Re: Edited to fix coding errorpromethia_tenkJuly 9 2010, 04:05:26 UTC
When Eliot does that, it works. Not sure Moffat can successfully write a TV series like a poem, in which images fit together to form impressions, and meaning derives from the the act of receiving the impressions.
Television does, rather annoyingly, seem to insist on plots and characters in ways that poetry does not. I think I'm a lot more inclined to give it a pass than the average viewer, but I agree that it might be a problematic way to put a season together.
OTOH, it does feel like a bit of a bait-and-switch. Look! It's a plot-point! Nope, it's not; it's just there to provoke "the feeling of experiencing the work."
I think the proof will be in next season. We weren't expecting this kind of storytelling this season and, therefore, to a certain extent, we were all concentrating on the wrong things. Next season, I hope, we'll have a much better idea of how best to approach interpretation, at which point we won't feel so much like we've had a trick played on us. Personally, I rather like what Moffat's doing; it's unlike anything else I've seen on television (admittedly it's hard to keep up with all the shows one might like to).
Re: Edited to fix coding errorpromethia_tenkJuly 9 2010, 16:51:04 UTC
once it became clear that there were gaps in time that were not mere jump-cuts of the camera, I never doubted that this was a season-long single story. Moffat planted the original seeds in "Forest of the Dead," in the dreamlike sequence in which Donna marries someone and raises children, but experiences breaks in time that we, at first, think are camera cuts.
Would you mind pointing out to me where you saw this happening in this season? Because it was a trick I was expecting and specifically looking out for, and I can't say that I ever saw it.
It has both the luxury of time and the burden of time. Moffat does seem to be making good use of that. I just hope that he's not also being careless and random for the sake of messing with us.
I hope so to, but as with any highly-serialized show you decide to commit to, you really do just have to go it on faith. For the moment, I still trust Moffat and believe he's plotting these things out with a lot of forethought. On the other hand, I've been burned before. I think of the shows I've watched, Battlestar Galactica came the closest to getting it right . . . and then it just fell down so completely with the final episode.
Re: Edited to fix coding errorpromethia_tenkJuly 9 2010, 18:42:52 UTC
I agree that I wanted the dream cut in TEH to be a time jump, and I too am frustrated that that did not pan out. I was honestly expecting to have to re-evaluate TEH a lot more than I actually did, along with some other episodes. I too was expecting some more jacket!Doctor intervention in the timeline.
The one scene that I thought could be interpreted as something strange happening in time is the one at the beginning of "The Beast Below" when Amy is watching Mandy Tanner on the monitor and the Doctor disappears and the TARDIS is suddenly on the ship and the Doctor is suddenly there on the screen. But mostly I took that as a "the Doctor is magic" moment, which I'm fine with. Again, although I was looking for editing cuts that worked like those in Donna's dream world, I don't think that any of what we got actually worked in that way. Well, maybe the cut in the voting booth scene in the same episode, but that was about memory, not time itself.
The goal is to drive the viewer to revisit the past episodes (reread the book) in light of new evidence. I think it's a brilliant technique and Moffat is a genius for melding it with the actual concept of time travel, so that when the viewer revisits the past (rewatches episodes) and applies revised interpretations, he or she is thereby engaging in a kind of time travel--recapitulating the experience and worldview of the Doctor, which is otherwise unavailable to us. Really brilliant. (And hence the points where Moffat cheats us about this irk me the more.)
Good point. I think one area this has payed off brilliantly so far is with River Song. If you watch the episodes she's been in in her order, you realize a lot of interesting things about what she knows already and why she acts as she does. For example: she's so quick to look out for Amy in ToA/FaS because she's already been to Amy's house, seen the dolls and such, knows *exactly* how damaged Amy is, how much support she needs, how much she's going to mean to the Doctor, and how casually he's treating her now ("River, hug Amy.") Really she's supporting the Doctor here and covering for his failings far more than anyone else realizes at the time.
