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

um, did we change this thread's position on spoilers while i wasn't looking? i mean i know this mirror thing is still at the level of rumours rather than spoilers but this kind of isn't... in keeping... with how this thread usually works.

i mean, i fucking love spoilers, but i have always considered this thread an oasis of linking-offboard and gloomy references to what spoilers might be contained elsewhere.

(Also, it was implied in "The End of Time" that Donna will eventually become the mysterious Time Lady seen throughout that episode, so it seems she keeps the Time Lord essence she got from Tennant.)

No it wasnt, just the opposite in fact because it was said outright that if she ever became vaguely Timey again she would go mad instantly.

At the end of the episode there's a scene where Wilfred asks the Doctor who the Time Lady is; the Doctor doesn't answer anything, but we see that he's looking wistfully at Donna. I don't think there's any other way of interpreting that scene than that the Time Lady is her. (And I don't remember there being any hints that she's the Doctor's mother, how was that implied?)

Yeah, it was also said the Timey stuff would drive her mad, but I guess she just eventually got over that? Donna being her would also explain why the Time Lady uses such a familiar tone when talking to Wilfred, calling her "old soldier" and all...

It's a Rusty serial, everyone looks wistfully at everything.

<looks wistfully at teapot>

but we see that he's looking wistfully at Donna. I don't think there's any other way of interpreting that scene than that the Time Lady is her.

lol, I have seen other ppl arguing IN THE LAST HALF HOUR that bcz of that look, she couldn't possibly be anyone other than Susan

*looks wistfully at radiator*

Well yeah, but since there were no other answers to the question of who the Time Lady was, and since that wistful loo came immediately after Wilfred's question, I took it had some signifigance.

(xpost)

lol, I have seen other ppl arguing IN THE LAST HALF HOUR that bcz of that look, she couldn't possibly be anyone other than Susan

Who's Susan, and why would the Doctor's look imply it's her?

*looks wistfully at loo*

Sorry about that. But I still don't get why the wistful look would signify the Time Lady is some random character who doesn't even appear in that series (I assume "Susan" is someone from some old Who series)?

I seriously can't

Tuom As Victorious

Guys you know they're just going to handwave that regeneration issue away with some Tardis magic or something, right? Really it's enough that the Doctor *thinks* he's on his last regeneration.

Tuomas, the first episode is 25 minutes or less, you might enjoy it

So Susan is in the first episode? Yeah, I've been thinking of watching it one of these days... Is it a self-contained episode?

I'd still love to hear this theory how the Doctor's glance means the Time Lady is Susan...?

Hope it is something that is arrived at through a process fo character development etc rather than something arriving purely deus ex machina.

Really am wondering what Capaldi is going to look like as the Doctor and what personality quirks he''ll bring. Can't be too closely related to Malcolm presumably or he'd be getting typecast. But outside of Neverwhere and that I still can't really think what I've seen him in.

Sorry, I was talking about the regeneration problem, should have edited that accordingly

Susan is the grand-daughter in the first series. Was she left behind on the earth after they'd foiled the Dalek invasion? Anyway, seemed to be the first time they'd really been parted in centuries or something.

The first 4 episodes were shown on BBC3 last week. Interesting to see the quirks the doctor had at the time.

Okay, I remember reading about the grand-daughter... But does that mean the Doctor has a wife (before River) and kids too? Why are they never mentioned?

One of the quirks of the series I suppose. It's never been in doubt that Susan really is his granddaughter though. There was also this:

During World War II, the Ninth Doctor encountered Dr Constantine, taking care of carriers of the Empty Child plague, who told the Doctor, "Before this war began, I was a father and a grandfather. Now I’m neither. But I’m still a doctor." The Doctor replied, "Yeah. I know the feeling."

because no one ever bothered to mention it or talk about the Doctor in the context of relationships until the 1996 TV movie

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxRX6LXDpWs

capaldi was pretty great in the hour.

I don't think they wee introduced. the first possible wife in the series itself was am Aztec princess in the Hartnell era I think. Think that was one of the statistics in the K9 runthrough in the Afterparty on Saturday, can't remember it being completed outside of taht.

But when the Doctor is first introduced it's because this grand-daughter is being seen as an odd pupil at school which is why a pair of teachers go looking for their home. Susan is using the surname Foreman which is what the pair address the Dr as, which I think leads to the first usage of the coupling Dr Who.
& from what I remember the teachers have to go to a place that's a bit out of the way from the school, possibly a shady part of town so the beginning of the Anniversary episode is a bit misrepresentative when there's a sign for Foreman's yard right next to the school.

sorry first line of that is talking about any kind of Gallifreyan family outside of the ''grand-daughter' who is the first female timelord or presumably has to be retrofit to be.

