The point about tension is especially interesting since my favourite Moffat episode is still The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances as the first episode in particular really takes its time to build up suspenseful, frightening atmosphere. Moffat dismissing the story for being too slow is very telling.
Moffat: Ok, so in the first episode of series 6 I want River Song to kill The Doctor while River Song tries to save him so she's there twice and Amy's pregnant with River Song too Other people: Ok but why? And what about the rest of the series? Moffat: Erm, so it'll be The Doctor 200 years from now or something, and he... Erm... OH! He invited himself to be in the vicinity of his own death! Yeah! Other people: Oh, ok, that's pretty cool I guess, but you've not told us why River kills him yet Moffat: Oh yeah, erm, well, she has to... Because of... The Silence! Yeah, them, they're aliens now, and there's a cool eyepatch lady in a wall Other people: Why is she there? Moffat: Amy's mid-wife? And, Amy's not real? Idk, I'll probably decide what that means in series 7 just go with it
I actually felt like the "He will knock four times" bit in "Planet of the Dead" worked well for Tennant's finale. As expected, most of us immediately jumped to the obvious conclusion that "four knocks" would correlate to the "sound of drums" in The Master's head. In fact, this bit of dialogue seemed to be written for this very purpose, in hindsight. Our suspicions were only reinforced in "The End of Time," when RTD opens the story by resurrecting The Master, so we pretty much felt our assumptions were correct. But then, at the climax, the Master is vanquished and the day is saved. Even the Tenth Doctor's face in that scene seemed to be one of, "I did it! I beat the bad guy, and I didn't have to regenerate!" At that moment, we hear Wilfred knock on the glass, and Ten's face expresses exactly what we are all feeling - we did NOT see that coming, even when Wilfred was locked in. But again, in RTD's defense, this was ONE piece of dialogue referring to ONE specific event in Ten's future. It was simple and neatly tied together, without raising further questions when it came time to resolve it. That's what Moffat does, and why his prophetic dialogue (ahem..."silence will fall?") doesn't work - when it comes time to explain everything, Moffat half-asses an explanation while introducing a completely new set of questions that seem to stem from the original mystery. As a result, there's never a moment where the audience feels everything was neatly tied up; we just end up with a hot mess of seemingly unrelated elements with some questions being answered by raising others, and losing track of what's been answered and what hasn't. Each story should be 2 episodes long, as they're doing for Series 9, and each STORY should focus on a single primary plot.
Its not even as poorly strung together as that. In "Planet of the Ood" the Doctor is told by an ood that he knows that the Doctor's song will soon come to an end. It is the ood that appear in The Waters of Mars that remind him of how reckless he has become (as the time lord victorious) and that his end is near.
I have to disagree on RTD's arcs being worse than Moffat's. The "Bad Wolf" thing in Series 1, at the very least, made perfect sense by the finale. Series 3's "You are not alone" did, too (although after hearing these words in the third episode of that season, "Gridlock," I had already guessed Boe was referring to The Master.) Series 4's Doctor/Donna thing was a bit disappointing. The main problem with Moffat's arcs is that they end up just spiraling out of control and end up looking like a mess of cables behind a gamer's console setup. The resolution to "The Big Bang" made positively no sense whatsoever, and was far fetched even to be considered for a Harry Potter book. The very notion itself was absurd - "remembering someone into existence who never existed to begin with." That IS what Moffat wrote as River's response to Amy asking what the consequences would be of The Doctor flying the the Pandorica into the exploding TARDIS. Not only should Earth not exist (since no Doctor ever existed to save it from those many previous invasions), but River Song shouldn't exist, the TARDIS diary she gives as a wedding present shouldn't, and most mind boggling of all, the cracks shouldn't exist to appear in "Time of the Doctor." After all, if no Doctor existed, then no TARDIS was ever stolen from Gallifrey, and thus no TARDIS was in orbit around Earth to explode. That's saying nothing about the fact that Amy "remembers" The Doctor by seeing various items of clothing - braces, a bow tie, etc. But the only time she ever saw him (according to Moffat's own story) was when he was "raggedy man," still donning Ten's weathered outfit. So these items of clothing shouldn't mean a thing to her. Good gracious, what a mess! And that was only Series 5. I could write a 1200 page book explaining the galaxy-wide plot holes in Series 6 & 7's arcs.
I kinda liked the days when time travel in Doctor Who was about the travel part, not the time part. Because once you start messing with that too seriously, it all starts falling apart.
RTD's arcs weren't very ambitious. Bad Wolf is basically the same thing as the cracks in the universe, except it's spray painted "Bad Wolf" instead of cracks. At least, from the point of view of Series 5, the cracks made sense and had a somewhat logical explanation, whereas in Bad Wolf, Rose just becomes god and puts the words there...somehow. Series 2 didn't have an arc. Series 3 had a bit of foreshadowing as to Saxon here and there but not sure if that counts as an arc, as it was too subtle and only really noticeable in retrospect upon second viewing. Series 4 isn't exactly disappointing, Idk maybe you expected more from it? Again it just feels like foreshadowing, not a Moffat-style season arc. Series 5 and 6 imo handled the season arc well. I don't have a problem with Big Bang.
Bad Wolf made perfect sense? No, it didn't at all. It was a weak paradox deus ex machina solution, it still doesn't make any sense or have any meaning that the words are "Bad Wolf".
Moffat’s idea of a story arc is just showing something at the end of the episode. If you rewatch S5, literally the entire first half of the series each story goes as normal then the crack appears at the last 2 seconds then the episode ends and boom story arc
You're so right. I never did understand the Moffat story arcs, but the sad thing is I didn't really care. All that "you can't understand the answer till you know the question" shit. It's just meaningless crap trying to cover up the absence of actual plot.
