[Flux]

I agree. RTD is good at this. You don’t need to even know The Pyramids of Mars exists in order for Saturday’s reveal to work. Indeed even if you do, it’s not relevant beyond a nice bit of nostalgia.

Having Gabriel Woolf back doing the voice is the icing on the cake. Again it’s great to know it’s him, but if you’re a more recent fan of the show, he is just brilliant at that voice. I cannot imagine anyone else doing it so well. I’m so pleased they didn’t just recast the voice part. Again the show has a great record on this sort of thing.

A fantastic and flawless episode!

I disagree heavily on it being a flawless episode. For me, it was a very frustrating watch with holes, annoying characters and a messy narrative, but I agree completely that this is one of RTD’s strengths: reintroducing a villain or classic character in a way that makes it relevant to the current audience and the show’s present first and nostalgic as a bonus. Even his reintroduction of Sarah Jane back in the day did this masterfully.

[MorganLamia]

I didn't watch the latest episode until late at night, after I had seen "Sutekh" as a trending topic on Twitter. It wasn't a spoiler for me because I had no idea what it was referring to, since I haven't seen most pre-2005 episodes so didn't know it was even in relation to DW.

When it was revealed in the episode, I understood that it must have been an old character that I hadn't heard of and one that must be a big deal, judging by the Doctor's reaction. I got curious and looked it up (I do vaguely recognise the design so I must've seen it around here and there), and now I'm going to watch the original appearance. I guess RTD's plan worked on me!

[James2001]

And one of the benfits of the entire library (bar Unearthly Child anyway) being on iPlayer means anyone can go back and watch these old appearances to understand the characters in context.

[JAS84]

In fact, Pyramids of Mars is on BBC Four tonight as a Tales from the TARDIS episode. It's an omnibus with new SFX and a runtime of 75 minutes.

[James2001]

"New SFX", no thanks! The exact same way I feel about the remastered Star Trek TOS.

Though I guess at least with Doctor Who the originals are on the iPlayer. The original TOS seems to be less easy to come by these days... only the DVD (with new effects) seems to be available now, same with the repeats (also cropped to 16:9 to add insult) and streaming, the Blu-Ray (which let you choose original or new) has been off sale for several years, in the UK at least, and you can only get it now second hand or on import.

[Blubatt]

I don't mind the SFX stuff, as it really doesn't affect the enjoyment for me. That goes for both original effects and new ones. I know people who would refuse to watch a show if the effects were 'rubbish'. If I like the thing I'm watching, I like the thing I'm watching. 75 minute omnibus is fine, but you do lose the slower scenes when you cut essentially a quarter of the original run time

[RhysJR]

In fact, Pyramids of Mars is on BBC Four tonight as a Tales from the TARDIS episode. It's an omnibus with new SFX and a runtime of 75 minutes.

Just watched thee Tales of the TARDIS episode, and the enhanced SFX seemed a little uneccessary. The most notable change was the modern vortex being added to Sutekh's portal. There was probably a few other changes that weren;t as obvious, I think I saw some Twitter comments that an infamous hand of a crew member behind Sutekh was edited out, as well as changes to the organ music and TARDIS door sound effect. Those changes neither added or detracted to the episode, so why bother changing it all. The editing of 'The Daleks' the aired last year, whilst also uneccessary, made some sense to a degree - adding the modern extermination effects for example to make it more relateable. Nothing like that was really done here.


Right, onto the modern day finale now...

[Stuart]

Right, onto the modern day finale now...

I saw it on iPlayer in the early hours of this morning, but will watch again tonight. 

Ncuti Gatwa is a very good actor. No wonder Bad Wolf/Disney were prepared to wait a year to allow him to finish other projects before moving to normal production schedules for Doctor Who. 

At least we know there is already another series in the can.

I really like the fact that in the new incarnation, the Doctor turns up in different clothes each time. No more strange set 'image'.

[JMT1985]

It will be interesting to see the overnight rating for the finale - I suspect it will be around the usual 2 million mark - however I feel some fans will feel like they are left a bit empty of this finale. Especially the end of Ruby Sunday's story which seems to have been all for nothing.

[James2001]

Thanks to all the election stuff, I keep mixing up Roger ap Gwilliam with Rhun ap Iowerth...