The Friendly Dalek

If those really are genuine then that is pretty cool.

As said earlier in this thread, Showmasters are planning on providing an update in early June.

I have indeed been on Twitter for quite a while, but I made a new account a few months ago, so you may have followed my original one and not the one I use now. I'll see if I can find you then. I am certainly curious as to what this is about.

Dawn Of The Dead is great. I probably won't bother with Rise Of An Empire, because I know it isn't going to live up to this one. That's cool that you were able to be an extra in Justice League. I've often thought about the idea of being an extra for something, just so I can say I've been in a film, but I can't find details on how to become an extra without paying for memberships and things to a site listing roles. I don't know anything about how people learn where a film is scheduled to shoot so they can turn up at the set and try that way. I've been looking forward to Army Of The Dead for a while, so hopefully Snyder delivers with that one.

300- This is one of those films I've been meaning to watch for a while but just never got around to. I wish I'd seen it sooner. The biggest draw to this movie is the action scenes, and wow, Zack Snyder killed it with this one. I'm a Snyder fan, even enjoying his DC efforts. The editing and cinematography in this film is stunning. The excellent utilisation of chroma key superimposition gives this film such a unique visual quality. There are many shots in here which are going to be ingrained in my mind for a long time. Gerard Butler is brilliant as Leonidas. The rest of the cast are good, with Michael Fassbender and Lena Headey standing out. Although the film is visually beautiful, it suffers in the writing department. Everything around the Battle of Thermopylae is excellent, but the scenes at Sparta completely tank the pacing. Although the acting makes up fir it, the vast majority of the characters have very little depth to them, mainly serving as nameless cannon fodder during the action scenes. Despite this, I still had a great time watching the film, because once it retunes to the battles, it improves tenfold. The over-use of slow motion might be an issue for some, but I think it worked as it was always used to emphasise serious moments or actions. Xerxes' lack of development may be an issue for some, falling under the category of generic villains. I think it isn't an issue for this film, as the focus is on the Spartan's themselves and how they are willing to fight until the last man for what they believe in. Xerxes serves as the catalyst for their development, so I'll allow the film a pass for this one as he serves his role in the narrative well enough. Overall- 8/10. If you like highly stylised action epics, this is the film for you. It was a blast to watch, Zack Synder directed this one to the max. It is a visual feast, even if the dialogue doesn't always hold up. The cinematography on display makes up for it though for me.

I'm never going to do this again. Thank you for the kind words, and it's great to hear your story about meeting Chibnall. Although I'm not a fan of the era myself, I know a lot of people who enjoy the Chibnall episodes, and I'm happy for the people who are enjoying it. I'm sure Chibnall is a lovely person, it's just a shame I'm not a fan of his writing. I do hope his 5 year plan that he refers to has a satisfying conclusion which can hopefully reunite the divided fandom. It was definitely nice to have a series where the big reveals weren't spoiled months beforehand. Could you imagine how exciting series 10 would have been, had we not known about the return of Missy, John Simm and the Mondasian Cybermen? I love series 10 anyway but those would have been huge revels if the BBC didn't spoil it in trailers. I'm definitely happy that the spoilers are being kept well under wraps in this era.

Just remembered I never gave a score for series 12 as a whole. Overall rating for series 12- 4/10. The leads are more consistent in terms of acting, the writing tends to be stronger, and the reintroduction of a story arc made a world of difference in terms of retaining interest. Sacha Dhawan's Master ended up being my favourite thing to come out of this series. The episodes were of a higher quality than those in series 11, with stories such as Fugitive, Can You Hear Me and Haunting making up for the weaker stories. If the Timeless Child arc had a more satisfying conclusion I would rate it higher, but that story drags it down so much now I know what those great episodes are leading up to.

After nearly two years, the marathon is finally complete. I did really badly with this. It shouldn't have taken me this long, but at last I've made it to the end. It's a shame it had to end on such a dour note though. Now my written thoughts on every single televised episode are archived in this forum for all to see. Thank you to everyone who read this thread, and thank you to those who also contributed. Your input made this much more fun to do.

