Moffat's Season better than all of RTD Combined?

[Sean_McCormick]

The idea of "rebooting" the Daleks follows from Moffat's fresh start, so it's absolutely clear, that this is not something, that is left over from previous series.

It is an absolute legimate opinion to prefer the one writer and his style of doing this over the other, but this "anything bad is still RTDs fault, although he does not work there any more" and its implication of "Moffat can't do wrong (because when he does, its RTD's fault)" is stupid beyond words. Will we get this for every single bad episode under Moffat's reign?

 

[Rowan Sjet]

And ironically one of the few RTD didn't write a word of...

1. How do you know which episodes RTD did and didn't have a hand in?
2. Do you know which episodes Moffat did and didn't have a hand in?

I agree with Sean, much as I've disliked a lot of RTD's work, I can't blame the problems of this series on him. Gatiss and Chibnall (who have written the only two episodes I've hated this year) were both apparently asked back by Moffat himself despite their previous below average episodes during RTD's run.

 

[StCoop]

1. How do you know which episodes RTD did and didn't have a hand in?

Jesus told me.

Or maybe I just read every interview related to the series over the past five years (and both versions of 'The Writer's Tale').

Because of his position in the TV industry Matthew Graham, like Moffat, had a no-rewrite clause in his contract.

 

[Rowan Sjet]

Because of his position in the TV industry Matthew Graham, like Moffat, had a no-rewrite clause in his contract.

I'm glad you edited and decided not to be a douche, thank you.

I will now go look up Matthew Graham and these writer's tales.

 

[DAK]

Except of course it wasn't. It was 100% Moffat sanctioned drivel.

Does that go for all the 100% RTD sanctioned drivel as well? (because no matter how much you loved his series', there's got to be at least one episode you hate)

'Fear Her'. The worst episode ever. And ironically one of the few RTD didn't write a word of...

"Love and Monsters", even worse. And RTD did write that one.

 

[StCoop]

"Love and Monsters", even worse. And RTD did write that one.

One of the best pieces of television broadcast in 2006 period and hands down the most inovative and original episode of Doctor Who ever.

 

[The]

Doctor Who is a family scifi show that is consistently kicking ass week-after-week this season, with the only dud being "Victory of the Daleks". Of course, I chalk that one up to being a left-over Ten script that RTD didn't use. So, there you go...

Except of course it wasn't. It was 100% Moffat sanctioned drivel.

Are we certain? I seem to remember there was some admission/discussion by Gatiss that the script was originally meant for Season Four. Naturally, I might have misheard or misread this. And/or, it could very well just not be true at all.

Having said that, though, the plot/concept/presentation was very much an RTD-era design, complete with simple emotional cliches, and the RTD "magic" of an android believing himself human that can defuse a bomb, or something.

So, you can understand how it just doesn't fit in with the excellence of this season. It's obvious throwback nature to the previous era is very distracting...

 

[The]

"Love and Monsters", even worse. And RTD did write that one.

One of the best pieces of television broadcast in 2006 period and hands down the most inovative and original episode of Doctor Who ever.

And thus, where the road of opinion divides. I accept, as you should, that you will never, ever enjoy any part of Moffat's era. So, our conversation ends, as there will be nowhere for it to go now...

 

[Rowan Sjet]

What The said.

 

[DAK]

"Love and Monsters", even worse. And RTD did write that one.

One of the best pieces of television broadcast in 2006 period and hands down the most inovative and original episode of Doctor Who ever.

Are you joking?

No? Well, we'll just have to agree to disagree, because that was the worst piece of nu-Who shite as far as I'm concerned.

 

[The]

The idea of "rebooting" the Daleks follows from Moffat's fresh start, so it's absolutely clear, that this is not something, that is left over from previous series.

I can see your train of logic. However, scripts are written and re-written many times, if necessary. Victory could very easily be something completely different with only a few moments changed.

It is an absolute legimate opinion to prefer the one writer and his style of doing this over the other, but this "anything bad is still RTDs fault, although he does not work there any more" and its implication of "Moffat can't do wrong (because when he does, its RTD's fault)" is stupid beyond words. Will we get this for every single bad episode under Moffat's reign?

I wouldn't stretch to hyperbole like that, as we are only speaking of one episode. Certainly don't count me in the camp that Moffat is perfect. One of his major faults, if nothing else, he tends to reuse too many of his own ideas. But, having said that, I welcome a new set of irritating habits over the same ones I've suffered through the last four years...

