Who-ing it up
Jun. 10th, 2008 06:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xparrotI'm sick, and it's coming out as negativity and squee-harshing all around. You know I don't mean it, right, shows? Despite your flaws, I love you all! (Except you, Smallville; you I always despise. Still <3 the fandom, though! *hugs Lex & all his psycho fans*) That being said...even my beloved agent-of-all-that-is-good-and-fun-in-TV Doctor Who isn't safe.
Everyone on my flist has been thrilled about the news that Steven Moffat will be taking the reins of the DW franchise in a couple years; it seems like all the Whos in Whoville like Moffat unreservedly, which makes me...the Grinch? It's not that I dislike him, or that I'm disappointed he's going to be in charge. But I do have reservations, and the most recent eps didn't put them to rest.
Don't get me wrong, I totally understand why people are excited. Moffat's a brilliant writer, one of the best on the series. He writes effortlessly cool scifi and the creepiest monsters in the show bar none, and his scripts are snappy and tight. He's really better-suited to Who than Russell T. Davies (I will buck general fandom opinion again to state that I find RTD brilliant in his own right; he's written my favorite eps of the series and he's got a great gift for characterization and dialogue. He's pretty weak with plot, though, which is a major flaw in this sort of scifi writing, and I'd like to see him return to more character-focused drama like Queer as Folk. Or else he can come write for SGA, since plot is hardly their selling point anyway!) And it will be interesting to see Moffat guiding an entire season, because I get the impression he doesn't care for the current direction much - his eps tend to be somewhat outside the continuity; he writes the chars the way he wants them to be, in order to tell the stories he wants to tell. (See "Girl in the Fireplace", with Rose doing a 180 from the ep before, not getting jealous and being fine with having Mickey along in the TARDIS.)
And there were a lot of things I loved about Moffat's most recent Who eps, "Silence in the Library"/"Forest of the Dead." The Library was beyond awesome and a dream come true for so many of us geeks (a continent of fiction! A coast of science fiction! Several cities of fanfic, one imagines!); the Vashta Nerada (sp?) and stuck-record psychic-imprint-zombies were both ridiculous and freaky as good Who-villains ought to be; and while the plot was obvious enough that I was rolling my eyes at how long it took the Doctor to realize the "saved" thing, I adored how it played out with the little girl, oh-so-terrifically meta with her watching the show play, background music and all (even if she never actually hid behind the sofa). My favorite part was when Doctor Moon was telling her the Library was real, because of all the times I've seen the old "they're back in the real world only it's really in their heads" trope (it's a scifi show staple) I've never seen the psychiatrist be a good guy on the side of the truth - for that matter, how often do we see benevolent AIs? And it's nice when everybody lives (even if in this case it's a somewhat disturbing half-life.) (Also, is the Library ever going to be reclaimed? Will the bugs die out with no food? One would think it does reopen and becomes a long-lived institution, considering the Doctor had heard of it...?)
But then there were the parts I didn't care for as much, and the trouble is that they seem to be trends in Moffat's writing (of Who, anyway; I haven't seen Coupling or any of his other stuff.) They wouldn't have bothered me as much except that they keep coming up in every ep of Who he's done, and that leaves me a little concerned about when he takes over the show entire.
The biggest one for me is something that almost no one else minds; it's a personal sensitivity. That being said - I don't like the romance. I like the Doctor as a mostly asexual character, and I like the show better when it's just ignoring the issue. I liked Rose because the show was so unspecific about what exactly her relationship with the Doctor was, what the nature of the love between them was. Moffat doesn't make the romance entirely explicit, but he emphasizes it more than pretty much any other writer of the show - from the Rose/Doctor/Jack triangle/tension in "Empty Child/The Doctor Dances", to the Doctor/Reinette in "Girl in the Fireplace", and now Doctor/River Song. In "Blink" the Doctor isn't romantically involved, but Sally Sparrow doesn't interact with him much; she spends more time with the hot detective who tries to pick her up before getting touched by an angel in a most unpleasant fashion, and then the brother who she ends up hooking up with.
Moffat admits it himself in the DW Confidential for "Girl in the Fireplace": "I'd have a hard time denying that I've always liked writing about a sort of romantic tension, the effect of desire on peoples' lives. To my own surprise it works rather beautifully in Doctor Who."
