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

damn...

http://www.toplessrobot.com/farewell_hug.jpg

http://dorktower.com/images/comics/DorkTower942.gif

aw jeez, that's too sad....poor k-9

I know--it almost makes me cry

Aw fuck. Missed the news yesterday. This is unbelievably sad.

I'm selling a bunch of the mid-90s Virgin "New Adventures" paperbacks.

First Frontier,
Warlock,
Conundrum,
Warchild,
Head Games,
The Dimension Riders,
Cat's Cradle: Witch Mark
Parasite
and Oh No It Isn't.

Anybody interested? Email me for details.

It's looking like it'll be a four-person TARDIS entourage this time, which'll be fun and will allow for lots of potential for secrets and shifting allegiances.

And lezzing up.

Nice preview at The Quietus. Might be a bit spoilery for some though, so don't shoot the messenger!

http://thequietus.com/articles/06141-doctor-who-new-series-preview

I saw the first picture about a month ago and it's definitely too spoilery for here.

This story is a pile of wtf though.

http://www.upi.com/Entertainment_News/TV/2011/04/21/Vieira-to-appear-on-Doctor-Who/UPI-24691303434075/

Obviously, I thought it was going to be Patrick.

yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay

Kind of annoyed that BBCAmerica is waiting til MIDNIGHT to show this but...WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

I enjoyed that, except that I have become obsessed with how badly Murray Gold wants to bury the proper theme tune under sound effects and noises of his own devising so he can push his GOLD AGENDAR and bring in his own theme tune.

I think this series may be where "timey-wimey" takes over to the point where people who aren't me start wishing teh Moff was as clever as he thinks he is.

I went to Thornbury this afternoon in a Lis tribute. I did not take a stuffed owl.

Oh, I had scooted off to CBBC for the Lis thing and didn't see it, apparently Next Time was dead, dead spoilery?

did you take a tennis racket?

Yes, and a yellow raincoat.

;_;

I think this series may be where "timey-wimey" takes over to the point where people who aren't me start wishing teh Moff was as clever as he thinks he is.

God I wish you're right.

Apropos of fuck-all we watch the xmas special on Friday. Awful, but then this whole thread seems to agree so that's all right. Thinking about watching at least the first one this weekend (open-minded of course) just to see where it's going.

i'm going to need a pot of coffee, twelve Jammie Dodgers and a fez

Wow, the tone of it is totally different to, say, the first episode last year. Got completely lost in it from beginning to end, aside from a little yawn during River's speech to Rory.

The 'spoilers' thing that River says is a bit tired getting.

there's no way they can fit all that in the next episode.

I felt like that during her first appearance. I feel like I might have mentioned it.

yay turns out my tivo is a moron, Who showing at 6pm, not midnight as first thought! again I say Woooooooooooooooo!!!'

i have a real chip on my shoulder about moffat's timey-wimey business, i was v. upset at the shenanigans w/old and young versions coexisting in the christmas special. my sister watched this episode without me and came back and said "so yeah you're not going to like this."

I don't remember anything egregiously paradoxical or handwavy in the xmas special. Not that that means anything, with my memory. But River going on about how they're moving in different directions - I just can't be fucked to expend the intellectual effort to figure out if that makes conceptual sense or not.

Aliens in this ep though: scariest looking Greys ever. That bathroom scene, Jeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesus they didn't really hold back on the fear factor there.

otm that was probably the creepiest thing i've ever seen in DW. why have the Silent actually be able to speak tho? seems to devalue their concept...

appreciated that moffat had river explain about paradox problems to amy and rory as a way of re-assurance that he was still respecting that kind of thing to some extent, re-establishing the rules (only the doctor can fuck around with spacetime, save himself etc.).

liked the easter island reference (re smith's head shape).

it was probably the most gorgeous episode they've ever done esp. the (groom?) lake scenes, astronaut in the water etc. amazing lighting.

hoping more battlestar galactica bit players show up (romo lampkin!).

but didn't get amy's 'btw i'm preganant' bit at all tho, and the cliffhanger was shit (as they usually are).

Moffatt's one of the few Who writers to actually use time travel and its implications for the plot. (Blink is incredible for me due to the pretzel of the story, not so much the Angels, which are also great.) Most Who stuff is very linear and just uses time travel to appear in an exotic location inevitably featuring an incongruous monster. So for me all this meeting-before-we-met stuff is a gas.

Was thinking for a minute that Amy's pregnant with River who's the Doctor's daughter and also his assassin, but then I remembered the constant flirting (handcuffs conversation with Tennant/'I'm a screamer' etc). Didn't Amy and the Dr make out at some point though? Could have sworn that happened last season but I can't remember when. The nausea came up after she'd first seen the greys though, so the pregnancy may be Amy's subconscious trying to rationalize her experience.

Ahh hah hah I totally missed the Easter Island bit, that's awesome

btw the Laurel and Hardy is Flying Deuces

the (groom?) lake scenes

Oh that would've been utterly brilliant! Unfortunately Groom Lake is actually a salt flat and not a real lake... it just looks like one from above.

Yeah I'm sort of thinking along the same lines as Brakhage but can't get out of it...what if Amy AND River are pregnant. And somehow they're...the same? Daughter/mother? Idk, just making stuff up. But great first part, always love Romo Lampkin showing up in my favorite shows. Those Greys are aaaaaggh under the bedcovers scary as all get out.

