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

I mean I do not see how you can not see that Amy is the semi-abusive controlling one in the relationship. She ran away with a strange man the night before her wedding; she's pushed/whacked/shoved more people than Rory by a country mile.

But, you know, she could abuse me.

Understandable human emotions lead to all varieties of reprehensible shit. Insecurity being pretty high on the list there. x-post

Wowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww. I don't even know what to say to the idea that Amy is abusive tbh. Who has she hit that wasn't a direct threat to her?

Understandable human emotions lead to all varieties of reprehensible shit. Insecurity being pretty high on the list there. x-post

no doubt, but 1.) i think you're really exaggerating Rory's behaviour and 2.) the show has gone to pretty great lengths to allow us to understand why Rory acts the way he does, the basis of which isn't that he's an intrinsically shitty person because most of his actions are pretty understandable [unless, I guess, you exaggerate his behaviour)

I understand where you're coming from though.

In fairness to Rory, he was manipulated into watching her vag like a hawk for 2000 years by their future daughter.

PLASTC

I mean we've all been there haven't we lads?

well, this thread took an unwelcome turn

would you really want it any other way?

SPOILERS

I think it's way more insulting to Amy to paint her as a controlled victim.

I also think Amy's anger towards the Doctor was totally justified.

Anyway it struck me that there's now a time-shift in Amy and Rory's relationship regardless of which Amy he took back with him. The Amy in the Tardis is the one that's still excited and thinks it's all a big adventure, whereas Rory is closer to the older Amy - ie "how dare you keep blundering into these situations and endangering us?"

Of course it could all be forgotten next week, like their missing baby.

Even though the episode started off technically bewildering -- which stream is the one where people with the Plague are quarantined? -- but the emotional payoff is keen (if predictable).

It threw me too but I stopped caring pretty early on. It seems to me that the writer wanted to tell a story about a man having to choose between the same woman at two different ages, and the whole sciency-fictiony premise was constructed expressly in service of that story. Analysing why the robots can't see squares is missing the point imo.

Also the fact that the episode is named 'The Girl Who Waited' and the fact that Amy has basically spent 87% of her life waiting for men (yes I'm ignoring Roryturion for the minute) adds gravity to Amy's horrific situation as a lonely 55 year old and underlines the massive scale of her 'raggedy man' hostility toward the Doctor.

Re Amy's and Rory's relationship: It plays out remarkably like people I know who met at the age of like seven and stayed together for 20–30 years, i.e. mutual distrust, uneven respect, one flirting/cheating on the other with little consequence, etc. He's a shit to her, she's a shit to him and they remain together – totally believable and real.

Don't get how Rory's being a shit at all here. He didn't leave her waiting for 36 years, wibbly wobbly timey wimey did - for him it was a matter of hours and he was doing his best to do whatever it took to save her as quickly as possible. Yes he's possessive and insecure but I don't think he's quite the vagina hawk he's being painted as.

Also the fact that the episode is named 'The Girl Who Waited'

Wasn't this a direct reference to Roryturion? iirc the Doctor called him "the boy who waited" in that episode.

that in turn was a reference to the doctor calling amy 'the girl who waited', when she waited for him as kid

People waiting for people is the whole Time Traveller's Wife concept that Moffat built his show around (c.f. Doctor/River)

Well, that episode made Mrs Chuck cry, YET AGAIN.

The hysterical emotional pitch of this season is getting a bit exhausting -- remember when we thought Moffat was too subtle? -- but at the same time it's interesting to see the show try something new. This one was so OTT it reminded me of one of the Tezuka "Phoenix" stories set in the future.

Also to note: Karen Pond's acting in this was genuinely impressive.

Well that sucked.

― Leee, Lord of Wtfomgham (Leee), Saturday, September 10, 2011 6:26 PM (1 week ago) Bookmark

didn't mind it. but that's three episodes running that shared quite a lot - claustrophobic environments, inner fears, malfunctioning aliens. Kinda want one where they just get out of the TARDIS and explore an alien planet.

