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

It was the late lamented chickenbear.

:o

I really liked this! To me, best by far of the the historical figure episodes, and I was pretty moved by the end.

Also liked how the alien was a really small focus in the episode - mostly it was about Van Gogh and Amy. Really liked the way the aftermath of Rory's death was handled as well - if Tennant was still in the role, it would be silent moping, vs. the most active efforts to make up for it with Smith, trying to counter Amy's forgotten, inherent grief.

Amy, who we are encouraged to believe is his one true love

we are not! we are encouraged to believe he is super lonely and depressive and latches on to a pretty girl who turns up and is nice to him without apparent reason (and appears to also be Dutch) - it is hard to read this as one true love stuff! randomly proposing and i-love-you-ing a girl you've just met isn't hearts-in-eyes-love-at-first-sight, it's just badly done flirtation.

I enjoyed this one, much more than the last two-parter.

we are not!

I say we are, both of them fantasise about the kids they'll have together and (actual timelines be damned) she inspires him to paint sunflowers which is series of 9 or 10 paintings and, to the casual observer, is what he's most famous for.

Plus it's Richard fucking Curtis we're talking about here. To pick Notting Hill as a typical example, bookseller bumps into Hollywood star who it turns out is his one true love because a year later for not much of an apparent reason she gives it all up to live with him and get pregnant.

I gotta side with C# there, the whole "let's marry and have a dozen kids!" really seemed more light and flirty than serious

also, she isn't the only one who inspires him to paint sunflowers - they're also on the coffin of the peasant girl killed by the blind raging chickenbear (which fit q well with his 'they're alive and dead at the same time' problem with the flower).

Thought the dozen kids line was the PG rated version of 'would shag your brains out'.

> Plus, how do you get a giant invisible alium corpse out of a church through a small door

the same way it got in?

What, you encourage the corpse to walk back out again? That's some trick.

Thought the dozen kids line was the PG rated version of 'would shag your brains out'.

That might be OK were this not a show that only a couple of years ago had people being given blow jobs by paving slabs, and currently being run by the guy who invented an "I'll fuck anything with a pulse" guy from the future who once hid a giant gun up his arse (or urethra was a possibility, I suppose). Rusty (and Moffatt) have made this show overtly sexual, so no reason to be coy about it now.

Also, why wasn't Bill Nighy in the end credits, yet some very minor extras were? Odd.

doctor who blow jobs paving slabs
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i totally forgot about the ending to that episode! srsly though, the van gogh thing was just being cute

"Who's Rory?" ;_;

Didn't know Van Gogh was Scottish.

the gun up Jack's arse was tiny.

no Nighy in the credits IS odd.

also Script editor Emma Freud. cosy.

YOU GUYS, THE TARDIS WAS ON FIRE!

The Bill Nighy bit when they took Vincent back to the museum in 2010 = sniffle, oops, I have something in my eye. And, yes, Amy much better this week.

(except for "For Amy" bleurgh yuk pass the sickbag etc)

> What, you encourage the corpse to walk back out again? That's some trick.

no, but if it got in then there's a door big enough to get it out again, not just the small door you mentioned.

besides, if an invisible alien can exist then an invisible alien lifting device can. if the tardis can tow the earth then a lickle invisible monster should be a doddle.

> YOU GUYS, THE TARDIS WAS ON FIRE!

that was just the fly posters burning off

I wish they'd done more with the monster, it was a good idea that they killed off too early and seemed to be in there just because you have to have a monster. The last 15mins or so was ridiculously cloying and mawkish and using Doves or whoever in the museum was utterly terrible.

I also have some issues with playing with actual history (and getting it wrong) in this way when it's a kids' show. At least the Dickens and Shakespeare episodes didn't toy with key moments of their lives.

People need to stop letting Richard Curtis write things. The 'oh I met Picasso' stuff got so irritating.

Dare I say it that the premise of next week's episode looks pretty good despite Corden?

this was a lot better than the Shakespeare one still

shame on the Doctor for casually tearing off the fly posters. classic artwork right there!

the 'if you have been affected by the issues raised in this program' bit was odd. invisible monsters? time travel? your tardis on fire? those issues?

I liked the monster more thinking of it as the man with mental illness battling invisible demons only he can see.

Bet Curtis was well pleased with himself after dreaming up that one.

Depression, koogs.

the 'if you have been affected by the issues raised in this program' bit was odd

presumably the suicide and mental illness aspects. i guess they handled these quite well tho, for a family show.

alium was unecessary, coldplay-alikes were even worse than Gold, Amy thinking time would have been rewritten drastically (even more than the plot did, ho ho) was crap. but I pretty much enjoyed it!

Alium was OK (though lol yes chickenbear), except how many more lost-soul-last-of-their-kind-left-behind aliums can we get?

i prefer it to invading hordes. the alien chicken was hardly un-necessary considering it was the whole reason they were there. one wonders tho why the Doctor (or anyone else) was not aware of it before assuming the original version of the painting featured the monster - thought there was going to be some alt-dimension time-rewritten reasoning behind that before they went and changed the past/future themselves (never good - half expected the monster to fade out from the painting BTTF style).

