Doctor Who has lost something very special.

[K12]

I dunno, I like current Doctor Who fine. I'm more like a kid when it comes to liking the show than an adult. I don't watch an episode and go "Worst. Episode. Ever," while crating a mentla list of all that was wrong with the ep. I'm more the kind of guy who goes "A new episode tonight! Whizzo!"

I'm like this too. I'm generally quite analytic when it comes to TV and stuff but there's something about Doctor Who that I just enjoy it all. It's why I find it hard to recommend it to other people because I'm fully aware that I let Doctor Who get away with things that I'd criticise in any other show.

I also disagree about Missy coming back needing to be explained. We all know it's coming (she's way too much fun to be the only time this incarnation of the Master is getting used) so unless you can think of a particularly interesting way of doing it just saying "I'm alive because of course I am" is perfectly fine for me. Technobabble explanation are boring unless they actually have some relevance to the current plot or world or whatever.

(by the way if you watched the episode in which she "died" you might notice that when Missy vaporises people it has one colour effect but when she gets vaporised it has a different colour effect. It's not hard to think that she would programme her own weapon to teleport herself to safety instead of die if it gets used on her... but this would be tedious and clunky to explain in a fairly busy episode)

 

[Lavaeolus]

i thought everyone had guessed that Missy never died at the end of the last season?
surely it cannot just be me?

I think we all knew that Missy was not killed off, because of course they're going to come back. It's the bleeding Master. As far as revivals come, though, this is pretty immediate, and there's no real addressing of how she came back, not from the story or from its characters. I don't think that's necessarily bad either -- especially since, yeah, it's pretty obvious they're not going to kill off the Master here -- but the series finale tried to milk the Master's death for drama (mainly for the Doctor being forced to kill them -- or not, as the situation turned out) so it just comes off, to me personally, as really dissonant.

Can't have your cake and eat it too, you know?

 

[Silverbane7]

i think the finale tried to milk the Doctor not actualy *knowing* that he was or was not, killing the Master.
i have a feeling he sort of guessed that, there was no way the master that he knows, would let any device he made, kill him.
but this was Missy, the Mistress, the wilder, more (verbaly) insane version. he was second guessing himself. especialy after certain things (things that the master as a man would never have tried or done)
it was a case of 'yeah, i KNOW how this person thinks and acts normaly, but hell, they just did something totaly new and its making me wonder if i realy knew them that well up to now!?' sort of moment.

(and @K12, im glad i wasnt the only one that noticed there was something slightly different about the deathray effect.)
anyone notice also that the dalek beam sort of had an upward effect on both clara and missy this time?
it looked kinda wierd to me, made me wonder if perhaps its not something to do with the vortex maniuplators. maybe they have some kinda HADS built into them that causes you to be moved someplace safe if you get attacked bt specific wepons. and if the one clara has is one of the ones the Master has used inthe past, it may have the same failsafe built into it. UNIT is not past recycling tech hehe.

 

[Lavaeolus]

Missy wasn't killed by her deathray, though. She was killed by the Brigadier-Cyberman, saving the Doctor the relief of having her death on his soul (just like the Doctor took it to stop Clara from being a murderer). If your interpretation of the dilemna holds out, then that whole pay-off doesn't really work as well in hindsight.

 

[Josh123914]

My main points of contention with 'The Magician's Apprentice' boil down to this;

How is Davros even alive? That explosion in season 4 was fairly big. Ok, teleportation, escape pod, etc I can get behind that, but for god sake explain it to the audience how he still lives.

How is Missy alive? "Was dead, now I'm not, get over it"

Seriously. The explanation behind two major characters returning when one flat out dies on screen is "They are alive now, deal with it"? I could maybe go along with it if the Doctor cared, but he doesn't. He neither asks Missy or Davros how they survived. He just accepts it and moves on.

Yep, this is a big problem with the series. Death in Dr. Who is even more meaningless than it is in comic books, to the point where it's assumed that a death will be undone in short order. It barely even counts as a retcon, because I'm fairly sure the death was never planned to last very long even when it occurred-- which is even worse, even cheaper.

