Looking Back on Series 8: A Personal Reaction

21 November 2014 in SIDRAT, 95 comments

by

Apologies for the lack of illustration with this piece. I did keep holding off in the hope that I’d have a piece of art to go along with it finished, but there’s only so many hours in the day (I sooo need a TARDIS).  Hopefully it’ll be the jumping off point for a few general reactions on Series 8 in in its entirety. And also thanks in advance if you manage to make it to the end of this. It’s appreciated.

Rather than focus on Death in Heaven in isolation, I’m going to take a brief whistle-stop tour to look at how we arrived there via the rest of the series. This was originally going to be a post on the Death in Heaven thread but it grew so outrageously that a separate blogpost seemed to be the way to go. And apologies for the length.

First of all, some general thoughts on Twelve (or Thirteen or even 1.2) although I guess he seems to be officially called the 12th Doc. Overall, I’ve really liked Capaldi’s Doc, though I have to admit that I’ve also been slightly surprised by some of his choices. I had expected someone a bit more mysterious, a bit more in control, perhaps in the style of the 7th, and I’ve been surprised at how error-prone he is sometimes. But at the same time, I’ve grown to like that and the surprising whimsicality he’s sometimes shown. I’ve also been slightly surprised at just how of a ‘Malcolm Tucker in space’ edge he’s had to him at times, although I suspect this might be a case of writers being unable to resist the temptation to give Capaldi those sort of lines, knowing just how good he is at delivering them.

There’s also a surprising vulnerability in there too, which is an interesting choice to make in an actor of his age, with its suggestion almost of a slightly ailing parent perhaps. As I’ve said on t’other place, I wonder now if the Afterlife/Missy arc was a whole big misdirection (and one which looks like it’s going to get its payoff a lot further down the line, rather like Trenzalore) and that the true arc of this series was a 12-episode regeneration crisis. It’s been done very subtly, very carefully — largely because we’ve already seen the damage it can do if it’s done badly a la Colin Baker but the arc of this series is the Doctor asking ‘why this face?’ (who am I, basically), followed by “am I a good man?’. Death in Heaven was primarily about answering those questions, about the Doctor reconnecting with who he was. It was a very brave move, relied on JLC to effectively carry many of the episodes and was absolutely brilliant.

Does that mean we’ll see a slightly different, slightly more confident Doctor next year. I don’t know. I wouldn’t want Capaldi’s Doctor to change too much. But I think we probably should see a Doctor who’s a little more front and centre, a little more at the heart of the stories, especially as Jenna seems to be on the verge of moving on.

Which leads to the question what kind of companion would work for Capaldi. I think he and Jenna have been great and had a chemistry that I just don’t think she had with Matt. It’s possible that Capaldi’s Doc would work with a ‘companion of the week’ format that didn’t really work for Tennant in his final ‘year’ but it might be appropriate for 12. I know many were looking forward to Osgood possibly becoming a companion but I think she was too smart already, too much of a fangirl, even. I’m not sure if she would have worked long-term. Actually, I think River Song would work as FT companion with Capaldi as she wouldn’t overpower him in a way that I think she would with Matt. But I suspect that would be considered ageing the TARDIS demographic slightly. Personally, I’d be quite happy to see Jenna carry for another series.

Which brings me onto DEEP BREATH. It’s no Eleventh Hour, that’s for sure, but I think it’s slightly better than The Christmas Invasion, if for no other reason than having a regeneration story within a Christmas special is just a bit too much of an overloaded mixture, I suspect. Although I suppose it did allow Tennant to hit the ground running in his first series proper. It was great to see The Paternoster Gang fleshed out and established on their home turf — making me want to see a spin-off even more, or at least see them more often — but the key scene for me was the Doctor and Clara in the restaurant. Capaldi and Coleman had a great dynamic, somewhere between bickering married couple, slightly resentful exes and perhaps even brother and sister. It’s a shame we didn’t see a bit more of this comic ambivalence throughout the series, although I don’t think we’ve ever seen a Doctor/companion relationship that has been quite so troubled.

INTO THE DALEK had lots of great ideas and some cracking visuals but just didn’t really spark in the end, I think. I like the idea of bringing shades of grey into the Dalek world but I think after Asylum of the Daleks, which I really liked, this fell a bit flat. I do hope that the creation of Rusty is going to have repercussions for the future.

ROBOT OF SHERWOOD — I know many hated this and I didn’t love it but I didn’t despise it either. The golden arrow denouement was the first indication that this series was going to take some interesting, and risky, narrative decisions. At the end of the day, it still was miles better than The King’s Demons, which it kinda reminded me of.

LISTEN was another tonal shift and a great story too, one of the series highpoints for me. Capaldi showed a few more hints of what kind of Doctor he was going to be — a bit professorial, with his oratory ‘question’ ‘conjecture’ style, but also nicely clueless too and also much better at relating to kids than he’d like to pretend. Much more Hartnellian than you’d expect any Doctor to be in this day and age.

TIME HEIST is kind of Doctor Who tries to do the Ariel episode of Firefly and for me it doesn’t really work. Quite fun and all that but it just didn’t feel like a Capaldi story. In the same way that Vampires in Venice felt like a Tennant story that just happened to have Smith in it, this felt like a Smith story that just happened to have Capaldi. Especially in the final scene in the vault in which all I could hear was Smith lines coming through Capaldi’s mouth. It just felt as if it should have had Smith, Amy, Rory and River in it.

I kind of liked THE CARETAKER. It’s the closest Who has ever sailed to doing an out-and-out Buffy episode, I think. With Coal Hill standing in for Sunnydale High and the Skovox Blitzer standing in for vampire threat of the week. And actually in many ways I think you could look at Capaldi’s doc as a Giles figure this year, with the much more central Clara figure almost being a Buffy analogue. No wonder the Ming-Mongs hated it.

