Chibnall's Cube Disaster
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- Опубліковано 15 вер 2024
- Chibnall strikes back and this time he's sending more cubes
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#DoctorWho #Series7 #Review
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If Chibnall had something close to a masterpiece, this episode is it, and I actually like it
"Just bring them back safe" Never hears from Rory, Amy or the Doctor again. Brian really got done dirty in the whole lore of doctor who
There was a PS science with Rory aka Arthur Darville, he sends a letter to Brian , telling him he and Amy are happy in the past and adopted a boy who has the middle name Brian after him .
Yeah. Amy and Rory at least got to live full happy lives together so you can make the argument (even if I don’t agree) they got a good ending. All their friends and family though. They would have just thought they died and wouldn’t even have bodies to grieve over.
@@tvguy61 Think it might be on BBC I player or the doctor who website . Or on you tube .
@@tvguy61search on youtube for "Rory's letter to his dad"
@@tvguy61 You can find it on YT under the title "Doctor Who: P.S. - Series 7 2012 - BBC One"
I literally cried at the end of this episode, when Matt Smith picked up his screwdriver and yelled “it’s Cubin’ Time!”, which destroyed all the cubes and saved the day. Then, everyone in the cinema got up and clapped.
The cubes could've been destroyed in seconds had he only performed his "Have Sex" dance at them. 🕺
Honestly shocked there aren’t more Doctor Who Morbius memes.
matt smith played in Morbius, so it also suprises me
@@DJtheBlack-RibbonedRose it’s a subtle suggestion that the audience should be having sex rather than watching the episode in question. Truly powerful stuff. 😭
It's Mark Cuban time
IMO “invasion of the very small cubes” is a much funnier and better title than the power of three
The German title is literally (translated) "cubed together", meaning sth is put together at random, which here is a pun on the cubes (and if you think about it, it sums up the episode).
100% agreed. Power of Three as a title is way too vague, I would probably have trouble remembering what episode it is. Invasion of the very small cubes? 10/10
I see what they're going for (power of 3 = cubed) but it doesn't really work
I studied a BSc in pure Mathematics at university, and only thanks to this comment have I realised that the title 'Power of Three' > ^3 > 'Cubed' > 'Cubes'...
I always remembered this episode as one of my favorites, but for some reasons, I could never remember how the conflict was solved, or what even was the reason behind the cube's existence
Turns out, it wasn't my favorite episode. It just had my favorite premise
The problem with Chibnall is that most episodes have great premises, but are ruined by the last act because they're either rushed or just bad (Can you hear me, Orphan 55, Kerblam).
@nathaann I know that was the reason here, I'm just saying having great premises and a bad/ rushed ending is very common for Chibnall.
It's really such a shame, so much wasted potential here. I did like going back to watch this episode for its good bits, but I'm always reminded of how the lore they build up for the villain felt kinda empty and went nowhere.
@@MrSukram777 Well the showrunner at the time should have done something about it
Definitely agree! I think the reason I’ve watched it a lot more times than other episodes is because I can’t remember how the conflict was solved or how the cubes came about 😂. However I am still fond of the concept and has a different feel which is nice.
I think he writes Amy and Rory quite well in this one but how he couldn’t do this with 13 and her companions across 3 ENTIRE series is mind boggling
i'd guess it's because Amy and Rory were pre defined but the fam was brand new
Because he didn’t have Moffat to rewrite and edit his scripts, would be my guess.
i heard someone sum this up quite effectively, chibnall can play with other peoples toys but cant make his own
@@toastierebellion2102 That's not really true. If you look at Chibnall's supporting cast for Thirteen's run, a lot of them are fine. Jericho is fine. Ashad was fine until he got done dirty. 'Spy Master' is over the top, but fine. Umbreen was fine. Nikola Tesla and Edison were fine. And so on. Chibnall can make his own toys okay. He just doesn't seem to know how to flesh out his main cast. :/
@@irrevenant3 looking at it tho Ashad was introduced in an episode by Maxine Alderton, so was Jericho, Umbreen was in an episode created by Vijay Patel, also Chibnalls take on the master is so bland, whereas Simm just was crazy and wanted to only get one over the doctor, and missy had the whole “good” character arc. This master just wants to kill the doctor- like he basically is watered down to nothing more than a pantomime villain, this all is pretty sad when we look at the previous versions of the master we saw until 2020
"he's going to release more cubes" is one of the most funniest lines to come out of DW. Those last 15 minutes is an absolute shitshow, I love it.
