Wibbly-wobbly, lovey-dovey

[kitchen_kink]

[Spoilers below for Doctor Who Season 5.]

Just finished watching Season 5 of the new Who, and while I'm enjoying the new folks a great deal, I've been pissed at the writing more than once. Is it just me, or has there been a kind of sea change in the rules of causality? I mean, I know, the science is always super-spotty, but the way Tennant carried it off (wibbly wobbly, timey-wimey) was always funny and, to me at least, believable - or at least I was able to suspend my disbelief. Now it seems like more often than not, the thing that saves the day is the equivalent of people clapping their hands and saying "I believe in fairies!"

Is it just me? I mean, I'm a person who's really into the power of love and memory and belief, but it's not what I expect - or what I've seen - from this show so far, and it's annoying me. Beating Dalek technology with memories of an old girlfriend? Making a time-traveling ship explode with the power of schmoop? Making a Rory-bot real by being really insistent about your love for him? Resurrecting the Doctor from a reboot of the entire universe using Amy's memories?

It seems sappy at best, horribly lazy at worst. Your thoughts?

Comments

[woodwardiocom.livejournal.com]

It's not that new — remember when Tennant defeated the Master by having the whole world clap their hands and believe in him.

But yes, I do kinda miss the very old days when the Doctor's solution often was to blow something up.

[trowa-barton.livejournal.com]

You have to admit that blowing stuff up only periodically works for the Doctor.
(Don't forget, he had to use it on his own people, and it STILL didn't get rid of the Daleks.)

[dietrich.livejournal.com]

Errrr...remind me. I think I remember this vaguely, but at the time it seems to have more behind it - not least, the entire population of Earth, as opposed to one very special redhead.

(Not that she's not a special redhead. Woof.)

But seriously, I'm just finding it all hard to buy.

[trowa-barton.livejournal.com]

"The Last of the Time Lords", the finale of Tennant, Season 2.

[woodwardiocom.livejournal.com]

"Last of the Time Lords", in which the Doctor had been reduced to a little old dwarf on the Master's flying aircraft carrier?

Not that she's not a special redhead. Woof.

Oh my, yes. I especially like the bits when she flirts with herself.

[dietrich.livejournal.com]

Right, I remember the episode, but not the exact mechanism.

Again, it might have been one of those things where I went, "seriously?" a little bit, but then promptly forgot about it because all of the other elements - not least of them Tennant's always-phenomenal acting - were so strong. These days, it often feels more like a cop-out, and is unsatisfying. Not to mention incomprehensible; I often find myself going, "Wait, what saved the day? What just happened, and why did it work?"

[dietrich.livejournal.com]

Ah. Also, a look at more details on that episode reminded me that what happened was, Martha made use of the world-wide mind control network that the Master had put in place. If we accept that mind control can happen on a world-wide scale (which, for the purposes of this world and this episode, I had), then what happens next makes sense and even has a kind of poetry to it. On the other hand, a scientist who discovers that he's actually a robot made by Daleks being able to fight off a world-destroying bomb that's been implanted in his chest by the power of love seems ridiculous.

[trowa-barton.livejournal.com]

"The Doctor's Wife" seemed like a throwback to the Tennant-level science involved.

[dietrich.livejournal.com]

Not seen season 6 yet!

[trowa-barton.livejournal.com]

We're up to 6?
Seriously, I think of it as Smith, Season 2.

[oonh.livejournal.com]

I think that in the long run my favorites are probably four and seven -- I've been rewatching a lot of old Doctor Who (that some sinecure-of-bbc-copyright-lawyer uploader) has pleasantly made available.

Right now it's a lot of "I'm the Doctor" and waving the sonic screwdriver at everything. McCoy's incarnation talked a Dalek into self-destructing, played a long chess game with evil, made funky quips "absence makes the nose grow longer", and was generally both wacky (the spoons) and manipulative (the whole last season). Tom Baker's Doctor suggested a psychological force field in /The Armageddon Factor/, and was generally a lot more cerebral and moody (both as the Doctor and as himself) much to Matthew Waterhouse's regret, see Blue Box Boy).