And then it’s KILL THE MOON. Now there’s an episode that fandom is going to be talking about for years to come. It looked great. The most convincing portrayal of an alien landscape (or moonscape) in Who ever, I’d say. And my jaw dropped at THAT reveal as much as anyone but by a second viewing I’d decided I loved it. Moffatt’s take on the show has always been Who as Fairytale rather than Who as Science and never has it been more nakedly stated than here. It was worth it for nothing else than to imagine Christopher Bidmead spluttering over his Cocoa Pops.

The other big star of Series 8, aside from Capaldi himself, was Jamie Mathieson. I’d never really got into Being Human, so this was my first real introduction to him and his two episodes were, frankly, belters. He showed an ability to do the challenging Doctor-lite story and do it well and inventively, as well as being able to do the big showpiece, spectacular episodes. Almost as if he were being groomed for more of the big episodes, one might think. Both FLATLINE and MUMMY ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS were absolute belters, I thought.

And by now we’re starting to see some of the other big themes of the series emerge. Danny Pink. Clara’s lies. Missy. I think it’s a shame that some of the popular theories on here about TARDIS-as-addiction never ultimately came to fruition as I think it would have been interesting to take the show in that direction but I guess that would have been just a bit too much for the younger demographic, so it’s probably a wise move.

This series doesn’t really have an out-and-out stinker of Fear Her proportions but IN THE FOREST OF THE NIGHT came dangerously close I thought. Which is surprising, when you see who wrote it. And it’s not the Gaia-stylee ending that’s the problem, I think. Or the kids, who largely worked better here than the ones in Nightmare in Silver. I think it should have taken a leaf (arf!) from Kill The Moon’s book and taken a giant leap into fairytale. I’d have loved to have seen it become Who does Where the Wild Things Are (a really underrated movie in my opinion, with a stonking soundtrack to boot). It just lacked the courage of its convictions.

DARK WATER was a cracking penultimate episode I thought. The only reservations I had are that the death of Danny Pink was a bit too sudden. There was too much to process in the first 10 minutes for us to be truly invested in Clara’s loss. If Forest had ended with Danny’s death then that would have given us a week to be processing the idea of Clara’s grief and be more on board with her desperation. It was all just done too fast, no matter how well. But apart from that, great. Michelle Gomez an awesome Master, cementing her place in Who lore almost immediately. And the faux-offence that attended the ‘don’t cremate me’ line still invokes an involuntary eyeroll in me, I’m afraid.

However, DEATH IN HEAVEN didn’t really deliver, I’m afraid and would say it’s been Moffatt’s weakest series finale so far. Admittedly the likes of The Big Bang are kind of hard to top but this was just too much of an RTD-style everything-plus-the-kitchen-sink-never-mind-the-logic-feel-the-spectacle kind of way. For the first time over on the Graun I had to admit that some of the Ming-Mongs were actually coming up with valid points. This just didn’t feel like Moffatt. I suspect that this was because this series had taken some series risks — ramping up the fairytale, an aloof, withdrawn Doc in regeneration crisis, a female Master and I can’t help but feel at some executive level it was felt the series had to end on a more familiar, ramp-up-the-epic feel. However, it got the job done in terms of the arc and had some great moments — the Doc’s frustration at not finding Gallifrey was great and, again, Capaldi and Coleman were great in their ‘mutual lies’ scene. And as others have said, it’s essentially the middle part of the three-parter, so I may completely change my mind after Chrimbo.

What it did emphasise to me though is just how the new series hasn’t got Cybermen right yet. The problem, I think, is that they’re still taking their cue from Earthshock (a great story but one which has done more damage to the Cybermen than all the gold and nail varnish in the universe could ever manage). We get more stomping around en masse in a way that’s almost entirely un-scary. The iconography of Cybermen rising from the grave was quite nice but didn’t really cut it. I still think we need to get away from the idea that Cybermen are soldiers. They’re not. They’re scientists. I’d say Moffatt and co have to go off and rewatch Tenth Planet and Moonbase rather than The Invasion and Earthshock. They also might want to check out Spare Parts and Sword of Orion. I want to see Cybermen lurking in the shadows, a hidden and implacable threat. Actually I want to see Junkyard Demon on TV.

(And again with the Buffy maybe? Plucky lone girl surrounded by gravestones as creatures rise from the grave. Not to mention tear-jerking goodbyes with her now-undead boyfriend.)

All in all, a cracking series and on the whole better than Matt’s final year, which ended on a high, but which had a few ropey early episodes to it. Roll on Christmas (and I’d be willing to place a conservative wager on Santa possibly being The Meddling Monk, although that might be unlikely after we’ve just had the Master back.)

 


95 comments

  1. @Juniperfish, @CathAnnabel

    Oh, oh, it seems I misread “huggiest” and “snoggiest” as “huggable” and snoggable”. Not to worry, I stand by my ranking. Of course, it we were to include all Time Lords, and not just Doctors, then clearly, for me at least (and I ask you to respect my lifestyle choice), the most snoggable has to go to River Song. By a mile.

  2. well, well, well, well. What a night…”oh oohaaohohah ha oh ahoh oh ah ahhaaa, oh, what a night”. Perfect – must find the music thread for that song that sums up your evening.  Whoa.

  3. @JimTheFish

    But despite that, the plot which contained them was a little too illogical, a little too unrestrained (though this is the Master we’re talking about so why should I be surprised?)

    Not sure I buy this. I think what Moffat has done has grasp the logic of the obsessive – and that The Master is not remotely interested in killing the  Doctor, but with corrupting him. Obsession rarely leads to logic, other than of the twisted kind.

    @ScaryB

    The Elizabethans were nothing if not creative with language!

