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Post by nucleusofswarm on May 5, 2017 23:15:01 GMT
As the sun finally sets on Steven's tenure, it's no better time than now to evaluate his era and his storytelling abilities.
The highs, the lows, the creamy middles.
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Post by dalekbuster523finish on May 5, 2017 23:31:49 GMT
Could the title of this thread be changed? I think it's highly disrespectful to Steven Moffat because it suggests he has died.
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Post by Deleted on May 6, 2017 6:42:22 GMT
I don't think it is a good time to do a retrospective. He still has nine episodes and a Christmas special to go.
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Post by Timelord007 on May 6, 2017 7:13:39 GMT
Simply put i haven't enjoyed his tenure at all to the point i nearly walked away from the show, badly scripted complex arcs poor resolutions to stories.
I don't want to get into Moffat bashing but I'm glad Chibnall taking over.
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Post by nucleusofswarm on May 6, 2017 7:44:14 GMT
Could the title of this thread be changed? I think it's highly disrespectful to Steven Moffat because it suggests he has died. It's not. Please refrain from being hyperbolic.
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Post by nucleusofswarm on May 6, 2017 7:44:49 GMT
I don't think it is a good time to do a retrospective. He still has nine episodes and a Christmas special to go. Well then, his era thus far.
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Post by Deleted on May 6, 2017 7:46:03 GMT
Well, bearing in mind we still have the majority of the series, and a Christmas special to go, in which everything could be turned on its head (and, knowing Steven Moffat, probably will be), I've mostly loved what he has done (so far). There have been stories I didn't much care for under his tenure (Let's Kill Hitler, Nightmare in Silver and In the Forest of the Night among them - I also find Heaven Sent very overrated), and stories I've really enjoyed (pretty much all the rest). His two Doctors, Matt Smith and Peter Capaldi have both been very enjoyable, and completely different from one another.
Steven Moffat has brought back several classic monsters, but always made them fresh and exciting. The new Cybermen look amongst the best the creatures have ever looked - same for the Ice Warrior(s), whereas with the Zygons - well, I alsways loved the lisping originals! The balloon shaped Daleks from 'Victory' were, artistically, one of the biggest miss-steps since the show came back in my view, but they were soon done away with.
The companions? Well, I'll be honest and say I didn't really care for Amy. I thought she was sulky and brattish (there's been discussion of this in another thread). Whereas Clara was an improvement, she always seemed a little knowing, a little smug for me. Best by far, so far, are Nardole and Bill, who are just plain loveable - the kind of people I'd want to travel with. Their brightness perfectly complements The Twelfth Doctor's darkness - they have been written for his Doctor, where it seemed Clara was written for Matt's - and I'm sad this team will only be with us for one series, or so it seems.
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Post by dalekbuster523finish on May 6, 2017 7:47:46 GMT
Could the title of this thread be changed? I think it's highly disrespectful to Steven Moffat because it suggests he has died. It's not. Please refrain from being hyperbolic. EDIT: Thread title has changed. Ignore.
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Post by Deleted on May 6, 2017 9:33:03 GMT
Months too early for this. We've still got almost a third of the Capaldi era to go.
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Post by doctorkernow on May 6, 2017 13:17:48 GMT
Hello again.
Come back and ask me at Christmas, when we will have much to discuss.. ☺
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Post by muckypup on May 6, 2017 14:36:26 GMT
Agree with others as we still have a way to go...but to sum up so far Good start, very poor middle, better ending
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Post by nucleusofswarm on Jul 1, 2017 23:37:45 GMT
Bump up.
Anyone want to venture a stab at it?
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Post by Deleted on Jul 2, 2017 5:02:08 GMT
Bump up. Anyone want to venture a stab at it? Agree with others as we still have a way to go...but to sum up so far Good start, very poor middle, better ending That pretty much sums up my feelings on the era too. Purely subjective viewpoint of course, but I reckon we had a strong opening that kept up its good graces until A Good Man Goes to War. We hit an important milestone for the River arc, the Moffat era's interpretation of the Doctor as a character and introduced a few memorable characters. Then we started to hit a bit of a rut. It wasn't instantaneous, but with the benefit of hindsight, I think it might've been burnout and that lasted until that year-long hiatus and The Return of Dr Mysterio. With The Pilot and this most recent series, we're back to when they first started. Possibly even better. I'm not a fan of it on the whole, but I definitely think it's worth celebrating what was done right: - Time of the Angels / Flesh and Stone: Earthshock for the modern day and a classic runaround that turned the Angels from a one-off villain into something I think will be remembered alongside the Sontarans and the Ice Warriors in the enduring Monster Menagerie.
- Vincent and the Doctor: Not only a strong piece of Doctor Who, but of television drama in general and a heartfelt exploration of an ultimately doomed life in Vincent van Gough.
