Christmas with an Irrational Producer

Four years into his time as producer of Doctor Who and Steven Moffat has finally had the opportunity to give us a regeneration story (discounting River’s regeneration in Let’s Kill Hitler and the multiple fake regenerations of Smith’s Doctor). In typical fashion he produced something that was startlingly average. It didn’t reach the heady heights of The Caves of Androzani but it also managed to avoid the banal confusion of The Ultimate Foe. Matt Smith was given an episode that allowed him to show all the good points of his Doctor one last time before he left the role (at least in a full time capacity). It’s just a pity that those good points weren’t as notable as they could have been.

I don’t want to be overly negative about Matt Smith. On the whole I’ve found his performance inoffensive and regularly enjoyable. He has proven that he was a good choice for the role (second choice, if Gaiman’s fishwife gossip is to be believed). There have been some questionable moments though. His burnt acting in The Crimson Horror was appalling. The constant movement and gesturing, something that characterised his performance, got out of hand at points, never more obviously than in The Doctor, The Widow and The Wardrobe. Even his outfit was an irritation at times. It seemed to revert to the Hartnell and Troughton model in his last few episodes, something that the show had progressed beyond by 1970. The number of blog posts and articles “proving” that Matt Smith was the best Doctor ever is massively annoying but also to be expected. It’s a reflection of the show’s popularity more than anything else, not something to hold against Smith or to hold as clear evidence that he’s been anything more than an “average” Doctor.

I didn’t dislike Matt Smith in the role. But I’m also not upset he’s left. Three seasons and a couple of specials was as much as I needed from his performance. There aren’t as many great episodes of his to look back on as I’d like, but sticking around wouldn’t have changed that.

But this isn’t about Matt Smith. Not just Matt Smith anyway. It’s about The Time of the Doctor. As it was Smith’s final regular performance it as the episode in which Moffat had to pay off three seasons’ worth of threads and ideas. Among the unresolved issues were the cracks in time, the exploding TARDIS of the series five finale, an explanation for the Silents, and the “Doctor who?” question. Plus Moffat also felt it necessary to address the twelve regenerations limit and continue the Gallifrey storyline he started in previous story The Day of the Doctor (something he’d said he wouldn’t do, claiming instead that it would be left to hang over the series for a while). Never mind that it could have been addressed in a few lines of technobabble after finding some maguffin at a later date: it had to be addressed here because Moffat wanted to be the man to do it. The Tenth Doctor using up a regeneration to stay as he was? Rubbish. That was confirmed only in this story (a mere five years after The Stolen Earth and Journey’s End had aired) to give Moffles the excuse he needed to be the made to “save us” from the horror of a depleted regeneration cycle.

Did he do justice to the strands he’d had running for four years? No. He didn’t. Moffat did what he always does in these situations and took the easiest, most disappointing route possible. The TARDIS exploded because a splinter group from the Church of Silence went back along the Doctor’s time stream and tried to kill him before he could get to Trenzalore. We weren’t shown this, that could have been interesting. Instead we were shown it. Hardly a worthwhile payoff. The cracks were the work of the Time Lords, placed there so they could call through The Question from the pocket universe they’re currently imprisoned in to make sure they’d got the right place (even though they possess mastery over time and space and so should probably know that sort of thing anyway). It didn’t feel like things coming together after years of clever foreshadowing, it felt like a writer who’d introduced random things that he quite liked in isolation but didn’t know how to link up. It was like the River Song reveal all over again. Only less game-changing.

The string of revelations approach has struck again. As always it ensures that the episode is satisfying on some basic level because it provides you with answers (albeit unsatisfying ones) to longstanding questions but leaves you wishing there was more to it on further viewings. As I said in my write-up of The Day of the Doctor, a revelation can only be enjoyed once. It’s plots that are required for something to be enjoyable on a second, twenty-second or ninety-second viewing. And it’s plotting that Moffat seems to think he’s above.

