All New Who

1. -the Doctor turns up somewhere, secret base, underground caverns, underwater base, isolated lighthouse, space station- somewhere confined and cut off- well after getting blown up by a sonic mine on a junk planet whilst scavenging for parts they wake up four days later on a spaceship they cant control as its on autopilot, and can't get off. So that's a check.
2. - -there is a small group of folk left alive and in danger or in some conflict- we have two medics, a famous female General fighter pilot and her android servant, her little brother, and a bloke giving birth. And we have an alien 'threat' in the form of a life form that can consume anything, and is consuming the ship- to add to the peril the people who control the ship on the home world, if they think it presents a danger or has been comprised, will auto-destruct it. So that's another check there and for point 3 -relentless pursing foe.

I also said these stories require the Doctor to take control- and 13 does that more in this episode than in any previous. That the Doctor should be brilliant at working out what's going on, and indeed she does work out what is going on (though it doesn't require a good deal of brilliance despite the faffing to get to it). And that the Doctor will show off along the way to saving the day, and 13 does bit of that too.

So it met all the criteria of a classic Who base under siege story- so why was it so dull?! Why did it feel so inconsequential?

Well first off its very preachy- the Doctor doesn't so much espouse an enthusiasm in things as she does spout wiki entries about them. I liked her sheer joy at the wonder of anti-matter and how it works, but the entire explanation of it preceding felt like reading out an encyclopedia. I know Chibnal said he wanted to go back to the original premise of it also being educational, but he has to find a less clumsy way of doing it than just listing facts. And it has to be relevant to the plot or the themes.

To take a comparative scene in Rings of Akenaten when 11 explains to the would be sacrifice why she should value her life, why she is so special, and unique in the universe, by telling a story going from matter being created in stars and exploded out to the formation of new suns and planets and living things, 'and sealing wax and string' and uniquely her- it had a poetic, whimsical joy and beauty to it that lent it power, and it directly affected the character, not the dry descriptions 13 give which are like lectures in a vacuum.



The information she imparts might be informative in a general sense, her speel on anti-matter and protons is educational right enough, but its not relevant to the actual plot. Its just somewhere the plot stops for a few minutes to make room for a science lecture. Compare that to 12 imparting in lecture form the hazards of being in a  vacuum-



Its not only more engaging to watch and a more commanding performance, its better written and more importantly it also serves a narrative function in the plot later.

Then there is the 'monster' of this episode. On paper a creature that survives and lives in space and feeds by latching onto any nearby energy sources is fine, (though again an old sci-fi idea- ST:TNG had a similar idea, though their space going creature was larger and more plausible) calling it a P'ting and making it a chubby cgi gremlin, who when it eats stuff and does so in cartoon fashion of shoving huge things into his tiny body is not fine. Its almost impossible to take it seriously as a threat, honestly classic bubble-wrap monster was scarier than this thing. Its looks like something from one of the poorer Pixar rip-offs.
And that's our threat.

For whilst there are survivors as a classic base under siege should have, there is no conflict either among them, or with the Doctor. In fact taking out the distant unseen threat of control auto-destructing their ship, or P'ting gremlin eating the ship out from under them, there is no conflict at all among the actual on-screen characters who talk.
We get some whishy-washy unresolved brother/sister issues between General and her younger brother- he has never told her how proud he is of her, she has never accepted him as her equal because he became an engineer. Her eventual death and their reconciliation is signposted a country mile away and will come as a surprise to no one, and its hardly a conflict.
The android character has one or two small interesting moments but is grossly underused and again is something which doesn't have a functioning role in the plot.

