Why Arachnids in the UK Doesn't Work - PART 2
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- Опубліковано 12 тра 2021
- Good episode
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CREDITS
Written, Edited and Narrated by Juano Pepe
Music ► incompetech.com/music/
The footage and images featured in the video were for critical review and parody, which are protected under the Fair Use laws of the United States Copyright act of 1976.
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im buggin - Фільми й анімація
Remember the check out Part 1 guys! This video unfortunately had to be split as the BBC kept blocking it.
Are they blocking because you're being critical about it?
21:38 ..."the relationship comes out as fake and hollow" exactly. We're just being told all the time that the Doctor is great, the best person ever, and that the fam's friendship is so strong, but we don't see any of that ever. In fact we often see the opposite, especially with 13 being outright rude and even amazingly forgetting that her companions exist in that Fugitive of the Judoon episode where she couldn't give a damn where they were because she was chasing the plot. I did stop watching this show mid-series 12 because I couldn't take this insulting, insufferable writing anymore.
It seems to be an automatic thing. Disputing it is almost useless sadly as BBC take ages to respond.
@@adamburke4738 Big companies don't understand how fair use works.
@@thomasoates3003 Same can be said about many big UA-camrs.
Chibnall’s idea of humour just seems to be making Jodie say a bunch of random stuff for no reason.
DOCTOR: I'm total hatstand, me! [gurns]
That and boomer jokes that aren’t nearly as relevant as he thinks.
Oooh I'll use watsapp! Hahaha. No WiFi? noOOOO. ✋
The 13th Doctor has this “out of sight, out of mind” mentality and she suffers no repercussions for doing so. It’s been an issue throughout her whole era but this ep is definitely where it’s most notable
It's normal for the doctor to have flaws but 13 doesn't seem to face any repercussions for them and in turn I doubt it will be challenged so the doctor won't have any character development. It often leads into their regeneration too so I have little hope for that if s13 is her last.
@@finleyjennings6051 I don’t mind if the Doctor has flaws, I think it’s the best way to create natural drama. However in 2 seasons, we have had zero conflict whatsoever, and it comes across as if the Doctor is this perfectly virtuistic being that is always right.
You bringing up Mickey is great because he's a good example of a character done right: he grows and evolves over time. He starts off in the background, not wanting to travel in the TARDIS, a bit nervous and shy but then he starts getting dragged into it more and more until he becomes a hero, fighting off the Daleks and Cybermen then hopping between different universes in an attempt to stop the end of the universe.
Good point. I would be WAY more tolerant of the current era if the characterisation were better.
not to mention the fact that he starts off being jealous of the doctor, who he feels is effectively stealing his girl from him; but he grows from that over time, overcomes these feelings and becomes a hero.
It's a shame we never got the Micky and Martha show or hell throw them into Torchwood. Probably too late now.
Mickey has an amazing character arc, better probably than any other 'sidekick companion' did, going from the useless jealous coward to a competent and compassionate ex, to the action hero who steps out from the Doctor and Rose's shadow and becomes someone legendary on his own. He even ends up in a relationship that is a bit confusing as it's entirely off screen, but is reasonably believable in its potential.
@Withnail Are you talking about the accusations that have zero proof whatsoever? Noel only admitted to spanking one of his coworkers, which we don't know the context of, and has denied all other accusations.
I always found it hilarious when they try to blame Jack Robertson for having the spiders alive underneath the hotel and for killing the mother spider, when he actually didn't know about the spiders and it's the laboratories fault for not ensuring the spiders are dead. And the Doctor said the mother spider was suffering and he ended that.
While yes he shouldn't be building on landfills, but it's hilarious that the character we're supposed to hate actually makes the most sense.
Robertson really isn't to blame, yeah, he's actually 100% right to point out that this isn't his fault.
It the centrist crap
He killed Kevin, though.
@@-haclong2366 that's not the worst thing anyone's ever done, just panicking in what you think is a kill or be killed situation. I'm sure I would do the same if it came down to it. I would feel guilty about it, but self preservation wins out.
@@-haclong2366 No, he hired Kevin to protect him, he was then in danger and called Kevin in to protect him. By all rights, Kevin was doing the exact job he was hired to do, presumably knowing full well he may be called to die in the course of his job.
It was unfortunate that Kevin died while saving Robertson, but it wasn't actually Robertson to blame
Those snippets of the 9th Doctor at the end really make me appreciate the work that was put in to develop the world and relationships of that era. It just gets so boring in current Who to have the companions basically not question anything, not change, and all be like "oh how we love the Doctor", especially when there's no call for it. Also, what is it with the camerawork? Almost all the shots are of the characters facing forward, talking at the camera, it's exhausting to watch.
The camerawork is a really weird mix of some beautiful cinematography and really lazy cinematography. Unfortunately, I feel like the latter outweighs the former. As if the exposition dump scenes weren’t boring enough on their own, the cinematography does them no favors by being composed almost entirely of close-ups on the characters talking at the camera like you said.
the fact it's from one of the weaker RTD era episodes and it still outshines this by miles...
@@Shurikenofdoomed yeah mediocre episodes like Vampires of Venice or The Shakespeare code look like masterpieces these days
Totally agree about the new cinematography! It has really bugged me since the start of 13/Chibnall era and for ages I couldn’t figure out why it annoyed me so much, but then I saw a reactor who I think hit the nail on the head, he said it feels really claustrophobic because it’s always right up in the actor’s faces!
Like you would never get that close to someone’s face even if you were really there having a conversation with them! It constantly gives me this feeling of wanting to take a step backwards.
