This show is so tense and I'm loving it. I've so many questions! Not much to say other than I'm waiting for answers.

I was aware of Johan being a serial killer and now we've got here I'm officially spoiler-free for the rest of the show! Good feeling, but like Mark I was expecting it'd take longer to get here. This was an unexpectedly brutal episode and exceedingly well realized. Junker's voice actor did outstanding work and so did everybody involved with sound in this show. My heart broke for poor Doctor Tenma in that last scene.

I find I don't have much to say while I wait for the plot to kick off. I certainly wasn't expecting the time skip and am excited for what it may bring about. I have to point out that Inspector Lunge's method of recall is the most anime thing ever and the first really anime thing about the show so far.

I am so excited for this! I've been on a huge anime kick lately and Monster was in my list to watch and also this is the first Mark Watches series I'm coming to without already having watched it. I did start this show once years ago ago but I think I only watched the first episode and that manifested only in a slight sense of deja vu throughout the thing. I also think I remember the show's premise, but even that's not for certain.

Overall impression was that this was creepy. There's a claustrophobic feel to the staging and Tenma just looks so tired throughout. Everything seems to be going right in his life till the reveal of the director's decision, but Tenma doesn't seem to be enjoying any of it. Maybe it's just the ugly but interesting character designs. Tenma seems to be a go with the flow type of guy, but when push comes to shove he makes what he thinks is the right decision. He doesn't seem to have any of the arrogance I associate with surgeons. There's not much to the story yet and I'm very interested to see where it goes.

I decided early on not to post much about this series because I disliked it so very much and didn't want to antagonize the vast majority here who like it a lot. To me Kerblam is a microcosm of this series, in which real world problems are gestured at but nothing is really said about them other than that they exist and we should forbear and the Doctor ends up seeming either passive or complicit. Jodie Whitaker is fine and I like her, but it's profoundly infuriating that the first woman to ever have the role is saddled with the most ineffectual Doctor since Peter Davison.

On Kerblam the system is fine, middle-management are to be trusted and janitors were the real villain all along, meanwhile workers are rewarded with two weeks paid leave for a whole month without work and the Doctor thinks that's great. To add insult to injury, this is the most fun and energetic episode we get. It starts looking like criticism of Amazon's heinous practices and ends up as a lesson in quietism, which is how I feel about the other episodes. Racism exists and that's bad but it's okay cause it's slowly getting better. Donald Trump shoots a spider after poisoning a city and saunters off to get elected while the Doctor looks angry and does nothing. Didn't empire suck? Glad that's all over and done with. But hey, look, we've a diverse cast!

I'm glad lots of people get good takeaways from this series and enjoy it, but to me it just makes me angry and frustrated at all the missed opportunities.

This is exactly how I felt about the episode when it aired.

Well,I don't feel too smart right now. I wish I'd chosen another example. The point still stands, though, as one quote somewhere is not indicative of general tone.

I kinda wish last episode were Capaldi's last. This one isn't bad, by a long shot, but it seems more reflective of the creative exhaustion I see this series than the glory which was the Capaldi era as a whole. The plot is barely there and there's a mix of very effective scenes and acting with ill-thought out jokes and story beats which really prevent me from truly enjoying this one as much as I want to.

Was anyone really pining for the return of Rusty the Dalek or anxious for Nardole to participate in a cathartic last hug? Capaldi`s last words are interrupted by that silly thing about children and the Doctor's oh so secret real name which infuriate me and the plot is barely even there. I'm not opposed to a suicidal Doctor refusing to regenerate, but like much else this series it needed better setting up. Then there's the first Doctor...

I've watched (and loved) oldWho. I don't remember William Hartnell's Doctor threatening to spank anyone's bottom or cracking sexist jokes left right and center. He was created by Verity Lambert after all, a pioneering woman in British television. Yes, the old show was problematic as old media often is and there were sexist (and racist) elements there from the beginning, but it still rubs me the wrong way to see the past ridiculed so the present can feel oh so smug and progressive about itself. Serious examination of the show's past and its problems is welcome, but this ain't it.

But this makes me sound harsher towards the episode than I really feel. Some of the comedy is amusing, I appreciate the last little nod to the Brig and it's lovely to see Clara and Bill again. That scene with with Bill and the first Doctor is a little gem and it does make me smile fondly and I'm glad the Doctor get's to remember Clara at the end. Jodie's Doctor's reveal was a shot in the arm of youth and vitality. Most of all, I'm glad I got to spend a little more time with Peter Capaldi's Doctor.

Jon Pertwee was my favorite for a very long time but then the Twelfth Doctor came along... Maybe I've a thing for white-haired British men? Peter Capaldi is my Doctor. I've liked all portrayals of the character I've seen and could defend the merits of all previous regenerations, but Peter Capaldi is the person that came to embody the character to the fullest for me. I love the actor and his portrayal and I love how the character was written. I love how raw he was emotionally and all his companions and I love his stories so much. Nobody could sell a monologue like Capaldi could and no Doctor got better monologues to say, nor did better with the times when there was nothing to be said. I know almost nothing about Moffat the man and for a long time I thought of him as the guy that wrote some great episodes but ruined my favorite show for me. There were annoying things to his version of Doctor Who to the end, but I'll always be grateful to him for what he did for me in the back half of his time as a show-runner.

Doctor, I let you go... reluctantly.

Thanks

I just read it as Bill wanting reassurance that she really is being seen for who she is and not something else.