Spoilers The Reality War grade and discussion thread

[Mr Awe]

In what capacity did Handcock tell you that? Was it a convention or in an interview (or something else)?

I was talking to him personally at a convention. Very nice guy! He's 40 but looks like he's 20. Lucky!

So, I'm convinced that Moffat helped somehow during the 2nd season. Just not sure how and how much. But there were points during the season that seemed to have his fingerprints on it.

 

[Nerys Myk]

I was talking to him personally at a convention. Very nice guy! He's 40 but looks like he's 20. Lucky!

So, I'm convinced that Moffat helped somehow during the 2nd season. Just not sure how and how much. But there were points during the season that seemed to have his fingerprints on it.

The timey-wimey bits?

 

[Mr Awe]

The timey-wimey bits?

That was my thought. But I don't really know for sure. Unfortunately, I didn't have time to clarify!

 

[Emperor-Tiberius]

I was talking to him personally at a convention. Very nice guy! He's 40 but looks like he's 20. Lucky!

So, I'm convinced that Moffat helped somehow during the 2nd season. Just not sure how and how much. But there were points during the season that seemed to have his fingerprints on it.

Maybe that's why the second season was overally pretty good?

 

[jaime]

To quote WC Fields, "If you can't dazzle them with brillance, baffle them with bullshit." (See also, Steven Moffat.)

Moffat somehow always just about manages to make it work. More or less. Sometimes you have to squint, or decide if he’s done an anti-RTD and focused more on the characters and theme than where he seemed to be going with story elements (the Hybrid stuff works under that approach)
In that sense he’s the complete opposite. He gets caught up in the characters more than the desire for flashes and bangs. (Consider how many times things come down to a conversation in a room, rather than splosions and CGI.)

On balance, it’s no secret I prefer the Moffat approach, partially because I like character driven stuff, but also because he seems to have a pathological need to cross his t’s and dot his i’s, no matter the cost.
If RTD had started a season with a crack in a wall, doing weird shit all year across time and space, we’d be lucky if he remembered it in a finale with everyone and their dog in — and also unlucky, as he might just have someone stick polyfilla in it and reveal it was nothing important.

 

[Mr Awe]

Maybe that's why the second season was overally pretty good?

I enjoyed the second season more than the first. Although I didn't think it was great. But, yes, a definite improvement.

 

[Emperor-Tiberius]

I enjoyed the second season more than the first. Although I didn't think it was great. But, yes, a definite improvement.

This warrants a thread...

 

[Pindar]

Just a thought, why didn't the Rani just use the power of the wish to bring back Gallifrey as she wanted and if a brain was needed to hold the wish use Mrs Flood?

 

[Starkers]

Good point.

I was also wondering whether the Mrs Flood iteration of the Rani would be able to regenerate again given she's already bi-generated?

 

[matthunter]

Just a thought, why didn't the Rani just use the power of the wish to bring back Gallifrey as she wanted and if a brain was needed to hold the wish use Mrs Flood?

Got the impression the wish couldn't actually be held properly - the doubts thing. And as she said, the doubt of a Time Lord was even worse for the fabric of reality, so a whole planetful all slowly realising something was a bit off would be even worse for the fabric than cat wee.

Conrad also only seemed to be able to hold a single 24 hour "repeat", presumably because extrapolating "what happens tomorrow?" for everyone is a bit much.

 

[M.A.C.O.]

Late to the party.

What the hell was that?!

I was just starting to feel good about season 2 and then they just write off everyone, drop lingering plot threads the Celestial Toymaker referenced. All so they can fade into Billie Piper’s head surrounded by special effects.

I really wanted things to work out with this new era, but I think I’ve seen enough for a while.

 

[Pindar]

Got the impression the wish couldn't actually be held properly - the doubts thing. And as she said, the doubt of a Time Lord was even worse for the fabric of reality, so a whole planetful all slowly realising something was a bit off would be even worse for the fabric than cat wee.

Conrad also only seemed to be able to hold a single 24 hour "repeat", presumably because extrapolating "what happens tomorrow?" for everyone is a bit much.

