The Elite
BOSS
Only good Slitheen bit from that first season. When RTD has two characters sitting down just to talk he can do a great job.
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Doctor Who Series Seven |OT| The Question You've Been Running From All Your Life
- Thread starter Mr. Sam
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Only good Slitheen bit from that first season. When RTD has two characters sitting down just to talk he can do a great job.
AbortedWalrusFetus
Member
Is there a good place to watch all of the old OG Doctor Who episodes? Netflix and Amazon Prime only have a small selection of them, and I was interested in watching all of them.
APZonerunner
Member
I'm one of the great RTD defenders in this thread, really. RTD is an incredible character writer, and imo there hasn't been a single character since 2010 with the charm or sharpness of those he wrote.
The overall overarching point is the same, though. Like, RTD was better at keeping Doctor Who front and centre with the BBC as their #1 show, Moffat's era has slipped. He was better at not showing his hand to fans, or letting on when he was angry. All that. On the flip side, Moffat has been able to position the show much better abroad, so clearly he's not a complete disaster as show runner, the same way that for every 'Jesus Doctor' moment from RTD there's one like the scene posted above and such. In general, though, I'd argue RTD was a better character writer, while Moffat has been a better plot writer, yeah. RTD was undoubtedly better at running the show, though, but a great deal of that was also down to those he surrounded himself with - Collinson, Gardner, etc. Moffat has had musical chairs of everyone but him up top - though if you believe the rumour mill, a lot of that is down to him acting like a spoiled/entitled child, so... it's tough to sympathise.
On the subject of RTD, there's one scene I always think of as a not-so-obvious example of what a masterful writer he is. Anyone can point to Midnight (same way anyone can point to Blink for Moffat) or Parting of the Ways, but the truly brilliant thing I think of from him is in Utopia.
It's essentially a info dump scene; Jack goes into the radiation flooded chamber to fix things so the rocket can take off, the only man for the job because he can never die. He asks questions. The Doctor leers on the other side of the window, bathed in this red light, and in that instance looks and sounds cruel as he recounts running away from Jack, a friend. There's a real darkness to that scene, and the dialogue is just perfect. It establishes a new relationship for Jack with the new Doctor, checks the old one, and reminds/dumps a ton of information for the non-Torchwood-watching audience. On top of that you've got cut-aways to Martha, who is listening on the intercom and being gutted again as it's revealed Rose was the one who saved Jack and gave him his blessing and curse. A chunk of that is down to Freema, too, but there's just... that moment is great. "What happened?" "Rose." Martha looks crushed, again. On top of all THAT, the discussion brings up terms like regeneration, which Yana/The Master is reacting to as he begins to remember.
It's a wonderfully dense scene, and I don't think there's been a scene quite as masterful as that since in terms of accomplishing so many things at once, really. It would've been so easy to hand-wave all that stuff with some fast-cutting, Doctor dancing around, hands through his hair, doing his fast talking act. But, no - in a really deft movement, he does the exact opposite and slows an episode that is otherwise breakneck to an absolute crawl. Just two men, talking, with another two people listening in.
EleventhDoctor
Banned
Utopia is a GREAT episode. The most upsetting cliffhanger of all time in my opinion....I couldn't believe the Master stole the TARDIS and left the Doctor stranded at the end of time!
ElRenoRaven
Member
Nowhere. There are a good number of episodes that are lost in time. There have been rumors through the years that a good portion have been found but they've always turned out to be false.
D
Deleted member 231381
Unconfirmed Member
I agree that part of Utopia was excellently written, but damn it if Utopia wasn't the most-wasted excellent build-up of all time. That's the problem with RTD; he could never, ever end anything satisfactorily, with Midnight the sole and single exception. With Moffat, you almost always get a reasonably satisfying conclusion, which means the only point you're left waiting on is for the characters to click - which to be fair, Moffat manages a bit more often than RTD manages good endings. I think that Moffat has far more "excellent" episodes to his name than RTD does. That said, I agree he's not been the best show-runner. I was sort of hoping he'd leave at the same time as Matt so we could get an entirely new start - new companions, new Doctor, new everything.