The Timeless Children- And here we are. The end of the marathon. And what a way to end it. I'll make this clear right away. I do not like this episode. At all. Let's start where we always start- the acting. It's fine. Only one person gives a standout performance, and that is Sacha Dhawan. He absolutely saves this episode, he is the only part of it that is great. The episode looks good, I'll give it that. That's about as far as my positives go. The b-plot with the companions and the Cybermen is just as dull as it was in the last episode, I didn't care about it at all. The main plot was equally as uninteresting. Half of the episode is just The Master dumping exposition on us. The Cyber-Time Lords are some of the stupidest things I have ever seen in this show, and this is a show with a lot of dumb things in it. My favourite part of Ascension was the Ireland sub plot with Brendan. It's a shame that this was the story it was building up to. The pacing is dreadful, and the supporting characters get next to no development whatsoever. The ending of the episode is far too easy, they basically just bomb Gallifrey and that's it. Those are just scratching the surface of the problems with this episode. It disregards set ups from previous episodes, and raises far more questions than it answers. Why does the portal to Gallifrey exist? How does a death particle come to exist? Are there more of them, and how did Ashad get one? Speaking of Ashad, his death was laughable. Imagine setting up a character like that as a huge threat and then giving him an abysmally weak death. Why does the Division exist? I guess Chibnall just forgot about the Celestial Intervention Agency, which serves an almost identical purpose. I don't recall Shobogans ever being the first indigenous people of Gallifrey, rather than being just a splinter group of Gallifreyans who chose to live outside of the Citadel. Remember when Rassilon was the one hailed as the first Time Lord and founder of Time Lord society, along with other figures like Omega? Well, Tecteun is more important to Gallifrey's founding now than they are. Are the Pythia still relevant in Gallifrey's history? Their rule doesn't get any mention. Remember how saving Gallifrey was a key part of the 50th anniversary special? A momentous moment in Doctor Who history? Well we can disregard the success of that because Gallifrey has already been destroyed again. Note how I haven't even got to The Doctor yet. This episode raises so many questions about what can and can no longer be considered canon in terms of the history of Gallifrey and the Time Lords. Not even The Doctor was safe from this. I hate the Timeless Child revelation. It fundamentally changes one of the core things that makes the character special- the fact that they aren't. The Doctor is special because they choose to help where they can, they're special because they're good, and that is a choice The Doctor makes. This reveal disregards that. Now The Doctor is essentially a god-like figure, who is at least partially responsible for the creation of Time Lord Society. How can there ever be stakes, since The Doctor now has a seemingly unlimited pool of regenerations? There's no clear rules now, because we no longer know what The Doctor is. What species are they? Where did they come from? I don't know, and this episode doesn't shed any light on it. This raises even more plot holes. Why did Ruth have a police box TARDIS if she is pre-Hartnell? Why does she call herself The Doctor? Is this episode seriously trying to tell me that the pre-Hartnell Doctors chose that name, and then after their mind wipe, the Hartnell Doctor managed to chose the exact same name his previous lives did? It also disrespects the legacy of the Hartnell Doctor, as he clearly isn't the first any more in any sense. He wasn't the first to take up the name Doctor. He'd already been doing it for years. Other Time Lords clearly knew of the pre-Hartnell Doctors, such as the one we see in Fugitive, so was there just a mass conspiracy on Gallifrey to make sure no one allowed the Doctor to know of their previous lives? Who are the Doctor's parents that we saw in previous episodes? Sorry for the rant, but I have to make my feelings on this episode known. It is a boring mess to watch, and the reveals absolutely crush what I love about this show. Why did I bother trying to read about the expansive history of Gallifrey and the Time Lords now that all of it is worthless? This is the problem with canon. In my eyes, a show that goes on for this long is bound to contradict itself at some point. However, there are core things that should never be tampered with. Other better writers managed to create an entire history for the Time Lords in books and other mediums, and most of it makes a cohesive whole. Now, the actions of one makes it all pointless to try and learn because very little of it matters anymore. I now understand how Star Wars fans felt when Disney disregarded all of the expanded universe as non canon. Why bother trying to follow a show for years, and try to learn as much about it's universe as you can, when the show itself is just going to pull the rug out from under you and make all that time you invested pointless? Overall- 1/10. This episode gets worse and worse the more I think about it. I never want to watch it again, and honestly it has killed my anticipation for series 13.

