Don Warrington did a good job

For sure - he made the most of that role.

The earpod hack could be more subtle.

But you’ve gotta have the handles!

Torchwood is repeatedly mentioned in this episode, which doesn’t make sense. Torchwood only came about because the doctor existed in the main universe.

That’s…a very interesting point that I hadn’t considered.

Yeah, I guess my issue with Lumic is that I feel like he should either be more charismatic, or far less - a real Zuckerberg type. As it is, he strikes me as something in between.

I came in to this one expecting to hate on it a little bit, but it’s not really bad - it’s just doing too much.

This two-parter is basically all table-setting for the finale, and this one in particular is stuck (re-)introducing the Cybermen and establishing this parallel universe, which could (or should) each be a separate story on their own. It’s a lot of heavy lifting, all in service of an episode we won’t see for another month.

But there’s a lot to like! The Doctor’s dismissiveness toward Mickey is awful, but I find it funny every single time. The aspects of the story that are a pseudo-sequel to “Father’s Day” work very well - it’s always fun to see Pete again, and this version of him really does seem the-same-but-different - ditto for Jackie. Noel Clarke - scandal noted - also does a good job when it comes to Mickey’s sudden backstory.

That said, Clarke is really not good as Ricky - I don’t know if he was directed to play the character the way that he did, but it was a bad choice. And John Lumic is a bland and forgettable villain. Since the Cybermen are rather bland by their nature, you’d hope that their creator would have personality and charisma to spare, but it’s just not the case here.

I’m not a big fan of Cybermen stories in general - a bunch of emotionless killing machines aren’t the most compelling, though from what I can remember, the next episode wrings some good drama out of the body horror of it all. Like the Borg, I find them to be a bit of a dead end, made interesting only by what’s going on around them. In this case, the themes of the people of Pete’s World giving themselves over to an omnipresent app and wearable technology is better now than it was 20 years ago.

Yeah, I think I remember thinking the same thing.

I suppose that it would be sensible to keep someone with the shuttle Just In Case, though, and the Doc would certainly be more welcome on Kasq.

A dreamer. I like it.

“The Enterprise crew encounters a phenomenon that forces them to face their innermost fears” is very well-trodden ground for this series, but this is probably one of the best examples. It coasts on a very well-executed horror story, and I thought it did a very good job in not tipping its hand as to which characters were real, and which were hallucinations.

Unfortunately, I don’t think the stories of our two main characters were advanced much, if it all. La’An is still afraid there’s a monster within her, and Spock still has issues with his duality, though this episode could mark the shift of his return to a more “Vulcan” way of being.

I thought the episode handled Kirk really well, though. From the moment they acknowledged that David was going to play a role in the series going forward, I had pretty high hopes - there are a lot of blanks to be filled in, since he was retconned into Kirk’s backstory in 1982. Kirk’s fears of being an absentee father, and of dying in some forgotten corner of space, feel very real, and I think they would feel real even if you didn’t know how it’s all going to turn out for him.

I thought the scene between Kirk and Uhura at the end was very…interesting. Not sure what to say about it, but it was interesting.

I saw it. It was enjoyable!

“High art”? Probably not. But it’s unique, which is a rarity these days.

Edit: And yeah, Ejiofor is always worth watching. He’s always been my go-to dream Trek casting, and now that it’s happened in SFA, I don’t quite know what to do with myself.

The only solution, of course, is more Ejiofor.

I haven’t seen any reporting on it in quite a while, but full coast-to-coast electrification is a pretty challenging issue, and doing it piecemeal would also be complicated, since you’d likely have to switch locomotives frequently (though I think hybrid diesel-overhead wire locomotives do exist).

And then there’s the question of interoperability with the US rail network, which will likely always be important.

Honestly, I think parties that support it need to accept that it’s not a top-of-mind issue for most voters, and focus their efforts on other priorities, while still keeping it in their platform.

I think this could work if a critical mass of people showed up and spoiled their ballots, or voted for the Rhinoceros Party or whatever.

But just staying home won’t do it.

Tellar is an overseas territory - doesn’t count.

I finally cut the cord this year and haven’t been able to see many games, but…it’s shaky. Maybe shakier than their record suggests, even.

It’s petty technically-minded and not very user-friendly in my opinion, but it’s a way to give them a piece of our mind.

Surely you mean Qurelane… ̄_(ツ)_/ ̄

Start looking around for a Dukat drawer. She looks lonely.

While the Tardis is “locked in events”, once the link is fully broken, I think at that point they could easily have pre-programmed the Tardis to go back in time and pick him back up,

This was definitely one of the lazier “we can’t use the TARDIS because…” efforts.

“Uh, we’re part of it now!”

Coming 2023

The first truly great episode of series 2, and unsurprisingly it’s a Steven Moffat outing.

There’s a lot of positive stuff to say here - the story structure is twisty without being convoluted, Sophia Myles is pitch-perfect as Reinette, and heck, even Ben Turner’s King Louis is pretty good. And of course, the clockwork men that harvest human organs are that combination of cool-yet-terrifying-in-a-childish-sort-of-way that Moffat excels at.

Tennant is at his swashbuckling best - I’ve said it before, but I really enjoy him as the romantic hero. And Rose apparently got all jealousy out of her system last episode, so there’s none of that hanging over our heads this time around.

Speaking of Rose, I think they hit a good balance of enthusiasm for the adventure early on in the episode, constrasted with Mickey’s nerves. It reinforces my notion that “Tooth and Claw” should have come later in the season, to show an increasing disregard for the seriousness of their situations. As it is, I think that one’s still a bit of an outlier.

It’s a little odd that Mickey says he got a spaceship on his “first go,” but also references a previous adventure with Cleopatra. Maybe this is his “first go” to the future, rather than the past? I should really check to see if he and Rose changed clothes between episodes, but…nah.

They didn’t bother shoehorning a “Torchwood” reference into this one, which is probably for the best.

As far as actual news goes, this SDCC was pretty thin, to say the least.

No one can say the franchise is dead!