I know I'm not the norm when it comes to my distaste for romance (it's not just in Who; I would much prefer that SGA stayed pairing-free, and for that matter one of the reasons I love One Piece is because the only romantic pairings are almost entirely jokes.) I absolutely love relationships, and stories about relationships, but I especially love stories about other kinds of relationships - family, friendship, etc. And I love Who for its emphasis on friendship. I don't want to lose that in favor of an explicitly romantic Doctor/Companion pairing. But Moffat doesn't seem much for writing non-romantic relationships; at least in the Who eps he's written, the romantic pairings are the strongest, most significant interactions of the stories (that, and adult-child interactions.)(In the same Confidential mentioned above, Moffat goes on to talk about how Who is all action, that romantic tension "allows for a scene to have a different texture"...which is true, but you can have quiet relationship scenes without romantic tension, too. Even if not much scifi acknowledges this.)
My concerns are compounded when I look at Moffat's female characters. Because I like a lot of the female chars of Who, it's one reason I enjoy the show, but Moffat's are some of my least favorite. To begin with, he only writes one major female character. Reinette, Sally Sparrow, and River Song are the same character - their life circumstances are notably different, but they're all pretty blondes, spunky and smart, bright enough to impress/captivate the Doctor but not so brilliant that they can surpass his genius. Their only flaw is that they're impetuous and perhaps a bit too fearless, but luckily they've got the Doctor to save them since they're not quite clever enough to save themselves. The only time they outthink the Doctor is in order to help him, be it by moving a fireplace or sacrificing their life instead.
To a certain extent these are the traits of all the Companions, and most of the Doctor's acquaintances; he's the hero and has to be the one to save the day. But Moffat's characters don't have much else in the way of personality, save that brought to the role by their actors. They're all appropriate enough characters for the roles they fill in the various stories, but when examined overall one wonders if Moffat can write any other sort of heroine. And they're very Mary Sue, River Song the most obviously so (she's so Mary Sue that I'm trying to figure out if she's meant to be a meta character, a satire of some sort; she's the beautiful scientist/future companion who somehow manages to become closer to the Doctor than anyone else ever, since she got to know his real name. Of course she could actually be another Reinette - the Doctor could take a week his time to bounce around her lifeline and make their history together. And since he knows she knows his name, he has to tell her it to maintain the timeline, so maybe it's not as big a deal as it actually seems; their relationship might be all an accident of converging timelines...)
(As RTD's polar opposite, Moffat's better at plot than characters - the idea of River Song is classic timetravel scifi, his first meeting being her last. It's nifty from that perspective, but from the perspective of a fan of the Doctor and all his complicated relationships, it's irritating to have this random woman appear who mysteriously trumps all of the Doctor's previous Companions. I kind of think Moffat wants to be writing for a show like The Twilight Zone, an anthology show where he can make up new archetypal chars with every ep. Also, does anyone else think that River Song would've worked better as a rather older woman? Say, over 60 or 70, white-haired but still spry and brilliant, with a whole long life lived with and without the Doctor. Okay, by Hollywood standards she was already ancient for a woman - over 40! - but not nearly old and wise enough to be calling the Doctor young without it coming across as obnoxious. As it was, she just didn't seem so uniquely awesome that she could get further with the Doctor than anyone.)
Moffat's other problem is related to his seeming need for romance, and why I get so uneasy about the way he writes it: he seems to have a hard time conceiving of female characters existing without being involved with a man and/or having children - or indeed having much function beyond these roles. The girl of "The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances" is a young mother and haunted by it, while Rose is torn between Jack and the Doctor in the same ep. Reinette's marriage is a matter of historical record even if her infatuation with the Doctor was not. Sally Sparrow as mentioned has two potential romances, and when her friend is sent back in time at the beginning of the ep, the first person she meets is the man she later marries. River Song is possibly married to the Doctor (it's heavily implied if not stated outright) and the CG Miss Evangelista wears black, veils her distorted face and calls herself "unloved."
