Closing Time

A fun episode with some nice performances, i thought-but the real revelations were in the last five minutes! So, we've basically come full circle, and River Song is the Impossible Astronaut! Well, that may not have surprised many, but it was pretty well done...

Gods, Matt Smith is amazing.

What an odd episode. Good fun for the most part, with lots of good jokes, marred by a very silly resolution that again renders the Cybermen a useless joke (are they ever going to get a decent episode in New Who?) and then wanders off into arc territory for an admittedly chilling but decidely jarring climax to set up next week's finale. Very odd indeed.

codywillis1 wrote:What an odd episode. Good fun for the most part, with lots of good jokes, marred by a very silly resolution that again renders the Cybermen a useless joke (are they ever going to get a decent episode in New Who?) and then wanders off into arc territory for an admittedly chilling but decidely jarring climax to set up next week's finale. Very odd indeed.

Have the Cybermen had even one outstanding story since 1968? I think they're basically past their use by date as a concept. They were created for a specific reason, because of the concerns in the sixties about the then new field of transplant surgery. That concerrn no longer exists and all attempts to update the Cybermen have made them less and less frightening; they might just as well be robots, now. But I thought the story worked in spite of them.

My favourite character was Alfie.

Lucy McGough wrote:My favourite character was Alfie.

"He prefers Stormageddon".

I think Attack is outstanding, myself.

Yes, but mostly because of the guest cast and despite the Cybermen rather than because of them. They are basically crap in Attack, getting their heads knocked off or being killed by their own weapons.

Come on, what about the handcrushing scene? Single nastiest scene in all of Who bar none!

codywillis1 wrote:Come on, what about the handcrushing scene? Single nastiest scene in all of Who bar none!

That was quite nasty. Though the presence of the Fat Controller robs the scene of some of its menace.

I'm not sure it was the nastiest scene, though. There are others which I think make more of an impact; a crazed Susan wielding scissors in The Edge of Destruction, for one.

Yes! That scissors scene is far worse! Because it is something that can happen in real life (Bar the setting in a Time Machine!)! Verity Lambert got a far bigger `telling off` for that scene than introducing the Daleks!

Now! closing time! A nice bit of fun and I quite enjoyed it- but! A Cyber ship crashed that deep down and no crater? Plus! The ship would have been atomised if it had hit the ground with force enough to go that deep!

Like most of this seasons eps-soon as you examine the practicalities of the plot-it falls to bits! Still, it was a nice 40 mins to pass the time. Afraid the last few minutes (Next weeks bit) dulled me senses!

It supposedly crashed centuries ago though (we know that the Cybermen have occasionally meddled with time travel, so that seems reasonable). Who's to say there wasn't an impact crater back then? Maybe it simply got buried. I don't necessarily think it would have been atomised, either, but it was clearly badly damaged.

Maybe thousands of years ago! By then erosion etc might have erased the crash scene! Just can't see even a `Graft` council building over a crater- foundations would be hell of a problem for one!

Ah! Its just my `logistics` bit of me brain nagging away! I spent months trying to work out all the plot discrepencies in `Ambassadors of Death` back in 1970-and I adored that story!

Good point made earlier in this thread (By Cody?) about Cybermen becoming redundant to the present series! Unless some writers can concoct a new direction for them- they will lose viewer interest.

John Nathan Turner rather made `Aunt Sally's` out of them in his time ("Five Doctors"!!) So its a point need adressing I think!

As I said earlier, I think the Cybermen were outdated by about 1970 (there has to be a reason why they were only used once in the 70's, and I think it's because the writers knew there was very little more to do with them). I'd give them a long rest at this point, I think.