24:03 "British TV is a small room with 12 people working on 5 shows" You say, playing clips from Broadchurch, as I recognize that woman who is in every Mitchell and Webb show sitting next to Tennant.
Torchwood: Children of Earth had Peter Capaldi NOT as the 12th Doctor, ...and the military guy from Under the Lake's actor (doing a terrible American accent, by the way), ...and Under the Lake had the same actor as the mentally broken abusive mother from Orphan 55 (but other than that basically the same character)!
Because of this guy it’s pretty much become a hobby of mine to watch long videos on why people hate something and it’s usually something ive never even watched/played. I think i have a problem.
@@Viwer_____ I enjoy that too, and seeing how people critique things I don't already have strong feelings about lets me focus on the criticism and how to do it better. It helps my writing.
@@BarioIDL Can't remember who said it (probably maybe even Hbomb) Moffat is a great at writing short episodes/ 2 episode story arcs but is bad at writing full season arcs. Although with that said I do wonder what people think of Matt smith's first season's story. I actually really liked that overall.
I don’t think anyone would call Moffat the worst, he’s good as long as you have someone nearby to hit him with a wiffle bat every time he does something dumb
The fourth good idea that Moffat ever had was the "girl Doctor meets has to live through history instead of traveling through it" (see: Madame de Pompadour, Amy Pond, River Song, that fanfiction he wrote when he was like 12). And he kept going back to it OVER AND OVER AND OVER because he thinks that "person who meets the Doctor intermittently but is still obsessed with him for some reason" is an interesting character trait.
Because by default, I guess, the Doctor is "The Most Interesting Man in The World", even though it's kinda more his tech and the context of his existence that is so interesting, he himself behaves pretty normally.
I recently rewatched the Madame de Pompadour episode and I still like the episode, but I couldn't help but notice the parallels to Amy Pond, River Song, Clara, etc. Glad I wasn't the only one to notice that.
@@MichaelM28 only real morons can't accept others opinions. I never liked Dr. Who. I tried several of them, old ones, new ones, damn I tried really hard, mainly because of my twin sister, but it's just not my cup of tea and sometimes, even those fan-favorite episodes bored the hell out of me (while being much bigger fan of science fiction then she ever be). So, just because I don't like it, I should simply call every fan of is as moron, right? Is that your logic?
With hindsight, we now know Moffat intended to finish his run with the last episode of the season, but Chibnall didn't want to start with a Xmas special so Moffat reluctantly agreed to do one more episode, because he believed that Xmas slot was too important to the show to lose.
@@mysteriouslyseeing you're both equating things the BBC decided to either showrunner. The BBC decided to move the Who special to new years instead of Christmas & the BBC wanted a Moffat Christmas special. Also: Hbomb, Chibnall wasn't showrunner of Torchwood, RTD was. Chibnall just wrote the most episodes
I was especially frustrated with his lazy use of the previous Doctor to make some point about sexism and how society is so much more progressive now. Doctor Who has actually pretty much always been ahead of the times, which female companions often being smart and capable people in their own right. To have the first Doctor suggest that Bill was only there to clean up was a disservice to earlier versions of the show.
Including the first Doctor's run. While the early series had some casually misogynist elements to them on occaision, they hardly if ever entered the Doctor's choice of words or sentiment.
I mean, it's kind of mentioned in an above comment, but the show runner was a woman named Verity Lambert who didn't agree to work on the show until she was told that she'd be the head producer instead of an assistant, and who was described as being full of 'piss and vinegar'. Having seen/read the transcripts for all of the First Doctor episodes, and knowing that this show was jumpstarted by a woman who was in charge for most of the First Doctor's runtime, I have to say that this is wildly out of character for the First doctor, and I doubt that it would've ever been approved.
@@morinomajou in-universe, the Doctor at the time was saying "Red Indians" had "savage minds". The Doctor and the Time Lords have never made sense as truly alien beings, only as outgrowths of human culture. This plot thread is commenting on the show's history, not the "coherent universe" Doctor Who was never supposed to have anyway
If I had a nickle for every time Tennent managed to duplicate during regeneration and then go live with his companion, I'd have two nickles but it's weird that it happened twice
"If I had a -nickle- _nickel_ for every time Tennent managed to duplicate himself during regeneration and then go live with his companion, I'd have two -nickles- nickels, *which isn't a lot,* but it's weird that it happened twice."
@@Crowbars2 "If I had a nickle nickel for every time Tennent managed to duplicate himself during regeneration and then go live with his companion, I'd have two nickles nickels, which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice, right?"*
I really don't mind the idea of an episode of Doctor Who that doesn't have an evil plan in it, and the Doctor sort of winking towards the structure of the show being subverted, but this was not a good execution on that idea.
