of jokes, meaningful choices, and good direction.

I like the Dalek emperor concept - a sort of napoleon complex megalomanic dalek that fancies itself as a god. The religious language feels very human, which helps to sell the corruption as one thats gone beyond just the basic biology. In a way, these Daleks are less Dalek than the Rose-Dalek we saw earlier in the series. Doctor's speech here is very good - at the core of hate there lies fear. Fear that you might become the thing you hate, or that you might have to face it, or that you may have to question your hatred. Eternally applicable message for the real world.

When the Daleks are invading the station, as pointed out, they have no need to go and kill the humans on level 0. They do it anyway - maximum cruelty is the point. Later Lynda in her safe bubble (though not as safe as Rose's) also meets the her cruel fate. The use of the slow-cutter-through-steel trope subverted by a silent extermination is an excellent piece of writing and direction. The idea that they're not just exterminating individually rather melting entire continents at once is horrifying.

This is really where Rose's feelings for the doctor turn into something beyond simple friendship. You can see it in the jealous look she has for Lynda-with-a-Y, and her later saying she has nothing left to live for in 2005. The doctor-initiated kiss scene still feels a little too early for the Doctor for it to be romantic, but it is a nice moment all the same, and it works in a breath-of-life metaphor kind of way.

On The Bad Wolf - this is a very nice wrapping up of the storyline as it mirrors well what the Daleks have done. They went through humanity's history and changed it to drive the outcome they wanted, which is exactly the same as what Bad Wolf did. It also sets up a character that gets to appear later on (and maybe a second time, depending on what the most recently finale meant).

Both the mid-episode goodbye and the final farewell are really very well done. Holo-doctor turning to face Rose is a nice touch. It could be programmed in, or her might just have known exactly how she'd react when recording it. 9's sorrow at not being able to follow on with Rose is a good lead in to her and 10's much closer relationship. 10's regeneration is nice, his spiky hair popping in was a nice touch, and Tennant looks so young here.

Nit pick: As much as I like the concept of the Dalek Emperor, its design is silly. It's totally impractical. Not a nit-pick for this ep, rather for the state of current TV: I remember when it was only ever at most a couple of months hiatus between a season and holiday specials. Not years-and-maybe-never.

Final remarks for 9s run: It was a good revival, as revivals go, and it definitely got the momentum going even if it had a couple of off moments. It is a pity that 9 never had longer to develop his character.

Another comedy episode? You know what, if that's what SNW is, a comedy series, maybe it doesn't bother me. If I lower my expectations and just lean right into it, the fact that we have a slightly lower rate of "serious" episodes is fine. Maybe if I keep repeating that to myself I'll start to believe it.

The whole episode was fun, taken as a series of "what if" vignettes, and I did enjoy it, but it is lacking that spark that makes Star Trek great.

The plot setup is totally contrived, and I am a bit miffed that we missed out on a "how can we avoid breaking the prime directive" episode. And it does seem a bit like a rehash of the episode we already had with spock. As fun as it was to see the other actors do the whole "I'm a different person for an episode" episode. I have no idea why their hairstyles changed so suddenly but I love it anyway. Especially Pike's JoJo's-Bizarre-Adventure hair.

This is purely my personal preference - I really am not a fan of montage scenes set to songs in TV episodes in general. So the marching scene at the start just felt awkward to me. Not very trek. I don't mind this kind of thing so much in films, or in "musical" episodes, but it didn't really click for me here. It does fit a bit better when I realised this was going to be a comedy episode.

Patton oswalt was great here. For a moment I wondered if the storyline they were going to go for was that Una had been mind-melded into falling for Doug, as a b-plot to mirror what happened with Uhura/Beto. It seems very easy to basically date-rape-drug humans for a vulcan to take advantage of them. I feel like this story idea merits deeper exploration. As it is, we never really get an explanation other than "they're really into each other", which is fine I suppose.

All of the new vulcans being mean to spock contrasting with what must be the only vulcan there, Doug, who is envious was an interesting choice but never goes anywhere. Doug never gets a chance to chastise them on their bullying, and I am sure he would have been able to derive a punishingly logical reason why bullying is bad.