Maybe, wasn't the doubt of the Doctor somehow key to the Rani's plan. I can't remember now.

The more I think about what happened to Belinda's character the more it annoys me.

 

[matthunter]

The more I think about what happened to Belinda's character the more it annoys me.

Maybe in a decade we'll get Ncuti back as the 21st Doctor to revisit her and resolve the whole thing, a la Donna?

 

[jaime]

Maybe, wasn't the doubt of the Doctor somehow key to the Rani's plan. I can't remember now.

The more I think about what happened to Belinda's character the more it annoys me.

The Rani was wearing the universe down by having one day on loop like one track on a cassette, then to accelerate that (and the doubt as everyone gets Deja vu going, as well as increasing suspicion that the world is wonky) she throws in a Time Lord who really should *know* stuff is skewed — and the Doctor is basically the only candidate for that.

Basically, she needed him, and his vindicator readings (for some reason beyond just getting him into the loop) to get things done faster, because her objective was to wear through the universe to see what was underneath it, where she believes Omega and his Antimatter universe is (ignoring that (a) we know where it is, or at least people on Gallifrey did, so she could have just gone and looked at a damn map and (b) Omega came through in Arc of Infinity and died. Mind you, he’d been dead before.)

That’s it. That’s her plan.

The rest of it? Whether it was worth it because apparently in this magical universe Omega has turned into Cronos because fuck it, there’s a budget for big CGI toss every year now? Whether the fact she offered to basically restore everything on earth to normal once she had got Omega back and restored Gallifrey and her own extinct race even mattered? (She probably would have done after all, and the Doctor was more than happy to see what happened once he got in the room with her…)

Well. I guess that’s up to individual taste.

It would have been weak, and as is the trend now unnecessarily based in ‘kill some family of normal people somewhere to show how bad people are’ bollocks that RTD just loves, but that would have been it.

But now after Regeneration, and Bigeneration, we have ‘rewrite your companions life with regeninsemination’. Blech.

Not to mention all the other stuff which just reads *wrong*.

As Trek fans we all know how Avery was against ‘absent black father’ tropes when doing DS9.

Here’s RTD and Who to show how effing blind he is.

 

[diankra]

Good point.

I was also wondering whether the Mrs Flood iteration of the Rani would be able to regenerate again given she's already bi-generated?

If it suits the plot, then she can.

 

[M.A.C.O.]

The Rani was wearing the universe down by having one day on loop like one track on a cassette, then to accelerate that (and the doubt as everyone gets Deja vu going, as well as increasing suspicion that the world is wonky) she throws in a Time Lord who really should *know* stuff is skewed — and the Doctor is basically the only candidate for that.

Basically, she needed him, and his vindicator readings (for some reason beyond just getting him into the loop) to get things done faster, because her objective was to wear through the universe to see what was underneath it, where she believes Omega and his Antimatter universe is (ignoring that (a) we know where it is, or at least people on Gallifrey did, so she could have just gone and looked at a damn map and (b) Omega came through in Arc of Infinity and died. Mind you, he’d been dead before.)

That’s it. That’s her plan.

The rest of it? Whether it was worth it because apparently in this magical universe Omega has turned into Cronos because fuck it, there’s a budget for big CGI toss every year now? Whether the fact she offered to basically restore everything on earth to normal once she had got Omega back and restored Gallifrey and her own extinct race even mattered? (She probably would have done after all, and the Doctor was more than happy to see what happened once he got in the room with her…)

Well. I guess that’s up to individual taste.

It would have been weak, and as is the trend now unnecessarily based in ‘kill some family of normal people somewhere to show how bad people are’ bollocks that RTD just loves, but that would have been it.

But now after Regeneration, and Bigeneration, we have ‘rewrite your companions life with regeninsemination’. Blech.

Not to mention all the other stuff which just reads *wrong*.

As Trek fans we all know how Avery was against ‘absent black father’ tropes when doing DS9.

Here’s RTD and Who to show how effing blind he is.

I hated how RTD did a complete 180 on Belinda’s character. A strong, independent woman, with a sense of awe and wonder about the universe. Reduced to a single-mom after a reality rewrite.


