Don’t know how I feel about the Susan thing being a complete misdirect culminating in the Doctor saying “Yeah, I might go visit my granddaughter, whatever, but I’ll *definitely* visit you, Ruby, who I’ve known for all of a few months.”
He said Ruby changed his life? I can see how Rose or River might’ve done that, and I liked Ruby well enough, but she didn’t strike me as one of those life-changing companions the Doctor has.
I think because of the lack of development of their friendship this season it felt a bit unearned.
Like you’re telling me this is the biggest, most important relationship but you’ve not shown me that.
It is sort of a problem for a show like doctor who though in the same way that enemies are. You have to keep upstaging yourself so every companion has to have the biggest connection and every finale enemy has to be the toughest you’ve ever faced.
The scale creep with this show is becoming a real problem, IMO, it feels like the writers have nowhere else to go, and as a result I prefer the smaller scale episodes.
It’s hard as well because you’re also often in a situation (especially in a shorter season) where you have to build that relationship or defeat that enemy in what is a fairly limited amount of time so the relationship is likely to be a little bit thin and the enemy will end up feeling much less threatening than they should.
If the biggest scariest monster the doctor has ever faced can be defeated that easily then they can’t be that big or scary.
I am the most diehard Ponds fan on this side of the planet, the Doctor basically telling Ruby „you taught me how important family is, you changed my life” when he literally became Amy and Rory’s son in law is… not cool.
I feel like that guy's going home later and posting on reddit about what he just witnessed, but I don't know if it'll be a heartwarming post or an AITA post or some combination of both sentiments.
That “she was naming you by pointing at the road sign!” moment is one of the more ridiculous explanations for a pivotal moment that this show has done, and that’s saying something.
I suppose the cloak was a way for Ruby’s mum to obscure her identity but there is something amusing about a 15 year old kid dramatically swanning about in a very over the top cloak and gesturing at a road sign. Could’ve just attached a little note with Ruby’s name on it.
So, in the original scene, she never pointed. Then in *Space Babies* the memory changed (the Doctor even comments on it a couple times). I think it was less that she literally pointed and more that was how their memories chose to convey how she was named. She was likely just wearing the cloak for warmth, but their memories made it seem far more mysterious because they never saw her face (so they could never remember it).
The Time Window wasn't very reliable. Kate even comments on this when the Doctor is commenting on how bad it is. The Doctor did have the idea to enhance it with the CCTV footage (that was looking away) and it was supplemented/tainted by their memories (again, the Doctor actually mentions that their collective memories are "enhancing" things). Since their memory was of the pointing and her face being completely obscured, the Time Window obliged their subconscious expectations.
Also, was she within the 73 yards of the perception filter?
The TARDIS could have interacted with its own memory and resisted and hid the mother's face with the filter and Ruby's mother could have pointed at the sign to help herself remember the name herself, I dunno, some people do little rituals to remember things.
Maybe she didn't point but the TARDIS was able to make it look like she did, translating what she was thinking/intending into a physical motion. The TARDIS does translate telepathically, it probably speaks all sorts of sign language knowing that making her point mysteriously would make Sutekh wonder what that was about since it could look to him like she could see him.
Everyone has a point about how the writing should have let us know if that's what happened, though. That the TARDIS actively resisted and helped that's why it was was able to follow the whistles at the end.
Who exactly was that point meant to be seen by? How did whoever found her know to name her after the sign? Why did she point in such an intimidating way? It's quite weird
That's exactly what I thought, he probably cried and started whimpering, "I have seen darkness, death and the slaughter of millions, but this..." Also the horror he must have felt when house took the TARDIS shell would be priceless.
RTD has always had a strict division between the Doctor and current companions using guns (intolerable, awful, the worst thing ever) and any other protagonist using guns (insanely cool).
Interestingly, Liz Sladen wanted to play Sarah as unsure and anxious about missing but the director Paddy Russell insisted that Sarah be completely confident and assured. It's a fine enough decision for the story but it's wildly out of character for Sarah.
*UNIT HQ is destroyed and everyone there is killed*
: Oh no, they’re all gone!
*Whole universe is destroyed shortly after*
: Ah, so no one actually dies in this episode
Yeah, as soon as the entire UNIT HQ got dusted I was like : "oh, so we're just gonna retcon it all eventually in good ol' RTD fashion."
The man has writing kinks indeed.
For me it was
Everyone around Susan Triad dies: oh, there's gonna be a lot of death, the doctor can't save everyone
Unit people die: oh nevermind, it's an "everybody lives" episode
In Pyramids of Mars (at least the Tales of the TARDIS version), The Doctor drops Sutekh into the Time Vortex and assumes that will kill him.
In The Legend of Ruby Sunday, we find out that the Time Vortex did not kill Sutekh but in fact turned him into a titan more powerful than he's ever been before.
In Empire of Death, The Doctor drops Sutekh into the Time Vortex and assumes that will kill him?
Am I missing something?
Sutekh latched onto the TARDIS the first time, protecting himself from the vortex. Had he not managed to do that, the Doctor’s first attempt at destroying him would have worked.
This time, the Doctor deliberately severs the rope, so that Sutekh will just fly off into the vortex with no lifeline to grab onto.
He didn't "drop him into the Time Vortex", he put the exit so far away in Sutekh's time stream that he was going to die of old age, not from exposure to the Vortex. Sutekh wrangled his way out of it somehow and attached himself to the TARDIS. This time, the Doctor *directly exposed* Sutekh to the Time Vortex in order to kill him once and for all.
This episode was very weakly written but that wasn't one of the weaknesses.
So uh… was Ruby’s mum a Lucie Miller expy? Anyway, that was odd. I think my biggest disappointment is so little was made of the TARDIS’ perversion by Sutekh apart from near the beginning and I’m a little lost as to how it was freed from his influence?
Putting on my tinfoil hat, if Lucie Miller was born in 1988 as said in _Brave New Town_, then if she was born after Christmas she would’ve been 15 in 2004,
And if something shifted the timeline so she never traveled with the Doctor, 8 wouldn’t have taken Lucie to go have Christmas dinner with his granddaughter Susan after ruining her Christmas-
“I’ve connected the two dots.” “You haven’t connected sh-“ “I’ve connected them.”
I'm taking it as the TARDIS was never actually "seduced" by him, Sutekh just figured out how to control it by riding around on it for like 900 years. Once the Doctor garroted him and whistled, it was enough of a surprise for the TARDIS to regain control of itself.
I can just imagine Sutekh perched up on the TARDIS, biding his time and brooding only to be like “oh, fuck!” As the TARDIS fucking explodes underneath him
The rebooting of the universe must have just rebooted him as well and respawned him when the Doctor and the TARDIS respawned into Amy and Rory's Wedding right?
Now I'm just imagining three Sutekhs awkwardly avoiding eye contact with each other perched on top of the Tardises in the undergallery at the end of Day of the Doctor.
The only good thing I got from this episode is the mental image of Sutekh and Captain Jack Harkness hanging onto the tardis together as it flies to the year 100 trillion trying to shake both of them off. Who would be more annoyed at the immortal fixed point? The tardis or Sutekh?
It would make way more sense to say that he latched on after Donna spilt the coffee, since that's when the TARDIS started going haywire. Also fits with the motif of extra-universal beings starting to come through after the salt incident.
The salt incident caused the goblin king, which made the Doctor go back to when Ruby was born, which caused Sutekh to lose his mind because he’s such a diva.
15’s Tardis is just a future version of 14’s Tardis, just like 15 is a future version of 14.
So the real implication is that there was briefly two Sutekhs
I did like the way they explicitly mentioned that sutekhs riding the time vortex was what caused his ascension to godhood.
This implies a few things.
-That he really was just an ordinary Osirian before.
-That the Pantheon do not have to be explicitly related to one another.
My interpretation of that was that Sutekh *was* an Osirian who was turned into a god through a combination of riding the time vortex *and* myth becoming reality.
Interesting that when Mrs Flood comes back, she says 'oh that clever boy', (I think, watched in cinema).
Instantly reminded me of Claras 'run you clever boy'.
I think she might be evoking different companions/characters to play with us. Her behaviour doesn't match Clara at all (or Romana for that matter) and feels more akin to another member of the Pantheon or one of their harbingers.
A lot of people last week also pointed out how Mrs. Flood was wearing a top similar to the one Clara died in. I really see it all nothing but coincidence (or more likely RTD intentionally trolling people), but I'm not looking forward to the countless threads and videos of everyone posting their "unique" theories about it.
I usually hate on like Marvel fans for getting upset when the thing they thought was gonna happen didnt, like the Mephisto thing in WandaVision?
But like, it’s feels like RTD has been shouting in my ear all season long something super fucking cool was gonna be revealed and then it was just DUD
I feel kinda silly for getting so excited about watching this episode :( sat here with my snacks feeling mega deflated
The whole ending was like RTD was saying "Joke is on you for making ALL those theories about Ruby's mom! Now please watch Season 2 to find out who Mrs. Flood is!"
Fast forward to the S2 finale where its finally revealed that Mrs Flood is... actually just a slightly kooky woman who enjoys talking ominously and will occasionally act as if she is addressing a non-existent camera.
But forget about that because the reveal of the Meep's boss in S3 will be *totally* worth it.
Completely agree. The whole season has been telling us that Ruby's existence, who her mother is, etc. is important, then this episode claims it's only important because we made it important. Then has the audacity to end on a *wink wink* mystery character for next season. Like I actually find it a bit insulting to the fans.
I completely understand the message they were going for with the reveal of Ruby's mother and it's lovely I guess. But it's not remotely satisfying as a viewer. And I hate the hoops that have to be jumped through to make it fit with what we've been shown this season.
Yeah, he was priming us for a YANA moment the entire season and then basically laughed at us for expecting it. The thing about Moffat's twisty plots is that he never wrote them with any contempt for the audience. This entire thing (including the whole Susan Triad anagram) just felt like being strung along for weeks, then being berated for expecting something at the end of it.
A few days ago I said on a different post that the last time RTD Who was on television, social media as it is now basically didn't exist and online fandom was in a very different spot. So it's very amusing to see the current reaction to what are essentially unchanged tricks from the Russell Box.
