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Spoilers The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos grade and discussion thread

How do you rate The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos?

  • Total voters
    75
Professor Zoom said:
OR: it’s been a great season, viewership is up, and great characters with a return to a more classic era of stories.
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I've watched a lot of Classic Who, and there isn't a single episode of this series that I'd say compares. Sure there is no arc, but outside of that I've never seen an entire season of old Who that exclusively had stories that were so boring and pointless, ignored everything that makes the franchise special and has a Doctor who is pacifistic to the point of generally being either paralyzed with inactivity or making shit speeches about why she's not doing anything when she should be. The writing being bland and episodes generally being pointless doesn't help (Rosa and Yaz's Grandma Gets Killed I Guess being possibly the two most pointless episodes ever produced). Even season 1 still feels like it has elements of the show, and it was still just starting to establish some those elements.

At least Classic Who usually had interesting stories, even many of the ones that ended up being badly made. You can't do episodic storytelling if you can't do good individual stories. You can't have no main villain if you're incapable of doing episodic villains. Does anyone honestly remember the name of the basically so incompetent as to be practically harmless from a timeline perspective Racist Man from Rosa without looking it up? What about the villain of Demons, or the Hospital (ship?) episode? Some people probably can, but come on, its all pretty forgettable at best. Even bad post-burn out Moffat era was memorable. I'll certainly never forget shit like Kill the Moon or the Zygon Two parter, while I can barely remember the names of any episodes this season, much less what actually happened in them. Witchfinders got close to being good, but having a subplot about The Doctor being ineffective because of gender issues (there is a time and a place for that, but maybe they could just have one good adventure that ignores "realism"? Just one? Please?) along with having a bland, forgettable monster basically dragged that episode down, even though Alan Cumming was great.

Also, there isn't a single great character on the show.There are barely recurring characters in a sense, because they're not really characters. One character can't balance on a bike and that's his only characteristic outside of also having a dead Grandma, one guy is an old British retiree with a dead wife and one companion does literally nothing except have the only name I can remember because Yaz at least isn't just an everyday name.

The Doctor herself has one personality trait: she doesn't want to actually do anything, except make speeches about why she refuses to get off her dumb ass and do something. If she wasn't a woman, viewership wouldn't be shit this season. To be very clear, Whittaker has it in her to be a great Doctor, I really believe that, and a female Doctor was long overdue. But, Chibnail and all his writers being shit has lead to the 13th Doctor being nothing. She's an arrogant pacifist in a mediocre costume, and nothing else.
 
Last couple of episodes have been a let down, back to the dreariness of the first two. Referencing the great modern whovian era just reminds us what we no longer have.

Still waiting for Yaz to do something. She started off with the most potential, but I can’t think of any episode that would have been different without her.
 
I really enjoyed that, with more episodes in the season had had the energy and verve of it. Shows Chibnall can deliver a good episode every once in a while, I think he really needs to cut down on how many he's writing next season.

Anyway the good: Jodie was awesome, Graham and Ryan's face off with Tim Shaw was great, loved that Graham couldn't do it, , and in fact Tim Shaw was great, 3000 years turned him into much more of a threat, the the extent where I kinda hope we see him again. Yaz was Yaz but did at least get stuff to do. Addy, Logan etc were very good and I liked the setting. Like @matthunter I got a real Duel vibe at the start! Nice callbacks to previous episodes, and subtle enough that for new viewers it's just the Doctor bragging about stuff she's done before, no different to Jimmy the Fish (who we've still never seen)

And now the bad (don't worry there isn't much): I'm not sure 3000 years of blind faith would crumble quite that easily, and there were some odd moments where characters seemed to be repeating information we'd already heard, maybe they needed to keep the run time up? Oh and finally, did anyone on Earth notice the energy ray then? seemed and odd choice not to give any indication whether anyone knew they were in danger?

Really not much I didn't like, and yes Earth was in danger but this definitely felt like a more subdued season finale and that's not neccesarily a bad thing.
 
Paul Weaver said:
Last couple of episodes have been a let down, back to the dreariness of the first two. Referencing the great modern whovian era just reminds us what we no longer have.

Still waiting for Yaz to do something. She started off with the most potential, but I can’t think of any episode that would have been different without her.
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Yaz = Nyssa
 
There was an interesting easter egg, when the planets were returned. The one planet we saw returned was a red planet, one that looked a lot like Skaro. Could this be the (in-story) reason we didn't see the Daleks this season - because they were all trapped in the planetary status.
 
