Sea Devils And Die: GeroniMoffat's Doctor Who In The 2010s

The Doctor's Daughter is the actual worst Nu-Who episode, that or the one in the 50s where the Doctor climbs up the TV tower.

nu who exists in this great sweet spot between overt campiness and incredible sincerity. i'm totally okay with it veering in the camp direction, but when it goes (badly) for heart-rending emotion, it's kind of excruciating. that's how most genre stuff is, i guess, but it seems extra pronounced in this show. the extra bad episodes, where we're supposed to believe in BIG STAKES and UNIVERSAL DANGER and LOVE and SACRIFICE or whatever always come off, to me, as clunky and sort of autistic. there are exceptions, of course (blink, the first jack harkness episodes) but for my tastes, the show is most successful when it does the least, when it milks a bizarre premise, mystery, or phobia for all it's worth and enlivens it with a little humor or action.

the one in the 50s where the Doctor climbs up the TV tower.

This is "The Idiot Lantern"

There are only three episodes that made me question whether I was going to continue watching the show; that is my metric for "bad".

sometimes the LOVE and SACRIFICE stuff is amazing, like in "Amy's Choice"

Moffatt (and Cornell) are so much better than the rest at doing emotional/relationship stuff it isn't funny. Early standard for that = Father's Day.

agreed. i also loved the episode with the doctor stuck on the train-car thing with the echoy monster, and found it genuinely unsettling.

Midnight? I reckon that was the best episode Rusty wrote.

tbh I am not as impressed with Cornell's story because I read it 16 years ago when it was a novel, so I pretty much knew exactly what was going to happen (the changes made to accommodate Martha as a black woman in that time period as opposed to Benny, the original white female companion from the story, were really good though)

i also loved the episode with the doctor stuck on the train-car thing with the echoy monster, and found it genuinely unsettling.

"Midnight"! This was bad-ass.

Rusty deserves a decent amount of scorn but when he reigned in his worst impulses he could be great; I was ready to write off S2 because I'd only seen "The Idiot's Lantern" but "Love and Monsters" drew me back in.

Lots of my favourite nu-Whos being mentioned above. It's a real shame Paul Cornell hasn't written anything since S3: Father's Day and Human Nature/The Family of Blood are among the very best, I think.

Outside of Moffatt and Cornell, I think Midnight, Dalek and Love And Monsters have been my favourites. Oh, and Rose too, just because it gave me a warm glow.

It's funny how when it comes to all this, we talk all about the writers and never about the directors. Total opposite of what happens with cinema, generally.

I had a pet theory that Euros Lyn was a bad director, but he did the great dream sequences in Silence In The Library/Forest Of The Dead, so maybe not.

soooo much otm overnight, especially this:

i really hated voyage of the damned, and the doctor's daughter episode as well, but otherwise djp otm

― remy bean, Thursday, 2 June 2011 22:29 (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Voyage of the Damned is possible the worst hour of television I have ever seen

I was going to stick up for "Voyage of the Damned" and then I remembered Bannakaffalatta

Yes, who was clearly not AGENDAR.

In much better news though, ANIMATED REIGN OF TERROR.

might've told this story before, but my sister got me "the writer's tale" RTD book for some past xmas, and altho i'm generally one to defend RTD, it really soured me on him. case in point, he whipped up the script for voyage of the damned in a mad frantic rush three weeks late and declared it was proof of his successful seat-of-your-pants writing method. no, it was slap-dash half-thought-out shit, similar to journey's end. and then presumably the season of specials was supposed to give him more time to work, and yet it resulted in the dreadful tennant-finale and whatever that michelle ryan tripe was.

but i'll stand up for the adipose episode because donna and ten were so awesome together. i have a chip on my shoulder about the supposed greatness of silence in the library/forest of the damned because the doctor and donna were separated for most of it.

But their separation had real dramatic point, and gave you great insight into Donna's strengths and desires

But yeah, Voyage of the Damned was the worst, and that's not even considering the Kylie Miniogue factor. I loathe Kyle Minogue.

