Davies vs. Moffat Eras

[sttngfan1701d]

Moffat era for production values and tone, hands down. Not even close. The RTD era is cheesy and "Saturday morning" in comparison, and he had a penchant for silly monsters and fanwanky, over-the-top finales.

I had grown tired of the show by the end of RTD's run. I fell in love with it again once I watched series 5.

On the other hand, Moffat's stories are overwrought, and he's very bad at the story arcs he loves so much. Then there's River Song....who adds about 10% more "bad" to his era overall. And he's reached the end of his tether, I think. Time for a new set of eyes and fresh ideas.

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

Finally, who can forget Day of The Doctor? The 50th anniversary show is a freaking masterpiece by itself and something I don't think RTD could have produced.

While I agree that Grand Moff Steve is the better individual writer, I think Day of the Doctor was his most RTD-like script.

I think that "The Eleventh Hour" is Moffat's most Davies-ish episode.

I'm team Moffat all the way! And I realized the reason a while back. By trade, Davies is a soap opera writer and Moffat is a sitcom writer. So, when all else fails, Moffat is still funny but Davies has nothing left but angst.

I agree with most of what's been said here. Moffat is more inconsistent and mercurial. He's a better writer, even as a show runner, than Davies ever was (with the exception of "Midnight"). Moffat is more innovative and more prone to experimenting. Not all of his gambles pay off but I'll take a daring Moffat failure over a formulaic Davies success.

 

[Emperor-Tiberius]

A long life span isn't the problem. It's that 1100 years of his life span happen off screen, and 900 of those years happen in the same frickin town. Frankly, the Doctor we know is too impatient to let that happen. TARDIS or not, he would have figured out another plan. 900 years is just an absurd amount of time for he and the Silence and the Daleks and all those other aliens in orbit of Trenzalore to be doing the exact same thing.

I don't mind the earlier age jumps, like the 200 years series 6 spans, because the Doctor is traveling.

There also appears to be a century we don't see before "The Snowmen" as the Doctor says he's over 1,200 in the Clara era ("The Day of the Doctor"), but in "Impossible" he's only 1,100. I figure the Doctor spent some time (a few decades) avoiding the Ponds after "The Wedding of River Song," then spent a few more decades moping after "The Angels Take Manhattan."

But, yeah, the Trenzalore experience doesn't make any sense in-universe nor for any of the players involved.

I can think of all sorts of ways the Doctor's enemies could have broken the siege of Trenzalore that the Doctor, in his tower, could do nothing about.

1) Drop asteroids on the planet.
2) Detonate the star and induce a nova.
3) Contaminate the biosphere with Dalek nanites and turn the population into stealth Daleks.

It was a stupid set-up from the start.

And yet, Time of the Doctor is my second favorite X-Mas Special after A Christmas Carol.

 

[WillsBabe]

RTD for me. The RTD Who years were some of the happiest I spent in fandom (mainly chin-wagging on this board). I haven't cared for the Moffat era at all and checked out early on. I dunno what it is about the Moffat era, it just seems a jumbled, incomprehensible mess to me. I like Matt Smith's Doctor, but not Capaldi's much.

 

[Starkers]

Finally, who can forget Day of The Doctor? The 50th anniversary show is a freaking masterpiece by itself and something I don't think RTD could have produced.

While I agree that Grand Moff Steve is the better individual writer, I think Day of the Doctor was his most RTD-like script.

I think that "The Eleventh Hour" is Moffat's most Davies-ish episode.

I'm team Moffat all the way! And I realized the reason a while back. By trade, Davies is a soap opera writer and Moffat is a sitcom writer. So, when all else fails, Moffat is still funny but Davies has nothing left but angst.

I agree with most of what's been said here. Moffat is more inconsistent and mercurial. He's a better writer, even as a show runner, than Davies ever was (with the exception of "Midnight"). Moffat is more innovative and more prone to experimenting. Not all of his gambles pay off but I'll take a daring Moffat failure over a formulaic Davies success.