Relinquishing assistants was decent. Rory talking about helping someone conquer a stammer/actual nursing being about helping with real nightmares as opp. to the doctor was good as well. Actual alieny stuff bit dull.

Anyone else find all the introspection can get a little wearying? In terms of TARDIS interrelations but also how the mechanics of defeating the alien work?

Also, realise it's possibly a function of having independent episodes by different writers, but the way River Pond/time baby has just been completely forgotten is a little weird.

Favourite episode so far this series.

Yeah, the continuity of this season seems pretty fucked up, particularly in characterisation terms. I liked the episode as it was, though they overplayed the annoying Walliams comedy character, and I also didn't get how easily Amy lost her faith in the doctor while he was still there with her and after he'd worked out the monster fed on faith and said it OUT LOUD WHILE SHE WAS THERE.

Hoping that there's some actual weird time anomaly that explains the stupidity of some of these narrative things but I doubt it, though the Doctor-Rory "you're talking in the past tense" thing was interesting.

not seen it, btw. just thought that was the traditional first post after a new ep now.

Didn't get the plot or premise at all, but quite liked it nonetheless despite the shoehorned reference to Nimon and the whole minotaur death scene feeling ripped off from the bit in Top Ten where the giant game-playing bull phases with the spaceship.

Time Babby was dealt with at the end when Amy said "oh, if you bump into my daughter tell her to come and visit her mother, will you?"

Next week looks on the face of it to be a largely pointless retread of a story from last year that was wrapped up in the story but WHO KNOWS might just have been sequeled because of the guest star.

oh right, missed that aldo, thanks. Thought that 'past tense' bit was the Doctor realising that Rory was subconsciously saying he didn't want to travel with the Doctor any more.

I've been liking these closed in, claustrophobic episodes. This series has really been strong on the pain and suffering the doctor causes his companions, I hope it gets resolved well.

As for next week, James Corden's spare room with a tardis in it seem to be put there for a reason this series. It fits with Neil Gaiman's tardis graveyard somehow.

plus, cybermats, it would seem

Amy "grew up" by becoming Amy Williams and relinquishing adventure for domesticity and Rory's dream of owning a mid-life crisis car. And I pretty much hate this show.

I liked that - well, up to their return to Earth, at any rate - but I like anything with a minotaur in. Hotel of Asterion!

Was a bit similar in some ways to the one before last with the scared kid and the dolls' house, I suppose, but as someone who has a lot of dreams about weird buildings full of staircases and corridors I appreciate the vein of nightmarish creepiness that they both tap into.

Amy "grew up" by becoming Amy Williams

Actually totally agree with the 'ick, fuck off' about this. However, we all know that they aren't going to stay in this form of domesticity, so I'm not sure that the show itself is *actually* saying that this is the paradigm they should aspire to. Judgement suspended for the time being.

^ yeah. I share your distaste and could've done without it being tacked on the end of an otherwise good episode, but I'll wait till I've seen where this is going before I get too angry about it.

Also, minotaurs.

No comments on the direction? For mainstream prime time TV that was some pretty weird direction. All those long shots to give a sense of distance from the Doctor and co... Had a very different feel to the other episodes. Voyeuristic, creepy. Seriously, that was a weird episode, really bold in its execution. Fairly spooked me.
Amy relinquishing adventure for domesticity? Don't you think you're jumping the gun? The Doctor doesn't want to put Amy in further danger, but obviously she'll be back. As has been said above, this isn't what they should aspire to. They're setting something up...

My reaction to this episode:

http://30.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ll7peiFOXN1qbe30io1_500.gif

I thought the entire point was not that Amy "grew up" by becoming a domestic drone but that The Doctor basically ditched another set of companions because shit was getting too real (see: the departures of Susan, Sarah Jane).

Hopefully if Melissa hates this show she'll stop watching it; life is too short to spend it on things you don't like.

Rubik's cube seems to be significant... supports the theory that there are two Doctors at play. In Night Terrors the Doctor couldn't solve it - this week's Doctor could. Or maybe that's a red herring. Perhaps he's solved it in the meantime. Colour symbolism... much blue in this episode. Doctor's bowtie and Amy's nail varnish were Tardis blue. Meaningful or a red herring?

when would they have switched places?

during the quarantine maybe?

