It pains me, I blame everyone else.
Okay, I actually find it somewhat refreshing and/or hilarious when a writer eats some humble pie about some narrative nonsense.
I have to admit, I didn’t even notice this specific occurrence - by this point, it was kind of a layer cake of nonsense, which…is not unusual for RTD season finales.
This sounds a lot like a defense of the episode, but it’s not meant to be, not really. I just don’t mind this specific narrative cheat, I guess.
I have to admit, I didn’t even notice this specific occurrence - by this point, it was kind of a layer cake of nonsense, which…is not unusual for RTD season finales.
Yes, in the face of a blizzard of silliness and handwaving, that one went right by me (and the other people I went to see it with). We may have just been numb at that point.
Whatever. They just do whatever they want as it’s required by the script. Dr. Who has always been more science fantasy than it is science fiction with varying degrees of consistency, apart from maybe getting into some social issue stuff, along with the tech gadgets and aliens (the sci-fi trappings). IMO it’s almost been on par with The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, things just happen and questioning it is just an exercise in futility, just go along with that episode’s logic and don’t question it. There will be characters who are forever banished from this universe, never to return again, but then a season or two later they show back up again because of some whatchamajigit or some sort of handwavy temporal anomaly or whatever the fuck they want it to be. For there to be a “complete narrative collapse” would require a narrative structure to have been there in the first place. Dr. Who somehow even out-techno-babbles Star Trek.
What he doesn’t explain is: why? It seems like an unforced error - I could see them pulling something out of their ass if they had painted themselves into a corner in earlier episodes but there are a few solutions to this. Does it suggest script or FX or editing were being hacked around at the last minute? 🤷♂️
Sounds like that’s exactly it - it’s only briefly mentioned:
At this point in the episode as originally scripted, RTD explains, the Remembered TARDIS had collapsed and disappeared after depositing the Doctor, Ruby and Mel in 2046. That was an SFX sequence too far for this already-packed episode, and so it was cut from the script.
Damn, when the bus people be critiquing your show, you done goofed.
Wait, that was the narrative collapse? Not the magic snow that everyone just sort of forgot about, or Ruby’s anti aging magic time travel abilities in 73 Yards?
It felt like they built up to a massive finale that didn’t happen. Yes, they defeated the big bad, but what happened to everything else?
Not the magic snow that everyone just sort of forgot about
That was all part of the mystery-mongering breadcrumbs and once it served it’s purpose it was hand-waved away as something, something, wound in time, something. Like all that “bad wolf” business that was far more interesting up until the point that it wasn’t needed.
Ruby’s anti aging magic time travel abilities in 73 Yards?
Wasn’t that because her older self was able to warn her younger self about the fairy circle, thus stopping that timeline from ever happening. My issue with that was it made the whole episode pointless as she never stopped the fascist PM.
The snow annoyed me. I get the whole point of she’s special because she’s ordinary, but why build her up with magic snow in the first place?
The whole 73 Yards episode felt pointless and poorly done to me. It was interesting most of the way through, especially when the story kept going after the PM ran off, but then it fell apart. Why did everyone who spoke to old Ruby hate her? Why did she ruin her own life?
How did the ordinary girl send herself back in time!?
It all added to the ‘Ruby is special’ storyline, and then they threw it all away. I must be missing something, because I don’t get it 🤷🏻♂️