Very little about the string of revelations made much sense but one thing stood out as silly above everything else. That was the depiction of the Time Lords. From the original series run we know they are one of the most powerful races, if not the most powerful, in the universe. Their society has been depicted (since 1976 at least) as staid, corrupt, and distant, and they had, according to The Night of the Doctor, become just as bad as the Daleks once the Time War was underway – and it’s worth noting that the Time War wasn’t even close to over by this point because that mini-episode sees the War Doctor introduced and he spends a significant amount of time fighting in the War. In short the Time Lords are not the sort of people to be won over by sentimentality. And yet in TTOFTD that’s exactly what happens: Clara whispers into the crack that the only name the Time Lords should need to hear is “the Doctor” and then witters on about what a good guy her pal is. Then the crack in time closes and the Time Lords reappear a minute or so later to gift the Doctor with a new regeneration cycle. Perhaps the time locked away from the wider universe has mellowed the Lords. 

Or perhaps Moffat’s just contrary, unimaginative, and unable to keep track of his own plots.

There have been worse offerings during the Moffat regime, and it was far and away his best Christmas episode. But ultimately it was still a confusing disappointment that I suspect would have done more to dissuade new viewers than encourage them. Perhaps having an actor of Peter Capaldi’s calibre to write for will help Moffat get back on track. Although judging by that first scene I may be getting my hopes up there. An exclamation about kidneys is not a good sign.

The Fiftieth

Like most people interested in the show (for some reason I can’t bring myself to write “fans” – I’ve no idea why) I watched the fiftieth anniversary episode of Doctor Who on its original November 23^rd airing. Something that struck me as odd then and still strikes me as odd now is the time at which it aired. Starting at ten to eight meant that the anniversary episode didn’t finish until gone nine o’clock. This has nothing to do with anything, up to and including my thoughts on the episode, but I wanted to make note of it because it felt strange to have an episode of Doctor Who finishing after the watershed. It’s an odd decision given the age group they’re targeting. Then again I’m not a parent so perhaps kids are up until gone nine as a matter of course these days.

I watched the episode from start to finish and, to be honest, didn’t really think much of it. It was okay, certainly a lot better than the average episode that’s been produced under the reign of the Über Moff, but then most of them have been pretty bad so that’s not saying a great deal. I was a little surprised at how light the central plot was, how little the Zygons actually had to do, and how the secondary human-Zygon negotiation plot was completely dropped and not paid off at all. I was downright perplexed that an episode marketed as an anniversary episode was so light on nods to the past. A programme with fifty years of TV episodes, books, comics, audio dramas and various other tie-ins and spin-offs to call on should have had no trouble featuring such touches. The average RTD era episode featured more mentions of the past than The Day of the Doctor. Even if Steven Moffat doesn’t like continuity references surely he should understand that this episode, more than any other previously written demanded them?

Did I say Moffat doesn’t like continuity references? I did, yes. I think I should clarify that. He’s far more interested in referencing his own stuff than the work of anyone else. Just look at River Song. She’s less a character and more a string of increasingly drab reveals. The Silents received similar, albeit more subdued, treatment. And I think it’s telling that the Weeping Angels notched up more proper adventures and cameos against Matt Smith’s Doctor than the Daleks. It could, if you were generous, be said that it’s his style of writing. To an extent I’d agree, but not enough to excuse the approach completely. Basically Moffat is more interested in playing in his own corner of the Doctor Who Universe than in revelling in it as a whole and that hurt the anniversary episode’s ability to be seen as something celebrating five decades of a varied, imaginative and creative programme. If ever there were a time for a writer to embrace the entirety of the show’s history that episode was it.

But let’s get back to my viewing experience.  When the show first came back I had a habit of watching every episode for a second time immediately after its original airing. That’s a habit I was still in by the time Matt Smith’s first series started. I’d dropped it by the end of that run. There are still a few Matt Smith episodes I’ve only seen once: the gangers two parter, the Narnia one and most of the second half of series seven spring immediately to mind. I’ve watched every episode of the Tennant and Eccleston eras at least twice each, in most cases more. I bring this up to illustrate how Moffat has, fairly speedily, blunted my enthusiasm for the show.

