I've grown to conclude that the problem with River Song is that she's an experiment in non-linear storytelling that just isn't working for a lot of people.
It's a big, risky, weird thing to introduce a secondary character who has met your POV-character at some unspecified time in the future and then get no omniscient-POV info on her, so that we are "meeting" her out of order as well. We did get a little bit of that in the first few minutes of Time of Angels, and there's a moment at the end, too, where we see River without the Doctor around, and I found myself really latching on to these moments because they are filling in gaps left in her initial characterisation. And they're only filling in teeny weeny gaps when there are HUGE MASSIVE ones still there. Without the stuff filling those gaps in, it's hard to figure out what she's about, whether she's a protagonist or not, whether her smugness is justified or not, and whether her claims about what she knows about our trusty POV-character are legitimate
( ... )
And I am definitely not liking this sinking feeling that I'm getting that Moffat is going to structure his seasons so that short-term everything looks weird and unrelatable but long term it will all make sense. I want to enjoy things *now*, not 2 years from now when the other penny finally drops and we all realise we had it all wrong that whole time.
Dude, this times eleventy billion.
I'm already cranky that the ambivalence I felt about 5.01-5.03 was potentially negated by Amy's bomb drop of "what's a Dalek?"
I'll be really annoyed if we suddenly get information about River Song that explains everything, but I'll still be left with the knowledge that for however long, I maybe disliked her for being a competent, awesome woman.
I just don't like this whiff of "Those things were sucky and nonsensical on purpose! Ha! Fooled you!"
No.
I don't want to have to sit through sucky and nonsensical just so someone who thinks he's too clever by half can prove to me how naive and gullible I am. And basically at this point my prediction is that Amy and this season is pretty much anything except what it/she appears to be. There have been too many winks and nudges. And really I'd just like to get the Big Reveal™ over with so we can get back to Adventures in Time and Space.
It's a big, risky, weird thing to introduce a secondary character who has met your POV-character at some unspecified time in the future and then get no omniscient-POV info on her, so that we are "meeting" her out of order as well.
is it really that big and risky? i recall the time traveler's wife being an incredibly popular book and film. i haven't seen the film, but i've read the book, and it certainly does the same thing -- except there it's in the service of a very run-of-the-mill love story
( ... )
It's the "I don't like her because she's [noun] (as opposed to [adjective])" stuff that made me sit down and examine what I didn't like about her.
I was incredibly troubled when I realized the things I didn't like about her were the usual extrapolations people use to get around saying they don't like a character because they're [noun].
Unlike a lot of people in fandom, I'm not going to get on anyone's case for liking River Song. It's entirely likely I'll begin to warm to her now that I know my issues are with the way she's written and her narrative is presented to us and not her character itself.
I can't speak for anyone else in this thread, though. ;)
It's a big, risky, weird thing to introduce a secondary character who has met your POV-character at some unspecified time in the future and then get no omniscient-POV info on her, so that we are "meeting" her out of order as well. We did get a little bit of that in the first few minutes of Time of Angels, and there's a moment at the end, too, where we see River without the Doctor around, and I found myself really latching on to these moments because they are filling in gaps left in her initial characterisation. And they're only filling in teeny weeny gaps when there are HUGE MASSIVE ones still there. Without the stuff filling those gaps in, it's hard to figure out what she's about, whether she's a protagonist or not, whether her smugness is justified or not, and whether her claims about what she knows about our trusty POV-character are legitimate ( ... )
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Dude, this times eleventy billion.
I'm already cranky that the ambivalence I felt about 5.01-5.03 was potentially negated by Amy's bomb drop of "what's a Dalek?"
I'll be really annoyed if we suddenly get information about River Song that explains everything, but I'll still be left with the knowledge that for however long, I maybe disliked her for being a competent, awesome woman.
Reply
No.
I don't want to have to sit through sucky and nonsensical just so someone who thinks he's too clever by half can prove to me how naive and gullible I am. And basically at this point my prediction is that Amy and this season is pretty much anything except what it/she appears to be. There have been too many winks and nudges. And really I'd just like to get the Big Reveal™ over with so we can get back to Adventures in Time and Space.
Reply
is it really that big and risky? i recall the time traveler's wife being an incredibly popular book and film. i haven't seen the film, but i've read the book, and it certainly does the same thing -- except there it's in the service of a very run-of-the-mill love story ( ... )
Reply
I was incredibly troubled when I realized the things I didn't like about her were the usual extrapolations people use to get around saying they don't like a character because they're [noun].
Unlike a lot of people in fandom, I'm not going to get on anyone's case for liking River Song. It's entirely likely I'll begin to warm to her now that I know my issues are with the way she's written and her narrative is presented to us and not her character itself.
I can't speak for anyone else in this thread, though. ;)
Reply
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