Yeah I can see how people could've construed that he did have it all planned in 2010, maybe even 2011, cause I did too but not by this late in the game
Exactly!!! Moffatt did not even come up with the "keep the monster of the week format but have an overarching plot", this was done with Buffy for example, and is how Desparate Housewives works. What Moffatt injected into Dr Who was more "Lost" like hooks which was what brought me back to the serious after so many silly monster of the week episodes prior to Matt Smith.Season 5 is littered with little clues and hints of what is going on which was brilliant. There was even some evidence to argue that Amy was not a proper Human believe it or not (later turned out to be nothing but bad writing mind you). Moffat's mistake is simply what you said - he failed to write down the plot from the start, i.e. he made it up as he went along. Which was, sadly, what happened in the superior Battlestar Galactica reboot. Like Battlestar, we're with Moffat through his stories expecting a big pay off, only to be given (like Battlestar) some silly ending(s) which contradict all that has come before. We're left with nothing but things that don't make sense. He has no respect for the material or even his own episodes, which he can't have written more than a few weeks prior.
Well this is a way of writing. Although usually when writing like this everything that happens makes the characters really great. This kind of writing is bad for plots but good for character development. Funnily enough Moffat didn't have either.
This may have already been said, but this is what totally screwed Nightmare In Silver! It should have been a two parter. Even Nail Gaiman said he wrote it as a two parter, but Moffat and/or the BBC squished it into one. Now he doesn't want to write for the show anymore and that's just a shame.
Neil Gaiman and Capaldi are the only good things left in Doctor Who. Gaiman is a brilliant writer and has written many good novels, if he leaves the show too, I don't know if I can start watching again. (I dropped it after the pile of shit that was Hell Bent.)
Seamichu season 10 fucking sucked. Nearly every episode was outright awful and almost all of them had abysmal writing. Like Smile where robots don't know grief, except they do and then expect humans to pay to live in their cities when I doubt anybody brought their wallets with them after the Earth died. How about somehow chaining a sea monster to the bottom of the lake? How did they drive spikes down there? What about the Eaters of Light where they flat out forget that the beast was in sunlight for 2 days, and could've easily solved the plot by just shining a reflector at the door? This is also ignoring the fact that the effects on the monster clearly weren't finished, and the stupid bit with the crows. Oxygen was terrible because it was trying to push a political message using the worst kind of strawman argument and the villain's motivations fall apart the second you analyze them. Two out of three monk episodes sucked, which is a shame because those were the two that mattered, because they made the villains too powerful then forgot how powerful they were, and it was run by the dumbest of idiot plots. I could keep going on but I'd rather not write an entire essay on how much this season sucked and how it's easily the worst the show has ever been.
I think the RTD era was actually amazing. I think Moffat has completely got rid of that. However it depends on what you want, if you want an emotional drama that's also sci fi and makes you think you have RTD. If you want action and great visuals you have Moffat. The biggest problem with Moffat is that I didn't care about any of the characters. The characters are so terribly thinly written that there is no tension and no depth at all. Look at the companions. They have no lives, no thoughts they are just empty companions, this makes a problem with the doctor as well. The thing is. When a plot isn't as strong the characters can save the show like it does in Lost and RTDs Doctor Who. When the story archs and the overall plots in Moffats who don't work he has nothing else. He has nothing. I really think RTDs era is just so much better and as really great show by itself when not compared to anything else.
Well, let me try one of those questions about TDD: "Are these fish the indigenous life form?" No. The show states with no uncertainty that the humans and the Hath arrived in that colony ship together to start a new colony. This is how the shorter stories work so well. You don't need some old guy sitting in an office, huffing a cigar and explaining the backstory of everything. The backstory is woven into the episode where all you have to do is pay attention to find out. Well, unless the writer is Steven Moffat, and then some things get explained with "Because I said so. Shut up and stop asking questions." Never knowing what the hell happened with the Silence blowing up the TARDIS back in Series 5 is a good example. We know who blew it up, and a vague idea of why, but *no* explanation for how they managed to get into a ship that should be almost impossible to break into and blow it up.
Also I had to laugh my ass off when you said that Moffat had a better idea of a series arc than RTD. Compare the Bad Wolf arc of Series 1 to the crack in time arc in Series 5. The hints in one was subtly woven through the various episodes, while the other arc beat you over the face with a fucking *brick* over and over and over again, with huge smash zooms that screamed LOOK! IT'S A HINT! TAKE THE HINT! TAAAAKE IIIIIIIT! I'll leave it to you to guess which is which.
I know I'm really late to reply to this, but Moffat actually was asked how the Silence blew up the Tardis: drive.google.com/file/d/0Bx8Iu6ncjdAxblRITEZfVGhGMFE/view?pageId=108196113461335560938 If you don't want to read that, it turns out his answer is: "I have no clue, just make it up yourself."
The Clara Story arc was shit, and it's true that Moffat left us on a cliff hanger at the end of Name of the Doctor, and somehow forgot to tell us who Clara escaped from the Doctors time line, for the next adventure SIX months later!
I agree with you on most things, although I did prefer RTD style, because it at least he felt some kind of respect for his characters and his audience. However, I want to congratulate you for that "Don't you think he looks tired? image ;)
The Crack in the Wall arc was actually my favorite or second favorite Moffat story arc. It was overly complicated but the way it came back in Time of the Doctor felt very good and tied it all together.
The thing that annoyed me the most about the Cracks in Time arc is that they revealed that the crack was what was behind the Doctor's door in The God Complex.
He Who Moans Review of Doctor Who: The Ninth Doctor Retrospective Here ya go. Rewatching it now, it sounds a lot angrier than I think it should've been. Think I've become a more calm person since I first started these videos
The rambling squeezed into that time frame, that's what got me with Moffat. It was very hard sometimes to keep up because of that pace and then it was like: "Wha?" I've never felt that cliffhanger with NuWho the way I do with the Classic episodes. Not to mention I was absolutely disappointed with how they fleshed out the River Song character and her origins. I felt Moffat really messed it up. It just seems like he got in way over his head and and to (albeit messily) dig his way out. As much as I like all three characters, I've always felt the way he handled them was messy at best. You've put it in a way better context that my face palming/rolling eyes reactions.
