"You know my name."

[khaosworks]

I should really have liked this more than I did. It's not that it's not entertaining, mind, but the second part hasn't really changed my opinion about the first. It's Moffat by the numbers. Oh, there are clever touches, but it all seems a bit hollow compared to his earlier efforts.

Into The Forest of the Dead, then.

Predictability has been my main bugbear throughout this fourth series, and to be fair, part of the problem is that if you're familiar with the basic tropes of the series, you can pretty much tell what's coming. So, tick off the expected outcomes: Donna, and the other 4,022 survivors, have been literally "saved" into the computer system. River Song heroically sacrifices herself. Dr Moon and the Girl are the computer programs. The clever bits: saving River via the sonic screwdriver, Miss Evangelista becoming Miss Exposition, the "Doctor Moon" pun, the forests of the Vashta Narada being the books themselves and the general badassery of the Doctor making the Vashta Narada back down by telling them to look him up.

But the paint peels. After the adrenaline rushes of The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances and Blink, and the poignancy of The Girl in the Fireplace, Moffat tries to go for both and neither comes out quite right. Donna's story would have been stronger if she had come out of the dream on her own rather than being yanked out of it (compare to Superman's waking up from his own perfect world in both the comic book and animated series version of "For The Man Who Has Everything" — both heart wrenching and a show of strength) and stronger still if she had been the one who noticed the problems rather than being shown by a spirit guide in widow's weeds. Similarly, River Song's story might have been stronger if we could have spent a bit more time, and more moments with the Doctor that would have elicited more of the "Oh, I like you" lines. But having to do all that... the emotional content here that he was trying to drive at suffered, despite the best efforts of the cast. Say what you want, RTD is the king (or queen) of creating real, emotionally believable interactions between characters.

The problem at the heart of this two-parter isn't structure: Moffat is always strong on structure and plot, and it all tied in. The dead people's faces leading to, of course, a dead person at the heart of the planet. The data ghosts leading to the eventual solution to the mystery. The importance of family, of knowing (or not, as the case may be) the future, in all its forms, whether it's a future companion, wife or husband or just generally skipping to the end of the story. The problem was one of pacing. It stopped and started, stopped and started, and lost momentum quite a number of times. The more I look at it, the more I think that what Moffat should have written, given the new series format, was a 60-minute script — a Christmas Special — instead of a 90-minute two-parter.

That being said, it was still the best story of the season so far... which says a lot more about the rest of the season than it does about this story. But from the Moff... well, I expected a bit more.

Comments

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

So, among the clever bits: "Hmm, how would the Doctor defeat something like this? Oh dear, he can't. I know, I'll have him shout 'OI EM THAH DOCTAH!' at them and then they'll run away in terror because they suddenly (a) understand and (b) care about the noises their food is making. And everyone will accept it because the Doctor's such a badass."

Also, is imprisoning an intrepid explorer-for-the-love-of-it and her intrepid explorer team inside an artificial cyberspace chocolate-box world for ever quite the happy ending Moffat tries to make it sound like? I don't see it myself. I fear that that particular cake is gone, eaten, and cannot be had again.

And the series' efforts to do the Big Schmaltzy Character Death and then bring the character back afterwards every single time are simply stupid. Moronic. Imbecilic. Almost like a programme that was trying to alienate the more perceptive members of its audience so that no-one would complain when it was quietly cancelled.

I'm still boggling at the fact that when I switched it on, halfway through the episode, our soi-disant Time Lord was only just realising what a computer means when it says "saved."

The fact that this can be seen as the best story of the season says just about everything about nuWho that needs to be said.

[khaosworks.livejournal.com]

But Zander, you keep saying it. There's really no such animal as "classic Who", or "new Who" (I refuse to use that ugly neologism you use) despite people using that label: the show practically reinvented itself with every new Doctor and every new producer or story editor. For example, are those who adore Colin Baker and those who still detest him, those who completely discard the Graham Williams years and those who grew up on that era, and all other shades in between.

Not that you're not entitled to your opinion, of course, but the RTD produced series is the most successful incarnation of the show ever, and it still manages to entertain classic continuity geeks like myself. It's just that, at this fourth series, it's flagging a bit... just a bit, mind you. So they must be doing something right. Just not for you, which is fair enough, but then you got to think that you're not the audience they're aiming for.

