Aaaaa I am a week late because of not having internet last weekend due to moving shenanigans. D: I did watch The Caretaker live but then I just didn't have enough of a chance to gather my thoughts and post about it.
(still in spoiler tags because it feels weird not using them)
VampirateMace, I assumed the deal with Orson Pink in Listen was that he wasn't necessarily related to Clara's timeline at all. It was Danny's timeline they'd accidentally ended up exploring, not Clara's, due to Clara getting distracted and thinking about Danny during the psychic thing. There were obvious implications that she might have been his grandmother or something what with her and Danny's developing relationship, but those were incidental because they weren't actually exploring Clara's timeline.
-elyvorg/Amelia
(still in spoiler tags because it feels weird not using them)
Well, that was amusing seeing this Doctor in a normal human environment. It's an interesting contrast from his previous self, really. When the Eleventh Doctor had to blend in with humans, he actually tried to be human and just failed hilariously because he had all the wrong ideas. Here, the Twelfth didn't even really bother trying. His alien-ness is showing in different ways to how it used to. Then it was also fun to see Clara face the fact that her control-freak nature and desire to keep everything exactly the way she wants has its limit and can get her into even more trouble than not.
Apparently the Doctor feels it is his business to approve or disapprove of Clara's boyfriend. In some ways Danny was right to call him her space dad. On the one hand it was kind of sweet to see the Doctor be so immensely happy for Clara upon seeing her supposed boyfriend - but at the same time it's completely messed-up because he'd totally misread who her boyfriend actually was. Obviously the only reason the Doctor approved of the guy with the bowtie was that he reminded the Doctor of his own previous incarnation. Meanwhile he unsurprisingly completely disapproved of Danny. As we saw with the Architect last time, the Doctor tends to dislike if not outright hate anyone who reminds him, even subconsciously, of himself. So I really think it has to be the case that the Doctor was so dismissive and rude towards Danny the moment he heard "soldier" because of this.
So the Doctor approves of Clara having a boyfriend reminiscent of the face he used to put on to get people to like him, but he disapproves of Clara having a boyfriend more reminiscent of the Doctor's actual true self. Well. That's very telling, Doctor. I'm glad Danny pointed out that all that matters about him being Clara's boyfriend from the Doctor's point of view is that he's good enough for her. Hopefully this is something Doctor can apply to his own relationship with Clara as well: it doesn't matter whether the Doctor likes or hates himself so long as he's good enough for Clara.
I'm liking Danny more and more after seeing his reaction to the Doctor and to discovering Clara's lies. He took things pretty well, all things considered. He also brought up a good point in noting that the Doctor is less like a regular soldier and more like an officer, and in a way that's even worse; soldiers only do what they do because they're following orders, while the ones who give the orders are far more accountable for what goes wrong. It's interesting how Danny is viewing Clara's relationship with the Doctor as something like a soldier's relationship with their commanding officer. I look forward to seeing where that promise Clara made him goes in the next few episodes. I also wonder if Danny is going to someday realise that that's not the only reason Clara travels with the Doctor and it's also because the Doctor's actually really lost and messed-up and needs her.
I was liking the theory that the people who end up in Heaven are those who died as a direct or indirect result of the Doctor's actions, but the death of that one guy this time had nothing to do with him. Unless it's that Missy only oversees those who died due to the Doctor and everyone else gets the middle management guy we saw here.
Apparently the Doctor feels it is his business to approve or disapprove of Clara's boyfriend. In some ways Danny was right to call him her space dad. On the one hand it was kind of sweet to see the Doctor be so immensely happy for Clara upon seeing her supposed boyfriend - but at the same time it's completely messed-up because he'd totally misread who her boyfriend actually was. Obviously the only reason the Doctor approved of the guy with the bowtie was that he reminded the Doctor of his own previous incarnation. Meanwhile he unsurprisingly completely disapproved of Danny. As we saw with the Architect last time, the Doctor tends to dislike if not outright hate anyone who reminds him, even subconsciously, of himself. So I really think it has to be the case that the Doctor was so dismissive and rude towards Danny the moment he heard "soldier" because of this.
So the Doctor approves of Clara having a boyfriend reminiscent of the face he used to put on to get people to like him, but he disapproves of Clara having a boyfriend more reminiscent of the Doctor's actual true self. Well. That's very telling, Doctor. I'm glad Danny pointed out that all that matters about him being Clara's boyfriend from the Doctor's point of view is that he's good enough for her. Hopefully this is something Doctor can apply to his own relationship with Clara as well: it doesn't matter whether the Doctor likes or hates himself so long as he's good enough for Clara.
