Nightmare in Silver reaction post

[professor_spork]

I remember liking The Doctor’s Wife, but I only ever saw it once, and you know… I can’t remember a thing about it, not really?

I probably should have taken that into account before I watched Nightmare in Silver.

Comments

[aralias]

oh dear. this is... all very true. particularly about the platoon never being applauded by the doctor for being the good guys. instead he mocks them for not being good at fighting :(

i now feel bad for only criticising the episode for generally not making me feel very much and having an ending that felt like a dream sequence that nobody woke up from.

that said - i sort of think it's all right in this particular episode of them to blow up the planet once there's absolutely definitely nobody on it other than cybermen, and at least porridge destroying everything is treated as a terrible burden that he wanted to run away from. but... that's also just another major example of the episode not following through on a weighty theme/any emotional plot line we really could have got something out of. because those hard decisions are regretting them are the doctor's life, even if he wishes it was otherwise. but - none of that. just the doctor talking to himself... for a very long time.

[shinyopals]

I think I agree tbh. This episode was just so... flat.

A lot of here were ideas there that could have worked... like the platoon being punished or the destruction of that galaxy to win the war. But there just wasn't any follow through. And I so wanted to see Clara interacting properly with the kids but she just didn't really.

[pitrah606]

To be honest, I am quite fond of these new Cybermen. I used to roll my eyes at the pathetic "delete" in "Rise of the Cybermen", because they weren't monstrous enough. TNiS has done a good job rewriting them (and I don't give a single fuck with "they are not humans anymore, it will kill them" or the way they were using to convert people).

IDK. I like it.

[platypus]

On OG, Steven Manfred (who is involved with Gaiman's DW stuff somehow) said that the script was overlong and the first FOUR scenes (which were the kids persuading Clara to take them along, and Clara persuading the Doctor, and the kids getting some personality) were dropped. In fact, the kids showing Clara the pictures and demanding to come along was tacked onto Crimson Horror to make up for it. In fact, a lot of stuff that would've helped the episode hang together got cut. :/

[_thirty2flavors]

I think what made me extra irritable about this episode vs something like Crimson Horror is that I think there COULD have been a good story here. There were some good ideas, and Gaiman can write a good story. But they just didn't capitalize on any of the potential, with the lone exception of the chess match, and their failure left behind a really empty story, and worst of all a gapingly empty Clara.

I like Clara a lot. I didn't like this Clara -- she was an empty vessel shoved through plotpoints, with no apparent emotional connect to or with anyone in the story. She doesn't seem very concerned about the Doctor -- she doesn't particularly connect with any of the extra characters, nor express worry when they die. She doesn't worry for the children, and she doesn't even seem to register the fact that these children in her care are in danger because she brought them here. She just floats through the plot, making military decisions with inexplicable ease.