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

genuine q: why didn't his regen process start after Dalek extermination?

less genuine q: why was Rory still wearing Centurion clothes during WW2? and able to drag something the size of the Pandorica by hand?

Possible answers:

Dalek weapon wasn't powered up fully, so the Doctor wasn't fatally injured, just heavily wounded.

No idea about the clothes, but could he be stronger as an Auton?

Loved this, and really liked Karen Gillan.

I took the stasis thing to mean that the occupant of the Pandorica would be frozen in that second for all time, and that the Doctor was just knocked out.

Scottish media in-joke: did Mr Pond not look like a Jaspan doppelganger?

what about the zillion levels of encryption hoo-haa they were on about last week?

Only from the inside, I thought. It's designed to keep things IN.

Really entertaining crazy-bonkers ending to a crazy-bonkers series. Apart from Doomsday, I haven't enjoyed a neWho finale until now. I mean, this was OTT but it was also watchable.

So all the "silence will fall" stuff is being held over for the next series... ?!

Facebook correspondent friend (who is an award-winning SF writer/Idler editor) performing at Glastonbury Free Unversity has just reported meeting Matt Smith there, says his tent was bigger on the inside.

Weirdest thing: the update was timed the SECOND the episode finished. LOL.

Scottish media in-joke: did Mr Pond not look like a Jaspan doppelganger?
hahahahahah, yes!

Loved this! Wld buy fez + mop Doctor action figure.

I also liked Rory a lot more after this episode.

LOL Stet, was waiting (unsuccessfully, obv) for one of you and Grimly to bring that observation!

This is the part of the thread where I can exclusively reveal that on interviewing Machine Florence a week or so ago, she told me she'd met Karen Gillan at a red carpet event (GINGER SUMMIT) and having gotten hooked on Doctor Who via watching with little brother, confessed same. Her imitation of Karen's reaction was priceless. Perfect Scottish accent saying 'yuh watch Doctorrr Whuh?'

This was the best episode with a dalek in since Dalek btw (as The Pandorica Opens was the best cyberman featuring episode since... whenever the last good cyberman ep was)

oh i love doctor who sooooo much <3 <3 <3

Just watched it after spending the day at a wedding in the most Leadworth-y village I have ever seen in real life. (I made a point of checking the duckpond. Ducks present.) I thought it was bloody marvellous. Loved the shifts in tone, loved the stone dalek (and the whole vanishing monster armies thing), loved the shrinking universe feel (very Final Crisis #7, for comics ppl), thought the Doctor's speech to sleeping Li'l Amy was perfect, AUGUSTUS POND!!!, loved what they seem to be setting up for River, loved the lack of a big bad, and a married couple aboard the TARDIS too!

Honeymoon night on the tardis even

It was amazing. Fucking amazing, and I wasn't even particularly convinced by The Panorica Opens. It would take a hell of a lot of unpicking for me to determine if it all made any kind of sense, but the fact that a hyper-popular family show is willing to try something this mind-bending and ambitious is making me very happy. And the Doctor's line about the daft old man who stole a magic box made me a little bit sad.

This was the best episode with a dalek in since Dalek btw

Yeah, loved that Moffat had the obligatory Dalek appearance in the finale as an incidental threat rather than the main villain.

Also I would like it if both Amy and Rory were official companions next series. Rory has a gun for a hand so would come in useful.

Not sure about that: wouldn't he have been rebooted like the rest of them? And if not, there must be a second Rory there too, because the post-reboot Rory won't have left with the doctor and so won't be dead.

Yeah, I'm confused but think you're right. The idea of an Auton Companion has a certain appeal though.

All the solutions and resolutions were a bit peremptory, I thought -- everything works out if you want/remember it hard enough!! -- which is the risk you run when doing a quasi-fatalistic involuted timey wimey story, but those last ~15 minutes were splendid as I grow into my sentimental dotage.

very Final Crisis #7, for comics ppl

This is a Bad Thing, though?

Boo on River + Pond blowing up the fez.

He can always buy a fez.

Fantastic! Now that's how you do a season finale!

How come the Tardis exploding happened to do so in exact synchronisation with what would have been the times for daylight on earth? Had the earth started orbiting round the Tardis?

