Thoughts on Doctor Who: Steven Moffat

NOTE: These are my personal opinions. I am in no way discrediting other people's opinions, in fact, if you do have a different viewpoint, I'd be interested to hear it!

I began watching Doctor Who right before series 6 premiered, marathoning the first 5 seasons on Netflix. Series 6 was the first one that I watched as it aired, so the experience already felt different. I quickly realized it wasn't the way I was watching the show, but the story itself that bothered me. 

The current showrunner of Doctor Who is Steven Moffat. He was a writer on the show under Russell T. Davies, the showrunner who began the reboot. Moffat took over in season 5 and has been running the show ever since. Moffat is an excellent episodic writer. His episodes from the RTD era are some of my favorite Doctor Who episodes ever (I'm pretty sure "Blink" is in most fan's top 5). He can write monsters really well: the Weeping Angels, the Vashta Nerada, and the Silence (as weird as the storyline was, they are freaking creepy) are all some of the scariest monsters the show has ever seen. The problem I have with his writing is that he cannot seem to write a believable season-long storyline that viewers can connect with. RTD had Bad Wolf, Torchwood, Vote Saxon, and the stolen Earth storylines: they were hinted at throughout the season, and then came to fruition in the season finale. Moffat seems to want twists and turns in every episode of a season, which confuses the audience too much (I don't mean to suggest the DW audience is dumb, because even a genius would have a bit of trouble understanding exactly what is happening). For example, take River Song's storyline. When she was introduced in season 4 (in a Moffat-written episode), she had so much potential. A time traveler like the Doctor was bound to meet someone who he didn't know, but knew him. But what Moffat did to her - she can regenerate, she is in jail for killing someone, she's Amy and Rory's daughter, she and the Doctor are married (?!) - was half unbelievable, half incredibly predictable. The moment the Doctor was killed in the season 6 premiere and we were reminded River was in jail for murder, it was extremely obvious who killed the Doctor, the only question left was why. 

And then you have the companions. Don't get me wrong, I love the Ponds more than anything and I am looking forward to seeing Clara interact more with the Doctor. But I don't feel I can relate to them. Now, I haven't seen any Classic Who (although I am planning on starting it over the summer), but purely based off of the RTD era, companions are supposed to be normal people who are made extraordinary by their travels with the Doctor. Amy and Clara do not follow that formula (you could make an argument for Rory, so I'll leave him out for now). At first, it seemed that Amy was just an ordinary girl, but we eventually found out Prisoner Zero being in her house was not a coincidence. She was clearly special before the Doctor ever met her. Clara is a plot point, pure and simple. She exists only as a problem the Doctor wants to figure out. I'm not sure if he would even want her as a companion if she wasn't special. The reason that I have a problem with this is the fact that the companion is supposed to be our entry into the Doctor's world; that is why his companion is almost always a human. Starting as human and becoming something more by traveling with the Doctor is something about which we can fantasize. Amy and Clara began as extraordinary, making them that much less relatable. 

I still love Doctor Who, don't get me wrong. It is one of my favorite shows currently on the air, and I am anticipating the 50th anniversary special with baited breath. From a writing perspective, there are a few things that I would change, but nothing can be perfect, right?

Narrative Conventions in Castle 5x15 "Target"

I had to write this short essay about narrative conventions for a media class that I am taking, and since I chose Castle, I figured it would be a good thing to post on my blog! I am writing this as if the reader had never seen/heard of Castle, so keep that in mind. Enjoy!

"Target", season 5, episode 15 of Castle, was produced in January 2013 at  Raleigh Studios, Los Angeles. The episode was written by Andrew W. Marlowe and was directed by Bill Roe. This episode of Castle deals with the protagonist (Richard Castle) realizing that his daughter Alexis has been kidnapped. These are two characters that the audience has become attached to, so there is an extreme emotional attachment to this story.           

One often-debated narrative convention within television shows is closure. Many television episodes tell a complete story: beginning, middle, and end. For the most part, each episode is a stand-alone story. This convention comes from the creators of the show balancing "trying to address both experienced and new viewers" (Branston and Stafford 58). This particular episode of Castle, however, challenges this idea of a complete story. The goal of the episode is established early: to rescue Alexis from a mysterious kidnapping. However, this episode violates the convention of the stand-alone story. It is the first of a two-part story arc, so the conclusion will not come until the next episode. "Target" goes further into challenging this convention with its use of suspense. Close to the end of the episode, the viewer is lead to believe that Alexis is about to be found, but a last-minute cliffhanger reveals (both to the audience and the protagonist) that she is not even on the same continent as Castle. For those in the audience expecting the story to be concluded within this episode, the "To Be Continued" title card is even more frustrating.

This convention of closure exists very differently within the plot and the story. In this single episode, the plot is incomplete. It requires a second episode to fulfill the resolution of the conflict that has arisen. The way that television is structured, the viewer is required to wait a week until the airing of the next episode in order to see the conclusion. In the story, the break between episodes has no bearing whatsoever on the characters or their emotional development. The characters do not need to wait a week to discover how this conflict will be solved. The story will have a beginning, middle, and end, it will just take more than one plot to tell the story.

The story of a father trying to rescue his daughter from a kidnapping is not a new idea, as it is most prominently seen in the popular film Taken, starring Liam Neeson. In "Target", there is a scene in which Castle is given a chance to talk to an accomplice in the kidnapping. The viewer is not privy to this conversation, but we do hear off-screen yells of pain from what we assume to be the accomplice. This scene, even to viewers who may not have seen Taken but know its cultural pervasiveness, is an echo of Taken. In both stories, the father will do anything to get his daughter back, even resorting to violence.

Castle is usually a model of narrative conventions in cop shows, but the episode "Target" breaks from this model. It utilizes a cliffhanger in order to emphasize the lack of complete conclusion, and echoes images of the popular movie Taken to heighten emotional involvement. Although "Target" does not present a complete story, the plot is affected by the unanticipated ending.