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

I have recently started watching season 5 of nu-Who. It seems to have really leaped in quality since I gave up on it, with a new-found ability to adequately pace episodes marking an astonishing improvement on what had gone before. I also like the new Doctor and Amy's hair.

http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showthread.php?t=1375512

DV - there's a different lead writer now so the whole tone and feel of the series is completely different.

I don't know what DV's Mieville post means but if I find that the Mieville book I am halfway through involves a space whale I will be displeased!

(PS don't read this if you hate space whales: http://www.fictiondb.com/coversth/th_0451451309.jpg)

xpost to Matt DC: Yes, I had heard that... but I'm surprised at how different it is.

Russ, there is a China Mieville book in which people attach a floating city to a gigantic sea creature and get it to pull them around; both Mrs The New Dirty Vicar and I were reminded of it in the nu-Who story about the flying UK spaceship city thing.

There's a Mieville with a city on the back of a giant land tortoise as well.

Make up artists outdoing themselves this series; both The Silence and the Gangers have top notch scary faces. The cliffhanger was predictable but really well done. Would've freaked the fuck out of kids I reckon, at least.

!

Hmm.

By the way, spoilerphobes shouldn't look at the official site since it spoils next week and has done since the middle of the afternoon. Moffatt says it isn't a spoiler btw because it's been very strongly hinted in DWM and the Radio Times.

I WANT TO WATCH THE NEXT EPISODE NOW

plz to see the Doctor Whos now

Liked all the two Docs business, and the monster at the end was suitably nightmarish, and the cliffhanger was also great. Wasn't exactly gripped otherwise.

The monster Jen-ganger at the end strongly reminded me of a painting, but I couldn't quite bring the specific one to mind.

Something Dali?

Yeah, I think so. Most likely candidate, anyway.

Hieronymus Bosch?

http://data.whicdn.com/images/8857224/hieronymus_bosch2_thumb.jpg?1302942303

Eyes in the wall also a Dali-esque touch, yeah the monster was like those stilt-legged elephants from

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-PcBsNSmA4-0/Tcq0DHe2BLI/AAAAAAAAAg4/-uEogAdoRkE/s1600/salvador_dali_elephants_postcard_1.jpg

mongst other things

Or Goya

http://www.michaelarnoldart.com/Goya%20painting.gif

tbh The Thing was the most obvious ref i think but yeah i love that there is a lot of surrealist shenanigans and running riffs on authenticity and voyeurism thru out this series

Oh lawks, yes, definitely The Thing! Didn't even think of it when watching, but it's so obvious when you point it out. D'oh.

All the painting suggestions are good and in the right area, but I was so sure I'd seen something almost exactly the same in a painting somewhere. Perhaps not, though.

i'm not very sure on the hyper spoilaz etiquette thing here. can we ask about things that were just shown?

I think this thread would be pretty pointless if we couldn't talk about stuff already broadcast. I know there are people from countries that don't get the episodes at the same time, but it's a bit of an ask to require us to check worldwide TV schedules... and you know, they can always torrent it or something.

The USA doesn't get this episode for another week because of Memorial Day.

wait what now?

http://www.newsarama.com/tv/Doctor-Who-Delayed-America-110520.html

Really liked it. There is a slight sense that Moffat is driving the series into the sun by exploring all potential concepts. Any future writer will have to deal with something initially much more simplistic, a single-narrative solitary adventurer, more conceptually ascetic. But who gives a shit, it's a great ride. I liked the hints that the Doctor was... well, you know, all that 'shenanigans' stuff.

Yeah, the thing at the end reminded me of the Goya as well.

Fucked up ending after all the "They are people now! You can't kill them! They are you! Your memories, your feelings, everything! Eyeballs in judgement! WHY! WHY! WHY!" to go straight to "Bye then FleshPond!" ZAP!

Shitty writing when they can't keep the Doctor true to his own principles for 5 minutes.

My kids thought I was cheating because I called the shoe swap early on. Ganger making a Ganger to fool Rory was kind of obvious as well.

Good monster and some good ideas but it didn't hang together well enough for me.

The Cushing and McGann movies were all on cable today (Watch channel I think) but I forgot to set my recorder.

<3 McGann <3

It did seem harsh, but the Ganger Amy wasn't sentient, unlike the other Gangers. He didn't kill her, he just broke the psychic link. I'm sure it'll be properly explained next week, but there were plenty of hints. So it seems that Amy has been whisked off at some point between the first and second episode of this season. First time she saw the Frances Barber eyepatch lady was when she was in the spooky house with the Silence. She was on the run for 3 months before that.
Other hints I've read about but will need to watch again to fully pick up on - the jelly baby bit maybe wasn't just a reference to an earlier regeneration... More importantly, which Doctor did Amy tell about his death? The real Doctor I guess. And what did the Doctor say to Amy when leaving the ganger Doctor to his death? "This time we're not invited". So he knows...