Pregnant guy is there for Ryans arc, Ryan and Grahame get side tracked into spending most of the episodes time helping the guy give birth. And for Ryan to reflect on the fact his own dad was his age when he was born, that he wouldn't be ready for it if it was him now, but decides to persuade birthing guy not to give up his child as planned, but to just be there for him. And that's Ryans character arc for this episode- but it happens entirely away from the Doctor and the plot.
It's as if Chibnal thought, 'I need Ryan to progress his arc about his absentee Dad' but couldn't think of how, so he just put Ryan off to the side in a room to have that progression on his own. It has nothing to do with the main plot, affects nothing that goes on, has no thematic link to the rest of the episode its just him with birthing guy as he gives birth while everything else is gong on around them. Chibnal literally put Ryan's development in a room off on its own, isolated from the main story not integrated into it. And the entire purpose of birth guy being on board then seems like what it is, an obvious plot contrivance to get Ryan to talk about his own Dad.

Another thing we get is more telling instead of showing- Ryan tells Yaz the backstory on his Dad, even gives specifics, but we dont get a flashback, or a montage, or any of the usual devices for doing this, and cliched as they might be there is a reason they are used, a reason this episode highlights well- because 2 people standing still in a corridor just saying it out loud is not visually interesting, it's boring and makes exposition obvious as exposition as there is nothing else to distract from it in the viewing experience. There are only so many ways you can cut a conversation between 2 people and maintain flow, and for exposition that long you cant just have them standing talking. Its lazy and boring to look at. Its like the episode just grinds to a halt for a few minutes so we can go to a corridor for Ryan to give us his character exposition. Nothing feels integrated together, its like the different character strands are happening in different stories just stitched together here.

Mind you I thought there were issues again with direction and editing, pacing seems off, action scenes didn't seem actiony, stuff that should have been building tension was flat- you had a monster eating a ship and a bomb detonation scene, why did none of it every feel perilous? There were some weird super close-ups. The music, which I haven't had much of a problem with till now bar that song in Rosa really fails in this one to either drive this on or ratchet up any tension when the scene needs it, and so fails to support the action, adding to the flat feeling.

Possibly also undermining your monster by first making a cute looking cartoon cgi gremlin, then making out how indestructible it is and how it can only be stunned for a few minutes undermined by Yaz kicking it down a corridor like a football, that doesn't help either.

Nor does creating a big deal about the TARDIS being left behind where scavengers could find it first, then never mentioning it again or resolving them getting beck to the TARDIS by episodes end. Or having the Doctor, the Time Lord, with redundant organs, back up biological systems and several times the strength of an average human is the only one who seems injured by the sonic mine blast, and the only one who spends a large chunk of the episode holding her side and wincing, even after the four days recovery and treatment, whilst all three humans are perfectly fine. Nor does making a big deal about the perilous path through the asteroid field they have to fly through- then never showing us the ship flying through the asteroid field or asteroids ever proving any sort of trouble at all- in fact we don't see or hear about any! One of the main threats and impediments to them reaching safety occurs entirely off-screen. Nor does having the medic persuade the Doctor she cant just turn the ship around because of all the sick folk on board who have to get to the hospital planet for treatment- then the only people on board appear to be a pregnant man they tell us everything is prepared for his birth on board, so they were expecting that anyway, a woman with a long term illness and speed will not help or hinder her condition, and an android who doesn't need medical attention. So who are all these sick people he morally blackmailed the Doctor with to not turn the ship round? Where are they?

There is some very clunky dialogue again- when first medic guy gets killed at the start in the pod, and gives his, 'I believe in you even if you dont speech' to the other medic girl its out of nowhere and utterly lacking in set up, and we have seen no indication, or even had enough time yet with the other girl to know she has any insecurity or lack of self-belief. He just blurts out her character set-up and dies, which seems ot have been his purpose- there's a track record now of people or creatures that only turn up to blurt out something expositiony and then die or vanish never to be seen again.

The message of hope was hammered home with a sledgehammer at the end, with the prayer like mantra just so happening to be all about the Doctors message of the week, hope, which was a handy coincidence. And oh so preachy feeling. A lot of it felt preachy in fact, some of the Doctors lectures, the stuff about Dads, and the believe in yourself there is always hope message all piling in for attention in one episode- Chibnal seems to take a scatter-gun approach to social issues.