Just about sums my feelings up really, especially that last line.

 

[The Wormhole]

The RTD era is cheesy and "Saturday morning" in comparison, and he had a penchant for silly monsters and fanwanky, over-the-top finales.

Personally, I'll take RTD's "fanwanky over the top finales" over Moffat's finales which are essentially 75 minutes of characters delivering monologues at each other.

In fact, that's something else RTD's era had going for it shit actually happened without characters delivering monologues talking about what was about to happen before it did. If RTD had written Clara's death scene, the Raven would flown into her a hell of a lot sooner than it did. Meanwhile, can you imagine if Moffat wrote Journey's End? The Doctor and Donna would have spent twenty minutes talking about wiping Donna's memory to save her before it actually happened. Fuck, replace "Donna" with "Clara" and that's practically the plot synopsis of Hell Bent.

 

[Timby]

Meanwhile, can you imagine if Moffat wrote Journey's End? The Doctor and Donna would have spent twenty minutes talking about wiping Donna's memory to save her before it actually happened.

I would happily take that over Donna's Dance Party.

 

[sttngfan1701d]

I dunno. In 2013 I rewatched all of the new series with a friend who was just getting into it, leading up to the 50th anniversary. A lot of those episodes I hadn't seen since they originally aired. I remember thinking "How did I like this?" because it was so cheesy at times. I mean, I liked the Doctor of course...that never changed. But RTD's era didn't hold up in a rewatch for me, aside from a handful of episodes that are still favorites of mine and were back when I watched them first-run. My friend of course loved it. All except for Love & Monsters and Tennant's specials where "Timelord Victorious" came out.

I much prefer Moffat's style and Moffat's characterization, even if I find fault in his tropes and his style of monsters.

And the length of Clara's death scene is a tired criticism. It's just the way the scene was edited. And shouldn't a major character get a chance to say goodbye to the man who has meant the world to her?

The TARDIS travels in time fast or slow depending on what the scene requires, too. Sometimes it's a few seconds, sometimes it keeps going long enough for a conversation.

 

[The Wormhole]

And the length of Clara's death scene is a tired criticism. It's just the way the scene was edited. And shouldn't a major character get a chance to say goodbye to the man who has meant the world to her?

The problem isn't just limited to Clara's death scene, although that is by far the most ridiculous Moffat Monologue of them all.

Moffat Monologues have been an ongoing problem going as far back at least as Name of the Doctor where Clara actually spends two and a half minutes (literally, I actually timed it) delivering a monologue about going into the Doctor's timestream before she actually does it. To say nothing of Death in Heaven's climax basically being four characters delivering monologues at each other.

Television is a visual medium. That means we should be seeing characters doing what needs to be done, not listening to them talk about doing it. Hell, even audio dramas aren't as talky as some Moffat scripts can be.

 

[DWF]

Personally I find it easier to rewatch the Tennant era than the Smtih era and I do think that Moffat's era generates far more ainst than RTD's ever did.

 

[sttngfan1701d]

And the length of Clara's death scene is a tired criticism. It's just the way the scene was edited. And shouldn't a major character get a chance to say goodbye to the man who has meant the world to her?

The problem isn't just limited to Clara's death scene, although that is by far the most ridiculous Moffat Monologue of them all.

Moffat Monologues have been an ongoing problem going as far back at least as Name of the Doctor where Clara actually spends two and a half minutes (literally, I actually timed it) delivering a monologue about going into the Doctor's timestream before she actually does it. To say nothing of Death in Heaven's climax basically being four characters delivering monologues at each other.

Television is a visual medium. That means we should be seeing characters doing what needs to be done, not listening to them talk about doing it. Hell, even audio dramas aren't as talky as some Moffat scripts can be.

I'm guessing you must hate Tarantino movies and Richard Linklater's "Before" trilogy, then.