APZonerunner
Member
I'm still gutted they couldn't afford to put Jack on the TARDIS for the title sequence. Would've been a laugh.
Still, yeah. That scene to me demonstrates to an extent what I think the show has been missing a bit since RTD left. It's those sitting down in a cafe sort of scenes. You started to get a glimpse of it later on with Amy and Rory, but even then it wasn't as well done, really.
Moffat can write a mean grandstanding speech (whereas RTD's "I'm the Doctor. I'm a Timelord. I'm 903 years old..." speech from Voyage of the Damned and its kin are still pretty lame and/or tame) but a lot of those character-to-character moments aren't there or aren't as strong. I can think of two specific ones that stand out on the same level; the moment he's about to go up in the Pandorica and says goodbye to Amy through to the end of the Big Bang (magnificent, but even the second half of that is a speech, not a conversation) and the moment he tries to get her to remember Rory.
It's a weird thing, but I think if you were to poll fans a lot of their favourite Eleventh Doctor moments would come down to those intensely memorable grandstanding moments - "Hello Stonehenge!" / "Amelia Pond! Get your coat!" - where basically it is the Doctor alone, speaking often to a lot of people - but the moments that'd end up topping the list for the Ninth and Tenth would be moments when he's addressing another - like "Have a fantastic life" and so on.. and I think that's largely a writer difference rather then the actors. To use another example, the moments I think of when I think of Amy and the Doctor are 'bigger' moments - what he did to her life, the waiting. With Rose I think of things like them sitting talking about getting a mortgage when they think the TARDIS is lost in The Impossible Planet, or when he starts to eat jam with his fingers and she silently tells him off in Fear Her (a wonderful RTD-added character moment in a shitty episode) - it's quite the difference. Then again, we're coming back to the companion difference there in general, where Amy and Clara both basically end up travelling with the Doctor BECAUSE of what they are, whereas Rose, Martha and Donna all travel with him just because and then end up becoming something greater.
The thing that RTD's era did is that sometimes it was at 1, with a scene in a council estate chippie, and sometimes it was at 11 with massive gigantic invasions of earth. Moffat's sort of runs at 5 throughout. It's amazing to me we haven't had one really atypical earth invasion story in his entire run, for instance. Tonal choice.
One isn't necessarily better than the other, just different. The difference between the two eras of new Who would make a great thesis for anyone studying screen writing, I think.
Well, that's the point of me saying he's a greatly flawed writer, really. His strengths in Utopia (and, I think, The Sound of Drums) are contrasted by his failures in Last of the Time Lords.
Still, yeah. That scene to me demonstrates to an extent what I think the show has been missing a bit since RTD left. It's those sitting down in a cafe sort of scenes. You started to get a glimpse of it later on with Amy and Rory, but even then it wasn't as well done, really.
Moffat can write a mean grandstanding speech (whereas RTD's "I'm the Doctor. I'm a Timelord. I'm 903 years old..." speech from Voyage of the Damned and its kin are still pretty lame and/or tame) but a lot of those character-to-character moments aren't there or aren't as strong. I can think of two specific ones that stand out on the same level; the moment he's about to go up in the Pandorica and says goodbye to Amy through to the end of the Big Bang (magnificent, but even the second half of that is a speech, not a conversation) and the moment he tries to get her to remember Rory.
It's a weird thing, but I think if you were to poll fans a lot of their favourite Eleventh Doctor moments would come down to those intensely memorable grandstanding moments - "Hello Stonehenge!" / "Amelia Pond! Get your coat!" - where basically it is the Doctor alone, speaking often to a lot of people - but the moments that'd end up topping the list for the Ninth and Tenth would be moments when he's addressing another - like "Have a fantastic life" and so on.. and I think that's largely a writer difference rather then the actors. To use another example, the moments I think of when I think of Amy and the Doctor are 'bigger' moments - what he did to her life, the waiting. With Rose I think of things like them sitting talking about getting a mortgage when they think the TARDIS is lost in The Impossible Planet, or when he starts to eat jam with his fingers and she silently tells him off in Fear Her (a wonderful RTD-added character moment in a shitty episode) - it's quite the difference. Then again, we're coming back to the companion difference there in general, where Amy and Clara both basically end up travelling with the Doctor BECAUSE of what they are, whereas Rose, Martha and Donna all travel with him just because and then end up becoming something greater.
