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

What's the odds of episode 13 having the Doctor pick her up straight after the regeneration and transport her as a toddler to 90's Leadworth? Kind of thing Moffat would do, really.

Except she says at one point that it took her ages to track Rory & Amy down.

that was so so so so so much better than any episode titled "Let's Kill Hitler" has any right to be

^^^^

see River on a rampage was so much FUN

also seeing them address the whole back-to-front River/Doctor existence thing we were talking about upthread was great

Fair enough Aldo, I missed that. Still the Doctor transporting young Mel to 90s Leadworth idea did cross my mind.

Well that sucked. (mostly)

I was thinking it was probably Gatiss' best episode to date. Felt like Sapphire & Steel to me rather than Doctor Who though.

Really, really good one. I was also feeling The Avengers. Spot on. Well done, that man etc.

A chunk of why I didn't like it was to do with how glaring the 'homagey' bits were

Thought that was very good, I thought. The quieter start did wonders for the atmosphere, also allows this Doctor to play to his strengths. More watchful, seeing the boy's face from the curtains. The bedroom/wardrobe stuff was unnerving. And I liked the juxtaposition between Georgian mansion and tower block. Felt a bit hoary, with the dolls (is it Chucky I was reminded of?). Plus the 'just needed to be cared for' resolution feels like it's a once-or-twice a series thing now in the Doctor Who episodes. This was reasonably touching though - perhaps because human parents taking care of alien was a decent version of it. Slightly reminded me in tone of that Sherlock Holmes story where some play is made about a mixed-race child iirc, playing straight into Victorian neuroses, but having a conclusion born of a compassion. (only mention that because it was written by Gatiss).

Two cupboards in the first two episodes.

I thought it was a bit hugging and learning, but I suppose the more you hammer home the message that giving birth to children isn't the be-all and end-all when it comes to loving them, the better things are, really.

PS I am a bit drunk.

Thought that was very good, I thought.

must be right because i thought so much about it.

wish I was a bit drunk.

matt was great and the dad was good; the kid was weak and the end was rushed: it was a "fear her" do-over, really

was there any set-up clue that they were in a doll's house? was the doll's house in the cupboard because george was scared of it (why?) or just anyway? it handwaved at details like that quite a lot: like the lights going on five times stuff -- connections sort of half-made without quite popping home -- and i think this was partly because it was muddling itself doing homage-y stuff at the same time: i missed sapphire and steel bcz s&s sucked but yes, avengers, poltergeist with the robots working themselves (which he wasn't scared of interestingly)*, paperhouse maybe (also the source of "fear me" of course)...

why did he want amy and rory to become dollies though? what WERE the dollies? manifestations of his will to control his life, or his uncontrollable will to fear?

i was a bit cross the old lady was left to clamber out of the bin bags without getting at least a cup of tea -- that would have been INCREDIBLY traumatic for an OAP! "was that my meds?" yikes...

*in fact all the silhouettes of monsters thrown by his torch were a red herring, i suppose -- hence his not being frightened of the little robots coming alive

the whole "ah but she is not pregnant in this photo!!!" business really annoyed me - ffs they could have just adopted, there are options other than magical cuckoo alien baby

isn't the point that george adopted them before they reached that decision? and DW realised this because george was also able to text the TARDIS?

but yes, that was a poorly handwaved clue and unravelling -- esp. as the kind of underlying "what this story is about" IS somewhat about adoption and fear of not being a rejected because not being "real family"

it didn't really explain why the fear started: obv it had got into a bad feedback loop bcz parents were worrying they couldn't cope and wondering aloud about sending him away, he heard that, but what kicked it off in the first place? you'd think that it was a problem that galactic darwinism would have tidied up for this kind of alien interloper -- how do all the other tenzers (or whatever) dodge this issue of "not feeling they belong"? or were these parents doing something particularly unusual/wrong?

That thing about the connections being half-made, without popping home is definitely a thing. It's a hard call for me, because I like stories with plenty of cryptic detail at the beginning, but the shorter episodes aren't long enough to accommodate the detail. The problem comes of course when the mysterious details aren't really dealt with, so the mystery feels like it was created entirely to be mysterious. That's the case of course, but you have to have a reason for it, otherwise you get exactly the thing that happened in this episode, where it all gets a bit handwavey, and you just have to rely on things being emotionally balanced (story about alienation and fear has all elements solved by solving the alienation and fear). That's not really enough for Dr Who, or a really good Doctor Who. But I think it's fair for a forty minute Saturday evening programme. I just make do with enjoying the unheimlich shit at the beginning and trying to satisfy myself with the just about satisfactory handwaving at the end.

Something like Blink of course did it all, but that's understandably rare.

Fucking stop saying of course and go to bed man. Christ.

This ep was ok. The doctor carried a lot of it and in the end, it was less about George than about the poor old dad. Also, whatever it was between the dad and the landlord was never quite resolved, was it?

lol'd at Rory's "Oh no. We're dead, aren't we? AGAIN." Somewhere between becoming a 2000-year-old plastic Centurion and punching out Hitler, he's basically turned from a character I rolled my eyes at every time he was on-screen into my favourite member of the team.

Two cupboards in the first two episodes.

Also two tiny-people adventures.

was there any set-up clue that they were in a doll's house?

