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

"Lesbo"?

I miss Rory personally.

If the Lesbo lizard and killer potato show was Moffat's idea for a spinoff then the BBC still has some sense.

Moffatt only brought them back at all due to audience reaction and has no interest in (or time to make!) a spin-off

rumor blog was saying that moffatt was mad b/c he wanted a spinoff (after all, RTD got to do it!) and network wouldn't give him one.

that is idiotic. dude is already flat-out running Who in the face of enormous scrutiny and perilous budget cuts, PLUS managing the production and writing of three feature-film-length Sherlocks a year-ish around the Who schedule and the availability of its two big movie stars, when he actually co-owns nu-Sherlock. even if he had the time, what benefit would he get from "creating" a show based on properties owned by other ppl? (Sontarans created by Holmes, estate was controlling them in the 90s; Silurians by Hulke, died '79 so who knows)

p sure ed was being facetious but k

Ed was whistleblowerblog? tight doxxing bro

Whistleblower blog must've been reading Private Eye, because that's where I saw the bit about SM's 'Ugandan discussions'.

still amazed that everyone just accepts the comedy sontaran

i'll admit that i don't care enough about silurians to comment on thing face but warrior potatoes are pretty strictly warrior potatoes (i can't imagine blzztk the lovable dalek having chummy adventures with idk a sensorite called simon)

'blzztk did you bring the key to lady phyllis pompington-smythe's country mansion'

'NO I LEFT IT ON THE SIDEBOARD SORRY'

i guess the comedy Sontaran kind of falls under "doctor who is after all a show for children" for me

like, some things happen in the show and are hugely irritating but one thinks, well, this is a marker by the showrunners to remind us that technically this show is for children.

(this is also how i resigned myself to the hackiness of the last scene: it is so some kids can take part in an adventure, this is after all a show for kids, i can accept this)

i mean, it's not just a marker to remind adults that the show is for children, it's also something they put in because they genuinely thought children would find it funny/scary/exciting/sympathetic/etc -- but to me it has the function of reminding me that the target audience is not only me and my concerns.

fair point

i suppose sontarans need to be interesting somehow, at all, ever

c# otm plus

i'll admit that i don't care enough about silurians to comment on thing face but warrior potatoes are pretty strictly warrior potatoes

a) the Sontarans were created by the second-funniest writer in old Who, and first appeared in a story chock-full of gags
b) kind of the main point of the character, since his first scene in AGMGTW, is that he is not a very good Sontaran

(i can't imagine blzztk the lovable dalek having chummy adventures with idk a sensorite called simon)

http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110610023139/tardis/images/c/c3/DWGN5.jpg

I think the comedy Sontaran is quite funny.

"Horse! You have failed in your mission!"

I like the Sontaran too. The fact all of his plans involve weapon overkill and suicudal tactics reflect very much Bob Holmes' writing in that there were always more clones available so just throwing bodies at a conflict during their interminable war with the Rutans was probably enough to win the battle.

ah fair enough

I really liked the kids blackmailing Clara into a TARDIS trip. As far as I know there haven't been actual kids on the TARDIS aside from the Cushing movies so I'm interested to see how that plays out.

Total aside but in reading the AV Club comments bitching about this episode I encountered a devoted fan of The Idiot's Lantern, which kind of blew my mind and made me doubt everything I thought I knew about life, so maybe I didn't actually enjoy this and I'm actually a 28 year old white woman.

As far as I know there haven't been actual kids on the TARDIS aside from the Cushing movies

Adric, John & Gillian, Gareth Jenkins

ugh I guess I got used to doctor who being a more adult-skewed family show because all the more typical kids show stuff this season makes me cringe constantly. I don't outright hate it but it sure does make me miss the Donna days a lot.

also, Clara is so far pretty freakin boring for someone who's supposed to be such an unkillable mystery

Yeah I quite liked her at first but she's grating on me a bit now.

How young were Adric and Nyssa supposed to be? They always read to me as older than teenagers.

there was a post on tumblr today that said something like "i just realised that before on doctor who we saw the doctor through the eyes of the companion and now we're seeing the companion through the eyes of the doctor" and i feel like that's... not too far off? but in effect all that happens is that the character of Clara is super slight and you have no sense that she has an internal life. even the ~mystery~ about her is completely external.
(also, i feel like one doesn't watch doctor who through the eyes of the doctor because that would kind of ruin the show)

yes! and therefore we're watching the doctor through the eyes of an everyperson who isn't present, which is probably another reason he's really grating on me atm

he works because there's always an alice around to react to him, but this year there's clara

Adric was 14 or 15 - Nyssa in her late teens iirc, but mature in behaviour due to her courtly upbringing

(John & Gillian I think are both under 10, and Gareth Jenkins was 8, before being erased from history before our eyes, by a crack in the BBC)

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/b5/A_Fix_with_Sontarans.jpg

Clara's best outing to date has been the Ice Warrior story; that's the one that made her most feel like a distinct person from the other nu-Who companions

I like that, so far, the show has been diegetically telling the Doctor that he is wrong about Clara being mysterious and amazing -- as if it's scolding him / Moffatt for going so quickly, so repetitively, to the same well without actually earning it.

also, Clara is so far pretty freakin boring for someone who's supposed to be such an unkillable mystery

"Note: Clara died on her way back to her home planet"

Dan: There is a sizable number of fans who love The Idiot's Lantern but they all seem to be wacko Ten/Rose shippers.

