Doctor Who Stuff

[Havok]

So I see that lots of you guys think the new series sucks. I was wondering when you felt the new series went from good to bad?

Also just a random thought, but I feel like I think they missed an opportunity with Martha Jones. Instead of making it her cousin in the Torchwood skyscraper, they should have made it her twin sister and since it was technically the Doctor that killed her they could have set up some serious animosity that ended the traveling relationship instead of "I can't have you so I'm leaving.".

Shit, there was something else I wanted to bring up, but now I can't remember.

[Eternal_Freedom]

For me the decay started around the start of Season 3 and was cemented by the ending to it.

I suspect that when RTD and crew did season 1, they had a lot longer to plan and connect things to make it work. When season 2 rolled around it was "ok gotta do this semi-on the fly" and by and large it worked. Season 3 I think they thought "ok, it worked last time so let's make it better!" For given values of better of course. I tihnk they got lucky with season 2.

[Havok]

So the second the credits rolled on season 3 you hated it. Can you be a little more specific as I doubt that is what you are saying.

[The Romulan Republic]

I think early in season six is probably when it started to get significantly worse, but it became blatant in Let's Kill Hitler and the finale of season six.

[Havok]

OK. Are you guys incapable of formulating and expressing opinions and thoughts contain anything more specific than "significantly worse" or "started to decay"?

[Scrib]

I think early in season six is probably when it started to get significantly worse, but it became blatant in Let's Kill Hitler and the finale of season six.

That. I don't want to get into RTD's run but I think that this is true for Moffat.

Season 5 was good. Season 6 started interesting, though the second episode was disconnected from the first a bit. But things got bad by Let's Kill Hitler. First of all on a subjective level Moffat's whole plot about the Doctor making people scared, and this being a bad thing, just doesn't resonate. Some things are evil and must be fought. People who decide to try to kill the Doctor...just because really, are idiots who need to be stopped.

And then from there it was just terrible. River Song Mary Sue bloat? Check. No elaboration on the plot of the first season? Check. Why the fuck are we fighting these people? *shrugs*.So what happens? We end up with a season that's about RiverRiverRiver and her idiotic actions and Moffat writing himself into a corner with the death of the Doctor.

And season 7...Daleks. That is all.

[The Romulan Republic]

Here are some details, Havok:

I think Day of the Moon is shitty because it had the Doctor mind control the entire human race to force them to commit mass murder with little or no hesitation or remorse. And I think Let's Kill Hitler is shitty because it was a rushed, absurd story. And I think the Wedding of River Song is shitty because it had River behaving like a selfish asshole, contradictory and arguably out of character behaviour by the Doctor, and excessive melodrama.

[Eternal_Freedom]

So the second the credits rolled on season 3 you hated it. Can you be a little more specific as I doubt that is what you are saying.

Sorry, I shall elaborate. As I said, I started to think it was going downhill around "Gridlock," I became certain with the way the "Sound of Drums/Last of the Time Lords" plot was resolved with a literal reset button. That confirmed that things were going downhill. I kept watching because I'm a long-time DW fan, but my expectations have been steadily reducing every season since then.

[DaveJB]

As much as I still generally like the show overall, there have been two noticeable drop-offs in quality. The first came, as others have said, in the Season 3 finale, and I think there were two reasons for that. Firstly, the abrupt changing of Ten's character from "Seventh Doctor Lite" to "Jesus Christ: Time Lord," and secondly, if you look at the various books and interviews that RTD has done over the years, his attitude towards writing is very much "fiction doesn't have to make sense so long as it's fun and/or engaging," which he was just about able to get away with for the first half of his tenure, but started giving way to more and more ridiculous bullshit as things went on, and eventually culminated in the absolute garbage that was Season 4.

Moffat greatly improved things when he first came in, and at the risk of getting flayed alive I'll go so far as to say Season 5 was probably NuWho's best season (though it's a very close call between that and the Eccleston year). However, the quality has dropped off more recently, and while it would be easy to blame that on Chris Chibnall having written so many of the last few episodes, I think the problem is that Moffat can't seem to decide what exactly he wants to do with the show. The storytelling and arc styles have drastically shifted in each of the three seasons he's done, and even Amy and Rory's character motivations seemed to jump all over the map near the back end of their time on the show. I still don't think things are nearly as bad as they were in the late-RTD era, but he'd better nail things down fast, with Jenna-Louise Coleman's character coming in and the 50th anniversary story due in just 9 months.

[Hillary]

I tend to agree more with DaveJB than the others.

The Chris Ecclestone season was clearly the best of NuWho so far - I'd go as far as to say that it was the best DW season of all time. Much to do with the fact that they had more time in production than any of the previous seasons, as other have said, but the writing and acting was awesome.

The first Tennant season was also fairly decent - Rose and Tennant had some seriously good onscreen chemistry and, despite the odd poor episode, the quality of the writing was still there.

