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

I liked nardole, he thought he wound up being much better than I originally feared.

Nardole has stated that he doesn't know his true origins, as he was "found." (TV: The Doctor Falls) On one occasion, he claimed to have Scottish heritage, supposedly descending from the clan "MacNardole". (PROSE: Plague City)

Nardole had an ex called Velma, who worked as an actress. She left him for an AI at a call centre. (TV: Oxygen) He also once had an imaginary friend, until he left him for someone else. (TV: The Lie of the Land)

Nardole once swapped his face while "on the run". (TV: Oxygen) He was blue at one point, (TV: World Enough and Time) and had friends who were "bluish". (TV: Oxygen) At some point in time, Nardole also replaced his left hand with one he won in a game of some sort. (TV: The Lie of the Land)

Nardole studied the Tarovian martial arts for "a while" and reached the rank of Brown Tabard. He also learned the Tarovian neck pinch. However, he could only perform it with his original right hand and not with his replaced left hand. (TV: The Lie of the Land)

Prior to meeting the Doctor, Nardole had worked as a con artist. (TV: The Doctor Falls)

that's a lot of random backstory!

Nardole's ending is "go up a few floors and then look after these kids/country folk", his wrap-up dialogue is something like "the doctor has killed most of the cybermen so it'll take a while for the rest to figure out what to do next, we'll use that time to come up with a plan". But it's already been established that 10 years at the cyber end of the ship can pass in a couple of minutes at the opposite end, so...maybe five years of cyber time in a couple of minutes at Nardole's level? How much time are we meant to think they've bought by moving up a handful of floors? Can't be more than a couple of days at the most before those kids are all getting massacred (not upgraded, because we also know they cybermen have now classified them as a threat). And that's meant to be a satisfying ending?

I mean this is actually one of the smaller plot irritations in this episode but it just feels (as much else did) half thought out.

Had the opposite response - I thought they kind of nailed that as a pleasingly ambiguous ending. As a kid I would've remembered it's not-quite-happiness.

Moffat has talked a lot about plot loose ends not being loose ends but "stuff for kids to imagine" after the show is over. I like that. Obviously sometimes it's a convenient excuse to lampshade crap plotting. But I think it worked here. Also I'm sure we'll get five mins of Nardole, Bill & Clara followup in the Christmas ep.

I'll have to check, but I thought they explicitly raised "we can't run away because the cybermen will get more advanced the closer we get to the top"? Which is why the ending annoyed me.

In 'Nightmare In Silver' the Cybermen seemed to develop Sonic the Hedgehog boot speed but not a lot else. I guess that could get them up the ship a bit quicker. Hopefully they recognised using human parts was utterly stupid and they will never be seen ever again.

A nice thing to see in the new series would be some simpler, sturdier plots

Where things are resolved by someone figuring out a (no doubt mysterious and crazy) solution to a (no doubt terrifying and impossible) problem rather than handwaving it with the power of lurrrve or whatever

also turn down the goddamn music- half the time the dialogue is inaudible

Yeah I honestly believe no music at all would be more effective than that bilge.

it was distracting in the extreme

It's another Moffat story that has problems on a literal level but works on a metaphorical level.

The battle has problems taken literally -- the Doctor has a very poor plan, why not stay on the bottom level and reprogram the Cybermen there? But as a battle of niceness vs. almost inevitable forces of history, it works.

Likewise the idea of Nardole tricking Cybermen with some sort of VR explosions is a leap of logic, but if you think of it as a TV show writing its own rules it works.

Yeah I was wondering how he could manage to do that more than a couple of times. Thought what ever supply line he was tapping into and causing explosions in wouldn't be able to work once it exploded, so how it could reexplode was beyond me. Was it self healing or something?

I didn't even bother trying to parse that.

Also did it explain how the Doctor managed to take all that punishment (double death rayed by cyberman then exploded) without regenerating? Sheer force of will?

The happy ending doesn't make up for how angry I am about the sheer amount of hell this story put Bill through.

that was shit wasn't it? she deserved better. great acting from her though.