- The Snowmen: Still one of my favourite adventure stories and a testament to when "clever-clever" is abandoned for good old-fashioned storytelling and everything clicks together.
- Heaven Sent: An experiment well-pondered and well-achieved that takes a deeper examination of who the Doctor is while still maintaining his mystery.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 2, 2017 6:27:55 GMT
Ok so now I can say this thread was definitely started too early because this season has been a step change.
I think Moffats era on Who can best be described in one line:
"It was the best of times; it was the worst of times"
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Post by Deleted on Jul 5, 2017 14:38:23 GMT
My problems were that he often set up very interesting story arcs, or series arcs, and resolved them in a highly anti-climactic fashion. Also, I found Amy insufferably smug and spiteful to begin with, although she improved as she went along. Clara was also quite self-satisfied. Mind you, so would I be if I looked like her!
Those are my negatives out of the way. I've loved the majority of everything else. There were some big misses - Let's Kill Hitler, Rings of Akhaten, In the Forest of the Night, Victory of the Daleks - but there are misses in any era. I know that when Steven Moffat took over, Doctor Who was my favourite programme. Now he's leaving, it still is - in fact, it's about the only thing I watch.
His Christmas specials have been very good. Even the maligned Doctor, Witch and the Wardrobe has a magic about it.
In Peter C, I think we've been given the best - or certainly my favourite - 'nu-Who' Doctor. I've liked him more and more, and now he's leaving, I'm genuinely pretty upset!
My favourite stories? The Beast Below, Time and the Angels, Vincent and the Doctor, Christmas Carol, The Impossible Astronaut, The Doctor's Wife, Asylum of the Daleks, Cold War, The Crimson Horror, Time of the Doctor, Deep Breath, Dark Water, Last Christmas, The Magician's Apprentice, Under the Lake, The Return of Doctor Mysterio, The Pilot, Thin Ice, Empress of Mars and World Enough and Time.
That's an awful lot written by Steven M. What are we going to do without him?
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Post by nucleusofswarm on Sept 15, 2017 23:43:19 GMT
I feel I can point to a lot of what I view as Moffat's stumbling originating from River Song and Series 6. I think the fact that that revelation and subsequent arc didn't quite land with the audience or fans possibly wounded him. It had been oversold and overegged as this big game changer, when really, River's story is just business as usual in the Who universe. It's honestly not much more extraordinary than anything else the Doctor's had already been through at that point.
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Post by dalektimecontroller on Sept 16, 2017 8:58:22 GMT
I feel I can point to a lot of what I view as Moffat's stumbling originating from River Song and Series 6. I think the fact that that revelation and subsequent arc didn't quite land with the audience or fans possibly wounded him. It had been oversold and overegged as this big game changer, when really, River's story is just business as usual in the Who universe. It's honestly not much more extraordinary than anything else the Doctor's had already been through at that point. This is the biggest problem with the whole Moffat era for me. Everything is oversold and overegged that it doesn't live up to expectations, and Moffat just writes hype and not a good storyline. Don't get me wrong, he's written some good episodes both before and during his tenure, but some of his "big reveals" have been either non-events (River Song, the Doctor's name) or woefully contrived (Clara the Impossible Girl, The War Doctor - seemingly conceived simply because Eccleston didn't want to do the 50th (John Hurt was wonderful though)).
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Post by sherlock on Sept 16, 2017 9:31:44 GMT
I feel I can point to a lot of what I view as Moffat's stumbling originating from River Song and Series 6. I think the fact that that revelation and subsequent arc didn't quite land with the audience or fans possibly wounded him. It had been oversold and overegged as this big game changer, when really, River's story is just business as usual in the Who universe. It's honestly not much more extraordinary than anything else the Doctor's had already been through at that point. I think Series 6 was where Moffat's arcs hit a bump, I think the Silence were much better as the galactic Illuminati they were hinted to be in The Impossible Astronaut than the 'kill the Doctor' cult they were later revealed to be. (Plus the plot of The Impossible Astronaut makes no sense in retrospect-Why did the Silence infiltrate Earth over thousands of years? Just for a spacesuit?! They have time travel! Why not just go steal one from the future?) I think River's revelation worked, but lacked follow-up. We never saw how Amy and Rory reacted to this news, or the realisation they missed their daughter's childhood (being childhood friends with Mels isn't the same) after Let's Kill Hitler. Series 7's arc seemed like a reaction to that, in that it was kept so simple but that just led to it not progressing. There is no development in the arc between The Bells of Saint John and The Name of the Doctor, which is just frustrating as the Doctor kept bringing it up but never actually advanced it. The closest we get is the scene between him and Clara in Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS...which is then wiped from history. Series 8's arc was a nice balance achieved and really paid off with Dark Water's revelation. Series 9's arc was just a bit random, random mentions of the word hybrid in episodes, not really building to anything. Series 10 achieved a balance, and ultimately did pay off with Missy's ending in The Doctor Falls.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 16, 2017 10:21:44 GMT
