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

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.

http://img534.imageshack.us/img534/4159/legodoctorwho.th.jpg

No-one seems to have clocked to the part where the Doctor claims Pandorum is a fairy tale and River says something like arent we all??

A fairy tale (time)rewritten by someone who used to write loads of stories about the raggedy doctor, who turns out to be the most important person when time (or stories of the Doctor) needs to be rewritten.

Sorry but I'm on some 4th wall, postmoderney-woderney reading of all this. I think the creating of a Raggedy Doctor fairytale by Pond will be the end of season make-it-all-better device.

rewriting Doctor Who timeline featuring a rewriting of the doctor who timeline = Mmmm thats good Moffat.

The Doctor Who timeline has already been rewritten at least once - given that according to Rusty the Daleks and Timelords were destroyed throughout all time and space.

i like where you're going with that

xpost

i really don't buy Amy Pond as a doll-obsessed closet fanfic writer though.

perhaps that is unfair, however, both to her and to doll-obsessed closet fanfic writers everywhere

at the end of the first ep we saw all her Doctor dolls near the dress, but when she brought him to her room they didn't seem to be around. Er, maybe the crack has non-existed them...

Terry Pratchett considers Doctor Who -- but what will Dan think?

Dan thinks Terry Pratchett is OTM; I've never considered Doctor Who to be hard core SF.

I sorta think - cue overloud challops music - most TV SF is not actually SF (including what I've seen of the Star Trek family, though I might give the original a pass on grounds of age if nothing else), but if you're going to watch an explosions-and-magical-fantasy-battles-in-space soap opera Doctor Who is one of the more interesting ones and has made me think about stuff even if stuff does not include science

(liked the article)

I think it's kind of funny/telling that he picks out a bunch of Rusty episodes to reinforce his point and then turns to Moffat/Cornell for the "but oftentimes the show is so great that it doesn't matter" rebuttal.

PS I am laughing at the comments to that article going "Doctor Who is not HARD SF, I mean a STAR WHALE?" when the last book I bought which said "hard SF" all over the back turned out to feature... star whales

(though there was some vague-murmuring-of-physics pretext for such a thing, complete with numbers which didn't seem to add up to my non-physicist brain, in the book. which was not very good anyway. "Raft" by Stephen Baxter, should you care)

http://i40.tinypic.com/2zqyek8.jpg

In other words, I agree.

Whenever anyone mentions hard sci fi all I can think of is Roman from Party Down.

that is fantasy!

how seriously can you take the dude who defends the fairy episode from torchwood, though

Last week's was more a series of connected setpieces than a proper story. Fucking great setpieces, though. And I loved the solution to the cliffhanger, and how it was turned round to be the solution of the whole episode.

Ha, just had to switch this off after the pre-credit sequence because the 5 yr old was too scared, although his specific complaint was "I don't like it when prisoner zero is in it!", which was maybe a good call - I've seen people mention the similarity between these vamp teeth and the angels' ones, but I'd forgotten the alien in the first episode had them too.

I'll have to iplayer the rest of it after his bed time, bah.

It was fairly perfunctory, the plot was too familiar. Next week looks good.

Some good lines but a bit too much "why are they doing this dumb thing? oh look, a magic button"

(reception crapped out partway through so I may have missed an explanation of some of the dumb things)

Just occurred to me that the fish aliens had an almost identical motivation and back story to the big red spider lady in that xmas special.

more lols in this episode than any others so far - not bad for a alien refugee filler ep tho not as good as the Doc's last visit to Italy.

really intrigued by next week's.

Well that was a bit shat. Don't really like snarky self-regarding doctor striding around moodily - eccentric and irritable and fallible teacher is more my sort of speed. And the lolz seemed rather brittle. I'm assuming the aliens co-opted local watchmakers to construct the generator rather than do it with their fish fingers.

Heavily CGI landscapes always make me feel slightly indifferent as well, but I'm feeling under the weather so all the criticism might just be lack of pep. Perfectly fun I guess. I just didn't like Matt Smith much in this.

Next one looks amazing.

Doctor had some good lines in this one, and I enjoyed Isabella's father wearing the stag party shirt with his breeches. LOL. Amelia's fiance wotsisname reminds me of Topher in Dollhouse though useless to the power of 10. A bit Ricky the Tin Dog. Hope they give him some more personality or something, he's a bit of a handbag right now.
Episode as a whole felt a bit skipped over...vampires were good and scary for a bit, fish alien was good and creepy looking, but it didn't seem to go anywhere. Really hated the toggle switch on the clockwork. Naff. But the nightmarey parts were good and scary, in true Moff form. That green light was supercreepy looking.

