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24 February 2016 at 23:24 #51084
@pedant
‘neo’ = ‘new’ or ‘revived’. ‘liberal’ = well, liberal.If I have to spell out that I’m making a pun on ‘new liberal’ not really being the greatest insult to use to describe a famous Liberal paper, well, I’d seriously suggest a nice, soothing cup of tea.
Next up: sharks are accused of behaving like a bunch of sharks and a primary school football team is told it’s playing like a group of eight year olds.
🙂
24 February 2016 at 21:43 #51079@jimthefish and @pedant
The Manchester Guardian, as Jim clearly knows, was traditionally a Liberal paper. So calling it ‘neo-Liberal’ really isn’t the insult you intend it to be, pedant. But what it should be, and what it used to be, was a place where “The voice of opponents no less than that of friends has a right to be heard”.
And I’m really starting to miss that under Katherine Viner. Under Rusberger, I always felt that I’d find the facts, presented from a particular viewpoint. Now I’m consistently feeling that I’m being presented with the viewpoint. Facts are optional.
I think we’re all in agreement on the editorial team, who are probably one of the most hypocritical bunch of champagne socialists ever to grace the Graun’s offices – well, they would be if any of them actually were socialist, or even vaguely Liberal.
I suppose part of the problem is that the EU in the last couple of years has evolved into something more problematic.
Definitely; one of the things coming up a lot on the comment boards is ‘Greece’. Now, you’d expect the usual very-right-wing froth-at-the-mouth anti-immigration brigades to be Brexit, but people who are likely to have been interested in the Greek debacle and supportive of the Greeks are more likely to come from leftish and pro-European viewpoints. There’s also a heck of a lot of ‘I love Europe, but don’t like the EU’. So I’m not surprised that your paper, Jim, is having trouble deciding which side of the fence it’s going to land on. We’ve spent so long thinking left-wing is pro-EU and right-wing is anti, it’s tricky figuring out a political landscape where the pro’s and anti’s seem to genuinely be from both sides of the spectrum.
About the only thing everyone can agree on is ‘Don’t share a platform with a Tory unless you ARE one.’ 🙂
Brexit means the pretty quick erosion of workers and human rights
That ship sailed when the EU chose austerity over starving pensioners. And we have got far, far too used to the idea that the EU is the place to go for human rights – rather than fighting like hell for changes right here in the UK.
23 February 2016 at 12:16 #51070I think the Graun is about to develop a split personality. They’ve got the problem that they’re very pro-EU – but the pro-EU camp is being led by the Prime Minister. Which is more of a problem for Katherine Viner than it would have been for Alan Rusberger, because she’s apparently decided that the Graun should become much more overtly political. So they’re in a cleft stick where their natural stand involves siding with the Tory leadership.
And since the current pattern of politics is that anyone vaguely left-wing that sides with the Tories, however reasonable their position, gets the shit kicked out of them at the voting booth (or in the Graun’s case, possibly refusing to buy their newspaper) – she’s got a problem.
Currently, they seem to be desperately trying to play this entire referendum thing as an intra-Tory spat. I’m not sure they’ll be able to keep that one up as Der Tag rolls closer
21 February 2016 at 13:41 #51053@puroandson
Dear Stellar
Bit odd, isn’t it? What do kids need with names? It’s obvious – you call them ‘This One’, ‘That One’ and ‘The Other One’.
Though, sadly, my owner is terrible with names – I’m going through my career called ‘P’, for heaven’s sake.
Yours
P18 February 2016 at 18:41 #51024I think is too convenient that not quote at least one or two of the 20 future companion.
Not at all. If, for example, I should suddenly and mysteriously meet the Third Doctor travelling with Jo Grant, I’d know perfectly well not to mention Sarah-Jane, Tegan or Rory. I might ask after Liz Shaw, or Polly.
O’Donnell’s a fangirl. Fangirls generally can list the Doctors, with companions, in order. O’Donnell could probably have run through the entire set of Companions up to Capaldi-Doctor-and-Clara if she’d had the time – I bet Osgood can. 🙂
18 February 2016 at 12:31 #51020I have a strange sort of unformed idea that it is a part of himself,
That was definitely the impression that I got, when I watched it on first broadcast. The Watcher was a projection of his future self. What I never worked out was WHY it was necessary for a projection of the Doctor’s future self to come along and, y’know, watch.
But that’s Logopolis, really. Bit like Ghost Light – one of those stories where nobody knows what’s going on, including the cast and crew.
15 February 2016 at 12:50 #50982Catweazle was the wonderful Geoffrey Bayldon. Who was also in Worzel Gummidge, and who turned down both the First and Second Doctor roles (though he did play the First Doctor for Big Finish) – which probably explains why you’ve mixed him up with Jon Pertwee as Worzel.
