Quick reaction to 7x08 "Cold War"

[eve11]

Omg David Warner is OLD! And not hanging out with Nick Courtney in a parallel universe where he is the Doctor and Mark Gatiss is the Master. INSTEAD: he's hanging out on a damaged submarine in an episode Mark Gatiss wrote where Nick Courtney has been replaced by some dude from Game of Thrones. Well, we'll take what we can get, yeah? *sigh*

Haha, who am I kidding, I really enjoyed that episode, which I'm sure comes as no surprise to anyone.

No, really , that was rather like Das boot, Aliens and The Hunt For Red October rolled into one. With bonus Ice Warriors. I liked that the Russians and the Ice Warrior were portrayed as people of various stripe and not one-dimensional villains. I thought the Doctor's plan was rubbish, but aren't they all? I liked the creative use of Old-school techniques with the hands, and I thought the CGI of the Ice Warrior's real face was very well done.

I liked the surprise of the Ice Warrior being much more HR-Giger-alien after leaving his armor. But if Skodack left his suit and that is the ultimate disgrace, does that mean he is now dishonored in the face of his people in the ship? Also, he really didn't wait all that long to decide no one was coming.

And oh, oh my the HADS. Why would you turn that on, Doctor???*

I liked the characters in this one, but felt bad for the people who died on account of "split up the ship and search." And Clara... she seemed kind of generic in this episode. It was frustrating that she seemed to think the Doctor was still testing her. For what?

Regarding Ice Warriors; I agree with the person who said there wasn't enough hissing. But there was some and it was fab. My absolute favorite Ice Warrior character ever is Ambassador Zixlyr from the Five-Peri-Erimem audio "The Bride of Peladon", and Skodak's mercy and his talking about his daughter reminded me of Zixlyr and how he was trying to find his twin sister's killer. ANYWAY, honestly, you all should listen to that audio, it's brilliant and doesn't pull its punches. And Clara and Skodak reminded me a bit of Peri and Zixlyr.

* Someone please now write me the adventures of Eleven and Clara traveling the world from pole to pole in 1983 to get back to the TARDIS. Pretty please.

Comments

[a-phoenixdragon.livejournal.com]

I rather enjoyed it myself!!

And I'd like to think his leaving his suit went...unmentioned. Half the reason he exercised mercy? Anyway - rawther awesome episode all around. Though yes, needed more Clara being a bad ass.

AND DAVID WARNER.

[eve11]

So kind of like, he was feeling shame for what he did and that was part of what made him exercise mercy? I like that.

Needed Clara having some kind of personality. As opposed to last week where she had some backstory and such, she just seemed interchangeable with any other companion this week.

Not to say I didn't enjoy the episode, because I did :)

[ladymercury-10.livejournal.com]

Did they all live at the end because Clara finally agreed to start singing? Please say yes. The "we should sing Duran Duran to keep our spirits up" running joke was never not funny to me. :P

Someone please now write me the adventures of Eleven and Clara traveling the world from pole to pole in 1983 to get back to the TARDIS. Pretty please.

Ahhh that sounds like an excellent fic.

[eve11]

I dunno, being stalked by a bloodthirsty alien (or even one hell-bent on revenge) doesn't seem the best time for singing "I'm on the hunt, I'm after you... I'm hungry like the Wolf"...

(Also that song will never not make me nor many of my generation think of the TV miniseries "Small Sacrifices" with Farrah Fawcett. WE HAVE COMPLICATED RELATIONSHIPS WITH DURAN DURAN)

The way the Doctor looked at Clara when she started singing, it's like it was a "Bad Wolf" reference. ;)

[ladymercury-10.livejournal.com]

Haha, these are all excellent points. I do not know very much about Duran Duran. And I didn't catch the look on the Doctor's face! I wonder if that was indeed a stealth Bad Wolf reference.

