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I.... didn't hate that as much as most people seem to. I think the twist ending explained a lot of the plot holes, and it's interesting to see the Doctor lose -- not just lose, but be successfully used by the villain. I've heard a rumour there'll be a follow-up story eventually, which is ok, as this seems like a situation that's bound to come back to bite hard.
Although the "found-footage" style sort of required it, I wasn't wild about the low lighting on the station (which in retrospect was probably part of the villain's plan -- he might be a master manipulator, but he has the aesthetic sense of a direct-to-video producer). I missed a key plot point because I'd lost track of who'd been killed by the Sandmen.
Certainly Andrew and I kept watching through the boring bits mainly for the sake of Bethany Black as 474; still torn between "hey, cool, first transgender actress on Dr. Who" and "um, but was it really a good plan to cast her as an androgynous clone who gets repeatedly referred to as 'it?'" Just noticed in a still that the ID panel gives 474's age as five years; Grunts must be engineered to reach adult size early, which means their limited speech isn't just due to being clone soldiers -- they're child soldiers.
What held my attention more than the plot was the implied world-building: Indo-Japan seemed like an interesting, if flawed society -- and it was believably if depressingly human that the one person who still protested against the Morpheus pods evidently had no qualms about the fact his country used genetically-engineered clone soldiers. Then again, like The Satan Pit, this was a story where the Doctor is too busy with the problem at hand to call out the future human society for practicing slavery. Perhaps like the Ood, the Grunts will have their day in another story.
Although the "found-footage" style sort of required it, I wasn't wild about the low lighting on the station (which in retrospect was probably part of the villain's plan -- he might be a master manipulator, but he has the aesthetic sense of a direct-to-video producer). I missed a key plot point because I'd lost track of who'd been killed by the Sandmen.
Certainly Andrew and I kept watching through the boring bits mainly for the sake of Bethany Black as 474; still torn between "hey, cool, first transgender actress on Dr. Who" and "um, but was it really a good plan to cast her as an androgynous clone who gets repeatedly referred to as 'it?'" Just noticed in a still that the ID panel gives 474's age as five years; Grunts must be engineered to reach adult size early, which means their limited speech isn't just due to being clone soldiers -- they're child soldiers.
What held my attention more than the plot was the implied world-building: Indo-Japan seemed like an interesting, if flawed society -- and it was believably if depressingly human that the one person who still protested against the Morpheus pods evidently had no qualms about the fact his country used genetically-engineered clone soldiers. Then again, like The Satan Pit, this was a story where the Doctor is too busy with the problem at hand to call out the future human society for practicing slavery. Perhaps like the Ood, the Grunts will have their day in another story.
