Okay,
not really. This isn’t about picking
favorites (though I do have my
preferences;) it’s about looking at the two eras of new Who. Both showrunners have strengths
and weaknesses that often seem to be the opposites of the other. The following are my ramblings re: RTD and Moffat.
Plotty
stuff first. For big episodes, RTD is
fond of Giant! Alien! Invasions! with multiple newscasts and Cybermen on the
Eiffel Tower. Each of his seasons has at
least one highly visible, modern-day global disaster that gets harder and
harder to top – before you know it, there are forty bazillions Daleks trying to
destroy the universe, and the Doctor’s victories feel less credible. Also, it’s absurdly paired with humanity’s
continued insistence that aliens aren’t real.
I mean, seriously? Moffat doesn’t go much for the Breaking News
stories. His present-day episodes are
fewer and tend to be smaller-scale – even if the threats are massive, they’re
usually thwarted before more than a handful of humans know of them. Most further-reaching dangers are in
timelines that end up getting rewritten.
Therein, though, lies Moffat’s catnip.
He loves a good timey-wimey plot, and while they can be cool (I was so impressed the first time I saw
“Blink,”) the returns quickly diminish.
It’s hard to get invested in the stakes when big stuff just gets
rewritten, and so much timeline-crossing can feel like cheating. Most of all, it just gets old.
I like causal time loops as much as the next person, but after the sixth
or seventh “I know what to do because I already saw my future self do it!”
resolution, you start craving a different trick.
Another
big component is the emotional punch.
RTD’s era is very emotional;
there’s a lot of investment in the Doctor-companion relationships, and both
Nine and Ten have a lot of Time War trauma to work through. People die, important things are lost, and
actions have lingering effects. By
contrast, Moffat’s era can feel more flippant.
Major life-changing events happen, but life doesn’t really change. Take Amy and Rory’s series 6 arc – severe crap goes down, but after maybe
one episode, the emotional resonance is ignored. That’s not to say that Moffat doesn’t do
emotion. A lot gets glossed over, but
when he does go for emotional impact,
it’s often successful. I think of Eleven’s
goodbye to young Amelia at the end of series 5, or the fantastic “The Girl Who
Waited.” What’s more, his emotional
moments rarely tip into overwrought. Not
always (“The Angels Take Manhattan,” anyone?,) but not nearly as often as RTD’s
– Ten especially can be soooooo emo. Honestly,
so much weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Finally,
there’s the companions. Not gonna lie –
this one’s easy for me. I adore Rose,
Martha, and Donna. Each has certain companion
traits in common, like curiosity, bravery, and kindness, but there’s also a
subtle specificity to each one. All
three grow during their time with the Doctor, and their narratives are at least
as important as his. These are women who
step feet-first into the universe and realize just how much they’re capable of. To a lesser extent, this also applies to
short-term companions like Jack and Mickey.
With Moffat, it seems that character often comes secondary to plot. Amy and Clara are introduced as mysteries for
the Doctor to solve, and at the end of Amy’s first season and Clara’s half-season,
I didn’t have a good handle on who they were as people. Amy improves as she goes on, and I’m hoping
Clara will do the same, but Amy still ranks behind all of RTD’s major companions
for me. Despite great acting, Amy feels
less developed than her predecessors and gets fewer opportunities to
shine. (The mere fact that Amy and Clara
are regularly referred to as girls rather than women is problematic.) Rory fares a little better, but he’s such a
different sort of companion that he sometimes doesn’t feel like one at all.
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