Meta: Swift musings on the Moffat era
Cautiously opens the door to the meta café a tiny bit...
I have been saying for years now that Moffat has been re-booting the show… Here is how he did it.
Of course this was a sort of backwards re-boot, as it was RTD who brought the show back and in the process transformed it. He came up with the Time War, and we saw the fallout from that mostly in the Tenth Doctor.
However that was clearly not a sustainable way for the show to function - Ten was a hollow shell by the end of his run.
So Moffat began his reboot. It’s easier if we divide it up by Companions, than Doctors, because it’s in the Companions’ roles that we most clearly see how he has progressed things - this is a VERY quick run-through, but I thought it'd be helpful now we stand at the brink of the new:
Ponds (family)
The first project was to look after the Doctor himself. He was a lonely, volatile creature by the end of The End of Time, and the Ponds gave him an intensive course of family therapy. He (re-)learned to trust, and to love and to just be happy. It gave him ties to the world that he had not had since the loss of Gallifrey, and in River a wife with abilities very much like his own; and she had a lifespan long enough to become a genuine partner. The Doctor once more became the Trickster character/wizard he is supposed to be.
Rather than Time Lords, we had The Church of the Silence, and Eleven’s life revolved around a crack in a wall, at the other side of which was Gallifrey…
Clara (home)
Clara was the one who brought back Gallifrey, and was at the heart of the reboot (which is one reason why she was such a complex and highly capable character. She literally is the ur-Companion). This was a long project, and a complicated one, and from the first she was mirrored with the Doctor himself (and would of course in the end get her own TARDIS). She was also intimately tied up with the Time Lords and Gallifrey and the Time War. She was the one who was there when the Doctor saved Gallifrey in The Day of the Doctor and the one who in The Time of the Doctor answered the question, as well as demanding that the Time Lords save the Doctor.
And so Gallifrey was found, and the Doctor got a new lease of life. But these things don’t come cheap. Twelve was in many ways a reboot of the Doctor himself; grouchy and short tempered with humans. Clara - as predicted (see icon, and who she is mirrored with) - stepped into the granddaughter role, smoothing out and helping and becoming generally indispensable. Of course she was also Missy’s pawn; specifically chosen for the Doctor, and Missy heralded the proper return of Gallifrey (as well as being mirrored with Clara - Clara is All The Things). Clara’s death was the starting point for Gallifrey’s actual return, and the Doctor’s atonement. He spent 400 years thinking he had murdered his own kind, and then four and a half billion years punching a path back through to them (although of course he is doing it for Clara. Still. Atonement). Nevertheless, it’s a hard road and one that makes Gallifrey’s return ‘earned’ in a way that would otherwise be hard to justify.
And then - he dies. (Well, if we see a mindwipe as a kind of death.)
River (love)
After that comes the Singing Towers and a night that lasts 24 years… The Doctor emerges from this older, kinder, more melancholy and also exactly what the Doctor should be. River loves him unconditionally, whilst also seeing him clearly, and that kind of intense TLC is what his Ponds were there for, and he gets one last infusion before setting him on his path anew… ♥
Bill (new start)
All of which brings us up to Bill and The Pilot. The show has now been thoroughly, properly, re-booted. And is back exactly where it was in the beginning. The Doctor is a renegade, the Time Lords are mostly stuffy and pompous and the Doctor doesn’t get on with them. The Master/Missy is knocking about somewhere, brewing up something to attract the Doctor’s attention and the Doctor is inviting a new companion along, excited at the possibilities and ready for new adventures.
Post has been cloned from dreamwidth. Comments welcome everywhere.
I have been saying for years now that Moffat has been re-booting the show… Here is how he did it.
Of course this was a sort of backwards re-boot, as it was RTD who brought the show back and in the process transformed it. He came up with the Time War, and we saw the fallout from that mostly in the Tenth Doctor.
However that was clearly not a sustainable way for the show to function - Ten was a hollow shell by the end of his run.
So Moffat began his reboot. It’s easier if we divide it up by Companions, than Doctors, because it’s in the Companions’ roles that we most clearly see how he has progressed things - this is a VERY quick run-through, but I thought it'd be helpful now we stand at the brink of the new:
Ponds (family)
The first project was to look after the Doctor himself. He was a lonely, volatile creature by the end of The End of Time, and the Ponds gave him an intensive course of family therapy. He (re-)learned to trust, and to love and to just be happy. It gave him ties to the world that he had not had since the loss of Gallifrey, and in River a wife with abilities very much like his own; and she had a lifespan long enough to become a genuine partner. The Doctor once more became the Trickster character/wizard he is supposed to be.
Rather than Time Lords, we had The Church of the Silence, and Eleven’s life revolved around a crack in a wall, at the other side of which was Gallifrey…
Clara (home)
Clara was the one who brought back Gallifrey, and was at the heart of the reboot (which is one reason why she was such a complex and highly capable character. She literally is the ur-Companion). This was a long project, and a complicated one, and from the first she was mirrored with the Doctor himself (and would of course in the end get her own TARDIS). She was also intimately tied up with the Time Lords and Gallifrey and the Time War. She was the one who was there when the Doctor saved Gallifrey in The Day of the Doctor and the one who in The Time of the Doctor answered the question, as well as demanding that the Time Lords save the Doctor.
And so Gallifrey was found, and the Doctor got a new lease of life. But these things don’t come cheap. Twelve was in many ways a reboot of the Doctor himself; grouchy and short tempered with humans. Clara - as predicted (see icon, and who she is mirrored with) - stepped into the granddaughter role, smoothing out and helping and becoming generally indispensable. Of course she was also Missy’s pawn; specifically chosen for the Doctor, and Missy heralded the proper return of Gallifrey (as well as being mirrored with Clara - Clara is All The Things). Clara’s death was the starting point for Gallifrey’s actual return, and the Doctor’s atonement. He spent 400 years thinking he had murdered his own kind, and then four and a half billion years punching a path back through to them (although of course he is doing it for Clara. Still. Atonement). Nevertheless, it’s a hard road and one that makes Gallifrey’s return ‘earned’ in a way that would otherwise be hard to justify.
And then - he dies. (Well, if we see a mindwipe as a kind of death.)
River (love)
After that comes the Singing Towers and a night that lasts 24 years… The Doctor emerges from this older, kinder, more melancholy and also exactly what the Doctor should be. River loves him unconditionally, whilst also seeing him clearly, and that kind of intense TLC is what his Ponds were there for, and he gets one last infusion before setting him on his path anew… ♥
Bill (new start)
All of which brings us up to Bill and The Pilot. The show has now been thoroughly, properly, re-booted. And is back exactly where it was in the beginning. The Doctor is a renegade, the Time Lords are mostly stuffy and pompous and the Doctor doesn’t get on with them. The Master/Missy is knocking about somewhere, brewing up something to attract the Doctor’s attention and the Doctor is inviting a new companion along, excited at the possibilities and ready for new adventures.
Post has been cloned from dreamwidth. Comments welcome everywhere.