[cycon.livejournal.com]

The thing at the end with Amy's memories I didn't really have a problem with — setting up that kind of link seemed to me a similar idea to using the disappearance of bees to track down the stolen Earth. And the episode with the Mighty Morphin' Power Daleks was just atrocious on so many levels.

I think one of the big differences in terms of the tone of the show has to do with Stephen Moffat's having taken over from Russel T. Davies. Moffat will often go for a certain flair or emotion in his writing that can defy sense or even good storytelling. (Have you seen the "Christmas Carol" episode yet? That ending had me shouting at the screen.) I'm coming to like Smith's Doctor; I think he's fitting right in with several of his previous incarnations. But Moffat, I think, needs Davies' skillful editing if he's wever going to create such gems again as "Blink" or "Silence in the Library".

[dietrich.livejournal.com]

This, exactly. The ending of "The Big Bang" didn't bother me as much as "Victory of the Daleks" or "The Lodger," though it still seemed quite muddy and like they were trying to trick the audience into something by talking really fast about time travel.

I do like Matt Smith as well, in spite of myself.

My theory of Timelord Time

[gentlescholar.livejournal.com]

I agree. They seem to have kept the idea that passion and caring and never giving up are important, but have forgotten that those are not sufficient.

I dislike the way that during the Tennant era the Sonic Screwdriver changed from unique lockpick to All-Purpose-Magic-Wand. The first time he waved it over a computer console, glanced at the hilt and then knew everything the scanners had been picking up made me go ACK!

They talk about the Doctor being brilliant but they don't show it nearly as often as I would like.

The best way I can rationalize the rewrite of The Laws of Time (and I do love me a good rationalization) is this:
In the beginning, time travellers mucked around and changed history. Often, they wiped themselves out accidentally.
The Timelords were smart enough to make an ironclad rule: Thou Shalt Not Screw Around With The History of Gallifrey. That means timelords can't even visit home without staying in synch with everybody else.
Other attempts to change history in other parts of the universe Ended Badly. So the rule was made general.
Eventually, everybody forgot that it was even possible, because it Just Wasn't Done.
Then the Daleks got time travel tech and set out to violate Rule 1. Then a tangled battle to eradicate each others' great-great-grand-eradicators ensued: the Time War.
The Doctor said, "screw this, you guys are getting as bad as the Daleks, a pox on both your houses," and shoved them all into a bottle universe that they occasionally try to break out of.
Then he spent a long while being moody before showing up as Eccelston for the series reboot.
Gradually, in the next few seasons, he starts to fight his ingrained mental block that Bad Things Always Happen when you screw around with rewriting history. Eventually he realizes
that, "I'm the last Timelord. I can do whatever I want!" and
the process finishes when the cracks in time show him that,
"hey, the Universe is getting screwed with whether I participate
or not, I might as well tilt things my way."

Re: My theory of Timelord Time

[dietrich.livejournal.com]

Interesting...I like the rationalization, but yeah, I still need things to be a bit more coherent. And the first sentence of your comment is spot-on what I mean.

[teddywolf.livejournal.com]

I was not fond of how they brought the Doctor back from the end of Matt Smith's first season. They have had plot holes and inconsistencies galore, such as Amy remembering the clerics who went lost from time because she was a time traveller but then forgetting about Rory when he went missing under the same circumstance. They have been relying more on snazzy special effects to drive the shows and it annoys me.

That said, Smith definitely combines the cerebral sensibility of oldWho with the action scenes of nuWho. He gives excellent ramble and he tries not to give the pat 'timey-wimey' type answer as a rule. Admittedly they have done pretty well with character development on the whole. Still, in some ways I'd rather watch oldWho for somewhat coherent plots.