Doctor Who S32E1, "The Impossible Astronaut"

[Raxmei]

Yes, but WHY was it so important for Amy to Spoiler

tell The Doctor that she is pregnant?

I thought she was going to Spoiler

tell The Doctor about the Grey/Slender Man/Whatever The Hell It Is and suddenly it's about her being pregnant?

As far as Amy is concerned she had a stomach cramp, went to the bathroom, and after leaving the bathroom told herself that she had to tell the Doctor. She just has a feeling that it's really important that she tell the Doctor something and this does have something resembling coherent chain of logic behind it. She certainly isn't going to tell him about the stuff she doesn't know about.

[Shroom Man 777]

If the writers/directors of those episodes you listed also had more than half of their works also feature faceless masked enemies with optical illusions or scared scary children, then that's something, and I'll concede that they're all being as repetitive as Moffat.

On the other hand, if that repetition hasn't interfered with - or even contributed to the success of - a franchise that's been in existence since 1963 it's hard to argue that repetition is a problem even if you, personally, don't care for it.

For another genre - soap operas make me want to puke, but the formula (and they're very formulaic) is commercially successful, or at least it was until recently. I don't care for them myself but clearly a lot of people do so the demand has been filled for decades.

So, Shroom, it might be only a minority of Who episodes appeal to you. No big deal. Enjoy what you enjoy, and ignore the rest.

Ugh, look, I'm pretty fine with most of Who as it is except maybe toning down the mania of Matt Smith's character or whatever.

I just think that Moffat's episodes are starting to look very much the same, time after time. To the point where that's all he does. So maybe I only like the minority of Who episodes... if the majority of Who episodes were written by Moffat? But that's not the case. Notice how these complaints of sameness aren't leveled at other Who episodes, just Moffat's.

Many people have said that many other episodes have had similar tricks. But there's also diversity and stuff. Okay. I've had fun with many episodes. There must be a reason why I've only cited Moffat in my complaints? Maybe because specifically his episodes use the same damn tricks all the time?

Doctor Who was also awesome, IMO, because of the sheer diversity of its episodes. That's one of the main things that draws me to it. "Diversity" =/= "one writer/director using the exact same tricks to develop the exact same kind of tension throughout most of his episodes"


Come on. Am I the only person who is starting to see how Moffat's episodes are becoming too the same with each other? I found his episodes genuinely suspenseful and unique. But guess what, if he does it in all of his episodes, it kind of loses its uniqueness and suspense.

Initially Moffat's episodes were noted for how different they were from other peoples' episodes. But somehow in my opinion he's gotten self-indulgent, and he's overusing those things that made his episodes "different" and "unique", to the point where they are no longer uniquely different but similarly the same to each other.

[Broomstick]

At least for me, most of Moffat's tricks work really well, even if there is some repetition, so maybe I'm just not as bothered. He isn't the only person writing episodes, so that does keep it from getting too repetitive for me. We'll have to see how the rest of this series shakes out, won't we? I don't mind 2-3 Moffat episodes a series.

They've released the titles and writers of several upcoming episodes now. While this week's, "The Day of the Moon", is another Moffat one (hardly a surprise given it's part two of a two-parter) the next four after that are by Stephen Thompson, Neil Gaiman, and Matthew Graham ("The Curse of the Black Spot", "The Doctor's Wife" (sorry, River Song haters, I'm sure she'll be in that one), and another two-parter, "The Rebel Flesh/The Almost People"). Then another two-parter by Moffat, the four episodes after that by other people, and the series finale by Moffat again. Even if Moffat is a bit repetitive that should still allow a variety of things as there are plenty of other writers as well. At first glance it looks like Moffat's output will be a lower percentage than last series.

Does that make it any better, Shroom?

I'm also hoping we get to see a bit more range from Matt Smith. It's not just the actor, after all, it's also the writers. Even the best actor needs something to work with, and the director is a factor, too. I'm always hoping for better quality.

[Shroom Man 777]

My only gripe with Moffat is when he uses the same tricks. He did no such thing with the Christmas Special, and instead of using scary children or optical trick villains or faceless masked beings to give us cheap scares, he gave us awesome characters and nice time travel trickery. So it worked. Same with the last season's finale, it was totally all about nonsensical time travel hijinks, and it was totally okay too.

