I'm only on ep 3 this season of Doctor Who, but reading the billytea comments here make me want to devote more hours to catching up!

Ok, now my actual thoughts on Kerblam! I really quite liked it. In some ways it's the most Doctor Whoish ep this season so far, and the Doctor's more effective than she's been all season. (And it continues the streak of me preferring the eps not written by Chris Chibnall.) The setting works ("Space warehouse" is emphatically within the range of what Doctor Who can do), the robots were the right blend of cute and creepy, I enjoyed the story. (Agree with Jessica's summary that "the plot turns from Evil Bosses to Evil Robots to Basically White Space Killmonger.") Plus, kudos for the dedication to end an episode called "Kerblam!" with a big explosion.

It's also the most right-wing I can remember Doctor Who being since at least the Third Doctor. One comment I've seen, which I can't really argue with, posited that for all the kids watching Kerblam! the takeaway message is "I hope I'm lucky enough to get chosen for a job in a place like that". There's 50% unemployment, and it'd be even higher except companies are obliged to create make-work jobs (there's fulfilment for you). The message, contrary to pretty much everything you hear about conditions in Amazon's warehouses, seems to be that you can trust big business to look after you, and labour activists are one step away from terrorism.

Other bits I thought were morally incoherent: The Doctor foils the plan by having the robots teleport back to the warehouse, thereby thwarting the evil plan. Then - with no imminent threat that it can be re-enacted - she orders the entire room full of robots to commit mass suicide (after earlier upbraiding someone else for prejudice against robots and stating that she has robot friends). Meanwhile, the AI tries to convince the AmazUnabomber that it's wrong to kill innocent lives in pursuit of his goals by killing an innocent life in pursuit of its goal.

But back to the cuddly corporation. DW has a long and proud tradition of making corporations and businesspeople into villains. I'd put the Second Doctor adventure, The Invasion, as the first example, where the electronics mogul Tobias Vaughn helps the Cybermen conquer the Earth. The Third Doctor fought mining companies on distant planets and plastics and oil companies here on Earth. Robert Holmes penned a savage rebuke of corporate greed in The Sun Makers, against a race actually called the Usurians. (Technically it was against excessive taxation, but the government is a corporation running Pluto as a business venture and squeezing the workers in the name of profit.) One of the few (two?) noteworthy additions to the pantheon of monsters during the Sixth Doctor's tenure was Sil, a slug-shaped Ferengi. The Sixth Doctor's Dalek adventure had Davros running a food company and spouting lines like "That would have created what I believe is termed 'consumer resistance.'" (The Seventh Doctor feels like a natural fit to fight capitalism, but it all went a bit weird. Closest he got to fighting commercial ventures were stopping a circus housing the Gods of Ragnarok and stopping a villain running a supermarket to pay for a mercenary army.)

The new series continued in that vein with eps like The Rise of the Cybermen or Sleep No More; and last year's astonishingly savage Oxygen. The point being that for most of its history, whenever it's come up, Doctor Who has very clearly been on the side of the workers. It's been more or less radical (and Oxygen was pretty damn radical), but consistent. Until now.

There are ways in which I think it actually helps the story. It certainly makes the end more of a twist. It doesn't really spoil my enjoyment (and for the record, I did think Oxygen's politics were kind of over the top - which didn't spoil my enjoyment there either). However, it also means I feel obliged to have a careful discussion with Ryan about its message. When Rosa aired, I opined that Doctor Who really couldn't do stories like that, because if it were set on any other planet, the Doctor would burn it all down. Turns out now that under Chibnall, that's no longer the case.

I couldn't stand whatshisname, the dude who was also on Doctor Who. Arthur something? Maybe? The dude in charge. He was so awful I gave up. (I hear he's gone, but I never went back to check it out.)

Arthur Darvill.

(hides Arthur Darvill from the mean Steph.)

I have no idea why they couldn't use the actor well on a wacky show, other than that the character was poorly conceived from the beginning. There's a decent amount of cast turnover, which kind of helps keep things fresh.

I love Arthur Darvill. In fact, I want to cast him in something with Alan Tudyk and watch both their faces.

In much the same way I just want Gina Torres and Lisa Berry to share a screen in some wonderful film.

What? I have more than one type.

Flash:

Chris Whassisname from American Pie is not really a good enough actor to be the villain.

Also, maybe don't discuss the villain and his evil plot right in front of him, so he knows you've caught on to him?

LoT got good as soon as they jetisonned the tree stumps masquerading as Vandal Savage and the hawk people at the end of season 1. The show is now a mad romp.

Chris Whassisname from American Pie is not really a good enough actor to be the villain.

Yeah, he's not good.

I hated their version of Savage so much. I'm not as familiar with the comic version, but the Savage in the DCAU and on Young Justice were both way more interesting.

ETA: The Hawks were also terrible, so to have that first season all about the 3 of them made it absolute misery.

I just finished watching Season 3 of Legends of Tomorrow. I'm tossing up whether it achieved peak bonkers in the finale or Guest Starring John Noble.

Oh, one more thing about Kerblamazon! The writer, John McTighe, has done a lot of work in Australia, including 77 episodes of Neighbours. He's also responsible for Wentworth. This is a reimagining of Prisoner, an Australian 70s/80s soap set in a women's prison. (I believe elsewhere it was marketed as Prisoner: Cell Block H.) It was a viewing staple of my early teenage years; earlier this year I borrowed a DVD set from the library for a rewatch. Dear Lord the 70s fashions, the casual misogyny, the seemingly inexhaustible supplies of camp melodrama. Especially the misogyny; this show was touted as being something of an advance for feminism at the time, and I don't disagree, but that just makes it even more of an eye-opener on Aussie attitudes at the time.

Anyway, McTighe's remake, Wentworth, is grittier and clearly aspires to the HBO vibe. My sister watches it religiously, by which I mean she intermittently exclaims things like "Jesus Christ!" while watching.

This is just a bit of trivia, I don't think McTighe's Wentworth efforts much inform Kerblam! (which has markedly fewer shivvings). But it does help explain the reasonably sure touch he displayed with the ep. (Not sure how it relates to the skewed moral centre.)

I'm tossing up whether it achieved peak bonkers in the finale or Guest Starring John Noble.

I have to vote for Voltron Beebo.

I used to stay up late to watch Prisoner: Cell Block H with my flatmates! We thought we were really stylin' to watch foreign TV.