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

for once i actually want to see a massive spoiler but for the life of me i cannot find one

First episode - talks about Susan and being a grandfather
Second episode - the HADS
Third episode - crystal from Metebelis Three
Fourth episode - State of Decay referred to, plus the swimming pool
Fifth episode - talks about dropping off Tegan

Fourth is a giant stretch (if meant to be significant), and there are shitloads of references to other doctors in every episode. Basically the "pattern" is people ignoring every other reference and only highlighting one per ep.

for once i actually want to see a massive spoiler but for the life of me i cannot find one

would have presumed the entire ep could be findable by now.

I don't know, I get that the Fourth ep connection isn't maybe as strong as the others but two of these are major plot points so I guess we're just back at our friend massive coincidence again.

The complete lack of leak information could well point to a faked leak for publicity. Or it could just be a coincidence.

Yeah faked leak sounds like a good call to me. No sign of a torrent anywhere yet, but perhaps more telling, no inflated pre-release copies on eBay that I can see.

Swimming pool is as much an Eleventh thing as anything else, by now.

Could be that BBCA wrote to everyone politely asking not to sell or torrent bcz oops, and everyone's not being cunts.

Which is out of character for everyone, but hey

well, there was this: https://twitter.com/DoctorWho_BBCA/status/333682645403828224

the promise of "a special video" seems like fuckall reward to me, but what do i know.

A special video that's presumably been made already, given Matt Smith now has a shaved head.

i'm sure he could be convinced to wig up for the cause

holy shit i just saw the BEST spoiler and will be watching this weekend (obv i will not say anything here)

bbc america released three spoiler screenshots. the first made me soil myself with glee. the second is obv supposed to indicate something spoilery but i can't work out what it is. the third is just annoying but probably to be expected.

now go wipe yourself off

might bask first

is this first one the one with someone standing out of focus behind someone else?

yes

oh shit i think i just joined some dots between that first screenshot and something said upthread

oh shit

creaming it atm

i'm intrigued, but i assume there's no non-spoilery way you can tell us what you mean

not really

I probably need to watch it again to be sure but did we see them all except eight and ten? And does that mean they'll both show up in the next one?

Is McGann meant to be onboard for the 50th? It'd make sense, I'm assuming that's why Tennant wasn't featured tonight.

Strangely quiet in here given that JOHN FRICKIN' HURT has just been revealed as a 'lost' incarnation of The Doctor. Wow. Was this common knowledge? I knew he was featuring but I thought he was gonna be Omega or some shit?

Given the "I did what I had to for peace and justice and sanity" line and The Doc's general demeanour towards the newcomer and what with Clara finding that book on the Time War in the TARDIS episode and stuff, I guess this is where they delve into whatever crazy nastiness occurred at the end of the Time War, right? Odd that they should be pulling that storyline back for the Anniversary when they seemed to have more or less moved on from it. Rebooting with the Time Lords back for good post-Anniversary?

Anyway, I'd more or less avoided the spoilers for this and i thought it was cracking. Thoroughly enjoyed all the footage of the Classic Docs, and it was all much easier to follow than Moffat's usual form on the big occasions (although still pretty complicated compared to the way RTD used to do things). And yeah, JOHN FRICKIN' HURT, guys! That reveal was the best "well blow me down" moment on Doc Who since the payoff of the "He will knock four times" thing at the end of Tennant's run. This was a shitty series, but a damn good finale imo

Yeah it was great, and the best best thing about it is that finally the Dragonfire cliffhanger makes sense! It's the Great Intelligence who takes over McCoy's mind and forces him to climb over the cliff edge, then Clara who attracts his attention, brings him back to his senses, and saves his life again.

A bit odd that Matt Smith goes (paraphrasing) "he may be me but he's not THE DOCTOR" and then it says "introducing John Hurt as THE DOCTOR". Yeah yeah what else were they gonna do, still a bit odd.

yeah, also a bit self-congratulatory 'LOOK WHAT WE'VE DONE LOOK THIS IS CLEVER AND AMAZING etc etc'

overall definitely the best episode this year, which really isn't saying much. a couple of typical oh-get-over-yourself moffat moments, and far too up itself wrt the clever-clever time streamy stuff, but as a narrative etc it wasn't too bad. smith got to do something other than bumbling clown for a change. i thought the great intelligence was the master, and then i thought it was the doctor himself; that's a thing that's going to be resolved eventually, right?

valeyard = a name of the doctor? uh okay. i thought that was fairly clearly the master, unless some bugger retconned it and i forgot.