I feel I can point to a lot of what I view as Moffat's stumbling originating from River Song and Series 6. I think the fact that that revelation and subsequent arc didn't quite land with the audience or fans possibly wounded him. It had been oversold and overegged as this big game changer, when really, River's story is just business as usual in the Who universe. It's honestly not much more extraordinary than anything else the Doctor's had already been through at that point. I think Series 6 was where Moffat's arcs hit a bump, I think the Silence were much better as the galactic Illuminati they were hinted to be in The Impossible Astronaut than the 'kill the Doctor' cult they were later revealed to be. (Plus the plot of The Impossible Astronaut makes no sense in retrospect-Why did the Silence infiltrate Earth over thousands of years? Just for a spacesuit?! They have time travel! Why not just go steal one from the future?) I think River's revelation worked, but lacked follow-up. We never saw how Amy and Rory reacted to this news, or the realisation they missed their daughter's childhood (being childhood friends with Mels isn't the same) after Let's Kill Hitler. Series 7's arc seemed like a reaction to that, in that it was kept so simple but that just led to it not progressing. There is no development in the arc between The Bells of Saint John and The Name of the Doctor, which is just frustrating as the Doctor kept bringing it up but never actually advanced it. The closest we get is the scene between him and Clara in Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS...which is then wiped from history. Series 8's arc was a nice balance achieved and really paid off with Dark Water's revelation. Series 9's arc was just a bit random, random mentions of the word hybrid in episodes, not really building to anything. Series 10 achieved a balance, and ultimately did pay off with Missy's ending in The Doctor Falls. Let's Kill Hitler was definitely when things started going a little awry. River's arc came to a close and it was time to push onto other ideas (Kovarian, the Silence, etc.), but we were still circling around her character when it'd become unnecessary. There are a tonne of unresolved threads seemingly set up for the audience during A Good Man Goes to War that could have sustained the rest of the season like a series of out-of-sequence adventures where the Doctor meets characters he already knows for the first time (like Lorna Bucket who vanished forevermore after that episode). The Return of Doctor Mysterio was definitely the moment that it was able to get back up on the horse though, the break did the show a lot of good. Balance is definitely the right word for this past season. It's left me with a very nice memory of his tenure of the show, it's been a genuinely lovely turnabout moment with the Twelfth Doctor's characterisation, the introduction of Bill and Nardole and a very clever use of his "mysterious woman" story arc formula. I think the stories that I enjoyed the most were ones where it wasn't trying too hard at any over-the-top time travel shenanigans, but focussing its collective energy on genuinely investing in its characters. Time of the Angels (an Earthshock pastiche that manages to outdo its source), Hide (a genuinely effective mystery, barring the weirdly tacked on ending), A Christmas Carol (Kazran's redemption is really touching), The Snowmen (had it been a two or even three-parter I'd have still enjoyed every moment of it), Vincent and the Doctor (still makes me cry...), almost everything from Series 10, etc.
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shutupbanks
Castellan
There’s a horror movie called Alien? That’s really offensive. No wonder everyone keeps invading you.
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Post by shutupbanks on Sept 17, 2017 10:44:00 GMT
I'm going to use some statistics to answer part of this question, courtesy of this page: graphtv.kevinformatics.com/tt0436992which takes its information from IMDB. Each episode of modern Who has been rated by over 1,000 people (more precisely: 1,310 (Eaters of Light) to 14,110 (Day Of The Doctor)) which statistically gives these ratings a reasonable amount of credibility as to the reception of the series as a whole (by comparison, the Classic series - graphed here: graphtv.kevinformatics.com/tt0056751 - has between 65 and 976 reviews per episode) compared to what we might individually think. If you activate the season trendlines you'll also see that Moffatt's seasons have a more uneven spread of quality as the seasons progress, which would indicate that people grew less impressed as each season progressed: however, when you look at actual ratings you'll see that there are only four episodes with a rating of lower than 6.5 (Love And Monsters, Fear Her, In The Forest Of The Night and Sleep No More) - 2 from RTD's era, 2 from Moffatt's. Personally, though (which is apparently all that matters), I've really enjoyed Mr Moffatt's run: he has done roughly as many things that I object to that RTD did, or that JNT did, or that... (you get the picture) and has done as many interesting things as each of them. He's placed too much emphasis on the silly occasionally as well as turning up the drama stakes a bit too much for me as well. But at his best, he has managed to advance the cause and main themes of show admirably. When all is said and done, he has always tried to be an ambassador for the show and has taken it to places (production-wise as well as geographically) that it hasn't been before, and has never shied away from trying to push the show in new directions rather than relying on traditional stories or even story-telling.
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