Mac McTorchwood

[Ben Saunders]

(they did)

[cwickham]

IIRC: they don’t have to credit RTD for creating the Ood, as they were created whilst under contract to the BBC. Moffat just does it as a courtesy, rather than because of any legal obligations.

[Ben Saunders]

In fact it might have been William Russell or somebody on the commentary track for The Daleks. You hear some weird shit on those. The director of (I think) Delta and the Bannermen claimed that the BBC replace doctors every three years because that is he period in which they are the most marketable, and they got rid of Colin Baker because they couldn’t sell him. Normally I’d hear a theory like that and dismiss it immediately because of the countless alternative accounts I’ve heard, but given that it came from somebody who worked on the show I was forced to consider it. Briefly. I don’t buy it.

[Ben Saunders]

Well that’s nice of him (Moffat), isn’t it.

[International Debris]

Oooooohhhh that’s recent lol. Cool

Ooh, I’ve never seen that Moffat interview. I’ll sit down and watch it later. Cheers, International Debris.

It’s an excellent and very honest interview, well worth watching. It’s also part two, the first is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBwBlwGbVaA
And I’d imagine the third and final part is coming this weekend.

[Ben Paddon]

“The BBC only think a year ahead” is, as fan perceptions go, one that has always left me slightly perplexed considering they regularly commission series of the show in chunks (the earliest example of this being series 2 and 3 as well as the 2005-08 Christmas specials being commissioned almost immediately off the back of the success of “Rose”) and the previously mentioned five-year plan.

Certainly some actors have been contracted a year at a time – Eccleston, Smith and Capaldi were all contracted on an annual basis, certainly – but that’s hardly indicative of standard operating practice across the board.

[Captain No-Name]

Some actors or all actors?

I admit, I don’t pretend to know what standard operating practices are myself, but my perception (which I’m perfectly happy to have proven wrong) is based on interviews and articles where people give the distinct impression that the production team have got enough on their plate with the next year or so, and haven’t got a concrete plan beyond that.

Certainly compared to the way American TV networks apparently lock people into gargantuan contracts that last for years, Doctor Who never quite seems sure about people’s ongoing availability. I’m not just talking about Ecclestone, Smith and Capaldi, but of people like Jenna Coleman and Catherine Tate.

I thought Clara’s ever-lasting goodbye in Series 8/9 was a result of Jenna not having definitely decided whether to stick around or not. “Last Christmas” gave her a good send-off and then she was back again! As with much of her character, it never felt properly planned out to me at all.

I’m genuinely interested to learn that the BBC commission the show in chunks. This is new to me. I totally thought they did it roughly one series at a time, adjusting things like budget and episode count as they went.

I have to admit, I also thought the Christmas specials were commissioned on a year-by-year basis. I’m sure I remember an old DWM Production Notes column where either RTD or Moffat said we were lucky to have Christmas specials because they are not guaranteed and we shouldn’t take them for granted. If, as you say, The Next Doctor was commissioned way back in 2005 then I’ve fundamentally misunderstood how far in advance Doctor Who is planned!

The 5-year plan thing is similarly new to me. Who does this relate to? Moffat or Chibnall? Surely Chibnall, otherwise why did Moffat seem surprised to be making Series 10?

Incidentally, I much prefer the idea that the Doctor Who production team essentially make everything up as they go along, like they used to in the old days. I’ll be a bit sad if I find out they’ve actually been keeping to a plan all these years.

Actually, it makes me think of that Mark Gatiss sketch “The Pitch of Fear”

[International Debris]

“It is definitely going to last five more years, I’ve seen the business plan.”

Moffat interview for Variety in 2015 http://variety.com/2015/tv/news/doctor-who-steven-moffat-lucca-comics-1201631032/

“I thought it would last 10 years. I didn’t think it would last 10 years with BBC Worldwide trying to get me in a room to talk about their plan for the next five years!”

Radio Times interview from the same era http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2015-04-05/steven-moffat-doctor-who-will-last-at-least-another-five-years/

[Captain No-Name]

Excellent work International Debris.

So, if I understand correctly, the BBC absolutely do plan ahead with Doctor Who, but in the business sense of saying “this brand will continue to exist for at least X years; we’ll keep putting X money into it, and (hopefully) earning X money from it,” presumably with financial goals to aim at along the way.

But the actual meat and bones of how the show will function, who will be creatively guiding it, which talent will be involved etc. is a bit more up in the air and adaptable along the way.

[Ben Paddon]

I thought Clara’s ever-lasting goodbye in Series 8/9 was a result of Jenna not having definitely decided whether to stick around or not. “Last Christmas” gave her a good send-off and then she was back again! As with much of her character, it never felt properly planned out to me at all.

Ah, see, that was less “will she stick around or not” and more the fact that Jenna Coleman had told Moffat she wanted to bow out at the end of series 8, then changed her mind after filming and said “Actually, can I come back and do the Christmas special?” and then, as they were working on “Last Christmas”, said that actually she’d like to come back and do one more series. So in that circumstance, it’s because they thought she wasn’t coming back, not because there was any uncertainty. She’d absolutely said “I’m done,” and then changed her mind afterwards. Twice.

