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

There is - who would have guessed! - much back and forth on fan sites over the ratings. Ppl who didn't like this series say "it's doomed", people who did like it say "overnights don't matter any more". Neither are right IMO. Doctor Who *has* become an interesting test case for how TV watching is changing. Episodes have been getting an extra 1-2m from TV on demand (catch up, Tivo style devices, etc.), another 1.5m on iplayer (it's easily the most popular iplayer thing ever), and even without iplayer the final ratings hold up pretty well at 7m or so per episode.

But it's also true that they got a really big UK audience for "Eleventh Hour" and it dropped off pretty quickly - the in-series ratings decline is surely steeper than they'd like, hot weather or not. And they won't want the 'media narrative' around the show to become 'not as good as it used to be'. It might be that next year is a bit less ultra-connected than this year was.

IDK, it's all a bit academic - loved the show this year, more into it than I've been since the Eccleston series, but in the end the BBC will stick with it as long as they do and that's that. What's pretty definite is that they realise how important the brand is - so they won't let it degrade the way it did in the 80s, they'll axe it earlier and revive it earlier.

I loved this but 'end of the universe' = stakes are too high and that makes it difficult to actually care about because there's no way you can do it without pressing a reset switch and reset switches are lame. The first bit with the time travel knotted together was fantastic though. Loved the Doctor wearing a fez as well.

Can't work out where the Doctor was supposed to have gone between putting Amy in the Pandorica and turning up at the museum. How much time was supposed to have elapsed in his own personal timeline?

So is this a new universe and a new Rory/Amy/River with the old ones' memories? Or has everything just been put back as it was before things started cracking? Has all that RTD-era stuff happened or not? Does this universe have Timelords in it? Very confusing.

I absolutely wet myself when Matt Smith turned up with Orbital, it took a couple of minutes to twig what was happening and then it was like "fucking hell, that's so obvious and yet brilliant". One of those priceless festival moments.

Actually the bit with the Dalek begging for mercy and River showing none was great as well. We're going to get the River origin story next year, right?

Can't work out where the Doctor was supposed to have gone between putting Amy in the Pandorica and turning up at the museum. How much time was supposed to have elapsed in his own personal timeline?

Presumably none, the universe is mostly erased so it's not like he can go fannying off for a while and have adventures on Alpha Centauri with big-eyed chicks.

He was at Glastonbury. We have video.

wrong coat, did Flesh And Stone teach you nothing?

Timey-Wimey? (my new explanation for anything I can't explain)

Boo on River + Pond blowing up the fez.

I laughed so hard at this I watched it a couple times in a row.

Best Who finale in millennia. Best thing I can say is that I want to watch a new episode right now.

"It's a fez. I wear a fez now. Fezes are cool." *yank*

"i wear a fez now" was perfectly delivered, prob. my favorite moment.

Watched this earlier tonight whilst beginning the arduous process of boxing up 6 years of books to move across town. Thought it had many great moments. I liked that there were clever with some of the time-jumping(ref to the Moff-created Harkness debut?), but it never got *cute*.

I missed the line about him being the stag dancer, which is awesome. Did hear Rory's offhand muttering to her mother "I was plastic..."

Other bits: Rory standing guard thru 2,000 years only to pop up as a guard in a new uniform, the dalek stand-off, the Doctor waking up on the floor of the tardis("Oh! uh. okay."), the fact that we now have a married couple as companions.

One thing I am wondering about if they'll keep the character growth despite any possible reset/forgetting. Rory went from a RTD-standard sexless wishy-washy extra/S.O. to actually becoming a Roman officer, being able to blast at a Dalek, standing watch for that long, surviving the Blitz, etc. One of the things that pissed me off about the ending of the last full season(and we complained on it on here, iirc) is that Donna went from just a bleah mundane to having a much greater sense of power and ability, only to get that growth wiped out.

Hopping around with the Doctor and getting blasted at and eaten and usually disintegrated a couple times and always saving the universe over the course of a companionship would change and grow a person(even if they're just increasingly horrified and split, Tegan-style). Seems kinda bullshit to wipe that out, but we'll see how they do next year.

