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

Wait, is that a serious suggestion or just a convenient explanation for shoddy plotting?

Episode was ok, I guess - got better as it went along. Direction/pacing/action a bit lacklustre. A few shots at the end reminded me of that terrifying scene with the robotwoman the end of Superman 3.

I was so fascinated yet repelled by that superman 3 scene as a kid!

This was alright, yet I found it pretty tiresome. Maybe I'm a bit bored of Doctor Who as it's currently done. WOuld love some more small-scale stuff at this point.

CGI dinosaurs in the next one look properly shoddy.

THIS WAS FANTASTIC

I remember when Daleks used to kill people with lasers instead of by boring them to death with shitty melodrama.

Admittedly it's been a while.

I really enjoyed this. Esp my favorite Who thing which = TRAPEZOIDAL HALLWAYS. Found the girl a bit too gabby but overall kinda likeable.

My biggest problem with Pond/Rory is that every time they go for a tearful relationship moment that's v touchign I'm just left kind of cold. Because I don't really like their relationship anyway and I'm not a huge Pond person. The timeywimeyness of their relationship also confuses things too, bc you're not sure which version of them it is and all that other extraneous stuff.

Anyway that was p yay and fun.

THIS WAS FANTASTIC

^^

I had a surge of irrits at the Amy model scene bcz of the timeline being so unclear but apart from that loved it*. Sooooo dense and fast, this was like a six-parter rammed down into 48 mins.

*OK they should have made MUCH more out of using all those old Dalek designs.

SPOILER POST

I was surprised that they addressed the "Rory is Amy's puppy" thing so directly but lolled that it was resolved by Amy doubling down on Rory's puppydom (was that REALLY the first conversation they had about her infertility and does Amy not know what adoption is?)

A little annoyed at the idea that causing the Daleks to forget who the Doctor is (and do they have no permanent records?) would cause them to stop attacking him - attacking (or enslaving) anything that isn't Daleks is very much their MO.

They were going to attack him, he got in the Tardis in time to escape. But there would have been some confusion that a strange dude had just appeared in their parliament that would probably stall them from immediately attacking giving the Doctor time to showboat a bit and get away.

There are two Amys and two Rorys wandering around at some points, the model Amy is later in her personal timeline than the one in Utah. But after Utah they go travelling with the Doctor so there isn't that much overlap with the dream home, I think.

Episode was okay, I felt kind of uninvolved by it. I don't think the character we saw in this episode is the actual new companion - the companion is supposedly called Clara Oswin rather than Oswin Oswald - and there's an explanation on the way.

Ah no, I meant the Daleks in the Intensive Care ward, when he was first wiped from the Path Web.

I did like the 'Doc..tor' scenes, reminded me of Dalek.

*scene

EGGS!

EGGS!!

Hens. I hate hens.

I still kind if think he should have rescued Oswin anyway

excuse my ignorance but is that not the New Companion?

It's the same actress but possibly a different character? By law every companion has to have featured in the show previously, now.

They've only done that with three of them, right (Martha via her cousin, Donna, new girl); everyone else has been introduced as a new character in the episode where they travel with the Doctor

Karen Gillan was one of the priestesses in that Pompeii episode.

Yus - though I am not counting Rory. Because he doesn't fit.

Except all the implications from Moffatt and her imply heavily this is the same person, which makes it different to Martha and Amy.

Hence my how you resolve it without being all River Song same-person-earlier-in-their-time-stream-when-you-both-know-how-the-LONG-future-pans-out.

Maybe that's what the whole "River, you changed history!" thing from the season teaser is about

Could be. Although it does smack of just re-using ideas (which is my whole Moff big thing, just as this episode reuses "Corner of the Eye").

What implications?

Can't see him taking her as companion from earlier in her timeline, because that would wipe out the Dalek memory deletion, which is obviously his big idea for making Dalek adventures potentially more intersting (ie about their actual schemes, not just them shouting at the Doctor for 20 minutes as soon as he appears)

There are two Amys and two Rorys wandering around at some points, the model Amy is later in her personal timeline than the one in Utah.

Only if he drops them at the dream house years before their adventures with him, which hasn't been clearly indicated in the show.

