So, who wants to talk about new Doctor Who (spoilers likely)

[sabrinathecat]

And concentrates on the shriveled up troll they've seen on TV, and the story told to them by Martha, and The Doctor has had a full year to tap into the planet's emotional field. And yeah, it still is kinda naf. On the other hand, it was followed shortly after by the death of the Master (we actually get to see it this time, instead of all the accidents he has between appearances), and the best piece of music the show has ever produced as the background of a a childhood reminiscence of Gallifrey.

 

[lin_fusan]

"Rip-off clone of Bernice Summerfield"? Really? Have you ever actually seen/read/listened to them? That's just ridiculous. They're both profs at some point and that's about it.

Well, to be fair, Gatiss, Moffatt, and Cornell, who have written for the novelizations, did create/develop Bernice Summerfield, so I can see bits of those ideas in River Song.

As for rip-off, can you rip-off yourself? I'm guessing that they liked the idea of the character enough that they wanted to bring something of her onto the small screen.

Is 3rd season's "Human Nature/Family of Blood" a rip-off? Paul Cornell wrote those two episodes and the plot's lifted from the Doctor Who novel "Human Nature" also written by Paul Cornell.

 

[Fast Learner]

There were so many terrible RTD episodes that I often had to push myself through to continuing with the show. While there have been plenty of things that were nonsensical in Moffat eps, none of them have felt out-and-out bad to me.

 

[Herschel]

I can count the nuWho episodes I didn't care for on one hand: The Idiots Lantern (Mark Gatiss), Fear Her (Matthew Graham), The Lazarus Experiment (Stephen Greenhorn), Last of the Time Lords (RTD) and Midnight (RTD). That's only two of teh RTD-written episodes.

The Slitheen were there to appeal to 12-year-old boys who love fart jokes. Not my favorites, but my eight-year-old nephew absolutely loved them and gave me a new appreciation of them.

 

[Mercutio01]

Even as silly as some of those RTD episodes might have been, I still actively looked forward to new episodes. I just don't feel that kind of enthusiasm at all this season. I'm hoping that most of that malaise is because I'm just extremely tired of the Ponds and Matt Smith's interaction with them, but I'd be lying if I said I really believed that. I might just need to give new episodes a pass for awhile and come back to them later.

 

[sabrinathecat]

Yes, you can rip yourself off. Though in this case, the rip-off is more at the audience's expense.
The problem with River vs Bernice is the same one I have with most of the stories and story elements that NuWho has borrowed from Big Finish: They are inferior copies.

I was able to forgive the worst of the JNT era's atrocities (like Greatest Show in the Galaxy). Series 5 and 6, however... I did rewatch 5, just to see if it was my attitude that was at fault. The exercise only confirmed my opinion. I could not bring myself to rewatch 6. Aside from the first 2 episodes of 5, nothing in the Moffat era is worth a second look.

 

[lin_fusan]

Then "Blink" was a rip-off too. It was based on a short story by Moffatt in Doctor Who magazine about a girl named Sally Sparrow who found a videotape from her in the future to her in the present (had no Weeping Angels though. It was definitely a kid's piece).

 

[sabrinathecat]

I don't mind a ripoff that improves on previous material. It is when the ripoff goes downhill (virtually everything copied from Big Finish, Douglas Adams later work when he was repurposing Doctor Who for HHGTTG and Dirk Gentley's) that I find a problem, and generally insulting to the audience. If you are going to quote from anything (even your own work), you should be making something better than the original.

 

[Morrus]

I don't mind a ripoff that improves on previous material. It is when the ripoff goes downhill (virtually everything copied from Big Finish, Douglas Adams later work when he was repurposing Doctor Who for HHGTTG and Dirk Gentley's) that I find a problem, and generally insulting to the audience. If you are going to quote from anything (even your own work), you should be making something better than the original.

Some of us do not feel that the later works were in any way worse. You're in danger of mistaking your personal taste for universal fact.

 

[sabrinathecat]

No, that's my standard procedure.
Whether it is a mistake or not is purely subjective.
I find the biggest drawback is that often the other people do not have the frame of reference to know what I'm talking about.