Mark Williams really does save this story as Brian, but Jesus this really does fall apart very quickly in the third act and then there’s whatever the hell happened with Steven Berkoff behind the scenes… yep this is a Chibnall story.
Chibnail always write best humorus characters. Graham, Dan are Amazing
Mark Williams is so good
You have that backwards. This was a great story that was derailed in the third act by the patch job they had to do around Steven Berkoff being unprofessional. Chibnall has plenty of failings under his belt but this one isn't on him.
Except that the Shakri were not the whole problem. Chibnall has to make his threat big, but big is not necessarily good story. The heart attack thing sank this story before we ever heard the tally crap.
@@VeracityLH The heart attack thing is part of the third act, and is presumably part of the workaround the BBC had to do to salvage what they could. At the very least I expect it would've resolved very differently.
This story strikes me very much as a setup story for a later story that never came. And it did a pretty decent job of being that setup IMO.
Said it in Dinosaurs On A Spaceship and I will reiterate it here and probably on Angels Take Manhattan cause it's always gonna bug me
Honestly what fucks me up about introducing Rory's Dad is that he, and everyone else in Rory and Amy's lives
Would have no idea what happens to them after Angels Take Manhattan
They just VANISH and the Doctor doesn't even let them know the bare minimum of where their GRAVES are
Like holy shit their friends and family who know of the Doctor would hate him so much and they'd never get closure
In a not filmed scene, Any and Rory's adopted son goes to Rory's dad's place while Arthur Darvil narrates a letter explaining what happened to them, and introducing Brian to his grandson (who is older than Brian! ). I hope you can find it somewhere....
This episode is solved in the exact same way that “The Woman Who Fell To Earth” was : the Doctor takes out their sonic screwdriver, waves it around and the story is over. Literally the worst possible ending you could come up with…it makes the “Jesus Doctor” ending look like a masterpiece
Well that wasn't how the story was supposed to end. Apparently, the actor for the villain of this episode was absolutely horrible to work with, so Chibnall was forced to rewrite the script while they were filming to reduce the actor's screentime.
@@badbromance272 considering how cheap the makeup looks, I wonder why they couldn't just wheel in any other elderly actor to take his place. Its just some old bald dude.
I remember a mini episode called good as gold, where the doctors solution is to use the sonic screwdriver on the monster. I remember thinking how lazy it was but then found out it was wrote by children for comic relief (I think, or children in need)
Thank god that wouldn't happen in mainstream doctor who...wait.
Yeah I know about the villain actor being difficult but surely you could shoehorn in a second in command who usurped him or something.
Even as someone who likes the Jesus Doctor ending (Assuming we're talking about Sound of the Drums/Last of the Time Lords), I totally agree.
Love the fact that during Chibnalls showrunning any episode not wrote by him was bad because of him yet when he writes an episode that people don't like in any other era Moffat or Davies don't get a mention
Doctor playing wii sports years after the release of wii sports and years before the remake for switch saves the whole series, thank you chibnall for relevance
That's what makes power of three so compelling, chibnall also correctly predicted the zygon presence. Truly an underrated episode.
@@Edgysasuke idk man this review may have persuaded me to not entirely hate this episode, if only for the part of the doctor admitting to Rory's dad that he can't guarantee their safety. Pretty big accountability moment for the normally pretty childish 11th doctor
The overall episode might not be great, but I do love the moment when the Doctor is just sitting with Amy and talking about them potentially stopping, and also Matt's delivery when one of his hearts stops working just always makes me chuckle.
Fun fact. Arthur Darville was educated at Bromsgrove School, my childhood home shared a boundary with the school's grounds.
Mark Williams was a couple of years below me at North Bromsgrove High School.
