What expectations did you have for Moffat's tenure?

[Emperor-Tiberius]

Well, sure, but then, even BF didn't really help by basically following Moffat's narrowed view of the Time War. None of the Time War audio stories have thus far been particularly memorable, other than by the sheer virtue of having John Hurt portray his Warrior role again before his sad passing.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

Well, sure, but then, even BF didn't really help by basically following Moffat's narrowed view of the Time War. None of the Time War audio stories have thus far been particularly memorable, other than by the sheer virtue of having John Hurt portray his Warrior role again before his sad passing.

That's a fair assessment of the War Doctor audios. Hurt elevates that material and brings his costars up a notch, but storywise they felt like Nick Briggs took Dalek Empire and Gallifrey, tossed them in a blender, hit puree, and got a gloop that works because John Hurt makes it work by the sheer force of his voice, not because it does anything new or interesting or innovative with the material and the concept.

The interesting thing, to me, about the War Doctor stories we've had since "Day of the Doctor" (Engines of War, the audios, Titan Comics' Eleventh Doctor Year Two, even the little bit of Season of War I've read) is how they reinforce what the tenth Doctor says in the shack -- "You were the Doctor all along." We focus on the eleventh Doctor saying, "You're the one who broke the promise," but all the material since then has, to my mind, gone out of its way to show that, no, he didn't break the promise. He lost faith in himself, he lost faith in his name, yet at his core he remained the man he had always been.

One unfortunate thing about Moffat's tenure is that he gave us two regeneration stories without the matching post-regeneration stories. As was pointed out in Panini's eighth Doctor graphic novels, a regeneration is a story of halves -- the half leading up to the change, and the half that deals with the aftermath of that change and the new Doctor's discovery of who he is. Moffat's desire to "complete the set" deprived us of the War Doctor's first days and the ninth Doctor's first days. There are events in those second halves that would explain so much about who these men are and how they saw the men they had been. I can invent, in my mind, a psychological portrait of the ninth Doctor in the aftermath of "Day of the Doctor" -- the howls of pain and agony when he realizes that Gallifrey has gone, the lack of specific memories as to why it's gone, the feeling of contentment that he dimly remembers his predecessor feeling prior to the regeneration, a feeling that he misinterprets and misunderstands in the worst possible way. It's that moment that I think most shaped how the later Doctors saw that part of his life. There are stories there, and we'll never see them. (Though, this year's Free Comic Book Day Doctor Who comic has what I think is the first official pre-"Rose" ninth Doctor story. So maybe there's hope.)

 

[Emperor-Tiberius]

Its sad that Hurt passed away, or they could've delved into how Doctor-ish his Warrior was in comparison to the others. I mean, he HAD to be different, otherwise why would the rest be so adamant to be the Doctor again? Its sad and disheartening that its glossed over as a piece of characterization, since to me, part of the appeal of NuWho was the Doctor trying to be his past self despite the horrible thing he'd done. It made him an interesting character with massive opportunities that, I think for the most part RTD explored, with the Doctor knowing the cost of terribleness his choices can have. I'm glad Capaldi returned to that, to a degree, with the Zygon two-parter, implying that his memory of the burned Gallifrey still exists in the corner of his mind (much like Amy remembers her life, with AND without her parents) and understands the consequence of war in all forms. Its sad, really, that Moffat in trying to give a genuine twist to Doctor Who (which to me, it was at the time I watched it live), inadvertently hurt the characterization in some ways.

I guess John Hurt playing the part also is a big reason why that is. He's not at fault, but how many of us bent backwards to his performance and excused the obvious elephant in the room - that he was a last-minute replacement for Eccleston, and the whole Forgotten Doctor shpiel was never gonna be satisfactory under Moffat (since we're talking expectations, I did wish this was a more exciting revelation).

In the end, I wish the BF releases had explored the dark Doctor, who was still the Doctor, but not scheming for the greater good, but instead did choices he'd never do as the Doctor. Like decide that a single life was worth to lose in order for countless billions to survive. That alone would explain his lack of faith in himself, and excuse the non-numbering. BUT...you know.

