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@jimthefish – yep – different strokes for different folks.

My one real hope, having nothing to do with the story arcs per se, is that enough fans are more like you than like me. 🙂  After all, since that is the way this story arc is going, and since future shows depend in a big way on ratings, the more who like what’s going on now, the more who are likely to continue showing up.  And more than anything else regarding, Doctor Who – I’d like the series to continue on for a few more seasons at least. 🙂

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I appreciate the thought going into making this a more nuanced conversation. Really, very good. And @phaseshift, your bit of history helped me clarify my thinking a little bit (though I won’t call it clear).

Perhaps using the phrase “soap operaish” was not really a good choice of words.

So what word or phrase would be good to label the idea of a plot line that is filled with unnecessary and irritating contrivance, wastes time on a story arc of a conflict that feels forced and beneath the character – who HAS a history from the previous season, and who we thought we were getting to know? Where it seems that the forced conflict (and the lies that it generates) is really just a plot device, and not a very good one at that? Where it seems for one brief blissful show (Orient Express),  that they realized the error of this and corrected it, only to find that at the end of that show, they’re doubling down on it? (grrrrr)

I get that my view on the worthiness of this story arc is far from universal. Indeed, I might be a minority of one, which is fine. But to me it does feel forced; it feels unnecessary; and it feels like it’s not the Clara we came to know in the Matt Smith episodes (or even before she met Danny in the current season).

Yes it’s just fiction; yes the writers can write whatever they want; and yes there are many (most?) fans who apparently love and applaud it. But, alas, not this fan.

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Hey @jimthefish –

I did not think you were aiming things at me personally.  But I appreciate that you were concerned about me taking it so. Thank you.

I wasn’t really a fan of the BG Who. (BG is “before gap,” yes?).  So if there is a history of the BG Doctor not really being in the “pantheon of heroes,” does that mean there was a significant shift with the reboot? And maybe now it’s shifting again to the BG style?

As for Clara – well, we’ll just have to wait and see what the show does with her character.  But I have to admit to tentative disappointment. She’s gone from being my 2nd favorite companion (after Amy and Rory (I view them almost as a single companion), during the Matt Smith episodes) to someone that I don’t look forward to seeing all that much. What’s the point of her? She’s just going to make me squirm some more as she lies to Danny, does things in her “addictive” self-interest, etc.

If it *ends* badly for her, without any kind of redemption, I will likely consider it a waste and lousy storytelling. I know that’s a bit harsh. And I certainly am not saying that anyone else should see things the way I do or feel what I feel.

I’m unabashedly a romantic at heart. I tear up when I watch stories of nobility, sacrifice, heroism and sentimentality that end up with the good guys winning in the end and the bad guys going straight to Hades.  Since we’re not at the end yet, I can’t say that I will be disappointed. It may be that even if it doesn’t go the way I think I prefer that the story will be wonderfully compelling in a different way.

– Bal

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Hi again,

So I don’t have any real disagreements with anything said here about character development in general. But there are still two things that seem discussion-worthy to me.

#1 – The portrayal of Clara’s relationships makes me cringe. She lies when there is no apparent need to do so. I am hoping that this is intentional and part of the story arc, and that there will be a good resolution to it. If so, then I will admit to being wrong and acknowledge the creators and the writers to be – mmm – stellar in their craft.  I would welcome that much more than me being correct.

#2 – I have always considered Doctor Who to be in the same league as Superman, Batman, Bat Masterson, etc. In other words – heroic. We (OK – I) use the word “hero” to indicate someone worthy of being considered a role model. In the original incarnation of Doctor Who, the companions were less than they are today, yes?  In the modern incarnation, the companions are also all heroic.  So it is a bit of a letdown when both the companion and The Doctor are shown to have feet of clay.

Perhaps it is good to have a season where not only the companion is fairly conflicted but The Doctor as well. But it changes the feel of the show for me. It’s not as much fun.  If I want to see annoying people, there is always the Lifetime Network and professional wrestling.

All of my concerns presume an overarching story arc that leaves me dissatisfied. This is completely unfair of me, and were I the creators and writers, I’d simply wink, smile and say, “Just wait.”  Here’s hoping.

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@jimthefish – I agree with the whole mythos thing relative to DW. So let’s zoom in on the relationships between Rose and Micky, Amy and Rory, and now Clara and Danny.

Rose/Micky – Rose wanted to have a romp; Micky went from being that romp to being a wet sponge. Then he grew up and Rose’s relationship with him shifted through these various developments. Her central relationship with him was friendship and whatever conflicts they had were not rooted in deception and lies.

Amy/Rory – Amy wasn’t really sure what she wanted when she first met Matt Smith’s Doctor. She had given him up as a chidhood fanasy only to find that he was real after all. Not only real, but “magical,” or at least wonderful, in a scifi timey-whimey way. So she was conflicted. And Rory experienced he brunt of this inner turmoil as she worked it out, which she finally did in the episdoe, Amy’s Choice.  Then it was just a matter of Rory coming to believe it to be really true.  Again, the central theme between them love and respect without a dominating antithesis of deception and lies.

Clara/Danny – Since the story is not yet played out, I can’t be entirely fair in my characterization of this relationship and have only a few episodes to go on. But so far the main theme between them seems to be that they like each other, though how much I can’t really say. Clara says she loves Danny, but she doesn’t really act as if she does. Danny does seem to be there for her, but again, I don’t have enough information to say, “Yep – this is the real deal between them.” And that’s OK. It was the same with Rose and Micky and with Amy and Rory until the stories settled things out. But unlike Rose and Amy, Clara lies through her teeth, and I need to watch Orient Express again to see whether I can agree with those here who say that she didn’t lie at the end (I would so like that to be true!).