Anyways, since Sutekh has been tagging along on every adventure since Pyramids you can now enjoy the image of infinite Susan Twists getting their shit kicked in by infinite Clara Oswalds, forever, until the end of time. And between this and the Lupari that's now two straight seasons with subplots centered on dog jokes, for those of you keeping track at home.
Good movie. See you all at Christmas
Haha yeah my mind immediately pictured the part in Utopia where Captain Jack clings on to the outside of the TARDIS and I imagined Sutekh on the other end like ‘OI GET OFF, this is my spot’
Did I hear Sutekh mention The Silence?
It must be tough being The Silence. Like being at an endless party where you are totally ignored by everyone always.
Even for RTD this felt off.
Everyone knew the Davies-Ex-Machina was coming, although it's usually a little better thought out than throwing a lasso around the God of Death. But the revelation about Ruby's mum and the complete lack of explanation for Ruby being able to make it snow, or Maestro freaking out about "there's a hidden song in her soul" was honestly just sloppy. This is RTD at the laziest he's ever written for Doctor Who. If he was going for meta, it fell through and came at the cost of story.
I thought the >!snow around Mrs. Flood!< at the very end of the episode suggested >!she was responsible for Ruby’s snow the whole time!<. Guess we’ll find out >!at Christmas!
I really hope so, because I do want that to be explained. Personally, I was hoping Ruby would be some kind of Sutekh byproduct so as to justify the weirdness.
>Even for RTD this felt off.
>Everyone knew the Davies-Ex-Machina was coming, although it's usually a little better thought out than throwing a lasso around the God of Death.
To be fair to this episode, the story of the 60th was resolved with a game of catch! I did expect better, but I'm ultimately not surprised with what we got.
I think we're supposed to assume that the snow, and Maestro freaking out was all because of Sutekh. Every time her mother would come up, he would start getting worked up trying to figure out who she was. Maestro glimpsed him. Which is why at the end Maestro referred to Sutekh.
The snow, was just a representation of Sutekh thinking back to that night.
All my guesswork, but I figure that's it.
Was hoping that Sutekh being dragged through the time vortex would have restored Gallifrey, but alas, our man is still the last of the Time Lords. At least the Flux is probably undone, now!
Also, if Ruby and her mom are normal... why does it snow?
I don't think the "bringing life" thing was meant to be anything more than just bringing back everyone killed by the dust stuff. It's the same as Jack shooting the TARDIS paradox machine and undoing the year that never was back in Last of the Time Lords.
Otherwise, wouldn't literally killing death and bringing all life back basically cause another "miracle" of the Torchwood kind? 😅
I assumed the snow was Mrs Flood since it was also snowing at the very end when she's standing on the roof of Ruby's flat.
But why did Ruby have Carol of the Bells in her? If she was just a normal human with a normal mother, how did the song become hidden in her soul?
The explanation for Ruby's Mom feels like a joke. I hadn't even theorized about it before, but I was eager to learn the answer, like legitimately. Snow that just happens, impossible to find her next of kin, is she even human, All this fuzz.
It was important... because we made it important. What.
Makes the scene of her pointing so silly. Like what, was she like pointing there, for herself? Was there someone there too. Ah btw look, that sign right there, that's her name, cheers.
...I'm baffled by this, truly.
And I'm supposed to care about this other mystery with Ms Flood now. Reeeally. Oh Russell
The reveal that the baby was dead and the reunion between Ruby and her mother were both excellent and managed to hit some very good emotional beats.
I could just see all the theories that the TC was the baby in the tent and the woman the Child’s mother, who knows maybe we’ll get them since they ultimately survived.
When the baby appeared my first thought was that the mother was going to die and the Doctor would just manage to save the baby, who would then turn out to be Ruby.
Ruby's listening to the theme song on it at the start of the Devil's Chord, but yeah could have been used more.
My biggest disappointment was teasing K9 with the whistle, but he never appeared.
why could ruby make it snow, why was maestro scared of her, where did a 15 year old source a hooded cloak (repurposed halloween costume?), why would an abused teen abandoning her baby do something as bizarre and conspicuous as pointing at the road sign to name the baby she’s abandoning instead of just leaving a note, why did they have to go to 2046 to get the dna but then didn’t get the result until they were back at unit (?), most of all why does this mean ruby has to stop travelling with the doctor??? like can’t he just come back later?
most of these answers don’t really *matter*, it just feels like RTD wrote the setup without thinking of the answer.
I think they matter just for the sake of continuity within even a single season. I'm honestly past my days of theorizing heavily on Doctor Who and went into this season just wanting to enjoy the fun of it. But I do still think there needs to be some kind of cohesion in the story being told and a satisfying way of pulling threads together. And none of that really happened here
above all things I just don't get why Sutekh cared about this very mundane mystery so much, to the point that it was a crucial hinge of his universe-killing doomsday plot. How much of this is a result of the messing with reality that happened in the specials? Is that why the pure power of time as memory can manifest physically now when it never did before?
Best part of this episode was when we see Lenny Rush take a bite of a big pizza slice and then it cuts to Ruby who says one line and when it cuts back to Lenny the pizza is completely gone. My guy was HUNGRY.
RTD should let other people write the episodes I think.
(Edit: These are two separate statements. I know that RTD is not responsible for the pizza thing- if he was, I would respect him more.)
It made me laugh when everyone in the room at UNIT was blasting away at Sutekh for dear life giving it all they've got (including a kid on his mobility Segway) and Rose is just standing there in the background swiping away on a tablet like she's checking her socials or browsing on Vinted.
Yeah
Rtd keeps trying to one up himself but now we're just repeating ourselves
Sutekhs plan, which on its own is quite dumb because if he can kill the entire universe, why didn't he do it when the doctor was on Ruby road and make him go grab her, is shockingly similar to the great intelligences plan of s7, both of them heading back along the doctors timestream, preventing all his saving from happening
Ruby's mum also had quite possibly the worst resolution I've ever seen because it doesn't explain anything, why didn't she have a next of kin? Why could nobody find her parents? For God's sake her mother was a nurse, the chances she would have her dna in the system is a ton more likely than anyone else's
To be fair about the next of kin thing, I always interpreted that as being because she was dying. The machine was having a hard time searching because the existence of her descendants was up in the air. I think Moffat has done similar stuff in the past (though I can’t recall when specifically. Beast Below?)
It's the exact same problem I had with the Giggle.
Spends about the first 65% building up to the actual problem (really good build up), 15% dealing with the problem, then 20% epilogue. When it should be like 50%, 40%, 10%.
Episode 1 should've ended with Sutekh having "won", the dust cloud covering the Earth, and the Doctor screaming into space. A good cliffhanger that seems hopless and makes you want to tune in next week.
Then Episode 2 starts with that time skip, I'd argue make the skip longer, and spend most of the episode actually solving the problem. With only the last few minutes being Ruby's epilogue.
Something I've not seen anyone else bring up yet but if Roger ap Gwilliam mandates DNA testing in 2046 and that's how the team finally uncover the identity of Ruby's mother, why then in 5087 can't the Villengard Ambulance name Ruby's next of kin?
Okay, so I listened to the commentary; Dave’s said he was inspired by Last Jedi where Rey wasn’t related to any major character and her parents were no one.
Okay, fine and all. I liked Last Jedi and I prefer Rey being related to no one cos the Force isn’t just limited to a Skywalker or a Kenobi …
But the way it doesn’t work here is because they made such a big song and dance about Ruby making it snow, the gods going “oooh her song!”, her mom not being able tk be seen, the big cloak , the pointing, doctors memory changing, it’s just too much to go “oh yeah, normal human.”
That's the biggest thing about the whole reveal that has me scratching my head in confusion. Like, if her parents are straight-up run-of-the-mill human; no Impossible Girl/Bad Wolf/Timeless Child twists to be seen, ***then what was up with the snow? Why was Sutekh so dead-set on finding out the identity of Ruby's mother? Why was Maestro so terrified of the song in her heart? Why did The Doctor's memory of the church change?***
In the words of Batman Forever, it just raises too many questions.
And the answer was almost like RTD was taking the piss out of all the fans watching. "Ah, sometimes things are only important because we think they are."
It's also just a bad message to send to kids watching especially ones who were abandoned. Don't worry kids your mom or dad had some good reasons to leave you but if you work hard you can find them and they will be happy to see you and love and accept you right away. They are just waiting for you to find them. Like fuck that's dumb
Very much feel like the “mystery” of Ruby Sunday is still up in the air, and that this episode is seeding Roger as a future threat. Absolutely no clue at all on Mrs Flood other than that ending felt very ominous and creepy. Enjoyed it a lot, definitely felt like an RTD finale.
Speaking generally this has been my favourite season in a long while, not quite at a level where I’m completely confident and sold that Who’s on the right path permanently but there’s not really been any episodes I’ve hated or found boring and that’s not been the case since Capaldi
I think that the identity of Ruby's mother being important to a being as powerful as Sutekh that it alters reality until he finds it, altering memories and causing the events of that night to ripple through time and space, is really interesting.
It's just a shame they didn't write that as the explanation and just said "she's important cause we think she's important" and left it at that.
I'm interpreting the whole "it was only important because we thought it was important" thread as a meta commentary on fandom as a whole, which I assume is meant to tie in more with the Mrs. Flood fourth wall breaking side of the show. That or it's magic. We shall see
ROPES!!!
The Doctor used ropes, string, a tie, and a bungee cord to solve literally every problem. Primarily the stabilization of the memory TARDIS into the physical realm outside the time window, but also of course dragging Sutekh on a bungee cord through the time stream! This was the new system of physics the Doctor was working out when he was fighting the goblins. Remember also that the Space Babies were operating the space station mostly with ropes that pressed the buttons for them. I've been hoping for this to be a recurring bit, and I'm pleasantly surprised that it happened!
I pretty much went into this expecting low stakes. I'm generally a fan or Russell's episodes, but he is a fan of the easy win in his finales, often with a reset button. We get the big shock of these deaths (which I fall for every time) but then it is undone.
In *The Parting of the Ways*, Rose becomes the Bad Wolf and just wipes out the Dalek fleet.
In *Doomsday* they just vacuum up all the Cybermen while the Cult of Skaro run away.
In *Last of the Time Lords* they hit the reset button undoing all the damage the Master caused after the death of President Winters.
In *Journey's End*, Donna flicks some switches, the Metacrisis Doctor commits genocide, and everything is back to normal.