This is one facet of the main issue I have with Dr. Who, which is that events have no gravitas when they occur. A death will not last. An invasion will not last. An entire species taking over a planet or galaxy will, with no doubt, last thirty minutes and then be entirely undone, with no lasting consequences of note. Even the Time War, the only real element of the Doctor's past to involve deathly consequences, was rewritten in The Day of the Doctor [http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/The_Day_of_the_Doctor_(TV_story)] so that everyone lives, nothing of note happened after all. That was criminal.

A related issue is the failure to hold any lasting coherence with the internal rules they've established. Even if they spell out an in-universe rule, even if they're very clear telling us how important and unbreakable this rule is, it doesn't matter. They'll just as easily break it in a couple of episodes' time. Big examples are the death of the Doctor at Lake Silencio, or the regeneration limit. Both were bigged up as highly important; both meant less than nothing.

The world has so many interesting elements, and so much potential. It would be done so much more justice if they remained coherent-- kept rules they established, did not rely so heavily on deus-ex-machinas, gave us a reason to consider threats credible. As it is, it's a mess. On a side-note, I'd consider RTD a bigger culprit for this than Moffat. By far.

I agree with much of this. A big problem I see in the show now is the worldbuilding is fucked.

I miss the days when the Doctor would just meet random people from that episode's era. Say what you will about RTD writing, but at least there was a bit of tension of the character's mortalities. We all knew the Doctor and his companion would be okay, but in many stories a person they had been cordial with ends up killed pretty gruesomely. Mummy on the Orient Express was probably my favourite episode last season because it brought back that sort of tension. Loads of characters end up being killed just because the Doctor didn't kick his ass into gear fast enough. I wasn't surprised to learn that Moffat didn't write that episode.

I noticed things like the Shadow Proclamation getting cameos and such, which is fine I suppose, but its saving grace was it wasn't on screen long enough for the writers to ruin it. I thought the Doctor's aim was to explore time and space, and help people. At this point Moffat would rather us just rehash the same enemies and locations for nostalgia value. There is no tension with the Master or Clara dying, because by the very nature of the show we all know the two of them will return.
Combine this with the last point, and you'll notice why there's such frustration from certain former fans. It's just unfair and immersion breaking for the main characters to constantly cheat death, as if the Doctor doesn't even need to be there any more for conflicts to resolve themselves.
Amy and Rory cheat death about 5 times each, and by the time they left the show I was honestly disappointed they weren't just killed. The Sontaran from the Paternoster gang also cheated death in order to drag that trio back for several episodes. I don't know why Moffat wants to force this meme upon us, but it got so tiring.

Oh, and they've ruined the Daleks these past few years by making them more merciful. Compare Moffat Daleks to RTD Daleks for a minute and you'll know what I mean. In the 50th anniversary special those Gallifreyans should have died. Never mind that its a warzone and all, but RTD would not have hesitated to let those Daleks pull the trigger on all of them.

 

[Azure-Supernova]

But it's getting harder and harder to hang on to a series (or rather a writer) that to an outside observer, hates his own audience and would rather just throw darts at a wall full of post-it notes to make an over aching storyline.

I feel like this has been a major issue since Moffat took over as showrunner. He's a good story writer, he just seems to have this aversion to continuity. I know it sounds strange to have "Doctor Who" and "Continuity" mentioned together, because the IP has always thrived on playing with the elasticity of its internal logic. However Steven Moffat has shown little regard for continuity throughout 11's run and it's continued to 12's. I mean you even say it later on

"Moffat can write single episodes great, but can't write an over-arching plot to save his life."

In general I feel Doctor Who has lost something very special since it began. Things change; writers, actors, the BBC. But watching an episode today compared to series 1s 'Dalek' or 'The Parting of the Ways', I don't feel the same emotion in the characters, the thought put in the story or the excitement to sit down and watch an episode every Saturday. It's not the same as it once was, and while that's not a bad thing, it's not the same program I sat down and drooled over 10 years ago.