So the plot- monster arrives on ship eats energy, Doctor works out it eats energy, feeds it a bomb so that its full up and flushes happy fat full monster back out into space- the end.

The villains- a cgi chubby gremlin that can't talk. A unseen planet that can auto-destruct the ship- and who we never talk to or hear from or see-so basically an inanimate bomb.

Character development for companions, minimum for Yaz, well none really but she is there in a couple of scenes with the Doctor- so yeah! Ryan gets more relating to his Dad, but its literally shoved off to the side and on its own, and Grahame gets some humorous lines during the birth and that's about it from him this week. And that's your lot.

Bland, boring, pointless, paper thin again, no villain of note again, no conflict among secondary characters or companions or with the Doctor again, and lots of social feel good messages- hope is good, believe in yourself, young men if you get someone pregnant even if you're scared and dont feel ready stay and try anyway, just being there is enough (though presumably not if your an alcoholic, drug addict with a habit of sudden drunken violence, but they dont go into that!- we are all about trite messages now!) }}

1. Ryan and Grahame are going to get syphoned off from the plot anyway for their own thing- so at the start have them buried in junk by the force of the blast- only the Doctor and Yaz are rescued. This gives a few benefits- its allows for Ryan and and Grahame to bond in the face of adversity, surviving on the junk-pile and from scavengers who they have to prevent stealing the TARDIS, Ryans stuff about his dad could come out therefore in more natural conversation with Grahame during events. The Ryan and Grahame stuff can also be undercut with what's going on with Yaz and the Doctor, giving a change of location and scenery to break things up visually between ship interiors, and dark junk piles (both cheap).
And Yaz can have more to do being the sole companion essentially for the Doctor.

2.Lose the Doctor still being injured and clutching her side wincing for half the episode- it doesn't make sense, it doesn't effect the plot, and it doesn't have anything to do with anything, it's just an annoying thing Jodie has to do for half an episode for no good reason, or no explained reason either.

3.The General should be the villain of the piece so we have an on-screen villain- her great military success we hear of should in fact have been achieved with the aid of an alien creature she found and enslaved, she wears an alien necklace that controls it, or did control it, this is also what has been slowly killing her all this time and now as she gets weaker it has finally escaped her control and come to find her and reek revenge.
In order to keep her position and reputation, and protect the home world from it, she has to cover it up, even at the extreme of signalling the home base warning them of an enemy infiltrator on board and instructing them to blow up the ship on her signal- this has the same effect as the Chibnal version of the threat of destruction but comes from an actual character, not some off-screen character we never hear from for reasons of a faceless protocol.
Her android would be aiding her in the cover up, acting as an obstacle to the Doctor and Yaz, and giving him an actual role in the narrative, not bad just protecting his mistress loyally.

4. The creature should be an actual threat, its supposedly destroying anything in the ship generating  a lot of power- it should knock out the flight controls and that should be what forces the General into having to manually fly the ship, despite her condition.

5. With the reason for the General taking control of the ship now the beast taking out the ships auto controls there is no need for the asteroids or the diversion through them. As they cant afford to show us the asteroids or the ship flying through them anyway, as this was clearly the money saving episode, this is for the better.

6. They also cant afford to show us all the sick people on board, so dont mention any, instead have the ship carrying a vaccine that's needed or lots of folk will die. Same moral dilemma but means you dont have to brush aside the whole 'if you turn the ship around the patients will die' when there are seemingly no patients at risk.

7. Can lose the pregnant guy as he is now surplus to requirements, the time can be better used - it should be Yaz who now gets suspicious of the General and the android, and suspects them of a cover-up showing her policing skills it is her not Grahame who finds him trying to access the Generals files, and from there her investigation progresses, following the brothers suspicions about the android. And while the Doctor is busy with tracking and sussing out the beast, she should pair up with the Scottish nurse, it is now through their interactions it should be clear the medic has little self confidence and Yaz encourages her as the Doctor would, and it is they who, uncovering the Generals shady past with the beast,  end up in a deadly confrontation with the android only for the Doctor to calmly walk in, having been keeping an eye on Yaz all along and pleased with her work so far- the Doctor of course having already pieced most of it out anyway for herself. But the problem is solved when the beast re-appears and takes out the android, ripping through its chest and eating its 'heart' of power cells as its a large source of energy. Killing him by draining all his power and leaving the torn apart android to have a death speech confessing his mistresses guilt regards the creature- you could get away with that on-screen in Who as its an android.

