100 Reviews: 22
Jul. 14th, 2012 09:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jedi_of_urthI watched some DW earlier this afternoon. Trouble is, I was in a bad mood this afternoon and these episodes don’t really help that.
Doctor Who: 1x09/1x10: The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances
It feels like ages ago now when I saw these episodes for the first time, and at the time I loved them. I thought it was scary and funny and charming and just really good, almost great. Maybe even I did think great at the time. Ironically, I can credit these episodes with getting me pumped and into fandom in a way I hadn’t been to this point; and in so doing ultimately eventually realized that these episodes aren’t as good as I thought they were then.
Because when I was watching then, while I hadn’t completely turned off the critical part of my brain, I not having spent a lot of time thinking about the characters and relationships involved the way I would once I got into fandom. And the more time I spent in fandom (even aside from learning how much I hated Moffat as a writer (and sometimes slipping into as a person)) the more these episodes seem...off. They’re still not bad or angry-making the way so many of his later episodes will be but it doesn’t feel right either. And you can see signs even in his good episodes of what will annoy me so much about his writing.
First off, Moff cannot write Rose to save his life. She alternates between dumb bimbo, harping fish wife, fainting frail flower, and seductress. Rose is the freaking hero of the show, equal to or more so than the Doctor in pretty much all others eps, thank you very much, please stop writing her so horribly. (Though he fails even worse with Donna, assuming I admit Moffat wrote any episodes in s4, which I usually try and deny happened.)
He does a better job with the Doctor (...here), but he fails to convey the Doctor as both the ancient Time Lord and a guy. There’s more of the first in TEC and more of the second in TDD, but neither feels quiet right because they’re not blended the way they should be. So he never seems quite in character because he’s always missing something, even though that something changes through the episodes.
Jack...is weird. Because he’s kind of a saving grace of the episode, just being so damn charming and likable, but then at other times he’s really annoying AND I know he becomes a much more interesting and dynamic character once RTD takes him back. And Moffat insisted on giving Jack all these *flashy* and/or *mysterious* traits, but had no plan for what they meant, so it remains one of the great mysteries of the show that at this point we have to conclude probably won’t be answered.
Nancy is just a...manipulative character. Not that she’s manipulative, but she’s used incredibly manipulatively. When she needs to seem young and barely older than the kids she’s looking after, she’s written like that’s what she is; when she needs to be mysterious and spooky, she’s written/shown to come across that way; once we’re in the area of the final reveal she’s written so that that makes sense even though she hadn’t been written to foreshadow that (the plot was set up for that, but she wasn’t presented like that).
Okay, look, I complain a lot (and oh boy wait until we get to GitF) but I still...like this episode. I don’t love it anymore, not by a long shot, but it’s not really bad on its own. It still has a decent mystery and is fairly scary in parts (though substantially less than it was when I first watched it). I even like the kind of silly resolution of the cliffhanger, especially since it does effect the rest of the story. It’s a long way from great, I’m even uncomfortable calling it good, at least today when I’m not feeling very generous, but it’s not BAD either.
It’s just...the things that made it seem really good at first don’t carry the same weight on subsequent watches, and the more you think about some of the choices, especially in characterization, that we get here the less right they feel. It’s not wrong exactly (aside from a good portion of Rose), but it’s not exactly right either. And above all, it’s Moffat-y smelling, and that is a smell that I don’t like on DW.
...I didn’t mean for this to turn out quite so negative; this feels even more negative than I’m feeling and I’m feeling pretty negative. So this review got kind of a double dose of my bad mood, it made me less able to enjoy the episode and made me come off as more angry in the review that I meant to.
So, let me try and say something with a bit more positive spin on it. I think these are good episodes for newer viewers, it’s definitely an episode everyone needs to see and I can say from experience how it appeals to people who haven’t grown...opinions about certain things in the show. And even some of the opinions I had at the time it fed, because it definitely had Doctor/Rose elements which were appealing, but only on much later thinking did I realize that it was quite the Doctor and really not Rose in those moments. (Oh right positive-ish) It’s a pretty good story, with some interesting twists and a definite threat, some pretty good banter (especially on first viewing).
Basically yes, this episode has lowered a lot in my opinion over the years from that first high point, but usually not as much lower as I felt today and certainly not as much as I feel like I sound like.