I recently picked up Century Falls cheap on DVD, which I had vague memories of as a kid. Early Rusty kids TV show and really fucking good. Creepy as hell and full of awkward, alienated youths. It's a shame he didn't write more stuff like that for Dr Who, although you can see certain tropes emerging. Interestingly, the show has a kids dying theme, which is something Moffat has worked much more than RTD. Although RTD did bring that to the forefront of the Torchwood special. Best of all, it has little of the sentimentality he brought to Who, and he is clearly working out his queer fat kid neuroses through the lead. The denoument is a bit deus ex, but it's a fantasy, not proper SF, so it works in the context. Anyway, just thought I'd throw that in there.

But yeah, Voyage of the Damned was the worst, and that's not even considering the Kylie Miniogue factor. I loathe Kyle Minogue.

― You're fucking fired and you know jack shit about horses (James Morrison), Friday, 3 June 2011 09:58 (19 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

See I love Kylie Minogue and that episode is still worse than gangrene.

dire as all get out

Voyage wasn't great but it didn't make me want to quit the show like Fear Her or The Idiot's Lantern

But... but...

* Kylie
* Low-rent Davros rip-off villain before the show even brought Davros back
* The Queen
* 17 hours long
* The Titanic
* Comedy midgets
* Wasting Geoffrey Palmer and Russell Tovey

etc etc

At least Fear Her and The Idiot's Lantern were over in 42 minutes and there was a better episode coming along a week later

Also another one where Tennant grew super-powers out of his arse, ie the POWER OF FLIGHT. Ppl always say “no the angelly robots were carrying him!” when I grump about this, but the physics visually contradict this justification. Grrr!

might've told this story before, but my sister got me "the writer's tale" RTD book for some past xmas, and altho i'm generally one to defend RTD, it really soured me on him. case in point, he whipped up the script for voyage of the damned in a mad frantic rush three weeks late and declared it was proof of his successful seat-of-your-pants writing method. no, it was slap-dash half-thought-out shit, similar to journey's end. and then presumably the season of specials was supposed to give him more time to work, and yet it resulted in the dreadful tennant-finale and whatever that michelle ryan tripe was.

but i'll stand up for the adipose episode because donna and ten were so awesome together. i have a chip on my shoulder about the supposed greatness of silence in the library/forest of the damned because the doctor and donna were separated for most of it.

― truf bob-omb (reddening), Thursday, June 2, 2011 11:42 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

This is so OTM. I was a complete Rusty apologist before reading this book. Don't get me wrong, it's an interesting read, but when you discover how much he just winged it, it's very offputting. Worse still is that a good third of the book is dedicated to VOTD, script excerpts and everything, and RTD geniunely seems proud of it. The episode really was the absolute nadir of Nu-Who, MUCH worse than Fear Her (IIRC I posted a defence of sorts of that episode waaaay upthread - apologies if not). That was the episode that nearly made me get off the bus, as well as for a good friend of mine (biggest fan I know, owns every available/existing story possible). Dreadful, dreadful stuff.

The adipose episode, though very silly, is saved by the *wonderful* chemistry between Tate/Tennant (I especially like the miming scene).

Also another one where Tennant grew super-powers out of his arse, ie the POWER OF FLIGHT. Ppl always say “no the angelly robots were carrying him!” when I grump about this, but the physics visually contradict this justification. Grrr!

― all cats are gay (sic), Friday, June 3, 2011 6:47 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark

Can't decide whether this scene was as bad as the unnecessary "Gillette Ad" style slow-mo sequence, where Tennant walks down that corridor as Fire And Shit pops out behind him.

The Empress of Racnoss is worse than Voyage of the Damned. That one was utter, utter shit.

Oh with Sarah Parish? They wasted her.

Put Tennant and Parish in the same room at any time and the rapport is palpable. So what do they do? Cake her in laytex until she's completely unrecognisable, mount her on a giant fucking spider rig and make sure none of the performers can get within 20 metres of her.

The thing I found most frustrating about the rusty book is that some of his initial ideas for episodes are so incredibly good. But then he just doesn't have the self control or the work ethic to actually sit down and write them properly and so lots of them ended up coming out samey and shit (although when they didn't, we got things like Midnight). I think he spent too much of his time rewriting other people's scripts when he should really have been getting other people to rewrite his.

He can't do endings, basically.

