DOCTA HOO [ORIGINAL THREAD NAME CHANGED]

I don't imagine a replacement will be picked until December. I'm not sure any other AVCers have the Big Finish knowledge that I do, but we'll just have to cross our fingers!

The Kinja-fication of AV Club comments is going to be so weird. I can't really imagine how utterly it's going to transform things. For what it's worth, I'll try to have a bit of a dedicated Twitter presence after episodes air, or something like that.

Sorry, I'm both a freelancer and on my way out the door, so I'm completely out of the loop, I'm afraid.

Still not a ginger. 

Seems like a pretty good choice though.

And...it's back!

Pretty typical post-regeneration story, which I never find that compelling. Lots of table-setting, kind of overstuffed () and a lot of waiting around for the Doctor to remember she's the Doctor. And still, we'll have to wait another couple of episodes (or series) for Thirteen's actual personality to gel, given precedent. So far we know she...likes building stuff?

Anyway, a solidly competent Who episode, with the attendant creaky logic--why does this advanced alien race from galaxies away hunt humans, of all species? how exactly did the tooth-guy upload those bombs from the tentacle thing, again?--that nonetheless makes sense enough at the time. Tooth-guy looked cool until he took his mask off. Then he looked, well, like a guy with teeth glued to his face. Whittaker is charming and clearly enjoying herself, though, again, it's too early to tell what her take on the character is going to be. And also the companions were there, with personalities that so far boil down to "old," "dyspraxic," and "police woman." The new music is fine, and I dig the new theme, but otherwise it's mostly just ambient background tones. At least I could finally hear the actors over it--wonder if they picked up a new sound editor too? The more "realistic" look of the show is a departure from the sci-fi-gothic feel of the Moffatt era, which is a shame, as now it looks like pretty much every other gritty contemporary drama.

Initial thoughts concluded.

I didn't really notice the music, which is good, since Murray Gold was overbearing pretty much 100% of the time, and it's nice to be able to hear the dialogue.  Besides, ambient background tones were good enough for the first 30-odd years of the show.  

I don't know if it will extend to the beginning credits, but the end credits sequence sure looked a lot like the early Pertwee years to me.

Anyone who was angry/unsure about Jodie Whittaker being the Doctor is an idiot.  She IS the Doctor.

I mean, you're not wrong about it being a zero-budget idea (that they've spent a significant amount of money on), but on the other hand it's in line with Doctor Who's tendency to make mundane objects the source of fear. Statues being the most conspicuous example in the new show, but anything from mannequins (Rose) to hiding under the duvet (Listen) can be made to be scary, and killer scarves is something that it's easy to imagine being re-enacted in playgrounds the next day.

I was surprised about the Stenza being mentioned again so soon - hopefully they've be developed into a more compelling enemy than Tim Shaw, who was fine for a single episode that needed some kind of threat but hardly suggested a lot of potential. Maybe he'll be an outlier and as we find out more about the Stenza we'll find out why we should care, bit by bit. Actually, finding out about an enemy this way, rather than the usual Bad Wolf/Torchwood/Mr Saxon breadcrumbs might have potential to be an interesting spin on the season arc, letting their threat develop as the primary theme of the season rather than some contrived build to "the big revelation". 

This was, indeed, an episode that was no better than "fine" but the TARDIS reveal at the end (and Whittaker's reaction to it, which was a thing of beauty) made the whole episode worthwhile.

I don't know what makes you think they're two separate arc threads. I'm assuming they're parts of the same story.

So who is The Timeless Child? It has to be Susan/Romana/THE RANI!!!

I am weirdly obsessed with Trial Of A Time Lord, so you don't want to set off ideas in my head...

Hm. I dunno. Jodie Whitaker and the new companions are both fun. But for me the real appeal of Doctor Who is the wacky bits, and this season has been pretty not-wacky.

I also was immensely frustrated by the part where the Doctor chastised Ryan for trying to attack the robots with a magic gun... before hitting them all with a magic grenade. And then blowing all the scarf monsters up with a Michael Bay-grade explosion. Eugh.

Right.

On the other hand, it was very flattering of the BBC to name episode three after me.

"What if Quantum Leap but a Time Lord?"

I was worried going into this one - Doctor Who does not have a great reputation when it comes to spiders, Giant or otherwise.... But I'm going to go ahead and say that Arachnids In The UK, despite that really terrible title, might be the... well, i don't want to say best episode of the season thus far, but certainly the most consistent. The Doctor gets lots of Doctor-y things to do, its funny in places and scary in places and thoughtful in places and that's all great. The characters feel like characters, not writerly conceits.  Yaz finally get some much-needed flesh on the bones of her character, there's a couple of great guest spots and the whole thing makes Doctor Who sense (or whatever the closest thing to sense is that Doctor Who can manage). Graham gets the chance to have some proper closure over Grace, there's at least the tentative start of the closing of the distance between him and Ryan and this all just feels so much less abstract than the first three episodes. Even the final scene where they all agree to carry on travelling with the Doctor is great, when it could have been unbearably cheesy, though I think that may be down to the strengths of the performances. But still - after a few episodes which were hard to get worked up about, this feels like things might be getting on track. This is a very traditional Doctor Who story and I'm not normally one to call for traditionalism, but here there's a sense that of a proper foundation being built. And for those (including me) that have suggested the first few episodes have been found wanting it's worth pointing out that by this point in Eccleston's run we've had two episodes of farting aliens, in Tennant's we've had those stupid nun-cats curing all diseases with Kool-Aid (and the idiocy of Tooth And Claw), and Smith had... "Victory Of The Daleks". Only Capaldi didn't completely crap out on his first few episodes, and he still had "Into The Dalek" and "Robot Of Sherwood". So the fact that there's been a couple of duds in there shouldn't (yet) be taken as indicative of anything.

A delicious midnight snack?