    Yeah, I think that South Banks arts scene was a great boost to the creative industries of the time…

    @Apopheniac et al

    It is one thing to note offence and explain why – it is quite another to determinedly stay offended. Yes, intent is not the deciding factor. The trouble is choosing comparators is devilish tricky – ‘nigger’ (and for that matter Paki) was never a neutral word, but a word of indifference. Saying users intended no offence side-steps that it was a term to dismiss. Sticks and stones may break your bones, but the right word can make you feel tiny.

    A better example of the complexities is from Buffy, in which Willow was wont to use the term spazz for awkward and gauche people (such as herself). Except that it was edited out of the BBC broadcasts, even the late night otherwise uncut version, because it is simply not now (or rather in 1997-2003) acceptable for  UK broadcasts (although fine for the DVDs).

    The trouble with high horses is you are so far from the action that you just see the broad strokes. It is also a pretty effective place from which to alienate those who are minded to agree. It is this tactical blindspot, on a much larger scale, that is seeing the liberal/left hand all the initiative to libertarian simpletons and there tiresome slogans.

    So to be clear, the DWF forum approved terms of abuse are:

    For the attitude: ARSE ((c) @ScaryB @JimTheFish)

    For the person: thundering bellend ((c) me)

    All those in favour say “Aye”.

  5. To be honest, it’s 12 aversion to hugging that is one the things that I like most about him. I find this modern tendency for endless bloody hugging really quite annoying. But surely Tennant wins snoggiest Doctor hands down. In general I think I’d wholeheartedly agree with @bluesqueakpip‘s rankings above and I especially like the Capaldi one.

    @apopheniac — I disagree that people ever used the N or P words without meaning offence. They’ve meant it alright. Always have done and always will do. This is a completely different scenario because what we’re talking about is entirely cross purposes. You’ve seen the word and made an incorrect assumption not supported by the context.  And it’s not a question of it ‘being OK cos RTD said so’ — for reasons outlined above . However, I agree that using the word at all probably does make re-integration into society more difficult and that’s a sufficient, if not the only, reason not to use it.

    However, while I understand your passion, I don’t think there’s any cause for your continued anger. I disagree with you on this one for the reasons I’ve outlined above. Let’s leave it at that.

    @barnable and @arbutus — I do like the idea of a rotating set of companions. That might work. In fact, that might actually be pretty cool indeed.

  6. @Bluesqueakpip— Love your Doc ratings re: huggy-ness/self esteem factors! You absolutely nailed it for me
    @Apopheniac — In terms of loose ends needing to still be resolved I have quite a list! lol! But I will mention a few and hope that others will contribute theirs. Not the least of which is Dr.Skarosa going to be Davros and will Rusty return to be “the good Dalek” again. Was Gus Artificial Intelligence like Seb that was under
    Missy’s control and for that matter was Perkins her planted soldier? There is also the mystery numbers that
    Missy spoke aloud as well as her disclosure of a Dalek camp. Is the red phone box Missy’s tardis and what of
    Galifrey? There are definitely numerous mysteries yet to explore and resolve in future episodes that SM in
    his wisdom left dangling.

  7. Just to add — agree with what @pedant says. The Buffy analogy is a good one actually and a lot more relevant than some of the others raised. I personally thought the Beeb was wrong to cut the word as Buffy and other films/programmes were well on the way to giving the word a whole new, less loaded, meaning — essentially reclaiming it from the bigots and the idiots and by cutting it they were essentially giving them the word back, making it offensive, reinvesting it with power, all over again, even if it was done with the best intention.

     

  9. @Blenkinsopthebrave

    No idea. I can only guess that the BBC Shop sent out a massive consignment of Series 8 on Friday, presuming that they’d reach people on the Monday release date. Then the Post Office got all efficient. 😀

    Either that or the TARDIS sound effect is making things go all wibbley-wobbley, and my copy was dispatched next Friday.

  10. I also would like to add that I’ve been wondering about the device of using colors.
    In “Time Heist” there was a change of colors on each level. There is Danny Pink and Journey Blue.
    There are the different colors used to signify whether Missy is either transporting or zapping people out
    of existence. I can’t recall all of them but there are other instances.
    In any case how about the use of ‘3W’. Do we really think that it means “don’t cremate me” because actually
    I’m still trying to think of other possibilities

  11. language is invested with power and by taking away a term like ‘spaz’ as has been said and removing it for fear of  groups of people being concerned, it does stop, or pause, the race toward acceptance (or re-acceptance) of certain phrases for the public domain. Frankly, and in my opinion, there will always be phrases which are unaccepting and derogatory. Words such as ‘nigger’ or ‘coloured’ had that distinction and always, always, will be seen as wrong. Because they are wrong.

    On the other hand and over time, people will come to understand language’s evolution and that whilst seemingly without heart (and in this last discussion), it’s not directed at any one group of people; as in those who are mentally ill, for example, when in the real case or context we were being shown the attitude of certain trolls or those with ARSE.

    When taken completely out of context, it causes my pet hate which is the bloody over indulgence of cosmetic issues when the real battles over mental health, its understanding, its cost structures within government, the amount of people in the health industries allocated to treating mental health etc is over looked for the sake of a word. Part of living in a world of adjectives and descriptors is to encourage understanding that some words do not have the right to belong, or not belong to one group of individuals. On the whole, it is not the one word that is the continuing problem, but rather, that the word belongs to a group of other phrases, or within a phrase, that has a fatalistic combination. Good writing and sensible writing should blow the doors off buildings: oratory is now displaced by writing which is how all people can access or view that which is being said within context. Oratory can never be seen as something written word ‘by’ word; it cannot be spliced without the overall author voice. If that voice is honest, educated, tolerant, self-aware, without meanness of spirit and sarcasm, then that piece of oratory must be taken with the honest and respected value of that attempt.

