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

That is just as facile as what we got; it was much more interesting to have Godsacre as a deserter finding his courage against his oily, self-interested second-in-command while the black soldier was just a soldier. Also, said black soldier getting used as a literal human shield for Catchlove so I'm not sure how much more racism you were looking for.

But not sure when I've seen more than one Ice Warrior at a time remotely recently.

It was 43 years, 6 weeks and 2 days since the last episode with more than one Ice Warrior in it.

that's not how the song goes

<3

It's been 43 years, 6 weeks and 5 days since you took your giant green genderqueer penis wearing a cape away.

ah ah-ah ah ahhhhhhhhh

Cor there was some bad acting and dialogue in this one.

when nothing he has done for it has been any good?

The Unquiet Dead was good. Granted that was 10 years ago.

Cor there was some bad acting and dialogue in this one.

g a t i s s

Enjoyed that. Rona munro is the first classic series writer to return, right? Glad it wasn't the Bakers.

after some pretty poor episodes, yes that was good.

And the finale looks as though it will be fun, though I suspect I know how it will pan out.

Liked the monster and the clothes and the landscape. Roman-Pictish friendship a bit forced but whatever. Someone had been watching Stranger Things.

Something I've noticed about the more recent historicals is that whenever we meet historical people, they're always the same: they want to kill each other or some thing, and need to have the Doctor explain to them that this would be a bad idea, which he does eventually. A few of the historical people get killed along the way, but they always end up listening to him.

They always end up learning the key lesson: that you must not kill the monster, because she's just guarding her eggs, or: humans must team up to kill the monster.

Also historical people are just like normal today people, only they need a bit of help to be nice like us. They rarely ever strongly exhibit any of the real-life behaviours and attitudes of historical people that we would find depraved or wrong. There's always just a bit of racism and sexism and child labour, or whatever - mention of Romans taking slaves and burning down farms, sure, but not seen on screen, no Picts collecting heads; but what I mean is the program doesn't try to deal with the fact that our time machine has cropped up in a context where these things are just normal as far as most people are concerned. The unacceptable is always fixable.

The more difficult task would be to show historical people being absolutely horrible but also to show the underlying causes for this behaviour. That I guess would be for the writers to take an educational approach to history as opposed to using history to flavour a formulaic plot to get variations in it.

And again the naughtiness of these historical people is always kind of naive - it's that they must fight, because it is their traditional way! But now the Doctor has come to show them that really all humans are lovely. So you don't get, e.g. a story about Conquistadores knowingly loading up a ship with worthless glass beads to go and fleece some Mayans, out of self interest, because it'll make them rich. Or a witch hunter going round 16th century Lancashire opportunistically looking for women to hang so he gets his money. The program doesn't try to deal with gnarly, real-life naughtiness of that kind.

This isn't meant to be a takedown as such - I have absolutely no idea how you'd present Victorian racism or any other kind of historical violence, to modern children, in a fantasy fictional setting, in a way that was age appropriate and not boring; just it's interesting to see the strategy they go with.

Hah, that's interesting, because I actually thought something adjacent to those points when I was watching the previous episode: a) the representation of the Imperial British Army as a force for plunder was about as subtle as the anti-capitalism a few weeks back (which, tick vg that is the appropriate amount of subtlety for displaying the IBA to kids) and b) one of the lead characters doesn't see the light and turn to the Doctor's side but quite the opposite, he embraces the soldier's way (as the Doctor is peevish about).

A plot hole I think about the regiment - is it just "Hooray lads, the commander's had a character arc, we're all Ice Warriors now?". The TARDIS could take them back, but that ruins the line about how no-one will ever know what happened here.

I don't think the show flinches from showing barbarity; just not necessarily in the historicals, and not necessarily in this season, which seems to be all about relative power in relationships (or, er, checking your interdimensional privilege - sorry).

