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

b) lazy writer failsafe failures. automatic venting every 20 minutes, no braille on a lock in a place where people could easily become blinded. if you've seen one michael crichton movie.

And worst of all, an airlock system that allows both doors to be opened at the same time, which defeats the whole purpose for having an airlock! I think real life airlocks automatically keep the other door locked if the other one is open, exactly to avoid human error like the one seen in this episode?

The air venting system was really baffling... Why would a complex that deals with hazardous material and GM bacteria have a system that automatically vents its air into the atmosphere? You'd think that's exactly what they'd want to avoid in a breakout situation?

I think it was meant to be unusual (due to accident) that the product was that dangerous but yeah

Also, the whole "consent" thing was pretty nonsensical if you stop and think about it. It was established that consent needs to be given out of love and not fear, and clearly the implication is that humanity needs to love the Monks for them to gain power; they're like vampires, they need to be invited in. So after that's been established the viewer is like, how on earth are the Monks gonna make anyone love them? But then Bill gives her consent because she loves the Doctor and doesn't want him to die? So it's that easy for the Monks to rule over humanity? Then why didn't they use their fancy simulation machine to show the UN Secretary General images of his loved ones having died in the doomsday? Then he would've given his consent because of his love, just like Billy did. Also, consent given out of fear leads to disintegration, and Billy explicitly states he wants the Doctor to live because she's afraid of what would happen to Earth if the he wasn't around. But apparently that doesn't count as fear to the Monks?

The whole idea of "only love can give us power over you" is an interesting concept, but it feels like the writers had to resolve to semantic trickery to get the result they want, it didn't feel justified.

Doctor could've Periscoped his phone view to get the code too.

Just fear us, love us, do as we say and we will be your slaves

xp Yeah, the distinction between the consent given by military top brass and the consent given by Bill was sort of ... a workable distinction in outline, but maybe not in close up.

xp: pretty much all bioengineering facilities, especially those working with potential pathogens, are designed with negative pressure. Air flows in through entrances, etc, but is all sucked out through UV-illuminated HEPA filters in the lab hoods were all manipulation takes place.

another solution: Doctor takes a picture of the lock with his phone, shows it to scientist.

would have preferred him to stay blind until regeneration tbh, if this can be handwaved away anything can

This episode was clearly not written with adventure puzzle game enthusiasts in mind

Another contrived thing about that scene: the input for the unlock code was this weird, old-fashioned cylinder apparatus instead of the far more common 3x3 number pad, because if it had been the latter, it would've been quite easy for the Doctor to feel it with his fingers and deduce which buttons to push.

and then they couldn't have done this ending.

everyone criticising that last scene is otm imo but they couldn't have achieved this specific ending without a contrived obstacle to his sight. also, archaic and stupid things pop up in real life all the time, so this didn't feel like a huge stretch.

the monks magicking back his sight was much more stupid imo, unless this is all still inside the matrix, in case why do anything?

*in which case

like you AA i didn't mind most of the things people have pointed out here - the airlock that isn't an airlock was a bit of a stretch. but in the service of delivering excitement! i don't really mind these things. and the sight thing didn't bother me - i thought oh god that's terrible, they can even repair a time lord's sight, not something even he could do, they have control, what is the nature of that control and why does it require this manner of consent?

they can even repair a time lord's sight, not something even he could do, they have control, what is the nature of that control and why does it require this manner of consent?

otm, it was one of those episodes which makes 100% perfect sense within its arbitrary self-imposed rules which don't make a lot of sense (needing to fit some highly specific criteria for consent, which in itself is a highly specific criterion for deciding whether or not to let everyone perish). as sci-fi drama it's fine but it requires a particular suspension of disbelief to accept that some ocd politburo will go to these lengths for...? shits and giggles? christ just tell them someone fucked up in a lab, or better still land your pyramid on the lab so the doctor doesn't have to blow it up or even go there or even do any of this, and then you have a free slot to write idk a satire about how a giant orange fuck is ruining the universe.