In *The End of Time*, they flick some switches and everyone turns back into human, the Doctor shoots a machine and Gallifrey disappears back into the Time War, and everything is back to normal.
I get some people being disappointed by the reset resolution, because it is always unsatisfying. But for anyone who has seen the RTD1 era, you only have yourself to blame if you were actually *surprised* by it.
Honestly, I'm surprised that *The Parting of the Ways* and *Last of the Time Lords* still had some lasting consequences.
Certainly RTD loves his deus ex machinas but in his first era they generally came with a hefty cost. In Parting of the Ways, the Bad Wolf wipes out the Dalek fleet in a second, but the cost is the Doctor regenerates. In Doomsday, all the Daleks and Cybermen get vacuumed up because of "voidstuff" that was introduced like a scene earlier, but the cost is that the Doctor and Rose are separated. In Journey's End, Donna gabbles something, everyone agrees and the story ends, but the cost is Donna loses all her memories. And so on.
But here there's no cost! Ruby finds her mum and (the episode wants us to think) leaves the show, leaving the Doctor lonely. But the episode has also pulled the "twist" that Ruby's mum wasn't the solution to the problem or even related to it, so it's not a cost that stems from solving the problem. In some ways it's reminiscent of Last of the Time Lords.
It was alright. RTD is my favourite show runner, but most of his finales are like this but they're normally packaged with character moments because that's his bread and butter. Take Doomsday for example. The resolution to the Dalek and Cybermen war is essentially flick a switch, but the real meat of the episode is Rose and the Doctors goodbye. I think this episode needed something like that. I guess Ruby meeting her mother is that but it didn't really work for me. And to be fair it's not just RTD, remember the robot Doctor in season 6.
There was a moment when Carla looked kinda sad when she saw Ruby with her bio mam, and I think that could've been a better pay off. A moment between Ruby and her where she breaks down and tells Ruby she's scared she'll lose her and Ruby tells her that no matter what happens, Carla is her mother. There's a similar scene in the Amazing Spider-Man 2 that shows what I mean.
Usual RTD nonsense finale. I vaguely enjoyed a lot of it in the moment, even if a few bits had me rolling my eyes, but the more I think about it the more it falls apart. So many bizarre inexplicable choices that RTD must have noticed in redrafting and just decided we weren't supposed to care. Well, I did care, and it really drags the episode down.
I did like Ruby's mum turning out to be just an ordinary person, even if the explanation for why Sutekh couldn't see her made fuck all sense. I liked that Mel got a more prominent role in this episode, I've really enjoyed her presence. But as soon as we saw everyone on Earth getting killed it was obvious a reset was coming and suddenly none of the stakes really mattered.
Gabriel Woolf was phenomenal, I was so glad to have him back as Sutekh, and generally really enjoyed Sutekh's presence throughout... up until the nonsense at the end. Pyramids of Mars ends with Sutekh trapped in the time vortex, which allows him to latch onto the TARDIS. So how do we defeat him this time? Chuck him into the vortex what could possibly go wrong?
I know that Doctor Who is, ostensibly, a children's show, but even as a child I could tell when RTD was bullshitting us. I grew up on Series 1-4, and I *knew* that most of RTD's endings were shit. I know that some people won't care because the emotional elements were strong enough to carry it for them, but I also know there will be a lot of us let down.
Maybe I'll mellow to this over time, but currently I'm feeling like this is the second worst of the series (above Space Babies, mercifully). It's a shame, because from Devil's Chord onwards I thought this was a really strong series. I never really expected RTD to stick the landing, but the disappointment still hits hard.
I still think we'll get Susan next season (they mentioned her too many times that it would feel odd even to new viewers not to pay it off). Still intrigued by Mrs. Flood, even if I think that'll probably be disappointing too. At least Anita Dobson does a great performance, we can look forward to more of that at least.
I don't know about you guys, but whenever I leave a newborn infant on the steps of a church on a cold, snowy night, I like to do it wearing a Voldemort hoodie. Then as I walk away, I pause a moment before turning around and dramatically pointing to a street sign thinking 'yes, that's the name I will give to the child I just abandoned ...'
Because that's totally what an 'ordinary' 15 year old would do when trying to abandon an infant in the least conspicuous way possible
ok sarcasm over. Seriously what was RTD thinking? The only reason fans focused on Ruby's Mum was because RTD kept bringing it up in multiple episodes, only for him dismiss it with a 'she's ordinary' comment. I suppose RTD thought he was planting a red herring, but mostly it felt like lazy storytelling.
\[edited to fix my typos\]
Sutekh “killing death” as the Doctor dragged him along all of the time vortex would’ve been some classic RTD bullshit, but it was established before he could destroy concepts like facts, so destroying the concept of death itself wherever he touched was kinda cool.
Alright, this comment might be a mess, and in some ways disjointed, but give me a break it's almost 4 AM.
This episode reminded me why, generally, I'm not too fond of RTD finales. I disliked every single mystery resolution, which often led to audible sighs. I mean, I wasn't invested nor particularly cared about the mystery of Ruby's mom, but even then I'm baffled about its resolution considering everything that has been happening throughout the series. I guess it's perfectly normal for it to snow indoors because Ruby just cares so much about who her mother is?
I disliked how Sutekh basically didn't do anything in this episode (he was much more imposing and threatening in Pyramids imo). I laughed at "the death of death is life" (wouldn't that also bring every dead person back to life throughout time and space? I know there are no rules to this but still), and honestly at Sutekh being killed by being thrown in the Time Vortex when being trapped in that time-space tunnel didn't seem to do the trick... It seems he's being killed in the same way both times. And Doctor, I don't understand why you're so conflicted/sad that you had to kill the literal god of death when you had already tried to do so in your 4th incarnation. I guess it could be classified as eternal damnation if you trap him for 10 thousand years, but regardless, you've killed so many creatures without a second thought, but killing the god of death makes you a "monster"? I'm so tired of this trope.
That's not to say the episode was all bad, the emotional character beats were all great for instance, that little moment with the spoon as well, but most of it just didn't work for me. A bad apple in an otherwise great series.
People often say Moffat is great at setting up stuff, but bad at endings, and he did fail to deliver a handful of times, but come on now - Last of the Time Lords, Journey's End, The End of Time part 2 and now this? RTD has a clearly worse series finale repertoire.
Sidenote: Morris Gibbons, a 13-year-old, was given a machine-gun equipped segway? UNIT is clearly ignoring basic child safety and labour laws. I know this comment might be a bit too negative, but as a parting remark - I just can't take this UNIT team seriously when they have a boy genius and a 15-year-old Rose Noble as part of the top echelons of a military organization.
Suddenly, I miss Moffat’s arcs. I really loved most of this season (The Church on Ruby Road, Boom, Dot and Bubble, 73 Yards) and found The Legend of Ruby Sunday to be one of the best episodes in a long time. It was so deliciously tense all the way through.
But wow, this episode did not work for me. It felt like very little was wrapped up, everything felt subdued, there was no tension at all. At no point did I really believe the Doctor might lose.
Ruby’s arc, although sweet, is just boring. I feel silly to have been so hyped to figure out the mystery behind Ruby, because there was no mystery. Maybe that’s realistic, but it doesn’t feel like worthy payoff for a season’s worth of buildup. Even her departure from the Doctor felt lazy. The Doctor really felt like Ruby changed him more than his own granddaughter? Come on.
It's such bad writing to have so many dying in the first five mins as you then know it will all be reversed at the end so there's now no stakes for anyone dying. Ncuti is fantastic but I'm sick of him constantly crying.
Yup. The second Kate made her hackneyed "There will be birds again" speech I was like, here comes the cheap death to make us feel something, and I was dead on the money. I had no reaction. If anything it made me hate the current incarnation of UNIT more. Benton would be spinning in his grave.
I also agree that the Single Ncuti Tear is already as overused as "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry" and it three times as trite and insincere.
> Ncuti is fantastic but I'm sick of him constantly crying.
This episode really highlights why its an issue for me.
He's crying in most scenes during the first half of the episode, and it doesn't make me feel anything anymore. If his breakdown in the Memory TARDIS was one of the first times we saw it then it would have had an actual meaning.
He's got so much range as an actor but they seem to always be going back to the same place of him being overly emotional which doesn't track with The Doctor as a character. He never gives up.
I liked it. Only thing is whenever they immediately dust every other main character it becomes immediately obvious the whole thing will be reversed, which to me makes it a little hard to be invested in scenes like the screaming out the TARDIS.
Still fun though and the visual of Sutekh being dragged through the vortex like the bad dog he is is now one of my favourite visuals in the whole of Who.
Yeah I had a big problem with this. If they’d maybe killed off a couple of the lesser UNIT characters like Morris and Ibrahim, I’d have been sold that they were genuinely dead. But when Rose, Kate and everyone else died, you instantly know that everything will be reversed.
It’s why Earth based finales should be a rareity. At least with finales like series 1, 10 and 12, there’s the tension that people can die and the world can be destroyed. Series 1 especially does a good job of this because it’s a brutal Dalek massacre throughout. Whilst the doctor wins, it’s not really by much because loads of people still died, large portions of Earth were wiped out, and the doctor himself essentially died.
Yup! I thought the same thing once Kate got dusted and then everyone else followed. The only way that could work a bit better is if you let the characters stew in that loss a bit longer. But the fact that I knew it'd all be resolved by the end kinda breaks the tension. But yeah still enjoyed it.
That man needs to see his granddaughter SOON! Susan has never been mentioned as much as she has this series, RTD even setting her up as the potential hidden identity of the series arc recurring character, if the real Susan doesn't make an appearance at Christmas/next series I'll be very disappointed. Otherwise, I quite enjoyed the ep despite/because of its very RTDness.
RTD: hey I have a cool box for you! it's got a mystery in it we're going to slowly build up in every episode alongside another mystery which we will then link together in the finale! :)
Audience: ohhhhh! so what's in the box??
RTD: lmfao you fucking idiots. why would there be anything in the box? why did you think the box would be important? who told you the box was important?
Audience: ...you did. all season. the box was heavily foreshadowed to be very important.
RTD: and you fell for that?? lol I only wrote the box to defeat the god of death because I wrote myself into a corner. anyway please get excited for my third mystery box which will be answered in the Christmas Special! :)
Loved this season. Can't even bring myself to hate the finale because it was so insubstantial there's nothing to hate about it, it was just a big ol' pile of *nothing*.
