The Inkster

lulz, you’re such a hypocrite. 

linnealurks:

I have not watched any Classic Who *yet*, but all this talk about the Doctor possibly regenerating into a woman has me wondering:

What does Classic Who canon have to say about gender on Gallifrey?

Any and all replies are welcome.

To the best of my knowledge, The Doctor’s Wife is the first episode that explicitly states a Timelord can change their gender. During the Tom Baker / Peter Davison years, there were a run of stories set on Gallifrey, starting with The Deadly Assassin, which had recurring Gallifreyans. Though the actors changed in almost every appearance, their gender was always the same. 

It appears I spent the ages 13-19 writing terrible poetry, baiting internet creationists and drawing some really weird cartoons. 

Here’s one: 

I’ve been having a couple of insanely busy / stressful weeks so it’s been a bit of a chore keeping on top of things. Doing lots of overtime at work and helping my dad (who is currently being threatened with legal action by an unpleasant double-glazing company.) But I’m back now. 

I was going to wait until I got some feedback from my big equal marriage post, but I didn’t get a single response. Turns out you’re all in favour, who knew?

Right, I have around 600 followers, odds are that some of you are opposed to gay people getting married. But, I’ve never heard a defence of this position that I agree with. So, if you’re an opponent of equal marriage, I want to know why.

Tell me, in as much length as you like, why you believe gay people should not be permitted to get married. 

When I have all the answers, I’ll put them together and see if there’s a theme. I want to get as many responses as possible, so if you want to reblog this, I’d be grateful. 

(A quick note, a common answer to this question goes something like this “Gay people already have the same rights as straight people, they can marry a member of the opposite sex.” If that’s your position, please clarify why marrying someone of the same sex is a problem.)

Lord Tebbit in the news today, hugely unhappy because he believes equal marriage will contribute to the downfall of human civilisation. His “arguments” are as follows.

1: If gay people can marry, we could have a lesbian queen (gasp) and an heir conceived through artificial insemination. 

The fact that Tebbit thinks a lesbian queen would be a bad thing in itself shows you exactly what his problem is. Furthermore, we could have an heir conceived through artificial insemination under the current system and it doesn’t seem to be causing any problems. 

2: If gay people can marry, Tebbit could marry his own son to avoid inheritance tax. 

Now, don’t get me wrong, I know that super-rich old left wingers will do a lot to avoid paying tax, but I don’t think this is very likely. I mean, Mothers can’t legally marry their sons, why would we suddenly create a loophole for Fathers and Sons with the introduction of equal marriage? 

I suppose it’s true, anyone can be a lord. 

Written on an iPad. Please forgive a few typos.

“This would probably spawn an essay, but how do you hold Moffat to RTD in New Who as a writer. Note: I have not seen the last 4 episodes of the current season of Doctor Who. I am Swedish, so my acquisition methods are non-standard shall we say.”

Well, I have written a LOT about this over the last few days so I’m not going to go into it all again but I do have some things to offer. Basically, the show in’t about adventures in time and space anymore. It’s about the next big twist in the Doctor’s life.

I haven’t said much about the race, gender, LGBT issues in Moffat’s writing because there are a lot of people who can communicate those problems better than I can. Suffice to say, while RTD had his problems, Moffat’s Who is a lot less inclusive and a lot more problematic. Personally, I find it hard to get past Moffat’s astonishingly bad storytelling.

I griped about RTD during his era, but there are a few things I think he got right. He established the 45 minute format for the show, the post-Time War setting that sets the show free from a lot of the continuity issues and he seemed to have a good handle on what the show was about and the values of the character. What RTD did best, that has been lost after Series 5, was produce a show in which 10 out of 13 episodes were usually strong, well paced, well structured and could be appreciated by a very wide section of the audience. I very rarely enjoyed RTD’s season finales, which I found to be self indulgent and over dramatic. Little did I know, Moffat would adopt this model for his tenure.

My problems with Moffat, as I’ve said, are varied, but I think that the biggest problem is that he has sacrificed the format of 13 mostly self contained episodes in favour of increasingly convoluted plot arcs. This was particularly bad in Series 6, but hasn’t improved much in Series 7. While the episodes this year were being pitched as all being self contained, they aren’t really. The entire show I written right now with a philosophy of contsructing every scene to advance, not the plot of the current story, but the series arc, and the “epic” nature of the Doctor.

In summary:

Under RTD the show had problems, but every episode stood alone and was enjoyable. Even the worst of his era are, at the very least, internally consistent, reasonably paced and of some enjoyment.

Under Moffat the show has moved from being largely plot driven, to being entirely centred around building up the Doctor’s character. No individual episode stands alone, every 45 minute block is crammed, every scene is the Doctor’s finest moments, every line is the Doctor’s most important, every emotionon Matt Smith’s face is a Rare Dramatic Turn TM.

People downplay Moffat’s changes, but even if you take away the problematic elements, the show’s very core has been altered.

I could use the social interaction.

