[S13 E06] The Vanquishers

[Escher]

The finale. What did you think?

[Escher]

It tried-up the plot threads in a hurried and unsatisfying way and I felt that it didn't deliver anything of interest or import.

There was an awful lot going on, and most of it wasn't interesting or rewarding, except for the fob watch subplot which was then discarded as a future seed for other writers to pick up.

I think it was the weakest season finale we've ever seen in the series so far, and it was disappointing because after the angels episode I was expecting more.

It seemed like a student essay that was rushed to get it in on time.

[grinch]

Pointless. Utterly pointless. Felt like such an exercise in futility watching this series.

In fact, to sum up my initial reaction to this finale I'll point you that GIF of Krusty the Clown from The Simpsons.

I know many will be saying that a lot of the plot threads will be cleared up in the upcoming specials but to be honest (and I know it's rather ironic considering this is a series about time travel) I'd much rather focus on the here and now rather than just use that excuse.

[ninjaconor]

A serialised show is only as good as its finale, and this was a pretty messy finale.

So, is 99% of the universe destroyed now? Because a few episodes back Earth was alone in a field of devastation, only shielded by the Lupari ships. Nothing happened in the episode to bring back the sun, moon, or other planets, so I assume that's still the case?

What was the point in Bel and Vinder? Why did we get "Bel's Story" a few episodes back when she just amounts to being an unimportant background character?

What's up with the Grand Serpent? Still no idea what he really wants. Feels like a villain introduced for a future story arc, but with 3 Chibnall episodes left it's going to either not happen or be really rushed.

Swarm and Azure turned out to be utterly useless. They basically morphed from godlike universe destroyers into Team Rocket over the course of the episode.

And the whole tease of the series, the carrot that was dangled, about learning more about The Doctor's lost memories is just kicked down the road again with no payoff. When Moffat teased revealing The Doctor's name and then snatched it away he introduced The War Doctor, which was an even bigger treat. Chiball just snatched his tease away and gave us nothing.

And then the ropey attempt to one-up David Tennant's "Your song is coming to an end" with a sort of "You're going to die, and properly this time. You definitely won't regenerate. There's no way out of this." We all know The Doctor will regenerate! The next showrunner has been announced! There are literally no stakes in this threat! Maybe try resolving some story arcs before starting new pointless ones! I bet Chibnall doesn't even know what he's going to do with all these threads.

And not content with anticlimactically killing off all the Time Lords offscreen, he's gone and anticlimactically killed off the Lupari too. And apparently the Sontarans, Daleks, and Cybermen, but going by the "Next Time" I guess that won't stick.

As an individual episode there were some entertaining moments, and as a mid season episode it would probably be okay, but as the finale of such an ambitious story arc it was a failure.

I normally cringe when people say the next showrunner should just pick up where Peter Capaldi regenerated, but it's starting to sound like a better idea with each Chibnall finale.

[grinch]

Dec 6, 2021 11:56:08 GMT ninjaconor said:

A serialised show is only as good as its finale, and this was a pretty messy finale.

So, is 99% of the universe destroyed now? Because a few episodes back Earth was alone in a field of devastation, only shielded by the Lupari ships. Nothing happened in the episode to bring back the sun, moon, or other planets, so I assume that's still the case?

What was the point in Bel and Vinder? Why did we get "Bel's Story" a few episodes back when she just amounts to being an unimportant background character?

What's up with the Grand Serpent? Still no idea what he really wants. Feels like a villain introduced for a future story arc, but with 3 Chibnall episodes left it's going to either not happen or be really rushed.

Swarm and Azure turned out to be utterly useless. They basically morphed from godlike universe destroyers into Team Rocket over the course of the episode.

And the whole tease of the series, the carrot that was dangled, about learning more about The Doctor's lost memories is just kicked down the road again with no payoff. When Moffat teased revealing The Doctor's name and then snatched it away he introduced The War Doctor, which was an even bigger treat. Chiball just snatched his tease away and gave us nothing.

And then the ropey attempt to one-up David Tennant's "Your song is coming to an end" with a sort of "You're going to die, and properly this time. You definitely won't regenerate. There's no way out of this." We all know The Doctor will regenerate! The next showrunner has been announced! There are literally no stakes in this threat! Maybe try resolving some story arcs before starting new pointless ones! I bet Chibnall doesn't even know what he's going to do with all these threads.

And not content with anticlimactically killing off all the Time Lords offscreen, he's gone and anticlimactically killed off the Lupari too. And apparently the Sontarans, Daleks, and Cybermen, but going by the "Next Time" I guess that won't stick.

As an individual episode there were some entertaining moments, and as a mid season episode it would probably be okay, but as the finale of such an ambitious story arc it was a failure.

I normally cringe when people say the next showrunner should just pick up where Peter Capaldi regenerated, but it's starting to sound like a better idea with each Chibnall finale.

If I were being cynical, I’d almost wonder whether Chibnall was just leaving it to the likes of Big Finish to actually develop the Grand Serpent/Azure/Swarm/Bel and Vinder etc.

[ninjaconor]

Dec 6, 2021 12:55:19 GMT grinch said:

If I were being cynical, I’d almost wonder whether Chibnall was just leaving it to the likes of Big Finish to actually develop the Grand Serpent/Azure/Swarm/Bel and Vinder etc.

Haha! that just got me thinking it would be hilarious if Big Finish had lobbyists bribing Chibnall to add stuf they wanted to the show.