But if @puroandson’s husband/father recognised Pertwee in the 1960’s, it would most likely be from either The Navy Lark publicity photos, or it would be from his stage/film work.
13 February 2016 at 22:54 #50966Of course, if you want your head to explode, the Daleks taught him ‘exterminate’. So where did ‘exterminate!’ come from?
How do you spot a Born Again Dalek?
Excommunicate! Excommunicate!
I’ll just get me coat… 😈
6 February 2016 at 23:14 #508616 February 2016 at 22:21 #50859(Whithouse has 5 seasons of Being Human (and a format sale to the US) under his belt and had to manage massive cast changes as people got big job offers, and has a Who portfolio of highly-regarded character-driven stories – while the most recent experience of CC is the shoeing he got for TSTMNBN. It is simply not as clear-cut as you assert, pip – but also entirely moot)
Let us imagine a TV executive who has to consider two possible writers for the post of Head Writer on a popular, long running, family-friendly drama series on BBC1.
Let us further imagine that there are two main contenders, Writer A and Writer B.
- Previously written for this series? Yes, both A and B.
- Got an ‘Excellent’ on the Audience Appreciation Index? Yes, both A and B.
- Previous showrunning experience? Yes, both A and B.
- Longest running series? Writer A: 4 years. Writer B: 5 years.
- Handled a major cast change? Yes, both A and B.
- Children’s television or ‘family-friendly’ showrunning experience? Writer A: Yes. Writer B: No.
- What channels has their work broadcast on? Writer A: BBC1, ITV1, BBC2, BBC3. Writer B: BBC2, Channel 4, BBC3.
- What is their biggest average audience? Writer A: 9.62 million, Writer B: 2 million.
- Did their shows win any awards?
Writer A – BAFTAs for Best Drama Series, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor. A second show won BAFTA Cymru for Best Drama Series, Best Actress, also other genre and BAFTA nominations.
Writer B: Writers Guild Awards (Best Drama Series, 3 times), other genre and BAFTA nominations.
You’ll notice that until point 5, Writer A and Writer B are neck-and-neck. But once you get onto point 6-9, Writer A starts pulling ahead. They have main channel, family-friendly, audience and award winning experience that Writer B simply doesn’t have.
Which is what the fans aren’t noticing, and that’s why they’re (and you’re) so surprised. They’re impressed by Writer B’s great genre writing, didn’t like Writer A’s last series, and they’re not noticing a few things.
They’re not noticing that:
- RTD, Moffat and Chibnall all have family friendly or children’s TV experience as showrunners.
- RTD, Moffat and Chibnall all have either BBC1 or ITV1 experience as showrunners.
- RTD, Moffat and Chibnall had all received BAFTA’s for their shows (Moffat and RTD for their children’s TV work).
And Toby Whithouse hasn’t done any of those things.
4 February 2016 at 22:34 #50833Merely trying to quantify why CC’s writing always leaves me feeling a bit like Gru’s mother.
Because you don’t like it. 🙂
Okay, rather than go through ‘what Jim thinks is wrong with Chris Chibnall’s writing/what Pip thinks is right’, let’s talk about Thomas Hardy.
Because personally, I think life is too short to read Thomas Hardy. I have read Jude the Obscure, I’ve read Mayor of Casterbridge – and it was at a couple of chapters into Tess of the Durbervilles that I realised that I didn’t care how many ‘Great Works of English Literature’ lists Hardy was on, he wasn’t on mine.
If I felt I needed to quantify this dislike by explaining his faults as a writer, I’d go through his novels in detail – because no writer is perfect. As the cliche goes, even Homer nods, and even Great Authors have faults. But truthfully, what interests Hardy as a writer isn’t what interests me as a reader, his worldview and mine are very different – and I don’t like his novels.
Now:
Silence in the Library (or Robots of Death or Moonbase) where just about every character is rounded
Okay. Tell me about Proper Dave and Other Dave. Beyond the fact that they are Proper Dave and Other Dave and one’s a bit accident prone. Anita? She’s nice, and she’s scared. Anything else? I’ll give you a pass on CAL’s father, because he’s a functional character in-story as well as in the script.
Steven Moffat has a real gift, almost Christie-like, for giving us one line introductions that make us think a character is rounded. They’re as flat as a pancake when you prod the script a bit, but you can’t help liking characters who introduce themselves as the Thin/Fat Gay Married Anglican Marines. And then give us a scriptwriter’s joke of ‘why would we need names?’
I would say that most of the things you’re picking apart in 42 are things you would give a pass on if the script had been written by Steven Moffat. And that your real problem with Chris Chibnall is that he isn’t Steven Moffat. He’s a scriptwriter of genuine talent, but he’s no genius.
He’s facing a lot of metaphorical folded arms, saying: ‘here we are now, entertain us’.