Yeah surely this is the same River if nothing else, because future River has already seen him after the Pandorica incident. In the same universe. I suppose the only way this can work is that nothing was reset, just put back where it should have been. But then how to explain Amy initial Doctor adventures, without her parents? Argh. Think Moffatt's been a bit too clever for his own good here.

loved the shrinking universe feel (very Final Crisis #7, for comics ppl)

OTM, I was thinking the same thing! Also, the Doctor saving earth by travelling into the heart of the sun -- isn't that All-Star Superman?

Thought that was a terrific conclusion, right up there with Blink/Fireplace etc. Almost metal. I thought what Tom politely calls the "sense-making elements" were all good and proper. And KG (finally!) totally stepped up the emotional moments in the last act.

I think the "That's a fairytale"/"Aren't we all" Doctor/River dialogue in Flesh and Stone is kind of meant to foreshadow the reset button but yes it makes very little sense. You end up having to assume the River in that story remembers a completely different version of the Pandorica storyline that happened in the cracking-but-not-yet-collapsed universe the Angels story (and all of episodes 1-12 at least) is set in. Which takes you into BRAINFAIL.

I think the assumption has to be that River/Amy/Rory remember everything that happened throughout the last series, and they remember the additional details (ducks, stars, new parents) as well. It doesn't work otherwise.

Rory protecting the Pandorica for 2000 years was a great moment by the way. Wish they'd kept him as a good Auton, it was cool.

That's certainly the case for Amy and Rory and there's no problem with that - it all happened. River is the problem because she's asynchronous to the rest of the cast, so it's not a case of her 'remembering' the Byzantium, it hasn't happened to her yet. Fine, you say, it never can happen to her, except she mentions the bloody thing in Silence In The Library.

Basically Moffat's two clever storylines have tangled up a bit. Which doesn't spoil my enjoyment of it all one tiny bit, and is fun to think about, but is a HERE BE DRAGONS for the continuity police...

Yeah I meant the later River rather than the one from the end of this series.

This shit must be fucking confusing for children. Wouldn't be surprised if Moffatt toned it down for the next series.

I think for a certain type of kid it'll be incredibly exciting. I remember going "WHOA MIND BLOWN" when I was 8 and watching some of the complicated stuff they had going on at the end of the Baker/start of the Davison eras, which is probably why this season really resonated with me in a way that the last few didn't. Where they have to get the balance kidwise is appealing to that kid, and the kid who wants to see the monsters, and the one who wants to be scared, and the one who wants Amy and Rory to be happy... but generally I think children like mysterious stuff going down, even if they're tuning out the details and focusing on the exploding TARDIS or the Stone Dalek.

I dunno, I wouldn't have thought this was too confusing, especially as the episode seemed to be bracketed up into a dozen little mini-stories, each with their own resolution. Also, isn't it the plot holes in the peripheries that are the fascinating bits? That's the stuff you actually remember.

If you get the imagery right you can get away with murder, sense-making wise. The most timey-wimey old Who story was Warrior's Gate, which I saw as a nipper, didn't understand the narrative of, but the robot axemen, time-shifting lion men, etc absolutely stayed with me and I remembered the story very fondly.

My friend's five year old (a Who nut) loved the finale, although he said 'it was quite confusing'. But yeah, I don't think kids mind being confused. And there was so much cool stuff for them to focus on. He went berzerk when the Alliance turned up. 'Cybermen? Daleks?! SONTARANS!!!' (he loves Sontarans). The odd nerd moaned that 'oh the Cybermen and Daleks would never team up', but if the Tories and Lib Dems can... Joking apart, why not? That sort of joyless nitpicking takes all the fun out of it. And setting up the Alliance only to have them play no part in the Big Bang was a nice touch, subverting the RTD finale mode. Making a single Cyberman and Dalek threatening was a great achievement.

We're going to get the River origin story next year, right?

I am so over origin stories. I'd like to see more stories I don't already know the conclusion to, thanks.

much better if River remains a little mysterious.

I'd like to learn about her eventually, but they could keep up the intrigue for at least another series and I'd be quite happy.

Kids are perpetually confused, so they handle it much better than adults. They can just write chunks off as "confusing stuff" and move on.

The problem with too much made-for-kids stuff is trying to remove all the possibility forbconfusion, which makes it dull for adults and leaves kids unstretched. I think Moffatt gets this, so even episodes that are very kid-focused (like the first one) will take sudden zigzags into the strange.

I was often confused by Doctor Who as a kid (Ghostlight, anyone?). Loved it all the same.