Donna Noble spent a year searching for the Doctor because she wanted to travel the universe, but when Moffat writes her, Donna is satisfied to marry her perfect man and have a couple of kids, and clings desperately to this illusion even when she knows it's not real, making no effort to find the Doctor or break out of it herself. And River Song, a professor with the sparkling brilliance to somehow captivate the Doctor, is restored to life in a database of every book ever written in human history - but the only thing we get to see her do in this amazing virtual reality is contentedly play mother to a little girl. Apparently for all eternity, since CAL's never going to grow up. I don't have a problem with the drama of motherhood, it's a powerful theme to explore (and I will argue for the right of a woman to choose motherhood over career as strongly as I'll argue for the opposite) - but when two female chars are reduced to that drama at the expense of their other traits and interests, it does give me pause.
Likewise, there's nothing actually wrong with stories about romance, even if they're not my cuppa. Even in the context of Doctor Who, it can be an interesting change of pace. And maybe Moffat's only writing stories about it now because no one else is. I just worry that since that's the only type of relationships he's really written in Who, that those are the only relationships he wants to write, and when he's at the helm the close friendships/ambiguous relationships between the Doctor, Companions and others will take a backseat to more blatant UST and passing fancy.
Everyone on my flist has been thrilled about the news that Steven Moffat will be taking the reins of the DW franchise in a couple years; it seems like all the Whos in Whoville like Moffat unreservedly, which makes me...the Grinch? It's not that I dislike him, or that I'm disappointed he's going to be in charge. But I do have reservations, and the most recent eps didn't put them to rest.
Don't get me wrong, I totally understand why people are excited. Moffat's a brilliant writer, one of the best on the series. He writes effortlessly cool scifi and the creepiest monsters in the show bar none, and his scripts are snappy and tight. He's really better-suited to Who than Russell T. Davies (I will buck general fandom opinion again to state that I find RTD brilliant in his own right; he's written my favorite eps of the series and he's got a great gift for characterization and dialogue. He's pretty weak with plot, though, which is a major flaw in this sort of scifi writing, and I'd like to see him return to more character-focused drama like Queer as Folk. Or else he can come write for SGA, since plot is hardly their selling point anyway!) And it will be interesting to see Moffat guiding an entire season, because I get the impression he doesn't care for the current direction much - his eps tend to be somewhat outside the continuity; he writes the chars the way he wants them to be, in order to tell the stories he wants to tell. (See "Girl in the Fireplace", with Rose doing a 180 from the ep before, not getting jealous and being fine with having Mickey along in the TARDIS.)
And there were a lot of things I loved about Moffat's most recent Who eps, "Silence in the Library"/"Forest of the Dead." The Library was beyond awesome and a dream come true for so many of us geeks (a continent of fiction! A coast of science fiction! Several cities of fanfic, one imagines!); the Vashta Nerada (sp?) and stuck-record psychic-imprint-zombies were both ridiculous and freaky as good Who-villains ought to be; and while the plot was obvious enough that I was rolling my eyes at how long it took the Doctor to realize the "saved" thing, I adored how it played out with the little girl, oh-so-terrifically meta with her watching the show play, background music and all (even if she never actually hid behind the sofa). My favorite part was when Doctor Moon was telling her the Library was real, because of all the times I've seen the old "they're back in the real world only it's really in their heads" trope (it's a scifi show staple) I've never seen the psychiatrist be a good guy on the side of the truth - for that matter, how often do we see benevolent AIs? And it's nice when everybody lives (even if in this case it's a somewhat disturbing half-life.) (Also, is the Library ever going to be reclaimed? Will the bugs die out with no food? One would think it does reopen and becomes a long-lived institution, considering the Doctor had heard of it...?)
But then there were the parts I didn't care for as much, and the trouble is that they seem to be trends in Moffat's writing (of Who, anyway; I haven't seen Coupling or any of his other stuff.) They wouldn't have bothered me as much except that they keep coming up in every ep of Who he's done, and that leaves me a little concerned about when he takes over the show entire.
The biggest one for me is something that almost no one else minds; it's a personal sensitivity. That being said - I don't like the romance. I like the Doctor as a mostly asexual character, and I like the show better when it's just ignoring the issue. I liked Rose because the show was so unspecific about what exactly her relationship with the Doctor was, what the nature of the love between them was. Moffat doesn't make the romance entirely explicit, but he emphasizes it more than pretty much any other writer of the show - from the Rose/Doctor/Jack triangle/tension in "Empty Child/The Doctor Dances", to the Doctor/Reinette in "Girl in the Fireplace", and now Doctor/River Song. In "Blink" the Doctor isn't romantically involved, but Sally Sparrow doesn't interact with him much; she spends more time with the hot detective who tries to pick her up before getting touched by an angel in a most unpleasant fashion, and then the brother who she ends up hooking up with.
