RTD address criticism about his writing style

[Pingfah]

And Star Trek: The Next Generation was massively popular in the early 1990s. This does not change the fact that by the time of Star Trek: Enterprise, Star Trek had become a brand name known for stilted plots, two-dimensional characterization, adolescent sexuality, and an all-around lack of creativity, to the point where very few people were left watching it and Trek fans themselves were seen as a geeky, niche, cult-like audience with exceedingly poor taste.

and in the 1970s there were 3 channels to choose from. and when one - ITV - went on strike Who's audience figures hit a huge high because it was the only other thing on.

when you're competing against 300+ satellite channels, PS3s, X-Boxes, Wiis, iPods, mobile phones, PCs, Facespace pages and fuck knows what else getting 10.7 million viewers is doing pretty damn well.

I never said it wasn't, I was merely disputing that the original was not a show "with incredibly small, geeky, niche audiences when it was on." as Sci was indicating. It rarely got under 7 million viewers right up until the mid 80s. That is not a niche audience.

In fact at virtually no point during it's entire run could you call the ratings "incredibly small"

How was it doing in the 1980s?

Not so well, but it wasn't until season 23 that it took a really bad tumble, according to this site at least.

http://www.themindrobber.co.uk/ratings.html

 

[Checkmate]

The man's won the Siân Phillips Award for Outstanding Contribution to Network Television at the BAFTA Cymru Awards, the Dennis Potter Award for Outstanding Writing for Television at the 2006 BAFTAs, an Honorary Fellowship from Cardiff University, an appointment as Officer of the Order of the British Empire, was nominated for "Best Writer" at the 2006 BAFTA Television Craft Awards, and his show won Best Drama Series and the Pioneer Audience Award at the 2006 BAFTAs.

I'm sorry, but you don't get that sort of professional recognition in the industry if you don't have talent. It may not be your cup of tea, but that doesn't mean that he is without talent.

So? There's several examples of people like that. George Lucas comes immediately to mind. The man can't write worth a damn, but he still knows how to put things together that entertain the masses despite his shitty ability as a writer. He's also got a ton of awards on his mantle as a result.

It, again, comes down to the fact that if you look at a list of episodes people love and those they disliked, they're heavily biased around the man if he has the writing credits for it. If nothing else, it's proof that he can't even identify which scripts are worth associating his name with and those that aren't.

Doesn't change the fact that I'm overjoyed that he's going away and someone who's proven that he understands the character, the show, and can write worth a damn is taking his place. It's gonna be a great time for the franchise.

 

[TedShatner10]

Davies and Gardner should not be underrated, they brought back a show to sizable audiences and mostly positive reviews, despite an earlier attempt at a big budget Canadian revival getting smothered in its cradle being good grounds for doubt amongst BBC suits, winning over several generations of fans. Although some older fans are inevitably going to get alienated by the revamped series that is not to their subjective tastes:

RTD's problem: he got stuck on this whole idea of the Doctor as "the most wonderful man in the Universe", which means that anybody he opposed would be irredeemably evil. At the same time, he's got to be seen to be offering mercy even to his worst enemies because he's supposed to be "the most wonderful man in the Universe" (I swear that if I kept hearing Wilfred Mott twitter on along those lines, I was going to puke) —except of course if they weren't special in some way or another in the Doctor's view, which means they could just burn (like the Racnoss). This guarantees that RTD's writing will base its "logic" upon one or more very huge black/white fallacies. He is indeed a hack. Worse, he's a fanzine-level hack. How this man got the credentials to be counted a professional writer speaks volumes as to how far standards have sunk over the years between "Survival" and "Rose". Not even John Nathan-Turner would have greenlighted bullshit like this, and he's the man who inflicted "Time And The Rani", "Delta And The Bannermen" and Bonnie Langford on us all.

To be fair, a lot people dislike JJ Abrams otherwise successful rebooting of the tired Trek franchise, but come on I doubt most NuWho is as bad as some of DW's worst serials in the past that eventually got it shitcanned to begin with (where the terrible writing and acting compounded the strained, dated production values). RTD deals in sweeping mythology and fairy dust, depicted the Doctor as an almost Christ like figure, but to be fair Moffat and Cornell indulge inall that as well (stone angels and space dragons), but disguise it better in more clever and grittier sci-fi/fantasy screenplays.