Yes, and there’s an acronym for that. Because the wider audience, the ones who don’t contribute to fora such as these, watched his Who scripts and liked them (judging by audience numbers and the AI figures). The people complaining about Cyberwoman are, by and large, active fans. Even at the time, the reviews were mixed, not universally negative. Same with Broadchurch 2: you may have hated it – the reviews were mixed, with a fair amount of verdicts on the lines of ‘went a bit wobbly in the middle’. The viewing figures for Series 2 were actually very slightly better than for Series 1.
I’d agree with @pedant that in some ways it is surprising that Whithouse wasn’t chosen
Only if you’re a fan.
Toby Whithouse might possibly have been a genuine contender after RTD, or if Moffat hadn’t taken Who to the massive, massive worldwide audience it currently enjoys. I’m sure the BBC will be delighted if Chris Chibnall asks him to continue as a Who writer. But a Head Writer who’s never had a mainstream hit when there’s a candidate with two in entirely different genres? No way.
4 February 2016 at 21:23 #50829I’m hoping, since I think Peter Capaldi has mentioned that there is a little ‘Doctor’s Club’, that Capaldi’s going to have a chat with David Tennant. Because David Tennant can not just give him some advice on what discussions to have with the new producer, he’s also worked a lot with Chris Chibnall.
David, I think, might well have most informed viewpoint on the pros and cons of staying on. Or not.
4 February 2016 at 12:41 #50818Yes, but in a choice between two Doctor Who writers who have good viewing figures and good AIs for their scripts, which one is the ‘safe’ choice for the BBC?
The writer with two successful niche series on the smaller channels?
Or the writer with the successful BBC1 Sunday teatime series, two successful ITV1 drama series, AND the successful SF niche series?
4 February 2016 at 00:11 #50809I think Toby Whithouse was preferred by fans – but when you look at his CV, his hits broadcast on BBC3 and Channel 4, with niche audiences of two million viewers or so (less than that for Being Human).
3 February 2016 at 13:09 #50801Okay, now take a deep breath.
There is a reason I haven’t really posted much on Hell Bent, and that’s because it would have consisted of ‘Yes, it’s a really good episode, and I have to admit that it’s a really good episode, and I also have to admit that it’s very well acted but now I’m going to do a detailed, blow-by-blow explanation of why I don’t like Peter Capaldi as the Doctor’.
And I think you’ve just done that with Chris Chibnall for 42.
At least, I personally started to get the impression that you were actively looking for faults when you complained about the welding helmets. The diagram was also a bit of a giveaway. Saying that a Doctor Who episode was a ‘mashup’ that borrowed (off the back of a lorry, no questions asked) from other stories gave me a few hints as well. 😀
Why are the welding helmets there? They’re functional. The alternative is having a bunch of actors trying to look like scary possessed monsters while they’re wandering around the set with their eyes closed, trying not to bump into stuff.
Why do the Vashta Nerada use space suits in Silence in the Library/Forest of the dead? This is for exactly the same ‘it looked cool’ and ‘we need to cut down on the VFX’ reasons. In-story for 42, the welding helmets are there so that the sun-people destroy what they want to destroy, and don’t accidentally melt their feet or burn off a hand. In-story for Silence, the spacesuits are there because the team are trying to protect themselves from contamination and the Vashta Nerada … err … well, maybe it’s just that they like lurching? (Actually, I think it’s some gumph about using them to communicate with the humans, but you get the point).
Complaints about the characterisation – well, a number of people on here are saying what a wonderful character Martha could have been, judging by this story. So we absolutely believed in Martha? Freema Agyeman gave a good performance? A few people have also mentioned that the Doctor becoming the monster was seriously scary – so a decent role for David Tennant, perhaps?
Personally, I also wanted Riley to survive – and you seem to like Michelle Collins. But you keep suggesting that these great performances are entirely down to the actors, and missing the point that Chibnall’s scripts consistently produce those good performances.
I suspect you’re pretty close to the truth with Chibnall being ‘what Who needs’ right now. The problem the BBC have got right now is very simple: they handed Who over to a writer (Moffat) that they knew was brilliant. And then they discovered that the ‘brilliant’ writer was in fact a f*ck*ng genius.
A full scale, experimental, push the envelope, genius. The past few years have seen Moffat give us (with both Who and Sherlock) some of the best and most original television on TV. But there is one big problem with that, and that is that Doctor Who is a successful continuing drama.
Somebody has to take over from Steven Moffat. And Steven Moffat has just given us a ‘Follow that!’ era.
That someone has to be able to write scripts that the Doctor Who audience (general audience, not just ‘fans’) like, they have to have Head Writer/Producer on their CV, ideally they should have helmed something high-profile. They should be a ‘safe pair of hands’ while we move into post-Moffat Who.
And Chibnall not only ticks all those boxes, he’s a big enough fan himself that he’s prepared to take the job.