If she is lying, this is not worthy of the Clara we came to know in the Matt Smith episodes. And granting that in real life, people do change; people who for most of their lives didn’t lie suddenly start lying, or the reverse – this is fiction and the authors and producers have the ability to design a character to be heroic or at least a cut above the everyperson – i.e., the everyperson we might aspire to be in our better moments.

And for a little wrinkle: One of the things Matt Smith’s Doctor and River Song said often enough was that the first rule of traveling with The Doctor is that he always lies.  Maybe so; but he lies in order to truly make things better. Not in order to satisfy insular singular self-interest. His lies were always in the service of solving the problems he confronted – generally getting people to believe in themselves more than they would if he told the unvarnished truth of things.  I’d have no problem with Clara’s lies if she had a similar motive. But so far as I can tell, she doesn’t. And that’s what makes it, for me, soap-operaish.

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Well – let me respond with a bit of perspective. This doesn’t even rate as a 1st world problem. 🙂  So we’re just having some fun here, yes? I mean – it *is* fiction.

So it is within this tempest-in-a-teapot context that we are arguing. We’re certainly NOT discussing what should be done about Ebola as a public health policy. It’s just Doctor Who fans wanting to have a show that we all clearly love staying at the top of its game.

I would never call anyone associated with Doctor Who idiots. I might say that they are tired, or that they are resting on some well-earned laurels. And if so, OK. But that doesn’t mean that the shows should be immune from criticism.

Consider another of my favorite shows – the various Stargate franchises. How hard would it have been for them to have a “plupfrisidopalip” that accounted for everyone in every galaxy speaking the King’s English? But no – they had no Universal Translator; no babblefish.  How hard would it have been for them (and other scifi shows like it) to realize that if someone was “out of phase” so he walked (rather than floated) through walls, that logically, he should fall through floors and then the ground.

So given this kind of stuff, we (OK, I) rely on the quality of the story and the acting, production values, music, etc. to overcome such glaring gaps. If these are also missing, then I start getting (again 1st world problem) testy. The relationships of Danny, Clara and the Doctor are soap-opera-ish … Three’s Company-ish. They distract in the story line and that opens the stories up for critiques that go into thing like “the science,” etc.

But at the end of all this discussion, I look forward every Saturday to the next installment, and I suspect I always will.

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@mtgradwell – I get what you’re saying (I think), and I mainly agree with you. But when I say its not hard scifi, that means that the authors and actors are asking me to suspend disbelief.  It’s part of the bargain I make with them as I watch.

That said, the minute they start relating the what’s going on in the story to our real world, where one can look up and verify facts, they ought to at least make some small effort.  How hard would it be to have “real world fact checking” as a step in the creation of the script?  Never having produced a TV show, I don’t know.  But it took me just a few seconds to google “mass of the moon.”  And while there were a variety of answers, all of them came in at over 50 trillion tons (which is why I used that number). But even at that low end, 50 trillion tons swamps a few billion, and thus I could make my case.

If I could do it in a few seconds, surely someone involved in the production could have done something similar.

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@mtgradwell – I hope you are right. Both my wife and I had he same spontaneous reaction: “Really? Are we really going to stay in “Three’s Company” territory?

I would love nothing more than to be wrong.

On another note: Doctor Who is not hard scifi. The facts of the real world are no more than props and devices.  For example, in the real world, the moon actually masses in at something over 50 TRILLION tons, meaning that a space critter coming in at a few billion isn’t going to change gravity a wit’s worth of notice. But that’s OK with me. This isn’t 2001 A Space Odyssey where Clarke and Kubrick were relying on extrapolating from fact to create a story. It’s meant to be a romp; at least that’s how I’ve always taken it.

That said, internal consistency is as necessary as ever for there to be good storytelling across shows. And so far, there is that.

Final point: I’m probably a bit dense, but my wife and I didn’t like Season 6 when we first saw it. But then we binge watched it when it came on Netflix and everything made a whole lot more sense and the story line of Season 6 turned out to be good. Maybe it will be the same for Season 8.  I can only hope.

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This had the potential to be a really good episode – and it was, right up until the end. I don’t know what it is, exactly – well, yes I do.  There is an artificial strain put into this season that doesn’t need to be there; that doesn’t do a lick of good that I can tell and makes for lots of contrivance.  I speak of the relationship of Danny and Clara – which ought to be at least as good as that of Mickey and Rose and Rorey and Amy; but so far isn’t.

Clara has gone from being heroic in her own right to being part of “Three’s Company” where there are lots of forced misunderstandings and entire arcs built around this. Some of it is downright squirm-worthy.  Especially, when Clara – who’s supposed to be a strong woman (and was in the Matt Smith episodes) lies to Danny.  My wife and I were so relieved when she finally fessed up and made things honest between she, Danny and the Doctor. We loved the relationship bits in the Moon episode.

But now we’re back to her lying to Danny and to the Doctor in order to carry on her double life – which had been resolved favorably in the earlier episode.  This contrived tension just seems like bad or lazy writing to me.

Clara has the potential to be the best companion since series was reborn – and she was fulfilling that promise with Matt Smith. Sadly, that Clara seems to be replace with a confused little school girl who can neither make up her mind what she wants nor be honest about it.

As for The Doctor, finally this Doctor is beginning to be more like The Doctor and less like a confused old man with a mid-life crisis. He’s Doctor Who for Pete’s sake!  Being a confused old man is OK for the first, maybe the first two episodes of the season. But this time it took too long. Thankfully that seems to finally be done.

The short of it is that both the Doctor and Clara need to be stronger characters than they’ve been. Otherwise, it’s like watching a scifi soap opera, and that would be such a shame if it came to that.

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