Who Two Parter
May. 1st, 2011 11:59 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
newnumber6So yeah, it's a bit... meh. (spoilers behind all cuts, non-spoilery comments outside of cuts). It's been a while since I've had to rant on Who, now that RTD's gone, but, well, Moffat, you earned yourself a little rant (although a bit of a weak, half-hearted one)...
But let's start with the good:
- The enemy was rather cool and creepy.
I once based a whole roleplaying character (a mutant in a Marvel game) around the concept of "every time you look away you forget everything about them", so whenever I see (the not especially novel) idea come up again, it always makes me feel a bit nostalgic.
I'm not sure the "They've been around forever, controlling the Earth" thing works as well, unless you assume they're not as actively involved in everything and randomly hanging about in people's streets and homes as this episode implied... or maybe they're mostly in the US, which the Doctor doesn't visit much. There are other flaws, which I'll get to later, but conceptually they're a nice addition to the mythos.
The other really sweet part was how they were finally dealt with in the episode. An (effectively) subliminal message in the most watched event in history that makes humanity destroy the invaders without even realizing they're doing it, was brilliant.
And of course, the usual performances, nice moments of humor or drama, and so on, were also well done. And I'm going to go out on a limb and say, provisionally, I liked the little girl regenerating at the end. Depends on what they do with it, but it was a nice semi-surprising moment.
A couple that are in the "I don't personally like it but it's not necessarily a flaw, per se" category:
River/Doctor smoochiness. I don't like River being the great love of his life, or being portrayed that way, and don't really like it being rubbed in our faces. Not sure I like the idea that he's quite happy with her shooting all the aliens while he cheers her on, either. All in all, I'm still hoping River's being set up for some great choice, where the Doctor has to sacrifice his future with her by altering history in a majory way, in order to do some greater good.
Also disliked, the hints of Amy's infidelity (either actual or emotional). That's always a personal squick with me (I'm still not over disliking Amy from the time she came onto the Doctor while she was engaged), and I'd rather not poke that bear, especially since it wasn't DEFINITIVELY dealt with (I don't believe they had sex, even what with Amy's baby having Time Lord characteristics, but I don't think they entirely put it to bed about whether Amy was talking about the Doctor or Rory... he confronted her on it after she called him Stupid-Face (which she might have said about either of them), she knew what he heard, so she could have said, "Uh, yeah, of course I meant you... even when I said you dropped out of the sky, which is just an expression, but clearly I meant my life was so boring before I met you as a child and grew up with you." And likewise, she knew Rory was listening in, so she might have said "I told you and not him because I had all these worries about the Tardis affecting the baby" instead of "because I wish you were the one who got me pregnant, I love you so much!".
In particular I dislike it in this episode because the idea that they took out the recorder, but somehow it was still able to broadcast whatever she said no matter where she was when she did, was a little dumb, an example of my old nemesis, Just So writing. The only reason it does that is Just So Rory can listen in on Amy's thoughts. Oh, and if the Doctor did actually get Amy pregnant, the traditional way, as low as the odds are on that, it will officially make me hate Moffat's run forever, no matter how many awesome episodes it contains. Fair warning. I'm hoping that if Amy IS still carrying a torch for him, it'll be an excuse for the Doctor to say, "Uh, no, that's it, it's time for you guys to leave the TARDIS, for good, and I go on to new adventures with a different companion..."
The big problem of the episode is overarching... he tried to do too much, and ended up with a bit of a mess and not a lot of it making sense. For example, stating the episode with the Doctor's companions being hunted down, and the Doctor in area 51... uh, why exactly? What triggered them going from 'helping' to 'wanted'? Especially since Nixon seemed happy to turn up and get them out of any jam they were in. It just seemed to be... well, pointless. Why build the cage (with magic dwarf-star material)? Why not just do all their planning in the TARDIS?
Pointless is one thing, but it's even worse when you don't bother to resolve the cliffhanger. It's like they just skipped an episode completely and expected us not to care. The worst thing is if you got rid of all the '3 months later' junk (which MIGHT only exist to give us a gap where the phantom pregnancy can have been dealt with), you'd have had plenty of time to get from the cliffhanger to the solution without feeling as rushed as it was here.