Also of note: there was a very, very early draft of “The Day of the Doctor” – so early it is, I think, just outlines and maybe a couple of opening scenes – that only had Clara in it because the only actor definitively under contract was Coleman, while Smith and Tennant were still up in the air. (There’s also an unfinished draft with Eccleston’s Doctor in place of the War Doctor, but as Eccleston declined to appear that one unfortunately never made it past the scene where they’re locked in the Tower of London.)

[Manbird]

There’s more death and resurrection in Moffat’s vision of Doctor Who than in the New Testament. Somewhat killed the drama for me, sorry – as did the negligible characterization, timey-wimey (gimmicky-wimmicky) plotting and taciturn continuity references. In my opinion, anyway.

Anyway(!), yeah – re. Big Finish: I’d recommend the Klein trilogy (A Thousand Tiny Wings, Survival of the Fittest and The Architects of History) as essential listening.

[Ben Paddon]

Anyone who can watch Moffat’s run of the show and look at brilliant, layered, well-considered characters like Amy Pond and Clara Oswald, and call it “negligible characterization” frankly doesn’t deserve to own a television.

[Manbird]

> “Anyone who can watch Moffat’s run of the show and look at brilliant, layered, well-considered characters like Amy Pond and Clara Oswald, and call it “negligible characterization” frankly doesn’t deserve to own a television.” <

I wouldn’t exactly describe them as “layered” or “well-considered”.

Using Clara as an example, all the way through series seven we sold this notion of her as The Impossible Girl – and that’s it. The Doctor finds her interesting, so we’re supposed to find her interesting despite the fact we knew absolutely nothing about her except she did a bit of babysitting and spoke in sassy one-liners. We had no sense of what she wanted from life, why she wanted it and where she was going. To be fair, Day of the Doctor introduces a profession (teacher) – but again, all she really does is act as an ersatz moral compass for the audience when the Doctor’s faced with the Moral Dilemma of the Week and doesn’t look as though he’s going to act in the way we want him to. The only remotely ‘real’ side of the character I can think of is in Deep Breath when she has trouble accepting the newly regenerated Doctor. ‘Course, Moffat undercuts the drama and a potential moment of character development by then having his previous incarnation tell her over the phone that he’s the same man as the grumpy Scot with big eyebrows standing before her…

I’m sorry, but to describe the character as layered and well-considered is a bit of a stretch. Moffat wraps his characters round the plot, not vice versa. Take River Song as another example of this. “I’m going to be someone important in your future, someone you trust absolutely,” she teased. Funny thing is, we never actually see that happen: Moffat gets the Doctor to say she’s someone he trusts (and loves) without giving us any indication of why that should be. Again, we’re *told* rather than shown because that would slow down Moffat’s posturing.

I could go into the whole thing with Amy’s Doctor fixation (my, how that “Raggedy Man” tag conveniently papered over the problems with their relationship), pregnancy and split-reconciliation with Rory, but I’d just be repeating myself.

[genericnerdyusername]

I enjoyed Moffat’s time on Doctor Who. That’s really all that matters to me. The criticisms you’ve posted above don’t bother me at all, I enjoyed Clara’s (from 8 onward, anyway) and Amy’s characterisations, and your points don’t diminish that. I didn’t like the second half of Series 10 a whole lot, especially the Lie of the Land, but my cousins, who are the the right age to be the target audience for the show, loved it.

By the way, what was that about Mac MacDonald not liking John Barrowman? When I read that I assumed that was going to be the focus of the thread, but maybe I’m the only person who doesn’t know about this.

[International Debris]

Moffat’s era has plenty of flaws, but I found it considerably more enjoyable than RTD’s era which was, for the majority of the first three series at least, horrifically broad and unengaging. It was only really with season 5 that it became a show I was excited about, rather than just watching it because it was Doctor Who.

That said, I find Clara almost indefensible. An utter void of a character in both writing and performance. I’ve not seen Jenna Coleman in anything else, so maybe she’s a great actress who just had a bad job, but in Who she uses two facial expressions and swans through everything without an iota of seeming to give a shit. An utter non-character. As with any normal human being, I found Adric unbearable, but his death really shocked me. Clara’s death, on the other hand, had no effect on me whatsoever.

[cwickham]

BF’s Adric stories are consistently great, and a large part of that is down to Waterhouse himself. (And on the CD extras he sounds genuinely really enthused about doing them.)

[Ben Saunders]

Thank you Ben Paddon.

I have to say, I’m one of the biggest Clara fans on the planet – but she WAS shit in Series 7. Nobody can deny this. She really came into her own after they dropped the Impossible Girl arc, which only lasted about six episodes anyway.

Moffat wrote some of the best episodes of New Who and one or two of the worst, and he oversaw one of the most consistently good seasons the show ever saw (series eight, if you ignore kill the moon/forest of the night) and both Amy and Clara’s (eventual) development was done fantastically in my book.