We're getting a lot more nods to previous doctors (the rear-view-mirror alium-recognising device throwing out pics of previous reincarnations), presume this is a Moffat history-acknowledgement thing rather than Rusty thinking Who began and would end with him?

was hardly un-necessary considering it was the whole reason they were there.

nonsense, if Amy was such a big van Gogh fan they could have bloody set the TARDIS to go visit him in the first place instead of just going to a bloody museum from her own time

one wonders tho why the Doctor (or anyone else) was not aware of it before assuming the original version of the painting featured the monster

yes exactly

nonsense, if Amy was such a big van Gogh fan they could have bloody set the TARDIS to go visit him in the first place instead of just going to a bloody museum from her own time

yeah they could've just gone and visited him randomly and we could've had a whole episode without any monster at all perhaps

otm

Amy thinking time would have been rewritten drastically

Was expecting a bit more time being rewritten drastically myself, actually. Thought they would take him up the stairs and find no Van Gogh room any more or something. Also was thinking that if Amy did get her extra 200 paintings they would all be sad-eyed dog hotel art or something.

Alien was a bit rubbish and unnecessary (though I liked the idea of an invisible monster and was glad that the gadget to see it was so unwieldy and not just the Dr upgrading the screwdriver or wearing a silly hat and being able to see him perfectly), not even sure why a man with a time machine thinks noticing an alien in a century-old painting is OH NO NEWSFLASH TALK FASTER WE MUST RUN, but overall I didn't mind the episode. Possibly because "Richard Curtis writes historical-figure episode" are such uninspiring words that I was expecting it to be the worst thing ever.

you want a Who story without an enemy then xp

Yeah without an alien it would have just been them dicking round with Van Gogh, and considering the bit after the alien died was by far the worst bit of the episode it would have been terrible. The problem was that an alien no one can see is a decent idea and they could have made more of the tension and destruction and they didn't.

LOTS of ginger dialogue in this ep, I expect more complaints are on their way to the BBC following the "Ultimate Ginge" final line if nothing else.

Southern Lord have a lot of the hipper, heavier groups. Hydra Head and Translation Loss have a lot of the high-level post-metal type groups. Prosthetic has a lot of cool stuff, but they might be a little more brutal than you're looking for.
--X-Wing fighter in hand, "Godzilla" cranked on the stereo (J3ff T.)

LOTS of ginger dialogue in this ep, I expect more complaints are on their way to the BBC following the "Ultimate Ginge" final line if nothing else.
--Slumpman

Rusty fans think this is the best thing EVARR because it's an OBVIOUS reference to Donna and how GRATE she is btw. They also think Chickenbear is a reference to Tennant's haircut and how GRATE it is fwiw.

They also think Chickenbear is a reference to Tennant's haircut and how GRATE it is fwiw.

hang on WHAT?

I just think it's incredibly lazy writing on Curtis' part. What would the "world's greatest ever painter" and his biggest admirer who is also a time traveller have a conversation about if they ever had the chance to meet? Well, you know they both have the same colour hair so that, probably.

/They also think Chickenbear is a reference to Tennant's haircut and how GRATE it is fwiw./

hang on WHAT?
--ailsa

See? Now you know why I read Doctor Who Forums so you don't have to.

btw my post a couple of hours ago might be considered a Zing Touch error.

Also liked how the alien was a really small focus in the episode - mostly it was about Van Gogh and Amy.

Ditto. Must be turning into soppy old git, but was genuinely moved by Van Gogh in the gallery bit.

Also rather liked the glib explaining-away of his Scottish accent, in that to him Amy must have been talking in a Dutch accent.

And yes, liked the ungainly, 1950s-style device he needed to use to see the alien.

I mean, I know it makes sense that a high-tech far-future time travelling alien would have some handy thing like the sonic screwdriver, but it's a boring and portable solve-everything. They need to blow it up again, as with the 5th Doctor, and have him rely more on his brain or on something less obviously useful--like a heavy, ungainly thing with a wing mirror.

OK, saw this episode, which is the first Doctor Who I've watched since, ooh, Queen Victoria was in it.

Amy and Who is very John Steed and Emma Peel, I reckons. Karen Gillan does seem to have watched lots of Avenger episodes as 'source material', particularly.

you want a Who story without an enemy then xp

― mdskltr, (7 hours ago)

Sherlockian deductive abilities to the fore, there

Rly rly sick of historicals that turn out to be about aliens instead of historicals, especially when they have real people in them who might have been quite interesting to make up a story about [...]
― Señor Communications Adviser, (5 days ago)

Or what Dan said, that'd be more than fine too.

More with the yay- than nay-sayers on this one, though the latter have some valid points. Curtis gave the Doc some good lines, and I admit I got a little teary at Vincent in the gallery.

Oh, and I have an odd hunch that next week's might turn out to be surprisingly good.

I like the use of the screwdriver as a tricorder, which they seem to be doing a lot this year.

Appreciated the deliberate comedy bits of contrasting how gingerly the Doctor who treat each painting when Van Gogh himself would casually toss them around.

Also, one thing that i have noticed since really getting into the show is an appreciation of a sense of economy. All you need is just to shoot Matt Smith running around some cobblestone streets or in a cathedral to tell an interesting story.

Plus, the idea that Van Gogh wasn't completely mad, that he was dismayed at monsters that were actually there, is a good one. Didn't like the sense of "oh god we're going into music video mode" at the end, but whaddaya gunna do. The scene of the three of them lying in a field was excellent, if nothing else for the thematic joining of up of two people who had greatly different ideas of what the Universe actually was and how they saw it than most people, and both guys' perceptions greatly differed from each other.

The Doctor and Nighy complimenting each other's bow-ties was cute.