I thought the entire point was not that Amy "grew up" by becoming a domestic drone but that The Doctor basically ditched another set of companions because shit was getting too real (see: the departures of Susan, Sarah Jane).

Yeah -- I thought that was rather obvious. Unless you're being willfully obtuse.

Look-In magazine! Respect due.
"With respect, you're fired" gave me a little lol.

I really liked this episode. Brought to mind how many of my favourite books/films reference spooky hotels with dreamlike moving walls etc. ALSO, I liked how Rory was the 'rational' one with no belief system to do for him.

He didn't have to ditch Amy while calling her "Amy Williams", a name she clearly never wanted (and shouldn't have to want). The idea that Amy's version of growing up and losing faith in childish things is capitulating to her husband's desires and taking his name is gross. It's also gross because Amy's last name has always represented adventure on the show ("a bit fairytale", "Melody Williams is a geography teacher, Melody Pond is a superhero"), so the Doctor calling her that and saying that that's who she really is (should be) seems to represent putting away "childish" things, as if a woman keeping her own name and rejecting her husband's is symbolic of immaturity.

Not going to stop watching.

Thought it was kind of "in reality, I'm kind of a dick. you need to realise that."

Why on Earth would you keep watching a show you hate so much? Are you that desperate to be unhappy that you feel forced to subject yourself to things you don't like?

Because it's a show that I'm invested in and that I want to be better than it is? Because I like the concept and some of the characters? And if I dropped everything that trafficked in this particular brand of bullshit I'd quickly be without any forms of entertainment.

I'm not a fan of the "Williams" thing, but I don't think it was about reinforcing a female-subjugated domesticity. It was just lazy writerly shorthand to signify an identity shift.

PRIME NUMBERS!

also the girl from Darjeeling Limited was in this.

If so, I need to watch Darjeeling Limited.

The fact that it's lazy writerly shorthand makes it worse though? It's the unexamined assumption that taking her husband's name=growing up that makes it so insulting. I mean, I wouldn't expect that they would do that while fully cognizant of the implications (perhaps giving them too much credit here, idk), I do think that it was a shorthand to signal her identity shift. That doesn't make it better to me, that just makes it more clear that that particular belief is just background noise to them and acceptable within the framework of how they think about women, marriage, etc. I mean, society is full of the unexamined assumption that a woman not taking her husband's name is emasculating or immature or some hairy feminist thing. x-posts

Maybe, but maybe not.

I think the show has dealt far too much with Rory and Amy's relationship to make it as simple as "taking your husbands name is the way to have a normal existence". It's unfortunate that the lazy, shorthand for an identity-shift encroached upon an area of feminist issue, but I don't think the show that grand, subjugating claim either. At the end of the day, it's not about creating (a very specific kind of) female empowerment.

After having slept on it, the thing I liked the most was the Muslim nurse and The Doctor's seeming admission that he'd be much better served by her as a companion than a needy, whiny, self-entitled, abusive arsehole. Although he'd probably keep the bloke who used to be made out of plastic.

Then that got me thinking - is NuWho Doctor defined and affected by his companions? Ecclescake started out out tough but the slide to Emo Doc had started midway through S1 and went full-on through S2 I WUB YOU nonsense. He gained the ability not to act in S3 and then became family obsessed in S4 which led to his eventual fate - trusting The Master and The Timelords to be doing the right thing because they were 'family', then poisoning himself to save Wilf 'for' Donna.

Over S5 and S6 we've seen him as a selfish, petulant child, who doesn't unstand how people think and often does irrational things just because they benefit him. We've also seen him throw himself at the opposite sex (Marilyn Monroe, the French Queen at the beginning of this series) whether he has an emotional attachment to them or not and as cocky and arrogant when it suits him, being abusive to the people that care about him for his own ends. Also he seems to have an inexplicable attachment to Melody/River that seems more like a family tie than anything.

Or is this just a coincidence?