Amy’s development is going from somebody who is obsessed with and wants to fuck the Doctor, to ultimately ending up in a very close, purely platonic relationship with him, and choosing Rory over him. Clara’s is losing all of her earthly shackles and taking up adventuring full time, slowly turning into a sort of Doctor figure herself, and it is through her that we see just how destructive a relationship with the Doctor can be, and how he can go too far.

I don’t want to start a flame war but I agree with the “overly broad” sentiment of RTD Who, although he did write some good stuff. There are some quite cataclysmic tonal issues in some of the episodes, and (though this has nothing to do with the writing) it does at times look incredibly cheap. Stuff like Father’s Day, though, could only have come from RTD-era Doctor Who, and that episode is fucking amazing.

[Manbird]

> “Moffat’s era has plenty of flaws, but I found it considerably more enjoyable than RTD’s era which was, for the majority of the first three series at least, horrifically broad and unengaging.” <

Moffat’s stewardship was more consistent, I’ll give him that, but I can’t agree with you about Davies’ first three series. I don’t know if you’re referring to the varied mixture of styles they explored, but if that’s the case then, for me, that’s part of the joy of Doctor Who. Jumping from the wild, Douglas Adams-esque lunacy of New Earth to the grim horror of Tooth and Claw, only for that to be followed by the swooning stateliness of The Girl in the Fireplace makes sense in the programme’s “go anywhere, do anything” philosophy. As for unengaging, I personally found Rose’s character arc (to use a random example) extremely absorbing. I will admit that Davies’ vision of the show started to falter towards the end of his tenancy and it did get lazy (The Stolen Earth/Journey’s End, The Next Doctor and The End of Time immediately spring to mind), but there was still a sense of – again – *joy* to what he was doing. I never felt that with Moffat after series six. Ben Paddon’s already said that series seven was pretty shit, but that felt like the point that Moffat had said everything he wanted to say, do everything he wanted to do, and was just recycling aspects of the mythology that he’d built up in his head and setting it to a very uninspired Movie of the Week concept with very little tonal variation. That’s not to say I disliked everything that followed, but I certainly felt that was the point where Moffat’s Who (for want of a better word) metastasised and just became an endless series of “ooh, look at this!” moments instead of cohesive narratives and characterisation.

> “Moffat wrote some of the best episodes of New Who and one or two of the worst, and he oversaw one of the most consistently good seasons the show ever saw” <

Five works. Six sort of works, too – but after that it runs out of steam. I admire The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances (who doesn’t?), Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead, The Eleventh Hour, The Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone, Heaven Sent, and take my hat off to him for commissioning strong episodes from other writers (The Lodger, The Doctor’s Wife, The Crimson Horror… I even enjoyed Hide while few other people did), but I can’t get with his vision of the show. That’s probably my failing, I respect your opinions, but… I don’t know. To be honest, I’m just glad the decks have been cleared and we’ve got a fresh slate.

> “I don’t want to start a flame war” <

No one would accuse you of that at all, and I’ve got not wish to cause one either. It’s all debate, innit?

[Lily]

I think Clara’s character building suffered from the impossible girl plotline. By necessity she had no back-story, no actual reason to travel with the Doctor, no character growth and all that in order to be ‘mysterious’. I always found the splinters in time resolution to that rather underwhelming, but at least afterwards she was able to develop as a character more naturally.

The extended leaving was a bore though. I was perfectly happy for her to die in that xmas special but then she dragged it out another series. Even then her death was a cop-out and she didn’t -really- die. Considering the amount of people that do die in Doctor Who that the companions are invulnerable and get a happy every after loophole every time. If anything, the companion that got the biggest shaft was Donna.

It’s a shame we only got one series of Bill really, would loved to have seen her travelling with the Doctor longer. Although I guess with a female Doctor we’d have gone back to having sexual tension again -_-

[Ben Saunders]

Given that they deliberately removed the sexual tension for both Amy and Clara, one slowly and one suddenly, I would hope they wouldn’t go right back to it immediately after regenerating Twelve. I really didn’t enjoy any of the Rose stuff, at all, I think she’s pretty low on the list of companions, because I don’t like the soapy “oh I love you Doctor” stuff, and you can’t talk about ridiculous extended leavings without mentioning the entire of Rose’s participation in Series Four, where she comes back from a parallel universe, saves the world, then gets her own fucking Doctor clone to grow old and die with happily ever after. Yeugh.

I would say I agree that Clara should have died in Face the Raven, but I treasure the scene where Twelve plays Clara’s Theme to her in the diner and spills his guys about her to her face without realising. That scene is just SO beautiful I wouldn’t trade it for anything. Her getting her own TARDIS and going off on her own adventures is a little ridiculous, but it does complete her “becoming the Doctor” character arc. I do think it was too much. Maybe.

Both Clara and Bill are confirmed to have died for good at some point in Twice Upon a Time, given that they have testimonies.

I think Series 8 and “The Pilot” from Season 10 are pretty much everything New Who should be, and am glad we get experimental episodes like Listen and Heaven Sent.