Ascension Of The Cybermen- And so it begins, the last official (two part) story of the marathon. Sadly, it doesn't come close to the quality of the previous episode. The story gets off to a weak start. It lost all tension when the ridiculous flying Cyber-heads attack the humans. Remember how I said that Ashad was interesting because they did something unique with him? Well, the rest of the Cybermen don't get such treatment. Instead they are basically mindless drones which only exist to serve Ashad. If the human characters around the Cybermen were interesting, I might have forgiven it, however, in the case of this story we don't get interesting characters. None of them stand out as memorable. Some of them were actually rather annoying. When they died, I felt nothing. Considering these are supposed to be the last humans in the universe, I should definitely care more about them than I do. The episode as a whole was dull, the action scenes were never impactful and the pacing was terrible. Surprisingly, I was more interested in the Ireland story than I was in the future-set story. When a side plot is more interesting than the main narrative, you know something's wrong. These characters were more likeable than the ones who were supposed to carry the main emotional weight of the episode. I was waiting for the episode to cut back to these scenes, because I was enjoying them so much more than the main story. The acting is a mixed bag. The leads are good, and Patrick O'Kane steals the show once again. Beyond them, none of the supporting cast give interesting performances. I still couldn't name half of them because they just aren't well written or acted. The finale scenes of this episode are good, seeing the Cybermen reawaken was nice and the cliffhanger is great. Overall- 3/10. The Ireland sub plot saves an otherwise dull Cyberman story which brings nothing new to the table, and is filled with boring supporting characters. The episode as a whole looks great, but that can only carry an episode so far. The last few scenes are good, but that doesn't make up for the weak 40 minutes that precede them.

The Haunting Of Villa Diodati- This is my favourite episode of the Chibnall era so far. The acting is excellent across the board. Jodie finally gets some great stuff to work with, and in my eyes she proves she could be a good Doctor if the writing was always this good. The pacing is excellent, the set design is fantastic, and the editing is good. Maxine Alderton did a brilliant job with the script. On a technical level, I have no issues with this one. This episode's greatest strength is Ashad, played fantastically by Patrick O'Kane. This is the most chilling a Cyberman has been since the original Mondasian Cybermen in my opinion. I was captivated by him every second he was on screen. The most interesting Cyberman in recent years was one which still had emotion, which is somewhat ironic. This episode introduces something completely new for the Cybermen, and that's probably why it is so much more effective than the boring robots we've had over their last few appearances. The last 15 minutes of this episode are some of the best Doctor Who content that this era has given us. I love seeing a Doctor who is scared and aggressive, unsure of what to do. It's a great contrast to 13's usually hugely optimistic self. I also love to see The Doctor lose, and this episode provides an interesting moral dilemma for The Doctor- let one person die or save them and risk millions more lives. It brings depth which is missing from a lot of episodes in this series. Overall- 10/10. This is something I wasn't expecting from Chibnall's era. My first 10 rating. I do think this episode deserves it though. Every aspect works fantastically, it was one of the few I was looking forward to rewatching and it was even better this time around. The characterisation of Byron lets it down ever so slightly, but not enough to lose it a point.

We're so close to finishing this now. Only three more episodes to go. As this is effectively a three-parter I'll probably watch it all today, so it's gonna be a long review post as I'll most likely be doing all three in one.

