Hey youtubers it’s Charlie and this week on Doctor Who we got one of our First Game
of Thrones Crossovers since Series 5 when Ser Jorah guest starred. We also got to meet
Danny Pink, the new character at Coal Hill School. So just like my episode 1 video I’ll
do my top 5 moments, then post as many of the references I could find and then my review.
If you’re just finding me for the first time I’m also doing a weekly Series 8 giveaway.
All you have to do to enter is be a subscriber and leave a comment. I’ll explain at the
end of the video.
Careful for spoilers in case you haven’t seen the episode. But here are my top 5 moments.
I’ll wait just a sec...okay, here we go.
Number 5 - Coal Hill School is a major destination for series 8
I’m totally loving the meta thing that’s going on with Capaldi and Coal Hill School.
He and Moffat are weaving in a lot of first doctor things. Coal Hill School is one of
those. The school itself has been featured a lot in the series. But I got such a first
doctor vibe from this episode.
Add to that, the second official episode of the first doctor’s run was “The Daleks”.
So you see, Moffat is intentionally making us think about that first season of Doctor
Who. I’m wondering if that’s going to tie in with Missy and the arc of series 8?
There are things from a lot of classic doctor’s runs so it’s not only about the first doctor.
Don’t limit yourself to looking for those references.
But anytime we revisit something for the first time in series 8, think about the first time
that character or monster was featured.
There will be some new monsters this series though. It’s not all about revisiting classics.
Even if the Doctor is “Correcting Mistakes of the Past.”
Number 4 - The Doctor Returns with Coffee
I love how it felt like Clara bumping into him in the closet happened directly after
they walked off screen in episode 1. Like he told her to wait a sec, she turned around
and 3 weeks later he’s back with her order.
What does he do during those, “I’ll be right back moments?”
It was a great callback to Amelia Pond in the series 5 opener. Moffat used that be right
back joke a lot during Matt Smith’s run, so I’m not expecting to see it a lot this
year.
I think he’ll gently work in more 11th Doctor Moments. But not all the time.
There’s always the danger of just making a new doctor a complete amalgam of the old
ones but so far I’ve been really happy with the ratio of new peter capaldi things to old
doctor references.
Number 3 - Welcome To Heaven
Missy is back. Isn’t it funny how Journey Blue woke up on the tardis at the beginning
and then woke up in Heaven at the end of the episode.
Notice the transitions both times. It’s like the Doctor Materalized the TARDIS around
her, usually that’s how he saves someone when he doesn’t pull them in the front door.
This makes me think more about the Missy TARDIS / Rani theories.
If Missy were a personification of a TARDIS she’d have the same abilities as a tardis
to materialize something around Journey Blue, and if she’s the Rani she could have her
own TARDIS and heaven could just be a room inside that.
I’ve also seen a lot of Black Guardian theories. But for all intents and purposes, think of
Missy as being someone who has the same technology as the Time Lords or at least the same abilities
if she’s not from Gallifrey. Although I’m still convinced that the Missy plot will tie
in with the finding Gallifrey plot.
She seems like she’s collecting the dead, or at least zapping away their souls at the
final moment of death. Because we did see the android body impaled on the clocktower.
So she didn’t beam his body away. Maybe it’s their life force she’s after?
There were already a lot of gravesite spoilers as it relates to cyber conversion. I’m not
going to repeat them, just because most of you probably haven’t seen the pictures.
If you do want to comment on missy cybermen theories just use spoiler tags in the comments.
Number 2 - Welcome Danny Pink
So many things going on here. You have all the coal hill school first doctor callbacks
to barbara wright and ian chesterton, then on top of that he was also confirmed as an
official new companion.
I don’t know why the BBC waited so long in confirming that Pink would be turning into
a companion, because a lot of the news earlier this year pretty much said ‘new companion’
I love that he’s ex-military and pretty clearly suffers from post traumatic stress.
Sherlock Watson anyone. This makes me feel like once he becomes a full time companion,
the Wholock references will just go off the charts.
I’ll talk more about the Capaldi Danny Pink vibe in my review. But Wholock is already
happening and it’s name is Danny Pink.
The thing that really surprised me was his relationship with Clara. I didn’t think
they’d be shipping them so quickly. But I love it already. And the way they jumped
forward and backward in time when Clara was trying to get Danny to ask her out. She’s
the boss of everybody.
Couple of red flags to watch out for. Did you catch when Clara joked about Danny crying?
That was a pretty clear reference to his Post Traumatic Stress. Like Watson before he met
Sherlock in series 1. The PTSD will probably play role in Danny’s TARDIS episodes.
The Doctor isn’t a huge fan of soldiers either, so that’s not good.
Then at the end, when Danny said “I thought you had a rule against soldiers.” That’s
a callback to Matt Smith being the crazy warrior the Silence were trying to kill and to the
Darkness Capaldi’s exhibiting.
Which leads me to my Number 1 moment - The Doctor Is A Good Dalek
This has been a recurring theme. The Doctor is just as bad as the Dalek’s sometimes.
The line, you would make a good dalek was also from Christopher Eccleston’s run. Nice
9th Doctor Callback.
