#i wasn't gonna post about dw except in tags but idk i've been posting a lot recently so why not

[marley-manson]

Boom was probably the best Moffat DW episode I've seen (out of RTD era's original 4 plus the first 2 of season 5, Let's Kill Hitler, and ~*~*~Missy's~*~*~ first 2 parter) by virtue of the fact that it didn't offend me on either a political or fan level, and the characters occasionally (but certainly not consistently) spoke and behaved like believable people instead of snappy one liner machines and plot devices.

That is however damning with faint praise and I was otherwise not particularly enthralled. Thought the setting was good, the statements on capitalism and religion were good, and the rest ranged from fine to annoying.

73 Yards on the other hand knocked it out of the park for me. I'm a sucker for that sort of curse horror subgenre where someone is haunted by a creepy entity, and tonally it was a fantastic mix of existential fairytale and mild horror. Loved that there were no pat answers - we're in magic era now, leave the technobabble and embrace mysterious shit.

Also adored how realistic Ruby felt - like all of her reactions to the fucked up situation made sense! She tries to talk to the woman, then she tries to get someone else to talk to the woman, she understands quickly that it's a weird magic thing but isn't unduly terrified bc she's already seen some shit and the woman doesn't seem actively harmful. She doesn't know the Doctor well enough to know whether he'd just abandon her so she moves on soon enough and takes it in stride but with regret. When she tells her mom she is nervous but the woman hasn't ruined any personal relationships yet and she doesn't have reason to believe she's magically compelling people to flee from her, just that she's scary in some way, so she trusts her mom to be relatively chill but once her mom stops responding on the phone she understands immediately that she fucked up. She warns UNIT to keep away from the woman, but then trusts their reassurances. She eventually gets used to it. When she sees the fascist on tv she immediately puts two and two together with Mad Jack because obviously that phrase would never have been far from her mind in the past 20 years, with a constant reminder 73 yards away at all times. After decades she starts viewing the woman as her only steadfast companion, so when she finally approaches as she dies, she's glad, rather than afraid. It feels silly to go on about this because it should be default writing, but it's p rare ime lol, and it's what I love most about RTD's writing in general.

Idk just about like, every character beat worked perfectly for me. Did the plot make sense? It wasn't explained, but it also didn't seem contradictory, and the lack of explanation was part of the point of the supernatural aspect, as Kate Stewart mentions - inventing rules to make sense out of the inexplicable. Worked nicely for me.