Problems with Doctor Who and what needs to be fixed

[Infernai]

Alright guys, we've just had our newest season of Doctor Who with Moffat still as show runner.

However, the longer i've watched Moffat's stuff the more I've noticed some problems starting to arise with it. And this season, well this season was no exception.

First, let me state right off the bat that I think Peter Capaldi is a good choice for the Doctor. He's done his darndest with this and, despite the writing not always being very solid, I like his portrayal of the Doctor and I like him as the Doctor.

Now, let's move on to the problems:

1) The show's about adventures in TIME and SPACE...so why havn't there been much, if any, of those actually happening? I know the budget means we can't always have episodes set on vastly alien worlds, this isn't really about location though. It's about focus. The show's about adventures in time and Space, and yet half the time this season there hasn't been much, well, "Adventuring" going on if you get my drift. When Chlara came on initially, I was starting to get optimistic about this part coming back rather then focusing on the companions: We had a soviet nuclear submarine being terrorised, we had an eldritch abomination that fed on memories, we had them travel into the depths of the TARDIS. Freaking Cybermen in an off-world themepark.

And...what did we get this season? Well...we got Robin hood, that was fun. Uhh...oh! Finding out about the boogey-man! Err...umm...aside from that it's mostly been focusing on the relationships of it's characters and companions.

I'm sorry, but I'm here to Watch Doctor Who for adventure and fun: If I wanted to see stuff about a persons home and personal life, I'd go watch fucking East Enders.

2) Carrying on from this point, a slightly different point: The focus on the companions and almost clingy nature Moffat seems to have with them in regards to not letting them go. Amy and Rory were basically where this got started for me. In the later part of their tenure, it seemed like they were getting dragged back in even when the show had given them a window to leave. Hell, when they initially "Died" it was at the point I wasn't sad so much as questioning if they were actually gone. And I think the less said about River Song, the better. Chlara is also starting to give me vibes of this. Yes, she and the Doctor parted ways after the finale (SPoiler!). But, my response isn't so much "Aww, Chlara's gone D:" it's instead been replaced with "...*sigh* she's gonna be back next season, isn't she?"

I get the older show had long running companions before the revival, but most of the time they didn't really focus on their home life or anything. They went with the doctor, had adventures, and eventually would leave when they either A) Wanted to get back home or B) Find a new place in the universe. There was the Rare option of they died, but that was oddly rare. Again, Companions nowadays seem to be more of a focus along with their home life. It's getting to the point I half want the Doctors next companion to be someone with next to no family or friends and a part-time job they hate or something, simply so we can get more time to actually get back to, y'know, adventures...rather then focus on their home life.

3) Plot Holes and character inconsistencies. Look, I know Doctor Who has never been the most masterfully written show and it's not perfect. BUT! There have been some notable ones lately. For example, say, Jumping into your own time line after being told how dangerous it was...and literally getting out of it with no explanation of how. Stuff like that is problematic and is making it hard. Second, this season has...well, sometimes it feels like Chlara was a different person sort of. When the Doctor Regenerated, she seemed to pull the whole "He's not the Doctor anymore" thing when, in truth, she should honestly be the most accepting of it given she, oh I don't know, WENT THROUGH HIS WHOLE FUCKING TIME LINE!

Phew

Alright, I know some of these are all matters we will vary on so...what about you? What do you think needs to be fixed up for Doctor who? Or hey, do you think it's perfectly fine the way it is now?

Discuss!

 

[Someone Depressing]

About 1, you have to remember that as Doctor Who grows older, teenagers (tweens?) have become more and more invested in the show. They're a periphery demographic, and not the show's main one (adults who are into sci-fi and crap). So, the focus on the characters' relationships was most likely for them.

It's disappointing that it played out that way, but the writers need to keep their viewers, especially the younger demographics, interested. At least until they start to become more interested in the show's main focus: aliens, time travel, space, ect.

It's not a marvelous justification, but in order to critically analyse this work - or any work in question - you have to look at it from the views of those in question.