    An author once said: “do not die over the cause of a word”. So, do not be offenders for a word. The word will be forgotten because the loss of the other is greater. So @apopheniac leaving this site, would be awful and needless. What would you lose in the passing? What would we also lose if you left? I believe, a lot: so please stay. On the clocking on the head by mods -it happens, and we always need one who deals with people’s occasional snarkiness. PhaseShift is trying to keep the site a model of excellent discussion without any fleeting nastiness staying for good. Then it would really be like many other social media interactions now accepted as ‘normal’ where we are told to ‘get a life’ or ‘toughen up’. I don’t want to be tough. I want to be sensitive and I think you do too. That can only be a good thing (sorry, if this is a lecture: don’t mean it to be!)

    Kindest, purofilion

  12. @everyone

    Interesting discussion about what is/isn’t offensive but I think it’s best if that particular conversation continues over on the ‘Rose & Crown’ as this thread appears to be in danger of going drastically off topic.

    Thank you 🙂

  13. @FatManInABox – I would like to second your notion of keeping this thread discussion on topic
    and in keeping along that line I’m wondering if you or any one else besides me has particular
    preoccupations about any of the ‘dangling mysteries’ of this past series. Also any hunches about
    how they think they might get resolved?

  14. @FatManInABox oops, down to me there, just rambling on. It was all verging on the jocular to the lethal. Apologies. @Lisa I have held all sorts of hunches and ‘see there, on the screen, that, right there (looking at tiny obscure picture in distance)?’ and frankly, not-a-one has worked out! I thought the Mummy, KtM and FotD would have meant some picturesque jollity associated with fairy tales and science with RoS being the standout in that collection. I was matching up 12s clothes with these eps and again…no luck. I thought Missy wouldn’t be the Master but was overjoyed when it was… I thought the words ‘promise’ and ‘I love you’ were code of some type! Again, naaaaar (sorry, sound of button pressed indicating bad answer). Oh, I can’t work out any of this stuff but it sure is fun giving it a go! Kindest, puro.

  15. @fatmaninabox et al — yes, rather a shame that this blog has got sidetracked by an unrelated debate. I was hoping more for an outflow of Series 8 theorising. Never mind.

    @lisa — with regards to the colours, I think the possibilities are a) SM thinks they are just cool names, b) he’s messing with our heads, in particular, with reference to the bow-tie theories of the might @juniperfish or c) they’re meant to be part of an overlying narrative arc that hasn’t fully presented itself yet, similar to River Song/Amy Pond/Melody Pond. Not sure there’s anything to the 3W, except perhaps www being a sly dig to SM thinking that the internet is inherently evil.

    Rusty could well return I think. Dr Skarosa was just a big ol’ red herring, I think.

  16. @pedant—

    Not sure I buy this. I think what Moffat has done has grasp the logic of the obsessive

    Yes, see what you mean and I agree but that’s not quite what I was meaning. I was thinking more of the gallopingly illogical behaviour of UNIT primarily rather than Missy herself.

  18. @pedant — more the ‘we must immediately knock these people unconscious and then leave the one we know to be really dangerous with only two guards, one of our key team members and the TARDIS’. It smacked of ‘this is a cool idea but doesn’t make a whole lot of sense’ RTD stylee. But to be fair, I  think the episode did have an overlying tone of respect to the armed forces, as you pointed out.

  21. Loose ends. Well, lots about Missy, I think. How did she escape from Gallifrey? Why exactly did she choose Clara to matchmake with the Doctor? My guess is, though, that we will not see Missy at Christmas. We will almost certainly see her again, though, and some of these questions may be resolved later on. We’ve also been left with lots of characters that could potentially return at some point, or not at all… Journey Blue, for example. I’m no longer sure where I stand on the Osgood issue. I think if anyone is going to return from the dead, it is more likely to be Danny, because we’ve been as good as told (by Santa, no less) that leaving Clara in her current state is not okay. Interestingly, while Danny’s return would make more sense than Osgood’s from the story-arc perspective, I feel that it would actually be less satisfactory because he chose a heroic death to restore the boy whose life he originally took. Dramatically, you hate to negate that sacrifice. But regardless, Clara’s story is seemingly not complete, and presumably will be settled somehow at Christmas.

    Although I can’t help remember that, at the end of Name of the Doctor, many people expected the anniversary special to feature more about, or even take place in, the Doctor’s time stream. And yet, when the day came (Happy Anniversary, DW!), we had left the time stream and moved on, clearly to some time reasonably far forward. Then, at the end of Day of the Doctor, I personally did not expect to hear anything more about Gallifrey for some time, and yet lo and behold, there it was at Christmas, hiding behind Trenzalore. So, to quote the Caretaker, “Who knows, eh?”

  22. @Arbutus

    How did she escape from Gallifrey?

    I doubt we will ever know – it’s sort of a Master trope. But Missy is one big loose end, that will be pulled whenever a writer has a cool idea.

    I think Zawe Ashton would be terrific, whether as Journey Blue or a cousin GoToTheShops Taupe.

    I wouldn’t assume that Santa bringing Danny back is necessarily Santa’s way forward (although making Orson happen might be). And I concur that it is dangerous to undermine a heroic exit.