Another problem was, we never learned much about what was up with the space suit or the girl or how the Silence was connected with any of the overarching plot. I realize that's because it was intended to be the season's overarching plot, but still... it left THIS two-parter very unsatisfying. Maybe it was a one-or-the-other thing... if you 'skipped an episode', it would have been satisfying it it resolved most of the issues. Or it could have left a few danglers if you didn't feel like you had a huge gap for no reason. But instead, we have a story with no middle and no end (and, in some ways, no beginning, because the premiere started with a significant gap in time since the last episode).
In any event, I think that the idea of "Moffat tried to do too much" sums it up. Whatever the reasons, he tried to pack three episodes worth of content into two, and so it ended up being disjointed and occasionally incoherent.
But those are mistakes anybody could make, trying to do too much and failing. Even good writers do that from time to time. The question is... have we found Moffat's Great Tragic Flaw as a writer? Maybe.
He does seem to rely overly much on the predestination paradox, but, well, it's Doctor Who, a show about time travel. I'd rather he do a few other time travel related tricks though.
But no, I think the flaw MIGHT be (and even though it might be his Great Tragic Flaw, it's not a huge problem with this episode itself, it's just something I have a feeling he may keep doing and he really should watch out for because it weakens him greatly) that he has a good idea, then has another good idea and tries to graft it to his old idea, without worrying about whether it's consistent or dilutes the beauty of the concept. He's done this with the Weeping Angels - great concept, and then in the two-parter that reintroduced them, he added all sorts of new things, like "the image of an angel becomes an angel" and speaking with other people's voices and all around it (my comments on it here go into more detail).
With the Silence, I get the impression it might be a similar deal... he thought of a cool name for a villain, started laying hints about it coming in the future, then had this other cool idea about a race that's been around but nobody can remember, and decided "Oh, cool, that's the Silence!"... except then nobody should have been WARNING him about the Silence. It kind of screws with the foreshadowing. (It's not as bad as RTD who used to foreshadow things by having people in the far past and far future spout references to it for no particular reason other than that it was in the script).
Mostly, though, in this case, it's with River Song. Now he seems to really be pushing the "We meet in reverse order" angle, which is fine for a concept... except, River's concept, before, has always been "We meet OUT of order"... This was mentioned a couple of times in passing, and really hit home with the "Kiss"... when the Doctor reveals it's the first time, we get a reaction that indicates that, therefore, this must be the LAST time River and the Doctor kiss, from her perspective.
But that's bunk. We know, for example, that at some point, before the library, a version of the Doctor visits River Song and gives her the sonic screwdriver (so he can later save her) and they have a nice dinner, etc, that's the last time she saw him. And it hasn't happened yet, (unless they mean to imply it happened off screen sometime during 10's run). What's more, it makes a whole mockery of the "spoilers" book - if they're just meeting in reverse order, they don't really NEED to compare notes, they just realize, "okay, the last time I saw you was when we were in the Dalek Bar Mitzvah, so therefore you know me a little less than whatever I told you that time..."
It's also a poorer choice overall. The "meeting in different orders" is more interesting, because it puts things on a different keel... sometimes River will know lots about him, sometimes she won't... you could introduce a young character and have a dramatic revelation that it's Young River Song, alternate back and forth between adventures between them. But now the story is "He meets me in reverse order" we don't have that option, all for cheap drama of "oh noes this means its our last kiss" (I don't really want them to be mouth-kissing at all, but that's another issue).
So, yeah, Moffat, take a note: Not thinking things through was what made RTD such a hack. I know normally you're great a planning so far, but don't go down the lazy path. Keep being a good writer, don't change things just because you think you found a cooler idea. I suppose you might say that the 'stuffing too much in the episode' problem might be an outgrowth of this problem, but I'll assume it's unrelated.
Also, I'm not sure the timeline works out on a couple of fronts.