And to make matters worse you also end up missing out on half of the scene, like when they released some behind the scenes pictures on 13’s Tardis about a year into the Chibnall era and we realised for the first time that the Tardis actually has beautiful designs of timelord writing all around the edges, that we literally NEVER SEE IN THE SHOW!
They always try to skip the establishing character moments between the Doctor and his companions. When Smith started, in the Dalek ep, Amy somehow knew that the Doctor didn't like saluting despite that never having been established between the two. It feels like it therefore became this slew of generic companions who all knew his character traits crib notes and thought he was amazing, culminating in the ultimate set of generic lame companions, "the Fam".
The show was at it's best when the differences were played up. Donna was such a breath of fresh air.
We need more reality, not a fat petty BBC wino's perspective of reality.
This episode makes sense until you pay attention and then it just falls apart
You just summed up all of Chibnall's episodes.
Your observations about the Doctor's reaction to a frightened but dangerous monster's death brought to mind how powerful that scene was when it was done right-- with the Krafayis in "Vincent and the Doctor."
VINCENT: "He wasn't without mercy at all. He was without sight. I didn't mean that to happen. I only meant to wound it, I never meant to--"
DOCTOR: "He's trying to say something."
VINCENT: "What is it?"
DOCTOR: "I'm having trouble making it out, but I think he's saying, 'I'm afraid. I'm afraid.' There, there. Shush, shush. It's okay, it's okay. You'll be fine. Shush."
VINCENT: "He was frightened, and he lashed out. Like humans who lash out when they're frightened. Like the villagers who scream at me. Like the children who throw stones at me."
DOCTOR: "Sometimes, winning... winning is no fun at all."
Agreed, Vincent and the Doctor is one of the single best episodes of Who I've ever seen. When even the relatively undeveloped character of the Krafayis has such an emotionally powerful ending shows Chibnall's complete lack of heart in this. I feel, even his very obvious political messages, could be improved with this level of emotion.
For example, the Trump metaphor here could be much better done if he were made into an actuall character, rather than a plot point.
There's also the minotaur in the maze, I guess? Though I don't know how sad that was vs just being sinister.
15:50 I’m one of the biggest supporters of animal rights, but Robertson has a point here. It was a mercy kill.
that's part of animal rights . if an animal has to die you try to make it as painless and quick as possible. stuffing an animal in a closet to starve is animal abuse
God Chibnall's Doctor Who it's like a PSA we have to sit through in school but it's so close to the end of school so you end up getting bored but still watch it anyways for no reason.
Chibnall said he wanted to focus on being “educational” like doctor who was originally meant to be so I suppose if you’re saying that he’s accomplished one thing he set out to do
You hit the nail on the head. Between the end of Rosa, this entire episode, and don't even get me started on Orphan 55, it really has felt like those old educational shows they show to kids that are so goddamn boring and have little substance.
@@alexdavison259 Thing is, Chibnall like any leftist with a soapbox confuses education with indoctrination
@@alexdavison259 That's the worst part though. Doctor Who has always sprinkled in bits of education, here and there. Historical events and real scientific theories that my little child mind went nuts on. It was what got me into history to begin with, I think. I would just sit there at the computer, trying to figure out what parts were real and what parts were theory or fiction, and then parade around knowing more than the kids around me. It was like a spot-the-difference or some kind of puzzle. It was fun, and here we are, over a decade later, and I'm studying to be an archaeologist and teacher.
Education doesn't have to be boring. Learning is supposed to be fun, and engaging. Sure you might not like the common methods of teaching in school, but if you're going to make a fictionalised version of historical events for the purpose of education, you can at least make it interesting.
The pre-service teacher in me dies a little every time someone says that Chibnall's series is "educational".
@@TeganThrussell As an in training teacher myself I absolutely agree with you, learning should be fun and the things is often you learn the most or the best when you don’t think you’re learning at all, and if there’s one thing I can say about the last two seasons, it’s been boring, characters are more static than they’ve ever been, the doctor now seems like someone pretending to be the doctor with only secondhand information about who they are: they don’t use guns… they’re quirky… etc. And the episodes seem purpose built to tackle a topic in the most blatant and frankly boring way possible,, all political commentary is haphazardly thrown in or designed as a strawman for the doctor to argue with and any actual value the message might have is either exposited directly by the by having the doctor spoon feed the audience or said to be the only good solution exclusively because 13 suggests it
Imagine, in a real-world setting, there's an election on and two candidates are at a debate. Suddenly, a giant spider comes rampaging through the streets, terrorising everyone. One of the candidates pulls out a gun and shoots the spider dead. The other candidate denounces their opponent as a merciless murderer for killing the spider.
Which candidate would win the election?
That idea is infinitely more interesting than this dreck
Spider Killer 2024
The one who stopped the spider.
@@flynncarter229 Yes, really. I specialise in stating 'the bleedin' obvious'.
It's like when you're a kid, the first time they tell you that Chibnall Bad, and you can't quite believe it because you think 'yeah maybe Chibnall bad but what's the big deal', but I can feel it. Every line of dialogue is jarringly wrong, every character is a charisma void, every plot makes no sense, and I can feel it...
I read that in ecclestons voice.
Ah, back when the Doctor was a mysterious, compelling character, with depth and a real alien undertone, that kept him from ever really fitting in with humans...
Why must you remind me of such times?
@@TeganThrussell the question - are you a quirky lol random human woman or a centuries old alien god who happens to look like a human because your race shaped the nature of the cosmos to make life life yours more common than it would otherwise be?
@@AnythingMachine yes.
Arachnids in the UK: when you literally couldn't make "what if people were the real bad guys" any more obvious.
More like "OUR POLITICAL OPPONENTS ARE EVIL REEE"
the sarah jane adventures handled this better
@@Shurikenofdoomed Torchwood did it better too. And to make things even more embarrassing, Chibnall actually worked on that show
But Doctor was bad guy in this episode. We watched the same episode?
