fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2158 ]

[ SECRET POST #2158 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2158 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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[Doctor Who]

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[Gravity Falls]

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[The Guy With The Glasses]

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[Community]

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[Beet the Vandel Buster]

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[The Vampire Diaries]

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[The Walking Dead]

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[Nick Grimshaw - BBC Radio 1 Breakfast Show]

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 017 secrets from Secret Submission Post #308.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 1 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I think you're in a minority, if the Hugo award and the entirety of the internet is anything to go by ;)

It's a show about a 900 year old alien with no dress sense who flies around and travels in time with pretty young girls and puts them in mortal danger while saving the universe. It honestly does not have a line where it becomes too silly or cracky from the standpoint of external logic. It's a fairy tale. With fairy tale logic. I do think the idea could have been handled badly, but imo it was handled just right, with how totally non-human she and their relationship was.

Also, nothing in life is as clear cut "this is the most important" as that. Who do you love most, your father, your sister, your spouse, your best friend, or your children? Of course his companions are vitally important to him, but how does this episode change that? Why would one relationship devalue another? The TARDIS has been just as huge and palpable a part of the show since 1963. It honestly didn't introduce any new ideas, just gave them voice. And debunked the idea that TARDIS's were Time Lords' slaves.

(IA on River though. It's a story that could have been done well if it had been in the same vein as Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead...but no.)

I could care less about Hugos. What a bunch of mostly male science fiction fen think is the best written thing is completely irrelevant to me, and actually, probably not something I'm going to agree with most of the time (especially considering how they've been hardcore Moffat fanboying since S1 of DW- and yeah). Imo. And yes I realize that this episode was written by Gaiman (but it was under Moff's stewardship, hence the mention), but while he's no Moffat, frankly I find his work to be a bit overrated and have since long before this episode aired. The Doctor's Wife wasn't the worst thing ever, but I don't understand the acclaim.

Anyway, Moffat's era of Doctor Who devalues the role of companions on the whole in the series and in the Doctor's life and this was just another example of it. Imo.

Er...when exactly are the companions devalued in Moffat's Who? Specifically, when in the Doctor's Wife? Are they suddenly much less important because the episode doesn't revolve around them and their relationship with the Doctor--one episode among many?

Moffat shifted the focus from the companions to the Doctor, whereas it was much more balanced before. He also created a Doctor that in my opinion doesn't value his companions the way previous Doctors did. I think this is shown at many, many points in the series, and it seems to get worse near the end, when he only appears to pop up into their lives when he's feeling bored or something.

And even the narrative doesn't value Amy at all, which is unfortunate.

I wouldn't think as much of an episode like tDW if we were under a showrunner that wasn't doing what I described above (imo), but it was just another misfire on the pile for me.

Er...the Doctor has pretty much always been the focus of the show, and as for balance, Ten's companions were pretty much all crutches for him, in a way, helping HIM get over HIS problems, over the course of three long seasons plus the specials. If by "value companions" you mean Eleven doesn't treat Amy like Ten did Rose, then I for one am glad of that.

I honestly do not understand what you mean when you say that Eleven doesn't value his companions, or Amy specifically (or am I remembering many Amy-centric episodes wrong?).

And I certainly don't understand the problem with an episode focusing on the one companion he's had for his entire journey.

I disagree. While the Doctor has always been the marquee star of the show, in the past the actual characterization and screentime was far more balanced between the Doctors and the companions. Regardless of the name on the logo, the companions were treated as being as vital as the Doctor. That's imo of course, but I feel like Moffat doesn't understand the value of the Doctor/Companion relationship, and frankly I don't think he ever has- because the way he portrayed it in most of his RTD era episodes was terrible as well. He treated the companions as baggage in those episodes (and portrayed them as nagging to boot).

Rose was not Ten's only companion so I'm not sure why you only mention her, although yeah, I think he treated her a heck of a lot better than Eleven does Amy. And when the Doctor under RTD's wing did treat a companion with not the amount of respect she should have been treated, the narrative called him on that. And heck, I'd have the way that Ten treated Martha any day over the way Eleven treats Amy.

(I'm confused by the crutch thing anyway, as while they did help him, they all had their OWN character arcs that took place during their journeys. Yes they helped him, but their time with him helped THEM as well. In Moffat era, imo, no one is growing- Amy's growth is minimal because her personality is so inconsistent and her character arc is all over the place, and Eleven? Doesn't have a solid character arc in the first place. )

We're not going to see eye to eye on this because--- honestly I really dislike Moffat's era and Eleven if the first Doctor I've ever disliked. I don't think that Moffat respects the women he writes, and thus due to his writing I don't think Eleven does either. He respects Rory more, but-- frankly, almost to a fault as he's often glorified over Amy.

