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

My friend's five year old (a Who nut) loved the finale, although he said 'it was quite confusing'. But yeah, I don't think kids mind being confused. And there was so much cool stuff for them to focus on. He went berzerk when the Alliance turned up. 'Cybermen? Daleks?! SONTARANS!!!' (he loves Sontarans). The odd nerd moaned that 'oh the Cybermen and Daleks would never team up', but if the Tories and Lib Dems can... Joking apart, why not? That sort of joyless nitpicking takes all the fun out of it. And setting up the Alliance only to have them play no part in the Big Bang was a nice touch, subverting the RTD finale mode. Making a single Cyberman and Dalek threatening was a great achievement.

We're going to get the River origin story next year, right?

I am so over origin stories. I'd like to see more stories I don't already know the conclusion to, thanks.

much better if River remains a little mysterious.

I'd like to learn about her eventually, but they could keep up the intrigue for at least another series and I'd be quite happy.

Kids are perpetually confused, so they handle it much better than adults. They can just write chunks off as "confusing stuff" and move on.

The problem with too much made-for-kids stuff is trying to remove all the possibility forbconfusion, which makes it dull for adults and leaves kids unstretched. I think Moffatt gets this, so even episodes that are very kid-focused (like the first one) will take sudden zigzags into the strange.

I was often confused by Doctor Who as a kid (Ghostlight, anyone?). Loved it all the same.

Also, you know, kids will fill in the blanks with their own interpretation, and (lucky them) don't yet understand the concept of 'canon', etc. Also, surely the story wasn't THAT confusing?

To get back to the episode, though, wasn't it a fucking cracker? Surprised to see so much internet grumbling (or maybe not). Haven't watched a single episode on telly, though (all iPlayer and t0rrents).

Can Aldo come back now, too?

Am now rewatching the whole series from the start, picking up on new bits and bobs that I didn't notice before, and that feed into the finale. Also makes me wish they could somehow have both adult and child Amys as simultaneous companions. Maybe a child Amy from a parallel universe, as otherwise adult Amy would remember it all from being a kid.

Ghostlight was simple in plot, pretentious in aim, and ultimately shit for that

Oh, ten year old me didn't have the foggiest what was going on in Ghostlight, but loved the atmosphere of the thing.

That's exactly what 32 year old me made of it too.

Didn't they essentially cut big chunks out of Ghostlight and it was untelligible because there were bits missing that were never compensated for?

I remember reading something about it being changed loads between original script and airing, and that the writer (didn't he write Lungbarrow too?) was pissed off because his story didn't make sense. Wish I could find it.

Marc Platt. Wikipedia has a load of information about it (therefore it's true).

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)

loved the shrinking universe feel (very Final Crisis #7, for comics ppl)

OTM, I was thinking the same thing! Also, the Doctor saving earth by travelling into the heart of the sun -- isn't that All-Star Superman?

I think the "That's a fairytale"/"Aren't we all" Doctor/River dialogue in Flesh and Stone is kind of meant to foreshadow the reset button but yes it makes very little sense.

http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Actioncomics583.jpg

And setting up the Alliance only to have them play no part in the Big Bang was a nice touch, subverting the RTD finale mode. Making a single Cyberman and Dalek threatening was a great achievement.

Yes yes yes.

bah, mentally insert Actioncomics583.jpg as punchline after the last link :(

The problem with too much made-for-kids stuff is trying to remove all the possibility forbconfusion, which makes it dull for adults and leaves kids unstretched. I think Moffatt gets this, so even episodes that are very kid-focused (like the first one) will take sudden zigzags into the strange.

L'Engle's A Wrinkle In Time is still the gold standard for how to manage children-oriented timey-wimey bits and bobs. Moffatt seems to be working off the same playbook and is pretty much kicking ass.

Agreed! Think that's why I enjoy it so much...he doesn't play down to kids but he doesn't play up to adults. And I know that 10 year old me and 34 yo me could watch it together & have a riproaring time.

I remember reading X-Men comics as a little kid and had few problems understanding all the time travel and alternate universe dopplegangers as a little kid; don't be surprised that children can understand this kind of stuff pretty well!

Aldo, I remember you....and you are late for this thread.

don't be surprised that children can understand this kind of stuff pretty well!

exactly! also, as a child i was way better at papering over plotholes, way more interested in trying to think about how things worked (even if i got it wrong), and also had way more patience as a reader of long books i'd now find boring - if children are engaged in a piece they're a great deal more generous than adults would be.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShGhRRD5fCQ&feature=player_embedded

The series in two minutes.

Think the people who claim that Amy doesn't grow as a character throughout the series are mental and rong and possibly wilfully ignoring it because they don't like Karen Gillen, but it's also possible that's because her character is actually reset three or four times throughout the series - ie we see completely different Amys at various points in the series because her own experiences keep getting rewritten.

liked that video!

good point about Amy's character resets, more interesting as a whole, now that i think about it (but i never had a problem with Amy)

and also had way more patience as a reader of long books i'd now find boring

definitely so true for me too. can't believe i did all that tolkien and narnia as a kid

narnias are like 120pp each

I smoked a lot of Aslan in college

i still can't imagine even trying to read them today

You mean as a kid today, or going back and rereading them now?