EnemyViolent Gaming Yeah I agree! That could have been a really interesting idea with the doctor learning to be less cynical but the episode seemed to be like "oh well no evil plan so better go do something else now"
+Matt, I wouldn't say that it's the equivalent to The Empty Child because if the Doctor hadn't intervened, the world would be full of gas-mask-zombies. I'd say it's closer to "In the forest of the night" Also for the record, I quite liked this episode.
Yeah, which is why it was done well. The argument is for the "no evil plan" thing, not having no stakes. There being an antagonist, and high stakes, despite there being "no evil plan" is why the episode was good.
The Ship Towers can be heading towards a sun as part of the evil plot by an American named Bush and saved by a Muslim woman named Sarsour to hammer down the reference in case someone doesn’t get something that’s being shown. I’m not being sarcastic if you’re wondering and would watch it.
@@mkratos17 I keep waiting to get back into the show. I figure that if I never saw the pre-revival stuff and managed to absorb the lore and story, I can skip the bad stuff and be fine. Is it good yet? Have they finally learned to hire good writers??
What I love is how in the "Into the Dalek" episode the line "I am not a good Dalek, you are a good Dalek." was supposed to be, if anythings was, the point at which some character development happens, that the Dr has an epiphany or reflects or learns something. The fact they used the exact same line in the xmas episode seems like a tacit admission that absolutely none of that development had happened, its remarkable. Also that speech at the end was clearly moffat talking to moffat about how great moffat was.
All it made me think (didn't bother watching the xmas special I'm talking about the actual episode where the dalek is introduced) was that Moffat had overseen a regression of the Doctor's character growth during the Eccleston and Tennant years, because it felt like a hollow version of Eccleston's "Dalek".
The worst case of a Moffat metaplot ruining individual episodes is the latter half of series 6. Amy and Rory should be traumatized that they are never going to have a normal relationship with their daughter, but instead it's onto the next thing. It's particularly noticeable in The Girl Who Waited where every other aspect of their relationship gets dissected ad nauseum but the daughter is barely mentioned.
Um also Rory remembers living for thousands of years as an immortal robot and yet is the same beta toolbag he always was. Or how about when Amy became a cunt because she wanted Rory to leave her rather than HAVE A SIMPLE CONVERSATION ABOUT ADOPTION!? Or, and this is by far the worst offense, how about how River spent so much time with the Doctor that she knew better than him how to run the Tardis, but after she gave up her ability to regenerate to save The Doctor you almost never saw her again?
That's actually where I quit watching Doctor Who. Traumatize the characters severely enough, and I'm out. It's only happened twice, with Amy and Rory and again with Once Upon a Time. I was done watching them abuse Regina by the end of Season 5. There's a point at which the amount of trauma the characters have gone through makes me too angry with the writers to move on.
One of my least favorite things about Moffat was how he always backpedaled on events with tangible consequences, which is why I was so pleasantly surprised at the end of series 9 when The Doctor lost all his memories of Clara and Moffat didn't instantly try to reverse it. GOOD THING WE STILL HAVE THAT INNIT
ChardBotham Its actually amazing that he systematically went and reversed literally everything about series 9, making the last arc 100% pointless with no growth or consequences from any of the characters, and lessening the impact of Face the Raven and Heaven Sent.
I liked the time war when it was a mystery. Big things like that work best when you don't know what they are but you feel their presence. But with Moffat there was a new ""mysterious"" phrasey thing every season and had to get resolved in the end. God, how I *hate* those phrases.
I guarantee that Moffat thought up the line "It's not an evil plan! I don't really know what to do when it isn't an evil plan." and then wrote the ENTIRE FULL-LENGTH EPISODE around the line. Which is actually a really great encapsulation of why Moffat made a great stand-alone episode writer and a terrible showrunner - he came up with what's actually an excellent line to build a 7-minute Children in Need special mini episode around, and then wasted a full Christmas special on it instead. His ego constantly writes checks his talent can't cash.
literally he just needed a filler episode for christmas, and he just needed to write something passable so chibnall can finally take over. because chibnall didn’t want to start on a christmas episode.
