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Post by burrunjor on Sept 29, 2024 11:50:02 GMT
Honestly Iank you don't want to go too far the other way against RTD. He is what he is. An overrated writer with a ridiculous ego, but he does have some strengths of his own. He just should never have been given that level of control. Nobody should in a tv show in my opinion which as Terry Nation said, should always be a group effort.
Blame the stupid geek culture that created him and this creator worship more than anyone else. Honestly these fans drive me up the f*cking wall. My experience on reddit has been extremely illuminating in that a lot of the problems I thought were unique to DW fandom apply to all of them.
For instance whenever I try and say anything against any decision Sam Raimi made on any of the Spider-Man films on reddit, no matter how light and measured it is, I get shat on. "How dare you take the side of the big company against him, you're too stupid to understand what he was doing." All fandoms have their messiah figures and it's always so f*cking infuriating because it kills any chance for discussion.
The only one that doesn't is Buffy fandom, but I think that's because Joss's dirty laundry was aired everywhere. Still it shouldn't take something like that for people to be able to have conversations about things without it being seen as blasphemy.
RTD is one of the worst examples of this meanwhile as unlike say Sam Raimi there is all the political shit around him too, but as seen with Joss Whedon unless he isn't careful that could lead to one hell of a fall.
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Post by Ludders II on Sept 29, 2024 15:20:34 GMT
No, we're talking about RTD - three words that describe the man, and everything he's every vomited onto screen. C'mon be fair Ian. He's good at writing gay soaps. 😉😆 |
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Post by iank on Sept 29, 2024 15:21:16 GMT
I'll have to take your word for it.   |
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Post by Ludders II on Sept 29, 2024 15:39:54 GMT
I'll have to take your word for it. I walked into that one. 🤣 |
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Post by iank on Sept 29, 2024 16:27:22 GMT
lols
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Post by burrunjor on Sept 29, 2024 17:49:39 GMT
No, we're talking about RTD - three words that describe the man, and everything he's every vomited onto screen. C'mon be fair Ian. He's good at writing gay soaps. 😉😆 Actually he isn't. I know you said you don't enjoy the first 7 years of new who like I do, so RTD's work is all a sea of shit to you LOL, but in all honesty it's one of the biggest myths that RTD is a good soap opera writer. Ironically I am someone who likes soaps. I used to love Corrie (not just because Alison King is a big nosed goddess.) As I've always said I think everybody needs a bit of all kinds of genres, IE we all need a bit of comedy, a bit of imaginative fiction, a bit of everyday kitchen sink etc. Some will gravitate to certain genres more than others sure, but we all need a little bit of everything. RTD's soaps however suck because they are too obsessed with sex, most characters are written as ridiculous stereotypes, whether they're gay, straight, men, women etc. He also lets too many of his own unpleasant prejudices through like his misogyny in Queer as Folk, and the politics are too heavy handed, shallow cringe inducing and they date it. This particular scene from Queer as Folk has dated horribly for instance and is ironically AWFUL rep for gay men. The same applies for all of his DW stories when they try and be soap operas too, with Ncuti's era being the worst offender. Ironically RTD I think is better when it comes to doing sci fi stories set in space, or in other worlds, or exploring the unknown. He actually has some interesting things to say about those subjects and some interesting observations, like the Midnight Entity being a completely alien life form that operates on a completely different wave length and is never explained, the last humans camped out on seemingly the last planet in existence, the line between aliens and god and satan being blurred (as technically god is an alien as he's a life form from outside our planet.) How history makers like Adelaide don't always have to succeed at what they are doing to create seismic changes, just the attempt can be enough etc. He also has a real talent at horror (particularly monster possession stories), and a genuine love for monsters, comic books etc which can allow him when he wants to do big fun, spectacles like the Cyber King. The Next Doctor, Midnight, Utopia, The Waters of Mars, Tooth and Claw all brilliant stories he penned that fall into those categories. Sadly however due to the snobbery against sci fi in the circles RTD moved in during the 90s, he considers all of those genres like horror, exploring the unknown and monsters "not proper tv." So he keeps doing these dreary, awful soaps that he has 0 clue haw to do that actually in contrast to his monster stories flop badly, but get critical acclaim from equally snobby critics. He is a classic example of this. tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MagnumOpusDissonance |
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Post by Ludders II on Sept 29, 2024 19:20:27 GMT
I'm afraid i agree with Ian. He's a hack. You're right about him being obsessed with sex, but it's an echo of what you see on any Pride march of the last 3 decades. He has that unfortunate mentality which conflates acceptance of homosexuality with public displays of an overtly sexual nature. It hasn't grown up yet, and neither has he.