*Yawn* Time for a bit of early morning Have I Got News for You. #hignfy

A couple of days ago I made a post about shipping characters in gay relationships, and how I found it a little creepy in the way it fetishised gay couples etc. etc.

First post here: http://owenadams.tumblr.com/post/50573848604/i-cant-be-the-only-one-who-finds-these-homoerotic

And I had a few responses criticising that post, and I think they’re right. I didnt consider the dearth of LGBT representation in the media when I wrote it. Which, for obvious reasons, is pretty dumb. I wrote the post without really thinking, and was pretty careless.

My bad. Sincere apologies.

Ok, tumblr is really awkward with replies so I’m just going to paste this is here. 

Originally from: http://roryslair.tumblr.com/post/50604655899/re-i-wish-people-would-stop

This is a fairly long post with a lot of points in it, so I’m going to leave my responses in bold within the original text. Because of the way the original post was phrased, I’m placed in the awkward position of comparing and contrasting RTD to Moffat to make my point. However, I would like to say that I didn’t think RTD was perfect, he made a lot of decisions I wouldn’t have made. I think the key difference, however, was that under RTD the show was (ususally) solid, well plotted and consistent. 

“I’m interested in your viewpoint, so I’d like to discuss this.

(I’ll be responding to your rebuttal to that anon as much as this post, incidentally)

It’s a common misconception that Moffat does not like the classic series.This stems from a few places, but I’d say that it mostly comes from an interview he gave quite some time ago, where he said that most of the classic series didn’t hold up. That’s often taken out of context, and he later clarified that he meant the production values and much of the writing didn’t hold up to modern standards, which, as a fan of the classic series, I agree with. The money just wasn’t there for the visual effects and sets they needed at the time and there were several periods where the show struggled to find good writers, and the quality of the series suffered as a result.

(I think there’s a difference between “like” and “respect,” obviously he wouldn’t be a Doctor Who writer if he didn’t like the show, but he rarely showed much respect for it before ‘05. This is sort of irrelevant to my point though, which is less about how much he enjoys Old Who as a viewer, as it is about how he treats the material as the new showrunner. Personally, I don’t think the sort of lofty reverence of the classic era that a lot of fans seem to hope for, would even be a good thing.)

But to claim that Moffat has no respect for the classic series (or RTD’s run) is absurd! He grew up with the show and it’s made his career. He wouldn’t have written for the EU back in the nineties if he didn’t genuinely love the show. Likewise, he is good friends with Davies, so of course he respects his friend’s work. 

 (He didn’t really write for the EU in the Nineties though. He openly didn’t care for the Virgin New Adventures and his contributions were limited to a couple of short stories and the comic relief sketches. Again, it’s irrelevant, I’m not questioning Moffat’s personal feelings towards the show in the 90s, but his role a showrunner.)

Yes, Moffat throws in lots of references and winks. Isn’t that what RTD did? The Cyberman head in Dalek, the Macra in Gridlock, and the reference to the UNIT dating controversy in The Sontaran Stratagem were pretty much identical to the kind of references Moffat makes. They’re little winks to the fans that don’t have any plot relevance, and both are guilty of putting them in.

 (I don’t think this is what RTD did at all. Firstly, to take your examples, The Cyberman head is a really good example of a good reference to the past. The characters are well established by that point, they’re in a museum of Alien artefacts, the Doctor needs to see one and comment on it. It makes just as much sense no matter how familiar with the series you are. I like the Macra in Gridlock a lot less, but I understand the decision.  It adds nothing to the plot, I’d even say it detracts in the place of an original monster, and they aren’t even like the Macra from the Macra terror. However, they are just used in place of any other original monster that isn’t key to the plot. In the same way they use an Ood in The Doctor’s Wife. It isn’t a terrible decision in Gridlock, it just doesn’t work. UNIT Dating controversy is a throwaway reference that you’d miss if you weren’t a fan. 

Contrast these with the way, for example, Moffat shows the past Doctors’ faces all the time. It never adds to the plot, it’s needless fan service. As I said last time, it’s not utilising the past, it’s trotting it out for a cheap thrill. Moffat’s references are endowed with such importance when they’re said, the call attention to themselves without adding to the plot. There have been nice ones, Susan’s voice in Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS, Jelly Baby reference in The Rebel Flesh <a trick which was repeated almost identically in The Silver Nightmare and didn’t entertain me at all.> RTD included references, sure, but they were either subtle, or in service to the plot. When Moffat’s appear, they are neither.

My problem, however, is not about what type of references you make to the Doctor Who of fifty years ago. It’s about producing a show that feels consistent with its immediate predecessor)

There’s a key difference between Davies and Moffat in their approaches as showrunners, one that you’re clearly aware of, and that is how they deal with the past. Russell is clearly content to revel in the past, both the past of the greater show and the past of his involvement in it, as his last two years on the series demonstrated. He brought back classic villains all the time and continually resurrected his own plotlines.