Also Steven Moffat respects RTD writer more than a lot of online fandom and especially liked "Smith & Jones".

 

[Sci]

And Star Trek: The Next Generation was massively popular in the early 1990s. This does not change the fact that by the time of Star Trek: Enterprise, Star Trek had become a brand name known for stilted plots, two-dimensional characterization, adolescent sexuality, and an all-around lack of creativity, to the point where very few people were left watching it and Trek fans themselves were seen as a geeky, niche, cult-like audience with exceedingly poor taste.

and in the 1970s there were 3 channels to choose from. and when one - ITV - went on strike Who's audience figures hit a huge high because it was the only other thing on.

when you're competing against 300+ satellite channels, PS3s, X-Boxes, Wiis, iPods, mobile phones, PCs, Facespace pages and fuck knows what else getting 10.7 million viewers is doing pretty damn well.

I never said it wasn't, I was merely disputing that the original was not a show "with incredibly small, geeky, niche audiences when it was on." as Sci was indicating. It rarely got under 7 million viewers right up until the mid 80s.

And then after the mid-80s, it turned into a niche audience, and that audience got smaller and smaller during the "interregnum," as audiences of dead TV shows always do.

Trying to claim that Doctor Who fandom was not an incredibly small, geeky niche audience when Davies revived the show because the original series had been popular once upon a time is like trying to claim that Star Trek fandom had not been reduced to a very small, geeky niche audience when Abrams revived the franchise this year because TNG had been popular twenty years earlier.

ETA:

The man's won the Siân Phillips Award for Outstanding Contribution to Network Television at the BAFTA Cymru Awards, the Dennis Potter Award for Outstanding Writing for Television at the 2006 BAFTAs, an Honorary Fellowship from Cardiff University, an appointment as Officer of the Order of the British Empire, was nominated for "Best Writer" at the 2006 BAFTA Television Craft Awards, and his show won Best Drama Series and the Pioneer Audience Award at the 2006 BAFTAs.

I'm sorry, but you don't get that sort of professional recognition in the industry if you don't have talent. It may not be your cup of tea, but that doesn't mean that he is without talent.

So? There's several examples of people like that. George Lucas comes immediately to mind. The man can't write worth a damn, but he still knows how to put things together that entertain the masses despite his shitty ability as a writer. He's also got a ton of awards on his mantle as a result.

I'm not aware of a "ton" of major awards for Lucas. He got a Life Achievement Award from the American Film Institute in 2005, but, let's be honest, even if the prequel trilogy and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull were shit, he deserves a Life Achievement Award for the original Star Wars trilogy, first four Indiana Jones movies, American Graffiti, and for his work as a producer on films like Labyrinth and The Land Before Time. The man's done good work.

He was nominated for Best Directing and Best Writing for American Graffiti and for Best Directing and Best Writing for the original Star Wars. He did not win either one -- but, let's be honest, again, those films were good.

In December, he was inducted into the California Museum's California Hall of Fame.

That's about it as far as major awards I could find that George Lucas has won. Really, Russell T. Davies has won more awards.

And, no, those awards are not meaningless. They represent the judgement of creative professionals who recognize talent when they see it. They are awards given because of genuine creative accomplishments and talent.

It, again, comes down to the fact that if you look at a list of episodes people love and those they disliked, they're heavily biased around the man if he has the writing credits for it. If nothing else, it's proof that he can't even identify which scripts are worth associating his name with and those that aren't.

Um, that's not how the business works at all. The way it works is, he commission scripts from other writers, and they get writing credit for it to ensure that they get full pay. Then he goes and re-writes every script uncredited to make sure it fits the tone he's established for the show. He doesn't get to "choose" whether or not he associates his name with an episode; if he commissioned the script from another writer, his name doesn't go on it and that's all there is to it.

Doesn't change the fact that I'm overjoyed that he's going away and someone who's proven that he understands the character, the show, and can write worth a damn is taking his place. It's gonna be a great time for the franchise.

In six months, people will be howling about how Steven Moffat can't write for shit and he's overwhelmed now that he's writing half the season and he was better when he only wrote one a year and River Song is a Mary Sue and Amy Pond is a useless whine and they want someone who really loves the original series to take over.

