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

feel like there should've been a scene where, as well as Churchill asking for the Doctor's help, he badgers him to reveal whether or not they do actually win the war. then again i guess the Doctor doesn't usually reveal to the people he meets that he can actually travel in time so he wouldn't necessarily know.

there was a bit where the Doctor almost said it without doing so - something about "you don't really need me to hang around" and so on

Another wrongness in time: Churchill mentioning Buckingham Palace and St Paul's Cathedral geting hit by bombs--didn't these two BIG buildings rather famously never get bombed?

Could be handwaved away by saying that the cracks in the universe have messed up the timeline.

How could the gravity bubbles get implemented in ten minutes? And the lasers too? Why was the Dalek ship an empty office building inside? How can a bomb be stopped by love, and isn't an oblivion continuum the thing that young time-lords stare into when they are inducted into the academy?

The answer to all questions is "timey wimey."

I don't think they want to handwave away the main plotline of the series.

Yeah, thought that one was a bit crap really. New fleet of daleks = much worse at shooting. Kinda agree with dalek that said positronic android brain (old Asimov idea?) being thwarted by memories of love was IMPOSSIBAL. Sudden appearance of space planes after ten minutes was laughable. More like the last series with running around + significant speeches + who cares what happens? we'll just invent some stuff to get round it, people won't notice because it's too exciting, whereas the last two episodes felt like they had stuff happening in them. The Doctor and Amelia relationship completely treading water (still a sense they were getting to know each other in the last two, this one it was like they'd been hanging round forever).

Shame, because I liked the Magic Lantern, (possibly only person?).

Assumed St Paul's thing was a deliberate parallel time bubble universe thing as well.

Wd very much like crack in time not to be a Master/Dalek/Cybermen plot, but some fundamental problem of decay or something (does the crack lead to the 'real' world? Maybe the Doctor was banished to this one as a result of his hubristic interventionism in the last series).

did they mention St Paul's by name - i remember "Wren's churches" which could be other buildings right?

On Buckingham Palace: The palace fared worse during World War II; it was bombed no less than seven times, the most serious and publicised of which resulted in the destruction of the palace chapel in 1940. Coverage of this event was played in cinemas all over the UK to show the common suffering of rich and poor.

kinda lol mostly interesting

My guess is that the crack in time is Timelords related, and very possibly Weeping Angels related as well. There was a hint of some kind of connection in the last Rusty story and I'd assumed Moffatt got him to put that in there.

1. Anyone else notice the (possibly sexytime) stares Amy was giving the lady communications officer?

2. I loled at how the soldiers who were zapped by the Daleks merely fell to the ground, dead, instead of being disintegrated. For all the snazzy new production values, it was a quaint touch.

But that's the way people have always died via Daleks. The disintegration ray is a max strength new super pure Dalek speciality.

she was worried about the lady comms officer's emotional distress, not trying to see down her tunic

I think she was supposed to look worried, but it did end up looking v. sexytime.

that is because Amelia Pond is hotter than the sun and cannot help looking sexytime

2. I loled at how the soldiers who were zapped by the Daleks merely fell to the ground, dead, instead of being disintegrated. For all the snazzy new production values, it was a quaint touch.

Also the one of the soldiers started acting "zapped" before the visual effect, and a bunch of times the Daleks speech and their lights were very badly out of sync. I think it was deliberate to add a bit of the feeling of the classic series, and since I don't think most people really notice stuff like that they can pretty much get away with it.

that is because Amelia Pond is hotter than the sun and cannot help looking sexytime

^^^for all time

^^^^yup

I'm going to show either ep 2 or ep 3 to a bar tuesday night. We'll see which one they vote to see, and how well it goes over.

LOL, was wondering what all that Paisley stuff was doing in the last episode, then googled Steven Moffat only to find out he's from Paisley... and then there's David Tennant of course

Neil thought it was a Tennant nod, I thought it was purely Moffat being Moffat. With Amy instantly knowing he was a "Paisley boy" from his accent, which didn't sound remotely like anyone I've ever met in Paisley, I though it was just Moffat giving a shout-out to his hometown rather than everything Scotland always having to be Glasgow or Edinburgh all the time (see also companion from Inverness).

Who would recognise a Paisley accent these days? There isn't one anymore, is there?

Well, aye, that was sort of my point.