Probably just an easy way of explaining why an old man is around with a young female?

I heard that the actress wasn't quite so young and innocent, had been a glamour model and was a little older than the 15 she was playing. But that's nothing new is it?

lol 'granddaughter' that was totally some afterthought which the original programme makers took about three weeks to forget about.

Really am wondering what Capaldi is going to look like as the Doctor and what personality quirks he''ll bring. Can't be too closely related to Malcolm presumably or he'd be getting typecast. But outside of Neverwhere and that I still can't really think what I've seen him in.

Well he plays a government official in Torchwood...

and a Roman in Doctor Who

is a bit misrepresentative when there's a sign for Foreman's yard right next to the school.

as I said upthread, it's a sign pointing to the street that the yard is on, not the actual sign. it's walking distance in both Unearthly Child (1963) and Remembrance (1988).

Tuomas - the first episode ends on a cliffhanger, but is self-contained; the following three episodes are a different story.

anyway

HEY EVERYONE HOW FUCKING GREAT WAS THIS EPISODE

The extra bits in the cinema before the show started!

Tennant and Smith bantering together!

Adorable little in-jokes for the casualest of fans (Osgood's scarf), to the Target era readers (also heartwarming shout-outs to Terrance Dicks, probably the second biggest populariser of Who in its 50 years ["never cruel or cowardly," "wheezing, groaning sound"), to the hardest-core of nerds (making the Time War fit a Lance Parkin EDA, apparently. also reparation for the EDA fans disenfranchisement in favour of companions McGann has actually worked with in Night Of)!

A story that begins in media res, ends with explicit foreshadowing, and yet has a full self-contained structure that explains everything a one-off viewer needs to know to follow it!

Every single telly Doctor, with two of the non-participants in new bits anyway! (William Russell doing Hartnell's voice, apparently, and I think an outtake of Eccleston? Maybe?)

Lots of clever timey-wimey solutions that were very carefully pitched and paced so that children could figure them out before the Doctors and Clara did, and feel engaged and encouraged!

Historical jokes! Theme park England jokes! Zygon jokes! Bunny jokes!

For all the setting up that the Doctor of the Time War, whether McGann or Eccleston in our eight years of head-theorising, or Hurt during the last six months, would be twisted and damaged by the War, we don't get a miserable, end-of-his-tether old man as out only view of The War Doctor - instead, Hurt gets to go on a REAL, PROPER Doctor Who adventure!

Moffat keeping the anniversary formula of the older Doctors rolling their damn eyes at the differences in behaviour of the later ones, but subverting this by having it been a Doctor who's never even had a character established to be contradicted!

The Capaldi moment! People cheered in the cinema. Less than a second of a Doctor who's NEVER been seen before, at all, and Moffat has people CHEERING.

How admirably the budget was stretched by only having about three minutes of screen time with more than the featured cast of the episode, yet it still feeling full and busy and chock-full of new and not quite old characters.

Tennant being great! RTD is my second-least favourite era of Who ever, and Tennant's performance by the end was a huge part of that, so it was a delight to enjoy him prancing about and mugging. (And even more so that his catchphrases and tropes got lovingly zinged.)

THE CURATOR. The roundels on the wall were priming SOMETHING, then parts of the cinema gasped on the first, voice-only line, more ooh-ed at the back of his head, and then another cluster murmured and laughed at his full reveal.

^ this not just being fanservice, or nerdbaiting, or a bone to old non-fan-but-dedicated viewers, but a glorious, gleeful "who gives a fuck?" to the tedium of the 'regeneration limit' discussions. Even if he does address the latter in the next year, we've still been given uncountable future Doctors to wonder about, in a nebulous and creative way.

A UNIT dating controversy joke in the same episode where Moffat upends the very notion of being able to LIST THE DOCTORS! A wonderful victory for imagination over dull-minded categorising.

Billie being in it for people who like her, and NOT BEING ROSE!

^this maybe even being another clever Moff nod to previous anniversaries, with the fake Jamie and Zoe in Five Doctors

Clara getting to solve stuff now that she's an actual character

The wonderful, remarkable balance between a romp of an adventure, a resolution of lots of nu-Who continuity, nods and inclusion of classic Who in non-sore-toe manner, even some good old nerdy anniversary box-ticking.