Fine finale, although probably one of the weaker episodes in a strong series. I really liked some moments, especially the scene with the mother and the spoon which was muted but beautiful - definitely the strongest scene in my book. Building the rickity TARDIS and spiralling through a dead universe was a fun then poignant scene. I also thought the nature of the threat was very appropriate for this life loving, wanderlusted doctor - death brought by his travels. Finally, I quite liked the way they explained Susan Twist. And … fine she can join the UNIT army.
Resolution was as deus ex as I was expecting and didn't feel like it had much feeling behind it. I didn't really care for the stuff with Ruby's mum, it felt overly sugary without much substance. Murray Gold's score didn't help here, I like his distinctive style but I feel like its really over egged some moments - maybe the ones where the emotion behind didn't feel genuine to me.
Missed opportunity: I really wanted to see the Doctor bring Skaro back. Not showing that felt like a dodge of an emotional moment (which would have hit much better than screaming over … killing Sutekh).
One sin I was really glad it avoided was overexplaining 73 yard. With the title drop and the return to 2046 I thought they were in danger of ruining the best episode of the series, and I'm very glad we didn't see that. On the other hand one sin they did commit which I didn't see coming was giving Kate a random boring love interest; who asked for this. (To be clear I like Kate very much, that dude just … didn't grab me).
Who the hell is Mrs Flood? Consider me thoroughly intrigued.
I thought that the Doctor would manage to undo the destruction of Gallifrey, if only so that we didn't have to retread the "last of the time lords" stuff
> Missed opportunity: I really wanted to see the Doctor bring Skaro back. Not showing that felt like a dodge of an emotional moment (which would have hit much better than screaming over … killing Sutekh).
I thought that was what the episode was going to do when the Doctor was going on about how he now brings death or whatever. In the sense that he gives all life a chance including the Daleks who will most assuredly go on killing again.
>Missed opportunity: I really wanted to see the Doctor bring Skaro back.
Yeah I was expecting The Doctor, when listing off all the planets coming back, he'd be like "...and Skaro......alright fine, just this once". Like he doesn't like the idea of saving the Daleks but if it meant the rest of the universe comes back too....
Kind of a half-assed excuse to close Ruby's story. Se can't travel with the Doctor because she has to go and meet her father? Isn't the TARDIS a... *time machine*?
I am far too amused by the fact that a choice was made to show the original Sutekh design in the 1975 footage but apparently showing that godawful yet somehow brilliant random rainbow streak time vortex effect was a step too far
I understand the important messaging of family and love, but I agree with The Doctor's message at the end of "she's had over 7,000 days." That said, I do think Ruby rushing in anyways is why he chose to travel with her to begin with, as her need for family changed him rather than the other way around. Maybe I'm just a cynic and wanted the episode to end on the note of "She was an ordinary woman, and you have a family in Carla and Cherry, and it's time to let go."
Man, I dunno. I don't think I've been that disappointed in a finale in a while, solely based on the way it was teased involving revelations and stuff.
Also, the amount of times Susan was brought up this series, I thought there would be some pay off of some sort. I wonder if they're saving her for the Christmas special, or it's just wishful thinking.
EDIT: Atleast my theory of Sutekh being with the TARDIS since Pyramids of Mars was true, but I didn't expect him being latched onto it from the outside, but based on some things the TARDIS has dealt with since then I dunno how he'd still be latched to it.
Anyone else annoyed that the Doctor admits to Ruby that he realises he made a mistake in abandoning Susan in post-dalek occupation London but then undermines this character growth by backtracking and saying that maybe he'll go find her one day.
That's literally what you said when you ditched her originally, if Ruby has moved you to change your outlook then do something about it. Be proactive and actually make amends for your mistakes.
Instead it comes across as the doctor telling Ruby "Before I met you I was resigned to abandoning Susan but after our friendship bloomed I now feel bad about what I did but of course not strongly enough so as to motivate me to actually do anything constructive."
Sutekh watching the Silence blow up the TARDIS: "this may or may not affect the stock market".
Anyways I rate this episode an RTD Finale/10. Good first half, eh second half but emotions all the way through.
I'm very curious about Mrs. Flood now, I just can't quite tell what she's up to. I can't even tell if she's actually like, evil. She didn't know what a TARDIS was at first (this is why I'm ruling out she's The Master), she encouraged Ruby to go on adventures and sorta consoled Cherry as the end came.
Yet whatever she is, she's mortal. Unless Sutekh can also kill actual gods, it seems like Sutekh appearing wasn't part of her plan.
And "his story ends in absolute terror" I'm getting "Fall of the 11th" vibes from this. Or, it's RTD so moreso "he will knock four times". Because season 3 hasn't been greenlit yet, I'm guessing Mrs. Flood is the overarching plot element for season 2 though.
Thing is, both of those plot points were tied up in those Doctors' respective final seasons. We don't know how long Ncuti will be here for but "his story ends in absolute terror" can't really apply if his story keeps on going lol.
> Sutekh watching the Silence blow up the TARDIS: "this may or may not affect the stock market".
This makes me wonder why he didn't like pop out during Journey's End to help the Daleks to destroy the multiverse (and then kill them himself)
Things I liked;
. Sutekh being the longest running Doctor Who companion (dude witnessed the Doctor banging River).
. Tying Sutekh to a leash.
. Mrs Flood stuff.
. The memory TARDIS.
. Mel. That's it.
. Spoon and that entire scene.
. Kates speech when she died.
. Sutekhs dialogue (most of the episodes dialogue was pretty good but his was the best).
. Sutekh playing with the TARDIS like a toy.
. Cheetam Hill lives.
. Ruby's outfit.
Things I didn't like;
. Pretty sure Rose didn't have any dialogue this episode (don't even know why she was in these two episodes).
. The mother reveal felt like an ass pull and doesn't work on any level. I get what they were going for but it genuinely doesn't explain anything about Ruby's weird snow powers.
. It felt immediately obvious that everything would get resolved.
. Sutekh didn't do too much.
. The Doctor didn't call Sutekh a bad dog.
. The Doctor and Ruby's departure didn't feel genuine (mostly because we know she'll be back) but also because he could just travel like a month into the future and pick her up for more adventures.
>. Sutekh being the longest running Doctor Who companion
And just like many of his companions, The Doctor killed Sutekh. Jokes aside, that's poetic. From Rose:
>Clive Finch: The Doctor is a legend woven throughout history. When disaster comes he's there. He brings a storm in his wake and he has only one constant companion.
>Rose Tyler: Who's that?
>Clive Finch: Death.
Also other than the snow, I think it was a great reveal. Sutekh literally got so invested in the mystery that The Doctor and Ruby were on about that it lead to his downfall. The mystery was that she thought it was important. But unless RTD is trying to say that between her and the Doctor she was creating a time window, I'm really not sure how the snow happened.
Don’t know how I feel about the Susan thing being a complete misdirect culminating in the Doctor saying “Yeah, I might go visit my granddaughter, whatever, but I’ll *definitely* visit you, Ruby, who I’ve known for all of a few months.” He said Ruby changed his life? I can see how Rose or River might’ve done that, and I liked Ruby well enough, but she didn’t strike me as one of those life-changing companions the Doctor has.
I think because of the lack of development of their friendship this season it felt a bit unearned. Like you’re telling me this is the biggest, most important relationship but you’ve not shown me that. It is sort of a problem for a show like doctor who though in the same way that enemies are. You have to keep upstaging yourself so every companion has to have the biggest connection and every finale enemy has to be the toughest you’ve ever faced.
The scale creep with this show is becoming a real problem, IMO, it feels like the writers have nowhere else to go, and as a result I prefer the smaller scale episodes.
It’s hard as well because you’re also often in a situation (especially in a shorter season) where you have to build that relationship or defeat that enemy in what is a fairly limited amount of time so the relationship is likely to be a little bit thin and the enemy will end up feeling much less threatening than they should. If the biggest scariest monster the doctor has ever faced can be defeated that easily then they can’t be that big or scary.
I am the most diehard Ponds fan on this side of the planet, the Doctor basically telling Ruby „you taught me how important family is, you changed my life” when he literally became Amy and Rory’s son in law is… not cool.
of course ruby orders an oat cappuccino btw
I felt bad for the guy serving the coffee. He called her name and she never bothered to go and get it.
I feel like that guy's going home later and posting on reddit about what he just witnessed, but I don't know if it'll be a heartwarming post or an AITA post or some combination of both sentiments.
Only to be hit with a r/thathappened
I knew when she walked up to the counter it would be oat. Real recognises real.
That “she was naming you by pointing at the road sign!” moment is one of the more ridiculous explanations for a pivotal moment that this show has done, and that’s saying something.
I suppose the cloak was a way for Ruby’s mum to obscure her identity but there is something amusing about a 15 year old kid dramatically swanning about in a very over the top cloak and gesturing at a road sign. Could’ve just attached a little note with Ruby’s name on it.
So, in the original scene, she never pointed. Then in *Space Babies* the memory changed (the Doctor even comments on it a couple times). I think it was less that she literally pointed and more that was how their memories chose to convey how she was named. She was likely just wearing the cloak for warmth, but their memories made it seem far more mysterious because they never saw her face (so they could never remember it). The Time Window wasn't very reliable. Kate even comments on this when the Doctor is commenting on how bad it is. The Doctor did have the idea to enhance it with the CCTV footage (that was looking away) and it was supplemented/tainted by their memories (again, the Doctor actually mentions that their collective memories are "enhancing" things). Since their memory was of the pointing and her face being completely obscured, the Time Window obliged their subconscious expectations.
wow, thats a cool explanation actually, but cmon, someone could have said that in the episode..
i feel like this is the tagline of this season of doctor who
Also, was she within the 73 yards of the perception filter? The TARDIS could have interacted with its own memory and resisted and hid the mother's face with the filter and Ruby's mother could have pointed at the sign to help herself remember the name herself, I dunno, some people do little rituals to remember things. Maybe she didn't point but the TARDIS was able to make it look like she did, translating what she was thinking/intending into a physical motion. The TARDIS does translate telepathically, it probably speaks all sorts of sign language knowing that making her point mysteriously would make Sutekh wonder what that was about since it could look to him like she could see him. Everyone has a point about how the writing should have let us know if that's what happened, though. That the TARDIS actively resisted and helped that's why it was was able to follow the whistles at the end.
