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chicafrom3There's this very wet semi-snow thing going on outside and obviously that means I should write half-articulated Doctor Who meta that's been meandering around in my head for a while.
Thesis: I think there are three major differences between Moffat and RTD's eras of New Who headrunning, and one of them is actually their major similarity.
I've said this before, but I'll say it again:
The thing is, as far as I can see, Moffat and RTD share one major flaw as (Doctor Who) writers: they're both terrible at characterization.
They're terrible in different ways, but they're both terrible at it.
RTD (and again, I'm limiting this to his Whoniverse work 'cause I'm not familiar enough with any of his other writing to say whether it applies across the board) seems to believe that if he provides enough details and backstory and context, then viewers won't notice that his characters act in wildly contradictory way, adopt and lose character traits as the plot demands, and have no consistent motivation.
Moff on the other hand (see above parenthetical note) seems to believe that if he avoids as much detail and backstory as possible, then viewers will provide their own context that will somehow make sense of the way his characters act in wildly contradictory way, adopt and lose character traits as the plot demands, and have no consistent motivation.
See? They approach the problem in different ways but they both have the problem.
This is tied into the idea of backstory/context I was talking about above, but it's distinct enough to merit its own section.
RTD is very attached to the idea of home. All of his major companions (Rose, Martha, Donna; Mickey to a lesser extent) come from very carefully illustrated homes (and by 'homes' I am referring to 'families, neighborhoods, background of all sorts') and they return, repeatedly. They're never very far from their homes, or their mothers, or their pasts. In RTD's DW, the most important thing the Doctor can do for you is make sure that you get home regularly, that you can call your mum when you're a bit homesick, that you can always return whenever you want.
Moff, in contrast, is all about escape. Look, it's heard to draw patterns here because we only have one season and one Companion team to draw on, but from what we do have: in the first episode of S5, we are introduced to Amy, and Rory, and Leadworth. And it's fascinating for what we don't get: we get a mention of Amy's parents (she doesn't have any), we get a mention of Amy's aunt (she's not around), we get introduced (briefly) to a couple neighbors and one kind-of friend (Jeff? Is he an ex-boyfriend of Amy's or what?). And that's it. Amy leaves, and the only thing tying her to Leadworth, the only thing that makes her think of 'home', is her fiance. A few episodes later, they come back to Leadworth -- just barely long enough to pick up Rory (and as far as we're shown Amy doesn't even leave the TARDIS for that!) and leave again. We get the imaginary Leadworth in "Amy's Choice" where Amy is obviously barely connected to the community around her -- and then Amy and Rory are present in the rewritten timeline, long enough to get married, long enough to remember the original timeline, and then leave again. In Moff's Who, the most important thing the Doctor can do for you is take you away.
I hope my point is obvious, but here it is restated for the tl;dr crowd: When RTD's Companions went home, their storylines were about going home and reconnecting; when Amy goes home, her storylines are about leaving again.
This is actually I think the most likely to have been a deliberate choice by Moff, but whatever, it gets included anyway.
In five RTD season finales (I'm counting "The End Of Time" as a season finale), we have four cases of memory playing a major role.
One: Rose takes the TARDIS inside of her and becomes the Bad Wolf, but the power is too much and the Doctor has to take it from her, resulting in his own death and regeneration. Rose doesn't remember anything that happened while she was the Bad Wolf.
Two: Skipping Doomsday, as it doesn't have any memory issues. Or if it does I don't recall them (heh, irony).
Three: Martha walks the Earth for a year telling the Doctor's story, leading up to the grand payoff where humanity's belief in the Doctor saves them from the Master. Martha and a select few others are allowed to remember this set of events, but the rest of humanity has time reset and therefore doesn't remember TYTNW (because it never happened).
Four: Donna and the metacrisis Doctor exchange genetic material, granting Donna temporary Time Lord-like abilities. But it's killing her, and in order to save her life, the Doctor wipes her memories of everything from their first meeting on.
Five: Donna almost remembers her time on the TARDIS, but then doesn't, due to a failsafe the Doctor pulled out of his ass. (Yeah, Doctor, think that might've been a nice thing to tell her family back when you were scaring them with talk about how if anything at all ever reminded her of her time on the TARDIS she'd DIE? I'm not bitter or anything.)
