Ok, so, when I was only a little bit into the episode, I couldn't help but think that the show was trying
way too hard to re-live the 60's (albeit in a kind of amusing way). I mean, people have already pointed out the comparisons between One and Twelve - both were/are played by actors of about the same age, both are considerably grouchier than many of the Doctor's other incarnations, and both travel with at least one teacher from Coal Hill school (soon to be two, as all of season 8 up until this point had made it fairly obvious that Pink would become a companion
eventually) - and I've heard theories that the reason why Twelve is so much like One is because the Doctor now has a new regeneration cycle, which means that Twelve is basically the "new One", which is an interesting concept.
But apparently it goes beyond that, since, for those of you who are unaware: 1960's Doctor Who tended to have this weird obsession with, what I've heard many refer to as, "out-Dalek-ing the Daleks". That is, the writers realized that the Daleks were successful and popular, so they thought, "Hey! Let's just make lots more robotic aliens like those, and because they're so much like the Daleks, people will like them, too, right?" And so One and Two's eras were filled with non-humanoid robotic aliens that liked to shoot things with lasers. And obviously, they all felt like cheap Dalek re-makes and so none of them stuck around. I couldn't help but get a similar sort of vibe from this episode's alien as soon as I saw it (whatever its name was). I mean, it basically looks like a legged Dalek with two laser arms and also two eyes. Hell, it even yells "Destroy!" when it shoots things, which is basically synonymous with "Exterminate!".
Ironically, though, this particular out-Dalek-ing attempt feels less like a cheap Dalek remake and more like a breath of fresh air, since they haven't done it in so long and also since the fandom in general seems to be getting kind of bored with Daleks, so it makes more sense to attempt to tweak them and create something new.
Anywho,
that particular bit isn't quite freak-out material. Just something that came to mind while watching it.
However, I bring it up because noticing that so early on kind of kept the whole idea of them re-living the 60's in my head throughout the entire episode... which led to one of my freak-outs.
Because... Courtney. Holy balls, Courtney. I mean, she first came up in Deep Breath, I believe, and we kept seeing tiny bits and pieces of her all this season, and after a while I thought, "She's way too well-designed and shows up too often to just be some random side-character", and I started to wonder what they could possibly be planning with her.
And for some reason I didn't put two-and-two together about the whole thing. Cuz... One didn't
just travel with two Coal Hill teachers. He traveled with two teachers
and one student. So as soon as I saw Twelve showing her the TARDIS I was like "No way... NO FLIPPING WAY!!!" cuz that's when I realized they totally are trying to build a group of companions based off the group that One had and I can't believe I didn't see that coming. I'm also still having a hard time believing that Courtney being on the TARDIS is actually a thing. Plus, she looks younger than Susan (the girl One had), and... I think she might be the Doctor's youngest companion
ever, cuz she looks even younger than Adric, who held that title previously. o.o I mean, I know they didn't exactly make it clear whether she was supposed to be around permanently or if it was just a one-time trip, but I feel like the Doctor can't just shake Courtney off now that that's happened. Plus, there's that whole thing about staying parallel to One's team, so, yeah...
Speaking of which, I know it was also left kind-of vague as to whether or not Pink would be joining the TARDIS crew, but I feel like he can't just walk away after all that, either. Plus, he said he wanted to keep Clara safe, didn't he? Kind of hard to do that just letting her hop in the TARDIS and do her own thing. I'd be feeling rather anxious every time I saw her step in those doors if I were him.
And uh, oh yeah, that thing at the end...
HOLY LITERAL HELL. I'll add that to the list of things I didn't see coming even though I really should have. That guy, at the end, who turned up in the Afterlife... yeah, I don't think he reached Heaven. Not only is there the fact that the place he wound up didn't look
anything like the "Heaven" the others wound up in, but the whole place just seemed a whole lot more... uninviting. Plus there's the whole thing about how Missy gave him that cold look, as opposed to smiling and welcoming all the Heaven-goers, and the fact that they didn't explicitly call it "Heaven"... yeah, this place has got to be either Hell or, at the very least, Purgatory. I have
no idea why I didn't even consider the possibility that that could be a thing.
Did I mention my theory I thought up a while back about how the Doctor would "die" at some point and wind up in Heaven? Well, knowing that this is a thing... makes me wonder where he could wind up. Kind of brings it all back to that "am I a good man?" thing that's still sort-of been continuing through this season since he brought it up. Makes my theory even more likely, I think... and it's leaving me looking forward to it more than ever.
Oh oh oh and the trailer for the next episode. I saw it and my immediate reaction was, "Huh, the Moon. I don't think they've actually been on the Moon since that 2nd Doctor episode, 'The Moonbase', which was a Cyberman episode..." and then as soon as I thought that, I swear I thought I saw a Cyberman tangled up in all that web stuff.
But... then I saw spiders, so I could've been imagining that.
Or, maybe there really was a Cyberman covered in webs, but it was just a callback to The Moonbase and not something that would actually be super-relevant. I dunno.
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