    (Re Name of the Doctor, recall River’s enigmatic comment about how she was still visible – I wonder of the Matt Smith cameo Deep Breath (and the much debated Otter/ River reference in The Caretaker) were a way of highlighting that Season 7 and 8 are a continuum and that Season 7’s story is not quite done yet)

  23. @pedant      I agree that there are other ways that things could be “fixed” for Clara. Bringing back Danny is only the most obvious. And it’s also true that, as long as Clara is in the picture, anything from the entirety of her arc is certainly fair game. The Doctor regenerated, but she didn’t.   🙂

    While it’s true that the Master has plenty of unexplained escapes in his history, this particular one is bit loaded, in that it impacts our understanding of what has happened to Gallifrey (a pretty big plot point). Which doesn’t mean that Moffat will choose to explain it. But leaving it unexplained leaves open the possibility of a steady trickle of escaped Time Lords reappearing in our universe. It’s a loophole that, if I were Moffat, I would want to close.

  24. @Arbutus the loophole is I would want to exploit if I were Moffat. I certainly wouldn’t want time lords to start popping up all over the place re writing history and all that but it the occasional unexpected appearance of a time lord can make things interesting, and it would certainly explain Santa/Father Christmas.

    The big questions left hanging at the end of the series I think were involving Orson and the toy soldier. Other questions, some plot releated some more technical, that may or may not be significant are, Why was the dinosaur so large, Why were the cyborgs seeking the promised land, where do they originate, what becomes of Rusty and what is the war they are fighting, does Rusty defeat the daleks in that particular conflict, are the surnames, Pink and Blue significent, when will the Doctor honour Carlisle soldier’s dying wish, will we see any of the technology bits and bobs introduced in this series again, ie the invisibility watch and the teleporters, why was Danny raised in an orphange, why has he no family, (as evidenced by SEB’s throwaway remark) and of course the “biggie”, who the hell is Orson. (Oh but I already mentioned that.)

    I agree with Arbutus and @Pedant that Danny returning would undo the nobility of his sacrifice, so my guess is that we will encounter Orson again but not Danny.

    On the surname question the colour surnames might denote military ranks or sections and the pinks and blue’s were military.

    And @JimTheFish I don’t really think the show is demonstrating “respect” for the military so much as understanding. They are doing a tough job, sometimes well, sometimes badly but often necessary. The Doctor notoriously does not “respect” anyone. He likes or dislikes according to merit but, in the tradition of the classic folk hero, he does not “respect” wealth or position. When he salutes the Brig’ at the end it is expression of friendship and an acknowledgement of the Brig’s values not his own. In Danny we see a war damanged man, someone struggling to come to terms with his military past, though also proud of the good things he did as a soldier and pointing out that soldiering is not all shooting, but often more occupied with peacekeeping. (My SO is civilian defence so this is a topic much discussed in our household) In a way I think the series is trying to correct the gung ho military image generated by Hollywood. In the end I thought the series did a good job or neither glorifying nor criticising the military but showing that soldiers are human beings too who often, maybe usually, are very damaged by their experiences. A friend who saw active duty in South East Asia once said to me, “the real victims of war are the survivors.”

    Cheers

    Janette

  25. @lisa as for colours -that was something pretty large in last season’s writing and even before, where Smith has different bow ties and Clara has different coloured dresses. I think 3W is interesting because upside down it says ‘We = W3, with the ‘three’ turned around. Oh, huge realisation: everything is ‘we’ related so that’s not exactly a startling revelation but I like this stuff: theorising all day until I’ve forgotten to get on with the groceries is quite lovely.

  27. @purofilion – Hi – 3W upside down can also be ‘ME’ if you stretch it but then who is the me? I
    guess that was Missy.
    Also wondering if its not the Same Clara that has been traveling up to this point with Capdoc only
    because in the preview its a bit like she isn’t sure who he is? So could she be in some alternate
    timeline again ?
    I hope it goes incredibly well for you and Mr. llion !!

  28. In the above post I meant to say the Clara that’s in that Santa preview but I see that I only
    managed to type half a thought – oops !

  30. @JanetteB and @lisa yes, I think that there has to be some timey whimey stuff. Oh please! Has the Moff decided to reduce everything to a more chronological perception? I always wanted Clara to be travelling in a different manner to what we saw. But then, from an audience perspective we already see that happening whereby Clara and the Dr are madly running, tied up, seeing the fish people etc (Jim the Fish? Is he introduced? I wish we would have that privilege but I guess that’s River’s alone!). I thought that Sherwood was an early ‘story’ and ‘Listen’ was later -the Doctor’s shirt and his sudden paranoia. But in the end it’s a 12 ep regen story focusing more on the Dr than before, I believe. I always thought the Flesh might return in some form and yet that isn’t possible with Smith going and I reckon (generally) we don’t return to ‘past’ stories -of course the SS Starship was so startling (sorry) that I believed a whole arc was going to project from that one story or point, but it did not. Ah well. Nothing for me to offer, Janette. To wait and wait again and another view of the last episode, I think.

  31. @janetteB

    Why was the dinosaur so large,

    It just was. It was a meta comment on the difference between theory (palaeontology) and reality (Vastra). Also, it had a Tardis in its gob.

    Why were the cyborgs seeking the promised land, where do they originate,

    Explained in-story. They had used so many spare parts they thought they were human.

    what becomes of Rusty and what is the war they are fighting,

    The Daleks need an excuse to fight?

    does Rusty defeat the daleks in that particular conflict

    Enough in-story to suggest yes, and enough writer comment to suggest queasiness at showing a suicide bombing

    are the surnames, Pink and Blue significent,

    Almost certainly not other than as a clue stick

    when will the Doctor honour Carlisle soldier’s dying wish,

    Now that is a big question. It would be nice to see it revisited. But you could argue that Cyber-Danny executed this Soldier’s Wish

    will we see any of the technology bits and bobs introduced in this series again, ie the invisibility watch and the teleporters,

    If the writers see a use for them

    why was Danny raised in an orphange,

    Because his parents are dead? (sorry, you did leave that dangling! 😉 )

    who the hell is Orson.

    Indeed!

  32. @Pedant

    why was Danny raised in an orphange,

    Because his parents are dead? (sorry, you did leave that dangling!