The show needs a new organ grinder to keep all of the monkeys dancing to the same tune. It's one episode into a new series and I can already feel that foreboding sense of story arc looming over the entire series. If we take a trip to 2005 and the coming together of the Bad Wolf arc, the arc didn't start coming together until the finale was drawing closer. Rewatching Eccleston's series I've noticed that "Bad Wolf" exists in episode two, without it being shoved down my throat with flashing neon lights and the Doctor remarking how important it is. Moffat can't seem to make each episode stand on its own merit without it contributing to some great, overarching narrative. It's fine once, but it's been his go to formula since he took over.

 

[Zontar]

i thought everyone had guessed that Missy never died at the end of the last season?
surely it cannot just be me?

I think we all knew that Missy was not killed off, because of course they're going to come back. It's the bleeding Master.

Haha, screw that, Missy is as much the Master as Jane Foster is Thor: the writer may claim it to be the case, but like hell is it so. Missy's an imposter, which is probably why her actions where literally antithetical to those of the Master. You don't go from "will destroy a whole world and leave the Doctor alive just so he can anguish over it" to "will do something for his benefit" no matter how many lifetimes one lives.

The Master is evil, and detests the Doctor on a level so pure it wouldn't be too out of character for an alliance of convenience to form between him and the Darkels. Missy isn't the Master, and I'm 100% sure that whoever inevitably replaces Moffet will make sure this becomes explicit.

 

[Albino Boo]

Davros was killed off once in the original series, and him not being dead was a big part of his next story. One other time it's not clear if he dies or not, in the others it's clear he got away.

The Master was killed once in the original series (being burned to death), and that was handwaved very lazily next story.

Davros was killed in the genesis of the daleks, Resurrection of the Daleks and Journey's End. Everything I said was factually correct

 

[Vigormortis]

The strange thing is, a lot of these complaints are nothing new to Doctor Who. It's like people selectively remember only what they want.

Many of the problems people complain about with Moffat existed under Davies, and many of the problems people complain about with Davies originated in Classic Who. The complaints that Doctor Who has gone downhill because of reason X, when reason X was almost certainly present in whatever flavour of Who you liked, rings hollow.

I'm kind of waiting for the day people start blaming Moffat for inventing the Sonic Screwdriver or "fixed points in time" or something like that. Oh wait, I saw that second one with Daleks Take Manhattan.

This is what genuinely fascinates me about the common string of complaints about current Who, especially when they come from self-proclaimed 'long time fans'. It really is as if they either selectively ignore the same issues from previous iterations or they haven't actually watched any of the old Who runs.

Whichever the case, I've actually started to laugh whenever I hear someone say, "Moffat ruined Doctor Who because he did [...] with the story and he made the Doctor do [....], which is completely out of character!" It's as if they don't realize Doctor Who has had those 'issues' since the show's inception.

Doctor Who was, has always been, and will likely always be a 'monster-of-the-week' kids show, designed to scare and enthrall the kids and entertain and intrigue the adults. The worst[footnote]By this I mean as compared to the other iterations of the show.[/footnote] you can accuse the newest Who of is taking on a darker tone to reflect a Doctor who's coming to terms with his long and storied history.

i thought everyone had guessed that Missy never died at the end of the last season?
surely it cannot just be me?

I assumed it as well.

Was it even in question? We're talking about Doctor Who here, retconning established story events is built into the core writing philosophy of the show. A show, I'll add, that plays strict with the rules of time travel one minute and then goes all fast and loose with 'em the next.

 

[Chris Mosher]

Haha, screw that, Missy is as much the Master as Jane Foster is Thor: the writer may claim it to be the case, but like hell is it so. Missy's an imposter, which is probably why her actions where literally antithetical to those of the Master. You don't go from "will destroy a whole world and leave the Doctor alive just so he can anguish over it" to "will do something for his benefit" no matter how many lifetimes one lives.

