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

Definitely, but they have to use her fast if they keep pulling the card where she's getting younger with every appearance. Such a thing could grow tiresome quickly, unless they change the actress (which would deflate the effect) as well as losing one of her centrally appealing characteristics, that she is as mysterious as the Doctor. I think at best they should bring her back for a last time when 11 changes to 12, and their adventures together are left to the imagination... that is, if they don't just erase her existence in this finale...

It doesn't suck the fun out of it, it's little unexplained things that I like to think have explanations somewhere that I might be missing. That's part of the fun, for me at any rate.

http://i45.tinypic.com/ju8exj.gif

The weird wall picture looks like an illustration from this book:

http://department.monm.edu/english/printing-press/scary_stories1.jpg

also reminded me of Richard E (Schalka-Doctor) Grant

I thought it looked like a bit of a doctor composite, and the silhoutte in the spaceship looked awfully like pertwee.

its bug eyed earl!

http://campus.fortunecity.com/einstein/404/rm_an1-1.gif

What does he mean I wonder?

"I didn't enjoy the environment and the culture that we, the cast and crew, had to work in.

I think he means Cardiff.

Fair dos

RTD insisted on giving him a big sloppy kiss after every take

his clothes were added in post-production

ha!

his ears were added in post-production

http://28.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l43a0r1DJ21qa10u7o1_400.jpg

it looks a bit like The Cube in the Transformers movie

There was a postcard for the Vincent Van Gogh exhibition on the fridge (Corden made the point he'd never been to Paris),

Can't believe I didn't realise earlier that postcards are often sent by someone else.

Yeah, i know they are, but it was just that I noticed it, it was odd that they specifically referenced Paris and that the postcard was so noticeable. Like someone said up there, it's probably just a LOST style in joke on the part of the writers. Nothing to see here, move on now.

just watched it, fave episode of the series so far.

I really dug it aside from the mortal threat to Amy which is responded to by the Dr's dithering around playing football rather than walking up a flight of stairs. That made absolutely no sense to me. I loved how they dodged the usual shlub-boyfriend's-girl-falls-for-obviously-superior-Doctor storyline. I agree that Smith has come into his own with this one (though it may be a function of just getting used to him since the filming order of eps isn't the running order).

Really looking forward to seeing how they pay off all this 'big season arc' stuff

ehhh. less so. liked this ep cos it was small, arcless.

Why is this season shorter than the past 4 have been?

it is? looks like 13 episodes like the rest

It does seem shorter. Timey wimey!

It feels shorter because it Amy hasn't grown as a character.

That was all a bit WOAH. If they just cancel next week's ep and then it never comes back, that'd be pretty fantastic in a way.

I thought I was pretty good, but was too desperate to get to the end because that was the exciting bit.

Think it's pointing towards the big bad for Christmas, or the next series, that's been rumoured for a while (and I don't think is a very good idea). The voice in the TARDIS definitely (I think) seals it.

Anyone got screen caps of the massed baddie alliance yet? Are there any fun old-who cameos in there?

A big bag of WTF. just the ticket for the last series cliffhanger I spose. Still... WTF?

Supposed to be Drahvins in the shot, but I couldn't see them. Everything else was NuWho, including the Weevils out of Torchwood.

loved it obv but a bit confused by what they've plucked out of Amy's memories and what's real e.g. how did the Doctor know about a thing called the Pandorica ("that's just a fairytale") if it's builders took the name from Amy's memory and it didn't exist for a purpose prior to containing the Doctor? same thing as with the Toclafane i guess.

"Silence will fall" voice a bit like Davros but no cigar.

It feels shorter because it Amy hasn't grown as a character.

With the exception of Donna, that's pretty much what happens every season. Unless you count Rose turning into a stage five clinger.

oh man, they BROUGHT it! finally, they construct a series finale through the series arc that actually really worked... so psyched for next week!

^this

I'd kind of guessed what the pandorica was for but thought it would contain some future doctor. Really psyched to see who the the mastermind behind this, I'm hoping its someone we haven't conceived of yet, would be bummed if it was davros (or the master for that matter); it should be a new villain or a classic who villain unused in the new series. I do feel though, that because none of "the Lodger" has come up yet it has something to do with the shadowy figure in the mystery ship upstairs; that would point towards a CGI Hartnell, certainly looked like that silhouette, or maybe that composite doctor from the picture up thread.

I'm also loving how River Song and the Doctor's timeline do not run parallel, indeed are running in reverse. Could River Song be the reflection of the Doctor, travelling the other way through the universe?

Super excited for next week.

One significant disappointment, the cliff from the dawn of time did not have "We apologise for the inconvenience".

'One significant disappointment, the cliff from the dawn of time did not have "We apologise for the inconvenience".'

Was a clear nod to/rip off of Adams tho.

Great stuff! Felt very classic-serial hero-in-peril, and I like the story, it pulled in a lot from prev episodes. A week feels like a long wait!

Also wondering if River is the doctor that destroys the world? Like the alliance only knows this Doctor, not River yet...some kind of wrongful imprisonment timey wimey thing? Idk the mechanics of how that works...it sounded good when I thought of it.

