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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
I can't really say why, but I quite enjoyed that. There's no harm in having a season ender which doesn't have ludicrously high stakes, and it closed off the whole Tim Shaw / Graham and Ryan situation pretty well. It was rather obvious that Graham wouldn't turn out to be a killer but there were some nice moments with him and Ryan. Hopefully that's the last we'll see of Shaw, though; he's too one dimensional for my taste and the less recurring baddies the show has, the better. And given how unimpressed I was with the music at the start of this series, I have to mention how brilliant I found the score of this episode to be. It put me in mind of a piece of music from one of the Deux Ex games; it annoys me that I can't remember which one at the moment, but any reminder of DX is fine by me.

This is the first series of new Who I've genuinely enjoyed since the Smith era (series 6, to be precise). Whittaker is the Doctor. Graham is one of the better companions new Who has had. Ryan and (especially) Yaz need more to do and more development but they're nowhere near as pathetic as Martha or second series Rose (which given how much I dislike those two is damning Ryan and Yaz with incredibly faint praise, but anyway). The jury's out on Chibnall but I consider this a particularly promising start and all else being equal I'll be watching when these characters return.
 
Look I had no problems with the ep, I thought the acting was good, the characters worked and the storyline was okayish.

However...

I need a bit more fun in the show. A bit more mischief and light. We had a lot of that up until the split 7th NuWho season, but this season has kinda continued the worst of the Capaldi era where the tone of the show is bleak and dark and drearie (though thank goodness there is no annoying schoolkids I suppose).

I'm rewatching a bit of the earlier stuff and its amazing how often in the heavy stuff there was a bit of cheeky humour. Also the colour palate of greys and browns which we've gotten for a number of episodes just ain't doing it for me. Even the more colourful episodes (palate wise), just don't jump out at me.

This has what disappointed me so far in the Chibbnel era, even with such high hopes. Doctor Who is suppose to have an element of silly and whimsy and I'm thinking its fading away for now.
 
Writing still poor 'You may have a shrine but I've got a Ghost Monument', yes, everybody prefers the smell of their own farts,.
Jodie's Doctor still hasn't quite found herself, falling back on a David Tennant impression, 'Oh, wellington boots, I love me some wellington boots, I half invented them you know' and 'I'm clever'. At least phrase it differently.
Ryan and Yaz are still pretty bland.
Graham was fine. Was hoping Graham would kill Tim Shaw defending Ryan.
Mark Addy was good, he did traumatised amnesiac well.
Tim Shaw is still pathetic, got shot in the leg and dragged to a stasis pod, despite having electro hands, what a great warrior.
Would have been improved by talking frog puppet.
4/10
 
Abi Smith said:
Writing still poor 'You may have a shrine but I've got a Ghost Monument', yes, everybody prefers the smell of their own farts,.
Jodie's Doctor still hasn't quite found herself, falling back on a David Tennant impression, 'Oh, wellington boots, I love me some wellington boots, I half invented them you know' and 'I'm clever'. At least phrase it differently.
Ryan and Yaz are still pretty bland.
Graham was fine. Was hoping Graham would kill Tim Shaw defending Ryan.
Mark Addy was good, he did traumatised amnesiac well.
Tim Shaw is still pathetic, got shot in the leg and dragged to a stasis pod, despite having electro hands, what a great warrior.
Would have been improved by talking frog puppet.
4/10
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I think Graham shooting in defense of Ryan would have worked, or even Ryan shooting in defense of Graham. I big on the pacifism element inherent in Who, but even the Doctor tends to blow up clear and present threats...though this should have been in line with any time the Brig did what the Doctor couldn’t or shouldn’t (the Destroyer) or more recently someone like River Song making a Dalek scream for mercy (or Amy and her ‘she didn’t get it all from you’). The biggest problem is the Doctor telling people to walk into danger but not allowing them agency on how to handle it...Graham didn’t go looking for Tim, Graham didn’t shoot Tim, but once Ryan was in danger (not to mention, you know all those planets and people...) Graham should have been able to make his choice without invoking the Docs approval.
It’s the same thing with the grenades out the bag and stuff, there was no hint this was a Doctor that didn’t want Graham to ‘fall’ because the Doctor doesn’t want him to taint himself (in the way that the Doctor has already done, a point that was laboured in the post-time war stuff, but still has its uses.) and that the Doctor will do what has to be done if it comes to it.
Ace would point and laugh at a rucksack full of explosives, before nicking them. But then, if Ace had offed Tim Shaw, her Doctor would have known it was necessary even assuming he didn’t outright plan it. I didn’t get that feel here. There wasn’t quite enough...weight. Almost, but there was no weight to things that should have felt weightier.
The humour was there but felt a bit forced in places.
The effects are really nice, the design work is nice, the stories are half baked, three quarters at best as here, the production design is....a bit naf. All the nice stuff, then some seventies level spinning things in hot glued Perspex crystals.
It is very very eighties....Time and the Rani has amazing effects, terrible production design choices and a half baked story. This reminds of that or Dragonfire. Amazing stuff in places for the time, but then odd choices being made by someone not quite being on the same page as everyone else.
Jodie still isn’t quite landing anything unique for me, Doctor wise, but at least the rucksack helped mitigate the costume.
Maybe she will pull a McCoy and find her groove in her next season or two, but the echo of eighty seven is strong.
 
