Generally and Specifically - Who
Apr. 12th, 2010 06:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
caz963You can tell it's still the school holidays, because I have time to write stuff like this!
Prompted by some comments and discussions I’ve been having here over the last couple of days, and by the number of reaction posts I’ve seen that are bemoaning the direction that DW is now taking (after only two episodes!), I had a few thoughts that I wanted to jot down as a result.
I try to be very careful about what I say here, because I know that fandom can be a dangerous place at times. It’s why I tend to steer fairly clear most of the time and am posting stuff like this at my own LJ rather than at one of the comms. I hope people will pick up on it and read it anyway, but that anyone who comments will respect the fact that this is MY journal and as such contains my opinions. I hope I never present anything I put here as anything other than my own opinion, and I’m perfectly happy for people to put points of view that don’t agree with mine and to have a friendly discussion with them.
Here, then, are a bunch of thinky-thoughts about the show in general and one particular thing that is annoying me.
The Beast Below wasn’t – IMO – the best DW episode. It wasn’t all bad, by any means, and it could have been worse - The Idiot’s Lantern springs immediately to mind – and of course, there have been many that are much better. Yes, there were a number of gaping plot holes, which many people have listed already (so I’m not going to), but this is DW and it’s not as though there have never been gaping plot holes before, is it? There’s just one of them that is really bugging me though, which I’ll come to later on.
I’m a lifelong fan of the show. I grew up watching it, and until Ten (and Donna) came along, Three was my Doctor, and Sarah-Jane was my companion. My earliest TV memory is of Patrick Troughton and Frazer Hines being chased through a disused Underground station by a Yeti! My memories of Six and Seven are pretty non-existent though, because by that time, the Beeb was pissing about with the schedules so much that the show was hard to find – and also because I was working by that time, and rarely got home early enough to watch it (on the days when I’d been able to find it!)
I suppose the point of that is to say that I’m prepared to cut it a lot of slack. Why? I dunno. Nostalgia, maybe? Because there are a lot of TV shows these days that I don’t cut slack of any kind. If it’s not grabbed me within the first quarter of an hour, that’s it, I’m gone. Perhaps I’ve missed out on some good shows that way, but I don’t actually have much time to watch a lot of TV these says, so I tend to be very selective.
With DW though, I’m well aware that not every episode is going to be Human Nature or Midnight. Hopefully there will be some of those along the way as well as some Shakespeare Codes and Planet of the Oods – good, well written and well put-together episodes which still make Doctor Who one of the best shows on television, even on an off day.
What’s worried me about a lot of the stuff I’ve seen over the last year or so has been the belief by some that Steven Moffat is some kind of saviour who can do no wrong and who is going to do a far better job than Rusty did, because Rusty was crap and wrote shit and … you get the picture. Well, I don’t know what show they’d been watching for the past five years, but it wasn’t crap, and Rusty didn’t write shit. Were there things he did with stories and characters that I didn’t like? Yes, of course. But isn’t that going to be true of anything we watch or read? We’re all different and we’re all going to take a subjective view of these things. I didn’t like Rose Tyler all that much, but I know there’s a huge part of fandom that things the sun shines out of her arse (even though I can’t for the life of me think why!)
But because TBB had a number of… shall we say, inconsistencies? – I’m starting to see Moffat bashing in some quarters, which is just daft. TBB is only the second show of the series. I get that there are people out there who were just desperate for change, but blimey – give it a chance! He’s a good writer – we know he is, but writing one or two episodes a year for a high-profile TV show is a completely different thing to writing half of them and actually running said high-profile TV show. The Writer’s Tale gives some amazing insights into just what’s involved, from the big decisions to the nitty-gritty ones. I’ve said this before, but it’s a wonder RTD didn’t end up in a loony bin after the way his life has been for the past six years – and it’s no wonder he decided to call it a day, even though you can tell he had a fantastic time and wouldn’t have changed it for the world.
What I’ve come to realise – apart from the fact that it seems there will always be some people who will never be happy! – is that the people who didn’t like what RTD did and who have pinned their hopes on Moff are probably still not going to be happy, because no matter what he does, Moffat is writing the show HE WANTS TO WRITE and not the one THEY WANT HIM TO WRITE.
That’s what fanfic is for, guys! *g*
But there are times when I almost feel a bit sorry for him :-0 There’s a huge amount of pressure and weight of expectations on him. He’s inherited an incredibly successful show which has gone from strength to strength over the past five years. Not only has he got to top that, he’s got to try to keep happy those people who started watching in 2005 as well as those like me, who’ve been with it on and off over the years and those who are more dyed-in-the-wool fans than I’ll ever be. He’s got to do it in the spotlight, in a way that Rusty didn’t when he started, in the face of decreasing budgets and an audience that demands more and more from their television while at the same time suffering from an ever decreasing attention span. (Sorry – but kids today? Attention spans of gnats, a lot of them.)