Look, I'm not saying he's a bad writer. He did good with the Angels and the Gas Mask children. My only problem is if too much of his villains become similar to the Angels and Gas Mask children and the skeletonizing shadows in the library and the scary spacemen (we've already had TWO scary spacemen villains, one in the library and another one here), and now four camera angle optical illusion tricks for suspense villains all from him. Villains that are right there in front of you but you can't see it unless you look at them right and squint your eyes and cross them, and you have to look really carefully, and if you don't but they're still there and the camera angle will move and we'll see just a LITTLE BIT of the scary monster at the corner, and then cue spooky music - shadows in the library, shapeshifting eel with perception filter, angels, impossible astronauts. Too much of a good thing can be bad.

That's like, if half of Steven Spielberg's movie antagonists used the same tricks that made Jaws so scary. Can you imagine that?

I used to love Moffat's scary villains, but now I just hope he avoids using those same tricks and instead does something different. Because when he doesn't use those cheap lazy tricks to build suspense, he can do brilliant stuff. I don't want him to be a one trick pony, I don't want him to get old. Christmas Carol was a very fantastic episode, and in a way it's nothing like his "scary" episodes that are in danger of becoming the same.

Anyway, I'm genuinely looking forward to the Neil Gaiman episode. It also has Micheal Sheen.

"THE GAME HAS CHANGED SON OF GALLIFREY!"

"BEHOLD THE SON OF OUR MAAAKERRRR!!!"

"END OF TIME... LINE."

TRON LORD.

[Iroscato]

My only gripe with Moffat is when he uses the same tricks. He did no such thing with the Christmas Special, and instead of using scary children or optical trick villains or faceless masked beings to give us cheap scares, he gave us awesome characters and nice time travel trickery. So it worked. Same with the last season's finale, it was totally all about nonsensical time travel hijinks, and it was totally okay too.

Look, I'm not saying he's a bad writer. He did good with the Angels and the Gas Mask children. My only problem is if too much of his villains become similar to the Angels and Gas Mask children and the skeletonizing shadows in the library and the scary spacemen (we've already had TWO scary spacemen villains, one in the library and another one here), and now four camera angle optical illusion tricks for suspense villains all from him. Villains that are right there in front of you but you can't see it unless you look at them right and squint your eyes and cross them, and you have to look really carefully, and if you don't but they're still there and the camera angle will move and we'll see just a LITTLE BIT of the scary monster at the corner, and then cue spooky music - shadows in the library, shapeshifting eel with perception filter, angels, impossible astronauts. Too much of a good thing can be bad.

That's like, if half of Steven Spielberg's movie antagonists used the same tricks that made Jaws so scary. Can you imagine that?

I used to love Moffat's scary villains, but now I just hope he avoids using those same tricks and instead does something different. Because when he doesn't use those cheap lazy tricks to build suspense, he can do brilliant stuff. I don't want him to be a one trick pony, I don't want him to get old. Christmas Carol was a very fantastic episode, and in a way it's nothing like his "scary" episodes that are in danger of becoming the same.

Anyway, I'm genuinely looking forward to the Neil Gaiman episode. It also has Micheal Sheen.

"THE GAME HAS CHANGED SON OF GALLIFREY!"

"BEHOLD THE SON OF OUR MAAAKERRRR!!!"

"END OF TIME... LINE."

TRON LORD.

I think you're forgetting what Moffat's intentions are. They are to scare children, and I can vouch that he firmly used to do that. The Empty Child scared me so much, I've only recently regained proper bowel control. I was 10 then, the next series Girl In The Fireplace scared me almost as much. Blink firmly fucked fucked my shit up, and it was one the best episodes I've ever seen. Even right up to when I was 14, Silence in the Library unsettled me deeply. Maybe I'm easy to scare, I don't know. But what I do know is that Moffat is a genius at capitalising on all of the fears of a kid- the fear of the dark, the fear of a monster in your bedroom, the fear of things turning bad when you don't look at him.
What he has done is bring Doctor Who back to its original purpose and its most well-recognised trait- scaring kids.
Moffat is far, far, FAAAAAAAAAR more skilled at writing episodes than Russel.T.Davies. Maybe what you see as repetitive, children see as consistently fucking terrifying.

[2000AD]

Right that's wikipedia checked, let's see who else uses the 'Moffat Tricks'.

