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

That could have been a good place to bow out on full stop. So hope the next season is as good as this has been.
Would have loved to see several more seasons of Capaldi and Bill, Missy too.

• 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
• the whole scene with bill standing in the barn before realising she was a cyberman was so predictable even i saw it coming
• 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??)
• something else pissed me off but i can't remember what it was
• having the pilot save bill was... fine i suppose, at least they planted a decent clue with the tear last episode

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.

• Cybermen are evolving so we get to reuse the NuWho costumes
• let's just blow them all up because reasons

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.

I'm watching Tenth Planet this morning to see how it should be done.

I'm a few weeks behind and have just got to the Mars one and am wondering if this season is even worse persevering with.

I liked all the stuff you guys get annoyed by! The show is forever imperfect and repetitive, but surely impossible not to be moved/excited by this week's.

Xpost you hit the dodgy patch but last three are excellent

The one thing that I'm remembering now i had a problem with is the repetitive nature of that ending for the companion. Did seem very much an echo of the Clara thing as I felt at the time and somebody else here has pointed out.
I guess it does leave bill open to be revisited.

Was this just Moffatt trying to mop up his characters who hadn't otherwise had an end. Does that leave any loose ends still?
The aforesaid previous companions not getting a further nod? Showing what they're up to before they're forever forgotten or has that already happened.
Further echo of that previous companion in Bill not knowing what transformation she'd had struck me as similar to the girl who didn't know she was a dalek. But where there's a tear there's hope etc etc.

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

part of passing a blank slate to chibnall imo

Tbf the bill end to me seemed as though it could be either as it was presented or the last wishful dreams of a dying cyber brain

oh i LOVE that!

I mean, moffatt has form in that area too: bill not seeing herself as a cyberman, donna in the library's mainframe, the simulation episode this season, etc

Aw I liked the Tennant Cyberman two-parter, one of the most fun examples of New Who as big dumb action movie, in my memeory anyway. I think I was way more forgiving of any story's flaws in the first few years of the return as it was all so exciting.

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.

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. For Moff though

5 > 9 > 6a > 10 > 7a > 9 > 7b > 5a

6b I mean for last one

Which one was the long Amy and Rory goodbye? That was the real nadir.

capaldi's second year was incredible

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

great episode, no one has mentioned David Bradley as Doctor #1 yet? He did such a good job in Adventures in Time and Space I'd hoped that this would happen at some point. Disappointed to see Bill go; I saw somewhere something about Pearl Mackie meeting Chibnall just a few weeks ago, so I assumed she was staying on. Maybe she will. If a woman gets the regeneration then it might be interesting to have a gay companion. I can see the remaining mens rights activists who haven't already stopped watching exploding in fury.

this episode mentions marinus as a planet the cybermen inhabit -- not just a reference to the 1st doctor serial "the keys of marinus", but also to a comic written by grant morrison called the world shapers which also features sped-up time.

Good pacing I thought over these last two episodes

Bill's resurrection by the Pilot was a bit of a re-run of Clara going off with Lady Me in their own TARDIS. But at least it was signposted from the beginning of this run, not just tacked on.

I might have preferred it, tbh, if it was left as Bill wandering around stuck in the cyber-shell but with the possibility of escaping from it left open, and then it could be taken up by later writers.

'You know how I'm all about women and people my own age? Yeah? Good' <-- this was a good line

The holographic farm idyll was a good touch and the sort of thing that Who can do

I liked the way it was basically 1940s evacuee farm countryside but the people were called things like Hazran and Alit

No idea what they're doing with this whole Capaldi trying not to regenerate/Hartnell first doctor turning up thing, looks interesting anyway

Although you know ... I would mostly have preferred it if Bill was definitely still in it, it's a bit shit that we only get to see her for one run of episodes

I really really hope they don't just go back to 'for the dads' sexy magic ladies as a template for companions (obv Amy and Clara broke this template many times but it still felt like that template was there)

Or can we have a companion who either isn't from earth, or isn't from current earth history?

And whilst thinking out loud, Female Doctor/gay male companion might be an productive combo no?

Or can we have a companion who either isn't from earth, or isn't from current earth history?

the audience needs someone to relate to, which imo is harder to pull off when the companion is inherently unrelateable.

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.

'You know how I'm all about women and people my own age? Yeah? Good' <-- this was a good line

does this mean all previous companions who left weeping and hugging did so because he was sexy? it's like the doctor is either husbando or business colleague, with no middle ground.

I read the line a dig at Martha/Rose, disguised as a character bit for Bill.

I felt like the conclusion of the 12/Bill relationship was the sole letdown of the finale - the emotional goodbye comes while Capaldi is comatose! Hopefully she'll turn up in the Xmas special?

pearl mackie is too good for this show

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.

Could solve everything by making either Peal Mackie or Michelle Gomez into the next doctor innit?

gomez is an astonishingly good comic actor but i can't see her pulling off the serious gravitas moments. mackie totally could but she needs to move on to something better god damn it

otm, Gomez great but very much tied into pantomime evil character within this show, like it would take a lot of storytelling to get her into standard doctor mode

@Matt in DC yeah I've seen it claimed somewhere that everything that happened in this episode has happened before somewhere

I think mackie would be a great doctor.

Oh yay another fake out regeneration.

I thought this was a mess. I think I posted something a month or so ago that maybe Murray Gold was getting better. In light of the score in the second half of this episode I take that back violently.

Has is ever been properly explained who/what Nardole is?

missy lampshaded him as "the comic relief", and tbh i think that's all we'll ever need to know

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