+Lanie Ssel For me the River Song makes sense, what we saw at first was an older version (200 years, being half Dama Time) after we saw younger and somewhat irresponsible, like her mother, but when he lost his parents, there she began to mature and become more sensible like his father, until we saw in the Husbands of River Song. To be honest, I always thought that the Doctor read his diary at the end of The Big Bang and orchestrate everything to allow the existence of River Song to avoid damaging the web of time.
I actually think Moffat is a brilliant writer when he is in charge of one-off stories. Some of my absolutely favorite episodes of New Who are written by him (The Empty Child, Blink, The Girl in the Fireplace and even the whole Library thing where River Song was introduced). But give him the freedom to do whatever he wants for however long, and he just rambles off and ruins his own great setup.
I have to agree there, I got bored of waiting for Clara and River Song to prove to us why they were so amazingly important and had to do all the Doctors problem solving for him. Ultimately they were just arrogant. I'm much more on board with Bill personally, she is more of a mix of the wide eyed naive companion with some steely determination. I was dreading the new series though after seeing the trailer for Bill's character, glad she has proved me wrong so far (more or less).
The thing I hate the most is that Moffet has the Doctor visit his grave. His grave is integral to episode 13 of season 7. It's also integral to Clara, and who she is. So if in "Time of the Doctor", the Doctor doesn't die, how is his grave in Name of the Doctor. How does Clara exist, how does episode 13 even happen?
Because some people spend too much time writing an over complicated plot without considering how it all fits together. I think he has missed the point somewhat, he thinks that what keeps everyone interested is the ambiguity and overlong drawn out reveals that take an entire episode to actually progress (like the most recent episode). Ultimately it does lack tension, you would think it would made things more intense but it just doesn't. Its as if he is missing a fundamental writing attribute, giving the illusion that he is taking you on a journey but ultimately you feel like something's missing, i.e. the adventure part. Also I'm sick to death of speeches, and waving around a magic wand just because the kids love it. Quite honestly I miss the science, and the fun, and the threat, and the tension. All we seem to get now is something that alludes to character development, but is actually just conversing. P.S. I apologise for the bad punctuation but I just can't be bothered to correct it.
Sam Hall I Just think the show needs to go back to having two parters. I really liked season 9, because of the two parters. The episodes that weren't two parters were the worst. The show needs more time to build a threat and raise the stakes. Episodes like The Impossible Planet and Satan Pit are a testament to this, great villain, great side characters, and great story. This was because the show had 90 mins (movie length) to tell a great story.
Alexander Banks-Jongman I also think they should stop being so stubborn about what 'works'. From what I've heard Moffat is a tad arrogant, doesn't like to appease people too much, he insists he knows what 'works' and sticks with it. I agree on the two parters but would like to see something more focused instead of one part with one tone and a second part with a different tone. I also would like to see the Doctor actually work things out more, not just have all the answers loaded in some speech for the finale.
Alexander Banks-Jongman, he addressed this question in issue 472 of the Doctor Who Magazine. It was posed by Ben T Jones and he answered it: drive.google.com/file/d/0Bx8Iu6ncjdAxblRITEZfVGhGMFE/view?usp=sharing Are you satisfied with it?
Nope. I mean, he lived, he didn't die, whatever, I can live with that. Just unnecessary. At least try and actually explain why, don't just shrug your shoulders. It's lazy.
I preferred the older format which took more time to tell the story. I always thought of the Doctor as a kind of Detective, and now they have turned him into Indiana Jones. There were good stories and bad stories with Russell and Moffet, but I feel all new Doctor Who is too fast paced and no substance. I will keep watching in the hope it gets better.
The length of the stories isn't the problem, it's the writing. Warriors of the deep and Asylum of the Daleks are poorly written regardless of there length. Genesis of the Daleks and Midnight are well written regardless of there length. The length of a story only becomes a problem if the story has filler or drags out scenes to long.
I think it was taken down or something. It was a video about how Moffat tends to follow the Marketing Executive's Guide to Doctor Who or something like that
i have an idea why not make the overarching narrative about the companion and have it be some sort of internal conflict rather than an external one. like imagine if series 5 had instead been about the Doctor and little Amelia going on adventures while trying to find her parents. the audience slowly gets to know and become invested in her as she grows up.
@@charliedawson4877 3 years late but after series 9 I have to say that I don't think it really works as its one of my least favorite seasons of the show, but having three two part stories in a season like in the RTD era works the best I think. I'm looking forward to see how series 13 goes with one story in 6 parts.
Tbh I feel like saying classic Who mostly worked for the tension created by the 4 or more episodes structure is inaccurate. There are several excellent 2 and 3 parters like The Sontaran Experiment or The Awakening or Survival where despite the limited runtime, they run at a brisk pace and still feel genuinely tense due to creating a situation and stakes that feel dangerous for the main characters. To me, managing to capture that was what made Davies era Who work for the most part.
You said it yourself Stuart, shorter time needs more experienced writers. Hence, the showrunner's reluctance to try out new writers. This also shows in Series 9, where episodes were mostly two parters, and more new names were allowed on board.