Over all, I thought the season was all right. Clara and Capaldi's Doctor were both top notch, but I was a little bummed out by the focus on character development, which is nice and all, but needs more explosions, aliens, overly confusing plots that bizarre-o you into accepting them (which are Moffat's specialty) and fart jokes. Or fezes.

The focus on the companions did grate on me, too, though. I liked River and Amy, though. They were actually important to the plot (weird time shit aside) instead of just... being there, like Rose, and to a lesser extent Clara, was.

 

[Albino Boo]

Err ok here we go

1, The entire 3rd Dr was in 1970s Britain. Alien locations were rare and time travel non existent. Its not new, its just what Dr Who has always done keep the budget down by setting stories now.

2. See Adric

3. No point complaining about plot holes. Even as something as basic as regeneration. When its first happened it was called rejuvenation and was property of the Tardis. The Second Dr into the 3rd was a punishment imposed by the Timelords. Only with 3rd to fourth do we get get the classic regeneration. However even then when Romana regenerated she had full control of her appearance breaking with was established before. The fourth to fifth regeneration featured a glowing mummy following around the Dr before merging to create the incarnation. The entire show has been run on the principle that what the Dr can and cannot do, is entirely about what suits the dramatic purpose of the writers at that moment.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

We need new blood for the writer's room. Moffat cannot make an overarching plot that doesn't completely fall apart at the end of each season.

 

[Galletea]

I think they need new writers, and to stop relying on the States to buy into quaint britishisms to sell it to them. A strong female lead who isn't entirely obnoxious would be a nice change and perhaps a little more effort from the costume and effects departments wouldn't go amiss. I like the current Doctor but it doesn't feel like the people creating the show does. Everything feels a bit like they're writing this doctor off as a failure without giving him a decent plot to showcase his talents.

 

[Zontar]

We need new blood for the writer's room. Moffat cannot make an overarching plot that doesn't completely fall apart at the end of each season.

Oh god is this true. New writers with new stories and perspectives. What I think the show needs is the Star Trek treatment. Back in the day where there was at least one Trek show on the air,Paramount's writers and producers for the show had a policy of accepting written scripts from fans and reading them with the serious intent of using them for an episode if it was good enough. 99% of it was crap that they never considered using, but they did give us some of the best episodes Trek had to offer and lead to Ron Moore being discovered. If Who would do that... well lets face it BBC would be flooded with bad fanfiction, but there's a chance they'd make a few stories with fresh perspectives, and just maybe a good writer or two in the process.

 

[Gizmo1990]

I think that Capaldi has been a great Doctor but I don't think his first series has been very good. To fix Doctor Who for me they need to address the following:

Focus on the Doctor: I don't give a shit about Clara's home life. I don't give a shit about her love life. I want to watch the crazy time traveling alien do crazy stuff while exploring all of Time and Space. This last series very much felt like The Clara Oswald Show.

Have the Docotr matter: far too many episodes had endings that would have been identical had the Doctor not been there at all.

Get someone who can write good female characters: the majority of women I know who watch Doctor Who seem to feel that Moffat is sexist. I am not great at judging such things but I do belive that he cannot write female characters to save his life. All his female characters seem to either be Mary Sue's, completly in love with the Doctor or both. Hell they made the Master a woman and the first thing Moffat has him/her do is make out with the Doctor. This is not good writing.

Keep Danny gone and get rid of Clara: personaly I find her to be completly insufferable. I don't want a companion who blindly follows the Doctor and belives everything he says at all times but I also don't want a bossy ***** who thinks she is better than and always knows better than the 2000 year old time traveling alien super genius (who saves the universe on a weekly basis) she is traveling with. She is constantly questioning everything he does even when she has no better ideas at hand and Danny was no better.

Have the Doctor activly look for Galifray: The 50th had him saving his people and his planet, the Christmas episode had him spend the last years of his life protecting them from destruction and after that, after knowing that the Time Lords are alive and in need of his help he did FUCK ALL to find them. Never even came up. Instead he spends his time getting shouted at by an opinionated earth woman with an overinflated ego who belives she is better than him.

