whoops
I was going to write an actual post about this, but accidentally blurted out my feelings in comments on sadcypress's post instead. So I'm just going to reproduce the comment, with edited extra remarks:
I was having all of these "Moffat writes Who like a comedy" feelings this morning about the 50th, because I keep seeing all of these complaint-posts about how Nothing Means Anything If There Aren't Consequences, and that bringing back Gallifrey "cheapens" Nine's arc - as though Nine isn't a part of Eleven, as though Eleven didn't also experience all of those feelings of grief and guilt for what he'd done... Anyway, I keep thinking that that's like saying that Hermione's not *really* being dead in The Winter's Tale cheapens Leontes' grief for her - which is so not how comedy works. Comedy is about preventing consequences, about letting grace step in - always because you hoped and fought for it, but letting grace step in and show you another way. I guess that if you think Doctor Who is actually about a blood-soaked Tragic Hero who can never take back the terrible thing that he's done, then Moffat's reset buttons and timey-wimey shenanigans must drive you up a wall - but it's not "objectively bad writing"; it's a genre shift. (Of course, that doesn't mean that it can't be done badly; but then, anything can. The idea itself of bringing back Gallifrey is not a desecration; it's a different generic mode.) I keep thinking of that moment in "Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS," when Eleven says, "Time mends us. It can mend anything"; for me there's so much hope and comfort in that statement, that idea, and Moffat's been writing from that perspective all along, I think.
(I should say that it's perfectly okay to *prefer* Tragic Who to Comic Who; I just don't understand how people go on about Moffat's ruining the premise of the whole show when Tragic Who was really RTD's invention. The Time War is not a part of the lore handed down over generations; it's a thing that happened in 2005. And I know I've said it before, but when your hero can regenerate, the premise of your show is fundamentally comic, even if sad things happen along the way. Sad things happen in comedy, too; not every brother comes back from the dead. But the general arc of comedy is toward hope and rebirth and possibility, which is what regeneration is. Tragic Who , then, bends that arc away from where it ought to be. And personally, I find the insistence that disaster can only ever be averted at great cost to the hero and his companions fairly wearying. [Tragedy always takes away, and grace gives with both hands: "You did...whatever it was you did, and rebooted the universe, and suddenly - I had parents. And I'd always had parents." --Amy in "Good Night," S6 minisode] But, you know, that's me; I'm a comedies girl, so of course I'm going to think that. I just don't see how one can declare that Moffat broke the show when that's not really the nature of the show in the first place. The Doctor wasn't always the Lonely God who had killed his own people; he was the madcap rebel, the runaway who chose to leave his home behind him. Those are such different attitudes, and one of them is, let's face it, of much longer duration.)
I was having all of these "Moffat writes Who like a comedy" feelings this morning about the 50th, because I keep seeing all of these complaint-posts about how Nothing Means Anything If There Aren't Consequences, and that bringing back Gallifrey "cheapens" Nine's arc - as though Nine isn't a part of Eleven, as though Eleven didn't also experience all of those feelings of grief and guilt for what he'd done... Anyway, I keep thinking that that's like saying that Hermione's not *really* being dead in The Winter's Tale cheapens Leontes' grief for her - which is so not how comedy works. Comedy is about preventing consequences, about letting grace step in - always because you hoped and fought for it, but letting grace step in and show you another way. I guess that if you think Doctor Who is actually about a blood-soaked Tragic Hero who can never take back the terrible thing that he's done, then Moffat's reset buttons and timey-wimey shenanigans must drive you up a wall - but it's not "objectively bad writing"; it's a genre shift. (Of course, that doesn't mean that it can't be done badly; but then, anything can. The idea itself of bringing back Gallifrey is not a desecration; it's a different generic mode.) I keep thinking of that moment in "Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS," when Eleven says, "Time mends us. It can mend anything"; for me there's so much hope and comfort in that statement, that idea, and Moffat's been writing from that perspective all along, I think.
(I should say that it's perfectly okay to *prefer* Tragic Who to Comic Who; I just don't understand how people go on about Moffat's ruining the premise of the whole show when Tragic Who was really RTD's invention. The Time War is not a part of the lore handed down over generations; it's a thing that happened in 2005. And I know I've said it before, but when your hero can regenerate, the premise of your show is fundamentally comic, even if sad things happen along the way. Sad things happen in comedy, too; not every brother comes back from the dead. But the general arc of comedy is toward hope and rebirth and possibility, which is what regeneration is. Tragic Who , then, bends that arc away from where it ought to be. And personally, I find the insistence that disaster can only ever be averted at great cost to the hero and his companions fairly wearying. [Tragedy always takes away, and grace gives with both hands: "You did...whatever it was you did, and rebooted the universe, and suddenly - I had parents. And I'd always had parents." --Amy in "Good Night," S6 minisode] But, you know, that's me; I'm a comedies girl, so of course I'm going to think that. I just don't see how one can declare that Moffat broke the show when that's not really the nature of the show in the first place. The Doctor wasn't always the Lonely God who had killed his own people; he was the madcap rebel, the runaway who chose to leave his home behind him. Those are such different attitudes, and one of them is, let's face it, of much longer duration.)