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

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.

okay yes that is what I meant, in fact it didn't even register that I was typing "of Time"

Ark of Space was fun. Yeah the effects are lolsome. Bubblewrap-slug and bubblewrap-asparagus-hand! Also the splotches on the guns when they fire hee hee

Pyramid of Mars was quite thrilling right up until the end and then...wait you just sent Sutekh back into the time tunnel with some jiggery pokery? Kind of unsatisfying/boring way to end it after all that excitement. Voice of Sutekh (Gerard Woolf) was wonderful.

Robots of Death is really exciting -- and the costumes, especially on the robots are incredible.

Pyramids of Mars has one of the most devastating scenes from the Fourth Doctor's tenure, when Sarah is all "well we don't have to do anything, we already know he doesn't destroy the Earth because I'm here!" and the Doctor's all "o rly *shows Sarah a desolate wasteland* enjoy"

yeah god that was brutal

man Tom Baker was so damn good as the Doctor

He's so warm and simultaneously distant, it's kind of fascinating to try to figure out how he does it...and I love the way he can sometimes smile and look so completely malevolent, it's great

I think overall I like Davison's portrayal of the Doctor more but I can't in good conscience argue that T.Baker's era didn't define the show, given its breadth and the sheer number of fantastic stories across all 7 seasons

I have a very paternal feeling towards him, I would watch him almost every day after school when I was a kid so it's like he was a surrogate parent or uncle in a weird way. Just seeing his face makes me smile

Pyramids of Mars is a favourite of mine too

I think there might be a relevant point somewhere along the lines of:

- oh look, these ancient egyptian mummies are actually robots
- oh look, this ancient egyptian god is actually a malign martian alien
- but: Sutekh is SO pure evil that that doesn't feel like a massive let-down.

I often feel that gods and demons and ghosts that turn out to be aliens become very dull in the process. I think it has something to do with the fact that often the aliens are quite cliched for aliens. They live on another planet and fly around in spaceships, like all the other aliens do, and this is supposed to be an exciting reveal?

Quatermass & The Pit is probably the ur-example of this, but another one where it works - the ghosts that have always haunted Hob Lane or is it Hob End are Martians in the end, but then literally *all of human culture* turns out to be alien, thus breaking down the barrier between 'human' and 'alien' ...

I think for this reason I much prefer it when people turn out to be aliens. The familiar face falling off, tentacles underneath, great stuff. One of the reasons why the wubbing monster on this episode disappointed me was, I think, that it started out alien and then was made nice and human.

mating partners is not exclusively a human trait, you speciesist fuck

A friend pointed this out on his blog. I should have spotted it myself.

On the other hand, maybe Moffat looked at the first draft, in which an Alien Soldier was trapped on a sub with Human Soldiers (and was eventually beaten by the Doctor holding his nerve and threatening to blow everybody up) and said "This is great Mark, really really great: it's just that in Doctor Who, everyone including evil green space vikings has to have a sensitive side. And I really, really like the idea of reintroducing an Iconic Alien Race by just showing how threatening one single individual who thinks he is the last of his kind can be. But we did that once before. Could you go and dig up the first season story with the Dalek in it and make this one more like that?"

Which would explain why Ice Warriors have become scary pathetic creatures in a big metal suits; and why "what does the Ice Warrior look like?" was done as a big reveal, and why the situation was finally resolved through dialogue, and why we had the wholly gratuitous and nonsensical scene in which the companion is locked in a dark room with a chained up monster just before it gets loose.

If you were going to do the Naked Ice Warrior plot, wouldn't it have been cleverer to have a green slimy thing running loose around the sub for 30 minutes, and then finished Act III by revealing as a total out of the blue surprise that actually it's an Ice Warrior? But that, I suppose would have risked the mainstream audience crying out "An Ice what?

Hello, I am slowly catching up (partly because I now understand there's an actual grat episode to catch up with):

if the big bad eats the stories/soul, then surely the person doesn't have them anymore?

I don't know how that follows, the use of memory as payment seems to be that the recipient gets your memories, and you give away the object because you can't give the same memories twice. EG Clara after giving away the leaf hasn't forgotten her Mum and Dad - she remembers the Doctor being there at her Mum's grave.

That said I was not fond of:

.The singing
.The inconsistency of the Translation Circuit - The scooter owner is barking at them, but Merry and such are speaking perfect English?
.The generally English tourists on holiday paternal attitude to the aliens
.The general sense that the Doctor's using the sonic screwdriver wand as a tool for the force of his will - the pushing back of the Vigil's force field / holding up of the door.

.The general sense that the Doctor's using the sonic screwdriver wand as a tool for the force of his will - the pushing back of the Vigil's force field / holding up of the door.

I thought this had been a thing in nu-who for a long time now... I vaguely remember him giving it to Rose and her asking how to use it and him in some technobabbly way explaining that you just hold it and think of what you want it to do.

Yeah, but the idea that it works better because you think harder is what I'm complaining about.

OIC

I liked that one.

Yeah. Running up and down corridors (of the Tardis!) - that's all we needed.

(that wasn't sarcasm, btw)

That subplot - older brother convinces younger brother he's a robot - thought was brilliantly done. The atmosphere.