That said I have generally given “important” episodes a second look in the days following their original broadcast. A Good Man Goes To War, for example. That’s “important” not because it’s a good episode (although it’s probably among the best of the Moff era) but because it features so many of Moffat’s tedious revelations that a second look helps to assimilate it all and give you a chance to hunt for a plot, a hunt which usually disappoints. Episode where Moffat is clearly dropping in big bits of continuity to pick up again later are the sorts of things I’m thinking of when I say “important”. Notice that plot doesn’t come into it. I’ll get back to this momentarily.

The Day of the Doctor is the sort of episode (“important”, basically) I would have watched again on the Sunday if I’d had the option. But I didn’t: the DVR had malfunctioned and not recorded. I’d paid enough attention and formed enough of an opinion on the plot to write a blog post about it at the time but I never got around to it. The enthusiasm just wasn’t there and as the weeks went by it became harder and harder to bring myself to write about the episode. Eventually I decided I’d get it on DVD, watch it again to refresh my memory and write about it then. I ended up getting it for Christmas and watching it on Boxing Day.

Watching the episode again for a second time with a not insubstantial gap since my first viewing made something immediately clear, something I wouldn’t have been able to pick up on after just one viewing. Watching TDOTD for a second time knowing what all the twists and revelations were and when they were coming made the episode boring to watch. All the big shocks only contribute anything to the episode on a first watch, the red herrings and false leads mean nothing when you sit through them again. Revelations only work once, a good plot will last forever. Once you get passed the War Doctor’s true identity and nature, Billie Piper’s purpose in the story, why the statues have been smashed, why paintings that are “a slice of time” have been introduced, and, the big one, Gallifrey being brought back, all you’re left with is Tennant and Smith’s bickering, the needless tale of why Elizabeth I considered the Tenth Doctor and enemy, and the Time War (something else that never needed to be shown. Honestly, the thing that impressed me the most is that they made one bloke in a Zygon suit into a convincing squadron. That’s not glowing praise for an episode of this magnitude is it?

Chris Eccleston. It’s a real shame he didn’t want to come back and do the episode. He and his Doctor have a lot of fans (I feel fine using the word here) that would have greatly enjoyed seeing him back. It would have been nice to see the man who made it possible for Tennant, Smith and Capaldi to take on the role involved. It’s obvious to anyone how the plot would have differed had Eccleston said yes, and it clearly would have been preferable to the “secret Doctor” nonsense that was concocted to get around his lack of interest. But as clever (“tricksy” would probably be a better word) as Moff’s solution was, it wasn’t necessary. Nobody had told him he had to have three Doctors involved in the episode. He could just as easily have strung together the same non-plot with just Doctors Ten and Eleven. Why he didn’t I couldn’t even begin to guess. It seemed obvious to me from the start than Eccleston was going to say no to an appearance. He’s that sort of fella.

A final thought: if the Doctor didn’t remember freezing Gallifrey in a slice of pocket universe (or whatever) until towards the end of his life as the Matt Smith Doctor (phrasing chosen to avoid confusion) how and why was it that every previous incarnation turned up to help accomplish the feat? They shouldn’t have known about the Time War, let alone about shunting Gallifrey out of existence.

Thanks, Moff. Another bungled offering!

End of Chapter One

I’m looking forward to The Day of the Doctor, but I’m not one of the seemingly many people with reams of questions about what will happen. Years of Moffat’s producership have taught me not to get my hopes up. He is, after all, the man who claimed that he’d got a “game-changing” revelation lined up only to reveal that it was just the fairly obvious true identity of a character he’d introduced a few years earlier.

No, I don’t expect much from Moffat. He’s proven that he’s relatively capable of scripting a frothy runaround and so that’s what I’m hoping for here. It seems like the least of a host of potential evils.