"An infinite amount of pre-Hartnell Doctors for spin-off audios? You got it! A trio of misfit adventurers friendly with The Doctor but unlikely to appear on TV again? No problem. Just slip me the money in the usual brown envelope and it's all possible!"

[drinkplentyofmalk]

Ultimately I quite enjoyed Flux but... eh, I kind of resigned myself to 'this is going to have the same issues that all of Chibnall's scripts do, and I couldn't care less about DEEP LORE revelations; I'll just smile at the pretty colours and weird designs on screen like a baby getting keys jangled in it's face.'

I remember when it was announced this era would end on non-season specials I jokingly thought 'oh, is Chibnall going to literally repeat the four knocks scene?' and... well, while I certainly didn't love the whole mystical prophecy stuff Tennant's run ended on, 'your song is ending' and 'he will knock four times' are somewhat poetic and have some wriggle room; it could be anyone knocking four times, and it wasn't describing the big villain of the regeneration story.
The fact that Chibnall's version of that scene directly uses the words 'regeneration' and 'master' really speaks to how literal and blunt his writing is. We're not allowed to have emotional beats when in-script promotional material can feel that same technical purpose.

I'm impressed by his ability to write endless scenes of characters standing around and giving exposition to one another, yet have me completely lost and confused as to what they're actually going on about. I had to look up on twitter afterwards if the Doctor actually managed to undo the Flux because that line of exposition blurred into all of the other dry lines of exposition.
(Although, if it affected all of time at once... then we have an in-fiction excuse for why 21/26 of this era's episodes have taken place on Earth. Plus why all of the actual alien worlds we've seen have just been a load of dull ruins and dirt!)

'Sorry Doctor, I can't talk about our time spent together. It'd kill me.'
'Karvinista... I'm sorry that whatever I did was so emotionally scarring that you can't even bear to-'
'What? No, I mean I literally have a generic sci-fi implant in my brain that'll kill me if I say anything mildly interesting about your mysterious backstory. Where you really expecting a decent emotional moment from this era when you can make everything as unemotionally literal as possible? Now that's barking up the wrong tree!'

[Catsmate]

I have to agree the episode wasn't great.

BTW thank Escher for creating the poll; I've been offline since Saturday due to some family issues.

[markrand]

It was so bad that I couldn't even finish it. But then, the whole story stunk.

[grinch]

Dec 6, 2021 17:58:11 GMT Catsmate said:

I have to agree the episode wasn't great.

BTW thank Escher for creating the poll; I've been offline since Saturday due to some family issues.

Sorry to hear that Catsmate, I hope things have improved on your end in the meantime.

[Escher]

Dec 6, 2021 15:15:38 GMT ninjaconor said:

Dec 6, 2021 12:55:19 GMT grinch said:

If I were being cynical, I’d almost wonder whether Chibnall was just leaving it to the likes of Big Finish to actually develop the Grand Serpent/Azure/Swarm/Bel and Vinder etc.

Haha! that just got me thinking it would be hilarious if Big Finish had lobbyists bribing Chibnall to add stuf they wanted to the show.

"An infinite amount of pre-Hartnell Doctors for spin-off audios? You got it! A trio of misfit adventurers friendly with The Doctor but unlikely to appear on TV again? No problem. Just slip me the money in the usual brown envelope and it's all possible!"

I almost expected an inspired moment, where we saw the Doctor get her memories back in a montage of half-hidden images, maybe including Richard E. Grant's face in Scream of the Shalka. It could have brought a lot of non-tv canon into TV canon.

And why on earth did the Doctor, previously hell-bent on retrieving her lost memories, suddenly decide she didn't want to know?

Dec 6, 2021 17:58:11 GMT Catsmate said:

BTW thank Escher for creating the poll; I've been offline since Saturday due to some family issues.

You're welcome. Hope things are better for you.

[Catsmate]

Thanks everyone for your good wishes, I *think* everything is more-or-less OK now. Though I'll probably not be around as much for the next week or so.

[scottbarratt1989]

The word I keep coming back to is disappointed. I watched with my 4 year old, his response to the end of the episode was "is that it?"

I wanted so much more from the finale. I'm underwhelmed and felt with all the plot threads from the series it underdelivered.

[Stormcrow]

Disappointment requires sufficiently high expectations. Mine were not that high.

[skudge001]

Nope, did not enjoy this. Easily gets a bad rating from me. Almost disastrous, but there were a couple of emotional moments that I liked. Plus Jodi and the cast were trying to do what they could with the muddled and nonsensical material.

Chibnall doesn't seem to understand that any episode or season will be someone's first Doctor, and the viewer needs some way to engage with the characters and/or plot. This was a confused mess for a long time fan, a new person approaching this season I think would bounce off of it pretty hard.

[imajica]

Chris has managed something I would never have believed possible. He's made me not care about Dr Who. I've seen the trailer for the New Years special and I'm supremely meh about the whole thing. Daleks again? Oh, goodie /s. (Sorry, just learned the other day that /s is used to represent sarcasm, not pluralise something optionally. So I've been using it wrong for a while).

Although I did also learn that Terry Nation had a clause that contractually obliged the BBC to use the Daleks every season. And then not to believe everything you read on the internet because that's not true. thedoctorwhocompanion.com/2020/07/02/faq-is-the-bbc-contractually-obliged-to-include-the-daleks-in-every-season-of-doctor-who/

So I'm now in the position where I'm glad Chris is leaving but I'm disappointed Jodie is. She deserved better writing and RTD could've done it.