Wasn't the TARDIS orbiting the Earth?

And the Doctor's line about the daft old man who stole a magic box made me a little bit sad.

Me too--the whole something old/new/borrowed/blue thing was ace!

i like the Earth orbiting the TARDIS idea better. why didn't things just vanish instantly from existence rather than decay like the Daleks did? also seems odd to re-design the Daleks all shiny and colourful but for this not to matter at all in the finale, just from an aesthetic pov.

hopefully we'll get to see River's first encounter with the Doctor (as opposed to his first encounter with her) next series.

that was great undermining of the marketing-led iDalek design

Loved the HOLY SHIT moment when I realized the Earth was being kept in the game by 'sunlight' from 'sploded Tardis. Well played, Moffat.

I would like to speculate that River is a con artist and she's actually married to the Doctor's biggest enemy, who we haven't met yet. Wondering how many MacGuffins - proto-TARDIS at the top of the stairs, certain aspects of Chez Pond being bigger on the inside, gooey sonic screwdriver - will follow through to the next series.

Post-finale interview with Moffat, by Moffat's kid:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zs1mIAMTE0c

There was lots I enjoyed about this, but I dunno, I think it ultimately felt a bit flat just because there was a lack of any real peril. Oh, the universe is collapsing...but mostly that's happened already before the start of the episode. Earth is the last bit hanging on...but then it hangs on for another 2000 years while Rory sits outside a box. There just didn't seem to be any real sense of urgency about anything.

That time vortex manipulator was far too convenient as a problem solving tool too.

I LOVED this episode and this season. Way to make all the past series look like complete garbage, Moffatt! Loved all the crazy vortex traveling, the carefully laid "off" moments from various episodes during the the Doctor's trip backwards, Rory being totally redeemed as a character, Amy's great performance throughout, the fez gag, everything.

It doesn't hang on for another 2000 years exactly because the rate of collapse isn't happening in linear time, it seems to be more folding inwards on the exploding-TARDIS event, so instead of a universe we get an Earth where there never was a universe, with a near-complete history the Doctor could hop around in. And then that history gets bits eaten out of it, until we're left with four time travellers, a museum, a Pandorica and an exploding TARDIS as all that's left of time and space: mix well and reboot. I agree there wasn't urgency though, it was going for a slightly different feel I think - kind of more elegiac and entropic - even the dalek was a decayed, half-dead thing.

Though maybe next series will explain more why she is, as the Doctor keeps saying, "special" and we might get to the bottom of it.

Wee red-haired nerdy girl who spends a lot of time talking to herself and inventing friends. Seems pretty special to me, thanks.

it was going for a slightly different feel I think - kind of more elegiac and entropic - even the dalek was a decayed, half-dead thing.

You are right about this. It did give the whole thing a lovely melancholy and made the wedding seem that much more fun.

Still don't get why the Doctor came back to life just because Amy wanted him to.

her parents had existed but disappeared into the crack in time: she focused on remembering them, and they came back (and indeed had always been there)
the doctor had existed but went by choice/duty into the crack in time: she suddenly remembered him, and he came back (and indeed had always been there)

i guess?

I think it's possible that everyone who was there at the Big Bang 2 had to remember him. River obviously did, which is why she walked past the window and jogged Amy's memory. Then Amy remembered, then Rory remembered, then the Doctor appeared. I think.

Honestly, I struggled to understand the timey-wimey goings-on in this ep...i couldnt tell you what happened if you asked me...but for some reason I loved it. That never happens, so hats off to Moff.

Especially the Doctor's heartfelt monologue to sleeping little Pond. Beautiful, heartbreaking...bawled like a babby.

I've been reading a lot of comments at the Guardian etc where people complain that Amy's too stroppy/not a positive role model/sullen/whatever - and I do not get it. Also, the relationship dynamic of Amy's parents (mum especially) makes the way she treats Rory make a bit of sense, suddenly.

i enjoyed it, but i didn't like that it made zero sense (TO ME). it felt like moffat thinking 'i can play RTD's game and be better with it', but for all the moffat tm tricksiness there was too much that seemed nebulous hand-wavy for the more solid tricksiness to have full impact. expectations subconsciously set too high perhaps

i dunno, i kept falling asleep as I was home late from a wedding - but i've felt unengaged by many eps in this series. very empty feeling when i'd got to the end, but i know i enjoyed the spectacle, the dialogue and so on. i esp liked the no stars, VG's starry night tie-in.

yeah, old man, stolen tardis, etc. definitely hit the sweet spot

maybe my ears deceived me, but when Amy jumped over the table at the Tardis reappearing in the banquet hall right before the Doctor opens the door, I could've sworn someone muttered something...