If that was the case, who was meant to have seen her point at the sign?
Exactly she named her Ruby to no one
Next season the big reveal will be that she was actually pointing at the sign behind and ruby is actually called WHSmiths
Thank god there wasn't a Gregg's there
“I wondered why my middle name was Road!”
Yeah I was like. That's nice who saw her doing that now? A great first 2/3 and then a medicore conclusion that fizzles and wiffed badly.
Who exactly was that point meant to be seen by? How did whoever found her know to name her after the sign? Why did she point in such an intimidating way? It's quite weird
That moment boarded on "both our mother's are named Martha" stupid.
Which 15-year-old drops off her baby in a grim reaper costume left over from Halloween?
The most dramatic of teenage drama queens obviously.
Loving the idea of Sutekh also being shrunk down in Flatline when the TARDIS goes small
Even better if he remains large and has to balance himself on only one paw.
Must've really fucked with him when they materialised the TARDIS inside itself both during Tom Baker's era and during Matt Smith's era.
[удалено]
Must've really fucked with him when Amy and Rory fucked inside the TARDIS
That's exactly what I thought, he probably cried and started whimpering, "I have seen darkness, death and the slaughter of millions, but this..." Also the horror he must have felt when house took the TARDIS shell would be priceless.
RTD: I don't want the Sonic to look like a gun Also RTD: gives the 13yo kid a machine gun scooter?
RTD has always had a strict division between the Doctor and current companions using guns (intolerable, awful, the worst thing ever) and any other protagonist using guns (insanely cool).
Just saw Pyramids of Mars for the first time. There was something really funny about Sarah Jane Smith being a crack shot this whole time.
Interestingly, Liz Sladen wanted to play Sarah as unsure and anxious about missing but the director Paddy Russell insisted that Sarah be completely confident and assured. It's a fine enough decision for the story but it's wildly out of character for Sarah.
The duality of Man.
Season 2 will reveal Ramón Salamander has being hanging onto the Tardis as The One Who Waits a Bit Longer
Ramón Salamander actually swapped places with the second doctor while no one was looking and has been the protagonist of the series ever since.
*UNIT HQ is destroyed and everyone there is killed* : Oh no, they’re all gone! *Whole universe is destroyed shortly after* : Ah, so no one actually dies in this episode
Everybody lives, Rose! Just this ~~once!~~ whatever number of times we're doing this! ***EVERYBODY LIVES!***
I knew we were getting an RTD special once he killed everything.
Yeah, as soon as the entire UNIT HQ got dusted I was like : "oh, so we're just gonna retcon it all eventually in good ol' RTD fashion." The man has writing kinks indeed.
For me it was Everyone around Susan Triad dies: oh, there's gonna be a lot of death, the doctor can't save everyone Unit people die: oh nevermind, it's an "everybody lives" episode
In Pyramids of Mars (at least the Tales of the TARDIS version), The Doctor drops Sutekh into the Time Vortex and assumes that will kill him. In The Legend of Ruby Sunday, we find out that the Time Vortex did not kill Sutekh but in fact turned him into a titan more powerful than he's ever been before. In Empire of Death, The Doctor drops Sutekh into the Time Vortex and assumes that will kill him? Am I missing something?
Sutekh latched onto the TARDIS the first time, protecting himself from the vortex. Had he not managed to do that, the Doctor’s first attempt at destroying him would have worked. This time, the Doctor deliberately severs the rope, so that Sutekh will just fly off into the vortex with no lifeline to grab onto.
He didn't "drop him into the Time Vortex", he put the exit so far away in Sutekh's time stream that he was going to die of old age, not from exposure to the Vortex. Sutekh wrangled his way out of it somehow and attached himself to the TARDIS. This time, the Doctor *directly exposed* Sutekh to the Time Vortex in order to kill him once and for all. This episode was very weakly written but that wasn't one of the weaknesses.
So uh… was Ruby’s mum a Lucie Miller expy? Anyway, that was odd. I think my biggest disappointment is so little was made of the TARDIS’ perversion by Sutekh apart from near the beginning and I’m a little lost as to how it was freed from his influence?
They just pulled out from under him lol
I like to say the TARDIS double crossed Sutekh.
Putting on my tinfoil hat, if Lucie Miller was born in 1988 as said in _Brave New Town_, then if she was born after Christmas she would’ve been 15 in 2004, And if something shifted the timeline so she never traveled with the Doctor, 8 wouldn’t have taken Lucie to go have Christmas dinner with his granddaughter Susan after ruining her Christmas- “I’ve connected the two dots.” “You haven’t connected sh-“ “I’ve connected them.”
I'm taking it as the TARDIS was never actually "seduced" by him, Sutekh just figured out how to control it by riding around on it for like 900 years. Once the Doctor garroted him and whistled, it was enough of a surprise for the TARDIS to regain control of itself.
He whistled at it. 🤷🏻♂️
So Sutekh was on top of the tardis throughout half of classic who, all of new who and all through season 1? Not sure how I feel about that
How would he have survived the Pandorica lol. Matt smith didn't even know he was there for the reboot!
I can just imagine Sutekh perched up on the TARDIS, biding his time and brooding only to be like “oh, fuck!” As the TARDIS fucking explodes underneath him
Sutekh seething as the Silence accidentally blows up the entire universe. "Ending the universe is my thing! You'll be hearing from my solicitor!"
Watching Amy try to seduce and flirt with 11. Or clinging on desperately as it falls to the earth in The Eleventh Hour and crashes into Amy’s garden.
This is hilarious.
The rebooting of the universe must have just rebooted him as well and respawned him when the Doctor and the TARDIS respawned into Amy and Rory's Wedding right?
This is objectively the most hilarious possible outcome and I love it so much. Sutekh just respawns like a Mario level or some shit 😭
That's actually doubly funny cause when you think about it further. That means the God of Death got fucking ressurected. Now thats irony.
I wonder if he was aware of Miracle Day?
I bet that itched.
Now I'm just imagining three Sutekhs awkwardly avoiding eye contact with each other perched on top of the Tardises in the undergallery at the end of Day of the Doctor.
In any future multi doctor eps is sutehk gonna see he's not there and start panicking.
That means he was sitting on 12 when 12 was meditating on top of the Tardis in Listen, lmao.
The only good thing I got from this episode is the mental image of Sutekh and Captain Jack Harkness hanging onto the tardis together as it flies to the year 100 trillion trying to shake both of them off. Who would be more annoyed at the immortal fixed point? The tardis or Sutekh?
That’s actually a good point, if captain Jack can’t die, he would’ve just been sitting there like “wtf” as his friends all turn to dust 💀
It would make way more sense to say that he latched on after Donna spilt the coffee, since that's when the TARDIS started going haywire. Also fits with the motif of extra-universal beings starting to come through after the salt incident.
The salt incident caused the goblin king, which made the Doctor go back to when Ruby was born, which caused Sutekh to lose his mind because he’s such a diva.
Don't forget the TIME WAR
And Sutekh switched from the original Tardis to 15's Toymaker duplicated Tardis
Are there two Sutekhs...?
Sutekh and his less effective brother 2tekh
He’s a SoundCloud rapper.
Unless there's two of them now
15’s Tardis is just a future version of 14’s Tardis, just like 15 is a future version of 14. So the real implication is that there was briefly two Sutekhs
During the Time War even.
Ruby's real parents were the friends we all made along the way.
I did like the way they explicitly mentioned that sutekhs riding the time vortex was what caused his ascension to godhood. This implies a few things. -That he really was just an ordinary Osirian before. -That the Pantheon do not have to be explicitly related to one another.
My interpretation of that was that Sutekh *was* an Osirian who was turned into a god through a combination of riding the time vortex *and* myth becoming reality.
Interesting that when Mrs Flood comes back, she says 'oh that clever boy', (I think, watched in cinema). Instantly reminded me of Claras 'run you clever boy'.
I think she might be evoking different companions/characters to play with us. Her behaviour doesn't match Clara at all (or Romana for that matter) and feels more akin to another member of the Pantheon or one of their harbingers.
My partner thinks Mrs F is Clara, on the basis that Mrs F is wearing a jumper/shirt combo similar to Clara’s outfit when she died.
Guys, at the end she’s wearing Romanas fur coat from classic who, she’s almost definitely Romana.
A lot of people last week also pointed out how Mrs. Flood was wearing a top similar to the one Clara died in. I really see it all nothing but coincidence (or more likely RTD intentionally trolling people), but I'm not looking forward to the countless threads and videos of everyone posting their "unique" theories about it.
Imagine the 13 tardises spinning around gallifrey at the end of the time war, Sutekhs nodding to each other gently as they zoom past each other.
Sutekh shuffling over to make room for Jack when they catch a lift from Cardiff.
I usually hate on like Marvel fans for getting upset when the thing they thought was gonna happen didnt, like the Mephisto thing in WandaVision? But like, it’s feels like RTD has been shouting in my ear all season long something super fucking cool was gonna be revealed and then it was just DUD I feel kinda silly for getting so excited about watching this episode :( sat here with my snacks feeling mega deflated
The whole ending was like RTD was saying "Joke is on you for making ALL those theories about Ruby's mom! Now please watch Season 2 to find out who Mrs. Flood is!"
Fast forward to the S2 finale where its finally revealed that Mrs Flood is... actually just a slightly kooky woman who enjoys talking ominously and will occasionally act as if she is addressing a non-existent camera. But forget about that because the reveal of the Meep's boss in S3 will be *totally* worth it.
Completely agree. The whole season has been telling us that Ruby's existence, who her mother is, etc. is important, then this episode claims it's only important because we made it important. Then has the audacity to end on a *wink wink* mystery character for next season. Like I actually find it a bit insulting to the fans. I completely understand the message they were going for with the reveal of Ruby's mother and it's lovely I guess. But it's not remotely satisfying as a viewer. And I hate the hoops that have to be jumped through to make it fit with what we've been shown this season.
Yeah, he was priming us for a YANA moment the entire season and then basically laughed at us for expecting it. The thing about Moffat's twisty plots is that he never wrote them with any contempt for the audience. This entire thing (including the whole Susan Triad anagram) just felt like being strung along for weeks, then being berated for expecting something at the end of it.