He treated the companions as baggage in those episodes (and portrayed them as nagging to boot).

Yeah, he's does that. Hell, he did it in Sherlock, too, with John in "Sandal in Belgravia". John could have skipped the whole episode and nothing would be different. SIB was all about Sherlock and Irene, in the same way "Girl in the Fireplace" was about the Doctor and Madame de Pompadour and "SitL/FotD" was about the Doctor and River. Rose and Mickey and Donna and John were irrelevant to Moffat; it was all about the main character having the hots for HIS character (yeah, ACD created Irene, but the one we see in SIB is very much Moffat's version). It wasn't as noticeable in "Blink", since it was a Doctor-lite ep, but that was also a case where his character(s) took center-stage.

IA about Moffat's crappy character development, but are you serious? Amy and Eleven's friendship is probably the most personally close one EVER, and I'm including Rose. It's one of the only Doctor-companion relationships where I feel like the Doctor is heavily defined by his relationship with his companion. And he's not "popping up every now again when he's bored." It's the exact opposite. He's popping up every now and again because even though Amy and Rory have their own normal lives at home, he's SO attached to them he can't stay away, unlike a lot of previous companions.

Now, that's still indicative of Moffat's inability to write proper storyarcs that feel complete, but please don't pretend for a minute that Amy's among the less-than-important companions.

Also, how the fuck did this turn into a discussion of Moffat?

I'm actually not quite sure how it turned into that. lol.

See the thing is that I don't buy that. I don't buy Amy's level of importance to the Doctor at all. I think she SHOULD be important to a huge level, and I'd like to see that, but it's not working for me. Moffat can tell me she's that important all she wants, but I plainly don't think he shows it and I absolutely don't think the Doctor shows it. Near the end of their run he treated Amy and Rory as objects of amusement, imo.

I'm not saying Amy's 'not important,' but I do think that the narrative doesn't give her enough value and that INCLUDES in her relationship with the Doctor. And this is not a slight on Amy, who frankly is the only one of the current (well not current now but...) leads that I actually like. It's my frustration with what I view as her being badly treated by the narrative, the plot, Rory, the Doctor, etc.

Because he's attached? He spent two hundred years without them and seemed to be having a grand old time. Maybe Moff is saying he's attached, but stuff like that does the opposite of showing it? Imo.

Edited 2012-11-30 05:07 (UTC)

IA that the writing has been crap a lot of the time, but to me it always seemed that it was Moffat not bothering to fucking write any of the stuff that went between the action-y scenes. You get scenes with Amy and the Doctor and I absolutely 100% believe that their relationship is extremely important and he loves Amy and Rory to pieces...but then I feel like I've skipped three episodes when the next episode airs and I'm like "wait wait what about x, y, z from last episode???"

But...well, actually the 200 years thing? No. Nonononono. I think you're operating on a wildly incorrect assumption. The reason he went off for 200 years was because he wanted to make sure Amy and Rory stayed safe after the events of The God Complex, so he said goodbye and left just like he left a lot of other companions, planning to stay away from them until the point where he would have to travel back in time for his death in Utah, not because he wanted to.

Remember in "Closing Time", which happened after his 200 year pre-death jaunt (so for the Doctor, 200 years passed between The God Complex and Closing Time), and he sees Amy and Rory shopping in the store, and it's only been a few months for them but it's been 200 YEARS for him and he just stops dead in his tracks and stares and catches his breath with recognition and amazement like he's about break and call after them (he looked just like Ten did when he saw Sarah Jane, IMO) and it's obvious he misses them so much he barely remembers himself in time to duck and hide himself from their sight because he promised himself he'd stay out of their lives.

Then he goes to Utah and...whateverthefuck The Wedding of River Song was happened. Then he hid out because everyone in the universe thought he was dead, (he even thought the Ponds thought he was dead although River had actually clued them in unbeknownst to him), until he finally got soundly scolded by the mom in "The Doctor The Widow and The Wardrobe" for not spending Christmas with the people he loves the most if he has no family of his own. And he goes to the Ponds and Amy greets him at the door and yells at him for the death stunt and then Rory pops out and reveals they knew he was alive all along and has been waiting for him to show up, and he goes in to have Christmas dinner with them.