I could well have encountered both actors in the High Street or at school. I'll never know.
How weird to have two "old Bromsgrovians" playing father and son. Coincidence?
I’m also from Bromsgrove and knew about Arthur Darville but not Mark Williams. What a funny coincidence
@@mythhero13Very late reply, but Trudi Styler was another NBHS pupil, I think in the same year as Mark Williams. She was not only a successful actor, but a writer and producer and married Gordon Sumner, better known as Sting.
This episode was fine until the last 10-15 minutes
Chibnall loves a count down doesn't he
Yep, see Chris Chibnall's name & you can count on it. 😉⏳
Count down to failure
Stop being rude people . Do you know him personally . He might be the best guy you have ever met .
Nothing wrong with a countdown. :) This was a fun episode and probably would be regarded as one of the top Who episodes today if Berkoff had acted like a professional and done his job. Instead we have the horrendous patch job that is the end of this episode. :(
@@hayleymingare7844 criticism of a doctor who episode is not rude
Man that Chris Chibnall does a great job characterising the companions and giving us a real look into the inner workings of their lives and relationship to the Doctor. The threat and the conclusion with that Humpty Dumpty looking fella was a bit dumb, but we can expect a lot of solid character work with this Chibnall guy's run right? Right....
Well, it may just be he's great at building on characters, but lousy at actually making them. Different strengths.
This could have been such a great episode if the villian wasn't defeated in 5 seconds with a sonic screwdriver. Should've been a two parter.
but it’s understandable if you consider how they had to rewrite the ending in one day due to the Shakri actor being non-cooperative
@@william...1 did that really happen?
I appreciate this episode a lot because as this was my first series, this was my introduction to UNIT and the Lethbridge-Stewart family. Kate’s really cool and I’m glad she’s persisted.
"Invasion of the Very Small Cubes" That would have been a much better title for the episode
5:30 ‘Really good character writing by Chibnall’
NEVER did I expect to hear that sentence
I mean chibnall is good at writing characters yes it didn't work in his doctor who but if you watched broadchurch you would know that whole show is drama with rich and fleshed out characters
@@ranjanasharan4051 The difference is that Chibnall is more natural at grounded, dramatic storytelling than more lighthearted, fantastical one. That's why handled writing for Torchwood way better than DW.
I think you hit the nail on the head about the Shakri: The issue isn't so much this episode as the fact that it's clearly setup for a future storyline that never came. If that episode had come, this would probably have been an appropriate introduction to the Shakri, establishing them as mysterious and powerful. IMO there *shouldn't* be answers to them in this episode. The problem is that was never followed up.
Ah, the exact same problem as The Ghost Monument setting up the Stenza only for them to never actually show up other than the one we had previously seen.
@@KayAvalon I was disappointed at that too. S12 did kind of a hard swerve. I wondered at the time (and still do) if Chibnall had planned to do more with them but decided against it after S11 got such a terrible reception.
I think it's a shame because the Stenza in general interest me a lot more as a species than T'zim Sha does as an individual.
PS. Chibnall obviously wasn't responsible for the non-return of the Shakri. That was Moffat's territory and the window had effectively passed by the time Chibnall took the reins.
I would've liked to have seen Moffat pursue the Shakri as antagonists. They had potential to be really interesting despite that uneven initial appearance.
In the episodes that followed this, I was confused because I just assumed that we'd be seeing more about this mysterious villain and the Tally. I kept trying to draw lines to it, see foreshadowing that didn't exist, etc. Kept wondering how he was connected to the events that took place. I kept feeling I was missing something (until, in my confusion, I just forgot and moved one). That ending looks far more like a (bad?) introduction than the ending to a stand-alone episode...
This episode started soooo well. The last 10-15 minutes ruin an amazing start with great character work and concept
I'll admit I have a bit of a soft spot for this episode mostly for it's exploration of the Doctor Amy and Rory's relationship. I really got the sense they'd been friends for a really long time but it was most apparent here they were moving on. It was also at the time when depression was starting to hit me and a lot of changes both internal and external were happening in my life so I was able to understand and relate with both sides greatly.
