This bit: "But I do think I’ve figured out my problem with Moffat’s Dr Who in general. On the whole I think he’s a better storyteller than Russell T. Davies, but while Davies was creating a Dr Who for modern Britain, Moffat is creating a Dr Who that’s nostalgic for a fantasy past. In Davies’s Dr Who, people from different ethnic backgrounds, gay people and working-class people were represented as being everywhere and at all levels of life. It wasn’t perfect by a long-shot, but it was a Dr Who that said something important about modernity.
Moffat, however, seems deeply uncomfortable with both diversity and modernity. I was worried by his romanticisation of aristocracy in the 2009 Easter Special. Then last season that execrable episode with Winston Churchill and the Daleks showcased the worst aspects of his nostalgia. It explains Amy and Rory too - a fantasy couple straight out of Midsomer who can somehow afford to own a lovely little cottage on the combined wages of a kissogram and a nurse. I apologise for comparing Dr Who to reality, but really, Amy and Rory are the kind of couple who would be forced to live outside the town on an estate because rich, white middle-class people have bought all the houses as second homes and killed the community dead. Moffat’s recent comments about women also suggest someone who struggles with modernity and looks to a the past for answers."
Was so interesting to me. I have only just started watching the Rose and Ecclestone Doctor Who and I've only seen a handful of the Tennant ones but the contrasts are interesting to me and this has helped me crystallise things a bit.
"But I do think I’ve figured out my problem with Moffat’s Dr Who in general. On the whole I think he’s a better storyteller than Russell T. Davies, but while Davies was creating a Dr Who for modern Britain, Moffat is creating a Dr Who that’s nostalgic for a fantasy past. In Davies’s Dr Who, people from different ethnic backgrounds, gay people and working-class people were represented as being everywhere and at all levels of life. It wasn’t perfect by a long-shot, but it was a Dr Who that said something important about modernity.
Moffat, however, seems deeply uncomfortable with both diversity and modernity. I was worried by his romanticisation of aristocracy in the 2009 Easter Special. Then last season that execrable episode with Winston Churchill and the Daleks showcased the worst aspects of his nostalgia. It explains Amy and Rory too - a fantasy couple straight out of Midsomer who can somehow afford to own a lovely little cottage on the combined wages of a kissogram and a nurse. I apologise for comparing Dr Who to reality, but really, Amy and Rory are the kind of couple who would be forced to live outside the town on an estate because rich, white middle-class people have bought all the houses as second homes and killed the community dead. Moffat’s recent comments about women also suggest someone who struggles with modernity and looks to a the past for answers."
Was so interesting to me. I have only just started watching the Rose and Ecclestone Doctor Who and I've only seen a handful of the Tennant ones but the contrasts are interesting to me and this has helped me crystallise things a bit.
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