So basically, I suppose I’m saying just give it a bit longer before deciding that Moff’s cocked it up. I didn’t hate Rusty (he gave us Ten after all, for which I will be eternally grateful) and never thought that Moff was the answer to all the show’s (perceived by some) problems. I think the show’s in good hands and as with the RTD era, we’re not all going to like all of it all of the time.
Hopefully, I’ll be saying the same thing in eleven weeks’ time.
As to the plot point in TBB that really bugged me, and issues arising from it.
Amy finds out this week – or, I suspect, has her suspicions confirmed (because really, he’s a mad man with a blue box that’s bigger on the inside that travels through space and time!) – that the Doctor is an alien, AND that he’s the only one of his race left. Okay, so no problem with either of those things, she has to find out some time, as do all the Doctor’s companions.
BUT. How does she know he’s really old? Okay, so she met him when she was nine or ten, and then again twelve years later and he hadn’t aged. But I don’t see why that would lead her to the conclusion that he was very old, despite his looks.
Ah, say some, but she was there when we got the slideshow of all the Doctors before him when he sent the Atraxi packing.
Yes, she was. But how is she to know that they were the different faces he’s had over the years? She saw the list of ‘greatest hits’ aliens, too and showed no recognition (um, yeah – cue lots of speculation about timelines etc, which I’m not going into here). And even if, by some amazing feat of mental prowess, she did know that they were all the Doctor, where does the “very, very old” thing come from?
I know there’s a lot of speculation out there as to who Amy really is and that the Doctor hasn’t just picked her ‘at random’ – so perhaps this is something that will be explained at the end of the series. Or it’s just another of those gaping RTD-style plot-holes that literally peppered the episode.
And now, it’s time for a rant. I know I’m almost certainly going to be in a small minority but I’m taking a deep breath and jumping in anyway.
If I hear (or read) one more comment about how Amy is so “feisty” and “challenges the Doctor like nobody else ever has” I think I’ll to scream. I came close to switching off the DWC on Saturday because of it! I know that to an extent this is the “party line” and that they always say stuff like that about a new companion, but… hello?? I’m not a fan of the Blessed Saint Rose of the Powell Estate, but she was feisty and stood up to the Doctor. Martha was intelligent and feisty and the Doctor trusted her with his life (because surely, he was banking on her reviving him after the incident with the little old lady with the straw!) right from the start. And if you look up “feisty” in the dictionary, you’ll find a picture of Donna Noble staring back at you. She also proved to be capable of getting the Doctor to change his mind, which, by his own admission isn’t something that many people ever do.
I don’t know whether I like the character of Amy Pond yet, but all the hype about her is getting on my nerves. I’ve found her supposed quirkiness to be rather annoying so far – many of her physical mannerisms and facial expressions seem very affected (I’m thinking particularly of the “you’re late” scene in TEH) and for all people are going on about the chemistry between her and Matt, I’m not seeing it on the screen yet. In fact, he seems rather aloof so far – which I rather like. It appears that Eleven isn’t going to wear his heart on his sleeve - or his face - like Ten did, which certainly harks back to more than one of the Doctors of old.
I fully accept that my problems with Amy so far may be due to my own personal preferences and the fact that I’m clearly not the age group that the character is aimed at. But I’m not the age group that Rose was aimed at either, and while I make no bones about the fact that she’s not my favourite companion, she was instantly likeable, and I did like her (before she became a cow-eyed Ten fangirl!) Amy’s quite abrasive and full of attitude with – to my mind – little justification for it. So she had an imaginary friend when she was little and got so obsessed that she needed therapy. Other than that, she was brought up in a big house in a picture-postcard village where most of us couldn’t afford to buy a garden shed, let alone a house that size!
(And I’ll also admit that this is where “real life” probably interferes too much with my perception of this particular piece of fiction, because in my line of work, I come across kids with far greater problems than Amy’s appear to have been.
Oh, and please don’t come at me with “it doesn’t matter where she lives, she could still have had a hard life” – I know all that. Like I said I work with a lot of problem kids and I know that there are many, many contributing factors. It’s just that when you come across kids whose parents are addicts, or who go home to no food or company, or who are living in bedsits because their parents have thrown them out, it’s hard to see what she’s had to complain about, you know? And yes, I do know the difference between fiction and real life; that’s what I meant when I said that my perspective on this is somewhat coloured!)
