Doctor Who 12x09 "Ascension of the Cybermen" full reaction

Each to their own indeed, but I have a hard time seeing how anyone can objectively look at an episode as well written, directed and edited as Heaven Sent or the Doctor Falls two parter and think anything in Chibnal Who even comes close to those standards.

BobBob

Each to their own which is fine, personally I did not like Capaldi as the doctor, did not like Clara and was not impressed with Moffat in his later stages of his showrunning stint.

michael moslin

I take no pleasure in this, believe me I'd much rather be watching well written, well acted, well directed and edited Who and be here praising it. I was watching two other reactors recently, one in series 4 with 10 and the other in series 6 with 11. And the sheer drop off in standards since then in writing, performances and production is shocking and very apparent. It had been a while since I watched those series and even I was somewhat taken aback at just how large the gulf between then and what we have come to accept as our Who now is. For me thats not something to celebrate or just to write nasty things about for the sake of it, its massively disappointing and as the show has been very personal to me over my life it hurts to see it in its current state.

BobBob

Ah I have missed the ray of sunshine that you are

michael moslin

For me, I don't particularly hate the finale, I just think there should have been a much bigger reaction, like I feel this needed to have been a massive moment that should have been revealed in something like a much longer episode. Had Chibs properly started the Timeless Child arc last season and built it throughout Season 11 and 12, then I think I would have been even more excited and enjoyed it more. But it just kind of feels like we only started this arc a few episodes ago. Overall, Series 12 was still massively better than Series 11, but nowhere near as good as any other series.

You always articulate my feelings so well about the Chibnall era episodes. It's been a real slog to rewatch them and I really hoped that maybe with time and distance I might like them more...but no. They're still terrible on the whole. :(

Nicole Mazza

Blimey three episodes behind. I have to admit I am seriously struggling to put myself through watching these again so poorly written, executed and performed as I find them. In brief, Can You Hear Me, as someone who has worked in mental health for over 30 years now I found its attempt to tackle the subject awful, insulting, shallow, poorly conceived and written. That Chibnal would use this subject matter in a weak attempt to finally add some sort of personality to his 2 dimensional companions was for me borderline offensive. The stories told in this episode feel disjointed too, not properly worked together and the resolution, if it can even be called that is cheap and easy. This is technically not the worst episode from this era, but its subject matter and the handling of it makes it for me personally the most offensive. The Haunting of Villa Diodati is better but is one of those episodes whose worth changes by series end when it can be seen in light of the full tale. And it doesn't come off well as such, as so much is set up whose pay off is not worth it. There are odd threads in this too which don't go anywhere. The cyberman is the most interesting thing about it and again this does not have longevity once the series concludes and in hindsight is mostly a waste of time, making its rewatchability almost non-existent and painful to endure. It also highlights just what a piece of pointless fan service Captain Jack was in the Judoon episode, serving no purpose outside being there to try to appease growing fan discontent with the direction and quality of the show. The entire Jack sequence in Judoon more and more as the series concludes feels like what it probably was, a last minute reshoot added late in production as a reaction to falling audience numbers and dissent about the writing. An obvious and pathetic bandaid failing to pape rover the mainly large and serious cracks of Chibnal era Who. Which brings us to the current episode. Again it very much will depend how you feel about this episode on how you feel about the finale. One of the very few things about this era that has been good, the special effects, are also surprisingly awful in this with flying cyberheads being laugh out loud poorly done and badly executed. Again we have a rash of new characters who don't have the time to be properly fleshed out, or for us to give a toss about them or what happens to them, and they suck time and oxygen from the episode to no real end. In fact this episode is oddly good at useless padding. Take the first appearance of the Doctor and companions, we get a bunch of exposition about all the equipment they have brought with them, how it works, what it is supposed to do, then it all is instantly useless, it was all just a waste of minutes to no end whatsoever. It also wastes time introducing a lot of new characters that either aren't going to have anything to do all episode, are going to be written out a scene later, wasting yet more time on nothing at all. Exposition has been a bugbear and unfortunate hallmark of the entire Chibnal run, but I think where its at its worse is incorporating it into the Doctor as a personality trait, as he does in this episode where we get the Doctor, talking ostensibly to herself when confronting the 'Frankenstein' cyberman; “Let me think, keep the others safe. Act as bait.” only all she is actually doing is telling us the audience what she is about to do, which we see her do anyway and its repetition of what she just told the Fam literally four lines of dialogue ago she was going to do. Why Chibnal does this and has the Doctor tell the audience everything she about to do in such a clumsy fashion boggles my mind. Its just a waste of screen time and makes 13 all the harder to take seriously as the Doctor. There are other writing issues within this opening section which speak to the problems with the series writing overall. Take the TARDIS for example, we are told several times they cant escape in the TARDIS because they will never make it back alive to it. But we are never given a reason why the Doctor parked so far away in the first place then made everyone carry a lot of heavy (useless) equipment all the way to where they are. But the plot requires they cant have the TARDIS so we just get this thin excuse its too far away. But it makes no narrative sense within the confines of the story why the Doctor would not just have materialised in the refugee camp to start with. This occurs a lot in Chbnal who, things happen for no reason other than they need it to happen so the plot can happen. But Chibnal is to lazy to justify it narratively. Yaz and Graham get another conversation, that's two in two series, well done Chbnal. Granted its about three lines long and all Yaz does is repeat and latch onto Graham's idea but hey, its interaction and got to be grateful I suppose for scraps when it comes to any character beats in Chibnal Who. But the content of their conversation is rather questionable, we have Graham being Graham, he has the same sort of humour lines, the same sort of character beats as he always has, yet it for some reason prompts Yaz to tell him he has come a long way. How? He is acting exactly the same way as he did in the very first episode when we first met him, with the same sort of dialogue, same sort of reaction to situations, same optimism, same outlook, same stoicism. So what is this line supposed to mean? The other issue us its all one note- its all just 'glass half full;' 'be optimistic' 'we can do this' over and over. I swear Chibnal genuinely believes his character shave been on some long journey of development for the last two series, just a pity he never bothered to put any of it on screen. In your reaction you make a good point- they spent al this time running away, we are told at start they are normal humans, teachers, nurses and the like, yet they oddly know how al the cyber tech works, how to fly cyber ships and none of it makes any sense. All Chibnal had to do was make one of the survivors a soldier who fought the cybermen to explain all that away, but he doesn't even bother with that much reasoning. This is an episode, much like the lone cyberman set up itself, that depends entirely on its resolution in the finale to determine if it makes sense, fits together, has good ideas, and if it all pays off. Having seen all this series for me these episodes are largely a waste of time and space as a result. I started watching aged 3 with Pertwee, and this is the worst run, worst written time of the show since its inception. And the show has had some rough patches before but at least when it did I still felt their was effort, people were giving their all for the show even when it was failing. This, this stuff feels lazy, phoned in, underdeveloped, poorly written, badly acted and deeply unsatisfying. Amazing as it for me personally to even be thinking this way I would much rather the show, like in the 80's had been put on hiatus following Capaldi's run, and it had ended on the ambiguity of if 12 had chosen to die or regenerate rather than have seen this dereliction of duty towards the shows core tenants and concepts. And the worst is yet to come.

BobBob

I think this is a cool episode. Very action packed with high stakes. I'll be interested to see what you make of the finale... 🤖💥

Toby Harmon