 

[Sci]

And, again, I ask:

Has anybody who's convinced RTD is a shit writer seen his major non-Who works in the course of coming to that conclusion? Queer As Folk, The Second Coming, Casanova, The Grand, Touching Evil, Mine All Mine, etc.?

 

[Stevil2001]

It, again, comes down to the fact that if you look at a list of episodes people love and those they disliked, they're heavily biased around the man if he has the writing credits for it. If nothing else, it's proof that he can't even identify which scripts are worth associating his name with and those that aren't.

Oh, really. You're certainly within your right to dislike Davies, but if you argue people as whole dislike Davies... well, you're flat-out wrong. The top ten audience appreciation scores for the new series (based on polling the UK audience as a whole, not Outpost Gallifrey or DWM or some other fandom group):
1. Journey's End
2. The Stolen Earth
3. Forest of the Dead
4. Silence in the Library
5. Doomsday
6. The Parting of the Ways
7. Turn Left
8. The Doctor's Daughter
9. The Poison Sky
10. Partners in Crime

Hm, RTD seems to be doing quite well.

To be fair, though, here are the bottom ten:
10. Tooth and Claw
9. Father's Day
8. Boom Town
7. Aliens of London
6. The Long Game
5. World War Three
4. The Unquiet Dead
3. Love & Monsters
2. The End of the World
1. Rose

It's interesting how the lowest-ranked episodes are predominantly first-series, and the highest-ranked ones are final-series. Either the audience has grown more used to Doctor Who, or the production team's gotten better at what it does.

Shows with lower ratings tend to get higher AI (as you've got a more dedicated fanbase remaining, thus people who are more likely to enjoy the show), but Doctor Who has actually got more people watching and higher AI over time.

(SOURCE. The site doesn't seem to have been updated since "The Next Doctor", so I'm not sure how the last four specials fit in.)

 

[Gepard]

To be fair, though, here are the bottom ten:
.....
9. Father's Day
8. Boom Town
...
....
...
...
3. Love & Monsters
2. The End of the World
...

Seriously? All of these are awesome.

 

[Jim Steele]

Only things that's balls is your fucking attitude.

Oooh nice retort. "No you" right back.

 

[Pingfah]

I never said it wasn't, I was merely disputing that the original was not a show "with incredibly small, geeky, niche audiences when it was on." as Sci was indicating. It rarely got under 7 million viewers right up until the mid 80s.

And then after the mid-80s, it turned into a niche audience, and that audience got smaller and smaller during the "interregnum," as audiences of dead TV shows always do.

Trying to claim that Doctor Who fandom was not an incredibly small, geeky niche audience when Davies revived the show because the original series had been popular once upon a time is like trying to claim that Star Trek fandom had not been reduced to a very small, geeky niche audience when Abrams revived the franchise this year because TNG had been popular twenty years earlier.

You said it was a show with an incredibly small audience when it was on, your exact words.

If you did in fact mean that you were only talking about the last 5 years of it's very long original run you should have said so originally, but you did not. Even so, the 4 - 5 million viewers it averaged for just the last 3 series is not "incredibly small" or a "niche audience". It's still 1 in 12 people in the uk.

Christ, who would have thought a simple correction of a factually incorrect statement would prove to be so bloody controversial

 

[Starkers]

And then after the mid-80s, it turned into a niche audience, and that audience got smaller and smaller during the "interregnum," as audiences of dead TV shows always do.

Trying to claim that Doctor Who fandom was not an incredibly small, geeky niche audience when Davies revived the show because the original series had been popular once upon a time is like trying to claim that Star Trek fandom had not been reduced to a very small, geeky niche audience when Abrams revived the franchise this year because TNG had been popular twenty years earlier.

I'm not sure it was that much of a niche. The very fact that Davies got the go ahead to ressurect the show must be down in part to the large fiollowing it had, even after many, many years off the radar. The same is true of Star Trek. If the names Trek and Who didn't resonate with people what would be the point in brining either back, apart from laziness?