 

[Lilani]

I think the stories need to slow down a bit. I have liked many of the stories which have happened recently, but in nearly all of them I felt that they really should have been split into two parts. From this last season Listen and Flatline felt on the mark as far as pacing, but the rest felt like they were just trying to do too much in too short of a timeframe. I think Kill the Moon would have been a more powerful story if they'd slowed it down and worked on the character's relationships, and slowly discovered what was going on in the moon rather than just a crash-and-dash that takes five minutes from discovery to resolution. They should have kept those other two spacemen alive longer to get to know them so their loss actually meant something, and to build up more suspense.

That's another trend I've noticed with the latest season--killing characters off in ways that are supposed to feel impactful, but aren't. The spacemen are one such example. Their deaths didn't feel significant or even dramatic, it was just comical how fast they died. They hardly got a few lines in before they were killed off. And it felt like they were trying to build up their characters in those few lines, but we weren't allowed to spend enough time with them for the deaths to feel like a real loss. And the same with the first couple of deaths in Into the Dalek. The deaths just felt cheap, not dramatic or important.

Time Heist was one of the few ones that got it right. They killed one guy to establish the threat of the monster, but then it was a good long while before one of the main ones in the group died. And even then it really hurt to lose her, they were so close to getting out of there. That death felt dramatic and important. And when she came back I was really happy to see her again, because she actually meant something to me. Her being alive wasn't cool because it was a clever plot twist, it was cool because I was just happy to see her again.

I'm fine with all the characters that have been introduced in season 8, but again I wish we could have spent some more time with them. They felt crammed into the margins of their own episodes. They introduced Courtney briefly a few episodes, but then when she actually got a significant part in Kill the Moon she was completely sidelined for nearly the whole episode. I legitimately felt sorry for the child actress who played her. Since they bothered bringing her to the moon, she should have had a significant role to play in the outcome. The story literally would have been the same regardless of whether or not she was there. They try to make her feel significant by saying "Oh, don't worry, this really meant a lot to her and she grows up to be President." Don't tell me, SHOW me. SHOW me how much this means to her. SHOW me this actually changed her life. SHOW me she had a reason for being there other than a cheap grab at the extra bit of suspense that comes with having a child in a dangerous place.

All in all, to me it feels like they keep gathering the right elements for great stories, but just can't put them together or pace them right. I'm not completely dissatisfied with all the episodes, in fact I quite enjoy them while I'm watching them for the most part. But I keep feeling this disappointment by the time I reach the end of the episode that feels like it could have been better than it was. There's some little nagging thing that just felt like it dragged the episode down and kept me from enjoying it completely.

 

[DudeistBelieve]

I don't feel it my place to comment on Who in any authorative sense, but I totally feel y'all on there needing to be more adventuring and offworlding going on. I mean they went to the moon and really did fuck all, they've just kept these plots really small and manageable.

I feel the reverse on the Clara/Pink/Doctor thing they go going on, especially Clara. I finally feel like she's an actual character this season where before she just felt like a replacement for Amy.

 

[Something Amyss]

Amy and Rory were basically where this got started for me.

The alternate dimension wher epeople went and could never come back did it for me.

But I get where you're coming from, and I was annoyed that they kept saying goodbye and coming back. The end of season 6 would have been a great end point, and some of the other points were already tiresome. When they came back again and again....It lost all meaning. Oh, look, Rory's dead again. They're saying goodbye forever for the fifth time this season.

When the Doctor Regenerated, she seemed to pull the whole "He's not the Doctor anymore" thing when, in truth, she should honestly be the most accepting of it given she, oh I don't know, WENT THROUGH HIS WHOLE FUCKING TIME LINE!

This was largely described by Moffat as her being distraught that she couldn't control him with her wiles anymore. And that's basically the way Moffat writes things: if women can't keep you on a leash with pussy, then there'll be hell to pay.

