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Sponsored by Kerblam!
Welcome once again to “Don’t Blink” and, the TARDIS we call home. This week we review the 7th episode of season 11 called “Kerblam!” It’s an ambitious story of Amazonian proportions. I mean come on, who’s not down for some intergalactic package delivery? Everyone loves gifts right? The great box, the mystery, the bubble wrap…
The Doctor and Friends find themselves being chased by some kind of energy signal, only to discover that it is the intergalactic delivery service called Kerblam! It would seem that the 11th Doctor may have ordered a fez, and it is only now catching up with the TARDIS. After squeeing with joy at the sight of a Kerblam!-man, the Doctor discovers an ominous message printed on the receipt saying “help me”.
That’s all it takes for our new Team TARDIS to set off on a new adventure. Along the way they discover twists and turns and plots (kinda) that ultimately confuse the story but still make it fun to watch. So, as usual, come join us as we discuss the merits and fails of “Kerblam!”
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For the shippers: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uloRtyV0wTo has some interesting Rose/Doctor and Yaz/Doctor parallels.
The Kerblam men did look great!
That’s a good question Jada; clearly the system can harm organics because it killed Dan so why couldn’t it kill Charlie? Unless Charlie somehow hacked a Kerblam man and that’s not their normal approach so the system technically can’t hurt organics but an organic can use the system to hurt other organics? Speaking of the level why is it in particular so dangerous? I thought we’d get a real answer to that but we didn’t; is it because it’s so far down that it’s bad so you get punished if you aren’t fast enough on retrieval? Is it just easy to get lost in so people disappear when they go there sometimes? What made the level so dangerous beyond the bad Kerblam men and were they always like that or has this been a recent thing since Charlie got there so it’s been more months his has happened versus since the factory opened basically? I’m starting to reconsider my rating; this might be more of an 8 overall.
Bring on the bubble wrap! 🙂
I have to say I actually liked that they didn’t go hardcore on the whole “Is Amazon evil?” thing because again with so many shows being heavy handed at times some subtly was nice; you can certainly argue working conditions with how tight run the ship seemed to be and how that is a comment on some recent Amazon comments that have come out on the topic of how workers are treated and you can debate the whole human work force to robot work force ratio with the 10% organics mandate comment but it wasn’t as in your face as other shows might take it to suggest Kerblam is evil and Charlie was right in his actions and it was he who asked Doctor for help and they took down this bad so I liked that. Is Kerblam perfect? Arguably no but is it some evil like say the business guy from Arachnid is? I don’t think so. Again the address of topics without being so heavy handed or refusing to listen to either side was refreshing and definitely something this episode deserves points for I feel.
I don’t know if the explosion means more human jobs, if anything it might mean less because the company feels that’s an error waiting to happen so this could set back the number hired, yes there’s the mandate but we know people work around those at times. I think they would just replace the Kerblam men who got killed in the end. There could definitely be some tense working conditions at Kerblam going forward for awhile.
I agree with Jada, I think 310 was just Graham making a joke because as Jada said he could be any species for as much as they know but I don’t think it’s anything that says Graham is more than human. “It reminds me of when you were younger.” was Graham’s comment to Ryan when the group was talking about Charlie and Kari and how they were clearly crushing on each other in the break room.
I really hope this group comes back next season because I’m having fun with them; 12 episodes does not feel like enough with them!
Great points, as always, Aaron! Thanks again for commenting here on the site, as well as your email feedback submissions for the Don’t Blink podcast. We hope to hear what you thought of The Witchfinders episode.
I totally agree, that the small number of episodes we are getting with the new Best Friends this season, just doesn’t seem like enough. I certainly hope we can keep the whole team intact for at least one more full season.