Post by Ripley on Oct 10, 2015 21:44:45 GMT -5
Note- next week is Maisie Williams' episodes- I can't wait to see whom she plays since we know it is not Susan per Steven Moffat at SDCC. (yeah, Im geeking out big time)
"...Who’d have expected an episode about underwater ghosts to have a second part all about fate and paradoxes and being your own grandfather? I didn’t, but I should have. Or, more accurately, since it’s Doctor Who, I should have expected the unexpected. Toby Whithouse turns in easily my favorite story to date from him with these two episodes. Huge winners. But, enough of general gushing (*salute* General Gushing!) – Let’s dive in…haha…to “Before the Flood...”
...Those are all the whats, now in “Before the Flood,” we learned the whys, and also the hows. What I think I love the most about this episode is that it tells you the answer in the cold open. In what is a totally unique moment, the Doctor is talking only to us, for the purposes of making us think, and he tells us about the “Bootstrap Paradox,” which is the fundamental part of a Causal Loop. We’ve seen causal loops in the series before, in “The Big Bang” when Amy awakens from the Pandorica with the sonic screwdriver which she gives back to the Doctor who then goes back in time and has Rory put the sonic screwdriver in Amy’s pocket. He only knew to do that because it had already happened. It’s a paradox, and it’s one of the most fun parts of time travel theory. Here, the Doctor tells us about Ludwig van Beethoven, and what if a time traveler made “Beethoven” the person happen simply because he was already a fan of Beethoven’s music? Then who actually wrote the Fifth Symphony? Did anyone?...
...So, in this episode, all of the information we and the characters receive comes from the Doctor’s ghost – the fact that he is a ghost and that he’s listing names in a particular order (Moran, Pritchard, Prentis, O’Donnell, Clara, Doctor, Bennet, Cass) before switching to saying the chamber will open at a specific time. If we once again remember that the Doctor always goes into every situation thinking he’s going to win, it makes perfect sense for him to eventually realize he’s the one who set these things in motion, allowing himself to be locked in suspended animation in the stasis pod for 150 years. The Fisher King was already dead, but nobody in the underwater base knew that. But, like the paradox says, he only knew to do that because he’d seen the results; he reverse-engineered the narrative, which is exactly what Whithouse did. Is it a cop-out? Is it cutesy clever? A little bit, but who cares when it works this well?
The Fisher King had three people playing him, which is sort of silly. Neil Fingleton is the man in the costume, the hilarious and great Peter Serafinowicz was the voice, and Slipknot singer Corey Taylor provided the roar. You know, the roar that I thought was just some kind of audio effect. Good thing they got recording artist Corey Taylor to provide that distinctive noise, huh?..."
Nerdist full recap/review
...Those are all the whats, now in “Before the Flood,” we learned the whys, and also the hows. What I think I love the most about this episode is that it tells you the answer in the cold open. In what is a totally unique moment, the Doctor is talking only to us, for the purposes of making us think, and he tells us about the “Bootstrap Paradox,” which is the fundamental part of a Causal Loop. We’ve seen causal loops in the series before, in “The Big Bang” when Amy awakens from the Pandorica with the sonic screwdriver which she gives back to the Doctor who then goes back in time and has Rory put the sonic screwdriver in Amy’s pocket. He only knew to do that because it had already happened. It’s a paradox, and it’s one of the most fun parts of time travel theory. Here, the Doctor tells us about Ludwig van Beethoven, and what if a time traveler made “Beethoven” the person happen simply because he was already a fan of Beethoven’s music? Then who actually wrote the Fifth Symphony? Did anyone?...
...So, in this episode, all of the information we and the characters receive comes from the Doctor’s ghost – the fact that he is a ghost and that he’s listing names in a particular order (Moran, Pritchard, Prentis, O’Donnell, Clara, Doctor, Bennet, Cass) before switching to saying the chamber will open at a specific time. If we once again remember that the Doctor always goes into every situation thinking he’s going to win, it makes perfect sense for him to eventually realize he’s the one who set these things in motion, allowing himself to be locked in suspended animation in the stasis pod for 150 years. The Fisher King was already dead, but nobody in the underwater base knew that. But, like the paradox says, he only knew to do that because he’d seen the results; he reverse-engineered the narrative, which is exactly what Whithouse did. Is it a cop-out? Is it cutesy clever? A little bit, but who cares when it works this well?
The Fisher King had three people playing him, which is sort of silly. Neil Fingleton is the man in the costume, the hilarious and great Peter Serafinowicz was the voice, and Slipknot singer Corey Taylor provided the roar. You know, the roar that I thought was just some kind of audio effect. Good thing they got recording artist Corey Taylor to provide that distinctive noise, huh?..."
Nerdist full recap/review