The thing that RTD's era did is that sometimes it was at 1, with a scene in a council estate chippie, and sometimes it was at 11 with massive gigantic invasions of earth. Moffat's sort of runs at 5 throughout. It's amazing to me we haven't had one really atypical earth invasion story in his entire run, for instance. Tonal choice.
One isn't necessarily better than the other, just different. The difference between the two eras of new Who would make a great thesis for anyone studying screen writing, I think.
Well, that's the point of me saying he's a greatly flawed writer, really. His strengths in Utopia (and, I think, The Sound of Drums) are contrasted by his failures in Last of the Time Lords.
D
Deleted member 231381
Unconfirmed Member
I think my three favourite episodes (I'll cheat and put two-parters together) since the show restarted have been:
1. Blink
2. Midnight
3. The Empty Child / The Doctor Dances
Honourable mention: The Family of Blood / Human Nature
So I think that puts me fairly squarely between the two camps, if leaning a little Moffat perhaps.
1. Blink
2. Midnight
3. The Empty Child / The Doctor Dances
Honourable mention: The Family of Blood / Human Nature
So I think that puts me fairly squarely between the two camps, if leaning a little Moffat perhaps.
APZonerunner
Member
One thing we really don't know and that I'm really curious about is how much Moffat re-writes. RTD went over every script that wasn't from Moffat and didn't just send them back to the writer, but tore them apart and reconstructed them himself.
I often think the reason Fear Her is so shitty, for instance, is because he likely didn't get a chance to do that - the script was delivered a week before filming was due to start, commissioned late as a replacement for Stephen Fry's script, which had fallen through. It became a perfect storm, then - Fry's episode, set to be relatively expensive, had most of its budget spread between The Impossible Planet and Doomsday. So it was cheap and quick, which is a bad combo, but I don't think RTD had the time to do lengthy rewrites, and I think that's one of the reasons it's stand-out poor.
I'd love to know how much Moffat does, because with RTD at least I think a lot of the haters don't realize how deeply ingrained he was in the process. The writer of The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit essentially said his name may as well be taken off those episodes, so changed they were, and those are two of the finest. Then it comes down to things I just love, like how "Father of Mine" and all those other verbal tics in Human Nature were an RTD invention after Cornell submitted the script. They just didn't have names for each other in the original!
We have some examples... like the removing the head and detaching hands in Nightmare in Silver was Moffat, as was them still making noise - Gaiman scripted the new Cybermen as silent, without the stomping boots and gear noises, but Moffat changed that - but I'm really curious about other episodes.
We know so little about the production process now, it kind of sucks. DWM doesn't seem to get as much access as it used to.
I often think the reason Fear Her is so shitty, for instance, is because he likely didn't get a chance to do that - the script was delivered a week before filming was due to start, commissioned late as a replacement for Stephen Fry's script, which had fallen through. It became a perfect storm, then - Fry's episode, set to be relatively expensive, had most of its budget spread between The Impossible Planet and Doomsday. So it was cheap and quick, which is a bad combo, but I don't think RTD had the time to do lengthy rewrites, and I think that's one of the reasons it's stand-out poor.
I'd love to know how much Moffat does, because with RTD at least I think a lot of the haters don't realize how deeply ingrained he was in the process. The writer of The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit essentially said his name may as well be taken off those episodes, so changed they were, and those are two of the finest. Then it comes down to things I just love, like how "Father of Mine" and all those other verbal tics in Human Nature were an RTD invention after Cornell submitted the script. They just didn't have names for each other in the original!
We have some examples... like the removing the head and detaching hands in Nightmare in Silver was Moffat, as was them still making noise - Gaiman scripted the new Cybermen as silent, without the stomping boots and gear noises, but Moffat changed that - but I'm really curious about other episodes.
We know so little about the production process now, it kind of sucks. DWM doesn't seem to get as much access as it used to.
D
Deleted member 231381
Unconfirmed Member
I'm actually really annoyed the Cybermen were given sounds. At the moment, they're just shittier Daleks, when they have the potential to be genuinely creepy. They should totally Slendermanize them.