I keep coming back to the idea of are the things I'm disappointed about in this season (and, honestly, there are very few), really faults of the text, or of me over-anticipating? It's easy to start investing huge amounts of meaning into things when you're obsessing over a show on a weekly basis for three months. If I had approached the show any other way, as a slightly more casual viewer or by watching the whole thing together on DVD, would I be disappointed by these things? I think perhaps not. Even with novels you don't have quite the same anticipation time built in as you do with a serialized TV show (unless you're reading a novel series). By and large, by the time you come around to analyzing a novel to the level of depth that we've analyzed this season, you already know how the novel ends, and that inevitably shapes what you focus on. In some ways, the TV writer has a far, far more difficult time of it, and so I try to be reasonably forgiving.
Television does, rather annoyingly, seem to insist on plots and characters in ways that poetry does not. I think I'm a lot more inclined to give it a pass than the average viewer, but I agree that it might be a problematic way to put a season together.
OTOH, it does feel like a bit of a bait-and-switch. Look! It's a plot-point! Nope, it's not; it's just there to provoke "the feeling of experiencing the work."
I think the proof will be in next season. We weren't expecting this kind of storytelling this season and, therefore, to a certain extent, we were all concentrating on the wrong things. Next season, I hope, we'll have a much better idea of how best to approach interpretation, at which point we won't feel so much like we've had a trick played on us. Personally, I rather like what Moffat's doing; it's unlike anything else I've seen on television (admittedly it's hard to keep up with all the shows one might like to).
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Would you mind pointing out to me where you saw this happening in this season? Because it was a trick I was expecting and specifically looking out for, and I can't say that I ever saw it.
It has both the luxury of time and the burden of time. Moffat does seem to be making good use of that. I just hope that he's not also being careless and random for the sake of messing with us.
I hope so to, but as with any highly-serialized show you decide to commit to, you really do just have to go it on faith. For the moment, I still trust Moffat and believe he's plotting these things out with a lot of forethought. On the other hand, I've been burned before. I think of the shows I've watched, Battlestar Galactica came the closest to getting it right . . . and then it just fell down so completely with the final episode.
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(The comment has been removed)
The one scene that I thought could be interpreted as something strange happening in time is the one at the beginning of "The Beast Below" when Amy is watching Mandy Tanner on the monitor and the Doctor disappears and the TARDIS is suddenly on the ship and the Doctor is suddenly there on the screen. But mostly I took that as a "the Doctor is magic" moment, which I'm fine with. Again, although I was looking for editing cuts that worked like those in Donna's dream world, I don't think that any of what we got actually worked in that way. Well, maybe the cut in the voting booth scene in the same episode, but that was about memory, not time itself.
The goal is to drive the viewer to revisit the past episodes (reread the book) in light of new evidence. I think it's a brilliant technique and Moffat is a genius for melding it with the actual concept of time travel, so that when the viewer revisits the past (rewatches episodes) and applies revised interpretations, he or she is thereby engaging in a kind of time travel--recapitulating the experience and worldview of the Doctor, which is otherwise unavailable to us. Really brilliant. (And hence the points where Moffat cheats us about this irk me the more.)
Good point. I think one area this has payed off brilliantly so far is with River Song. If you watch the episodes she's been in in her order, you realize a lot of interesting things about what she knows already and why she acts as she does. For example: she's so quick to look out for Amy in ToA/FaS because she's already been to Amy's house, seen the dolls and such, knows *exactly* how damaged Amy is, how much support she needs, how much she's going to mean to the Doctor, and how casually he's treating her now ("River, hug Amy.") Really she's supporting the Doctor here and covering for his failings far more than anyone else realizes at the time.
I keep coming back to the idea of are the things I'm disappointed about in this season (and, honestly, there are very few), really faults of the text, or of me over-anticipating? It's easy to start investing huge amounts of meaning into things when you're obsessing over a show on a weekly basis for three months. If I had approached the show any other way, as a slightly more casual viewer or by watching the whole thing together on DVD, would I be disappointed by these things? I think perhaps not. Even with novels you don't have quite the same anticipation time built in as you do with a serialized TV show (unless you're reading a novel series). By and large, by the time you come around to analyzing a novel to the level of depth that we've analyzed this season, you already know how the novel ends, and that inevitably shapes what you focus on. In some ways, the TV writer has a far, far more difficult time of it, and so I try to be reasonably forgiving.
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