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

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

^ Bring Her To Life

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

nah this was fun, it was a great way of acknowledging he DOESN’T have time to do lots but bought time with one tiny change

I guess the quick hack of it also explains how/why they know that their programming has been changed and reprogram themselves to chase hu-mans again.

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

yeah but were you complaining about it when you were seven? is my point

murray gold apparently thought it was

if I was beholden to what Murray Gold reckons I should think about what’s onscreen I would never have come back after getting burnt completely out by the end of RTD/Tennant/Gold ;_;

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

She’s back at the farm, not running around the woods getting blown up, I thought? Or maybe just bcz she has free will and can think “hide” rather than “crush. kill. destroy. advance”

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

thanks, I still have everything else posted SINCE I started this on Wednesday to work on ;_; <- (tennant standing in rain)

her whole steez was like a bad Evanescence music video

yesssssss

nah this was fun, it was a great way of acknowledging he DOESN’T have time to do lots but bought time with one tiny change

no hand of god? sure

I guess the quick hack of it also explains how/why they know that their programming has been changed and reprogram themselves to chase hu-mans again.

i mean this is a simple thing but nobody tested or debugged the code, unless the master/the cybermen are so good at code that it's perfect.

;_; <- (tennant standing in rain)

we should endeavour to make this stick imo

kust... okay sorry to be annoying but if they have the wherewithal to write perfect code that can withstand the doctor changing the heartbeat-search parameter in a split second, why the galloping fuck is the code unsecured and exposed on a terminal just sat in the room? who is their security director ffs

^ because there’s absolutely nobody around who could possibly maliciously recode. The Master and the Cybermen are the only entities that have existed on this floor/world for centuries. (As for “UGH why was this code not debugged and tested and is there a firewalled floor of the ship where the Cyberhospital is running upgrades in beta” – these could be cool plot points if there was room to set them up and play them out in the 45 minutes existing! But rly they are 40-yo programmer concerns, not 7-yo child concerns, so if they’re NOT set up as problems in this world, they’re not actual issues in the story that exists)

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?
― Mud... Jam... Failure... (aldo)

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.
― nashwan,

Fucking hell, I missed that particularly impressive piece of "I couldn't care about the viewers" then.
― Thomas Gabriel Fischer does not endorse (aldo)

S10 was ultimately just a paycheck, and maybe a chance to screw up Chibnall

Surely it was the exact opposite of a paycheck, when a) he was ultimately persuaded back from exhaustion, delaying future work on properties he will own, SO THAT THE SHOW WOULD BE IN SAFE HANDS instead of made by unknown quantities for two years, and b) he literally left a multi-million dollar contract in order to take on the Doctor Who job for a public broadcaster, in 2008.

Since Moffatt is friends with Chibnall and endorsed and lobbied for him to take over, I suspect a chance to screw up Chibnall is your own decades-long disillusionment with the show showing up as imaginary bitterness, rather than the actual motive of a professional TV producer and active supporter of Dr Who.

(NB: I know many of us have urged aldo to stop watching the show since he hates it, but I am kind of looking forward to seeing if I enjoy his furyrants in the Chibnall era the way I delighted in his tearing apart the timeline of RTD Who here in its latter years…)

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?
― Matt DC

^ because there’s absolutely nobody around who could possibly maliciously recode. The Master and the Cybermen are the only entities that have existed on this floor/world for centuries.

but they know the doctor exists and stops monsters and has a time machine? my point is this was a really really dumb and flaccid way of resolving the situation. at least if he did zap himself along with his dickhead sonic wankdriver we could be "quirky alien guy's super quirky alien technology whatever" but this was just banging on a keyboard in two seconds that just happened to be where he fell. silly. given the choice between clever-clogs moffat and handy-wavey moffat i'll take the self-aware genius any day.

Not sure what database these particular cybermen had to tap into. Was there communication beyond the ship?
Was the Doctor anything to them beyond unknown obstruction on floor whatever?

Also Nardole's explosions. He says something about this being a ship and using that. I don't have the show to hand so not sure of exact quote. But I assumed he was tapping into existing fuel or hydraulic lines in the ship structure. But he or then the Dr seems to be able to blow things up in the same area multiple times. Couldn't see how that worked. Surely the lines would be defunct once exploded?