Moffat admits it himself in the DW Confidential for "Girl in the Fireplace": "I'd have a hard time denying that I've always liked writing about a sort of romantic tension, the effect of desire on peoples' lives. To my own surprise it works rather beautifully in Doctor Who."
I know I'm not the norm when it comes to my distaste for romance (it's not just in Who; I would much prefer that SGA stayed pairing-free, and for that matter one of the reasons I love One Piece is because the only romantic pairings are almost entirely jokes.) I absolutely love relationships, and stories about relationships, but I especially love stories about other kinds of relationships - family, friendship, etc. And I love Who for its emphasis on friendship. I don't want to lose that in favor of an explicitly romantic Doctor/Companion pairing. But Moffat doesn't seem much for writing non-romantic relationships; at least in the Who eps he's written, the romantic pairings are the strongest, most significant interactions of the stories (that, and adult-child interactions.)(In the same Confidential mentioned above, Moffat goes on to talk about how Who is all action, that romantic tension "allows for a scene to have a different texture"...which is true, but you can have quiet relationship scenes without romantic tension, too. Even if not much scifi acknowledges this.)
My concerns are compounded when I look at Moffat's female characters. Because I like a lot of the female chars of Who, it's one reason I enjoy the show, but Moffat's are some of my least favorite. To begin with, he only writes one major female character. Reinette, Sally Sparrow, and River Song are the same character - their life circumstances are notably different, but they're all pretty blondes, spunky and smart, bright enough to impress/captivate the Doctor but not so brilliant that they can surpass his genius. Their only flaw is that they're impetuous and perhaps a bit too fearless, but luckily they've got the Doctor to save them since they're not quite clever enough to save themselves. The only time they outthink the Doctor is in order to help him, be it by moving a fireplace or sacrificing their life instead.
To a certain extent these are the traits of all the Companions, and most of the Doctor's acquaintances; he's the hero and has to be the one to save the day. But Moffat's characters don't have much else in the way of personality, save that brought to the role by their actors. They're all appropriate enough characters for the roles they fill in the various stories, but when examined overall one wonders if Moffat can write any other sort of heroine. And they're very Mary Sue, River Song the most obviously so (she's so Mary Sue that I'm trying to figure out if she's meant to be a meta character, a satire of some sort; she's the beautiful scientist/future companion who somehow manages to become closer to the Doctor than anyone else ever, since she got to know his real name. Of course she could actually be another Reinette - the Doctor could take a week his time to bounce around her lifeline and make their history together. And since he knows she knows his name, he has to tell her it to maintain the timeline, so maybe it's not as big a deal as it actually seems; their relationship might be all an accident of converging timelines...)
(As RTD's polar opposite, Moffat's better at plot than characters - the idea of River Song is classic timetravel scifi, his first meeting being her last. It's nifty from that perspective, but from the perspective of a fan of the Doctor and all his complicated relationships, it's irritating to have this random woman appear who mysteriously trumps all of the Doctor's previous Companions. I kind of think Moffat wants to be writing for a show like The Twilight Zone, an anthology show where he can make up new archetypal chars with every ep. Also, does anyone else think that River Song would've worked better as a rather older woman? Say, over 60 or 70, white-haired but still spry and brilliant, with a whole long life lived with and without the Doctor. Okay, by Hollywood standards she was already ancient for a woman - over 40! - but not nearly old and wise enough to be calling the Doctor young without it coming across as obnoxious. As it was, she just didn't seem so uniquely awesome that she could get further with the Doctor than anyone.)
Moffat's other problem is related to his seeming need for romance, and why I get so uneasy about the way he writes it: he seems to have a hard time conceiving of female characters existing without being involved with a man and/or having children - or indeed having much function beyond these roles. The girl of "The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances" is a young mother and haunted by it, while Rose is torn between Jack and the Doctor in the same ep. Reinette's marriage is a matter of historical record even if her infatuation with the Doctor was not. Sally Sparrow as mentioned has two potential romances, and when her friend is sent back in time at the beginning of the ep, the first person she meets is the man she later marries. River Song is possibly married to the Doctor (it's heavily implied if not stated outright) and the CG Miss Evangelista wears black, veils her distorted face and calls herself "unloved."
