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

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.

But the banging was the banging on the front door … it was shown (from the inside)

I don't know why I get into these discussions, people just *want* stuff to be inconsistent. Which is fine, you know, it's fun. But I kind of despair when it involves purposefully blinding yourself to plot points or clear signifiers.

But that's the point, Emily, I am not purposefully blinding myself to anything. I am just confused, and your explanation has not helped me. Though it has patronised me.

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.

Agreed. There was a lot in this episode I liked, but it was let down in the end by bucketloads of unneeded sentimentality.

My daughter has a TARDIS playset and yesterday she had the Doctor team up with her My Little Ponies to defeat Harley Quinn and the Joker. As bonkers as that is, I thought I would prefer watching an hour of that to most of what we've had so far this season.

oh god, I've just realized

nu-Who 10/Rose 'shippers are the bronies of Who fandom

They totally are.

So, I rewatched this. It's better than I thought it was on Saturday, but still SO MUCH EMO.

I really hate that it starts out so so so creepy and then turns into something so forced and maudlin

like, why couldn't the creepy thing be trying to match back up with the alien in the house so that they could pull the heads off of everyone on Earth and suck out their precious heartblood together

Exactly. I am sick of love being the answer for everything, it is so trite.

I loved the early 70s aesthetic, the acting from the guest stars and the creepy ghost story vibe -- I guess that's what makes me so ranty about the ending.

also how many stories in second half of this season are going to be about the Doctor using the TARDIS to stalk someone or something

I do like that Clara isn't actually that plucky or even that trustful of the Doctor though

I don't know, there's a certain Poochiness to some of her lines but I don't think that's the actress's fault.

Basically she's like someone put the 2nd Doctor companions Victoria and Zoe into a blender

enjoyed this episode much more than yall, didn't mind the turn to 'it's a love story' cuz it was so silly and w/ all those mooning glances i was worried they were gonna free the ghost by having those two admit their feelings or something so was relieved it wasn't that direct. enjoyed the catfight between clara and the tardis most of all - tardis not liking her have any significance to larger plot or no? and was empath being honest w/ doctor when she said clara's just an ordinary girl? not really sure how ppl couldn't follow the plot here though beyond usual handwave time travel plot holes.

the Clara/TARDIS catfight was great and a good way to pick up on both the inherent weirdness of Clara's existence and the threads of the TARDIS as a sentient being laid out through the books and nu-Who that were made explicit in "The Doctor's Wife"

<i>My daughter has a TARDIS playset and yesterday she had the Doctor team up with her My Little Ponies to defeat Harley Quinn and the Joker. As bonkers as that is, I thought I would prefer watching an hour of that to most of what we've had so far this season.

― The last of the famous international Greyjoys (Nicole)</i>

That is so awesome! I remember as I child I would have all sorts of cross-over adventures with all my toys. Ghostbusters and the X-Men was a common team up, but I vaguely remember when I was very young I had created some sort of meta-universe which combined Where's Waldo and Carmen Sandiego (since they were perennially being looked for I guess)... lol. I wish I still had the imagination of my childhood, but I'm not gonna front - I've largely grown up into a boring linear-thinking person.

when I was a child, I used to put all of my toys into a classroom and teach them math

When I was a child, I lived next door to a bonkers, white-haired English mad scientist who worked with ultrasound and never carried money. But a few of you knew that.

Also had baked play-doh versions of the Watership Down rabbits living in a 'warren' constructed in my top dresser drawer.

when I was a very small boy, very small boys talked to me

okay I just read the AV Club review and A) I didn't realize that the current theory was that Clara was The Rani and B) with the reviewer's "maybe Clara is a human TARDIS theory, it's kind of sad that no mention of the exact same concept from the BBC books or Compassion was made in the review or the comments

also C) I am a sad, old fan

They have classic Who on Amazon Prime, but annoyingly they only have random serials, not complete seasons. But this weekend I watched The Ark Of Time, Pyramid of Mars, and am halfway through Robots of Death

makes me so wistful

oh man The Ark of Time and The Robots of Death are THE BEST

Ark In Space? love it, but has some of the worst effects of the era.