It actually seems perfectly consistent with Clara, though.

I get that there are inconsistencies on the show, but it fits the stock Claracter. that she was.

3. No point complaining about plot holes. Even as something as basic as regeneration.

Or what the TARDIS can and can't do. Or how Time Travel works. Or the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow.

 

[jthwilliams]

I have just felt that the doctor has been mean and acting from base emotion. It isn't the vision of the character I have. I like the "mad man with a box" idea. Yes he gets serious every now and then, but really he is just lonely and has one thing he likes to show off to make friends and influence people, the whole of time and space. It is personal preference of course but I like the character a both intelligent and powerful while at the same time lighthearted and just trying to have fun.

 

[Porygon-2000]

I kind of dislike the fact that nothing really carries any weight. Like, there are no consequences. What's that? The Daleks invaded Earth? *poof* No they didn't. What's a Dalek? Crazy Person!

Also, I kind of dislike the CONSTANT the Doctor has gone back and changed human history, or been somehow involved. Seriously, at this point, has there even been ONE achievement by humanity the Doctor was in no way involved in? Kind of sells us short, really. Show us that we can actually do something on our own for once!

Why yes, I have been thinking about this for a while

 

[TheRightToArmBears]

The key issue I have with this season has been that the emphasis has been on relationships over adventure. Not that relationships are bad, but that shouldn't be what Who is about and it doesn't help that a lot of the dynamic has been a bit of a retread of past companions. Possibly worse- Clara has altogether too much power over the Doctor, in the finale when she wanted to kill Missy Eccleston or Tennant's Doctors would have given a rousing speech about why they shouldn't, but instead we get 'Oh, I wouldn't want you to get your hands dirty'.

Now, I've never seen any classic Who, but I know a little. I'm sure there are other Timelords who would have made more sense as the villain for the climax rather than reusing the Master, and the 'last of the Timelords' thing has always been a cliche that I hated. Having a couple of other Timelords floating around the universe would spice up the plots a little.

 

[viscomica]

Also, I kind of dislike the CONSTANT the Doctor has gone back and changed human history, or been somehow involved. Seriously, at this point, has there even been ONE achievement by humanity the Doctor was in no way involved in? Kind of sells us short, really. Show us that we can actually do something on our own for once!

I agree with you. Whenever the Doctor travels anywhere and opens his mouth to say "you know I've actually met (insert important name in history) and convinced him / her to do something" I can't help but roll my eyes.

 

[Mr Fixit]

Most of my complaints have already been covered. So this is more of a technical complaint I guess, but did anyone else think the music would get too loud at the wrong time & drown out some of the dialogue. Or do I just need to get my hearing checked.

 

[someonehairy-ish]

I've always thought that Dr Who would be a far better show if there were fewer, longer episodes per season. The 'monster of the week' format means you need to establish a bunch of new characters, an antagonist, and have a self contained plot, all in the space of what? Less than an hour? The result is that you have a show which rushes through major plot points at breakneck pace and you don't care about any of the characters in each episode. Killing people off to create drama doesn't work when you've known them for 5 minutes and they've had 3 lines.

I doubt they'd go that route, though, because it's a kid show and nobody thinks kids will sit through anything longer than about 40 minutes.

The other problem is the writing. And kid episodes. Nobody likes kid episodes, stop doing them.

Also, why do you keep calling her Chlara?

 

[Soviet Heavy]

They also need to write some more music. I haven't heard so many repeated songs since Star Trek fired Ron Jones for being too cinematic.

 

[Gone Rampant]

I'm fine with most of the last season- barring Clara, who's just boring in my opinion. The only really good thing she's added was Danny, and I'm hoping she leaves as a companion during the upcoming Christmas special.

 

[Lilani]

Alright guys, we've just had our newest season of Doctor Who with Moffat still as show runner.

However, the longer i've watched Moffat's stuff the more I've noticed some problems starting to arise with it. And this season, well this season was no exception.