They had beefy phallic aye-aye type middle fingers. Yucko!

And the little eyes set waaaay back... ew *shudder*

Didn't Amy and the Dr make out at some point though? Could have sworn that happened last season but I can't remember when.

Amy tried to bone him, he got flustered, retrieved Rory

I thought it was fantastic. Bring on the timey-wimey stuff I say - it's a show about a time traveller after all. Of course there's always the danger that the Moff is writing himself into a timey-wimey corner, but the first episode is supposed to be confounding, throwing all these major plot points at us and having us scratching our heads and gasping for more. Seriously creepy too. The Silence are horribly scary. Their pallid, moist flesh. The hands! Argh! The way they cross their hands over their chest while resting! Yikes! When they killed the woman in the bathroom I was genuinely shocked. Really nasty stuff. I don't think the Silence is a ref to their speech - after all, we've been hearing 'silence will fall' since the last season. I guess 'the silence' is their evil plan for domination. So now we know who was trying to make a Tardis in the Lodger. Now they're back in 1969, with a very old Tardis console underground, so there must be some timey-wimey shenanigans going on from The Silence too. They're messing with the rules too. And who is the astronaut? What's her connection to the Silence? Is she a good guy perhaps? Maybe she killed future-Doctor because of what Amy has done? And how will they get out of the Doctor's death? Brilliant opener - thrills, chills and so many questions.

I really liked this. Damn.

i fucking love the timey-wimey bullshit tbh.

also the sauciness.

also when the doctor's all like 'no i'm not going why would i go to 1969 on the mysterious word of someone you won't tell me about' and this little smile breaks through because obviously he's totally excited by the idea, oh his ridiculous face

(ps i totally assumed that when the kid was saying 'spaceman' she meant 'alien' bcz in 1969 the word 'spaceman' maybe didn't have a fixed meaning yet?)

I like River when she's being all Carry On Up The Tardis but the "spoilers" thing is kind of annoying.

Really enjoyed that, feels like Moffat correctly identified that the first episode of a series is usually kind of weak and just decided to go all out from the start. Also those aliens are very very creepy indeed, excellent work there. Felt like a bit of an amalgam of Moffat-bits (timey wimey, scary spacesuit, disembodied child voice, aliens you can't turn your back on) but I love all those elements so who cares.

Also I like the entourage feel now, there's just more possibility with four main characters rather than two. Hope they stick with it for the course of the season.

Doctor-death is so obviously Moff appearing to paint himself into a corner that it can't actually be that, although I suspect we won't know the conclusion to this story until right at the end of the series.

Also one of the many reasons I prefer Moff to Rusty is that he understands the value of an overarching mystery running through the series, which Rusty was never very good at and just ended up building anticipation by ramping up the blockbuster value instead.

I seems to me that The Doctor has engineered his own death so as to resolve some kind of timey-wimey paradox that will be revealed later. He seemed to know he was going to die. He needs his companions and past-self to save the day.
There's also the notion that River Song is the astronaut, which is intriguing but maybe a bit obvious. If she is, then she'd be crossing her own timeline surely? But then it is an 'impossible' astronaut...
As Matt DC says, the mystery is part of the fun.

Fucking loved this but then I really do love the timey-wimey shenanigans.

I like how the show has really come into its own under Moff - it feels different somehow from the Rusty era. Like I just can't imagine Rose or Martha or Captain Jack falling in with this lot, though I can't say why exactly.

Someone elsewhere has said Rusty makes Michael Bay films whereas The Moff makes Inception. Hard to disagree.

The 'spoilers' thing that River says is a bit tired getting.

I thought this until this episode, because this was the first time we've been in on the secret she's keeping by saying it, and the magnitude of some of the things she must be hiding behind the cutesy "spoilers" tag became apparent.

Loved the memory-wiping alien guys.

This was the first Who I've actually ever watched, so I can't really judge how good an episode it was, but it kind of had everything to entice a newbie.

it feels different somehow from the Rusty era. Like I just can't imagine Rose or Martha or Captain Jack falling in with this lot, though I can't say why exactly.

yeah i couldn't help but think back to 'New Earth' (ergh) and how this is just several levels up in every way but it's not a fair comparison really.

slight fear that things could end up a bit too 'the astronaut comes out of the lake because i saw it come out of the lake' re explanations if you know what i mean. doesn't seem like it can just be someone the Doctor knows (inc. himself) in any meaningful sense (nor actually a child in a suit obv).

they're not going to explain why the silence wear suits (or how they get them on) are they? good cos that's not necessary really. definitely not...

most interesting thing about 'next week': markings on faces...curious because 'the impossible astronaut' already a play/ref on 'the impossible planet' but doubt there's any connection really.

Got setup I thought - everyone's got secrets from one another, except Rory who's kind of bottom of the food chain.

I wonder if the Silences are actually mutated FBI agents? I like the idea of there being a Nixon alien conspiracy, even if the Americans were all a bit rubbish.

Good work of Matt Smith's Doctor to make it through 200 years without regenerating though.

The end reminds me of the story my friend's dad would tell us over and over, about when he shot a child in Vietnam who had jumped up & surprised him.