As we approach with baited breath the dawn of the Moffat era of new Who, I would like to canvas for submissions for the new cliche to replace "Deus ex machina" on these hallow'd threads.

Please try and be inventive: leave monosyllables such as "crap" to the BSG and Primeval fans...

What we probably need is a handy phrase to sum up "if the tape has stopped, who's still saying 'Are you my mummy?'"/"If he's not typing then what's that typing noise?"/"If the clock is broken then what's that ticking?"/"If there are only five of us, why are there six of us?"

EDIT: straw man assumption, maybe?

Everybody bloody lives again!

I vote for Corwin's phrase (rather Moffat's phrase) to replace Deux Ex Machina in the future series.

"It's SO much darker"

That's the thing...Moffat only used the "everybody lives" thing once, explicitly - at the end of 'The Doctor Dances'.

In 'The Girl in the Fireplace', Reinette died, as she was supposed to.

In 'Blink', Sally's friend and Billy died in an era they weren't suppose to.

In 'Forest of the Dead', CAL saved the thousands in her hard drive and restored them, but River and all her friends (bar Lux) died. They were restored as 1s and 0s.

The Great Prophet Zarquon turns up fresh from The Restaurant At The End Of The Universe...

Or The Doctor looks beyond his cowering companion and says "so that's where it is".

The "Geronimo" Effect.

Ugh, I hate that word already, and i've only head it the 17 times I've watched the trailer.

This isn't an ENTIRELY serious thread Eagle...this is why I fear for any who may criticise the new era...we're DOOM(sdayed), DOOM(sdayed) I tell you

BTW, remember, this has to be something the RTD lovers and SM detractors can reel out week in week out without any real thought...

falling through a crack in time/hole in time/crease in time/more emergency temporal wotsits..

I fear perhaps you misread the OP BG but nice to see you're still haunting the hallow'd halls

For like when your entire attacking force is about to be wiped out, and you fancy some crisps?

What about about 'damn moffat and his straight agenda?'

If I were a parent I'd possibly be livid with SM for his obsession with turning ordinary everyday things into objects of terror: statues, shadows, specks of dust etc. What next? Fruit? Oxygen?

Maybe you could just talk him into having killer bottles of fizzy pop, a monster that eats children who fight during car journeys, etc. For fag-end-of-living-at-home progeny, maybe make the cast of Skins terrifying?

Russell's the one with the straight agenda, according to Moffat:

"You come across the occasional nutter who will talk about Russell's gay agenda — I imagine he keeps it in a pink folder in a special leopardskin safe — but this is possibly the most heterosexual Doctor we've ever had. Clearly, Russell's gay agenda is to turn everyone straight."

"Wibbly wobbly timey wimey" is already a much misused cliche on the boards here.

For Gay agenda we can have "Rubbish Beards"

For "Deux Ex Machina" we can have "Cliffhanger resolution avoidance"

(I STILL don't know how he got away with the resolution of Forest of the Dead without some angry posting. If that had been RTD "Girl watching on TV gets bored, changes the channel", he'd have been damned forever! )

For "Sonic Screwdriver overuse" we can have "Sonic Screwdriver fireworks!"

For "Overuse of the Pepperpots" we can have "Overuse of the Teasmaids"