I’m sure someone will point out that Donna was “full of attitude”, but I’m not complaining about her. Well, it’s true, she was full of attitude and made no secret of it. But early on, we were shown what I consider to be fairly valid reasons for that attitude. Of course, my opinion as to what’s a valid reason will be different to someone else’s. Donna was in her late 30s, had clearly suffered a lot of disappointment in her life and was always being put down by her mother. Amy’s barely in her 20s and has had a comfortable life. What has she got to complain about? Again, I admit that my personal experience of being around teenagers is probably colouring my view of her. But we don’t know much about her yet. She’s said she doesn’t have any parents (not that they’re dead or that she doesn’t live with them) and we haven’t seen the “aunt” with whom she lives, which may or may not be significant.
So I’m trying hard to wait before making up my mind – but all the wank about how unique and special she is currently makes me want to act like the starwhale and vomit big time.
So there ya go. Feel free to agree or disagree with me - I don't mind either way as long as we can all play nice!
Prompted by some comments and discussions I’ve been having here over the last couple of days, and by the number of reaction posts I’ve seen that are bemoaning the direction that DW is now taking (after only two episodes!), I had a few thoughts that I wanted to jot down as a result.
I try to be very careful about what I say here, because I know that fandom can be a dangerous place at times. It’s why I tend to steer fairly clear most of the time and am posting stuff like this at my own LJ rather than at one of the comms. I hope people will pick up on it and read it anyway, but that anyone who comments will respect the fact that this is MY journal and as such contains my opinions. I hope I never present anything I put here as anything other than my own opinion, and I’m perfectly happy for people to put points of view that don’t agree with mine and to have a friendly discussion with them.
Here, then, are a bunch of thinky-thoughts about the show in general and one particular thing that is annoying me.
The Beast Below wasn’t – IMO – the best DW episode. It wasn’t all bad, by any means, and it could have been worse - The Idiot’s Lantern springs immediately to mind – and of course, there have been many that are much better. Yes, there were a number of gaping plot holes, which many people have listed already (so I’m not going to), but this is DW and it’s not as though there have never been gaping plot holes before, is it? There’s just one of them that is really bugging me though, which I’ll come to later on.
I’m a lifelong fan of the show. I grew up watching it, and until Ten (and Donna) came along, Three was my Doctor, and Sarah-Jane was my companion. My earliest TV memory is of Patrick Troughton and Frazer Hines being chased through a disused Underground station by a Yeti! My memories of Six and Seven are pretty non-existent though, because by that time, the Beeb was pissing about with the schedules so much that the show was hard to find – and also because I was working by that time, and rarely got home early enough to watch it (on the days when I’d been able to find it!)
I suppose the point of that is to say that I’m prepared to cut it a lot of slack. Why? I dunno. Nostalgia, maybe? Because there are a lot of TV shows these days that I don’t cut slack of any kind. If it’s not grabbed me within the first quarter of an hour, that’s it, I’m gone. Perhaps I’ve missed out on some good shows that way, but I don’t actually have much time to watch a lot of TV these says, so I tend to be very selective.
With DW though, I’m well aware that not every episode is going to be Human Nature or Midnight. Hopefully there will be some of those along the way as well as some Shakespeare Codes and Planet of the Oods – good, well written and well put-together episodes which still make Doctor Who one of the best shows on television, even on an off day.
What’s worried me about a lot of the stuff I’ve seen over the last year or so has been the belief by some that Steven Moffat is some kind of saviour who can do no wrong and who is going to do a far better job than Rusty did, because Rusty was crap and wrote shit and … you get the picture. Well, I don’t know what show they’d been watching for the past five years, but it wasn’t crap, and Rusty didn’t write shit. Were there things he did with stories and characters that I didn’t like? Yes, of course. But isn’t that going to be true of anything we watch or read? We’re all different and we’re all going to take a subjective view of these things. I didn’t like Rose Tyler all that much, but I know there’s a huge part of fandom that things the sun shines out of her arse (even though I can’t for the life of me think why!)
But because TBB had a number of… shall we say, inconsistencies? – I’m starting to see Moffat bashing in some quarters, which is just daft. TBB is only the second show of the series. I get that there are people out there who were just desperate for change, but blimey – give it a chance! He’s a good writer – we know he is, but writing one or two episodes a year for a high-profile TV show is a completely different thing to writing half of them and actually running said high-profile TV show. The Writer’s Tale gives some amazing insights into just what’s involved, from the big decisions to the nitty-gritty ones. I’ve said this before, but it’s a wonder RTD didn’t end up in a loony bin after the way his life has been for the past six years – and it’s no wonder he decided to call it a day, even though you can tell he had a fantastic time and wouldn’t have changed it for the world.