First, let me state right off the bat that I think Peter Capaldi is a good choice for the Doctor. He's done his darndest with this and, despite the writing not always being very solid, I like his portrayal of the Doctor and I like him as the Doctor.

Now, let's move on to the problems:

1) The show's about adventures in TIME and SPACE...so why havn't there been much, if any, of those actually happening? I know the budget means we can't always have episodes set on vastly alien worlds, this isn't really about location though. It's about focus. The show's about adventures in time and Space, and yet half the time this season there hasn't been much, well, "Adventuring" going on if you get my drift. When Chlara came on initially, I was starting to get optimistic about this part coming back rather then focusing on the companions: We had a soviet nuclear submarine being terrorised, we had an eldritch abomination that fed on memories, we had them travel into the depths of the TARDIS. Freaking Cybermen in an off-world themepark.

And...what did we get this season? Well...we got Robin hood, that was fun. Uhh...oh! Finding out about the boogey-man! Err...umm...aside from that it's mostly been focusing on the relationships of it's characters and companions.

A good story can come from anything, especially a Doctor Who story. Some of the most renowend episodes of the New Who happened on earth or in smaller-scale locations: Blink, The Empty Child, Midnight, Vincent and the Doctor. And remember that in Jon Pertwee's era they were stuck EXCLUSIVELY on earth with the Brigadier for a couple of seasons, after making the jump to color film and not having enough budget leftover to continue to make alien sets.

I'm not saying that's an excuse for bad stories. Just that in most cases the location isn't what's to blame for a bad story.

2) Carrying on from this point, a slightly different point: The focus on the companions and almost clingy nature Moffat seems to have with them in regards to not letting them go. Amy and Rory were basically where this got started for me. In the later part of their tenure, it seemed like they were getting dragged back in even when the show had given them a window to leave. Hell, when they initially "Died" it was at the point I wasn't sad so much as questioning if they were actually gone. And I think the less said about River Song, the better. Chlara is also starting to give me vibes of this. Yes, she and the Doctor parted ways after the finale (SPoiler!). But, my response isn't so much "Aww, Chlara's gone D:" it's instead been replaced with "...*sigh* she's gonna be back next season, isn't she?"

I get the older show had long running companions before the revival, but most of the time they didn't really focus on their home life or anything. They went with the doctor, had adventures, and eventually would leave when they either A) Wanted to get back home or B) Find a new place in the universe. There was the Rare option of they died, but that was oddly rare. Again, Companions nowadays seem to be more of a focus along with their home life. It's getting to the point I half want the Doctors next companion to be someone with next to no family or friends and a part-time job they hate or something, simply so we can get more time to actually get back to, y'know, adventures...rather then focus on their home life.

Moffat does have an infatuation with making the companions have huge, overarching journeys that have story threads that span across multiple seasons, which after they drag on for a while just seems pretentious as a viewer. To this day, my favorite companion was Donna, with the Ponds (not just Amy or Rory--both of them) in second. I loved Donna because she had a great and, at the time, unique relationship with the Doctor, at least as far as the New Who. She never fell in love with him, and he never fell in love with her. They were friends travelling through time and space, no extra emotional baggage beyond that.

I actually liked the Ponds as companions later on, when Amy and Rory were "set" as a couple and there was no more questioning whether Amy loved the Doctor more than Rory or not. Their dynamic worked best then, though the stories later on weren't my favorites.

So for me, the ideal companion situation would be for the companion to never have any romantic interest in the Doctor and vice versa (which should be easier than ever with Capaldi's Doctor, and Capaldi himself has said in interviews he refuses to do any relationships with companions with his Doctor), and for them to not have untold story threads being woven across multiple seasons. Donna had a huge role in the end, but the hints as to her purpose weren't as heavy-handed as the way Moffat does his hints, and nothing was really done with it until those finale episodes.

