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

And the big baddie really can't be Davros, as he WANTED to destroy all of time and space.

Add some (more) vowels to this and you have my guess: OMG.

The big baddie - i.e. the silence will fall dude - has surely been playing the Alliance? Waits till the Doctor is out of the TARDIS (and in the clutches of the Alliance) before taking control of it and sending it to the explosion site.

(Though I'm not sure why he/it sends River to Amy's House first for her to uncover the plot. Great scene though.)

I'm starting to think Aldo's suggestion upthread - that we're not actually going to get a big bad reveal next week, it'll be held over to season 6 - isn't a bad one: a bit of longer-term planning wouldn't hurt the series at all.

That was kind of batshit, huh? Not sure it all made sense, but it certainly was enjoyable.

would rather they kept River's story deliberately vague, then you can imagine all the Han-Solo type shit she gets up to.

I agree. Jack stopped being an interesting character once he ended up on Torchwood and we learned his boring emo backstory.

Speaking of Jack, kind of lol'ed when Blue Jabba said that he lifted the time vortex off a handsome time traveler. (I've never seen Torchwood, so don't know if Jack's been keeping it Luke Skywalkery.)

picked up elsewhere but neat tip-off re Rory's Autonage: watch that scene where The Doctor pokes Rory in the chest. He sways back and forward, but makes a very plastic-sounding noise as her sways.

Plastic, or leather?

I don't know, this episode didn't really quite make it for me -- maybe because the Doctor seemed a step behind everything else in the story?

Would be v. pleased if there was no reveal of the chief baddie and he was the arch nemesis next season.

^ yes yes yes

I AM NOT COMPLAINING ABOUT SPOILERS, I AM COMPLAINING ABOUT BAD JOURNALISTIC STANDARDS AT THE BEEB. Delete what you like upthread. I am also assuming this means none of you ever watch the 'Next time' section in multi-part episodes

Yeah, I don’t.

(which always undoes the cliffhanger) or will be watching the trailers for The Big Bang on Monday and Tuesday in case it resolves something ahead of the episode.

WTF is The Big Bang? A British chat show? As it is already Monday afternoon, I'm v unlikely to fly to the UK in time to catch a 30-second promo for something on telly tomorrow, yeah.

(Ta for Next Doctor recap. It definitely makes no sense in terms of continuity with what’s actually been shown onscreen though, lol rtd)

FWIW if certain info appears on Wiki or on a broadcaster's website, it's pretty much impossible to cocoon ILX from comments relating to that.

Bullshit.

I like that they brought Rory back like everyone expected only for him to not be Rory.

Yes!

Plastic, or leather?

could be the hollowish breastplate being tapped? though that's plastic pretending to be metal, fair enough

I absolutely loved that episode, but I do kind of wonder why, having got the Doctor into a metal cube, they can't just pinch off the air hose and let him suffocate in there, or set the Pandorica to liquify or whatever. Maybe they will in the next episode.

WTF is The Big Bang? A British chat show?

***********BIG HUGE FUCKING SPOILER ALERT**************

It's a kind of sausage

Why didn't the code tag keep those multiple carriage returns in?

i believe that's deliberate, to stop people making threads unreadable with lots of whitespace.

we could do with a spoiler tag though that renders things in white on white, or something.

Spoiler removed anyway just in case.

It wasn't really a big huge spoiler tbh.

re why not just kill him - I'd speculate because a) they assume he'd regenerate and b) they don't know exactly what his link to the TARDIS is: maybe killing him will make it self-destruct? Their knowledge of the TARDIS isn't perfect: they think only the Doctor can fly it, after all.

How did the Tardis go from 0 to about-to-destroy-the-universe without him noticing?

This Doctor doesn't notice anything until it's very very nearly too late - it's sort of his thing.

I don't know, this episode didn't really quite make it for me -- maybe because the Doctor seemed a step behind everything else in the story?

See, that's why I liked it. Him not really knowing what was going on made it feel like there was more at stake. I really liked the ending to this one, the villains throwing the Doctor into the Pandorica reminded me a little bit of the ending to the Wicker Man (the good one, not the one with Nic Cage punching out women and being molested by bees).

Just watching The Beast Below again. Liz X is a fantastic character! I would like to see more stories with her in please.

Can't remember if anyone brought up the Cities in Flight similarities first time round.

Also I think the sinister fella with the glasses is The Demon Headmaster.

Weird. I just got finished watching the very same and the Guy Explaining It All To The Voters in the voting booth is a total cipher for David Kelly. I love Sophie Okenedo, she's a friend of an ex of mine and as we got hammered at a party one night a few years ago, she regaled me with stories of being a teenage Royal Court participant (and a few others) while effortlessly taking the piss out of my ex. So, clearly rocks on the screen and off.

Also, yes: Demon Headmaster guy was in this.

Definitely rocks on screen. I don't think she's ever been sexier than in this.

Just sayin', if any of you have the chance to go out on the lash with her, do it. WKIW again.

http://media.nowpublic.net/images//5c/4/5c4fe26a9d28bc5dccd1d64b00c7858a.jpg

HE'S READY

o shit I missed the first 20 minutes. Guess I should just wait for iplayer and ignore this thread.