I think the whole season had the "people are the real bad guys" theme plastered all over it. It was handled so poorly, when as other people mentioned, the spinoffs and other episodes handle it much better. My favorite example is the two parter with the lizard people (The Hungry Earh and In Cold Blood maybe??) It shows us that since both the humans and the lizards (I can't remember their name, sorry) are entire species, both are capable of good and evil. The Doctor tells the humans they need to be the best of humanity, and then chews someone out for being the absolute worst of humanity. It shows us a complex issue being dealt with by complex people
Honestly, the Thirteenth Doctor feels as though she's trying to be like Ten and Eleven (at least in a surface-level way) without really understanding what made them work in the first place.
That two minutes of struggling to process whatever is happening is golden
got a zoology degree - they wouldn't be able to get this big because they'd lose the ability to moult and get trapped in their exoskeleton which is now too heavy to get out of. SO I can see why they glossed over the logistics of it. They could've added some technobabble about them evolving thinner sheds similar to snakes and are maybe softer & less protective than a smaller spider, which could lead to a weakness or something that she could've exploited rather than executing them all.
"I eat danger for breakfast. Either that or Rice Krispies".
There you go, Chibs. I made your dialogue slightly less lame for you. You can swap Rice Krispies for a more whimsical-sounding cereal, if you can think of one. The key is to be specific.
How about they pander to the LGBT and use Fruit Loops?
@@nimblenavigator9520 'Fruit loops: for xim, for xir'.
I'm still flabbergasted that Yaz the police officer didn't bother confronting Roberston on his illegal subterranean land fill or whether or not that gun that gun that was pointed at her and her mother was properly licensed. Does she not know she can arrest people for thier crimes?
She's too small and weak to be an Officer. Any average criminal would batter her aside.
Chibnall clearly does not.
I think you'd run into a rather awkward situation when she comes up against someone who doesnt want to assent to her demands.The very strict (and weirdly inconsistent) pacifism of 13 means she can't carry a weapon in order to actually enforce the law, we'd wind up with a lot of "I'm taking you in" "No, and I have a gun".
Speaking of, that just made me wonder why 13 is hanging around with a cop when their entire purpose is to enforce the law through the threat of violence, but I suppose we know how consistent her morality is in any case.
@DemonBlanka I mean, the doctor has done it before, like 11 acknowledging how it's probably not good that he kind of liked River using guns.
But I 100% agree that there should be an acknowledgment of these differences. Maybe have disagreements between 13 and Yaz over how to deal with certain situations and maybe change each other's perspectives at least a little.
Holy crap I died laughing when you were trying to figure out the explanation for the spiders and couldn’t because it doesn’t make any sense.
I love these thumbnails so much.
Never did I think I would so eagerly watch a UA-cam show about a three year old tv show series I couldn’t even bring myself to finish
Who is gonna name drop Planet of the Spiders? Okay, it's gonna be me, Planet of the Spiders shows that you can have a good story with giant spiders
Speaking of Planet of the Spiders, I havent seen it, but wouldn't that be a great place to send these anomalous giant spiders, instead of locking them up to die slowly? (Unless something happens in that episode that precludes this?)
I know they were trying to avoid references to previous continuity in this series, but if you're going to go for a classic series level "giant creature because chemical waste, leave your science brain on the shelf and enjoy the b-movie romp" episode, whats wrong with harking back to a simpler time where these were more common?
Angrily trying to improve the ending after my first (and only watch) of this dross episode I wondered why the Doctor hadn’t herded them into the TARDIS and taken them to Metebelis 3 where they could live out the rest of their lives in a safe environment. It could have been a nice little nod to long time fans similar to including the Macra in Gridlock. A very easy solution to what is quite a nasty and easily criticised ending.
“‘I think they came back as the same people that left here” - *died* 😂
With Najia I feel like they were trying to set up the whole "companion's mother is distrustful of the Doctor" dynamic that they did in the Davies era. The thing is that in that era, there was a reason for the mothers to not trust the Doctor, and ultimately a payoff for this dynamic for all three characters. Like you said, Jackie's naturally suspicious of the Doctor since he caused Rose to disappear for 12 months, and over the course of the two-parter (and by extension series 1) she grows to understand the Doctor, and trust him a lot more, and ends up more supportive of his and Rose's friendship. Sylvia meanwhile has the previous knowledge of having met the Doctor in "The Runaway Bride", and her disapproval of the Doctor is mostly intended to be another example of her being a terrible mother to Donna, and to have her be a foil to Wilf's more kindly and supportive attitude.
I feel like Chibnall was trying to copy Francine's attitude when it comes to Najia (i.e. being naturally suspicious of this person she's never met that her daughter is suddenly best friends with), but it falls completely flat. Admittedly Francine has a bit of a flimsy reason to dislike the Doctor, but the Jones household is a rather dysfunctional place since she's just divorced her husband. Compare that to the Khan family, who aside from their father being kind of eccentric, seem like a relatively normal and grounded family unit. On top of that, while Yaz is only gone for 30 minutes, there's a full 24 hours or so between the events of "Smith and Jones" and "The Lazarus Experiment", so it makes sense that she'd be suspicious when Martha shows up to a black tie event with a complete stranger. And finally, there's the obvious point that Francine's suspicions of the Doctor lead "Harold Saxon" to use her as a pawn to try and get close to him, whereas Najia's suspicions don't go anywhere at all. In fact she only appears in three episodes after this ("Demons of the Punjab" and both parts of "Spyfall"), and she never meets the Doctor in any of them. All in all, it feels like a case of Chibnall plucking a plot point from the Russell T. Davies era and plugging it into his own era without taking any note of the key context that made it work there...potential foreshadowing for what he'd do in series 12 I guess?
