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

Ok I see, we're just moving around the not-to-distant future then. Amy's "it's been 10 years" comment through me but then I realized she meant time on earth plus adventure time, which could easily be 10 years. No wonder the Doctor has no idea how old he really is.

*threw me

love the hell out of that episode. I spotted a load of annoyances and loose ends too, but who cares, it was a pond episode, it was about the ponds, and it was heaps of fun

I like to imagine that once in a while they can have some fun and everyone stops panicking about timey-wimey and just enjoys it

Also, Brian Cox and The Apprentice in 2020? Really?

I liked this... didn't make much sense time-wise though. Even better would be a Dragon's Den segment where some guy is trying to sell them something stupid like cube-cozies, with Duncan Bannatyne saying something like, "We all have thees cubes, and we all know they don't do anything. This is an absolutely idiotic product, it won't sell and I'm stupider for seeing it. I'm out!"

I bet cube-cozy patterns/completed units are already up on ravelry and etsy, though. :(

I liked that a lot, even if the end was a bit quickly set up. I don't know what they've been feeding Chibnall this year, but it's working.

I would guess having been a world famous model

To be fair, all we know is she's a model who was used in an ad for a perfume. There's no reason to think she's famous. The girl who asked for her autograph last series did it when there was a big poster of her face nearby.

that was fun and silly

wondering what the deal with the ppl who blew up on the ship was

Amy & Rory supposedly got them all off the ship

Also Amy says she is working as a travel writer - what happened to modelling? Did she just suddenly give it up when they decided to stay together after AotD?

In the other Chibbers ep they discuss how she's dropped several jobs

This was totally a Rusty tribute ep - giant run-around with lots of bits that frustratingly don't make any sense along the way, an ending that contradicts the rest of the episode's set-up, the entire world being menaced as explained through news TV, celeb TV cameos, knife-turns into ~touching~ emotional moments in the middle of the world-threatening action, etc.

Except that Murray Gold was turned down lower than in any episode this year! And wasn't flogging the same three themes over and over that I noticed.

they could easily have thrown in a hand-wave about extended exposure to TARDIS energy making people appear to age slower. it would also cover how amazing Sarah Jane looked in School Reunion! :D

the brig tribute was lovely

surprised Kate was made canon

oh yeah, that was another Rusty-esque thing (though tbf prob just inherently Chibnall to fanwank furiously)

on the timeframe: it seemed REALLY dumb to very specifically name Dragon's Den and Wii (not even Wii U!) and Youtube and Flickr for something set in the future.

2015 definitely seems too soon btw - S5 is set (for Amy and Rory's "home" time) in early 2010.

The beginning of S6 is in early 2011 (with Amy having been abducted by the Silence by September 2010, before she would have HAD to have realised she was pregnant - their "honeymoon" has to have taken many months of home time but fewer of their own experience, as she was knocked up on 26/6/10 but was still a long way off giving birth by 22/4/11).

They have months of adventures and months of being left at home AFTER April during S6, but even if we allow that they got dropped off in The God Complex during 2011, and that Wedding Of River Song took place SHORTLY afterwards, then December 2013 is the EARLIEST that Doctor/Widow/Wardrobe takes place: it's been two years since Wedding, and they have to have had at least two Christmasses in that time, for setting a place to have become a tradition.

Pond Life then presumably takes place during several months of 2014 - I'd rather give a whole extra year to allow the marriage to break down by Asylum Of The Daleks, but it doesn't look like Chibnall and Moffatt have. Anyway, assuming Asylum is 2014, we've then had another two years AT LEAST of off-screen adventures, to allow for verbal references and Amy to go through a few jobs and then settle into travel writing, and then another year just in this episode.

So I reckon we're up to 2017 by the end of Power Of Three, if not 2018.

This is all top-of-the-head though, can someone fact-check me?

no, I cannot

I'm waiting for the updated Time Almanac to make sense of the Pond's timeline... lol.

I honestly can't keep the timeline straight at all so I'm just not going to reckon with it til I have to, plotwise

it's dead easy to ignore (I didn't even consider it until I hit the nerdweb)

This was totally a Rusty tribute ep

Yes! I even wondered part way through whether he'd come back as a guest writer.

You know I'm sure people who own a wii U in a few years time will still refer to it as a wii, much the same way 360 owners still call it "the xbox" now. And I doubt youtube and flickr are going anywhere soon.

I don't think I disagree with yr timings sic, I just pulled 2016 out of my arse because if you were only 18 months dislocated from reality I can't see why you'd whine about it in 40% of the serials unless you were a vain, self-obsessed, oh wait.

I've spent a lot of time living in different towns or even countries from my main groups of friends and don't get to see them all that often and when we see each other that fact constantly bobs up in conversation, unintentionally: the realisation that I haven't been there for something, or that I need to be updated about something, or just the way I see someone again and we have to "catch up" before we can have a normal conversation. And it is fucking wearying. It's the result of choices I've made and I'm okay with that, but the fact that I miss stuff still matters to me and can make me sad, and i am going to mention it, because i'm a human being who has conversations with other human beings about what is going on in my life.