Of course, the show started to slide after that. Partly, I think, because the character of Martha was badly written and partly because she was a fairly mediocre actor. There was absolutely no chemistry between her and the Doctor whatsoever - something that thrown into stark relief in Human Nature when Tennant and the matron absolutely oozed it. At the end of season 3, we also got the Jesus Doctor which was fucked up on so many levels. Season 4 was fairly poor as well and let's not go into the 'specials' season.

Another major reason that seasons 3 & 4 went downhill, I believe, is that RTD had other fish to fry by then - Torchwood & Sarah Jane - and I think he didn't spend the time on Doctor Who that was required and the quality suffered.

I, like DaveJB, enjoyed Smith's first season - it was new, Amy was a decent companion and I really liked the finale, the best one since Parting of the Ways for me. There were some awful moments (the Silurians two-parter was horrible), but it showed a lot of promise. Matt Smith is a great Doctor - like Troughton he does the clown-covering-the-seriousness act incredibly well and he worked well with Rory and Amy.

Season two of Smith got a lot of bad press, but I really liked it. Switching round the Pirate and doll house episodes fucked it up a tad, but I did like the arc through the season with the Doctor's murder, the Silence, the Gangers and Amy's baby. I guess it helps that I like River Song as a character - I don't really have a problem with her knowing more than the Doctor sometimes, after all we know why that is. But hey, the lazy "Mary Sue" tag is (incorrectly) applied and we all have to hate her.

So, I don't think NuWho is rubbish, nor do I think it is at a low point. I'm looking forward to the new girl in the TARDIS to see what she brings - I like her two episodes to date and want to see why he keeps bumping into her in various incarnations. I think this will be a very different (hlaf) season to the ones we've had since the start of NuWho.

And when alls said and done, even in the poorest seasons of NuWho there have been standout episodes - think Blink, Midnight, Turn Left.

[Crossroads Inc.]

Just a short review here since I am at work...

For me it went Downhill when they turned Martha Jones into Rose Tyler 2.0
At the start of season three, Martha Jones was strong, confident, smart, and a Doctor in training. In the first few episodes with her, she kept her wits about her and got a grasp of complex situations.

Very shortly however they "Nerfed" her. She basically started mooning and pinning for the Doctor, she started to fall to pieces at the first sign of trouble, and she made stupid mistakes that someone with her level of Education should have noticed.

Basically they saw how succesful Rose + Doctor was, and turned her into Rose 2.0.
THAT Was a bad baaaaad mistake.

[The Romulan Republic]

I don't think that's fair. I haven't seen a lot of the Rose episodes, and I haven't seen any of them in a long time, so I'm not sure how similar she is to Rose, but Martha seems fairly competent to me. A good example is her executing the plan to defeat the Master on her own at the end of season 3.

Her romantic interest in the Doctor doesn't bother me much.

And a big difference between her and Rose is that she ultimately got over the Doctor and moved on. I don't think Rose ever did.

[JLTucker]

I feel that the series began to lose its way during the lat few Tennant episodes. From then on, it became serious business instead of the camp I was used to with RTD. The change was abrupt and it was solidified with the new Doctor. I missed hilariously dumb episodes like "Partners in Crime" when we got emo whiny crap when the Tennant had his last appearance. I stopped halfway through series five because I could tell they were going to go the serious route.

[The Romulan Republic]

I thought some of the serious episodes were some of the best episodes. But while I like serious episodes, I don't like cynical and dark episodes, and one of the things I don't like about the last couple of seasons is their tendency to portray the Doctor as a suicidal anti-hero.

At this point, I just want Moffat to leave and let someone who can still write good episodes run Doctor Who.

[Stark]

Ironically that's what everyone was saying before Moffat arrived. You've got to wonder where to problem really lies.

[The Romulan Republic]

Moffat was good for a while.

I think part of the problem is that writers often don't stay at the same level for more than a few years, and that Doctor Who is evidence of the benefits of frequent turnover among the writers. And I think this season has shown its time to boot Moffat and get someone new again.

[Straha]

Credit where credit is due, Moffat is a much better writer than RTD. I think most of his problems come from trying to fit the RTD mold and being spread too thin across too many stories instead of focusing on quality.


I think the real mark that the series was in a bad place was the ending of Season One. A ridiculous, over-the-top, absurd threat solved by a Deus Ex Machina literally pulled out of the ass end of the Tardis set up the way that RTD would create tension for the rest of his tenure. Season two was pretty solid, season three represented a slide downhill that was solidified with Season 4's absolute lack of threat or plot development and a paucity of almost any good episodes (the excellent Midnight being one of the few exceptions.)

I guess the best way to look at episodes is how the threats were constructed. Almost all of the high drama episodes had completely laugable threats with no build-up that were then solved by incredibly asinine solutions. Every successive episode then needed to raise the stakes higher and higher until you had Journey's End and the third episode of the half-season (Return of the Time Lords?) which were stupid in every way and fell down like a house of fucking cards the second you applied a moment's thought to them. It tarnished the series not only because it produced lazy writing but because it encouraged super lazy solutions that then became canon, like the magic-wand Sonic Screwdriver which could now solve any problem ever (obligatory link to the video of all the uses of the sonic screwdriver showing how lazy RTD's writers got with it should go here, as should a mention of how the Sonic Screwdriver has turned into a fucking tricorder these days.) This meant that the core parts of a story like tension, character development, and problem solving became replaced with surface level flash that never went any deeper.