Donna Noble spent a year searching for the Doctor because she wanted to travel the universe, but when Moffat writes her, Donna is satisfied to marry her perfect man and have a couple of kids, and clings desperately to this illusion even when she knows it's not real, making no effort to find the Doctor or break out of it herself. And River Song, a professor with the sparkling brilliance to somehow captivate the Doctor, is restored to life in a database of every book ever written in human history - but the only thing we get to see her do in this amazing virtual reality is contentedly play mother to a little girl. Apparently for all eternity, since CAL's never going to grow up. I don't have a problem with the drama of motherhood, it's a powerful theme to explore (and I will argue for the right of a woman to choose motherhood over career as strongly as I'll argue for the opposite) - but when two female chars are reduced to that drama at the expense of their other traits and interests, it does give me pause.
Likewise, there's nothing actually wrong with stories about romance, even if they're not my cuppa. Even in the context of Doctor Who, it can be an interesting change of pace. And maybe Moffat's only writing stories about it now because no one else is. I just worry that since that's the only type of relationships he's really written in Who, that those are the only relationships he wants to write, and when he's at the helm the close friendships/ambiguous relationships between the Doctor, Companions and others will take a backseat to more blatant UST and passing fancy.
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no subject
Date: 2008-06-10 09:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-10 12:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-10 11:36 am (UTC)That said, one point I do rather agree with is: I like the Doctor as a mostly asexual character.
I don't mind the occasional hints of shippyness but it does make me rather uncomfortable - partly for fear of having the show pursue that idea too much and go too far down that road? It's probably partly envy (I can't have the Doctor so I don't want any other woman to have him! *lol*) and partly the feeling that to have him too involved in a relationship would somehow remove some of his mystique. It's so... pedestrian. The Doctor is bigger than relationships, he is ancient and complex and fascinating. Also - he's ansgty. And I love that about him. I love my Doctor angsty and if you put him in relationships (other than doomed/tragic ones that add to his angst - perhaps the saving grace of the ships the show has portrayed, and therefore why I can tolerate them?) he's going to lose that angst. But I do somehow see him as asexual, as above all that nonsense and not even particularly interested in it. In fact, I find it hard to even envision the idea of the Doctor having sex. I find it hard to envision him naked (yet I have no trouble with this with crushes in other fandoms!); the Doctor in his suit seems to me to be a specific entity - take away the suit or the clothes and somehow he's not as Doctorish anymore! I think it's because I love the mystery and the drama of the Doctor so much - to involve him too much in relationships removes some of that fascinating enigma.
Anyhoo. Load of old waffle there but I would end by saying not to give up hope - in general, as you say, there is much to love about Moffat's scripts and helming the show is going to be a bit different than writing 1-2 scripts per season. I have high hopes - lets just see how it all works out. :D
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Date: 2008-06-10 12:55 pm (UTC)Either way, I totally agree about the Doctor's asexuality - that it maybe humanizes him too much, that he should largely be above that. I love the way the Doctor falls in love with people in a *non*-romantic way, that he cares so deeply and freely however it hurts him; it cheapens it somehow if he's always just getting crushes on random people. (I also admit a personal bias; there are pretty much no asexual characters on TV at all, so those few who can be seen as such I tend to want to keep that way. I tend to like a fairly asexual reading of John Sheppard, too, but it's a lot easier to picture him sexually involved with someone than it is to picture the Doctor...!)
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Date: 2008-07-08 05:56 pm (UTC)It's the same with Atlantis. Yes, sex is great and all, but most of the time it pales compared to the AWESOME and the FUN of the friendship between the team and if that's sacrificed for the sake or 'romance' then it's not very good romance. Shipping is good as long as it's either fun or it makes you cry, it's not worth it otherwise. I know that I have absolutely no right to criticize seeing as I don't write, but it really sucks when your favourite characters are dating, but they're not very good friends anymore.
