RTD: I wanted to do a Star Trek crossover
- Thread starter Mordock
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Bidmead, whose entire TV career consists of some of the worst Doctor Who stories ever, is hardly in a position to criticise Chris Chibnal let alone RTD.
The man who had the Master address the entire Universe via a Walkman complains that the Doctor rejigs Rose's phone so she can call home on it. Hillarious!
Love or loathe RTD's stuff (and I do both), that's just not factually what happens. He does go through numerous drafts to cut and shape before he puts something in studio (which, when you think about it, makes his less-good episodes even worse as he repeatedly chose to take them in that direction!), as The Writer's Tale demonstrates.
To be fair, he was only recording onto that walkman and actually broadcasting through a whacking great radio telescope.
Having said that, Logopolis is the slowest and most boring story in the Tom Baker era - fuck all happens until about half way through episode three. Yes the dimensional trap is clever, but it's a concept for a hard SF novel, not, y'know, tele*vision*
And don't get me started on the whole "let's materialise underwater and hold the doors shut against the water with our backs" stuff, which is right down there with the worst of any era
Or read the Production Notes in the most recent DWM where he talks about how there won't be one dramatic moment when he finishes writing his last script as it'll keep being rewritten before, during and after production. (Probably misquoting but he jokes that his last piece of writing will probably be some ADR for Nameless Guard #1.)
Then it must never be done!
Her story is over and done with, she needs to stay "dead"!
He's entitled to his opinion, as are any of us, and as Lonemagpie points out, if it isn't just a first draft thrown up there on screen it actually does make certain choices seem even worse.
Quite.
It amuses me to watch those who worship Russel Davies as a television deity writhe and twist when others comment on his flawed writing. Has there ever been a "perfect" Who writer? Nope. Is RTD one of the best? Pretty much. But, for fucks sake, silly is silly, and RTD knows silly. When a good portion of the same audience comes to the same conclusion that he should learn to reign it in or actually re-digest his own plots to cover up the enormous, gaping holes and absurdity, then it's a good bet that it's not just one person's delusion or gripe.
I love some of Russel Davies' stories. But, this intolerant hero-worship thing some fans have is pretty fucking old now.
{CUE: Sci to come running in about the joys of RTD...
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Quite.
It amuses me to watch those who worship Russel Davies as a television deity writhe and twist when others comment on his flawed writing. Has there ever been a "perfect" Who writer? Nope. Is RTD one of the best? Pretty much. But, for fucks sake, silly is silly, and RTD knows silly. When a good portion of the same audience comes to the same conclusion that he should learn to reign it in or actually re-digest his own plots to cover up the enormous, gaping holes and absurdity, then it's a good bet that it's not just one person's delusion or gripe.
I love some of Russel Davies' stories. But, this intolerant hero-worship thing some fans have is pretty fucking old now.
{CUE: Sci to come running in about the joys of RTD...
Am I late?
I'm not sure I have much to say, other than that allegations of RTD only ever writing first drafts are false, and that I find it difficult to evaluate RTD as a writer over-all because I've never seen his non-Who work.
RTD is admittedly sometimes an over-the-top writer, at least for Doctor Who. He talks about that in another interview I read with him recently -- how he feels compelled to have the villain in a Who episode declare, "I'm going to kill you all now!", yet wouldn't feel compelled to have two guys in a kitchen with one going, "I'm going to fry eggs now!" and "I'm going to pour my chocolate milk!" In his Doctor Who scripts, RTD often makes the deliberate choice to go over-the-top, to even get quite silly, as he thinks that that is appropriate for the genre and its conceits and for the targeted audience. (That's one of the things I like about RTD's work during the first two seasons of DW -- he would often juxtapose the bombastic, over-the-top world of the Doctor with the quiet domestic life of the Tylers. I always thought there was something delightful in seeing Jackie just doing the dishes and then look up to see the TARDIS materializing in her living room.)
Ultimately, the question is whether or not you can enjoy that bombastity of thing or not. Personally, I've got no problem with farting aliens and MechaCybermen and the Master dancing to "Scissor Sisters" in a Who script, because I don't think it's inappropriate to the creative goals Who has been setting for itself -- to be a family drama that can go from zany (alien witches killing Shakespeare!) to very somber ("Human Nature"/"The Family of Blood") very quickly. RTD tends to want to write, grand archetypes that will reverberate in children's imaginations afterwords, and I'm cool with that.
By the same token, I think RTD is wrong in saying that they've never done a bad episode. They've never done an episode that was unwatchable or that didn't have its delightful points, but, frankly, episodes like "42" or "Fear Her" were bad. To be fair, those are probably the only ones I can think of off the top of the bat that were genuinely bad, though.
