S12 E3 Orphan 55

[Nyder]

What did you think of it?

[ninjaconor]

Reasonably good Base Under Siege concept, but it all felt very rushed. There was no time to establish anything before it threw you into the action and it seemed full of half-baked ideas that never took off. Bella's personality was absolutely psychotic, with her switching between wanting to blow up the base/wanting to save the base every time the wind changed. I did like a lot of the ideas and was probably going to give it a Good until the overly preachy fourth-wall-breaking speech at the end. I understood the environmental message of the episode and already agreed with it. Hammering it in so clumsily like that really took me out of the episode.

Also, did anyone else notice that the Dregs were the Hoix from the start of Love and Monsters but painted silver?

[markrand]

I'll let you know after I watch it tomorrow on BBC America.

[misterharry]

Not a classic episode, but enjoyable nonetheless. The Dregs have similarities to the Haemovores of thirty years ago, and the revelation of Orphan 55 being Earth is akin to that of Ravalox in The Mysterious Planet. So, some well-known concepts, this time wrapped up in an action adventure. The environmental message was a little in-your-face but very topical. Overall, good but not great.

[grinch]

Probably going to come across a misery guts for saying this but I thought it was absolutely dreadful.

Clearly rushed in some places and the majority of the characters seem to change their behaviour and personalities when they feel like it. And whilst I agree the message is very topical, I thought it was extremely ‘in your face’ and was practically beaten into the audience. Very much a failing on the writer there as I never thought the day would come where an episode would end with the Doctor literally giving a PSA to the audience.

So yeah, I’m not a fan.

[thereviewer]

Okay, let’s do my non-spoiler thoughts on this episode...

(Sees spoiler complaints mainly pertaining to this being a PSA Episode.)

*Sigh*

Look, I thought this episode was good, not great, but really? You’re all entitled to your own opinions, and I’m not going to try and force you to change them. But does nobody remembers the Poison Sky? Hell, Australia has been burning with Wildfires for six months now in real life, so you don’t need to take the show’s word that the world is getting worse.

*Deep Breath* Okay, I’m cool. I got that all out of my system.

My only complaint really was that it did feel a bit rushed, but this was a done-in-one story after the epic two-part season premiere.

Can’t wait for next time with Tesla! Am I the only one getting Toclafane vibes from the tease at the end preview?

[Stormcrow]

Meh. Monsters not as scary as the Internet was raving about and not original at all. What exactly do those things eat?

Here's my big problem with the episode: since when do alternate timelines pop up without someone doing something to cause them? At first I thought Orphan 55 might have been Ravalox (the Earth in "The Mysterious Planet" after it was moved two light years), and that would have been a neato bit of continuity. Then, when they started talking about the environmental destruction, I thought maybe there would be some kind of continuing plot to discover who had destroyed Earth (like how Gallifrey was destroyed!) and changed history. But no, it was just tossed aside as an alternate timeline that didn't need to happen. That's not how time travel works in Doctor Who.

[thereviewer]

Jan 14, 2020 14:33:30 GMT Stormcrow said:

Meh. Monsters not as scary as the Internet was raving about and not original at all. What exactly do those things eat?

Here's my big problem with the episode: since when do alternate timelines pop up without someone doing something to cause them? At first I thought Orphan 55 might have been Ravalox (the Earth in "The Mysterious Planet" after it was moved two light years), and that would have been a neato bit of continuity. Then, when they started talking about the environmental destruction, I thought maybe there would be some kind of continuing plot to discover who had destroyed Earth (like how Gallifrey was destroyed!) and changed history. But no, it was just tossed aside as an alternate timeline that didn't need to happen. That's not how time travel works in Doctor Who.

First off, let me just say that I appreciate that you didn’t seem to be copying the same complaints anyone else had. From personal experience, I remember when I was in Middle School there was a game announced and I kept raving about how amazing it was going to be every second of the day. It got to the point where one of my classmates screamed enough and tried to attack me. Then it came and went and now I feel stupid that I thought it was going to change anything in the world in any significant way. That’s how I feel these days when I see endless comments about the same stupid thing that people seem to cut and paste. I feel like my classmate was trying to make a point and I was too stupid to realize it so now everybody’s being upset because of my mistake.

I also want to reiterate what I said about letting you have your own opinion in my last post. I’m not trying to change your mind or anything of the like.

That said, another big mistake people are making is that they didn’t use the TARDIS to get to this alternate future. They got there via a gift The Doctor was given. Which was obviously designed to transport people through time and space differently from how the TARDIS does.

Again, you’re entitled to your own opinion and I salute you for not taking the route that makes you seem like complaining without having watched the story, but these are my own thoughts looking back at it now. This is in no way meant to discourage, attack, or put you down in any way, but rather my calm and passive defense. Thank you and have a good day.

