Doctor Who (38) 12:08 - The Haunting of Villa Diodati

[nixie]

We meet the lone Cyberman and having been warned not too, The Doctor gives him what he wants.

We also now know the real inspiration behind Mary Shelly's Frankenstein.

I thought this weeks episode was fun, not brilliant but still enjoyable.

Least she didn't beat the Cyberman as easy as the gods and we have a two parter.

 

[Mister_Oy]

Best episode for a long time.

Real sense of suspense in the first 30min.

Ryan was rubbish - which is the norm.

 

[REBerg]

I wondered, for a moment, if the Lone Cyberman might somehow turn out to be Bill Potts.

 

[Matteo]

Better than the typical episode in this run - no "Hey kids, what did we learn today?" which was a good thing.

Nice build up to the cyberman reveal.

Slightly unfortunate timing - would have made a good Halloween showing - but that the fault of the scheduling, not the writers.

However, I'm a bit bemused as to why the Doctor gave the cyberman what he wanted - despite being warned.

And I genuinely thought that Ryan would say "yes; go ahead" after the Doctor essentially asked him if he wanted to sacrifice himself - but the writers weren't brave enough for that it seems.

 

[Vince W]

That was a really good episode up until Mrs. Doctor's speech. We almost made it through the whole episode without a lecture but Chibbers just can't help himself it seems. Still, there was some good tension and a couple of make you jump moments. A vast improvement over the rest of the series so far.

This Doctor's modus operandi seems to be to cock things up followed by a quick hatchet plan that miraculously solves her problem. I guess the rest of the series will revolve around preventing the Lone Cyberman from rebuilding the Cyberman army.

 

[MemoryTale]

This episode felt like two episodes stitched together, which is ironic considering Mary Shelly was our guest historical figure for the week. I really enjoyed the spooky ghost story, and I really enjoyed the battle of wits with the Lone Cyberman, but I felt the two stories meshed together didn't really work that well. The haunting was basically forgotten when the Cyberman turned up, and the story of the skeleton hand and the Creepy Twins was never resolved.

Also wasn't a fan of how Byron was portrayed. He seemed neither bad, mad, nor dangerous to know.

However, I'm a bit bemused as to why the Doctor gave the cyberman what he wanted - despite being warned.

I think it was because she'd rather let the Cybermen get established again than sacrificing someone historically important like Percy Shelly. The question is would she have saved Billy Nobody in exchange for stopping the Cybermen once and for all?

 

[Caledfwlch]

I get a little fed up of the constant sacrificing for plot reasons of why the Cybermen had to cut their feelings out.

If this Cyberman still had its feelings why was it not screaming in agony...

 

[AlexH]

Doctor Who is going to run out of famous historical figures to use at this rate. Saying that, it was a good episode, and I wish the previous episodes had been better so I hadn't watched it on a tiny screen (my phone).