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Victory of the Daleks
Gaaaaaaahhhh why so slow. Seriously. Speed up those episodes. All everyone did all episode was stand around and talk. And then show people push little figures around a battlefield table. And talk some more. And introduce the new iDaleks (sponsored by AppleTM). And talk some more. And, yeah, maybe talk some more then.
No surprises, no tension, no interesting scenes. Good God, the lights went out! Show me some people being actually affected by that. Make British intelligence pick up a German air squad on their way to London while the lights were blazing. Make people panic, show me some emotion. An old dude in front of what was clearly a green screen isn't going to do. Get some movement in your scenes.
Speaking of movement--in the first four seasons, wasn't the Doctor all about the running? Donna said it; there's an awful lot of running involved. The first thing Nine said to Rose was "run". Both Nine and Ten had a bajillion scenes where they were just running like maniacs, towards danger, away from danger, whatever. They were moving.
Eleven doesn't run. He stands around and talks. He's awfully static. I saw him stumbling/running away from the Dalek firing at him and went, oh look! The Doctor's running again. It lasted only about a second, but I think it was more running than he did in the first two episodes. Which is just kind of--un-Doctor. It's what the Doctor does, he runs. Or at least it's what he's been doing in New Who in both previous regenerations. You're never going to get the same dynamic in the new season if you let your Doctor just stand there all the time.
I have to say, I do like the idea that Eleven's sort of going, phew. My tenth regeneration was just me getting hurt, all the time--I think I'm going to hang back a little for a while, try to get myself sorted out a little. But he needs to get over that eventually, because nobody likes a static, inactive main character. He needs to get his act together and start taking action again. And stop talking. Seriously, the next episode that consists to 85% of exposition talk I'm going to stab with an ice pick.
As for the actual plot of the episode; I don't quite understand why this had to be Winston Churchill and WWII. If you're going to do WWII, do it the way Human Nature did WWI--address the human tragedy that any war represents, and don't try to glorify it and make it into some noble sort of adventure that had to be overcome to save the Empire. I see this tendency in Moffat; having recently rewatched Empty Child/The Doctor Dances, I remember that in that episode, Nine had this stupid speech he gives to the kid about how Britain wins the war and defeats the Nazis--as if there were something noble or patriotic or honorable in getting your country bombed to pieces because you didn't agree to contribute to global war and genocide. I'm not saying that the victims of the Blitz shouldn't be honored, I'm saying that writing nostalgic and sentimental television episodes about it isn't honoring the dead, it's trivializing their deaths. And yes, I know that Moffat didn't write this episode, but he's still setting the tone of the show. And I didn't like the tone of this episode.
In conclusion, I am getting really impatient with this season. Get some action in there, will you? Right now, I'm feeling like I'm watching a string of filler episodes like Fear Her and The Idiot's Lantern--just another Who, not completely unpleasant, but nothing to write home about. Sigh.
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I like the Doctor being a little safer too.
(I also really like comeing to it every week without worrying about what was going to be thrown at me).
I can see why people wouldn't like that because it's very much a personal thing, but you know, I don't think I'm *wrong* to feel that way. It's all just how you look at it :D
"What he's doing is trying to write RTD's Who with Classic tools, and it's not working. " - it is for me.
I will agree with you however that I think that could be spelt out a little better - the whole not taking action thing - because it took me a while to get and I know some people just aren't seeing it.
"I prefer Who not being a self-indulgent nerd show." - this made me laugh though XD Because it's pretty much DW by definition. Doctor Who has always been self indulgent and always will be. It's part of the charm.
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Oh, no, definitely you're not. I think a lot of people feel that way--a lot of people like their television to be safe, and predictable, and hold few surprises. Which is why a lot of television shows go for a medium-status-quo-thing in their writing--don't do anything that might surprise the audience, keep a low profile, only put predictable surprises in there. Don't push people out of their comfort zone; it might piss them off.
You can write a show like that, and it might even be successful. Supernatural is like that. Entirely predictable, catering to every single one of the audience's expectations, and never doing anything new or different. I think, however, that you can't write anything groundbreaking that way. Now, I know that a lot of people don't want their television to be groundbreaking, and as you said, there's nothing at all wrong with that. However, I do like television--or stories in general--that make me think in new ways, that push me out of my comfort zone and make me look at things in a different way. And RTD's Who did that, which is why I love it so much.
- it is for me.
And for a lot of other people, for the reasons I mentioned in the first part of this comment. What I meant was that with the kind of writing Moffat is doing now, the show would never have gotten as big as it did when RTD was writing it. Because there are a bajillion shows out there that give you weekly entertainment without actually doing anything new. People tune in, they watch it, they're amused, but it's nothing to write home about. If you want to attract the attention of a large audience, and of a new audience, you need the groundbreaking bit. Which RTD's Who had, but which I can't see yet in the new season--I can see Moffat attempting to do it, but he's not managing. That's what I meant when I said that he's trying, but it's not working.
Doctor Who has always been self indulgent and always will be. It's part of the charm.
All fiction is. Fiction is self-indulgence by definition. What I was saying was--you know those fans at cons who sit around griping about the good old days, when nobody knew Who except a few select people, and you had to walk 10 miles uphill both ways to get your new episodes? That's what I meant. Catering to that kind of audience will make that audience very happy, but it will lose you the attention of everybody else--and everybody else is in the majority. So if you're a television show, one that already suffered budget cuts, you'd do well to make sure you don't get too elitist about choosing your audience. RTD's writing struck a cord with people who aren't specifically into science fiction, who don't usually watch that kind of show, which is why Doctor Who got so much attention all of a sudden. As a television show, you want to reach as many people as possible. And I think that going back to Classic Who style won't exactly gain the show a new audience. There's a reason Classic Who was canceled.