1 February 2016 at 15:12 #507621 February 2016 at 07:19 #50745What if someone regenerated without a witness and couldn’t prove they were the same person as before?
The lack of banks aside, there’s some on-screen evidence that Gallifreyans simply don’t recognise each other in the visual way that humans do. In The End of Time, the Master and the Doctor seem to smell each other (and Missy later refers to Osgood’s smell).
It’s quite possible that their version of biometrics is psychic. We know that they’re a semi-telepathic race, and that things like psychic paper are possible; if they do ever need ID it may simply be tuned to whatever psychic core (that seems to be the way Moffat uses ‘soul’) remains constant through the regenerations.
31 January 2016 at 23:39 #50726No banks, no money and any identity theft usually turns out to be The Doctor or The Master. 🙂
30 January 2016 at 22:31 #50673Yes, I really liked this as well. The ‘real time’ experiment works better on a rewatch, but it makes the often over-rushed feel of Who-in-42-minute-episodes into an in-story problem instead of a scriptwriting problem.
The Doctor, Martha and the crew are trying to deal with a nightmarish series of self-created problems, which they don’t have time to deal with. The ‘Pub Quiz’ security questions probably seemed really funny when the crew thought them up – not so funny when it’s a race against time to get to the auxiliaries. Regeneration’s a great idea – not so much when you’re trying to get rid of an alien organism that’ll use you to murder lots of people and you can’t f**k**g die! And the free fuel seemed a really good idea at the time – not so much when you find out how much that ‘free’ fuel is really going to cost.
I like the ‘Alien’ style, battered, industrial, working spaceship. A tramp cargo-hauler, independently owned – which explains some of the problems, because that need to get by on minimal cost turns out to be the inciting incident. The Captain cuts a corner she should never have cut. Our ‘monsters’ are a living creature lashing out at its torturers, and a businesswoman breaking the law so that she and her husband can make a living. It’s a Who story where everyone is just trying to stay alive.
This story also moves Martha on quite a lot. She starts the story as a giddy new not-yet-companion, she ends it with the TARDIS key. In-between, she’s both realised emotionally that these adventures could kill her, and stepped up when she realises that her job can include saving the Doctor.
The two scenes I remember from this the most are Martha phoning her Mum when the pod’s been jettisoned, and the Doctor in a state of complete fear and panic as he’s having to go into the stasis chamber. Martha and her Mum is the most beautifully written scene; Martha trying to reconnect, her Mum’s desperate need to control her daughter driving Martha away. It’s kind of a little mini-explanation of Martha, really. The Doctor’s stasis chamber scene really feels like a brief look inside the Doctor. We’ve had him as the cheery Tennant Doctor, enjoying his travels, being stern and serious, always ‘in charge’, but now we get a glimpse of him starting to panic. The monsters are scared of the Doctor, but what’s the Doctor scared of?
Becoming the monster.
30 January 2016 at 00:29 #50652I’d recommend also including the webisode series Pond Life, and P.S.
Sorry I’ve been very silent; but since I’m deeply non-angsty about Chibbers, it became rapidly apparent that it was best to let everyone … angst, rather than sit here plaintively repeating ‘but I like his work.’ 😉
25 January 2016 at 19:02 #50461@puroandson
All the best to your mum. And virtual hugs to you.
24 January 2016 at 21:23 #50420@ob-wan and @jimthefish
The definition of words aren’t going to change to suit your musings.
I think ‘reboot’ as a film and TV term really only dates back slightly over a decade. I seem to remember the new Battlestar Galactica being described as a ‘reboot’, and then Batman Begins picked it up. But what they were doing was nicking a computer term to describe shutting down the old franchise and starting up the new one.
Batman Begins really should have used ‘factory reset’. It would be a bloody awful computer reboot that destroyed all your data.
24 January 2016 at 14:26 #50408We’re just going to have to agree to disagree about Broadchurch 2, okay? I agree that there are some things that jerk you right out of ‘suspension of disbelief’, but they often differ for different people. Or even different novels. I was once utterly unable to carry on reading an Arthurian fantasy novel series after the author had his Brits feasting on potatoes.
And yet I had no trouble with Sam Gamgee’s signature dish of fried fish and potatoes.
Shall we have a moratorium on mentioning Broadchurch 2? Perhaps we could call it The Series We Do Not Mention, to go with The Movie We Do Not Mention. 😈
24 January 2016 at 13:22 #50403Regarding Chris Chibnall
I like his work. He’s an actor’s writer; he’s not a ‘brilliant ideas’ writer. Peter Capaldi might well be very willing to stay for at least Chris Chibnall’s first year, because Chris Chibnall writes brilliant, interesting, sometimes amazing parts. The plot’s usually pretty straightforward.