I see where you're coming from, but I think they did a good enough job, particularly given how brief the scene was, of eliciting the idea that John Hurt is at once The Doctor (as in, he is in an incarnation of the character, same as all the others) but that, in as much as The Doctor is an idea or an ideal of how to live as opposed to just a name, this guy is by 11's own measure NOT The Doctor, as he seems to have pulled some fucking heinous shit that essentially disqualifies him from bearing that moniker. Eurgh, commas. Sorry, I'm sure this is all obvious stuff but I'm just trying to think it out for myself.

Tbh I thought it was a much more interesting and satisfying treatment of the whole NAME deal then I was expecting. Of course they were never actually going to reveal it, but of all the ways they could have had The Doctor say "It doesn't really matter" this feels like the most legit I can think of. Can't be complaining about the bait and switch when the actual reveal is so much more interesting, adding layers of depth and mystery rather than stripping them away.

I really hope they follow through on John Hurt's character as a much darker, more damaged incarnation. They can still get in the necessary love-in with Tennant and McGann to send everyone home happy. This would be a very nice time for them to scale back the episode with zero-jeopardy --> saccharine ending schtick that Moffat's been working.

xpost - nah Valeyard was always The Doctor iirc

Sorry, got my cross-posting a bit mixed up there, the body of that post was in response to ledge

nah Valeyard was always The Doctor iirc

but but

http://altairsnail.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/trial.jpg

i mean i know but i thought the whole point was that the master basically stole that semi-incarnation for himself

okay i've just checked the fanwank and clearly i was wrong. sic, put down your keyboard

I dunno, never felt the need to revisit that story once I'd watched it so I'm grasping through the fog of time a little, you may be right. Not sure if that point was particularly important on a wider level beyond demonstrating that the Great Intelligence knows a bit more about The Doctor than anyone else involved and as a wink to the more hardcore element. Though it will be interesting to see whether they ever revisit the idea when they arrive at the necessary place in the overall story.

edit - ah ok, phew. fanboy honour restored.

yeah, definitely a fanwink

Had the normal amount of handwavey bollocks, but somehow it all worked splendidly this time. First five minutes gave me chills, Clara's sacrifice was actually pretty moving, and I'm excited about a forthcoming episode now for the first time in at least two years.

totally loved it except for about seven minutes after the Doctor's nervous system is revealed. Seven minutes of sitting there going "ok Clara dive into it so you can protect his timestream from the Grebt Intelligence," then "why is not just Clara but everyone standing around watching REG soliloquise, he is outlining his plan, everyone should be stopping him," "FFS even if Strax charged him and got knocked down SOMETHING would be happening," and then about five of them being AFTER REG dives into it and Clara still doesn't. She's meant to be proactive and figure things out, that should have happened as fast as the viewer can think of it, not interminably afterwards

also REG's henchcreatures, his thought-Autons or whatever, were a lame rip-off of The Gentlemen in Buffy, or a shitter version of the Silence.

his thoughtons

missed this somehow

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPsL2xWeHD8

Do I need to watch the penultimate one to make sense of the finale or can I just jump straight in? I know I should watch both but I just can't really be arsed.

i didn't watch the penultimate one and the finale seemed to make sense

although tbh it'd be easier if i just tell you now that clara is the rani

nah go ahead Matt, nbd

Eight is there, in the same location as Two per-credits and walks l-r across the screen.

Part of the way through it I started having an argument with someone who thought it was absolute crap that it wasn't necessarily absolute crap, that there was a good idea at he heart of it (although yet again heavily nfluenced by Alien Bodies, I have yet to check in on Lawrence's undoubted meltdown) but Moffatt just isn't that good a writer/as good as he thinks he is.

