Doctor Who (37) 11.04: Arachnids in the UK

Although, once again, the villain was ridiculous (far too contrived as heartless and evil), I'm a little less put off this season after that episode. It's still well below the standard I'm used to for the show, but I was mildly entertained. Story was a bit rubbish again as well IMO.

Worse still was my incident of extreme rage when there was a 30 second power cut exactly, and I mean EXACTLY, at the moment the opening titles were about to start. So there was me, middle-aged bloke, having a child tantrum waiting for the sky box to trudge through its setup routine. So I missed the first 5 minutes. Grrr.
 
I thought this was the first real stinker of the Foster era.

First off, the Evil Businessman was Donald Trump. Sure they threw in a line about him hating Trump as if to say "This guy is totally not Donald Trump, honest!", but he was Donald Trump in every way bar the dodgy tan, and I am so done with Trump Clones it's not even funny.

Barring that it was shaping up to be a decent horror story, then comes all the dodgy moralizing. Not Trump was held up as the villain, while Researcher Lady Whose Name I Forget gets away scott free, despite the fact she made the spiders, didn't make sure the carcasses were actually dead before disposing of them, and obviously didn't check the company she hired for disposal were disposing of them properly. Probably just went with the lowest bidder.

And then according to the Doctor, locking away dozens/hundreds of spiders in a tiny environment to eat each other/starve to death/suffocate is a humane and dignified way to destroy them. And then apparently the way to deal with the dying and clearly in pain Queen is to look sad and tell it you're sorry as it slowly suffocates to death, and finishing it quickly with a bullet is a bad thing because guns are bad, mmkay?

For the record I hate the very idea of guns, and think there are plenty of intelligent arguments against them. This was not one of them.

Then there's the spiders, who can track down one guy in a toilet and bust through the bathub to get him, but can't track down five people in a kitchen. Who flip flop from being actively malevolent in trapping everyone in the hotel to just doing what spiders do, even though (someone can correct me if I'm wrong here), spiders don't tend to actively target prey that's bigger than they are. OK, Tub Spider would probably go for a human, but most of the spiders we saw would be chowing down on rats, cats and small dogs.

Yeah. Not a fan of this one.
 
One thing I don't think I've heard before - though I'm sure I'll be put right was the line from Graham when he refered to the Who as

"The Doc"

We'll be calling by her first name next - Oh what was that by the way?

Or will we switch to Bones?
 
I thought this was the first real stinker of the Foster era.

First off, the Evil Businessman was Donald Trump. Sure they threw in a line about him hating Trump as if to say "This guy is totally not Donald Trump, honest!", but he was Donald Trump in every way bar the dodgy tan, and I am so done with Trump Clones it's not even funny.

Barring that it was shaping up to be a decent horror story, then comes all the dodgy moralizing. Not Trump was held up as the villain, while Researcher Lady Whose Name I Forget gets away scott free, despite the fact she made the spiders, didn't make sure the carcasses were actually dead before disposing of them, and obviously didn't check the company she hired for disposal were disposing of them properly. Probably just went with the lowest bidder.

And then according to the Doctor, locking away dozens/hundreds of spiders in a tiny environment to eat each other/starve to death/suffocate is a humane and dignified way to destroy them. And then apparently the way to deal with the dying and clearly in pain Queen is to look sad and tell it you're sorry as it slowly suffocates to death, and finishing it quickly with a bullet is a bad thing because guns are bad, mmkay?

For the record I hate the very idea of guns, and think there are plenty of intelligent arguments against them. This was not one of them.

Then there's the spiders, who can track down one guy in a toilet and bust through the bathub to get him, but can't track down five people in a kitchen. Who flip flop from being actively malevolent in trapping everyone in the hotel to just doing what spiders do, even though (someone can correct me if I'm wrong here), spiders don't tend to actively target prey that's bigger than they are. OK, Tub Spider would probably go for a human, but most of the spiders we saw would be chowing down on rats, cats and small dogs.

Yeah. Not a fan of this one.

Several of these are the problems I had with this episode, yes. Trump dude was definitely Trump, despite the throwaway line that let us know he wasn't. And he didn't even do well at that. I just felt he was really forced.

I liked it because it's Doctor Who, and I'm easily pleased when it comes to that, but I liked it in the way that I liked the "moon is an egg" episode -- mostly despite the obvious problems.
 
Trump dude was definitely Trump, despite the throwaway line that let us know he wasn't. And he didn't even do well at that. I just felt he was really forced.
I was surprised that the episode delved into politics. It was a clumsy attempt at being topical and very much out of place in Doctor Who.
Let's have no more of this nonsense, or the series will become too silly. :)
 
I was surprised that the episode delved into politics. It was a clumsy attempt at being topical and very much out of place in Doctor Who.
Let's have no more of this nonsense, or the series will become too silly. :)
To be fair, it was only a momentary delving. ;)
 
Who is this 'Foster' person that people keep referring to?
I Google searched 'Foster Doctor Who' and all I got was Miss Foster from the Adipose episode...
 
@Narkalui

Never hear the childrens nursery rhyme

Doctor Fostor went Gallifrey
In a TARDIS machine
He got in a mess
His screwdriver couldn't address
And blew the planet to bits
 
Who is this 'Foster' person that people keep referring to?
I Google searched 'Foster Doctor Who' and all I got was Miss Foster from the Adipose episode...

I just thought he accidentally used Foster instead of Whittaker. Misaligned circuits Jodie Foster, Jodie Whittaker.
 
This episode was hit and miss, like a bad episode of Primeval (which I liked). The President and researcher characters weren't convincing at all.

I'm liking the dynamic between the four lead characters though, and I think Jodie's Doctor is finally winning me over.

And yeah, what a humane way to get rid of a load of spiders!

Team Tardis - Lets change thename of the show now. Graham still makes a more convincing Who than Foster IMO. More gravitas, lest exitable, less panic running this way and that. I'm hoping they calm her down a bit.
Was it meant to be Whittaker here too? This Foster business has me very confused. I guess there was a Panic Room in this episode.
 
Beware of spiders?
fiat-124-spider-s-de-3.jpg
 
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Mmm, not convinced yet - and the writing/plotting is downright sloppy.

Have I missed something? Isn't Yaz a police officer?
If so, why the total lack of reaction when faced with the bodyguard actually threatened them all with a gun?
o_O[
 

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