[TV] Doctor Who

[lin_fusan]

I got too distracted by the "changes" to really appreciate the episode. The part that got my brain into the twist was:

Spoiler

When Amy was walking blind through the field of angels. The Doctor says to her that they are too busy running to notice her, and I thought, "But... they aren't moving on the TV screen..."

Then I thought, "Wait a minute... They have a psychic link to her and her eyeball, how could they not know she's around?"

And that's when the ep stopped making any sense to me.

With River Song, her character changed from the doomed romance of the Library eps to menace, and since I was very wedded to the doomed romance, the change felt jarring. (Oh, and for those who read the "New Adventures" novels with the 7th Doctor, does River Song seem more like Bernice Summerfield now with her archeology and mysterious past?)

As for Amy's aggressiveness, I found it both hilarious, and cringe-worthy since we had already gone through with this with Rose and Martha. So that was a wash.

And did anyone else find the Doctor's solution/climax to the episode a little anticlimactic?

I liked the first part, but I'm "eh" on the second part. Moffet's Library two-parter was a much stronger story.

 

[Felon]

As for changes in "canon", does anyone really think there will be only 13 doctors if teh show is still successful? The Master was supposedly out of regenerations when Eric Roberts faced Paul McGann.

The Master's regenerations leave room for canonical explanations. Check out Wikipedia.

But that's not the same kind of canonical inconsistency that we're talking about with the weeping angels. The angels had specific rules for how they worked, and working within those rules were a big part of what made "Blink" such an entertaining episode. Renegging on those rules cuts into suspension of disbelief, and that mental bump in the road substracts from entertainment.

If you're watching a TV show about vampires, and in one episode they're burned by crucifixes and holy water, and then a few episodes later they laugh off that stuff as being made up by the church, that screws up how previous episodes played out. It's a cheat. Whimsical dialogue and colorful characters are great, but unless we're talking about stream-of-consciousness poetry, a writer should use both halves of his brain. In other words, try to be consistent.

That's why I really don't like the sonic screwdriver all that much. It's a magic wand that allows the writers this huge get-out-of-jail-free card because it has no rules.

"Oh dear, the Doctor's trapped, I'm biting my nails, how's he gonna get outta this one? BZZZT. Oh OK, he used the sonic screwdriver to make the problem go away. That'll never get old."

 

[Doug McCrae]

Good insight from Sir Terry, with a solid explanation of why I still love the show and, likely, why some folks don't.

Pratchett's attitude to New Who is very similar to my own - ambivalence. Overall I like the show a lot - it's Dr Who only with high production values and a fast pace - you can't not like it. There have been some wonderful big, modern ideas such as daleks fighting for Churchill. But some aspects - the handwavium, the doctor-as-god, the smugness (both on the part of the writers and the Doctor himself) - I rather strongly dislike.

 

[Doug McCrae]

That's why I really don't like the sonic screwdriver all that much. It's a magic wand that allows the writers this huge get-out-of-jail-free card because it has no rules.

Yeah, as Pratchett says there are, or ought to be, rules to these things. RTD was particularly bad for this but it's still present even now he's gone. Dr Who has never been, and should never be, hard SF. It shouldn't follow the rules of physics. But it should follow some rules. Solutions should be foreshadowed. Or at least make some kind of conceptual sense. The writing has got so very lazy in terms of making up whatever is needed to solve a problem on the spot.

 

[Fast Learner]

It's like we read completely different articles. I don't see anywhere that Pratchett indicates that he thinks there should be rules for these things. He says there aren't rules, and the sheer fun of the show allows him to ignore the lack of rules, but no indication that there ought to be some.

 

[Morrus]

As for changes in "canon", does anyone really think there will be only 13 doctors if teh show is still successful?

Nope. Nobody on the planet thinks that.

The BBC will not drop it's flagship drama worth millions and millions of pounds because of a bit of technobabble 30 years ago. One line of technobabble and the problem is fixed. I doubt anyone at the BBC even sees it as a problem. "I used to have 13 regenerations, but the Time War changed all that" [or any of a thousand other possible lines]. Fixed in under 3 seconds; say line, move on, never mention it again.

