The Night of the Doctor
Third post this week! Woohoo :D Brought on by the DW minisode "The Night of the Doctor".
I have extremely ambivalent feelings about this - about 40% YAY 60%NAY
The YAY: Paul McGann on screen! As the Doctor! Speaking in Paul McGann's voice! Saying some lines that are in-character! This 6 minute clip makes be YEARN for more of that. Not that McGann isn't a gift to audios, but he would've made an awesome on-screen Doctor as well.
The Sisterhood of Karn, nods to audio companions: also of the good.
The NAY: everything else, pretty much. Not only does this go completely against my Time War headcanon, it also means that Nine is Ten, Ten is Eleven, Eleven is Twelve and Eight isn't the Time War Doctor. Just, no. No, no, no. But those are rather superficial complaints compared to the fact that this minisode is just plain SLOPPY, AWFUL storytelling with an extra-dose of NONSENSE. And fake drama. Why? Because of the whole "make me a warrior" thing. Not only does the Doctor go from "I have no part in this war" to "make me the perfect warrior" in about half a minute - no, to make it extra bad, the catalyst that causes this change of heart is a woman being fridged. Are you fucking kidding me, Moffat era??? To be fair, though, the audios almost did a similar thing with Lucie Miller. But the episode in which Lucie dies is a full length story. She is a fully developed character. She dies a hero, and it doesn't have that much to do with the Doctor, really. And the change it brings in Eight's characterisation isn't nearly as sudden.
Whereas Cass is introduced and killed within, what, three minutes? And all the characterisation she gets is "companion material" - you literally could not come up with a more generic companion than her. She is... young! She wants to... see space! She has... badass fighter skills! We're not expected to care, she's just a cipher, just a thing to motivate a change - I'm not going to call it character development, because that is insulting to the very idea of development.
But that isn't even the worst, I mean, it's bad, but I kind of expect this sort of uncreative misogynism from this era. It's run of the mill. But the Doctor drinking a fucking drink to become a warrior is a lot stupider than I expected and my expectations are already pretty damn low. I mean, this is character development in the same way that pokemon evolutions are character development except that for your pokemon to evolve you usually need to spend hours doing stupid pokemon battles first. It uneccessarily introduces a way for Time Lords to control their regenerations, too. Romana could do it, the Master maybe sort of could, but even if you don't accept that as canon for Time Lords, we've seen the Doctor adapt by regenerating many times (One to Two, Three to Four, Nine to Ten, or in a messy way when the regenerations were troubled, like Five to Six or Seven to Eight). And if you think that's too subtle or complicated, why not simply say: he commits suicide and then wills himself into regenerating into a more ruthless guy.
Why could the Doctor not simply become a warrior by, idk, deciding that he will in fact fight in this war? Or by fighting in it and thus changing? That is, generally, how you become a warrior. Or maybe by having an awesome kung-fu training montage. But warrior-flavoured drinks? I think you're trying to insult your viewers there.
To illustrate the level of stupid: it's like if you watch Captain America and believe that Steve Rogers became a superhero because he got some vita-ray treatment. YOU'RE MISSING THE POINT.
Also, was there no budget for this? Or were they actually trying to make this look it was set in a Star Trek:TOS plastic cave? Though that is actually endearing, if cheap.
I have extremely ambivalent feelings about this - about 40% YAY 60%NAY
The YAY: Paul McGann on screen! As the Doctor! Speaking in Paul McGann's voice! Saying some lines that are in-character! This 6 minute clip makes be YEARN for more of that. Not that McGann isn't a gift to audios, but he would've made an awesome on-screen Doctor as well.
The Sisterhood of Karn, nods to audio companions: also of the good.
The NAY: everything else, pretty much. Not only does this go completely against my Time War headcanon, it also means that Nine is Ten, Ten is Eleven, Eleven is Twelve and Eight isn't the Time War Doctor. Just, no. No, no, no. But those are rather superficial complaints compared to the fact that this minisode is just plain SLOPPY, AWFUL storytelling with an extra-dose of NONSENSE. And fake drama. Why? Because of the whole "make me a warrior" thing. Not only does the Doctor go from "I have no part in this war" to "make me the perfect warrior" in about half a minute - no, to make it extra bad, the catalyst that causes this change of heart is a woman being fridged. Are you fucking kidding me, Moffat era??? To be fair, though, the audios almost did a similar thing with Lucie Miller. But the episode in which Lucie dies is a full length story. She is a fully developed character. She dies a hero, and it doesn't have that much to do with the Doctor, really. And the change it brings in Eight's characterisation isn't nearly as sudden.
Whereas Cass is introduced and killed within, what, three minutes? And all the characterisation she gets is "companion material" - you literally could not come up with a more generic companion than her. She is... young! She wants to... see space! She has... badass fighter skills! We're not expected to care, she's just a cipher, just a thing to motivate a change - I'm not going to call it character development, because that is insulting to the very idea of development.
But that isn't even the worst, I mean, it's bad, but I kind of expect this sort of uncreative misogynism from this era. It's run of the mill. But the Doctor drinking a fucking drink to become a warrior is a lot stupider than I expected and my expectations are already pretty damn low. I mean, this is character development in the same way that pokemon evolutions are character development except that for your pokemon to evolve you usually need to spend hours doing stupid pokemon battles first. It uneccessarily introduces a way for Time Lords to control their regenerations, too. Romana could do it, the Master maybe sort of could, but even if you don't accept that as canon for Time Lords, we've seen the Doctor adapt by regenerating many times (One to Two, Three to Four, Nine to Ten, or in a messy way when the regenerations were troubled, like Five to Six or Seven to Eight). And if you think that's too subtle or complicated, why not simply say: he commits suicide and then wills himself into regenerating into a more ruthless guy.
Why could the Doctor not simply become a warrior by, idk, deciding that he will in fact fight in this war? Or by fighting in it and thus changing? That is, generally, how you become a warrior. Or maybe by having an awesome kung-fu training montage. But warrior-flavoured drinks? I think you're trying to insult your viewers there.
To illustrate the level of stupid: it's like if you watch Captain America and believe that Steve Rogers became a superhero because he got some vita-ray treatment. YOU'RE MISSING THE POINT.
Also, was there no budget for this? Or were they actually trying to make this look it was set in a Star Trek:TOS plastic cave? Though that is actually endearing, if cheap.