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

Shurely the whole point is that it's an easy retcon for when the actors come back in two series time?

she lets the Angel zap her straight to her husband's side and writes a cheery coda to let the viewers know she's living happily ever after.

But is she, though? River had just told her "Never let him see the damage" and if things have not worked out the Doctor is not going deal with that very well. I don't see her writing an afterword that tells the Doctor that she ended up on her own and has been living a miserable existence even if that turned out to be the case.

I have officially been thinking about this stupid plot too much.

I remember Moffat saying early on that it's impossible for the series to get anything wrong w.r.t. continuity because everything is a ripple from the Time War. Suspect that it's the timey-wimey explanation.

xp

But is she, though? River had just told her "Never let him see the damage" and if things have not worked out the Doctor is not going deal with that very well. I don't see her writing an afterword that tells the Doctor that she ended up on her own and has been living a miserable existence even if that turned out to be the case.

That's a fair point but I don't see the cemetery allowing Amy to put her name on the tombstone and be buried on top of some random dude she claimed was her husband without some form of proof/evidence.

Inscription on gravestone means they wound up together, with her surviving him five years. And what Dan said. If Ponds ever reappear, bank on the date of that appearance being 1963.

Also: that's an unusual way to get a rent-controlled NYC apartment!

I remember Moffat saying early on that it's impossible for the series to get anything wrong w.r.t. continuity because everything is a ripple from the Time War. Suspect that it's the timey-wimey explanation.

And I thought this was fixed after Rassilon and crew got re-locked into the void in The End of Time

fuck that nonsense though

Moffatt rebooted the entire universe at the end of his first year, this is a much bigger free pass to ignore old continuity forever

Doesn't give him a free pass to create plots that make no sense.

no, that's a different issue

I finally watched this ep

Here's my whole problem with all timeline shenanigans and River Song is Amy's daughter and Rory waited 2000 years and Amy was never the little girl in the garden and let's go back to 1938 and fucking DIE but let's not but let's die

There's no fucking actual goddamn story for me to hang my bloody hat on when it comes to a finale and Amy's suddenly head over heels in love with Rory when she hadn't been for fucking ever, and River is calling her Mum randomly at the end when she hadn't all episode and

I just sat there watching the whole thing not caring. I bawled my fucking eyes out when the Rose series ended (yes I know everyone hates Rose but me whatever)...Autumn Almanac was otm when he said there was no emotional focus

The music made the ending sound like the saddest thing in all of humanity which was so irritating becuase I'm like SHUT UP I DON'T EVEN GET WHY I'M SUPPOSED TO BE SAD

I dunno, the whole thing left me cold. Let alone the stupid fucking Liberty Angel jesus effing christ I'd rather watch another Tardis car chase on the freeway

no idea why I double space all of that, haha

also I guess I didn't really like Pond that much overall so I just kind of accepted that she was done?

Amy's suddenly head over heels in love with Rory when she hadn't been for fucking ever,

they have been head over heels for at least seven or eight years in their own timeline at that point

exactly. in their own timeline.

maybe if I'd paid more attention to you and aldo explaining the timelines in detail I would have 'got' it better, but I just don't. Most of my complaints are more to do with me not really getting their arc really at all, and all the timeline jiggery pokery, than any story holes or what have you.

I just sat there watching the whole thing not caring. I bawled my fucking eyes out when the Rose series ended (yes I know everyone hates Rose but me whatever)...Autumn Almanac was otm when he said there was no emotional focus

I am one of those people who completely hates Rose but I agree her send off was much more well done/emotionally resonant than what happened with the Ponds.

And I love both of them! I was expecting to be much more upset by their leaving than what ended up happening, mostly because it was so dumb and emotionally manipulative.

I realize the useless detective was there to link into the narrative plot device that was the book but I feel like it would have been a much stronger story had that initial scene setting not been there at all and the entire episode had centered around Rory getting zapped back in time by the Angels and Amy chasing after him from the beginning

They could have set up a time loop where Rory was trapped forever and Amy willingly sacrificed herself to it in the off chance she could break them both out of it, and then had them both lost in the loop forever until they jumped off the roof and killed themselves. That would have been adequately "heartwrenching".

It seemed so dashed off at the last minute.