Also, given that this is a television series, the characters Amy and Rory are mentioning this a lot because it is a narrative setup for the bit of the plot in which - SPOILERS - they stop travelling with the doctor.

I would agree if stopping travelling with the Doctor is their choice but Moffatt has described it as "heartbreaking" which doesn't imply it's just a "we decided to stop" conclusion to their story - I mean Rory died multiple times and it still wasn't enough to put Amy off - plus also Brian's "what happens to the people that travel with you Doctor, are they always all right?" "No, Adric died but we all cheered" came from the CLANG school of foreshadowing.

Ok yeah, on that basis my prediction for next week is amy dies rory lives doctor dies too and regenerates into jenna louise coleman.

I would agree if stopping travelling with the Doctor is their choice but Moffatt has described it as "heartbreaking" which doesn't imply it's just a "we decided to stop" conclusion to their story

it's almost as if they're allowed to use several methods of foreshadowing/reminding us that everyone knows they're going to stop travelling with the doctor because of press releases etc.

OR

it's almost as if: they and the doctor decide to stop after thinking about it for a while, rory's dad convinces them to continue, and then something ~heartbreaking~ happens and if they'd just stopped when they decided to they would be ok right now.

I think you're crediting the writing too much, but I can see where you're going.

(apologies if this has been posted numerous times)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sK8GdRSzQJ0

Maybe the Weeping Angels do something to Amy and Rory where they swap faces

Is Adric the only one that's died, or have there been others? I can't think of any, but it's not like I've watched every episode.

Katerina. Sara Kingdom (OOOH CONTROVERSY).

Also you're actively supposed to believe Peri is dead for 6 weeks (some suggest that's better than her actual fate).

Of the TV companions, two 1st Doctor companions died (Sara Kingdom and Katarina), 1 5th Doctor companion (Adric YAY) and two 11th Doctor pseudo companions (Astrid and Adelaide)

In the books, Roz Forrester died and I think Chris Cwej was eventually killed off, plus they blew up Liz Shaw and gave Dodo Chaplet syphillis. I think they also killed Iris Wildmore and Grant Markham?

ISTR there was a time where doctor who (call him by his name) and various ASSISTANTS (call them by their name) were regularly led to believe the other was dead. I watched a bit of Planet of the Daleks today (spoilers, there are Daleks in it) and the silver fox thinks Jo is killed by the Daleks when they blow up a caravan covered in foil. He is hammily mortified for a good few seconds.

(another off-screen-mention point to team zygon)

or IS it off-screen? SUrely we can allow ourselves to assume the few staff we saw in that scene were shape-changed zygons.

haha good point

What's the line wrt pseudo companions? If it's just "does what the doctor says" surely that must've led a few more people to their deaths down the years?

Hence my controversy over Sara Kingdom. If it's 'travels with the Doctor in a single story', which is why she qualifies, then that opens a whole world of hurt like - let's say - Laurence Scarman.

well in fairness, "The Dalek Masteplan" was 12 episodes long

Which is why Sara Kindgdom is controversial. I think it's long enough but it is within a single story.

IMO a full companion must be involved in at least two full adventures. Someone who travels with him once and back isn't a companion, but if they continue on with him at least once more -- companion status is awarded. That's how my squirming, scheming mind works.

The Master might, just might, qualify as a companion... hah

I get that, but I think Sara K appeared in more episodes than Kamelion

Also thanks to the structure of 1st Doctor stories you could argue she appeared in a bunch of mini stories

these two don't though

and two 11th Doctor pseudo companions (Astrid and Adelaide)

Astrid spent, what, 90 minutes on the same ship as, and maybe 15 minutes in the Doctor's company? Forest girl from Good Man Goes To War is more of a companion. And Adelaide spent a couple of hours in a base under siege with the Doctor in it, then 30 seconds in the TARDIS [before killing herself]; this would make every surviving character from The Almost People a companion

did you miss the word "psuedo" in that phrase

so are we counting adam from 2005, given that he travelled more than once? or is he disqualified from companionship master-style because he was dickish?

I count Adam

I'm pfffting at the idea of pseudo-companions

Adam counts well enough

I place him above Rose in my list of Nu-Who companions.

Such a sentimental button-pusher, but I'm surprised I wasn't a sobbing mess by the end of the episode -- oh right, the resolution is nonsense, but when it became clear that it was, I managed to quarantine it from the rest of the stuff that was affecting.

One thing to add to the "What Time Is It" debate is possibly the Doctor's little quizzical hesitation/"Oh, that's INTERSTING because it's RONG" reaction to Amy saying she's doing travel writing -- like maybe he somehow ended up in a different timestream with a nu-Amy who was never a model.