Starkers said:
Oh and finally, did anyone on Earth notice the energy ray then? seemed and odd choice not to give any indication whether anyone knew they were in danger?
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Nah, I'm actually relieved we didn't see any reaction to it for once. I immediately thought of Davies' tendency to show global news reports of every big event and it's refreshing not to see that silliness anymore.

DeadmeatDiggory said:
There was an interesting easter egg, when the planets were returned. The one planet we saw returned was a red planet, one that looked a lot like Skaro. Could this be the (in-story) reason we didn't see the Daleks this season - because they were all trapped in the planetary status.
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Maybe. However, plenty of galaxies have red planets so it could've just been any ol' red planet.
 
The Scrooge Doctor said:
Nah, I'm actually relieved we didn't see any reaction to it for once. I immediately thought of Davies' tendency to show global news reports of every big event and it's refreshing not to see that silliness anymore.
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Tru, but they could have had Yaz's family looking out of the window wondering why the sky had gone a funny colour?
 
Let me express my eternal disappointment in the finale and season.

I still found it brilliant in absolute terms – I love the Doctor, and enjoy every single bit of her running around with her new companions, and this week they went to a very interesting place the lot of them. But it wasn't half as big as it ought to have been. It was weaker than its parts. It failed to deliver what was outright promised by its ingredients. And that goes well beyond the great Whittaker Doctor and the new companions who I'm loving all of:

The two creators who never realised they were the creators were an instant favourite of mine from the moment they appeared on screen, and definitely deserve every bit of excitement the Doctor got when she heard who they were. The great misjudgement of being tricked by the most pathetic of creatures, after they prophetically warned each other of the risk of exactly such folly, was hell of a story. The combination of their lack of self-awareness and this was a planet-crushing parable for not seeing what's right in front of your own nose. And Tim Shaw's plan was worthy of one by the Master. On top of that, the concept of this constructed no-place where everything was off and not of this world was in itself creepy as fuck.

But I simply failed to get all excited about it when you put it together. I'm not even sure why, I spent more time enjoying the Doctor and fam than caring about the big picture, or even the grandeur of the place. The Shrine should have been creepier than the black hole from The Impossible Planet but wasn't. The mindless fake soldiers weren't even as creepy as the killer bots from Let's Kill Hitler, and that's a low bar – in Doctor Who we are able to an ambulance with nanobots creepy as fuck, and this was a killing machine built by beings who could define reality that wasn't even scary (mixed feelings on that – being less stressful was not a completely negative thing).

Then there were PLANETS in the boxes. PLANETS – not people as was hinted at earlier on. Master-level evil insanity. Mind-blowing. Did we even stop to savour the reveal?

Then Earth's in jeopardy, people on Earth saw what was going on, there could have been consequences, but the story didn't even go there – in fact, after being scared for a second, the artistic choice to have the whole planet engulfed simply made me not care at all, as it was a clear indication that the Earth was completely safe and will be unscathed. So who gives a fuck that we're saving it?

Finally, the two most fascinating entities in the universe teamed up together – the Ux and the Doctor. And that managed to underwhelming somehow. Difficult accomplishment indeed. What?


Also, what's up with Supergirl having been better than Doctor Who every single week? Supergirl's that absolutely silly show I only started watching to satisfy my need for emotional porn where your friends reveal themselves to you to have superpowers. How can they manage to be so much... better... at everything?
 
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kirk55555 said:
I've watched a lot of Classic Who, and there isn't a single episode of this series that I'd say compares. Sure there is no arc, but outside of that I've never seen an entire season of old Who that exclusively had stories that were so boring and pointless, ignored everything that makes the franchise special and has a Doctor who is pacifistic to the point of generally being either paralyzed with inactivity or making shit speeches about why she's not doing anything when she should be. The writing being bland and episodes generally being pointless doesn't help (Rosa and Yaz's Grandma Gets Killed I Guess being possibly the two most pointless episodes ever produced). Even season 1 still feels like it has elements of the show, and it was still just starting to establish some those elements.