This episode is like a game of cluedo.
*team stands in kitchen
"I suspect the scientists with the pheromones in the kitchen"
"No"
*walk to different room
"I suspect the businessman in the garbage dump with the toxic waste"
What is a Cluedo?
@@creed8712 Murder mystery board game. for example, Professor Plum in the Library with the Candlestick.
@@hotdog1214 clue
@@creed8712 if you're American.
@@matthewparker9276 but what is a Cluedo. Why would they add the do at the end
It's also worth pointing out how rarely the spiders are shown in shots with people. Especially the largest one. It gets show and they barely show, the body in the background with the people in the room. It just makes the spiders feel detached from reality and like even less of a threat.
Shooting spiders = bad
Trapping spiders into a room where they'll eventually starve to death = good
You're making the classic mistake with Chinballs of thinking.
The whole gun thing at the end of the episode felt like they were trying to show The Doctor's judgement. Like when Harriet Jones killed the Sycorax, and The Doctor destroyed her career.
But they didn't.
"Not Trump" kills the big spider. The Doctor tells him off.
No consequences.
Also, the whole "Locking the spiders up to starve" thing would be solved if they just implied The Doctor had called UNIT to have them deal with it. Or the police. Or the military. Or literally anyone.
2:01 Yeah, this is one of my biggest problems with Thirteen. None of her exposition feels authentic, it feels like she's reading directly from the script and doesn't know what she's talking about. So many people say 'Jodie is great but the scripts let her down', but I honestly think she's been miscast as The Doctor.
What Chibnall really needed was a proper character actress, someone with that visually arresting quality, and the ability to put life into bland scripts that Patrick Troughton (and all the other Doctors to a degree) had. It’s a crying shame when the first female doctor’s stories are more fun if you try and imagine how the other doctors would’ve handled the material.
@@EditedAF987 Yep, they really needed to get the first female Doctor right but we're two series in and, for me, Thirteen is yet to demonstrate any Doctor-like qualities. The age and wisdom of the character is completely lacking and there's no aura of authority when she enters the room, she's childish and goofy and everyone just seems to ignore her. That's not The Doctor to me. Jodie's a good actor, but nothing from her previous work would suggest that she'd be good as The Doctor: I feel like Chibnall just chose the first woman he could think of (other than Olivia Coleman) without really considering how she'd be in the role. Someone older like Joanna Lumley would've been great.
@@hagridmary I mean having a Doctor who’s ignored by people and lacks a proper presence is an interesting concept, and a few fifth doctor stories like Earthshock did the idea justice by using that characterisation as a weakness against the Doctor to heighten the threat and elevate the danger. Unfortunately Chibnall just either switched between making the Doctor uber capable or very incompetent depending on whether it’s suits the plot which just makes her feel really inconsistent and underdeveloped.
@@EditedAF987 It would be an interesting concept, if done well. However, I think Thirteen has no presence unintentionally. Chibnall writes her as if she's got the room's attention purely because she is The Doctor, not because she's earned it.
And you're right, she's very inconsistent - after two series her character is very ill-defined: nothing about this incarnation stands out from the others (apart from the obvious). The only personality trait you could really give her (if any) is 'quirky', but that could be assigned to any other Doctor.
She is woefully miscast. Some of the cast perform well off the same scripts but Whitaker is just lacking. Walsh’s Graham is a charismatic presence. Alan Cummings and Siobhan Finnernan act Whitaker off the screen in The Witchfinders episode. They’re all playing off the same scripts that have Whitaker whittering on in the background in her vapid annoying way.
One thing I find interesting and funny is how the Doctor rails on Robertson while the scientist lady receives absolutely NO criticism whatsoever. Cause sure, Robertson was illegally dumping toxic waste, and he committed a morally gray at worst murder against a massive killer spider. But the scientist lady is the one who was meddling with nature, trying to create unnaturally durable, immortal spiders, and then carelessly dumping their corpses (which, as it turns out, hadn't even been disposed of properly) in that same toxic waste dump without Robertson's knowledge.
Like, surely if anyone has committed the bigger crimes against spider kind, it was her?
You know what is a massive tonal whiplash? Go from this episode to The Girl Who Waited. It's just a standalone episode, not part of any big revelation about the series, no profound plot developments, just an episode in the middle of a season. But it's so much better than this.
I’d go with the god complex, since both episodes are set in hotel like areas
@@ethanwhiting2153 that's a good point. I forgot about that episode.
I’d go with the Green death as both stories are about an evil corporation polluting the land with chemicals and causing creatures to grow giant and attack humans, only that one was maggots instead of Spiders.
I got whiplash from refreshing my mind with a good episode of DW after watching the forest fire that is Chibnall era
That thumbnail is some real nightmare fuel.
honestly that one scene in harry potter with the spiders was way scarier and full of more tension than this entire episode lol
The Arachnid episode was where I started thinking that this season is just going to be a dud. When Chibnall took over, he created a female Doctor and three diverse companions. And then - that was it. His stories are usually talky and dull, he often gave almost nothing for the companions to do except walking (oh, there's walking and walking and walking!) and looking at the Doctor, there was rarely if even any disagreement with The Doctor. I think back to the Davies days when Rose Tyler or Martha Jones were in one of those "Base Under Siege" episodes where we are introduce to a whole new set of people, yet Rose and Martha were never shoved to the background - they were always front and center with The Doctor, trying to save the universe or whatever the story was about that week, They were always doing something interesting and they would frequently disagree with The Doctor. They were interesting, engaged three-dimensional characters! Love him or Hate Him, but Chris Noth as "Fake Trump" was more interesting to watch then any of the new companions. And that's yet another thing that I found stupid - Chris Noth is supposed to be a Donald Trump character - we know that as soon as we see him. Yes, Chinball makes sure that we know that he is NOT Trump by making references to the real Trump. Just rock-stupid writing.
