OH MY GOD HE'S OOGLY: nu-Who season 8

When Clara and the Doctor start to leave after getting out of the first group dream, they both have vampire-style puncture wounds in their temples often obscured by hair. I assumed they were also there in subsequent dreams.

The tangerine at the end made me think they were still dreaming and they're going to retcon next season. Except they probably won't, but I want them to.

how awesome if whole of next season is dreamcrab

"Also, if the crabs didn't want people to realize they were dreaming, why did they include themselves in the dream?"

Yeah, but then you wouldn't have an episode... Also, it does fit the internal logic - by putting themselves in there, the crabs make people think they can defeat them. Also the crabs are cool.

also rewatching random matt smith eps mixed in with capaldi eps it is starkly apparent that the whole smith vibe was WEVE ALL EATEN BAGS OF SUGAR WEE WIBBLY WOBBLY TIMEY WIMEY ZINGFEST

i still find all the pond timeline stuff v exhausting, it's just so hard to give a crap when none of it is apparently real

and that girl who waited episode still annoys me

i like smith still, but everyone is just so tiring

I iked the 'dreamy weamy' joke in this

I thought the writing was vasty improved this season although I know people who disagree with that (they are wrong)

They are super wrong

mega wrong

I keep reading ppl talking about the never ending misogyny of Steven Moffatt and I'm just like "... are you even aware of old-Who and do you really think turning Rose into a quip-driven cypher who is endlessly panting after The Doctor is a feminist statement"

i still find all the pond timeline stuff v exhausting, it's just so hard to give a crap when none of it is apparently real

ssh nobody tell her

"Also, if the crabs didn't want people to realize they were dreaming, why did they include themselves in the dream?"

Yeah, but then you wouldn't have an episode... Also, it does fit the internal logic - by putting themselves in there, the crabs make people think they can defeat them.

But wouldn't it be much better if people wouldn't even realize there was any threat, so the crabs could consume their brains in peace? And you could still have had an episode, the Doctor could've realized the threat by some other means, and the actual crabs could've been spared for the episode finale.

That was fun! Nice and throwaway, in a good way.

Now the writing seems to have definitively improved, it would be nice to see Moff stop using his favourite story tropes (being trapped in a dream reality, fake out endings, "Don't! Do! X!")

Enough monsters who either will or won't attack depending on whether or not you sense them.

Possibly my favorite part of the episode was the bit with the station manuals

Enough monsters who either will or won't attack depending on whether or not you sense them.

Yeah, it seems that ever since Moffat came up with a genuinely cool and scary new monster in the Crying Angels, he's been trying to pull off the same feat again, with diminishing returns. I guess he realized the Angels themselves became less effective the more he used them, so this season we've had monsters who don't attack you if you don't breath (Deep Breath), or don't look at them (Listen), or don't have any guilty thoughts (Time Heist), or don't think of them (Last Christmas), i.e. variations of the original Angel concept, all based on childhood fears and superstitions ("if I just don't think about the monsters under my bed, maybe they won't be there at all..."). It's a neat concept but it's overdone by now, nothing they've tried has surpassed the original Angel episode.

Liked the shop assistant companion-proxy. And her list ("Thrones marathon").

They should adapt Mark Gatiss's novel Nightshade into a two-parter, that's a great monster

Blink is, like, the best episode ever. I don't think it's a problem Moffat hasn't liven up to that standard again. No other Who-writer ever has.

"Shakespeare Code" comes close though.

Time Heist was by Thompson.

The opening credits said it was written by Thompson and Moffat.

oh yeah, forgot they added those for the broadcast version

(I watched the workprints first for everything but Robot Of Sherwood, ironically - does anyone know if they reinstated the cybersheriff and beheading scenes for the DVD?)

All the writers I've seen interviewed about the co-crediting have said that Moffatt's contributions were more writing Danny material and working on the tone of the Twelfth's character and punching up jokes and the usual uncredited rewriting than plotting. He did give Thompson the brief for a heist story, but in the same way as he asked him to write a deep-in-the-TARDIS story, or Chinballs to write a dinosaurs-on-a-spaceship story, etc.

Even though Moffat has annoying tendencies, I'm still genuinely excited to watch one of his episodes, whether it's for this or Sherlock, just like when I was a kid rushing home to watch Press Gang. His lamest scripts (maybe the Wardrobe xmas episode, or Let's Kill Hitler) still have great things in them.

lolllllll "Chinballs"

Possibly my favorite part of the episode was the bit with the station manuals

Yeah! Almost surprised "The Thing" wasn't on Faye Marsay's list of DVDs

it was

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_oxFspZ7EpWU/TTJ7jRV3UHI/AAAAAAAAAR8/oz-gxJv9p0o/s1600/thethingposter.jpg

Ha was it?? Oh dear.

Some pretty high qual jokes in this one. I liked the one about the second sleigh. Also a nice nod to Gift of the Magi.

I'd be up for another (unexpected, midyear) dreamcrab invasion if it got us more Santa/Starkey zings

Can we all agree to never speak of the scene where the Doctor pilots Santa's sleigh past Big Ben, like ever?

As much as I liked the rest of the episode, I agree that this is the wisest course going forward

Tried to find a gif of the moment the Doctor says "yipee" or whatever through clearly gritted teeth but came up empty

I just backed away from a Facebook argument where someone asked me if I'd ever seen old-Who because I enjoyed Last Christmas. Her excuse for asking was her husband is British, for some reason. The same person said that the episode was a ripoff of Alien and The Thing, apparently completely oblivious to the overt references to both in the episode, and called the dream crabs "The Silence crossed with The Weeping Angels" which makes me think she doesn't fully understand how either works.

go in son

^^^

release the whosplain

post a photo of a bookshelf full of NAs

If I hadn't been traveling, I might have!

I thought it might be the silence when they were all pods together on the ceiling.

This EP was ok but I prefer more whimsy and less space marines in my Who.

I watched about 5 minutes of Fear Her today and am amazed I didn't leap into the television and strangle everyone involved.

i watched 'lets kill hitler' the other day and i just

also the second weeping angels in new york is so u_u

am amazed I didn't leap into the television and strangle everyone involved.

Rewatch the idiot's lantern and the TV will strangle you.

Ha

so what's worse, now that it's fresh in your mind: Capaldi driving Santa's sleigh or Tennant running with the Olympic torch?

Tennant/torch, every time.

This EP was ok but I prefer more whimsy and less space marines in my Who.

you wanted more whimsy than this episode where the Doctor teams up with Santa, who makes reindeers fly by feeding them magic carrots? and fewer space marines than this ep with zero space marines? or have you just reached Into The Dalek?

also Capaldi flying the sleigh was delightful

otm

I thought we agreed not to discuss it

Tennant's torch run is one of the most embarrassing things the show has ever done.