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Post by Deleted on Sept 8, 2019 3:59:03 GMT
Kind of a left-of-field question, but there's a widely accepted set of tropes that people can recognise as a Bob Holmes-written/inspired story. The reclusive and controlling villain, the double act, body horror, character intrigue, and so on. It's been celebrated and practiced for decades now.
Bob Baker and Dave Martin, on the other hand... I've looked at The Claws of Axos, The Three Doctors, The Invisible Enemy, Underworld, The Armageddon Factor... They've written all these stories for Who, yet I can't for the life of me say -- with complete certainty -- what common tropes link them all together. What do people think were the "blueprint" elements of a typical Bristol boys script?
I'd be happy to hear about other authors' formulae people have noticed as well.
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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 8, 2019 4:15:16 GMT
A lot of authors use themes, tropes and situations that they are comfortable with but just as many other writers don’t and merely tell the story that wants telling. It could be that the Bristol’s were just dividing their yarns into 20-25 minute chunks and writing it out as it was needed.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 8, 2019 4:38:22 GMT
A lot of authors use themes, tropes and situations that they are comfortable with but just as many other writers don’t and merely tell the story that wants telling. It could be that the Bristol’s were just dividing their yarns into 20-25 minute chunks and writing it out as it was needed. Very true, there are a lot of stories have concepts passively introduced rather than actively chosen. I do feel that there were subject matter that they enjoyed revisiting and writing for, though. All writers do. It's a bit harder to tell with a duo, one of the great benefits of a co-author, but it's definitely there. Three of their stories -- Axos, Mutants and Enemy -- deal with the lifecycle of an alien lifeform as a central plot point, for instance. I guess the question is more in the vein of: "If I were writing a story in the style of X, what could I use to make that association? What was the 'flavour', so to speak?" |
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Post by doctorkernow on Sept 11, 2019 17:12:12 GMT
Hello again.
Mr Moffat definitely has had particular writing elements:
He uses a lot of children in his stories and oversight of the series. Indeed the whole reason behind Day of the Doctor was that Moffat thought the Doctor would not have sentenced Gallifrey's children to death.
Timey-Wimey: His narratives jump from place to place and time to time particularly in the pre-titles scenes. River Song is the ultimate expression of using time travel to weave a character throughout the timeline of the Doctor. You'll need a flowchart.
Nobody dies: Right from his first story, "Just for once. Everybody lives!" River is saved to a library hard drive, Clara time travels with an immortal a heartbeat away from death and Bill is rescued by a sentient watery friend. There is also the reviving of Nardole and Strax. He obviously didn't want to waste these characters with just a single story.
Mortality: Death and its inevitability is frequently discussed particularly in series 9. Series 9 and the tail end of series 8 were the darkest and most sombre of NuWho. Which is probably why Capaldi became Dr. Disco with his electric guitar. Heaven Sent was excellent but very difficult viewing.
Innuendo: More than even Russell Moffat alludes to sex and calls pretty much everything sexy including the TARDIS. Most of this cheeky seaside postcard humour comes from River or Amy and later Missy.
Continuity: He likes to link his Whoniverse together with callbacks and continuity references that will only be spotted by fans of classic Who. The scorch marks on the concrete in The Pilot echo those found by the Doctor and Ace in Remembrance of the Daleks.
Moffat's Who is a fantastical and fairy-tale universe. He is interested in stories and stories within stories. There is much to enjoy and some things that confuddle and annoy.
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Post by polly on Sept 11, 2019 20:59:33 GMT
Moffat's Who is a fantastical and fairy-tale universe. He is interested in stories and stories within stories. There is much to enjoy and some things that confuddle and annoy. That's an excellent summation of Moffat's quirks: the fairy-tale universe. That's probably why it didn't always agree with me. I think another hallmark of his is the Impossible Girls. He likes to have mysterious ladies with cosmic significance. River, Clara, and to a lesser extent Amy all ended up with very convoluted stories. As for the Bristol Boys, I can't think of one unifying trait, either. I also don't really like any of their material so I can't say I'm overly familiar. |
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Post by Deleted on Sept 12, 2019 3:49:40 GMT
Moffat's Who is a fantastical and fairy-tale universe. He is interested in stories and stories within stories. There is much to enjoy and some things that confuddle and annoy. That's an excellent summation of Moffat's quirks: the fairy-tale universe. That's probably why it didn't always agree with me. I think another hallmark of his is the Impossible Girls. He likes to have mysterious ladies with cosmic significance. River, Clara, and to a lesser extent Amy all ended up with very convoluted stories. As for the Bristol Boys, I can't think of one unifying trait, either. I also don't really like any of their material so I can't say I'm overly familiar. It's definitely not an easy question, but shutupbanks kicked off a line of thought that I think's brought forward a few traits: Invasive intelligences: A lot of their villainy are parasitic in origin, whether it be Axos, the Nucleus, the Oracle, even the Marshall. They have a vested interest in changing their respective environments (Earth, the Doctor, Underworld, et al.) to suit themselves. Physics: From anti-matter to gravitational attraction, they've typically got their toe in exploring a fact of physics in one way or another. The dangers of atomic power are visited and revisited in the form of England's power stations for Axos and Eldrad, and the nuclear bombardment on Atrios, respectively. The Quest: In the Greek mythological sense of Hercules and his various trials. It's not uncommon for the quest to be helped/impeded by some form of illusion or duplicity. The Doctor commonly tricks his enemies to move forward and the same is often done to him. |
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