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

I liked the 'Brilliant!'

The longevity of the Doctors in the old series was motivated by the fact that they only got a few serials each. Doesn’t Tennant have more episodes under his belt than Baker?

yeah this is just crazy.

Hartnell's longevity was motivated by him being impossible to work with, and he did 29 serials (134 episodes, counting the ones he was on holiday or unwell) in three years.

Troughton's was motivated by him still having a viable career, and being desperately burnt out by the number of episodes they made (21 serials, 119 episodes, 3 years).

Pertwee's was motivated by general burnout, the desire to do other things now the show had made him a star, and the entire production team's disillusionment after Delgado's death and the additional strain of creating, developing and making the entire run of Moonbase 3 in between series of Dr Who - the Letts / Dicks / Pertwee &al squad made way fewer serials in an effort to amortise costs (and Letts still went over budget every year), taking five years to reach 128 episodes in 24 serials.

Baker, T.'s longevity was motivated by the new producer wanting to get rid of him, like he got rid of everything else, and calling Baker's bluff when he made his annual offer to quit / contract negotiating tactic. By the end of that seventh year, Baker had done 42 serials, and shot most of 178 episodes.

Davison also obviously had a thriving career to get back to - he was already known as the young romantic not-lead of a huge international hit, and his first season shut down production midway so that he could shoot that year's season of the sitcom he was now also the lead of - and had been advised by Troughton to only do three years; but specifically left because of the quality of the scripts in his second year. He's always said that he would have done another year if the scripts for his third had existed before he gave notice, especially Androzani. By the end he'd done 19 serials and a 90-minute special, totalling 68 episodes.

Baker, C.'s longevity was motivated by the head of the BBC and the head of drama first cancelling the entire series, then demanding he be sacked or the series be cancelled again. He managed eight serials and 31 episodes in the three calendar years his Doctor appeared onscreen, with gaps of six months between his 1st & 2nd, and 18 months between his 7th & 8th.

McCoy's longevity was motivated by the commissioners actively wanting to starve the show to death so that they wouldn't be forced by public outcry to uncancel it next time they cancelled it - the order was cut to three serials a year, and JNT did some creative accounting to deliver four for the price of three. McCoy intended to stay for at least five years (which would have been easier with the reduced production order), and Cartmel had plotted out a fourth year with Aaronovitch, plus Platt and Briggs.

(just cos I'm curious, and counting by "stories":)

Hartnell era: 29 (134)
Troughton: 21 (119)
Pertwee: 24 (128)
Tom: 43 (178)
Davison: 20 (69 [miscounted above])
Colin: 8 (31)
McCoy: 12 [plus the first 60 NAs, real heads kno the deal] (42)

Eccleston: 10 (13)
Tennant: 37 (47) plus one TV short
Smith: 39 (44) plus a dozen or more shorts, some on TV, including a five-parter and a two-parter
Capaldi: 34 (40) plus two or three shorts

brilliant summary sic

also i agree that the xmas regeneration thing is getting tired. tbh the doctor should be antsy about regenerating every time she turns up in december.

YouTube channel idea: I ask dumb American question and sic answers them

would watch

should be easter at least ffs

right?

this is what works about Time Of The Doctor imo (Smith's finale): he's a sun god, warming and protecting an entire world, but his power and influence and strength have receded, withered away, over the centuries. Just to take this role was a reduction of his universal influence! And like any sun god myth, death and renewal must be part of it; he can only regain power by sacrificing himself, dying, and being reborn. so with this happening over hundreds of years of winter, it's fitting for the Northern winter.

^^ nb that yet again this week's ep forgets that the southern hemisphere is even a thing: the scenes set at the South Pole in December are all shown as taking place at night.

it's fitting for the Northern winter. Christmas

I liked it for a while but by the end I felt like Moffatt thinks we are sadder to see him go than we really are

I am sad to see Capaldi go tho. Even after putting his stupid sunglasses on Hartbradleynell(sic TM)

and sic u are so otm about a) the constant regenerating and b) all the regeneratings being exactly the same. I want some longer runs and more creative ways to go out when they do!

You could've told me Gatiss had written this episode and I'd have thought...yep. Moffat really did leave after Heaven Sent.

