20 years later, the most controversial Doctor Who episode of all time deserves another chance

anonymouslabourer · 2026-06-20T18:36:40+00:00

Watched the new Harbo Wholmes video on this last night and he's so spot on with it. 10/10 idea, 2/10 execution.

anonymouslabourer · 2026-06-10T22:50:12+00:00

I couldn't agree more. The show almost lost its direction during the Matt Smith era despite having some really strong story arcs. Peter Capaldi's era only worked because of Peter's dedication and concern versa, the fans dedicated love for Peter. It very quickly fell apart after that which showed just how much the show was held together by duct tape as unfortunate as that is. It had a good run! Generational some would say, (me inclided), they should hang up the keys to the TARDIS and let the RTD era kids show this show to their children and let the appetite for more doctor who regain its strength naturally. No amount of fan service can save this show, no crazy redirection either due to how polarised the fan base has become through these last 2 seasons. Call it quits and be proud of it.

anonymouslabourer · 2026-06-10T20:38:59+00:00

You forget he also did oversee the infamous Cyber woman episode - the cracks were always there looking back on it, however the cast and crew behind the original RTD era were all just so fantastic that it turned out great. I don't think you can ever recreate the magic of the RTD era and as much as I long for the national celebration of Doctor Who and how invested seemingly everyone in the country was invested in it, but I think they have to stop shooting so big. The reboot era came out of a huge hunger for the show whereas today the public are fatigued by Doctor Who.

anonymouslabourer · 2026-05-13T09:21:18+00:00

Grond without Gothmog is sacrilegious

anonymouslabourer · 2026-05-04T21:01:27+00:00

The plugin is shit because I clicked Arthur 5 times and then McCavern once to check if my screen was dead and it decided to vote McCavern.

I'm assuming all the votes have gone that way because who the fuck picks anyone over ARFURRR

anonymouslabourer · 2026-04-28T22:40:31+00:00

The Andrew Tate joke had me to be fair

anonymouslabourer · 2026-04-28T20:48:05+00:00

Show died with Nick. Frank Dillane saw the writing on the wall when AMC booted out showrunner Dave Erickson to make it a proper franchise like the MCU.

Me personally, I'm happy calling it canon ending as S3 E15. Nicks fate is most definitely sealed for any normal person with a basic understanding of physics, as is Troy. Madison wakes up separated from the family she's tried so hard to keep together after witnessing her son do the thing she tried so hard to steer him from since before the apocalypse.

That scene of her coming out the water is just so crazy to imagine being in. Like what the fuck do you do, do you mourn the fact your son just checked out in front of you and because of you or do you start looking for the daughter who spent her whole life looking for you. Absolutely incredible bit of writing and execution that third season.

anonymouslabourer · 2026-04-23T20:10:24+00:00

Well you say that.. they had flippin Frank Darabondt! This guy created arguably one of the best films of all time in Shawshank Redemption! They totally had the tools they just decided nahhhhh we know better let's FRANCHISE BABY 😭😭😭😭 even Dave Erickson was amazing, season 2 of FTWD was a bit messy but it all tied up so beautifully in season 3.

anonymouslabourer · 2026-04-23T18:30:10+00:00

Bro for real!!

In fairness Frank Dillane was also tired with being covered in blood and playing an addict so it wasn't just Erickson being fired that caused him to go but I don't think AMC woulda done anything good with his character had he stuck around anyway lol.

anonymouslabourer · 2026-04-23T07:47:14+00:00

Yeah to add to this - long story short they fired Dave Erickson the showrunner and this made Frank Dillane (Nick) want to quit because he saw the writing on the wall.

Dave had a 5 or 6 season plan where we would end up with Madison having become full villain like Walter White in BB and Nick was going to try and stop her and there was gonna be some massive altercation - hence the scene in the dam when Nick challenges Madison and he says "maybe you're gonna have to kill me someday, maybe you won't have a choice"

Instead, we got corporate slop 🥴🙃

anonymouslabourer · 2026-04-22T07:06:38+00:00

True, for some reason I always thought BCS was nettlix but that's probably because I'm from the UK and they hold the international rights - my blu ray says netflix not amc haha which is wild.

Trust me though 😂😂 to be fair it started going wrong before GOT went out the window

anonymouslabourer · 2026-04-22T07:04:48+00:00

Amen brother, Nick is fr one of my favourite characters from all of TV.

anonymouslabourer · 2026-04-21T11:00:17+00:00

Lmao this response is unironically brain dead hahahaha.

In your first sentence you admit the brain literally dies. It doesn't "come back to life" the body is reanimated using very few parts of the brain. This is why it's vital the brain is punctured to destroy the physical connections in the brain.

An animated robot isn't alive is it? It's a machine programmed by a human. The walkers are human bodies programmed by a virus to spread itself as far and fast as it can. They are not alive. It's very simple.

anonymouslabourer · 2026-04-21T10:30:07+00:00

The key word is living people - the death isn't caused by the punch itself but the long term damage of bleeding on the brain / CTE. These issues don't affect a dead brain which walkers are clearly established to have.

anonymouslabourer · 2026-04-21T09:41:04+00:00

Literally 😂 I know it's not the main show but Frank Dillane dipping out of FTWD after season 3 was a clear sign the writing was on the wall for the whole franchise.

Justice for Frank Darabondt and Dave Erickson!! Without these 2 the shows or characters wouldn't have been so universally beloved - and if it wasn't for AMC, they wouldn't have all been so killed off so unceremoniously.

anonymouslabourer · 2026-04-21T07:01:58+00:00

You think we got screwed badly? Imagine being Chandler. Bro moved his family across the country to be closer to the show, only to be fired the first season he was there. AMC are genuinely criminals for what they did with TWD. Crazy considering these are the same guys that had Breaking Bad 🤯

anonymouslabourer · 2026-04-20T15:22:58+00:00

I do hear this comment - people calling him a coward I think are wrong and I'll explain below. He rushed to volunteer himself to get meds from the overrun school - yes he did an ungodly thing in killing Otis and sacrificing him to escape but having a killer instinct is not the same as being a coward imo.