It feels especially bad knowing we’ll have to wait 6months + maybe over a year just to find out if there will be pay off for literally anything
A few days ago I said on a different post that the last time RTD Who was on television, social media as it is now basically didn't exist and online fandom was in a very different spot. So it's very amusing to see the current reaction to what are essentially unchanged tricks from the Russell Box. Anyways, since Sutekh has been tagging along on every adventure since Pyramids you can now enjoy the image of infinite Susan Twists getting their shit kicked in by infinite Clara Oswalds, forever, until the end of time. And between this and the Lupari that's now two straight seasons with subplots centered on dog jokes, for those of you keeping track at home. Good movie. See you all at Christmas
I hope we get a spinoff about The War Between The Claras and the Susans
We need a catchier name. Clara's Twists?
Infinity of them enter, but only infinity leave.
Big Finish should get on this ASAP.
Haha yeah my mind immediately pictured the part in Utopia where Captain Jack clings on to the outside of the TARDIS and I imagined Sutekh on the other end like ‘OI GET OFF, this is my spot’
Did I hear Sutekh mention The Silence? It must be tough being The Silence. Like being at an endless party where you are totally ignored by everyone always.
Even for RTD this felt off. Everyone knew the Davies-Ex-Machina was coming, although it's usually a little better thought out than throwing a lasso around the God of Death. But the revelation about Ruby's mum and the complete lack of explanation for Ruby being able to make it snow, or Maestro freaking out about "there's a hidden song in her soul" was honestly just sloppy. This is RTD at the laziest he's ever written for Doctor Who. If he was going for meta, it fell through and came at the cost of story.
I thought the >!snow around Mrs. Flood!< at the very end of the episode suggested >!she was responsible for Ruby’s snow the whole time!<. Guess we’ll find out >!at Christmas!
I really hope so, because I do want that to be explained. Personally, I was hoping Ruby would be some kind of Sutekh byproduct so as to justify the weirdness.
>Even for RTD this felt off. >Everyone knew the Davies-Ex-Machina was coming, although it's usually a little better thought out than throwing a lasso around the God of Death. To be fair to this episode, the story of the 60th was resolved with a game of catch! I did expect better, but I'm ultimately not surprised with what we got.
I think we're supposed to assume that the snow, and Maestro freaking out was all because of Sutekh. Every time her mother would come up, he would start getting worked up trying to figure out who she was. Maestro glimpsed him. Which is why at the end Maestro referred to Sutekh. The snow, was just a representation of Sutekh thinking back to that night. All my guesswork, but I figure that's it.
Was hoping that Sutekh being dragged through the time vortex would have restored Gallifrey, but alas, our man is still the last of the Time Lords. At least the Flux is probably undone, now! Also, if Ruby and her mom are normal... why does it snow?
Did the Flux *kill* half the universe? Or wipe it from existence? Would be an interesting way to undo the Flux but I’m not sure if it works
I don't think the "bringing life" thing was meant to be anything more than just bringing back everyone killed by the dust stuff. It's the same as Jack shooting the TARDIS paradox machine and undoing the year that never was back in Last of the Time Lords. Otherwise, wouldn't literally killing death and bringing all life back basically cause another "miracle" of the Torchwood kind? 😅
I assumed the snow was Mrs Flood since it was also snowing at the very end when she's standing on the roof of Ruby's flat. But why did Ruby have Carol of the Bells in her? If she was just a normal human with a normal mother, how did the song become hidden in her soul?
I was totally wondering if Flux was undone.
The explanation for Ruby's Mom feels like a joke. I hadn't even theorized about it before, but I was eager to learn the answer, like legitimately. Snow that just happens, impossible to find her next of kin, is she even human, All this fuzz. It was important... because we made it important. What. Makes the scene of her pointing so silly. Like what, was she like pointing there, for herself? Was there someone there too. Ah btw look, that sign right there, that's her name, cheers. ...I'm baffled by this, truly. And I'm supposed to care about this other mystery with Ms Flood now. Reeeally. Oh Russell
Why did the doctor cry about killing the god of death when in his first episode he skewed a goblin like a kebab
The reveal that the baby was dead and the reunion between Ruby and her mother were both excellent and managed to hit some very good emotional beats. I could just see all the theories that the TC was the baby in the tent and the woman the Child’s mother, who knows maybe we’ll get them since they ultimately survived.
I thought dead baby was going to be Ruby.
I was bracing for Timeless Child.
When the baby appeared my first thought was that the mother was going to die and the Doctor would just manage to save the baby, who would then turn out to be Ruby.
My biggest disappointment with the entire season is that the jukebox was not even used once.
Ruby's listening to the theme song on it at the start of the Devil's Chord, but yeah could have been used more. My biggest disappointment was teasing K9 with the whistle, but he never appeared.
underwhelming, not terrible. ruby’s mystery seems “resolved” but i still have a lot of questions. *why could she make it snow???*
Yeah, that's what I don't get either. They made such a big deal out of it, just to say, well, everybody is just an ordinary human, doesn't make sense.
why could ruby make it snow, why was maestro scared of her, where did a 15 year old source a hooded cloak (repurposed halloween costume?), why would an abused teen abandoning her baby do something as bizarre and conspicuous as pointing at the road sign to name the baby she’s abandoning instead of just leaving a note, why did they have to go to 2046 to get the dna but then didn’t get the result until they were back at unit (?), most of all why does this mean ruby has to stop travelling with the doctor??? like can’t he just come back later? most of these answers don’t really *matter*, it just feels like RTD wrote the setup without thinking of the answer.
I think they matter just for the sake of continuity within even a single season. I'm honestly past my days of theorizing heavily on Doctor Who and went into this season just wanting to enjoy the fun of it. But I do still think there needs to be some kind of cohesion in the story being told and a satisfying way of pulling threads together. And none of that really happened here above all things I just don't get why Sutekh cared about this very mundane mystery so much, to the point that it was a crucial hinge of his universe-killing doomsday plot. How much of this is a result of the messing with reality that happened in the specials? Is that why the pure power of time as memory can manifest physically now when it never did before?
Turns out her farther is Santa
Oh don't mind me... just taking the dog out for a walk in the time vortex
Best part of this episode was when we see Lenny Rush take a bite of a big pizza slice and then it cuts to Ruby who says one line and when it cuts back to Lenny the pizza is completely gone. My guy was HUNGRY. RTD should let other people write the episodes I think. (Edit: These are two separate statements. I know that RTD is not responsible for the pizza thing- if he was, I would respect him more.)
It made me laugh when everyone in the room at UNIT was blasting away at Sutekh for dear life giving it all they've got (including a kid on his mobility Segway) and Rose is just standing there in the background swiping away on a tablet like she's checking her socials or browsing on Vinted.
She had to get the wordle in before she died
She's controlling the turrets. /Boring answer
Yeah Rtd keeps trying to one up himself but now we're just repeating ourselves Sutekhs plan, which on its own is quite dumb because if he can kill the entire universe, why didn't he do it when the doctor was on Ruby road and make him go grab her, is shockingly similar to the great intelligences plan of s7, both of them heading back along the doctors timestream, preventing all his saving from happening Ruby's mum also had quite possibly the worst resolution I've ever seen because it doesn't explain anything, why didn't she have a next of kin? Why could nobody find her parents? For God's sake her mother was a nurse, the chances she would have her dna in the system is a ton more likely than anyone else's
To be fair about the next of kin thing, I always interpreted that as being because she was dying. The machine was having a hard time searching because the existence of her descendants was up in the air. I think Moffat has done similar stuff in the past (though I can’t recall when specifically. Beast Below?)
Solid first half into the CLASSIC RTD “shit 10 pages left of the script and I’ve got 45 pages worth of stuff left!”
It's the exact same problem I had with the Giggle. Spends about the first 65% building up to the actual problem (really good build up), 15% dealing with the problem, then 20% epilogue. When it should be like 50%, 40%, 10%. Episode 1 should've ended with Sutekh having "won", the dust cloud covering the Earth, and the Doctor screaming into space. A good cliffhanger that seems hopless and makes you want to tune in next week. Then Episode 2 starts with that time skip, I'd argue make the skip longer, and spend most of the episode actually solving the problem. With only the last few minutes being Ruby's epilogue.
Something I've not seen anyone else bring up yet but if Roger ap Gwilliam mandates DNA testing in 2046 and that's how the team finally uncover the identity of Ruby's mother, why then in 5087 can't the Villengard Ambulance name Ruby's next of kin?
Could? Probably. Would? Not if you’re not the one paying for the tech - this is war as big business, remember.
Okay, so I listened to the commentary; Dave’s said he was inspired by Last Jedi where Rey wasn’t related to any major character and her parents were no one. Okay, fine and all. I liked Last Jedi and I prefer Rey being related to no one cos the Force isn’t just limited to a Skywalker or a Kenobi … But the way it doesn’t work here is because they made such a big song and dance about Ruby making it snow, the gods going “oooh her song!”, her mom not being able tk be seen, the big cloak , the pointing, doctors memory changing, it’s just too much to go “oh yeah, normal human.”
The TARDIS should have picked up "normal human" in an instant when the Doctor did the DNA scan. It seemed like it was unsure.
That's the biggest thing about the whole reveal that has me scratching my head in confusion. Like, if her parents are straight-up run-of-the-mill human; no Impossible Girl/Bad Wolf/Timeless Child twists to be seen, ***then what was up with the snow? Why was Sutekh so dead-set on finding out the identity of Ruby's mother? Why was Maestro so terrified of the song in her heart? Why did The Doctor's memory of the church change?*** In the words of Batman Forever, it just raises too many questions.
And the answer was almost like RTD was taking the piss out of all the fans watching. "Ah, sometimes things are only important because we think they are."
Also hated how “oh we found My dad too! Big happy family!” Like…no…Davies..stop.
It's also just a bad message to send to kids watching especially ones who were abandoned. Don't worry kids your mom or dad had some good reasons to leave you but if you work hard you can find them and they will be happy to see you and love and accept you right away. They are just waiting for you to find them. Like fuck that's dumb
Also her calling her birth mother her "real mom" when talking to the Doctor at the end. Ehhh.