You don't even have to go back to the Davies days. The writing and execution were so much better during the Moffat era, too.
Bradley Walsh must be tired from carrying this era on his back
Imagine if Graham was played by someone who was as bad an actor as Toisin or Mandip
I REALLY hope John Bishop can act because 13 and Yaz can't carry the show
I wouldn’t say Mandip or Tosin are bad actors, they’re just not character actors like Bradley is and so they struggle to make Chibnall’s bland and baseline scripts work.
When she calls them 'my fam'.. it's just the worst.
Love how Ryan's ONLY motivation is to get away from his warehouse job
And then the Doctor takes him to Kerblam
All living things do NOT share the urge to go back home to their birthplace. Plants don't try to go back to where their seed came from; most fish, which grow up in the water column as plankton, don't bother to go back to where they came from; and spiders, which disperse from their egg sac on tendrils of silk blown in the wind, do not seek to return to their birthplace. Nor do all animals seek to return to a home they set up as an adult. The aforementioned fish don't really have homes in the sense of a burrow or nest, and many animals are migratory, with no permanent residence. Most spiders do, however, have a web they live on, so there's that.
the one thing all life does, however, share, is the urge to reproduce. This is honestly what I thought Jodie was going to say, and the "going home" bit took me by surprise.
17:21 That was literally the first thing I thought when I saw this iteration of the TARDIS console.
JackWolf.exe has stops working.
UA-cam: "Cut to commercials!"
I got totally lost at 8:07 and it was so funny to see JackWolf's brain just collapse in on itself XD
I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together.
Can’t wait for your Tsuranga Conundrum critique. Watching tubers tear the Chibnall era apart is the only Doctor Who material I can bring myself to watch these days. Keep going.
Wow im not used to both parts coming out around the same time (maybe youve been doing that all along but i mean just in general for youtube series's) so thankyou!!
Thank god the Ninth Doctor Big Finish box set is out today. Now I can pretend like it's 2005 and try and forget this is current Doctor Who
Isn’t _Arachnids in the U.K._ literally - _LITERALLY_ - the plot of _Eight Legged Freaks,_ with the clandestine toxic waste dump initially mutating the spiders into dangerously-sized versions of themselves, and the luring of the spiders to one locale, i.e., the bad guy’s cherished commercial investment project, as an ironic means to destroy them? It’s a virtual verbatim point-for-point carbon copy of _Eight Legged Freaks_ (which was in and of itself a tongue-in-cheek sendup of the formulas of things such as _Jaws_ and monster-invasion flicks of the 1950’s ‘atomic age’).
They could have made this into an ironic origin story for the Metabelis-3 Spiders or something along those lines, bring them back as a recurring (but not necessarily evil) 'monster' in the series (maybe even have the Doctor adopt one as a non-human (k-9 like) companion in their next appearance, during a regeneration story, I kind of had an idea for such a story, set on Metabelis-3 which featured an imposter Doctor pretending to be the previous/'current' Doctor as the newly regenerated new Doctor has to prove their identity while trying to stop a doomsday weapon that an unknown secret enemy who's controlling the imposter remotely, is trying to steal and prevent a Spider genocide/war with the Humans...)
The most annoying thing about the "Fam? No, Team TARDIS" line is that it was used previously in The Woman Who Fell to Earth and then again in The Witchfinders. Imagine thinking "Team? Gang? Fam?" is funny, but then imagine using it three times after the fact.
I miss when when doctor who had an actual story and good writing
wish the spiders was the classic villain the Eight Legs returning and that Robertson was President Winter's running mate
your insert of "foreshadowing" made me lost it
Now picture a world with a competent writer, where these Spiders are hyper intelligent mutated remnants of the Racnoss. Still sympathetic due to being instinctually driven Spiders nearly wiped out by the Doctor, and thus an opportunity to showcase a new Doctor's moral centre in how 13 reacts rather than a brooding angry 10.
Still a threat that has to be neutralized, but allows for a complex examination of the Doctor's character rather than a glib moment of moral absurdity
Yesss! right when I needed this episode ❤️
Ah, and I forgot because the ending distracted me - there IS a humane solution to the spiders if she absolutely had to save them (though I don't see why she needed to - there should have been a dilemma purely from the fact that they're literally just giant bugs, and so acting like they had higher intelligence than a normal spider should have been questioned, instead of just accepted because 'well they're bigger, so obviously') and that's to take the bugs on the tardis away to another planet without sentient life where they can live and breed in peace. *Then* if the guy shot and killed some or all of the spiders when they were already peacefully dealing with them and they were no longer a threat, you could convincingly play it off as him being horrible (though it wouldn't help with him being two dimensional and evil just to be evil). Him shooting a spider who was already suffocating while the Doctor consigns the rest to a slow death of starvation or suffocation rings pretty hollow.
But as I've mentioned - and others too - this whole conundrum has been done better before. I mean, it wasn't even done *well* but it was still *done* - back in Cold Earth, where a woman murdered a *definitely sentient* Silurian for her own reasons while the Doctor was in the middle of trying to find a peaceful solution, and he said she 'didn't represent the best in humanity' or something like that. More importantly, it actually caused real consequences, as it literally *got Rory killed* and then erased from time. Unlike this, where killing the questionably sentient spider had zero consequences, the Doctor offered no alternative plan, and it was arguably a mercy anyway.