Also she should have been way way more pissed off at the Doctor.

I could almost accept the shit treatment of Bill as a token of how nasty the Master is, but even so, leaves a bitter taste

Isn't it the point that we're not supposed to like seeing what happens to her? If Mackie hadn't built up the goodwill by creating such an interesting character, the story wouldn't work. Also - she's the audience proxy, and it's most a dramatic violation to change the status of the audience proxy - which is why it's so horrifying and uncomfortable.

Knowing why it's happening from a plot mechanics perspective does not mean I have to accept it as necessary or decide that that was the story I wanted to see.

Here’s a thing about Moffatt’s returning to tropes, and beats, and elements of arcs: this episode lampshades a reading of this, with the wondrous continuity-meshing of “Cybermen keep happening everywhere!” (btw – Changes and especially The World Shapers were by far my favourite Who comics as a kid, and it was thrilling to come back to them as a teen in the ‘90s, when Morrison was now my favourite comic book not-cartoonist writer, and realise who’d written ‘em). The whole history of Dr Who is in returning to familiar concepts and teasing out new approaches, and of taking bigger genres and stories and finding a way to Doctor Who them. Two features of Moffatt’s writing – not only for Who, though he’s been at it since his first short story in 1997 – are to use time itself as an element, and to analyse people’s repeated behaviour being variously self-destructive or noble, depending on circumstances, and especially looking at them finding ways to learn and grow beyond said actions. That’s the arc of many Press Gang characters, but especially Linda Day and Spike; it’s the damage at the heart of the autobiographical lead in Joking Apart; and it’s the entire engine of all the characters in Coupling.

His first season as showrunner seemed to be interested in, if not largely built on, taking aspects of the RTD version of Who, and refining or interpreting them (at the time, I took this as being a wilful corrective, bcz I mostly hated the RTD approach as a viewer, and was more delighted by Series 5 than any other whole season I had a personal concept of. Ha ha). As his years have gone by, it seems he more uses the mythic scope of Who (like, the Norse myths repeat a lot of tropes an plots and character beats and resurrections, too), as well as his own inherent tendencies, to rework and refine and attempt to improve things he’s done already. Danny Pink’s resisting his Cyberising felt a little un-set-up and fell emotionally flat? Find a better way to try that. Clara running off for space lesbian adventures with a mayfly’s lifespan was kludged together by the Ashildir actress’s unavailability for shooting? Find a more elegant way to structure that sort of emotional resolution, but on the exact same beat.

As someone who loves nerdy old references but values Dr Who best for being a story format that can go anywhere, & keep doing unexpected things, I’d prefer to have had a Moffatt who always came up with great big new ideas – but you can’t always imagine a new Pandorica / Big Bang, and it’s fascinating for the man who came up with timey-wimey to play variations and repetitions on previous movements, seeing him reaching for improvements. Time doesn’t become a loop, but it does come around again.

Great post sic, you're absolutely right about moffat's "let's go back and fix that" tendency. The key problem is that when he does try having another shot at something, he might fix what was wrong first time, but it inevitably goes wrong in some new way instead. here's the thing - THE DOCTOR KNOWS THIS AND ALWAYS HAS, it's the reason he never goes back for a retry. Arguably one of the key messages of the whole history of Doctor Who has been "don't dwell on your failures, learn from them and move on". But in all his years of fandom Moffat's somehow failed to learn from that.

Great post± Although now I have the fear Moffat will try a redo on "The Final Solution" (by miles the worst thing he's ever done - I blame Gatiss).

just had a thought: wouldn't it be daring of them to sign up david bradley as the next doctor?

Daring yeah, totally going against the idea of a sexy doctor too. Though maybe that might be the point. He could play things differently than being the first doctor of course. Another case of why that face?
I'd really like to see Andy Serkis as the doctor probably since seeing him as Albert Einstein a few years ago. Incidentally opposite David tennant I think.