He was also the Post Tramatic Stress Doctor too, one who had trouble dealing with the
psychological after effects of the Time War.
So he and Danny Pink have a lot in common in that sense. Expect Series 8 to play on
that idea when they finally start traveling together.
Thematically the episode was really about the Doctor testing the belief that beings
cannot change their true nature. Daleks are evil personified and can never be good. And
I think the Doctor hates a lot of the Darkness inside himself, so he’s wondering if it’s
possible for him to change his nature.
The whole “Clara, Am I A good Man” was a perfect story runner to mirror the dalek
turned good story.
But let me know what you’re favorite moment was and do you think the Doctor would make
a good Dalek?
It’s pretty clear the episode wants us to think yes, he would make a fine Dalek.
So here’s a couple of the bigger references and easter eggs I saw in the episode. If there
were some you saw please add them in the comments.
First was the Empire Strikes Back asteroid chase. Then the soldier’s name was Journey
Blue, as in Tardis Blue, traveling on the Aristotle, I took that to be another subtle
reference to Fires of Pompeii. The crazy military base reminded me of Torchwood from the David
Tennant years.
Then there was Doloros Edd from Game of Thrones. Someone tell Jon Snow the Wall has another
deserter. Daleks being the theme of the episode was also a nice reference to the first doctor’s
second episode “The Daleks”. There were a lot more references to that episode too,
like when the Doctor referenced seeing Skaro for the first time.
Them flying down the waterslide tubes into the goo made me think of Beast Below. Which
was the second episode of Matt Smith’s first year.
Shrinking themselves down to go inside the Dalek reminded me of Fantastic Voyage. Clara
meeting Danny Pink was a lot like Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright. Their costumes were even
very similar to Ian and Barbara’s original costumes.
There’s all the Watson, Sherlock references in Danny Pink’s background and Capaldi’s
personality. That’s only going to get better in future episodes. Pink even had his collar
turned up like Sherlock. Capaldi is Sherlock, but you get the idea.
Speaking of Coal Hill, did you notice how the similarities in Capaldi’s blackboard
and all the whiteboards at the school. It’s like moffat is taunting us with spoilers that
are just out of focus so we can’t read them really clearly.
Then there’s clara fiddling with the dalek innards. That reminded me of 2001 space odyssey.
I’m sorry clara, I can’t let you do that...
Then there was another Doctor mind meld. The biggest one that comes to mind was the Mr
Clever mind meld. In addition to the speech being from Davros’ speech in series 4.
Feel free to add more references you saw in the comments.
Overall I gave the episode a solid A. I enjoyed this episode more than the premiere. The story
moved much quicker. It was about half as long, and 40-42 minutes is perfect.
I love Coal Hill School and Danny Pink is going to be a lot of fun. I hadn’t seen
any of Samuel Anderson’s previous work but for me, it’s his sense of humor that really
does it.
Doctor Who, in my mind, is all about the balance of drama and comedy. So you can have your
crazy dark characters, but they also have to be funny at the same time. So Danny Pink
is probably tortured by the people he’s killed, but he can also bang his head on the
desk for not asking Clara out.
If Danny Pink, Clara’s boyfriend slash co-worker was fun in this episode, I can’t wait to
see what Danny Pink, Companion, is going to look like.
The actual insides of the dalek were amazing from a visual standpoint. It’s things like
this that make me totally okay with Moffat revisting old characters. I’m totally cool
with it as long as he gives us a perspective on them we’ve never seen before. Like the
Doctor standing right in front of the Khaled Mutant.
I feel like the Doctor Ultimately learned that it was possible for a Dalek to turn good.
I think we can be very optimistic about Capaldi’s run. It will be super dark, but the Doctor
will always remain true to his mantra. Never Cruel, Never Unkind. Always a healer.
My favorite quote though, was when Capaldi said, “I will do something amazing. Promise”.
The finale is all about broken promises. Which I’m sure is a clue for Missy.
This is still early in Capaldi’s run so I feel like we’ll have a much better picture
of the doctor’s new personality after another two or three episodes. It took me almost all
of Series 5 to wrap my brain around Matt Smith.
I’m interested to see if the trend continues and I like Episode 3 robot of sherwood more
than this episode. I don’t expect that trend to continue for each episode, but so far I’m
loving the new vibe of the show.
Let me know what you thought of all the callbacks and how you think the Danny Pink Watson vibe
will play.
I will be posting a bonus video next and then the Q&A video tomorrow. So you guys have a
ton of time to re-watch the episode and ask questions. Normally I post bonus videos before
episodes air, but I’m still moving into a new apartment so my schedule is a little
weird right now.
The giveaway for any new people is really simple. As long as you’re a subscriber you
can just leave a comment on my doctor who videos. Then when I post my Q&As I just randomly
pick someone out and give them an amazon giftcard. Super simple, it’s open to international
people too.
So in case you haven’t seen it yet I’ll add a link in the description for steven moffat’s
breakdown of series 8, it has info on all the episodes. And click here for the Q&A and
here for my Bonus video. I’ll add annotations for everything as soon as the videos are up.
Thanks for watching, see you guys tonight. High Fives!