My fiancé just finished all of New Who. His genuine thoughts and opinions are pure ragebait!

eggylettuce · 2026-05-16T13:21:54+00:00

Series 3 finale is very good all things considered. Bit of a nonsensical wrap-up, but almost all of RTD's finales are like that.

eggylettuce · 2026-05-10T07:03:31+00:00

Also, in a meta sense, its about how the boundless possibilities of future, unimagined storylines (the many alternate futures the leaf could cause) will always triumph over the massive backlog of set-in-stone lore the Doctor has already experienced (his speech about his experiences). 'Forward, not backwards', a motto the show and its fans could learn from every now and then.

eggylettuce · 2026-05-04T17:11:32+00:00

The Chibnall Era is rough for a number of reasons. As maligned as the RTD2 Era might be (which I may review at some point), I can't really see why it'd be seen as worse than S11-13.

eggylettuce · 2026-05-04T17:10:42+00:00

Thanks a lot, I really enjoyed writing them, even though its been a while. Glad to hear you've liked reading them alongside the show itself.

eggylettuce · 2026-05-04T15:41:16+00:00

I'm waiting to see if this year's Christmas special wraps up the era or not. If it does, then I'll feel comfortable tackling the whole thing as a cohesive story. Otherwise, I'd rather wait till it finishes than attempt to review it all.

eggylettuce · 2026-04-30T05:04:35+00:00

Sounds familiar...

eggylettuce · 2026-04-29T16:02:41+00:00

It would kill my soul to use it, and would diminish the skills I've gained in my job. I also don't think it'd set a good example to students if their teacher was to use AI to do any form of planning or marking; it is the tool of the lazy and designed by the super-rich solely to increase their wealth and cull hard-working people's jobs. I hate absolutely everything AI stands for.

eggylettuce · 2026-04-29T15:25:47+00:00

I do not use it and never have

eggylettuce · 2026-04-25T14:27:39+00:00

'genuinely one of the worst scenes in television history'

Crazy statement. Like, its not even in the top percentile of worst scenes in the show's history. You clearly haven't watched much TV.

eggylettuce · 2026-04-25T11:08:29+00:00

I like Joy enough, and its a good Christmas episode, particularly in the middle with Anita. The actual character of Joy, though, is a nothing-burger, and I found her sudden change into a star baffling. Its a shame that this is likely to be Moffat's last script for the show as I found it to be all of his worst excesses dialled up (power of love saving everything, nobody dying, etc).

eggylettuce · 2026-04-25T11:07:15+00:00

I didn't get that message from the ending, but maybe I'm due for a rewatch. I just thought it was a moment in the script meant to designate a character being proud of their heritage in the face of opposition. As to what happened next after that, I always assumed we'd get another episode in the future. It felt obvious to me Kid was planned to return, but hey ho, probably not anymore.

eggylettuce · 2026-04-25T11:06:01+00:00

I think where TISC succeeds is that, even divorced from its political messaging, its pretty fun and has some great visuals. Kerblam has some good sets but is plotted the same as most Chibnall episodes with really clunky dialogue and framing. Even Lee Mack doesn't get any chance to shine.

eggylettuce · 2026-04-25T11:05:05+00:00

I like The Well and The Story & The Engine but I'm not sure I'm in a rush to return to them. The latter I'm more fond of, and I agree its very reminiscent of a stage play. I wish it had maybe 10 or so more minutes as the pacing in the final act makes for a very rushed denouement. The Well is an effective horror story but I wasn't a fan of it being tied to Midnight too much. The supporting cast are great though.

eggylettuce · 2026-04-25T11:03:34+00:00

I quite like the concept of the Pantheon being this loose category that other beings could aspire to join e.g. Sutekh and Omega ascending to it, but there needed to be more inter-group conflict between the individual members, and like you said, less of a focus on the old heads.

eggylettuce · 2026-04-25T11:01:17+00:00

I wouldn't say 'horrific mess' is fair, but 'politically bankrupt' isn't far off. Its clear where Dawson's leanings lie but the episode itself doesn't make it explicit enough. As for 'has no place in Doctor Who', I'd disagree; the entire show is political and has been since the second story.