8. Intercut this stuff with Grahame and Ryan on the junk planet- they find it's impossible to get back into the TARDIS and they dont have any keys for the lock but go exploring the junk pile for anything useful. They find and get working an old junked hover bike, harking back to ep 1. Grahame, who was injured more in the blast can't ride it, but nor can Ryan who tries and fails- he can't get his balance right, this causes his underlying frustration and anger issues to materialise, leading to a heated exchange and some character stuff with Grahame interrupted by the arrival of a band of scavengers who have taken an interest in the TARDIS.

9. Meanwhile back on the ship the Doctor and co go to confront the General, still piloting the ship watched over by her brother-instead of those two making up, he tries to do the making up only for her to finally reveal her secret to him, she gives a speech about how she didn't do all the things she had to do to win the wars just to be the instrument of her planets destruction by bring the creature home to feast, and tells him she is sorry he is there because she can't let the secret out and ruin her, or let the creature reach their destination and tells him about the auto-destruct and how its waiting on her signal-wrist band activation style thing. 
But just then and before the Doctor can get there the beast attacks again to claim her life and the controlling necklace, it kills her before she can give the signal for the ship to be remotely destroyed.
The beast shows no interest in the horrified brother, who then activates the auto-destruct on his dead sisters wrist starting the unstoppable countdown sequence. Forcing the Doctor to try to defuse the bomb as the only remaining option whilst musing over why it only killed the General and didn't eat her like everything else, and why it killed the android but none of them and why it only ate his energy cells and didn't eat the rest of him.

10. Up to this point there should also be an escalation in things going wrong on the ship, lights failing, lifts failing, supports systems going into emergency backup as the beast strips out more energy sources. Finally at this point, after its taken out the General and the android the Doctor Yaz, the medic and the brother would be attacked by the beast and only in the heat of the moment would the Doctor think of the plan to satisfy its appetite by feeding it the bomb.
The bomb should be about to go off, with no way to dispose of it in time when the beast attacks and they should all be facing imminent annihilation, just when the Doctor should piece all the clues in the moment in flashback, they should all point to it eating energy- her sonic being drained, some lines about consoles being dead with no power, the attack on the anti-matter chamber, the android being drained, not attacking bystanders or eating them -and she realises it hasn't come to attack them, its been attracted by the energy build up in the bomb, and as the bomb is about to go bang she force feeds it to the beast in a big dramatic final moment of fight between them- the beast gets gorged with all the energy and goes into a hibernation cryo-state.
The Doctor triumphantly brags whilst explaining what just happened and they find it has the Generals necklace allowing the Doctor to realise what it is and that the control was what was killing the General.
They eject the beast into space again where it came from, free now of the Generals slavery and leaving her brother with the dilemma of to tell the truth about his sister or protect her reputation as the famous General and hero of his people. And chooses to keep her secret because of her final ments trying to save them by piloting the ship to safety despite knowing it would most likely kill her.

11. All of the above intercut with goings on in the junk planet, where Grahame and Ryan have been working together to home alone/arnie in predator make use of the available junk to fashion ways to keep the scavengers off, this time is your excuse for your character stuff, until Grahame gets caught and Ryan has to save him and the TARDIS from capture by using the hover bike in some fashion to save the day. It doesn't work as he cant maintain his balance, his illness cannot be overcome so easily but he gave it his best shot, appreciated by Grahame as they face their ending, and Ryan realising Grahame is his only real family.