But, I've not seen any of his work outside of Whodom. I've never seen Queer as Folk or The Second Coming or Casanova, and I wouldn't feel the least bit comfortable trying to find a common trait to all his writing until I do. It would be like only reading the Dark Tower series when trying to characterize Stephen King's works, or only reading Romeo and Juliet or Hamlet in evaluating Shakespeare. There's too much diversity of form.
I would also point out that it's probably unfair to talk about "a good portion of the same audience coming to the conclusion that he should learn to reign it in or actually re-digest his own plots to cover up the enormous, gaping holes and absurdities," because, well, his Who work has consistently received high audience appreciation scores. There are a lot of critics who think that, though, so I'd say that ascribing that critique to professional critics would give the argument more credibility. The majority of the audience seems not to be the least bit bothered by the silliness that often bothers critics (and Internet fanboys like us).
I think that it'll be very interesting to see what Doctor Who will be like under Moffat vs. under RTD. RTD's work tends to be like the public persona he's created to promote the show -- big, bombastic, vibrant, optimistic. His work tends to be hopeful with an undercurrent of pain. Moffat, on the other hand, tends to ground his Who scripts in pain first, and then work from the pain to find the bombastity and optimism that can cover it up. If RTD is about saying that life is good but it sometimes hurts, Moffat seems to be about saying that life hurts but is sometimes good.
Either way, no matter how you feel about RTD, I don't think anyone can deny that he made a great decision in picking Moffat as his successor.
Wait, there is one other thing I would point out. I say this with affection, The, but, as far as this goes:
I will only say this: In all my time here, I have never, ever seen anyone start a thread saying how awesome Russell T. Davies is. Nor, for that matter, have I ever seen a Davies fan start an argument over his merits. Every single argument and fight I've ever seen about RTD was started by someone who was dissing him.
The said:
I will only say this: In all my time here, I have never, ever seen anyone start a thread saying how awesome Russell T. Davies is. Nor, for that matter, have I ever seen a Davies fan start an argument over his merits. Every single argument and fight I've ever seen about RTD was started by someone who was dissing him.
The said:{CUE: Sci to come running in about the joys of RTD...
Am I late?
Actually, none of that bothers me. Seriously. The main aspects of RTD's writing and presentation that bother me are the absurd Jesus-Doctor, or bringing Rose back for the ratings, or fantasy-optimism he has The Doctor spouting about he human race constantly, or the much-remarked deus ex machina solutions, or the Kylie Minogue Xmas story (I love Kylie in a sexual way, but that episode was shit), etc., etc. It's not his neccessary whimsy that I dislike, but the flagrant nonsense-syrup he coats a lot of his episodes with. Yet, the somber nature of Midnight blew me away, and compared to his other episodes, I wonder if it wasn't ghost-written, you know? I guess when I say "silly", I mean the insult-the-intelligence-of-the-audience with nonsense a first-grader would call out. Farting aliens? Funny. Push some buttons and destroy the "mighty" Dalek fleet? Ridiculous.
Okay, I'll concede that point. You're right, the common person watching the show is going to let a lot more of the less-than-stellar stuff slide...IF they are predispositioned to just watching nonsense for entertainment. But, these people are the lower rung of the cultural ladder, in my opinion. Yes, I want Who to appeal to a broad demographic. That's the only way it will live in this modern era. However, I don't think pandering to the text-messaged-obsessed generation, MTV-riddled adolescents, or the daytime soap opera crowd is any better than just pandering straight to the scifi nerds like us. Plenty of shows have a balance. RTD doesn't seem to think it's neccessary. And that's lazy writing, in my opinion. Pop culture is an instant cliche, and he tends to bathe Who in that pool at times.
Wouldn't a "fight" have to involve two people from opposing sides, by necessity? I'm not going to take the time to go back and search for any threads solely praising RTD to prove you wrong. However, from my experience (and this isn't just this board) the majority of disagreements occurs when someone complains about something RTD has done, and fifty Russel Zealots pop out of the woodwork to vehemently oppose their opinion. JKTim, Starkers, myself...plenty of others...we've all said "That was pretty dumb" or "His endings suck" and we get crucified for not being "real fans" or whatever. It's not a real problem or anything, and everyone has a right to their opinion. But, it gets pretty annoying after awhile to have to defend every comment that doesn't automatically fall in line with the collective RTD consciousness that some fans have created...
