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

still, props for setting a story not on earth, and making it look pretty neat.

The not-on-Earth thing is good, that's true.

Leee, I absolutely wouldn't mind the emotions thing if it wasn't the answer to half of all the episodes ever. Though I still think the Doctor himself shouldn't be having human emotions. http://by-strategy.tumblr.com/post/38807217731/list-of-doctor-who-episodes-where-emotion-saves-the-day

while i enjoy the bits about the mystery of who clara is, and the aliens were well done, i found these two episodes terrible, and yeah, tried to excuse that terribleness as part of being "for the kids," but seriously, ugh. felt like it was a trumped-up webisode.

I don't even know if you can use the "for the kids" excuse, because my 5 year old loves Doctor Who and even she ended up getting bored and wandering off to play about 15 minutes into this episode.

wish they'd go back to the companion just being a companion, not some weird crack in the universe, not a love interest, just a friendly human to run around with. and I also wish he'd lose the ability to steer the TARDIS again... I like it better when they don't know where they're going.

I may just be saying "I wish it was 1978 again" which is fine, but I'm still right.

i'd also prefer some not female companionship just for a bit to mix things up again.

(and maybe a female and or not white doctor but that's not happening)

I don't mind a female companion, but it would be nice if she wasn't from 21st century earth.

I want Vastra and Jenny back.

I did find the last episode a bit drab or something. I was looking forward to it, then it came on and I was doing something else unimportant but it didn't seem to catch my interest overmuch for a while.

Did that entity/planet/god thing really have a crude face drawn with lines or similar. Thought that a bit overmuch too.
Just hope it does get better. Will keep watching it anyway, for the time being. I can really like Matt Smith, but he does do the odd thing that is a bit trying/overly quirky.
Like that Frankie Stein/Easter Island look while still being handsome thing that he has.

Do wish they'd finished the Philip Pullman series though, don't think they quite did did they? & I guess he can't still be the main sidekick if he's being the Doctor.

Do wish they'd finished the Philip Pullman series though, don't think they quite did did they?

What's this?

There were TV adaptations of The Ruby in the Smoke and The Shadow in the North starring Billie Piper and Matt Smith.

Oh yeah, I remember them being on - didn't know who Matt Smith was at the time though.

those were really good!

See, I liked the books but hated the adaptation.

SO they never got round to Tiger in the Well? Pity, I think that's the best book.

had no idea about the adaptation, thought that series of books was excellent.

I was enjoying this up until the singing started and I liked the Clara emotional payoff at the end but otherwise this wasn't great. I suspect even all but the very youngest of kids thought it was a bit lame.

wow, y'all hate some counterpoint

this was okay, Clara continues to impress me but I kind of wish that they had some hints of her in this incarnation being a little weird/off rather than charmingly perfect

the thing where the doctor has known/watched his female companions since birth/early childhood is just totally creepy and gross.

If Matt Smith ends up being known as the paedo Doctor, I will enjoy some inappropriate lols

The Paedotrician totally sounds like a Time Lord name.

I think I referred to him as a Space Groomer way back when he picked Donna up for the second time circa Partners In Crime, or possibly when he came back for Amelia.

Anyway, just watched the first two of this series and despite not really enjoying either much I don't see what the complaints are about - they're both just a recycling of ideas since 2005, a clip show of sorts.

Bells Of St John - The Doctor meets a companion who has previously met again by accident, and who will turn out to be massively important to the Doctor and is somehow a very special human in a timey-wimey way. (This is Donna, he meets her for the second time in Partners in Crime and she is described in Turn Left as being 'the only one' that is special enough in Turn Left, plus the whole Doctor Donna thing because she is the the only one special enough to share Time Lord energy.) There is a presence among the electronic traffic which controls humans (the earpods in Rise of the Cybermen, the Archangel phone network in Sound of Drums) and downloads them into a central server via robots with a face on one side and a concave 'spoon' on the other (Silence In The Library). Eventually they are all uploaded back into the real world by The Doctor (Forest of the Dead) after help from a companion who has been given new computer skills they didn't have before after a brush with death (Donna in Journey's End). And somewhere in it an aircraft crashing into London is prevented from doing so by the Doctor pulling back very hard on a steering column (Voyage of the Damned, End of Time Pt 2).

Rings of Akhaten - A cult are worshipping through misunderstanding a crashed alien vampire and keeping it subdued so it doesn't attack the local population. (Fires of Pompeii.) Public singing brings comfort to the people, is transformative and prevents harm (the first part is the singing of Abide With Me in Gridlock, the latter Kathryn Jenkins making it snow and keeping away the Sky Sharks in A Christmas Carol, plus the Song Of the Ood is a race song which contains all their memories. The space whale singing in The Beast Below may also play into this.) Specific words, when recited, open portals and doors when said (Shakespeare Code). The Doctor confronts a giant evil alien god who may or may not be the Devil and partially defeats it by waffling about how great he is (The Impossible Planet/Satan Pit) and is ultimately defeated by the love between a mother and daughter (Fear Her and Doctor, Widow, Wardrobe, plus the father and son version in Night Terrors and Closing Time) restoring the Doctor via a routine object in the process (The Big Bang).

