this but even he barely carried the mediocre writing. I was really hoping for something as good the writing in the other David Tenant seasons. It was fun but dissapointing. I guess my expectations where too high.
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Doctor Who Ncuti Gatwa Xmas Special & s1
- Thread starter Morrus
- Start date
Ruin Explorer
Legend
I think the dialogue has been as sharp in the recent episodes as any older RTD Tennant episodes, maybe even sharper.
However the characterisation and plotting have been a more... stylized. I think the issue is that when RTD started on nuWho he was coming off having written several relatively naturalistic shows, where people actually acted like people, and the stories played out like stories people are in, as opposed to people acting like "characters" and the shows being extremely trope-y.
And this impacted a lot of his Who writing, which was initially more naturalistic and less stylized (not that there was none, just less). Over the years he worked on the show, it gradually got more stylized, before becoming more stylized still under Moffat (Chibnall dialled the stylization back, but was such an inferior writer in other ways it could hardly be seen as an improvement, merely a change).
In the intervening period since leaving Who 13 years ago, a lot of RTD's work has been for children, or just extremely stylized and totally implausible because he likes it that way, like the mind-boggling awful (despite some inexplicable positive reviews - or rather highly explicable but not for good reasons) Years and Years, which tried very hard to be "worthy" but my god nothing resembling human behaviour or plausible political developments took place over any of the 6 episodes (which also showed an actual negative grasp on technology/technological development - and indeed some elements of basic human biology, but that's a whole other discussion). By that point he was basically writing tropes and "characters" and nothing else.
(I've not seen It's a Sin and it sounds like that may have been very different, perhaps because it's closer to his heart and dealing with real-world issues - but Who is absolutely back in the "characters not people" territory to judge from recent episodes, and I personally feel that it suffers for it. Not that it's bad - just that it's not as good as it could have been had he written things more naturalistically - which is entirely possible to do even ludicrous situations - hell, he's done it before.)
ProfessorDetective
Explorer
What exactly was wrong with Idiot's Lantern? Beyond Tommy reconciling with his abusive father near immediately, I do agree there.
delericho
Legend
It's totally crazy to have a hidden signal in every TV transmission, that lies undetected until some threshold of access is passed, and then wreaks havoc.
Yeah, could you imagine if the first image every transmitted by television was something alien, like a Weeping Angel, and it just lurked about ever since 1925?It's totally crazy to have a hidden signal in every TV transmission, that lies undetected until some threshold of access is passed, and then wreaks havoc.
Nah, that's a silly idea, who'd write a story like that?
MarkB
Legend
Ridiculous. Next thing you know, they'll be doubling down by having another hidden signal embedded in some famous TV footage that's keeping humanity safe from a hidden alien threat.
What an idea! Come on now! What's next, a chance encounter with Isaac Newton goes horribly wrong, alters the timeline, and now we call mavity something ridiculous like "gravity"?
overgeeked
B/X Known World
Yeah. Doctor Who has the logic of a sloppy children’s cartoon. Next you’re going to have inflatable plastic chairs eating people, evil doppelgängers from alternate dimensions, the Lost City of Atlantis, or dinosaurs in London. I love it so much.
Ruin Explorer
Legend
I think the issue with Who is sometimes that there's a line of stupidity beyond which it isn't as much fun anymore, even for kids. I remember as a kid watching some SF show, which was for kids, and I can't remember exactly what the stupid thing was, but it was so dumb, even at like 8, I was kind of embarrassed to be watching it. This happened a few times, too. And I'm sure there are kids who have felt that with some Who episodes.
I'll say this for Who - sometimes it manages to do something incredibly moronic, which should be embarrassing to watch, but does it with such verve that it doesn't matter. But sometimes... it's just dumb. And you're like "ugh..." . And some are outright offensive, even they swear they didn't mean to be - Kill the Moon for example, is just shameful.
Of course, that Chibnall was allegedly steering away from the total idiocy was part of why people were excited about him, and look how THAT ended up! Boring and dumb! Lose/lose! (And such a waste of good actors!) So I guess if we can at least avoid boring that's something. I do wish that RTD had say, the scientific knowledge of, I dunno, a well-educated and intelligent 10 year old. That'd be something. But we can't wish for the impossible. So we'll have to coast on snappy dialogue and good performances. It could be worse. Chibnall reminds us it could be so much worse.
