#episode oxygen

[variousqueerthings]

Please remain calm while your central nervous system is disabled.

I may be losing a bit of steam, but that could also just be the end of the year blues. but we watched "Oxygen" a couple of weeks back and I remember liking it and also what happened, enough that I think I can rate it... relatively accurately, if a bit more shortly than usual

sexism rank objectification (female character is ogled/harassed/turned into a sex joke by the doctor and/or a lead we’re supposed to root for and/or the camera): 10/10

sexism rank plot-point (lead female character is only there to serve plot, not to have her emotional interiority explored, or given agency to her emotional interiority): 5/10

interesting complex or pointlessly complex (does the complexity serve the narrative or does it just serve to be confusing as a stand-in for smart, this includes visually): 9/10

furthers character and/or lore and/or plot development (broader question that ties into the previous ones, at least two of these, ideally three should be fulfilled): 7/10

companion matters (the companion doesn’t always have to be there, but if the companion is there, can they function without the doctor– and overall per season how often is the companion the focus or POV of the story): 4/10

the doctor is more than just “godlike” (examines the doctor’s flaws and limitations, doesn’t solve a plot by having it revolve entirely around the doctor’s existence): 8/10

doesn’t look down on previous doctor who (by erasing or mocking its importance, by redoing and “bettering” previous beloved plotpoints or characters, etc.): 6/10

isn’t trying to insert hamfisted sexiness (m*ffat famously talked a lot about how dw should be sexier multiple times, he sucks at writing it): 7/10

internal world has consistency (characters have backgrounds, feel rooted in a place with other people, generally feel like they have Lives): 8/10

Politics (how conservative is the story): 7/10

FULL RATING: 71/100 (if I can count….)

I've got no smart words. spooky corpses in this one

OBJECTIFICATION: everyone's wearing the same spacesuit and everyone is pretty equal.

PLOT-POINT: Bill isn't really much of the focus in this episode, but she does overall continue to have some feelings about space around her and the like. also I believe she calls out to her mother right before she thinks she's going to die, which, of course her mum is a bit of a throughline this season

COMPLEXITY: it's quite a neat little plot, which I think I remember comparing to the earlier episode "sleep no more," in which one of my major issues with that episode was that it seemed to just be creepy for the sake of being creepy without knowing quite what to do with anything. this one has a central Theme, which we move towards and so keeps plottwists from seeming kind of pointless

CHARACTERS/LORE/PLOT: at the end of this the doctor is blind. my friend watching this episode didn't like the way that was revealed, feeling it came out of nowhere as a concept, and I don't totally disagree, especially considering where it goes next. I think because I like things to be character-driven, I don't think it tells us enough about how the doctor feels about things, beyond "it's hard to be suddenly blind and people can't know because I've got to keep control of situations" but that's... moooore next episode's Thing than this one, isn't it. stay tuned

beyond that, there's not much explored in character-dynamics, and by that I mean not much explored that holds weight for future episodes. we know the doctor is sacrificial, we know that sometimes it's hard to know what the doctor is thinking, we know it can be scary travelling with them. I think it's that bill has less to do this time around than tag along, which can be fine and I guess as a catalyst for the doctor making that sacrifice... yeah it does work, it's not super egregious, it's just that there's not much new information this episode on the whole

COMPANIONS MATTER: bill, like I said, doesn't reaaally do much other than be there and have a struggle, because her spacesuit is malfunctioning

also, nardole is along for the ride. is it contentious to say I don't enjoy nardole onscreen? I find him to be superfluous and I'm not a massive fan of matt lucas' brand of comedy. he can be good, but it's a m*ffat doctor who show, and I think he had outworn his welcome post husbands of river song. anyway, he also is mainly there to nag

I think that's a thing as well. I feel like it's trying to make nardole the voice of some kind of thematic relevance (or maybe it's not and I'm trying to be gracious) -- the doctor's conscience or something, idk, and it just translates to nagging. nardole isn't even really a character, so he (it?) and the doctor don't have the background to justify the not-really-repartee going on. I mean yeah, technically nardole was there back on darillium, but we never saw that and nardole wasn't much beyond a comic relief character in the episode, so yeah, just doesn't work for me, takes time away from other characters and plots and themes... like bill

“GODLIKE” DOCTOR: the doctor figures out some things bit by bit, and then goes blind. I like a bit of whump. this episode I think it's alright, although I don't feel like I remember it "mattering" sooo much in the end, and exists more as a setup for the next episode

PREVIOUS DOCTOR WHO: nothing much here. a callback, but otherwise this episode exists pretty much on its own