I mean now as an adult. I mean, even when I was reading them I recognized these were often boring, but at the time I gobbled up kid books at a crazy rate, regardless of quality - I think I picked stuff purely on genre or wacky premise (mostly junk, even by kid standards)

The series in two minutes.

:D

I usually read the Chronicles of Narnia about once a year, the first three books even more frequently. You can knock out two or three of them in a long afternoon!

Read all of them again recently while bed ridden. The early ones especially are nowhere near as boring as the Lord of the Rings (I loved the vast tracts of Teutonic tedium as a child of course). That's if you can get past the rather obvious but also rather weird Christian stuff. The Last Battle is both very weird and very boring. A preachy surreal fable.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7_jrqZD6Ns

we're just going to repost that every two days until Christmas?

The Doctor will be on an episode of the Sarah Jane Adventures before Christmas, but it won't be the same.

Eric Cantona is set to inject a bit of Ooh Ah into Doctor Who.

The former Manchester United star is being lined up for a role as an evil alien alongside Time Lord Matt Smith.

sb'd for posting arrant nonsnenes

ha

http://26.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l4vv6drgwi1qc6xeao1_500.jpg

I only came for the dancing...

Most people have said what I thought, in fact ailsa nailed it in one of the first posts that it was very Bill & Ted. I enjoyed it quite a lot (and agree with a lot of Tom's Final Crisis comparisons) despite it being full of holes. But do you know what I absolutely hated? A beautiful, wonderfully written and delivered speech about Billy and his TARDIS - which then turns out to be the lead-up to a crap "something old, something new" wedding-related pun.

I like Suzy's solution to the Big Bad, which is what the generally accepted rumour says is true.

For people asking above Moffatt has said River Song's story will be completed during his time as showrunner.

Eric Cantona is from King Of The Shit Non-Spoiler, the Daily Star, but then Rusty's been swanning round Hollywood telling people Johnny Depp is going to be in his Doctor Who film so who knows.

Is which episode Neil Gaiman is writing next season or what it's called too much of a spoiler? I don't think so, but that means nothing.

The bit where Amy appears in the Pandorica at the beginning, when you're expecting the Doctor, and says 'Ok kid, this is where it's going to get complicated' is just marvellous, puts a chill up my spine. Revelling in the fun. Like the beginning of a detective story.

since Gaiman has been scrupulous about not revealing his episode title, he presumably considers it something to keep unannounced at this point

Well apart from naming the title in a BBC interview last week, and saying which episode it was on his Twitter today, yes.

he's said for about six months it will probably but not definitely be the third or fourth episode next year. last I saw he was still concealing the title. [shrug]

Fighting about spoiling is BORING. I feel like people who whinge are asking for too much coddling - buy your own cotton wool for wrapping shit in. Someone should just screengrab the Gaiman tweet - can't say much against that or BBC site drops.

But is it really spoiling to know which episode Gaiman has written?
Plot details sure, but just the name of the ep and when it'll air is hardly spoiling, surely.

Or I am entirely misunderstanding the conversation in which case I'll be over here. :)

Someone should just screengrab the Gaiman tweet - can't say much against that or BBC site drops.

ALDO was the one who started criticising BBC site info (but saying that he should spread it here even if he's opposed to it being there)!

But I checked Gaiman's twooter and there's nothing on it from the last few days, so presumably what I said three posts ago stands

No I fucking didn't, some people keep saying I did and I'm sick of people misquoting me.

What I criticised was the lazy and stupid journalism that allows you to interview your own stars IN THE SAME WEEK AS A CLIFFHANGER IN WHICH THEY'RE ACTUALLY DEAD to talk about where the show goes next. It's the failure to check what's happening on screen and/or the specific intent to charge off in the other direction regardless that I'm criticising. It's the degrading of television journalism to writing advertising copy, that the only thing it's there for is to SELL SELL SELL the show to increase viewing figures or drive the price up for overseas sales that depresses me. That's the reason I didn't think it was there, that changing the timing by ONE WEEK was all it took, but they were so desperate for more people to watch (which failed spectacularly tbh, lowest figures of the series) that they didn't give a flying fuck what was on the screen. Lazy or self-obsessed.

Same point with Gaiman, he's been scrupulous, except when he hasn't. If the general belief is that he has, does any journo have the right to blab it round, even if he's there?

Or shall I just fuck off again? I only came back because a couple of people wanted me to talk about Doctor Who (and I seem to have missed the Ghost Light chat already).

Did anyone really think that Amy was actually going to die after Rory shot her? If they were going to kill her, they'd have done it in the final ep of the season rather than as the cliffhanger.

Just remembered the scene with the two Amys in the museum, I love the schoolteachery way the Doctor talks to them - "come along, Ponds".

Breathe, aldo! Your criticism was bang on, but you DID also quote the objectionable material here. Go on and link to the BBC interview with Gaiman or the new Gaiman tweets, though.

People may have assumed that Amy wouldn't die, but that doesn't mean they wouldn't enjoy the tension of waiting to see WHETHER she did or HOW she got out of it - and the whole opening of the following episode was built on resolving this tension.