The retcon of Belinda's history also bothered me. It kind of gave me those Moffat-era vibes, where women could go on fun, exciting adventures and all of that but eventually they'd settle down in the wife and/or mother role that represents the person they're really supposed to be. Boo. I didn't think RTD2 would echo Moffat like that and I'm as much disappointed that Ncuti Gatwa only had two seasons as that Varada Sethu is gone after just one.

This bugged me as well. I was very surprised in the last ep and the beginning of this one to see just how protective and loving Doctor and Belinda were being to poppy. But then by the end, only Belinda is the one that seems to care deeply for the child. The doctor is given a chance to make a farewell, but then he just leaves with (as I understood it) the implication that he is never going to come back and that he's been replaced by a human dad. It just confuses me why any of that needed to happen.

I enjoyed this, but I'm not really sure what to make of it yet, I guess I'll have to wait for the conclusion next episode.

Conrad's vision of an ideal world is deranged, of course. Absolute centre of the universe misogynist, ableist, and dictator (though I guess not overtly racist, so I guess it could have been worse?). Not sure why he wished for giant skeleton monsters, maybe he just thinks they look cool.

Looking for cracks, not hiding your doubts, and questioning the world around you is a good message to take away. Though this goes both ways - you can point out the injustice in the world, but unless you have a strong positive framework around which to have a good faith discussion, those who believe the opposite can do the exact same thing. A Conrad type can and will speak up about how it's weird that women have a voice and independence of their own, and they'll see that as an aberration. The metaphor of mugs slipping through a table makes no sense to me, but I understood it from context.

Lots of cameos popped up here, I hope they end up doing something useful and weren't just there for fanservice.

The Rani did go a bit villainsplainy towards the end, but the writers did catch that covering with the need to kickstart the doctor's memory, so well done there.

Looking forward to next week.

I really enjoyed that. Going into it blind, it was very fun to watch. Not quite as good as Midnight, but then sequels rarely are. But I think it was a good choice to revisit it - if the humans have vanished, then the doctor wouldn't have been able to go to midnight and play a part in defeating the monster first time around, so it would still be there. The final ending scene was a bit cliched though, the episode would have been better to just end with the Tardis dematerialising.

The inclusion of a deaf character was done well, and the use of live subtitlers is a really great "future gadget" to invent and then explore in a sci-fi context, from how it can offer help, and how it can be used to exclude people easily.

The idea that civil servants that interact with the public must know a sign language makes sense to me - it might indicate that something about the Lombardy population has a high population of deaf people. Maybe a side effect of the war. That would also explain why they were all equipped with subtitlers available as a backup for everyone else. SLs are not universal though, so I guess the translation matrix can help "translate" gestures as appropriate to the local context just as it does text and speech (and BSL to us watching). A side effect of this is it would have been illegible to any American signers watching.

Exploring the wider plot about how humanity is gone makes me think we're facing a planet out of time situation, as we saw in season 4 (another callback?). Though if the lombardy are that similar to humans, they must be related in some way. I guess whatever that link is would have to come pre-2025, because we're not out in space yet, and we won't have any time to do so afterwards.

I really enjoyed this episode, this season is going very well.

The time loop has left me confused. I'm not entirely sure what happened there. I guess this is one of those paradoxy things that doesn't have a beginning, but that whole plot point was quite unsatisfying.

Poking fun at those fake "buy a plot of land on the moon", "name a star after you" deeds is great. I never understood them.

AI/AL generator just seemed a wee bit too on the nose for "things in the zeitgeist right now", but the reveal did get a chuckle out of me. Definite cyberman vibes here, and at one point he/it used the word "conversion", I wonder if some draft had cybermen in it or if that's just doctor who script language leaking through. I like the design of the armed robots: they look a bit childish and gamey like giant toys, but it fits thematically if ultimately they were designed by an incel manboy.

Interesting idea behind the brain-computer interface being buggy - computers think in powers of 2, 8 is a common grouping, and it's easy to make an off-by-one bug. If someone has managed to grab a subtitle track, it would be great to scan through and check every ninth word for the whole episode, and see if there are more hidden messages. I love when shows do that.

A minor logic issue around the names used - We're not called sunkind, nor do we live on planet human, so I'm not sure why everything was missbelindachandra-xyz, but logic aside it was amusing. Also, I guess Sasha 55 was a clone? That's usually what name-number means in sci-fi, but we never got a real explanation of that. For the rest of the season if they decide to just keep going by "the Nurse" and "the Doctor", I would love that.

Given what's been in the news lately about companies like 23andme, and the privacy associated with DNA, when the doctor scanned her, my first reaction was "oh, that's a bit weird, does he really just DNA-scan everyone he comes across?", so for her to immediately call him out on it was fantastic.

I like that the Nurse's character is wary of men, given her previous bad relationship, and it's good to have a character willing to call the Doctor on his BS. Even acting with the best of intentions, a man in a position of power over a woman can't be doing things that make her feel uncomfortable, like basically kidnapping her. I really hope that in the next episode she keeps this up and doesn't immediately forgive and forget.

On disintegrating that poor cat: Don't hurt the cat. I hate it when animals get hurt even in fiction. Wreck the humans and bots all you want, fine, but not the poor animals. I am annoyed that there wasn't some sort of timey wimey explanation that fixes it and brings it back to life, it just gets played off for laughs with a "went to live on a farm".

Some issues, but a pretty good opener. 7/10

ahem, that's PROFESSOR Hanks, thank you very much

If you are going to make me put a coin into a cart because you don't trust me to be an adult and tidy up after myself without being nannied, then I am going to do my damndest to bypass your lock and leave a mess out of spite.

In the shops where I am trusted and not required to pay a coin (I never even carry cash these days) I tidy up because that is the decent thing to do.

magic databases containing the location of every flower shop cross referenced by geolocation and joined to the magic database of endangered beetle habitat

Open Street Map has entered the chat

I misread that as prefix and, honestly, forthwhence doesn't sound half bad.

What option do I need to use to get support for Heptapod B?

More ascension stuff this episode. I wonder if that's ever going to be explored, or if it will only ever be left as a gag. It seems like the kind of thing that would be difficult to dig into in a satisfying way.

To be honest, I could get behind fines for overrunning street works. Hell, go further: fines for any overrunning, underdelivering or overbudget public contracts. That would quickly resolve the mess that the torys have made giving out dodgy contracts to their mates.

I really liked the facial expression animations in this episode. Its difficult to pull them off in 2D animation, but it really helped in this episode.