Information stored as liquids in the library I liked too.

can't do this any more

made it 18 mins in, wanted to do anything else (just like nearly every other episode this year)

nothing against this show, i just can't face this again for a while

The only thing I've not liked in Moffat land is the lack of backstory with companions, because there's a lack of balance with the other lead, who is made of backstory. Well, besides never using a woman screenwriter while littering the show with female characters who write.

Anyway. Seen this?

http://verse.aasemoon.com/images/1/18/Mary_Poppins_TimeLord.jpg

she arrives with the hat, I don't remember bow tie from the books at all?, or scarf being a regular thing?, umbrella I guess is a dece joke but would be better to draw McCoy comparisons than Eccleston


liked this week's I think, certainly enormously more than The Blind Orientalist or Curse Of The Black Shit

This was so far and away the best episode of 2013 it was ridiculous. I liked how much fun they were clearly having with the endless possibilities inside the Tardis itself. It's taken nu-Who a surprisingly long time to get round to this.

The Clara storyline is actually starting to get interesting as well, and the zombie Claras would have proper fucking creepy to kids as well.

I'm sure this show, and/or Red Dwarf, have done that leaking time bit before? Coming across their recent past selves?

Overall this is, I think, the weakest year of nu-Who yet, if you overlook the last few Tennant specials. The Rusty years would give you some absolute cringeworthy clunkers but there was a lot of fun in there as well and there would always be a few fantastic episodes per year as well.

There's been very little that's been awful in this series, with the exception of the one with all the singing, but very little that's gone above average, and the sense of fun doesn't really seem to be there in the same way. It's possible that Moffatt's just running out of ideas.

The season's suffering from the decision not to include any two-parters as well. Also Moffatt's innate sense of sympathy and aversion to killing people off properly (which had kind of been evident from The Empty Child onwards). I'm sick of all the aliens being lonely/lost/scared and running riot. I want some proper evil monsters that want to destroy everyone, and must be destroyed in return.

Next week's looks good though.

I didnt mind this one. But the Cult's Fire Woman. I mean really. ....heyyyyy oh but was it a joke on zombie charred Clara? ugh that's even worse if it was.

glad they finally addressed a little bit of Clara's wtfness

Fire Woman made me lol, so there's that.

I've worked it out - this was the best episode since Amy's Choice in 2010.

Really liked this one but can't help thinking that old who could have spent an entire series lost inside the bowels of the Tardis. I'm loving how terrified Clara got and how she is the first nu-Who companion to be fundamentally not trusting of the Doctor.

Despite it's flaws I am liking how this season has, in the main, steered clear of contemporary Britain

Amy didn't really trust the Doctor at the start either.

was I the only one who figured Clara was being chased by herself almost right away or was that reveal shocking to no one?

it took me until he said something about cracks in space-time and time echos or the like, about halfway through the episode.

the characterization of the salvagers felt a bit off to me, but all the other bits were awesome. curious how many bits of the tardis interior would be more significant to ppl familiar with the pre-revive tv series.

found some bits about various refs here: http://www.sfx.co.uk/2013/04/27/doctor-who-7-10-journey-to-the-centre-of-the-tardis-review/

Do you think any of this is true or is it all outlandish rumors?

If Moffat was really that bad wouldn't the BBC just get rid of him? I would think Doctor Who makes them too much money now to put up with with a lot of guff from the showrunner.

Moff is holding the BBC to ransom over Sherlock, I think ... so they're stuck placating him for now.

I would love to know what went on with the negotiations/non-negotiations with other Who actors for the 50th.

If these issues cannot be rectified - and soon - Doctor Who may go into a semi-permanent hiatus, and return as a series of TV Movies or extended episodes once every eighteen months.

Eh, probably not a bad thing for a few years.

I went to the originating blog and read some of the dumbest spoilers (if they are true) I've ever seen (upcoming Christmas episode will be the worst one yet if that rumor is true)

I have no actual window into how Moffatt runs a show but I feel like he was a tyrant with Coupling as well?

(upcoming Christmas episode will be the worst one yet if that rumor is true)

If that's true that would be so incredibly stupid I would be forced to give up the show, kind of like I did when Lost aired the episode with Jack and Bai Ling.

Can't find the xmas rumour on that blog, only stuff about the 50th anniversary and the season finale.

it's a bullet point in the post titled "Clarity"

I refuse to retype it because that might make it come true

oh god

nooooooooo

it is the single worst idea I have ever seen in Doctor Who, and this is a series that:

- had a bad guy die by karate-kicking a giant walking electric eel (Warriors of the Deep)
- ended an episode with a literal "cliffhanger" (Dragonfire)
- had the Doctor break the fourth wall to wish the viewers "Merry Christmas" (The Chase)
- wrote a gratuitous gay sex scene into the middle of a stakeout so that the book's coda could declare a cure for HIV/AIDS (Damaged Goods)
- allowed Fear Her and The Idiot Lantern to be shown on television

Ha, oh shit, that will be rubbish!

had a bad guy die by karate-kicking a giant walking electric eel (Warriors of the Deep)

Now I want to see Warriors of the Deep because that sounds hilarious. I've managed to watch a lot of the old series on Netflix but I'm still a ways away from watching them all.