I like comedy Sontaran, he's probably the thing I enjoyed most out of that episode. Also I am 5 years old.

I dunno, I just feel like of all the seasons so far this one is the most rudderless in terms of story. I mean, there's a handwavey nod to the 'conundrum of Clara' every now and then but it's like, every week new adventure without much of a thread running through anything at all really.

And I'm getting really bothered by how flirty the Doctor and Clara are now. Like it was a bit that way with Pond, but now it's just AGGGH would you STOP

it's like, every week new adventure without much of a thread running through anything at all really.

I don't have a problem with this. I wish the adventures were better though.

ordinarily it wouldn't bother me, I think I just am liking Clara and the doctor less and less as a pair so I'm almost to the point of not caring where they'll go next

there's no chemistry between those two, mainly because they're not really doing anything together but i suspect the actors are not really cliquing

yes! and therefore we're watching the doctor through the eyes of an everyperson who isn't present, which is probably another reason he's really grating on me atm

Yeah, this otm -- that's why I'm missing Rory (rather than Amy) this season. Smith is still great but he needs a Xander/Arthur Dent/underwhelmist companion more than a perky-zinger type

Also yes Clara barely gets any dialogue with Smith anyway, so no time to register besides her guilt-trapping "I'd rather be on BBC2" actor face

but it's like, every week new adventure without much of a thread running through anything at all really.

This was announced in advance as a plan, hence the distinct tone & genre exercise swings, and the terrible CGI "movie posters" every week. Unfortunately they're being hobbled by the actual continuing threads of, first, the badly-fumbled Pond departure, and now the audienceDGAF mystery of Clara

otm

also the lack of ~cleverness~ arcs means the episodes need to be a bit more various in tone than they are

That was awful

I think because if you were summing up 'Doctor Who', you might use the following adjectives:

*Weird
*Eccentric
*Dark
*Child-like

And if you were summing up 'Neil Gaiman', you might use:

*Weird
*Eccentric
*Dark
*Child-like

But you'd mean something very, very different, despite using exactly the same words. And rather like how you could call both P.G. Wodehouse and Max Beerbohm 'witty', but really, there's a gulf between them, whatever the charms of the weaker one, well, it's like that with Dr Who and Neil Gaiman, probably, I don't know

(Where Who = Beerbohm and Gaiman = Wodehouse)

I've missed most of this season, though I'm not sure that's much of a bad thing with the hit:miss ratio. That one, eh, I didn't *hate* it, but it was pretty boring. And despite liking Clara at first, she's not emerging as any strong character, and ugh, have they been doing the 'sexy doctor' schtick again? Even if it's more of a Donna-Doctor thing where they repeatedly went "oh no, we're not like that", why do they even have to mention it? FFS people, it is possible to have a friendship with a member of the opposite sex without having to CONSTANTLY reaffirm where your sexual relationship is at.

Yeah this was pretty lame tbh. Not as bad as some of the other episodes in the series (ugh, the one with the all the singing!) but nevertheless. This whole plan of running every episode as a stand-alone story has really bitten them in the arse, huh? They've basically engineered a situation (for no good or obvious reason) where they have to come up with twice as many ideas and then have half the time to tell the story.

Is it any wonder that there's no chemistry between Clara and the Doctor? They have 45 minutes to introduce a scenario, develop the plot a bit and then resolve everything ready for next week. And after that, if we're lucky, we get chucked 3 or 4 cryptic sentences as a means of developing the overall plot or 'arc' or whatever as a bonus. Do they really have so little faith in the kids of today to follow a story that runs for multiple weeks?

I've been a pretty big supporter of Nu-Who so far, but I'm coming round to the POV that says that it's time for a change, of showrunner if not of protagonist. I like Smith a lot, but this series has basically been dross and I don't think I'm going to remember a single episode of it in a year or two. The Journey to the Centre of the Tardis as a concept is such a massive missed opportunity for the show.

Bleh. I hope next week ends on a BIG cliffhanger to set up for the 50th Anniversary, which I'm still feeling ought to be something special.

yeah I agree with most of what you've said there Windsor, v otm.

the constant stream of stand-alone adventures is driving me UP THE WALL. and flirty/sexy clara and the doctor is annoying the shit out of me. tight skirts now? FUCK OFF. and..AND! idk how anyone else feels about the cybermen but I have in the past found them somewhat creepy but re-engineering the threat so that they're now basically just Borg was a really stupid idea. part of the scary thing about them was seeing the people in the cybermen factories getting tortured, and now you just have stupid metal sperm things and who cares about that seriously.

oh AND Matt Smith (who I still mostly like) was really kind of terrible at playing the two versions of himself. when he first started doing it I didn't even really get it. It was like watching a bad Jim Carrey impersonation.

he was all bumbling clown again rite