Something old, something new (Doctor Who)
I left this as a comment(s) in a community in response to someone saying they had seen a lot of talk on tumblr about this stuff:
*Moffat is not a character writer, he is a plot writer; his characters are one-dimensional and dull.
*Moffat is a show-off, he wants to be seen as better than RTD, so that is why he makes everything so complicated.
*Moff's version of the Doctor is not Doctor-y anymore: he has a new screwdriver, he doesn't mention anything from his past, suddenly he stopped being asexual & started being aware of his own sexuality (ex: he flirts with River).
*the show stopped being peaceful: in 'Day of the moon' The Doctor allowed River to slaughter The Silence (and flirted with her, said that he doesn't mind her shooting people); he in a way 'ordered' people to keep on killing The Silence throughout their all their lives; he didn't give The Silence any choice to escape/leave Earth.
*River's badassery is as forced as Rose's soulmatery; while it's okay for River to flirt with the Doctor and be someone important to him (his wife for example), Rose was called 'a clingy girlfriend' (because Moff apparently called her that once. IDK.)
*Moffat is destroying the show.
I pretty much feel that my response to this is epic in length as well as something that is going to be mostly overlooked. I have put a cut here so you can overlook it too if that's what you want to do, but it's a long reply and I don't like feeling that it's been wasted because I had points and stuff.
You can disagree with me if you want, I'm okay with that. Healthy debate and all that is welcome. All I ask is that you do not turn it into tea wank.
I am a new era Who fan, so anything before the Ninth Doctor I’m fairly oblivious to, but I have read enough to understand it. Looking at that list of things you have there, it seems very much to me like the upset is because people are comparing Eleven to Ten and feeling nostalgic. After all, David Tennant was the Doctor for most of the new series and people got attached to him. It’s understandable but still makes them look silly when they start saying things like Moffat’s version of the Doctor isn’t like the Doctor anymore and comparing the romances of Rose and River.
I don’t like this idea that I have to choose a favorite and one true Doctor above all others and remain faithful to it. That is just stupid to me. I like all of the Doctors that I’ve watched in the show, Nine, Ten, and Eleven, and I don’t have a favorite. I have favorite moments, though, and a lot of them are moments from s5 and s6. I think this has a lot to do with the new way the show is being presented but yeah, also because of the characters and their interactions with each other. The show itself is more action oriented than ever before, more creative in a lot of ways I think, too. There are more original characters such as the monsters they fight than in previous series where a lot of the time they took historical figures and twisted them to their own use. Yeah, there’s Van Gogh and Winston Churchill and the like, but there is also Prisoner Zero, the Silence, homo reptilia, the dream lord, things like that and that looks like more where the show is angled now, which I really love. It’s creative and new, it makes the plot seem somehow deeper to me, and right there you have new and elaborate characters, so the idea that Moffat can’t create good characters as well as plot is just ridiculous. He’s been doing it from the start.
As for Eleven not being “Doctor-y” anymore, I think that’s wrong completely. I loved Ten right to the end, but one thing about him was that he was extremely human. He was driven by emotions, he had unpredictable mood swings, he was very social and interacted easily with people, he very quickly became romantically attached to Rose Tyler and then he dwelled on her absence when she was gone, and gradually he was starting to power-trip. Of all the Doctors I’ve watched or read about, he is by far the least alien of them all, which makes that claim of Eleven being not “Doctor-y” a bit of ridiculous and biased statement.
The statement about Rose vs. River just looks like people with a preferred ship taking issue with Moffat not catering to it, but moving on. Which is what has always happened. There were other romantic interests for the Doctor in the past before Rose came along and he moved on. Now, I like Rose and I liked what they did with that, but I also really love River and for this Doctor now I can’t see Rose being the one for him even were the actress to consent to come back to the show, it’s going to be River and it should be. River’s badassery vs. Rose’s clingy behavior is just a difference in age and maturity I think as well as circumstance. Rose was very young, fairly ignorant and completely human and River, from what she’s said in the show, has known the Doctor most of her life and he’s shaped who she is. Those are different circumstances which would make them different people. I personally love that River can and does kick ass, knows that he doesn’t exactly approve of it, but goes about doing it anyway because it has to be done. I also love that she’s less merciful than the Doctor or his companions are expected to be--like when she shot the Dalek when it begged for its life.