 

[The Wormhole]

He's not at fault, but how many of us bent backwards to his performance and excused the obvious elephant in the room - that he was a last-minute replacement for Eccleston,

Unfortunately, it's always been clear to me the War Doctor was an Eccleston substitute, even going back to the first time I watched Day of the Doctor. The War Doctor is basically a warrior Doctor, which is more or less what Eccleston's Doctor was, a warrior, or soldier as he's often described, Doctor. Sure, John Hurt's portrayal certainly elevates the material and from there we can infer differences, but unfortunately as written, the fact the character is an Eccleston substitute is very clear. It certainly doesn't help matters that the other characters have dialogue that was clearly written under the belief they'd be talking to or about Eccleston, like the Moment's comment about the War Doctor's ears. Hell, the Moment taking on Rose's form was clearly meant to get Eccleston and Piper together again.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

I don't really want to relitigate the sins of "The Day of the Doctor," for those sins are legion. I do wish that Moffat had been able to execute another rewrite on the script to smooth out some of the awkwardness in the ninth Doctor material that was repurposed for John Hurt. There are two scenes that have always read to me like they were written specifically for Eccleston ("I am looking for the Doctor..." and "It must have been really recent for you..."); one because it's tonally wrong, the other because the dialogue makes no sense for what we learn about the War Doctor's lifespan. Yet, I'd take a flawed "Day of the Doctor" with John Hurt over a perfectly smooth "Day of the Doctor" with Eccleston. No disrespect to Eccleston, but seeing Hurt as the Doctor was a dream come true.

 

[The Wormhole]

Certainly John Hurt justifies a lot of flaws, but an equal amount of those flaws could have been avoided. And indeed, a flaw Moffat runs into in his scripts is that he keeps material which made sense in the old version but doesn't in the new, like the aforementioned material in Day of the Doctor that seems tailored for Eccleston, or back when Clara was introduced, her knowing about Twitter is a plot point. Made sense in the original draft, which was written for Victorian era Clara, doesn't make sense in the filming version, where Clara is now someone from the modern era.

 

[TommyR01D]

One unfortunate thing about Moffat's tenure is that he gave us two regeneration stories without the matching post-regeneration stories. As was pointed out in Panini's eighth Doctor graphic novels, a regeneration is a story of halves -- the half leading up to the change, and the half that deals with the aftermath of that change and the new Doctor's discovery of who he is. Moffat's desire to "complete the set" deprived us of the War Doctor's first days and the ninth Doctor's first days.

Moffat's attitude towards regeneration in general leaves much to be desired. In the Classic Series there'd be one regeneration every few years, and it would only be because an actor was leaving. Davies loosened a bit (we saw Yana regenerate in Utopia, then we had the metacrisis business) but Moffat really threw caution to the wind. In the last few series we've had a robot faking regeneration, a vortex baby "focusing on a dress size", energy used to knock out assailants, regenerations somehow used up curing poison, regeneration somehow deliberately triggered at a whim to lend to others, changes invoked by magic potion, new ones added on remotely (Does it work like In Time?), energy beams shooting out of ones arm to blow up a spaceship, and finally Hell Bent.

I wouldn't exactly be surprised if by the end of this year Moffat had established that the regeneration process is controlled by Midi-chlorians.

It all forms part of the much wider issue of treating the Whoniverse as one's personal plaything and carelessly knocking down long-standing pillars of continuity for cheap tricks.

I do wish that Moffat had been able to execute another rewrite on the script to smooth out some of the awkwardness in the ninth Doctor material that was repurposed for John Hurt. There are two scenes that have always read to me like they were written specifically for Eccleston ("I am looking for the Doctor..." and "It must have been really recent for you..."); one because it's tonally wrong, the other because the dialogue makes no sense for what we learn about the War Doctor's lifespan.

Certainly John Hurt justifies a lot of flaws, but an equal amount of those flaws could have been avoided. And indeed, a flaw Moffat runs into in his scripts is that he keeps material which made sense in the old version but doesn't in the new, like the aforementioned material in Day of the Doctor that seems tailored for Eccleston, or back when Clara was introduced, her knowing about Twitter is a plot point. Made sense in the original draft, which was written for Victorian era Clara, doesn't make sense in the filming version, where Clara is now someone from the modern era.

This is a recurring problem for a lot of recent stories. Nightmare in Silver gets a lot of (hardly unwarranted) flack for it, but I can think of others - such as The Time of the Doctor - which have it even worse. There have been several episodes which felt as if an early draft had made it on-screen rather than a finished product.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

This is a recurring problem for a lot of recent stories. Nightmare in Silver gets a lot of (hardly unwarranted) flack for it, but I can think of others - such as The Time of the Doctor - which have it even worse. There have been several episodes which felt as if an early draft had made it on-screen rather than a finished product.

Moffat, like Douglas Adams, famously has problems with deadlines (which has caused production problems over the years).

Here's an interesting thing: Moffat hated writing "The Day of the Doctor": “It was an awful show to work on and I kept just wanting to give up. Because the truth is there is a reason why there is only one Doctor Who and there is absolutely no reason to have more than one.” This makes me wonder what he'd rather have done in 2013.

