Never been that terribly impressed with his output, frankly.
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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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I'd like Whitehouse to be the next showrunner too, I like all his episodes. I like Gatiss too but I'd rather Whitehouse take over. Hopefully Moffat still writes an episode or two a series. I'd like RTD to write an episode as well, I know Moffat keeps offering him.
Currently half way through listening to Dark Eyes, man, Paul Mcgann is amazing in this. I really hope he appears in the 50th. (Eccleston too!) Going by his twitter comments recently it's not looking likely.
I'm really going to miss Matt, I wasn't too keen on him at first because I was so used to Tennant but he's really grown to become one my absolute favorite Doctors.
Currently half way through listening to Dark Eyes, man, Paul Mcgann is amazing in this. I really hope he appears in the 50th. (Eccleston too!) Going by his twitter comments recently it's not looking likely.
I'm really going to miss Matt, I wasn't too keen on him at first because I was so used to Tennant but he's really grown to become one my absolute favorite Doctors.
acheron_xl
Member
I wonder if Gatiss would be the second coming of Hinchcliffe, with his love of horror and all that. That style would be really cool with Capaldi in the lead.
aHebrewMenagerie
Member
I agree 110%, I loved Tennant, and always will, but in my opinion, Matt Smith captures what the Doctor is, a weary old man, who's always up for one more adventure, especially in the second half of this season.
Does this mean that we are going to rate Moffat-written episodes?
"The Empty Child" / "The Doctor Dances"
"The Girl in the Fireplace"
"Blink"
"Silence in the Library" / "Forest of the Dead"
--
"The Eleventh Hour"
"The Beast Below"
"The Time of Angels" / "Flesh and Stone"
"The Pandorica Opens" / "The Big Bang"
"A Christmas Carol"
--
"The Impossible Astronaut" / "Day of the Moon"
"A Good Man Goes to War" / "Let's Kill Hitler"
"The Wedding of River Song"
"The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe"
--
"Asylum of the Daleks"
"The Angels Take Manhattan"
"The Snowmen"
"The Bells of Saint John"
"The Name of the Doctor"
Pretty solid list. Time to put them in best order.
For me, the absolute best is The Eleventh Hour. Simply on the virtue of allowing a whole new viewership to enjoy the show (including me, it was my first Doctor Who episode as well, converted my girlfriend and some of our friends to fans thanks to that episode).
After that, Blink kinda have to come. The Empty Child / Doctor Dances ties up with the Silence in the Library double episode as well. They are both emotionally moving, but have different strengths thanks to different doctors delivering the speeches. And I love the callback to "just this once...everyone lives".
After those, I would put Asylum of the Daleks and Snowmen up amongst the very best of his work - simply because it is from a time when Clara's premise was the most exciting one for me.
I loved the Bells of St John/Name of the Doctor/Impossible Astronauts kinda equally. They all had some flaws, but whatever.
The rest goes behind the Beast Below, for me. Although Let's Kill Hitler is pretty enjoyable even on rewatches - for all the wrong reasons!
After that, Blink kinda have to come. The Empty Child / Doctor Dances ties up with the Silence in the Library double episode as well. They are both emotionally moving, but have different strengths thanks to different doctors delivering the speeches. And I love the callback to "just this once...everyone lives".
After those, I would put Asylum of the Daleks and Snowmen up amongst the very best of his work - simply because it is from a time when Clara's premise was the most exciting one for me.
I loved the Bells of St John/Name of the Doctor/Impossible Astronauts kinda equally. They all had some flaws, but whatever.
The rest goes behind the Beast Below, for me. Although Let's Kill Hitler is pretty enjoyable even on rewatches - for all the wrong reasons!
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
Not going to rank them all, but top tier:
Empty Child/Doctor Dances
Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon
Blink
Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead
The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang
bottom tier:
The Name of the Doctor
A Good Man Goes to War/Lets Kill Hitler
The Snowmen
The Wedding of River Song
Looking at it like that S6 is even more crushing to me. I really really think Impossible Astronaut and Day of the Moon were excellent episodes, and the way in which every part of the "death of the Doctor/River Song's secret" storyline was handled after that was just disheartening.