Tom being the one old actor to appear, when he'd been the holdout last time proper. Aw!


GUYS THIS WAS A JOYOUS CELEBRATION OF DOCTOR WHO AND 80 MINUTES OF ROLLICKING FUN

Billie being in it for people who like her, and NOT BEING ROSE!

this, along with the intraDoctor banter, was my favorite thing

I loved that she was invisible to Tennant so none of the doe-eyed wub pish.

"And I don't remember there being any hints that she's the Doctor's mother, how was that implied?)"

actually it wasn't;

http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/The_Woman_(The_End_of_Time)

Davies meant her to be his mother, but also said interpretations of her being Susan or Romana were also valid. So there was no definitive answer but she certainly wasn't Donna.

also sic's rundown is great. I'm surprised there are any grumblings about this episode. it hit all the marks it needed to and was incredible fun.

this thread has been defined by grumbling since somewhere around the midway point of season 6

(is it weird that I think of nu-Who in seasons but old-Who strictly by Doctor/companion combo?)

I blame you all.
I just re-watched The End of Time to look at this Time Lady stuff.
It is so bad - reminded me why I was so glad to see the back of RTD and Tennant in the end.

Davies meant her to be his mother, but also said interpretations of her being Susan or Romana were also valid. So there was no definitive answer but she certainly wasn't Donna.

Well if that was intention, then Davies or whoever directed that episode fucked it up, because

1) there were absolutely no hints of the Time Lady being any character we'd me before,

2) except for a scene where the Doctor is asked who she is, and he reacts to the question by looking at Donna meaningfully.

So regardless of what they intended, the only solution to the Time Lady's identity based on what's in the actual episode is that she's Donna. Personally I like that interpretation, because there's enough evidence for it in the text (the Doctor never removed the Time Lord part from Donna, he just made her forget about it), and it'd also mean the crappy ending Donna was given (not being able to remember saving the universe or anything else she did with the Doctor) will eventually be reversed.

"enough evidence" = "enough support"

sic your glee fills me with joy

I didn't get to rewatch yesterday but I've saved it on my dvr so there will be rewatching, oh yes, there will be

SANDSHOES AND GRANDDAD

tuomas you are the only person who has ever watched this who thought it was donna.

please collect your prize at the door

this thread has been defined by grumbling since somewhere around the midway point of season 6

that's when moffat's aggrandising left the planet iirc.

i don't even mind all the clever plotting and astronomical-stakes arcs (when they work), but i keep seeing people i know drift away from this show, partly because they're confused and partly because they're bored. my geek friends are satisfied.

Something I lost track of: in the Zygon/human negotiations, when the one Osgood gives the other Osgood the inhaler, which one is which?

they don't know which is which, hence they are generous to one another, that's... the point...?

I thought we knew fairly certainly which one had the inhaler at that point, i.e. when the Zygon first took Osgood's form?

I'm confused by Osgood, having thought she was alternately Tom Baker's Doctor in disguise, a Letherbridge-Stewart and Clara's sister.

I'm not even sure where the last one came from (Osgood Oswald?) and none of them seem to be correct.

The internets says there was a UNIT Sgt called Osgood.

Anyway as someone says upthread she'd be good companion material.

Osgood with the inhaler is human

Then she gave it to the Zygon who shared it back, I think.

Human starts with it
Zygon steaks it
Human trips Zygon, takes it back
Human offers it to Zygon later

Fucking autocorrect

Ta, DJP.

Yeah, it's the human Osgood who had the inhaler. I've read some net comments saying this implies she knows she's the real Osgood, but keeps quiet about it. That makes no sense to me, because if their memories are erased, they shouldn't remember whether it was the original or the copy who ended up with the inhaler. (Like C Sharp Major, I interpreted that scene simply as a sign of generosity.)

Though TBH the whole memory erasing thing makes little sense if you think about it: Stewart says the erasing machines wipe the memory of your visit to the Black Archive... But that shouldn't be enough to make anyone forget whether they were a human or a Zygon, since they're still gonna remember the day before the visit, when they were either a human or a Zygon. In order for the memory thing to work, the machine should wipe their entire memories right down to childhood... But in that case everyone in that room should be awfully confused, and certainly not capable of having any negotiations.

The Doctors specifically calibrate the mind-wiper to only hold for a few hours, as opposed to the default setting of forever. Why would you think they can't also calibrate it to wipe the particular memories of identity, since they announce that's what they've done?