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

Tom still looks reasonably distinguished, though he's by far the least likely to agree to it.

Tom's the one who asked Big Finish to put together the all-year multi-Doctor series they're doing!

also Sylv doesn't look knackers-yard-ready, though he's 70 or something. maybe his Dr hat would cover up the greyness enough, if Peter Jackson would lend it back.

McGann commissioned a new outfit and photoshoot off his own bat last year, so they don't have to use old shots of the wig and costume he hated in 1996 anymore - so he's properly in-canon as looking his current age now.

pray to god this is the geekiest thing i ever post

breathe easy homie, got your back:

maybe they could cgi or edit matt or david and clara into old episodes like that one episode of deep space nine

they could have one of them go back and leave the wrong French Revolution textbook in the science lab before Remembrance

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 think you're overstating the emo angle here, but it was kind of a weak resolution anyway. I very rarely enjoy Base Under Siege stories anyway and this wasn't a great one.

Also, worst Russians ever.

I don't think I am - the Ice Warrior didn't press the button because Clara kept on making him think about how much he loved his daughter, how long she had been dead and how she was a victim of war too and it would be unfair to do the same to Earth. It wasn't a logic based argument, it was entirely about his memories of his daughter and 'what she would have wanted'.

That's pretty low on the nu-Who emo-resolution scale though.

That's true I suppose, that nuWho has set such appallingly low standards for itself.

IE it doesn't involve a ticking bomb not exploding, snow spontaneously turning to rain, the gollum-doctor returning to full life and flying across a room...

I'm surprised I didn't stop watching DW after the finale with the dobby/gollum doctor.

tbh that was redeemed for me by Martha telling the Doctor off for pining after Rose and leaving him

ha ha ha yesss: (Andrew Hickey on Rings of Akhetan)

In particular, the claim that there should not be a musical episode of Doctor Who is an absurd one. Doctor Who And The Pirates, which came out ten years ago this month, is a musical, and may be the best Doctor Who story ever in any medium. It’s certainly in the top ten. The Gunfighters, despite its reputation among the humourless portion of fandom, is a minor masterpiece. The Ultimate Adventure, the stage play from the late 80s, was a musical, and Terrance Dicks wrote that. If you think you know better than Terrance Dicks what is and isn’t Doctor Who then you’re just *wrong*.

But there *is* a problem with a musical episode of Doctor Who where the music is by Murray Gold.

Gold is, without a doubt, the single least talented composer I’ve ever heard. I mean this in a very precise sense. He clearly has a great deal of *technical ability*, in that he is able to use the orchestra in a fairly precise, controlled manner, and get it to sound exactly how he wants. He is, in that narrow sense, a skilled composer — certainly far more skilled than I am.

But in the sense of basic aesthetics, my God… the man writes ugly, ugly, obvious, unimaginative dross, and overorchestrates it to the point that it makes Brahms sound like the Ramones. It attempts to bludgeon the listener into submission, and is the equivalent of the composer screaming “FEEL! YOU BASTARD FEEL! I’M TUGGING ON YOUR FUCKING HEARTSTRINGS HERE!!!”

When you compare it to the eerie wonder of Delia Derbyshire’s original realisation of the theme tune, or to the ‘special sound’ from Brian Hodgson, or to the lovely little pieces of music for small chamber groups that Dudley Simpson would come up with, it’s heartbreaking to consider that this is supposed to be the same series. That a programme that hired Tristram Cary in 1963 is now reduced to this is heartbreaking. In the 60s even when they used library music, it was likely to be Bartok. Comparing that music to Gold is like comparing Will Eisner and Ed Benes. (To be fair, Gold is no less talented than Keff McCulloch, who did some of the music in Sylvester McCoy’s time. But Keff at least had the decency just to use a cheap synth and not to make actual musicians suffer through playing his outpourings.)

It's all symptomatic of the show's addiction to mawkishness, which is responsible for like 90% of its flaws. Doubt it even plays particularly well with the kids either.

oh fuck i just saw a poster

no spoilers but um okay wow

Yeah I've seen that too. Not very promising.

they had to do something big this year, and i did wonder if that would be it, and now it looks like it's at least something

links?

bbc doctor who twitter acct posted this (SPOILARZ) http://twitter.com/bbcdoctorwho/status/325188266812915712/photo/1

i'd love to post what 'er indoors said in response but that would be a spoiler too

http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m0snrsfk9t1r02r82.gif

The whole episode is going to be variations on the "Doctor Who?" joke Moffat has been running into the ground, isn't it?

oh god it is too

DANGER WILL ROBINSON

Auton Doctor in that poster there

I hope it turns out to be Alan.

I am rooting for it to be Kevin.

