So...

[tencrush]

before you all get me totally wrong here, I didn't hate The End of Time, far from it. I didn't LOVE it either.

The interaction between Ten and Wilf was MAGIC. It was wonderfully written, heartwarming, tragic, etc etc, I loved every minute of it, including the end, the knocking, the regeneration, all of it. Kudos, Russell, that was beautiful stuff. The scene between the Doctor and the Master, again, great things going on there (if a little OTT homoerotic, no, I'm not a huge Doctor/Master fan, guys, sorry) but Simm especially put in a stellar performance (certainly given his cringeworthy madness in part one) The problem I have with Russell as a sci-fi writer is the fact that he does this sort of drama quite well, but he forsakes everything sci-fi for the sake of playing it out. The actual plot gets handwaved or downright forgotten about in favour of some superbly written dramatic scenes. I STILL don't quite know what happened to the Master. He served his dramatic purpose and poof, he was gone. His plot to change everyone into himself, poof, literally handwaved better by the shouty Timothy Dalton. Donna's head exploding, being pursued by many Masters, POOF, all better, fixed that for you. MAGIC! It's ALL setup and there's NEVER any payoff, plotwise. For me, it all smacks too much of string-pulling, and I find Rusty's Hand Of God incredibly EVIDENT when watching, I find it hard to be ENGROSSED, because of the reduction of the characters to plot puppets when it suits, when it's convenient. Pick them up, drop them into this scene, as great as this scene may be, it bugs me when the mechanics of writing are on display to this extent. Don't need that anymore, screw it up, bin it, Naismith (and that incestuous weirdness with his daughter?? Never mind, let's just drop it), the Master, the aliens, done with them, let them fall by the wayside. It's sloppy, nothing ever goes anywhere. But then that scene with Wilf in the radiation box (What was the radiation story again? Where did it come from and why? Doesn't matter, handwave, it's just a convenient writing tool, again, to drive us towards the dramatic event. Don't let that bug you, let it lie.) it was beautiful, it was a great, pointless way to regenerate, yes, it even makes the Doctor jumping from a spaceship, through a roof and living fall into place, because in the end, it's this one little silly, stupid thing that makes him have to leave. Beautiful.

And then we get to the self-indulgent end. AWWWFUCK RUSSELL. WHY?? ("I don't want to go," Rusty? Really? Way to make him A DICK again in every sense. FAIL.) Why does Ten deserve rewards? Why does Ten deserve a bigger, better, more sickly sentimental sendoff than any other Doctor? Oh, that's right, Rusty, because in your mind, and, crucially, in Ten's mind, Ten is a MORE AWESOME AND SPECIALER DOCTOR than any Doctor that has come before or will come after. And, of course, the problem there arises if you're the sort of person who desn't share that opinion of Ten. If you think he's, say, a bit of a dick. Because when you think that, you think Ten's special goodbyes are just self-congratulatory wank on Russell's part. Which is where the episode fell down for me. The whole premise of these goodbye scenes existing was, for me, a step too far in the backslapping department. For a moment, I thought Who had suddenly segued into Who Confidential and we were watching a montage of Ten set to, I don't know, a Coldplay song. Or James Blunt, or something. And then, of course, there was the actual content of the scenes. The Rose one, funnily enough, was fine, and actually kind of sweet. The Sarah Jane one was okay too. The rest? Nah. Jack gets a new piece of ass to make him forget about THE KILLING HIS OWN GRANDSON WITH THE BLOOD POURING OUT OF HIM AND SHIT. Yeah... tasteful. Martha and Mickey get married. Yeah, because they're both black and stuff, right? She was happily engaged, but let's handwave that for a moment and set them up for no reason. Because otherwise we'd be leaving Mickey UNATTACHED. And, of course, the lesson in all of this, yes we'll get to Donna in a minute, is that UNATTACHED IS THE MOST PATHETIC AND WORTHLESS THING TO BE IN THE WHOLE WORLD. Sorry, single peeps out there, you're not really happy until you're married (if you're straight). Or fucking a guy in uniform (if you're gay, because let's face it, Captain Jack is mostly gay and not particularly omnisexual at all. Except when he's marrying wimmins because wimmins need COMMITMENT, not like sailors, sailors don't need that girly shit.) So, anyway, yeah, Donna gets a happy end, not by getting back her mind or her agency or by being allowed to be her awesome self, but by being married off and being given moneys. In the end, that's the happiest end anybody could ever want.