I want to pretend Series 7 never happened. It is an ugly scab on the Moffat era, and I definitely don’t think it’s exactly how he wanted it to be, given its numerous issues, no matter how much he might have wanted it to be.

[Captain No-Name]

I think Series 5 & 10 are the two best Moffat seasons. And of those, I prefer 10. I’m actually really happy that he ended with what I think was his strongest season.

The “everything and the kitchen sink” approach that Moffat takes seems to cause some viewers to respond “this is complex, and layered, and brilliant” but others to respond “this is incoherent, and messy, and full of dissatisfying underdeveloped bits.”

For me, both Amy and Clara (especially Clara) fell into this latter category. So many ideas! I was praying for a companion who was more… well, straight-forward, clearly defined, self-contained. Bill was everything I wanted.

There were only about 3 elements of Series 10 that threatened to tip into the problems of earlier Moffat seasons, for me…

1. Bill’s backstory was *ever so slightly* over-laden by giving her a dead mother AND a step-mum, when there wasn’t really room for either. But compared to the way Amy and Clara were over-stuffed with ideas that didn’t have room to breathe, Bill’s excess of underdeveloped mothers is a much much smaller problem. (Although, wow, the ending to Lie of the Land really relies on Bill’s mum having a weight she just doesn’t have).

2. in the middle of Series 10, there is this dense block of overcomplicated incoherent nonsense, but it is confined entirely within the 3-part Monk story. Everything before and after the monks was a joy to me.

3. A pointless little gimmick running as a thread through the stories – the vault. RTD also did these, like Bad Wolf and Torchwood etc. But the most intrusive versions of this (the crack in the wall; the Doctor’s name; the Doctor’s impending death) were on Moffat’s watch. Unlike those example, the vault mystery was at least easier to follow and didn’t bend stories out of shape (the worst offender for that is the ending of Closing Time, a lovely episode that has its ending completely robbed by an intrusive story arc to do… well, whatever the hell that is).

But to tell the truth, that’s pretty much all the complaining I can do about Series 10. On the whole, it was great. The list of things I like about it would fill a book.

It intrigues me though, to hear Ben Saunders describe Series 8 in such glowing terms. For me, it has a companion who didn’t work left over from Series 7, and who therefore needs to be significantly reinvented (ultimately for the better, I agree); and a prototype version of the Capaldi Doctor weighed down with all this nastiness and inability to understand humans and inexplicable “Am I good man?” anxiety, while being a prick towards soldiers.

I really wish the Series 10 version of Capaldi’s Doctor had arrived sooner.

One more thing: while Series 8 was the most I’d enjoyed the show since Series 5, it still committed what I consider to be the single most ill-judged and misconceived detail ever to have appeared in the entirety of televised Doctor Who: the nasty and psychologically troubling concept that the deceased can feel cremation. Why would you say that to an audience full of young people?

In a horror film, yeah. But not in Doctor Who. Literally the only time I think modern Doctor Who has got its tone staggeringly wrong.

What d’you reckon, Ben Saunders? Anyone else?

[Ben Saunders]

You’ve basically just listed some of the greatest aspects of Series Eight, there. The Doctor and Clara’s new, unsure relationship dynamic, Clara suddenly having to deal with her hot little boy toy becoming an angry old man. Twelve not understanding humans and being incredibly blunt with them, leading to some hilarious moments and some quite dark moments where for example he doesn’t lament somebody’s death because it had to happen and he has more important things to worry about. The anti-soldier stuff is basically Time War PTSD. Outside of two episodes be writing for Series Eight is the most consistent we’ve seen in New Who, imo, except possible Series Five.

The “am I a good man” stuff poses an interesting question, a question you really have to ask given that the Doctor is essentially playing God, going around the universe “fixing” things to his view of morality.

I -loved- Don’t Cremate Me. It’s got to be the darkest thing the show has attempted since Seven manipulating Ace’s life or Turlough trying to commit suicide. I love Who when it’s dark – and kids can absolutely take it. It’s only adults who complain about these things. As long as parents are watching with their children and are there to support them through any spooky bits, you can get away with a lot of this stuff. I also enjoyed the horror of the Cybermen in Series Ten.

Children love watching adult stuff and don’t so much enjoy being pandered to. Their parents can always remind them what they’re watching is fiction, as if they don’t know already.

Moffat’s mum was in hospital and ultimately died during Series 10, which can probably go some way to explain the drop in quality in the Monk trilogy, which does start exceptionally well, and could also explain the weight he saw in the stuff about Bill’s mum, not seeing that we wouldn’t react the same way. Behind the scenes excuses aside, though, the Monk trilogy and Series Seven were not very good.

[Captain No-Name]

Interesting to hear things from your point of view, Ben. Literally just a difference in taste between us as far as Series 8 is concerned.