1st off I'm dicounting anyone with only one episode or one 2 part story (From here on I'm going to refer to 2 parters as just a single episode as they're one story just longer) to their credit, you can't identify a pattern from just one story. So that's the following out:
Robert Shearman (Dalek)
Tom McRae (Rise of the Cybermen / Age of Steel)
Matt Jones (The Impossible Planet / The Satan Pit)
Matthew Graham (Fear Her)
James Moran (Fires of Pompeii)
Keith Temple (Planet of the Ood)
Simon Nye (Amy's Choice)
Richard Curtis (Vincent and The Doctor)

Next up, people with 2 episodes, borderline on whether or not you can count them as again it's hard to definately say there's a pattern with just 2:

Paul Cornell - Fathers Day, Human Nature / Family of Blood
Scared chldren in both, emotionless enemy in one (the animated scarecrows).

Toby Whitehouse - School Reunion, Vampires of Venice
No real pattern of Moffat Tricks we're looking for, just one in each. Optical illusion in Vampires of Venice and Scared/disturbing children in School re-union (I haven't seen School Reunion, but I'm guessing as it's in a school with aliens at some point there were some scared children and IIRC one writeup said the drugged children were quite unemotional and cold)

Helen Raynor - Daleks in Manhattan / Evolution of the Daleks, The Sontaran Strategem / The Poison Sky
No pattern, only appearence of Moffat Tricks is if you count the Daleks as faceless.

Stephen Greenhorn - The Lazarus Experiment, The Doctor's Daughter
No Moffat Tricks

Chris Chibnall - 42 , Hungry Earth / Cold Blood
Only if you count the sentient star in 42 as a faceless/emotionless enemy I suppose.

People with more than 2:

Mark Gatiss - The Unquiet Dead, The Idiots Lantern, Victory of the Daleks
Bit of a stretch but if we take the Daleks as faceless and count the victims of The Wire then you can say 2/3 of his episode have faceless things (The Wires victims aren't enemies but their facelessness is used for building tension and shock)

Gareth Roberts - The Shakespeare Code, The Unicorn and The Wasp, Planet of the Dead, The Lodger
Optical illusion and creepy child in Lodger, depends on whether or not you call wild animals emotionless for Planet of the Dead. No over use of Moffat Tricks

Russel Davies - 25 episodes (Counting Utopia as seperate from Series 3 finale 2 parter)
Emotionless in 9, faceless in 7 (some crossover with emotionless), scared children in 1, Optical illusion in 1 (maybe 2 if you count the cybermens army of ghosts).
So emotionless and/or faceless enemies crop up quite a bit, putting them together you get between 10-12 depending on how picky you want to be (For example, for the most part the Toclafane are faceless with just 1 scene where they aren't.)

Stephen Moffat - Empty Child / Doctor Dances, Girl in the Fireplace, Blink, Silence in the Library / Forest of the Dead, 11th Hour, The Beast Below, Time of Angels / Flesh and Stone, Pandorica Opens / The Big Bang, Impossible Astronaut
Scary Child or scared children in 3.
Emotionless/Faceless in 5.
Optical tricks in 4.
So it's not like he uses each one all the time. Breaking down by how many feature in each episode you get:
Two featuring all 3 (Empty Child, Astronaut)
One featuring 2 (Beast Below)
Five with just 1 trick.
1 featuring none of his tricks (Pandorica/Big Bang)(On preview reading I guess you could say it has 1 as there's a cyberman in the 1st part for emotionless and a dalek in the 2nd for faceless, they're not the main focus of the episode though.)

So going by your calling out of Moffat for these tricks it appears a trope has to appear in at least somewhere in between 1/3 to 5/9 of their episodes for it to be called a common trick of the writer.
Apart from Moffat that gives us:
Russel Davies - Emotionless/faceless enemies
Mark Gatiss - Facelessness, stretching it a bit as one occurence isn't an enemy, but is still used for shock.
Paul Cornell - Scared Children, possibly, he only has 2 stories so maybe too early to call him on it.
(Not counting anyone with just 2 episodes with a trope appearing in just 1, techincally it's more than 1/3 of their stories but I don't think you can call it a trick based on just 1 episode)
So yeah, you do have a bit of a point in that Moffat does use some things more often, but one of those tropes is used regularly throughout the entire series (Faceless/emotionless), inclduing by the only person that has written more episodes than him.