I liked it for a while but by the end I felt like Moffatt thinks we are sadder to see him go than we really are

otm, i won’t miss his ego blasting through the fourth wall every 90 seconds

Various fanostications regarding future Doctors’ tenures and regenerations should go on the WHOCHURCH thread imo

I’ve enjoyed Capaldi, but when the closing monologue literally repeats itself is when I was finally past it and just wanted to shout OH COME ON ALREADY but our daughter was sleeping not ten feet away

Seriously though was there nobody in any position to mention that the script said “be kind” on consecutive pages? No thesauruses lying around?

serious lack of script editing all round in this episode. talking heads galore. it might as well have been a radio drama.

except for the two Tardises and the recreated Tenth Planet scenes and the Whithouse crater and the alien tower and the other alien tower and Kaled mutant facehuggers and another!!! new 60s control room and shimmery glass ladies and two trenches full of actors in period war uniforms etc etc

Yeah, I’m not sure how many inches that pendulum can swing before it’s in “that was ridiculous, two old men running and jumping all over the place” territory

I liked it for a while but by the end I felt like Moffatt thinks we are sadder to see him go than we really are

nah this isn't abt Moffat or his ego, it's the opposite: End Of Time was the most popular story in all of nu-Who, so despite it suuuuucking, Moffat follows what was RTD's crowd-pleasing set-up both times.

remember that Moffat was exhausted and wrote his intended final episodes almost three (3!!!) years ago: Heaven Sent / Hell Bent / Husbands were produced as his finale, down to the golden The End being written onscreen. then he got begged back for another year until Chinballs was ready, had to take a year to recover, but gave us the amazing Capaldi / Bill pairing... and then had to come back AGAIN to bump the regeneration and add on a Christmas special he hadn't planned on. The ending was nine damp squibs fizzling in a row, but it's not because he thought that either the audience or himself wanted more of him.

obv I've said that before, new script editor needed in my production office

did you have moff round for tea or something

hahahaha

opinions in the short para, public facts in the other

grand moff larkin’

Thanks for the behind-the-scenes sic, I feel a lot more forgiving to Moffat now. I found this whole episode really disjointed; the armistice moment wasn't earned at all, if Ypres was the main setting of the episode it could have been excellent. Capaldi's farewell rounds/farewell speech was agonizing

Back to Gold for a second, did anyone else notice the truly weird soundtrack change two-thirds of the way through when Bill asks 'why are you not regenerating' of Capaldi, the soundtrack builds with an 'action is happening' theme, then when Capaldi replies 'there has to be an end Bill', the soundtrack yanks the handbrake and begins a wistful, ain't-we-full-of-regret theme. It's really jarring and I think somebody in the editing suite was trying to make a deadline and spaced out

Glad to hear the rumours that Gold is sodding off

God I hope they aren’t just rumors

I don't think there's a been soundtrack so bad or intrusive in any recent TV show has there? I mean a lot of dull soundtracks sure but Gold is just obnoxious, always trying to make you have a rosy golden warm feeling

*there's been a

I think he brought some welcome cinematic drama to more than a few of my favorite 10th and 11th Dr stories but his style has calcified and started to really grate.

Not unlike Giacchino’s scores for Lost which were minimal, fresh and bravely weird at first but eventually turned into self-parody over time (along with the rest of that show) - talented composer, stuck in self-inflicted rut, doomed by excessively long run.

And sound editors who keep sticking him too high in the mix

Gatiss's departure at the end of this undercut by his resemblance to Tim McInnerny as Captain Darling.

saw an interview with Moffat where he bemoaned that having to come back again meant the regeneration happened at Christmas, when he was pleased at breaking the pattern previously

gold star for u tiger

for u!

I enjoyed this. I wasn’t expecting multiple callbacks to Into the Dales, though.

This was great but I'm not sure Bill being a duplicate was a very satisfying way to end her arc (though I guess that was the point). i enjoyed the big speech and even Gatiss was good, an achievement in itself.

Bingo on many Moff tropes:
Timey-wimey / location-hopping
"It's a big not a feature" / No villain
Screwball dialog - great, then overstaying its welcome
Everything gets summed up with a big meta speech
Being 20% terrible and 80% very, very good indeed
Making my partner cry more than once an episode

I think Capaldi would've got the best regeneration episode BY FAR if they'd just kept it to the end of last season as planned. But I still think Matt Smith's was the best (and underrated, except possibly by sic).

Overall I still get excited to see Moffat's name in the writing credits - he might not have bettered Blink but he definitely equalled his other RTD episodes. And he's forgiven for the last episode of Sherlock (one of the worst things I've ever seen).

All the nu-Who, available now:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/group/p06870tz

Awesome. Time to blub at Human Nature again I guess.

Brain Of Morbius is a story that showed onscreen faces of the Doctor pre-Hartnell, that have never been referred to before or since

Yeah, this is a pretty contentious claim. Also, some of them are probably Morbius's faces.

It's only contentious because nerds; it's plainly what the production team intended at the time. (As well as in-joking by including themselves.)

Turns out that it was only the production staff / freelancers (plus one guy who worked down the hall) because an open call for volunteers from BBC staff got zero responses

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D-UFtbiXkAAZbt3.jpg

Haha that’s some confusing self-and-others quoting, I thought you were disproving your own point for a minute.