I didn't mind the code/keyboard thing because it was *obviously a joke* surely? I mean, even Capaldi was doing comedy keyboard fingers.

ah okay

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.

I think we're using different values of 'plot'. As has been established, I think of plot as the bottle episode (in this case, base under siege) aspects of the story. I understand that others think the soap opera elements (which is pretty much all the season arcs boil down to imo) are the plot, or that the only story that needs told is that of the companions. I'm not saying the latter two are wrong (even though they are, clearly :-P) just that I don't agree with them.

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?

Not sure I agree. He gets 10+ years to come up with a new plan, maybe even to find another lift. And it may be that he doesn't want the things, but he gets them. Once on the new floor, the kid cuddles up to him and says 'I'm glad you're here' and 'Hazran really likes you'(paraphrasing but fucked if I'm watching it again to find out so prepared to be proven wrong) so the happy family narrative is the one being pushed whether he likes it or not. Also, in his conversation with the Doctor about who stays he makes explicit the "but I've always been a bad guy" so the redemption narrative is front and centre; again, whether he needs it or not it's there because this is what writing conventions say happen in a hero's journey.

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?
― Mud... Jam... Failure... (aldo)
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.
― nashwan,

Fucking hell, I missed that particularly impressive piece of "I couldn't care about the viewers" then.
― Thomas Gabriel Fischer does not endorse (aldo)

Who do you think he’s making the show for? It’s ambiguous* what goes through the Doctor’s mind when he sees the painting – “huh, it looks vaguely like the girl I just talked to?” Maybe not even that. The way he reacts briefly then goes into the TARDIS could mean IF he recognised her, that his mindwiping kicked in again, and the immediately-following imagery of the paint flaking away and her image dissipating means that he doesn’t even remember that he just saw a painting two seconds ago. It’s a sad, elegiac moment with inherent mystery, especially FOR the viewers.

Anyway, the split-second of her saying “Doctor!” in the Androzani flashback doesn’t lead to him leaping up and shouting “Of course – CLARA! How could I forget?! I must race across all the galaxies to see her and Lady Me one more time. Oh, that Impossible Girl, once more made possible!” He’s dying, and a bunch of images flash through his incoherent mind, taken from available footage, to communicate to the audience that he is dying rather than to him that he should go and cry in the rain at them all for a few months. He’s dying and his brain fritzes /= massive plot hole.

*so ambiguous that nashwan’s reading didn’t even occur to you, but two years later you’ll leap to rage and impugn someone for MAYBE writing something that isn’t written the way you would have written it!

Leap to rage is a little strong, although nashwan's reading is just further evidence that if nothing really sticks then why should the viewer bother investing any emotional weight in the process?

I could quite easily whataboutery the flashback to him leaping up exactly saying “Of course – CLARA! How could I forget?! I must race across all the galaxies to see her and Lady Me one more time. Oh, that Impossible Girl, once more made possible!” because we haven't seen the Christmas Special yet and for all we know it may be exactly that - Franz Kafka's It's A Wonderful Clara, where he zips around time with DBrad as Clarence showing him exactly how he enriched all his companion's lives. I just wish that didn't sound as plausible as it does now I've typed it.

S10 was ultimately just a paycheck, and maybe a chance to screw up Chibnall
Surely it was the exact opposite of a paycheck, when a) he was ultimately persuaded back from exhaustion, delaying future work on properties he will own, SO THAT THE SHOW WOULD BE IN SAFE HANDS instead of made by unknown quantities for two years, and b) he literally left a multi-million dollar contract in order to take on the Doctor Who job for a public broadcaster, in 2008.

Since Moffatt is friends with Chibnall and endorsed and lobbied for him to take over, I suspect a chance to screw up Chibnall is your own decades-long disillusionment with the show showing up as imaginary bitterness, rather than the actual motive of a professional TV producer and active supporter of Dr Who.