 (I’m sorry, but I really don’t understand this assessment of RTD. He did have a problem when it came to big season finales, Journey’s End is a particularly cringeworthy example of ‘bringing the whole family together’ BUT Moffat has been equally guilty of this. See: River Song, The Pandorica Opens/Big Bang, Most of Season 6 and it’s been just as cringeworthy. The difference is, when RTD did it you had a disappointing season finale, when Moffat does it you get 13 episodes worth.

To say RTD revels in the past of the greater show seems totally wrong to me though. When the show returned in 2005, RTD took the basic elements of the past; Doctor, TARDIS, Companion, Time and Space and basically nothing else. He kept a strict rule of one classic monster returning a year,  and he very rarely made over references to the classic series. It took three years before they mentioned Gallifrey by name!)

But Moffat seems eager to move forward and do his own thing first, looking back on the past second. He’s been very keen to say that the fiftieth anniversary is about setting up the next fifty years instead patting ourselves on the back over the last fifty. And here’s the important part.

 He is not obligated to use anything from the RTD era, and I actually commend him for not doing so. This is a show about change, so it makes no sense for him to keep using the Davies characters storylines. I think him creating a clean slate with series five was the right direction to go in. Giving Matt his own TARDIS and screwdriver and companions was a better idea than to keep all of Tennant’s stuff so people could call Matt a second-hand Doctor. Like referencing =/= respect, not referencing =/= disrespect.

 Moffat just doesn’t want to live in the past, and he doesn’t have stories he wants to tell about Torchwood, which is all but gone, or Marth or Donna or Adam or Allonso. He’s writing his Doctor who, not RTD’s Doctor who Part II. Honestly, if you got this job, would you prefer to write fanfiction of the previous writer’s stories or shake things up and tell the stories you always wanted to tell? But you can’t say that he’s wanted nothing to do with his predecessor’s era, since Jack was meant to be in A Good Man Goes to war, and Ten and Rose are coming back. Really if any era has a problem with continuity it’s JNT’s.

 (Ok, here’s where we get to my big problem with Moffat. He references to classic series no more or less than Davies did, but he references the first five years of the modern series even less than that. The point I was making in my first post on this wasn’t that Moffat doesn’t like Who, but that he doesn’t respect the contributions of others. I think, quite simply, he wants his tenure on Who to be as impactful as RTDs. He wants his own revival, and that’s what we get, a product that feels like a new show rather than Series 6/7 of a hugely popular TV series. The reboot approach is necessary when the show has been off the air for twenty years, when you take over during the show’s most successful period, it comes off like a snub. And the only reason people would accept such a change is because it’s disguised behind a regeneration. All the people who don’t like it get lumped in with the “missing David Tennant” crowd.

I have no problem with a new Doctor, a new TARDIS, a new screwdriver and new plotlines. The problem I have is a showrunner that seems so desperate to make his mark on the show, that he creates an enormous disconnect between the two periods. It’s not about bringing Rose back or making Bad Wolf references all of a sudden, it’s about keeping the show consistent and high quality.

On a side note, perhaps Jack was originally going to be in A Good Man Goes To War, but since that’s easily the worst episode of Doctor Who that I’ve ever seen, I doubt it could have helped much.)

Lastly, I very much disagree with the assessment that Moffat does not care about character or story consistency and pacing. Yes, those are a problem, but I believe those are not his fault. Series 5 was probably the best season of the revived series, and it had the best paced and most consistent story arc of them all, while his character development was great. Only after that, once he’d used up his best ideas that he’d had the entire time since he got the job to plan out, his flaws began to show. He didn’t have the time to polish his stories anymore. It isn’t that he values spectacle over character, it’s that he can’t refine his five episodes and the season arc in twelve brief months, so he relies on big ideas and other writers to cover him.

 (Well, this goes more into what I don’t like about Moffat’s writing these days. I could talk about this for hours, so I’ll have to limit myself.

I’m sure Moffat does care about character, story consistency and pacing. No writer would say they don’t, but the sad truth is that he’s in charge, and we aren’t getting any. Who are we supposed to blame? His big ideas aren’t covering his problems, they’re causing his problems. Moffat’s big season arcs have gone completely out of hand, to the point that an individual episode has no value now. I agree that Season 5 is wonderful, but Season 6 is the worst season since the show returned, 7’s better but not by much. The entire show is geared around surprises, plot twists and cheap thrills now. Moffat care about more than spectacle, but it doesn’t matter because that’s all he’s providing. 

I think this is partly because Moffat’s individual episodes were so good during RTD’s time. He built a deserved reputation as the show’s finest writer, but writing one memorable, standalone story a year and running the series are two very different jobs. I’d rather watch The Empty Child 13 times than watch any of Series 6 again.

Whatever the reason, be it time, effort, talent, Doctor Who is not very good at the moment and it hasn’t been good since Series 5.)

Feel free to respond or not respond. I’m just curious as to your opinions on certain things.

Well, they you go. My thoughts. I’v probably said all I have to say on the subject now, but I’d welcome a response.