12.The episode should end with thee ship returning to the junk world in the nick of time and the Doctor seeing off the scavengers and Ryan and Grahame being reunited with the Doctor and Yaz, having moved their relationship forward somewhat, at leats in terms of better understanding one another.
Finally having realised things would have been a lot easier on Ryan and Grahame if they could have just waited inside the TARDIS, this is the moment the Doctor decides to give them their own TARDIS keys ending the episode on an earned up note for all of Team TARDIS, with everyone having had something worthwhile to do and progress their characters. }}

Its like a 1st draft, its amateur hour. I dont know what to say really, that this is coming from the showrunner after only 5 episodes. When RTD came in he had a complete vision for his companion, her character her role in the Doctors life, and when Tennant came along he saw the chance to do a Doctor/companion romance he had always wanted to, again he had an idea- when Moffat came in he had an idea he had been sitting on for years, the war against the Doctor where the war is in his future and we and him catch up to it over the years, finding more along the way about why there is a war against him, the mystery of the Cracks in Time and of Amy Pond, the little girl all alone in the big empty house.

If Chibbers has a plan, some idea, some great story he has always wanted to tell I am finding it damn hard to spot. He implied there was one, and even implied that the Doctor being female was somehow integral to his vision of the show- but I cant see what that vision is, its not in focus, its feels totally aimless at this point.

This is the halfway point, we are only getting 10 episodes (might be a mercy at this rate) it should be more interesting than this by now, we should feel we know better and be more attached and invested in the new Doctor and to the new companions by now than we are.

I mean seriously, I know there are those on here that don't rate Moffat- but this is what we were settling in for with Moffats episode 5 of his first series in charge, a story
also written by him-




Just in terms of scope of imagination, ideas, implementation, structured narrative, excitement, pacing and supporting ideas and side stories feeding into the greater thematic central story and also adding to the overall series narrative- the unfolding mystery of River Song, and the Cracks in Time and Space, whilst telling its own self contained tale- its leagues above what Chibbers just served us up for his fifth episode.

What we got yesterday in Chibbers episode 5 was embarrassingly bad in comparison.   Short on imagination, short on ideas, badly structured, exposition heavy again, no villain, again, a clumsily implemented message of 'hope is good' which is shoddily supported by Ryans be around, try for your kid, hope is a good thing sentiment shoehorned in off to the side, a pat resolution, no sense of jeopardy or peril, characters like the android who served no purpose other than being there.

I honestly came away with no idea if Chibbers meant this episode to be serious or comedic- and I dont think either the cast or composer knew either- they react to cgi thing like it it isn't a cute little chubby fella comedically eating large objects bigger than its own body, but like its the Alien- as too does the score- we are constantly told how dangerous it is but it doesn't really do anything harmful to the ship, almost nothing goes wrong or fails the ship just occasionally rocks a bit and the lights flicker! The story stops for science lessons, moral lessons, Ryan to go on about his Dad out the blue to Yaz and the whole pace comes crashing down every time- this is base under siege story Chibbers! Your supposed to be ramping the tension and peril up the way!!!! 

it got to yaz and ryan standing in a corridor having the 'wheres your dad' talk' in the middle of an emergency, the man having a baby, and generally the Doctor not having a f-ing clue what to do, standing around while mega emergency. fam standing around having cozy chats in a mega emergency, druggie pilot ffs, just WTF!

the stupid gurning face she does, the cliché Black boy with absent father, I thought this stuff was supposed to be pc not stereotyping Black people? why is she so useless and yet preaching as if reading from cheap school text? why doesn't she know things like the basics alien knowledge? why are other people taking charge and looking more authoritive, why has she zero charisma? why does Bradley Walsh look so miserable and wooden? I like him normally btw. why are the fam such boring cliché Black and Asian so called 'role models? why is it so booooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooring?

why is it so booooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooring?

it really took her almost the entire 50 minute run time to work out the creature was only targetting and eating energy sources?

that one medic at the start when she wanted to go back did, and actually showed some promise, then they just killed him and that was that wasted.

has disappeared so far- tooth face guy teleported away, race owner and pilots, teleported away, time racist, teleported away, Trump guy walks away, pixar gremlin gets blasted away out the airlock.