Anyway, that last one was really excellent, Murray Gold and wobbly time vortex SFX notwithstanding. Basically it was the same as Gattiss's episode, except written by an adult. Two things I especially liked: a plot and resolution that made sense (or at least Doctor Who sense); and actual slow *distinguishable* dialogue instead of the usual Moffat babblestreams. Wish we could get ten more of those before Capaldi fucks off.

Also fucking hell the acting was a lot better than last week's.

I enjoyed this, but also didn't care even a little bit about anyone in it who wasn't in the TARDIS crew, which was a little odd for me.

There was a point where I actively caught myself rooting for the light-eater.

I enjoyed doing this, mind you, but I don't think that's the type of enjoyment the episode was going for.

Actually, I really liked the crows.

(I had a similar reaction to "Survival", actually; I mostly enjoyed watching it but I also really, really wanted all of Ace's friends to die)

this whole year feels like a tepid greatest hits, which is not how i expected moffat to go out

Yeah but he already went out two years ago with a deliberate build up and “The End” on screen, this year was never meant to be by him

When the Doctor came out of the cave after staring at the Season 11 title sequence for two days he should have fallen onto a handy mattress

this year was never meant to be by him

i hope someone writes an explosive book about this era

there's no secret - the BBC wanted Chibnall but he wasn't available for three years bcz Broadchurch, Moffatt was begged to come back and fill in once he'd had a break and could face it again.

makes sense

The more difficult task would be to show historical people being absolutely horrible but also to show the underlying causes for this behaviour. That I guess would be for the writers to take an educational approach to history as opposed to using history to flavour a formulaic plot to get variations in it.

This is a good point, and just offering an off-the-cuff response, maybe it's because the show tends to portray modern-day people as more pathologically terrible, and make the historicals more redeemable because of a nostalgic idea of the past being a more innocent time?

was a bit weird having two "army is difficult" + "desertion isn't cowardice" episodes in a row.

talk to the five episodes at the start of the season that were all about humanity's tools being used for evil

if this had run where it was meant to (4th or 5th ep), both those problems would have been solved

well there was a part where Bill asked "you were just trying to get them to stand in that gate the whole time, weren't you?" and he says "yes of course that's a half-dozen less murderous, raping slavers and mutilators running around" but it got cut

something i'm never very clear on, sic - why do they change the order of the episodes like that? My very rudimentary sense of how things work is that there are a set of stories they decide to go with (perhaps having been written with the sense of a few themes that might be in the series) and Moffat will shove in some story arc stuff, sometimes more or less crudely (bit at end of story), sometimes woven into the original story a bit more.

If that's the case I can see why some stories might be ordered one way in terms of arc, and in another according to series pacing. But maybe I'm probably just ignoring something about the logistics of series production here.

xp

Classic Master ploy there - disguising himself to people who wouldn't otherwise recognise him anyway...

Properly spooky episode there. The idea that the patients were constantly crying for help but their volume was turned down creeped me the fuck out. Bill continues to be totally amazing.

best episode of the year by a mile. i thought john simm was mark gatiss until halfway through. weird though how bill spent years apparently fine with having a machine where her heart used to be, and the doctor is relatively "eh" about the whole thing (enter sic to tell me why i'm wrong)

idgi? there are 50 seconds of screen time / close to real time after the reveal, Doctor Who is onscreen for 10-15 of these and looks horrified in all of them

also I've only knowingly known a couple of ppl with pacemakers but they generally seemed p chill about it a couple of years in

Could do with several more years of Capaldi, hope his replacement isn't a major drop in quality. Actualy still hoping taht the reveal is that he changed his mind.

I was wondering who the caretaker guy was cos I thought i recognised him from somewhere. Was he channeling Leonard Rossiter or something?

Lifts seem to not be trapped by time problem . Also how well does an object that long work in terms of response to ageing at different speeds and general outside influence over time. Not very up on centripetal forces anyway but around something of that power?

& is this supposed to be a total rethinking of the original origin story for the original characters played with or just a parallel one?

They did mention something about the lifts being super-fast enough to overcome the time gap (which is fine really given the huge ship is in the process of actually escaping the black hole already).