As for RTD, my opinion of him as a writer has softened of late, and frankly a large part of this was down to how fucking brilliant Children of Earth and Midnight were, but I still like to sit on the fence. At times the man is a genius, at times he is a hack. Now interestingly I think he actually chooses to write when he's a hack, and obviously the energy over sense notion has worked very well. Many of Davies' episodes have been favourites of mine, and frankly even his worst scripts usually have a moment, or a scene in them that's phenomenal. Take New Earth, horrible horrible episode. and then Cassandra dies in her own arms which was utterly fantastic. The first half of Gridlock is pants, but then the second half RTD pulls the rug out from under us about why those people are trapped down there and it's utterly brilliant. Of course the reverse is true. Love and Monsters is a wonderful portrayal of fandom, and the scenes with Jackie are her finest hour, but ultimately its ruined by a stupid fat alien and a paving slab.

RTD is a good writer. My problem is that when he puts his mind to it he can be a great writer, he just doesn't do it often enough, and as someone says he writes fantastic set up, but can't write the resolutions to go with them.

 

[Sci]

I never said it wasn't, I was merely disputing that the original was not a show "with incredibly small, geeky, niche audiences when it was on." as Sci was indicating. It rarely got under 7 million viewers right up until the mid 80s.

And then after the mid-80s, it turned into a niche audience, and that audience got smaller and smaller during the "interregnum," as audiences of dead TV shows always do.

Trying to claim that Doctor Who fandom was not an incredibly small, geeky niche audience when Davies revived the show because the original series had been popular once upon a time is like trying to claim that Star Trek fandom had not been reduced to a very small, geeky niche audience when Abrams revived the franchise this year because TNG had been popular twenty years earlier.

You said it was a show with an incredibly small audience when it was on, your exact words.

Because by 1989, it was.

If you did in fact mean that you were only talking about the last 5 years of it's very long original run you should have said so originally, but you did not.

Pardon me, but I thought it was so obvious that I was talking about the show's last years that it wasn't necessary to elaborate. What with those being years when it "was on" and the years that led to its cancellation.

You know, just like someone talking about how, say, Ally McBeal became insufficiently popular to keep on the air is obviously not talking about its earlier seasons when everyone loved it.

I'm not sure it was that much of a niche. The very fact that Davies got the go ahead to ressurect the show must be down in part to the large fiollowing it had, even after many, many years off the radar. The same is true of Star Trek. If the names Trek and Who didn't resonate with people what would be the point in brining either back, apart from laziness?

Well, first off, don't under-estimate the power of laziness as a motivator for studios asking writers to bring back old franchises.

Secondly, I would suggest that this is not so much a matter of them thinking that the show was not niche as of them thinking that a niche show often has the potential to expand.

Another parallel I think we can look at is the Batman franchise. Throughout most of the 80s, if you said the words "Batman" to most studio execs, they'd think of the 1960s Adam West program and/or the various low-quality animated series. They might also think of the ongoing Batman comics, of course, but those -- like comics in general -- had always been a niche audience.

What convinced Warner Brothers to fund a multi-million dollar action film adaptation of Batman in 1989 was that they looked at the comics being made at the time -- The Dark Knight Returns, Batman: Year One, etc. -- and at the arguments made by their artists about how it could be adapted into something much more mature and genuinely gripping than the Adam West stuff had been, and that this could then appeal to a mass market.

In other words -- it wasn't Batman's reputation that convinced Warner Brothers that the 1989 film would be successful, it was the possibility of changing the reputation. It wasn't the fact of the niche audience by itself, it was the possibility of expanding the niche audience.

With Doctor Who, the BBC had that same possibility. They had a name that everyone knew, even if not everyone thought fondly of it, and they knew that it had inspired a loyal and persistent niche audience. They saw the more sophisticated New Adventures novels and heard arguments from RTD about how he could develop Doctor Who in new ways, make it more sophisticated and gripping than it had been. That told them that with some retooling, a revived series could expand from its niche audience and overcome its low-quality reputation. (Christopher Eccleston even said that that was their goal in several promotional interviews he did for Series One.)

I think that the loyal niche audiences are often signs to these studios that a given property can become very popular, but I think their general line of thought is, "Find out what the strengths and weaknesses of the property are, expand the strengths and get rid of the weaknesses, and if the old-guard fans are upset about it, sorry, but this will make the property better and more popular."