    But that is the blue boringers explanation!! I want something more fun. (stamps foot.)

    Cheers

    Janette

  33. Just reread this and re the Buffy reference for Clara on the graveyard, it occurred to me (as someone who loves Clara – this view is endorsed by my seven year old) that if it were possible that some companions work and some well, don’t, I feel that one of Clara’s strengths is that she can stand alone as a main character. I get that the title of the programme is ‘Doctor Who’ not ‘Doctor Who and Clara’ but still, casting is all, and if they cast someone capable of standing alone always, they can’t go wrong. Right now, I think this. Or that she is just a very good actor. Or that they should keep her forever! Or I am going down with a cold and therefore not entirely coherent. Also hello (nice first post there, Babs… :/ )

  34. Hi All – I’ve thought of another dangling loose end possibility which is that in both
    ‘Time Heist’ and ‘In the Forest of the Night’ episodes solar flares played a pivotal role.
    Its curious for me why that happened twice.
    I’m still trying to think of other loose ends in these stories – got the fever 🙂

  35. @Jimthefish

    Re Missy’s formidable hypnotic/manipulative powers as per @Bluesqueakpip suggests – I agree the in-episode evidence is sparse, but it is hinted at eg the phone call from the “woman with the Scottish accent” who called UNIT to tip them off that something was afoot. Maybe Missy has been manipulating UNIT for a while.

    Which led me to thinking more about UNIT’s part in this episode – the Doctor is tempted by high power twice – once by Missy as has been noted, but also by UNIT’s emergency protocols which put him in charge of the world!  He rejects both.  To become “himself” again, as he says. Not good, or bad, but an “idiot with a box”.  Who’s to say Missy didn’t hypnotically suggest that promotion in the first place? 😉

    It’s certainly in character for the Master.

  36. @JimTheFish

    Hope you don’t mind but I thought it would be interesting to bring our discussion from the other place as I think its a fairly fundamental disagreement (with the emphasis on the fun) and I’d be interested to know what position others take. So, for context, the starting point was a comment by Steven Moffat that the companion should always be the focal point of the show. I’ve copied the discussion to date here:

    @BESD1 : “See now, I’m a huge fan, am on record as saying it’s practically impossible for me to actively dislike an episode of Doctor Who in any era or under any show runner, but this sort of thing irks me:

    “the main character – which of course the companion always should be.”

    No. Just no. The Doctor is the main character. The companion may ground him, may provide the viewers perspective, certainly should feel the Tardis has changed them forever, but they (and most specifically their back story/extended family) are not and never have been the heart of the show.”

    @JimTheFish: “Sorry, but no. SM is right here. Look at the very first series, for example. The central characters are clearly Ian and Barbara. The Doctor might be the enigma at the heart of the show, but he sin’t the central character. It was only the rampant egomania of Pertwee and Tom Baker that changed that dynamic.”

    @BESD1 ” “It was only the rampant egomania of Pertwee and Tom Baker that changed that dynamic”
    This may be the source of our differing viewpoints. You see Pertwee was my first Doctor, just the last few stories, and Baker was the definitve doctor of my childhood, so what you see as rampant egomania I see as the status quo. To me its always been centered round companions learning about life, the universe and everything through their adventures with the Doctor in his TARDIS.

    And that I think is the second point at which our Who perspectives deviate. I didn’t mean that the companion doesn’t matter, and I certainly don’t mind a focus on the companions, but I do believe that once their journeys in the TARDIS begin, their day to day life is left behind and their back stories and mundane entanglements cease to matter. The current preoccupation with living life in the real world alongside life in TARDIS, and with linking every detail of the companions daily life and extended family to that adventure, has been done to death as of about now. I’d be happy to see the back of it. Personally when I travel I leave daily reality, Britain and everything about it behind (in an absolute sense) within seconds of boarding the plane/train/boat to adventure. By the end of the first day almost everything but the new sensations I’m experiencing seem unreal, even dreamlike, to me and I really don’t give them much thought. I expect the companion, given the keys to everywhere and everywhen, to be the same. Of course, it is possible that I’m the only one monomaniacal or sociopathic enough to see the world in these terms.”

  37. Hi @BESD1,

    We’re probably roughly contemporaries as Pertwee and Baker were my first Doctors too and a great many of my favourite companions also hail from that era — namely Jo Grant, Sarah Jane and Romana 2. But at the same time, I don’t think any of these characters would work in the same way now. Yes, they were constant companions but they seemed to have no interior life whatsoever. Do we get any indication at all that Sarah, or Jo were changed or altered by their experiences? I don’t think we did. It might have seemed so purely because actors tended to develop a rapport and a confidence by working together but we didn’t get any character development, or in the Doctor either, for that matter. I don’t really see that much evidence of learning about life in the old show. Mostly I see characters who are reset to a default setting at the start of every story. I don’t think we saw anything remotely resembling character evolution until Ace came along.

    I do see what you mean about ‘travel’ in your second point but I’d argue that you’re still ‘you’ no matter what you experience on your journeys. And I think they require context — and that I think is provided by reinserting the companion back in their natural setting every once in a while.

    Basically I think my argument is that the show has doesn’t have a ‘status quo’ as such but rather eras. The Hartnell and Troughton years were perhaps much more ensemble pieces — partially out of necessity as the show was on for many more weeks in the year. The 70s had shorter runs and leading men who were a bit more dominant so the tone of the show changed again.

    What we’re looking at now is an entirely different era in the show’s history now. We as audiences expect a far greater degree of characterisation than they got away with back then. It’s a different beast now and we have different expectations. The day-to-day aspects are a crucial aspect of characterisation and I’m not sure the show would work without it anymore. It might be interesting to try though but I think you’d end up having to see lots more scenes just in the TARDIS and as we saw in the Davison years that ultimately became dull and limiting. (One of the key tenets of RTD was that we should spend as little time in the TARDIS as possible, I believe.)