[Stormcrow]

Jan 18, 2020 20:20:56 GMT thereviewer said:

That said, another big mistake people are making is that they didn’t use the TARDIS to get to this alternate future. They got there via a gift The Doctor was given. Which was obviously designed to transport people through time and space differently from how the TARDIS does.

Where did you get this from? Graham got coupons from the Bandohzi Herald that "keeps getting delivered by the coffee machine upstairs" or downstairs or wherever. The coupons form a "teleport cube."

Now, maybe this Bandohzi Herald is the start of some season-long arc that's just getting established and someone has sent the Doctor and companions to Orphan 55 on purpose, but there's still absolutely no indication those coupons form anything but a teleport cube. Anything else is just speculation, nothing is obvious here. So far as we know from the episode, everything here is what it appears to be on face value. Certainly there's no sign of some special new form of travel through space and time.

Again, you’re entitled to your own opinion and I salute you for not taking the route that makes you seem like complaining without having watched the story, but these are my own thoughts looking back at it now. This is in no way meant to discourage, attack, or put you down in any way, but rather my calm and passive defense. Thank you and have a good day.

What I posted was not in reply to what you posted. I'm not sure why you took it as a challenge to you.

[thereviewer]

Jan 19, 2020 17:38:54 GMT Stormcrow said:

Jan 18, 2020 20:20:56 GMT thereviewer said:

That said, another big mistake people are making is that they didn’t use the TARDIS to get to this alternate future. They got there via a gift The Doctor was given. Which was obviously designed to transport people through time and space differently from how the TARDIS does.

Where did you get this from? Graham got coupons from the Bandohzi Herald that "keeps getting delivered by the coffee machine upstairs" or downstairs or wherever. The coupons form a "teleport cube."

Now, maybe this Bandohzi Herald is the start of some season-long arc that's just getting established and someone has sent the Doctor and companions to Orphan 55 on purpose, but there's still absolutely no indication those coupons form anything but a teleport cube. Anything else is just speculation, nothing is obvious here. So far as we know from the episode, everything here is what it appears to be on face value. Certainly there's no sign of some special new form of travel through space and time.

Again, you’re entitled to your own opinion and I salute you for not taking the route that makes you seem like complaining without having watched the story, but these are my own thoughts looking back at it now. This is in no way meant to discourage, attack, or put you down in any way, but rather my calm and passive defense. Thank you and have a good day.

What I posted was not in reply to what you posted. I'm not sure why you took it as a challenge to you.

I’m not challenging you either. It’s just that thanks to how the world works nowadays, even the most innocent of comments can be taken as a challenge and I should have made that clearer. I just wanted to be sure you knew that my comment was not meant to be harmful in any way. Nobody wants to start a comment war.

I thank you for your calm and collective understanding and wish you a good day.

[Escher]

It was ok. No continuity, no tiny nuggets of Who mythology or foreshadowing. Entertaining enough.

[Eryx]

I rather enjoyed this one. I enjoyed it a lot. It felt like a modern 7th Doctor story. I could easily see parallels to Mysterious Planet, Paradise Towers and others of that era. Liked the strange monsters and what they represented but pleased that they say it was a possible future as otherwise it doesn't quite fit into the continuity very well.

[senko]

I'm a bit conflicted on this. Some things seemed rushed and character personalities seem to flip flop on a constant basis. The "mechanic" (rolls eyes) whos completely incompetent at his job. Not to mention the whole "it was earth all along" with a Dreg remembering the entire ecosystem issue??? Do they have a group memory or something otherwise how did someone live that long or have memories of tv shows about the end of the world? There's a solid core here that could be good but its the same thing I mentioned in the thread on the last episode. The writer seems to be rushing us from A to C to E in their desire to get to Y as fast as possible so their skipping a lot of good ideas or tossing them out and not following through.

Then there's the teleport cube. . . I could buy alternate timeline, iffy tech, coupons and teleports going out to other dimensions. I wouldn't like it but I could buy it however ITS IN THE TARDIS. Most advanced ship in the universe where the security systems seem to have just been chucked out the airlock sometime since last season (aliens walking through the walls, wires pulled out the bottom to drain interior dimensions, the doctor opening a locked main door with her sonic screwdriver and now the newspaper appreantly being teleported into it and the crew out of the main control room). Right now I'm half expecting some inner city kid to take it for a joy ride.

I think I shall head canon this episode that it was an action fakaction. The cube never teleported them anywhere it was just a mental hallucination to allow the coupon winner to get an action adventure where they're the hero against a race of monsters produced by an eco group to raise awareness. Go to tranquility, have an adventure, save the day oh and environment problems.