Which is why the argument that Broadchurch was saved by the amazing acting isn’t really valid. Broadchurch was written in a way that allowed a group of very talented actors to show off their best work. It gave them backstory, situation and lines full of subtext; it also went for emotional logic rather than strict real-world logic. It doesn’t stack up as a police or legal procedural; that’s because it isn’t a police or legal procedural. It’s a character study.
If you look at ’42’, you’ll see that talent for characterisation. There’s the Doctor’s genuine fear when he realises he’s been taken over, there’s Martha realising she could die out here, and her family would never know what happened to her. There’s the Captain’s relationship with her husband. The real-time experiment didn’t work too well; but by Cold Blood, Dinosaurs and Power of Three, Chris Chibnall’s scripts are consistently hitting the ‘Excellent’ rating on the Audience Appreciation Index. We may prefer Moffat’s brilliant ideas, but there are a lot of people out there who are very happy to watch well acted, interesting characters (think the sheer nastiness of Soloman, and the emotional gamut that Nefertiti had to run in Dinosaurs) in a plot whose big questions are the ones about human nature.
So Chibnall has the producing experience, the wider audience likes his work, and he has one big hit (and several reasonable successes) under his belt. I’d imagine that he also has an idea of where he wants to take Who, and that it’s going to be in a different direction from Steven Moffat, because that’s how Who works.
So … don’t write him off too soon. As Jim says, we don’t want to become the anti-Chibnall brigade, just as there was an anti-Moffat brigade that never forgave Steven Moffat for not being RTD Mk 2. He isn’t Steven Moffat. He doesn’t have the same strengths as Steven Moffat.
But he does have an entirely different set of strengths.
24 January 2016 at 09:08 #50395It’s not nuclear power (and I know because I’ve worked in nuclear power).
Good. Now, imagine how you’d feel if I kept repeating the same, wrong, explanation of the way nuclear power works, using a dictionary definition, and consistently misapplying one of the technical terms.
I apologise if this is annoying you, but while you’ve worked in nuclear power, I’ve worked (and still sometimes work) in acting, theatre and film. Funnily enough, I do know what a DEM is. I also know what ‘suddenly’ and ‘unexpectedly’ means in dramatic terms. I have this strange suspicion that both RTD and Steven Moffat know, as well. 😉
It’s not that I’m trying to complicate something very simple, it’s just that my head keeps hitting the desk when you insist that a foreshadowed plot point turns up ‘suddenly’, and argue from that that Parting of the Ways contains a DEM. And that it doesn’t matter that Bad Wolf was mentioned a lot beforehand, it was still ‘unexpected’.
I will now go off and reverse the polarity of the neutron flow…
Hopefully, inner peace will be found by tonight. 🙂
24 January 2016 at 00:16 #50380Ob-wan
The Cinderella example is pretty flawed.
Yes, well, I’m trying to do my tax return. That’ll flaw anything. But even so, you’re happy with being told in advance the time and conditions for Cinders and the ball, but not happy with being whacked over the head with ‘Bad Wolf’ in advance?
Exactly. The only difference appears to be that you want to count the mere mention of the words “Bad Wolf” in other episodes as spoiling the DEM and I disagree.
Yeeesss… however, while we agree quite closely, I do have one major, major problem with your argument. The only difference between us is that you want to be able to say that a foreshadowed character is a DEM – and that’s just plain wrong.
It is not possible for a foreshadowed event or character to enter a story ‘suddenly’. ‘Suddenly’ or ‘unexpectedly’ (in drama) means ‘without any foreshadowing’. Writers are allowed to surprise us about what the foreshadowing actually means. But the accepted rules of drama say that if ‘Bad Wolf’ is mentioned through several episodes, Bad Wolf has to a) turn up and b) be important in the resolution of the plot. To use a site joke, Bad Wolf is a Chekhov’s Wolf.
‘What does Bad Wolf mean?’ say the characters. They don’t know, and neither do the audience, because if someone answers ‘Oh, Bad Wolf? Isn’t that an incredibly powerful god-like being that looks remarkably like Rose Tyler?’ it’s going to bloody well ruin any kind of dramatic suspense about the finale.
There is only one way to argue that Rose-as-Bad-Wolf is a genuine DEM (and I’m quite prepared to use it); that’s to pick on the previously un-revealed ability of the TARDIS to give people god-like powers through space and time.
Which is why RTD carefully used Boom Town to plant the idea that the heart of the TARDIS can do weird stuff. He didn’t want to be more specific about the weird stuff – and he knew damn well that by being less-than-specific, he was creating something that is very, very close to a DEM. Or which may well cross the line, under the permission of the ‘difficulty worthy a god’s unravelling’ clause. That’s quite probably why you can play ‘spot the DEM jokes’ within Parting of the Ways.