 

[Sci]

Doctor Who is a family scifi show that is consistently kicking ass week-after-week this season, with the only dud being "Victory of the Daleks". Of course, I chalk that one up to being a left-over Ten script that RTD didn't use. So, there you go...

Except of course it wasn't. It was 100% Moffat sanctioned drivel.

Are we certain? I seem to remember there was some admission/discussion by Gatiss that the script was originally meant for Season Four. Naturally, I might have misheard or misread this. And/or, it could very well just not be true at all.

Having said that, though, the plot/concept/presentation was very much an RTD-era design, complete with simple emotional cliches, and the RTD "magic" of an android believing himself human that can defuse a bomb, or something.

Moffat used that same "magic" in "The Doctor Dances" -- somehow, the nanogenes just magically figure out that they were doing it wrong after not having figured that out the other five million times they'd zombified people.

* * *

As for me, I don't agree that Moffat's season is any less emotional. What I do think, though, is that its emotion is more subdued, less extroverted in its expression.

It's like the Doctor himself at the end of "The Girl in the Fireplace." He's in a state of extreme emotion with the death of Reinette, but he doesn't necessarily express it overtly. In fact, he basically shuts down all expression.

Moffat revisits this idea in "Forest of the Dead." Donna turns to him and asks, "Are you alright?"

"I'm always alright."

"Is 'alright' special Time Lord code for 'really not alright?'"

"Why?"

"Cos I'm alright, too.

That's Moffat's season. It's deeply emotional, but its way of expressing its emotions is much more subtle and inhibited. "The Beast Below" doesn't need with the joy of realizing the space whale need not be killed, or with the bitterness of the torture it's suffered. Instead, it ends with a quiet hug between Amy and the Doctor upon her comparison of him and the whale. The most important lines of the episode are whispered, not gleefully shouted as they might have been in an RTD episode: "I've got you."

There's nothing wrong with either writing style. RTD's is big, bombastic, openly expressive, larger than life. Moffat's is intimate, restrained, subtlety expressive, quiet. Both are legitimate, and both are enjoyable.

I sometimes miss RTD's bombasticity, but I rather enjoy Moffat's an awful lot, too.

 

[Captain Pike]

It's been a while since I've seen it, but don't the nanogenes figure out how to repair people the proper way only after the doctor updates their 'template'?

 

[The]

^Pretty much. It's just the normal Sci defending his idol thing...

 

[Sci]

It's been a while since I've seen it, but don't the nanogenes figure out how to repair people the proper way only after the doctor updates their 'template'?

The Doctor doesn't do shit to the nanogenes. Nancy just goes and hugs her child, admits that she's his mummy and will always be his mummy, and suddenly the nanogenes realize that they weren't supposed to turn everybody into copies of the child and instead repair all the damage they've done, including to the kid. The Doctor gives some explanation about how it came about from their comparing the kid's DNA to the mom's and realizing they'd goofed, but it's really illogical. Why would they suddenly realize the difference between the standard human DNA and the specific DNA of that kid just because they met someone whose DNA was closer to the kid's than others'? Wouldn't they have realized it by finding DNA that was more divergent from the kid's?

It's all just a justification for letting the cathartic "I will always be your mummy" line solve all of the episode's problems, just like the whole "human emotion lets the android overcome Dalek programming" thing was just a justification for letting the power of love save the world. It's absolute nonsense either way....

Absolute nonsense that I am just fine with, since I've always thought that character and theme are far more important than plot.

^Pretty much. It's just the normal Sci defending his idol thing...

I'm always amused at the claim that RTD is my "idol." He's not my favorite writer (though he is one of them), and he's not my idol. Joss Whedon and Aaron Sorkin are my writing idols far more so than Davies, and, frankly, I tend to enjoy Steven Moffat's work more than Davies's most of the time. And I've always thought that Paul Cornell was a better writer than both of them.

It's not that RTD is my idol so much as that I don't think he's a demon the way so many others do. He's a writer. Some of his stuff is absolutely brilliant -- Children of Earth, "Utopia," "The Waters of Mars," "Doomsday," "Smith and Jones." Some of his stuff is fun and enjoyable but not brilliant -- "The Sound of Drums," "The Stolen Earth"/"Journey's End," "Rose," "The End of the World," "The Parting of the Ways," "Last of the Time Lords." And some of his stuff is just utter dreck -- most of the first half of "The End of Time, Part One" (especially the Master's resurrection).

But he's not the hack so many people like to paint him as, and I get tired of people claiming he is.