    Secondly I don’t think a TARDIS-bound companion is ever going to happen these days for the simple reason is that it ramps up the sexual tension. To a modern audience the question then becomes, ‘are those two shagging  between adventures?’. It puts us back into Doc/Rose territory. Having companions with a strong external life of family/job/boyfriend lessens this to a large extent as the Doctor becomes just one part of the wider tapestry of the companion’s life. I’d say this is going to be even more important with a young, female companion and an older Doctor in a post-Savile BBC.

    Bascially I think Moffat created the dynamics of Amy/Rory, the Impossible Girl and then Clara/Danny to take the sting out of Doctor/Companion relationship. And it was done out of necessity because unfortunately we now live in a more knowing, less innocent age. It’s just not possible to go back to that platonic relationship of the 70s. And to be honest, I’m not sure I’d want to.

  38. @Jimthefish @BESD1

    Hi there. I think your points of view are both right of course and I find it easy to agree with both sides of your argument based on certain criteria. However, I’m not sure that you can make a fundamental comparison between then and now stick in any absolute sense. let’s take this comment, which I agree with:

    “Do we get any indication at all that Sarah, or Jo were changed or altered by their experiences? I don’t think we did…. we didn’t get any character development, or in the Doctor either, for that matter. I don’t really see that much evidence of learning about life in the old show”

    Of course not. BUT… it was a different sort of programme. 5.25 on Saturday evening after Grandstand, before the news was aimed at a different audience than today. That show could never have stood as a 7 pm Saturday night slot then. If it had been written for that slot, it would have been a different programme even then.

    [I would also argue that the audience back then didn’t particularly need the main characters to have back stories and character development arcs in the same way as today. The characters tended to be defined in a particular way and then reacted to the events that they faced. When well written their reaction aligned with their defined characterization ?]

    The relationship between Doctor and companion(s) changed over the series. However, if anything holds true, I think you’d have to say Era 1 Hartnell is the one that stands out as different. I think its true that Ian/Barbara were designed as the lead characters initially, because Hartnell was cast (being 50+ back then was old in a way that being 50 something today isn’t) and the way the Doctor was initially characterized. Even this had changed by the time Ian/Barbara left though. I have to say that Troughton was as much front and centre as either Pertwee or Baker (or Davidson etc).

    If you do think SM’s (and RTD, but in a different way) vision puts the Companion back into the centre more than the Doctor, then I’d say that this is more a reflection on their view of the modern audience’s expectation than picking a style from BG Who.

    I would argue that whilst your right about this in one sense:

    dynamics of Amy/Rory, the Impossible Girl and then Clara/Danny….It’s just not possible to go back to that platonic relationship of the 70s. And to be honest, I’m not sure I’d want to.

    what your actually describing is just another way to avoid the “platonic relationship” issue rather than actually resolve it. It’s basically saying that the audience isn’t capable of accepting that the lead male/female characters can not have a non-sexual relationship in modern TV. Perhaps the really daring thing to do in modern genre TV would be to challenge that assumption ? Certainly for most of us, most Male/Female relationships we have are not sexual in any significant way.

    Sorry Jim, this reads like I’m more anti- your opinion than I actually am. That’s said, I do seem to find the grounded at home/work, but travelling with the Doctor occasionally characterization of the Amy/Rory/Clara period a bit trying. I can’t help thinking its like the difference between Child and Adulthood and taking responsibility for yourself rather than relying on your parents. I know this transition is happening later in life. Surely travelling with the Doctor should be more like a gap year (or two) rather than a series of holidays ?

  39. Hi @Nick

    Good, thought-provoking answers and I have to say I pretty much agree with you.

     it was a different sort of programme. 5.25 on Saturday evening after Grandstand, before the news was aimed at a different audience than today

    Yes, agree with that. Definitely.

    I have to say that Troughton was as much front and centre as either Pertwee or Baker (or Davidson etc)

    Not so sure about that one. There’s lots of Doctor-lite or Doctor-free episodes (with the recent discovery of the Web of Fear being a nice example) in Troughton’s era. I’d say it was still a TARDIS-ensemble era, with esp. Jamie having to do lots of heavy-lifting in a great many episodes.

    what your actually describing is just another way to avoid the “platonic relationship” issue rather than actually resolve it

    I’m not sure it is resolvable really. And I’d actually say that the best you can do is acknowledge it.

    Perhaps the really daring thing to do in modern genre TV would be to challenge that assumption ? Certainly for most of us, most Male/Female relationships we have are not sexual in any significant way

    But we don’t live together on an ongoing basis. If we did, surely the sex thing would almost certainly become an issue. Besides which we’re talking of observing the relationship of two other people. Look at any work situation, for example. All you have to do is buy someone a doughnut for two days in a row for there to be rampant speculation about whether you’re knocking each other off. And as I say, we live in less innocent times and it’s something that I think has to be confronted when writing Who these days.

    In many ways I think writing the companion has become much more the challenge than writing the Doctor these days. How do you keep it fresh without having to confront the Doctor/Companion love interest issue. I like the gap year idea and agree it would be interesting to pursue a full-time TARDIS occupant again but I suspect you need either the ‘pressure valve’ to defuse the romantic tension.

  40. This is a fascinating discussion, and @JimTheFirst @BESD1 and @Nick all have good points.

    In the 80s in the US, there was a rash of wildly popular TV shows (Cheers, Remington Steele, Moonlighting) in which “will they won’t they” was a major theme of the drama.  Since then, I think that any show with male and female protagonists needs to address that question head-on, because audiences expect it.  Doctor Who has handled the question in its own way, to mixed reactions.