The overarching message here: Yes, you can totally be awesome, but only if it is then erased from your memory and/or time itself.
Now, contrast:
"There’s someone missing. Someone important, someone so, so important. Sorry, everyone, but when I was a kid, I had an imaginary friend, the Raggedy Doctor, my Raggedy Doctor. But he wasn’t imaginary, he was real. I remember you! I remember! I brought the others back; I can bring you home too! Raggedy Man, I remember you! And you are late for my wedding! I found you; I found you in words just like you knew I would; that's why you told me the story, the brand new, ancient blue box. Oh, clever, oh, very clever."
"Amy, what is it?"
"Something old. Something new. Something borrowed. Something blue."
RTD's Companions have to have their season-ending CMoAs forgotten in order to protect themselves/save time/preserve the status quo/whatever; Moffat's Companion's season-ending CMoA is to remember.
Thoughts?
Thesis: I think there are three major differences between Moffat and RTD's eras of New Who headrunning, and one of them is actually their major similarity.
I've said this before, but I'll say it again:
The thing is, as far as I can see, Moffat and RTD share one major flaw as (Doctor Who) writers: they're both terrible at characterization.
They're terrible in different ways, but they're both terrible at it.
RTD (and again, I'm limiting this to his Whoniverse work 'cause I'm not familiar enough with any of his other writing to say whether it applies across the board) seems to believe that if he provides enough details and backstory and context, then viewers won't notice that his characters act in wildly contradictory way, adopt and lose character traits as the plot demands, and have no consistent motivation.
Moff on the other hand (see above parenthetical note) seems to believe that if he avoids as much detail and backstory as possible, then viewers will provide their own context that will somehow make sense of the way his characters act in wildly contradictory way, adopt and lose character traits as the plot demands, and have no consistent motivation.
See? They approach the problem in different ways but they both have the problem.
This is tied into the idea of backstory/context I was talking about above, but it's distinct enough to merit its own section.
RTD is very attached to the idea of home. All of his major companions (Rose, Martha, Donna; Mickey to a lesser extent) come from very carefully illustrated homes (and by 'homes' I am referring to 'families, neighborhoods, background of all sorts') and they return, repeatedly. They're never very far from their homes, or their mothers, or their pasts. In RTD's DW, the most important thing the Doctor can do for you is make sure that you get home regularly, that you can call your mum when you're a bit homesick, that you can always return whenever you want.
Moff, in contrast, is all about escape. Look, it's heard to draw patterns here because we only have one season and one Companion team to draw on, but from what we do have: in the first episode of S5, we are introduced to Amy, and Rory, and Leadworth. And it's fascinating for what we don't get: we get a mention of Amy's parents (she doesn't have any), we get a mention of Amy's aunt (she's not around), we get introduced (briefly) to a couple neighbors and one kind-of friend (Jeff? Is he an ex-boyfriend of Amy's or what?). And that's it. Amy leaves, and the only thing tying her to Leadworth, the only thing that makes her think of 'home', is her fiance. A few episodes later, they come back to Leadworth -- just barely long enough to pick up Rory (and as far as we're shown Amy doesn't even leave the TARDIS for that!) and leave again. We get the imaginary Leadworth in "Amy's Choice" where Amy is obviously barely connected to the community around her -- and then Amy and Rory are present in the rewritten timeline, long enough to get married, long enough to remember the original timeline, and then leave again. In Moff's Who, the most important thing the Doctor can do for you is take you away.
I hope my point is obvious, but here it is restated for the tl;dr crowd: When RTD's Companions went home, their storylines were about going home and reconnecting; when Amy goes home, her storylines are about leaving again.
This is actually I think the most likely to have been a deliberate choice by Moff, but whatever, it gets included anyway.
In five RTD season finales (I'm counting "The End Of Time" as a season finale), we have four cases of memory playing a major role.
One: Rose takes the TARDIS inside of her and becomes the Bad Wolf, but the power is too much and the Doctor has to take it from her, resulting in his own death and regeneration. Rose doesn't remember anything that happened while she was the Bad Wolf.