Unless Bill Paterson had started going on about putting his bits on and sharpening a peencil

"We have to convince him he's human, get some kind of human reaction out of him"

"OK Paisley boy.... do you support the Hoops?"

"Partick Thistle"

"We're doomed"

Doubt anyone from Paisley has ever supported Partick Thistle!

Exactly..!

Like Snoop in the Wire asking the guy from New York if he liked K-Swift

Ah, I get ya

Snoop (the other one) is a Hoops fan

http://content7.flixster.com/photo/61/68/00/6168001_gal.jpg

But that's the way people have always died via Daleks. The disintegration ray is a max strength new super pure Dalek speciality.

I thought that Nu Who Daleks disintegrated its doomed human victims, while the prior series had a flash of light and the puny humans just falling over.

News flash: Matt Smith appears to have been dating Daisy Lowe for three months. That is all.

Should I know who Daisy Lowe is?

apparently this is Daisy Lowe:

http://jewelrypoint.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/daisy-lowe.jpg

beware her GIS at work btw unless yr boss is totally cool with models getting their tits sucked in fashion editorials

I don't think it would improve your life much, no. Unless you care about microceleb daughters of other microcelebs.

xpost

Oh right, I admit she's quite good looking, considering she's Arthur Lowe's daughter

LOL she is Gavin Rossdale and Pearl Lowe's daughter, actually.

To get back to my nerdish fantasies...

she was worried about the lady comms officer's emotional distress, not trying to see down her tunic

Yeah, that was really weird. I kept thinking it was going to lead into a 'I'm from the future but I am yo sista' convo a la Martha and the maid from a few seasons back.

Well, I am wondering about the parallel universe because of the ridiculous amount of midair zeppelins. Also the woman you guys are focusing on was in emotional distress from the beginning of the episode.

Are we in a parallel universe, though, or is Amy just from the 90s? I mean, one of the classic Who hooks for an ep is 'something that shouldn't be happening here right now - let's fix it and return things to how they should be'. So really every Who ep is a parallel universe ... just thinking aloud here

I am wondering about the parallel universe because of the ridiculous amount of midair zeppelins

figure now they've opened this can of worms there's an infinite number of parallels and the Cybermen were able to infiltrate more than one. but conveniently there were only Timelords in this one somehow, as the alternative is just too fucked.

zeppelins = barrage balloons

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/07/Barrage_balloons_over_London_during_World_War_II.jpg/800px-Barrage_balloons_over_London_during_World_War_II.jpg

Oh OK, I was looking for something like that but no dice - still, the zeppelin things in the episode seemed like precursors to the zeppelin tech in alt.universe and not the ones above.

they were the same as the balloons in the eccelston/rose episode that introduced jack harkness. what's weird to think about is that eccelsdoctor/rose/jack were in london simultaneous to smithdoctor/amy while meanwhile jack-frozen-under-the-earth-by his brother gray was present at the same time. crowded!

She was giving looks to lady comms long before lady comm's fella died.

Yes, because she was in emotional distress from the scene at the beginning where her fella's squadron was called up, and she knew there was a strong likelihood he would get killed

Are we in a parallel universe, though, or is Amy just from the 90s?

They had mobile phones with colour screens and hi-res cameras and Facebook on 'em in the '90s round your way?

They didn't have cracks in the space-timey-wimey thing round our way, is the point, I think. Time has gone wrong. Again.

It helps from a point POV because it's better to have an earth where alien invasions are utterly terrifying and new than it is to have an earth that's been invaded 19 times in the space of four years or whatever.

It also helps that people aren't looking to the Doctor as some kind of saviour who will inevitably turn up and make everything okay.

That seemed like the most old-school Who episode so far of the new series: lots of pointless standing around and talking, a rubbish matte backdrop of London, the entire story played out within two cheap-looking BBC sets. A bit crap, really.

Agree that Amy was a bit annoying and wooden this time (although that might have been Mrs Chuck's influence, as she kept yelling "Oh my god she's so annnnnoyyingggg" every five minutes).

Matt Smith was a bit subdued and insipid too, I thought -- not always quite selling his punchlines, which he's been better at before. Perhaps this episode was shot earlier than the previous one, because his performance seemed much less confident. Or maybe it was the shite script. That punch was terrific, though.