My comment about his gay soaps was me taking the piss, because that's all he's worth.
As far as I'm concerned, if there IS anything good about his era, it departed with Chris Eccleston. He may not have made a very good Doctor but he was the only person involved in RTD Who with any real class as an actor.
I have no idea what people see in Tennant, even away from Dr Who he's not even average on the acting front in my opinion.
I'm not at all convinced that the first 7 years of NuWho deserves to be on a higher level somehow. It might not be so overtly politically motivated as what came later, but it definitely paved the way for it, and at the end of the day it's just another type of shite hackery just as much as late Moff or Chibb eras were.
The ONLY bit of improvement was during S5, and even that didn't last the course, so much so that I'm tempted to think it was accidental.
For me it really comes down to S1 and S5, being the only seasons that managed to have a few small moments, and in the case of S5, two or three half decent stories.
The rest is wank, and it was RTD that made that happen in the first instance. He's a terrible writer on all counts, and I consider talentless in every department bar none, just to make that clear.
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Post by Cherry Pepsi Maxil on Sept 29, 2024 22:55:05 GMT
I think 2005-2010 RTD was a sometimes good writer with hack-like qualities. His initial set of companions are well rounded and feel real whether you like them or not. Russell nowadays can't write convincing characters to save his life. Compare Martha Jones to someone like Ruby Sunday and you'll say a major difference. I don't think Ruby is any better written than some of the planks of wood (not Yaz) in the Chibnall era. He was and still is crap at endings. The fact that he uses the "reverse" button in two separate finales shows that he simply lacks the chops to resolve anything in a logical and believable way. Now we're literally at the point where Gods of Death are defeated by a bloody leash. His strengths lie in his world building skills as well as his drama. A lot of the best edge of the seat drama in NuWho has been from his episodes.
I'm not sure I can truthfully call Moffat a hack either. I don't like his style, but episodes like Blink and The Eleventh Hour are so superbly written that I can't bring myself to label him the worst of the worst. Plus he wrote Press Gang which is preferable to his actual Doctor Who era.
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Post by Ludders II on Sept 29, 2024 23:42:04 GMT
I think 2005-2010 RTD was a sometimes good writer with hack-like qualities. His initial set of companions are well rounded and feel real whether you like them or not. Russell nowadays can't write convincing characters to save his life. Compare Martha Jones to someone like Ruby Sunday and you'll say a major difference. I don't think Ruby is any better written than some of the planks of wood (not Yaz) in the Chibnall era. He was and still is crap at endings. The fact that he uses the "reverse" button in two separate finales shows that he simply lacks the chops to resolve anything in a logical and believable way. Now we're literally at the point where Gods of Death are defeated by a bloody leash. His strengths lie in his world building skills as well as his drama. A lot of the best edge of the seat drama in NuWho has been from his episodes. I'm not sure I can truthfully call Moffat a hack either. I don't like his style, but episodes like Blink and The Eleventh Hour are so superbly written that I can't bring myself to label him the worst of the worst. Plus he wrote Press Gang which is preferable to his actual Doctor Who era. I respect your point of view, but to me, ALL his companions just feel like characters that have been drafted in from a soap opera, from Rose to Ruby Sunday. That's essentially what he did with Dr Who. He made it like a soap opera. I could easily picture any of his characters in Corrie or EE. He deliberately engineered it that way for the sake of 'popularity'. |
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Post by iank on Sept 30, 2024 5:52:10 GMT