Nice. Though I want to stick a tuning fork up Murray Gold's arse.

Was a bit Doctor Who's Excellent Adventure, but lolz galore and nicely tied up some stuff.

cant wait for xmas

so FUN!

(the only thing that threw me was assuming that taking river out of the exploding tardis would have an effect on its explosion, given that in the previous episode he'd been all 'ah but the tardis shuts down with no-one in it!' but... apparently not. mind you, it was exploding.)

It did accelerate once she was out.

idk if i liked this...enough :/

too many paradoxy solutions to stuff no? was hoping moffat would do something cleverer than have the doctor tell rory to release him from the pandorica having been released from the pandorica by rory in order to do so. and amy remembering the doctor allowing him to come back into existence? er, isn't that quite weak? still quite confused by it all tho so may be missing something.

Yes, the Amy remembers and thereby solves everything line was a bit pat. Though maybe next series will explain more why she is, as the Doctor keeps saying, "special" and we might get to the bottom of it. Thought the first half was very good - a funny and clever set of self-resolving logic puzzles, kind of mirroring the Pandorica itself. Inevitably, there are the silly holes - like if all the exhibits in the museum were disappearing, why not the museum itself? If everything in the sky had disappeared, why not the moon? How come the Tardis exploding happened to do so in exact synchronisation with what would have been the times for daylight on earth? Had the earth started orbiting round the Tardis? Eh? Etc etc. But it was great teatime telly.

Also, Pandorica opened by Rory with sonic screwdriver - what about the zillion levels of encryption hoo-haa they were on about last week?

Can the doctor starve to death? Does he keep regenerating then starving again?

Blueski otm about how the whole escape got started, too.

genuine q: why didn't his regen process start after Dalek extermination?

less genuine q: why was Rory still wearing Centurion clothes during WW2? and able to drag something the size of the Pandorica by hand?

Possible answers:

Dalek weapon wasn't powered up fully, so the Doctor wasn't fatally injured, just heavily wounded.

No idea about the clothes, but could he be stronger as an Auton?

Loved this, and really liked Karen Gillan.

I took the stasis thing to mean that the occupant of the Pandorica would be frozen in that second for all time, and that the Doctor was just knocked out.

Scottish media in-joke: did Mr Pond not look like a Jaspan doppelganger?

what about the zillion levels of encryption hoo-haa they were on about last week?

Only from the inside, I thought. It's designed to keep things IN.

Really entertaining crazy-bonkers ending to a crazy-bonkers series. Apart from Doomsday, I haven't enjoyed a neWho finale until now. I mean, this was OTT but it was also watchable.

So all the "silence will fall" stuff is being held over for the next series... ?!

Facebook correspondent friend (who is an award-winning SF writer/Idler editor) performing at Glastonbury Free Unversity has just reported meeting Matt Smith there, says his tent was bigger on the inside.

Weirdest thing: the update was timed the SECOND the episode finished. LOL.

Scottish media in-joke: did Mr Pond not look like a Jaspan doppelganger?
hahahahahah, yes!

Loved this! Wld buy fez + mop Doctor action figure.

I also liked Rory a lot more after this episode.

LOL Stet, was waiting (unsuccessfully, obv) for one of you and Grimly to bring that observation!

This is the part of the thread where I can exclusively reveal that on interviewing Machine Florence a week or so ago, she told me she'd met Karen Gillan at a red carpet event (GINGER SUMMIT) and having gotten hooked on Doctor Who via watching with little brother, confessed same. Her imitation of Karen's reaction was priceless. Perfect Scottish accent saying 'yuh watch Doctorrr Whuh?'

This was the best episode with a dalek in since Dalek btw (as The Pandorica Opens was the best cyberman featuring episode since... whenever the last good cyberman ep was)

oh i love doctor who sooooo much <3 <3 <3

Just watched it after spending the day at a wedding in the most Leadworth-y village I have ever seen in real life. (I made a point of checking the duckpond. Ducks present.) I thought it was bloody marvellous. Loved the shifts in tone, loved the stone dalek (and the whole vanishing monster armies thing), loved the shrinking universe feel (very Final Crisis #7, for comics ppl), thought the Doctor's speech to sleeping Li'l Amy was perfect, AUGUSTUS POND!!!, loved what they seem to be setting up for River, loved the lack of a big bad, and a married couple aboard the TARDIS too!

Honeymoon night on the tardis even

It was amazing. Fucking amazing, and I wasn't even particularly convinced by The Panorica Opens. It would take a hell of a lot of unpicking for me to determine if it all made any kind of sense, but the fact that a hyper-popular family show is willing to try something this mind-bending and ambitious is making me very happy. And the Doctor's line about the daft old man who stole a magic box made me a little bit sad.

This was the best episode with a dalek in since Dalek btw

Yeah, loved that Moffat had the obligatory Dalek appearance in the finale as an incidental threat rather than the main villain.

Also I would like it if both Amy and Rory were official companions next series. Rory has a gun for a hand so would come in useful.