I saw someone else on my f-list saying something about how the Silence was essentially a race of aliens that don’t seem to have been harming anyone and the Doctor up and made sure that humans would be slaughtering them for thousands of years. Yeah maybe, but only if they didn’t leave. And also, I think it points back to s1 when Nine was asked if people were still slaves if they didn’t know they were enslaved and he point-blank said yes. The problem with the Silence was how they hid themselves by erasing themselves from people’s memories. If he didn’t do something drastic like that, then people would eventually forget completely and everything would have gone right back to what it was. Everything he went through to get rid of them would have been for nothing. But no, they also weren’t harmless. There was what happened to that woman, Joy I think her name was, in the bathroom. That was horrible and if that was the kind of thing they did, well yeah then the Doctor should fight them off.
Yes, yes, he has a new screwdriver. Well that was foreshadowed already in “Silence in the Library” and “Forests of the Dead,” and I don’t see what the big deal is. He’s over 900 years old and he’s had that same screwdriver by all accounts. I think it’s okay to get an upgrade. He also has a new TARDIS, but the old one was kind of breaking down, thanks I’m sure in no small part to beating on it with a hammer.
The thing is, no one is going to like everything. People tend to dislike change and they did get attached to the tenth Doctor, but there were nine before him that they should try to keep in mind. They’re all very different. The regeneration thing was invented in part for that reason and I don’t see anything wrong with the new actors interpreting the role in their own way, or the writers for that matter. I don’t think Moffat is destroying the show, just changing it a little and I think those changes mostly suit a new generation of fans. He has more freedom now to do things, more ability to do them because of technology and budget, than they had in the classic Doctor Who days, too, and I love what he’s doing with that. It would be backward and wrong for the show to not utilize those resources and change with the time.
*Moffat is not a character writer, he is a plot writer; his characters are one-dimensional and dull.
*Moffat is a show-off, he wants to be seen as better than RTD, so that is why he makes everything so complicated.
*Moff's version of the Doctor is not Doctor-y anymore: he has a new screwdriver, he doesn't mention anything from his past, suddenly he stopped being asexual & started being aware of his own sexuality (ex: he flirts with River).
*the show stopped being peaceful: in 'Day of the moon' The Doctor allowed River to slaughter The Silence (and flirted with her, said that he doesn't mind her shooting people); he in a way 'ordered' people to keep on killing The Silence throughout their all their lives; he didn't give The Silence any choice to escape/leave Earth.
*River's badassery is as forced as Rose's soulmatery; while it's okay for River to flirt with the Doctor and be someone important to him (his wife for example), Rose was called 'a clingy girlfriend' (because Moff apparently called her that once. IDK.)
*Moffat is destroying the show.
I pretty much feel that my response to this is epic in length as well as something that is going to be mostly overlooked. I have put a cut here so you can overlook it too if that's what you want to do, but it's a long reply and I don't like feeling that it's been wasted because I had points and stuff.
You can disagree with me if you want, I'm okay with that. Healthy debate and all that is welcome. All I ask is that you do not turn it into tea wank.
I am a new era Who fan, so anything before the Ninth Doctor I’m fairly oblivious to, but I have read enough to understand it. Looking at that list of things you have there, it seems very much to me like the upset is because people are comparing Eleven to Ten and feeling nostalgic. After all, David Tennant was the Doctor for most of the new series and people got attached to him. It’s understandable but still makes them look silly when they start saying things like Moffat’s version of the Doctor isn’t like the Doctor anymore and comparing the romances of Rose and River.