I’m the kind of adult with a very good memory for how it felt to be a child, and I don’t tend to patronise or over-protect or excessively worry about sensitive audience members, but the cremation detail was wrong for the show. It’s all about context. I love black humour and well-explored but disturbing subjects in TV shows like Inside Number 9 or Black Mirror, but Doctor Who is just not the right forum for that level of psychological nastiness. It’s not even about being a kid, you know. As a 20-something year old it left a very bitter taste in my mouth.

Shortly after watching the series 8 finale, I learnt that a friend of the family who had always watched the show with their parent, had lost that parent to cancer. This was the first time they were watching it on their own, and the death was very recent. It was so needlessly spiteful of the show to do that for the sake of a cheap bit of darkness.

I had already been of the opinion that it was a tonal misstep, but learning the above just reassured me that I was right. The TV show has never been that inconsiderate, before or since. I don’t think it was editorially justified.

Incidentally (and this is absolutely not a dig at you, Ben, or anybody else) I personally find the emphasis on “darkness” as a positive attribute of genre fiction to be a bit… adolescent. Some of my favourite bits of Doctor Who are the brightly coloured knockabout comedic bits. But I accept this is just a matter of taste.

The only thing I would dispute is that “Am I a good man?” is not an interesting question. The answer to the question is obviously yes. We know it, the Doctor knows it. So why are we debating it? The Doctor’s job is to remember he’s a good man without being too much of an arrogant dick about it (Tennant and Pertwee’s Doctors certainly showcase this character trait at points).

[Ben Saunders]

My reaction to the Don’t Cremate Me scene was one of horror, but also one of “holy shit I can’t believe they’re actually doing this at what, 7pm on a Saturday evening?” Classic Doctor Who was always under fire for being too scary for children, and ousting Phillip Hinchcliffe and forcing the production team to make the show lighter directly contributed to its gulf in quality in the late 70s, and had a lasting negative effect which followed the show to its death.

A lot of my favourite moments are light-hearted as well, and you might think DCM went too far, but Doctor Who has always been experimental, and always pushed the limits. I’d rather watch a show that went too far in places than one that never went far enough. I’d rather it take risks than play it safe.

I think as long as we don’t get an overbearing feeling of bleakness/hopelessness, and we don’t show characters in unnecessary pain for any extended period of time, we’re alright. I wouldn’t want a DCM scene every week, but I don’t think it was “cheap”, as it adds to the feeling that this finale is serious business and there are some seriously evil things going on.

I think avoiding certain topics because a small fraction of your audience might be irked by it is in itself problematic, but I gather that’s quite a big issue with many different opinions surrounding it.

I’d take existential horror over “I remember Doctor Who being camp and low budget so let’s make New Who camp and low budget” any day of the week. I do prefer dark stuff, but for example I’m watching The Gunfighters right now and I think it’s a heck of a lot of fun. Not that good, but fun. And I like the moments of frivolity between One, Ian and Barbara in The Romans, for example.

I think DCM is -as far as the show should go-, though, and it shouldn’t go there too often, or even again. But I don’t regret it doing so once.

[flanl3]

It’s threads like this that ‘mark all as read’ buttons were made for.

[Manbird]

> ” I do prefer dark stuff, but for example I’m watching The Gunfighters right now and I think it’s a heck of a lot of fun. Not that good, but fun. And I like the moments of frivolity between One, Ian and Barbara in The Romans, for example.”

Again, going back to the comment I made above, what makes Doctor Who unique is that can vary the style that way. Certainly when you go from The Rescue to The Romans there’s a considerable difference: taut thriller to knockabout romp. It’s one of the joys of the programme that one week you can get something ‘light’ (for want of a better word) but engaging, then flip it to something quite dark. If I were to list my favourite stories there’d be a real mixture of adventure, comedy and horror.

It’s one of the reasons why the show’s survived so long, I think.

> “I think DCM is -as far as the show should go-, though, and it shouldn’t go there too often, or even again. But I don’t regret it doing so once.” <

Maybe – but, again, “scaring the little buggers” (as Robert Holmes said) has always been part of the remit, too. If DCM pushed it too far then that’s par for the course and necessary for establishing creative ground. There’s absolutely no way the show would’ve got away with that during the JN-T era with all the restrictions on what the show could and couldn’t do. (I remember Ben Aaronovitch saying he had to bring in the two dalek factions in Remembrance because he was told you couldn’t have two people shooting at each other.) There’s no doubt in my mind that Hinchliffe would’ve allowed DCM, though – if only for the reaction from Mary Whitehouse.

[Captain No-Name]

It’s funny, the first Virgin NA has some dreadful business in it. I don’t own a copy of Timewyrm:Genesys, so I can’t check for sure, but from memory the Doctor says something like Ace shouldn’t complain about being sexually objectified by a historical character because he’s from a different era and that makes it okay; and I’m sure I remember a bit where a concubine girl of about 13 (who I think is described as being naked or topless) says something like “shall I pleasure you now sir?”

I was 16 when I read that, and I just sighed a heavy sigh and thought “what the fuck is this?”

Obviously topless/naked underage prostitutes would never have happened on Doctor Who on TV in 1991, but they happened in print. Smaller (older) audience, different medium etc. And eventually, use of the F word in Transit did result in the editors being told to think twice about their audience.

