on first

[jazzfish]

With the advent of Jodie Whittaker's Doctor Who, we've started watching the modern Dr Who. I never got into it, first because I have a problem with episodic anything that isn't finished yet (see also: comics; bound book-fragments) and then because much of what I was hearing about Moffatt's run was frustration. And then I watched his Jekyll and had this weird and unpleasant mixed reaction of "this is pretty good but omg parts of it make me want to throw things," in particular to the main character's wife's sexual assault being used as a device for MANPAIN. And then I got the impression that Eccleston was basically a giant dick about it, and didn't want to watch anything he was involved with.

But hey, Moffatt's gone now, and he didn't take over until four seasons in. So I'm happy to try those at least. And there's only the one season of Eccleston, so however bad it is there's not much of it.

We're most of the way through S2 (Tennant's first season). At this point I really wish Eccleston had gotten more than one season: the second half of S1 feels incredibly cramped. It would have been nice to flesh out the Rose/Doctor/Jack relationships and to see more of Jack's character. Plus Eccleston's Doctor is, surprisingly to me, friendlier and less overbearing than Tennant's.

(Reading some of the history it sounds like Eccleston got rather a raw deal from the BBC, but then he's given as good as he got since then, so.)

I'm enjoying it so far. Moffatt's Empty Child/Doctor Dances two-parter in S1 was pretty great; I'm less fond of The Girl in the Fireplace than the rest of the internet seems to be. Overall, solid, mm, science-fantasy adventure. Happy to keep watching, and likely even to dabble in the spinoffs.

Besides, when we watch Torchwood, I'll get a) more Captain Jack and b) an understanding of the jokes in the hilarious-even-without-context Under Torch Wood.

Comments

[jadelennox]

"this is pretty good but omg parts of it make me want to throw things" is what it should say under Moffat in the dictionary.

Warning: no spoilers for episodes, but skip if you don't want to be influenced by someone else's read of the showrunners.

Moffat wrote so many episodes and created so many characters who are brilliant, but I was so completely done with him by the end. He can't write a coherent arc to save his life, he's is terrible at making storylines make sense, he doesn't understand that creating some brilliant female characters but having almost no female writers means he's going to fuck up every storyline involving women, and he reuses narrative and scene elements so often that by his final season there are episodes that quite seriously could have been written by a parody "write a Moffat Doctor Who episode" generator.

And if my nutshell problem with RTD is that he fanboyed the Doctor so hard and clearly thinks he's the Lonely God, my nutshell problem with Moffat is that he got so obsessed with FEELS and eventually decides the way to get emotional resonance is to try to give every episode the emotional resonance of a season finale (after RTD had already raised the stakes for ridiculous levels of emotional wibbles in a season finale), and since he keeps using his own plot elements he uses the exact same points to get his overwhelming emotional wibbles in episode after episode.

So far I adore Chibnall, though.

[jazzfish]

Ha! I shall bear that in mind if/when we get to Moffatt's seasons.

RTD ... fanboyed the Doctor so hard and clearly thinks he's the Lonely God

AHA. That is more or less what I'm seeing coming through in Tennant. With Eccleston I figured it was just the Time War stuff but that's been backburnered this season. And it's frustrating: there are occasional moments of real connection and they just get... bulldozed over.

[kailing]

curious to hear about 9's actor's shenanigans? i had heard he was just upset about how behind the scenes employees were treated, but would be curious to know what other info or gossip there is out there about it.
also: its been years and years: which manpain arc did you reference?

[jazzfish]

Apparently he was really unhappy about the working environment (as you say), and decided to leave early on, and the BBC proceeded to release a false statement about him not wanting to be typecast.

Mostly I'm miffed because he wouldn't come back for any of the multi-Doctor specials, years later.

Oh, and the manpain thing I was talking about was specific to Jekyll, which was a miniseries Moffatt did before he took over Dr Who.

[sorcyress]

I have also always found "Girl in the Fireplace" overrated. Everyone said it was SO GOOD and I just...did not think that. *shrugs*

~Sor

[jazzfish]

I'm glad it's not just me! Just from second season I preferred School Reunion (the Sarah Jane episode) and Love & Monsters (the Abzorbaloff) to that one, not to mention the Impossible Planet/Satan Pit two-parter. Except for the kind of stupid ending.

[beable]

I like some things about grl in the fireplace but felt that it was in so many ways out of character for the doctor.
like seriously, like leaving Rose and Mickey stranded on the ship.

[jazzfish]

S2 felt like a lot of finding out who Tennant's Doctor is. I've enjoyed the first half of S3 (well, and the S2 finale) much more; it's felt a lot less uneven.

[mikailborg]

I realize you won't hear this from many sources, but I loved Moffat's run. Are there things to complain about? Sure; but there are a line of AMAZING actors during his run and - honestly - some of my favorite stories of the reboot.

I mean, there isn't a single showrunner over the 50+ years of the show that didn't make questionable choices. I love Chibnall's first season with Jodie Whitaker and I could *still* give you a list of complaints. Which I won't, because it's Doctor Who.