After the previous episode, why hasn’t the Doctor learned to watch where he’s walking?
Sure, Ruby, after wandering through the cold, gray and stark British countryside, seek shelter in the rural pub with a creepy name and sign. That never ends badly.
Why did the Doctor disappear? We don’t see him interact with the old woman, or hear him scream and run away. We don’t see him vanish. He’s just gone, with no explanation, and then returns with no explanation.
What was that woman saying to people that was so awful that even Ruby‘s mother abandoned her? Ruby’s mother’s love for Ruby is unconditional, but is undone with just a few words. The look of disgust and hate that Ruby’s mother gave her from the car was awful.
Apparently, a lot of people who are struggling with adoption issues in real life are having trouble with RTD using it as a McGuffin in the show.
I don’t think it matters what the old woman said. I think it was a magic spell.
The writer Charlie Jane Anders used a similar gimmick, explained away with science fiction rather than fantasy, in “Victories Greater Than Death.”
The Welsh people in the pub were great, the way they messed with Ruby and the audience. The bit about paying with the phone was doubly clever because Ruby (and we, the audience) could wonder if she’d traveled into the recent past, or some alternate timeline. But nah they were just messing with her.
Why 73 yards precisely? Why was Ruby so limited in that fashion?
73 yards = 66.66-recurring meters.
Ruby was already a supernatural figure before the episode started. Who was her mother?
Three of this season’s episodes have been among the best I’ve seen on Doctor Who, and two have been among the worst. There have been none that are merely good or ok or meh.
This is a campfire story. It scares you deliciously while you’re in it, but it doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t have to.
Roger ap Gwilliam had no platform, no agenda, no issues. He just really wanted to fire a nuke.
The episode had no opening credits.
RTD has said he doesn’t want to be limited by science fiction, he wants to do fantasy. I love his work but the distinction between much science fiction—particularly Doctor Who—and fantasy is rubbish. Doctor Who is all just technobabble; the “sonic screwdriver” is a magic wand, the TARDIS is a magic wardrobe/portal, and so on. RTD wants to swap one variety of gibberish for another. But if that lets him continue telling great stories, I’m OK with that. (The same goes for Star Trek, btw—it’s not scientific and never was. And I love it.)
I heard some of these observations on the Doctor Who Flashcast.