The worst part is "I don't know what to do when it's not an evil plan" sounds like it could be a weird-but-great character development moment if it was used properly
Yeah, like spending the whole episode being paranoid about it being an EVEN MORE SECRET evil plan, and causing problems for everyone in a heavily comedy focused episode, then some stunt he pulls to discover the plan accidentally hurts someone, and he's forced to confront his trauma of constantly "saving the day" and being unable to do anything else. That would have been an AMAZING way to end the story there, BECAUSE THE ENTIRE MOFFAT RUN WAS *TRYING* TO BE ABOUT HOW THE DOCTOR ISN'T SO GREAT AND A BIT OF A TOXIC INFLUENCE BY WAY OF HIS HERO/GOD COMPLEX AND HEAVY HANDED APPROACH. The dalek being there, as a positive (ish) version of his greatest old enemy would also have been a PERFECT story parallel to that, AND provide the foil to the "the doctor is dangerous" point by showing a concrete and revolutionary good thing that he did (first good-ish dalek, like true neutral dalek), AND by showing a concrete example of how LITERALLY anyone can change and be better. It basically fucking writes itself, if you DON'T ADD THE FUCKING GLASS GHOST BASTARD AND DO THE FUCKING DEAD LIBRARY THING FOR THE 10TH TIME, SUCKING ALL THE STORY OUT OF THE EPISODE FOR AN UNEARNED REUNION PAYOFF, AND LIKE ONE FUCKING "I'm descended from so and so" REFERENCE.
Several of the Doctor Who audio plays have this twist and they are all fantastic because they are able to extract good drama or character moments in the process of getting there.
It could've been SO good. It could delve into the Doctor having a hero complex but never having that cause problems before because there always WAS an evil plan. That could've been a fantastic episode. But uh, yeah, Moffat couldn't have pulled that off lmao
See the weird thing is I also had a 'where's Amy Pond?" reaction to when the Doctor was saying good bye to people in this episode, but then i realised of course she wouldn't be in this episode because Capaldi's Doctor never even met her, she was only around during Matt Smith's era, and Matt Smith's doctor said goodbye to her (in a weird hallucination type way) when he was dying. There's literally no reason for her to be in this episode even if Karen Gillan wasn't doing Marvel movies.
I can never forgive your besmirching of all my favorite Tennant Christmas specials XD You act like a sword fight in your pajamas on an alien spaceship culminating in the loss of a hand which later becomes a cloned version of yourself who gets to live in a parallel universe with your former lover...is a bad thing. I think it's A+ storytelling. I also unironically love that the Doctor does almost nothing in that episode and we just get to hang out with Rose's mom trying to deal with crazy alien shit. Edit: I somehow misspelled Tennant :p
That is a great moment, and it would've been one of the best christmas specials of all time if it weren't for the fact that the rest of the episode is just "Let's try to fill time, then have the Doctor wake up and defeat the Baddies after sleeping the whole episode"
@@agushernandez6083 for real though! Like its so bad, but anything with Tennet is fabulous and who doesn't want to hang out with Rose's mum?! "Is that the only thing that grows back" is one of the greatest lines in cinematic history and I will die on this hill :P
TNG is way better than any season of who. But it will always have less time-traveling dudes exploding into different time-traveling dudes. Or women, apparently.
@@Davesknd Ferengi are supposed to backwards, as opposed to humans, it's meant to show how ridiculous we are in real life in the here and now. They were specifically based on Yankee traders early on, but evolved more with the characters Quark. Although, TNG's Ferengi are hugely under-developed, but usually any alien species with 'backwards' (from the perspective of the Federation) cultural ideas/practices are meant to be a critique of something IRL humans are doing/believing. This gets more fleshed out in DS9, however. Funnily enough, as ruthless as Ferengi capitalism is, Quark often (correctly) points out that humans used to be far worse than the Ferengi are in the 24th century. One of my favourite scenes in all of Star Trek is the one where Quark gives Garak (a Cardassian) some root beer and they compare it to the Federation, "...bubbly and cloying... and happy [...]" ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-4hdiuRMK3UQ.html
I can think of some characters from Moffat's run who he could have brought back for his final episode. Vastra, Jenny, and Strax. Y'know, those three funny and interesting characters who did cool crimefighting stuff in Victorian London. Who were major supporting characters for pretty much all of Matt Smith's tenure. Who got an episode all to themselves which was basically just a backdoor pilot for their own spinoff series that never happened. Who appeared in *one* episode of Series 8, in 2014, and have never been so much as mentioned since then. Just saying, it would have maybe been neat to see them again.
@@vitraartist2622 They were in Victorian London. They would be dead by now. In fact, the Doctor's a time traveller, everyone's dead by now. Even the ones who're alive.