Ob-wan, it really doesn’t matter how often you quote the dictionary, or what your opinion is. You keep phrasing your argument in a way that suggests that you don’t understand the concept you’re discussing. Bad Wolf is foreshadowed; Bad Wolf doesn’t turn up suddenly or unexpectedly. If the writers announce that a deus (or dea) is turning up, then what turns up may be a deus – but they won’t be a deus ex machina.
What’s sudden and unexpected isn’t Bad Wolf. What’s sudden and unexpected is the ability of the TARDIS.
Rose (even in her Bad Wolf persona) isn’t the DEM. The DEM is
Looking in the TARDIS gave me glowy eyes with Mad God-skillz.
😉
23 January 2016 at 22:06 #50378It might help if you read my blog, because then we’d all be on the same page about what a DEM is. Or you could read the Wikipedia article. Arguing from a dictionary definition is a bit tricky; at the moment you’re coming across rather like someone arguing that the force of gravity doesn’t apply when we’re stationary because the dictionary tells them that gravitation is a ‘movement or tendency to move’.
I’m actually perfectly happy with the argument that The Parting of the Ways, taken as a single episode, contains a DEM. The ability of the TARDIS to give Rose her glowy eyed supernatural powers is definitely a bit of a new one for the old girl. Of course, as RTD reminded us in Boom Town, the TARDIS has a habit of coming up with new powers on demand. Within the episode, however, it’s a bit of a ‘the TARDIS can turn people into gods? Since when?’
But you’re arguing that Parting of the Ways is a DEM by the equivalent of saying that it doesn’t matter if we’ve been told that Cinderella has to go home at midnight; Cinderella forgetting the time is sudden and unexpected, therefore her dress turning back to rags is a DEM.
You could have a point if you talked about the glass slipper…
23 January 2016 at 20:44 #50376If you look at the definition of DEM you will see that there is nothing in it that forbids such vague foreshadowing.
Now, there I have to disagree with you. The whole point of a genuine DEM is that it isn’t foreshadowed. If you keep vaguely mentioning Poseidon throughout your series, don’t be too surprised if he turns up in the last episode. Even if he then destroys the entire cast with a tsunami, it won’t be a DEM. God, yes. Intervening, yes. But it was foreshadowed.
Dictionary definitions are on the short side: but the key word you are quoting is ‘suddenly’. Oxford has it as ‘unexpectedly’, which is a bit clearer and may allow you to see Jim’s point. Which is, Bad Wolf cannot be a Deus Ex Machina, because we expect Bad Wolf to turn up. We just don’t know what it is.
I’m a bit on the fence on this, because (as I said in the blog) I think RTD was following the Horace dictum of ‘If the problem is big enough to need a god to resolve it, then use a god’ (paraphrased). RTD knew what he was doing; Rose can’t get into the TARDIS without a crane-like winch (Greek drama often winched the god into the action) and her ‘god’ powers come ‘from the machine’.
So I’d say he’s playing with the entire concept of ‘Dea Ex Machina’. But what he wasn’t doing was using it as a lazy or careless convention.
23 January 2016 at 19:59 #50374I wouldn’t rate Parting of the Ways as ending with an actual D.E.M., but I would regard it as a joke around the concept of Rose becoming a Dea Ex Machina in the literal meaning of the phrase.
Just as the motorbike in The Bells of St John is an actual, genuine D.E.M., ridden by a pun on the literal meaning of Deus Ex Machina – the Doctor working through the Spoonhead machine.
23 January 2016 at 19:39 #50372Canon is whatever the writers say it is until they want to change it.
You’ve just defined the Doctor’s attitude to the laws of time. 🙂
23 January 2016 at 18:58 #50369Of course, the real reason for the twelve month delay is that they’ve finally got Peter Jackson to agree to direct an episode of Doctor Who.
Six of the twelve months are for one episode…
😈
23 January 2016 at 18:54 #50367To be fair, RTD set up Rose’s Mad Godz Skillz in Boom Town, when he established that looking into the heart of the TARDIS does Weird Stuff.
But in my blog I note that:
- the scenario in Parting of the Ways is set up so that it needs a dea to unravel it, and
- RTD not only knows perfectly well what he’s doing, he uses an actual winch as part of the plot.
Unless, of course, you’re doing a Christmas special, then it’s okay for Kazran to hug his younger self without any mention at all of any difficulties.
Especially if you’ve rebooted the universe just before Kazran meets Kazran. The explosive properties of Blinovitch Limitation Effect is visibly failing in the Big Bang; it works with the Sonic (to the extent of a small spark) when the universe starts collapsing in the Roman era, doesn’t work at all by the time Amy meets Amelia, and has never been seen since in any of the TV episodes.
23 January 2016 at 18:32 #50366Dear Chris
Well, it’s less than twenty-four hours since the announcement and you’re already the subject of considerable complaint. Welcome to showrunning Doctor Who!