Hmmmm. Up to the faily goodbyes I was quite liking The End of Time. Then those things happened and I hated it. But the Eleven came and I LOVE HIM SO MUCH ALREADY. Dudes... he has legs! Excellent.

Okay, so my verdict's a bit incoherent, but no more incoherent than the episodes, surely.

Comments

[loqia.livejournal.com]

Why not Rose, though?

See, I'm one of those people who doesn't get the Rose-hate (at least, not S1/S2; I can kinda see where it comes from post that). I love that Rose is a not-particularly-special everywoman and I love the sheer, vibrant enjoyment she shares with the Doctor. She has such joie de vivre, and in the context of the Nine-Ten transition I think she was exactly the right character at exactly the right time.

And, okay, the love triangle stuff was annoying... but then again, it was just as annoying when it was Mickey/Rose/Doctor as when it was Rose/Moffat Girl/Doctor. Moreso, in fact, because the Moffat Girls weren't on screen long enough for me to wonder why I should care for them any more than any other single-episode redshirt (which I was obviously supposed to, judging from the Doctor's reactions). With Madam Pompadour it's just like, "Okay, she's pretty. And...?" And with River Song (!), Moffat is doing exactly what everyone accuses RTD of doing by telling us how magical and special she is rather than showing that.

And, here's a confessions and a half: I honestly did not like "The Empty Child"/"The Doctor Dances". Not back when I first saw them and couldn't pick Steven Moffat out of a line-up for you, and not now. I thought the premise was flimsy and badly-executed, the scripting unsubtle, the monster laughable and the ending ridiculous (admittedly not quite as bad as clap-your-hands-if-you-believe-in-the-Doctor, but very close).

For all that I think RTD is a douche... I just can't bring myself to get excited over Moffat, either. Fandom seems to be seeing it as this big RTD/Moffat binary thing, where Moffat must be good because of how much everyone hates RTD. But things don't work like that.

you see two very strong women with purpose.

Did I? Actually... no. No I didn't. I saw a victim of circumstance and a Mary Sue. A subjective assessment, sure, but that's what we're talking about.

You may not be familiar with Timetraveler's Wife style of storytelling

Pretentious?

(Seriously, though: Elaboration?)

Maybe it's just me. Because, honestly? I just can't stomach a guy who can say, and apparently believe (and I quote): There's this issue you’re not allowed to discuss: that women are needy. Men can go for longer, more happily, without women. That’s the truth. [... The] world is vastly counted in favour of men at every level - except if you live in a civilised country and you’re sort of educated and middle-class, because then you’re almost certainly junior in your relationship and in a state of permanent, crippled apology.

Because, please, Stevie. Mansplain my motivations to me more, honey; I love it when you cry over your privilege being hurted by the mean wimminz.

I just.. my inner feminist bursts into tears at the thought of supporting this guy in anything that he does.

Maybe it really is just me.

(For the record, I also thought Coupling was unwatchably awful. So there you go, I guess.)

[tencrush]

We all see things differently, I guess. In my world, Coupling, series one and two (Moffat can't sustain more than two series of a comedy, and he was foolish to attempt it) is one of the best comedies ever written, but everyone's mileage varies. And that quote's the one everyone drags out when they accuse Moffat of misogyny, I wish someone would come up with a new one. I understand what he's saying there, and it's really not as awful as you're making it out to be, yes it's insulting, but I don't think that particular quote gets the point he was trying to make across very well, he's talking about interpersonal relationships and society as a whole at the same time, so it's a bit muddled. A lot of the interpersonal relationships he's written follow that pattern he sets out there, the men being useless apologists while the women are sensible and can cope with the world far better than the men can, and are in charge in the relationship, not because of any societal reason, but purely because they're less useless and more capable of acting like adults than the men are. I can see how the "needy" comment could get one's feminist knickers in a twist, but I understand what he's saying about society, and I really don't think it's an evil, misogynist agenda he's touting there. Just an unfortunate quote.