The first Doctor was sexist due to being written in the 60s though. Maybe not quite as bad as Moffat made him out to be, but still sexist. Though I would agree that retconning the sexism out might've been better, as arguably whenever the Doctor was sexist it was out of character. After all, time lords are "billions of years beyond your petty human obsession with gender and its associated stereotypes."
the line about spanking was a line from the show though. it’s something hartnell actually said tho lol which is a bit cheeky of them to include. hartnell isn’t defined by these things and yet does include these lines.
I feel like the whole "Oh, it isn't an evil plan" thing was an attempt to recreate the "Just this once, everybody lives" ending from the Empty Child, where it subverts your expectations with a happy ending. Not successfully, obviously, but I think that's where he was coming from.
Melissa C the thing is, with the Empty Child, the Child might not be evil, but it still was dangerous. The doctor couldn’t just ignore it, because the Gasmask-Virus could have spread and caused a horrible plague. With this, the Doctor could have not even meet this AI thing and nothing about the world would change. I feel that’s what this episode missed.
@@Quoyth Edge of Destruction. Three stories into Who's history. Just food for thought. Who can be something other than an evil plan and averting it at times.
I know that this is late and doesn't matter but it was. Several times. For example in that area of time when Clara was just showing up in history before she was a companion there was an episode where the Doctor is captured by Daleks and is forced to go kill a rogue Dalek that turned out to be Clara. I'm fairly sure they checked their database before he was shot to the planet. He also wiped himself from their database at one point. the two situations might have been connected honestly.
@@0hate9 I was pretty sure that it was established earlier. I just couldn't/can't remember when so I provided an off the top example that was before the special in question. I'm glad we can agree.
Lee Butler they were both in the same episode I think; Darlek Clara deletes him from the hive mind, so when he returns to their ship they don’t know who he is. One of the “Doctor Whooooooooooo” moments Moffat loved to chuck in 😉
As if. He used to eat lots of overly processed shit. Now he's eating overly processed shit that is soy based. I have no idea how you island people survive.
tbf they just kinda appeared out of nowhere in the first place too. feels right that they should just vanish in exactly the same way, like a lot of Moffat's undeveloped side characters
My theory for 90% of your questions is "Moffat has been told ha has no idea how continuity works, and he thinks throwing references at the wall like a caffeinated monkey means continuity"
I wasn't on the hate train against Steven Moffat, but I did miss how RTD managed to create a world that felt persistent. While I enjoyed some of the stories from Moffat, it always felt like the world revolved around the Doctor. I don't really know how to explain it properly, but hopefully you know what I mean.
Small universe problem. I agree m RTD managed to create a world where the doctor was important but not the single most important being in existence. It still felt like other stuff went on when he wasn't around.
One good thing about Moffatt’s Doctor Who is that they finally wiped the Vaseline off the camera and replaced that awful yellow tint with actual colors.
The cinematography and direction in Moffat's run is universally excellent, which I think speaks to a big problem in that you really can't throw money at bad scripts to make them good. Sherlock was also exquisitely produced, and it didn't make the mysteries more compelling, or the characters less obnoxious.
I think part of the reason for that tint was to try to obscure the fact that even several series in the budget was pretty low. If they make EVERYTHING hazy then the cgi doesn't look so bad.
HBomberguy (2018): "This year might prove to be the last bad [holiday special of] Doctor Who because Moffat is retiring." Chris Chibnall: "Hold my crack pipe."
maybe it's because i'm american and know nothing about the series outside of your videos, but that "i am not a good dalek, you are a good dalek" line really took on a whole new meaning for me after the explanation behind the name rusty. i'm thinking of it as capaldi being a representation of all of moffat's decisions as showrunner, all of his writing and character work and most obviously the casting choice, and rusty as being... russ t. there's something telling about moffat writing a dalek named after his predecessor to say "i am not a good dalek, you are a good dalek", almost as if he's trying to tell himself that he's better than russ davies ever was. using the line again here in his final episode kinda hammers in that interpretation for me.
I dunno, Rusty's a pretty solid name for a broken Dalek--seems like a stretch. Also what would suggest that the Doctor would be a surrogate for Moffat? I'm not seeing it.
Samsa I mean a lot of the time it looks like Moffat is specifically addressing RTD's era or trying to one-up it. 10 leaves with I dont wanna go and 12 leaves with I let you go, RTD had a guy that lived for a few billion years so Moff has a girl live for the entire length of the universe, stuff like that.
Regular Teller i think that that's more trying to raise the stakes & escalate the tension rather than some sort of snub, but that's just my perspective
It also gets super meta when you realize that being a good dalek isn't a good thing. The dalek is actually saying 'In your strive to be better than me, you have become what you most feared: bad'.
