the plot wasn't coherent or satisfying, the whole thing with the rani and omega just got thrown away really quickly to the point where i couldn't even fathom how there were still THIRTY ENTIRE MINUTES LEFT. on top of that, rtd continued to sideline his non-white leads (archie panjabi's rani, belinda, and even THE DOCTOR, aka the titular character of the show!) for white characters in particular ruby, and then to top it off, made the dumbest choice for the next doctor he could have possibly made. russell t davies needs to stop writing for doctor who immediately. DEEPLY disappointed in what he did to 15's tenure. he gave belinda so little characterization that he had to invent a daughter for her in order to make up a reason she should leave when she ALREADY HAD ONE. also, the line about blonde girls was projecting — more of the doctor's blonde girl companions have been from rtd than not. maddening that he brought back billie piper as the next doctor. THE SHOW NEEDS TO MOVE ON. especially from rose tyler! she is one of the most praised and referenced companions, and billie piper has ALREADY COME BACK IN A DIFFERENT ROLE. i find it unfair and inappropriate that she should come back as well but given that we've already had david tennant come back (also not a choice i agree with, he had his time already) the artistic integrity of the show is out the window at this point. very upset with this episode, as it's hammered home that all my existing problems with RTD are not something he's interested in fixing.

Much better than the previous stories in this anthology! I thought it being set in the modern day (unlike the others) might help. Also the Doctor doing a horrifying thing for no reason is kind of a W

I didn't find this that believable to be honest. The fact that 12 shows up and seemingly doesn't need to prove anything, the sheriff just goes along with him was kind of at odds with the fact that this is 12 in only series 8 or 9 (and Clara wasn't with him to temper him either). Also, I didn't find the fact that this was set in the 1800s believable at all — if it had been set in the modern day that would have been a lot better wrt how the characters other than the Doctor acted, but it wasn't and they still acted the same.

wasn't a huge fan — the doctor just sort of explained everything, and I didn't find it that believable that the family in the story were American pioneers from 1846, just in the writing and how they spoke and acted. At the very least this would benefit from more research / realism wrt the Oregon Trail part

read almost all of it in a night, its really good! setup and followthru are awesome and the time travel logic is great!! plus the little easter eggs are fun :)

AMAZING rob shearman short story as always. rob shearman you continue to be the best one to ever do it

heavy-handed, a kind of weirdly bioessentialist version of basically the sneetches but not done as well because it doesnt actually commit to its own premise of "everyone is the same and nobody is any better than anyone else". like, it tries to say that, but since everyone IS actually the "lesser group" at that point, it ends up sort of accidentally implying that only members of that "lesser group" can fall in love. not a fan

So the first half was a good setup, and I liked the return of Rogue. However:

1. The Rani was extremely mischaracterized — if you changed the name to "The Master" it would have been fine! But the Rani was 1) a scientist doing genuine real scientific experiments (NOT magic), with actual goals to benefit herself and further the science she was doing (not get back at anyone, or whatever this Rani was trying to do), who 2) DID NOT CARE about the Doctor, or the Master for that matter, and 3) had been exiled by the time lords and didn't really care about them either (certainly not enough to put the seal of Rassilon in her palace). I went in not really trusting RTD to do right by the Rani (especially with him choosing to bring her back during the magic pantheon era when she is very much a woman of hard science and logic and mathematics) but I didn't expect the characterization to be THIS blatantly inaccurate.

2. Belinda once again did nothing. It's really a shame, I would love to see any actual motivations from her at all, but there's nothing — she basically didn't contribute to the plot at all, she didn't figure anything out, she didn't try to break out of her role as the perfect 1950s housewife and stay-at-home mom. Nothing. I don't even know why the Rani had her brought up to the bone palace, that made no sense whatsoever.

3. Why on earth is Ruby more important to this episode than Belinda? Ruby had her season, and like it's fine that she's still around, whatever, but the fact that she was FAR more integral to this episode than Belinda was really disappointing, especially with RTD's history of sidelining non-white characters for white and especially blonde girls on Doctor Who (Martha Jones with both Rose and Joan Redfern, naming two different black women after Rose Tyler - Rosita from The Next Doctor and Rose Noble, Mickey being sidelined as well, giving 15 three Doctor-lite episodes within his first 14 episodes when no other Modern Who Doctor has had more than three total, Belinda barely even being in Lucky Day which focused on Ruby instead). It's just very disappointing that this is happening when it's the season with the first fully non-white Team TARDIS.

4. A LOT of RTD's scripts this season have felt very... recycled, reusing plots (73 Yards was just The Curse of Clyde Langer from SJA but with a blonde white girl instead of Clyde! Even down to the mother of the main character being a Black woman named Carla!) and bringing back old characters that had one or maybe two appearances on the show prior (which is very different from bringing back the Daleks or Cybermen or the Master, as they are all very well established to be a part of the image of the show). This was really no different. Russell T Davies needs to leave the show, because he's clearly showing the audience that he doesn't have any new ideas by choosing to dredge up old history rather than invent anything new. In fact, now that I'm thinking about it — I don't think any of the episodes solely penned by RTD have invented a new, non-Pantheon monster (like a REAL monster of the week type enemy) that was directly the villain except for the goblins (Dot and Bubble does NOT count — those monsters were not the villain). And frankly the goblins being the one new monster he's invented is NOT a good look, given that "goblins steal a white baby from a christian church in order to eat it" could not be any more directly blood libel. I really think RTD needs to leave the role of showrunner and not write for TV Who again, cause this has led to it feeling really stagnant. Like, come on, what is Doctor Who without a good classic one-off monster of the week?

I don't know. There were some good things, it's just clear that RTD is doubling down and not fixing any of the problems that have been present in his run. I know it's the first half of a two parter, but very few of the questions he's raised over this season or even back to 15's first episode were answered or even hinted at there being an answer to, save Rogue I suppose. I could probably give this lower, as 15 really doesn't do much of anything either (he doesn't even figure out the story universe thing on his own — Rogue has to help him!) I'm holding out some hope that the finale will go some way to fix some of these problems, but I'm not all that optimistic it will, I'm afraid.

This audio doesn't have a plot to speak of, just eugenics. Probably one of the most openly racist pieces of doctor who media I personally have experienced (though I admit there are big swaths of classic who I have yet to watch). The only good things here were C'rizz's hints of character development in his going against the Doctor, and that one clip of Paul McGann definitely moaning like he's in pain and not for some other reason.

I was going to be like, "How could you possibly mischaracterize a character that was in literally two episodes THIS badly?", and then I remembered it's a Torchwood novel. Even that said this was so, SO bad. It flattened Suzie's character down to an idiot who LOVED killing for fun — did they just forget that except for her dad ALL of the murders she did were because she NEEDED to understand the knife??? That fact just shows that she was 1) smart 2) only killed because she really had a REASON, NOT because she liked it. And this novel just completely ignores all of that. I mean come on, her picking the alias "Sue Costa" and then being like, "Yeah they'll never find me"? She was supposed to be smart! Also wasn't a fan of the prose in general either, and I thought the plot was super thin and didn't make much sense, either. Do not waste your time on this one lol