The villain though is a big disapointment, I've heard there was issues behind the scenes though a part of me wonders what the hell is going on behind the scenes to cause such a massive set of edits. Kate Stewert is a win though, a big win!
Gotta love how Amy's narration finds a way to make an awkward title drop.
Oh, and, of course....
He's going to send more cubes.
Apart from the villain serving as an excuse for the doctor to stick around this is is one of my favourite story’s . Because we see the doctor forced to stick around
I forgot completely that the bad guy was supposed to be a big deal. Literally all I thought he was was space pest control. That's what I thought and, tbh, that probably would've improved the character
This right here should have been everyone's warning about Chibnall becoming showrunner. A grand idea and solid character moments, utterly wasted by having no idea how to write a compelling villain or decent ending.
What character moments (on Chibnall's run)?
Wow. I've only seen this episode once before and remembered almost nothing about its plot, but Harbo's discussion of how the episode shows the Ponds having a stronger connection to their personal lives outside of the Doctor and their absences being noticed by all the people they've befriended makes their oncoming Angels Take Manhattan exit all the more devastating. 😔
I remember hearing at the time this was supposed to be a 2 part episode and even knowing how we all feel about chibnall now, i think that could have given us more of the better stuff from this episode. Love the work Harbo, keep it up!
Ok, heres one idea. What if the Cubes aren't tools of the Shakri, there as part of something like The Library; part of a giant archive that analyses the minds of everyone on a planet, then deletes them and moves on. Each cube reacted in a way tailored to each companion. Rory's constantly out of the loop, so the cube opens away from him. Amy went through a traumatic birth experience/kidnap, so it takes her pulse. And the Doctor is used to all sorts of things invading his home planet, so shooting lasers and surfing the net is exactly what a more rapid invasion would do.
The cubes could be accessed when they start kidnapping people from the hospital, because Briain and other less imaginative people are resistant to archiving (maybe the Cubes were sent by some entertainment industry, it would fit with the themes of ordinary life). So its likely the Doctor could have encouraged the humans to defeat the Cubes with the power of boredom... ok, maybe thats a terrible idea, but its slightly more thematic than what we got.
21:03 I always figured it was deliberate that Rory and Amy's character development wasn't tied up into a neat bow in _The Poer of Three._ That meant that, by _Angels Take Manhattan,_ Amy was still trying to have it both ways. That made it much more powerful when the need to make a final decision about her travels with the Doctor was suddenly forced on her. _The Power of Three_ was setup that highlighted the dilemma, and pretty effective setup IMO.
“On a loop!”
That’s one of my favourite moments in DW history.
I like this episode not for the main plot, but for how characters are written.
just to point out, the timeline is also confusing since theres at least one set of holidays that has passed before the reunion.
because amy and rory say they always set a place for the doctor
The classic Doctor Who episode where Inspector Gadget invaded Earth with his Brown bricks from Minecrap
My god I never even realised the Doctor left everyone on that ship to blow up 😂
Actually here the year thing DOES work. It plays on the psychology of humans being on high alert for a threat for a short time, but quickly dialling it down once they are used to something, especially if they are bored by it, even if it really IS a threat (covid anyone?), and in this case, even if it’s HIGHLY visible. AND it makes sense in terms of an intergalactic judge passing judgement on humanity as to whether it is worthy to live and to colonise the stars. One has to wonder whether the weak ending was supposed to be saying something about the bogeyman of religious terrorism actually collapsing under very little close-up interrogation of its premise. And the countdown this time works because it allows for the observation of human behaviour when under pressure and feeling threatened by something the nature of which they still have no idea. All valuable information. But these things are not necessarily well written in, signified or used properly and to their full potential, and they don’t solve the other story/storytelling problems either. Just like eating an egg, some flour, some sugar and some butter is not the same as eating a cake - you have to mix and bake properly, and then ice and decorate pleasingly before they together become a cake; something made of all of them, but that is not itself any one of them.
I feel like cutting the ending some slack cos the actor who played the shakri was incredibly difficult to work with and apparently just left so the ending had to be re-written and I don't know how long he had to do that so maybe he had so little time he just said the sonic saves the day
Yeah I heard this too, that Steven Berkoff was a nightmare to deal with so the episode’s end was compromised.