Next time:
I think I’ve still got some time for TVD tonight, see what that does with my mood.
But I am going to be looking for more things to add in to this project
Doctor Who: 1x09/1x10: The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances
It feels like ages ago now when I saw these episodes for the first time, and at the time I loved them. I thought it was scary and funny and charming and just really good, almost great. Maybe even I did think great at the time. Ironically, I can credit these episodes with getting me pumped and into fandom in a way I hadn’t been to this point; and in so doing ultimately eventually realized that these episodes aren’t as good as I thought they were then.
Because when I was watching then, while I hadn’t completely turned off the critical part of my brain, I not having spent a lot of time thinking about the characters and relationships involved the way I would once I got into fandom. And the more time I spent in fandom (even aside from learning how much I hated Moffat as a writer (and sometimes slipping into as a person)) the more these episodes seem...off. They’re still not bad or angry-making the way so many of his later episodes will be but it doesn’t feel right either. And you can see signs even in his good episodes of what will annoy me so much about his writing.
First off, Moff cannot write Rose to save his life. She alternates between dumb bimbo, harping fish wife, fainting frail flower, and seductress. Rose is the freaking hero of the show, equal to or more so than the Doctor in pretty much all others eps, thank you very much, please stop writing her so horribly. (Though he fails even worse with Donna, assuming I admit Moffat wrote any episodes in s4, which I usually try and deny happened.)
He does a better job with the Doctor (...here), but he fails to convey the Doctor as both the ancient Time Lord and a guy. There’s more of the first in TEC and more of the second in TDD, but neither feels quiet right because they’re not blended the way they should be. So he never seems quite in character because he’s always missing something, even though that something changes through the episodes.
Jack...is weird. Because he’s kind of a saving grace of the episode, just being so damn charming and likable, but then at other times he’s really annoying AND I know he becomes a much more interesting and dynamic character once RTD takes him back. And Moffat insisted on giving Jack all these *flashy* and/or *mysterious* traits, but had no plan for what they meant, so it remains one of the great mysteries of the show that at this point we have to conclude probably won’t be answered.
Nancy is just a...manipulative character. Not that she’s manipulative, but she’s used incredibly manipulatively. When she needs to seem young and barely older than the kids she’s looking after, she’s written like that’s what she is; when she needs to be mysterious and spooky, she’s written/shown to come across that way; once we’re in the area of the final reveal she’s written so that that makes sense even though she hadn’t been written to foreshadow that (the plot was set up for that, but she wasn’t presented like that).
Okay, look, I complain a lot (and oh boy wait until we get to GitF) but I still...like this episode. I don’t love it anymore, not by a long shot, but it’s not really bad on its own. It still has a decent mystery and is fairly scary in parts (though substantially less than it was when I first watched it). I even like the kind of silly resolution of the cliffhanger, especially since it does effect the rest of the story. It’s a long way from great, I’m even uncomfortable calling it good, at least today when I’m not feeling very generous, but it’s not BAD either.
It’s just...the things that made it seem really good at first don’t carry the same weight on subsequent watches, and the more you think about some of the choices, especially in characterization, that we get here the less right they feel. It’s not wrong exactly (aside from a good portion of Rose), but it’s not exactly right either. And above all, it’s Moffat-y smelling, and that is a smell that I don’t like on DW.
...I didn’t mean for this to turn out quite so negative; this feels even more negative than I’m feeling and I’m feeling pretty negative. So this review got kind of a double dose of my bad mood, it made me less able to enjoy the episode and made me come off as more angry in the review that I meant to.
So, let me try and say something with a bit more positive spin on it. I think these are good episodes for newer viewers, it’s definitely an episode everyone needs to see and I can say from experience how it appeals to people who haven’t grown...opinions about certain things in the show. And even some of the opinions I had at the time it fed, because it definitely had Doctor/Rose elements which were appealing, but only on much later thinking did I realize that it was quite the Doctor and really not Rose in those moments. (Oh right positive-ish) It’s a pretty good story, with some interesting twists and a definite threat, some pretty good banter (especially on first viewing).
Basically yes, this episode has lowered a lot in my opinion over the years from that first high point, but usually not as much lower as I felt today and certainly not as much as I feel like I sound like.
Next time:
I think I’ve still got some time for TVD tonight, see what that does with my mood.
But I am going to be looking for more things to add in to this project