3) Plot Holes and character inconsistencies. Look, I know Doctor Who has never been the most masterfully written show and it's not perfect. BUT! There have been some notable ones lately. For example, say, Jumping into your own time line after being told how dangerous it was...and literally getting out of it with no explanation of how. Stuff like that is problematic and is making it hard. Second, this season has...well, sometimes it feels like Chlara was a different person sort of. When the Doctor Regenerated, she seemed to pull the whole "He's not the Doctor anymore" thing when, in truth, she should honestly be the most accepting of it given she, oh I don't know, WENT THROUGH HIS WHOLE FUCKING TIME LINE!

Very much in agreement with this one. The plot holes have been getting to me since Matt Smith's last couple of seasons. In the mystery cube episode, for example. The cubes zapped everybody on earth and gave them a heart attack, killing them. The Doctor reversed the effect and got the cubes to start their hearts again, but that was at least like seven minutes later. The brain begins to suffer damage after more than a minute without oxygen, and after 4 minutes anyone would be completely brain dead even if their heart was restarted. I wouldn't have minded if he came up with some bullshit reason brain damage didn't occur in the time they were out--like the cubes did something to zap their brain too or whatever--but they never addressed it AT ALL, which is the thing that the most bothers me. In Angels take Manhattan there were so many moments nobody was looking at an Angel the episode should have been over before it was halfway through. In Kill The Moon, do you remember those two astronauts that landed in the shuttle with the female astronaut? Yeah, neither do I. They were killed off so fast it was nearly comical, I don't know why they bothered writing them into the story at all.

And yes, I'll agree Clara (not Chlara ;-) ) having an identity crisis with the Doctor was out of place, since she's supposed to have been all up and down his timeline and still have at least some memories from it. I don't mind her having trouble getting used to the 12th Doctor's temperament, but she shouldn't have been so surprised that he regenerated and she shouldn't have had so much trouble accepting that it was him.

Also, I think Moffat needs to try spreading some of his stories over two episodes, rather than trying to cram everything into one. In several cases, I didn't mind the story so much as the breakneck pace it was told, often sacrificing breathing room and time for absorbing things for getting through more and more plot points.

 

[Tanis]

Step 1: REGULATE MOFFAT TO THE OUTLINE/DRAFT DEPARTMENT!:
No, seriously, if there's ONE good thing he can do it's outline the overall story.
It's his execution with the meat of the stuff that's kind, well, bad.
Plus he writes women as either meek and annoying or ***** to the Nth and annoying.

Step 2: MAKE EACH SERIES/SEASON LONGER.
Have an over arcing plot with real 'pay off' of some kind after 26, even 20, episodes make it for a LOT more impact.

Step 3: BRING BACK GALLIFREY AND THE TIME LORDS/LADIES:
I know this seems OBVIOUS, but it needs to be resolved rather quickly.
It needs to be done, and not as a season/series finale, but as a first episode.
Having the Time Lords back would allow for The Doctor to grow into a friendly, more 'Spider-Man less Punisher', kind of hero.

Step 4: LE THE DOCTOR 'DIE' OR GO MISSING FOR A SERIES/SEASON:
With ALL the characters in both the TV series AND the comics AND the audio dramas AND the books AND..etc/etc/etc.
A season that's less about The Doctor and more about his impact and place in the universe could take us to some truly amazing places in all of TIME and SPACE.
Get Jack Harkness and a regenerated Susan Foreman and/or Jenny to find each other and the TARDIS.
Going though TIME and SPACE to find The Doctor.

This would allow the writers to go back to Classic Whovian lore with a GUSTO and serve as a great nostalgia trip for Classic Who fans, and a bit of an education for Nu-Who fans.

Step 5: ENOUGH WITH THE FRAKING DALEKS/CYBERMEN/ETC.
Let them REST for a series, or five, and find some new/barely used villains to 'do the thing'.
One of the STRENGTHS of Doctor Who is that it can go ANYWHERE and any WHEN.
Lets try that out.

Step Extra: ANIMATE THE COMICS!
Okay, so this is really in the 'never going to happen'.
But damn do some of the comics have GREAT, better than many episodes, story lines.
I'd LOVE to see some of them animated.