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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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...