The Master is evil, and detests the Doctor on a level so pure it wouldn't be too out of character for an alliance of convenience to form between him and the Darkels. Missy isn't the Master, and I'm 100% sure that whoever inevitably replaces Moffet will make sure this becomes explicit.

But the doctor changes wildly as well. The seventh doctor sets up the daleks so that they nuke skarro. The could any one imagine five or two doing this. Hell nine is given the chance to do almost the same thing in the parting of the ways and he can't. Its seems to me that timelords regeneration has a massive affect on the psychology of the character.

 

[Zontar]

But the doctor changes wildly as well. The seventh doctor sets up the daleks so that they nuke skarro. The could any one imagine five or two doing this. Hell nine is given the chance to do almost the same thing in the parting of the ways and he can't. Its seems to me that timelords regeneration has a massive affect on the psychology of the character.

Though that's true, the Master's hatred for the Doctor has been consistent in every one of his appearances outside of Missy. Though there is always change with each regeneration, there's always something there between the different people before and after the change which remains consistent. Missy, and her suddenly being the odd one out within the different Masters as the only one who didn't hate the Doctor with the passion of a burning sun, just didn't have that. Had we the audience not been told by her that she was the Master, no one would come to the conclusion she was, instead thinking of her as the reincarnation of a different character or a new one altogether.

Think of Matt Smith's doctor, in his first episode, where he had his moment where he said "Hello there, I'm the Doctor", despite the fact he is clearly different from the two doctors before him, the natural reaction to that scene is to think "yes you are" because despite the differences he had shown himself to have some consistency with the rest of the canon. Missy didn't have that for a moment, and in universe it's more realistic to believe she was a new villain lying to the Doctor to try and get his attention then her actually being a version of the Master who is radically different from all others to the point of actively working against everything he stood for in the lifetimes before.

 

[Dalisclock]

You think this in new? Davros was killed at the end of Genesis of the Daleks on his first appearance. They brought him back and killed him again later in old Who. So this the third time Davros has been killed and brought back. From memory its also the 3rd time the master has died and been brought back. I have been watching the show for 42 years and they have always done it.

Yeah, I've kinda gotten used to the theme of


"All Daleks are destroyed! Woot!"
Next Season: "It turns out ONE dalek escaped through time and managed to rebuild the entire species from scratch"

You can pretty much apply this to pretty much anything in Dr. Who. Just because something died doesn't mean someone's not gonna use the timey whimy ball and find the one moment in time they were still alive and bring them back to full scale threat.

I've pretty much gotten used to this being televised fan fiction and just enjoy it on that level.

 

[Something Amyss]

But the doctor changes wildly as well. The seventh doctor sets up the daleks so that they nuke skarro. The could any one imagine five or two doing this. Hell nine is given the chance to do almost the same thing in the parting of the ways and he can't. Its seems to me that timelords regeneration has a massive affect on the psychology of the character.

Well, in his defense, 9 had the issue that he'd have to nuke Earth.

4, on the other hand, had the chance and chose not to. Which also came down to an ethical issue, IIRC.

Which is to say I agree with the whole "The Doctor Changes" bit. I'm just not sure any incarnation thus far would actually wipe out the human race*.

But one of the most consistent things about the regeneration concept is that with the new face comes a new personality. I say most consistent, because even then there are exceptions and inconsistencies, but hell. After decades of programming, one almost expects that.

I would point out, however, that the complaints that Missy isn't the Master aren't new or nique, either. Complaints were made about Simm's Master not being enough like the Delgato version (and the other actors who essentially played the same version). Yeah, he was different. Fans should expect that by now. Not only that, but from a character perspective, The classic Master might not be a good foil for the current Doctor.

 

[Bobular]

I don't like Moffat's episodes, there are a few good episodes in recent series, but they aren't common.