And I agree with Moffat on one point. As long as, the week after the episode has aired, there are arguments on the playground as to who gets to be the Doctor and who gets to be the monster du jour, that's mission accomplished on one very important level.

Out of curiosity, is there any episode of the new series which has satisfied you?

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

No.

I agree the neologism is ugly. That's why I use it. It smells of cheap plastic tat and skilfully-marketed dross replacing something hand-made whose flaws arose from people trying their best and almost making it, not from people shoving any old rubbish together in the knowledge that the effects and the PR would sell it. Which is, whether anyone else sees it or not, what has been happening since 2005.

But apart from the attitude of the producers, there is for me a clear divide between the two programmes, and it rests, in large part, on the character of the Doctor as Time Lord. The eight in the classic series, diverse as they were, were believable as incarnations of a member of an alien aristocracy, because that is how the character was conceived (broadly at first, with the details being filled in later). These two, Eccleston and Tennant, are not. They are working-class heroes, men of the people, blokes you could have a beer with, and this is quite deliberate on RTD's part, because when he was a kid he didn't like the fact that the Doctor talked posh. The result is like the Honourable Algernon Fortescue strolling into Lady Bracknell's drawing room and saying "Wotcher me old cock sparrer, how's your belly off for spots then?" It's...simply...wrong.

I am quite sure they are doing something right. I'm the last person to argue with success, and their accountants and marketing gurus are indeed top-notch. I just know that what they are doing is not Doctor Who, as I understood it and as I hoped to see it return. I'm sorry about that, but I can't change it.

[khaosworks.livejournal.com]

But expand on that: what do you object to? What is Doctor Who as you understand it and where does the current series come up short? It can't really be just that he doesn't talk or act posh anymore. That's more superficial than I usually give you credit for.

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

I've responded in mine. Call it superficial if you feel that's right.

[khaosworks.livejournal.com]

I'm not bored, but I am still a bit mystified. The thing is that what you seem to be talking about is something that pretty much accompanies any regeneration. The only way I can make sense of it is that you're talking about the general change of the show to be slicker, more modern, more than a shoestring budget. Or you're seeing a change in the fundamental character of the Doctor (which I'm not seeing, frankly). Which then starts to go a bit deeper.

Because otherwise, you're just reacting to the way a character walks and talks, and that's changed every three to five years on average with the Doctor. And that's really no different from that child that watched Hartnell change into Troughton in 1966 and then insist that, no, that's not his Doctor.

I've watched every piece of surviving footage from the old series. My favourite Doctor is Sylvester McCoy, my favourite era is UNIT, I still adore Genesis of the Daleks, and really, to say that just because I do like the new series is because I don't remember the old series or never really liked it or was ashamed of its rickety nature is more than a little patronizing and just as offensive as if I told you that you have no right to your opinion. Because you're ascribing motives to me that just aren't true.

But, for the moment taking what you're saying in your post at face value, I do think you're wrong. Not that you're not entitled to your point of view, but I think you're looking at it through a blinkered sort of lens. And especially so as the bitterness seems to extend to the very audience itself, which while I understand that to a degree, I think ascribing those motives that you do to it is unfair and also inaccurate.

And at the end of the day I am still none the wiser as to the characteristics of what kind of show would satisfy you.

ETA: I'm not calling it superficial, because you don't strike me as that kind of person. Which also explains some of the mystification because I'm thinking, no, that can't be just it.

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

Then I'm not sure anything else I can say is likely to enlighten you. Frankly, if the Algernon Fortescue example in my earlier comment didn't do it, I didn't think anything else would. It is, of course, a perfectly tenable viewpoint that you can play the Doctor any way you like as long as he's vaguely British. I just don't share it. The character had specific attributes that have not been carried over, the lack of which make him, to me, not the Doctor. As if Macbeth were to be played broad Devonshire, or Rooster Cogburn as a Welsh hairdresser, or Hercule Poirot as a Swedish stevedore. Just because the character was played by different actors, in different styles, does not mean he had no identity of his own. That identity was deliberately, and unnecessarily, thrown out. And I watched all eight original Doctors first time around, so I do think I know what constitutes a regeneration.

I apologise that you thought I was being patronising, offensive, unfair or inaccurate. I had, and have, no such intention. This thing is hurting me every week and I can't ignore it, and if that seems silly to you, I can't help that either. It's this or scream.