But really, I can’t see what you gain from adding material like that to Doctor Who. Is it pushing boundaries? Or is it just editorial misjudgment?

I like experimental and spooky Doctor Who. The programme scared me as a child. I was terrified of Mr Sin, but in a fun way. I’ve always approved of the Hinchcliffe/Holmes “tea-time terror for tots” concept. But there is nothing in classic Doctor Who comparable to that cremation business from Series 8. It’s in a different order of horror.

Look at it this way: in Series 10, Bill gets a big cartoony hole shot through her torso. She then gets turned into a Cyberman, and experiences a dissonance between her human identity and her mechanical appearance. Ultimately, she has a happy ending. Everything is well judged.

All the Cyber-horror and the drama is couched in quite fantastical terms. But in such a way that if you feel a particular resonance with a plot-point, you can identify with it as a metaphor for your experience. Someone who experiences body dysmorphia (for example) might relate to the experience of seeing a monstrous Cyberman in the mirror that repulses them, like Bill does. Someone who is transgender might appreciate the Master being played by John Simm and Michelle Gomez. Fantasy allows you to play in metaphor in a way that is valuable and profound and meaningful.

Now compare this to the cremation business. The reason I described it as “cheap” darkness is because it doesn’t play in fantasy in any useful or cathartic way. It just points at the cruel reality that people you love get burned to ashes and then says “imagine if they could FEEL the fire?” which just felt spiteful to me.

In 50+ years of TV Doctor Who, this is literally the only time I think it has objectively overstepped a mark. I’m happy to call it a one-off, and maybe you’re right this is the price you pay for being experimental. I approve of experimentation, honestly I do.

I just think you could easily remove the cremation business from the Series 8 finale, and it would play out more or less the same, but without needlessly distressing the thousands of people in your audience who have recently suffered a bereavement.

[Plastic Percy]

I like that Robert Holmes quote, “scaring the little buggers”, it’s not a world away from Steven Moffat’s own “traumatising an entire generation, that’s what it’s all about”.

And I agree that Doctor Who should, and does, have a wildly changing style and theme. One week a taut thriller, the next a ghost story, a mad romp through time and space, a large space opera, an introverted character piece etc.

What really gets to me is how many fans seem to want it to be a doom fest, thinking the only way out of the TARDIS should be in a coffin and the show should be a bloodbath.

[Ben Saunders]

I think swearing and topless underage slave girls is a bit different from existential horror, to be honest. I hear there’s quite a bit of swearing and rape and Ace being extremely sexual in the VNA’s, and I’m not sure I’m comfortable with that – it feels like edginess for edginess sake – but I haven’t actually read any of them so I can’t really comment.

I asked somebody else what they thought of DCM and got this: “It’s a story about confronting death and loss, that means facing up to the existential anxiety of it as well. What Dark Water proposes (before firmly shooting it down) is not much worse than any popular concept of Hell.”

I think most of the people watching can discern fantasy from reality.
Out of curiosity what do you think about them removing the beheading scene from the Robin Hood episode in response to the (then) recent spate of beheading videos from ISIS?

[Captain No-Name]

The oscillating nature of Doctor Who is one of its best features. Few shows could make such a positive out of the fact they vary so much from week to week.

[Ben Saunders]

I absolutely agree, Captain No-Name. It’s been “go anywhere, do anything” from day one, and very few other shows have that freedom. There are so many individual little things about Doctor Who that go into making it what it is, and that’s one of the big ones. Escapism is another, strong characterisation and just plain damn good writing (most of the time… well, some of the time… maybe) also help.

[Captain No-Name]

Yeah, the New Adventures suffer a bit in places from seemingly not having someone sensible saying “are you sure that’s a good idea?” A bit like early Torchwood.

The beheading scene is a really interesting example to bring up, Ben. And one I’d forgotten.

Under normal circumstances in 21st century Britain, a beheading is quite a cartoon thing, rather like Bill getting a hole through her torso in Series 10. Yes, both injuries could theoretically happen, but they have an unreality about them. I think of Vyvyan leaning out of the train window in The Young Ones.

You could easily behead someone in, say, an episode of Horrible Histories. The actor would just stagger around with their jumper over their head, while another actor sticks his head through the bottom of a basket. Children would just find that funny.

In an episode like Robot of Sherwood, a beheading fits in perfectly. It’s a recognisable trope of historical fiction, and an opportunity for some slapstick. It wouldn’t normally have upset anyone. Especially as the Sheriff was a robot.

But the unfortunate timing of the episode in relation to specific news stories of the time meant that the production team had to be sensitive to the subject of beheading. For a brief cultural moment, beheading wasn’t a cartoony unreal thing, but something with a topical resonance which could have risked looking distasteful. I think the BBC made the right call in being sensitive on that occasion.

However I don’t think the beheading was a tonal misstep in and of itself. It was just one of those things (like the shootout in the TV Movie) that might not have been wise to broadcast at that specific moment in history. To my mind, it would have been perfectly acceptable to reinstate the beheading for the DVD release (is it included as a special feature?)