APZonerunner
Member
I actually think them being shittier Daleks is ok, as the threat of the Cybermen, surely, is that it's a fate worse than death. The Daleks are just going to shoot you, or if you're lucky enslave you - but the Cybermen are going to convert you into one of them. That's the horror, I think. Doomsday revels in the fact they're rubbish compared to the Daleks, which then just makes the Daleks even more horrifying in a sense... as the human armies still needed RPGs to take out a single Cyberman.
D
Deleted member 231381
Unconfirmed Member
I don't mean "shitter Daleks" as in, they're weaker than Daleks, I mean "shittier Daleks" in the sense the concept "genocidal robot space invaders" is exactly the same. I agree the horror aspect of the Cybermen should come from the body horror aspect and how fucked up being converted is, but the Cybermen just haven't been portrayed that way in aaaages. Nowadays they're just space warriors who occasionally shout "Convert". Cybermen episodes should essentially be more like old-school horror films.
peanutbutterlatte
Member
Moreso than Cybermen in New Who, Daleks have actually converted humans in different ways like a bunch of times.
D
Deleted member 231381
Unconfirmed Member
I think half the problem is that Cybermen don't look human enough. They should be much more uncanny valley. Slimmer and more human-sized and shaped but with just enough oddity (jerky movements, strangely monotone and high-pitched, absolutely silent in terms of movement) to really freak people out.
peanutbutterlatte
Member
I think maybe the faces should look like human skulls more, faces dipped in metal with those black dead eyes. The new redesign is more aesthetically pleasing certainly, but I wouldn't say it's creepier.
Outside of "Tomb of the Cybermen", a little of "the Invasion" and "Attack of the Cybermen", conversion of humans to Cybermen has never entered the plot at all even though the horror aspect of artificial parts is how they were originally conceived; most of their plots are standard "wipe out all life on Earth" fare. So in that respect, the new series has been much more consistent with their motivation of conversion.
Sir_Crocodile
Member
Did not know this. Respect RTD even more now.
peanutbutterlatte
Member
"Put in a lady in an eyepatch, maybe some reference to Clara being impossible. Remember, use the word "impossible" like six or seven times. Well, I'm off, seeya."
D
Deleted member 231381
Unconfirmed Member
GameplayWhore
Member
This may be a "that's the joke" moment, but I like this post a lot, since the last sentence is basically describing the very very not freaky first appearance of the Cybermen.
APZonerunner
Member
Rise of the Cybermen/Age of Steel touches on it briefly with alt-universe Jackie getting Cyberized and the scene of the woman who was getting married in the morning realizing what's happened to her, but then new Who hasn't touched on it at all since.
Are the new ones from Nightmare in Silver even putting the brain in the suit any more? I got the impression it was now more a memory transfer or something.
StealthGoblin
Banned
These Cybermen were the most freaky. Modernising this design and their mannerisms would be scary as hell.
The Elite
BOSS
These Cybermen were the most freaky. Modernising this design and their mannerisms would be scary as hell.
The masks are nightmare inducing. Would love to see a modern design of that.
AbortedWalrusFetus
Member
I did read that some episodes were completely lost. Oh well. I guess I'll just watch what there is on netflix, but it seems like they are missing huge swathes of the series.
"Doomsday" features Ms. Hartman getting cyber-converted, and the Cybermen attempt to convert Craig in "Closing Time". Even the beat-up one in "the Pandorica Opens" seems to be attempting to convert Amy via tentacles. I can't think of a new series Cybermen episode that doesn't at least touch on conversion, whereas lots of the old series stories never mentioned it.
I'd love that. It would be nice if they stopped moving like tanks and would go a long way in giving a creepier vibe.
Yep. That look is low budget and kind of ridiculous but it's the creepiest of them all precisely because it looks like a human face.These Cybermen were the most freaky. Modernising this design and their mannerisms would be scary as hell.
Even the modern look can look eerier if you apply some dissonance and human parts hanging or whatever, although that wouldn't be too child-friendly I guess:
Exterminieren
Banned
I do think fandom, by and large, vastly underestimates Moffat's input on other scripts.