If the 13th Doctor was in the same position that the 10th doctor was when he had to destroy Pompeii, she’d definitely have no doubts or moral dilemmas. She’d brush it off without a care in the world
your videos are perfection
The production quality has gone significantly downhill, not just from Matt Smith's but even Tenant's era, they try to make it look great with tons of filters, fake bokeh and today's cheaper CGI, and that may make it seem better for many, but for those who see through that it's obviously cheaply shot and as annoying as JJ. Abrams lens flares on a Vaseline-smeared screen. That's why the camera's always in their faces and never pans around a scene, because there is no damn scene!
Might as well just be called CNN with Spiders
I want to say that some stories of Series 11 and 12 would have benefited being two parters, but at the same time, I wouldn't trust Chris or his writers to knock it out of the park with more space to tell stories and character development
I agree. When the chief writer can't structure a 1-parter adequately, the fewer 2-parters we get from him the better, I say.
@@ftumschk I mean he did Spy Fall superbly, but the rest of the series does ruin it into retrospect. Much like Hell Bent ruined face the raven for me. Though it did not ruin heaven sent.
watching these videos is a genuine eye opener lmao
When I first saw the episode announced, I thought it was a call back to Planet of the Spiders and when watching the episode I thought that Graham seeing his dead wife was the Queen spider telepathically calling out and the Doctor talking to the spider a call back to the Doctor talking to the "8 legs".
You spoke so much of what my disappointment has been lately with who. Thanks for going into detail, Chibbers really has to improve or just hand the torch to someone that knows what they are doing!
If ep 1 had random spider webs that would have been cool
I still don't understand why the Doctor couldn't just gather all the spiders and drop them in a planet where they could survive on their own. I'm sure that in the vastness of the universe, there is a good spot for them. At least, it wouldn't be leaving them locked, terrified and alone to slowly die in agony.
Gee, if only The Doctor had a means of transporting the spiders to their own world. Yup, totally justified in her hypocri- I mean moral high ground.
Graeme hallucinating Grace is a problem, because we're trained to think 'imagining a ghost of a loved one is a sign of insanity', so overdoing it goes beyond 'he's grieving' into 'he's having a mental breakdown'. Keeping it subtle and then letting him carry the lines about how he needs to run away from the grief would have been fine. The problem with Yaz's family is that it's a really poor attempt of combining Rose, Donna, and Martha's families. We see why Rose feels completely bland and bored with her life, and we see how Donna's mother is abusive to her, so they want to escape home, but with Yaz they utterly fail to show her family as anything but mildly annoying. It'd be easier if they went with 'no, actually, I'm fine with my family' like Martha - which seems to be what they *kind of* wanted to do, because Yaz's mother suspecting the Doctor likely could lead into being used by the Master or someone else just as happened with Martha's family....but then they fail to utilize that in any way, either. Chibnall's Who really is like a failed pastiche of the rest of New Who, topped off with terrible music and directoral choices. (The problem with whatshisname is that he has the personality of a plank of wood, so nothing he says really matters to anyone who hears it, ever. That's probably why they dropped him/Yaz and decided to tease "lesbian" Doctor/Yaz instead - even though it isn't 'lesbian', because the Doctor has been and identified as male for literally over ten thousand years by now and consistently been into women during that time. It's not exactly representation if, once he's temporarily in the body of a woman, he's *still* into women.)
Since the beginning it’s too crowded and I always thought the first person to be a companion is Graham. Then in s2 bring in Ryan, and finally in s3 bring in Yaz, then she can stay on,
It doesn’t lose the relationships (keep their connections) but it just means more development for each character. As it stands, Graham and Ryan left and I enjoyed their ending because their arc is done, and it’s acceptable, you could have that same ending for them by the time Yaz joins full time...
The issue with this episode is there’s a huge supporting cast that stay to the end of the episode so everyone has to have some dialogue but in doing that it relegated everyone’s roles to minor parts.
Weird how they made it so Jodie's run had her have to stand in place and think more often then not. Almost like Chris wrote it like that. How very un-progressive of him making the first female doctor be unable to walk and talk. I feel even worse for Jodie the more I think about the writing of her run
To attempt to help simplify some (not all) of the plot. The spiders where given a chemical to prolong their lifespan, which in theory would allow them to grow larger. The reason they grew so large so *fast* is because the toxic chemicals of the landfill (either on their own or combined with the lab chemical) caused them to mutate to grow much more rapidly during their lifespan.
Obviously this doesn't explain every (or even many) of the problems, but at least it sheds a little light on the biological aspect that they tried to explain... poorly
I think an interesting dilemma that they don't really explore very much is what they should DO with the spiders. Is it morally justified to kill them all, or is it still morally wrong, as they didn't wish to be the problem that they've become? They obviously can't stay, but what's the alternative? It's kind of a necessary question that sort of parallels what we all do with exterminators and pests. We kill spiders and roaches constantly and justify it with similar reasoning. Just an interesting thought, which is at least more interesting than any moral dilemma brought up in the episode anyway.
The episode shoots that idea in the foot if we assume the logic it sticks to remains the same, where the Spiders like the last one at the end are in a pained existence because of their biology and growth, at which point letting the Spiders live isn't even strictly a positive outcome for the Spiders, much less everyone else.
@@papershadow Yeah, I mean that kind of makes it boring and way too easy on the protagonists, because then they can just kill them all and not feel bad about it. So I guess if you go that route then you would have to modify that part, because that just ruins the effect honestly (which it kind of does in the original episode anyway, so honestly the inclusion of that concept was kinda lame)
Do you ever get the feeling that, while we’ve all watched previous Doctors and laughed, Chibnall was sitting at home, arms crossed, stone faced?