Empty Child/Doctor Dances
Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon
Blink
Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead
The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang
bottom tier:
The Name of the Doctor
A Good Man Goes to War/Lets Kill Hitler
The Snowmen
The Wedding of River Song
Looking at it like that S6 is even more crushing to me. I really really think Impossible Astronaut and Day of the Moon were excellent episodes, and the way in which every part of the "death of the Doctor/River Song's secret" storyline was handled after that was just disheartening.
aHebrewMenagerie
Member
What the fuck? Those episodes were amazing. The Snowmen was as good as A Christmas Carol in my mind, and The Name of The Doctor, set up a story arc that looks like it will expanded across in the 2 biggest episodes in the past 4 years. And all while being satisfying in it's own right. TNoTD was the best Moffat episode since the Eleventh Hour
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
The Snowmen has coherence issues, its really kind of bizarre how messy it is on a plot level. Not in a "lot of things are happening" way (that's a different problem) but in a "connections between things aren't making a lot of sense" way. Its just...sloppy. Even on my first watch through I felt like something was really off in its structure.
The Name of the Doctor has a lot of problems that can't be redeemed by the awesome John Hurt reveal. As I expected the Whispermen are literally nothing more then a visual toy, used to be "creepy" without anything interesting about them. The Doctor jumping in to save Clara immediately after she makes this huge sacrifice that they spend like five minutes hyping up as a big deal completely retroactively robs that. Stop playing around like character death is meaningful if you're not going to make character death meaningful. And of course the whole way they wrote themselves out of the corner of "The Doctor has to say his name" is possibly the laziest thing Moffat has ever written.
Actually, lets touch on that last part a bit more, because I think the same thing plagued series 6, and its this thing they do of dropping mysterious phrases and locations and enigmatic prophecies into the overall picture. RTD was pretty good at this because he kept it fairly simple and also genuinely mysterious: you had no idea what Bad Wolf meant or who Harold Saxon was until the finale. Moffat...is not good at it, primarily because I honestly think he isn't really planning ahead with these things at all. Seriously. I cannot imagine that when he concepted the whole "On the fields of Trenzalore...the question will be asked" thing that the solution he had in mind for that was "River Song's ghost whispers it". Every single word in that sentence smacks of "oh shit, now we're actually here what do we do guys?"
Quote from Moffat from the latest Doctor Who magazine:
Glad to hear it still looks like quite a few things will be tied up in the Christmas special.
Oh, never mind the TARDIS blowing up, what about the endless, bitter war Kovarian was on about? And whats Trenzalore? And the oldest question in the universe? And what exactly do they mean, silence will fall? Anyway, Im off to a readthrough
Glad to hear it still looks like quite a few things will be tied up in the Christmas special.
I am glad that I am a peasant-class movie/TV-watcher who does not notice such inconsistencies and issues with the Snowmen's writing. For some reason, it all made sense to me, on the frist time and on rewatches as well. Weird.
But I agree that Moffat loves writing himself into a corner and not coming out of it very gracefully. I cant take the threat in Name of the Doctor ("Fall of the Eleventh") seriously when the whole previous season had that as the main theme.
But I agree that Moffat loves writing himself into a corner and not coming out of it very gracefully. I cant take the threat in Name of the Doctor ("Fall of the Eleventh") seriously when the whole previous season had that as the main theme.
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
Off the top of my head, almost right at the beginning he says that Clara is "creating the snowmen with her mind" and sure enough when she stops thinking about them they disappear. We're never really given a good explanation for this. Oh sure there's that psychic field thing that comes up in the climax as well, but does that mean everyone can control the Snowmen around them? If so they're kind of useless as minions. Or is it just Clara? But I don't even think there's a throwaway line about her psychic ability being abnormal because she's "special" or anything, I've really never been clear on just what that whole "you're creating them with your mind" line was about. I mean, the series is usually pretty decent at providing some explanation even if its either "because time travel" or "the power of love did it".
There are a couple others but I need to run to work, I'll try and type them up later.
Oh except I'm also really still hung up on the whole "'pond' was a goddamn stupid one word answer that only works because of dumb luck" thing
It was probably less dumb luck and more latent Claraness
Sure. The more places they're available the better.
Does anyone know when abouts series 7 will come to Netflix? Also, does anyone know why series 6 is on US Netflix and not the UK? In fact a lot of British programs aren't on the UK Netflix but are on the US one, I don't really mind, since I can easily access US Netflix, just thought it was a bit weird.
acheron_xl
Member
More than anything else, I think season 6 nailed tone. In my mind's eye, when I imagine Matt's doctor, the season 6 version is what appears.
The Elite
BOSS
Ok. This is promising.
I think my biggest problem with Moffat is that Sherlock completely blows Doctor Who out of the water right now and I can't help but feel that's where most of his energy and enthusiasm is being directed. It's like Doctor Who was a stepping stone to get to the project he was born to work on.
Moffat is obsessed with mystery, and that works in the logical world of Sherlock, but it too often seems like asspull with Doctor Who.
Moffat is obsessed with mystery, and that works in the logical world of Sherlock, but it too often seems like asspull with Doctor Who.
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
I...er, what? What does this quote mean?
