The End Of Time Part 2 - Comment & Grading SPOILERS

[Starkers]

And so avoidable with a simple line of dialogue as well.

Female cactus. 'Why have you switched the tractor beam/anti grav/whatever on?'

Cue Ten pulling open the escape hatch. It's little things like this that annoy me about RTD.

Haven't we evolved past the need for technobabble bullshit?

we are talking about the same show, right?

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

we are talking about the same show, right?

Yes, we're talking about Doctor "I just made it up. Didn't want to say magic door" Who.

 

[Bones2]

Well if it's a choice between the Doctor improbably surviving a fall for no reason at all whatsoever (other than poor writing), or the Doctor surviving the fall because of some fictional technology, would you really prefer the former?

 

[Samurai8472]

I thought the last few posts have warranted showing RTD's thinking process.

It might answer some questions concerning "TEOT"

From the new Writer's Tale

http://www.sfx.co.uk/page/sfx?entry=20_things_we_learnt_from

Discussing rewatching a repeat of “The Sound Of Drums”, he ponders the fact that you suddenly learn about things like the Archangel network, the Valiant, and the TARDIS becoming a Paradox Machine out of nowhere, with no advance seeding or foreshadowing in the script. It’s a fascinating passage, worth quoting at length: “I can see how annoying that looks. I can see how maddening it must be, for some people. Especially if you’re imposing really classical script structures and templates on that episode, even unconsciously. I must look like a vandal, a kid or an amateur… The simple fact is, all those things were planned. All of them were my choice. They’re not lazy, clumsy or desperate. They’re chosen. I can see more traditional ways of telling those stories, but I’m not interested. I think the stuff that you gain from writing in this way – the shock, the whirlwind, the freedom, the exhilaration – is worth the world. I’ve got this sort of tumbling, freewheeling style that somersaults along, with everything happening now - not later, not before, but now, now, now. I’ve made a Doctor Who that exists in the present tense. It’s happening now, right in front of your eyes! If you don’t like it, if you don’t join in with it then… blimey, these episodes must be nonsensical. But those classical structures can be seen in Primeval, in Demons, in Merlin, in all of them – and yet we stand with millions more viewers. And I think that’s partly why.

Sounds like he just makes things up off the cuff

"I live in the moment!"

>_>

 

[Bones2]

See, that's a quote that really gets to me. He seems arrogant and irritating.

"I must look like a vandal, a kid or an amateur… The simple fact is, all those things were planned. All of them were my choice. They’re not lazy, clumsy or desperate."

I think they probably are.

"They’re chosen. I can see more traditional ways of telling those stories, but I’m not interested."

Not capable more like.

"If you don’t like it, if you don’t join in with it then… blimey, these episodes must be nonsensical."

Something either makes sense or it doesn't. These things often don't but he throws so many things in there so that we hopefully won't notice. And sadly, it seems to work.

"But those classical structures can be seen in Primeval, in Demons, in Merlin, in all of them – and yet we stand with millions more viewers. And I think that’s partly why."

I think it's more to do with the Doctor Who name and all that comes with it (Daleks, TARDIS...), the budget and commitment behind it, and the easy publicity.

 

[KottenFutz]

Well if it's a choice between the Doctor improbably surviving a fall for no reason at all whatsoever (other than poor writing), or the Doctor surviving the fall because of some fictional technology, would you really prefer the former?

The Doctor survived the fall because he's the Doctor, he's also been known to absorb radiation, survive electrocution, expell poison from his body, had his mind nearly destroyed, and moved whole planets, just among a million other things... he's a 900+ Time Lord who's defeated entire armies and has only died 10 times, good odds I'd say... poor writing? How 'bout 40 years of stories depicting him as one amazing man, without spoon feeding the viewer constantly as to why.

 

[Sci]

"They’re chosen. I can see more traditional ways of telling those stories, but I’m not interested."

Not capable more like.

I'm always curious... You, and others, have claimed that RTD is a poor writer with difficulty controlling his writing process, and here, you explicitly argue that he's incapable of writing a more traditionally-structured script.

So my question to you is...

What of his work, outside of Who and its related projects, have you seen to come to that conclusion?

Remember, RTD isn't just a sci-fi/Who writer. The guy's written things like The Grand, Touching Evil, Queer As Folk, Bob and Rose, The Second Coming, Casanova, and Mine All Mine.

