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

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.

Not sure about that: wouldn't he have been rebooted like the rest of them? And if not, there must be a second Rory there too, because the post-reboot Rory won't have left with the doctor and so won't be dead.

Yeah, I'm confused but think you're right. The idea of an Auton Companion has a certain appeal though.

All the solutions and resolutions were a bit peremptory, I thought -- everything works out if you want/remember it hard enough!! -- which is the risk you run when doing a quasi-fatalistic involuted timey wimey story, but those last ~15 minutes were splendid as I grow into my sentimental dotage.

very Final Crisis #7, for comics ppl

This is a Bad Thing, though?

Boo on River + Pond blowing up the fez.

He can always buy a fez.

Fantastic! Now that's how you do a season finale!

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?

Wasn't the TARDIS orbiting the Earth?

And the Doctor's line about the daft old man who stole a magic box made me a little bit sad.

Me too--the whole something old/new/borrowed/blue thing was ace!

i like the Earth orbiting the TARDIS idea better. why didn't things just vanish instantly from existence rather than decay like the Daleks did? also seems odd to re-design the Daleks all shiny and colourful but for this not to matter at all in the finale, just from an aesthetic pov.

hopefully we'll get to see River's first encounter with the Doctor (as opposed to his first encounter with her) next series.

that was great undermining of the marketing-led iDalek design

Loved the HOLY SHIT moment when I realized the Earth was being kept in the game by 'sunlight' from 'sploded Tardis. Well played, Moffat.

I would like to speculate that River is a con artist and she's actually married to the Doctor's biggest enemy, who we haven't met yet. Wondering how many MacGuffins - proto-TARDIS at the top of the stairs, certain aspects of Chez Pond being bigger on the inside, gooey sonic screwdriver - will follow through to the next series.

Post-finale interview with Moffat, by Moffat's kid:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zs1mIAMTE0c

There was lots I enjoyed about this, but I dunno, I think it ultimately felt a bit flat just because there was a lack of any real peril. Oh, the universe is collapsing...but mostly that's happened already before the start of the episode. Earth is the last bit hanging on...but then it hangs on for another 2000 years while Rory sits outside a box. There just didn't seem to be any real sense of urgency about anything.

That time vortex manipulator was far too convenient as a problem solving tool too.

I LOVED this episode and this season. Way to make all the past series look like complete garbage, Moffatt! Loved all the crazy vortex traveling, the carefully laid "off" moments from various episodes during the the Doctor's trip backwards, Rory being totally redeemed as a character, Amy's great performance throughout, the fez gag, everything.

It doesn't hang on for another 2000 years exactly because the rate of collapse isn't happening in linear time, it seems to be more folding inwards on the exploding-TARDIS event, so instead of a universe we get an Earth where there never was a universe, with a near-complete history the Doctor could hop around in. And then that history gets bits eaten out of it, until we're left with four time travellers, a museum, a Pandorica and an exploding TARDIS as all that's left of time and space: mix well and reboot. I agree there wasn't urgency though, it was going for a slightly different feel I think - kind of more elegiac and entropic - even the dalek was a decayed, half-dead thing.

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.

Wee red-haired nerdy girl who spends a lot of time talking to herself and inventing friends. Seems pretty special to me, thanks.

it was going for a slightly different feel I think - kind of more elegiac and entropic - even the dalek was a decayed, half-dead thing.

You are right about this. It did give the whole thing a lovely melancholy and made the wedding seem that much more fun.