I'll say personally that my favorite stories from the new series are Midnight and the Impossible Planet/Satan Pit because both dwelled on the idea of who the Doctor was, how he related with the world, and what he wanted. There was no, or limited, flash or style and a focus on pure unadulterated substance. Compare it with the average Season 3 or 4 episode and you can see where and how the series went downhill.

Those are my tired thoughts at any rate.

[DaveJB]

I think the "problem," such as it is, is that the BBC likely doesn't believe that there is any real problem. Regardless of what bile the online community may have spewed at RTD and Moffat over the years, the show's ratings have remained high, as have sales on DVD/Blu-Ray/iTunes. As a result, the Beeb never felt the need to reign in RTD when his stories devolved into nonsensical crap, and they're likely not doing anything about the current issues either.

[Stark]

Moffat was good for a while.

I think part of the problem is that writers often don't stay at the same level for more than a few years, and that Doctor Who is evidence of the benefits of frequent turnover among the writers. And I think this season has shown its time to boot Moffat and get someone new again.

I think this is a fan rationalisation for other things. Moffat is a good writer, as anyone not crippled to just DW would know. But he knows the market and what the fans respond/are responding to. Like Davey boy says, show is popular, keep churning out the filth for the filth babies.

And isn't he the producer? The producers role probably isn't supposed to be what RTD made it.

[The Romulan Republic]

Why do you assume I'm not familiar with Moffat's other work?

Frankly, I am fucking tired of you making assumptions about the extent of my knowledge and my motivations. You do not know me. Stop acting like you do, you arrogant, pretentious asshole.

I think the "problem," such as it is, is that the BBC likely doesn't believe that there is any real problem. Regardless of what bile the online community may have spewed at RTD and Moffat over the years, the show's ratings have remained high, as have sales on DVD/Blu-Ray/iTunes. As a result, the Beeb never felt the need to reign in RTD when his stories devolved into nonsensical crap, and they're likely not doing anything about the current issues either.

That's probably true.

But I fear if ratings dropped the show would be cancelled rather than fixed. So I'm not sure what can solve this.

I wonder if its time for a reboot, but the backlash against a reboot from fans would probably be tremendous.

[Stark]

Did I ever say you were not? I refered to third parties who were not. Grow a fucking spine.

And it's pretty clear what can 'solve' this; artists with vision. Nerds reaching for the reboot button is just sad. Nobody forces you to watch it, after all. Especially in a show like DW (and the soap opera it became) what does continuity even mean?

[The Romulan Republic]

I'm sorry if I misinterpreted your post, but when you post something in response to my post which claims that only people who just watch Doctor Who think Moffat isn't a good writer after I criticized Moffat's writing, and do nothing to indicate that you are talking about anyone else, it looks like you are talking about me.

I think reboots are sometimes useful when a franchise becomes so crippled by bad quality that it becomes impractical to fix it except by starting over. They can also keep a franchise interesting by allowing for more new ideas (although Doctor Who can do this to a degree thanks to regeneration and a premise that allows it to have almost any setting).

Of course I'm not forced to watch Doctor Who, but I don't want to stop watching it. I want it to be something I can enjoy watching.

And the fact that continuity is almost non-existent in Doctor Who is one of my problems with it. While I like reboots, I like their to be continuity within a specific version of something.

[Stark]

Hey, don't worry. I'm not about to worry that you consistently 'interpret' my posts as personal attacks against you or your identity groups even when they aren't. I'm always willing to explain my meaning if asked, and believe me, when I'm attacking you personally, you'll know.

I think its a bit sad that guys like Moffat do fine in smaller stuff (ie Jekyll was p choice, for all its flaws) but when given an ongoing series with a huge audience things are different. The new show was already a reboot; when it went back to the same old mistake the old show made (and ended in its decline, obscurity, and death) it became something else again. I don't think its fair to try to restrict a show (or any artistic work) to 'what I want' or 'what I expect'. It'll change as the creators change either as individuals or through staffing, and it might not be what you want anymore.

As in life, its important to know when to let go.

[Havok]

Keep going people. It's nice to see some actual thoughts beyond "sucked" "mary sue" "bad writing". Although I have to say, it's pretty sad to see some people misinterpret things so badly just so they can use it as a reason to say the show sucks.

Also Stark, I've never actually ascertained your complete reasoning for disliking the new series, or when it happened.

[Stark]

Its not worth going into. Show sucked, my patience ran out, I have no desire to go back. Just like any failed relationship, I have better things to do with my time these days. There's scifi out there that's good without having to pine for literally years that 'I hope it gets better next year'.

The only curiosity I have about Moffat's time is when people talk about ideas that should have been good but didn't really work. Depowering the Daleks was a good idea (and it was a good idea in 2006 when RTD couldn't bring himself to do it and we got Daleks in Manhattan) but dear me.