"It's not an evil plan" is actually a lovely idea for a Doctor Who episode, it shifts the focus of the final story this Doctor will ever carry from one of overcoming an antagonist to overcoming his personal struggle in the episode, choosing to let go of himself and continue to live - which I think it genuinely did quite well.
i love it in concept but the execution was terrible imo. like i genuinely got to the end of that episode and thought "so basically nothing happened". i feel like you could go from the end of world enough and time to the bit where capaldi is giving his last speech and not miss anything
I didn't really pay attention to most of the problems with this special. I was to focused on why Moffat gave the first Doctor that weird sexist attitude
Agreed, hell, if anything, he put down his male companions more and was generally kinder to his female companions. It's not exactly a pro feminist move, but it's not like he was sexist to begin with
I think I ended up fully noping out of Doctor Who after Capaldi's doctor called Clara ugly (can't remember the exact line). Clara, a bloody Disney princess in real life if I ever saw one. Lots of weird little lines like that during Moffat's run from all sorts of characters, and I hate it.
So he could show that his version of Doctor Who is way more progressive than the original show. Basically just Moffat patting himself on the back again
@@shaquevara I respectfully disagree lol. I feel like moffat had decent writing, decent character development and no plastic feel. But fair enough, I can understand how the big over blown shit can get annoying very quickly
@@leadisterribleI disagree there was no plastic feel. If anything, Moffat's stories always have a whiff of narcissism about them, I feel. I personally just don't like the grandiose story lines. I like the Doctor being quirky and approaching all living beings with wonder, no matter how ugly. With Moffat, the Doctor also got a bit racist, I feel.
@@shaquevara oh how was he racist? Just curious, not attacking or anything dw. I can see what u mean by the narcissism, I just prefer that over how stale chibnalls seasons feel? Idk I might be being too pretentious lol but I just think they shitty
Sadly he couldn't use Clara's boyfriend in his "bring people back for the sendoff episode" thing because he already used that character in his OTHER database of everyone who's ever died. (Same problem for River).
Don't be so hard on yourself Harry. You were definitely my favorite of the classic Doctors. Do you still walk around with a leek or whatever that was in your lapel or is it a piece of tofu now?
I like this aesthetic, it's like you wandered into Cath Kidston and got lost, plonked yourself down on a nearby beanbag and filmed this to alleviate the boredom of awaiting rescue. I'm guessing they couldn't work out how to get the helicopter in through the ceiling to air lift you out.
Its a great monologue. A really well written baton pass... if it had anything to do with the docters character arc. Im honestly convinced the speech gaslit me into thinking what he was saying was adressesed in previous episodes in any depth
@@boserboser6870 It had everything to do with the Doctors arc. It was a culmination speech bout just being decent to people which was the whole point of his character arc. I swear some folks are a bit daft.
@@jordanfitzgerald7886 eh. I wasnt convinced of it as an arc. Its a good speech dont get me wrong. And im happy you found resolution in it that i didnt
@@jordanfitzgerald7886I meeean it's not really an arc if it happened in the gap between season 9 and 10. He just kinda decided he was a good guy now offscreen
Having watched all of the the First Doctor's stories, I'm increasingly disappointed by the portrayal of him here as a rampant sexist. He never said anything of the sort in his seasons. Also, weird opinion... but despite his best efforts, I still don't like David Bradley's portrayal of the First Doctor, but I rather preferred him playing William Hartnell in An Adventure in Space and Time, strangely enough. Nothing will replace Hartnell as the First Doctor, naturally, but Bradley still falls slightly short of the mark in terms of charm and character.
I honestly really liked his portrayal, but it definitely can't match Hartnell's take on the character. It just sucks he wasn't given anything better to work with, with all those stupid sexist remarks the character would have never said originally.
He is not sexist or misogynistic though...... in the 60's it was normal to hit boys AND girls, and naturally boys got beaten far harder and more often than girls. Plus they were often sent off to a muddy field to be beaten by tiny bits of metal fired from machine guns until they were mincemeat. And the Doctor generally only gave women the privilege of being flown around the galaxy in a time machine, and doing some light dusting is hardly asking very much in return. Even today 95% of workplace deaths are men because society allows women to do safer, more comfortable jobs. So in both cases we have female privileges being framed as patriarchal oppression of women. Also how ludicrous is it for a FUCKING TIME TRAVELLER to be locked into the social attitudes of the 1960's???? They literally forgot the Doctor is a time traveller. I swear they will forget he is a man one day....