What’s all this about people escaping from paintings? Will Chris Eccleston appear? Will Hurt’s Doctor regenerate? Are there more “secret” Doctors? Is the possession of The Moment as meaningful as we’ve been led to believe? What’s the regeneration Moffat claims we’ve overlooked? These are some of the questions a lot of fans (many, it must be said, from the excitable realms of North America) are working themselves into a frenzy predicting answers to. Some interest me more than others but none have provoked me into sitting and thinking for hours on end about how it all links together. It’s impossible to get every aspect right so why try? Just sit back and think about the practical things that you can predict.

For example…

A friend pointed out to me many months ago that having Zygons in the episode is the perfect chance for Moffat to pull one of his favourite tricks: a twist that at first seems wonderful but on second look is straightforward and, ultimately, crushingly boring. How hard is it to imagine a Zygon posing as the a former Doctor? Not very. Perhaps Hurt’s Doctor is a Zygon imposter. “But we saw him in the Doctor’s timestream!” you cry. Yeah, but we also saw the Great Intelligence and Clara there. It was a pretty packed place. A Zygon sneaking in or, more likely, bonding itself into the Doctor’s memories (or whatever) seems as plausible as anything else.

This is one of the many scenarios I hope we don’t see. Even talk of practicalities becomes an exercise in futility.

Eccleston then. I’d like to see him appear but I’m not banking on it. He seems as keen as ever to distance himself from the show. A regeneration for Hurt leading to a brief cameo seems the likeliest way he’d crop up, which would ironically lead to him looking older than he ever did in his solitary year at the moment of his “birth”. I wouldn’t care one way or the other if that happened. I don’t think I’ll ever shake the feeling that Hurt is only appearing because Eccleston said no to the concept of being the dark Doctor of the Time War. From what’s been revealed of the plot it seems that Hurt is nothing more than a surrogate for the Ninth Doctor we met in 2005. It’s a way of sticking to the story he wanted without the “right” actor.

A Hurt to Eccleston regeneration would ultimately be meaningless anyway, another piece of contrived lore crammed in by an overzealous Moffat. But that approach has characterised his entire approach to the fiftieth. Hollow promises about the last half a century merely having been “the first chapter” and a tedious focus on something that was created to emphatically remain off-screen have been the order of the day, instead of the talk of a fun episode with an enjoyable story and a returning Doctor that I would have liked to hear.

And while we're on the subject of the show's lore, the twelve regenerations "rule" that's being quoted in papers and magazines and by fans... well, it's silly isn't it? It was a throwaway element of a story in the mid-seventies and has stuck mainly because it's a number that feels right. The number of people that think it's a significant problem that must be solved is staggering. Doctor is a science fantasy show for kids. It will not end because Robert Holmes arbitrarily selected the number thirteen as the times a single Time Lord could live. Within the logic of the show it's easy enough to resolve. The Master's been offered new regeneration cycles before. He's even been resurrected, presumably after his "final" death. Is it really that hard to imagine the Thirteenth Doctor (whether that's Capaldi or someone else) getting an episode in which they stumble across some ancient relic of Time Lord tech that grants a new cycle or even an infinite supply? No, it's not. Because the continuation of the show is more important to the BBC than adhering to nonsense laws introduced for dramatic effect.

Will November 23^rd 2013 go down as the beginning of chapter two? No. It will go as the day another of Moff’s hyperbolic shams was revealed. This is not to say the episode’s going to be bad, more that it won’t be the startling new direction Moffles is promising. I’m setting my expectations low. And you should too.

All Over Your Screen

Last year (year 49 of Doctor Who's existence) Steven Moffat told us that Doctor Who would be "all over" our screens in 2013. It seemed like a believable claim. The show is not only one of the BBC's lead dramas but has half a century of life to draw on. That's plenty of material to sustain various documentaries and spin-off shows. But we've not seen that much of either. The Doctor Who brand (a term I'm not a fan of but that is applicable) had, until last week, been no more visible than it usually is. Releasing a handful of things a couple of weeks before the show’s official fiftieth anniversary is hardly being all over screens throughout the year is it?