Also, you know, kids will fill in the blanks with their own interpretation, and (lucky them) don't yet understand the concept of 'canon', etc. Also, surely the story wasn't THAT confusing?

To get back to the episode, though, wasn't it a fucking cracker? Surprised to see so much internet grumbling (or maybe not). Haven't watched a single episode on telly, though (all iPlayer and t0rrents).

Can Aldo come back now, too?

Am now rewatching the whole series from the start, picking up on new bits and bobs that I didn't notice before, and that feed into the finale. Also makes me wish they could somehow have both adult and child Amys as simultaneous companions. Maybe a child Amy from a parallel universe, as otherwise adult Amy would remember it all from being a kid.

Ghostlight was simple in plot, pretentious in aim, and ultimately shit for that

Oh, ten year old me didn't have the foggiest what was going on in Ghostlight, but loved the atmosphere of the thing.

That's exactly what 32 year old me made of it too.

Didn't they essentially cut big chunks out of Ghostlight and it was untelligible because there were bits missing that were never compensated for?

I remember reading something about it being changed loads between original script and airing, and that the writer (didn't he write Lungbarrow too?) was pissed off because his story didn't make sense. Wish I could find it.

Marc Platt. Wikipedia has a load of information about it (therefore it's true).

He didn't fall into the crack and pop out later in time (though this WOULD have been good (but also worth avoiding so it's not doing the same long-long-build story arc as Grant Morrison's various Batman titles)

loved the shrinking universe feel (very Final Crisis #7, for comics ppl)

OTM, I was thinking the same thing! Also, the Doctor saving earth by travelling into the heart of the sun -- isn't that All-Star Superman?

I think the "That's a fairytale"/"Aren't we all" Doctor/River dialogue in Flesh and Stone is kind of meant to foreshadow the reset button but yes it makes very little sense.

http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Actioncomics583.jpg

And setting up the Alliance only to have them play no part in the Big Bang was a nice touch, subverting the RTD finale mode. Making a single Cyberman and Dalek threatening was a great achievement.

Yes yes yes.

bah, mentally insert Actioncomics583.jpg as punchline after the last link :(

The problem with too much made-for-kids stuff is trying to remove all the possibility forbconfusion, which makes it dull for adults and leaves kids unstretched. I think Moffatt gets this, so even episodes that are very kid-focused (like the first one) will take sudden zigzags into the strange.

L'Engle's A Wrinkle In Time is still the gold standard for how to manage children-oriented timey-wimey bits and bobs. Moffatt seems to be working off the same playbook and is pretty much kicking ass.

Agreed! Think that's why I enjoy it so much...he doesn't play down to kids but he doesn't play up to adults. And I know that 10 year old me and 34 yo me could watch it together & have a riproaring time.

I remember reading X-Men comics as a little kid and had few problems understanding all the time travel and alternate universe dopplegangers as a little kid; don't be surprised that children can understand this kind of stuff pretty well!

Aldo, I remember you....and you are late for this thread.

don't be surprised that children can understand this kind of stuff pretty well!

exactly! also, as a child i was way better at papering over plotholes, way more interested in trying to think about how things worked (even if i got it wrong), and also had way more patience as a reader of long books i'd now find boring - if children are engaged in a piece they're a great deal more generous than adults would be.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShGhRRD5fCQ&feature=player_embedded

The series in two minutes.

Think the people who claim that Amy doesn't grow as a character throughout the series are mental and rong and possibly wilfully ignoring it because they don't like Karen Gillen, but it's also possible that's because her character is actually reset three or four times throughout the series - ie we see completely different Amys at various points in the series because her own experiences keep getting rewritten.

liked that video!

good point about Amy's character resets, more interesting as a whole, now that i think about it (but i never had a problem with Amy)

and also had way more patience as a reader of long books i'd now find boring

definitely so true for me too. can't believe i did all that tolkien and narnia as a kid

narnias are like 120pp each

I smoked a lot of Aslan in college

i still can't imagine even trying to read them today

You mean as a kid today, or going back and rereading them now?

I mean now as an adult. I mean, even when I was reading them I recognized these were often boring, but at the time I gobbled up kid books at a crazy rate, regardless of quality - I think I picked stuff purely on genre or wacky premise (mostly junk, even by kid standards)