Doctor Who can work as standalone story episodes, the same as The Twilight Zone or Star Trek or Space:1999 (season 1) by having each episode based upon one really strong idea and building a nice tight plot around it. It's not that difficult a thing to do or shouldn't be. It's how those other shows were written and that formula worked just fine. The problem is in trying to make too many social commentaries in the episodes instead of focusing on any one of them, and slathering on all these ridiculous character soap-operas instead of telling actual stories which people might be interested in.
great vid totally agree! DW was always about creating tension and cliffhangers that the episode serials had. this was always one of my beefs with the new who's
sometimes i think the problem may be that he doesnt have time to resolve things because of the bus schedulde, but if that's the case then he shouldn't set things up without coming up with solutions and trying to spread everything over multiple series', i dont know if i dare try and count how many lose threads have been set up and then he's completely forgotten about them
Yeah the story arcs really started very exciting, but after a while I really couldn't watch them anymore. The lady with the eyepatch felt MUCH too forced: one problem solved, the next comes up right away after that and it's all a big mystery! Tune in next week for more mystery! River Song I actually liked a LOT in the beginning.
RTS's arcs weren't great but like at least they made sense by the finale compared to Moffat. Moffat's arcs just feel like he's standing on stage doing boring magic tricks to make the kids go "woah thats weird". At least RTD has mostly good characters tho :D
I disagree about RTD. He didn't drag it on for three, four seasons. His story arcs were for just that season so even if you weren't entirely satisfied from the resolution from a sci fi perspective at least it was 1) tied up nicely and finished and 2) RTD had great characterisation throughout so you cared about the characters and could suspend disbelief. The enjoyment of the series didn't hinge on the arc...the arc was more of an afterthought whereas with moffat, everything revolved around his "think its so clever story arc but wasn't" at the expense of good realistic characterisations. Dr who nerds spent hours trying to decipher what they thought were "clues" for the puzzle but anyone who wasn't a complete dr who nerd and had half a brain could see moffat was following the "LOST" style format and making shit up as he went along...except LOST was actually good at characterisation and creating people u could invest in emotionally. DR who nerds spent hours and hours on chatboards making idiots of themselves trying to decipher moffats non-existent clues, which for lack of a social life probably gives them joy and explains why they love moffat, but it completely killed it for the casual fans and people who enjoy good writing in tv. Ratings nosedived but hopefully with a woman dr and Chibnall in charge, we can see dr who restored to its former glory
Awesome!!!! Haha i kinda agree with you about 9, although i like for some reason really liked him. I thought he was different an wasn't just the same doctor we've already seen :)
Utrilus Because he talks about his criticisms of how the show is done incorrectly, and my god no one is going to listen to a guy on the Internet because if he had any thing of validity to bring to the table why doesn't he work on the show in the first place? A lot of people hate being told what they've done wrong and even more so hate being told what to do.
the shameless plug doesn't work when you cant watch the videos you shamelessly plug so shame on you Stuart. But in all seriousness though could you please possibly re-upload those doctor who retrospectives mainly doctors 1-9.
I literally have no idea why people suddenly think Doctor Who is a big, serious TV show like Breaking Bad or Sopranos or something; it's a family show. The show isn't meant to be watched by the same people all the time, it's designed for new viewers to come in and stale viewers to drift off. Hence why the show runners, intro sequence, even main character actor changes every few years. That's why fans get tired of seeing the same stories, because they're meant to be viewed by new people.
At first glance, there's a lot of credence to your view. Makes much sense. Then I paused. And I remembered the proud self-proclaimed Whovians who have been watching since Pertwee or Baker, those who hunted for old stories from Hartnell's run and for lost episodes of Troughton, not to mention younger viewers who watched the Classic series after NuWho. They may be *meant* to be viewed by new people but the problem is they *are* watched by the *same* people all the time. Fans have stuck with this show for decades. So the design doesn't fit the reality?
![[Bad] - YouTube ВСЁ? (победа VK и прощание с подписчиками)](/img/1.gif)
Sherlock: a 45 minute show that's forced to be hour and a half
Doctor who: an hour and a half show crammed into 45 minutes
its like poatree
The point about tension is especially interesting since my favourite Moffat episode is still The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances as the first episode in particular really takes its time to build up suspenseful, frightening atmosphere. Moffat dismissing the story for being too slow is very telling.
+Calum O'Fee Telling, and damning.
Moffat: Ok, so in the first episode of series 6 I want River Song to kill The Doctor while River Song tries to save him so she's there twice and Amy's pregnant with River Song too
Other people: Ok but why? And what about the rest of the series?
Moffat: Erm, so it'll be The Doctor 200 years from now or something, and he... Erm... OH! He invited himself to be in the vicinity of his own death! Yeah!
Other people: Oh, ok, that's pretty cool I guess, but you've not told us why River kills him yet
Moffat: Oh yeah, erm, well, she has to... Because of... The Silence! Yeah, them, they're aliens now, and there's a cool eyepatch lady in a wall
Other people: Why is she there?
Moffat: Amy's mid-wife? And, Amy's not real? Idk, I'll probably decide what that means in series 7 just go with it
I actually felt like the "He will knock four times" bit in "Planet of the Dead" worked well for Tennant's finale. As expected, most of us immediately jumped to the obvious conclusion that "four knocks" would correlate to the "sound of drums" in The Master's head. In fact, this bit of dialogue seemed to be written for this very purpose, in hindsight.
Our suspicions were only reinforced in "The End of Time," when RTD opens the story by resurrecting The Master, so we pretty much felt our assumptions were correct.
But then, at the climax, the Master is vanquished and the day is saved. Even the Tenth Doctor's face in that scene seemed to be one of, "I did it! I beat the bad guy, and I didn't have to regenerate!"
At that moment, we hear Wilfred knock on the glass, and Ten's face expresses exactly what we are all feeling - we did NOT see that coming, even when Wilfred was locked in.
But again, in RTD's defense, this was ONE piece of dialogue referring to ONE specific event in Ten's future. It was simple and neatly tied together, without raising further questions when it came time to resolve it.
