Doctor Who- returns for series whatever it is 11/5/24 | The Grand Moff is back!

Big problem - why does the Veritas even exist? What's it's purpose? Who made it?

And every single person reacts the same?

Hmmmmmmm...... Will wait till next week to judge that.

Did laugh at the pope walking in. :lol:

First stinker of the series to me - lots of Moffatisms out in force as well.

Hexx wrote:Big problem - why does the Veritas even exist? What's it's purpose? Who made it?

Dunno

Hexx wrote:And every single person reacts the same?

Every computer sim person reacts the same.

I loved it, thought it was a pretty cool idea too. Looking forward to the next part!

Not particularly well simulated then. No way every single person would choose to take themselves 'out of the game' immediately.

Apart from that one guy who sent it to CERN (why?

) and then killed himself 4 days later after randomly hiding for a while

Nonsense. Efforts to set up 'drama' and 'high stakes' that are undermined by any logical or narrative consistency.

Hexx wrote:Not particularly well simulated then. No way every single person would choose to take themselves 'out of the game' immediately.

Apart from that one guy who sent it to CERN (why? ) and then killed himself 4 days later after randomly hiding for a while

Nonsense. Efforts to set up 'drama' and 'high stakes' that are undermined by any logical or narrative consistency.

Some of the details seemed a bit lost. Like maybe cut for time. Perhaps they don't all kill themselves immediately. They just keep going till they have had enough. But its simply easier to say that they do. The dude hiding felt he had to spread the word before he left as a duty to his sim kind? It would have been nice to have heard some of his motivation. But then we would have had to have know what was going on by that point.

I'm slightly confused though. So the Missy stuff was real. Nardole arrives with Rivers diary. But the sim Doctor has it as well? So at what point did the sim Doctor stuff start? When the pope turns up? Can they create a sim TARDIS? I'm going to need to watch this again.

From when the Doctor gets the email at the start (he's sat by the vault) is all sim

So everything from the lecture theatre onwards IIRC I think the email triggered the titles so everything after that:

Why did the Aliens faff with opening/closing portals?
Killing the Cardinal?
Coming to 'take' Veritas (why is it even in their simulation?!?!?!) from the Doctor but let him live?

The more you think about it the more it's just bollocks.

Yeah..... I dunno.

Hexx wrote:(why is it even in their simulation?!?!?!)

Maybe because its in the real world to?

Also can't believe what's in the vault (although the why was a nice story. I could have sworn the hooded voice was Simm though)

I actually liked that a lot. Surprisingly dark too.

Hexx wrote: (why is it even in their simulation?!?!?!)

Glitch in the matrix.

I thought that was the best episode of the series so far. A decent premise, interesting and sets up next week nicely.

Hexx is right that not every virtual person would just decide to kill themselves, but it's Doctor Who, not a serious documentary on Descartes philosophy.

Hexx wrote:Problem is with all this build up - you know the pay off likely isn't going to be worth it or gravitas given it

Hexx wrote:Oh look it wasn't

Hexx couldn't handle the truth.

Thought it was alright. The Missy stuff was the best but the rest of the episode had too much stuff that made no sense.

I really bloody loved that episode.

You say it makes no sense, but in a way it made more sense than the other episodes.

Why did the Aliens faff with opening/closing portals?
- It was there way in and out of the simulation. Think of a portal area in a game to allow you to fast travel.

Killing the Cardinal?
- He was trying to help the doctor read the veritas in turn uncovering their plan.

Coming to 'take' Veritas (why is it even in their simulation?!?!?!) from the Doctor but let him live?
- The Vertias exists in the real world (at least in Doctor Who world), it's a story they based their plan around. They make perfect copies of the world they want to conquer as any one change in the past can change everything.

Why did everyone kill themselves after reading it?
- Imagine hearing that your life is pointless, everything you've ever strived to do means nothing. Sometime somewhere the real you is either doing the same things or has done more. Also, if you're in a simulation you're technically not dying, you may even return to your former self or your current self. There's no point in living if nothing you know is real.

Qikz wrote:
Why did everyone kill themselves after reading it?
- Imagine hearing that your life is pointless, everything you've ever strived to do means nothing. Sometime somewhere the real you is either doing the same things or has done more. Also, if you're in a simulation you're technically not dying, you may even return to your former self or your current self. There's no point in living if nothing you know is real.

What is real though? Assuming you don't believe in God or reincarnation or anything, it really doesn't make any difference to you if you are real or "real". Die in the real world and you cease to exist. Die in the virtual world and you cease to exist.

