What Steven Moffat Doesn’t Understand About Grief

[Maggadin]

WARNING: SPOILERS FOR THE DAY OF THE DOCTOR

Thoughts?

tealeavesdogears.wordpress.com/2013/11/27/steven-moffat-doesnt-understand-grief-and-its-killing-doctor-who/

Personally, I wouldn't go so far as to say that it's ''killing Doctor Who.'' There have been (and are) lots of plotlines, events and relationships throughout NuWho that have led to my, at best, ambivalent attitude, but I also think that this doesn't mean that the show is doomed. Who is one of those shows that can always be (depending on your viewpoint) ''saved'' through some means. Once Moffat leaves, some other showrunner will most likely take the show in whichever direction they want. There have only been two NuWho showrunners so far and Moffat's successor will not necessarily share his style or attitude.

I also disagree that RTD's attitude to death and grief was necessarily better than Moffat's. In my opinion tend towards opposite extremes (RTD wallows in the grief and Moffat brushes it under the carpet after it's fulfilled its role as a plot-point).

I'll reserve judgment on the whole Gallifrey thing until I see how it's dealt with. I'm not very optimistic, personally, but if done well it could bring back something essential that I feel NuWho has been lacking, namely the fact that the Doctor was, for the first 26 years of the show, just one of many highly powerful beings, who simply made different choices than what his society demanded of him (well, him and the other renegades). If done well it would mean less Lonely God and more Activist Renegade, which I would greatly prefer.

However, I do strongly agree with the overall point about how the Moffat era has dealt with some very heavy subject, especially the topic of Amy and Rory losing their little baby, only to find out that she's been trained from birth to kill their best friend, only to later fall obsessively, disturbingly in love with him... and they barely react to this fact.

I also agree that the whole point of ''everybody lives!'' is ruined by repeating it again and again and again.

So, yeah, I agree strongly with the overall point of the article, but not necessarily everything in it.

[starpanda]

I think that a lot of the problems here stem from episode length. You can't spend eons focusing on character reactions, rereactions, relationships, and some incredibly complex plots in 40 minutes, 13 episodes. You just can't. It's impossible. Or you can, but you end up glossing over things, like you said. (In summary, I guess, Moffat has better plots, RTD has better pacing. I would love to see some of these previous arcs spread over six episode serials.)

I honestly could care less about the death stuff. This is a ****ing time travel show, for goodness sakes! Combined with space magic, and barring actual death of the actors, ANYONE can come back! What I care more about is emotional investment. Right now I don't care much about Clara. Why? Because I've never seen her do anything that isn't Incredibly Special or Important To The Plot or Totally Awesome. I've said this before. Why can't Clara just be Clara? Why can't she and Eleven hang out in the TARDIS and talk about hats or something? She's a teacher now, right? What about a fun, cute scene with her and her students? But it's not going to happen. Because there just isn't enough time in 40 minutes.

Anyway.

I'm actually looking forward to the potential Gallifrey arc. Mostly because I'm tired of angsty, whiny Doctor (Eleven was better at this than Ten, but still.). I'm glad he finally has a goal and we might actually get a coherent plot arc. My only reservation was the Doctor's knee-jerk happy reaction to finding out Gallifrey still existed. I'm hoping this is just his initial reaction. I'd like to see the whole fear/stressed tolerance/love/hate relationship with Gallifrey and the Time Lords to come back. I agree, more Renegade, less God.

I'm rambling now. So I guess I agree with you Maggadin, but I think most everything could be solved if there was a switch back to the old serial method.

[Maggadin]

I think that the article's point was precisely about emotional investment. The death thing is merely a part of that (the Everybody Lives thing, for instance, loses its poignancy by being repeated endlessly). The thing that's disturbed me the most isn't actually a death, but the whole Amy-Rory-Doctor-Melody/River thing (including the nature of the Eleven/River relationship). The problem IMO is that Moffat is perfectly willing to introduce some pretty disturbing stuff, but he's unwilling to deal with the full consequences of said stuff. Which in turn, makes it seem even more disturbing. In my opinion, that is.

This is not to say that RTD did it better, but I do think Classic Who did, most of the time (and being a kid's show isn't really an excuse IMO, as plenty of kid's stuff deals with this stuff very well).

As for the Doctor's reaction, I don't think he can be faulted for being happy, personally. Regardless of his problems with aspects of Time Lord society, it was still the place he came from, he still had people he loved there, and he still identified as a Time Lord. Also, I don't think he was the only Time Lord who had issues with how society was run (just look at Romana in Warrior's Gate). It's kind of like being an exile from your country of birth: you obviously resent the politics that made you leave, but you still feel a strong attachment to it. And I think that if I thought my country had been blown up (by you!) but suddenly found out you were able to bring it back, my first reaction would also be elation (combined with other emotions, of course).

But, yeah, I think we agree in essence.

[starpanda]

Don't get me wrong, I completely understand the initial elated reaction. I just hope that however many hundreds of years of history between the Doctor and Time Lords in general isn't swept under the rug for, again, the sake of fitting it all into an incredibly compressed amount of time.

We've seen what Moffat can do with an hour and a half in Sherlock. Maybe if that extended time could apply to Who, we could get some answers, including some of the disturbing things you brought up.

Ah, well. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

[Maggadin]

Oh no, I don't think the history should be swept under the rug. But I also hope that there won't be any ''How dare you be ungrateful to your Messiah Doctor, you scum!'' One of the things that was cool in Classic Who was the hint that the Doctor wasn't the only exile who had a problem with how his society was run. What I would find extremely cool was if there were split factions, with the ''good'' renegades (Doctor, Romana etc) struggling for a new, better Gallifrey against Rassilon and his ilk. You know, winning hearts and minds and stuff. With, of course, the ''bad'' renegades (Master, Rani etc) playing their own game and not giving a poo poo about Gallifrey in general. But then I'm a weirdo who loves Gallifrey Canon and all it's political intricacies (which is why I'm pessimistic, because I've heard that Moffat dislikes the Time Lords and Gallifrey canon, so I'm worried he'll make the Doctor The One Good Time Lord Who Sacrificed Himself for an Undeserving People).

I'm an optimist at heart, can you tell?

I agree to an extent about the time issue, but here are six words to possibly contradict it:

For sale: baby shoes, never worn.

I think the characters/pairing involved in the disturbing stuff ought to be over and done with by now, but I'm not too hopeful.