You want to know what would satisfy me? Doctor Who would satisfy me. A Time Lord played as a Time Lord, with a companion or two of varying ages, genders and origins, in a TARDIS that looked like a time-space vessel in which people might live and not a grotty garage, in stories that had been written by people who cared about what they were writing and didn't feel the need to shove in gratuitous emotional manipulation and unnecessary sexual tension every single episode just to paper over the cracks in their storytelling. And then say "oh but it's just for kids" when people complain about plot holes and inconsistencies and downright unfunny silliness.

That would be a start. Give me that, and you can keep the rest. I'd even do without the Daleks. But the more successful this formula is, the less likely it becomes that the Doctor Who I want will ever happen. Which may go some way to explaining why I am just a trifle bitter about this.

Or it may not, of course.

EDIT: and as for the superficiality of it, when it comes to judging a character in a television programme, what do we have to go on apart from the look and the sound?

[khaosworks.livejournal.com]

And again, there you go: you assume I find your objections silly when it's simply not true. I don't find it silly. I just find it hard to understand.

And the look and the sound isn't the only thing, as you well realize from your own remarks. You say: "The character had specific attributes that have not been carried over, the lack of which make him, to me, not the Doctor." But that just isn't the way he looks, or the TARDIS looks, which is interchangeable, and has always been. It's not about looks and sounds. It's about character.

I mean, if your objection is that he's not heroic, that's all right. If your objection is to the hanky panky in the TARDIS, that's all right, too. If it's about plot holes and inconsistencies, well, I'd just simply point out the gaping holes in lots of stories in the classic series, but that's also all right. We're just differing on the points of view, because to me he's still the essentially eccentric, heroic hero figure who rights wrongs and flies through time and space. But to keep on about posh accents, or how the TARDIS looks (which has also changed over the years) is to me missing the point.

And to say that these people don't care about the show or the series or its heritage is horribly unfair, because they do.

ETA: And another area that I probably look askance at is the idea that there is this huge divide between the classic and new series. Your charge of unfunny silliness was leveled at Graham Williams, for example. The unvarying ages and genders was a characteristic of the sole young, pretty companion since, oh, Jo Grant, really, all the way up to Adric. To me, it's just another producer's tenure on the exact same series.

[pbristow.livejournal.com]

"This thing is hurting me every week and I can't ignore it, "

...And that's what's been making me anxious for you. You aren't enjoying the show as it is, but you don't seem to be able to say "oh well, it's just not my show" and just flip to another show. You watch every episode, and then you comment on every episode to the effect of "I watched NuWho this week. I didn't like it, because it was an episode of NuWho."

And think, "well, why did you watch it them? Or why, having watched it, do you feel compelled to state that the new show has, once again, stayed true to its creator's vision (which you don't like)?" This show, under the current production team, is *never* going to give you what you want except by some freakish accident, and even then it could only do it in part.

The behaviour you're exhibiting has all the hallmarks of an unhealthy compulsion. I've had a few of those in my time, and if that's what it is, then I think you need to recognise it and address it.

[BIG, ANXIOUS HUGS]

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

I may be wrong, but I seem to sense the phrase "it's just a TV show" lurking around the fringes of the conversation. :)

It exists. Current popular opinion says it isn't going away any time soon. (I don't necessarily agree, if only because I can all too well imagine some sharp-suited BBC exec standing up at the monthly meeting and saying "oh, by the way, I got rid of that irritating goose that was cluttering up that room downstairs with all the gold-coloured egg-shaped objects, aren't I great?"...and I still think, PR puffery to the contrary notwithstanding, RTD wants to be the one who kills it for the last time. But that's another issue.) Since it exists, my choices are (a) watch it, or (b) not watch it. Not watching it hasn't worked for me, for a number of reasons including but not limited to "oh gods, what have they done to it this week?", so I watch it. My choices then are (a) articulate my feelings or (b) keep them inside. I've been choosing what I thought was the healthier option, but if it's actually bothering someone then I should obviously try harder to keep my trap shut.

