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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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no subject
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.
no subject
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.)
no subject
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