Meier said:
Watched a few episodes of 4 tonight...getting closer to Smith. The Doctor's daughter is smokin hot! Kind of like a British Kristen Bell.
Fun fact: She's real fifth Doctor Peter Davison's daughter, and Tennant's real life squeeze. Imagine dinner there; two Doctors and the daughter all at the table..
pitt_norton said:
Apparently this script was a leftover from the RTD days... hence it's likewise tone.
Nope. Gaitiss was writing a WW2 episode for Series Four, but it didn't have Churchill or Daleks or the Cabinet War Rooms, so it seems it was a completely, entirely different episode. Reposting this as it got bottom of the page, but it's all regarding the way episodes are constructed...
Blader5489 said:
Not good. A Dalek/WWII story could have been so much more interesting than this. As it is, there was no reason for the WWII setting at all.
This underlines a problem the series has in general, which is the "checklist writing" - by which I mean RTD/Moffat hands the writer a list of things they want/need to accomplish their season arc/vision. Using only Dalek stories as an example...
Back for Evolution, Raynor was handed a list that said, almost literally - "Cult of Skaro, New York, Mutant Pig Men, Human Dalek, One 'pure' Dalek must escape and survive"
In this case, Confidential pretty much confirmed that Moffat too uses the list mechanic, as Gatiss says he was told "Daleks, World War 2, Churchill, Introduction of a New, pure Dalek design" and then "Spitfires in Space" was later added as on by Moffat. Judging by the comments on Confidential, Moffat also brainstormed alongside Gatiss for how many new types of Dalek there should be and their ranks.
The key problems with both stories seem to stem from those ideas in the checklist. Both Helen Raynor and Gaitiss accomplished the content of the lists relatively well, but the key problem with Evolution for me was the way the New York setting was used and those bloody awful Pig Men. I'll be fair, though - the Great Depression worked well for Daleks covertly enslaving unvalued humans and the Empire State building being used as a Lightning mast to kick start their plans was cool.
Likewise in this story, there's some cool stuff - great to see the Doctor meet Churchill, Daleks do fit the WW2 era well - especially the RTD era design - and WW2 is generally a great story but this episode could've been set bloody anywhere.
What I'm saying is that the episodes that have the shorter requirement lists always tend to be the best. Again, looking at only Dalek stories, look at Dalek. The only requirement there for Sherman from RTD was "introduce the Dalek, terrify children, establish it as an all-powerful killing machine, have it bring out the darker side of the Doctor, introduce Adam, talk about the time war and kill it at the end". By comparison these requirements are meagre. It's a better, cleaner story as a result, I think.
People always talk about Moffat's episodes being the best in the series in the RTD years, and part of that is down to Moffat's considerable talents but I strongly believe the other part is down to the fact that Moffat rarely had any real instructions. Series one all he was told was WW2 and to introduce Captain Jack, series two the only requirement was "this is Mickey's first trip in the TARDIS (and Mickey was quickly shoved aside), three was "this is the Doctor Lite episode" and four was "please add some Donna foreshadowing" - he was never weighed down with the weight of all the extra shit, ever.
This was still a great episode, and I don't think there's really been a bad Dalek episode in new Who anyway, but I think it provides some interesting food for thought on how the series is written. The only real way to get around this is to write the show by comittee, but when you look at shows that are (like 24, where writers sit in a room and work in a group of 4 or 5) it becomes awfully formulaic.
