Episode Review: Silence in the Library

[kae_nine]

I like less and less the idea that Steven Moffat is going to be our new guru. Sorry to start the review with such a negative sentence, but this was really his pass-or-fail episode to me, and while I enjoyed the episode to some extent, I didn’t find it amazing, extraordinary, breathtaking, or russelltdaviesish in the least. It’s a whole bunch of

Comments

[wendymr]

You could have been inside my head when you wrote that ;)

Seriously, like you, this episode does concern me about Moffat's ability to think through story arcs, character development, the arc of a companion through a season, variety of individual episode plots and continuity of story arcs through them and so on. He's written six episodes for New Who, five of which we've seen, and he's repeating himself over and over and over again (as I said on my LJ last night).

What also disturbs me is that reviews beyond LJ-land are all raving about this episode, from the summary list I saw on who_daily. There really is a sense around that Moffat can do no wrong. Now, I'm not saying the man's terrible at what he does; clearly that'd be a mistake. He did write EC/TDD, after all. But he's been repeating elements of that ever since, and he just does not know how to use established companions in a way that showcases their strengths alongside those of guest stars

Moffat

[wendymr]

All mad in this journal. Moffat brilliant brilliant writer. Got lots more to offer, does not wrap things up so conveniently as Russell T Davies. Much more to him. Girl is not creepy, girl is nothing like Empty Child bit. Get a grip. Steven Moffat is the writer.

Re: Moffat

[kae_nine]

It's your (anonymous) opinion and you're entitled to it, just like the rest of us are entitled to ours. ;)

[kae_nine]

I read your review after posting mine and thought yep, definitely agree with you on it all. :)

Like you say over there and here in your comment, it makes no sense that River Song, if she's as close to the Doctor as she claims to be, would be revealing bits and pieces and literally teasing him about his future. Like you say, he should at least be angry with her, or remind her that she's breaking his rules indeed.

I was also deeply annoyed by how stereotypical they made Miss Evangelista, and how obvious the whole plot development with her was going to be.

I'm still going to be looking forward to next week's episode, because no matter what, there's always a scene or two that saves the day for me (last night was Ten's shock and disbelief when he realised Donna was dead)

[wendymr]

I agree; I loved that moment when he saw Donna in the information-booth thingy. So touching :)

BTW, you can disable anonymous commenting and log the IPs of posters if you want...