That's what Moffat does, and why his prophetic dialogue (ahem..."silence will fall?") doesn't work - when it comes time to explain everything, Moffat half-asses an explanation while introducing a completely new set of questions that seem to stem from the original mystery. As a result, there's never a moment where the audience feels everything was neatly tied up; we just end up with a hot mess of seemingly unrelated elements with some questions being answered by raising others, and losing track of what's been answered and what hasn't.
Each story should be 2 episodes long, as they're doing for Series 9, and each STORY should focus on a single primary plot.
Its not even as poorly strung together as that. In "Planet of the Ood" the Doctor is told by an ood that he knows that the Doctor's song will soon come to an end. It is the ood that appear in The Waters of Mars that remind him of how reckless he has become (as the time lord victorious) and that his end is near.
I have to disagree on RTD's arcs being worse than Moffat's. The "Bad Wolf" thing in Series 1, at the very least, made perfect sense by the finale. Series 3's "You are not alone" did, too (although after hearing these words in the third episode of that season, "Gridlock," I had already guessed Boe was referring to The Master.) Series 4's Doctor/Donna thing was a bit disappointing.
The main problem with Moffat's arcs is that they end up just spiraling out of control and end up looking like a mess of cables behind a gamer's console setup.
The resolution to "The Big Bang" made positively no sense whatsoever, and was far fetched even to be considered for a Harry Potter book. The very notion itself was absurd - "remembering someone into existence who never existed to begin with." That IS what Moffat wrote as River's response to Amy asking what the consequences would be of The Doctor flying the the Pandorica into the exploding TARDIS. Not only should Earth not exist (since no Doctor ever existed to save it from those many previous invasions), but River Song shouldn't exist, the TARDIS diary she gives as a wedding present shouldn't, and most mind boggling of all, the cracks shouldn't exist to appear in "Time of the Doctor." After all, if no Doctor existed, then no TARDIS was ever stolen from Gallifrey, and thus no TARDIS was in orbit around Earth to explode. That's saying nothing about the fact that Amy "remembers" The Doctor by seeing various items of clothing - braces, a bow tie, etc. But the only time she ever saw him (according to Moffat's own story) was when he was "raggedy man," still donning Ten's weathered outfit. So these items of clothing shouldn't mean a thing to her. Good gracious, what a mess!
And that was only Series 5. I could write a 1200 page book explaining the galaxy-wide plot holes in Series 6 & 7's arcs.
I kinda liked the days when time travel in Doctor Who was about the travel part, not the time part. Because once you start messing with that too seriously, it all starts falling apart.
ooh, yes please
RTD's arcs weren't very ambitious. Bad Wolf is basically the same thing as the cracks in the universe, except it's spray painted "Bad Wolf" instead of cracks. At least, from the point of view of Series 5, the cracks made sense and had a somewhat logical explanation, whereas in Bad Wolf, Rose just becomes god and puts the words there...somehow.
Series 2 didn't have an arc. Series 3 had a bit of foreshadowing as to Saxon here and there but not sure if that counts as an arc, as it was too subtle and only really noticeable in retrospect upon second viewing. Series 4 isn't exactly disappointing, Idk maybe you expected more from it? Again it just feels like foreshadowing, not a Moffat-style season arc.
Series 5 and 6 imo handled the season arc well. I don't have a problem with Big Bang.
Season 2 had the occasional namedrop of Torchwood and the mystery of what it was and how it be significant. It wasn't much, but it was there.
Bad Wolf made perfect sense? No, it didn't at all. It was a weak paradox deus ex machina solution, it still doesn't make any sense or have any meaning that the words are "Bad Wolf".
Moffat’s idea of a story arc is just showing something at the end of the episode. If you rewatch S5, literally the entire first half of the series each story goes as normal then the crack appears at the last 2 seconds then the episode ends and boom story arc
You're so right. I never did understand the Moffat story arcs, but the sad thing is I didn't really care. All that "you can't understand the answer till you know the question" shit. It's just meaningless crap trying to cover up the absence of actual plot.
You can totally see he's just making it all up as he goes along, I don't know how people can argue that he did have it all planned out.
Yeah I can see how people could've construed that he did have it all planned in 2010, maybe even 2011, cause I did too but not by this late in the game
Exactly!!! Moffatt did not even come up with the "keep the monster of the week format but have an overarching plot", this was done with Buffy for example, and is how Desparate Housewives works. What Moffatt injected into Dr Who was more "Lost" like hooks which was what brought me back to the serious after so many silly monster of the week episodes prior to Matt Smith.Season 5 is littered with little clues and hints of what is going on which was brilliant. There was even some evidence to argue that Amy was not a proper Human believe it or not (later turned out to be nothing but bad writing mind you).
Moffat's mistake is simply what you said - he failed to write down the plot from the start, i.e. he made it up as he went along. Which was, sadly, what happened in the superior Battlestar Galactica reboot. Like Battlestar, we're with Moffat through his stories expecting a big pay off, only to be given (like Battlestar) some silly ending(s) which contradict all that has come before. We're left with nothing but things that don't make sense.
He has no respect for the material or even his own episodes, which he can't have written more than a few weeks prior.
+Markus Galt
Ironically, RTD said Buffy is the best example that Doctor Who could survive to modern times.
Mayo Tango131 Wow. Did he actually...
Well this is a way of writing. Although usually when writing like this everything that happens makes the characters really great. This kind of writing is bad for plots but good for character development. Funnily enough Moffat didn't have either.
My advice for anyone that want's to make a show with big story arcs is to watch and take notes from Avatar the last airbender cartoon.
I can't click like more than once *thumbs up* *thumbs up* *thumbs up*
Hey even Legend of Korra can pull off some nice arcs (but not series 2)
Gravity Falls is also a good reference point.
This may have already been said, but this is what totally screwed Nightmare In Silver! It should have been a two parter. Even Nail Gaiman said he wrote it as a two parter, but Moffat and/or the BBC squished it into one. Now he doesn't want to write for the show anymore and that's just a shame.