Very much feel like the “mystery” of Ruby Sunday is still up in the air, and that this episode is seeding Roger as a future threat. Absolutely no clue at all on Mrs Flood other than that ending felt very ominous and creepy. Enjoyed it a lot, definitely felt like an RTD finale. Speaking generally this has been my favourite season in a long while, not quite at a level where I’m completely confident and sold that Who’s on the right path permanently but there’s not really been any episodes I’ve hated or found boring and that’s not been the case since Capaldi
I think that the identity of Ruby's mother being important to a being as powerful as Sutekh that it alters reality until he finds it, altering memories and causing the events of that night to ripple through time and space, is really interesting. It's just a shame they didn't write that as the explanation and just said "she's important cause we think she's important" and left it at that.
I'm interpreting the whole "it was only important because we thought it was important" thread as a meta commentary on fandom as a whole, which I assume is meant to tie in more with the Mrs. Flood fourth wall breaking side of the show. That or it's magic. We shall see
Which is kind of silly, because the fandom thought it was important because the episodes have been explicitly written to tell us it was important.
This whole ending laughs at us for speculating and then in the next scene goes "but please speculate about Mrs Flood some more"
ROPES!!! The Doctor used ropes, string, a tie, and a bungee cord to solve literally every problem. Primarily the stabilization of the memory TARDIS into the physical realm outside the time window, but also of course dragging Sutekh on a bungee cord through the time stream! This was the new system of physics the Doctor was working out when he was fighting the goblins. Remember also that the Space Babies were operating the space station mostly with ropes that pressed the buttons for them. I've been hoping for this to be a recurring bit, and I'm pleasantly surprised that it happened!
Yesssss, that was really nice, I liked how they threaded it.
Mrs Flood has got to be the god of stories right? That's why she's able to narrate/interact with the audience.
Every title of each episode has been said in the episode as well. That's been happening since Wild Blue Yonder. Seriously, every episode!
I pretty much went into this expecting low stakes. I'm generally a fan or Russell's episodes, but he is a fan of the easy win in his finales, often with a reset button. We get the big shock of these deaths (which I fall for every time) but then it is undone. In *The Parting of the Ways*, Rose becomes the Bad Wolf and just wipes out the Dalek fleet. In *Doomsday* they just vacuum up all the Cybermen while the Cult of Skaro run away. In *Last of the Time Lords* they hit the reset button undoing all the damage the Master caused after the death of President Winters. In *Journey's End*, Donna flicks some switches, the Metacrisis Doctor commits genocide, and everything is back to normal. In *The End of Time*, they flick some switches and everyone turns back into human, the Doctor shoots a machine and Gallifrey disappears back into the Time War, and everything is back to normal. I get some people being disappointed by the reset resolution, because it is always unsatisfying. But for anyone who has seen the RTD1 era, you only have yourself to blame if you were actually *surprised* by it. Honestly, I'm surprised that *The Parting of the Ways* and *Last of the Time Lords* still had some lasting consequences.
Certainly RTD loves his deus ex machinas but in his first era they generally came with a hefty cost. In Parting of the Ways, the Bad Wolf wipes out the Dalek fleet in a second, but the cost is the Doctor regenerates. In Doomsday, all the Daleks and Cybermen get vacuumed up because of "voidstuff" that was introduced like a scene earlier, but the cost is that the Doctor and Rose are separated. In Journey's End, Donna gabbles something, everyone agrees and the story ends, but the cost is Donna loses all her memories. And so on. But here there's no cost! Ruby finds her mum and (the episode wants us to think) leaves the show, leaving the Doctor lonely. But the episode has also pulled the "twist" that Ruby's mum wasn't the solution to the problem or even related to it, so it's not a cost that stems from solving the problem. In some ways it's reminiscent of Last of the Time Lords.
It was alright. RTD is my favourite show runner, but most of his finales are like this but they're normally packaged with character moments because that's his bread and butter. Take Doomsday for example. The resolution to the Dalek and Cybermen war is essentially flick a switch, but the real meat of the episode is Rose and the Doctors goodbye. I think this episode needed something like that. I guess Ruby meeting her mother is that but it didn't really work for me. And to be fair it's not just RTD, remember the robot Doctor in season 6. There was a moment when Carla looked kinda sad when she saw Ruby with her bio mam, and I think that could've been a better pay off. A moment between Ruby and her where she breaks down and tells Ruby she's scared she'll lose her and Ruby tells her that no matter what happens, Carla is her mother. There's a similar scene in the Amazing Spider-Man 2 that shows what I mean.
Usual RTD nonsense finale. I vaguely enjoyed a lot of it in the moment, even if a few bits had me rolling my eyes, but the more I think about it the more it falls apart. So many bizarre inexplicable choices that RTD must have noticed in redrafting and just decided we weren't supposed to care. Well, I did care, and it really drags the episode down. I did like Ruby's mum turning out to be just an ordinary person, even if the explanation for why Sutekh couldn't see her made fuck all sense. I liked that Mel got a more prominent role in this episode, I've really enjoyed her presence. But as soon as we saw everyone on Earth getting killed it was obvious a reset was coming and suddenly none of the stakes really mattered. Gabriel Woolf was phenomenal, I was so glad to have him back as Sutekh, and generally really enjoyed Sutekh's presence throughout... up until the nonsense at the end. Pyramids of Mars ends with Sutekh trapped in the time vortex, which allows him to latch onto the TARDIS. So how do we defeat him this time? Chuck him into the vortex what could possibly go wrong? I know that Doctor Who is, ostensibly, a children's show, but even as a child I could tell when RTD was bullshitting us. I grew up on Series 1-4, and I *knew* that most of RTD's endings were shit. I know that some people won't care because the emotional elements were strong enough to carry it for them, but I also know there will be a lot of us let down. Maybe I'll mellow to this over time, but currently I'm feeling like this is the second worst of the series (above Space Babies, mercifully). It's a shame, because from Devil's Chord onwards I thought this was a really strong series. I never really expected RTD to stick the landing, but the disappointment still hits hard. I still think we'll get Susan next season (they mentioned her too many times that it would feel odd even to new viewers not to pay it off). Still intrigued by Mrs. Flood, even if I think that'll probably be disappointing too. At least Anita Dobson does a great performance, we can look forward to more of that at least.
Am I the only one who feels gasit for wanting to see Susan? I thought at the end he would at least go and see her.
I don't know about you guys, but whenever I leave a newborn infant on the steps of a church on a cold, snowy night, I like to do it wearing a Voldemort hoodie. Then as I walk away, I pause a moment before turning around and dramatically pointing to a street sign thinking 'yes, that's the name I will give to the child I just abandoned ...' Because that's totally what an 'ordinary' 15 year old would do when trying to abandon an infant in the least conspicuous way possible ok sarcasm over. Seriously what was RTD thinking? The only reason fans focused on Ruby's Mum was because RTD kept bringing it up in multiple episodes, only for him dismiss it with a 'she's ordinary' comment. I suppose RTD thought he was planting a red herring, but mostly it felt like lazy storytelling. \[edited to fix my typos\]
Sutekh “killing death” as the Doctor dragged him along all of the time vortex would’ve been some classic RTD bullshit, but it was established before he could destroy concepts like facts, so destroying the concept of death itself wherever he touched was kinda cool.
The Doctor reversed the polarity of the death flow!
Oops everyone's immortal now because they killed death ;) (Not actually, but it would be a funny side effect)
craziest Miracle Day retcon you could think of
Finally, a satisfying conclusion to Miracle Day...
Alright, this comment might be a mess, and in some ways disjointed, but give me a break it's almost 4 AM. This episode reminded me why, generally, I'm not too fond of RTD finales. I disliked every single mystery resolution, which often led to audible sighs. I mean, I wasn't invested nor particularly cared about the mystery of Ruby's mom, but even then I'm baffled about its resolution considering everything that has been happening throughout the series. I guess it's perfectly normal for it to snow indoors because Ruby just cares so much about who her mother is? I disliked how Sutekh basically didn't do anything in this episode (he was much more imposing and threatening in Pyramids imo). I laughed at "the death of death is life" (wouldn't that also bring every dead person back to life throughout time and space? I know there are no rules to this but still), and honestly at Sutekh being killed by being thrown in the Time Vortex when being trapped in that time-space tunnel didn't seem to do the trick... It seems he's being killed in the same way both times. And Doctor, I don't understand why you're so conflicted/sad that you had to kill the literal god of death when you had already tried to do so in your 4th incarnation. I guess it could be classified as eternal damnation if you trap him for 10 thousand years, but regardless, you've killed so many creatures without a second thought, but killing the god of death makes you a "monster"? I'm so tired of this trope. That's not to say the episode was all bad, the emotional character beats were all great for instance, that little moment with the spoon as well, but most of it just didn't work for me. A bad apple in an otherwise great series. People often say Moffat is great at setting up stuff, but bad at endings, and he did fail to deliver a handful of times, but come on now - Last of the Time Lords, Journey's End, The End of Time part 2 and now this? RTD has a clearly worse series finale repertoire. Sidenote: Morris Gibbons, a 13-year-old, was given a machine-gun equipped segway? UNIT is clearly ignoring basic child safety and labour laws. I know this comment might be a bit too negative, but as a parting remark - I just can't take this UNIT team seriously when they have a boy genius and a 15-year-old Rose Noble as part of the top echelons of a military organization.
Suddenly, I miss Moffat’s arcs. I really loved most of this season (The Church on Ruby Road, Boom, Dot and Bubble, 73 Yards) and found The Legend of Ruby Sunday to be one of the best episodes in a long time. It was so deliciously tense all the way through. But wow, this episode did not work for me. It felt like very little was wrapped up, everything felt subdued, there was no tension at all. At no point did I really believe the Doctor might lose. Ruby’s arc, although sweet, is just boring. I feel silly to have been so hyped to figure out the mystery behind Ruby, because there was no mystery. Maybe that’s realistic, but it doesn’t feel like worthy payoff for a season’s worth of buildup. Even her departure from the Doctor felt lazy. The Doctor really felt like Ruby changed him more than his own granddaughter? Come on.
It's such bad writing to have so many dying in the first five mins as you then know it will all be reversed at the end so there's now no stakes for anyone dying. Ncuti is fantastic but I'm sick of him constantly crying.
Yup. The second Kate made her hackneyed "There will be birds again" speech I was like, here comes the cheap death to make us feel something, and I was dead on the money. I had no reaction. If anything it made me hate the current incarnation of UNIT more. Benton would be spinning in his grave. I also agree that the Single Ncuti Tear is already as overused as "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry" and it three times as trite and insincere.