And I guess the Master figured a companion from his (presumed direct) successor's timeline might recognise him as former PM Harold Saxon (if not also briefly everyone in the world) to explain the disguised face and voice.

But why more pointless glimpses of regeneration both at the very start in the cold open and at the end of the next week trailer? There's no excitement in that as everyone knows it's coming if not exactly when, seems like it just diminishes the power of the moment when it finally really happens.

Also wondering what ti9me is supposed to pass in the 2 relevant areas. If a momentary lifted eyebrow takes a week or whatever smaller exaggeration of normal speed, how long is Bill where she is. Or did the clocks say that?

Something very weird happening with Missy's memory. Not only does she not remember the events of this story happening the first time, she also says "nobody ever escapes a black hole" and seemingly forgets that's where all The Master's regenerations went (per Deadly Assassin or Five Doctors, can't remember which).

i thought john simm was mark gatiss until halfway through.

I was convinced that pre-mask-removal Simm was being played by Robert Glenister, so no spotters badge for me either.

Based on the teasers I was thinking Missy would somehow turn into the Simm Master and was saying "give us a kiss" to the Doctor.

Missy not smelling a Gallifreyan right away was suspicious. Especially with such a crap disguise. I knew it was Simm as soon as he spoke.

I liked the episode, it was atmospheric and attention-grabbing, but they could easily ruin the story in the second half. Simm is a crap character that they botched up before.

I'm not sure if time dilation would work when there's some sort of artificial gravity happening. Whatever, don't care.

Finally caught up on this season. I've liked every episode except the oxygen episode and the emoji episode. Really *wanted* to like the oxygen episode due to writer/setup/anticapitalist bent, but... It felt a little cheap. Rushed, too.

The monk trilogy was pretty good, though unnecessarily convoluted. I enjoyed it except for the part, referenced upthread, where the Doctor uses Bat Logic to figure out the evil countdown plan. I still don't understand why engineered bacteria seem more likely an exinction cause than environmental catastrophe? And I am sad there was no Meddling Monk: I was hoping he'd been the architect of the whole plan.

Stray thoughts: weird motif of mouths not matching the sounds coming out of them. Babelfish, telepathic field stuff.

And question: Missy is a later regeneration of Simm's Master, yes? And Missy was sentenced to die for a crime that has not been explained, but the Doctor spared her and has been keeping her prisoner for some fraction of a thousand years, yes? How long have he and Nardole been at the University? Ostensibly it's been a while, and ... that means he's overlapped with lots of other incarnations of himself nearby?

Also Simm isn't a bad Master. But the Saxon story was crap, and he deserved better. Too bad they couldn't get Jacobi back.

This season has felt like the least Moffaty of his run.

That was great, suspenseful, creeepy, really old school but the tease for next week previews a fairly rubbish action oriented resolution.

This was a great episode, one of if not the best of the season, and I am fucking furious with it.

Something very weird happening with Missy's memory. Not only does she not remember the events of this story happening the first time, she also says "nobody ever escapes a black hole" and seemingly forgets that's where all The Master's regenerations went (per Deadly Assassin or Five Doctors, can't remember which).

Whenever multiple versions of the Doctor have met up before (except in Time Crash), it's always been established that only the latest version of him remembers what happened, the earlier versions lost their memories of the crossover, so as to avoid time paradoxes. Presumably applies to the Master and other Time Lords as well.

So, for example, in the 50th anniversary story, War Doctor and 10th Doctor had no memory of what they did, which is why the 9th Doctor still thought he'd killed all of Gallifrey, etc. And 11th Doctor was unable to remember meeting the Caretaker (presumably the Xth Doctor), so did not know he would survive his death and get to regenerate again.

But yeah, pretty much loved this episode. Getting the Cyberman back to genuine body horror nastiness is quite a trick after decades of cheapening and diminishing returns.

How long has The Doctor been at the university? Is that established?

I _think_ Nardole(?) said something about 50yrs in ep1 of the series