I saw a theory on tumblr about the leaf. Here is the quote:


Also, I saw the thing about David and Billie.

None of you spoil the last episode and I won't spoil the Cold War episode

That's not even supposed to be broadcast in the UK for to weeks. What happened?

On the Zune PC software, search for Doctor Who season 702, find 03 Cold War, it should say unavailable. I purchased the season pass, therefore I was able to just watch that episode right now. If you want to get really out of order, I suggest doing this before it is fixed

Oh, very weird indeed; I wouldn't expect them to have even disseminated the later episodes to content providers yet. Anyway, I have no interest in seeing the episodes out of order, so it's no skin off my nose to not have access to it.

*bump* I thought this episode, The Rings of Akhenaten, was particularly poor and nonsensical. The aliens seems to be ripped straight out of Star Wars, the plot had massive holes, the sonic screwdriver's physics made no in-universe sense, and the resolution was beyond shoddy.

Edit: And a flashback to the same episode ("we never walk away") is just sloppy.

Alright.. I will share my views which do contain spoilers so don't read on if you have not seen the episode yet.
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My issues:

*They basically ripped off a star wars bazaar scene.
*They omitted the whole tardis translation matrix to make the bazaar seem more alien then used it for translating the humanoid like the princess.
*How many times is the Doctor going to leave the most powerful ship in all of time and space with the door WIDE OPEN.
*This acoustic resonance nonsense to open the door .. ok fine.. but in no way will the weight come into play if the acoustic resonance is the part opening the door.. if anything the sonic screwdriver would heat up since it would take an enormous amount of power to hold up a massive door.
*SPOILER* Worst bit is at the end.. here I have all the secrets which should never be shared so "take it all baby" really?.. Somehow that miraculously kills the creature once that is combined with claras magical little leaf. If the monster was the sun for the 7 worlds.. how are the worlds going to survive now with no sun? Also, what are they now orbiting around now that their big bad sun went poof?

MOOOOFFFFAAAATTTTTTTTT!! ffs bring RTD back.

I enjoyed the episode. I love how he mentioned his granddaughter, Susan.

Also, I found this theory about Clara on tumblr: http://who-lligan.tumblr.com/post/47304596201/my-theory-on-clara

What I say about that episode is that... well...

it sucked. Plain and simple. It was lame, made no sense, and had little plot. What the hell was Moffat thinking when he made the episode and though "yeah, this is a good idea!"

I still don't even understand the plot, really. It made that little sense. 2/10 I give it.

Just mentioning Susan is hardly enough to make it a good episode, in my opinion, and his "epic speech" seemed like a cheap ripoff of the Tenth Doctor's Titanic speech to me. I was beyond underwhelmed.

But aren't all of the episodes like that?

I watched to the point where he was holding the door open with the screwdriver.. Wasn't overly impressed.

I did like the fact that they went all out with the whole alien market bit, but it seemed like they didn't put enough into that either. :/ Ah well, there's always next episode..

Mreksm and I both felt that it was exactly like several Star Wars market scenes, right down to the alien faces and voices. And why is Moffat suddenly throwing away the TARDIS's translation abilities when he feels like it?

Haven't watched it yet, so I'm la-la-la-la-not-listening to the post button. But the first couple episodes with any companion are almost always pretty sub-par.

Think Rose + Unquiet Dead (End of the World wasn't exactly great either), or Smith & Jones + The Shakespeare Code, or Runaway Bride + Partners in Crime.

The Eleventh Hour + The Beast Below were actually shockingly good for being intro-episodes.



I'm not sure why Moffat has been "off his game" so to speak, but I suspect part of it has been too strong an emphasis on seasonal arcs rather than the pacing of individual episodes. Any talk of "Moffat sucks" has to be tempered with a rewatch of The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances, The Girl in the Fireplace, Blink, and Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead.

I don't think it was the worst episode I've ever seen, but I agree that it wasn't that good.

Which is a bit disappointing, because it had some potentially interesting elements. An alien civilization living in an asteroid belt (which they ruined by insisting on referring to the asteroids as "planets"; although I suppose if life developed on an asteroid it would probably consider the asteroid a planet) and a living sun were some interesting ideas. And the whole "we are keeping watch over a sleeping monster in a pyramid" thing could have been a lot more interesting...

I didn't mind the Star Wars style alien marketplace scene- it's not like Doctor Who hasn't done similar things before.

The TARDIS translation circuit- well, I saw some theories that maybe it's not working for Clara because the TARDIS actually doesn't like her, which would be interesting. However, somehow I doubt that there will actually be an explanation... we could handwave and say that it's just not being translated for the audience, like the Hath in The Doctor's Daughter?

As for the sonic screwdriver... this is becoming more and more annoying. In Power of Three, for instance, the Doctor saves the day by waving it at an alien computer and causing the ship to blow up and resurrect a third of the Earth's population. (which was a somewhat disappointing end to an otherwise decent episode).


Also, I liked the first two Martha episodes. But maybe that's just because I liked Martha as a companion better than most of the others.

apparently the guy who wrote the episode wasn't moffet, but Neil Cross. He'll be writing an episode later on called "Hide"

http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Neil_Cross

and to counter elprince's arguement, yes, the first episodes of most seasons are usually not the best episodes ever, but they certainly aren't as crappy as this one was. Like, this episode makes the episode with the Giant Wasp look good.

Am I the only one who caught the fact that this was not written by Moffat? Rings of Akhaten was written by Neil Cross - which I actually just noticed that Qazz posted (that's what I get for hastily jumping to the quick reply.)

In all, the last two episodes lacked the wit that drew me to Doctor Who. The story behind the leaf was great and tied well but I don't feel that they're wanting to keep Clara on for long; I'm not getting the "long term vibe" from the episodes. The leaf lasted two episodes, okay sure. But we learned about the leaf this episode and we also lost the leaf this episode. I know the only have 8 episodes to fit things in to but they could have created more character background over time and focused on the "defeating evil" wit.

There wasn't any indication that the star would want memories aside from memories and personal value being the local "currency."

The Ice Warrior Episode from yesterday was much better than the Rings episode. However, the continued extreme emphasis on the sonic screwdriver is really starting to bug me.

I hear you on that. I agreed it was a lot better, actually had plot, introduced a believable enemy, etc. I'm getting sick of the Moffat-era flying saucers, though. Remember the Atraxi ships, which looked like badly-photoshopped eyeballs in snowflakes? I also liked the idea of the TARDIS as not always right there to whisk the Doctor away, forcing him to take the "slow path" for once.

The sonic screwdriver goes through phases of plot-relevance and then being phased out as too powerful. I think they're trying to get out of a rut of mandatory "it's deadlocked sealed" dialogue.

Also, watched both Rings and Cold War episodes this weekend. Confirmed my opinion that Rings wasn't good but was no worse than a normal new-companion's-first-time-out-after-season-opener episode. Good character development, underdeveloped cornball plot and a half (Rings endeared itself to me in not having "expelliarmus" be important to the plot).

Cold War was solid.