Sunday, 24 April 2011

Doctor who: The impossible astronaut, thoughts

I know.. I really know. I shouldn't be doing this at all.

Doctor who is probably the currently most popular show in nerd circles and everyone, I really mean everyone! Is making some sort of review out of this..

But craters, I can't help myself!

Help me guys, I am the only one in miles radius watching this show, there is no one I can talk to. And boy was this season opener something else. and boy do I think the only prober word to describe is. "Intense."

Well.. firstly what I kind of fell many reviewers (yeas, beat me down now, I am critising all other web reviewers.) has wrong.

You can't... it's impossible to even attempt and review this episode in any other regards than your immediate exsperience. Not only because it's the beginning of a two-parter, so what you have is only half an episode. But also because it's an episode all about setting up, you can only review this episode as you know the pay-off. which wont be revealed to us before the very end. And thus, this series, more than any other series in doctor who season.. will ultimately have to be judged as a hole after we seen it all. I foresee that none of the future episodes should be judged on their own but only as a part of the collective.
Which is different, nice.. will make it harder for new people to get into the show but be more rewarding for the fans.. And from a writers stand point it's exstremely impressive and the reason why I favor British Tely so much over American.. stuff like this just wouldn't happen in American Tely.

I said it once and I am saying it again. Steffen Moffat is a uniqe and rare talent in writing, there is litterately only one of him and when he is dropping out of writing will wont see anyone exactly like him ever again.

What you learn to see as you watch either a lot of movies or read a lot of books is that really good writers really have personality within the writing. I can recognise a RTD structured script, I can recognise a Moffat structured script. These a guys with very different personality.

The interesting thing about this season starter is that it takes every single thing Steven Moffat is good at, and he has showed us before that he is good at, and shoveled it into forty minutes. From. "Where is my mommy?" transformed to. "Watch out for the spaceman." to, weird paradoxial space travel only Moffat can pull of, to the weeping angels distant cusins.. which scared the living hell out of me. This is so clearly a moffat script!

It's bold, it's different, it's shameless. It's Steven Moffat being an eleven year old kid sitting by his computer saying. "Oh boy! I need to find more ways to use my time-traveling device! I need to do it differently, oh! and I need to make it a western, and I need these creepy ass aliens.. and, Riversong gets fleshed out." I mean... the guy is on a rampage and he is on crackers.. seriously.

Though as with the last season.. I know that he wrote the ending first and then all the other stuff so it would fitt in.

It's another form for writing, which I use myself.. J.K. Rowling is a clear user of this tactic to. Writing the ending first and you can have all this stuff going on as long as you reach the goal, and lay out small hints and signals.

My favorite one from the last series... which no one picked up on or have mentioned! Is how in "Victory of the Daleks." Amy drives ford the human side of the robot-doctor man, by reminding him of his love, which is a clear connectiong to the season finale where Rory proves that he is human not a robot because of his love for Amy. Small things like that is littereted throughout the series. And as will they probably be in this season, it all ready Started. Moffat is a man who looks forward, who wrote the ending first and thus is able to drop all these small references along the you can go back and discover, but first makes sense as you exsperienced the finale. (Exactly like Harry potter actually...)

As for a season started... best one I have ever exsperienced, but only as a season started. I am on pin and needles to watch the next episode and the entire series, I have no freaking idea where this is going. Which is good. I was scared, I was sad I laughed. And I don't understand how it was humanly possible to get that many things into forty minutes of tely! I am sincerely clueless.

Does this episode make any kind of sense? Nope, it doesn't.
Does it matter? I really don't think it does. I need to ask again, when ever did Doctor who ever make any fucking sense? This show doesn't make any sense at all. It's all about our feeling as adventure, the show is the only show thus far capable to turn me into a little child when I watch it, capable to make me loose myself into whatever is happening. Nothing else is able to do that anymore, and that is why I adore the show so much.

The reason why Moffat is better at this than T. Davis..

