Moffat Talks 13th, sorry, 12th Doctor

[Captaindemotion]

Coming late to this one, I can see Capaldi's Doctor being like the 6th. However, I think that the massive difference is that Peter is an infinitely better actor than Colin B. He even managed to infuse Malcolm Tucker with some humanity and pathos.

So I think that he's much better equipped to play a character who's prima facie unsympathetic and unlikable and still have the audience root for him, without toning down the performance or playing for sympathy.

I must admit though, seeing as he's best known for playing the abrasive and bilious Tucker, I had hoped that Capaldi's Doctor would be 'against type' and would see a gentler, more whimsical take on the character, without being as eccentric as Matt. Still, I'm sure he'll be great, whatever he does.

 

[Photoman15]

Why is everyone confused about this?
50th is Smith.

Christmas, he will regenerate into Capaldi, I'm hoping more towards the end, almost like End of Time, maybe a little earlier, like to finish whatever 11 is in the middle of saving.

 

[Starkers]

Moffat has said he'll tie up some loose ends in the Christmas special. As for the silence. I thought we now knew why they were so concerned about Trenzalore? They knew if the Doctor went there then the Great Intelligence (or some other threat) could enter the Doctor's tomb and rewrite all of his victories. I figure their idea was to kill him early and prevent such a potentially devastating 'weapon' being left behind.

While that explanation does make sense, it doesn't really explain Madame Kovarian's attitude towards the Doctor or why she describes her conflict with him as an "endless, bitter war." Killing him to prevent a tragedy? Sure, I get that. But why do they treat him like a villain?

It's nothing we'll ever see, I'm sure, but I'd love to know more about the origin of the Silence. Where did they come from? How did they find out about Trenzalore in the first place?

Well it may be that those at the top know the real reason they want to take the Doctor out, but it might be easier to paint the Doctor as a villain to their underlings than try and explain that they're going after the Doctor because he's too good!

 

[Green Lantern]

Because I am big fan of "full circle" storytelling, I would love it it Smith's regeneration scene involved him laying on a table, dying, turning to Clara and saying, "Run, you clever girl, and remember me." REGENERATION EXPLOSION!!!!

Actually, those would be good final words for Matt Smith to Clara.

What I'd like, is a frickin explanation for the Silence and why have they bothered the Eleventh Doctor for as long as they did. The Daleks would be lovely to have been involved, but given how badly they've been portrayed in Moffat's run, I'd rather they didn't appear.

Good point, since Moffat has produced what are probably the worst Dalek stories of all time. And yeah, I'd prefer another appearance from the silence. They are good monsters, and I'd like a full and sensible explanation for why they've bothered the doctor for pretty much his entire eleventh incarnation.

Why is everyone confused about this?
50th is Smith.

Christmas, he will regenerate into Capaldi, I'm hoping more towards the end, almost like End of Time, maybe a little earlier, like to finish whatever 11 is in the middle of saving.

Yeah, it would be a nice change to see a new doctor do more than just say a couple of lines. Plus we'll have a bloody long wait until we next see Capaldi. The doctor usually regenerates after an adventure, and at a few known times, he has regenerated before an adventure (Time & the Rani and the Enemy Within), but never in the middle or even before the end of a story.

 

[Christopher]

While that explanation does make sense, it doesn't really explain Madame Kovarian's attitude towards the Doctor or why she describes her conflict with him as an "endless, bitter war." Killing him to prevent a tragedy? Sure, I get that. But why do they treat him like a villain?

I thought that was clear enough -- because all the warmongers and conquerors and tyrants that the Doctor fights see themselves as the good guys. They believe they're perfectly in the right to do the things they do, and that the Doctor is a monster for killing so many of their people and constantly thwarting their plans.

Why is everyone confused about this?
50th is Smith.

Christmas, he will regenerate into Capaldi, I'm hoping more towards the end, almost like End of Time, maybe a little earlier, like to finish whatever 11 is in the middle of saving.

What do you mean, "everyone?" Only one person here is questioning that.

 

[Guy Gardener]

11 to Clara on day 2: "Regeneration 101: This is how you make fishsticks and custard."

 

[ITL]

11 to Clara on day 2: "Regeneration 101: This is how you make fishsticks and custard."

[fake outrage]IT'S FISH FINGERS! NOT FISH STICKS! EVEN THOUGH THEY'RE THE SAME THING! GAH![/fake outrage]

 

[Guy Gardener]

Karen is going to be blue.

 

[Nightowl1701]

While that explanation does make sense, it doesn't really explain Madame Kovarian's attitude towards the Doctor or why she describes her conflict with him as an "endless, bitter war." Killing him to prevent a tragedy? Sure, I get that. But why does she (corrected by quoter) treat him like a villain?