2:30 "But the Doctor can't understand that..."
That I find oddly out of character for the Doctor. You'd think he, of all people, would understand that type of profession with his thousands of years of experience and his broad knowledge of history, the arts, and humanity, and especially given the fact he's literally called himself _The Doctor_ .He of all people should know what nurse and doctors do do and have to deal with on a daily basis and, in a way, relate to them as an equal.
He also took a degree in medicine under Joseph Lidster. See Dr.Who and the Moonbase( Target novelisation Ðr.Who and the Cybermen.)
When Amy opened the door to the cube listening to the music on a loop, I wanted to be never gonna give you up instead of the chicken dance.
Brian and Kate save this story. It could've been something but it wasn't and that's a real shame. I actually think the story would've been a great final story for Amy and Rory.
I wondered if the doctor that showed up during this time period was sometimes the doctor from after Amy and Rory were taken by the Weeping Angels, squeezing in more time with them since he could never see the later them ever again.
I won't lie, as completely off the rails as this episode is, and the wild third act, it has to be one of my favourites. I think I enjoy it so much because it's a great showcase of The Doctor's character. I don't really know, I just find it fun, and I admit that it occasionally pops into the back of my head when I see a cube.
Chibnall's best episode, shame about the lacklustre conclusion though
I genuinely think that if Chibnall had set an earth-based series in Doctor who he would do great. Character moments like this are where he really is decent at.
This episode is unironically Chibnall's best work on Doctor Who period.
I remember this episode fondly, but specifically for the doemstic scenes with the doctor and the ponds. No matter how many times i see it, i never remember the resolution or anything else but the Doctor having a hard time with staying still
I like the fact that you took the time to talk about what went well in this episode as opposed to just "Chib bad giv views" its like 80% of a good episode.
don’t pretend that Chibnal (as a writer) doesn’t have it coming. Because he does.
@@RealCoolstriker64 oh he does, this episode shit the bed HARD but had a lot of good elements that I don't like to ignore
how could the BBC watch any of these episodes and say, that's the next showrunner
The villain is literally Palpatine
I know, it’s so strange.
Agreed, I thought this since a young age.
Omg, so true!
Low budget palpatine with speech difficulties, chibnall been watching too much star wars lmao
Agreed
There were a couple of nice scenes here: The Doctor and Amy's talk by the river, Brian's note introducing him to his grandson (which was never filmed), and the threat to companions discussed between the Doctor and Brian. Now: based on everything Chibnall has ever written, does anyone believe he actually wrote them? Chibnall submitted a script. Then the showrunner had a rewrite which includes all the quality scenes. It happens all the time.
god the Doctor/Amy/Rory relationship was so well done in this! And the setup was great! Then it went full whirlwind in the last 3rd. Should've been a two-parter.
you missed that in TDTWATW Amy says it's been 2 years since the Doctor died. So TPO3 has to be 2015 at the earliest. Which makes no sense with Day of the Doctor clearly being 2013 and Kate knowing the Doctor in that but clearly meeting him for the first time here.
out of any new series episode this is the one i'd most like to see have a novelisation, because i really want to see what the original ending was meant to be like, and i feel like it overall might work better if it were fleshed out in the way that a novelisation affords
12:25 I can't get over this shot 😂
The episode started out strong, pulling me in with the mystery, introduction of Kate, and humor & introspection with Eleven and Brian. I admit I still like this episode for those reasons, but the ending and payoff to the cubes does leave things feeling meaningless on future viewings.
"Disappear in the blink of an eye"
Definitely the good words here.
Actually I think this episode takes place in 2020 or somewhere around that time since Rory says he’s 31 in DOAS and amy was 21 in 2010 assuming amy is the same age as Rory
This episode has an intriguing premise, great character moments and lots of fun scenes (plus, Kate Stewart!), but the villain and the ending are such let-downs.
In the grand narrative I do think it's important though, as it establishes that the Doctor can't stand still in one place, but by the end of his life he'll choose to spend centuries defending one small town. I've always liked that.