The writing completely skipped over the mind melds and catra explorations into 3 of the 4 characters. What did they talk to spock about? How much of a push did Pike need to realise he was hurting his crew? How did uhura initially react when she realised she had brainwashed someone with the intent to further a relationship with them? How did chapel come to terms with the fact that she'll have to give up her science experiments? This all would have helped to develop the characters. And in the one we did see, given how driven La'an was to become a mirror universe character, I don't understand how a dream sequence dance with spock was enough to change her mind. Maybe there are some visual metaphors in the direction I'm missing. Or maybe it was literal and Spock dream danced with Pike to change him back too!

Some stand out scenes with Kirk and Scotty. Also Batel speaking out against power, challenging perceptions, and then getting recognition and a job offer all while struggling with a new medical disability. That was a nice outcome.

24 years of waste? I find it immensely annoying that this is 8 x 4 pairs of casks and not 6 x 4. We should just dump a couple of columns, it will be much neater then.

I think this one is better seen as a black mirror episode starring the doctor than it is a doctor who episode. The overall plot is OK as an introduction to the finale, I'll need to reserve my thoughts on the two parter as a whole once I rewatch the next episode.

I was never a fan of reality shows, so I didn't really like that part of it first time I watched, nor this time. There is something interesting I noticed here, is that the station could have easily automated everything in a dystopian hellscape, instead the humans are assisting in managing and controlling the shows, which makes it worse (in a good way). I feel like the trope of this kind of televised murderporn used to be a kind of niche in scifi with stories like The Running Man, but more recently you have stories like Squid Game that are reaching into the mainstream, and I have to wonder if that's a sign of things to come. It hits harder with the news coming out this past week of the french streamer dying live while being tortured by his captors, and apparently no-one lifting a finger to stop it.

The story also uses the "your whole civilisation depends on the abuse of a child" plot point. That's a good litmus test for when things have really gone off the rails - are you willing to sacrifice innocents for the status quo. My only small gripe there is it's only been 100 years, things must have gotten pretty bad for a society to change that much on so little time. Given it's the future, the before times are probably within living memory for a lot of people. This is sort of acknowledged with an offhand remark about big brother housemates that went on strike some time ago.

On news, the doctor having to face the consequences for his meddling is a good plot point. So often the doctor jumps in, changes time, and then leaves without ever looking back. Here he is forced to confront the fact that, when he shuts down the news, no-one "does the right thing" as he would have done, nobody steps up to take charge and make things right, no-one comes together. Instead he makes a power vacuum that leaves things worse than when he started. This plot point is undermined by the fact that the Daleks would never allow this to happen anyway, it otherwise would have been a great idea to explore. It's important especially now in the Fake News era, and at a time when younger people show an increase in distrust of democracy. Might be worth revisiting.

One thing the episode does very well is setting the stakes for what is happening. It starts off presenting things as incredibly bland, but then Rose gets thrown into the deep end very quickly with blood on her hands. Then the Doctor is shown acting incredibly nonchalantly when we the audience know what's about to happen, and that makes the big brother death more impactful. For once they didn't play any background score and just kept it silent, which really helps a lot. On top of this we get foreshadowing of Lynda with a Y joining the doctor, and he is incredibly taken with her, so when Rose gets killed at the end of the very tense quiz head to head you do wonder for a moment if she was killed off for good (or you would if you weren't rewatching). The only thing that doesn't really fit is Jack's story. I never really got the sense that he was in any danger, and the handling of his episode is a bit disjointed from the rest of the episode. The whole "Nude barrowman" thing hasn't aged especially well.

The handling of the bad wolf meme and the eventual reveal that the Daleks have been behind everything is great. As a kind watching this, even though it lacks any subtlety, I loved it. The episode would have been better without the satellite 5 "last time" recap the and the 100 years later title card, this was too hand-holdy, and the implication is that the Daleks have been pushing things for a lot longer than just 100 years anyway. That does make the, what I felt was unsatisfying, blob monster from the previous Sattelite 5 episode a bit better.