1. Why were they on the junk planet at all? What were they looking for? It presumably was just an excuse to separate them from the TARDIS again but its a time consuming way to do it.

2. Still on the junk-yard- why does the Doctor seem so desperate to get back to the TARDIS initially when she finds out they have been away from it for four days? Not like its the first time the Doctors been separated from her. The stated reason is the Doctor fears scavengers will get to her first and she will lose the TARDIS forever- but then she just stops being bothered by that completely as soon as that conversation ends and it never comes up again at all in the entire episode, we never do find out if scavengers did try to steal her, and in fact we don't even see them going back to retrieve the TARDIS by episode end and have no idea if she is fine or not. Apparently no-one cares any more by end of episode.

3. Why does the creature kill the medic? We are told it doesn't eat organic material, and that all it actual wants is to eat energy sources- so why does it trap the medic in an escape pod, set it off and how did it set the pod to then explode? It doesn't display any other intelligent behaviour in the episode, it doesn't target any other people specifically- so what was that all about?

4. When the Doctor is demanding to go back for the TARDIS and the medic pulls her up on how selfish it is, telling her he cant as he has a duty to the other sick patients on board who need to get to the home world for treatment why a) do we never see these people, and the patients we do see don't need to get to the home-world at all in any particular hurry and b) why didn't he just tell her instead that if she changes course home-base will read it as a hostile high-jacking and have the power to detonate the ships self-destruct remotely- this is the reason given later for why they cant alter course or admit that the creature is even onboard. Why would he try to appeal to a to someone trying to force the ship around, to a hostile strangers better nature when pointing out her actions will get everyone including her killed is a better case to make?

5. Why does the General have to pilot the ship at all? Either I am missing something or there is no real reasons for them to take a diversion through the very dangerous asteroid field, and so no actual reason to have to jury-rig the ship to let her to pilot it. Which means she dies for no reason at all- if she hadn't piloted the ship and they had continued on their original course nothing would have changed at all, except they'd have avoided the dangerous asteroid field, and she would not have died.

6. Talking of the dangerous asteroid field, why is it not actually dangerous? We not only don't see it, don't see the ship flying through it, we don't get any indication its a danger, a risk or causing any problems. Not a single asteroid seemingly so much as grazes the ship. What's so dangerous about this asteroid field?

7. Why is the android in this? Seriously what function does he have in the plot? Or to any of the characters? He works for, serves the General, and the brother doesn't like him much for reasons we never find out, and he has to deactivate himself at the end also for reasons we never find out about (why cant he just work for someone else, or get reassigned?) But really, what was the point to him?

8. Why is the brother in this? His only purpose is to talk to his sister about how they were never very nice to each other, that's it. What's his function in the plot then?

9. For that matter why is the General even in this? Given there is no real reason to go through the asteroids field we never see, there is no real reason for her to pilot the ship, or to die- and as piloting the ship and dying is all she actually does in the episode her only point is also pointless, and contrived.

10. Indeed, the other medic what's she doing in it as well? She gets set up on an arc of having no self confidence, and at the end the Doctor says she will give her a commendation to her higher ups- but for what? What did she actually do that progresses or improved her lack of self-confidence other than not dying? If that's the basis for the Doctors praise she should also nominate pregnant guy, he didn't die either AND he gave birth!
So basically, out of the supporting characters the only one who actually affects the man characters development or the plot directly is pregnant guy, and he only affects Ryans character development not the main plot or the Doctor and is very contrived also to do so.
So all but 1 of the supporting characters to this are actually surplus to requirements. Why? And you can chuck Yaz in there too, she also has a minimal affect on events, kicking the creature away being her sole contribution to the plot. And that could have been done just as easily by the android who is there too had she been absent. So Yaz doesn't need to be there either.

