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WATCH ALONG | DOCTOR WHO | 9x4 | Before the Flood
🕑 Added 2023-07-07 14:01:03 +0000 UTCA Few Notes:
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*****
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Comments
Lois Lane
Agreed. There's some plot wonkiness for sure but I love the supporting cast. I think it's my favourite ensemble since the Impossible Planet/Satan Pit crew too. The sad momets really hit and the pay-offs feel earned.
Carys Barnes
I love this two parter. I feel it probably the best example of a doctor who base-based dilemma type episodes. It’s clever and has genuinely engaging side characters. I rewatch this a lot. Along with impossible planet/ Satan pit I feel they are stories very much it a doctor who formula but executed impeccably.
David Blau
This is quite the brain bender. It's amazing when closed timelike curves are shown properly. If you really want to geek out, the formal name for this is the "Novikov self-consistency principle". And I did like the characters in this two-parter. That said, this isn't my favorite /story/. 🤷
Otso Casey-Stewart
I could take or leave this two-parter tbh but I do love the character dynamics. "die with whoever comes after me" is such an awful selfish thing to say and I LOVEEE it. How I keep track of the two different kinds of paradoxes is like this: Paradox 1 interrupts the timeline (ex: Rory dying twice in Angels take Manhattan, Rose going back in time and saving her father which then means he never died for her to go back in the first place, etc), something is removed or changed that means the timeline CANNOT continue. It's like if someone took a section out of a train track. Paradox 2 circles around but, despite this, continues (ex: bootstrap paradox), even though there's technically something wrong, the flow of time continues to move forward so everything works out. It's like if someone builds a loop in the train track, but the train eventually ends up back in it's original direction so its fine. The doctor has to put a stop to paradox 1, but he's well within his right to implement paradox 2. I hope that helped literally at all but if it didn't I will not hold it against you, a headache is a perfectly reasonable response to time travel imo :) (ps. since you just watched the first jon pertwee classic who ep I thought id let you know that today was his birthday! so, yeah, happy birthday, jon!)
Siobhan Linehan
I absolutely LOVE this two parter. It's in my top 20 episodes of all time. I love solving mysteries and I think how this all wraps up and comes full circle is genius. Everything's explained, nothing's left unanswered, it's unpredictable, the side characters are all great, I loved how they included Cass' deafness into the story etc. But it doesn't have much action so I do understand why some people aren't crazy about it. But I will say that this story, and every series 9 story, gets a ton better on a rewatch when you know where this series is heading. There are a lot of clues about what the over arching story of the series is, but they're hard to get until you know what happens. I really love all the moments between The Doctor and Clara. The way he holds her hand for a second when he gives her the ball, the way he looks at her when she's wearing the sonic glasses, the way he smiles when she says that she knows he loves saving planets, the way they both put their hands on the portholes of the doors when they're seperated by the water, the way he said again that he has a duty of care (which is his way of saying "I love you" according to Peter), the way he said that she can kiss him later because he has morning breath (Jenna said that line was directly for Clara) and the way she says "if you love me in any way you'll come back" and he put his head in his hands, decided in that moment to come back because he loves her and he says openly that he's changing history just to save her. Everyone can decide for themselves what sort of love they have for each other, but for me it's romantic without any question. And even if others think differently, there's no denying what they mean to each other. Also it is all two part stories this series, apart from the finale which is a three part story. It was widely advertised before this series aired that Stephen was doing two part stories for this entire season, so I hope that's ok to tell you. I would've thought that the episode titles make it quite obvious anyway tbh. The next episodes are interesting, all I'll say about them for now. But yeah, I look forward to next week. 😊