From what I've seen, read and heard of him, Chris Bidmead seems to have become a bitter and petty man, going out of his way to put down people he has worked with more than twenty years ago, and denigrating their skills, their accomplishments and their professionalism. That doesn't invalidate his point of view in any way, of course, but it certainly makes me less willing to hear it.
I would love to find a way to use an "improbable engine" to have that actually happen, you know the one from Hitch Hackers Guild to The Galaxy
I've said it before and I'll say it again: That was an undermining of religious dogma, not a confirmation of it. The Doctor didn't save the world, humanity did; he just channeled them. He said so himself in ascribing the powers he gained to the human populace.
I don't think he brought Rose back for the ratings. To me, it looked more like he did it because he knew he was writing his last season, and in the finale, he wanted to, well, play with all of his toys. I mean, "The Stolen Earth"/"Journey's End" is crammed with RTD's characters -- Rose, Jack, Martha, Donna, Wilfred, Sylvia, Francine, Gwen, Ianto, Sarah-Jane, Luke, Jackie, Mickey, Harriet Jones, even K-9. I mean, really, the only one missing was the Ninth Doctor. And according to The Writer's Tale, he had originally planned for even more, like Elton, Midshipman Frome, and Blon Fel Fotch Pasameer Day Siltheen.
That's definitely a matter of subjective opinion. I don't mind it, though, for two reasons:
1. Yes, he's very optimistic about humanity, but that doesn't mean that he and the other writers haven't depicted people who were absolute monsters or who made horrible, immoral choices. Cassandra's vanity and racism, Van Staten's greed and torture, Lumic's general asshatness, Eddie Connolly's authoritarian tendencies in "The Idiot's Lantern," the enslavement of the Ood in "The Impossible Planet," et al, Yvonne Hartman's imperialism, Lance's betrayal in "The Runaway Bride," Professor Lazarus' egotism and refusal to accept his own mortality in "The Lazarus Experiment," the human damage to indigenous life-forms in "42," the militarism of Edwardian England in "Human Nature"/"The Family of Blood, the human collaborators in Mister Saxon's murderous regime in "The Sound of Drums," the various assholes inhabiting ancient Pompeii, the questionable militarism of UNIT in the Sontaran two-parter, the irrational war seen in "The Doctor's Daughter," the implicit classism and racism of Agatha Christie's England in "The Unicorn and the Wasp," the hatred and paranoia seen in "Midnight," the emotional abusiveness of Sylvia Noble (especially in "Turn Left"), the rise of a fascist Britain in the alternate timeine of "Turn Left," the morally questionable decision of Harriet Jones to shoot down the Sycorax ship in "The Christmas Invasion," and, most importantly, the decision of future humans to try to evade death following the end of the universe even at the cost of their own humanity and morality in "The Sound of Drums"/"Last of the Time Lords," all firmly establish that he is by no means portraying humanity as being virtuous and pure. Doctor Who is full of morally ambiguous or immoral humans, and all of humanity is depicted as doing the wrong thing when facing imminent extinction.
2. I think that optimism about humanity, even in the face of all that, is still an appropriate theme. After all, Doctor Who is a family show. It's aimed at families and especially at children, and I don't think there's anything wrong with sending the message to children that people are basically good so long as you don't cover up the fact that people can be bastards, too.
Some of which are no such things. The ending to "Last of the Time Lords," for instance, would be more accurately referred to as a deus ex demos device: The god from the people. And the solution to the Daleks and Cybermen in "Doomsday" is no such thing, as the Magic Levers of Doom do not intervene suddenly and without forewarning, but are instead MagGuffins that have to be earned by overcoming obstacles -- and who exact a price for their use in the form of Rose's disappearance.
Meanwhile, I don't think his deus ex machina endings are inappropriate for some of his stories. I mean, everyone love the Daleks, but, let's face it, it's impossible to defeat them without a deus ex machina under most circumstances. They're simply too powerful -- and, if you were to use them in the most adult manner possible, too dangerous. And much as I agree they're over-used, I also think that they serve an important rhetorical purpose in a family show, reminding children what the dangers of racism and ethnocentricity really are.
I never know why people say that. I thought "Voyage of the Damned" was an enjoyable hour of TV, and made a bold choice with its darkness and moral ambiguity (the Doctor as the Devil hijacking angels!), especially for a Christmas episode.
I'd feel worse about that if the Daleks hadn't just been seen killing millions of people shortly beforehand. Again, I think it's virtually impossible to do the Daleks without a deus ex machina-type ending -- and even that one exacted a cost in the loss of Donna, making its DEM status questionable.