I've noticed every episode this season seems to have its central mystery solved by inspired guesswork rather than Honest Puzzle Solving - a bad habit from Sherlock, maybe?

This week's was ridic - it went from "the problem could be literally anything in the world" to "it's an accident at a chemical factory!!" within two lines of dialogue.

Thin Ice wasn't solved by guesswork, was it?

(I did like how they identified which lab they needed to visit, though)

I've noticed every episode this season seems to have its central mystery solved by inspired guesswork rather than Honest Puzzle Solving - a bad habit from Sherlock, maybe?

This week's was ridic - it went from "the problem could be literally anything in the world" to "it's an accident at a chemical factory!!" within two lines of dialogue.

chibnall alert - brodchurch always astonished me by effectively making a series out of totally incompetent detective work. v little actual detection and the only way the murderer is discovered is through complete process of elimination, sure a definition of detective failure. in the agatha christie type/golden age story it's allowed for the reader to suspect *anyone* from a small community, in fact it's the point. but the detectives are usually seen to have known at some crucially earlier point. the killing was ok for me on this and i'm not sure why because the style was similar, but possibly bcos broadchurch was so confined and underpopulated.

i always felt that with sherlock holmes (the stories) displays of deduction would take place at the beginning of the story, but the discovery of the murderer often required not deduction but specialist knowledge/inspired guesswork or a moment of action to reveal the murderer. exceptions are the finest stories - the league of red-headed men, hound of the b's, and even they obv had a fair dollop of drama.

so i don't think there's such a thing as purity here.

on the speed of the solution, that feels more a requirement of keeping things lively and brief enough to fit in a short episode, which is why i'm fine with it. emphasis is important and doing it in two lines of dialogue is a success rather than a fault. (that said i enjoy the picking itt)

This week's was ridic - it went from "the problem could be literally anything in the world" to "it's an accident at a chemical factory!!" within two lines of dialogue.

I thought this too - apparently it was originally slightly less abrupt but a couple of lines referencing a terrorist attack were edited out late on

This is the bit of dialogue that was cut from last night's #DoctorWho. pic.twitter.com/Trpr9PVtKl

— Alex Daily 🏳️‍🌈 (@heyalexdaily) May 28, 2017

okay that does make more sense

Interesting! It's still kinda abrupt at full length but I see why they made the cut.

I only bring up the "lucky guesswork" as it's been more clumsily scripted than usual. But I suppose it's better to put your massive handwave halfway through the script (where it can be forgotten) than right at the end like RTD used to do. Either way - this has been one of the most enjoyable seasons so far, so moot point really.

(Also great post re: Holmes/deduction!)

Mostly the greatness of Bill has seen me over the rough bits of plotting

I'm also really glad to have these horrible, horrible Monks that aren't cuddly or intentionally funny. I mean they're a bit unintentionally funny but you know, having the courage of convictions and all that

While we wait, the neural network comes up with episode titles: http://lewisandquark.tumblr.com/post/159509399932/the-neural-network-writes-the-episode-list-for

The Dont
The Sires of the Daleks
The Argass of the Daleks
The Arges of the Daleks
The Wire of the Daleks
The Argoss of the Daleks
The Argass of the Daleks
The Argas of the Daleks
The Daleks of the Daleks
The Stick of the Doctor
The Keds of Death
The Twin Doctors
The Ten Doctors
Cold Clood
The Unicorn and the Daleks
The Fires of Poop
The Beads of the Daleks
The Sontaren Beep
The Power of Tron
The Awkroids of Tara
The Agaves of The Doctor
Dinosaurs of the Deep
The Pirate Lover
Loodly Moysters
The Wheeen Death
The Bile Doctors
Planet of lime
The Crows of Doom
Planet of Fire in Space
The Poupon Invasion

wd watch the crows of doom and the dalek of the daleks.

actually wd watch most of these.