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Date: 2008-06-10 12:37 pm (UTC)With Moffat, I agree with your views on the romance angle. I like some UST there, but I want the Doctor ignoring it, or being uncomfortable with acknowledging it, but on the part of the companions (Jack excluded here) I want it there as a BIT of an edge, and not driving everything. I tune in to see time travel and aliens and the cast defeating the bad guy, not to see a Companion drooling over the Doctor, or the Doctor mourning his lost love. We don't need romance to humanise the Doctor; even though he's lived around them for a good long time, he is an alien, he was raised with alien POVs and morals, and let's see some more of that. This man supposedly killed all of his people just to commit genocide on another race. It makes me a little uncomfortable to have the Doctor portrayed as doing that, but at least it shows how very different he is. Oncoming Storm, remember? Not Summer Breeze.
So, anyway. We'll see how it goes. I hope they don't lose the deep sense of fun and fanboy glee that RTD brings to the show.
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Date: 2008-06-10 01:01 pm (UTC)Yes, I don't mind the Companions having UST for the Doctor - it's almost inevitable, really, I can't blame them, but I don't want it to dominate their stories, and I don't really want the Doctor returning it. It's not why I'm watching, exactly! And I like my Doctor being alien, for all his immense feeling and caring and love (though as far as the Daleks go, it's not clear if he actually killed the Time Lords himself, or just feels responsible for it; the circumstances of Time War are rather confused?)
And yes, the fanning that underpins the show is what makes it live and gives it such heart, for all its wild popularity - I desperately hope they don't lose that! Moffat's been writing for Who for ages (I believe he was doing slits & stuff way before the new one started up?) so hopefully he'll still bring that fan-love, at the very least...
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Date: 2008-06-10 04:12 pm (UTC)I'm rather new to Doctor Who (
As for the most recent episodes: I'm a lot less ecstatic about Forest of the Dead than I was about Silence in the Library.
For one, it was the old Star Trek cliffhanger syndrome all over again: Spending one episode to maneuver the characters into a life threatening situation. (This is usually quite good.) Then taking one episode to somehow haul them back out of there (which - worst case scenario - is far fetched, or looks forced, or possibly both). That was kind of what happened here.
My second issue coincides with one of yours: I don't really know what to make of River Song. I was hoping for some more background on her and the doctor in FOTD, but no such luck. I can't really see the Doctor married, even though I'm not adverse to a little romance (and I do mean *a little*). River Song was probably intended to be mysterious in a 'I can't wait to see how he really meets her' kind of way, but that didn't work out for me.
I guess we'll have to wait and see whether 'good with plot' and 'hopelessly romantic' will balance each other out in the future...
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Date: 2008-06-10 05:27 pm (UTC)Cliffhanger syndrome is a problem with most shows that do two-parters; it's hard to match the energy of plunging to catastrophe with rising out of it! But this one didn't satisfy me, no. And River Song, I'm trying to figure out if we're meant to look forward to her, expect to see her again; or if she's really just a blip, an interesting incident that doesn't bear repeating...
Either way, crossing fingers that what I fear won't come to pass when Moffat takes the helm!
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Date: 2008-06-10 05:08 pm (UTC)And bringing in a wife, or someone who he's way closer to than anyone ever, kind of disrespects everyone that has gone before. What makes Song any different than Sarah Jane or Rose?
I'm hoping that any follow-up to the story shows that it isn't what it looks like. I had my reservations about the Doctor's Daughter ep from the previews, but it turned out pretty good in the end.
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Date: 2008-06-10 05:32 pm (UTC)Though yes, it might turn out to be different than what it appears, I rather hope so. As you say, the Doctor's Daughter was better than I was expecting, so this could be too (actually, I spent a bit of time hoping River Song was his daughter, as I'm hoping she'll come back, I liked her!)
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Date: 2008-06-10 07:30 pm (UTC)I think i like the balance he's struck so far but don't want it going any further, probably because I don't want romantic relationships overtaking the emotional archs of the series. I like variety and it's fun having an action/horror/adventure show with a man and woman working together to save the day without throwing in sex.
Having said that I totally shipped Rose/Doctor and the Doctor/Jack...but I think it worked for me because they had more going on together than just sex. (hope that makes sense)
I'm also very wary of the show turning into Smallville....
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Date: 2008-06-12 01:59 pm (UTC)And yes, I can see shipping the Doctor on occasion while not wanting to see it all the time. I sort of, hmm, platonically shipped Rose/Doctor? As in, I thought they had a very intense, special relationship, and was happy that the show never categorized it, nor made its exact nature clear. So you could see it as romantic/sexual or something else...