[International Debris]

Moffat’s stewardship was more consistent, I’ll give him that, but I can’t agree with you about Davies’ first three series. I don’t know if you’re referring to the varied mixture of styles they explored, but if that’s the case then, for me, that’s part of the joy of Doctor Who.

Nah, I’m referring to farting aliens, soap opera style family stuff, The Doctor falling in love with his companion, the overly bright, cheap look of the show, Big Brother and The Weakest Link, a ton of completely generic, forgettable stories, Captain Jack, and just a lot of really mawkish stuff all over the place. It just doesn’t feel like an interesting programme to me, and at its very worst it seems like the early McCoy years with a bigger budget. Nasty, cheesy, shallow nonsense.

I know people cite it being because it happens just post-Time War, but I find the idea that someone like The Doctor, with all the experience he has and all the people’s travelled with falling in love with Rose Tyler, of all people, utterly absurd.

The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances is the only series 1 story I find remotely watchable. The Girl in the Fireplace and The Satan Pit are the only ones in series 2. Series 3 fares better with Gridlock, Blink, Human Nature and Utopia. I’d probably like the Master two parter more if his character wasn’t so wacky. I just can’t get my brain to accept The Master dancing to Girls Aloud. Series 4 I like a lot more, it feels like RTD started taking a lot more risks at that point. Although the TARDIS towing Earth home is pretty cringe-worthy.

Overall, it’s just not my kind of programme. It’s definitely a big, fun, family-friendly adventure show, which was probably what it needed to be to bring the programme back. But if it wasn’t Doctor Who, I wouldn’t even consider watching it to be honest.

[Captain No-Name]

Don’t you think Gridlock is quite like early McCoy though? A world of cat people in everlasting traffic jams seems to me very like the same kind of fictional universe that brought us alien tourist buses visiting 1950s holiday camps and cleaning robots taking over a tower block.

I like both Series 1-4 and the McCoy years (I’m in the seemingly rare camp of thinking Time and the Rani is the only crap McCoy story) but I’d say RTD Who at its worst is Love & Monsters, and I’d rather watch Season 24 over that any day.

[International Debris]

Plot-wise, it definitely fits a similar universe to Paradise Towers, certainly, but I suppose I’m thinking more the production style of it being absurdly over the top and almost cartoonish.

Oh God, I forgot Love & Monsters. The only story I’d put on a par with Time & the Rani in terms of being utterly unwatchable.

[Ben Saunders]

Father’s Day is incredible, as is Dalek, and at least Bad Wolf if not also Parting of the Ways. The End of the World, Tooth and Claw, School Reunion, The Impossible Planet and maybe The Satan Pit and parts of the Cybermen two-parter are all alright to decent as well, but they do have their problems, mostly tonal.

I think the mystery behind what’s in the voidsphere and who the Army of Ghosts are is incredible, and the reveal of the Daleks and the Cybermen is fucking brilliant. Doomsday then starts strongly with the rivalry and banter between the two factions, but VERY quickly descends into utter tosh – far too many fucking Daleks (who all immediately die anyway so what’s the fucking point), trying to make us care for the death of some woman who was only in one episode (Yvonne), killing the metaphor of the tear ducts by having her actually cry fucking oil, and then the awful epilogue with Rose crying for 15 minutes, ending on the Doctor almost proclaiming his love for her, which is absolutely disgusting.

“Bad Wolf Bay” is a neat little coincidence, though. And there are a lot of existential questions to be raised over whether Jackie and alt. Pete should really get together – not to mention alt. Pete suddenly swooping in and saving Rose is complete bullshit, especially in the way it’s portrayed (they should have gotten sucked into the void, at least a bit).

I’m not going to go through Series 3 because I think it’s probably the worst one, but 4 was an improvement, and the specials were alright.

[Ben Saunders]

I’ll just say I enjoyed RTD’s era at the time, but looking back on it is, for at least 60% of it, incredibly embarassing, and I wonder if to non-Who fans it was -always- this embarassing, or it it’s only shit in retrospect now that we have so much better, more mature and filmic dramas on television.

[Captain No-Name]

So, to summarise, Ben – the memory cheats, and there should be no hanky panky in the TARDIS.

Where do you stand on Hawaiian shirts?

[Lily]

I’ll throw myself in the ring as only ever being a casual Who fan. I was banned from watching it as a kid as Dad thought it was stupid back then (Peter Davidson? years) so I’ve only ever seen Who as an adult – a few Tom Baker classics way back when, on UK Gold and nuWho when it aired.

And yes, it was embarassing, childish, cringy rubbish some of the time. Farting aliens, sassy daleks, ‘ghostbusters’, weakest link, etc spring to mind.

I think the issue was that RTD equated ‘fun’ with ‘wacky’. Yes, Doctor Who needs to have fun in it, but wackiness always feels out of place when there’s death and destruction going on at the same time. It’s hard to feel any real peril for a central character when the deathly fate before her is a robot doing Anne Robinson impressions.