Also what's with Amy getting all "I want a snog in the bushes" with the doctor again at the end? Thought that was wonky idea first time round, but it was understandable as a bit of pre-wedding twitchiness. Post-wedding though? With Rory in the same room? Just awkward, and if they carry it into the next series it could get pretty awful.

for all the moffat tm tricksiness there was too much that seemed nebulous hand-wavy for the more solid tricksiness to have full impact.

Yeah, when they started talking about the Tardis exploding at all points of the universe forever and crashing the Pandorica into it, I did think "right, bollox bollox, whatever" and just stopped caring about how the plot was being moved along.

i esp liked the no stars, VG's starry night tie-in.

Good spot.

Nhex, the muttering was something along the lines of 'he was the stripper at Rory's stag night'.

I think I'm finally ok with this show being the softest of soft sci-fi and, from a suspension of disbelief pov, a whole load of bobbins. Cause that was fantastically entertaining bobbins. The something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue bit... no no i'm fine, just something in my eye :)

xp ahh! thanks

I am getting old and cranky. I thought the something old something new bit sounded clunky. Moff set this up mins earlier with dr musing on the tardis's blueness. And even that felt off

Feels odd to be the -ve voice I have to say

I think the sense-making elements didn't always come over on screen but it did seem to me there was a consistency about the way "erasing from time" worked: rather than rewriting history it was a very crude erasure of cause but not effect: Amy's parents are erased but Amy still exists; the ducks are erased but it's still called a duckpond; Rory is erased but the Silurians were still beaten; finally the Doctor is erased but Earth is still around (in contrast to Turn Left, where history DOES change very quickly for the worse once the Doc is removed from the timeline).

So this seems to suggest erasure works like a cosmic perception filter - the erased stuff is removed from time as long as nobody remembers it, and you need to be special (a time traveller, say) to remember it: the Doctor remembers erased stuff easily enough, River also seems to remember it (the Blue Book, and her remembering the Pandorica adventure at all), Amy obviously is very good at it as she's not only a time-traveller, she absorbed crack information in her sleep.

On an emotional and symbolic level it's all about imaginary friends, fairytales, etc. but I think the reason I found this much more emotionally satisfying than some previous finales is that there DID seem to be a set of rules around the cracks and their effects.

The restoration field/every atom was much more RTD-ish and seemed a little OTT, since it had already been established back in the angels story that the Doctor would need to sacrifice himself to a crack to close it. I thought for a moment the restoration field was going to work on the chunk of shrapnel TARDIS the Doctor had acquired earlier, but no!

It was superb, and I was v suspicious of the previous ep. Such good fun! The pandorica was only supposed to be difficult to get into, to attract the doctor. The whole story was made up to appeal to his sense of adventure via the unknown (that wonderful smile he does whenever he realises something is dangerous or impossible).

Thought the series was uneven but that last ep simply sped along, wasn't afraid of being complicated and zapping in and out of time and was far more enjoyable than any rtd finale. Wasn't afraid of sentiment but dealt with it in a delightfully un-mawkish way. Wonderful.

a massive rewrite and reset switch by any other name smells even worse when written by someone who has a reputation for tight plotting.

i'm def to blame a bit here tho -for just giving up trying to work out if there's any sense here. i may watch again - i have no idea why amy's parents were erased for eg.

The crack swallowed them up!

plz also explain the coalition of baddies pandorica trap plan again. it starts with getting VG to paint space-time coordinates on a pic of the tardis exploding...

Haha I am trying to work that out myself, in a big geeky post in a more specialist forum...

I think it's quite a bad plan tho.

In preparation for my project management course I'm going to write a project proposal, which starts with getting some user acceptance criteria together - getting those sontarans and daleks to agree on any quality assurance criteria is BEYOND crazy i tells ya.