At least Classic Who usually had interesting stories, even many of the ones that ended up being badly made. You can't do episodic storytelling if you can't do good individual stories. You can't have no main villain if you're incapable of doing episodic villains. Does anyone honestly remember the name of the basically so incompetent as to be practically harmless from a timeline perspective Racist Man from Rosa without looking it up? What about the villain of Demons, or the Hospital (ship?) episode? Some people probably can, but come on, its all pretty forgettable at best. Even bad post-burn out Moffat era was memorable. I'll certainly never forget shit like Kill the Moon or the Zygon Two parter, while I can barely remember the names of any episodes this season, much less what actually happened in them. Witchfinders got close to being good, but having a subplot about The Doctor being ineffective because of gender issues (there is a time and a place for that, but maybe they could just have one good adventure that ignores "realism"? Just one? Please?) along with having a bland, forgettable monster basically dragged that episode down, even though Alan Cumming was great.

Also, there isn't a single great character on the show.There are barely recurring characters in a sense, because they're not really characters. One character can't balance on a bike and that's his only characteristic outside of also having a dead Grandma, one guy is an old British retiree with a dead wife and one companion does literally nothing except have the only name I can remember because Yaz at least isn't just an everyday name.

The Doctor herself has one personality trait: she doesn't want to actually do anything, except make speeches about why she refuses to get off her dumb ass and do something. If she wasn't a woman, viewership wouldn't be shit this season. To be very clear, Whittaker has it in her to be a great Doctor, I really believe that, and a female Doctor was long overdue. But, Chibnail and all his writers being shit has lead to the 13th Doctor being nothing. She's an arrogant pacifist in a mediocre costume, and nothing else.
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Nah. I disagree.
 
This episode was much more engaging for me than last week's. It felt more like the show I fell in love with back in the day. Still miss Murray Gold, though. Fortunately, I have all of his Doctor Who scores, so I can listen whenever I want. :adore:
 
Interesting episode. Parts better than the whole. I needed a little bit of a second pass. As other's noted, I did feel like we got some information again. Odd guest usage, too. But I thought it was really great and we got good resolution. They evolved Tim Shaw and he could easily be a recurring villain for Thirteen without feeling forced. Loved a lot of this.

It is sort of odd that she very quickly disabuses them of their religious belief and then hastily tosses it back out to them at the end.

I always found The Pirate Planet to be the cringiest of the classic episodes, so this pseudo update was welcome.
 
Untitled Hallmark Movie said:
I find it amusing that the chief complainers are the same people who complain about everything they see, negativity is all they have in life and they seem to actively seek it out to give themselves something to do. It’s almost ironic how so many of their attitudes were similar to the villains this season, maybe they didn’t like seeing a mirror held up to them.
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Either that or they just have an opinion you disagree with.
Seems like you hold a lot of negativity towards them.
 
Very underwhelming. It felt like... nothing. :shrug:
Not since... Hell Bent, I guess, has a NuWho finale left me feeling so empty inside.
 
For me, this was the least enjoyable episode so far. It felt like a Mad Libs version of Doctor Who. Hubby and I both found it disappointing --in fact, downright boring. Why end the season with this dull, predictable, rather pointless bit of fluff? Every time they had a chance to make a bold or interesting choice with the plot or characters, they went with the safe, "Doctor Who script by numbers" instead. Why not have something like "Rosa" or "Demons of the Punjab" to close it off with a bang instead of a whimper?

I'm not often bored while watching Doctor Who but I was tonight. I gave it a 5.
 
Much like the rest of the season I was bored tonight. Maybe I should have watched Flash after because there was more energy in that show to start a special event then there was here to end a very uneven season. I'm debating if I am even interested in the New year's special because I'm at that point where I might be done with Doctor Who entirely.

I think the only thing I liked about this episode was the writers remembered the TARDIS is actually a part of the series. It was nice she was used a lot more than any other episode combined this season.
 
2.1k + 3k = 5k.

The 51st century.

What remained of Earth's leadership may have attempted to return fire, but their main laser batteries had been turned into a banana grove.

Or they were distracted by Magnus Greel, and a new fricking Ice Age.
 
clorets said:
Either that or they just have an opinion you disagree with.
Seems like you hold a lot of negativity towards them.
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Not in the slightest. But it seems to have struck a nerve with you for some reason despite me not knowing you or replying to anything you said.

Great episode. I really liked the way they wrapped up Graham's arc along with Ryan's by giving them some closure over Grace's death and showed them to be the people the Doctor believed them to be all along. She picks them well.
 
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