Can't see him taking her as companion from earlier in her timeline, because that would wipe out the Dalek memory deletion, which is obviously his big idea for making Dalek adventures potentially more intersting (ie about their actual schemes, not just them shouting at the Doctor for 20 minutes as soon as he appears)

Unless the doctor puts the idea in her head. Maybe they meet earlier in her time line, later in his and he has to put her back there on the asylum and give her the wipe the dalek memory idea in order to prevent breaking time (again)

(was that REALLY the first conversation they had about her infertility and does Amy not know what adoption is?)

OTM. My problems with that scene: you HAVE a kid, she was called Melody, then became River. Remember? Oh yeah, and if you really want kids, you can adopt or foster some, you idiots.

I did really like the "OMG she's a Dalek" reveal, I have to say. I thought she was going to be a robot or the ship's computer. Would like it if she becomes his companion as a Dalek, but I guess that's highly unlikely.

Another annoying thing: PLEASE STOP SAYING "DOCTOR WHO?", IT IS AS ANNOYING, IF NOT MORE, THAN FUCKING "SPOILERS".

Dalek memory reset is fantastic, it means the doctor can just go around having adventures, battling aliens and this whole messianic thing can be laid to rest.

Unless the doctor puts the idea in her head. Maybe they meet earlier in her time line, later in his and he has to put her back there on the asylum and give her the wipe the dalek memory idea in order to prevent breaking time (again)

Given the strong intentional character development since School Reunion designed to not have the Doctor make his companions lives worse, and that he already wiped one's memory and emoed out about it, I doubt enormously that Moffatt would have him give a companion her fondest dreams while knowing all through their years of adventuring together that he was going to wipe her brain when he was done with her or she started to look too old.

OTM. My problems with that scene: you HAVE a kid, she was called Melody, then became River. Remember?

This is in no way the same thing as raising children yourselves.

Oh yeah, and if you really want kids, you can adopt or foster some, you idiots.

It's not fair to call Rory an idiot, as he is 100% shown to accept that they won't have biological kids. And the entire break-up is specifically shown to be BECAUSE Amy is being an idiot about it, that she has built up "Rory wants kids" in her head into "I am inadequate because I can't give them to him therefore I'm blowing up the marriage."

Okay, yeah, Rory wasn't given a chance to be an idiot about it, I guess. And I realise River isn't the same thing as bringing up a child in a family, but it was said like they'd both just completely forgotten about her existence, or decided she wasn't really their child. There was no mention, no flicker of knowledge in their eyes... it was just like she didn't exist. All they had to do to make the scene more convincing was change "have a child" to "have a family", really. Everyone would know what that meant and it wouldn't be so jarring and cold.

That wouldn't have made any sense, plus they explicitly referenced the people who kidnapped River in that argument so there was no actual need to mention her

Why would that not have made any sense?

they explicitly referenced the people who kidnapped River

If your idea of 'explicit' is 'those people' or 'over there' or whatever vague thing it was they actually said, then... well, I imagine your porn is safe for children.

How does "I can't have a family" make sense?

Also, maybe I am misremembering but I thought she said "after I was kidnaped and tortured by the whoever-they-were*, I can't have children", plus it was self-evident that the source of Amy's misreading was the belief that it was more important to Rory that he raise kids than be with her.

* I recognize that it doesn't bolster my argument that I can't remember their name

"I can't give you a family" is maybe a little clearer, but "I can't have a family" pretty clearly implies infertility, while circumventing the problem of River. I dunno, maybe it's only colloquial British or something, but "family" equates to "kids" an awful lot of the time (even if I disagree with that as a general principle). But then again, maybe if they'd just acted a bit better the line could have been kept as-is without the weird "let's ignore our daughter's existence" thing.

she said "whatever they did to me at Demon's Run."

p sure we all totally understood what she meant as it is

Is Doctor Who really that complicated or is there just something about it where people watch it with their brains completely turned off and seem to willfully miss a third of the dialogue that is actually said?

Is it the accents? I've watched so much British TV that these days characters have to be purposely hard to understand for me to miss what they're saying.

NB - this is seems to be an issue on other forums that are explicitly whoniverse-fandom based, and was just as bad when RTD was writing decidedly less continuity-heavy material (like it took a few hundred posts on one thread before everyone understood the whole radiation situation in Journey's End)...