Two: Skipping Doomsday, as it doesn't have any memory issues. Or if it does I don't recall them (heh, irony).
Three: Martha walks the Earth for a year telling the Doctor's story, leading up to the grand payoff where humanity's belief in the Doctor saves them from the Master. Martha and a select few others are allowed to remember this set of events, but the rest of humanity has time reset and therefore doesn't remember TYTNW (because it never happened).
Four: Donna and the metacrisis Doctor exchange genetic material, granting Donna temporary Time Lord-like abilities. But it's killing her, and in order to save her life, the Doctor wipes her memories of everything from their first meeting on.
Five: Donna almost remembers her time on the TARDIS, but then doesn't, due to a failsafe the Doctor pulled out of his ass. (Yeah, Doctor, think that might've been a nice thing to tell her family back when you were scaring them with talk about how if anything at all ever reminded her of her time on the TARDIS she'd DIE? I'm not bitter or anything.)
The overarching message here: Yes, you can totally be awesome, but only if it is then erased from your memory and/or time itself.
Now, contrast:
"There’s someone missing. Someone important, someone so, so important. Sorry, everyone, but when I was a kid, I had an imaginary friend, the Raggedy Doctor, my Raggedy Doctor. But he wasn’t imaginary, he was real. I remember you! I remember! I brought the others back; I can bring you home too! Raggedy Man, I remember you! And you are late for my wedding! I found you; I found you in words just like you knew I would; that's why you told me the story, the brand new, ancient blue box. Oh, clever, oh, very clever."
"Amy, what is it?"
"Something old. Something new. Something borrowed. Something blue."
RTD's Companions have to have their season-ending CMoAs forgotten in order to protect themselves/save time/preserve the status quo/whatever; Moffat's Companion's season-ending CMoA is to remember.
Thoughts?
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Now I'm really curious to see if these themes continue in Season 6.
I am tired and my rambling is incoherent. Sorry.
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Oh, yeah, I definitely think the home thing ties into their different approaches to character (although it could be seen the opposite way as well, with their different approaches to home influencing what they think is important about characters).
I really want Season 6 for many reasons, but to get a stronger sense of Moffat's patterns as showrunner is definitely one of them!
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Both Moffat and RTD do have very different approaches to writing Who, and both ways have their merits and drawbacks there wasn't a better way. Still the very different styles made it very hard to connect Moffats Who with RTD's that I'd fallen in love with, at least for me.
I like Moffat not giving an entire back story at the beginning leaving you to try and fill in the gaps for yourself and see how wrong or right you'd ideas turned out to be about Amy's parents, aunt ect. However at the same time I don't think i was given enough to connect with the charters.
While I like the concept of escape Moffat has I think the loss of RTD's home has removed the characters from the human world a little too much. I'm not say Moffat sucks and long live RTD what i'm trying to express is that there are faults and failure and triumph and glee for both parties.
What I do feel let down by in Moffat's who is characterization and character growth. I don't love 11 or Amy like I did RTD's characters the only character i'd developed an emotional attachment to was Rory. When Amy's life was in danger I knew I should feel something but there was nothing. The lack of character development is clear choice by moffat. I can't remember the exact quote but it went along the lines of Moffat saying he'd leave characterisation to the actors while he'd get on with the plotty story telling stuff. I'm sorry but I don't think that works, at the end of the day the actors are following scripts and can only put so much into it, characterisation and development have to be written into the script in order for the actors to make it real.
Now time will tell because I can't really judge 1 season of Moffat against 5 of RTD it's not fair.
Please understand that as negative as i can sound i'm not trying to bash Moffat who's had some wonderful idea's.
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Yes, exactly! They're very different writers in their approach to the material and what interests them about it, but one is not objectively better than the other. It's all down to the individual taste of the viewer.
As an illustration of that, I got ridiculously attached to Amy very quickly. (Okay, honestly, I think "4 psychiatrists in 12 years...I kept biting them" predisposed me to love and identify with her entirely too much. But there were other things too.)
characterisation and development have to be written into the script in order for the actors to make it real.
I agree. Actors can add a lot of layers to a script that possibly weren't intended (see all the noncanon shippers in fandom pointing to unintended-by-the-writers subtext) but they can't make something out of nothing and sometimes the script is actively working against them.