Disembodied cyberman head was great, very Evil Dead.

http://imgur.com/hZoZ2.jpg

All very good, but I think my favourite part was the big fat blue man at the start making jokes about wanking references.

Wondering if Amy was an Auton, was Rory an Auton, even in Leadworth?

Haven't closed the loop on the clerics yet either, were any of the romans clerics?

River was terrific in this episode, I have really started loving her character.

holy shit! how to wait for next week?

Loved the Doctor as ringmaster in the middle of Stonehenge, broadcasting to all the baddies, leading to the unexpected pay-off of 'let somebody else try first', rather than 'Go home!'

Wondering if Amy was an Auton, was Rory an Auton, even in Leadworth?

Rory was real until he died, all the Romans were built from Amy's house's-psychic-residue-memories so one got some Rory muddled up in there. He didn't fall into the crack and pop out later in time (though this WOULD have been good [but also worth avoiding so it's not doing the same long-long-build story arc as Grant Morrison's various Batman titles]), so there's no reason to close the circle with the clerics - Amy only knew them for a few hours, and has only been in her house for a few minutes since meeting them.

Ow. My brane hurts...

also! there was a photo of Amy & Rory in fancy-dress outfits together, her in policewoman kiss-o-gram stylee, him in a centurion helmet et al. hence the Nestene getting confused and rebuilding him as a centurion, rather than leaving him out of the whole scenario as not fitting.

he shouldn't remember himself dying though, unless future-Amy goes back to the house to litter some of that psychic residue there. maybe the photo was printed on psychic paper, hence also not being now just a photo of Amy and some leaves.

or! they deliberately Bill-&-Ted* the photo there later, once Amy comes back to life, with a new photo taken of her and her spunky Auton boyfriend.

*or newsagent-window

more on Amy's house: the Doctor says "I took you away because your house was weird and had too many rooms - do you ever wonder why your life doesn't make sense?": perhaps setup for more 'the whole WORLD is but a dream in the rippling Mind Of Pond' action next week, but also maybe her house IS the TARDIS, rebuilding itself with a chameleon circuit working but damaged in other ways. notice the blue front door and frame - which were bashed in and broken this week, perhaps a resonance with the damage to the TARDIS door as foreshown in the fragment which the Doctor removed from the crack?

this would obviously clash with the top floor from The Lodger being the TARDIS trying to escape backwards through time and rebuild itself, if they go with that. Lodger should have been a 70s period piece!

so there's no reason to close the circle with the clerics - Amy only knew them for a few hours, and has only been in her house for a few minutes since meeting them.

and of course by the time she was in the house she did not remember them because they had never existed

GOLDWATCH: liked the synthy bass pulse during climactic Rory/Amy scene, instead of portentous strings and punding drums. couldn't even make out Amy's line at cliff-face on three rewinds because of being drowned out by typical screaming orchestra

Sometimes impossible things happen and we call them plotholes

I'm assuming the daleks brought everybody there with their now-perfected time travel technology, and have invented and perfected parallel universe travel (as the cyberman says something about "all universes being destroyed", which seems a bit specific to be done for no reason, therefore must point to them being Cybus Men from the Age of Steel) and the Autons were build before they time travelled (the time period not being notable for the amount of plastic there to animate). Some other stuff though:

How was a cyberbody walking about? Cybermen aren't robots.
When did the Autons perfect replication? Even in Rose when they made Auton Mickey he looked like he was an action figure. And how were they not aware of what they were? They're only plastic animated by a single consciousness, so they consciousness always knows what it's doing.
Having Christopher Ryan playing the Sontaran could have been a good joke about how they all look the same because they're grown in vats, but the credits reveal it's the same character. So of all the Sontarans you could have picked, you choose a specific one WHO HASN'T MET THE DOCTOR? Unless, of course, he gets pucked out of the Sontaran Battle Cruiser AT SOME POINT during The Sontaran Strategem/The Poison Sky?
River ends up in prison in the same timeframe (32nd Century? 33rd?) as after the Earth people have been let off by space whale then? So that must be where he leaves her at the end of their NEXT adventure together then, if their timeframes are in direct opposition, but also means her being in prison isn't that likely: Liz X is so in awe of The Doctor all she has to do is appeal to The Queen and say it was all because The Doctor said it had to happen and she'd get let off. Also means The Doctor isn't "the man" that she kills, because Liz X would be unlikely to forget the face of the woman she put in jail for killing The Doctor... Also some of the dialogue in this years' Weeping Angels one mean this is her last story with Matt Smith?
Time Vortex Manipulators aren't particularly reliable, are they (see Rusty eps passim)? So going to the dawn of time then back to Stonehenge is a bit too risky, no?

I'm not sure this ep was consistent with all the Merlin stuff in Battlefield, especially if it's going all Cartmel Masterplan on us.

Did anybody else notice when River flew the TARDIS it made the sounds backwards? Wonder what that's supposed to represent, or is it just another joke about her being able to fly it properly?

Dear BBC, if you're going to let Karen do interviews then don't let her ruin the dramatic tension in an episode by talking about rehearsals for the next series kthxbi.