He does want to write for the show, specifically for Peter Capaldi.
DarthRushy Looks like he never got around to it
Neil Gaiman and Capaldi are the only good things left in Doctor Who. Gaiman is a brilliant writer and has written many good novels, if he leaves the show too, I don't know if I can start watching again. (I dropped it after the pile of shit that was Hell Bent.)
Magi V Season ten was seriously good you should pick it up again. I think every episode was good except episode 10. (This is before the finale)
Seamichu season 10 fucking sucked. Nearly every episode was outright awful and almost all of them had abysmal writing.
Like Smile where robots don't know grief, except they do and then expect humans to pay to live in their cities when I doubt anybody brought their wallets with them after the Earth died.
How about somehow chaining a sea monster to the bottom of the lake? How did they drive spikes down there?
What about the Eaters of Light where they flat out forget that the beast was in sunlight for 2 days, and could've easily solved the plot by just shining a reflector at the door? This is also ignoring the fact that the effects on the monster clearly weren't finished, and the stupid bit with the crows.
Oxygen was terrible because it was trying to push a political message using the worst kind of strawman argument and the villain's motivations fall apart the second you analyze them.
Two out of three monk episodes sucked, which is a shame because those were the two that mattered, because they made the villains too powerful then forgot how powerful they were, and it was run by the dumbest of idiot plots.
I could keep going on but I'd rather not write an entire essay on how much this season sucked and how it's easily the worst the show has ever been.
I think the RTD era was actually amazing. I think Moffat has completely got rid of that. However it depends on what you want, if you want an emotional drama that's also sci fi and makes you think you have RTD. If you want action and great visuals you have Moffat.
The biggest problem with Moffat is that I didn't care about any of the characters. The characters are so terribly thinly written that there is no tension and no depth at all.
Look at the companions. They have no lives, no thoughts they are just empty companions, this makes a problem with the doctor as well.
The thing is. When a plot isn't as strong the characters can save the show like it does in Lost and RTDs Doctor Who. When the story archs and the overall plots in Moffats who don't work he has nothing else. He has nothing.
I really think RTDs era is just so much better and as really great show by itself when not compared to anything else.
The RTD Era was absolute Cancer.
Well, let me try one of those questions about TDD: "Are these fish the indigenous life form?" No. The show states with no uncertainty that the humans and the Hath arrived in that colony ship together to start a new colony. This is how the shorter stories work so well. You don't need some old guy sitting in an office, huffing a cigar and explaining the backstory of everything. The backstory is woven into the episode where all you have to do is pay attention to find out.
Well, unless the writer is Steven Moffat, and then some things get explained with "Because I said so. Shut up and stop asking questions." Never knowing what the hell happened with the Silence blowing up the TARDIS back in Series 5 is a good example. We know who blew it up, and a vague idea of why, but *no* explanation for how they managed to get into a ship that should be almost impossible to break into and blow it up.
Also I had to laugh my ass off when you said that Moffat had a better idea of a series arc than RTD. Compare the Bad Wolf arc of Series 1 to the crack in time arc in Series 5. The hints in one was subtly woven through the various episodes, while the other arc beat you over the face with a fucking *brick* over and over and over again, with huge smash zooms that screamed LOOK! IT'S A HINT! TAKE THE HINT! TAAAAKE IIIIIIIT!
I'll leave it to you to guess which is which.
***** It...eh, it was okay. Definitely better than his escape from his death in Series 6.
I know I'm really late to reply to this, but Moffat actually was asked how the Silence blew up the Tardis: drive.google.com/file/d/0Bx8Iu6ncjdAxblRITEZfVGhGMFE/view?pageId=108196113461335560938
If you don't want to read that, it turns out his answer is: "I have no clue, just make it up yourself."
The Clara Story arc was shit, and it's true that Moffat left us on a cliff hanger at the end of Name of the Doctor, and somehow forgot to tell us who Clara escaped from the Doctors time line, for the next adventure SIX months later!
Most of Moffat's writing for Who is aimed to please people with the attention span of a nat.
When you can go longer watch The 9th Doctor Retrospective...
I agree with you on most things, although I did prefer RTD style, because it at least he felt some kind of respect for his characters and his audience. However, I want to congratulate you for that "Don't you think he looks tired? image ;)
The Crack in the wall story arc lasted THREE series, and it was changed half way through! RUBBISH!
The Crack in the Wall arc was actually my favorite or second favorite Moffat story arc. It was overly complicated but the way it came back in Time of the Doctor felt very good and tied it all together.
No it didn't. It lasted one series and then got randomly brought back in Matt's final episode.
@@ginge641 So, it lasted 3 series?
@@MrPaulmorris7777 No.
The thing that annoyed me the most about the Cracks in Time arc is that they revealed that the crack was what was behind the Doctor's door in The God Complex.
Your ninth doctor retrospective, i cant find it!!!
He Who Moans Review of Doctor Who: The Ninth Doctor Retrospective
Here ya go. Rewatching it now, it sounds a lot angrier than I think it should've been. Think I've become a more calm person since I first started these videos
***** that just takes us the video manager.
sorry :s should be findable now He Who Moans Review of Doctor Who: The Ninth Doctor Retrospective
***** ok, thanks
The rambling squeezed into that time frame, that's what got me with Moffat. It was very hard sometimes to keep up because of that pace and then it was like: "Wha?"
I've never felt that cliffhanger with NuWho the way I do with the Classic episodes.
Not to mention I was absolutely disappointed with how they fleshed out the River Song character and her origins. I felt Moffat really messed it up. It just seems like he got in way over his head and and to (albeit messily) dig his way out. As much as I like all three characters, I've always felt the way he handled them was messy at best.