Also, he gets an F for his science-y wience-y plot.
It feels like he thought Twin Dilemma was the pinnacle of Who
With the way that Jack stumbled through sentences; trying to understand the episode, that alone shows the quality of writing. A good story shouldn't take this much effort to follow.
You mention Aliens of London as a much better and more realistic way of things playing out, and you're right of course, but I do have to say that upon rewatching it recently, I feel like the relationship between Nine and Rose develops far too quickly as well. He does nothing but put her in dangerous situations and traumatise her and she immediately leaves her boyfriend to run away with him and treats Mickey like a piece of trash. She falls in love with him over the course of four episodes for no clear or apparent reason other than she sort of doesn't like her job, family and boyfriend. It's better than Yaz, but not by much honestly. Rose's treatment of Mickey is particularly abhorrent, he deserved so much better. I really don't think Rose is a good person, or a good companion, and I wish the darker sides of their relationship were explored more. In fact, I think what they ultimately do with Clara and Twelve in Series 9 is what they should have done with Rose and Nine/Ten, rather than just having them go on cringey space dates and flirt with each other constantly.
I agree with this so much
I don't entirely disagree with you on this one, though Rose is my favourite companion aside from Donna. But I do believe the idea with Rose is that the Doctor showed her how much more her life could be. She was a high school dropout working menial jobs, dating a guy just because he was there, more than anything else (still, agreed: Mickey deserved way better). When she got a taste of the adventure that is the Doctor's life, she wanted more of that. Maybe it wasn't made clear enough right away, but I find as the series progresses, it's clear that her and Nine/Ten definitely get a kick out of crazy dangerous situations. So her being with the Doctor was just kind of a natural fit. But it was annoying early on how she treated Mickey, and how she kept flirting with everyone she bumped into while traveling with Nine. Although, that could also be chocked up to the fact she was 19, therefore just a bit immature. That would also account for her falling in love with Nine so quickly.
I do have to disagree with you on Rose not being a good person. I think she was immature, but her heart of gold was ultimately what the Doctor needed. He really relied on her moral judgement/compassion when he had all but lost his in the Time War, right?
@@loststars6533 none of that "showed her what life could be" stuff is particularly clear early on, and I don't think it's even addressed much until the finale from memory. Watching the episodes in order without any knowledge of what's to come, their relationship is extremely rushed and hard to believe. You can look back on it in hindsight and apply things you learn later to previous episodes, but I don't think you should have to do that in order to follow a story. For example, I hated Clara in Series 7, but in Series 8 and 9 she became my favourite New Who companion. But I still hate Clara in Series 7. She's like a different character to me. No amount of her being amazing later makes up for how bad she is in her initial episodes.
@@himynameisben95 Eh. I didn't find it 'hard to believe,' though 'rushed' wouldn't be an inaccurate descriptor. I remember getting into their relationship just fine when I first started watching New Who, and still have no problems with it upon several rewatches. It just felt right -- she was really into her new and exciting life with the Doctor, and more or less lovestruck throughout it all. She wasn't scared or even hesitant -- she fit right into even the thickest of it ^^ But I think an interesting layer they added was the Doctor's revelation in "The End of World" where he told her he was the last of his kind and that he had fought in this huge war. I think from that point on, she had extra motivation -- wanting to stay and take care of him. I'm not saying it couldn't have been handled better -- like you said, it was rushed. But they also had a ton of ground to cover, it being the first season of New Who, and basically having to reestablish the character of the Doctor post-Time War.
I totally get you when it comes to Clara! There was a video essay I watched that brought out how season 7 Clara's personality took second-place to her being "The Impossible Girl," which made her more of a gimmick than a character. But they fixed that later on, so yeah ^^
@@loststars6533 just like Rose isn't as good to begin with because they have to establish a lot, I believe Clara isn't as good to begin with because there was a lot going on around that time, too. The 50th, Matt leaving, the series split, Sherlock, Capaldi coming on, behind the scenes drama. The history of Doctor Who is absolutely littered with things not being as good as they could have been because of production/budget/time issues, yet the show remained so good in spite of all of that... until recently.
Poor bloody Jodie. Chibnal basically used her as a human shield for his lackluster writing. Like Colin Baker (as the face of the show) Jodie will inevitably be linked with the problems of thsi specific era.
To answer your question on Spiders, a Tegenaria can go from egg to maturity within a year, and if in a safe enough location, females can survive for up to 7 years. To reach the size they do in the episode, they are either growing extremely quickly or they've been there for a while.
it feels like chibnall didn't want to do any of this. why else would there be so little effort put into the direction and storytelling when he's apparently done great work on tv before?
The thing about the gun scene that bugs me is that not-Trump kills the giant spider with one shot when his bodyguard put six into it earlier and it did nothing.
>the spiders are so big b/c they’ve been eating this chemical that makes them live longer
Yes, which is why all the oldest people in the world are giants!
They make a point in the episode to state that spiders keep growing for their entire lifespan
@@Shnupbups Yeah I saw that part in the video after commenting and had forgotten it in the actual episode. But in any case it isn’t true IRL.
I like the extra step of the chemicals making them live longer so they grow big and not just the chemicals make them grow big
@@zoewells3160 it is with certain animals. Alligators grow until they die for example and can become absolutely huge
@@lovablesnowman Yes but not with spiders. That’s the point.
my favourite part of this episode is when the fake trump dude says "this is whats going to get me into the white house" after killing the giant spider. like that's SO stupid i just have to laugh
One word: Yes.
