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

loved the first half but think it kinda lost it a bit after that as it became clear they weren't really going to reveal anything much of note :/

i mean explain not reveal ;)

Reminded me of Ghost Light (this isn't a good thing).

(oh and jesus, that pre-credits sequence! Moffat just seems to be addicted to killing main characters then having them turn out fine, and the more he does it the more he destroys any sense of actual danger).

But he does it so well!

So, are we automatically meant to think small child = daughter of amy and the doctor?

why not daughter of amy + rory?

Because it had timelord power?

that shit made no sense at all. great stuff, though.

though we've just been given amy's worry that her and rory's baby might end up having 'a time head' because of her tardisposure?

OK so there must be weird shit ahoy if babby is conceived in the Tardis, but the pregnancy itself appears to be in a state of flux.

Maybe she gave him some time head.

she's schrodinger's baby

LOVED this

amy's child has a time head, obv....

damn i should try reading the thread first...

^ at last [xpost]

so the reason that ship in The Lodger was abandoned was because the humans rose up and killed The Silence, right?

I still think the proto-tardis in the lodger was something else, related tech but reconstructed by something other than The Silence. Honestly, I think Omega might be behind it but that's just a pet theory.

so the reason that ship in The Lodger was abandoned was because the humans rose up and killed The Silence, right?

no, the Silence are still around, as per last episode at the lake

presumably their numbers have been thinned though

has this been posted? someone going through moments in the last season that the silence might be responsible for: http://westofserenity.tumblr.com/post/4444644536

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6wczbYfip4

okay I have no idea wtf happened but that was pretty exciting/scary/cool

still floating the idea that River is somehow Amys daughter. no idea how the fuck to even make it hold water, but it *sounds* cool, lol

although: I have to give a cockpunch to Moff for that sideways Tardis swimming pool bullshit.

so sad when River realized this was the last kiss she would ever share with the doctor b/c it was the first he had with her

Alex Kingston is HOT btw

oh yes, Dr. Elizabeth Corday

although: I have to give a cockpunch to Moff for that sideways Tardis swimming pool bullshit.

TARDIS being reconfigurable has been a thing since at least 1980 and shown multiple times in the current series

Dont care, that one was DUMB

it was FUN

the one thing that really annoyed me about this on first watch [ :D ɐɥ ɐɥ obɐ sʎɐp ɹnoɟ] was that at the end of ep 1, the space suit was clearly one kid on another kid's shoulders, trying to look too grown up and tough to mess with - the clunky walk, the hands not being able to move - and this careful reading was proven INCORRECT

The whole thing seemed kind of like a big improv game, like someone else had made the trailer we saw last week with all the cool things in it--Doctor in a straitjacket with a beard (looking very like Jeremy Davies)! Walls with GET OUT written on them! Amy and Rory and River with writing all over them! River diving off a building!--and handed it to the people who make the actual programme and said "now get out of this in 45 minutes". So it was all a bit too frantic. Any one of those things on its own could have been the cool centrepiece image of a whole episode.

That said, I thought that Team Tardis gelled really well this episode. I'm not really looking forward to piratey hijinks next week, except that I always look forward to Hugh Bonneville.

The writing-on-face device is exceptionally effective in cranking up the suspense. Amy would be mark-free, then she'd turn her head and turn back and her face would suddenly be covered in marks and you'd be OHHHH SHIIIIT

^ that actually threw the sequence off a bit for me, it must have taken her hours in that room seeing the aliens, finding a pen, finding the current set of marks on her arm or hand, adding a line to it, putting the pen away, getting distracted and looking, continuing to look around the room... spotting an alien, finding her pen... and meanwhile Canton is still just making small talk with the doctor/manager/caretaker/whatever?

at the start, Rory and Amy have been wearing the exact same clothes for three months straight, without changing. With genital hygiene like that, it's no wonder her baby is some freakish Schrodingerian flux event.

Do Englishers salute with the palm forward, and USAmericans with the blade fwd?

tally marks on face irritated me bcz how was she supposed to make tally marks on her face without breaking eye contact in order to look into a mirror?

(it also annoyed me that a hologram of a silent based on a photo should have the same hypnotic-suggestion effect as an irl silent - which moff did before with the angels, this idea that the image of the thing is the same as the thing itself - but i recognise that it was necessary for the denouement to actually work. nevertheless it would be nice not to see this again for a little while.)

also i rly thought that they were going to go somewhere with "rome fell" and "silence will fall" but... apparently not.

agree strongly with those those niggles - the face ones work for River bcz she's had months to collect them and probably saw Silents coming up to scare her while she was doing her lipstick dozens of times

I think the "Rome fell" is very definitely there to let some viewers connect it to the empire (as it is called in the episode) of the Silence collapsing, without doing a big giant "SILENCE WILL FALL, DO YOU SEE?" to underline it - especially as we don't actually know the sinister meaning of "SSILENCCE WILLL FALL" yet

i think the daftest thing was recorded documentation of Silence eroding itself over time. presumably the worldwide purge of the Silence was heavily documented by humans after 1969 whether on paper of computers but somehow this all just ceased to exist leaving no memory of them by 2011? gaaah. maybe the crack in time from last year helped...