Exhibit A: Queer as Folk

The one bit I remember liking/laughing at from the Writer's Tale is RTD's awe/disbelief that Moffat had already planned out his whole season ahead of time.

If you all had read his book Damaged Goods, you wouldn't have been as disappointed in his Who episodes.

He can't do endings, basically.

i think this is reflected in the last ep or two of tw: children of earth as well.

no issues with how he resolved s1 (esp. considering a regeneration would not have been part of the original plan) and s2. once rose was out of the picture he seemed to struggle much more, but bringing her back just made a bigger mess.

It's funny how when it comes to all this, we talk all about the writers and never about the directors. Total opposite of what happens with cinema, generally.

In TV the director's not the boss, the producers are. There's a number of reasons for that but the main one is that Dr Who needs to look and feel like Dr Who, just like ER needs to look and feel like ER. There's precious little room for putting any sort of individual stamp on the acting, the camera movement, the lighting, etc. So the only differences from week to week are going to be in the scripts.

If you all had read his book Damaged Goods, you wouldn't have been as disappointed in his Who episodes.

― low-rent black gangster nicknamed Bootsy (DJP), Friday, 3 June 2011 21:11 (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Highly important and otm point made here. It's a good but not great book with weird/stupid bits.

I think the pacing of a Who episode is really important and there are some that have felt so manic that they've been difficult to follow or care about, and that's certainly a directing issue. Some episodes just FEEL totally different from one another and it's not just an issue of which era or planet they're taking place in.

xp I just realised I can't remember a single thing about Damaged Goods (apart from somebody being called something Tyler)

depressed 80s tenement housing (can't remember the British term for this... council estate?) taken over by an alien made of trash; a pivotal subplot involves an HIV-positive gay man lusting after the Doctor's male companion, who before this book had been described as a relentlessly upbeat former cop from the 30th century who was relentlessly, deadly serious about his procedural work, but for some reason in this book decided to fuck the HIV-positive man in the middle of a stakeout, leading up to a horribly facile and offensive coda after The Big Fight where it's discovered that this tryst injected the HIV-positive man with future antibodies that cure HIV

all of the previous was totally unnecessary to the plot and counter to the characterization of the Doctor's companion; not so much the gay tryst, as much as it happening in the middle of him doing his job

(the fawning praise of that book at the time made me realize that fans and authors co-existing on the same newsgroup wasn't necessarily a good thing)

i am almost dreading the next ep wrt pace, altho the second preview clip has quite a laid back 'calm before the storm' feel. that scene probably occurs within the first five mins.

Damaged Goods contains a gay character, David, and homosexuality is a recurring theme explored in much of Davies's writing, as he himself noted in an article for The Guardian newspaper in 2003. "The first gay character I ever wrote was a Devil-worshipping Nazi lesbian in a Children's BBC thriller, Dark Season. She was too busy taking over the world to do anything particularly lesbian, though she did keep a Teutonic Valkyrie by her side at all times... Once I'd started, I never stopped... I even wrote a Doctor Who novel in which the six-foot blond, blue-eyed companion interrupts the hunt for an interdimensional Gallifreyan War Machine to get a blowjob in the back of a taxi. Like you do."[4]

no you fucking don't, not if you actually understand the characters you are writing rather than trying to get your personal wank material published

taken over by an alien made of trash

Sub-absorbaloff at best

actually the trash alien was an out-of-control Gallifreyan war machine; I have managed to block out almost everything about the book that I liked, lol

holy shit, are these books canonical + like approved by the estate? i can't even imagine...

Before the new series, they were semi-canonical; now they are kind of in a weird limbo space because the books bent over backwards to incorporate show canon (including the McGann movie) but the show has this on-again, off-again view of book canonicity (I think some of the monsters introduced in the books have been off-handed mentions in the series, but then again you have at least one instance of an entire book story being repurposed into a TV story).

sometimes really tempted to read The Dying Days and Lungbarrow

and THEN, when the BBC took the Doctor Who license back from Virgin, Virgin spun off into a new series using Benny, the Doctor's most popular Virgin book companion, which had its own set of weird canon synchronicities with the official BBC book line

Like, seriously, never mention Canon to Who fans. Wiggy McGann doesn't count for some people because 'The Movie' was technically that, a film, so doesn't count.