You’ve been the Head Writer/Showrunner on two series which were built around the lead female actor (Torchwood and Gwen Cooper, Broadchurch and DS Ellie Miller), and you also employed female directors and writers while you were showrunning. But I’m sure all everyone will remember is that Torchwood episode with the metal bikini.
Your BAFTA win for Best Series (Broadchurch) was all very nice, but it pales beside Broadchurch 2 going a bit wobbly before hitting its stride. Basically, it’s probably best not to try and make your first series of Doctor Who an astonishing, award winning drama. People will only complain when the second series isn’t quite that good.
You’ve written five episodes for Doctor Who, four of which received an AI rating of ‘Excellent’. You’ve also been showrunner for five different series (Who will be your sixth), four of which were very successful. That’s great. But I’m sure all the fans will remember is that Torchwood episode with the metal bikini and Broadchurch 2 going a bit wobbly before it got back on track.
So, forget the fans. Remember that you’ve now got the job you’ve wanted since you were a teenager. And if you cast a female actor for the Doctor, for God’s sake don’t put her in a metal bikini! 😉
Pip
11 January 2016 at 07:18 #500694 January 2016 at 07:52 #49984While I don’t dispute any of this, it is worth noting that Watson speaks from a place of being every bit as damaged as Holmes, but in a very different way.
Absolutely. Sherlock’s PTSD adrenaline addicted war veteran is definitely a possible reading.
One way (but only one way) of reading the relationship between Watson and Holmes is that they each repair the faults of the other’s brother. Watson’s brother was an alcoholic, who died. Holmes is a drug addict – but Watson manages to keep him alive. Holmes’ brother is inactive, smarter than Holmes and seemingly uncaring. Watson is active, less smart than Holmes, demonstrably caring.
Of course, Doyle did this backwards; creating Holmes and Watson first, and their respective brothers later. But it’s still neat. 🙂
3 January 2016 at 23:48 #499763 January 2016 at 21:26 #49973to portray him successfully in modern times you must be willing to branch him out into some degree of social and personal connection with others.
Even in Victorian England, Doyle needed Holmes to make some kind of personal connection. Watson, whether Doyle realised it consciously or not, was the perfect man to make a personal connection with Holmes. Because, as Doctor Watson, he was allowed to care.
He was allowed to tell Holmes he wasn’t eating enough, needed to sleep, shouldn’t be doing drugs, needed a holiday, all the stuff that good friends do – because Watson could always retreat from ‘speaking as a friend’ to ‘that’s my professional opinion.’
There are women he treats particularly badly in the stories – the maid he gets engaged to, for example. However, Watson does say at one point something along the lines of ‘to be fair, he was also susceptible on the side of kindliness’. That is, Holmes does sometimes help people simply because they need help and have no one else to turn to.
But hard core SH fans seem to find this approach very threatening, and tend to disallow from the start (and permanently).
Sherlock’s determination to protect John is straight out of the stories; Holmes gets deeply upset when Watson is injured.
Abominable Bride was very firm on the subtext of the Holmes stories, by having Watson the Victorian author point out that he has created the character of ‘Sherlock Holmes’, which isn’t the same thing as the man Sherlock Holmes. Equally, the man Watson makes the character Watson look an idiot to make Holmes shine, and the real Mrs Hudson does more than just serve the breakfasts and show clients upstairs.
2 January 2016 at 23:05 #49963I would go for ‘always latent, but honed to an edge’. It must be pretty annoying to be constantly be accused of being sexist when you’re carefully making sexism/misogyny a serious character fault (and making full-on misogyny the province of your villains).
Probably saying Sherlock’s Victorian London is ‘created’ is a bit misleading of me; on the one hand, it’s all in his head. On the other, he’s creating it out of his knowledge of the real Victorian London.
And on the gripping hand, the moment when Sherlock realises that his fantasy Victorian-based world is a misogynistic one – and that’s how he’s behaving towards the real women in his real life – is a pretty powerful one. Especially since Sherlock Holmes is practically the prototype of the Detective-with-issues who treats women badly…
2 January 2016 at 17:28 #49955@jimthefish and @pedant
Yes, I saw The Secret of Sherlock Holmes when it was in the West End. Both actors, I must say, were wonderful.
So Sherlock reinventing Moriarty, possibly in some kind of schizoid breakdown, may well be something that comes up. But the other question is ‘it’s never twins’. Was Jim Moriarty a twin?
Because when he’s setting up Sherlock, he seems to have set up this entire other life as an actor, an actor with the stage name ‘Richard Brooke’ and even with a real job on children’s TV. I can’t help thinking that that would be an awful lot easier to do if there actually were two Moriarty’s.
2 January 2016 at 15:04 #49951@jimthefish and @pedant
Here it is:
The whodunnit was ‘How is Moriarty coming back from the dead’?