Why do the monks have a German accent? (Or don't they?)

Villain Voice preset #3

the ten doctors sounds like a blast, would def watch

thinking about what the plot for that episode might be has led me to the alternative title the gallifreyan centipede and i'm so, so sorry

dieter laser as the rani obviously

wait, wrong way around, i mean kate o'mara as dieter laser

perhaps i'm overthinking this

LOVE WIN

and next week is mark gatiss jfc i give up

Yeah, this was very reminiscent of the worst kind of Davies era plot resolutions, in that love saves the day in a nonsensical way they just pulled out if their ass. I can't even begin to count how many plot holes and unexplained things there were in this episode... Like, for example, we didn't even learn why the Monks wanted to conquer Earth in the first place? They have superior technology and godlike powers, so what do they need this backwater planet for? And their six month reign must've left a lot of people dead, right? So shouldn't Bill feel terribly guilty for allowing all that? But in the end she's like, whatever, humanity is stupid. I kept expecting there to be some kind of twist at the end, like that Bill's mysterious mum was really a former incarnation of Missy, and that's why she could withstand touching the emitter Monk, even when the Doctor couldn't... But no, it really was as silly as it seemed.

No, they set up Bill imagining her mum as a source of her resistance so relying on it as the resolution was not altogether deus-ex.

i thought the tone of this episode was odd, and i was more than usually irritated by inconsistencies: the way the monks were set up in previous episodes to know all the future and all the past, and have the capability to restore a time lord's sight but then weren't able to prevent the dr and bill (their psychic link for the entire world) from mounting a small armed insurrection on their headquarters bcos *complacency*.

but i didn't mind how Bill's mother was used. She said that this was an imaginary construct of what she thought her mum might be like, which she used as a bulwark against the monks' mind control. it wasn't part of history or the future and so was inaccessible to them etc. also the mind projection of her "construct" mum had a pleasingly surreal album cover aspect to it.

pearl mackie is too good for this show imo, she singlehandedly saved at least three scenes

Hope she lasts or rapidly reappears in something else that works asa vehicle for her. Would love several more series of Capaldi and her though.

i get the feeling she could breathe life into pretty much anything. she's already made the most of some fairly weak scripts this year.

I completely lost interest in this ep during the prison ship rescue, wandered away from it, realized hours later that I'd still not seen how it ended, went on to other things, and eventually got back to it out of curiosity, not enjoyment. Not what you want from the thrilling conclusion to a three-part storyline

Moffat has given us many memorable scenes and ideas but I can't tell you how glad I am that his time is done. Capaldi's character is completely incomprehensible and arbitrary to me now, I would love a blander Davison-type Doctor just so I have something stable and understandable to hang on to

I thought the point was not so much 'the power of lurrrrrve' as 'the power of imagination', which is a bit cleverer no?

I thought it did a good job of portraying a dystopia effectively within the time and budget constraints of one episode, and a had a solidly good and controversial message (if we remember it's for kids) about bad people making you think it has to be this way.

Yeah, even with the obvious inconsistencies, I enjoyed this one again, felt a bit like "Davies era done right". I assume Gatiss will curse the winning streak with whatever happens next week (Victorian science fiction tropes, how surprising!).

Re: Capaldi being "incomprehensible" - that's the point, isn't it? I enjoy the unpredictability, the slightly deranged aspect. If anything, it feels like he's finally figured out the character this season, somewhere between the withdrawn arrogance of the first season and the kerrazy disco uncle of the second.

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?

^ makes no sense to me either. maybe sic can shed some light.

I thought the point was not so much 'the power of lurrrrrve' as 'the power of imagination', which is a bit cleverer no?

still weird that one person's imaginary mum would send an established oppressive force packing. they all just left.

It's not weird if it was Bill's consent that allowed the monks in, so she used constructed memories to push them out. Foreshadowed in the earlier cup of tea at table scene.

yeah but… they all just left