What I’ve come to realise – apart from the fact that it seems there will always be some people who will never be happy! – is that the people who didn’t like what RTD did and who have pinned their hopes on Moff are probably still not going to be happy, because no matter what he does, Moffat is writing the show HE WANTS TO WRITE and not the one THEY WANT HIM TO WRITE.
That’s what fanfic is for, guys! *g*
But there are times when I almost feel a bit sorry for him :-0 There’s a huge amount of pressure and weight of expectations on him. He’s inherited an incredibly successful show which has gone from strength to strength over the past five years. Not only has he got to top that, he’s got to try to keep happy those people who started watching in 2005 as well as those like me, who’ve been with it on and off over the years and those who are more dyed-in-the-wool fans than I’ll ever be. He’s got to do it in the spotlight, in a way that Rusty didn’t when he started, in the face of decreasing budgets and an audience that demands more and more from their television while at the same time suffering from an ever decreasing attention span. (Sorry – but kids today? Attention spans of gnats, a lot of them.)
So basically, I suppose I’m saying just give it a bit longer before deciding that Moff’s cocked it up. I didn’t hate Rusty (he gave us Ten after all, for which I will be eternally grateful) and never thought that Moff was the answer to all the show’s (perceived by some) problems. I think the show’s in good hands and as with the RTD era, we’re not all going to like all of it all of the time.
Hopefully, I’ll be saying the same thing in eleven weeks’ time.
As to the plot point in TBB that really bugged me, and issues arising from it.
Amy finds out this week – or, I suspect, has her suspicions confirmed (because really, he’s a mad man with a blue box that’s bigger on the inside that travels through space and time!) – that the Doctor is an alien, AND that he’s the only one of his race left. Okay, so no problem with either of those things, she has to find out some time, as do all the Doctor’s companions.
BUT. How does she know he’s really old? Okay, so she met him when she was nine or ten, and then again twelve years later and he hadn’t aged. But I don’t see why that would lead her to the conclusion that he was very old, despite his looks.
Ah, say some, but she was there when we got the slideshow of all the Doctors before him when he sent the Atraxi packing.
Yes, she was. But how is she to know that they were the different faces he’s had over the years? She saw the list of ‘greatest hits’ aliens, too and showed no recognition (um, yeah – cue lots of speculation about timelines etc, which I’m not going into here). And even if, by some amazing feat of mental prowess, she did know that they were all the Doctor, where does the “very, very old” thing come from?
I know there’s a lot of speculation out there as to who Amy really is and that the Doctor hasn’t just picked her ‘at random’ – so perhaps this is something that will be explained at the end of the series. Or it’s just another of those gaping RTD-style plot-holes that literally peppered the episode.
And now, it’s time for a rant. I know I’m almost certainly going to be in a small minority but I’m taking a deep breath and jumping in anyway.
If I hear (or read) one more comment about how Amy is so “feisty” and “challenges the Doctor like nobody else ever has” I think I’ll to scream. I came close to switching off the DWC on Saturday because of it! I know that to an extent this is the “party line” and that they always say stuff like that about a new companion, but… hello?? I’m not a fan of the Blessed Saint Rose of the Powell Estate, but she was feisty and stood up to the Doctor. Martha was intelligent and feisty and the Doctor trusted her with his life (because surely, he was banking on her reviving him after the incident with the little old lady with the straw!) right from the start. And if you look up “feisty” in the dictionary, you’ll find a picture of Donna Noble staring back at you. She also proved to be capable of getting the Doctor to change his mind, which, by his own admission isn’t something that many people ever do.
I don’t know whether I like the character of Amy Pond yet, but all the hype about her is getting on my nerves. I’ve found her supposed quirkiness to be rather annoying so far – many of her physical mannerisms and facial expressions seem very affected (I’m thinking particularly of the “you’re late” scene in TEH) and for all people are going on about the chemistry between her and Matt, I’m not seeing it on the screen yet. In fact, he seems rather aloof so far – which I rather like. It appears that Eleven isn’t going to wear his heart on his sleeve - or his face - like Ten did, which certainly harks back to more than one of the Doctors of old.