 

[Timby]

Television is a visual medium. That means we should be seeing characters doing what needs to be done, not listening to them talk about doing it. Hell, even audio dramas aren't as talky as some Moffat scripts can be.

There's a difference between "talky" and, for lack of a better term, self-masturbatory. The End of Time, Part II, is a pretty great example of the latter.

 

[DWF]

Television is a visual medium. That means we should be seeing characters doing what needs to be done, not listening to them talk about doing it. Hell, even audio dramas aren't as talky as some Moffat scripts can be.

There's a difference between "talky" and, for lack of a better term, self-masturbatory. The End of Time, Part II, is a pretty great example of the latter.

David Tennant was IMO the only Doctor to get a proper send off, most of them have some pretty horrible final lines and last scenes. And it was RTD's goodbye to the show as well.

 

[RoJoHen]

And the length of Clara's death scene is a tired criticism. It's just the way the scene was edited. And shouldn't a major character get a chance to say goodbye to the man who has meant the world to her?

The problem isn't just limited to Clara's death scene, although that is by far the most ridiculous Moffat Monologue of them all.

Moffat Monologues have been an ongoing problem going as far back at least as Name of the Doctor where Clara actually spends two and a half minutes (literally, I actually timed it) delivering a monologue about going into the Doctor's timestream before she actually does it. To say nothing of Death in Heaven's climax basically being four characters delivering monologues at each other.

Television is a visual medium. That means we should be seeing characters doing what needs to be done, not listening to them talk about doing it. Hell, even audio dramas aren't as talky as some Moffat scripts can be.

I have loved all of Clara's speeches. They're some of my favorite scenes of the entire show.

 

[Dick_Valentine]

Definitely rtd for me. An era where people and characters and their journeys took precedence instead of wacky scifi idea of the week.

I do think with capaldi Moffat has improved however and has finally found a doctor that suits his writing
11s wackyness got wearying after a while and he seemed obsessed with portraying the doctor as borderline autistic in that era.
Now things seems to have calmed down and the doctor seems more at peace, intellegent and prepared for anything that Matt ever was despite the other characters (especially river) telling us how amazing be was supposed to be in thar era.

Nothing will ever beat 10 though. I don't want to say to truly be a great doctor you have to be a fan of the show but 10 and 12 are streets ahead of matt "the day I was cast I said I'd never seen the show but as soon as the p.r. department got hold of me suddenly i was saying Troughton was my favourite doctor" smith!

The only bad thing about day of the doctor for me (apart from there being not enough time war and no proper rose) was how Moffat shows he sees a completely different 10 to the one rtd wrote. It was borderline out of character to have 10 the dopey romeo doctor and probably explained why Moffat tried to give 10 a different love interest in nearly all his rtd era Eps.

 

[Mr Light]

<<Nothing will ever beat 10 though. I don't want to say to truly be a great doctor you have to be a fan of the show but 10 and 12 are streets ahead of matt "the day I was cast I said I'd never seen the show but as soon as the p.r. department got hold of me suddenly i was saying Troughton was my favourite doctor" smith! >>

Was that a Community reference?

 

[The Wormhole]

Television is a visual medium. That means we should be seeing characters doing what needs to be done, not listening to them talk about doing it. Hell, even audio dramas aren't as talky as some Moffat scripts can be.

There's a difference between "talky" and, for lack of a better term, self-masturbatory. The End of Time, Part II, is a pretty great example of the latter.

As flawed as TEOT was, I'll still take "self-masturbatory" over Talky.

Also, "self-masturbator?" Isn't that a bit redundant? Masturbation is by definition, a self-committed act.

 

[Trekkin]

Not always.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_masturbation

 

[Mr Light]

Hmm, something tells me I shouldn't be clicking on that link at work...

 

[Trekkin]

I'll take it out if there's a problem, but it's biology textbook level stuff.

Now all my banner ads consist of skantily clad ladies asking 'Would you like to meet Asian women?' This is what I get for being a smart ass.