This was a season finale? In the past, they have done such epic things. This felt like an ordinary episode about a villain I kind of forgot about.

I sure hope the next season is stronger. For me, this was the weakest season since the reboot started, by far. Even if Whitaker stays, Chibnall needs to go.
 
7/10. I enjoyed it ok. I wanted to enjoy it more than I did. There were definitely some great aspects--particularly Graham and Ryan. But, it was also kind of a mess. The solution was really a bunch of technobabble. I might have to watch it again because not everything was clear to me. How did the Doctor summon the TARDIS? One thing I've noticed about this season is that there's been a lot of exposition to move the plot forward.

And, wow, that whole season went by quickly! It didn't feel like an entire season--not because there were a several fewer episodes. It was just kind of there. Inoffensive but not memorable either.
 
Mr Awe said:
7/10. I enjoyed it ok. I wanted to enjoy it more than I did. There were definitely some great aspects--particularly Graham and Ryan. But, it was also kind of a mess. The solution was really a bunch of technobabble. I might have to watch it again because not everything was clear to me. How did the Doctor summon the TARDIS? One thing I've noticed about this season is that there's been a lot of exposition to move the plot forward.

And, wow, that whole season went by quickly! It didn't feel like an entire season--not because there were a several fewer episodes. It was just kind of there. Inoffensive but not memorable either.
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The thing that’s been bugging me is that...again it seems....the Doctor dealt with the immediate issue, but Tim Shaw himself was not really dealt with by the Doctor. Graham and Ryan could have shot him, played a round of golf with him, anything, the Doctor doesn’t deal with the big bads now, just their effects. Sometimes this works, but I am not sure it did this time, as he is literally set up as the Doctors Nemesis (she’s the one who made him what he is, made him the problem he is in this episode.) but it’s her ‘fam’ (yes, it is awful) that actually dealt with the problem...crucially with no help from the doctor. This sis t something that was set up, it just happened by accident.
 
jaime said:
The thing that’s been bugging me is that...again it seems....the Doctor dealt with the immediate issue, but Tim Shaw himself was not really dealt with by the Doctor. Graham and Ryan could have shot him, played a round of golf with him, anything, the Doctor doesn’t deal with the big bads now, just their effects. Sometimes this works, but I am not sure it did this time, as he is literally set up as the Doctors Nemesis (she’s the one who made him what he is, made him the problem he is in this episode.) but it’s her ‘fam’ (yes, it is awful) that actually dealt with the problem...crucially with no help from the doctor. This sis t something that was set up, it just happened by accident.
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I agree with that. I love Jodi as the Doctor. But, she hasn't had good material to work with. The stories have tended to make her look weak in one way or another. Sometimes it was a historical and she couldn't change history. Other times there just wasn't a villain and she was an observer--but not even the best observer! Sometimes there weird ending such in the Arachnids story. And, as you say, in the current episode, she dealt more with the effects than the villain herself. And the solution was really technobabble. I'll plug this to that, and that to this, and voila, the TARDIS is rematerializing planets.
 