    On the larger point, Moffat’s comment may be a point of semantics.  The companion will always be the viewer’s entry into the show, because the Doctor will always be alien and unknowable.  Take David Tennant, for example, who may be the most outwardly romantic of the AG Doctors, but who in my opinion is the most hidden and closed off (but that’s another discussion).

    Does this make the companion the main character?  Maybe.  As a silly example, take something like My Favorite Martian.  The show clearly belonged to Ray Walston as the titular character, but Bill Bixby is the audience insertion and, basically, the main character.  That doesn’t make the Martian (or the Doctor) a sidekick on his own show.  It’s just a matter of whose eyes you are meant to witness the action through.

    That said, I often find “companion-lite” episodes to be the most interesting, because the Doctor is not playing it up for his audience (either the companion or us).  RTD’s “Midnight” is a masterpiece, and “The Waters of Mars” may be my favorite Tenth Doctor episode, for what it reveals about his true character.

    Clara certainly took front and center in Season 8, because the Doctor was too busy trying to figure out who he is.  So his character arc was in some sense secondary to hers.

  42. Hi everyone ! Been away over the Thanksgiving holiday to visit the Grands {for the kid} since last week
    so I haven’t really been following here too much- I’ve done quite some catching up and I’ve seen lots of
    discussion regarding Buffy. I also loved that show- its 1 of the few shows I have ever watched from
    beginning to end. [no kidding] I usually don’t watch much tv to be honest but there have been a few
    shows that had me hooked and Buffy was 1 Doctor Who is another and I tend to watch all of the Masterpiece
    Theatre programs which for the non Americans is all British mostly period drama but not always.( I mostly
    watch my stuff on Youtube or Dailymotion -drama sci-fi docs etc.}
    Anyway, I wasn’t able to think much about the Doctor for the past week but I would like to say about
    this current season that it has been my favorite so far since I first was introduced to it during
    the Tom Baker era. I have found it to be very multi layered and I agree with @JimtTheFish that we are
    seeing an evolution in the companions character development. It began with Rose and became more
    significant by the time we got to Amy. However Clara’s life has collided with the Doctors in a way that
    is even more daring and I find this to be far more satisfying than the old ways of the more mundane
    character developments.
    So happy birthday to all of the birthday folks and profound best wishes to all the folks confronting
    some difficult situations now!!!
    I am looking forward to following a Buffy thread if it comes to pass –

  43. @DrBen

    Moonlighting

    And sometimes when you handle it – with a string of 5 brilliant episodes – you can be left with “OK, now what!”.

    Fans exist to be tortured, not pandered to. As soon as the pandering starts the show is compromised, even is still pretty damned good (as Rob Thomas showed with Veronica Mars).

  45. @JimtheFish @DrBen

    apologies for not responding sooner. I did write a reply but the system wiped it before I could post. I’ve been away since.

    The “problem” that the audience faces is the Doctor looks Human, but isn’t. Why then should the audience expect some sort of “romance” between the assistant (or Companion as we used to say) – but perhaps Friend (or pet) would be better – and the Doctor ? One way to avoid the question is the Clara or Amy/Rory approach, with a temporary travelling companion getting on with their life in between adventures. This works, but it is also an artificial (unrealistic) construction at the same time imo.

    In modern Who, the Doctor has pretty good control over the Tardis. The Friend can therefore be away for a year, but come back literally moments later as a much changed person. The options should be wider than it seems and certainly not as limited as it was in the past (where the Tardis was out of his control) and its not as limited as it has seemed in the Moffat era. I think this was less true under RTD as the Doctor was less in control (hence Rose and Martha went missing for a considerable period).

    AS for the “romance” element itself, surely its your choice as Show Runner. RTD chose two variants of one approach (with Rose and Martha). Rose approach worked (or didn’t depending on your choice as a viewer), whereas my impression is that Martha approach is generally held to be a failure. This was his choice. He could have approached it and chosen to set the tone differently, without the romance element (although I would accept that there’s a range of opinion on whether Rose/Tennant ended as a romance – although it is clearly meant to have been intense experience for the Doctor at the end, although it didn’t start out that way).

    Both RTD and SM have chosen to write in a “semi-romantic” element early on (Rose, Martha, Amy, Clara). This is where I differ from you. I don’t think it wasn’t actually necessary or necessarily needed to include the romance element at all. It could have been made completely platonic at the outset – in tone. By platonic, I think you could actually say parental (or mentor/guardian)relationship. The “sexual” element only arises because you choose to make the Doctor Human instead of a 1,000 year old alien, because he looks Human. I would argue that Star Trek got this better with Spock.

    It seemed before Capaldi there was a high chance of a female Doctor. Right now a female Doctor seems even more likely next time round (btw I think we forget that Romana II pretty much got there already). This will add a whole new dynamic to this “issue”. Following that line of thought, surely we should expect (or rather demand) a homosexual Doctor now the character isn’t gender defined anymore. None of this should be a problem, although I think the higher the romance level, the more challenging it gets in terms of the Doctor/Friend relationship and how it shifts between Doctors over time.

    DrBen

    At its most basic, the Doctor Companion is surely a fairly standard Master/Apprentice (Hero/assistant Obi Wan/Luke, Dumbledore/Potter etc). As such both are lead characters, although the Master is less approachable than the Apprentice from the audience’s perspective. However, the Doctor goes on, whereas the Companions are finite in terms of the show. This plus the Doctor himself/herself changes periodically as well, is the USP dynamic of the show. That gives the show a slightly different entry for the audience because with a new Friend, the Doctor is continuity and (typically) vice versa. The audience identifies with both characters, but in a slightly different way.

    Nothing much to do with Season 8, but I think you made some interesting points in your blog.

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