Yeah, all the wooden appliances and the painted-on clock hands.

no i meant as set-up, i.e. before they got there: i guessed doll's house as soon as the frying pan was wooden, i guess from early exposure to two bad mice, but i think small people watching had a lot less to go on (basically george had no set-up relationship with the doll's house that i spotted, and tbh it is nearly as weird that the cupboard contained one as that it contained monsters; certainly it was never really explained

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/6f/Two_Bad_Mice_dollshouse.jpg

^^^my second favourite potter, after ginger and pickles

)

they put everything that scared him in the cupboard; the doll's house was a thing that scared him; so they had put it in the cupboard.

Ah sorry xxp

c#maj: yes i get that, but it's one of many things only explained (a) ex post facto and (b) explained via ref.to hommage -->

(b) hommage is obv entirely stuff small viewers can't access, though they are most at threat from actual night terrors from unassuming things
(a) the ex post facto is muddled by the fact that the world george created -- genuinely scary to adults trapped in, ftb fear of being turned into a doll -- is a consequence of the specific power of george-as-alien which has to do double duty as a standard issue feature of small human children... (ie there's an ordinary explanation to hand, but it's undermined by the extraordinary story being used to amplify the adoption-is-good-too moral)

small people watching would not have any reason to understand why george was initially scared of a doll's house (or possibly what it even is: the glimpses we get possibly only an adult can process) (this goes back to b)

fromb the glimpse we had it looked quite a fancy antique, like the cupboard: obv people in council flats can inherit nice old heirlooms and not want to part with them (i did at one point quite strongly think instead of getting rid of the kid, why not get rid of the many toys that scare him!)

anyway all this is really just yammering on that it was untidy and poorly realised at the level of detail: i actually enjoyed it quite a lot and was taken aback that alang did not

sorry the "fancy antique" paragraph is a half-completed thought at best: what i'm getting at is that cupboard and edwardian dollshouse access a general/cultural idea of "old and spooky" that depends for a lot of its heft either on living big old houses (which george presumably hasn't: the scariness of council flats is quite different) or on watching films and TV and such (which he may have but we don't see)

or he has a dollshousophobia which is quite specific to his alien self and the object (which we absolutely don't see): so it's kind of an unearned effect, which i think shortcuts the enjoyment/understanding of the audience this ep was primarily aimed at (it's def "one for the kids")

i wonder if this will convince a few kids with anxiety/OCD that they are in fact aliens

who just need more love and reassurance

i liked this, especially the falling elevator scene!

Yeah, I liked it. A nice diversion from all the time-rewriting River/Melody/impending Doctor-death stuff, just a kid-creeping-out spooky nightmare story.

Nice spooky episode. Resolution a bit too neat, but otherwise really atmospheric. Am I the only person who thought the night time shots of the block of flats had something of a Let The Right One In feel to them?

Two cupboards in the first two episodes.

Not just two cupboards, but -evil things- in cupboards.

not evil, just misunderstood

except Hitler

I'm sort of torn between thinking Amy/Rory ought to be rather more fucked up by having "lost" their baby, and yet not really wanting to see all that angst played out on screen

That's been bothering me too, especially right at the end when they're back in the tardis and Amy's all "where can we go next?" HELLO SPANNER, you just had a CHILD ffs

Also Rory seemed singularly undaunted by his wife turning into a freak-faced zombie doll.

this ep was shot before they lost their baby though, so you have to let it go in this instance

Rory knows that you can get better from being made into a life-sized doll so

yeh, but it's

a) maybe been a while between episodes? other adventures occurring & so forth

b) amy only just found out she was pregnant, then had a baby, then lost it then found it again and realized it was her best friend she grew up with to, ehh, not totally traumatic as much as headfuckery

this ep was shot before they lost their baby though

Wait, what? She knows she gave birth to River at this point, right?

this was originally ep 3, and swapped places with the pirate ship

Oh okay. But even a tiny bit of babby concern/remorse would have been enough.

but since the actors didn't know she was pregnant at the time, would have been a bit problematic to evince sorrow at loss of babby

Post? It went to air several months after time babby, it's not like they couldn't have added a sound bite or re-shot a part of a scene.

this was originally ep 3, and swapped places with the pirate ship

Nope. Pirates showed up in A GOOD MAN GOES TO WAR.

Good Man was made at the same time as pirate ep, hence cast available

reshooting on Night Terrors would have required rebuilding sets or restaging a location, pirate ep only needed to insert a snippet of Eyepatch Lady opening a hole in a wall.

this one was actually shot before the opening two-parter btw

eesh, tv and movie making is our earthly version of timey-whimey

I liked this ep well enough, but I got distracted by how much I *hated* the doll songs...ugh god so distractingly irritating...and by them making that poor little kid affect tics like blinking etc, because he really was a cute little fella and was so lovely towards the end of the episode I kind of wished they'd let him just act scared without all the guff. Also maybe it was just me but it felt like something extra should have been made of the doll's house, because even when the Doctor said 'oh we're inside the doll's house' I was like WTF doll's house...ohhhhh THAT dolls house that we saw for a nanosecond in the cupboard.

yes the dollsongs were the actual laziest bit of "inherited" spookiness: whose giggle was that meant to be? the idea comes from kipling's "they" (or maybe "lost hearts" or "the turn of the screw" or something) and makes no sense in this story

(and if george's parents are letting him read or watch "lost hearts" then NO WONDER he's frightened!)

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y197/se7en45/james_lost_hearts1_lead.jpg

oh yeah the giggling was way OTT.