The answer: he’s not. Somebody else is using Moriarty’s death to create a ghostly Criminal Mastermind (TM); possibly pre-planned by Moriarty, possibly not.
Within Sherlock’s head, he creates a highly misogynistic Victorian world, where the women are fighting back – and starts to realise partway through his ‘Sherlock explains it all’ speech that he is the man who’s treating women badly. That’s why the women were all the female actors from previous episodes – it’s a bit difficult to play that point unless you bring back all the female characters that Sherlock treated like sh*t.
At which point Moriarty appears, because Moriarty has become Sherlock’s internal personification of all that is wrong with Sherlock.
I suppose you could have had a female actor playing all that is wrong with Sherlock, but that would have been just a tiny bit misogynist…
2 January 2016 at 01:48 #49930My ‘Guardian Moffat Bingo card’ is nearing completion: so far we’ve had
- Self indulgent
- Over complicated
- Too clever
- Too like Doctor Who
- misogynistic
I feel a bit like going on there and shouting ‘House!’, but that lot’d probably think I was talking about a US TV programme with Hugh Laurie…
1 January 2016 at 23:30 #49926I was thinking of Chuang Tzu and the Butterfly, but yeah, Buffy could definitely be a source as well.
1 January 2016 at 22:53 #49923That was really, really funny. And very neat, the way they used it to progress the main Sherlock arc.
Definitely worth a rewatch.
1 January 2016 at 20:32 #49920A pretty enjoyable pair of episodes and a good story all round. As it says in the intro, this is one of the Doctor’s great ‘oops’ moments – his original quick fix turns out to be the entire problem.
When Xoanon is imprinted with the Doctor’s personality over his own, guess what form his resulting madness takes? Hint: both the Tesh and the Sevvateem worship Xoanon as a god.
Yes, the Doctor’s God Complex dates back to BG Who. 🙂
The Sevvateem’s deeply argumentative nature turns out to have been bred into them: the Tesh are into control of emotion and devoted obedience. All things considered, it’s faintly unsurprising that not only does the Doctor do a runner as fast as possible, Leela decides to come along as well.
1 January 2016 at 16:20 #49913Happy New Year to everyone; and a Happy Birthday to this site. 🙂
29 December 2015 at 01:16 #49784The spaceship is, I think, a bit of a joke on RTD’s Titanic. That is, the person who escapes with his life from the Titanic is the total sh*t (most of the decent people die). Here, all the total sh*ts are deservedly dead and the bloke who gets the diamond is someone who did the brave and decent thing of checking for survivors.
There’s then a second joke that the Doctor, to go on a date with River, had to build the flippin’ hotel first.
🙂28 December 2015 at 23:54 #49775Well, that was fun. First thought: an early riff on ‘the Doctor needs companions, otherwise he ends up talking to himself’. Fortunately, he meets a warrior from some kind of jungle tribe. One who’s been kicked out for complaining about the local god – so definitely someone who’ll get along with the Doctor of the 1970’s (or was it the 1980’s?).
I think this was when Erich Von Daniken’s rubbish was still fairly popular – the ‘advanced tech seen as gods/demons’ by primitive tribe feels like something of a take on that. But as Calib says, did they meet the spacemen, or are the tribe their descendants?
I also note that Moffat’s practice of having the Doctor unable to remember every adventure he’s been in has a basis in the BG series – Tom Baker’s Doctor realises he’s been on this planet before, when he sees the giant face. But he can’t remember what happened.
26 December 2015 at 15:11 #49698@puroandson
Yes, it’s my holiday avatar. 🙂
I’m vaguely thinking of changing my tag line to ‘I’m going to need a bigger flowchart’. 🙂 It was a very funny story; especially the scene where they went through the other’s various affairs. And Moffat finally sorted out the ‘new suit/haircut’ thing from Silence in the Library – clearly the Smith Doctor ‘cancelled at the last minute’ when we saw him in Last Night, and took River somewhere else.
The original Twelve Days of Christmas include St Stephen’s Day (today) and the Massacre of the Innocents (Childermas), which is commemorated on 28th December. If Moffat wants to have a Massacre of the Definitely-Not-Innocent, that’s pretty Christmassy – Christmas also remembers a lot of death as well as a certain birth.
As he said in A Christmas Carol, Christmas is a ‘halfway out of the dark’ season. 😀
But, for now, it’s time to eat some leftovers and see some cousins…
Initially I misread that as ‘it’s time to eat some cousins and see some leftovers…’
25 December 2015 at 13:51 #49651@craig and @blenkinsopthebrave
And Christmas best wishes to Mr Bieber, as well. Apparently his intervention helped tip the balance.
Merry Christmas, one and all.
23 December 2015 at 21:38 #49616It’s Christmas after all.
For all of us (and Mr Beiber) from the movie currently on my DVD player
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