Slartibartfast

I, for one, shall remain onboard with this idea until the inevitable let down of the conclusion, when it is finally revealed (over a sickeningly overblown score obvs) that The Doctor's true name can't be spoken at all - it is in fact that warm fuzzy feeling that lives inside us all.....luuuuuurve.

Bring back the Cartmel plan imo

I, for one, shall remain onboard with this idea until the inevitable let down of the conclusion, when it is finally revealed (over a sickeningly overblown score obvs) that The Doctor's true name can't be spoken at all - it is in fact that warm fuzzy feeling that lives inside us all.....luuuuuurve.

AARRGH!!!! Worryingly good shout, that.

xp oh god its going to be that isn't it?

would sleep on

when it is finally revealed (over a sickeningly overblown score obvs)

luckily Murray Gold's horrible stringwanking will be so much louder than the dialogue that I'll just be going "eh? what did he say? oh well, it ended, I'll just pretend I know what happened. again"

I hope it turns out to be Alan.

― I wish to incorporate disco into my small business (chap), Saturday, 20 April 2013 00:03 (8 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

if he says 'a-haaa' i will collapse with laughter

Presumably we're being led to speculate that the naming of the Doctor's will reveal something about his identity. I have a theory that he could either be Rassilon or... Omega! Maybe there's an element of Omega which didn't get zapped to another dimension and became the Doctor...
But I doubt they'd build a big hype campaign around some old-school fanwank like that. It may also outrage hardcore fans as it turns 50 years of DW on its head.

In other words... Moffat's take on the Cartmel Masterplan?

First name "Doctor", second name "Who", nbd.

Remember when Dougray Scott was a thing? The late 90s/early 2000s were a strange place.

That was just lights and colours and noise.

Vincent & The Doctor had a monster that nobody could see because of a time shift that had crash landed and was separated from their life partner and as a result was getting angry and chasing people too iirc. Also The Doctor's Wife had pretty explicit stuff about how difficult it was to get in and out of pocket universes.

Nah, the VATD monster was a blind and the runt of the monster litter.

Liked this.

Yeah I thought this was pretty good tbh. I still feel like this is where Nu-Who (and Moffat in particular) is at its best - when it's trying to be at least a little bit scary. Obviously this was no Empty Child / Blink / Midnight but I still found it effective. My viewing is definitely coloured by how much I fancy Clara though unfortunately

I thought that was great. A good old haunted house romp, really.

Missed the last week's one, is it worth checking out on iPlayer?

Probably only if you're bored.

i've not finished watching this terrible episode but this is on the wikipedia page:

Continuity
The Doctor mentions that he has a coat rack, however this was in the 2005-2010, 2010-12(citation needed), and various other console rooms, he hadn't put it in the current one.

In other words... Moffat's take on the Cartmel Masterplan?
'doctor who?'
'doctor lung barrow'

by maybe the half point of that episode i had lost count of the number of things that pissed me off, most of them to do with the script. submitting a load of dialogue and nothing else was fine for afternoon soaps in the '90s. nothing important was conveyed by any means except just talking heads until the third act, which tbh felt like moffat had stepped in and rehashed the whole thing. poor matt smith (bless) was left trying desperately to add some colour and movement, although because it didn't aid the script or progress the story it just came across like clown antics. beyond all that, there were SO many duff/cringe lines that apparently noone had bothered looking at the script before the shoot (i'm not blaming neil cross for this btw; by now i expect there to be, i dunno, ~script editors~).

other points: there is seriously sod-all chemistry between the doctor and clara; the 'do you love your scientist as much as i love my scientist' subtext between the two women; what the actual shit was that line about 'carlisle' being the opposite of 'bliss'; the doctor pronounced 'metebelis 3' incorrectly twice (not exactly a big thing outside spodworld but just more sloppiness). and obviously #coatrackgate ruined my whole life.

I think Clara is doing a great job of being slightly more frightened than the average nu-Who companion while desperately trying to hide it

rmde at clara's waaaah are we all ghosts to you moment

and it was a great episode right up to the true wub tacked on bollicks

oh and time travel lady was ignored for half the time she was out of her dimension!

British Selma Blair.

oh and time travel lady was ignored for half the time she was out of her dimension!

Haha yeah, she really didn't do anything at all, did she?

Ms MacGuffin

there were SO many duff/cringe lines that apparently noone had bothered looking at the script before the shoot (i'm not blaming neil cross for this btw; by now i expect there to be, i dunno, ~script editors~).

a) which lines?
b) of course you can blame the writer for the dialogue if they wrote it, instead of blaming people for not rewriting it

best one this year imo, would have loved it more without power of love shouldercharging its way in at the end

but tbf at least once it did you could see how it had been set up to be integral, not just overturning the actual plot mechanics that had previously been set up