“SEXINESS”: so this is mostly fine... except for fucking nardole, who has a monologue with himself in one scene where he's reminiscing about a fling or something he had with an AI and tries to remember her name and then later randomly remembers her name was Velma, I guess... highly suspect

INTERNAL WORLD: this one is pretty cool. basically yer future capitalism taken to its natural conclusion type story, which is both the core of its setting and its politics. but yeah, station, workers on the station, eventually they go back to earth

I quite like as well that with bill we've had a bit of follow up in a couple of episodes -- so in this one the doctor tells her that there's a revolution of some kind six months later. this doesn't have to mean all good things afterwards, but it's just a sort of "ah yes, this has consequences that we don't see or know the exact outcome of, but it has some consequences." think vs the rebel flesh where I felt there was a teensy bit of "hey wait a second" to where they ended it (which, maybe pedantic, doctor who does that lots, but I'm here to rate on Criteria)

POLITICS: POLITICS! as in we have actual politics, right in yer face anti-capitalism politics. I dunno what else to say on that front, it's solidly saying "capitalism will sell air to you if it thinks it can get away with it, and it will kill you if it favours profit" and you're like... yeah that tracks

on the flipside of things, couple of little tidbits -- I felt kind of. yoooo at the sheer amount of corpses we start with in this one. 36 people are dead at the beginning, and their corpses are wandering around the station, and while we do have some dead people who centre the tragedy onto faces and names, I don't think it was done thaaat well on the whole, beyond the one woman who dies right at the beginning

it's something I was thinking about throughout m*ffat that sometimes worked out okay, but often death feels kind of meaningless, and I don't know what this one did with 36 that couldn't have been done with a few, but a few that were really connected to the other survivors. death does need to matter on this show in my opinion, for the themes to land properly

also slightly leery at the "you're blue" "racist" "lots of my friends are blue-ish" bit. it's just a very lazy nod to the idea of "racism taking on new shapes in the future" without really caring to do more than make it a joke. it's not the worst thing this show has done, it's just kind of badly thought out (also the "blue-ish" part of it... comes from fucking nardole... maybe I've decided to dislike nardole and therefore am looking for nardole things to dislike... sorry to people who enjoy nardole... I will be petty I think)

FULL RATING: 71/100 (if I can count….)

it's a good episode. spooky corpses. I dunno if I'm coming to this realisation late (or if I ever said it before), but I do note that it's not really necessary for every episode to do every thing perfectly. this isn't one of bill's strongest episodes, but it does a lot of other things well and it balances out relatively well for other bill entries

there are some things that could have been scrapped to give bill more space, but on the whole this one is pretty neat. this'll probably be the last of these I manage in 2023 so... on to 2024 for more doctor who (wooo)

[bean-spring]

Rip the Twelfth Doctor you would've loved saving people from the Severance procedure and making a 10 minute speech about capitalism

[the-meme-monarch]

i like bodoque’s green note segments and the ones with his niblings are very cute :]

[peaksaturation]

WIP... let me know if you want a tag on the final edit 🧡 -- 🎥 EDITS MASTERLIST 🎶 🌟 group by media, character/ship, or all (top bar) 🌟 sort, filter, or search (top right) 🌟 click to open details incl. links to all soc media

[spicyvampire]

[pasta-yy]

tadc episode 3:

tadc episode one:

[adobe-outdesign]

was looking up some stuff about Fraggle Rock and ending up making a helpful viewing experience diagram

[justablogger234]

A fun recap

of Ryu Sunjae being "pure like oxygen"

[clarasoswinsoswald]

don't make me tap the sign

[spockvarietyhour]

Doctor Who "Oxygen"

[iphyslitterator]

I spotted a Google AI hallucination in the wild!

paging @rcmclachlan and @bidean-byedean to enjoy this beautiful world with me 🛸

[omgkatsudonplease]

cells at work except the red blood cells can actually fight bacteria with oxycytosis

[whumpygifs]

[yahoo201027]

Day in Fandom History: May 13…

The Doctor, Bill, and Nardole travel to a space station and investigate what's going on where they noticed some people on board the space station but got interrupted by an invasion of walking dead in spacesuits. “Oxygen” premiered on this day, 7 Years Ago.

[thecatinthepurplepants]

the day I run out of queer horror podcasts is the day I perform an acrobatic fucking pirouette backwards off the nearest 20 story building

[hoshigray]

my reaction to seeing toji and nanami in the same episode at the same time

BIG FAAAAAAAAACTSSSSS!!!! SKSKSKSKSKSKSSKKK

I got to see my two hubbies at the same time and place like what??!!??! If you looked carefully in the background, you can see me running into the beach to dogpile them both and ride them out til the sun goes down—