Can You Hear Me?- After the hideously poor Praxeus, my expectations for this one were low. I am happy to report that this is one of my favourite episodes of the Chibnall era. The first third of this episode isn't the best. The Aleppo sequences are dull, and the pacing as a whole is slow. Zellin's first appearances aren't as intimidating as they should be (the ear thing immediately diminished any initial credibility he had in my eyes). Once the story gets to the spaceship, that's where it improves considerably. The prison adds some nice mystery, and I liked seeing the Doctor make a mistake in unlocking the prison, something 13 rarely does. This is how a classic villain should be reintroduced. I loved the fact that this episode brought back The Eternals, a race I've always thought have been poorly utilised in the show itself. They're great when they do show up, but they've had far too few appearances. The expanded universe does a lot with the Eternals, but it's nice to see more exploration of in the television episodes. Ian Gelder and Aruhan Galieva are great as the villains. I love when the show tries to be unique, and that animated sequence was a great example of that. It's something the show hasn't done before, and delivered exposition in an engaging way, something a lot of Chibnall era episodes fail to do. The Doctor defeats the Eternals a bit too easily for my liking, but it's not too much of an issue. The acting is surprisingly excellent all around. All of the leads give good performances, and the supporting cast are effectively utilised. The writing is far superior to most episodes of this era, it made a nice change to have a script which wasn't annoyingly weak or pandering. That brings me onto the theme of the week- mental health. This episode treats it's messages properly. This is handled with far more respect and subtlety than the environmental messages given in Praxeus etc. Yaz finally gets an effective story, and I loved it. As someone who has struggled with mental health issues myself in the past, this episode definitely spoke to me. The only issue I have is the scene in which The Doctor interacts with Graham. Cancer is not a joke, but the way the Doctor shrugs off Graham's concerns seems like it was played as a comedic moment to me. It was way off character in my eyes. It started as a heartfelt moment, with Graham admitting his fears and looking for support. The Doctor always tries to help, even if it doesn't work exactly as they intended. I don't see any other incarnation reacting like this, and completely disregarding it, thus ruining the scene and any emotion it was evoking. The contrast between the excellent Yaz arc and this scene is quite sad to see. If it wasn't for this one scene, this portion of the episode would be flawless. Overall- 8/10. This is a flawed episode. The pacing is off at times, and the villains are defeated too easily. However, for me, the pros far outweigh the cons with this episode. The script is good, the acting is great and the Eternals are effectively utilised. The theme of mental health is explored with care (for the most part), and that's something Doctor Who has been missing for a while. The stories have always had messages like these, the difference comes from how effectively they were crafted into the story at hand. This episodes succeeds in my eyes where many other Chibnall era episodes fail. This was my first tie watching this episode since it aired, and I'm happy that it still works for me as well as it did on that first watch.

Praxeus- A massive step down in quality from Fugitive. I was looking forward to this one, as it was written by Pete McTighe, who wrote my favourite episode of series 11. Sadly this episode doesn't come close to Kerblam. The biggest mistake this episode makes is including far too many characters. As a result, I didn't relly care about any of them, as none of them had much to them in terms of personality. The acting was fine but the writing just wasn't good enough. By rapidly jumping between locations and characters, there wasn't enough time to become attached to any of them. The TARDIS crew do very little as well, and Jodie once again fails to deliver a good performance. The pacing of this episode was atrocious. I remember being bored when it aired, and it was even worse this time around. The central mystery wasn't intriguing enough, so I wasn't interested in what was happening. The twist that the Suki character is an alien who wants to find an antidote for herself could have worked had I actually cared about the character before the reveal. The best thing about this episode is the visuals. It looks fantastic, and Praxeus itself is well realised. That's about as far as my praise will go for this episode. I was enjoying the fact that we had two episodes in a row with no forced political messaging, but this episode throws us straight back into the typical Chibnall-era politics with the environmental themes. The fact that this was explored just a few episodes earlier may also explain why this falls flat. Much like in Orphan 55, The Doctor overly explains absolutely everything, no subtlety to it whatsoever. Chibnall has a co-writing credit on this episode, and I have no doubts that scenes like this one were what he contributed to it. I was also annoyed about how The Doctor was able to save Jake. He seemed like he was going to make a noble sacrifice, a note-worthy end to a character who I admittedly wasn't impressed with, but this could have added something to him. Instead, The Doctor saves him at literally the last second. Also, if The Doctor is now able to save people in such a fashion, why couldn't he do it for Adric? The Doctor also seems very un-fazed by the massive reveals of the last episode. She acts like nothing happened for most of this episode, surely those revelations would have done something to her attitude? Overall- 2/10. Not quite as bad as Orphan 55, but it comes dangerously close.

Happy birthday @Raylenth