Jorok Goldblade
Member
Yes and no. Yes because there's more places you'll be able to watch them. No, because they won't be current episodes- just the content that's already on Netflix.
EleventhDoctor
Banned
Very promising. I now have high hopes.
Sounds good if he means that all of that will become clear but is it possible that he's taking the piss instead? Like "some fans keep talking about all these things that I consider resolved/aren't important, and those people have even more to complain about soon"?
Rights issues are different in every country. That's why Canadian Netflix looks different from US Netflix looks different from UK Netflix. The US Netflix has negotiated the rights to all the current series of Doctor Who, while the UK Netflix hasn't. That's the answer.
The US probably gets more British shows because they're seen as more niche over here, and thus are probably cheaper. It's understandable that the rights holders would feel that they're more valuable and thus charge more over the pond.
APZonerunner
Member
My main question is -- can all that stuff be answered satisfactorily in 60 minutes? Because that's how much Matt we have left. (Assuming, of course, none of that stuff is dealt with in the 50th - but all spoilers and indications seem to suggest that other than the Hurt wrap-up it's enclosed from other arc stuff.)
I think it may be possible as long as the situation is somewhat connected to those things. It's basically all
Silence related stuff
how they blew up the TARDIS
Harlock
Member
I am afraid of this quotes. Can sound like an ending to the show.
APZonerunner
Member
It'd make sense for Matt's last episode to be
focused on the Silence,
However, we do know (small, real casting spoiler)
The Cybermen are in the ep. So wonder how that fits? Then again, there was a Sontaran in The End of Time, briefly, so... but we know there's a Cyberman, and there was a big enough thing that they had to put a stuntman inside the Cyber suit, from some wayward (and now deleted) tweets.
A page late but I had to wade in:
Excellent
Blink
The Eleventh Hour
The Impossible Astronaut / Day of the Moon
The Girl in the Fireplace
The Time of Angels / Flesh & Stone
The Pandorica Opens / The Big Bang
Good
Silence in the Library / Forest of the Dead
Asylum of the Daleks
The Empty Child / The Doctor Dances
The Snowmen
Let's Kill Hitler
The Angels Take Manhattan
A Good Man Goes to War
A Christmas Carol
The Name of the Doctor
Average
The Beast Below
The Bells of Saint John
The Wedding of River Song
The Doctor, the Widow & the Wardrobe
Excellent
Blink
The Eleventh Hour
The Impossible Astronaut / Day of the Moon
The Girl in the Fireplace
A Scandal in Belgravia
A Study in Pink
Good
Silence in the Library / Forest of the Dead
Asylum of the Daleks
The Empty Child / The Doctor Dances
The Snowmen
Let's Kill Hitler
The Angels Take Manhattan
A Good Man Goes to War
A Christmas Carol
The Name of the Doctor
Average
The Beast Below
The Bells of Saint John
The Wedding of River Song
The Doctor, the Widow & the Wardrobe
Weren't Trenzalore and the first question just addressed in the finale? What's left to talk about with those?
One of two things
"Oh, don't worry about that dangling plot thread, It's not like there's not a whole lot more, too, and I've got more important things to attend to, like this readthrough"
*or*
"Yes, I know about that dangling plot thread. And here's a bunch more. I'm aware of them. And I'm off to a readthrough that might be related to tying up those threads"
On ranking:
I go back and forth on Blink vs. The Eleventh Hour. I think Blink is a better standalone episode, but The Eleventh Hour has a much more difficult job to do which it handles excellently.
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
I guess I'm confused because I don't consider those plot threads dangling. They're all neatly and explicitly wrapped up. By The Name of the Doctor. Which did a pretty poor job at all of them.
Ah, I see.
If they aren't in it I'll be a bit disappointed.
Video of Moffat, Tennant and Davison at the TV choice awards.
The look on David's face when he was asked to speak haha. I agree with the comments that his outfit would've made a good Doctor outfit.
Future Foundation
Member
Some interesting looks, including the "Jack Sparrow" one that was mentioned before, and one that looks incredibly similar to the outfit Jack Harkness had on in Bad Wolf/Parting of the Ways.
Jorok Goldblade
Member
My sister and I were discussing the exploding Tardis the other day, and we came up with a theory behind it:
When the Doctor
in "the Name of the Doctor," he creates a massive paradox. Since he was in the Tardis when it happened, the feedback from the paradox is centered on the Tardis throughout time, eventually causing the explosion.
When the Doctor
enters his own timeline to save Clara
Sir_Crocodile
Member
Not really.
The prophecy was "no living creature can speak falsely or fail to answer" - holding a proverbial gun to someone's head doesn't really cut it. And river was dead but told the truth anyway, so they practically totally ignored it.
