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

I can see not liking AGMGTW bcz it's too busy, but not bcz it's too boring

ooh I forgot about that one, can't remember whether I liked it though

Strax was even better in that than he was in this

STOP with the "human emotions are the only thing that can defeat the enemy" storylines already

OTM. This is SO LAME at this point. Also he needs to ease off "Doctor? Doctor WHO?" like immediately. Even Rusty knew to avoid that one.

I thin they're allowed to make a 'Doctor who?" joke exactly once per series.

less.

IIRC the question is being asked because the silence has fallen.

YDNRC IIRC, other way around

So today/tonight. Also:

Ahead of tonight’s premiere, “Doctor Who” revealed some of the all-star cast that will mark the 50th anniversary. David Tennant and Billie Piper will join current Doctor and companion, Matt Smith and Jenna-Louise Coleman, while John Hurt (“Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy,” “Alien,” “Harry Potter”) will also co-star.

eeeeeeeeeee :D

please let Eccleston have a change of heart

Good god she's pretty.

So, I should get familiar with The Abominable Snowmen I guess, but it's one of the mostly missing ones. Are there audio tracks? Decent reconstruction? Novelization? Anything like that?

Ah - http://www.recons.com/recons/lc25.htm

(CGI yeti? urgh).

my face is permanently fused to my palm

uuuuuughhhh @ this

that was… not bad

remembering most viewers have nfi how wifi works,and so don't need to suspend the extraordinary amount of disbelief that we do

that was… not bad

― Esteban Buttiérrez (Autumn Almanac), Sunday, March 31, 2013 10:34 AM (16 minutes ago)

A quite stylish and filmic looking episode, but otherwise just another nonsensical, hyperactive runaround. I happened to see a Chris Ecclestone episode recently - End of the World, or whatever it was called - in which the Doctor sat down and had a normal, quiet conversation with his companion. I can't imagine Mat Smith doing that anymore.

I'm not against hyper per se, but it sometimes feels like, among the hyper, the show loses the courage of its convictions. Standout moment for me was when boss villain woman revealed that she'd been indoctrinated by the Great Intelligence as a kid.

Standout moment for me was any moment with Jenna-Louise Coleman on screen

But seriously, it wasn't awful. Definitely not the worst opening episode and I think The Doctor/Clara relationship has potential. But I should mention on that point that I don't retract in horror at the idea of The Doctor and a companion flirting or moving into vaguely romantic territory or whatever the way some others seem to, and it's been frequently mentioned (or skirted round) in interviews that this could happen here.

Not really too aware of what the "ARCS" are for this series or of the plans for the Anniversary, but they should probably just make the programme being advertised in this fan-made trailer tbh.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8g5BrLm7uQ

Web Of Fear is way better than Abominable Snowmen (not that Snowmen is bad)

It was practically a re-run of the 'Rose' Christopher Eccleston opening episode, with the Shard standing in for the London Eye this time.

Yeah, I said that - with the "next time" teaser also looking mightily similar to the second ep of Ecclescake's series as well.

Gaiman has written the penultimate episode of this series, by the way.

As long as he doesn't chew on anyone's postcards, that's fine.

debate is raging on my Twitter feed on whether or not nu-Who (I think both this latest episode specifically and the recent period in general?) is sexist / at least v dubious wrt gender roles. I've seen only bits and pieces, not enough overarching plots and such to judge, so what does ILX think?

Moffat era is a bit.

I think Moffat gets a bad rap for this -- there is sexism in his writing but I will argue w/anyone who thinks that RTD was less so. How was Rose sobbing on a beach that her life was worthless until the Doctor came along was in any way progressive?

I wouldn't say it's progressive, but writing a storyline doesn't have to avoid emotion. Catherine Tate obviously the best of the companions on that front. I just think Moffat tends to reduce women to sassy puzzles that need to be figured out. Rory probably the most emotionally complex character of this era.

RTD would never have let that "Is it a demon?" / "It's a woman" / *monk crosses himself* joke past, as an obvious example.

It was practically a re-run of the 'Rose' Christopher Eccleston opening episode, with the Shard standing in for the London Eye this time.

― ex-ex-gay (Bob Six), Sunday, 31 March 2013 23:41 (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah, I said that - with the "next time" teaser also looking mightily similar to the second ep of Ecclescake's series as well.

― ailsa, Sunday, 31 March 2013 23:54 (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i do wonder (going out on a limb here) whether moffat's look-at-me ultracleverness pissed off even the bbc so much that they asked him to do a simple opener this year.

taking or leaving that, this episode had to be all about introducing clara (AGAIN) and her relationship with the doctor (AGAIN), so the plot had to be in service of that.

and by the 50th anniversary dealio moffat will be back to super-hyper-oh-what-a-delicious-genius-am-i cleverclogs. there was enough timey-wimey clara dialogue planted throughout this to suggest that it's shooting back up to pandorica levels of self-indulgent puzzling in short order.

The debate on sexism/gender politics is essential, but IMO I think we're all overlooking a very important issue: Eleven's bow-tie is possibly clip-on?

Rory probably the most emotionally complex character of this era.

Rory's misogynist car is my favorite ilx screen name of this era.

is this the third or the fourth moffat plot that's centred on people getting trapped as ghosts and echoes inside technology? you'd think someone would point it out to him.

'centred' is wrong, there - used the image of.

I wonder who will be a viable show runner once Moffat quits? There's no stand-out writer under him the way he was under RTD. Hopefully they'll find some new blood rather than give the gig to one of the many mediocre hacks writing for the show.

kind of crap

Hopefully they'll find some new blood rather than give the gig to one of the many mediocre hacks writing for the show.

Yes, this - I would love to see Smith stay on and be great under another regime, but if it ends up being eg Chibnall I'll give up watching forever.

Bring back Cartmel tbh

I wonder who will be a viable show runner once Moffat quits?

Lawrence Miles.

oh jesus

I don't know why Paul Cornell hasn't been invited back. Family of Blood in 2007 was his last episode.

Clara is a consistently great character but this episode was mostly inessential aside from the awesome scene in the cafe

It bothered me that she was so dumb wrt technology that she called a random phone number to get someone to help her "fix" the internet, and got all of her hacker skillz from the Shard. Other than that, I like her character.

If Chris Chibnall gets it I will never watch this show again. I hope it is someone entirely new to Who, I think this show needs fresh blood/ideas/etc.

The only current regular writer I'd at all trust is Toby Whitehouse, mainly because of his Being Human pedigree.

Oh and obviously it would be interesting to see what Gaiman would do with it, but I can't see that happening.

That didn't bother me that much, considering that the girl she was nannying obviously was comfortable with technology and rolling her eyes at her ineptitude; also having tried to help both my mother and my father work through wifi issues the tenor of that entire scene basically felt like the truest, most accurate representation of technological befuddlement I'd ever seen.

(xposts obv)

the main takeaway I have of Cornell from his Virgin/BBC books is that, aside from Human Nature, he cannot write or plot for female characters to save his life, so if he takes I would I would expect a massive uptick in complaints about how the women of Who come across

Oh and obviously it would be interesting to see what Gaiman would do with it, but I can't see that happening.

I like his writing BUT his association with Amanda Palmer and his involvement in her moneyspinning activities has kind of made me hate him?