"You know my name."
Jun. 8th, 2008 01:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
khaosworksI 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.
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.
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no subject
Date: 2008-06-10 10:04 pm (UTC)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.
no subject
Date: 2008-06-11 01:44 pm (UTC)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!
Date: 2008-06-12 01:01 pm (UTC)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.