Oh and to be fair, these are nothing like the Toclafane. They were spheres, these are cubes.
Honestly if he wrote a full episode that was just 100% exploring what happens in between episodes I feel like that would have been a lot more engaging than what we got
It took me way to long to realise that the title of the episode is a reference to the mathematical concept of 'cubing' numbers.
Why tf did Chancellor Palpacube's actor play up and have tantrums during filming? That's so weird xD
I'm honestly not surprised the actor who plays the uninteresting shakri is quite a big theatre actor/writer and to say he's a pretentious knob would be an understatement he views most films as easy pay checks he has no passion for any on screen work just his own stupid style of waving his hands about and acting like a ponce he is actually a very talented actor but seems to be such a prick and dead set on his way of doing things and the only reason I know this is because I do drama because I think on screen acting is really interesting and better to take part in than theatre berkoff isn't one of my favourite practitioners for these reasons
People thinking the cubes are probably a marketing campaign reminds me of a marketing campaign years ago in London. Everybody seemed to have these pink pig stress toys, they were everywhere, but what they were advertising was very vague. I remember one day, some unknown person in the office decided to cut a load of their heads off and leave the bodies piled up in a pyramid formation in the lift. That piggy pyramid rode the elevator the whole day.
In The Doctor, The Widow, and The Wardrobe, Amy says it’s been two years, so if the Doctor returned them to Leadworth 2011 (following the passage of summer in Let’s Kill Hitler), then that tag happens Christmas, 2013.
Okay two words
COSMIC CUBES
Yes, this is my guilty pleasure episode shut up
Edit: A good way to work around with the actor who played cube man being difficult was to just rewrite and change the story to just not have him.
I mean the episode was about the cubes so… make it about them.
Nothing to feel guilty about. The episode's "Doctor needs to better understand that the Ponds have personal lives outside of travelling him" storyline is actually quite compelling. 👍It's everything else about that gets weird. 😅
And here I thought repairing permanent brain damage on a planetary scale was what the sonic's stabilizers are for
15:46 "doesn't happen very often?"
Half of Chibnall era aliens are brand new but Jodie acts like she's heard of them all but just never met them like the frog from "It takes you away" or the assassins from "Demons of Punjob"
It's not as well known as the other Chibnall tropes but it is just as boring and predictable.
But over dramatic when u could only mention 2 Villians from 3 seasons but say half
@@nathanielfarkas4431 i didn't want to write a paragraph for a comment,
You chibnall supporters, why do you even watch videos made by a known chibnall hater like harbo?
@@nathanielfarkas4431 here, just for you because you need more stuff to whine about
S11E01: Stenza are a race of warriors the doctor has heard of in legend
S11E02: The Remnants mention the Timeless child which the doctor remarks she has heard of
S11E05: The doctor has heard of Eve Cicero because she read the Book of Celebrants
S11E05: The doctor has heard of Gifftans and knows all about their biology
S11E05: cannot remember if the doctor knew about the Pting or if the ship's database did
S11E06: the doctor has heard of the Thijarian space assassins
S11E07: the doctor has heard of and orders things from kerblam!
S11E08: the doctor knows about the Morax and when and why they were imprisoned on earth
S11E09: the doctor's grandmother told her stories about the Solitract
S11E10: The doctor has heard all about Ux
S12E04: The doctor knows what an orb of Thassor is
S12E04: Can't remember if the Skithra introduced themselves or if the doctor knew about them already
S12E07: The doctor knows all about the hospital she ended up in called Bimaristan
S12E07: can't remember if the doctor knew about Rakaya and Zellin before they asked for help escaping but she had heard of Immortals before
S12E08: The doctor knows all about the Cyberium
Obviously having been around for a while the doctors has heard and seen a lot of things and other writers like RTD had him recognize things like Petrifold Regression disease, but it was not every single episode like Chibnall. As Harbo said he likes to tell not show. Jodie does so much talking during each episode it is unbearable. Maybe once she should just not know what she is going up against rather than spewing 10 paragraphs about them only for them to never do anything while on screen.