Bottom line.... He's essentially saying that he willingly chooses to write in a specific style that some find off-putting or amateurish when he writes Doctor Who. The most rational way to test whether this is a trait of his writing in general -- and therefore to test whether or not he is capable of writing a more traditional structure -- is to have a comprehensive overview of his non-Who-related credits.

Has anyone done that?

 

[The Nth Doctor]

Well if it's a choice between the Doctor improbably surviving a fall for no reason at all whatsoever (other than poor writing), or the Doctor surviving the fall because of some fictional technology, would you really prefer the former?

Neither. I like my solution from earlier.

 

[Bones2]

Well if it's a choice between the Doctor improbably surviving a fall for no reason at all whatsoever (other than poor writing), or the Doctor surviving the fall because of some fictional technology, would you really prefer the former?

Neither. I like my solution from earlier.

Yeah, that seems like the best idea. The ship didn't look so advanced as to have whatever technobabble thing it needs at any given time (that is to say, it was no USS Voyager). A parachute would have been cool and lo-tech.

As to surviving the fall because he's a Time Lord? Logopolis.

 

[David cgc]

Let's not go arguing for consistency in deaths in Doctor Who. After all, the Master was killed by one little bullet, while the Seventh Doctor took a dozen of 'em like a champ, and only died after a catheter got jabbed into one of his hearts.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

Maybe Lucy has really good aim and took out both hearts with one bullet?

Yeah, I know what you mean.

 

[Bones2]

I'd never even thought about that. But yeah, maybe a good enough shot took the Master out. And he clearly let himself die there anyway.

Tenth surviving that fall with just a few scratches was, on the other hand, just idiotic. But apparently the new consensus is that idiotic things, nonsense writing, and deus ex machina resolutions are visionary writing and what makes new Doctor Who so successful. Not silly old things like consistency and logic.

 

[David cgc]

I don't think either of those possibilities have much to do with it, to be honest.

 

[Starkers]

Let's not go arguing for consistency in deaths in Doctor Who. After all, the Master was killed by one little bullet, while the Seventh Doctor took a dozen of 'em like a champ, and only died after a catheter got jabbed into one of his hearts.

Yes but to be honest humans are no different. Peoplem have been shot multiple times by large caliber automatic weapons and survived whilst other people have been hit once with a tiny .22 and died. The human body can be alternately incredinly fragile and incredibly resilient.

I'd have hated the parachute idea because the Doctor would have landed pretty safely. I liked the smash through the skylight and fall to the floor, it's the several mile fall to the skylight that annoyed me. Ok if the gravity beam idea doesn't work he could have at least parked the ship a few metres above the skylight?

 

[The Nth Doctor]

I'd have hated the parachute idea because the Doctor would have landed pretty safely. I liked the smash through the skylight and fall to the floor, it's the several mile fall to the skylight that annoyed me. Ok if the gravity beam idea doesn't work he could have at least parked the ship a few metres above the skylight?

But at the short range that The Doctor jumped from, the parachute would have only slowed down his descent marginally, but enough for me to believe he (or any human) wouldn't be killed from crashing through the skylight. I do like the smash through the skylight, but I have a hard time swallowing because of Logopolis and the large descent.

 

[Starkers]

^True, what I would have hated was him descending through the skylight with the cool he rode the horse through the mirror in TGITFP with. He needed to be battered and broken by his actions.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

Yup, I agree on that point. We needed to feel the threat of him dying, but not the absurdity of him not dying.

 

[Starkers]

'xactly!

 

[Sci]

I don't suppose we could justify the Doctor's death by fall in Logopolis but his survival in "The End of Time, Part Two" by postulating that the Fourth Doctor had a body that was relatively older and weaker than the Tenth Doctor's?

How long did the Doctor live in his fourth incarnation, relatively-speaking, anyway? Might he have been the Fourth Doctor for many decades or even centuries? (I'm of the school of thought that says the Doctor lived in his tenth incarnation for about ten years, give or take.)

 

[The Nth Doctor]

That could work, too (and help with The First Doctor's regeneration, too...combination of Mondas' energy drain and severe old age). There's room for a lot of time to pass in The Fourth Doctor's timeline between The Hand of Fear and The Deadly Assassin, The Deadly Assassin and The Face of Evil, The Invasion of Time and The Ribos Operation, and during his time with Romana. You can also throw in that "brief" time he left in Robot if you want.