Slightly longer thoughts
Jul. 7th, 2008 02:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
binidjThere may be more later but, in a nutshell ...
The reality bomb was a toss weapon.
Daleks like to make more Daleks and more spaceships and more weapons. In order to do this they need materials from conquered planets using slave labour to extract and process said materials. If they destroy all matter in the multiverse then there will be no more Daleks, no progress, nothing to aspire to ... the Daleks aren't that stupid.
Testing a weapon designed to destroy all matter in the multiverse inside your own mothership is dumbness on an epic scale ... testing it on a frightened bunch of Humans is largely pointless.
Supposedly the Daleks are a match for the timelords1 so why would they include/tolerate a remote control device in Davros' chamber? The whole point of Daleks is that they aren't machines! They are malicious and alive and choose to be the way they are. The idea of a comedy remote control device is just ludicrous.
Catherine Tate doing a very very poor David Tennant impression ... no.
The whole Human/Timelord hybrid stuff ... no.
Ruining a superb ending by giving Rose a sex toy clone ... no.2
For all the hoo ha, the companions seemed, in the end, largely irrelevant ... the only one that mattered to the story was the gurning horror.3
The Osterhagen key was superb, it would have been much better had there been a plea for time from the Doctor rather than a cheesy teleport trick.
Sarah Jane's amulet proved to be utterly worthless (and now destroyed) so clearly RTD thinks that his Deus ex Machina is more important than The Sarah Jane Adventures' plot.
Having Donna choose to die as who she had become rather than return to what she was would have been a more powerful ending (in my opinion) than the Doctor ignoring her choice and wiping her mind.
The whole Earth-towing incident wasn't a bad thing necessarily4 but it was largely unnecessary. I don't think it worked in a dramatic sense, in a narrative sense or in a special effects sense.
Long story short ... Deus ex Machina is a rubbish habit to get into, and the double episode was chock-full of it.
1 Otherwise why is it that the much-lauded Time War wasn't over in five minutes, ending with the timelords giggling off into the distance?
2
s0b I have to acknowledge that sometimes a happy ending isn't appropriate ... or actually happy.
3 Catherine Tate ... for those who weren't paying attention.
4 Though the way it was done sucked ... should have vanished and reappeared in a cosmic FWOOSH FWOOSH FWOOSH
The reality bomb was a toss weapon.
Daleks like to make more Daleks and more spaceships and more weapons. In order to do this they need materials from conquered planets using slave labour to extract and process said materials. If they destroy all matter in the multiverse then there will be no more Daleks, no progress, nothing to aspire to ... the Daleks aren't that stupid.
Testing a weapon designed to destroy all matter in the multiverse inside your own mothership is dumbness on an epic scale ... testing it on a frightened bunch of Humans is largely pointless.
Supposedly the Daleks are a match for the timelords1 so why would they include/tolerate a remote control device in Davros' chamber? The whole point of Daleks is that they aren't machines! They are malicious and alive and choose to be the way they are. The idea of a comedy remote control device is just ludicrous.
Catherine Tate doing a very very poor David Tennant impression ... no.
The whole Human/Timelord hybrid stuff ... no.
Ruining a superb ending by giving Rose a sex toy clone ... no.2
For all the hoo ha, the companions seemed, in the end, largely irrelevant ... the only one that mattered to the story was the gurning horror.3
The Osterhagen key was superb, it would have been much better had there been a plea for time from the Doctor rather than a cheesy teleport trick.
Sarah Jane's amulet proved to be utterly worthless (and now destroyed) so clearly RTD thinks that his Deus ex Machina is more important than The Sarah Jane Adventures' plot.
Having Donna choose to die as who she had become rather than return to what she was would have been a more powerful ending (in my opinion) than the Doctor ignoring her choice and wiping her mind.
The whole Earth-towing incident wasn't a bad thing necessarily4 but it was largely unnecessary. I don't think it worked in a dramatic sense, in a narrative sense or in a special effects sense.
Long story short ... Deus ex Machina is a rubbish habit to get into, and the double episode was chock-full of it.
1 Otherwise why is it that the much-lauded Time War wasn't over in five minutes, ending with the timelords giggling off into the distance?
2
s0b I have to acknowledge that sometimes a happy ending isn't appropriate ... or actually happy.3 Catherine Tate ... for those who weren't paying attention.
4 Though the way it was done sucked ... should have vanished and reappeared in a cosmic FWOOSH FWOOSH FWOOSH
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Exterminieren! Exterminieren!
Date: 2008-07-08 12:54 pm (UTC)Let us not forget Julian Bleach's performance as Davros. He hit just the right notes for me and was beautifully written. Almost as if RTD had used up his allowance of cool on him alone.
Re: Exterminieren! Exterminieren!
Date: 2008-07-08 01:34 pm (UTC)That sort of thing is what keeps me watching actually- even though I have found many things intensely frustrating of late in the series, there are still either glimmers of brilliance or some classic well written episodes to keep my hopes up!
What has been striking me more than anything is how much the hour long format is a problem for so many writers though. Watch almost any other show and they manage to get all they need into that time without it feeling out of control or rushed. I think the big problem is that RTD always has 'big ideas' that he can't convey simply and elegantly. Such big ideas, while noble and brave, need either great skill (which I have come over several series to believe he has never really possessed) or a degree of modest and humble scaling back to get across in a small space. They also require a lighter but more consistent touch in how other writers are managed, so they can be gently introduced and expressed for maximum effect. I hope that Moffat can prove he is capable of that, or that he wisely pulls back on his ambition if cannot do so. Simple stories well told often have more power than the polemics of a sledgehammer.