Worlds Enough and Time

"Is there anything in Doctor Who so poorly addressed that you would start it from scratch?” for thymejot

There are a few moments but I’ve forgotten some of themt for now these are the moments that stand out:

- River’s backstory.

I love River and I do ship River with the Doctor but I really struggled with the backstory Moffat gave River. One of the main problems I have with Moffat is that he Goes Too Far.

You can tell early on Moffat fell hard for The Time Traveller’s Wife style love story and incorporated it to most of his romantic (and even platonic-is) relationships with the Doctor. I’m not a fan of how River’s backstory was presented in Let’s Kill Hitler.

And then there was the whole thing before that, that moment in A Good Man Goes to War where Eleven banters with an infant!River. It’s just— bridge too far man, why go there? Major squick moment.

It took me a long while to exercise my favorite canon fix it: Forget It Ever Happened.

These moments remind me why I cherry pick my canon.

• Ten and Harriet Jones

Ten’s done a lot but the most that started it all was Harriet Jones — like, even the Donna thing I can see from a Certain Point of View. The thing he did to Harriet? Nope.

It’s not something that aged well considering the present state of politics in the US. But that arrogance and high handedness is a Tenth Doctor personality, and its not something I can cherry pick out of canon because it’s part of Ten also he keeps bringing it up and I keep wanting to punch his face when he does.

DID YOU KNOW HARRIET JONES DIED FOR YOU TEN? DID YOU??? I BET YOU DIDN’T YOU WEASEL-Y FERRET.

• Kerblam ending

I mostly enjoyed this episode and I don’t quite hate it as most people do but I do think it had a very thoughtless ending. I honestly don’t think there was an Agenda there either, it’s just — they didn’t think about it, all for a Clever Twist.

Pete McTighe was chugging along in an enjoyable episode when it made a severe left turn. This is why Kerblam is getting the Cherry Picking Method. It’s officially scrubbed from memory except for Twirly, who Thirteen should steal and program as her new K9.

• Lie of the Land.

Except for the moment with Missy and the ending with Bill, this was such a huge miss in a trilogy that was setting up such a good story. This is also Twelve at his most cruel, I can’t believe he actually goaded an already emotionally fragile Bill Potts into shooting him and pretend to regenerate when Bill had no bleeding idea what regeneration was!

Also, as a recent Reddit person pointed out crystallizing why I didn’t like Lie of the Land; for an episode about fascism and propaganda it had nothing to say about both.

But seriously, the fake regeneration stands out as one of the meanest things Twelve’s ever done and frankly Bill deserved better, and I hoped Clara would appear out of nowhere and give him a much deserved tongue lashing and slap for that prank.