Sea Devils And Die: GeroniMoffat's Doctor Who In The 2010s

oh, love actually (which I like, fuck off)

he was in long-running terrible sitcom and a long-running terrible series of adverts for a telecommunications company

I think I know the guy you mean. Would not be a great choice. He's a bit "your least memorable university housemate". Doubt it will happen, but who knows re Brexit Trump etc etc

he could have just had awful material though. I mean, in his defense, knowing nothing else about him.

apparently people have been pushing for the woman from Fleabag...that I could get behind

In the meantime let's talk about Bill and why she's great, specifically: great comic timing; odd-looking but clearly stunning (a la Matt Smith); capable of delivering Moffat's (now slightly tiresome) banter and a dippy romance subplot with 100% dignity retained; just got everything so right in the photograph scene: heartbreaking without bring emo about it. Acting, basically.

Yeah I like her, wonder if she'll last beyond Capaldi. Do wish we had another few seasons with him though.
Or that we'd had a few with him and Not Clara.

xp and totally self-reliant, takes no nonsense, really hope that carries through the series

two things that have bothered me enough about this episode to linger into today:

1. bill sees that photo of her mum with the doctor in the background, but it never comes up again. unless she didn't spot him in the photo (am i missing something?), while it's not quite "i definitely have breast cancer" it didn't (at least explicitly) factor into her decision to join the doctor.

2. the doctor promises to take bill through space and time to find heather, who afaict is just someone bill had a crush on for a while. either it's all about the doctor's urge to fix other people's relationships when he couldn't fix his own, or it's just lazy writing.

The doctor-spotting is more for the audience, to show that this was her Christmas present. She's a little confused by it - is it a trick of the light, or? - but that's just passing in the face of the actual joy of having all the photos.

that's fair enough. if it's for the audience alone it makes sense. moffat's usually good at tying up loose ends (wither in excellent or terrible ways) so

I just chalked that up to British reserve TBH.

Bill rules

otm

Yeah Bill is a very refreshing and likeable character. She's great. It'll be sad to see Capaldi go at the end of this season, hopefully she stays on with the next Doctor and hopefully he's not that one guy. ugh.

I thought this was excellent

Some subtextual stuff about relationships and loss of identity, I thought - an ongoing concern for The Doctor, obvs, and made explicit by this water-beast that imitates you and wants to be you, and you be it, forever, together

Good episode - a smattering of the usual Moffat flaws of course, but generally very human and likable, just like Bill.

i assumed the doctor in the background of the pic would be coming back later in the season and would play somewhat into why he's so interested in Bill to begin with.

it'll definitely come back, but i thought maybe that moment would factor into her decision to join him, given that that fact about him would have stuck in her head more than anything

*more than anything else

I need to rewatch because I don't remember exactly how the scene played out but I'm not 100% convinced that we are supposed to think Bill noticed the Doctor's reflection in the background of that picture; I think that was solely for the audience so that we would know that the Doctor went back in time and took a bunch of pictures of her mother as a surprise Christmas present. (Again, I need to rewatch; at the time I thought she noticed but I read a review that thought it was meant to be ambiguous but didn't come off correctly due to how astute Bill had been about everything else, so I now I'm second-guessing.)

i wasn't sure either so i've just now rewatched the scene (it's around 15 mins in). she definitely sees him in the photo because she looks quite closely at his face and reacts to it.

Oh, she noticed but decided not to call him out on it.

i know it's a dumb thing to get caught up on, but it should have come up in some way in those final scenes. her mother's death is still raw, he's inside that photo, and she doesn't even think about it when he asks her to tag along? rtd is probably not so popular now, but he'd at least have indicated to the audience that it was on her mind. as it stands it looks like they just forgot.

…by which i mean they chose to show the audience her reaction to the photo (which i want to call chekhov's photo), but not any thoughts she might have had about it at the end. it seems very odd to reveal one moment and not the other.

i didn't think she quite caught it tbh. as if she could tell something was off but not what. a bit like the puddle. the zoom in was for us. (and i needed it!) but i am notorious for not thinking that hard about dr who

"but i am notorious for not thinking that hard about dr who"

I love Tracer Hand !

was the Doctor at the University an intentional nod to Shada/Dirk Gently?

spoilery as fuck rumour that makes me deliriously happy (DON'T EVEN HOVER OVER THIS LINK)

One of my friends just posted that rumor on my Facebook wall.

this one would be 800 billion times better than… the other one

I didn't see the other one; was actively avoiding it.

i wonder if they leak these things deliberately just to see how people respond

"The next Doctor will be... Richard Coyle!"

the entire cast of coupling in rotation

next week: gina bellman rescues bill from a terrible mark gatiss script

ten million percent happier with that rumour than the first one - fingers crossed

an on-screen presence like nobody i've seen since tennant tbh, and the talent to back it up

I feel I've said elsewhere that I suspect they made the new companion black and gay and female to deflect criticism when her second doctor is none of them - I'd be happy to be wrong of course!

Bah: https://twitter.com/MichaelaCoel/status/855431949967659008

Comments (61)

I have a feeling whoever they pick will be lower profile than all the favorites or rumored people so far. as much as I'd love to see Idris Elba or Tilda Swinton.

The Rock imo

holding out for billy crystal

Would love ~ Swinton.

Just watched the premiere (didn't know it had started again -- bad nerd!), and I was really underwhelmed by the meta-winkiness that stood in for plot, dialogue, or cool things happening. The episode being a riff on "The Water of Mars" didn't help much, either.

But then, I thought through the episode from Heather's POV, which was a story about mental illness, and it was a little better. You have her bottomless depression balanced against the Doctor's usual mania, how her real-life alienation (see what I did there) was so profound that she let herself be taken and absorbed by this thing that turned into an almost-unyielding, crushing (see what I did there) force of nature.

And if only those Daleks had better aim, we'd be spared any more of this Nardwuar.

- i continue to dislike britainbot. this time he's got frankenstein's monster's body, which is better than explaining his body 30 minutes into the episode like last time. he again has a wide-eyed moment where he explains the theme. stop this.
- i like how they say that bill smiles when she doesn't understand something, then it's demonstrated later on. it's subtle enough.
- third time nu who has used "doctor wot?" donna's is still the best.
- bill trying out different explanations for the tardis, i was surprised that she thought it was a time travel machine based on the time of day changing -- i expected it to go the other way around (traveling through time and the time changing, but bill thinking they went halfway around the world)
- the vault is supposed to be a mystery, right? same with why the doctor shouldn't be time traveling. lack of time travel could suggest a tribute to pertwee's second season.
- cg still looks like shit, oh well. the practical fx look good.
- the episode is designed as an intro for new viewers. i'm ok with it being a bunch of old ideas being reintroduced. i hope the season adds new ideas and isn't a rehash memberberry. i'm a bit worried that it will be, based on the preview clips.

those comments are based on "the pilot" btw.

he again has a wide-eyed moment where he explains the theme. stop this.

there's a specific name for that one character who explains obvious shit to the audience, can't remember what it is just now