Part about "Half of Chibnall era aliens are brand new but Jodie acts like she's heard of them all but just never met them" isn't TOO new for Doctor Who. Classic DW had at least half of episodes of "OF COURSE it is this race!/planet!"
Yeah I hate fact that Doctor Who went on hitus for 5 years (or 6?), but "Half of Chibnall era aliens are brand new but Jodie acts like she's heard of them all but just never met them" isn't problem per se.
@@ladrok97 if it annoys me while I'm watching the show, then it is a problem to me at least
throughout the 11th doctor's run, i never put as much thought into the overall plot as i did into the relationships of the doctor, amy, rory and river. For the most part, barring any exceptions that i honestly can't think of at the moment, even in the cube episode, they were done magnificently and i really enjoyed them all together in the tardis. Angels of manhatten fuckin hurt every single time i watched it
The first half hour of this episode is amazing, if it was two parter I think it could've been one of the best of Eleven's episodes
The ending is like if in Infinity War, Doctor Strange waved his hands around and undid the snap using Control-Z to bring everyone back.
I feel that until the ending, it's pretty good and a very Douglas Adams type concept. What let's it down is the lack of a satisfying conclusion, made even worse by Steven Berkoff refusing to act so they had to edit around him. This along with having to perform his awful plays during school has made me despise him. He's not a good actor, I reckon people are to scared to tell him no.
I actually really liked this episode when I first watched it.
It was so mysterious and funny at the same time. Also it introduced Kate Lethbridge-Stewart in the actual show for the first time.
But the ending was just so random and meaningless. To this day I vividly remember a lot of the scenes but I couldn't tell you exactly how it ends. It just does. No consequences, no plot resolution. It's all just gone as the Doctor does some Doctor-y stuff and everyone goes back to normal.
I also remember the very Chibnall-esque joke about the main character hating Twitter, that he also used on Broadchurch (which is super great btw unlike his Doccy Who work).
So what's the story with this Berkoff dude being a complete berk? I tried googling for more insight but I didn't find the answer sufficient. It just said he wouldn't act so a lot of the footage is of him just standing around.
A good ending would have been the Doctor discovering that the cubes are simply fragments of a perfectly geometric alien vessel that was scattered when it materialized too close to the Sun.
He locates the race via deduction and learns that the actual crew abandoned the ship after a massive power failure, and that the cubes will soon dissolve harmlessly.
The joke is that there was in fact no threat, but the experience allowed the Doctor to spend valuable time with Amy and Rory.
I remember this episode really well generally because the beginning is pretty good, but the moment it brough the actual alien threat into the episode it became nonsense.
I’m pretty sure it was 2 years that passed when the doctor came back after death. I just rewatched the episode yesterday and the doctor asked Amy how long and she specifically said “2 years”
I kinda like this episode just as something to turn your mind off for. It’s rubbish and Chibnall but is alright as a comfort story of sorts
I think that the ending was all they really could do. the fact that there was extensive rewrites and footage cut AND what was usable had to be worked around means that there's only so much chibs or the production team could've done.
the four minutes leftover could've easily been filled with episode that had to be cut because the shakri footage was unusable. and while yes they could've reshot the ending, that involves a whole lot of continuity, bringing back in ALL the cast that was present (aka expensive, and when I say all I mean even the guy who was being an ass) and a lot of other things involved with reshoots, which if it's as I suspect and a lot of the cutting had to be done at the editing stage, means that it's likely been months since the original footage was shot, so... it had to a very poor ending.
I do think building up the shakri to be this big mythical presence was a mistake, and definitely a chibnall thing to do, but honestly it's not that big of a deal that he likes to do that. who, given the opportunity to write a story for the show, wouldn't want to write a big mythical time lord fairytale character?
anyway it's like. the episode was likely really good the whole way through, but because of the cutting and editing around one guy's bad attitude it brings down the whole episode, and it's not really chibnall's fault, which makes it really unfair when people bring this up as an example as to 'why chibs is bad at writing' tbh
"It's going to release more cubes"
some say that chibnall was one of those with permanent brain damage
The episode is 5 minutes short, why can't we have a 5-minute speech on moving on, after all, he did spend a year straight with them and Chibnall is so good and writing lectures, I mean speeches. Furthermore, how special is this 'first face this incarnation saw' in the new series? In the classic series, the companions weren't treated like celebrities or even attached Gods, they were seen as normal travellers. Why is it even that special? Imagine if that happened in the 7th Doctor's final story, the Rani being the first face 7 saw- I wonder how that would have worked?