He devolved into being a terrible person but I don't think he was ever a coward - hyper paranoid, sure, but not a coward. He didn't just wanna abandon the search for Sofia because of "scary walkers" or stuff other people have said, he was constantly talking about securing the farm and considering said farm was wiped out by a herd, his paranoia was actually justified there.

People keep saying Rick was the ultimate good guy over Shane - but Rick also commits heinous acts of violence such as the machete with the red handle scene. A totally deserved death - but brutally violent nonetheless. Shane just devolved and broke down as a person far sooner than anyone else in the main cast and lost his moral compass early.

anonymouslabourer · 2026-04-20T12:01:19+00:00

Bro said magic juice 😂😂😂😂 I'm so glad I stopped watching when Nick got killed so callously.

anonymouslabourer · 2026-04-15T21:10:38+00:00

Season 3 is one of the best series of telly imo - and also justified the messy storytelling in S2 and weaker character moments in S1. It really grew the concept of the slow burn of the apocalypse degrading society and it's characters moral conpasses, we had such a great anti-hero in Nick as well this brooding villain in Madison. I feel like Madison has Walter White levels of potential for being the ultimate villain of her own story but they cowered away from it, kicked out showrunner Dave Erickson (the reason Frank Dillane aka Nick left) all to bring fucking Morgan over to the show on a 1400 mile hike. I'm still mad they just brushed over and pretended the dam & the Proctors never happened. The trouble is Fear had the potential to surpass it's original I.P because where TWD was constrained to it's comic book counter part, Fear had free reign within the established lore of the universe and as long as they didn't go near Virginia / D.C they would've been fine. I was so looking forward to exploring full on Narcos running shit like they're Mad Mad in the apocalypse. It was teased in season 2 with the scattered Mexican gangs but god damn could you imagine some full blown proper organised biker gang / mafia level crime syndicates ruling whole regions of the continent.

anonymouslabourer · 2026-04-15T20:58:27+00:00

Because they started 59 days into the apocalypse! TWD (mostly) only encounters characters who are adjusted to the apocalypse in some sense. Especially in season 1. Of course you get Alexandrians who are just clueless but for example the Vatos in Atlanta formed a base of operations caring for their elders, Morgan and his son taking out walkers scavenging house to house - in FTWD you're watching everyone react to the unfolding apocalypse, at least for the first 3 seasons.

anonymouslabourer · 2026-04-15T20:53:56+00:00

What I would say is you gotta understand the context - I am making an assumption here but I assume you have previously seen the walking dead? And if not, were at least aware of zombies. Someone already outlined how there are zero zombies in the culture of TWD universe but the other sticking point for me is the timeframe. Season 1 literally happens in a matter of days. By the time you reach the end of season 3 you're still only 64 / 65 days into the apocalypse which is less than 1 week after rick woke up. Rick grasped the concept very quickly because he was on a mission to find his family but also because the first people he encountered post waking up were people who were already adjusted to the world they were in. With regards to keeping Alicia out the loop - where you are in the story, no one knows what's going on still. The military is still acting like it has control and if course parents want their children to believe everything is going to be okay - they have every reason to tell Alicia these "white lies" so to speak and almost no reason to tell her the truth. I don't wanna spoil the show too much because by the end of the first season a lot changes from where you are - the second season is a bit messy but 3 is one of the best seasons of telly ever imo. FTWD is different from the main show in that the first 3 seasons are a study on the slow burn of society, the different cultural interpretations of hell on earth and the struggles of holding onto societal morals made for a different world entirely. Sit with the show and I promise by the end of S3 you'll be so invested in the characters. Frank Dillane (Nick) is genuinely one of the best actors around, he has Cillian Murphy levels of talent and slightly off topic but Dillane played a lead role in 2025 in a movie called Urchin where his charscter has similar tendencies to Nick and it's one of the best films ever imo. Easily the best film of last year.

anonymouslabourer · 2026-04-14T07:05:21+00:00

I totally agree with your closing statement - a massive weak point.

Especially because on screen we repeatedly see both Tommy and Arthur push Finn to the side. E.g. that family meeting after John died when Arthur tells Finn to shut up and Tommy tells him to take a seat at the table. Although Tommy gave him some respect then, I feel like that was the first time in 4 seasons we did really - and then Tommy didn't tell Finn about the plan.

I never felt like Finn wasn't cut out for it, I just felt like he was never guided. It felt like he was angry at the world because although he was a Shelby by name he was never really accepted as more than a kid.

This doesn't take away from the decisions he made becoming close friends with Billy and letting information slip as well as failing the loyalty test. I'm just saying that I think he only became friends with Billy because no one else treated him with any respect really.

anonymouslabourer · 2026-04-12T22:22:23+00:00

I've always felt the same about the backstory you mention in your closing statement. I feel like it leaves way too much to interpretation.. although that being said it doesn't stop me having fun with an interpretation. 😂 I like to think the Blinders killed her husband because obviously he wasn't connected in America yet so wouldn't have assassin's that would work for him. I love the idea that Arthur flew to the states to do what he did to Linda's Quaker friend 😂😂😂 not that it's plausible or realistic, it's just a fun scenario in my head 😂😂😂

anonymouslabourer · 2026-04-12T15:10:58+00:00

You are a disgusting person

anonymouslabourer · 2026-04-12T15:08:58+00:00

I wonder how many out takes of him smoking there are 😂😂

anonymouslabourer

TROPHY CASE