I'm liking Danny more and more after seeing his reaction to the Doctor and to discovering Clara's lies. He took things pretty well, all things considered. He also brought up a good point in noting that the Doctor is less like a regular soldier and more like an officer, and in a way that's even worse; soldiers only do what they do because they're following orders, while the ones who give the orders are far more accountable for what goes wrong. It's interesting how Danny is viewing Clara's relationship with the Doctor as something like a soldier's relationship with their commanding officer. I look forward to seeing where that promise Clara made him goes in the next few episodes. I also wonder if Danny is going to someday realise that that's not the only reason Clara travels with the Doctor and it's also because the Doctor's actually really lost and messed-up and needs her.
I was liking the theory that the people who end up in Heaven are those who died as a direct or indirect result of the Doctor's actions, but the death of that one guy this time had nothing to do with him. Unless it's that Missy only oversees those who died due to the Doctor and everyone else gets the middle management guy we saw here.
...I feel bad saying this, but sadly I didn't enjoy this episode as much as I wanted to after hearing that it would involve terrible choices and the Doctor being all morally dark and interesting.
I usually don't mind so much if Doctor Who has handwavey science because it's Doctor Who, but some of this bugged the biology geek in me. I get that the spiders being "giant germs" was actually just meant to be foreshadowing that the moon is an egg, and I'm not going to complain about that part because as hard to swallow as it is it was the whole premise for the conflict so one just has to go with it - but as a biologist I am pretty damn sure single-celled prokaryotes cannot get that large and complex and that any parasites the moon creature had would be eukaryotic. Besides, given these are alien creatures they shouldn't even necessarily abide by Earth-biology-based categories such as prokaryote and eukaryote anyway. (Therefore I'm going to pretend that the reason the germ spray worked was that something in it happened to mess with the spiders' alien biology in a way completely unrelated to why it kills Earth prokaryotes.) </biology geek rant>
I couldn't get behind the moral dilemma as much as I wanted to because I just found myself thoroughly agreeing with Captain Lundvik's stance from the start. The moon creature wasn't born yet, so it's not like they'd have been murdering a conscious sentient being that actively wanted to live, and sure it sucks that this unique species won't get to exist, but there were millions of already existing unique species on Earth that could have been wiped out and surely that has to take objective precedence. No-one had any way of knowing that the creature was going to be harmless, immediately leave another egg behind and that its birth was going to inspire humanity to keep going out into space. So in the end I can't help but come away with the message that Clara and Courtney made the right choice by pure luck. I guess Clara's actual reason for her last-second decision was that she didn't want humanity's future to be built on a choice to kill out of fear and selfishness and therefore was willing to take the risk of the other option, but still. Thinking about it, this is kind of a similar dilemma to the one with the star whale in The Beast Below, but this one didn't resonate with me nearly as much because this creature wasn't already alive and suffering and there wasn't any evidence that saving it wouldn't actually harm the humans.
(The voting-by-light thing was kind of flawed, yeah, but I guess Clara didn't really have any alternatives. I do wonder what the Earth's population is going to think about the fact that the people on the moon ignored their choice, though. Unless communications were so bad down there that no-one was really aware of what the full vote was, so that every neighbourhood who turned their lights off but then saw the moon hatch anyway assumed the rest of Earth must've left their lights on and they alone were the only cowardly jerks wanting to kill the thing. That'd be an interesting situation.)
I can understand the Doctor's point of view of not wanting to get involved because he's not a human and this is their choice to make, even if it's perhaps unusual for him to be so completely impartial in situations like this. (Hmm, though I wonder if it might also have something to do with what Danny pointed out last week about the Doctor being the one who gives the orders; perhaps he was trying to emphatically not be that way this time?) That said, I can also see where Clara's coming from in that the Doctor has spent so long on Earth and around humans that he damn well should consider himself invested in their future and qualified to at least help them choose how things turn out. I get the feeling that it's only the Twelfth Doctor who would ever have just left them to decide for themselves like this. I sympathised with his confusion at why Clara is so angry about this because he just doesn't get human nature sometimes, and I'm sure that if he realised it would upset her so much he would have done things differently. I'm interested to see where this goes, especially with Danny's view of things added to the mix.
It was also kind of neat to see Courtney back again, even though I presume she won't become a regular fixture. I'd assumed last week that her throwing up in the TARDIS was due to her not being able to handle the vastness of space and a sign that she wasn't companion material after all, but if it was literally just because she gets motion sickness then that has no bearing on her strength of character and should not be used as a reason to refuse her a trip in the TARDIS. (...I may be saying this as someone who gets motion sickness herself. Ahem.) It's interesting that last episode the Doctor apparently casually told Courtney she wasn't special, thus giving someone who was probably a disruptive influence because she already secretly felt unimportant even more reason to feel that way. That's not the kind of thing the Doctor usually does, but I guess because this incarnation is pretty openly self-loathing he probably didn't think what he said would have much of an effect on her. He doesn't realise that to a fifteen year old girl he still looks mostly like a magical amazing time-traveller, so of course she's going to take his words to heart.