It just never felt like doctor who throughout the season, I love doctor who and I can't bring myself to watch any more of Jodi's doctor
I agree with most of what u said but I think yaz is probably referring to demons of the punjab when she says how much she loves the doctor
What's weird is we love to blame chibnall but imagining tennant or smith performing some of these lines you can see they might work quite well, there's something about Jodie's performance and a lot about Chibnall's lack of responses to these quirky lines... i dunno
Jodie seems more like an actress who just strictly follows what the script tells her and doesn’t attempt to deviate or add to it. The problem is, Chibnall’s scripts are so base level and underdeveloped that she has very little to work with.
What Chibnall’s scripts really need is a full on improvisational character actress like Patrick Troughton was to try and breathe some life and intrigue into it. Like say what you will about stories like the Ice warriors, the underwater menace or the wheel in space, but you can’t deny that Troughton is always an absolute delight to watch whenever he was on screen no matter what he was doing.
The scripts and characterisation Chibnall has provided for Thirteen are so poor that I doubt any actor could have done much with them.
I actually enjoyed this episode 😂
It's also interesting how Jazz's family is rather average, but she claims they drive her up the wall an we're supposed to somehow find it compelling and relatable. At the same time Rose has a redicously annoying mum, who she cares deeply for, and as a viewer one can't help but care too, even though Jackie is not the easiest person.
23:34 awkward
All the standing around talking makes me feel like I'm watching a stage play, not a TV show
But stage plays have "overacting". They need to show emotions even to people watching from far away. Here they just stay in one place. So lack of emotion is more TV show. Only camera that is "props are too expensive to show them" stage play thing
17:20 got me good :'D
Why exactly did the spiders have to die. Previous doctors would have found them a new home. 10 was even willing to rehome the Racnoss who were one of the most dangerous beings alive.
Because 13 is a sociopath, see what she did to the master in Paris
Depends on the angle taken here. In the show's logic, Chibnall's Doctor doesn't do what IS right, rather it's right because it's what the Doctor does. From a production standpoint, Chibnall didn't feel like writing in scenes or even just an exposition dump establishing where they could send them.
When taken logically, it's not necessarily a kindness to leave the Spiders alive, as the Spider Mother shows their growth is uncontrolled and will reach a point where their own body can't sustain them to even breathe. It's the same reason why some animals in the real world are put down rather than prolonging their lives in a painful state: keeping them alive is not an inherently moral choice if their state of living is a painful one. The episode glosses over this because Jack is just framed as an evil jerk who didn't do it out of mercy, but at the worst, shooting the Spider is the right action done for the wrong motive on his part.
Best episode of the season. "Bad guy" is the only one using his brain and "good Doctor" has shown her real colors that she is hypocritical and do not like guns, because they exists. Episodes where Doctors are bad are not easy to find, after all
They could have had the spiders running through the city and people running for cover for a bit of drama... but no. Ugh... thank you for suffering through this again.
rather than just let them suffocate, she could have transported the spiders to some uninhabited location (maybe even a planet with more oxygen in the atmosphere) - like literally anything else if chibnall wasnt literally submitting first drafts with no planning or editing (which is actually what he does, as per some interviews)
All it would have taken to spot the problem & brainstorm better solutions is ONE editor or brainstorming session
What exactly were all these giant spiders eating to get to these enormous sizes? Garbage from the landfill? It would have been more interesting and logically consistent if the chemicals or w/e had affected a range of insects as well as arachnids.
- also, a lot of the problem with the Ryan ~ Graham dynamic is that Graham isn’t quite ‘Granddad’ age-seeming. They behave as if he’s more like a stepfather to Ryan. I can’t put my finger on if it’s a visual thing or an acting thing but it’s very unconvincing.
I honestly hate the moment where Jack R kills the spider so much because everyone stands there and lets him do it, The Doctor needed to use the high more authority that she has and at least try to take the gun off him, instead she just stands there moans at him and lets him shoot it.
And then after he shoots it and the spider is dead, she could’ve gone full “dark Doctor” on him, like 10 with Harriet Jones in the Christmas Invasion, instead she lets him walk away with no repercussions, just like how she does in Revolution of the Daleks as well as letting him sell the story of him being a hero, I’m not one of the toxic haters of this era, I really had to talk about this because 13 seriously needs that higher authority aspect of the Doctor because often when she doesn’t use it, it leaves room for more threats and often bigger danger before, like letting Robertson walk away and then the events of Revolution happen not long after
I don't think we need to see the Doctor wrestle a gun off somebody. It wouldn't be in character. Better if she stands in front of the gun and says "You'll have to go through me."
13 seems to be a centrist, which isn’t really fitting for a character who’s been established as having a strong sense of right and wrong and always taking a side rather than standing by and being passive
Thread Bomb i guess that’s kinda true, although it’s more in character to do that than stand there doing nothing
Julius Stricto exactly
I'm not a fan of legal guns, but the way this show pushes "guns bad" is the kind of thing that gets the UK mocked abroad. They don't treat killing as bad, just killing using this taboo evil artifact.
The Doctor doesn't like other kinds of weapon either: "It's more of a sonic Swiss Army knife, but without the knife. Only idiots carry knives" (The Woman Who Fell To Earth).
Arachnids in the UK AKA Spiders in the Rubbish Dump. How is it arachnids in the UK when the spiders don't leave a single city? and more or less stay within scurrying distance of the hotel.
Here's another question that has bugged me about the premise of this episode for a while: if it's just the chemicals in the waste that caused the spiders to grow to enormous sizes in the first place, why did it only affect them? Yes, Spiders is in the title, but that's not how it would work. There would be no actual reason for the waste to target spiders alone and no other pests. The reasons they try to give are hand wavy and threadbare at best, but this is beside the fact that they ultimately don't solve the problem. I mean, what happened to the waste?
There's part 2
(Odd how this review came before Rosa)