 

[Emperor-Tiberius]

I actually think he may have always liked the multi-Doctor stories up until that point, and certainly enjoyed writing Time Crash, but that maybe writing Day caused that change of heart? Maybe writing such a story is harder than it seems (I mean, even a capable Terrence Dicks had problems with The Five Doctors, famously, and even more famously, Robert Holmes with the same anniversary).

 

[The Wormhole]

I actually think he may have always liked the multi-Doctor stories up until that point, and certainly enjoyed writing Time Crash,

Actually, I seem to recall he never cared for multi-Doctor stories, Time Crash being the exception because it was a short mini-sode.

 

[kirk55555]

Hopefully Chibnail loves multi-Doctor stories. His first series will be the same year as the show's 55th Anniversary...

Honestly, I don't expect another multi-Doctor story, possibly ever, but a guy can dream.

 

[Starkers]

It all forms part of the much wider issue of treating the Whoniverse as one's personal plaything and carelessly knocking down long-standing pillars of continuity for cheap tricks.

Long standing pillars of continuity? Surely River bothering about a dress size is no different from Romana trying on multiple bodies? And how could Yana be sure he'd be young and vital rather just regenerating into someone older?

RTD introduced explosive regenerations, introduced the Doctor regrowing limbs immediately after regeneration, has the Doctor wasting a regeneration to regenerate into himself, creating a half human hybrid in the process, presumably had the Time lords grant Yana a new slew of regenerations and went out of his way to ignore the 12 regeneration limit.

But no only Moffat treats Who as his own plaything.

 

[The Wormhole]

In the last few series we've had a robot faking regeneration,

Wait, what's wrong with the Tessalecta(sp) faking regeneration? It is a shapeshifiting robot that can literally grow a motorcycle out of its ass. And you have a problem with it being able to make its skin glow?

 

[kirk55555]

Honestly, I like how much Regeneration has been used. Not that it hasn't been stupid once or twice (like 11 fixing River's hand with regeneration energy he didn't have), but I don't think regeneration needs to be rare and mysterious. Plus, like was pointed out above, Romana once tried out bodies, and nothing in NuWho regarding regeneration has been that ridiculous (not even 10's hand clone).

 

[Timby]

I actually think he may have always liked the multi-Doctor stories up until that point, and certainly enjoyed writing Time Crash, but that maybe writing Day caused that change of heart? Maybe writing such a story is harder than it seems (I mean, even a capable Terrence Dicks had problems with The Five Doctors, famously, and even more famously, Robert Holmes with the same anniversary).

I imagine a substantial amount of the difficulty stems from finding ways to give each character enough screen time.

 

[Australis]

I had high hopes for Moffat but after Smith's first series the quality, story wise, dropped off for me. As someone else said, the Doctor became a secondary character in his own show, and I really didn't like that, especially when Moff continued the trend after Donna, especially with Clara - I think the whole Impossible Girl thing sucked bad. The actress was okay, I just think she had bad lines, and the whole death thing was just... blah.

There were some brilliant moments, there's no denying. Casting Capaldi raised my hopes, and he's carried it far past any point I would have stopped watching. Capaldi simply didn't get enough stories worthy of him, IMO.

The new series, ep 1, was pretty good, let's see what happens.

PS @kirk55555 if tyou haven't see Torchwood series 3... you really should.

 

[kirk55555]

PS @kirk55555 if tyou haven't see Torchwood series 3... you really should.

Well, since I hate every Torchwood character who isn't Jack, hate the "Horny 14 year old boy trying to write for adults" style of Torchwood in general, and think that the idea that a government would willingly hand over children to aliens is easily the stupidest story concept every to be even tangentially connected to the Doctor Who franchise, I think I'll pass. I'd honestly rather be forced to watch Series 1 then Miracle Day. Its fine if others like it, but I hate Torchwood, and even then Miracle Day is the least appealing part of a show that holds no interest for me outside of the lead who is, in my opinion, completely wasted on the show

 

[Australis]

Children of Earth (s3) is really different. It even has Capaldi in it. Miracle Day (s4) had the potential to be good, but missed when pandering to a US audience. It is a show written for adults (any horny 14 yo watching it would be scarred for life). Basically it's a horrifying alien contact story, but I won't say more beyond that.

 

[Jax]

the Doctor became a secondary character in his own show

I've never understood this at all? The Doctor was always the focus on the show even when exploring other storylines for the companions .

 

[Starkers]

@kirk55555 I'm not Torchwood's greatest fan, but Children of Earth really is on another level in terms of quality to the other three seasons. It's Quatermass good!