This isn’t a novel, or a 14-hour long movie. It’s a tv show, and if the episodes aren’t good on their own merits, that’s the mark of a bad serialized story.

It was unnecessarily dull, that’s for sure. I....have no clue what the endgame will be, but I’m sure curious to find out.

This episode contained a lot of what I haven’t liked about Seasons 3 and 4. It’s just a place-holder. Pure filler. Which I don’t like using because it’s often not used properly. But this fits the bill. It’s pure wheel-spinning. I also found the Eleanor/Chidi stuff pretty weak. Jason was somehow the standout character…

I’ll get it when Masters of the Air comes out.

Yes, and their first cut of “Winter is Coming” had to be shelved and completely re-made because they made mistakes worthy of a freshman taking Screenwriting 101. In their own words. Probably should have sent up red flags to George right there that maybe these two were not the best choice with whom to entrust your…

Yup. Literally no one is sad about this. If David Beinoff and D.B. Weiss never wrote anything else again, I’d be fine with it. Maybe they can do adaptations that are actually finished. But their own stuff? No. 

Yeah, I guess they felt they ran out of stories to tell. So they blew it up.....and told the same story again, but worse. I guess we can just pretend it ended with Season 2. Curious to see if it can rekindle the magic one final time for Season 7.

If we’re being honest......the show should have ended with Season 3. Obviously re-written to actually be good. 

Even so, they can write with subtlety. Nikolai Chernyshevsky slipped his political manifesto disguised as literature passed Tsarist censors. Your point about the BBC might be accurate, don’t get me wrong (I’m not an expert), but I’m not letting the writers off the hook.

The series was renewed through Series 15 some time before that. So I thought. If they really only had a year, then yes, that’s rough for British television. But I don’t think that was the case. He had a five year plan.

This was a clunkily written story on a basic level. I don’t think elongating it would have helped much. 

Pretty much every classic Doctor Who story dragged to some extent.

Yes-4 main characters creates way too many permutations of characters. The Doctor and Ryan, The Doctor and Graham, The Doctor and Yaz, Ryan and Graham, Ryan and Yaz, and Graham and Yaz. They have pretty much underserved all of them. Whereas with Amy and Rory it was just 11's relationship with each and their marriage.

So much of this season and the last are just the characters running around, doing stuff, and spouting nonsense exposition. It’s nuts. 

It shouldn’t really be that hard to deliver an effective warning about climate change. And yet, this episode made it look very hard indeed.

I don’t know if we can 100% blame the BBC for the way in which the Chibnall era handles politics. 

May be a personal preference on my part, but I do think messages like that are more effective when they’re organically integrated into the story. Doctor Who is no stranger to difficult issues, but it isn’t usually this jarring.

Nothing wrong with a basic story setup, as long as it’s executed really well. Under the Lake and Before the Flood were base-under-siege episodes, but they also played around with time and were very slick and polished. 

I could overlook the sappiness in the show at first because of its relentless momentum. This season has slowed things down a lot, so I notice it more now. This episode was just really funny all the way through, and I really liked that.

I haven’t seen it yet, but I know many people hate the ending. Why are people opposed to the ending, I guess I’ll find out.