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?
No comments:
Post a Comment