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

Yes that was definitely more pandering than having the UNIT taskforce leader be the brigadier's daughter.

Wasn't the daugher character established much earlier, maybe already during the Tennant era?

xxpost Yeah was wondering where this leaves Eccleston's Doctor. Survivor's guilt was his defining characteristic, now all of a sudden not relevant or necessary. Unless this can be explained by Hurt's Doctor not remembering any of the events of this episode? So what, he goes on believing that he did commit genocide and everything goes on as before until you get up to date with Smith again? I didn't really follow that tbh

exactly what you said, otherwise they'd've had to handwave away all the guilty feelings stuff from the last 3 Doctors

nothing like undermining any possible emotional heft yr characters might have by making it obvious that any event no matter how traumatic is gonna get retconned out of existence as soon as it doesn't suit

yeah, that bothers the hell out of me

at some point they'll be all 'what, no river song is actually the doctor's grandpa' or some dumb shit

doesn't bother me cos tbh as enjoyable as the Smith/Tennant double act was, everything else about this made me happy to not bother in future ah shit i've just remembered Ben Wheatley's doing one

my theory is this:

- eccleston pulled out at the last minute (as per reports)
- hurt was brought in to ~be~ eccleston's doctor for time war purposes (after some rewriting obv)
- piper stayed on, but played something-or-other against hurt instead

Yeah, that's what I was trying to say upthread. Introducing a new character who feels the same emotions Eccleston had been established as feeling (war guilt) and having Piper play against him despite having no connection to him whatsoever feels pretty weird, this episode would've made much more sense if it was Eccleston instead of Hurt. There's only one little thing that goes against Eccleston being the Time War era Doctor: in his first episode he looks at his reflection and comments on his face, which implies he's just been reincarnated. But that could've been retconned.

xp in the same retconny nonsense vein, what they did to rose has bothered me for a while. she was always the everyperson in this story, and gradually she became a god, a hero, a bloody bad wolf thing etc etc. with clara they didn't even bother with the pretence, they had her be a supercharacter before she really did anything.

that, to me, was what this 50th anniversary story missed: a character to be filled with the naive, human wonder of what's going on. that's the essence of doctor who. to forego that entirely in favour of 100% time lords and scientists and aliens removed the whole experience way too much. it wasn't about the viewer, it was entirely about the folklore.

entirely entirely

Introducing a new character who feels the same emotions Eccleston had been established as feeling (war guilt) and having Piper play against him despite having no connection to him whatsoever feels pretty weird, this episode would've made much more sense if it was Eccleston instead of Hurt.

yep, stands out like a sore thumb. there wasn't even any planned interaction between piper and tennant, despite them being on the same bloody set for a decent amount of time.

if you was being charitable you could say that well what do you expect from the 50th anniversary tribute except fan service? on the other hand for me it just feels like the show isn't for anybody except those people any more

he goes on believing that he did commit genocide and everything goes on as before until you get up to date with Smith again?

That seems to be the gist of it... Except that I still feel the events of the "The End of Time" wouldn't have played the same way they did with Gallifrey's fate now changed, which means Ten shouldn't have died in that episode, which in turn creates a hell of a paradox.

As neat as "Father's Day" was, I'm not sure if in retrospect it was a good decision to introduce those bat monsters who fix time anomalies. Because they haven't appeared ever since, and they certainly should have done so in this episode.

if you was being charitable you could say that well what do you expect from the 50th anniversary tribute except fan service? on the other hand for me it just feels like the show isn't for anybody except those people any more

― uk cheese board (Noodle Vague), Sunday, 24 November 2013 12:08 (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

in all honesty, my answer to that question would be an everyday person person's wide-eyed view of an eccentric alien. it seems obvious to me, and given that that's how the show got started three times—susan in 1963, chang lee and grace in 1997, and rose in 2005—it's not even a stretch to do that. it would have serviced the anniversary beautifully. but no, let's do aliens and wars.

this episode feels more like trial of a time lord pt 2 or something

thanks for reminding me the Time War stuff was some seriously underwhelming Star Wars shite too

the Time Lords didn't even seem all crazy and Gotterdammerung like they were supposed to be

Also, I'd like echo Andrew said upthread: having recently seen the new Thor movie, and now "The Day of the Doctor", it'd certainly have been much nicer to see Eccleston in this one. Talk about wasting a good actor! Though I guess he got more money from Thor than he ever would've from Who...

(xxx-post)

thanks for reminding me the Time War stuff was some seriously underwhelming Star Wars shite too

― uk cheese board (Noodle Vague), Sunday, 24 November 2013 12:18 (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

and no fun. no sense of fun at all. at its best it would be, say, just for example, donna interacting heavily with the doctor(s) and commenting on how weird/unpredictable/wonderful he is while having the time of her life. apart from some double-doctor frolicking in the woods, this entire episode was 98% joyless 'oh no we're all grieving aliens and we have to fix some things'.

it didn't exactly reek of celebration to me.

the Time Lords didn't even seem all crazy and Gotterdammerung like they were supposed to be

Yeah, I thought that was a bit of a problem with this episode: in the previous ones, where the Time War was never actually depicted, the Doctor deciding to wipe out his own race was justified with the implication that the Time Lords had become almost as ruthless as the Daleks. But that ruthlessness was never shown here, the depicition of the war focused on innocent kids getting killed by Daleks, which made the Doctor's decision of getting rid of Gallifrey feel kinda unjustified.

presumably his magical journey to find Gallifrey wd be less motivated if Gallifrey was just psycho Time Lords still peeved at getting frozen

Well yeah, but I still have to wonder: what happened to those psycho Time Lords seen in "The End of Time"? Why weren't they around in this episode, which depicted the same time and place?