And after that, he's apparently left the Ponds alone again, although he keeps in contact...or something...it's unclear because the writing was crap...but the Daleks kidnap all of them separately after Rory and Amy's divorce and force them together, and after that adventure they kind of just roll with it for the next two episodes in order to...IDK. It's wtf all over the place but whatever. And the contrived coincidence of the cubes occurs to make the Doctor come back to them again in The Power of Three, and Amy even remarks that he's "weaning them off of him" by visiting less often, which is for their benefit re: The God Complex. But of course Moffat couldn't give us a really cool unique arc of the Doctor having this extra-long, recurring relationship with the Ponds like he did with non-companion friends like the Brigadier. No, that would make too much sense.

Of course, this entire timeline was fucking all over the damn place and NEVER EXPLAINED ANYTHING or gave the characters any downtime or quiet character scenes to talk about shit or work through their experiences apart from 'The Power of Three' (during which the Doctor missed them so much he hung around UNIT without traveling for ages so he could see them, but of course that was way late). So I'm not surprised it confused and annoyed people.

So, bottom line: terrible, terrible, god-awful writing that made it clear the writers didn't give a shit about Amy and Rory as fictional characters with personal stories to tell the audience. But from the standpoint of the show's timeline and internal logic? No, sorry, there hasn't been a single event or inference that has suggested to me that the Doctor was ever anything but painfully head-over-heels adoring of and attached to the Ponds, especially Amy, and that it hurt him every time he was separated from them and he relished any excuse to see them again, almost to a fault.

Yeah, I sure as fuck wish it has actually been depicted in a way that properly conveyed that tone, but if I'm gonna carefully pick apart the sequence of events and choices throughout season 6 and 7, it doesn't cast any dubiousness on the Doctor's motives or actions. Everything he did with the Ponds, he did because he adored them and loved being with them and was torn between that and encouraging them to live their normal lives. If he was selfish, it was in not being able to let them go. And even then, they're the ones who made the choice to keep traveling with him at the end of "The Power of Three." He was ready to say goodbye for realsies this time.

So yeah, no hate for the Doc, all the hate for Moffat's allergy to emotional scenes and character development.

This comment sums up my thoughts completely. <3

*blinks* Uh, you do realize the 200 years he spent away from them happened to the him from the future, right? It sounds like you thought that he randomly spent 200 years away from them for no good reason before the Impossible Astronaut, but I hope that's not what you meant, since it was very clear that it was future!Doctor who spent 200 years away.

You know he spent those 200 years away right before his supposed death, between "The God Complex" and "Closing Time", right? After he said he was leaving Amy and Rory because he didn't want them to die just because of his personal desire to keep traveling with them because he loved being with them so much? Because he was so attached to them he almost got them killed because he couldn't stand to leave them, and then had to basically force himself to stay away from them to let them live normally while he was waiting for his due date at the lake to come up even though it made him miserable?

And "objects of his amusement"? You mean the people who he came up with every flimsy excuse in the book to stay near? You mean the people for whom he mucked around in the past so he could amuse them via history book? The people he was trying and repeatedly failing to stay away from - against all his desires - because of the whole "you guys should have a normal life" thing? I'm sorry, but WHAT SHOW ARE YOU WATCHING???? It sounds even worse than what the show has actually become, which is pretty bad, but certainly nothing near as bad as....whatever you're postulating.

I agree that the writing epically fails a lot on the "show don't tell" aspect of making the Amy + Doctor relationship feel important in season 6-7 though. Ugh. So frustrating. They did get a few great scenes (the end of the Xmas special comes to mind) but the character development was so godawful in season 6.

We need to stop using fen. It's "Fans" it's always been fans, and your moronic attempt to change pluralization for no good fucking reason is stupid and you should feel stupid.

This is not directly soley at iggy.

Eh. I just use it. I'm not trying to redefine anything. Generally when I use fen I mean something above... fans? As in, more into it than a casual fan. But that could just be me.

Like there's a difference in my mind between Snape fans and Snapefen.

Dude. Chillax. Fen's been around for a long time. Like J-fen, for when you want to refer to fandom in Japan.

journalfen.net is also a thing :U

what did the comment you replied to say

That her reaction was "nope", "it's one thing to joke about Doctor/TARDIS but another thing to actually do it" and that she didn't like it when characters like the TARDIS or River Song are more important than companions because the companions should be the most important things in the Doctor's life.

I hope I didn't misrepresent anything she said...

and iggy was the op? I wonder why she deleted it but is still talking about it.

No clue. If I wrote a comment and was then embarrassed by it enough to delete it, I'd ignore the reply.

It was actually an accident. Lol. I almost reposted it but someone had already replied.

WTF happened to this thread??? O.o

iggy made a comment, anon replied, iggy accidentally deleted the first comment and wanted to repost it but since anon already replied, iggy continued the convo with anon instead

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ SECRET POST #2158 ]

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