[loqia.livejournal.com]

I guess. I know it's an old hat quote now but... urgh. It's one of those things that just rankles every time I read it. I keep thinking, "Hey, maybe I was just swept away with fan passion and it's not that bad!" But no, I can never spin it better in my head. I mean, subject it to the Rewrite Test:

There's this issue you’re not allowed to discuss: that [Jews like money]. [Christians] can go for longer, more happily, without [money]. That’s the truth. [... The] world is vastly counted in favour of [Christians] at every level - except if you live in a civilised country and you’re sort of educated and middle-class, because then you’re almost certainly junior [financially] and in a state of permanent, crippled [poverty].

Because... yeah. Hrm. And I'm trying to use a relatively mild stereotype here, too (such as these things go); I'm sure you can make up your own hyperbole.

(Fair caveat, however: I have a near-pathological adverse reaction to anything that could be even remotely construed as "mainsplaining"; I won't even go to male doctors for, say, contraceptive advice. It's just one of those things, I guess.)

A lot of the interpersonal relationships he's written follow that pattern he sets out there, the men being useless apologists while the women are sensible and can cope with the world far better than the men can, and are in charge in the relationship, not because of any societal reason, but purely because they're less useless and more capable of acting like adults than the men are.

To be honest, I'm not keen on this trope either and I think in a lot of ways it's just as anti-women as the reverse is (teal deer short: it legitimises/fetishises the idea of the "manchild" whose self-created problems are all magically fixed by the idealised-but-ridiculed authority figure of the mother-wife; having seen this dynamic at its most extreme play out in a Really Real World relationship, I can tell you it's significantly less lulz than it looks on TV... and also tends to end in divorce).

I'm hard to please, I know.

But okay, you've convinced me to give Moffat a chance, chalk The Quote up to a faux pas (gods know I've made my fair share) and to actually watch S6 with an open mind (it worked with Torchwood, which I loathed with a passion until I was overcome with sudden madness and saw the whole thing, whereupon it became my Most Favouritist Thing Evah for exactly five months until CoE screened).

Let's just hope Moffat isn't a victim of his own success in the way I think RTD was (more popularity = more interviews = more opportunities to show his meta = more things for fen to facepalm over).

[erinnthered.livejournal.com]

Thank you for being so much better at this than I am. This is why it's your blog.

Can I just answer in script or monologue format? I'm much better at that.

[erinnthered.livejournal.com]

I think we have very different ideas of what good storytelling is.

I will say this, I don't see this binary thinking you see. I see lots of people on two different spectrums. How much they like RTD and how much they like Moffat are not interrelated. Only how much they love DW. I do see that many of the people who don't like RTD's writing anymore are excited about Moffat, but because he's got a wonderful track record as a writer, and he's something new. New to Who anyway. I think it's just a lot of people want RTD to be gone, and whoever it is that ended up taking over would get a lot of hope thrust upon him. In this case, I still think you'll be pleasantly surprised. Well, I don't know. We have very different taste, but you said you like the monster stories...

I wasn't trying to be pretentious about Timetraveler's Wife. I haven't even read the book (they did a movie too, didn't they?). I'm just talking about the style. In other words, River Song died in that episode, but she'll be back. Her timeline is not the same as the Doctor's. She died to preserve her past, and the Doctor's future. That's all I was saying. Shorthand, that you could Google if you didn't get, so I didn't have to be even more tl;dr than I already was.

I love when people take quotes out of context, or paint whole lives and attitudes based on one qoute. Moffat isn't the first victim of that. You think whatever you want. Heck, I don't even care if it is true. I enjoy his stuff, and don't see it in his writing.