I'm afraid i agree with Ian. He's a hack. You're right about him being obsessed with sex, but it's an echo of what you see on any Pride march of the last 3 decades. He has that unfortunate mentality which conflates acceptance of homosexuality with public displays of an overtly sexual nature. It hasn't grown up yet, and neither has he. My comment about his gay soaps was me taking the piss, because that's all he's worth. As far as I'm concerned, if there IS anything good about his era, it departed with Chris Eccleston. He may not have made a very good Doctor but he was the only person involved in RTD Who with any real class as an actor. I have no idea what people see in Tennant, even away from Dr Who he's not even average on the acting front in my opinion. I'm not at all convinced that the first 7 years of NuWho deserves to be on a higher level somehow. It might not be so overtly politically motivated as what came later, but it definitely paved the way for it, and at the end of the day it's just another type of shite hackery just as much as late Moff or Chibb eras were. The ONLY bit of improvement was during S5, and even that didn't last the course, so much so that I'm tempted to think it was accidental. For me it really comes down to S1 and S5, being the only seasons that managed to have a few small moments, and in the case of S5, two or three half decent stories. The rest is wank, and it was RTD that made that happen in the first instance. He's a terrible writer on all counts, and I consider talentless in every department bar none, just to make that clear. Preaching to the choir! |
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Post by burrunjor on Sept 30, 2024 8:58:33 GMT
I think 2005-2010 RTD was a sometimes good writer with hack-like qualities. His initial set of companions are well rounded and feel real whether you like them or not. Russell nowadays can't write convincing characters to save his life. Compare Martha Jones to someone like Ruby Sunday and you'll say a major difference. I don't think Ruby is any better written than some of the planks of wood (not Yaz) in the Chibnall era. He was and still is crap at endings. The fact that he uses the "reverse" button in two separate finales shows that he simply lacks the chops to resolve anything in a logical and believable way. Now we're literally at the point where Gods of Death are defeated by a bloody leash. His strengths lie in his world building skills as well as his drama. A lot of the best edge of the seat drama in NuWho has been from his episodes. I'm not sure I can truthfully call Moffat a hack either. I don't like his style, but episodes like Blink and The Eleventh Hour are so superbly written that I can't bring myself to label him the worst of the worst. Plus he wrote Press Gang which is preferable to his actual Doctor Who era. Things RTD should focus on. Horror Journey's into the unknown. Monster possession. People falling apart when trapped in an unknown situation. Monsters that cross the line between the paranormal and sci fi. Good natured romps, that aren't parodies per say, but are a but more straight forward and fun. When he focuses on all those things he is an inspired writer. Things Moff should focus on. Horror Sci fantasy Monsters The Doctor being a crazy old professor. Stories that evoke a sense of paranoia where the monster could be anywhere or anything. Historicals. Similarly all or some of those things have led to some classic stories from him or at least under his tenure, and a much better version of the Doctor in 11. Things RTD should steer clear of as a writer. His own sexuality. Obviously nothing wrong with having gay characters, but RTD is utterly obsessed with sex as we've been over and feels a need to stick it in and rewrite characters to conform to his experiences, hence why his Doctor now picks up party boys, even if they are murderers like Rogue. Soap opera, as ironically he lacks what a truly great soap opera writer MUST have, which is being able to write relatable situations and characters. Ludders said his characters could be in Corrie. Well I would agree for modern Corrie which is just as much of a sad parody, but older Corrie? NO. It worked because it had a great working class sense of humor and did reflect the real world. RTD's characters are a little Oxford boy's parody of the working class. To be honest I find Rose a much worse example of a middle aged man's idea of a teen girl than Ace. With Ace it's just her slang, but her character is a lot more like lots of girls I've known, the bolshy tomboy with a soft centre that anyone can be friends with. Rose is a bloody disney princess who talks like a chav so that makes her relatable apparently. (The way she talks isn't much better than Ace either.) Politics. The man clearly doesn't have a political bone in his body, and all of his observations, even when he is on the right side like the Slitheen/anti Iraq War episode are just as shallow, meaningless and unsubtle in the worst way possible. His own personal hypocrisy has also soured any positions he tries to take. "I care about LGBT rights to the point I'll stab my friend Helena Bonham Carter in the back to please my audience of agining Millennial activist twits, but I'll work with Anne Widdicombe who actually DID try and set back gay rights." etc Crossover stories. The man is never able to juggle lots of characters, with the single worst example being Journey's End where he brings dozens of characters together just to stand at the back, tell Donna how much better