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Date: 2008-06-10 10:50 pm (UTC)And Re: the marriage thing, you know that Moffat is on record with some quote about him being convinced that all women are solely obsessed with is marriage? It's not just that he writes characters this way; that's honestly how he thinks all women are. And, yeah... :\
Give me back my deeply-romantic-but-asexual Doctor/Rose any day.
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Date: 2008-06-12 02:01 pm (UTC)Do you know the source of the Moffat quote re: women & marriage? Because I thought I'd heard someone say something of the sort before, but I couldn't find the quote itself, and that's the kind of thing that could be taken out of context. If it's at face value...er, yes. That would make my trepidation all the more...trepidy?
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Date: 2008-06-12 09:58 pm (UTC)That kind of... yeah. Kills it before its even started, for me. :\
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Date: 2008-06-13 08:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-13 09:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-11 11:04 am (UTC)The fact that she was played by someone much younger may not have been Moffats fault. Producers and Exexs often stick their big, stupid noses in and screw stuff like this up.
But on the whole, you are right, there didn't seem to be anything so amazing about her that she should outshine Rose, or even Donna (who is grudgingly becoming a firm favourite of mine)
I like a bit of romance, I prefer it to the random, quickly forgotten, hook ups SGA favours...and I do love a bit of pining:)... but I would hate to see Who turn into a Sci-Fi Mills and Boon just bgecause Moffat's got some stuff to sort out with his mum.
But I agree with you, if and when the Doctor falls in love, she has to be...AWE INSPIRING. Not just a good looking bird you might remember from ER.
I think Moffat likes to use names with a kind of mythic quality as a matter of corse, so, while 'River Song' has certain metaphoric and allegoric overtones, I think it's just Moffat's inner whimsy-peddlar. I mean: Sally Sparrow? The guy's a closet lyricist.
You make a lot of good points about his women. I'll be watching that closely in the future (rightly shamed for not clocking it sooner and for it not even vaguely annoying me. Stink!)
no subject
Date: 2008-06-12 02:09 pm (UTC)I love Donna myself, she's my favorite of the new Companions, I think! So much personality <3
(how much SGA have you seen? because they've only really done a couple random hookups - one of the reasons I like the show is that romance/pairings are such a small part of it!)
Moffat's women, well...the thing is, you don't really notice with just one or two eps, because his female chars aren't as annoying as some - it's just that if you look for the pattern, they're so repetitive. I didn't dislike his women before, I just didn't love them, either. And that Moffat seems to need to pair them off...well, that's a pet peeve; I don't like romance but I do like female chars, so I tend to get titchy when female chars are included in a story primarily to create romance. Personal bias ^^;
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Date: 2008-06-12 08:57 pm (UTC)And the whole thing with Larrin last season made me want to smash things. Here is your fav show's hero: John Sheppard, Lecherous Old Groper. It was horrible. Why would anyone think looking down her top would be ok? It really put me off Flanigan as an actor. It just set a grody tone for their interaction. And I guess it was asked for by the script because he had to beg for her interstellar phone number afterwards. Christ on a bike. Terrible.
But I guess that whole, rediculous, Ronon/Keller/Rodney triangle...wtf? Why? What is the point? Seriously What. Is. The. POINT?
They clearly do not know what they are doing. So they should just not do it.
I'll be interested to see where the Moffat stories go. Especially since the last one suggests the current Doctor stays looking the way he does until he's 'old', which I guess we all know isn't likely however much we may wish it.:)
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Date: 2008-06-12 09:07 pm (UTC)Also, Moffat did leave this bit ambiguous. Obviously it's on the table that it might mean a marriage or bonding type situation ("...There's only one time that I could *tell you my name*...")But it could mean a number of things...
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Date: 2008-06-11 07:36 pm (UTC)It was a good point about Donna being content to sit around and play house, although I'm hoping some of that is excused by the intervention of the program and Doctor Moon, since they kept erasing bits of her memories and making her remember others; everything seemed to be designed to keep the occupants happy and complacent, and since it was a little girl who wanted a family shaping the virtual world, it makes sense that she would have a simple and homey idea of what makes a fulfilling life, and just create that for everyone she "saved."