[Ben Saunders]

That sounds about right, to be honest Lily. Why the fucking Daleks are running game shows from five million years ago I’ll never know. I do like that episode, but it is absolutely ridiculous for just about all of its runtime, sans when the Daleks actually turn up and the teleportation twist. I quite like the Weakest Link bit, but the Trinny and Susannah bit can go.

I like them No-Name, but you have to be either John-Nathan Turner, Aaron Barrett or my dad to pull th m off.

[International Debris]

Father’s Day is incredible, as is Dalek, and at least Bad Wolf if not also Parting of the Ways. The End of the World, Tooth and Claw, School Reunion, The Impossible Planet and maybe The Satan Pit and parts of the Cybermen two-parter are all alright to decent as well, but they do have their problems, mostly tonal.

Lots of episodes I can’t stand here. School Reunion and Tooth & Claw, plot-wise, just seem to be brimming over with cliches. I’m sure School Reunion was pretty scary for kids watching it when it was on, so that’s hard to criticise, but given that it’s basically something The Simpsons did in one of the Treehouse of Horrors, I found it really hard to like. Not to mention Anthony Head’s stereotypical bad guy performance. Tooth and Claw I found absurdly generic, and has the series two 10 & Rose smug-fest of a partnership, which I find unbearable. The End of the World, Dalek, Father’s Day and the Dalek two parter all have lots of great ideas, but the whole ‘feel’ of the RTD era just ruins all the potential for me. Broad performances, cheap appearance, and yes, as Lily says, the humour is ‘wacky’ rather than ‘witty’.

[Captain No-Name]

I winced at the short-sightedness of the TV spoofs in Bad Wolf. Obviously TV is always a relic of the time in which it was made, and context is crucial; TV programmes do not exist in a void. But it just seemed too narrowly focussed on the present moment in British TV 2005, and… not that funny really.

My explanation is that the Station is so vast that they have basically resurrected every single TV format ever, from across the history of the medium. Celebrity Love Island, you name it. Don’t Scare the Hare. Naked Attraction will be in there somewhere. But – weirdly – we happened only to see the shows that had resonance in 2005.

Lily, your talk of the wackiness has reminded me: people often seem to cite the burping bin in Rose as the epitome of wackiness, but I was more bothered by wackiness like John Barrowman pulling a gun out of his rectum. And that rather odd moment where the reporter is talking to Margaret Slitheen in the toilet cubicle in Boom Town and she says something like “ooh, sounds like you made it just in time” in response to a fart noise. Because you would say that wouldn’t you? If you were a reporter. And someone was having a shit.

[International Debris]

Oh yeah, you can definitely work a way around the Weakest Link thing (Big Brother is less of an issue as it’s still going). But even then, it’s just hard to watch without really cringing. To be fair, I think Anne Droid is actually a good joke, but it’s a sitcom joke. The best Who humour comes either from The Doctor’s eccentricities, or the absurdities of the universe itself. Or both, in the case of City of Death.

[Ben Saunders]

Bad Wolf would probably make a pretty good Mitchell and Webb sketch.

[Manbird]

Is this RTD-bashing down to the fact that Davies recognised the programme has always been a family show and, therefore, drew on cultural elements that cross-generational elements in the audience could recognise? That doesn’t automatically mean dumbing-down.

Is the Moffat-love down to the fact that he made it all dark and sexy? That’s adolescent thinking, not necessarily a formula for good drama.

[Ben Saunders]

RTD-bashing is because of overbearing campiness, farting aliens, cute little globs of fat as a threatening enemy, his ridiculous handling of the Daleks, and the overall soapiness of his era, as well as some low production values.

Moffat-love is down to the fact that nearly all of the best episodes of New Who are by him, and he did make the show take itself more seriously. A higher budget and more consistent writing works wonders. Moffat-era stuff has very little of the horrific dating that RTD-era stuff has, with the exception of his constant mentions of things like Twitter, and I think in one episode, Tumblr. Although that sort of works for the out-of-touch Eleventh Doctor. Moffat’s stuff is nowhere near perfect, I’m aware.

[Ben Saunders]

Also, in my opinion, David Tennant’s portrayal of the Doctor is… certainly low down on the list of my favourites. He is good in things like The Girl in the Fireplace but he’s not so good when he’s being “so sorry” and “afraid of no ghosts.”

[bloodteller]

did Moffat write that episode where rory is inside a cake and then they go off to deal with shit vampires? i remember seeing that and i haven’t touched doctor who since (apart from that one where they’re at a school and some kid asks some teacher inappropriate questions about his military service) because what the fuck was that? it was really bizarre and felt more like i was watching an episode of Merlin than anything doctor who-related

[Ben Saunders]

I didn’t like that episode but it’s absolutely not “stop watching the entire show” worthy lmao.

I don’t actually hate RTD, I think he’s a pretty cool dude, I just think his era of Doctor Who has a lot of cringeworthy shit in it

[Ben Saunders]

And no Toby Whithouse wrote that episode

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