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

though dr-river seem to be having a relationship 'simply' in reverse, the premise of amy's choice does suggest that dr-amy is more tangled (timey-wimey). and judging by his non-who stories, we know how moffat likes to play formal plot games w interlinking characters/events.

if ducks that had been in the pond had never been born, then nobody would have ever referred to the pond as a duck pond too.

maybe only Amy called it the duck pond.

Right, I've just ordered this:

http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Decalog_3:_Consequences

so, wait, did i understand this right - did Amy Pond somehow hijack the time-warping past-erasing magic of the crack in her wall (and then carry it around with her thoughout time) because she doesn't want tomorrow's wedding to happen yet? and so the Doctor has decided to take her and her fiancé on a romantic holiday to Venice so she can reconcile herself to the fact that she's getting married and so stop screwing time up (and hitting on him)?

I'd imagine the crack is something bigger than whether or not Amy wants to get married the next day...

I thought this was great! Very little Facebook style acting from Amy Pond and I was pleased to note that in some circles "sort you out" appears to mean "give you a right good rogering".

I also thought Matt Smith was very very good. It occurred to me this time that age gives him a valuable ambiguity as a romantic lead - a little too young for Song, a little too old for Amy, so always maybe/maybe not just out of reach

(Very funny meta joke as well with "I've given a lot of thought about WHO I want...")

Yes, the whole thing avoided the whole misty-eyed, wobbly lip stuff that bedeviled Tennant, Martha, Rose - avoiding the wolf whistles and stamping from the teenage boys at the back as it were.

Facebook, Myspace, settle on one pejorative, Tracer!!!

wait... avoiding the wolf whistles?

I think the reason Tracer enjoyed that scene so much was because it was like Hattie Jacques attempting to seduce Kenneth Richards, except young and sexy and with time travel.

It was like Hattie Jacques attempting to seduce Keith Richards.

xp i have no idea who those people are, but i agree with tracer, good pt. about him being just the "wrong" age. and it is very nice to to have a female romantic lead who isn't so sheepish about what she wants... wolf whistle.

Kenneth Williams...

avoiding the wolf whistles?

The Bad Wolf whistles.

Facebook, Myspace, settle on one pejorative, Tracer

Which website would represent good acting?

Having just watched the first part again (in prep for the BBC3 repeat of part 2) I have to say I thought Karen Gillan was pretty good. The Ringu scene is the standout of the episode for many, and it's Gillan who really sells the tension.

perhaps the duck pond was not for ducks but for ducking witches and amy is some kind of time witch.

Not very insightful analysis although this was a great episode, awful awful music again though. I could do without hearing that choir hit sample ever again.

I love this way of retconning without having to deny that any of the rusty years ever happened, in fact selective bits of the rusty years could still be part of the timeline. Got to wonder what moffat wlll keep.

"Walk like you can see" was some bullshit imo. They can't move *when you are looking at them*, because of quantumy-wantumy stuff. Not when they think you are looking at them.

summary of Continuity Errors story for the curious: http://www.drwhoguide.com/who_dec3.htm

Yeah that was actually shit wasn't it. And then she just gets teleported anyway. It was set up to be a nice little reversal on the standard Angels thing. You can't open your eyes! Yet the Angels will kill you if you don't look at them!! Oh noes!!! Oh actually, just pretend you can see. Really poorly. And that will be enough. It didn't matter though, which is a sign of a Good Episode I guess.

She had to move past them to get into range to get beamed up, surely?

I thought the teleporter was broken, and River Song was trying to fix it which the Doctor thought was futile.

reminds me of some of the amusing dialogue bits in the beginning like "i absolutely trust him" (Smith had a great facial reaction to this) and "how impossible?" "a few minutes"

yeah the Doctor's lines ran this e.g. "I've thought about it / we'll all be killed - see, I've thought about it", "I'll do a thing", "Ha ha I got him to say comfy chairs" and so on.

Enjoyed this immensely... Def. like the relationship with Doctor & Amy. Didn't much like the way the story "yadda-yadda'd" its way through the difficult parts of the story... But it's a minor gripe against the great tension and building a pretty exciting story arc so quickly. Loved the forest/angels/Amelia scenes... The colors and contrasts looked fab! Liked snarky doctor. And loved the "sort you out" interplay. Ordinarily would be creped out by Doctor-makeout scene but that was pretty hilarious. Esp snapping suspenders on & off. Half expected his bowtie to start spinning, lol.

^ someone photoshop this

https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0By3KbtiGTysyNjA5YTMyODQtYjUxYS00M2ZlLTkxNjAtMmQ3OGMzMDQ4Yzgx&hl=en

https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0By3KbtiGTysyNjA5YTMyODQtYjUxYS00M2ZlLTkxNjAtMmQ3OGMzMDQ4Yzgx&hl=en

Sorry, have no idea how to embed that from Google docs

ha ha

needs moar Pond pulling on his braces though

Irritated by the angels never having to cover their eyes. In first ep, was happy to believe it was because their eyes were decayed and they were under strength or something. By end of this one, though, when the angels were in front of the raised shields, eyes open and all looking over each other's shoulders, there was too much suspension required - not of disbelief, but of things carefully explained in previous episodes and now just ignored. Not a patch on Blink, and nowhere near as scary.