Just want to point out that it's not entirely true that women are allowed to do safer, more comfortable jobs; it's that it's the /only/ jobs that are traditionally available to them. Rosie the Riveter only exists because factories were only willing to take women when there was a shortage of men. Not saying that, for example, the lack of acceptance of male tailors isn't bs; it very much is. But the system hurts everybody.
".. it's not entirely true that women are allowed to do safer, more comfortable jobs; it's that it's the /only/ jobs that are traditionally available to them...." Are you suggesting that throughout history if coal mining, shipyard work, ocean trawling, construction and all the other traditionally male jobs had been 'available' to women, they would have taken them? Are you suggesting women found those kinds of male gender roles preferable to their own female gender roles? "... Rosie the Riveter only exists because factories were only willing to take women when there was a shortage of men...." Precisely. The men were busy being turned into mincemeat on a muddy field. SOMEBODY had to keep the factories running. As a last resort the task was put onto women's shoulders. "... But the system hurts everybody..." Had women spent the last 5000 years doing the majority of manual labour, fighting all the wars and generally working to support men and children who got to stay at home doing domestic duties you would not be saying the system hurts everybody. You would be saying women had it rough and men definitely got the better end of the bargain.
The big library of dead people’s minds happens AGAIN in “the bells of St. John” when people’s minds are downloaded by the WiFi. That’s 4 times that plot line is used by moffat in one show, so ridiculous.
It’s a cool concept though. Oh, and also the concept of the bootstrap paradox is a staple of the show, did you notice? Sci-fi tropes can be re-used in a sci-fi show, to different effects hopefully-but-not-necessarily.
Literally just seeing Donna pop up on the screen without you even mentioning her directly and her granddad saluting Ten almost made me cry ffs fucking Russell
A few positive points, because, hell, I've spent so many years complaining and I want to inject a bit of optimism. 1. I like the dynamic between Twelve and One (if I read into it a little). One is a little greyer and less refined around the moral edges, whereas Twelve struggles to maintain his grip on humanity because caring for so long has drained him. He doesn't realise the glass woman is modelled after a human because he doesn't look too closely at people, something One doesn't have issues with. It's a running joke that different Doctors don't like eachother in crossovers, but I appreciate that this time it's grounded in genuine character flaws. 2. The joke where One's brandy is in the same cupboard in the modern Tardis and he chastises Twelve for "stealing" one glass in the 1500 years since he regenerated is brilliant. Especially in the followup joke when One pours out a glass in his own Tardis and realises it was him who took it. 3. I really like Bill.
There's some good stuff here about how Moffat's issues in his writing but there are big problems with this critique. 1) The claim that the twelfth doctor and clara are static characters is just categorically wrong. There may be bouts of inconsistency occasionally, doctor who is a show written by multiple writers of course but the trends over the period of time is obvious and these two characters are in far different headspaces at the beginning and end of their tenures. 2) Series 8's arc can be a bit of a mess but the doctor questioning their morality isn't out of nowhere. Even in the Classic and RTD eras there are multiple episodes that examine the morality of the doctor's actions and the doctor's moral ambiguity is what makes them a compelling character. This is where the payoff (that you thought was missing in the previous episodes) from episodes like Into the Dalek and Deep Breath are heading into 3) 30 seconds from each episode showing one scene is not "leeching away precious script pages" anymore than randomly interjecting the words Bad Wolf, Torchwood, and Harold Saxon in every episode. 4) Rusty isn't a reference to RTD, its just a cheeky reference to Dalek when 9 calls the faulty dalek, 'rusty' 4) Having no alien threat isn't "bad writing". The lack of stakes does worsen the pacing of this episode but it isn't essential for the episode to work because its focus is to serve as a coda to The Doctor Falls. It examines the doctor and their place in the universe (as well as a meta examination of Moffat's fairy tale era) before they decide to regenerate. The plot of the episode isn't the doctor defeating an alien threat but finding a reason to keep on living after having gone through probably one of the biggest failures in his life already coming at the end of a doctor that has been through a significant amount of grief. 5) Again, a victory tour of the era (which by itself has been criticized by some as being overtly sentimental)'s companions isn't compatible with this story. Despite its gift, 12 rejects the testimony as a replacement for his companions in a melancholic speech that reflects his reason for not wanting to regenerate (a life too long). A victory tour may have been for the fans but it would have lost this moment of its poignancy. 12 truly dies alone, only deciding to regenerate after reflecting on the good he may have not been able to do if his younger self had made the same selfish decision as him.