Just to clarify, Ganger Amy wasn't the same kind of Ganger as those in the castle. She was some advanced alien tech - whoever has kidnapped Amy put the Ganger in her place. The Doctor finally twigs and breaks the psychic link.

All the other previous Doctor dialogue bits mean the jelly baby ref was.

No, Amy was pretty much exactly the same sort of Ganger. Maybe even a more human/Dickian one so more of a dichotomy that he killed her.

in light of Memorial Day non-airing, I turn to the magic of the interwebs to watch it anyway. :D

But was she more human? The real Amy is off being pregnant with Frances Barber looking over her. That real Amy has a psychic link to the ganger, so she's living out her life as Amy with the Doctor and Rory. The visions of FB are flashes back to her reality. But unlike the gangers who are separate, sentient beings, this Amy is just an avatar. Her kidnapping seems to be part of a big conspiracy. And remember, this kind of cloning tech is not unique to the castle. A certain alien race have been seen to use it in the RTD era after all. Perhaps they have something to do with this?
The Doctor's actions do seem harsh, but there's no point judging him outright before we know what's really going on. This season has brought back the notion of the Doctor as duplicitous and willing to make sacrifices, a bit more McCoy into Time War Doctor perhaps...

This was a pretty duff episode I think, despite the fun story arc ending. Pacing was lumpy, several bits just felt odd (how long was that little lad on hold waiting for his pretend dad to fail to save his real one? And why had the doctor pre-planned that call for that point in time anyway?).

There was some swapping round of the sonic screwdriver, the doctors passed it from one to the other at a couple of points...except there was then definitely at least one moment where the doctor that shouldn't have had it did. And by the end they both had one anyway (ganger doctor used his to pop himself, real doctor used his to pop Amy). So somehow this fake flesh also managed to turn itself into a fake sonic? Which worked? And if it did, why did they ever bother passing it back and forth? Just didn't make much sense.

And neither did the doctor's motivation for fooling amy about which doctor was real. What did he say, something like "we needed to see it through your eyes"? Felt pretty cheap and pointless really.

Surely he has some back up sonics in the Tardis?

the hologram kid was lousy, as was ganger-jennifer's cgi cartoon jaw drop - but both ganger women did some of the best acting in this (jennifer verging on gollum at times).

hi - new to doctor who (came on board w/ 11 last season), enjoying it thoroughly so far, two questions:

1) just watched the 'prequel' for the next ep - are those the justified ancients of mu mu? i know they have some history w/ the doctor
2) could someone recommend ~10 or so episodes that would give me a good overview of who up to now - entertainment being the key value but filling in history, canonical villains, key ep's of essential previous docs - thinking more than just the reboot though obv would like current run amply represented.

xposts to emil.y upthread: Jen-Ganger strongly reminded me of the Bacon triptych
http://i412.photobucket.com/albums/pp201/sharonjoy666/0c99c400.jpg

is that closer to what you were reminded of?

could someone recommend ~10 or so episodes that would give me a good overview of who up to now - entertainment being the key value but filling in history, canonical villains, key ep's of essential previous docs - thinking more than just the reboot though obv would like current run amply represented.

I second this request. Esp if they're entertaining.

~10:

S1: Rose, Dalek, Empty Child/Doctor Dances
xx: The Christmas Invasion
S2: School Reunion, Girl In The Fireplace
S3: Blink
S4: Silence In The Library/Forest Of The Dead

pre-reboot takes a lot more eps to get a grasp on a Doctor, as the stories are all multi-part.

anyone think Morpeth Jetsam is meant to trick nerds into looking for Master or Nestene anagrams?

I was trying to make sense of the name. Morpeth is a town in Northumberland, and Jetsam is stuff that sinks when you throw it overboard. To me, the name is either just a combination of neat sounding words or the company decided "Useless Northern Shit" wasn't catchy enough.

But obviously it means that at some point in the next few hundred years the Bainbridge department store in Newcastle becomes a galactic mining company.

Sic's list is pretty much spot-on. If you have the time, I'd also add:

S1: Father's Day (first new episode to muck about interestingly with time)
S2: Rise of the Cybermen/Age of Steel (reintroduces villains who seem especially relevant, given the Doctor muttered about them and their plans in the episode just on)

funny to not include series finales in the list, altho for them to make enough sense i guess you do have to watch several other eps in each series

also all RTD's were exactly the same, except stupider every year

Mess.

The big blue bloke hanging with the Justified Ancients of Mu Mu was in the opening of the last season's opener wasn't he? River Song tricked him into giving her the Time Agent's wristband? Some kind of Jabba the Hut style space/time gangster?

Another thought - Amy, ganger Doctor and Cleaves all melted with a click of the sonic. They didn't melt in the usual way, as the eyes went first. So perhaps we haven't seen the last of the Flesh Doctor after all?

It was Jetsan, not Jetsam, if that helps the anagrams? (I think)