When we started the premiere, Amy and Rory were home for at least a couple months before they go off on their adventure. Then of course, after the first episode we jump to "three months later". At which point she may or may not be pregnant, but if she was, she'd probably have to be at least 3 months pregnant. However, she was also worried about how she spent all those months in the TARDIS, which suggested that she must have been pregnant while there, and, well, that would make her 5-6 months pregnant. It just doesn't really... feel right.
I suppose it's doable, barely, and depending on how they're interpreting everything (and they may well have said 'she was pregnant, but the Silence did it to make a Time Lord/Human hybrid and took the baby away and she didn't remember either event cause of what they are), but, well, it's a bit hinky.
Random Thought: I don't know how old the little girl was supposed to be, but assuming she was about 6... that means she would have been born in 1963, when Doctor Who premiered. Coincidence? Or connection?
Anyway, in non-Who news, later today... maybe I'm going to out to not-Easter-dinner. It's a family dinner that theoretically takes the place of Easter Dinner. But... I dunno, it's not. See, about a week or so before Easter, we were told we'd probably be having lamb and greek potatoes and rice and all the other trappings of Easter. Then, on the Saturday, I learned that we'd be having it on Sunday, and we'd be having... pizza. I guess because my grandmother wasn't able to come they decided for a light work one. Anyway, then Sunday rolls around, I'm all ready, literally waiting for the phone call of "we're on our way to pick you up", and I get informed... No Easter this week. Few people aren't feeling well so it was agreed that we'll do it Saturday next week (and probably KFC instead of pizza, which is at least a slight improvement because we eat pizza pretty regularly). Then on Friday I was informed "Sunday, not Saturday" (unexpected event).
All of this is fine, but... I miss Easter. Actual Easter. :(. Most of my life is monotonous routine, so yeah, I do look forward to events that are a bit more special (even if they're part of a larger yearly routine).. Easter's the only time of year I usually get roast lamb, one of the few I get lots of the greek side dishes, and that makes it special. Grabbing fast food isn't 'special'. I know it's ridiculously whiny of me (particularly since I'm not the one who has to do the work), but rest assured, I'm only doing it here.
But let's start with the good:
- The enemy was rather cool and creepy.
I once based a whole roleplaying character (a mutant in a Marvel game) around the concept of "every time you look away you forget everything about them", so whenever I see (the not especially novel) idea come up again, it always makes me feel a bit nostalgic.
I'm not sure the "They've been around forever, controlling the Earth" thing works as well, unless you assume they're not as actively involved in everything and randomly hanging about in people's streets and homes as this episode implied... or maybe they're mostly in the US, which the Doctor doesn't visit much. There are other flaws, which I'll get to later, but conceptually they're a nice addition to the mythos.
The other really sweet part was how they were finally dealt with in the episode. An (effectively) subliminal message in the most watched event in history that makes humanity destroy the invaders without even realizing they're doing it, was brilliant.
And of course, the usual performances, nice moments of humor or drama, and so on, were also well done. And I'm going to go out on a limb and say, provisionally, I liked the little girl regenerating at the end. Depends on what they do with it, but it was a nice semi-surprising moment.
A couple that are in the "I don't personally like it but it's not necessarily a flaw, per se" category:
River/Doctor smoochiness. I don't like River being the great love of his life, or being portrayed that way, and don't really like it being rubbed in our faces. Not sure I like the idea that he's quite happy with her shooting all the aliens while he cheers her on, either. All in all, I'm still hoping River's being set up for some great choice, where the Doctor has to sacrifice his future with her by altering history in a majory way, in order to do some greater good.