(Honestly, I think DW's high point of consistent characterization for Companions was Barbara & Ian, so maybe I am not the best one to be talking about this.)
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Do you mean this quote?
Moffat is loving the writing process, a dramatic change from three-laughs-per-page in every sense. "There’s no need for character development, or chat, it’s straight into: ‘There’s something wrong here, let’s look into this deep, dark hole.’"
http://living.scotsman.com/features/Time-Lad-scores-with-sex.2535185.jp
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True ... but that was one heck of a burst of energy that came out of her head! It at LEAST knocked those Master!clones unconscious, if it didn't kill them outright. I can only imagine what a blast like that would have done to someone like Wilf at short-range. So I can buy that he kept it from them for THEIR safety as well as for Donna's.
RTD (and again, I'm limiting this to his Whoniverse work 'cause I'm not familiar enough with any of his other writing to say whether it applies across the board) seems to believe that if he provides enough details and backstory and context, then viewers won't notice that his characters act in wildly contradictory way, adopt and lose character traits as the plot demands, and have no consistent motivation.
I don't see this with Davies. Do you have a specific case you're thinking of? I don't see Rose, for example, adopting and losing character traits (with the exception of in The Girl in the Fireplace, where she decides to act like a complete doormat who forgets she's in love with Ten (and vice versa) - but that was Moffat, not Davies, so I'll cut Davies slack on that one). I think she slowly changes over time (as any well-written character will do), but I certainly don't see her acting like the plot demands. Davies, after all, is the same guy who was so focused on making sure Rose acted true to form that he wrote and rewrote and rewrote the Bad Wolf Bay scene in Journey's End for an entire MONTH until he felt he got it right and that she wasn't acting "for the plot."
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I'm weighing them as showrunners, not writers, so I'm not cutting any slack there. ;)
It's been a while since I did any serious rewatch of the RTD era, but I'll give it a shot:
Rose is hugely inconsistent in terms of how much she notices other people around her. In one episode she'll be bonding with the servants and getting offended about civil rights, in the next she'll be squeeing and getting giggly over people's corpses. Her desire to settle down in TIP/TSP comes out of nowhere and is never addressed again. She bounces between wanting to travel with the Doctor because she's having a grand time to wanting to travel with the Doctor because he'd be lonely without her to wanting to travel with the Doctor because life at home sucks just that bad to wanting to settle down with the Doctor and have a normal life but settling on traveling with him because she can't get him to do anything else with absolutely no transition between any of them.
Jack's character development is ridiculous. There's a Convenient Time Skip between The Doctor Dances and Boomtown so they can point to that and go "Off-screen character development!" but off-screen character development that isn't at all elaborated is just an excuse for not bothering to come up with a plausible arc.
Martha...oh, god, Martha. Martha is my favorite New Who companion, but her character arc is a mess. It's all over the place. In one episode she's head-over-heels for the Doctor and making eyes at him and thinking he can do no wrong, in the next she's BFFs-with-a-crush, the next she's got a mostly sexual interest in him and is otherwise more attached to the space/time travel. Is she interested in SF or isn't she? Why did she want to become a doctor and why does her medical training only come up as window dressing? Why the hell are she and Jack BFFs when they spent all of half an hour together before the YTNW (which they also didn't spend together)? The writers don't care. Seriously, the offstage-engagement-and-invisible-fiancé and the equally-offstage-romance-and-marriage-to-Mickey is indication of how much the writers care about Martha's characterization: they don't.
[/end rant] I'm sorry. I have a lot of feelings about Martha.
Donna, similarly, is all over the place. She's two completely different characters in TRB and PiC and like I said before "offstage and unreferenced character development!" is not a substitute for actual characterization. She becomes insecure as the plot demands and the rest of the time she has no confidence issues at all. Her interest in getting married pops up randomly and is suddenly THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF HER CHARACTER ARC until they forget about it again (which is about five seconds later).
I'd say of all Davies' companions, the only one with an internally-consistent character arc is Mickey. (And Mickey has a fantastic arc that I love, but one out of five isn't exactly great odds.)