Very excited for next week.

Rory is from the Nicholas Lyndhurst factory, right?

Seems that way doesn't it? Dynamic between Amy and Dr seems a bit screwed with him - turned into two pints packet of crisps lols. Sure it will right itself tho.

Keep wanting to call him Rhys, with the Torchwood-Gwen welsh pronounciation (rolled r's)

think Rory is great but he and Amy don't gel as a couple really (maybe that's the point)

Lyndhurst! Totally.

Not sure how R got his shirt back but all continuity errors are now cracky-wack in timey-wimey mysteries. Looking forward to possibly finding out what it's all about next week, judging by trailer, though who knows.

A wise person once said on these threads that the main plot point of any Who episode has always been finding some reason for doctor and companion to separate themselves within first 15 minutes, but reasons are no longer needed as the Doctor now strides off every 30 seconds for no apparent reason and this week's idea of a cunning plan was "you go and do exactly what that other girl did to get her mind stolen and then, errr, oh, let's not fuss over the details"

this was a romp. it also brought the lols. liked the no reflection explanation.

The plot was a mess but it didn't matter because it was very funny.

Think this was a filler episode despite occasional good parts. This may have been mentioned before, but Rory has a very 'The Fall' member from the 80's-90's vibe to him, though I can't decide on bassist or guitarist. I am super hyped for next Saturday though.

Whilst I can accept whatever hungarian castle they film robin hood in and some bad CGI matte standing in for Venice, the idea of an underground tunnel defies my suspension of disbelief.

that is a strange line to draw considering the episode was about fish from space who pretended to be vampires

underground tunnel in venice - has Indiana Jones been told?

Thought this was a good romp: no classic, but some fun dialogue and Rory is extremely likable.

Mostly, though, I felt like this was the first ep where Smith really sold himself as Matt Smith, rather than Matt Smith reading David Tennant.

the above point is exactly what i liked about the ep. i really really enjoy when MS gets growly and enunciates slowly – it's actually pretty menacing, and a great counterpoint to the falsely blasé chirpiness of DT that MS sometimes channels

"I've had enough running through corridors" or words to that effect - brilliant. Dialogue is noticeably improved this season.

Guy who wrote this ep also wrote Being Human, which is full of excellent dialogue.

I especially liked the bit with the Doctor ruining Rory's stag night.

I loved the pre-credit gag of not going 'noes vampires SCREAM' mix into theme tune. But crossing instead to the stag and an eventual awkward pause being the teaser end in its place

That was an excellent awkward pause. Also, the first time this series I felt like the doctor was in actual physical danger (from being glassed).

Also, the first time this series I felt like the doctor was in actual physical danger (from being glassed).

So did I. I wonder what happened when he jumped out of the cake at the wrong party.

the bit at the beginning where he mouthed the word "diabetic" when he was describing the stripper was note perfect and gave me genuine lolz.

Tennant couldn't have got that right in 100 takes.....

Yeah I enjoyed this one, thought it had a bit more going for it than standard Nu-Who romp. Next week's looks really interesting though.

"Did you kiss her back?" "No I kissed her mouth" made me lol.

Really liked amy's duckface moment too, good lol but also seemed like a nice little character touch.

I liked the "oh I see what you did there" scene between Doctor and the vampy girls in the mirror, and the scenes between him and the fish queen were nice and intense without being too "come with us sexy doctor' kissyface corny.

"Did you kiss her back?" "No I kissed her mouth" made me lol.

ah, I thought he said "no, I closed my mouth," but the scene didn't read properly that way - thanks!

Really liked amy's duckface moment too, good lol but also seemed like a nice little character touch.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_gJ3Aj467WpQ/S-YzZa0pJ7I/AAAAAAAAAY4/0S-IyBFsIQM/s400/amy-fish_face.jpg

lol good grab

Agreed with everyone above saying it was a passable filler episode, but a lot of good Smith moments for the character. Liked the meta bits ("I like the bit when someone says, 'it's bigger on the inside'", "not vampires - FISH FROM SPACE!"). And next week looks awesome!