Also disliked, the hints of Amy's infidelity (either actual or emotional). That's always a personal squick with me (I'm still not over disliking Amy from the time she came onto the Doctor while she was engaged), and I'd rather not poke that bear, especially since it wasn't DEFINITIVELY dealt with (I don't believe they had sex, even what with Amy's baby having Time Lord characteristics, but I don't think they entirely put it to bed about whether Amy was talking about the Doctor or Rory... he confronted her on it after she called him Stupid-Face (which she might have said about either of them), she knew what he heard, so she could have said, "Uh, yeah, of course I meant you... even when I said you dropped out of the sky, which is just an expression, but clearly I meant my life was so boring before I met you as a child and grew up with you." And likewise, she knew Rory was listening in, so she might have said "I told you and not him because I had all these worries about the Tardis affecting the baby" instead of "because I wish you were the one who got me pregnant, I love you so much!".
In particular I dislike it in this episode because the idea that they took out the recorder, but somehow it was still able to broadcast whatever she said no matter where she was when she did, was a little dumb, an example of my old nemesis, Just So writing. The only reason it does that is Just So Rory can listen in on Amy's thoughts. Oh, and if the Doctor did actually get Amy pregnant, the traditional way, as low as the odds are on that, it will officially make me hate Moffat's run forever, no matter how many awesome episodes it contains. Fair warning. I'm hoping that if Amy IS still carrying a torch for him, it'll be an excuse for the Doctor to say, "Uh, no, that's it, it's time for you guys to leave the TARDIS, for good, and I go on to new adventures with a different companion..."
The big problem of the episode is overarching... he tried to do too much, and ended up with a bit of a mess and not a lot of it making sense. For example, stating the episode with the Doctor's companions being hunted down, and the Doctor in area 51... uh, why exactly? What triggered them going from 'helping' to 'wanted'? Especially since Nixon seemed happy to turn up and get them out of any jam they were in. It just seemed to be... well, pointless. Why build the cage (with magic dwarf-star material)? Why not just do all their planning in the TARDIS?
Pointless is one thing, but it's even worse when you don't bother to resolve the cliffhanger. It's like they just skipped an episode completely and expected us not to care. The worst thing is if you got rid of all the '3 months later' junk (which MIGHT only exist to give us a gap where the phantom pregnancy can have been dealt with), you'd have had plenty of time to get from the cliffhanger to the solution without feeling as rushed as it was here.
Another problem was, we never learned much about what was up with the space suit or the girl or how the Silence was connected with any of the overarching plot. I realize that's because it was intended to be the season's overarching plot, but still... it left THIS two-parter very unsatisfying. Maybe it was a one-or-the-other thing... if you 'skipped an episode', it would have been satisfying it it resolved most of the issues. Or it could have left a few danglers if you didn't feel like you had a huge gap for no reason. But instead, we have a story with no middle and no end (and, in some ways, no beginning, because the premiere started with a significant gap in time since the last episode).
In any event, I think that the idea of "Moffat tried to do too much" sums it up. Whatever the reasons, he tried to pack three episodes worth of content into two, and so it ended up being disjointed and occasionally incoherent.
But those are mistakes anybody could make, trying to do too much and failing. Even good writers do that from time to time. The question is... have we found Moffat's Great Tragic Flaw as a writer? Maybe.
He does seem to rely overly much on the predestination paradox, but, well, it's Doctor Who, a show about time travel. I'd rather he do a few other time travel related tricks though.
But no, I think the flaw MIGHT be (and even though it might be his Great Tragic Flaw, it's not a huge problem with this episode itself, it's just something I have a feeling he may keep doing and he really should watch out for because it weakens him greatly) that he has a good idea, then has another good idea and tries to graft it to his old idea, without worrying about whether it's consistent or dilutes the beauty of the concept. He's done this with the Weeping Angels - great concept, and then in the two-parter that reintroduced them, he added all sorts of new things, like "the image of an angel becomes an angel" and speaking with other people's voices and all around it (my comments on it here go into more detail).
With the Silence, I get the impression it might be a similar deal... he thought of a cool name for a villain, started laying hints about it coming in the future, then had this other cool idea about a race that's been around but nobody can remember, and decided "Oh, cool, that's the Silence!"... except then nobody should have been WARNING him about the Silence. It kind of screws with the foreshadowing. (It's not as bad as RTD who used to foreshadow things by having people in the far past and far future spout references to it for no particular reason other than that it was in the script).