RTD did the same thing on the Sarah Jane Adventures back during the Tennant run. One of the teenage cast was a black kid named Clyde. He was the child of a single mother household. His father having abandoned the family before he was born. His father appears in one episode and he’s the villain. Possessed by the alien of the week.


Fear Her from early Tennant run, also had a single mother household with a black family. The father was abusive to both his wife and daughter and would abandon his family periodically. The unnamed father eventually dying in a car collision.

Not a great look to being doing things like this in 21st century when people know better.

I’m a black man in America and I’m acutely aware of this problem. My friends in Canada told me it’s the same in their country. When I saw the Sarah Jane episode I referenced a decade ago. I learned that absentee fathers are a problem in the UK as well. In Africa, there are orphanages all over the continent. Absentee fathers and mothers who give up their children.

 

[jaime]

I hated how RTD did a complete 180 on Belinda’s character. A strong, independent woman, with a sense of awe and wonder about the universe. Reduced to a single-mom after a reality rewrite.


RTD did the same thing on the Sarah Jane Adventures back during the Tennant run. One of the teenage cast was a black kid named Clyde. He was the child of a single mother household. His father having abandoned the family before he was born. His father appears in one episode and he’s the villain. Possessed by the alien of the week.


Fear Her from early Tennant run, also had a single mother household with a black family. The father was abusive to both his wife and daughter and would abandon his family periodically. The unnamed father eventually dying in a car collision.

Not a great look to being doing things like this in 21st century when people know better.

I’m a black man in America and I’m acutely aware of this problem. My friends in Canada told me it’s the same in their country. When I saw the Sarah Jane episode I referenced a decade ago. I learned that absentee fathers are a problem in the UK as well. In Africa, there are orphanages all over the continent. Absentee fathers and mothers who give up their children.

I don’t think RTD can think outside of soap opera boxes tbh. Closest thing to a happy couple I all of NuWho is Amy & Rory, and they were (a) under Moffat and (b) nearly divorced.

As to absentee fathers, and absentee black fathers particularly in this case, there’s all sorts of problems in the real world, and all sorts in how they are shown on TV. Who even doubled down on the approach taken in SJA with Ryan’s Dad in the Chibnall era.

Doctor Who does have a couple of good dads, written by Gareth Roberts usually, and ironically.

Someone just needs to have word, and get RTD a Script Editor who lives and thinks outside of weird bubble that think it’s ok to keep pulling this nonsense over and over. Not least as it’s children’s fiction level of ‘get the audience invested’ to keep having the companion be something of an orphan or abandoned in some manner. And if not them… well, we saw what happened with Belinda. And Poppy. And our first Black Doctor.

Shameful. And I’m a white dude, and I can see it, so why can’t the enlightened RTD?

 

[Starkers]

No to mention Martha's dad who left his wife for a younger woman.

Most families in RTD world are dysfunctional, and how many dippy dads and harridan mums have we seen over the years? (He even does it in Its a Sin And Years and Years.)

I'm trying to think of the least dysfunctional family unit, maybe Rani's in The SJA?

RTD also has curious ideas about happiness.

All Rose needed was a 'not quite her dad' and a 'not quite her Ten'.

Donna just needed to be rich.

Martha just needed to marry Mickey because he had no idea what else to do with two black characters.

Jack just needed a shag.

Ruby needed her real mum and her real dad, fuck the women who raised her.

I'll let him off Belinda just needed a baby because that was clearly supposed to have been Ruby's story and it would have made lovely sense, for Ruby.

 

[matthunter]

Donna just needed to be rich.

No.

Donna gave up her wealth to help people because she subconsciously knew that's what the Doctor would do. What Donna never felt she had was actual relevance, which post-mindwipe her mother was more aware she had to encourage her to believe in.

 

[Starkers]

No.

Donna gave up her wealth to help people because she subconsciously knew that's what the Doctor would do. What Donna never felt she had was actual relevance, which post-mindwipe her mother was more aware she had to encourage her to believe in.

Yeah that's RTD's retcon 15 years later, not how it was intended at the time.