That said I liked this ep, and I also quite liked Missy's explanation of how she's alive, I think it suited the character's personality to refuse to explain it. Was also worried that we'd get her turning good whilst she teams up to save the Doctor, glad that didn't happen either.

 

[Chris Mosher]

Though that's true, the Master's hatred for the Doctor has been consistent in every one of his appearances outside of Missy. Though there is always change with each regeneration, there's always something there between the different people before and after the change which remains consistent. Missy, and her suddenly being the odd one out within the different Masters as the only one who didn't hate the Doctor with the passion of a burning sun, just didn't have that. Had we the audience not been told by her that she was the Master, no one would come to the conclusion she was, instead thinking of her as the reincarnation of a different character or a new one altogether.

I don't disagree with you but i always thought that the Moffat master built on the season with Pertwee and the Master had a certain sense of history and that the interaction did have a sense amiable.

 

[wizzy555]

The strange thing is, a lot of these complaints are nothing new to Doctor Who. It's like people selectively remember only what they want.

Many of the problems people complain about with Moffat existed under Davies, and many of the problems people complain about with Davies originated in Classic Who. The complaints that Doctor Who has gone downhill because of reason X, when reason X was almost certainly present in whatever flavour of Who you liked, rings hollow.

I'm kind of waiting for the day people start blaming Moffat for inventing the Sonic Screwdriver or "fixed points in time" or something like that. Oh wait, I saw that second one with Daleks Take Manhattan.

This is what genuinely fascinates me about the common string of complaints about current Who, especially when they come from self-proclaimed 'long time fans'. It really is as if they either selectively ignore the same issues from previous iterations or they haven't actually watched any of the old Who runs.

Whichever the case, I've actually started to laugh whenever I hear someone say, "Moffat ruined Doctor Who because he did [...] with the story and he made the Doctor do [....], which is completely out of character!" It's as if they don't realize Doctor Who has had those 'issues' since the show's inception.

Doctor Who was, has always been, and will likely always be a 'monster-of-the-week' kids show, designed to scare and enthrall the kids and entertain and intrigue the adults. The worst[footnote]By this I mean as compared to the other iterations of the show.[/footnote] you can accuse the newest Who of is taking on a darker tone to reflect a Doctor who's coming to terms with his long and storied history.

i thought everyone had guessed that Missy never died at the end of the last season?
surely it cannot just be me?

I assumed it as well.

Was it even in question? We're talking about Doctor Who here, retconning established story events is built into the core writing philosophy of the show. A show, I'll add, that plays strict with the rules of time travel one minute and then goes all fast and loose with 'em the next.

Yeah I was never a long time fan but I've criticised it for this. Eventually I just realised I just don't like Doctor Who.

 

[Vigormortis]

Yeah I was never a long time fan but I've criticised it for this. Eventually I just realised I just don't like Doctor Who.

Nothing wrong with that. It's definitely a series that isn't for everyone.

Doctor Who has always been B-grade soft science fiction. At it's best, it weaves an exciting, enthralling, and even scary tale while still not taking itself seriously. At its worst, it's camp for the sake of camp.

To be honest, the only big difference between the new Whos and the old Whos is a vast increase in production values. (and viewership)

 

[Something Amyss]

I don't disagree with you but i always thought that the Moffat master built on the season with Pertwee and the Master had a certain sense of history and that the interaction did have a sense amiable.

It also builds off the series 3 Master with Russel T Davies. I mean, I know it was half a decade ago, but people were making jokes about them being lovers back then (I guess it's only funny if they're both dudes?) because they were clearly displaying a love-hate relationship.

 

[Thaluikhain]

To be honest, the only big difference between the new Whos and the old Whos is a vast increase in production values. (and viewership)

Er...they've brought one-off eps as the norm, instead or 4 or 6 part stories, they've lost most interest in internal consistency within stories, and the show became a soap opera.

The loss of the internal consistency is the only one that I'd say is necessarily bad, though. Throwing weird things at the screen only works if you can stick them together into a story.

CaP: carry a trowel