Jorok Goldblade
Member
Box of Bunnies
Banned
"No living creature can speak falsely or fail to answer" is true because a dead one did before the Doctor had to. He didn't speak falsely or fail to because River answered before it came to that. Prophecies aren't exact science, they're just "this thing will happen" masked in flowery language
This is just more Moffaty Woffatyness like the "fall of the Eleventh Doctor" being the literal fall of the landing when he and Clara arrived there, or the Name of Doctor being about things done in the name of the Doctor rather than his actual name.
He does these things because he knows how fans will latch on to and obsess over them, even after he's given them his swerve answer.
This is just more Moffaty Woffatyness like the "fall of the Eleventh Doctor" being the literal fall of the landing when he and Clara arrived there, or the Name of Doctor being about things done in the name of the Doctor rather than his actual name.
He does these things because he knows how fans will latch on to and obsess over them, even after he's given them his swerve answer.
Sir_Crocodile
Member
Prophecies should be done either for the protagonist to break through (somehow manage to lie/not answer), or to sidestep (having river answer but lie, would have worked since she's dead), but Moffat went neither route and instead had the big hype end in a giant letdown.
It's just bad writing
It's just bad writing
Ok, but neither of those things have to do with what I said. :lol
Regardless of how the prophecy played out in the show, the point was, we already know what Trenzalore and the oldest question are. I don't know what's left to answer about them.
APZonerunner
Member
Potential real spoilers for the antagonist(s) of Matt's final episode based on cryptic tweets from over-eager production staff & the people who know them. These could just turn out to be stretches, as people are extrapolating meaning from very short messages, but still worth posting:
Food for thought, anyway. I love it when there's no actual spoilers, just very cryptic tidbits and speculation.
Seems there might be a fair few baddies in Matt's last episode. Maybe an alliance against him, ala The Pandorica Opens? That could be the endless, bitter war.
1) Stuntwoman tweets about performing a stunt as a Cyberman for the Christmas episode
2) A message from a haulage person talking about hauling stuff to filming locations for the BBC, including "two exploded Daleks" (this was last week, so definitely not 50th.)
3) Moffat name-checking the Silence in this week's DWM, suggesting their arc will get a more proper conclusion
4) One of the girls who has played one of the Weeping Angels in every one of their episodes tweeted about filming for Who on a night shoot (though she could of course be something else - she's done a few femininely-shaped Who baddies)
5) A cryptic tweet from a guy who is a cinematographer on the show talking about doing some xmas Who work with a "great" actor - he put in the quotes, not me. So -- Great Intelligence again?
1) Stuntwoman tweets about performing a stunt as a Cyberman for the Christmas episode
2) A message from a haulage person talking about hauling stuff to filming locations for the BBC, including "two exploded Daleks" (this was last week, so definitely not 50th.)
3) Moffat name-checking the Silence in this week's DWM, suggesting their arc will get a more proper conclusion
4) One of the girls who has played one of the Weeping Angels in every one of their episodes tweeted about filming for Who on a night shoot (though she could of course be something else - she's done a few femininely-shaped Who baddies)
5) A cryptic tweet from a guy who is a cinematographer on the show talking about doing some xmas Who work with a "great" actor - he put in the quotes, not me. So -- Great Intelligence again?
Food for thought, anyway. I love it when there's no actual spoilers, just very cryptic tidbits and speculation.
Some interesting looks, including the "Jack Sparrow" one that was mentioned before, and one that looks incredibly similar to the outfit Jack Harkness had on in Bad Wolf/Parting of the Ways.
Nice! Been waiting three years to see those photos. Though I'm sure I would've been happy with any of those looks, I'm glad they let Matt go with the one he wanted. It worked out great.
APZonerunner
Member
As an aside - I'd really love to see Jack interact with the Vasta/Jenny/Strax team. He's on earth in that period - two or three times in fact, due to the way the shows have booted him throughout history. I think he'd be pretty fun with those characters. I hope we see him one more time, someday. I know the last Torchwood was shit, but he's a fun character.
Yeah. I would love to see Jack with Clara as well. It would be fun if Clara was like...immune to his charm. That would be a surprise!
PhoncipleBone
Banned
Yeah. I would love to see Jack with Clara as well. It would be fun if Clara was like...immune to his charm. That would be a surprise!
Still upset we never got to see Jack interact with Rory and Amy.
acheron_xl
Member
I just want to see Jack flirt with 12. I'm sure 11 would've flirted back, but who knows what 12 would do.
Rory wouldn't know what to do with all the attention.
What's this from?
Gotta be from The Pandorica Opens. I think.
acheron_xl
Member
Yep. Shopped to look more purple.
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