(NB: I know many of us have urged aldo to stop watching the show since he hates it, but I am kind of looking forward to seeing if I enjoy his furyrants in the Chibnall era the way I delighted in his tearing apart the timeline of RTD Who here in its latter years…)

Screw up is a misstep on my part, I really mean an "Aha! Get out of that Chibbers!" matey-writer tactic (like DC's current Kamandi Project).

Having not watched Broadchurch, I have no idea what to expect from Chibnall. Will he even bother with season arcs and maybe just go for a more Monster of the Week style? Who knows. From memory of his Who work to date:

42 was pretty great as a broad idea, but I'm not convinced the pacing was necessarily right. Maybe would have been better with about 20 minutes of the real time element although obviously that would have spoiled the HHGttG joke.

Dinosaurs on a Spaceship should have been a fun romp and was to a degree but was bogged down/spoiled by all the "and there were lots of other fun/wacky adventures with all these great friends!" parts. Could have been great with just the core team parts (although shoehorning Silurians, but they were kind of season arc-y so him or showrunner/script ed?) and maybe the big game hunter. Speaking of which...

Hungry Earth/Cold Blood was basically just a remake of The Silurians without the poor quality dinosaur and the Quatermass bits. A bit too "FAMILY!" for my tastes but the biggest problem was the Amy's Crack/They Keep Killing Rory ending and that's down to Moffatt/series arc.

Power of Three is on the face of it great. Mystery threat, UNIT, aliums. Series arc tinkering and "Rory and Amy are going in the next ep so let's foreshadow it" are the bits I don't like so not sure they can be laid at Chibbers door.

In other words, I'm more optimistic than I have been in a long time.

I should also add I have effectively given up on NuWho - I don't set out to watch it deliberately and I catch up on it as and when and if I feel like it. It's for an era and type of television watcher that isn't me and I've recognised and come to terms with that.

Going back a way now but 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

Their only option sure, but not Moffat's. Minutes later we see the pilot pilotting the tardis. Bill is with her. But Bill doesn't shout "Great, let's go and save Nardole and those innocent kids!" because...what? Bill in character absolutely would have gone back for them (even if timescale considerations made that difficult/impossible) but it doesn't even occur to her because hey, we're in wrap up mode, and Nardole's had his ending, and now Bill needs to have hers, and urgh.

I do not watch this show for the same reasons any of you guys do, is what I have surmised from the past 48 hours or so.

hey

Hated the finale, alternately ponderous and drippy and without bringing any of the characters to a particularly satisfying end but the very last scene was amazing.

Exclusive News: It’s Almost Time. #DoctorWho pic.twitter.com/rB4t1RH8Dx

— Doctor Who Official (@bbcdoctorwho) July 14, 2017

a lot of people had better wind up being really pissed off on Sunday. I'll be really pissed off if one of them is me

The next Doctor is... ADAM CAMPBELL!

This is a few weeks earlier in the year compared to when they announced Capaldi whose name didn't really feature at the top of rumour mills and betting markets much at all until just a few days before the announcement iirc(?) so if looking to be spoilered it'll probably be whoever's more recently jumped up or about to jump up the odds list. Must say I didn't expect to see Jodie Whittaker as third fave on Oddschecker and that's quite a gap between her and Tom Rosenthal...

I suspect Jodie Whittaker is up there as people scrabble for people who Chibnall has worked with in the past. Have just looked at Oddschecker - pretty much anyone who's ever been on TV ever seems to be on there.

i am nostalgic for the OMG HES OOOGLY reaction tbh

I tried very hard to "like" VG's post before remembering this isn't Facebook.

fleabag still the leading contender?

awful lot of tennant references in that ad

wouldn't it be funny if eccleston came back

I just read an article the other day that broke down the length of time between the announcement of a Doctor's retirement and the announcement of his replacement, and it looks like this iteration might wind up just being a few days shy of breaking the record.

I have no idea why I hardly ever post itt, as I've been watching in some semblance of real time since Tennant's days. But this was a good season with a great companion, and also a good Doctor and Moffat has been a good showrunner who will be missed and I am not looking forward to Chibnall like even a little bit but I remain hopeful.

we're watching Broadchurch Season 3 and I am incredibly stoked for Chibnall actually