So, you know, not bad just boilerplate.

Also, in the first episode they both ride on a motorbike then the Doctor rides it alone to save Clara. In the second episode they both ride on a motorbike then Clara rides it alone to save the Doctor. I'm hoping this week they both ride on a motorbike then it rides itself to save both of them.

A cult are worshipping through misunderstanding a crashed alien vampire and keeping it subdued so it doesn't attack the local population. (Fires of Pompeii.)

also "State of Decay" if you want to get pedantic

I was just looking for New Series examples for the sake of time.

Oh where's the fun in that?

It could be worse, you could be reading Lungbarrow.

Haha omg

Every time people start getting annoyed with nu-Who I keep thinking to myself "none of you read The Infinity Doctors or Kate Orman post-Set Piece, did you"

I mean, I have to think people championing Paul Cornell to take over the show only read Human Nature or saw the translation to TV and never read any of his stupid fanwanky novels (or read how he butchered The Authority/Stormwatch in the comics realm) because dude is really kind of terrible outside of Human Nature, which is so much better than everything else he's written that it must be a fluke

I rewatched Father's Day recently, that was another decent Paul Cornell episode. He needs to do another.

TBH I forgot that was him

I just have zero faith in his ability to run the show

His Wolverine comic from last month was awwwwful. Agreed with Dan - Human Nature appears to be a fluke. It's a weird one.

He also wrote Wisdom and MI:13, which were pretty great.

His Action run was great until it had a crossover and they took the Jimmy Olsen backup away and charged $13 for the final chapter, at which point I dropped it

OK, I enjoyed the first half hour of that as a boilerplate Base Under Seige (albeit hampered by the time constraints New Who imposes with only two episodes to tell the story) but then collapses into EMO WUB WILL SAVE THE DAY bollocks - even worse, PARENTAL WUB.

I still blame Rusty, but by now they're all merging into one omnicunt if I'm honest.

i liked it better than the last two

15 mins in and i'm falling asleep, but i've never liked a gatiss (script or novel) so

I thought Nightshade was fun

A so-so episode. The Ice Warrior looked pretty stupid under his helmet.

Watched the Second Doctor ice warrior story just before this (I'd never seen it before) and Gatiss really stuffs this new one with references to the original: doctor arrives in the middle of an emergency and solves it by having superior knowledge of the equipment the base-dwellers work with every day. Scientists find warrior in a block of ice and thaw it out assuming it's something innocuous. Doctor and base captain argue over who should confront the ice warrior. Untrustworthy guy offers to side with ice warrior but gets killed by him instead. Between all that and the Alien references there wasn't much room for anything original, still turned out fun enough though I guess.

So the Tardis translation matrix works regardless of the distance between the doctor/companion and the tardis? If that's the case, when does it stop working? Does eg Sarah Jane still get to use it etc? And why didn't it work on the dog language last week?

Maybe the Tardis didn't relocate too far away, i.e. within the range of the translation matrix but remote enough to be relatively safe from harm? /fanwank

Anyway, this one was a lot tighter and better written than most Gatiss episodes, A+ for him, B+ overall.

I liked the set up but, once again, it was all so horribly rushed that it failed to build the required atmosphere. The silly script was far too overloaded with lazy references to Alien and pop culture as well. CGI Ice Warrior head = whyyyyy? But compared to the rest of this series, it was above average.
It feels like a new showrunner, a new star, and a rethink are needed for the programme again now.

otm

smith doesn't seem to have anywhere to go now, and moffat is clearly bereft

I didn't even watch this episode because I never like Gatiss episodes.

It wasn't a bad episode but shit, something had to be radically better after last weeks violation.

This was the second least-worst Gatiss episode to date, one revision by a good script editor and 70% less CGI and it would have been really good (FSVO BUS)

Maybe the Tardis didn't relocate too far away, i.e. within the range of the translation matrix but remote enough to be relatively safe from harm? /fanwank

it went literally as far away as it is possible to go on the planet

though iirc the programme has selfwanked that the translation system piggybacks on the Doctor's telepathic circuits or w/e, so the companion only needs to be near him

It feels like a new showrunner, a new star, and a rethink are needed for the programme again now.

no way, really really want to see Smith with a new showrunner and new approach. (and then another one, if possible.) Tom wouldn't stand out as prominently as he does if his era had only been the Hinchcliffe/Holmes years*

*obv his overall standard would be a lot higher, but his time is richer for having Horror Of Fang Rock and The Key To Time year and City Of Death and even the Invasion Of Time, not to mention Bidmead's necessary and brilliant season-long deconstruction of his reign, etc etc

Some change needed here. They fucked up by not making Paterson Joseph the first black Dr Who and he did apply for the job.

can't say that casting the best actor ever to play the role counts as "fucking up"

I am not totally adverse to him but I wouldn't go that far! I know it is a cliche but in my era Tom Baker is unfuckwithable. it is what I grew up with and can't be fucked with.