Unhealthy compulsion? Well. To push the Uncle Jim analogy from my post a little further: say I finally find Uncle Jim's actual grave, unmarked and unconsecrated of course. Say I go there every week to pay my respects, and every time I go there the impostor is there, dressed in Uncle Jim's clothes, dancing on the grave. I can't stop him, for whatever reason. Do I stop going to the grave, let him have that final victory? I don't think so.

Have I really only said "...because it was an episode of nuWho"? I thought I'd given specific and non-subjective reasons in at least some cases. I'll have to look back.

Although, to be honest, this problem I have with nuWho looks a lot more all-consuming than it actually is simply because I've had lots of comments to reply to. Apart from around episodes and LJ discussions, I hardly ever think about it at all. It hurts at the time, but once I've voided my spleen, I'm pretty much done. Unhealthy? Maybe.

[pbristow.livejournal.com]

Coming back, not to flog a dead horse but to tie up a few loose ends.

I think I get now, mainly from your exchange with Marion, how you see the new show: It's a different show, but masquerading as the original.

Me, I've always seen it as, "it's a new show, with some changes of the kind that tend to happen when you re-invent an old show, but lets play the game of assuming it really is the old show which has been continuing for a long time in other places/media/realms/forms, and see how well we can make that work?"

And yeah, they consciously re-invented the Doctor as a lot less "lordly" than he used to be. And I could just say "They've changed the character", or I can say "ah, now how shall we explain this in terms that allow the game to continue? Well, for a start, there's the Time War, explicitly stated as a reason for some character changes ... then there's the fact that an awful lot of time has gone by since what we saw in the TVM... " and so on.

Have I really only said "...because it was an episode of nuWho"?

Not directly, no, but that's what your stated objections seem to evaluate to. I've tried to fish a few times for "but were there any good bits?", or "given that NuWho is NuWho, what would have made it deserving of at least a smidgin of praise?", and got responses to the effect of "bring back everything they threw out about the Classic series" - which obviously isn't going to happen between one episode and the next of a season that was planned from beginning to end by RTD and co. to have RTD-style arcs, RTD-style glossy bits, and RTD-style everything else before the first shot was even filmed.

So it seems that the only way you're likely to actually enjoy any aspect of any ep of NuWho within the forseeable future is on the occasion when you subsequently get up, walk over to the telly and say to the Countess, "Oh! Apparently we've been just watching Channel 4". =:o}

[HAS A SUDDEN ALARMING THOUGHT] Umm... [SCROLLS BACK AND READ WHAT'S BEEN SAID] OK, who left this deceased equine here, and more importantly *who* planted this whip in my hand? =:o?

Dead horse! Getcha dead horse here! They're lovely!

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

Well, I've gone back over my nuWho-related posts, or such as I could find quickly, and summarised the reactions to the first three seasons, and I was pleasantly surprised by the initial open-mindedness of that earlier me.

And yes. It would please me if they brought back what they arbitrarily chose to throw out about realWho (as opposed to what they had to lose for technical/budget reasons, like the longer stories/seasons; I miss them too, but some things are unavoidable). I don't imagine they'll ever do it, but that is the only true answer to the question "what would have satisfied me?" Any other answer would be a lie.

And yes, that probably means I'll never be satisfied with nuWho. But the fact that it's the only Who there is on telly probably means I'll keep watching it, and it follows from that that I'll probably keep complaining, unless it is represented to me that my complaints are distressing other people. I'll try to remember to cut-tag. The rest is up to you.

[pbristow.livejournal.com]

IAWTC.

[eruvadhril.livejournal.com]

if she had been the one who noticed the problems rather than being shown by a spirit guide in widow's weeds.

She did notice, initially, but kept being dragged back under. Plus, we needed a Madame Exposition, otherwise it would've just been Donna talking to herself, and we'd have had people going "Oh, that's a bit unrealistic, she's the only one out of all these people to notice that the world is weird." And we wouldn't have had Miss Evangelista's WARPED FACE I DON'T LIKE WARPED FACES *hides*

[khaosworks.livejournal.com]

Oh, sure, but if you didn't get my Superman reference you really should watch this to see what I'm getting at. Quick recap up to that point: Superman is trapped in a fantasy of his perfect world (thanks to a villain who zaps him with an alien plant that does this), one where Krypton never exploded and he's happily married with a son. But he's starting to realize that things are not quite as they seem.

[eruvadhril.livejournal.com]

...Wow. That would have packed an emotional punch.