The only good part of this episode is exploring what happens when the doctor gets trapped in a mundane setting for an extended period of time. when it actually gets around to explaining the cubes, it’s so underwhelming.
Despite its flaws (mostly that ending), I actually really enjoyed this story. It's the only Chibnall episode I can say that about.
Amy and Rory’s friends and family (except Brian) probably just assumed they died to the cubes.
Ah. The 'chicken dance looped' cube. Obviously designated to test the resistance of humans to constant, ridiculous, inane sounds. Should have sent that one on a certain American politician's campaign (and courtrooms) trail...
Actually, Chibnall didn't create Kate Stewart. Kate was actually introduced in the 1995 film Downtime and the 2004 film Daemos Rising. Since these films referenced classic Doctor Who stories, it's obvious that Chibnall enjoyed them.
He made her a main character though and more mainstream
having a heart attack is NOT the same as the heart stopping beating, which is known as cardiac arrest…
Well, the home films weren’t technically “unofficial”, in that what they used was officially licensed, but it is true that they weren’t made by the BBC.
I genuinely feel like this episode was originally meant to be a two-parter, if not the set up for a larger series arc, but that got cut somewhere in the process. It's the only way certain things make sense to me.
Love how he refers to it being able to happen today as appearing like an elaborate meme, almost like we adhere to meme's, some might say we are adherents to repeating memes.
The first thirty minutes were some of my favorite minutes of NuWho up to that point.
The ending pissed me off beyond belief. It was truly atrocious. What’s even worse is the questions I had about the abducted humans. Why were they abducted if the villains were going to kill all of the humans? Also, where were the two vent mouth twins when the Doctor and Amy got onto the ship? Needless to say, I was very agitated by how the episode went from 100 to 0 within the span of five minutes. Thanks, Chibnall.
I remember really liking this episode. I actually call it "That one good Chibnal episode"
The ending was obviously a bit of a disappointment, but I do think that the character work it did with Amy and Rory was really good and even helps justify continuing their story after season 6.
Classic Chibnall: great ideas, brought down by poor execution.
Would’ve been cool if he brought the Shakri back in his era though. Could’ve been a cool recurring villain.
this episode would have been a great televised debut for the Viyrans
16:10: The Shakri spacecraft kinda looked like the Decepticon warship the Nemesis from Transformers
This may have been better as a two part story.
However, that’s what most Chibnall episodes need.
I will never understand why Chibnall was picked as the next show runner, he was good at Torchwood episodes but his Doctor Who track record was pitiful. His first story was a mediocre 10th Doctor story, his second was a forgettable adventure where the silurians are brought back and Rory dies, his third is Dinosaurs on a spaceship, and this one is has the amazing reveal of the Cube Emperor who fails to explain anything. Compare this to Moffatt’s track record which was amazing (despite what some think of his run) before being showeunner he made the first fantastic episode of the series with a threatening villain and wonderful characters, his second story had the whimsical-Gothic tone his run would go on to have, Blink is blink and created the most iconic Nuwho original villains, and his last story is featured a threatening/unbeatable villain, a tragic story with Donna, a creepy atmosphere, and the introduction of a fan favorite character. Love or hate Moffatt’s run, you can see why he was selected as the next show runner as all his stories were critically acclaimed while all Chibnall’s stories were mediocre to just plain awful.
Is it okay if you explain how the Shakri actor influenced the ending? I wasn't too sure what you meant by this
a C grade is f*cking generous as it is xD and to think this was the last episode he wrote before he got the job as showrunner.. honestly how and why tf was he hired
0:28 - It's CHIBINGFIELD!!!
20:40 Evil Dan has ruined me, I didn't even remember the original quote