Mostly, though, in this case, it's with River Song. Now he seems to really be pushing the "We meet in reverse order" angle, which is fine for a concept... except, River's concept, before, has always been "We meet OUT of order"... This was mentioned a couple of times in passing, and really hit home with the "Kiss"... when the Doctor reveals it's the first time, we get a reaction that indicates that, therefore, this must be the LAST time River and the Doctor kiss, from her perspective.
But that's bunk. We know, for example, that at some point, before the library, a version of the Doctor visits River Song and gives her the sonic screwdriver (so he can later save her) and they have a nice dinner, etc, that's the last time she saw him. And it hasn't happened yet, (unless they mean to imply it happened off screen sometime during 10's run). What's more, it makes a whole mockery of the "spoilers" book - if they're just meeting in reverse order, they don't really NEED to compare notes, they just realize, "okay, the last time I saw you was when we were in the Dalek Bar Mitzvah, so therefore you know me a little less than whatever I told you that time..."
It's also a poorer choice overall. The "meeting in different orders" is more interesting, because it puts things on a different keel... sometimes River will know lots about him, sometimes she won't... you could introduce a young character and have a dramatic revelation that it's Young River Song, alternate back and forth between adventures between them. But now the story is "He meets me in reverse order" we don't have that option, all for cheap drama of "oh noes this means its our last kiss" (I don't really want them to be mouth-kissing at all, but that's another issue).
So, yeah, Moffat, take a note: Not thinking things through was what made RTD such a hack. I know normally you're great a planning so far, but don't go down the lazy path. Keep being a good writer, don't change things just because you think you found a cooler idea. I suppose you might say that the 'stuffing too much in the episode' problem might be an outgrowth of this problem, but I'll assume it's unrelated.
Also, I'm not sure the timeline works out on a couple of fronts.
When we started the premiere, Amy and Rory were home for at least a couple months before they go off on their adventure. Then of course, after the first episode we jump to "three months later". At which point she may or may not be pregnant, but if she was, she'd probably have to be at least 3 months pregnant. However, she was also worried about how she spent all those months in the TARDIS, which suggested that she must have been pregnant while there, and, well, that would make her 5-6 months pregnant. It just doesn't really... feel right.
I suppose it's doable, barely, and depending on how they're interpreting everything (and they may well have said 'she was pregnant, but the Silence did it to make a Time Lord/Human hybrid and took the baby away and she didn't remember either event cause of what they are), but, well, it's a bit hinky.
Random Thought: I don't know how old the little girl was supposed to be, but assuming she was about 6... that means she would have been born in 1963, when Doctor Who premiered. Coincidence? Or connection?
Anyway, in non-Who news, later today... maybe I'm going to out to not-Easter-dinner. It's a family dinner that theoretically takes the place of Easter Dinner. But... I dunno, it's not. See, about a week or so before Easter, we were told we'd probably be having lamb and greek potatoes and rice and all the other trappings of Easter. Then, on the Saturday, I learned that we'd be having it on Sunday, and we'd be having... pizza. I guess because my grandmother wasn't able to come they decided for a light work one. Anyway, then Sunday rolls around, I'm all ready, literally waiting for the phone call of "we're on our way to pick you up", and I get informed... No Easter this week. Few people aren't feeling well so it was agreed that we'll do it Saturday next week (and probably KFC instead of pizza, which is at least a slight improvement because we eat pizza pretty regularly). Then on Friday I was informed "Sunday, not Saturday" (unexpected event).
All of this is fine, but... I miss Easter. Actual Easter. :(. Most of my life is monotonous routine, so yeah, I do look forward to events that are a bit more special (even if they're part of a larger yearly routine).. Easter's the only time of year I usually get roast lamb, one of the few I get lots of the greek side dishes, and that makes it special. Grabbing fast food isn't 'special'. I know it's ridiculously whiny of me (particularly since I'm not the one who has to do the work), but rest assured, I'm only doing it here.
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Date: 2011-05-03 10:45 am (UTC)