Hexx is spot on that that part of the episode makes no sense. Sure some people would kill themselves, but it certainly wouldn't be a mass suicide. As a whole we'd think "oh gooseberry fool, this is a simulation" and then we'd realise that if anything it meant the world makes more sense than just being random chance that the world exists, humanity evolved, we were born, etc.

It doesn't matter for this episode though, it's Doctor Who, not an in depth look at human psychology in the face of non-existence.

I thought that was another cracker myself. Bill and Nardole continue to get consistently better characterisation than we seen from companions for a long time and the episode took an interesting concept and delivered it well without falling foul of too many Moffat-isms.

As for the questions of "why'd everybody kill themselves" I personally think that whilst it could have benefited from more of an exploration, I don't think the episode unravels as a result of this. We don't actually know the exact detail of what is in the Veritas yet - it may have revealed more to the reader than just "you're not really real and this is all a simulation", although I'd wager that this alone would still be sufficient information for many people to top themselves. What if it reveals the purpose of the simulation, and the fact that it's being used to plan an invasion of the real Earth - many would take their lives as they would see it as a way of hindering the aliens research into their weaknesses.

Similarly on understanding that you are in a finite simulation, one that has a clear goal and therefore a potentially short lifespan, might make you more inclined to take your life. Moggy you talk about why does this reality mean any less than the "real" one - well in the real world most people have the expectation that they are contributing to life in a manner that will outlive them, through all sorts of ways such as children, accomplishments, provision for future generations, generally doing their bit to make tomorrow better than yesterday for some subset of the world. If you know you're in a simulation which could be turned off at any point, or re-calibrated or adjusted in some way that de-values your efforts to date, well that is a very different prospect, and every reason to not want to continue for many people.

Something they could have included might have been that not necessarily everyone kills themselves on hearing the truth and that would explain why they're are genuine crazies in the world who go around spouting that nothing is real!

Either way I loved it - funny, entertaining, thought provoking (to a degree expected of this kind of thing), and with the requisite amount of scary stuff to keep the kids behind the sofa. 8-)

Bear in mind that everyone who read the Veritas was some sort of intellectual or had an interest in keeping their work out of alien hands, not just your average Joe - the priests who originally wrote it might have seen the simulation as being a barrier to getting to heaven or playing God or something so removing themselves from it would rectify that; the scientists at CERN would have understood that everything they do and learn is teaching the aliens more about humanity and the extent of their scientific knowledge, so it'd be imperative to get out to stop them learning; and the President would have killed himself to keep from revealing to them how he'd respond to their invasion. As for leaving the Doctor alive, they wanted to keep him in the loop as long as possible to be able to learn his reactions, hence why they removed him after he learned the truth (and possibly why they kept him for a bit afterwards as well, since it'd help them gauge his personality some more in a novel position).

That doesn't fix the plothole with the translator guy staying there for ages after but eh

Anyway, I enjoyed it, Bill's really growing on me and Capaldi is as fantastic as ever

One thing I don't get is why there was a translator guy.the TARDIS translates.

Riksilver wrote:Bear in mind that everyone who read the Veritas was some sort of intellectual

Not only that but they were people who had devoted their lives to understanding the nature of existence. Whether that be spiritual or scientific.

Pedz wrote:One thing I don't get is why there was a translator guy.the TARDIS translates.

This bugged me to :lol:

Sounds like the reasoning got cut...
http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2017-05-20/doctor-who-exclusive-steven-moffat-reveals-the-secrets-of-extremis

Moffat: Well, the scenes just worked better with the Pope speaking Italian and being translated. I did write in the Doctor saying he didn’t really need the translation, and Nardole suggesting that he play along out of courtesy – but it glitched the scene, so I lost it in the edit.

I like that this ep has got people talking though. Its a good thing. :wub:

One other thing. If the Doctor can plug his sunglasses into his head and "see" some kind of data, can he not just make the data a camera?

The Watching Artist wrote:
Riksilver wrote:Bear in mind that everyone who read the Veritas was some sort of intellectual

Not only that but they were people who had devoted their lives to understanding the nature of existence. Whether that be spiritual or scientific.

All it would take is one person with a vague interest in philosophy.
"I think, therefore I am?"
"What is real?"
"I remember and act - is the footprint that different from the foot"

Bollocks episode with bollocks narrative.

It's amazing how after 5 episodes that pretty much everyone thought were consistent and strong, with a simple "back to basics" approach we get this.

Overstuffed, overbaked with too many "clever" but ultimately empty or unsatisfying ideas. It's a proper lesson in why people have, broadly, got fed up with Moffat.

Doctor Who- returns for series whatever it is 11/5/24 | The Grand Moff is back!

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