I just thought maybe the alien liked her singing because he said something about singing the songs of the red snow for his daughter. :P

[honeynoir.livejournal.com]

I expected like ten fics of the adventures of Eleven and Clara in 1983 by now. :( Perhaps the prompt on the kink meme will produce something?

[eve11]

I expected like ten fics of the adventures of Eleven and Clara in 1983 by now.

I know! Fandom, I am sorely disappointed!

Well, it's only a matter of time.

[honeynoir.livejournal.com]

It seems fandom has been busy writing snogging and/or married-couple Clara/Eleven, so traveling the world ought to be next. ;)

[lyricwrites.livejournal.com]

Before they even get to the South Pole, though, the Doctor and Clara are going to have to get out of Soviet custody. The logical way to do that is to claim to be members of UNIT, which isn't even entirely a lie. Of course, that means the Brigadier would have to be called to verify their identity, and he would bring the only person who can definitely ID the Doctor—that person being the Doctor, of course.

And the Doctor is upset that he looks like a child now, and makes a point of refusing to have a fashion argument with the Doctor because it's a lot like crossing wits with an unarmed man. (He keeps this resolution for approximately fifteen seconds.) And the Doctor wants to know if his nose really actually looked like that and keeps circling around the Doctor to get a good look at him, which irritates the hell out of the Doctor. And the Brig wears that look that says, yes, I'm more or less resigned to the universe coming down with an occasional case of crazy, and Clara gets that look that says, you have GOT to be kidding me, you alien weirdo, and that's before someone tells her what's going on. And, and, and . . . and I'm gonna have to try and write this, aren't I? Aggh, I don't have the energy to write things right now . . .

*wanders of whinging about fic not spontaneously generating on her computer*

[eve11]

Ha! Yes, write this in your spare time, of course :)

(I don't have any kids but I am a twin and my mom said we used to cry in shifts. I hope yours are more aligned than my sister and I apparently were)

[lyricwrites.livejournal.com]

Well, you can't win, really; if they sync up, then you're dealing with two babies who WANT SOMETHING NOW, and will pitch six kinds of fit if you feed their sibling first. I'm just lucky to have a very helpful husband and a mother who lives in the area (and manages, for the most part, to avoid trying to run my life. Even though she wants to. I'm not being snide when I say that I'm proud of her for that; it has to be very difficult to trust someone's judgment when you remember them two feet tall and covered with magic marker.)

Seriously, though, ideas belong to everyone, and I wouldn't even pretend to have a monopoly on this one. So I'll try to write something, but, you know, if someone else does—well, I'd love to have the link.

[clocketpatch]

I still don't understand WHY that guy blowtorches the Ice Warrior to get it out sooner. Is he supposed to be hypnotized or what? Couldn't it have just... melted of its own volition?

*confused*

But then again, most of the stuff going on didn't make sense and I didn't care in the slightest because this was Who at its best and it made me a Very Very Happy Clocket to be sure.

Eleven turning on the HADS... lol. Even if it was just a plot device to get him completely on his own with no pretenses or escape clauses in the first five minutes, it was still well played, and I'm with everyone else in asking WHERE IS THE FIC? ~Why~ does no fic spontaneously materialize? Heh.

[lyricwrites.livejournal.com]

Because he was an Idiot Who Dies. Quite a lot of Doctor Who plots are kicked off by an Idiot Who Dies. They're worse than Daleks, honestly.

I thought he just wanted the first look at whatever was in there, possibly to see if it was valuable somehow. You'd think, in a universe littered with not-quite-dead Cybermen tombs and ancient summoning ceremonies that might actually work and so forth, evolution would have taken care of that sort of behavior long ago. But evidently not.

[eve11]

~Why~ does no fic spontaneously materialize? Heh.

yes, this! I feel like I should have a better handle on Clara though. I don't know if I could write her very well. Then again, I'm not much for writing Amy either. River, I can do.

It was a good romp of an episode, even if it didn't make a lick of sense.