11. The creature doesn't make sense- here is what we are told of it- its almost indestructible, its skin is poisonous to the touch, it can eat anything non-organic, it feeds on energy sources and is drawn to them, it can breath in a vacuum and its incredibly fast.
But its behaviour is contradictory- it displays intelligence in killing the medic, but there is no reason for it do so, no energy source to feed off and then it spends the  rest of the episode acting as if it only has animal instincts- in fact the resolution relies on it following its instincts and going after the big energy source. We see how fast it can eat and we are told it is attacking power sources- so why does it not attack obvious big power sources- the engines? the life support? We are told the medical stuff all have back up generators, but why wouldn't it just also eat them too as soon as they started outputting energy, if the original medical energy power was enough to attract it wouldn't it again? Surely when engineer guy jury rigs the controls to patch in the general as pilot that must draw on a lot of energy- yet the creature never comes near them- why not? Why does it only make one attempt on the anti-matter coil, the largest energy source? It attacks when Yaz is defending it, why doesn't it attack there any of the other numerous times no one is defending it throughout the episode?
It eats large things quickly, it targets energy sources and in supposedly moves incredibly fast- by the end of the episode there should be nothing left of the ship functioning, yet almost everything is still working absolutely fine. Why? How?

12. What exactly was Grahame doing when he went off apparently on his own snooping on the brother who was trying to access his sisters file? Why was he snooping on the brother? Why did he go off following him on his own, when did he wander off, why did no one notice he had or wonder why? Is there a scene missing?? And why wasn't it Yaz anyway who did this demonstrating her policing stuff, why was this scene given to Grahame at all when it's obviously investigative in nature and Yaz is so badly in need of some development and involvement?

13. Why is the Doctor the only one still injured from the blast? Why does she spend half the episode limping about for no good plot reason? And then it just goes away and she is fine for the rest of it? Why have they hampered their lead actor with having to pretend to be basically winded for half an episode when it serves absolutely no plot function and doesn't even have an explanation as to why? What's the point of it?

14. Why doesn't the bomb blow the creature to tiny pieces? Its still a bomb going off, with a massive amount of energy- that energy has to go somewhere, I dont care how tough its skin is supposed to be, it consumed it so all that energy has to go somewhere else, it has to be metabolised instantly by the creature, which is no bigger than a cat, otherwise its splattered everywhere and the bomb blows half the ship away anyway.
Normally Who can get away with dodgy science but not if in the same episode you're going to have the Doctor give a science lesson.
And even assuming it could someone safely eat it a massive explosion big enough to take a sizeable spaceship down, how did the Doctor know that would satisfy its hunger? What if it was particualry peckish that day and could have managed two bombs, and she flushed it out only for it to turn right back around and keep eating? There is no way for her to have known.

15. Given all the information the Doctor works out about the creature why does it take her so long to reach the final conclusion - that its not interested in eating just anything, or people, but is attracted to eating energy sources? It should be obvious that is what it is doing- the reason it's not obvious to the viewer already is that the creature doesn't actually appear to be targeting energy sources as nothing happens to the ship of any significance, but its supposed to be targeting them, allowing the Doctor to deduce it is, but Chibnal so not to give the game away doesn' actually have it do that thus meaning the Doctor couldn't actually have worked it out because it doesn't actually do it, even thought that's the reason we are given, so its sort of dramatic paradox in which the reason the Doctor works out what its eating is not actually shown in the episode so we wont know that's what its doing and it will look like a reveal! oh god no, this is awful!!!!!
I cant take any more this week- none of it makes any sense really, most of the characters serve so little purpose or have so little association with the main plot they don't need to even be there, character development is either non-existent or shoehorned awkwardly in, what there is of a main plot falls flat on more levels than the story actually has, just no and no, no! Please stop doing this Chibnal!!  :x

The creature was in search of food, why the knobbing heck didn't they put it on the junk planet and let it eat its way through that? or use it as a way of cleaning up junk planets? why didn't they turn it into an ecological monster with a mission, let it live to do something useful, find a way to communicate with it? instead of blowing it up.