I don’t like this idea that I have to choose a favorite and one true Doctor above all others and remain faithful to it. That is just stupid to me. I like all of the Doctors that I’ve watched in the show, Nine, Ten, and Eleven, and I don’t have a favorite. I have favorite moments, though, and a lot of them are moments from s5 and s6. I think this has a lot to do with the new way the show is being presented but yeah, also because of the characters and their interactions with each other. The show itself is more action oriented than ever before, more creative in a lot of ways I think, too. There are more original characters such as the monsters they fight than in previous series where a lot of the time they took historical figures and twisted them to their own use. Yeah, there’s Van Gogh and Winston Churchill and the like, but there is also Prisoner Zero, the Silence, homo reptilia, the dream lord, things like that and that looks like more where the show is angled now, which I really love. It’s creative and new, it makes the plot seem somehow deeper to me, and right there you have new and elaborate characters, so the idea that Moffat can’t create good characters as well as plot is just ridiculous. He’s been doing it from the start.
As for Eleven not being “Doctor-y” anymore, I think that’s wrong completely. I loved Ten right to the end, but one thing about him was that he was extremely human. He was driven by emotions, he had unpredictable mood swings, he was very social and interacted easily with people, he very quickly became romantically attached to Rose Tyler and then he dwelled on her absence when she was gone, and gradually he was starting to power-trip. Of all the Doctors I’ve watched or read about, he is by far the least alien of them all, which makes that claim of Eleven being not “Doctor-y” a bit of ridiculous and biased statement.
The statement about Rose vs. River just looks like people with a preferred ship taking issue with Moffat not catering to it, but moving on. Which is what has always happened. There were other romantic interests for the Doctor in the past before Rose came along and he moved on. Now, I like Rose and I liked what they did with that, but I also really love River and for this Doctor now I can’t see Rose being the one for him even were the actress to consent to come back to the show, it’s going to be River and it should be. River’s badassery vs. Rose’s clingy behavior is just a difference in age and maturity I think as well as circumstance. Rose was very young, fairly ignorant and completely human and River, from what she’s said in the show, has known the Doctor most of her life and he’s shaped who she is. Those are different circumstances which would make them different people. I personally love that River can and does kick ass, knows that he doesn’t exactly approve of it, but goes about doing it anyway because it has to be done. I also love that she’s less merciful than the Doctor or his companions are expected to be--like when she shot the Dalek when it begged for its life.
I saw someone else on my f-list saying something about how the Silence was essentially a race of aliens that don’t seem to have been harming anyone and the Doctor up and made sure that humans would be slaughtering them for thousands of years. Yeah maybe, but only if they didn’t leave. And also, I think it points back to s1 when Nine was asked if people were still slaves if they didn’t know they were enslaved and he point-blank said yes. The problem with the Silence was how they hid themselves by erasing themselves from people’s memories. If he didn’t do something drastic like that, then people would eventually forget completely and everything would have gone right back to what it was. Everything he went through to get rid of them would have been for nothing. But no, they also weren’t harmless. There was what happened to that woman, Joy I think her name was, in the bathroom. That was horrible and if that was the kind of thing they did, well yeah then the Doctor should fight them off.
Yes, yes, he has a new screwdriver. Well that was foreshadowed already in “Silence in the Library” and “Forests of the Dead,” and I don’t see what the big deal is. He’s over 900 years old and he’s had that same screwdriver by all accounts. I think it’s okay to get an upgrade. He also has a new TARDIS, but the old one was kind of breaking down, thanks I’m sure in no small part to beating on it with a hammer.
The thing is, no one is going to like everything. People tend to dislike change and they did get attached to the tenth Doctor, but there were nine before him that they should try to keep in mind. They’re all very different. The regeneration thing was invented in part for that reason and I don’t see anything wrong with the new actors interpreting the role in their own way, or the writers for that matter. I don’t think Moffat is destroying the show, just changing it a little and I think those changes mostly suit a new generation of fans. He has more freedom now to do things, more ability to do them because of technology and budget, than they had in the classic Doctor Who days, too, and I love what he’s doing with that. It would be backward and wrong for the show to not utilize those resources and change with the time.