Saw something on Facebook about the current thought being it was going to be that ginger guy who everybody here hated when it was brought up the last time.
Wonder who else is in the running?

the leading rumor is phoebe waller bridge (fleabag), to the point where she is being extremely cagey about it and saying she's not allowed to say anything one way or the other.

she would be excellent, btw.

there were only about 3000 hints in the last episode that the next doctor would be a woman.

Can we keep rumours etc out of the thread, or something separate? Thanks!

A friend of mine asked on Twitter whether Michelle Gomez had ever said anything more than she was stopping playing Missy... (not someone in the know btw, merely idle speculation on their part as either interesting/unimaginative)

(by which I mean I don't think it's a credible rumour but might be fun to discuss)

there were only about 3000 hints in the last episode that the next doctor would be a woman.

and a few in eps 10/11 iirc. they're preparing us for a female doctor sooner or later.

(by which I mean I think it's allowable here post-Spoiler Wars but what do I know) xpost to me

Einstein & Eddington was good, more people should see it.

Anyway, something that has struck me:

The Doctor sees Clara in his Father Dougal past companion swirlaround. He had all his memories of her permanently wiped at the end of the previous series (hence why she could land in her Flying American Diner Funbus and him not recognise her) so how does that happen?

I'm also less sympathetic than sic is to Moffatt working out his foibles in multiple rewrites. It's fairly well established that this was a season too far for him, that he was supposed to go last time but Chibnall wasn't ready because of Broadchurch and so Moffatt agreed to stay but only if he could schedule round Sherlock S4 hence nothing in 2016. With that in mind, using the same plot to end S9 and S10 and reworking so many other plot elements smacks more of "that'll do" than "I can make this better". S10 was ultimately just a paycheck, and maybe a chance to screw up Chibnall - so who'll bet against the words "...and a Merry Christmas to all you viewers at home!" appearing in the Christmas ep?

If the next Doc is a woman there's nothing to be gained by not announcing that immediately. The longer the delay the more likely the disappointment there I fear.

He had all his memories of her permanently wiped at the end of the previous series (hence why she could land in her Flying American Diner Funbus and him not recognise her) so how does that happen?

Having just rewatched Hell Bent the epilogue involves the Doctor realising, after her departure, what Clara looks like by virtue of her face having been painted onto his recovered TARDIS by Rigsy. So he does remember and it doesn't seem to really matter after all.

Fucking hell, I missed that particularly impressive piece of "I couldn't care about the viewers" then.

With the exception of Donna, where it had some genuine emotional heft to it, has there been a single incident of memory-wiping not being a bullshit, lazy plot move?

If the next Doc is a woman there's nothing to be gained by not announcing that immediately. The longer the delay the more likely the disappointment there I fear.

if they can keep it a secret (not likely given all the leaks this season), revealing a woman doctor in the show would at least give them the jump on the usual MRAs before they enclose the planet in their fucking tears

The Doctor sees Clara in his Father Dougal past companion swirlaround. He had all his memories of her permanently wiped at the end of the previous series (hence why she could land in her Flying American Diner Funbus and him not recognise her) so how does that happen?

Clara has mutated into a virus that is eating the Doctor's memories bit by bit and will need to be destroyed by his previous incarnation as part of the Christmas special.

Dr Fleabag seems like it would be awesome, but she's in the Young Han Solo movie and Fleabag S2 starts filming in the fall.

Olivia Colman would be hilarious.

Yeah was thinking of her after Broadchurch connection.
& that Fleabag series might be a clash for Phoebe.
But either could be good. Better than ginger geezer.
Either that or go black.

the leading rumor is phoebe waller bridge (fleabag), to the point where she is being extremely cagey about it and saying she's not allowed to say anything one way or the other.

― akm, Thursday, July 6, 2017 12:23 AM (fourteen hours ago)

Dr Fleabag seems like it would be awesome, but she's in the Young Han Solo movie and Fleabag S2 starts filming in the fall.

― El Tomboto, Thursday, July 6, 2017 12:25 PM (two hours ago)

& that Fleabag series might be a clash for Phoebe.
But either could be good. Better than ginger geezer.
Either that or go black.