That's what I've wanted to know. The Silence I could buy (barely) as doing the wrong things for the right reasons. But Frances Barber played her character as someone who had a VERY personal grudge against the Doctor. The sheer venom in her voice speaking to him almost made me think she was somehow a post-Library River who'd gone psychotic and essentially (with the Silence's help) created herself. (And boy, wouldn't that have put Amy's execution of her in Wedding in a different light.) I hope somebody gets around to explaining who she is, and what the Doctor did to her/will do to her to make her so desperately hate him.

 

[Christopher]

^Kovarian had spent much of her life believing the Doctor to be a bogeyman who would destroy the universe, because of her interpretation of the prophecy of Trenzalore. She was also closely affiliated with a group of religious fanatics, the Silence. It's entirely possible that she could've learned to hate him without him having to do anything to her personally. Hate is often based more on imagination and false beliefs, such as racial or sexual stereotypes or the propaganda of a warlike govenrment, than on genuine grievances. That's part of what makes hatred such a dangerous and destructive force.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

11 to Clara on day 2: "Regeneration 101: This is how you make fishsticks and custard."

[fake outrage]IT'S FISH FINGERS! NOT FISH STICKS! EVEN THOUGH THEY'RE THE SAME THING! GAH![/fake outrage]

Well, one of them makes you a gay fish.

 

[ITL]

11 to Clara on day 2: "Regeneration 101: This is how you make fishsticks and custard."

[fake outrage]IT'S FISH FINGERS! NOT FISH STICKS! EVEN THOUGH THEY'RE THE SAME THING! GAH![/fake outrage]

Well, one of them makes you a gay fish.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

Frances Barber played [Madame Kovarian] as someone who had a VERY personal grudge against the Doctor. The sheer venom in her voice speaking to him almost made me think she was somehow a post-Library River who'd gone psychotic and essentially (with the Silence's help) created herself. (And boy, wouldn't that have put Amy's execution of her in Wedding in a different light.) I hope somebody gets around to explaining who she is, and what the Doctor did to her/will do to her to make her so desperately hate him.

I'm surprised she hasn't returned, since she's still alive. It was an alternate Amy who executed an alternate Kovarian for things that prime Amy experienced at the hands of prime Kovarian, which right there tells you how conceptually flawed "The Wedding of River Song" was.

 

[StCoop]

I'm surprised she hasn't returned, since she's still alive. It was an alternate Amy who executed an alternate Kovarian for things that prime Amy experienced at the hands of prime Kovarian, which right there tells you how conceptually flawed "The Wedding of River Song" was.

I think that goes under Moffat's "Things the General Audience won't think about" excuse, which he used to explain why all the ways of rescuing Amy & Rory that didn't involve the Doctor physically going to New York don't count.

 

[Konata Izumi]

What is the flaw?

 

[Allyn Gibson]

What is the flaw?

The conceptual flaw in "The Wedding of River Song" is, much like Star Trek: The Next Generation's "Yesterday's Enterprise," nothing that happens in the story ultimately matters. There's all this sturm und drang in a timeline that, in the end, unhappens because of itself. It looks pretty, but the episode wastes time on elements that have no bearing on the resolution. It probably needed a rethink from the ground up. Or, it needed Moffat to give a laundry list of things that needed to happen to another writer to execute.

 

[intrinsical]

Regardless of flaws in execution, I like Wedding simply because it is the first modern-era finale that moved away from the "save the earth/universe/timeline" formula that RTD started.

 

[DWF]

Regardless of flaws in execution, I like Wedding simply because it is the first modern-era finale that moved away from the "save the earth/universe/timeline" formula that RTD started.

But they did save the timeline and the universe as well.

 

[Konata Izumi]

What is the flaw?

The conceptual flaw in "The Wedding of River Song" is, much like Star Trek: The Next Generation's "Yesterday's Enterprise," nothing that happens in the story ultimately matters. There's all this sturm und drang in a timeline that, in the end, unhappens because of itself. It looks pretty, but the episode wastes time on elements that have no bearing on the resolution. It probably needed a rethink from the ground up. Or, it needed Moffat to give a laundry list of things that needed to happen to another writer to execute.

The killing matters to Amy though, as she remembers everything relevant to it in both realities. The unhappening just makes it feel a bit less evil.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

The killing matters to Amy though, as she remembers everything relevant to it in both realities. The unhappening just makes it feel a bit less evil.

I get where you're coming from.

Amy (and the audience) gets the emotional satisfaction that comes from Amy murdering Madame Kovarian, but without the guilt since it didn't really happen and no one actually died.

But that's a problem. It's a cheat resolution in the classic Marvel Comics sense. The story does something that looks significant, but then it wipes it away and everything is back to normal. I don't know if Moffat designed the story deliberately so that ultimately Amy is stainless, but it takes something away from the story when it lacks the conviction to actually grapple with its own implications.