I usually don't mind so much if Doctor Who has handwavey science because it's Doctor Who, but some of this bugged the biology geek in me. I get that the spiders being "giant germs" was actually just meant to be foreshadowing that the moon is an egg, and I'm not going to complain about that part because as hard to swallow as it is it was the whole premise for the conflict so one just has to go with it - but as a biologist I am pretty damn sure single-celled prokaryotes cannot get that large and complex and that any parasites the moon creature had would be eukaryotic. Besides, given these are alien creatures they shouldn't even necessarily abide by Earth-biology-based categories such as prokaryote and eukaryote anyway. (Therefore I'm going to pretend that the reason the germ spray worked was that something in it happened to mess with the spiders' alien biology in a way completely unrelated to why it kills Earth prokaryotes.) </biology geek rant>
I couldn't get behind the moral dilemma as much as I wanted to because I just found myself thoroughly agreeing with Captain Lundvik's stance from the start. The moon creature wasn't born yet, so it's not like they'd have been murdering a conscious sentient being that actively wanted to live, and sure it sucks that this unique species won't get to exist, but there were millions of already existing unique species on Earth that could have been wiped out and surely that has to take objective precedence. No-one had any way of knowing that the creature was going to be harmless, immediately leave another egg behind and that its birth was going to inspire humanity to keep going out into space. So in the end I can't help but come away with the message that Clara and Courtney made the right choice by pure luck. I guess Clara's actual reason for her last-second decision was that she didn't want humanity's future to be built on a choice to kill out of fear and selfishness and therefore was willing to take the risk of the other option, but still. Thinking about it, this is kind of a similar dilemma to the one with the star whale in The Beast Below, but this one didn't resonate with me nearly as much because this creature wasn't already alive and suffering and there wasn't any evidence that saving it wouldn't actually harm the humans.
(The voting-by-light thing was kind of flawed, yeah, but I guess Clara didn't really have any alternatives. I do wonder what the Earth's population is going to think about the fact that the people on the moon ignored their choice, though. Unless communications were so bad down there that no-one was really aware of what the full vote was, so that every neighbourhood who turned their lights off but then saw the moon hatch anyway assumed the rest of Earth must've left their lights on and they alone were the only cowardly jerks wanting to kill the thing. That'd be an interesting situation.)
I can understand the Doctor's point of view of not wanting to get involved because he's not a human and this is their choice to make, even if it's perhaps unusual for him to be so completely impartial in situations like this. (Hmm, though I wonder if it might also have something to do with what Danny pointed out last week about the Doctor being the one who gives the orders; perhaps he was trying to emphatically not be that way this time?) That said, I can also see where Clara's coming from in that the Doctor has spent so long on Earth and around humans that he damn well should consider himself invested in their future and qualified to at least help them choose how things turn out. I get the feeling that it's only the Twelfth Doctor who would ever have just left them to decide for themselves like this. I sympathised with his confusion at why Clara is so angry about this because he just doesn't get human nature sometimes, and I'm sure that if he realised it would upset her so much he would have done things differently. I'm interested to see where this goes, especially with Danny's view of things added to the mix.
It was also kind of neat to see Courtney back again, even though I presume she won't become a regular fixture. I'd assumed last week that her throwing up in the TARDIS was due to her not being able to handle the vastness of space and a sign that she wasn't companion material after all, but if it was literally just because she gets motion sickness then that has no bearing on her strength of character and should not be used as a reason to refuse her a trip in the TARDIS. (...I may be saying this as someone who gets motion sickness herself. Ahem.) It's interesting that last episode the Doctor apparently casually told Courtney she wasn't special, thus giving someone who was probably a disruptive influence because she already secretly felt unimportant even more reason to feel that way. That's not the kind of thing the Doctor usually does, but I guess because this incarnation is pretty openly self-loathing he probably didn't think what he said would have much of an effect on her. He doesn't realise that to a fifteen year old girl he still looks mostly like a magical amazing time-traveller, so of course she's going to take his words to heart.
It was an Egyptian goddess that the Doctor was called in for previously, Will-Powered Spriter, so I assume he dealt with that with Amy and Rory back then. Given there is, according to the trailer, only one Orient Express in space, though, I assume it's the same train and am hoping there might be a little nod to that in this episode.
VampirateMace, I assumed the deal with Orson Pink in Listen was that he wasn't necessarily related to Clara's timeline at all. It was Danny's timeline they'd accidentally ended up exploring, not Clara's, due to Clara getting distracted and thinking about Danny during the psychic thing. There were obvious implications that she might have been his grandmother or something what with her and Danny's developing relationship, but those were incidental because they weren't actually exploring Clara's timeline.
-elyvorg/Amelia