So far what we've had are a couple of official trailers featuring footage from the anniversary episode itself, a minute long celebration of Doctor Who featuring stills of past Doctors and enemies, the regeneration of Paul McGann, and half a season of episodes that were, as a whole, arguably some of the worst since the 2005 revival. Announced for the anniversary week are the Adventure in Time and Space drama written by Mark Gatiss, which tells the story of the show's origin, an appearance from Moffat on Desert Island Discs, some vague promises from Moffat about making use of the Doctors of the last century, and the anniversary special, The Day of the Doctor.

An Adventure in Time and Space looks good and has an interesting story to tell. So there’s promise there. The celebratory minute-long trailer was enjoyable and slickly produced, if ultimately fairly pointless. Moffat’s appearance on Desert Island Discs won’t reveal anything at all interesting but may produce some amusing lines (he claims to dislike making such appearances but he always comes across as having no greater interest in life than talking himself and his work up). The Night of the Doctor was enjoyable for what it was, but it only exists to lend weight to Moffat’s “secret incarnation” direction.

The Day of the Doctor itself? It’s unfair to say it will be good or bad based on the pair of trailers and handful of scenes that have been released. From what I’ve seen I will say it doesn’t look like the worst thing put out under the current creative head (although see below for more on this). The success of the episode depends on the central mystery (that’s basically John Hurt’s involvement) being suitably interesting and Tennant and Smith finding moderate success as a double act.

Compare what we’ve seen for the anniversary special to what we got when David Tennant left. He appeared on a “special” episode of Never Mind the Buzzcocks, the Christmas episode of QI, got his own set on Christmas idents, and couldn’t be escaped from when it came to interviews. He's the most popular Doctor ever (or the second most if you're someone unable to let go of Tom Baker's heyday) and it was a shrewd move to secure those appearances but why is nothing similar happening now?

According to certain quarters it's because The Moff blew the budget he'd been allocated for the anniversary year producing the episodes that already aired and the one we'll see next Saturday. No episode from The Bells of St John to The Name of the Doctor seemed like it had had loads of time and money lavished on it, so the anniversary episode is the last place the cash can have gone to. And let's talk about that episode. From what's been shown it looks like Moffat has plumped to set a story in or around the Time War. He’s had three years to prepare something worthwhile but has instead opted to use something his predecessor introduced and kept off screen as a way of explaining plot holes and keeping some mystery floating around.

... In a way this is terribly apt.

What's noteworthy is that RTD explicitly stated he'd never show the Time War, citing a lack of sufficient budget to do it justice and that, no matter how good it was, it would be an anti-climax. Which seems completely logical. The Time War was not introduced to provide a backdrop to stories, it’s purpose was to remain unseen. How would a war throughout time actually, physically, logistically work. The trailer indicates that it's been realised as a big ol' space war, when the term actually implies rewritten time streams and erasures from history. Conceptual warfare if you like, rather than a simple war in space.

This sums up the difference between Moffat and Davies wonderfully. Davies created something he could use to create a sense of scale and explain away bothersome minutiae, leaving him free to concentrate on character and plot. Moffat hears Time War and thinks it sounds cool.

There’s no clear reason why Moff hasn’t bothered to create his own threads and themes for the fiftieth anniversary. No matter what he had planned and no matter why it had to be cut he's been the man at the top for four years now (longer if you count the various threads and characters introduced before he officially took the reins), more than enough time to decide on what this episode was to be about and drop in hints and teases. I think the fact that he's gone with an RTD idea shows a lack of faith in his own work and concepts. Which is perhaps for the best: a fiftieth anniversary episode focusing on River Song scarcely bears thinking about.

The lack of new episodes isn't what disappoints me. I'd rather have one new, lengthy episode airing on the anniversary itself than a number of lesser ones spread out. What disappoints me is that Moffat seems to have written something very heavily reliant on continuity. An anniversary episode should include more nods to the past than a regular episode but it should still be accessible for first-time viewers. And inaccessibility seems to have been a growing theme throughout Moffat’s tenure.

As I say, it’s unfair to judge The Day of the Doctor until it’s aired, and it will ultimately succeed on fairly basic things. But right now I don’t have the greatest hopes for it.