There's one thing I hate more than ridiculous fan walk, and that's a writer wanking furiously over himself - and this is as bad as Journey's End was in that respect. Let's put all of my relations together and have them talk about vicariously great I am by having them catchphrase instead of speaking. Spoilers! Sweetie! God, I'm great. Let's throw in spooky nursery rhymes as well, people won't be bored of them yet! Also all the stars going out because he Doctor saved EVERYTHING is back to Doctor-Jesus Power Escalation imo.

For such a talky episode there was an awful lot of flashes and bangs in sfx. Without rewatching The Doctor's Wife, I'm pretty sure it contradicts it in First Doctor terms (unless the get-out is that the TARDIS told Clara to say that). Does this mean the Doctor beat the GI twice in London and twice in Tibet?

I think the thing for me is it doesn't even apply its own core idea properly. "Most of the time he doesn't even see me." OK, got that. But if The Doctor remembers The Snowmen and Asylum of the Daleks, then he'd also remember the woman who told him which TARDIS to steal - after all, it's the even which determined his life, and ALL of Nu Who is full of how he remembers everything he's ever done, everywhere he's ever been, everything he's ever read. And the Dragonfire 'save' fals because she's on the other side of the chasm, unless he Doctor sees her and somehow that save him giving another opportunity for him to remember her.

I think I just hate modern television.

this whole year has been talky though (and is partially evidence that you don't hate modern television)

the opening was nice to see (and the sixth doctor glimpse is what had me mozzing out upthread) but ultimately just wank

xpost - I don't disagree with any of that, but I think I'm always relatively happy to give Doctor Who (and sci-fi an fantasy generally, I suppose) a free pass for a lot of this stuff provided there's some actual payoff. I haven't understood what the fuck was going on for about the last 2 or 3 finales, so this was a nice change of pace in that I felt I was actually following the narrative a lot more closely.

I cant really see the point in watching/analysing it too intently though, I think it would ruin my enjoyment of a programme where I'm very capable of more or less switching off and going along for the ride. I wouldn't accept some of those plot-holes in more "serious" tv that I watch, but I think you're pretty much dooming yourself not to enjoy a children's sci-fi show if you call them out for all the reasons it doesn't work rather than focusing on the ways that it does.

that's true, but if you don't enjoy a piece of entertainment you're more inclined to understand why. loads of stuff about this year has been spectacularly well done (much of the acting in particular), but when the episodes are boring or flatlining or just straight up terribly written it's hard to even care about what works. if i were consulting to bbc wales i would be more thorough and circumspect in my whining

But the problem with the notion of switching off and going along with the ride is that's exactly what Moffatt (and Rusty before him) DON'T want you to do, otherwise they wouldn't spend all their time building story arcs and encouraging close reading in order to 'understand'. They wouldn't put in 'for the fans' glimpses of dialogue, characters or images. They wouldn't have 'mysteries' that need resolved over the period. It would just be monster of the week (which I enjoyed the Pond half-series which was in exactly that way).

it's sort of bizarre that people complained when there were mega-arcs and then they complained about this year's one-off stories (fwiw it wasn't the twilighty-show-about-that-zone format that cheezed me off, it was the crap episodes)

I don't think either Moffatt or Rusty think they're making a children's sci-fi show, in fact if Rusty thought he was then he wouldn't have needed SJA. Ad how many kids' shows that you've ever seen have jokes about paving slab blow jobs? Or that much snogging (cf the 'proper snog everyone's been waiting for' as the Doctor/River kiss has been described by almost everyone) and emo eye watery?

i did like the doctor/river snog despite myself (and upon the 'disgracefully' line i lolled and lolled and lolled)

Well there are degrees of switching off. I still follow it closely enough that I pick up on most everything you're meant to pick up on, but what I mean is that I don't really ever try to sit and puzzle it out. Anytime I come across a particular concept that seems to quite blatantly not work, that's the moment when I switch off and go "Ah fuck it, this is not worth my time and energy to work out or get annoyed about" - so Clara has been saving The Doctor's life throughout his whole life? Fine. The Doctor can see River Song after all? Fine. And so on. The bits that threaten to catch I just let glide right past me.

And tbh I'm not bothered whether Moffat or RTD think they're making a children's tv show, those are the terms that I think of it in usually, and as such I'm able to accept gaping plot-holes and ideas that don't seem to really hold up too well under close examination as par for the course.