To the left, if Donna has to leave the show, I'd so much rather she went off and lived with her stuttering dream-guy than had something ominous happen to her, as implied. (She doesn't... replace Rose in the other dimension or something, does she? O_o)
I have no ending for this... so, look! Adorableness!
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Date: 2008-06-11 07:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-12 02:17 pm (UTC)And Donna, yeah, I agree it probably was Doctor Moon messing with her head, but I kind of found it a little belittling to her char, that she didn't even try to break out once she'd heard the truth, that she kept holding onto the illusion like it was what she truly wanted...but I kind of adore Donna so I might be blinded by fangirling here ^^; (then, there's the comment someone made above, that Stephen Moffat was quoted as saying he thinks all women are obsessed with marriage? Now that's what kind of worries me about his writing...)
I would like for Donna to find her dream-guy and live happily ever after though, better than any alternative! Donna could settle off-world or in the future, I think she'd be happy enough there, and unlike Rose and Martha she doesn't really have people who need her back on Earth.
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Date: 2008-06-12 04:15 pm (UTC)Yeah, that bit about Moffat's quote... is really worrisome. If he's at the helm, he won't be writing all the episodes, right? But he'll get to decide on the basic arc of the show, I suppose? Hmm... Bleah, what a fifties thing to think. -_- Not that I haven't heard other men voice that opinion during my lifetime... it just makes me wanna hurt 'em so much...
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Date: 2008-06-13 08:43 am (UTC)The Moffat quote is linked in context above, and yeaaaaaaah...it kinda makes me want to punch him in the face. >_> But yeah, he won't be writing every ep, but probably the finales and such...we'll see?
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Date: 2008-06-13 05:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-13 08:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-23 04:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-23 06:00 pm (UTC)Either way, I'm glad you enjoyed the opinionating! (out of curiosity how did you find this post, anyway? Always happy to have more comments, I enjoy discussion muchly, but I wonder where folks come from...)
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Date: 2008-06-23 11:12 pm (UTC)And mother's are all shrill, manipulative hags who hold you back: Rose, Martha and Donna's mothers all are variation on that theme. It is the same exact character with different skin colors and economic backgrounds but they're all the same woman.
While I appreciate Moffat's romanticism, I don't think that's the be all end all for him. With Moffat, at least on Coupling, the woman were the stronger, more confident, more comfortable in their own skin and smarter characters.
The post was rec'd by
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Date: 2008-06-24 05:25 am (UTC)Huh - that's actually the exact same fear I have of Moffat, especially since in this article he actually says so: "Women are needy. Men can go for longer, more happily, without women. That’s the truth." Which makes me twitch in bad ways. While as RTD, to me, writes female characters who get into relationships, but have other, more important things in their lives - Martha leaving the Doctor for her family and her career; Donna wanting to travel for as long as possible with the Doctor while having no interest in hooking up.
I agree that from the evidence of Who RTD has mother issues - oddly enough, his Queer as Folk has a couple strong and wonderfully supportive mothers. So I'm not sure what the deal with Who is. (Maybe it's the difference between how he sees mother/daughter and mother/son relationships?)
I am curious to see Coupling, to see if I'd notice the same issues, or if in the different medium I would perceive Moffat's characters differently.
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Date: 2008-06-24 01:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-25 05:27 pm (UTC)I don't mind romance at all, but I hate having these "women of the week" shoved in and then gone. If the Doctor's going to have a romantic relationship, I want it to be with a woman who's been developed as a three-dimensional character in her own right, not a cliche written for the sole purpose of romance.
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Date: 2008-06-25 05:58 pm (UTC)(omg, Westley icon! <3)
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Date: 2009-04-27 10:17 am (UTC)Yes, yes, yes to all of the above. Wonderful expression, and a few trends noticed which I hadn't been able to put my finger on previously.
The one piece of evidence I've been using to comfort myself about Moffat (Time Crash: the line about the Master not having a beard, but having a wife) takes on sinister tones in the weight of the evidence put forth here and in the comments. Oh dear.
(Got here via a comment in Bagheera's journal, I think.)
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Date: 2009-06-06 12:10 am (UTC)Paul Cornell taking over would just be happiness - loved everything he's done for the series thus far! ^^