― Stevolende, Thursday, July 6, 2017 3:01 PM (four minutes ago)

I googled after AKM said this and Waller-Bridge’s company’s official twitter was saying it wasn’t true and not to waste money betting on it. So Chuck OTM, just take the pointless rumouring about “something seen on Facebook” to another place, like Ned’s 2013 speculation thread.

BTW Chuck:

Random question for Who nerds: whatever happened to Paul Cornell? How come the guy responsible for the two best Nu-Who episodes never got asked back?

― Chuck_Tatum, Monday, June 5, 2017 6:53 AM (one month ago)

Paul Cornell was on the Radio Free Skaro podcast last week (as one of the hosts had been invited to come from Canada to stay at the rectory for Cornell’s birthday party, because Cornell is still] that much of a Dr Who fan), reacting to World Enough And Time with delight. Worth a listen if you miss him!

Will check that out, thanks!

i just recalled that Capaldi wanted to bring Carol Ann Ford back as Susan (and he had her picture on his desk at the beginning of the season); wonder if she'll be back in the christmas special? She like 76 now.

let's hope all my bbcode holds on this...

AA:
• the doctor managing to reprogram the cybermen's coding in the second he was knocked onto the keyboard was soap opera levels of fucking stupid
He only changes one character! You’d be fine with it if Tom Baker had done it with a sonic screwdriver.

• the whole scene with bill standing in the barn before realising she was a cyberman was so predictable even i saw it coming
I don’t think this was meant to be a surprise reveal

• when the doctor blew up all the cybermen around him, why was bill the only one to survive despite having the least armour? (because she's so strong, geddit??)
IIRC she survives because she’s not anywhere around him

Aldo:

Didn't hate it in the way I have previous seasons but yet again in NuWho "sod the plot, let's make it a soap opera about the companions". The show was an hour long and we got
• Romance of the Masters
• The Master version of the Scorpion and the Frog
• Are we Human... Or are we Cyber... My sign is vital, my hands are cold
• The companion escapes certain death through a maguffin introduced earlier in the series and they have their own adventures in time and space. What do you mean I did exactly the same thing last year?
• Nardole gets a happy ending with a human that loves him and a ready made family, with a tossed off redemption narrative thrown in during it.
In comparison, the plot gets:
• Cybermen are evolving so we get to reuse the NuWho costumes
• let's just blow them all up because reasons

The stuff you list up the top IS all plot.

However:
• Nardole gets a happy ending with a human that loves him and a ready made family, with a tossed off redemption narrative thrown in during it.

Nardole doesn’t get a happy ending, he gets an opportunity to fight and die. He doesn’t want a human who loves him, and he doesn’t get that: he gets a possible offer of some sexual stuff from a human in a high-pressure situation, that’s part of an expression of admiration and respect for his skill, smarts and dedication. Whether or not he can have sexual stuff is unclear, given that what was his humanoid body has been replaced at least twice.* He’s not looking for a family, and doesn’t get one. He didn’t need a redemption narrative – since his second appearance, he’s been a positive force, and was only a hapless stooge, not a villain, in his first.

*NB this really annoyed me that it never played out – Nardole is himself a cyberman, and has been for a year and a half of viewer’s time; there was no acknowledgement of this in the episode, no chance taken to contrast his and Bill’s situation, no use of the story’s building up of his character and Bill’s resistance to conversion to offer a way into softening or reprogramming the rapaciousness of the attacking Cybermen. The farm itself is a collective, and Nardole dedicating himself to it is played as a good and valuable thing: why can’t the other collective on the ship be refocussed in a more productive way?

This could have been a really effective Base Under Siege story on the farm, but obviously nobody wants to watch that.

Even if you would like to see an effective Base Under Siege, here is a list of the plot elements in 60 minutes of that:
1) base is under siege
2) siege is over now

As an aside, how crap is Cyber conversion in NuWho? So far that's Yonne Hartman, Danny Pink, the CyberBrig and Bill that have all been converted and resisted, not to mention James Corden rejecting conversion because of The Power Of Love.