It's kinda hard to analyse as only 4 writers have written more than 2 episodes and of the episodes written by those 4 Davies and Moffat account for 83% of them.

[2000AD]

*Facepalm*
All that and I forget the most recent xmas special. Add another count of scared child.

[HMS Sophia]

All-right, I have to ask. It seems the Silence have been encountered before, but not in the same 'thin faced' form, thing... So where was it?
I can't really remember the last season, I think I missed some of the last episodes but I don't remember. So where did they/it turn up before?

[Broomstick]

It's mostly been in the form of the villain of the week saying "Silence will fall!" shortly before being defeated by The Doctor.

[Revy]

You also heard a voice saying the same thing when the TARDIS was blowing up / about to blow up. I guess that was one of them, though the voice sounded different.

[Shroom Man 777]

2000AD, I don't know if Utopia and such count. RTD's episodes might have faceless enemies, but they weren't used to induce scares. They were mostly going around doing pew-pew explosions. Did RTD do any horror episodes at all?

The thing also is that Moffat uses his faceless/masked enemies in a very specific way, often together with the optical tricks, and with other very similar mood building devices. Well, of course, it's because he's the same writer/director so his work is bound to have something in common. But still.

[Big Orange]

Did RTD do any horror episodes at all?

"Midnight" was genuinely unnerving, with most of the Doctor's gimmicks fell flat and he nearly got killed by ordinary, terrified bystanders.

And I suppose "Love & Monsters" and the last twenty minutes of "Journey's End" could be seen as horror for some.

To answer Ugolino's criticisms, I assume the Silence have not killed the main protagonists right, because their whole strategy seems to be geared around total secrecy and extremely subtle manipulation rather than the open conquest and domination more favoured by the Daleks, almost on the other side of the spectrum (the Silence's planning makes the Dalek's long game with Satellite 5 look hamfisted). Heck, the whole Pandorica incident may have been a gargantuan gambit on their part, with the destruction of the Universe just part of the plan and the not the end goal!

The Silence themselves are pretty scary for family viewing, there's something much more visceral about them in the way they move and noises they make than the clockwork droids and statues that move between blinks. The forlorn Empty Child got mildly annoying after a bit (though the rest of the infected were much more eerie). I like how the Silence have been built up in Season 5 (here's a video on possible Silent sightings: listen to the distinct Silence clicking/hissing at 0:11) and in "The Lodger" the skeletal remains in the corner of the imitation TARDIS may well have been a dead Silent, rather than one of the 17 human victims the timeship consumed...

[Shroom Man 777]

Midnight was his? Yes, that was a pretty creepy episode. That was some nice acting, which made it totally work.

[The Yosemite Bear]

how can a man of plastic get someone pregnant?

[Raxmei]

how can a man of plastic get someone pregnant?

The Doctor put everything back where it was supposed to be in Big Bang. Rory isn't erased from time and recreated as a plastic centurion (though he does still remember that happening) for the same reason that Amy has parents now.

[TimothyC]

how can a man of plastic get someone pregnant?

I was Plastic, he was the stripper at my stag...

[Molyneux]

Midnight was his? Yes, that was a pretty creepy episode. That was some nice acting, which made it totally work.

Midnight, at least to me, was fucking terrifying...and probably very cheap to film, which is a bonus. Locked-room stories are a great way of ratcheting up tension, but they depend very strongly on the ability of the actors (since there's so little else to keep the audience's attention). It really says something about Midnight that I don't think my attention started to flag at all over the course of the full episode.

Also: one test I've found for whether RTD wrote the episode is whether there's at least one reference to crossdressing, homosexuality or a gender outside the male/female dynamic. It's not perfect, but it works reasonably well.

[Lord Woodlouse]

Midnight is one of my favourites, and a real surprise from RTD. Shows just what the man can do when he's not preoccupied by making everything so bombastic.

[Big Orange]

After the nerd rage directed at RTD as the former show runner has eased off, I wouldn't mind him coming back to write a story along the lines of "Midnight" in the next couple of years under the stewardship of the incumbant Moffat. With no more than a couple of episodes to concentrate on, and not over a dozen year in year out with repetitiveness setting in, it would certainly be more enjoyable than Chris Chibnall's rather average effort from last year.