Moffat Era Doctor Who: Themes - Speculation/Discussion
Who_Daily Link: < a href="http://persiflage-1.livejournal.com/314948.html">Moffat Era Doctor Who: Themes - Speculation/Discussion by < lj user=persiflage_1>
Yesterday on Twitter, catholicphoton linked to this interview transcript, which features DWM writer, Benjamin Cook, interviewing Steven Moffat at the recent 'Screenwriters' Festival' held in Cheltenham.
There was one question (from the audience Q&A session) that caught my eye and set me thinking, and I thought I'd share my thoughts here (mainly to get them out of my head so I can think about other things instead!
8.49pm: Another bloke at the back asks an interesting, if slightly academic question about themes. He notes that, from Rose and The Doctor to Bob and Rose, Russell T Davies tends to explore the theme of unrequited love in much of his work. What can we expect Moffat to explore? SM is a tad dismissive in his answer: "Nobody does themes. It’s a lie. Who have your heard say 'I’ve thought of a good theme?' They happen accidently. You repeat yourself once too often and so it becomes a theme. We tell stories - that’s what people talk about, not themes."
Moffat might not have intended it, but his four stories from the RTD era do have a theme - being trapped:
The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances
Nancy is trapped pretending to be Jamie's sister, not his mother, in order to hide the secret of her unmarried single mother status from 1940s London. Once Jamie's infected by the nanogenes from Jack's crashed Chula ambulance ship, he and the other 'gas mask zombies' are trapped in a state of being where they're neither alive nor dead. Jack has found himself trapped in the role of conman after losing two years of his memories to the Time Agency, an organisation I suspect he was once proud to work for.
The Girl in the Fireplace
Rose and Mickey find themselves trapped aboard the spaceship for five and a half hours after the Doctor jumps into 18th Century France from the spaceship. The Doctor believes himself to be trapped 'on the slow path' once he makes that jump in order to save Reinette's life. And I can't help thinking that maybe Reinette also ends up trapped in the role she created for herself, because the Doctor didn't come back for her before she died.
Blink
Here we have Kathy Nightingale and Billy Shipton both permanently trapped in the past after the Weeping Angels touch them, and Martha and the Doctor temporarily trapped in 1969. And for a while, Sally Sparrow is also trapped until she finally meets the Doctor and Martha for the first time in their timeline and she can hand over the folder of information she has been brooding over for a year. (Notice that Sally takes Larry's hand after she's handed over the folder - meeting the Doctor again frees her to get together with Larry, which she'd clearly been resisting until that point.)
Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead
Donna becomes temporarily trapped inside CAL, the Library's computer - in which Professor River Song and her team end up permanently trapped because of the machinations of the Vashta Nerada. And Cal, herself, is also trapped inside the computer because her father wouldn't let her die in peace. (As an aside, if there's one thing Doctor Who consistently tells us, it's that trying to live beyond your natural life span - unless you're a Time Lord with lots of lives - will never end well: from Charley Pollard in the Eighth Doctor audios, through to Rose's Dad in 'Father's Day', to the Trickster's victims in SJA, no good comes of anyone attempting to cheat death for themselves or on behalf of someone else.)
What other themes can you see running through Moffat's stories for RTD's era of Who, which might show up in the new series?
There's the fact that he's always sidelined the established companion for a companion-like character whom he's created (Captain Jack Harkness, Reinette, Sally Sparrow, Professor River Song) - although, presumably, he won't be sidelining his own companion in the next series!
And there's the fact that he takes ordinary, everyday things - gas masks, angel statues, shadows - and makes them menacing.
ETA: As box_in_the_box pointed out, I forgot to mention the timey-wimey element in three of his four stories: The Girl in the Fireplace (with time passing at different rates for Ten and Reinette), Blink (pretty much the entire plot!) and Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead (Ten's non-linear relationship with River).
Yesterday on Twitter, catholicphoton linked to this interview transcript, which features DWM writer, Benjamin Cook, interviewing Steven Moffat at the recent 'Screenwriters' Festival' held in Cheltenham.
There was one question (from the audience Q&A session) that caught my eye and set me thinking, and I thought I'd share my thoughts here (mainly to get them out of my head so I can think about other things instead!
8.49pm: Another bloke at the back asks an interesting, if slightly academic question about themes. He notes that, from Rose and The Doctor to Bob and Rose, Russell T Davies tends to explore the theme of unrequited love in much of his work. What can we expect Moffat to explore? SM is a tad dismissive in his answer: "Nobody does themes. It’s a lie. Who have your heard say 'I’ve thought of a good theme?' They happen accidently. You repeat yourself once too often and so it becomes a theme. We tell stories - that’s what people talk about, not themes."
Moffat might not have intended it, but his four stories from the RTD era do have a theme - being trapped:
The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances
Nancy is trapped pretending to be Jamie's sister, not his mother, in order to hide the secret of her unmarried single mother status from 1940s London. Once Jamie's infected by the nanogenes from Jack's crashed Chula ambulance ship, he and the other 'gas mask zombies' are trapped in a state of being where they're neither alive nor dead. Jack has found himself trapped in the role of conman after losing two years of his memories to the Time Agency, an organisation I suspect he was once proud to work for.
The Girl in the Fireplace
Rose and Mickey find themselves trapped aboard the spaceship for five and a half hours after the Doctor jumps into 18th Century France from the spaceship. The Doctor believes himself to be trapped 'on the slow path' once he makes that jump in order to save Reinette's life. And I can't help thinking that maybe Reinette also ends up trapped in the role she created for herself, because the Doctor didn't come back for her before she died.
Blink
Here we have Kathy Nightingale and Billy Shipton both permanently trapped in the past after the Weeping Angels touch them, and Martha and the Doctor temporarily trapped in 1969. And for a while, Sally Sparrow is also trapped until she finally meets the Doctor and Martha for the first time in their timeline and she can hand over the folder of information she has been brooding over for a year. (Notice that Sally takes Larry's hand after she's handed over the folder - meeting the Doctor again frees her to get together with Larry, which she'd clearly been resisting until that point.)
Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead
Donna becomes temporarily trapped inside CAL, the Library's computer - in which Professor River Song and her team end up permanently trapped because of the machinations of the Vashta Nerada. And Cal, herself, is also trapped inside the computer because her father wouldn't let her die in peace. (As an aside, if there's one thing Doctor Who consistently tells us, it's that trying to live beyond your natural life span - unless you're a Time Lord with lots of lives - will never end well: from Charley Pollard in the Eighth Doctor audios, through to Rose's Dad in 'Father's Day', to the Trickster's victims in SJA, no good comes of anyone attempting to cheat death for themselves or on behalf of someone else.)
What other themes can you see running through Moffat's stories for RTD's era of Who, which might show up in the new series?
There's the fact that he's always sidelined the established companion for a companion-like character whom he's created (Captain Jack Harkness, Reinette, Sally Sparrow, Professor River Song) - although, presumably, he won't be sidelining his own companion in the next series!
And there's the fact that he takes ordinary, everyday things - gas masks, angel statues, shadows - and makes them menacing.
ETA: As box_in_the_box pointed out, I forgot to mention the timey-wimey element in three of his four stories: The Girl in the Fireplace (with time passing at different rates for Ten and Reinette), Blink (pretty much the entire plot!) and Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead (Ten's non-linear relationship with River).