Don't worry -- in a year or two, I'm sure that another group of folks will start claiming that Moffat is a complete hack, and I'll end up defending him, too, and people will accuse me of having a mancrush on Moffat and idolizing Moffat, too. (And, in point of fact, you'll note that my prior post defended both Moffat and RTD.)

 

[Captain Pike]

Intracasies aside, I can see a certain genetic logic in that.

 

[Sci]

Intracasies aside, I can see a certain genetic logic in that.

I can't. If anything, encountering someone with a closer genetic code to the child's should have encouraged them to think they were supposed to make everyone else into copies of the child. It should have been the first non-relative of the child who would get them to realize they'd glitched.

But, like I said, I don't really care. I'm happy to accept the magic of love conquering all, be it a mother's love for her child or a robotic man's love for a lost girlfriend.

 

[Stevil2001]

1. How do you know which episodes RTD did and didn't have a hand in?

Jesus told me.

Or maybe I just read every interview related to the series over the past five years (and both versions of 'The Writer's Tale').

Because of his position in the TV industry Matthew Graham, like Moffat, had a no-rewrite clause in his contract.

Is there actually a no-rewrite clause in their contracts? I've also read both editions of The Writer's Tale, and I seem to recall Davies just saying that he doesn't feel the need to do extensive rewrites on Graham, Moffat, and the two other people I forget.

Except of course it wasn't. It was 100% Moffat sanctioned drivel.

Are we certain? I seem to remember there was some admission/discussion by Gatiss that the script was originally meant for Season Four. Naturally, I might have misheard or misread this. And/or, it could very well just not be true at all.

Gatiss had a World War II script relatively far along in development for Series Four before it was pulled, but it was about Nazis invading the British Museum. Seems unlikely any of that would have made it into "VotD"!

And thus, where the road of opinion divides. I accept, as you should, that you will never, ever enjoy any part of Moffat's era. So, our conversation ends, as there will be nowhere for it to go now...

People who like "Love & Monsters" are incapable of enjoying Moffat's Who?

 

[Top41]

No, who doesn't have emotion is ME, the viewer. What this season has failed to do, for the most part, is engage ME emotionally on the level that RTD managed to do so often. That has something to do with the writing, and the directing. As I've said before, I can't really put my finger on it, but there it is.

That's what's bothering me about this season, too. I'm just not connecting with any of the stories, in the way I always did in the RTD years, regardless of whether it was Nine or Ten, or which companion the Doctor was with. I was never not engaged with the characters.

I'm just not with this series. I thought the first episode was wonderfully promising, but each ep since has been something of a disappointment. I feel like it's a lot of smoke and mirrors, with things set up to be really, really bad... but we never know what's so bad or scary about the baddies (other than that they're creepy looking). Save for the Weeping Angels... who have totally been changed this series, and present a great case for not revisiting intriguing villains.

I'm in the States so I'm a few episodes behind, but I feel like the "Crack in the Universe" thing is totally setting up for a giant reset button. I could be wrong, but I wouldn't be surprised if things end up right back where they started... with Amy as a little girl, and the Doctor ending up bidding her farewell and never taking her on his travels after the crack has been sealed up.

I'm not trying to come down on Moffat--I think he's a great writer and have absolutely loved his episodes prior to this season (most of them are among my all time favorites). But I think he's relying too much on creepy gimmicks--which have worked well in his episodes in the past in part because they're not in every episode--and not enough on the characters and trying to find the heart of the show.

Just my two cents, but that's what's not working this season for me.

 

[Starkers]

Intracasies aside, I can see a certain genetic logic in that.

I can't. If anything, encountering someone with a closer genetic code to the child's should have encouraged them to think they were supposed to make everyone else into copies of the child. It should have been the first non-relative of the child who would get them to realize they'd glitched.

But, like I said, I don't really care. I'm happy to accept the magic of love conquering all, be it a mother's love for her child or a robotic man's love for a lost girlfriend.

Whilst the nanogene solution isn't perfect, I'm with Captain Pike, there is a certain logic to the nanogenes realising that Nancy was the child's mother and therefore it's his genetic code that's broken because he should be following her template.

By the way I think you're spot on about RTD/Moffat, and I defy anyone to suggest Moffat isn't an emotional writer, heck some of coupling is just beautiful to watch (the end of season 3 is an absolute corker of emotion).

"Love and Monsters", even worse. And RTD did write that one.

One of the best pieces of television broadcast in 2006 period and hands down the most inovative and original episode of Doctor Who ever.

No. Just no. The very worst thing about LaM is that it should have been the best episode of Who ever, everything that's good about RTD as a writer is in that episode, as well as everything that's bad about him. Such a wasted, wasted opportunity.