This was fun, had great Ryan-Graham moments and The Doctor got to do some serious Doctor-ing. I'll take a few marks off because the missing planets were really given short shrift. Were the people still alive? Whole civilizations, ripped from their solar systems and put in stasis, it just felt like it needed a bit of time for the enormity of the threat to sink in. I think that bit kind of exemplifies the problem of this series, is that it's a reaction to what came before and has ended up just as extreme as Moffat, just on the other end of the spectrum. No overarching stories! The plots don't matter! The Doctor is warm, caring, nurturing and entirely good without any edges whatsoever!

I mean, this has been a great series of scifi television. I love the characters and the visuals and even the worst episodes have held up on the strength of the people inhabiting the scenes. However, I think this extreme reaction against Moffat's intricate time-travel plotting and obsession with difficult geniuses has produced a series that is too far to the other side. RTD's S1 'Bad Wolf' is a good level of season-wide plotting to shoot for. It's there for those who want to see it but it doesn't make the series onerous to watch for the casual fan. And The Doctor is just missing that edge that makes her so compelling. She doesn't need to be so abrasive as Twelve or as megalomaniacal as Ten but there has to be something there that tells us that she's two millennia old and has done some monstrous things in her long years of travel and loss. I think that's why Matt Smith's Eleven is my Doctor, because he perfectly melded the goofy charm with the (sometime) hidden anger.

So if I were lucky enough to give notes to Chris Chibnall after this series, I'd say that I loved the relationships, the look and Jodie's performance of The Doctor, but to take a harder look at that first RTD season to pick up some of the complexities of plot and characterization of The Doctor to build up a bit more intrigue in his sophomore season. Still, these are not fatal flaws and, taken on the whole, this season has probably been the strongest and most consistent since the series came back in 2005. That's no small feat.
 
Great episode!!! The first half of the episode had me a bit perplexed. I could not quite figure out what was going on. We got answers in the second half and things started to really make sense. The visuals were also quite striking. And great resolution!

Overall, I would rate "Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos", "It Takes You Away" and "Demons of the Punjab" as my top 3 episodes this season.
 
A decent episode that stayed entertaining, and the Ryan and Graham stuff was really well done this week My main complaint is, it really wasn't necessary to have Tim Shaw attempt to attack Earth. It really added nothing to the episode and was resolved far too quickly. It felt like someone told Chibnall "Earth needs to be threatened in a Doctor Who finale" so he hastily inserted a scene with Earth in peril. Kind of reminded me of Star Trek Nemesis where it's revealed just before the final battle that Shinzon is planning to attack Earth.
 
Now this was a lot closer to the classic style adventure with a little nuWho epic-ness I've been waiting for.

Toothy McToothface was a decent returning villain, maybe a little better done this time than the first.

I'm giving it a 10.
 
Mage said:
Boring. I got my girlfriend into Doctor Who years ago, then I sorta left it. She got me back into it. Now, we're both very much done.
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My girlfriend is a big Tennant fan, alongside myself. She hadn't watched any of the new series until last night. We got halfway through the finale and switched off. Just bored to bloody tears. Obviously it's clicking with some people and then, you've got the likes of me who just aren't getting from it what we used to.
 
One of the things I've long wanted to see was the light atop the Tardis emit a beam.

My ultimate cross-over would have had all the ships of sci-fi firing at the Tardis--to feed that central beam upwards towards Cthulhu or something
 
The Wormhole said:
A decent episode that stayed entertaining, and the Ryan and Graham stuff was really well done this week My main complaint is, it really wasn't necessary to have Tim Shaw attempt to attack Earth. It really added nothing to the episode and was resolved far too quickly. It felt like someone told Chibnall "Earth needs to be threatened in a Doctor Who finale" so he hastily inserted a scene with Earth in peril. Kind of reminded me of Star Trek Nemesis where it's revealed just before the final battle that Shinzon is planning to attack Earth.
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It was in character though, Tim Shaw seems like an asshole and attacking Earth out of spite more than anything else would fit with that.
 
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