 

[Morrus]

But that's not the same kind of canonical inconsistency that we're talking about with the weeping angels. The angels had specific rules for how they worked, and working within those rules were a big part of what made "Blink" such an entertaining episode. Renegging on those rules cuts into suspension of disbelief, and that mental bump in the road substracts from entertainment.

I'm not really all that bothered by it. There were two "inconsitencies" that folks seem to cite:

1) Neck snapping. Explained by "they need the bodies for something", which turned out to be to talk to the survivors to lure them in.

2) The vision thing. Explained originally by the statues having no eyes due to decay, which is a fine explanation. Latter explanation, I agree, was a bit weak ("they're focussed on running away from the anti-time wave, and so will instinctively act as though they can be seen if they believe they can be") - not a strong explanation: basically they're so used to unwillingly freezing when seen that they actually act like that anyway if they're distracted by something else. But I can let it go.

 

[Morrus]

That's why I really don't like the sonic screwdriver all that much. It's a magic wand that allows the writers this huge get-out-of-jail-free card because it has no rules.

"Oh dear, the Doctor's trapped, I'm biting my nails, how's he gonna get outta this one? BZZZT. Oh OK, he used the sonic screwdriver to make the problem go away. That'll never get old."

That's an interesting viewpoint; I'd never noticed that. He does use it as a shortcut in action and narrative sequences, but I don't recall it used as any kind of climactic solution or as a deus ex machina. As far as I can recall, he uses it where it doesn't really matter, and they want him to use a Doctorish way of doing something (e.g. unlocking a door - he could pick the lock, but he uses his sonic screwdriver; accessing a computer - they could show him tapping away at a keyboard or twisting wires, but he uses his sonic screwdriver).

Just seems to be a stylistic choice to me - a choice to have him use it rather than show him doing something else, but never where he couldn't do the other thing.

 

[lin_fusan]

The sonic screwdriver MacGuffin reminds me of how the TARDIS should/shouldn't be used:

My girlfriend and I were watching "Seeds of Death" on netflix streaming the other day. (It is based on old VHS/magnetic tape copies, so it has all the flaws of age; occasional skips, scratches, and background hiss...)

There was a line where Jamie asks the Doctor, "Why can't we take these people to the moon in the TARDIS?"

Zoe answers, "Because we'd be bound to miss the moon by a million years."

And the Doctor says, "Or by a million miles."

I remember this to be an elegant solution to the question of why the Doctor can't use the TARDIS as a "get out of jail free card". In this new series, however, there has to be plotty reasons why that can't happen, ie. the Doctor is cut off from his TARDIS, such as in "The Impossible Planet" and "The Satan Pit".

New viewers always ask me why the Doctor doesn't zip back in time or space to fix whatever problem happens to be in front of him. They generally don't buy the "cross my own timeline" explanation ('cause they do it in "Father's Day" and "Smith and Jones") or the "timey-whimy" explanation (because that's pretty much handwavium).

I sometimes wish that this new Doctor didn't have the sonic screwdriver. In that Children in Need mini with Peter Davidson, I thought Moffat was going to make a statement about how it was a too strong of a MacGuffin.

But I keep expectantly wait for the next episode to air.

 

[Felon]

That's an interesting viewpoint; I'd never noticed that. He does use it as a shortcut in action and narrative sequences, but I don't recall it used as any kind of climactic solution or as a deus ex machina. As far as I can recall, he uses it where it doesn't really matter, and they want him to use a Doctorish way of doing something (e.g. unlocking a door - he could pick the lock, but he uses his sonic screwdriver; accessing a computer - they could show him tapping away at a keyboard or twisting wires, but he uses his sonic screwdriver).

See, the fact that the screwdriver's effect is expedient is what makes it matter. For instance, if a monster's chasing the Doctor, there's suspense. It's breathing down his neck. He doesn't have time to pick a lock. BZZZT! Open door. BZZZT! Seal door. Monster escaped.

If someone's captured, restrained, and in some kind of peril, there's tension. Only moments to act. How can the Doctor possibly rescue them with the bad guy right there? BZZZT! Restraints gone. Victim saved. Turn attention to foe. He can even due this to non-mechanical stuff like webbing.

For these very reasons, the sonic screwdriver was actually removed from the series during Peter Davison's run, pretty early on.

P.S. I keep thinking Bill Murray whenever I see that picture you're using.