Meta: Loss in Doctor Who

[ibishtar]

Discussion and critique of The Day of the Doctor:

[Spoiler (click to open)]From 2005, Doctor Who has been the story of a man who did something terrible and lost everything, and learns to recover thanks to the friends he makes and by never giving up and saving lives and bringing peace where he can. In the 50th anniversary episode that was changed to be the story of a man

Comments

[_thirty2flavors]

[_thirty2flavors]

PS if you put this on Tumblr I'll reblog the hell out of it lol

[ibishtar]

Thank you, writing this out was therapeutic, and the meta you and others have already postedhelped me get this out.
That's so sad about your friend. I get so annoyed when writers who are clearly just not trying hard enough say stuff like 'oh, it's just meant to be entertaining' (which Moffat has done), because I believe there's a moral obligation in storytelling, especially on something like Doctor Who.
I followed your advice and posted the essay on tumblr here.

[papilio_luna]

Just basically a world of "yes, this

[ibishtar]

I got choked up reading your comment. I completely agree, and I think RTD always had an awareness of his audience's feelings (you see that a lot in The Writer's Tale) that Moffat seems to lack completely, like the way he dismisses criticism of his empty writing for his female characters with a 'but it's the Doctor's story!!!' When I think how hurt little girls who love the show must have felt by certain lines of dialogue, I feel my stomach turn to lead.

[viomisehunt]

I only liked the end because it puts Time Lords back in the mix, but you captured here the sadness I felt at the moment the Doctor changed his mind--in fact totally blew away his own profoundly beautiful moment when the three Doctors joined hands to push the glass Rose. Instead we got the Disney Little Mermaid ending. Disney used to create stories like Ole Yeller. If they made it today, The Boy Becoming A Man would probably shoot the dog with a tranquilizer gun and find a cure.

[ibishtar]

I'm not all that averse to seeing Time Lords again, but I wish it could have been done another way. I liked the moment they joined hands too, that would have been a good ending.
I don't mind Disney changing the ending of The Little Mermaid, because the movie version is a different kind of story with a different aim anyway, but Doctor Who doesn't need to stoop to that kind of mollycoddling when it thrives on a reputation of being complex and scary.

[clocketpatch]

As far as I can tell, not a single death in Moffat-era Who has actually stuck - despite the fact that he seems obsessed with killing off characters... and then bringing them back... and again... and again.

That might work with Captain Jack, but it's not a good thing when it happens to Jack, and it isn't a good things here. As you say, it cheapens the story and makes the loss less real, because now I'm at the point where I expect characters to come back, so even if they die (and die for keeps, as Amy and Rory did), I don't feel loss; I just feel... confusion? Should I be grieving? Should I be waiting? Urg.

That said, there are two "Everyone Lives" moments I congratulate him on. The first one in The Doctor Dances is still one of my all time favourite Who moments (and I hate, hate, hate that he quoted it and cheapened it in the Library episodes). The second one is the ending of the The Day of the Doctor, because I think that the Doctor doesn't really work as a character without something to rebel against, and when I tried to come up

[ibishtar]

There have been deaths of some one-offs that were important in their stories, like Father Octavian, Lorna Bucket and Rita, but they are definitely few and far between. I agree that Moffat over-uses the idea of people dying and coming back as a plot device

[clocketpatch]

How did I forget Rita? I love Rita.

the Doctor is a rebel wherever he goes. Being sceptical of authority is part of what he does.

This is true, though I feel like, given the history, his continued ability to stand up to his own people is amazing. After what happens with Two and Three's exile, Four cautions Romana that no one can fight Time Lords and win... and yet, he keeps trying. The Doctor is skeptical of authority because of what his own people did to him (also, I'm not sure that other authority figures actually have that much authority over him. No one can make the Doctor do anything; with the exception of his own people)

I would be very amused if the Time Lords are brought back only for them to be extremely ungrateful and immediately trying to boot up the Time War all over again.

Ah, so Gallifrey was Helm's Deep? Good oneI like to think that they were offering safety for family members in return for entering their army. I'm also very curious... if people were going to the Time Lords for help, people must've been going to the

[jackdavfan692]

Regarding how this fits into continuity in terms of "The End Of Time". I gathered from the General saying that "The High Council had a plan of its own, and it failed" (or however it was worded) that Rassilon had already attempted to go through with the Final Sanction, and had been prevented from doing so by Ten. In other words, the events of TEOT have already happened, but the Ten we saw in DOTD hasn't experienced them yet. Another way to look at it is in order for him, Eleven, and "Doctor 8.5" to do what they did in DOTD, Future!Ten has to find out about Rassilon's plan and prevent him from carrying it out. Thus, everything in TEOT does still happen, which essentially makes the Doctor the man who both saved his people and killed them.

[sapphireross]

[ibishtar]

Ños, gracias a Dios que me creé el tumblr hace un par de semanas. Ni quiero saber cómo me sentiría sin la terapéutica rabia de otros fans XD

[ibishtar]

En defensa de Moffat, por lo visto le escribió un e-mail a RTD sobre sus planes, y según él RTD le respondió diciendo que paró de leer a mitad del e-mail para evitar los spoilers XD ¡Fan como cualquier otro

[sapphireross]

La verdad es que me daba un poco de miedo lo que Moffat le hiciese a la pareja xD Pero es sólo que nunca estaré satisfecha con ellos dos, siempre voy a querer más. Me parece bonito lo que dice sobre no querer estropear su belleza en el canon. (a lo mejor suena muy impertinente, pero, ¿tienes la fuente guardada en algún lado? Sería interesante de leer)
Ah, ¡la interacción con Clara también hubiese sido tan guay! En las antiguas temporadas Rose llegó a hablar con Martha y Donna, y aquí tendremos que quedarnos con las ganas :(
Sobre Gallifrey, la verdad es que no quiero teorizar nada más hasta que vea un poco mejor donde se dirige todo esto, pero es que me ha parecido un giro de tuerca muy extraño.