I fully accept that my problems with Amy so far may be due to my own personal preferences and the fact that I’m clearly not the age group that the character is aimed at. But I’m not the age group that Rose was aimed at either, and while I make no bones about the fact that she’s not my favourite companion, she was instantly likeable, and I did like her (before she became a cow-eyed Ten fangirl!) Amy’s quite abrasive and full of attitude with – to my mind – little justification for it. So she had an imaginary friend when she was little and got so obsessed that she needed therapy. Other than that, she was brought up in a big house in a picture-postcard village where most of us couldn’t afford to buy a garden shed, let alone a house that size!
(And I’ll also admit that this is where “real life” probably interferes too much with my perception of this particular piece of fiction, because in my line of work, I come across kids with far greater problems than Amy’s appear to have been.
Oh, and please don’t come at me with “it doesn’t matter where she lives, she could still have had a hard life” – I know all that. Like I said I work with a lot of problem kids and I know that there are many, many contributing factors. It’s just that when you come across kids whose parents are addicts, or who go home to no food or company, or who are living in bedsits because their parents have thrown them out, it’s hard to see what she’s had to complain about, you know? And yes, I do know the difference between fiction and real life; that’s what I meant when I said that my perspective on this is somewhat coloured!)
I’m sure someone will point out that Donna was “full of attitude”, but I’m not complaining about her. Well, it’s true, she was full of attitude and made no secret of it. But early on, we were shown what I consider to be fairly valid reasons for that attitude. Of course, my opinion as to what’s a valid reason will be different to someone else’s. Donna was in her late 30s, had clearly suffered a lot of disappointment in her life and was always being put down by her mother. Amy’s barely in her 20s and has had a comfortable life. What has she got to complain about? Again, I admit that my personal experience of being around teenagers is probably colouring my view of her. But we don’t know much about her yet. She’s said she doesn’t have any parents (not that they’re dead or that she doesn’t live with them) and we haven’t seen the “aunt” with whom she lives, which may or may not be significant.
So I’m trying hard to wait before making up my mind – but all the wank about how unique and special she is currently makes me want to act like the starwhale and vomit big time.
So there ya go. Feel free to agree or disagree with me - I don't mind either way as long as we can all play nice!
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no subject
Date: 2010-04-14 01:58 am (UTC)I think you're right on with the RTD versus Moff debacle. I also think, weirdly enough, that the Moff's previous stellar episodes are more of a burden than a blessing to him at this moment in time. It almost seems to me that everyone is expecting every single episode to be as brilliant as "Blink" was and, not only would that get boring and hurt my brain after awhile, but some episodes need to put into place things beyond just convoluted plot lines. (For example, episode 1 should have had a less demanding plot because new characters, new setting, new new new new, well, everything is hard to handle! and TBB seemed to be not only developing that new relationship between the main characters, but actively anchoring what we've seen back into the continuity we have witnessed thus far). Is what we've seen mind shatteringly brilliant? Nope. But you have to establish a certain amount of stuff to do that creditably, too.
That being said, IMHO, I haven't seen anything to indicate that he's cocked it up at all yet. For the first time in a long time, I'm laughing and thinking in the course of the show. The fairy tale ethos he's subtly (or not so subtly with some of TBB's rather heavy handed metaphors) weaving into it make it a rush and an adventure again.
As for Amy, I like her so far and think the playing of her up is just half marketing. Also, when things are shiny and new, people have a general tendency to hold absolute opinions about them to the detriment of their predecessors. I don't think her life is horrible (I also am in a profession wherein I see kids with a lot more terrible lives). But I think - and the show dances about this - she also has a sense of loneliness about her. A huge house and garden aren't worth a fig if you've no one to see it from your perspective. In this way she could be Donna-esque because that swagger may cover up something else. But I dunno, I look to like, usually, being fairly mild mannered.
But, until she sits him down in a chair and makes him the Doctor do as she says a la Martha in "Gridlock", I don't believe this standing up to the Doctor thing. :D
no subject
Date: 2010-04-14 12:54 pm (UTC)Oh yes, absolutely. Or starts a domestic in the middle of a Pompeiian market!
A huge house and garden aren't worth a fig if you've no one to see it from your perspective
I agree with that as well - like I said, I'm finding it hard to pin down exactly what it is I'm not liking much about her. It can't just be because I think she's young and immature - so was Rose and I didn't dislike her so much (at the start). I think that Amy's a bit "bratish" actually...
I think that TEH clearly showed that Moffat can "do" fun episodes, and as someone here has said, perhaps if TBB had been the fourth or fifth of the run it might not have felt like the bit of a letdown it undoubtedly did to me on Saturday. I confess there was actually a moment that I looked at my watch.
But it's early days and I'm still more than willing to wait and see :-)