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

Yeah it's a shame they can't cultivate aliens from the new era as well as bringing back old ones. Not sure which of the new era species with a specific 'iconic' appearance are the best though ('Angel' statues aside as they weren't supposed to have but do I guess). Moffat doean't seem to have been bothered about innovating in this respect - at least RTD tried with Slitheen, Judoon, Ood etc.

perhaps moffat feels more challenged when he does new things with existing aliens, or perhaps the bbc demanded retreaded aliens in exchange for absolute freedom to timey-wimey

(i hope that made sense)

If today's media speculation about Thirteen turns out to be true it would be so fucking lame and quite possibly the death knell of the show.

I was thinking of it being like going from Tom baker to Peter Davison but I don't really know what this other guy's like. Not sure what I've seen him n.
But hopefully it is just early speculation. Looks like several of the stories i was seeing earlier are actually citing the Sun.

BBC aren't biting.

Loved the episode, why couldn't Capaldi have started like this? OH YEAH, SODDING CLARA.

The rumoured new guy is exactly who I'd have put money on it being - I said as much somewhere else a few months ago. I think he'll be OK, but he comes with baggage which'll be hard to shift for UK viewers (see also Tate and Corden, for example).

I like Bill but thought Deep Breath was far better than this both as a season opener. It's different if there's an existing companion to deal with though. xp

There is no way whoever the #1 rumoured person is now will actually be it.

i fuckin hope not

don't even watch this any more but please god no

I like everything about Bill

I can't imagine anyone not thinking #1 candidate is a complete twat, I think even my mum hates him.

Wasn't entirely taken by the actual story for this episode but okay it's an introduction to the character.

I can forgive the syrupy stuff now - 'OMG you were meant to be lecturing about quantum physics but talked about ... poetry!', and yet they don't actually bother to quote any poetry or quantum physics, etc.

Syrupy sweet music still, although sometimes I did notice it getting quite jagged. I can overlook all this as it seems to be the price of keeping it on TV at all.

I thought Matt Lucas was an alright foil, not too overpowering.

They managed to get one genuine creepy bit in, the shower/the eye staring out of the plughole. I like to think there's a team of writers coming up with loads of unheimlich stuff but only one little bit gets allowed into any episode.

Re: the possible new Doctor. Yeah. Total twat. And yet they'd be playing the Doctor and you never know. The Doctor is kind of a twat? Problem could be solved neatly by making new Doctor a woman, something I'd support.

does everyone hate this guy? I don't know him. he looks vaguely familiar (i'm in the US)

oh, love actually (which I like, fuck off)

he was in long-running terrible sitcom and a long-running terrible series of adverts for a telecommunications company

I think I know the guy you mean. Would not be a great choice. He's a bit "your least memorable university housemate". Doubt it will happen, but who knows re Brexit Trump etc etc

he could have just had awful material though. I mean, in his defense, knowing nothing else about him.

apparently people have been pushing for the woman from Fleabag...that I could get behind

In the meantime let's talk about Bill and why she's great, specifically: great comic timing; odd-looking but clearly stunning (a la Matt Smith); capable of delivering Moffat's (now slightly tiresome) banter and a dippy romance subplot with 100% dignity retained; just got everything so right in the photograph scene: heartbreaking without bring emo about it. Acting, basically.

Yeah I like her, wonder if she'll last beyond Capaldi. Do wish we had another few seasons with him though.
Or that we'd had a few with him and Not Clara.

xp and totally self-reliant, takes no nonsense, really hope that carries through the series

two things that have bothered me enough about this episode to linger into today:

1. bill sees that photo of her mum with the doctor in the background, but it never comes up again. unless she didn't spot him in the photo (am i missing something?), while it's not quite "i definitely have breast cancer" it didn't (at least explicitly) factor into her decision to join the doctor.

2. the doctor promises to take bill through space and time to find heather, who afaict is just someone bill had a crush on for a while. either it's all about the doctor's urge to fix other people's relationships when he couldn't fix his own, or it's just lazy writing.

The doctor-spotting is more for the audience, to show that this was her Christmas present. She's a little confused by it - is it a trick of the light, or? - but that's just passing in the face of the actual joy of having all the photos.

that's fair enough. if it's for the audience alone it makes sense. moffat's usually good at tying up loose ends (wither in excellent or terrible ways) so

I just chalked that up to British reserve TBH.

Bill rules

otm

Yeah Bill is a very refreshing and likeable character. She's great. It'll be sad to see Capaldi go at the end of this season, hopefully she stays on with the next Doctor and hopefully he's not that one guy. ugh.

I thought this was excellent

Some subtextual stuff about relationships and loss of identity, I thought - an ongoing concern for The Doctor, obvs, and made explicit by this water-beast that imitates you and wants to be you, and you be it, forever, together

Good episode - a smattering of the usual Moffat flaws of course, but generally very human and likable, just like Bill.

i assumed the doctor in the background of the pic would be coming back later in the season and would play somewhat into why he's so interested in Bill to begin with.

it'll definitely come back, but i thought maybe that moment would factor into her decision to join him, given that that fact about him would have stuck in her head more than anything

*more than anything else

I need to rewatch because I don't remember exactly how the scene played out but I'm not 100% convinced that we are supposed to think Bill noticed the Doctor's reflection in the background of that picture; I think that was solely for the audience so that we would know that the Doctor went back in time and took a bunch of pictures of her mother as a surprise Christmas present. (Again, I need to rewatch; at the time I thought she noticed but I read a review that thought it was meant to be ambiguous but didn't come off correctly due to how astute Bill had been about everything else, so I now I'm second-guessing.)

i wasn't sure either so i've just now rewatched the scene (it's around 15 mins in). she definitely sees him in the photo because she looks quite closely at his face and reacts to it.

Oh, she noticed but decided not to call him out on it.

i know it's a dumb thing to get caught up on, but it should have come up in some way in those final scenes. her mother's death is still raw, he's inside that photo, and she doesn't even think about it when he asks her to tag along? rtd is probably not so popular now, but he'd at least have indicated to the audience that it was on her mind. as it stands it looks like they just forgot.

…by which i mean they chose to show the audience her reaction to the photo (which i want to call chekhov's photo), but not any thoughts she might have had about it at the end. it seems very odd to reveal one moment and not the other.

i didn't think she quite caught it tbh. as if she could tell something was off but not what. a bit like the puddle. the zoom in was for us. (and i needed it!) but i am notorious for not thinking that hard about dr who

"but i am notorious for not thinking that hard about dr who"

I love Tracer Hand !

was the Doctor at the University an intentional nod to Shada/Dirk Gently?

spoilery as fuck rumour that makes me deliriously happy (DON'T EVEN HOVER OVER THIS LINK)

One of my friends just posted that rumor on my Facebook wall.

this one would be 800 billion times better than… the other one

I didn't see the other one; was actively avoiding it.

i wonder if they leak these things deliberately just to see how people respond