This is all just my inference from reading about the history of how projects get relaunched, mind you. But either way, I don't think that the broad popularity of relaunched franchises can be attributed solely to the brand name. I know for a fact, for instance, that every friend of mine who saw ST09 with me did so in spite of the words "Star Trek" in its title, on the basis of the idea that this was different from Star Treks they'd seen in the past, not because of it.

 

[Shazam!]

My biggest criticism with RTD is that he has nice build-ups and shit endings.

Like his sex life.

 

[Sci]

My biggest criticism with RTD is that he has nice build-ups and shit endings.

Like his sex life.

WTF?

 

[TedShatner10]

OK, Sci, about excessive criticism from fans, here's my deconstruction of criticism from an irate fan I've last posted:

RTD's problem: he got stuck on this whole idea of the Doctor as "the most wonderful man in the Universe",

Again Steven Moffat and Paul Cornell is guilty of that, but for better or worse Doctor Who now resembles mythololgy more than science fiction.

which means that anybody he opposed would be irredeemably evil.

He's not seen "Boomtown".

At the same time, he's got to be seen to be offering mercy even to his worst enemies because he's supposed to be "the most wonderful man in the Universe" (I swear that if I kept hearing Wilfred Mott twitter on along those lines, I was going to puke)

He showed mercy to the Master, not only because he's a fellow Time Lord, but also because he help undo most of the Master's genocidal damage and the Master became like a whimpering kid.

—except of course if they weren't special in some way or another in the Doctor's view, which means they could just burn (like the Racnoss).

That's overanalysing, since the Doctor really had no other way to stop the Racnoss from making London their first course and he even tried to reason with the Racnoss Queen.

This guarantees that RTD's writing will base its "logic" upon one or more very huge black/white fallacies.

Again, never seen "Boomtown" or even Dalek Sec's story arc, or understood Captain Jack (and his darkest hours in Torchwood's "Children of Earth").

He is indeed a hack. Worse, he's a fanzine-level hack.

RTD being a intense fan, for better or worse, was one of reasons Doctor Who came back onto the scene with many of the elements that the old series had.

How this man got the credentials to be counted a professional writer speaks volumes as to how far standards have sunk over the years between "Survival" and "Rose".

That's ultimately a flawed argument, since scripted television is under more intense commercial pressure than it has ever been under, RTD's Doctor Who could've been stillborn like the 1996 attempt, it could've been a real critical failure like Bone Kickers and Demons (other shows that are genuinely terrible). And saying writing standards have supposedly sunk is akin to saying 'He cheated!' and not long after "Survival", RTD was penning a successful kid's show, Dark Season, back in 1991.

Not even John Nathan-Turner would have greenlighted bullshit like this, and he's the man who inflicted "Time And The Rani", "Delta And The Bannermen" and Bonnie Langford on us all.

Uhh, OK.

 

[Checkmate]

<shrugs again> Another big 'whatever.'

I can handle the occasional deus ex machina. But when you're regular storytelling process goes along the lines of "uhm, shit, I dunno what to do now... let's just make the Doctor into Jesus Christ and let him become God simply by having everyone around the world say his name. Yeah, that's bloody brilliant!" then you can just fuck off as far as I'm concerned. That's not storytelling. That's pathetic. Especially when -- as he did in the original post -- you admit that's exactly how you tels a so-called good story.

Any fucktard can vomit up idiotic plot ideas and string them together. That doesn't make them a good storyteller any more than it does for RTD, Lucas, or any other shithead "writer." And, again, there's a big difference between being a good show runner and a good writer. I'll admit RTD did a decent job of running the show. But anyone who tries to tell me he's a decent writer or storyteller, let alone a good one... well, they can just fuck off, too. I don't care what other credits he has. Most of the crap he's done for Doctor Who has been embarrassingly bad.

 

[Sci]

<shrugs again> Another big 'whatever.'

I can handle the occasional deus ex machina. But when you're regular storytelling process goes along the lines of "uhm, shit, I dunno what to do now... let's just make the Doctor into Jesus Christ and let him become God simply by having everyone around the world say his name. Yeah, that's bloody brilliant!" then you can just fuck off as far as I'm concerned. That's not storytelling. That's pathetic. Especially when -- as he did in the original post -- you admit that's exactly how you tels a so-called good story.