I don't believe RTD is such a bad writer as everyone gives him credit for. I mean, look at the numbers! look at your own adoration for the show, we wouldn't have cared if it was that bad. I just think that the thing is that RTD is very inconsistent. Because, when he is good, he is really good! when he is bad.. he is bad. He constantly bounches between being good and bad, but it's his personality. Oddly enough, I think the two writers are pretty good represented by the Doctors they were writing for. Tennant really is the face and perfect representitive for RTD, Mat Smith really is the face and perfect representetive for Moffat. You know that saying about writers and directors casting people in the main parts that they view as looking like themselves in their own mind? I believe this.

I am getting side-tracked. I'm sorry. What I meant to say is that Moffat is really good to keep it being about the people. Letting it be about the companions see future doctor die and now have to keep it a secret from him, let it be about Riversong who loves him but is doomed to tragedy. About the doctor knowing that his companions is keeping something from him, and now have to show fate by not asking.
By keeping these personaly themes going, it doesn't matter that the sci-fi doesn't make any bloody sense.

It's not any writer who can do this. It takes skill and personality, I'm positive Moffat puts a lot of personal exsperience and feelings into his writing. Cause that is how writing works, believe it or not. You write about what you observe and what you have exsperienced, only give it other names.
Writers have as much uniqeness and personality as painters and as a writer you can't really control your style, same as one who draws can't really control it either. Certanly you can always become better, and the more you write the better you become.

I guess.. I am just tired of people bashing RTD when there is no need. He did the best he could, he he delivered the torch to somehow even he thought was a writer tons better than himself. Someone will at some point take over from Moffat, and guess what, that person will be completely different to and nothing like Moffat at all. Moffat's personality is just to huge, no one will be able to copy it. No one will be able to copy RTD.

Just saying.

6 comments:

  1. A modern series of Doctor Who is one of those things you view repeatedly, and pick up an ingeniously tied in plotline or detail which you hadn’t noticed before. I’m kicking myself in the head for missing this latest episode and trying to find it on BBC I-Player at the moment.

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  2. Great post by the way, very passionate argument ^^

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  3. Drake@

    Thanks.
    Yeah.. There really isn't that many tely shows worth watching repeatedly for me.

    I think I can number them in my head which ones I fell like I can go back to and watch. It would be. "Doctor who." "Star Trek tos." "Batman TAS." "Justice League." and "Darkwing Duck."

    Does are the only one really worth for me to be re-wathching over and over. and out of them, Doctor who have the more details, the last season is probably the first exsperience I had where I was able to watch the same bloody episode five times and still be able to pick up something new. the amount of small details and hints are just huge.

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  4. I won't spoil anything if you haven't seen this weeks yet but my thoughts: freakin awesome!

    As for RTD's writing, I certainly don't think he's a bad writer but there were a few niggles that got in my way. I didn't like the way he wrote Rose (the only episodes I found her more tolerable were the ones written by other people) and I didn't really care for the way he'd sometimes try to go "epic".

    For those who didn't think he was a good writer, watch "Midnight" again. Exactly.

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  5. @Zhoom

    I did watch it as soon as it was aired.. but I didn't want to comment on it because somebody is bound to be pissed at me.
    In my humble opinion the last episode is the weakest episode Moffat has ever delivered.. but I want to remind we are talking to moffat scala here, everything his ever done is above average good writing, everythin he's done is amazing so he can afford slips.
    My promblem with that episode is that it's to crammed and to over ambitiouse there is enough material in there to spand over the double amount of time and the pacing would have been better, there is tons and tons of good stuff in there but it is to crammed.. and well.. I didn't like the docs solution to the problem.. I am just looking forward to relax with the pirates next week, I honestly need that.

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  6. Bah, people get pissed at anything these days, but if you can't share your opinions on your own blog, where can you.

    Aye, I certainly agree with the overambitious remark and while I did think the docs "solution" was pretty clever it did raise a few questions. Would the planet not end up pretty stinky with all those Silent corpses people keep forgetting to clean up? And can't the Silents lightning people? I'm looking forward to next weeks too, nothing like a hot murderous siren to lighten the mood!
    (Apologies for the lengthy responses btw)

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