This video made me realize that childhood me was sliding down a titanic themed blow up slide seemingly designed to mimic people sliding down the deck of the half turned over ship into the freezing water below WHILE SOMEONE WHO WAS ABOARD THE TITANIC WAS STILL ALIVE
Now this was for a yearly Fourth of July event at my nearby park so not necessarily my fault, but the many hours I spent role playing on Titanic Simulator on roblox certainly was
+Jinuniki. No, just no. Moffat's seasons have been disappointing, but he's never written anything as buttock-clenchingly awful as Voyage of the Damned, Planet of the Dead, or that one where the guy sticks his knob in a paving slab with a face.
At the end of Moffat ran 2nd Avengers movie we find out that the key to defeating Ultron has been inside of Tony Stark the whole time because he's the chosen one (this is not elaborated on or mentioned ever again) and Kitty from X-men has to pull it out of him. She ultimately fails but they defeat him with power of friendship anyway because they've learned that AI-s are allergic to love and it's like a virus to them. [insert a pointless cliffhanger at the end]
You could make a video talking about The Golden Compass and how it completely betrays the source material, as well as all the religious issues surrounding his dark materials. I haven't seen anyone talk about that on youtube yet.
Yes! I devoured those books as a kid to the point that they changed my perspective on so many things. And then they shat out the worst, most unfaithful, not even based on the books movie I have ever seen. Ugh
I didn't hate the movie because I didn't see all the anti religious, mystical things and the visuals were cool. That is until I read the third book and the whole 'maybe, just maybe God is not that all powerful like they told us He is' pushed me into atheism Even now I think the first two movies weren't as anti religious as believers see them. If person's faith was shaken just by reading them then the same effect would make reading history books
Truth be told, I loved Capaldi as the Doctor, with a better showrunner I think he could have been the best incarnation of the Doctor. Sadly, I dislike this upcoming regeneration off the bat now just because I can't help but wish Capaldi got another season under a better showrunner before a regeneration, even though I bet the new regen will be good.
So glad I'm not the only one who's looking forward to it. It's been a long time coming--even Tom Baker wished his successor luck "whoever he or she would be" (his words).
As someone hearing this explanation who doesn’t follow this show at all.... it really sounds like your describing the plot of a really dumb anime series.
The first four seasons (with Davies as showrunner) are really, genuinely fun. They're creative, they're sappy in a good way, and the actors are great. Even though a good deal of the episodes are desperately silly, it's still human enough and lore-heavy enough that it just works and it's a great ride. Personally, season 5 on just really could not interest me less. I really wasn't a Moffat fan.
I stopped watching the season with Bill on the "Smile" episode, because the way they structured the episode threw me into an indignant rage. So the episode is the classic "utopia gone wrong" thing, taking place on an earth colony on a foreign planet. Cool. Fine. Great. Classic sci-fi setup. However, before the opening credits even roll, the writers KILL all possible suspense by showing exactly what the threat is and EXACTLY what happened to the people on the colony. So when the Doctor and Bill get there and they're figuring out what happened, there is no element of mystery because there's nothing left for the audience to discover. We already know exactly what happened, so watching the Doctor and Bill discover it feels less like uncovering a mystery and more like a chore. We already know neither of them are going to die, so the only suspense left is the discovery of what happened to the planet. And the weirdest thing is after the credits roll, the rest of the episode plays out as though the audience wasn't just spoiled on what happened to the planet. All the little details and hints at what happened to the colonists unfold exactly like they would if you didn't already know. So it almost feels like a post-production decision, like somebody higher up thought the audience wouldn't get it if they weren't told exactly what happened at the very beginning.
I think that setup can work pretty well, otherwise Columbo wouldn't have been such a success. It's not a "What happened here?" episode, but more "How will they find out?" Also, by knowing more than the characters some situations can work better for the suspense. For example, by seeing what happened you get super tense the first time the smiling robots greet them - they are totally unaware of the danger, but YOU know these things are dangerous! I'm not saying it works great in that episode (or that this was even the intention), but it CAN work. Hitchcock talked about how you can make a scene "People sitting at table - suddenly bomb explodes" infinitely more suspenseful by showing the bomb BEFOREHAND, thus giving the audience knowledge the characters don't have. A similar thing could've been done here.