Yes. Aldo, what are the insider sites saying about that?

wait... avoiding the wolf whistles?

Yeah, sorry, just to clarify - I remember my dad saying when he was young and they went to the cinema on a Saturday afternoon, all the teenage boys would wolf whistle and stamp their feet at the back whenever there was a 'soppy' scene. Presumably this was partly out of juvenile embarrassment at the idea of Love, perhaps also seeing their hero unmanned, but also a critical reaction to the interruption of action with sentiment. I think the crucial aspect tho is the soppiness - Tennant + Rose (and Martha) = soppy, Amy + MS = not soppy - in fact Matt Smith reacted much as a young lad would (assuming a lack of sexual precocity) = no wolf whistles, just perhaps a certain amount of sympathy and a 'Thank God the doctor got out of THAT one, far worse than the Angels imo'.

Of course, this ignoring the whole 1,000 year-old literary history, of action + love = romance, but, in the words of Spector v Rector by The Fall 'The hero was a strange man, those flowers take them away - they're only funeral decorations'.

Online community too busy convincing themselves the beach sequence was all about the Doctor having a crying wank over Rose Tyler, and gnashing their teeth that the Rusty era has been written away so deftly.

The ones that actually care are pointing out the inconsistency while the rest hand-wave it away in the name of good television.

LOL. How is beach sequence ever about that?

They all reckon when he says "time can be rewritten" and has a wistful look on his face is all about him working out how he can bring her back. Obsessed, I tell you. Good job I'm reading it so you don't have to.

"Wibbly wobbly timey wimey" has become a mantra to explain any plot holes.

i read some amazing bit of the internet yesterday where there was wailing and gnashing of teeth because beach sequence apparently automatically means erasing of whole Donna Noble story. Which I had not considered!

So that whole "oh this one's really just for the kiddies" stuff disappeared quick, huh? <3 Moffat

impossible that donna is erased - i, for one, remember her

After rewatching my only gripe is how both the Doctor and Amy avoided the Angels clutches esp. the latter where you'd think they'd know better when someone's eyes are shut and why were the so slow (cool as it was to see them move)? Oh and how did he work out the date of the crack creation? Just by sonicking the crack?

Really don't want to see a whole bunch of RTD stuff written out of official history tbh - as daft as it got this would just devalue the Doctor's experiences further. And there is really no point doing this unless you're going to rule out further Earth invasions by Daleks etc. surely.

River's suspicious behaviour went into overdrive at the end, all that laughing plus Pandorica knowledge - presumably she'll re-appear in the finale.

Don't see what the problem is tbh - it hasn't been written out of history, it's been written out of a history.

ban this parallel filth

Ha ha. Anyway, if anything it's this series that is the outside of history one - the Doctor still remembers everything, so do we - it's only Amy's weird world where there are no ducks and no memory of history. It's also a handy way of escaping RTD's grabby grabby attitude to plotlines of course.

I really don't understand the people who think Rose is the Doctor's one twu wuv, and think he's referring to her in every episode.

I really don't understand the people who think Rose is the Doctor's one twu wuv

The other version of him choosing to live and die with her in alterverse suggest she is.

To me "hmmm history can be rewritten" is pretty much Moffat saying that to himself - in other words anything goes and he can bring back anything/anyone we think is gone or wipe out anything he can't be arsed writing around.

I am super mega excited for the remainder of this season based off of the bits I've skimmed so far re: rewriting history and the way the big threat is being established (neverending cracks in space/time, major catastrophic events not actually happening, etc).

"Victory of the Daleks" was kind of terrible though.

limp dictory of the daleks. also, look what i saw yesterday, for sale:

http://www.brattlefilm.org/brattlefilm/merch/images/tshirt-who-dalek-lg.jpg

Best part of Victory of the Daleks was the wordplay possibilities it provided for my username.

Worst part was the episode itself.

Which is why for a moment when I read HI DERE say "Victory of the Daleks" was kind of terrible though. I was like, "What is his beef with John?" :P

so I just watched both episodes, felt as if there was a lot happening and not a whole lot of explanation as to why - flexible gravity, various deus ex machina that saved them from the angels, the angels letting Amy count down and therefore control the time of her death - I felt as if I was hanging on to the plot but just barely. Some terrific moments though.

flexible gravity

this was explained

the angels letting Amy count down and therefore control the time of her death

this isn't what happened. they were counting down THROUGH her in order to put the frighteners up her. this is explicitly stated.

various deus ex machina that saved them from the angels

crack in time was set up in previous four eps. teleporter was set up explicitly in the previous scene. Amy walking with eyes shut was some buuuuuuuuullshit.