I am just baffled by others' bafflement.

well, people on this thread have just seen Dr Who on the TV and probably weren't paying 100% attention to the dialogue nor had the ability to rewind and check stuff.

it remains super irritating to me that dr who exists in a universe in which adoption does not exist but iirc Amy did say something slightly longer, like
"you want kids! even when you were a kid, you wanted kids" <-- this isn't denying River's existence, this is talking about Rory wanting the experience of bringing up children in its normative generic sense, which they have not had w/ best-friend-Mels and River-dropping-in-sometimes.

(also i liked that rory was being a total dick ("come on, we both know i'm the one who loves most out of the pair of us"), not just a martyr)

i have been historically against the thing where moffat makes characters say "doctor WHO?" but this time it was p funny and satisfying. dalek reset! that + the bit where he 'died' at lake silentio = maybe there really won't be so much of that i-am-the-doctor-what-have-you-heard-about-me nonsense this time.

Playful or not, I don't like the inter-spousal slapping thing and hope they never do it again - and as to the "Doctor who?" thing, I remember the John Waters dictum about that sinking sense of dread you get when a character shoehorns the title of the show/film into dialogue, unless the film is supercampy. Otherwise the episode left me a bit giddy.

That hallucinatory shot of the spinning ballerina is one of the most gorgeous pieces of filming I've ever seen. Keep going to iPlayer to rewind just that, and totally boggle at its beauty.

Is Doctor Who really that complicated or is there just something about it where people watch it with their brains completely turned off and seem to willfully miss a third of the dialogue that is actually said?

Sometimes the music is so overpowering and awful that I can't hear what people are saying. This might the fault of the speaker system we use, or it could be that the music is genuinely overpowering and awful.

My problem with this revelation wasn't so much its logical consistency within the show's universe as I'm just sick of every programme that features a couple having to tackle the problems associated with an inability to have children. Sure, in soaps, which are about nothing but relationships, or in serious family dramas, go ahead. But in Doctor Who? Can't we just have more aliens?

unless the film is supercampy

I have some news that may be upsetting to you

Seriously don't think you've ever provided news to me, don't ever change...

Also, from Doctor Who and the Crusaders, this:

http://d3j5vwomefv46c.cloudfront.net/photos/full/601170738.jpg?key=570526&Expires=1346661453&Key-Pair-Id=APKAIYVGSUJFNRFZBBTA&Signature=FIr0rcrgSVccUmbbMUKAFrOsEbJIEPa9lNgTIh70RAa-WTXpiwNm1366owr4Q6POmUqGkfpD2xQfJO0T8am1cvOO4xPnc8~Z8WvssyCRW-yU5mw~Q1bcVpOs3h76nzPyIRTa4pS5~kl--GRGmAsOWqVTo6DyaxwzCUJ3SUyQJ5o_

I quite enjoyed that

but it has to be said that every time an RTD episode had a convenient plot point of fending off doom by clinging on to good old human love-type emotions I would be on this thread afterwards moaning and vomiting, so I'd better do it for Moffat too: that bit was rubbish, or at least the bit where it was suddenly decided that the dalekification process was 100% halted forever with no need for further action

(maybe Amy's part-Dalek nature is going to come back in future episodes though, and I reserve the right to think that's rubbish too, because thinking things are rubbish is what I do)

"The Doctor has an anti-daleking machine in the TARDIS. He's got everything in there." That seems to be the most popular online handwave.

I would even have been happy with that if it had been shown on screen. Y'know, the Doctor waving his sonic screwdriver at a colander placed on Amy's head going "there we are, no more Dalek Amy", that would be all the level of explanation I need.

I'd probably still have complained on this thread about love saving the universe again, mind.

I am a little concerned with plot manifesting itself through threats to Amy's bodily integrity, mind (Weeping Angelification, Pregnancy, Dalekification).

Another annoying thing: PLEASE STOP SAYING "DOCTOR WHO?", IT IS AS ANNOYING, IF NOT MORE, THAN FUCKING "SPOILERS".

God I hate this so much. Even Rusty new this was beyond the pale.