The conversation they had on the roof before they jumped was fantastic and felt earned, but the coda was just stupid and annoying

yeah I did like that exchange, it felt v tragic and heartfelt

Apparently when Mike McShane talks about nobody noticing statues moving any more to the detective, it's supposed to mean that people in NYC are desensitised to things moving around and tune out everything that happens in the city ergo Angel of Liberty can move about unobserved.

flawless

that just annoys me

The biggest problem with the Angel of Liberty is that they used it twice. They should have held off of that reveal until the roof scene with Amy and Rory.

otm

Would have preferred the Central Park Alice In Wonderland statue to come alive rather than Liberty. Just feels overused...

yeah that would've been cool

There were the elements of a great story there... The scuttling cherubs and scene with the chained up Angel were genuinely unsettling, but felt undercut by grafting a big Matrix back plot onto the Angels.

Most of my complaints are more to do with me not really getting their arc really at all, and all the timeline jiggery pokery, than any story holes or what have you.

― set the controls for the heart of the sun (VegemiteGrrl), Wednesday, 3 October 2012 01:32 (5 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This is otm. Wibbly wobbly works well when it supports a story, or when nothing terribly important is supposed to be happening that week. In this case it should have taken a back seat to the exit of two major characters, but didn't.

The conversation they had on the roof before they jumped was fantastic and felt earned, but the coda was just stupid and annoying

― set me on fire RAAAAH (DJP), Wednesday, 3 October 2012 01:48 (5 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

That 'it's called marriage' line actually caused me to break my neck, because that's the speed at which the vomit came flying out of my face

Just occurred to me, since when can Angels take over statues? They're not possessing spirits, they're aliens who happen to look and behave like statues.

The statue that did for Mike McShane is an actual bronze statue in OK,dedicated in 1930.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5f/Pioneer_2.jpg

The Asylum of the Daleks episode was okay, but, apart from that, I haven't liked or cared about this series one bit. I'm wondering whether I'm done with it, or it's just a bad (shortish) run?

This has been a pretty crappy run of episodes.

none of them were as bad as Victory of the Daleks, so there's slight comfort in that

This has been a pretty crappy run of episodes.

Yep. Hopefully the new year will be a burst of fun with the new companion, with fewer plot holes and 200% less Chibnall.

I finally watched this and the gaping "why doesn't the Doctor just pick them up in LA in 1940?" plot hole was so big and so stupid it undermined basically everything else. Amy and Rory jumping off the roof was indeed great though.

I really thought they were building up to Amy getting (normally) pregnant and her and Rory forcibly turning the Doctor away and telling him never to come back. Which would have been more elegant and more final than the mess we got.

Also I wish they'd get actual Americans actors to play Americans.

I rewatched Blink the other week and the Angels did not send the Doctor and Martha back to 1969. They were already in 1969 when the Angels stole the Tardis, leaving them stranded there. As they weren't time locked, they could return to the present day once they got the Tardis back.
So Moffat has been entirely consistent with the show's internal logic. When the Angels send someone back it's a done deal.

Strange then that the Doctor says to the Angel zapped policeman "Normally I'd offer you a lift home but somebody nicked my motor."

Yes, I remember that line and I read it as the Angels stole the Tardis. It's never explicitly stated that they zapped the Doctor and Martha back in the process. The convention is that the Angels send you back for good, making any Tardis rescues impossible.

Aye, but it also says that he could bring the policeman back, is I think onimo's point.

Yes, it implies he's taken other people home without shattering the fabric of time and space and the only thing stopping him is the TARDIS being stuck in the future.

That's the thing, being sent back in time isn't actually scary unless it actually locks you there.

Trying to work out how and why Moffatt has fallen off so badly recently - his early episodes and first full season were all fantastic but it's felt increasingly back-of-a-fag-packet since.

Actually, thinking about it the departure of the Ponds/season arc (and to a degree the whole story of Amy) is the emo bit of The Girl In The Fireplace stretched out over 5 episodes (and/or 3 seasons): The Doctor dips in and out of the companion's lives exposing that his timeline and their reality take place at different speeds/are not concurrent, the companion has grown up from childhood with a romanticised notion of The Doctor based on their first meeting, the companion is told by The Doctor he'll be right back, only to disappear for a number of years, the final fate of the companion is written down by them and read by The Doctor after their death.

ooh, good connection! The Girl in The Fireplace might have been my least favorite Tennant episode.

But... but... you DID see the Daleks in New York story, right?

Ha Ha I actually liked the Daleks take Manhattan. I thought it was funny.

The problem with landing the tardis in 30s New York didn't have anything to do with events in the Dalek story did it?

Presumably had more to do with the energy battery the Angels had set up and which was destroyed by the end of the episode. So just realising if it was down to that, then the problem would have disappeared when the battery was flushed out of history, surely?

So is that another loophole they missed? or did somebody already mention that?

I think the logic was that the paradox created by Rory and Amy's "suicide" was so large that it would be dangerous to land a TARDIS at the same place and time again.

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