Tom Spilsbury was saying on Facebook a few months back that almost all of what we saw on screen of Vincent and The Doctor and The Doctor's Wife came from the pen of Moffat, but it's been kept publicly quiet thanks to the big names that Curtis and Gaiman are.
Tom Spilsbury was saying on Facebook a few months back that almost all of what we saw on screen of Vincent and The Doctor and The Doctor's Wife came from the pen of Moffat, but it's been kept publicly quiet thanks to the big names that Curtis and Gaiman are.
EleventhDoctor
Banned
pretty much.
Gaiman is very open regarding where script changes and cuts come from though, to the point of answering random questions about them on twitter and tumblr all the time. I'd be surprised if that was the case for Doctor's Wife considering that script in particular has a well documented history of rewrites and changes.
User 100115
Banned
I have to call BS on the Doctor's Wife one, cause everyone pretty much agrees that was a Gaiman story through and through. I'd be shocked if it were true, and would think Gaiman would be more bitter about it and less 'wanting to come back and write again' ya know?
Edit: Plus what Fuu said.
peanutbutterlatte
Member
... so are we all over the trailer?
Hot Coldman
Banned
I find that very hard to believe. Those scripts both some very distinctly non-Moffat.
Especially Vincent.
Exterminieren
Banned
I don't doubt that Gaiman had a great deal of input throughout the scriptwriting process, but that hardly precludes Moffat having written the on-screen draft.
Plus Gaiman got tremendous acclaim on a property he loves. I can easily imagine why he'd come back, whether the final product was his or not.
RTD rewrote some episodes you'd feel very confident in saying would never come from his pen in a million years- The Impossible Planet and The Waters of Mars leap immediately to mind. It's only this meme that Moffat only knows how to write one episode that makes people think that The Doctor's Wife couldn't come from him.
Plus Gaiman got tremendous acclaim on a property he loves. I can easily imagine why he'd come back, whether the final product was his or not.
RTD rewrote some episodes you'd feel very confident in saying would never come from his pen in a million years- The Impossible Planet and The Waters of Mars leap immediately to mind. It's only this meme that Moffat only knows how to write one episode that makes people think that The Doctor's Wife couldn't come from him.
peanutbutterlatte
Member
Yeah doesn't he hate historical episodes? Like he sounded really contemptuous of them.
APZonerunner
Member
The Vincent thing I find interesting, as Curtis was asked for series 4 and declined because he didn't want to be rewritten as heavily as he was warned might occur. I always figured Moffat's rules were more lax because of this.
Exterminieren
Banned
He doesn't like the research, but he hardly hates them. If he hated them, Let's Kill Hitler, The Angels Take Manhattan, and The Pandorica Opens at the very least wouldn't exist.
peanutbutterlatte
Member
Did you record the trailer though
They're all there from the Third Doctor onwards, at least.
Hot Coldman
Banned
I actually thought he did write The Waters of Mars... those final scenes SCREAMED RTD.
And the Human Nature episodes are pretty much word-for-word RTD, with none of the zaniness or wackiness of his other scripts.
The Elite
BOSS
How did Billie Piper look?
Downloaded just in case it gets taken down. Looks awesome
What happened to this guy? We need an upload, stat.
He also wrote The Girl in the Fireplace and The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances, so I kinda wish he'd hate more stuff.
Exterminieren
Banned
The deal with Planet of the Dead and The Waters of Mars is that the bulk of them were written by Gareth Roberts and Phil Ford respectively, but RTD got a robust rewrite and got a co-writing credit as a courtesy for his last year.
The Waters Of Mars' sheer lack of optimism and despair at life are absolutely contrary to RTD's general "Life will out!" style. ADELAIDE COMMITS SUICIDE, DAMNIT.
Hot Coldman
Banned
"Midnight" and "Turn Left" weren't exactly happy-go-lucky either! It wasn't exactly out of the blue, we knew for a while that RTD could get bleak when he wanted to.
APZonerunner
Member
The gap year episodes weren't written any more or less by RTD than previous years, but Julie Gardner convinced him to at last take a co-writer credit (that by rights he should've taken on almost every prior episode) for his final few.
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