but it was quite neat (initially confusing) of Moffat to start having the audience 'forget' Silent sightings with the character (Canton in the TARDIS, Amy in the home).

in the little flashback at the start a Silent calls Canton by name so was wondering why and if it had a specific message for him

the bit where Amy sees cyborgy Frances Barber thru the door was a total wtf - premonition or future echo i guess but v cool

the spacesuit's ability to operate without someone inside suggests there may have been no-one in there when it killed the doctor

after all this, the actual silence at the end of vampires in venice seems to be a clunky red herring

the spacesuit's ability to operate without someone inside suggests there may have been no-one in there when it killed the doctor

You do see a bit of chin, though, as it opens the sun visor

Really dug this again. And I liked the explanation for the static that Neil Armstrong always maintains muffed his 'giant leap for A man' line, but that nobody else can ever hear

so theoretically a child can regenerate into someone who looks much older/adult (but surely not River)

theoretically a Time Lord can regenerate into any age/appearance

i think the daftest thing was recorded documentation of Silence eroding itself over time. presumably the worldwide purge of the Silence was heavily documented by humans after 1969 whether on paper of computers but somehow this all just ceased to exist leaving no memory of them by 2011?

no bcz a) people forget about them by the time they would go to write something down* and b) the purge is ongoing, the Silence are still around in present-day Who Earth

* let's say the bodies wipe themselves out like Joy's, or something

the spacesuit's ability to operate without someone inside suggests there may have been no-one in there when it killed the doctor

do we see the spacesuit operating by itself?

i think a purge on that scale would lead to so much documentation tho (esp. filmed), enough for people to be reminded often enough. ah well.

you see the spacesuit hand move while river is examining it (and doing rather a lot of exposition by suggesting the Silence allowed the girl to escape the suit, "giving her independence"), repairing itself.

no, she said they gave her independence by letting her walk around the warehouse in the suit and phone the president - her exposition talks about how the girl must be incredibly strong because she tore herself out of the suit, past all the various bits of alien tech

I thought the hand moving was bcz River tweaked a bit of wiring - the girl's arms are not long enough to reach the gloves so mechanical means would be necessary to make the hands move anyway

nah remember, at the same time River's asking the Doctor whether he thinks the suit could move by itself, and saying 'maybe when the little girl said the spaceman was coming after her to eat her, it really was' or something like that (not that i recall the little girl saying the spaceman was coming to 'eat' her but w/e)

i think a purge on that scale would lead to so much documentation tho (esp. filmed), enough for people to be reminded often enough. ah well.

surely if you're reminded often enough that means your brain is wiped often enough and you end up like the old man in the orphanage!

except now with the new 'kill on sight' order presumably you also keep having bouts of inexplicable homicidal rage

surely if you're reminded often enough that means your brain is wiped often enough

this'll do nicely, thx :)

I'd forgotten about the Frances Barber in the door bit. They're setting up something interesting there. What did she say to Amy again?

Re: Timehead. I recall a comment from the Moff about how there had never been a married couple in the Tardis before. At the time this just seemed like a reference to the relationship dynamic, but now I can't help but read it as an early hint of the timey-wimey conception that's being set up. The Tardis's power makes Timelord babies. And who does little girl regenerate into? Frances Barber?
I think the notion that she's River Song is a red herring. She'd be crossing her own timeline, and although she's obviously holding things back from the Doctor, she surely wouldn't hold THAT back. Or maybe she doesn't know. And I'm not sure the 'killing the best man in the universe' thing refers to the Doctor. It's just a bit too obvious.

The thot plickens...

Here's a ridiculous notion: the little girl regenerates into... The Doctor! So the Doctor has to engineer the death of one of his paradoxical iterations...

Another great ep. I love the kid-friendly way Moffatt deals with dangling plot threads at the end (as in yesterday's ep and "The Big Bang") -- with Matt Smith basically saying, "Er, I guess we still haven't find out about the Silents/the kid in the astronaut suit/etc, but I'll guess we'll find out in an upcoming episode..."

nah remember, at the same time River's asking the Doctor whether he thinks the suit could move by itself, and saying 'maybe when the little girl said the spaceman was coming after her to eat her, it really was'

I figured this could be that the Silents were trying to get her into the suit, but she couldn't remember them, just the suit...

also confusing: is she not meant to be IN the suit when she makes all of the phone calls? does she remember that she's in it, then, or...?

Here's a ridiculous notion: the little girl regenerates into... The Doctor! So the Doctor has to engineer the death of one of his paradoxical iterations...

this was my first thought! but no point in speculating any more about this as it will presumably develop every week...

so sad when River realized this was the last kiss she would ever share with the doctor b/c it was the first he had with her

― Mordy, Sunday, May 1, 2011 7:25 AM (6 hours ago)

I hated this because I was hoping that all the romantic stuff between River and the Doctor was an elaborate con on her part. We don't need any more sexy doctor shit, thanks.

is the idea that river and the doctor's sexy adventures may now have been unwritten?

mmm Time Lord coprophilia