Life is more fun when you decide to enjoy things IME

^gets it

i set out with every intention of doing just that but unfortunately then i watched it

djp otm

I really wanted all three of them to be complicit in blowing up Gallifrey if only to crush the dreams of ppl who imagine themselves macking on 10 in the TARDIS

i set out with every intention of doing just that but unfortunately then i watched it

otm

lies

truly! i was actually terribly excited (even leapt out of bed), but by the 19 minute mark i wanted to be doing anything else, despite still giving it the benefit of the doubt at that point

DJP, dreamkiller

still loads of great scenes though. i spent a good portion grinning maniacally.

I said this on Facebook but I would love to see a Hurt/Tennant/Smith buddy movie now

lol it is kinda funny to see these old farts complaining that it pandered to fanboy fetishes too much but at the same time didn't pander to their specific fanboy fetish enough

lol Doctor Make-it-up-as-we-go

saw this in an absolutely sold out packed theater in SF at noon, great fun, I thought it was all it could have been and then some. Theater got a great Strax intro where he told people to turn their phones off and talked about popcorn screaming as it is eaten, plus a nice tennant/smith pair up describing 3d with barbs about chins and wrinkly old lines. Special itself was wonderful. But, who was the scientist girl? who was her sister supposed to have been? where did she get the scarf? I thought at the end perhaps from Baker's Doctor, but...

also downloaded 5(ish) doctors, also a wonderful little piece; particularly liked the Shada/5 Doctors Baker fly in. That should make it to the blu ray. McGann obviously was never on the set with them at the same time.

also, there seems to be an awfully big gulf between 'name of the doctor' and this. how come clara doesn't remember Hurt? what happened after that?

OK I got really choked up during the Doctor roll call. Am I right to assume that Nine was archival footage?

yeah if you saw the behind the scenes thing they were all stand ins wearing blank masks and the faces were cgi-ed on. Not a bad job on him 9th and some of the others; 8 was awful though, head is entirely too big. Not sure why they didn't get him in to do it himself but I guess he wasn't around right then

Ah, I didn't see that! (Also was in SF last night, didn't seem to realize that I should've stayed to catch this in theaters.)

where did she get the scarf?

Well, that was Tom Baker's scarf, yes?

also, there seems to be an awfully big gulf between 'name of the doctor' and this. how come clara doesn't remember Hurt? what happened after that?

I thought she passed out before the Hurt reveal, or something. Anyway, her timeline probably got out of sync, she wouldn't have remembered otherwise, then she became a motorcycle-riding teacher. /handwave

"didn't seem to realize that I should've stayed to catch this in theaters"

it was incredibly sold out and an insane understaffed madhouse. fun though to see so many people in costume in a downtown mall. my son wore his customary bow tie and tweed (he's 7) and got some nice compliments (although it always makes him uncomfortable). the best was a stringy haired sales associate in Nordstrom who asked "are you having a good day? Have a happy 50th!" to him out of the blue.

Also, although I never hated Clara to the extent that everyone else apparently does, I have to think she was pretty good in this. She didn't really do very much but when she was on screen I never found her grating.

despite various shittiness I enjoyed this (drunk).

do have a bit of an issue with all the laser guns and destroying gallifrey with a big bomb - the doctor has always been odysseus rather than hector, escaping his strange worlds and alien creatures with cunning rather than force - particularly apposite comparison for this specific episode, searching for home.

also p meh about the zygons, MORE shape shifting human imitators providing a thin plot to support the main (plotless) idea. Let zygons be zygons.

time lords were shit and boring and not at all dreadful.

HOWEVER

heart definitely beat faster at the whole 13 doctors/multiple tardises stuff
enjoyed doctor bantz
tom baker.

L4wr3nc3 M1l3s provided the biggest lols associated with the show on Twitter:

This show made me feel like I was 13 years old again...
On the week of my 13th birthday, Timelash was broadcast.

If it hasn't been explained so far geeky girl with Tom Baker scarf was daughter of UNIT's Brigadier, a character featured in Troughton/Pertwee/Baker era. He has also been refered to in both Tennant & Smith eras. A letter was sent to him at his nursing home only to find he'd died.
I think blonde woman was her prettier sister which I think was refered to causing a complex.

I thought Carla less annoying than usual too. Wonder how long they'll keep her with Capaldi?

I was wondering what the story was with the absence of a Dalton character, but not watched that story in too long to remember details. So wondered if that was a rogue council or something.

I'm confused about timing with casting of Hurt. It seems like an age since the big reveal at the end of the series. Was Eccleston at one point supposed to appear then.
Assumed that 50th special was filmed since then.

I was just thinking that Eccleston hadn't wanted to be involved since he quit. So surprised that he had been supposed to be involved. Was his absence just down to a timing clash with filming Thor? &he's not recognisable in that.

I did like the return of Billie Piper. Thought it played well.

Not a massive fan of Stacey as Liz or the marriage thereof. Guess it was fun to an extent? Cant remember if Liz1 has appeared in previous 50 years at all, has she?

geeky "lols asthma' girl played by Ingrid Oliver (marginally better known as part of a comedy double act). i might have to rewatch, but didn't they say something right at the start to imply the CURRENT brig (whose phone she had) was her mum - making her Alistair's grand-daughter?