she is and watch her spout techno babble. Big finale's. You're right, he has 0 f*cking clue how to resolve them. Things Moff should steer clear of as a writer. His own sexuality. He is pretty much exactly the same as RTD here. He is utterly obsessed with sex and has to crowbarr it into everything. To be honest in some ways he is worse, as he did it right from the beginning. At least RTD waited until Ncuti to make his Doctor gay. Moffat had Eccelston's Doctor boasting about how he'd "danced" get jealous around Rose and make jokes about having a craving for a blonde, and all of this just got worse in his era. Politics. Like RTD he hasn't got a political bone in his entire body, but what makes him arguably even worse than RTD is that as bad as RTD's political takes are, he is at least doing them of his own violation. Moff deep down doesn't want to, but thinks he has to in order to get down with the kids. Granted unlike RTD there isn't a personal hypocrisy there, so it's less obnoxious, but still that short he did with Pearl Mackie during lockdown is the most cringe inducing piece of DW media I've ever seen. "Not all Cybermen have handle bars." Trying to retcon the past. Some writers can come up with clever retcons, that add to the story, Moff can't. He tramples over it with his size 12s, and his explanations often end up creating plot holes from the hybrid to horny Master. Take a look at this quote from Alan Moore. Now Moore is a total arsehole. I actually dislike him as a writer overall far more than Moff. His worst stuff is obscenely perverted (we're talking about a guy who did a story with a woman being raped by a horse.) However when it comes to retcons, credit where credit is due he knows how to do them, with the Killing Joke being one of the finest examples. "[ The Joker has ] a kind of muddy kind of origin. They’d said that he’d been the leader of a criminal gang called the Red Hood Mob and that while trying to escape from Batman he’d swum across this river of chemicals...That was about it and this was from a story from, like, the late ’50s or something and so I thought “Okay, I won’t contradict that,” because I kind of believe in working by the rules of the material as it already exists but I can put a lot of spin on that."
Compare that to the Paul Cornell smash everything up attitude Moff lives by? One way gives you the Killing Joke, the other gives you Missy. Moff should also steer clear of big, flowery dialogue. His pretentiousness and desperation to get a tears in the rain speech shines through and it's absolutely awful. "DEMONS RUN WHEN A GOOD MAN GOES TO WAR" "YOU'RE ALL BARBARIANS NOW" "THIS WONDERFUL, IMPOSSIBLE, CLEVER MAN" "HOPE IS A TERRIBLE THING ON THE SCAFFOLD". God that drives me nuts. I'm not saying you can't have characters go into big speeches like Morbius, but when every character starts talking that way it drives me up the f*cking wall. Sadly however as both Moff and RTD were the showrunners, there was nobody to give them this advice. (If you tried you'd probably be erased from Doctor Who LOL.) Worse as the elite of sci fi fandom is made up of self loathing fanboys who don't value things like interesting sci fi concepts,. creative monsters, etc. To them that's all kiddie stuff, instead they value relationships, whether it supports the current thing so it'll look like proper tv etc, so RTD and Moff were encouraged to revel in their worst traits by these pricks, which sadly as writers turned them into caricatures of themselves. Contrast that with say Terry Nation who had his own flaws like being repetitive, not being very good at comedy and was actively told to tone that shit down by Barry Lett and Terrance Dicks and went away and wrote Genesis in response. |
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Post by burrunjor on Sept 30, 2024 9:19:10 GMT
I'm afraid i agree with Ian. He's a hack. You're right about him being obsessed with sex, but it's an echo of what you see on any Pride march of the last 3 decades. He has that unfortunate mentality which conflates acceptance of homosexuality with public displays of an overtly sexual nature. It hasn't grown up yet, and neither has he. My comment about his gay soaps was me taking the piss, because that's all he's worth. As far as I'm concerned, if there IS anything good about his era, it departed with Chris Eccleston. He may not have made a very good Doctor but he was the only person involved in RTD Who with any real class as an actor. I have no idea what people see in Tennant, even away from Dr Who he's not even average on the acting front in my opinion. I'm not at all convinced that the first 7 years of NuWho deserves to be on a higher level somehow. It might not be so overtly politically motivated as what came later, but it definitely paved the way for it, and at the end of the day it's just another type of