Homages to Kroton, the Cyberman With A Soul. (Corden’s the one that really rankles for me, bringing down an episode I otherwise basically love. Curious about whether it was Dad Moffatt or Goodies Are Goodies And Baddies Are Baddies Roberts who initiated that resolution in the form it played out.)

Nashwan:

Quite cheeky to tease at least one Master regeneration and a glimpse of their TARDIS but then not bother with either.

Glimpse of their TARDIS? The dematerialisation circuit prop was a deliberate recreation of the 1971 version, I took that as a lovely wink for old fans, not a suggestion that we’d see an entire expensive interior built for one scene at the end of the season & budget. Even the classic TARDIS interior at the end of the 2015 season was about 60% from AAISAT, with the other costs able to be amortised over its return to the standing exhibition afterwards.

Hopefully they recognised using human parts was utterly stupid and they will never be seen ever again.

They are human parts. That’s the only point of them. Very badly handled in p much every episode between the 1960s and last week, but I’d rather see last week’s faint nods as promise, rather than a category error.

Matt DC:

Kinda miss the big stupid action movie elements of the Rusty era now actually. Maybe I've just watched a string of highly generic episodes in a row but with this season I keep thinking "I've seen all this before and it isn't much fun". Probably a good time for Moffatt to be hanging up b/c with the exception of the first Smith and the first Capaldi season his run has been largely disappointing.

Aside from disagreeing about disappointing seasons (eg you cut off at The Big Bang for Smith, and don’t at least carry through the unbroken run of Toby Haynes episodes?), as I said above, Moffatt already did hang it up. Heaven Sent / Hell Bent / Husbands Of River Song were planned, written, and produced as his final episodes ever, right down to the big golden cursive THE END across the screen at the close of the latter.

At this stage I think casting decisions are if anything less important than broadening the writing team beyond just Whithouse, Mathieson, Harness and Gatizzzzzzzzz. The whole show feels like new ideas are urgently needed.

Ha ha, 1) Moffatt has brought more new writers onto the show than anyone else ever – Harness and Mathieson have only been around for three seasons vs Gatiss having written Dr Who professionally since 1992. Whithouse is the only Davies-era writer still around, and even one-time Moffatt reliables like Steve Thompson have been displaced in favour of Sarah Dollard and Catherine Tregenna and Rona Munro, plus penis-havers* like Cottrell Boyce and Bartlett. I did some adding up last year, and this season has had more different writers than ANY production season of Doctor Who in history.

And 2) lol good luck with that, as Chibnall is by all accounts going to be head-writing the entire season with the help of a Broadchurch-graduate US-style writer’s room.

For mine, Dollard and Mathieson are the bigger loss than Moffatt at this point – both of them are just fantastic at coming up with 45-minute balls of ideas, adventures, scares and laughs that also find room to be about something.

*note that in one single season, Moffatt commissioned as many new solo female writers than - here we go again – had ever been commissioned in the entire history of the show.

Chuck:
I just like watching Capaldi and Bill together, not so bothered by the episode plots. Thought Gatiss's was (as usual) the only true stinker this season.

no wai, Toby Whithouse morelike Toby Shithouse amirite

In the last few years, Gatiss eps have generally been reasonable-to-fun imo. I don’t go in expecting much, but he’s picked his game up to exceed my mild expectations.

For Moff though 5 > 9 > 6a > 10 > 7a > 9 > 7b > 6a
Hmmm. 5 > 8 > Name/Night/Day/Time > 9 > 10 > 7b > 6 > 7a, maybe. But it’s clunky and weird to break them up like that when I’m perfectly prepared to accept ebbs and flows in any given run, and I think I’ve said here before that Lodger (or Vincent) through Wife is the best run of Doctor Who episodes ever (especially as Curse wasn’t meant to be in there). And overall I reckon the three Capaldi seasons are the most consistent in the entire series’ history.

remy:
I really liked this. A lot of loose ends, tho. And the John Siam Master cameo added nothing.

