(no subject)

[vanessarama]

Note to Moffat: Doctor Who is not a soapie. It's not an emotional melodrama. It's a science fiction/fantasy program. Or it was before you got your hands on it. It used to contain interesting speculative concepts and moral dilemmas, not cynical emotional manipulation. It also used to have a solid internal logic underpinning everything that happened.

Take, for instance, the Doctor turning up in a top hat and tails and cane in "Let's Kill Hitler". There is absolutely no reason for that to happen other than that Moffat or someone else (but probably Moffat) said "Hey, you know what? Since Matt's been poisoned, he's going to be slipping and sliding all over the place. Wouldn't it be really cool if he was dressed up like Charlie Chaplin? How amazing would that look? We can just explain it away in some smart-arse throwaway one-liner."

That is lazy, lazy writing.

Ditto, having Mels suddenly turn up and respond "I don't do weddings". Sorry - a smartarsed one-liner does not just write off the lazy plotting there. Not to mention that the character was damn annoying with no redeeming features and it's obvious that she was shoehorned in at the last minute as a plot device.

And ditto again with Melody/River walking into a roomful of Nazis and getting them to strip just so she can dress in retro-40s-ironic-Nazi chic. That's just silly. It's just there so we all go "Wow, how cool and amazing and brutal is she?"

And double ditto in the last episode, having Amy be able to build herself a sonic screwdriver in only 35 years. A human can develop Time Lord technology in 35 years? Gosh, that's not inconsistent with the show's entire premise at all.

The show used to be about the Doctor. Not about the companion. I am so, so, so sick of Amy being the centre of the universe and the Doctor and Rory crapping on all the time about how wonderful/exasperating/crazypixiedreamgirl she is while going all out to rescue her. Oh, the Doctor's always been devoted to his companions, but it's never being something that had to be SPELLED OUT IN GREAT DETAIL BECAUSE WE THINK OUR AUDIENCE ARE MORONS.

(Also: who presses the red button over the green one, given a choice?)

I was rewatching one of the Pertwee episodes lately where Jo Grant is trapped in the Master's TARDIS. It was absolutely without a doubt that the Doctor would rescue her, but there was no great dramatic declamation scene about it. And yet it was absolutely searingly evident that the emotion was there. Frankly I prefer that. Focus on some decent plot with solid internal logic, and some decent characterisations, rather than reiterating how precious the companion is over and over again. I much prefer the Doctor who agonises over whether he has the right to destroy the Daleks before they are created to the Doctor who destroys an entire Cyberman fleet just to "send a message" about Amy.

Or what we had in the Rusty era, where the affection and devotion was openly stated but there wasn't a massive CRY HERE, AUDIENCE thing going on. It's like a soapie, which uses exaggerated effect to suck people in and addict them emotionally. I quite enjoyed the Mark Gatiss episode just because it was a refreshing change from having to sort through a stupid clotted tangle of nonsensical plot, heaving with bilious burps of overblown emotion.

I hate that I'm saying these things. I was so excited when the show was revived in 2005; I loved it all through the Eccles and Tennant eras. But I'm actually losing interest in it now. I don't find these episodes rewatchable at all, no matter how much I like Matt Smith and Arthur Darvill and the fact that I have loved Doctor Who since I was five years old.

Also? You're making me hate River Song. I loved her when she was first introduced. I adore Alex Kingston. But for god's sake, please get this storyline over with quickly so we can get back to something less resembling a soap opera. I resent having my emotions manipulated cynically and obviously just for the sake of doing it.