shite hackery just as much as late Moff or Chibb eras were. The ONLY bit of improvement was during S5, and even that didn't last the course, so much so that I'm tempted to think it was accidental. For me it really comes down to S1 and S5, being the only seasons that managed to have a few small moments, and in the case of S5, two or three half decent stories. The rest is wank, and it was RTD that made that happen in the first instance. He's a terrible writer on all counts, and I consider talentless in every department bar none, just to make that clear. It definitely does deserve to be held in a higher regard than anything since 2014. Even if you don't like those 7 years, everything since definitely deserves shat on to a greater extent LOL. It not being as uber political is not nothing. That is a huge difference that bleeds into every aspect of it. For instance John Simm was cast because RTD genuinely thought he'd be the best choice. Obviously you can disagree with that, but that's not the same as Ncuti, Michelle Gomez and Jodie who were all at least partly cast for box ticking. Also at least in those first 7 years the writers were still trying to do a sci fi show, and drawing on things like 2000 AD, Spider-Man, Buffy, etc, where as post 2014 it is all just about let's get the message in there. To me that's not just a small difference. Yes you can say it that the move to politics exaggerated problems that were already there, but still. Also like I said the fact is that by 2014, the show had shaken off the excesses of the RTD era anyway. An older, more eccentric character actor had been cast, who had ideas about the show going back into the unknown depths of space and being scarier and edgier again. It also had undone the last of the time lords, Rose was long gone etc. There really was no reason that it couldn't have done a retro classic who style from then on, other than to pander to the political subset of fandom and the elites at the Beeb like Charlotte Moore. That is what truly took it to the point of no return. |
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Post by UncleDeadly on Sept 30, 2024 12:12:25 GMT
Things RTD should steer clear of:-
-Paper
-Laptops
-Any and all known writing implements
-The television
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Post by burrunjor on Sept 30, 2024 12:22:18 GMT
Things RTD should steer clear of:- -Paper -Laptops -Any and all known writing implements -The television I don't agree he'd go to legoland with me. Bye. |
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Post by Ludders II on Sept 30, 2024 12:56:52 GMT
I'm afraid i agree with Ian. He's a hack. You're right about him being obsessed with sex, but it's an echo of what you see on any Pride march of the last 3 decades. He has that unfortunate mentality which conflates acceptance of homosexuality with public displays of an overtly sexual nature. It hasn't grown up yet, and neither has he. My comment about his gay soaps was me taking the piss, because that's all he's worth. As far as I'm concerned, if there IS anything good about his era, it departed with Chris Eccleston. He may not have made a very good Doctor but he was the only person involved in RTD Who with any real class as an actor. I have no idea what people see in Tennant, even away from Dr Who he's not even average on the acting front in my opinion. I'm not at all convinced that the first 7 years of NuWho deserves to be on a higher level somehow. It might not be so overtly politically motivated as what came later, but it definitely paved the way for it, and at the end of the day it's just another type of shite hackery just as much as late Moff or Chibb eras were. The ONLY bit of improvement was during S5, and even that didn't last the course, so much so that I'm tempted to think it was accidental. For me it really comes down to S1 and S5, being the only seasons that managed to have a few small moments, and in the case of S5, two or three half decent stories. The rest is wank, and it was RTD that made that happen in the first instance. He's a terrible writer on all counts, and I consider talentless in every department bar none, just to make that clear. It definitely does deserve to be held in a higher regard than anything since 2014. Even if you don't like those 7 years, everything since definitely deserves shat on to a greater extent LOL. Obviously your interpretation differs to mine. But aside from the caveats I made in my previous post I don't hold it in any significantly higher regard just because political correctness became a bigger driver in the late Moffat era. I just think it's two different variations of turd. A type 6 vs type 7 on the Bristol scale, you might say. As far as I'm concerned, it's been shit from the start. And that was all thanks to Davies. |
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