The doctors final line "I don't have a plan and doesn't that scare you" is great. No amount of planning will help you go up against a lone wolf.

Random notes:

• In The Weakest Link, Ann Robinson is basically just playing herself, robot not required.
• I now have those 2 or 3 bars from the big brother music now stuck in my head, they're going to be there a while.
• I'd seen Nisha Nayar in a few other BBC shows, forgot she was in this one. I looked her up on IMDB, and in addition to Tracy Beaker that I remember her from, turns out her first role was one of the kids in the doctor who serial "Paradise Towers". Neat.
• In the time between Cardiff and Now, the tardis crew went off to 14th century kyoto. I want to see that episode.
• From a quiz question, Cardiff has a massive pyramid built in it's centre. We also get a torchwood namedrop here.
• I don't like the fluorescent blue bloom effect in the control room - it's very early 2000s, of this era, and is reminiscent of bad graphics in video games of the time.
• The economy of this time is said to be in ruins, which makes one wonder why the weakest link contestants were playing for money when no-one else was, and why the control room folk were doing what seems to be a paid job. It feels a tad inconsistent.

I really did not enjoy this one.

The "documentary" that ends up being made feels like the worst kind of propaganda that tries to feign a sense of "there's two sides to every argument", all while clearly pushing in favour of the agenda the documentary initially tried to critique anyway. It felt at moments like a military recruitment advertisement. I would not choose to watch such a documentary in real life, and watching it within a star trek episode just feels like I've wasted my time.

The writing makes use of the idea of military censorship and a film that jump cuts around to not so cleverly hide the fact that the writers are missing a plot. We are presented with a people in conflict, who abuse a creature to create a weapon. We have no other information about the conflict, beyond "there's mass casualties". No explanation of why starfleet is involved beyond "starfleet is here to help". No explanation why they chose to make that kind of weapon in particular. On the matter of the alien war we are left to fill the gaps ourselves entirely, and because our in-universe director is acting in the role of an unreliable narrator, we have no idea if any of what ended up in the film they ended up making can even be trusted. That FOIA disclaimer at the start could be just as real as those films that say "based on a true story" when they are anything but.

We did get some good character development, particularly with Ortegas finally being up front and open about what she's been through recently. But not really enough for it to feel like it matters. Ditto Uhura and Spock. Furthermore, despite self-harm and suicide being a central theme of the episode, other than an incredibly brief argument with the alien scientists about whether thier victim should be allowed to commit suicide, it's not really debated. The crew just accept that they need to do an assisted suicide, and that's that. Fair enough, if that's how human morals work centuries from now, but then it leads again to an episode without a useful plot. For contrast, multiple past star trek series have had their take on this topic and done a much better job.

After watching this I am left unsure what wider contribution this episode is meant to make to the series. For all the silliness of the comedy episodes, at least they were entertaining to watch and usually had at least one major plot development by the end. This one could have been cut from the season roster and nothing would have been lost.

Random assorted notes:

• The decoded alien vocalisations kind of sounded like whalesong to me. Perfect opportunity for some cetecean ops, right? nope.
• Beto is shown to be incredibly manipulative, especially with recording people who don't want to be recorded. Why on earth is he not in the brig?
• Many times in the episode the direction attempts to foreshadow someone dying. I thought for a moment the writers were going to be brave and kill off someone in the crew. Particularly when chapel and spock are stretchered in with uhura standing there in shock. Nope, it's the random alien of the week instead.
• The alien visuals, both the CG and prosthetics were very nice. I like the idea of a species that, like some animals on earth, begins life underwater and then metamorphoses into something that lives in a completely different environment out of water. That was possibly the only highlight of the episode for me.

Looking forward to the next one, it can't possibly be worse than this.

Jack is definitely much better in this episode. His banter is much less in your face, and having Mickey call him out on it is a nice bit of self referential humour.

I've never been to Cardiff. I looked up the filming location as it's one that seems to get reused a lot, it's called "Roald Dahl Plass", which incidentally is a great author to recognise, and as a filming location it is very striking.