You've put it in a way better context that my face palming/rolling eyes reactions.
+Lanie Ssel
For me the River Song makes sense, what we saw at first was an older version (200 years, being half Dama Time) after we saw younger and somewhat irresponsible, like her mother, but when he lost his parents, there she began to mature and become more sensible like his father, until we saw in the Husbands of River Song.
To be honest, I always thought that the Doctor read his diary at the end of The Big Bang and orchestrate everything to allow the existence of River Song to avoid damaging the web of time.
I just thought of something Moffat is good at. Turning potentially quality characters into idiotic Mary Sues.
I actually think Moffat is a brilliant writer when he is in charge of one-off stories. Some of my absolutely favorite episodes of New Who are written by him (The Empty Child, Blink, The Girl in the Fireplace and even the whole Library thing where River Song was introduced). But give him the freedom to do whatever he wants for however long, and he just rambles off and ruins his own great setup.
I have to agree there, I got bored of waiting for Clara and River Song to prove to us why they were so amazingly important and had to do all the Doctors problem solving for him. Ultimately they were just arrogant. I'm much more on board with Bill personally, she is more of a mix of the wide eyed naive companion with some steely determination. I was dreading the new series though after seeing the trailer for Bill's character, glad she has proved me wrong so far (more or less).
RIP Ninth Doctor Retrospective
RIP Every Doctor Retrospective.
The thing I hate the most is that Moffet has the Doctor visit his grave. His grave is integral to episode 13 of season 7. It's also integral to Clara, and who she is. So if in "Time of the Doctor", the Doctor doesn't die, how is his grave in Name of the Doctor. How does Clara exist, how does episode 13 even happen?
Because some people spend too much time writing an over complicated plot without considering how it all fits together. I think he has missed the point somewhat, he thinks that what keeps everyone interested is the ambiguity and overlong drawn out reveals that take an entire episode to actually progress (like the most recent episode). Ultimately it does lack tension, you would think it would made things more intense but it just doesn't. Its as if he is missing a fundamental writing attribute, giving the illusion that he is taking you on a journey but ultimately you feel like something's missing, i.e. the adventure part. Also I'm sick to death of speeches, and waving around a magic wand just because the kids love it. Quite honestly I miss the science, and the fun, and the threat, and the tension. All we seem to get now is something that alludes to character development, but is actually just conversing. P.S. I apologise for the bad punctuation but I just can't be bothered to correct it.
Sam Hall I Just think the show needs to go back to having two parters. I really liked season 9, because of the two parters. The episodes that weren't two parters were the worst. The show needs more time to build a threat and raise the stakes. Episodes like The Impossible Planet and Satan Pit are a testament to this, great villain, great side characters, and great story. This was because the show had 90 mins (movie length) to tell a great story.
Alexander Banks-Jongman I also think they should stop being so stubborn about what 'works'. From what I've heard Moffat is a tad arrogant, doesn't like to appease people too much, he insists he knows what 'works' and sticks with it. I agree on the two parters but would like to see something more focused instead of one part with one tone and a second part with a different tone. I also would like to see the Doctor actually work things out more, not just have all the answers loaded in some speech for the finale.
Alexander Banks-Jongman, he addressed this question in issue 472 of the Doctor Who Magazine. It was posed by Ben T Jones and he answered it: drive.google.com/file/d/0Bx8Iu6ncjdAxblRITEZfVGhGMFE/view?usp=sharing
Are you satisfied with it?
Nope. I mean, he lived, he didn't die, whatever, I can live with that. Just unnecessary. At least try and actually explain why, don't just shrug your shoulders. It's lazy.
Enigmatic - lifelike. The thing I enjoy most about the series is how hooks get dropped & then get resolved 25 years later.
Where is your 9th doc retrospective??
yo Stu when are ya going to review this year's Doctor Who Series
i cant find your retrospective videos on your channel apart from 10th and 11th doctor's
You've explained perfectly why I stopped caring about the show during Moffat's era.
I preferred the older format which took more time to tell the story. I always thought of the Doctor as a kind of Detective, and now they have turned him into Indiana Jones. There were good stories and bad stories with Russell and Moffet, but I feel all new Doctor Who is too fast paced and no substance. I will keep watching in the hope it gets better.
was 9:12 a reference to anything?
The length of the stories isn't the problem, it's the writing. Warriors of the deep and Asylum of the Daleks are poorly written regardless of there length. Genesis of the Daleks and Midnight are well written regardless of there length. The length of a story only becomes a problem if the story has filler or drags out scenes to long.
So basically Moffat waited to long for the resolution of each arc, when you put it that way he really does look tired
The boy who cried bad wolf
where's the ninth doctor retrospective?
They could do a shorter series with longer episodes that are more memorable, a bit like Sherlock
I’ve been interested in doing a doctor who fanfic, and I want to work it little bit like classic who. Episode made up with multiple chapters.
Apologies, but at the risk of being irritating, where is the Ninth Doctor Retrospective? I can't find it. :-(
I love how the URL is almost all caps.
The Game of Thrones plotting reference with G.R.R. Martin hasn’t aged well
Is there an episode 6 to this series? I can't seem to find it, it moves from episode 5 to this episode (7)...?
I think it was taken down or something. It was a video about how Moffat tends to follow the Marketing Executive's Guide to Doctor Who or something like that
A Buffy reference inside of a Doctor Who video. You are my new favorite RUclipsr!
Thank you so much for saying this.
i have an idea why not make the overarching narrative about the companion and have it be some sort of internal conflict rather than an external one. like imagine if series 5 had instead been about the Doctor and little Amelia going on adventures while trying to find her parents. the audience slowly gets to know and become invested in her as she grows up.
Yeah I wish in new who they would have more 2 part storys.
Dillon Jenkins Did you enjoy S9's format?