Any fucktard can vomit up idiotic plot ideas and string them together. That doesn't make them a good storyteller any more than it does for RTD, Lucas, or any other shithead "writer." And, again, there's a big difference between being a good show runner and a good writer. I'll admit RTD did a decent job of running the show. But anyone who tries to tell me he's a decent writer or storyteller, let alone a good one... well, they can just fuck off, too. I don't care what other credits he has. Most of the crap he's done for Doctor Who has been embarrassingly bad.

Fascinating how you can't just bring yourself to say, "His writing style isn't for me." No, instead, you have to try to consistently claim that your subjective taste is some sort of objective fact, and start insulting people who dare to say that they think RTD is a good writer.

And I'll repeat, it is impossible to judge RTD's overall writing abilities without judging his non-Doctor Who work, especially since he's made it clear in numerous interviews that he approaches the writing of Doctor Who very differently than he does the writing of other projects.

 

[Pingfah]

Pardon me, but I thought it was so obvious that I was talking about the show's last years that it wasn't necessary to elaborate. What with those being years when it "was on" and the years that led to its cancellation.

You know, just like someone talking about how, say, Ally McBeal became insufficiently popular to keep on the air is obviously not talking about its earlier seasons when everyone loved it.

You did not say you were referring to it becoming too unpopular to keep on. You mentioned nothing about declining viewership, or any sort of time frame you were referring to. You were talking about the popularity of the new show and compared it to "a cheap, poorly-written, cheesily-acted children's program that had been off the air for a decade and a half and which had represented hammy productions with incredibly small, geeky, niche audiences when it was on."

Sorry, my psychic powers are obviously failing me. All my fault. Next time I'll try to magically know exactly what you are talking about despite you not actually using any of the words required to get your point across.

 

[Mr Awe]

Debating an anonymous poster from another BBS seems particularly pointless. How about the people on this BBS debate the issue with each other rather than an anonymous outside post.

Especially because that specific post doesn't reflect what those critical of RTD on this board are saying. I think generally the criticisms on this board are more nuanced, and more well thought out than the repost from elsehwere.

Mr Awe

 

[Starkers]

<shrugs again> Another big 'whatever.'

I can handle the occasional deus ex machina. But when you're regular storytelling process goes along the lines of "uhm, shit, I dunno what to do now... let's just make the Doctor into Jesus Christ and let him become God simply by having everyone around the world say his name. Yeah, that's bloody brilliant!" then you can just fuck off as far as I'm concerned. That's not storytelling. That's pathetic. Especially when -- as he did in the original post -- you admit that's exactly how you tels a so-called good story.

Any fucktard can vomit up idiotic plot ideas and string them together. That doesn't make them a good storyteller any more than it does for RTD, Lucas, or any other shithead "writer." And, again, there's a big difference between being a good show runner and a good writer. I'll admit RTD did a decent job of running the show. But anyone who tries to tell me he's a decent writer or storyteller, let alone a good one... well, they can just fuck off, too. I don't care what other credits he has. Most of the crap he's done for Doctor Who has been embarrassingly bad.

That's YOUR opinion and you're welcome to it, but don't tell me to fuck off please for having the temirty to disagree with you. Just because RTD can't write good endings doesn't make him a shit writer. By your logic someone who can tell a good story but has no concept of character or dialogue is brilliant? All writers are flawed in some respect. Some can create wonderful characters but are no good at plot, others the reverse. Perhaps you can give us some examples of good writers, because I'm pretty sure we could pull them apart just as easily. And don't give me Moffat as an example because some of his endings make about as much sense as RTDs but, but, the big difference is that he sells you the solution early on. Much as I hate the Jesus Doctor, there is some logic behind it because of the Archange network, the trouble is RTD didn't tell us enough about Archangel beforehand, Moffat likely would have done. To me that makes RTD a flawed writer, but not a bad one.

Oh dear God I've become a defender of RTD, Jim I know how you feel now

 

[Sci]

Oh dear God I've become a defender of RTD, Jim I know how you feel now

Welcome to the club. We don't have all that many members here at the TrekBBS Chapter of Defending RTD, but if you want I can teach you the secret handshake and get you a membership card.