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

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

a) i am not sitting through that again
b) rtd's era had a way of turning dogshit scripts into bearable shows (rtd himself admitted to it in some interview at some point), also screenwriting for such a huge production is always a team effort

oh and sic, that murray gold thing you posted was in my head when this episode wrapped up with all those fucking strings telling us what to feel

'right there's that 7/8 motif again, obviously the doctor is supposed to be ~powerful~ right now for some reason'

I think it might have been the best imo as well, because the non-base under siege stuff last week was so poor. That's a depressing thought halfway through the series.

i don't know what i want any more, but i think it entails a new doctor and a new showrunner

matt smith is still great, and his doctor is still quite unique, but it's not going anywhere (and no, the outlined 50th anniversary direction is not what i'd call 'going anywhere' in terms of advancing the show)

most american sitcoms don't last eight years ffs, something big needs to change

b) rtd's era had a way of turning dogshit scripts into bearable shows (rtd himself admitted to it in some interview at some point), also screenwriting for such a huge production is always a team effort

I haven't read any of the script books but presumably they're the shooting scripts, not the writers' drafts? and RTD famously rewrote (everyone but Moffatt's) scripts himself, not Raynor.

all for the best considering her own scripts tbh

the script books would absolutely be the shooting scripts

i mean neil cross has some great ideas but they feel so underdeveloped (as with like a billion other writers of this new era). this week's had some serious potential (and was probably quite good, as per some comments upthread) but the dialogue was so raw and one dimensional that the episode is tainted before it gets going

http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/classic/books/images/full/taint.jpg

i'm looking at an av club piece about how this was a good solid ghost story at the start and became something else. the problem with that is that it's doctor who ffs. there ARE no ghost stories in doctor who ever, it's always aliens or timey wimey paradoxy

also this was meant to be a quatermass crossover but there were rights issues http://www.avclub.com/articles/hide,96304/

THe length of an 'hour-long' drama for American telly is now 40-45 minutes. When I was little it was 48-52 minutes. This matters.

When an episode runs less than 45 minutes, there's real trouble introducing and resolving what goes on in it.

one weird thing about this episode was that the knocking/banging sounds didn't register with me at all -- I assumed they were just part of an ordinary overloud soundtrack piling on the spookiness, did not get that they were some kind of minor plot point.

otm, when the doctor was all 'OH THAT'S WHERE THE BANGING IS COMING FROM' i was all

the banging and where it was coming from was discussed onscreen in some great and funny dialogue

the problem with that is that it's doctor who ffs. there ARE no ghost stories in doctor who ever, it's always aliens or timey wimey paradoxy

I really liked that we knew not to expect IRL ghosts but then the episode had her be a straight-up psychic that the Doctor had come to for her real psychic expertise

though there have been p straightforward vampires in Who at least twice. three if you count the "soul vampire" in Cross' last one.

the script books would absolutely be the shooting scripts

then how do you know the originals were dogshit?

(I mean, I think 90% of the ones that made it to screen were dogshit, but that's not what you're arguing)