My guy, let me tell you how the writer of that episode did a shit job at literally every concept in it. Frank (what’s his last name.) took an interesting concept of emojis and communication, and the evolution of language and media in the future, something that has more nuances than just 💀 and 🙂 and did nothing but make dumb jokes about gen z with it. But it did give Bill the entrance ‘explore an alien planet’ thing as a first time companion, so that part was functional. I just wish the emoji part was used better :(
Whilst I guess the verdict on Chibnall can only ultimately be handed down after the end of the next season, I’m so far willing to forgive him for Cyberwoman. At least between the ten or so years between that and the latest season of Broadchurch, there’s been some demonstrable progress in his skills as a writer ...unlike Moffatt.
emmakatenotcake yeah. Broadchurch is fucking great for seasons 1 and 3 and good for season 2 all those came out after Cyberwoman. Also maybe it'll be a reverse Moffatt. Where he wrote some shit episodes only to go on to run the show with aplomb
But Broadchurch is for adults, (and crisp lovers) DW is for children, (and our lost youth.) Maybe Chibnall is a Fleming, though I suspect that he is more Cartland.
Do you honestly think that Steven Moffat has never shown any 'demonstrable skill' as a writer in his entire career (which doesn't only include DWho and Sherlock by the way)? This is really a whole new level of delusional.
MrEntj too bad all the characters that people liked are either A) from before his time as showrunner or B) too busy being wildly successful with other projects.
Me pre-2018: Doctor Who can’t get any worse the new show runner will be great Me now: I wish I had the Doctor’s Tardis so that I could’ve warned everyone
I won't deny that Cyberwoman was atrocious but it would be nice if sometimes people also remembered that Chibnall wrote the well respected episodes Countrycide, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Adrift, and basically ended the show as it existed at the time with Fragments and Exit Wounds. He did some excellent work on Torchwood, and his episodes are why I still really love that show despite its low points.
My main problem with this Christmas special was that Moffat CLEARLY doesn't know how to write the First Doctor's character. If you actually take the time to go back and watch a couple of One's episodes, it's like night and day with how differently the character is written. Honestly, I think this is the best Christmas special, but that doesn't mean it can't have its problems. I also wish that they had spent more time with the Tenth Planet perspective since it really just assumes you know what it is and what happened to go into it, which- let's be honest -most people watching just aren't going to know. Sorry for the long comment, I just felt I needed to get my thoughts down.
the way I felt about the moffat era is that he is amazing at setting up interesting things, but doesn't seem to be able to finish them. clara and that immortal girl as well as the doctor's daughter just being somewhere in space always seemed exciting. the things they could do and see. and then we never saw them again.
@skapb though you're missing how the show was tanking in value so much that BBC had to take a deal with Disney to distribute the show outside of the UK in exchange for a cashflow to put into expanding the budget & creative control and production credits to be given to Disney as they likely plan to just buy the IP rights instead
I must say that Torchwood is a guilty pleasure of mine haha. And It's been a long time, maybe he has grown as a writer. Sometimes they do that if they're not Joss Whedon
Laura B i only saw one or two episodes of Torchwood before seeing Miracle Day as it aired, and I liked it! Glad to see I’m not the only one, because my husband and friends refuse to even admit it exists, like some people do with the Matrix sequels.
So apparently, I'm told, Moffat intended to leave after s10 but decided to stay on to do another Christmas special specifically because he knew how important the slot was to the show and he didn't want his successor to lose it (of course, Chibnall would WILLINGLY vacate it immediately, moving the festive episode to New Year's Day instead). But of course by the time that was decided he had already written the Doctor's regeneration in the previous story so was left trying to tell a tale about a Doctor who's in mid-regeneration for the whole episode and there wasn't a lot of time and contracts were messy and it all ended up a bit of a damp squib. In retrospect, I think if Moffat had known Chibnall didn't want the Christmas Day slot he'd have abandonded this story, put that lovely regeneration scene at the end of the much stronger World Enough and Time/The Doctor Falls instead and it would have worked out better for everyone.
Uhhhh, I sort of love you. You're my favorite RU-vid personality which phrase tastes as terrible coming out of my mouth as I'm sure it sounds. But regardless, you always give inciteful and hysterical commentary. You're tremendous.
Personally I could never get over the Date Rape element of the first episode of Torchwood. I'm not sure if I was the only one who noticed it but one of the Torchwood Characters, one of the "good guys", uses a muguffin to get ladies to sleep with him. It was played as a bit of a jokey thing in a pub (about 30mins in) but it didn't sit right with me but perhaps I'm just a little over sensitive.
I don't think you're oversensitive. I don't remember that moment tbh, but I get why it would rub you the wrong way. Also, there were a lot of things about Torchwood that wore me down and upset me. It was a really badly written show and it had a lot of gross under (and over) tones to it.
Yeah I always thought the point of that entire sequence was we were supposed to get a sense of "_these_ people have authority over powerful alien artifacts?!"