@@charliedawson4877 3 years late but after series 9 I have to say that I don't think it really works as its one of my least favorite seasons of the show, but having three two part stories in a season like in the RTD era works the best I think. I'm looking forward to see how series 13 goes with one story in 6 parts.
1:30 - At first I didn´t look, I expected some "unrelated LOST footage" there! lol
Tbh I feel like saying classic Who mostly worked for the tension created by the 4 or more episodes structure is inaccurate. There are several excellent 2 and 3 parters like The Sontaran Experiment or The Awakening or Survival where despite the limited runtime, they run at a brisk pace and still feel genuinely tense due to creating a situation and stakes that feel dangerous for the main characters. To me, managing to capture that was what made Davies era Who work for the most part.
You said it yourself Stuart, shorter time needs more experienced writers. Hence, the showrunner's reluctance to try out new writers.
This also shows in Series 9, where episodes were mostly two parters, and more new names were allowed on board.
Doctor Who can work as standalone story episodes, the same as The Twilight Zone or Star Trek or Space:1999 (season 1) by having each episode based upon one really strong idea and building a nice tight plot around it. It's not that difficult a thing to do or shouldn't be. It's how those other shows were written and that formula worked just fine. The problem is in trying to make too many social commentaries in the episodes instead of focusing on any one of them, and slathering on all these ridiculous character soap-operas instead of telling actual stories which people might be interested in.
Glad they went back to the 23 format, what with its 45-minute two or three-parters.
great vid totally agree! DW was always about creating tension and cliffhangers that the episode serials had. this was always one of my beefs with the new who's
sometimes i think the problem may be that he doesnt have time to resolve things because of the bus schedulde, but if that's the case then he shouldn't set things up without coming up with solutions and trying to spread everything over multiple series', i dont know if i dare try and count how many lose threads have been set up and then he's completely forgotten about them
6:19 Holy shit it's Gendry!
You're definitely way too nice lol.
Yeah the story arcs really started very exciting, but after a while I really couldn't watch them anymore.
The lady with the eyepatch felt MUCH too forced: one problem solved, the next comes up right away after that and it's all a big mystery! Tune in next week for more mystery!
River Song I actually liked a LOT in the beginning.
RTS's arcs weren't great but like at least they made sense by the finale compared to Moffat. Moffat's arcs just feel like he's standing on stage doing boring magic tricks to make the kids go "woah thats weird". At least RTD has mostly good characters tho :D
See I can't handle the four episode structure of classic who, I prefer the breakneck pace.
okay 😕
I disagree about RTD. He didn't drag it on for three, four seasons. His story arcs were for just that season so even if you weren't entirely satisfied from the resolution from a sci fi perspective at least it was 1) tied up nicely and finished and 2) RTD had great characterisation throughout so you cared about the characters and could suspend disbelief. The enjoyment of the series didn't hinge on the arc...the arc was more of an afterthought whereas with moffat, everything revolved around his "think its so clever story arc but wasn't" at the expense of good realistic characterisations. Dr who nerds spent hours trying to decipher what they thought were "clues" for the puzzle but anyone who wasn't a complete dr who nerd and had half a brain could see moffat was following the "LOST" style format and making shit up as he went along...except LOST was actually good at characterisation and creating people u could invest in emotionally. DR who nerds spent hours and hours on chatboards making idiots of themselves trying to decipher moffats non-existent clues, which for lack of a social life probably gives them joy and explains why they love moffat, but it completely killed it for the casual fans and people who enjoy good writing in tv. Ratings nosedived but hopefully with a woman dr and Chibnall in charge, we can see dr who restored to its former glory
Am I the only one who laughed at that bad wolf joke? Yeah? Okay.
Awesome!!!! Haha i kinda agree with you about 9, although i like for some reason really liked him. I thought he was different an wasn't just the same doctor we've already seen :)
RTD's so called story arcs were just lazy name drops
Am I the only one that pronounces 'Moffat' like 'muppet'? Yes? Ok, I'll leave...
Dude, you sound like Kermit the frog.
Why the hell aren't you working for bbc and like some project manager for doctor who? Or other nonsense.
Meh, hindsight 20 20
Utrilus Because he talks about his criticisms of how the show is done incorrectly, and my god no one is going to listen to a guy on the Internet because if he had any thing of validity to bring to the table why doesn't he work on the show in the first place? A lot of people hate being told what they've done wrong and even more so hate being told what to do.
the shameless plug doesn't work when you cant watch the videos you shamelessly plug so shame on you Stuart. But in all seriousness though could you please possibly re-upload those doctor who retrospectives mainly doctors 1-9.
I literally have no idea why people suddenly think Doctor Who is a big, serious TV show like Breaking Bad or Sopranos or something; it's a family show.
The show isn't meant to be watched by the same people all the time, it's designed for new viewers to come in and stale viewers to drift off. Hence why the show runners, intro sequence, even main character actor changes every few years. That's why fans get tired of seeing the same stories, because they're meant to be viewed by new people.
At first glance, there's a lot of credence to your view. Makes much sense.
Then I paused. And I remembered the proud self-proclaimed Whovians who have been watching since Pertwee or Baker, those who hunted for old stories from Hartnell's run and for lost episodes of Troughton, not to mention younger viewers who watched the Classic series after NuWho.
They may be *meant* to be viewed by new people but the problem is they *are* watched by the *same* people all the time. Fans have stuck with this show for decades.
So the design doesn't fit the reality?
Dan Root saying it's a family show or a light-hearted kid's show doesn't. In any way. Excuse. Shitty. Writing. Period.
Moffat ended the silly aliens and introduced clever and complex arcs.
Moffat wroten the best episodes and arcs
A Buffy reference inside of a Doctor Who video. You are my new favorite RUclipsr!
A Buffy reference inside of a Doctor Who video. You are my new favorite RUclipsr!