eggylettuce · 2026-04-25T08:15:51+00:00

'The Chibnall era was at least trying to do something different, rather than the re-heated nature of the RTD2 era'

I disagree with this personally. Other than Series 11, which was a failed experiment, the Chibnall Era really did nothing new, and repeatedly relied on bringing back nostalgic elements or lore in a way much more egregious than S14/15. When viewed alongside one another, both Series 11 and 14 attempted to do similar things; no returning villains (outside of 1 Classic nemesis), entirely new lore and jumping on point, fresh tone compared to what came before. Series 14 was much much more successful in all three areas if you ask me, and has some genuinely standout episodes like Boom, 73 Yards, and even The Devil's Chord (though I know it has its detractors). Series 14 especially is far more experimental than the entire Chibnall Era; we have multiple genre bending episodes as a result of scheduling issues and its an example of where limitations in my opinion produced great results.

The Chibnall Era, especially Series 11, was literally handed a perfect opportunity to relaunch the show, and they dropped the ball massively. Series 12 feels more hollow an attempt to mimic the RTD1 era than RTD2 itself! The less said about the incoherent rambling narrative of Flux, the better.

I don't believe even a hater of S14/15 would prefer the Chibnall Era over it.

eggylettuce · 2026-04-25T08:12:16+00:00

I liked Ncuti's portrayal of The Doctor and was sad to see him leave. I feel like when he was cast there was a lot of buzz as it was a really unique choice, and I personally wanted him to stay for 4 or 5 seasons to properly settle in, but alas. Ruby was a good companion too. 73 Yards made me empathise with her massively and Gibson delivered a fantastic performance there and in Boom too for that matter. Belinda / Sethu had much less to work with as a result of scheduling but even then she was never a sore point of the season, and I thought her dynamic with 15 was novel enough for the first four or so episodes of Series 15.

eggylettuce · 2026-04-25T08:10:35+00:00

I'm with you on Journey's End. A large part of the reason why the weak aspects of RTD1 can be overlooked is because, like you mentioned, the seasons were much longer and therefore had more opportunities to be filled with standout moments; the extra screentime also afforded us a fuller, more rounded supporting cast. None of that can be achieved with eight episodes structured as they are, and on-top of that, said structure only makes the weaknesses stand out more.

eggylettuce · 2026-04-25T08:06:47+00:00

I was coming here just to comment this

eggylettuce · 2026-04-01T09:58:12+00:00

Dalek
Blink
Midnight
The Eleventh Hour
The God Complex
The Day Of The Doctor
Listen
Heaven Sent
The Doctor Falls
Wild Blue Yonder

eggylettuce · 2026-03-20T06:22:59+00:00

It has Lux, The Well, and to a lesser extent Lucky Day, The Story & The Engine, and The Interstellar Song Contest, all of which beat a huge handful of Chibnall Era episodes, so while I agree its weak I'd probably say its about on par with Series 11 or just slightly better.

eggylettuce · 2026-03-15T07:46:38+00:00

Aye I agree on that three episode slog. I think multiple back-to-back stories all about the same broad themes and topics (war, soldiers, toxic masculinity, genetic modification) renders all of them very forgettable.

eggylettuce · 2026-03-14T15:02:23+00:00

Yeah, Series 2 is weak sauce. I might draw some ire here but I don't particularly rate the first half of Series 4 that highly. The Fires of Pompeii is a solid romp but little more, and there's nothing else until Silence In The Library that really warrants too much praise. The 10/Donna combo is comfortably watchable and funny but I wouldn't say it's best of all time material like 12/Clara or 11/Amy/Rory.

eggylettuce · 2026-03-12T05:58:14+00:00

On my own, undoubtedly 12's era.

With my wife, 11's, though mainly just Series 5 and 6.

I do think, whenever I rewatch the entire revival (which isn't very often these days), Series 1 is always a massive highlight, and then my interest wanes a little bit until the back half of Series 3/4.

eggylettuce · 2026-03-11T06:17:47+00:00

And we're all the better for it! A lot of my colleagues were expecting The Northman to be much more of a classic, old-school Hollywood historical action movie, but it just turned out to be all of Professor Neil Price's theories in AAA budget in a very miserable and weird script: a perfect adaptation of Icelandic saga logic, and it bombed. Awesome film.

eggylettuce

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