And, frankly, my way of looking at it is -- who cares how they defeat the Daleks? To me, the heart and soul of that episode was in Davros' confrontation with the Doctor, where he declares that the Doctor has taken innocent people and turned them into weapons, and reminds him of all the innocents who have died in his name. Theme and character are more important than plot.
Gee, thanks.
Maybe they just have different creative agendas with programs like Doctor Who? Let me put it this way:
I don't mind stuff in Doctor Who that would drive me crazy in other series, because, first off, I acknowledge the legitimate need the writers have to mitigate depictions of human pain for the sake of the younger audience. I don't think that's sugar-coating things, or being dishonest to children, because they do depict pain and suffering. Every single season of Doctor Who ends with somebody leaving: The Ninth Doctor and Jack in Series One; Rose, Jackie, Mickey, and Pete in Series Two; Martha in Series Three; Donna and Rose again in Series Four. (Hell, Series Four leaves you with the impression that the Doctor never expects to see any of those characters again.) Yet it also mitigates those losses -- every season save four ends with someone new arriving, or with an outrageous mystery. Yes, Rose was brought back, which arguably makes the ending to "Doomsday" less traumatic -- but, there again, given as how the separation of Rose and the Doctor was apparently the most frightening part of "Doomsday" for most children, I don't mind that, ultimately. Doctor Who has a responsibility to mitigate its viewers' pain that an adult drama does not have.
Secondly, I think the other thing you're overlooking is that, for many people, the plot exists to serve the characters and the themes, not the other way around. Is Doctor Who full of plot holes sometimes? Sure it is. In fact, there's a fundamental plot hole built into the very premise of the series: Why doesn't he just use the TARDIS to solve all his problems? For some people, plot holes can destroy any work. For me, plot holes only damage the work if I think the story is inherently plot-driven, and I don't think Doctor Who is about plots. Doctor Who is about characterization and theme, and if we have to rip the plot a little bit and then put some duct tape over it to support the characters and themes, then I'm okay with that. That doesn't make me someone at the lower end of the cultural spectrum -- it just means that I place my dramatic emphasis on a different aspect of the story than you do.
Honestly, that's one aspect of the show that I'm wondering what Moffat's going to do with it. I love the fact that Doctor Who is so grounded in the now, and I like the way it takes these very contemporary settings and juxtaposes them with outlandish sci-fi stories and settings. And it doesn't bother me to look at older episodes with what are now some out-of-date pop culture references, because, to me, it makes perfect sense that a show about time travel can be grounded in the past and juxtapose what is now the past with the larger past or with the future.
And in my experience, the fights start because RTD haters decide to provoke them.
Considering that most of fandom hates RTD, and that in my experience the RTD defenders are always outnumbered, I really don't know what the hell you're talking about here.
See, here's the thing, you guys have a misconception about my affinity for RTD. I enjoy his genre work quite a bit -- but I have absolutely no expectation that that will extend to enjoying something RTD does that's grounded in Realism/Naturalism, because of the vastly different dramatic conceits those styles employ. And while I like writers like Joss Whedon or Aaron Sorkin enough that I'll pay money to see whatever they do in any style, I don't know that I enjoy RTD enough to pay the kind of money I'd need to to track down something like The Second Coming or Bob & Rose. I might well not like them for not being over-the-top and cheesey enough.
The Second Coming ill give you, but im not so sure about Bob & Rose.
You know, if you bothered to actually read anything I post, you might see that in the past I've been both highly critical and highly praising of RTD. Here's a great one.
My problem with Davies is that he's entirely too much in love with his own ideas, and he has no ability to recognize when he's jumping off the tracks. Rusty, when the plot you've written has absolutely no sensible way out other than to push a magic button and make everything go away, please consider the possibility that your plot wasn't that clever in the first place, and maybe another go-'round would be a good idea. Christopher H. Bidmead had a recent interview that really quite accurately summed up Davies' writing style:
Christopher H. Bidmead in Doctor Who Magazine said:
So, please, dear Messiani, I humbly ask your forgiveness for the egregious error on my part in hoping for Russell T. Davies' final Who special to be more than "Here's A Bunch Of Shit That Happened During My Four Years On Who," and when Davies makes such a wonderful -- and indeed innocent -- remark as saying that he hates other people's scripts and prefers his own, then hell yes, I'm going to take the cheap shot.
Well I don't know if RTD is in love with own ideas but then I can't imagine a writer who isn't in some say. And I do think that Bidmead a man who amdits to not knowing RTD can't be in a position to say what RTD does and doens't do with his own scripts. But I do think that Steven Moffat is in such a position.
http://www.doctorwhoforum.com/showthread.php?p=5821891#post5821891
Then your soul must be empty.
