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

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)

anyway something can still function as a "ghost story" for a genre exercise even if it's not strictly http://fc05.deviantart.net/fs29/f/2008/052/d/8/Pacman_Ghosts_Emoticon_by_BurntheEvidence165.pngs

This is Doctor Who. Ghosts and folk devils always turn out to be displaced people or aliens.

then how do you know the originals were dogshit?

nfi what i'm supposed to be defending here. rtd has said he had to basically rewrite whole scripts because they were shit

maybe they were great and he rewrote them into shit

weird way to get there but fair point

I was gonna say, AA didn't you read Damaged Goods? RTD's hand is in no way an automatic indicator of quality.

Also all of the FEELINGS of the Moffatt era are still infinitely preferable to CGI Tennant dwarf in a cage

i didn't mind the dwarf cage

but yes, plenty of duff rtd badged episodes out there, especially in the last couple of years

Quite honestly, if 90% of nu-Who fandom hadn't been furiously masturbating and sobbing during the Tennant/Rose goodbye, we wouldn't be dealing with all if this sappy bullshit now.

inagining balding neckbeard hunched over, crywanking

tearjerking

In my more uncharitable moments, I think a good portion of the Rose era was driven by RTD's desire to bone the Doctor.

I don't think there has been anything worse in Who than the Rose/Tennant goodbye. I wanted to murder everyone.

The first one or the second one?

Ha, good point. BOTH.

When Rose got her own Doctor to bone I wanted to straight up murder RTD. He is much more effective as a storyteller when he's destroying his characters' lives, or in other words Torchwood: Children of Earth remains the best thing he's written because he didn't cop out for a happy ending.

FYI for all of its terrible shoddiness I am still a fan of Warriors of the Deep because there was no happy ending; I feel like if you want to do a more adult version of Doctor Who, the secret lies with allowing some of the stories to be massive bummer endings rather than forcing some form of "and then everything worked out for the best" unironic Candide bullshit into everything.

Stray thoughts:

The monster in the pocket universe was very nearly a genuinely nasty thing that was then spoiled by its wanting to find its life partner.

Didn't like how human feelings of wub were then attributed across to the monster. Really didn't like that. Monsters and aliens don't always have to be humanised, and certainly not in such a sickly sweet manner.

You can have a) humans put aside their differences BECAUSE THERE'S A MONSTER or b) in some weird way we can relate to the alien/monster - they have some kind of recognisable motivation. Lost homeworld. Traumatised by war. Even some kind of love interest if handled well. Something like that. Both of these options vastly preferable to the frankly tacked-on, unbelievable and cheap notion of this disgusting, twisted, skeletal thing just missing its boyfriend or girlfriend.

Does anyone with kids watch a lot of contemporary kid's TV? Compared to other kid's TV, is the pacing of Who actually quite measured in context? Because it's the pacing that's spoiling it for me at the moment. Idea pops in. Idea shoots by. Another idea. Now this! Wow! Here's another idea that doesn't get a chance to sink in and develop because there isn't any time. But obviously Who has to compete with other things kids watch and I do see it as a kid's TV show first and foremost.

(Looking back at what I've just typed though. I know in the old series episodes would stretch languorously over at least two and sometimes as many as eight parts, and the pacing could be painfully slow and awkward. And obviously there's also been an attempt to bring in more sentiment and wub to what could be seen as a dry, serious series. It's just that given the choice between 'cheesy high serious' and 'cheesy emotional' there doesn't seem like much of an improvement)

Thought the best thing about it was that it was explicitly referencing The Ring/Ringu …

The photos that showed a blurred/distorted face every time; the references to the witch of the well; the well-shaped circle of coldness …

Loads of unresolved/unexplained stuff …
Why did it get suddenly cold at that point? Just to make us think "oooh spooky", as far as I can tell
The Doctor realising what the banging was – but the banging only happened when the Doctor had gone to the pocket universe. Previously we'd been told the reason the "ghost" kept appearing was because for her time in our universe was passing incredibly slowly - seconds being thousands of years – not that she was caught in some time-loop which meant the same thing kept happening, which would be the only explanation for why the banging kept happening.

sudden drops in temperature are one of the standard phenomena associated with ghost sightings - i don't think it was much more or less than that.

Yes, but it wasn't a ghost sighting. And we'd had ghost sightings earlier without sudden unexplained drops in temperature.

The monster in the pocket universe was very nearly a genuinely nasty thing that was then spoiled by its wanting to find its life partner.

Haha, yeah, much as I liked this episode the wub-wub-wub factor was way too high at the end. I really liked the monster, too, thought its movements were meant to be quite Harryhausen stop-motion lizardly and loved the gnarled weirdness of it in general.

Why did it get suddenly cold at that point?

The entrance to the other universe was "the well". The circle that the Doctor drew around the cold point became the circle of the pocket universe entry point. It was cold in the pocket universe.

The Doctor realising what the banging was – but the banging only happened when the Doctor had gone to the pocket universe

This... isn't true.

1/ The coldness was all around the house - remember the thermometer shooting down and the windows freezing? It wasn't just at the "well".

Yes, there was banging before. But then we discovered that the banging was caused by the "monster" banging on the doors of the "psychic house" which was created after the Doctor went to the pocket universe. "So that's what the banging was!" So how was there banging before the Doctor had been to the pocket universe, and before the empath woman had created the psychic house?

1/ The coldness was all around the house - remember the thermometer shooting down and the windows freezing? It wasn't just at the "well".

It started at the well ("warm, cold, warm, cold"), and then expanded into the rest of the house when the pocket universe freed itself from its position.

The banging in the actual house was from the OTHER monster. The banging of the pocket-universe monster was the same sound he had heard before, and so he makes the assumption (which turns out to be correct), that there is a second monster in our universe.