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

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

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.

a) Don’t watch the Next Time trailers, ever
b) There’s no “power of the moment” wrt regeneration in the new series, because they always happen exactly the same RTD burst-of-SFX way. Every single change of face or regeneration in the classic series was handled differently from every other one, making them weird and curious and able to have some kind of power. Here, just having a flash-forward is different, and the way he’s suppressing it might play out into some variation next week (or at Christmas, since the cold open was evidently shot this week or so). Plus, whether or not you’d been thoroughly, repeatedly spoiled on the Mondasian Cybermen or not, the Doctor struggling with his old body dying in the snow has echoes of the first time his body died on the series, after fighting Mondasian Cybermen and then struggling through the snow…

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 don’t remember this at all but haven’t seen The Deadly Assassin in 25 years or more. Can’t imagine it would be in Five Docs, as he didn’t have any regenerations “left” then, and was running around in Nyssa’s dad’s dadbod.

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.

How was this suspicious when the bearded Masters’ disguises have so effectively fooled other Gallifreyans in the past?
Anyway, Simm basically fooled me: as soon as I saw the prostheticy face, I was staring and squinting my ears to see if it was Simm, but decided that it wasn’t. Especially with those big brown limpid eyes. I was comparing him against a mental image of a narrow, pinched affect in The Lakes I guess, bang up to date there. (I did watch that thing where Jim Broadbent was his dementia-suffering dad last year.)

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

I was hoping the Monks would turn out to tie into the OG Cybermen back in Extremis bcz of this – assuming they still don’t, that’s another layer of wastedness with that whole monster, design and story semi-arc.

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?

I think they said 75 years at some point in the first ep or so?

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

Well, quite – apart from being an unplanned add-on to his completed run, it not only has fewer Moffatt-written episodes than any other in the last eight years, but has MORE WRITERS OVERALL than ANY season of Doctor Who in the last 54 years.

They've got to bring the monks back to explain their motives better imho.

A thought: the monks' obsession with proper consent is diametrically opposed to the Cybermen just converting everyone for their own good

yeah, so much of the Monks felt like it was being played as a counterpoint / set-up to Cybermen, but I can't see there being room for old Cybermen, new Cybermen [?], old Master, new Master, AND explaining the Monks in one episode next week

See, that sounds like a proper smorgasbord to me.

Given how the Monks' story ended up being a big fat fart of rubbish, perhaps best if we never see them again.

Especially since the Doctor's regeneration fakeout in that one (and how did he do that, anyway?) undercuts the opening to this episode.

yeah, I meant to mention that above

so terrible

well, unless it was to establish that the doctor can fake a regeneration...

That would make it even more pointlessly for-the-audience/nonsensical in-story.

The Doctor tricking Bill with regeneration energy – "too much?" is not only vicious and callous, but doesn’t make any sense as she has no idea what regeneration or ‘regen energy’ is.

Thinking about this episode again, the time dilation situation was very similar to the gimmick in "The Girl Who Waited". I hope they come up with a different ending -- TGWW's ending was both depressing and a too-convenient way to tie up continuity.

Suspect the ending may be a bit of a fuck-up: the last Missy/Cybermen 2-parter by Moffatt started really well too, and ended in spectacular nonsensical bad taste

for Fizzles:

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.

Logistics is mainly why they shoot episodes out of intended order. This can be due to availability of locations, the amount of lead time needed to complete special effects, clustering guest stars’ episodes together so they can appear across a season without needing to stay unemployed in between trips to Cardiff, making a Doctor-light and companion-light episode at the same time as each other in order to crunch a little more production time, and often just making the scripts that are finished while Moffatt is still writing his (this can obviously lead to tacked-on scenes at the end of the episode shot months later making up an “arc”, as with the Missy material in S8 and S10).

I’ve been avoiding all looking ahead at production details, and even writers and episode titles, this year, so I was totally wrong-footed by the end of the Mars episode: when the story was over and Dr Who and Bill still needed to get away, it was obvious Missy was going to have to appear with Nardole in the TARDIS, and next week had to be the Rona Munro episode bcz there were only three weeks left, so I started getting hyped that she would be WRITING MISSY ON AN ADVENTURE NEXT WEEK, a) because a woman writing Missy would be great, b) someone other than Moffatt writing Missy would be nice to see, and c) because Rona wrote the only good Master material in the last 15 years of the original series. (On being asked to shoe-horn him into a story she’d already written.)

So then the Munro episode was completely baffling with its absence of Missy, an obviously ADRed line covering it but kicking the plot can down the road awkwardly, Bill discovering for the first time that she could understand non-English when travelling with the Doctor, and Nardole repeatedly referring to “guarding the vault,” without ever naming Missy or acknowledging that she wasn’t in the vault. I did then check and find that the story had been shot back as ep 4 or 5, and then for some reason moved to ep 9 - maybe just to provide more breathing gap between the Monk arc and the two-part finale – and then, very late, swapped with the Mars ep to become ep 10. The last one is really incomprehensible, as it totally throws the Missy plot out: even this week’s has her placement following on from Mars, not Picts & Romans.

Looking into production order last week also showed why Nardole gets taken away by the TARDIS for no useful purpose at the start of the Mars ep: he wasn’t originally part of this season. The Christmas episode was made partway into the run, and using Nardole as both comic relief and conscience / moral guardian there gave Moffatt the idea to poke him into the series proper as well. Presumably Gatiss’ script was delivered well before that, and they just decided to keep him out rather than squeeze him into a guest-character-crowded story.

That was really excellent, best episode of the season and maybe the best Moffatt penned one since the RTD days? The original Cyberman design is the best one as well. Meta stuff about 'Doctor Who' being his real name was bollocks though.