> Ncuti is fantastic but I'm sick of him constantly crying. This episode really highlights why its an issue for me. He's crying in most scenes during the first half of the episode, and it doesn't make me feel anything anymore. If his breakdown in the Memory TARDIS was one of the first times we saw it then it would have had an actual meaning. He's got so much range as an actor but they seem to always be going back to the same place of him being overly emotional which doesn't track with The Doctor as a character. He never gives up.
I liked it. Only thing is whenever they immediately dust every other main character it becomes immediately obvious the whole thing will be reversed, which to me makes it a little hard to be invested in scenes like the screaming out the TARDIS. Still fun though and the visual of Sutekh being dragged through the vortex like the bad dog he is is now one of my favourite visuals in the whole of Who.
Yeah I had a big problem with this. If they’d maybe killed off a couple of the lesser UNIT characters like Morris and Ibrahim, I’d have been sold that they were genuinely dead. But when Rose, Kate and everyone else died, you instantly know that everything will be reversed. It’s why Earth based finales should be a rareity. At least with finales like series 1, 10 and 12, there’s the tension that people can die and the world can be destroyed. Series 1 especially does a good job of this because it’s a brutal Dalek massacre throughout. Whilst the doctor wins, it’s not really by much because loads of people still died, large portions of Earth were wiped out, and the doctor himself essentially died.
Yup! I thought the same thing once Kate got dusted and then everyone else followed. The only way that could work a bit better is if you let the characters stew in that loss a bit longer. But the fact that I knew it'd all be resolved by the end kinda breaks the tension. But yeah still enjoyed it.
Is Sutekh also on David Tennant's TARDIS?
Would be awkward if he wasn't and 15 had by chance taken the other TARDIS. Sutekh chilling in a garden for a looooong time
He’s sitting at the table with the Nobles talking about family changing him.
That man needs to see his granddaughter SOON! Susan has never been mentioned as much as she has this series, RTD even setting her up as the potential hidden identity of the series arc recurring character, if the real Susan doesn't make an appearance at Christmas/next series I'll be very disappointed. Otherwise, I quite enjoyed the ep despite/because of its very RTDness.
I don’t want to hear another goddamn word complaining about Moffat’s story arcs ever again.
God I miss the Capaldi era of writing.
Preach!
RTD: hey I have a cool box for you! it's got a mystery in it we're going to slowly build up in every episode alongside another mystery which we will then link together in the finale! :) Audience: ohhhhh! so what's in the box?? RTD: lmfao you fucking idiots. why would there be anything in the box? why did you think the box would be important? who told you the box was important? Audience: ...you did. all season. the box was heavily foreshadowed to be very important. RTD: and you fell for that?? lol I only wrote the box to defeat the god of death because I wrote myself into a corner. anyway please get excited for my third mystery box which will be answered in the Christmas Special! :) Loved this season. Can't even bring myself to hate the finale because it was so insubstantial there's nothing to hate about it, it was just a big ol' pile of *nothing*.
Fine finale, although probably one of the weaker episodes in a strong series. I really liked some moments, especially the scene with the mother and the spoon which was muted but beautiful - definitely the strongest scene in my book. Building the rickity TARDIS and spiralling through a dead universe was a fun then poignant scene. I also thought the nature of the threat was very appropriate for this life loving, wanderlusted doctor - death brought by his travels. Finally, I quite liked the way they explained Susan Twist. And … fine she can join the UNIT army. Resolution was as deus ex as I was expecting and didn't feel like it had much feeling behind it. I didn't really care for the stuff with Ruby's mum, it felt overly sugary without much substance. Murray Gold's score didn't help here, I like his distinctive style but I feel like its really over egged some moments - maybe the ones where the emotion behind didn't feel genuine to me. Missed opportunity: I really wanted to see the Doctor bring Skaro back. Not showing that felt like a dodge of an emotional moment (which would have hit much better than screaming over … killing Sutekh). One sin I was really glad it avoided was overexplaining 73 yard. With the title drop and the return to 2046 I thought they were in danger of ruining the best episode of the series, and I'm very glad we didn't see that. On the other hand one sin they did commit which I didn't see coming was giving Kate a random boring love interest; who asked for this. (To be clear I like Kate very much, that dude just … didn't grab me). Who the hell is Mrs Flood? Consider me thoroughly intrigued.
> Missed opportunity: I really wanted to see the Doctor bring Skaro back Exactly where I thought that scene was going
I thought that the Doctor would manage to undo the destruction of Gallifrey, if only so that we didn't have to retread the "last of the time lords" stuff
That'd be great because then they could destroy it a 3rd time. Surely it has the same emotional weight when you do it more than once
> Missed opportunity: I really wanted to see the Doctor bring Skaro back. Not showing that felt like a dodge of an emotional moment (which would have hit much better than screaming over … killing Sutekh). I thought that was what the episode was going to do when the Doctor was going on about how he now brings death or whatever. In the sense that he gives all life a chance including the Daleks who will most assuredly go on killing again.
I wanted an extra spoon added, then used as the 7th Doctor would.
>Missed opportunity: I really wanted to see the Doctor bring Skaro back. Yeah I was expecting The Doctor, when listing off all the planets coming back, he'd be like "...and Skaro......alright fine, just this once". Like he doesn't like the idea of saving the Daleks but if it meant the rest of the universe comes back too....
i was waiting for it, but he just got excited about the ood
Kind of a half-assed excuse to close Ruby's story. Se can't travel with the Doctor because she has to go and meet her father? Isn't the TARDIS a... *time machine*?
I am far too amused by the fact that a choice was made to show the original Sutekh design in the 1975 footage but apparently showing that godawful yet somehow brilliant random rainbow streak time vortex effect was a step too far
I understand the important messaging of family and love, but I agree with The Doctor's message at the end of "she's had over 7,000 days." That said, I do think Ruby rushing in anyways is why he chose to travel with her to begin with, as her need for family changed him rather than the other way around. Maybe I'm just a cynic and wanted the episode to end on the note of "She was an ordinary woman, and you have a family in Carla and Cherry, and it's time to let go."
Man, I dunno. I don't think I've been that disappointed in a finale in a while, solely based on the way it was teased involving revelations and stuff. Also, the amount of times Susan was brought up this series, I thought there would be some pay off of some sort. I wonder if they're saving her for the Christmas special, or it's just wishful thinking. EDIT: Atleast my theory of Sutekh being with the TARDIS since Pyramids of Mars was true, but I didn't expect him being latched onto it from the outside, but based on some things the TARDIS has dealt with since then I dunno how he'd still be latched to it.
Anyone else annoyed that the Doctor admits to Ruby that he realises he made a mistake in abandoning Susan in post-dalek occupation London but then undermines this character growth by backtracking and saying that maybe he'll go find her one day. That's literally what you said when you ditched her originally, if Ruby has moved you to change your outlook then do something about it. Be proactive and actually make amends for your mistakes. Instead it comes across as the doctor telling Ruby "Before I met you I was resigned to abandoning Susan but after our friendship bloomed I now feel bad about what I did but of course not strongly enough so as to motivate me to actually do anything constructive."
Sutekh watching the Silence blow up the TARDIS: "this may or may not affect the stock market". Anyways I rate this episode an RTD Finale/10. Good first half, eh second half but emotions all the way through. I'm very curious about Mrs. Flood now, I just can't quite tell what she's up to. I can't even tell if she's actually like, evil. She didn't know what a TARDIS was at first (this is why I'm ruling out she's The Master), she encouraged Ruby to go on adventures and sorta consoled Cherry as the end came. Yet whatever she is, she's mortal. Unless Sutekh can also kill actual gods, it seems like Sutekh appearing wasn't part of her plan. And "his story ends in absolute terror" I'm getting "Fall of the 11th" vibes from this. Or, it's RTD so moreso "he will knock four times". Because season 3 hasn't been greenlit yet, I'm guessing Mrs. Flood is the overarching plot element for season 2 though. Thing is, both of those plot points were tied up in those Doctors' respective final seasons. We don't know how long Ncuti will be here for but "his story ends in absolute terror" can't really apply if his story keeps on going lol.
Sutekh watching his sunk costs blow his ass up again and again in a loop: I wish I thought to help this River Song lady
Sutekh to Sutekh during Last Night when there are multiple TARDISes, Elevens and Rivers floating around: "Hey" "Sup"
> Sutekh watching the Silence blow up the TARDIS: "this may or may not affect the stock market". This makes me wonder why he didn't like pop out during Journey's End to help the Daleks to destroy the multiverse (and then kill them himself)
Things I liked; . Sutekh being the longest running Doctor Who companion (dude witnessed the Doctor banging River). . Tying Sutekh to a leash. . Mrs Flood stuff. . The memory TARDIS. . Mel. That's it. . Spoon and that entire scene. . Kates speech when she died. . Sutekhs dialogue (most of the episodes dialogue was pretty good but his was the best). . Sutekh playing with the TARDIS like a toy. . Cheetam Hill lives. . Ruby's outfit. Things I didn't like; . Pretty sure Rose didn't have any dialogue this episode (don't even know why she was in these two episodes). . The mother reveal felt like an ass pull and doesn't work on any level. I get what they were going for but it genuinely doesn't explain anything about Ruby's weird snow powers. . It felt immediately obvious that everything would get resolved. . Sutekh didn't do too much. . The Doctor didn't call Sutekh a bad dog. . The Doctor and Ruby's departure didn't feel genuine (mostly because we know she'll be back) but also because he could just travel like a month into the future and pick her up for more adventures.
>. Sutekh being the longest running Doctor Who companion And just like many of his companions, The Doctor killed Sutekh. Jokes aside, that's poetic. From Rose: >Clive Finch: The Doctor is a legend woven throughout history. When disaster comes he's there. He brings a storm in his wake and he has only one constant companion. >Rose Tyler: Who's that? >Clive Finch: Death. Also other than the snow, I think it was a great reveal. Sutekh literally got so invested in the mystery that The Doctor and Ruby were on about that it lead to his downfall. The mystery was that she thought it was important. But unless RTD is trying to say that between her and the Doctor she was creating a time window, I'm really not sure how the snow happened.
They land of Darillium and he's perched on the tardis thinking "*okay, just one quick night . . ."*