Davies, after all, is the same guy who was so focused on making sure Rose acted true to form that he wrote and rewrote and rewrote the Bad Wolf Bay scene in Journey's End for an entire MONTH until he felt he got it right and that she wasn't acting "for the plot."
Just...speaking as a writer (who is nowhere near the level of either of the two men we're discussing, admittedly), working hard at something doesn't necessarily mean you got it right, and the fact that David Tennant had to point out the problematic aspects of the scene and prompt Billie Piper to look upset at the Doctor and Donna leaving doesn't incline me to think that RTD got it right in the script.
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Can I add you? :)
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RTD is very attached to the idea of home.
True, but--home, family, and how one defines them, is actually one of the major themes of his era. With the Time Lords gone, the Doctor has no home left. Post-Time War, his only family resides in his companions; Ten's whole character arc was about realizing he's not alone. So it makes sense to me that his companions were defined by their families. (I was surprised how deeply the concept of family runs in RTD's era. It's most noticeable in S4, but it bubbles through every season. Even villains get into the act. How many villains are actually families, or symbolic families?)
I'm just curious, but have you read "The Writer's Tale"? RTD goes into depth about how he writes his characters. He has some interesting insights, worth reading IMO.
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Family is hugely important throughout RTD's era -- everything from Rose's family being very important to her story arc and Martha's family being held hostage by the Master to Mickey leaving the TARDIS to be with his grandmother and Donna's parental issues to the Family of Blood and the evil father/daughter pair in TEoT whose name is escaping me right now (Naismith?). It's huge and a major through-line.
Which does make it a bit of an adjustment when you switch to Moffat's Who, where family doesn't really play a role. Offhand, there's only two times I can think of when family is important to someone's self-identity - Isabella's father defines himself by her, and the grandfather/mother/father/son group in the Silurian two-parters are very heavily defined as a family. Families just aren't an important part of the self-identity of characters in Moffat's Who.
It's an interesting contrast. (Er, to me, anyway. I ramble and reiterate a lot, I'm sorry...)
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Firstly - home vs escape *nods*. Spot on.
I have to say that this:
RTD (and again, I'm limiting this to his Whoniverse work 'cause I'm not familiar enough with any of his other writing to say whether it applies across the board) seems to believe that if he provides enough details and backstory and context, then viewers won't notice that his characters act in wildly contradictory way, adopt and lose character traits as the plot demands, and have no consistent motivation.
Moff on the other hand (see above parenthetical note) seems to believe that if he avoids as much detail and backstory as possible, then viewers will provide their own context that will somehow make sense of the way his characters act in wildly contradictory way, adopt and lose character traits as the plot demands, and have no consistent motivation.
- has me grinning.
I tend to come down on the Rusty side of the fence when it comes to DW, but that doesn't mean I can't see faults or inconsistencies. The thing is though, that for whatever reason, the characters that he presented me with were presented in such a way as to make me care about them enough to be able to forgive (some of) those inconsistencies. And I know you're talking in terms of RTD and SM as showrunners rather than as writers, but I'd argue that for the most part (problems with JE notwithstanding) the characters when he's writing them do act pretty consistently.
It seems to me that his characters act the way they act because that's how that person would act, given what we know of them. Whereas with Moffat, it seems that more of his characters act the way they do to fulfil the demands of the plot. Amy is the prime example of that, IMO. Yes, she was meant to be enigmatic and mysterious; the girl whose life didn't make sense - but keeping so much of a major character "hidden" from the audience was a very risky strategy and one that - for me - didn't work a bit. I couldn't get a handle on Amy at all, and while I really want to like her, I just can't. So I've decided I just have to sit this round of yay!companion out and hope for someone I can like next time around!
At the end of the day of course, it's all completely subjective. Like you, I've never set out to say that one is better than the other, just that they're different - and that in my case, I'd take Rusty's sturm-und-drang over Moff's restraint any day.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts and for an interesting discussion.
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Honestly, I've decided that my favorite thing about DW is that if you don't like one era/writer/Companion/Doctor/whatever, there's a billion more to choose from.
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Amy's 'disconnection' from Leadworth/hone/family screams Dawn Summers (from Buffy) to me. Skipping the details, Dawn was inserted into Buffy's life so she would be hidden/protected.
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