What ends are loose? And the Master was in the entire episode, not just a cameo! Having lots of interaction with other characters and driving many of the themes

AA again:
btw i do believe they're warming us up to a female doctor, with missy being all through this era + the recent doctor/bill chinwag about gender being eh-who-cares on gallifrey.

This doesn’t work, though, because there’s no “they” that exists. Gaiman wrote his in 2009 – eight years ago! – and won’t be returning, and Moffatt is gone. Those two writers obviously want the possibility of a female Doctor to exist in viewers’ minds, and it now does, but they’re not writing ahead to any casting that’s may or may not happen under Chibnall.
Remember, JNT went on and on to the press in 1981 and 1984 about how “the new Doctor could be anyone – even a woman!” and that didn’t mean anything to what Segal or Gardner or Davies or Wenger or Willis did later.

JimD:

Nardole's ending is "go up a few floors and then look after these kids/country folk", his wrap-up dialogue is something like "the doctor has killed most of the cybermen so it'll take a while for the rest to figure out what to do next, we'll use that time to come up with a plan". But it's already been established that 10 years at the cyber end of the ship can pass in a couple of minutes at the opposite end, so...maybe five years of cyber time in a couple of minutes at Nardole's level? How much time are we meant to think they've bought by moving up a handful of floors? Can't be more than a couple of days at the most before those kids are all getting massacred (not upgraded, because we also know they cybermen have now classified them as a threat). And that's meant to be a satisfying ending?
I mean this is actually one of the smaller plot irritations in this episode but it just feels (as much else did) half thought out.

There’s a whole lot of speechifying about this in the episode: it’s worthy to keep going, to keep fighting to protect and help others, rather than laying down and dying. Which is their only other option. They’re not at the top of the ship, so it’ll be longer than a few minutes, and the Cybermen could be significantly depleted – remember, they haven’t been able to restock from the nearest supply of fresh bodies/brains – and will be reassessing how to mount their next attack, having been so confusingly routed this time.

The farmers and children and Nardole are moving on as an expression of hope. The main theme of the episode is that an attitude of hope is better than an attitude of futility. Yes, they’re probably all going to die. But maybe they’ll find a solution?

abanana:

The battle has problems taken literally -- the Doctor has a very poor plan, why not stay on the bottom level and reprogram the Cybermen there? But as a battle of niceness vs. almost inevitable forces of history, it works.

He can’t stay on the bottom level because he isn’t on the bottom level. He got electrocuted and carried away unconscious before he came up with the plan.

Likewise the idea of Nardole tricking Cybermen with some sort of VR explosions is a leap of logic, but if you think of it as a TV show writing its own rules it works.

I’m certain the explosions are meant to be real but I love this!

chap:
Also did it explain how the Doctor managed to take all that punishment (double death rayed by cyberman then exploded) without regenerating? Sheer force of will?

Yeah, that’s pretty explicit – he fights it off over and over again, physically shaking it out, wincing, getting weaker – until finally dying. After the revival from Bill’s science-tear (within the TARDIS, which is always needed for a solo regeneration / rejuvenation / face-change), the process kicks in again until the final plunging-his-hands-into-the-snow to extinguish them & a monologue making his resistance clear.

He only changes one character!

good job the code base happened to be open at exactly the right page then

You’d be fine with it if Tom Baker had done it with a sonic screwdriver.

you've apparently missed my numerous complaints about the cop-out that is the sonic screwdriver

I don’t think this was meant to be a surprise reveal

murray gold apparently thought it was

IIRC she survives because she’s not anywhere around him

you're right, i hadn't noticed the other semi-armoured cybermen in that scene

they’re not writing ahead to any casting that’s may or may not happen under Chibnall.

fair point, and the signposting could be visionary rather than specific

btw kudos for getting all the way through this massive omnibus reply

ahhhh sicbot3000 fully sentient everybody run for yr lives :D

i liked this right up until the dumb pilot showed up, imo that whole tears nonsense was bollocks, i was all ready to have a good cry. i am all for bill being saved & getting a kiss but that pilot annoyed me from the off. her whole steez was like a bad Evanescence music video