Does RTD have a habit of ruining his own finales?

[Deleted]

There's only one alien planet in the first two series of NuWho and ironically it's called New Earth. He doesn't care about science fiction as much as he thinks he does. I reckon he just watched Doctor Who as a kid and that was it.

[Deleted]

TruWho's first alien planet was Skaro which has since become one of the most famous planets in the history of the show. New Earth is just Earth. Same water and terrain; even the same name. It's so silly.

[Deleted]

Jan 24, 2024 11:33:03 GMT @kengrubshaw said:

There's only one alien planet in the first two series of NuWho and ironically it's called New Earth. He doesn't care about science fiction as much as he thinks he does. I reckon he just watched Doctor Who as a kid and that was it.

We had Krop Tor and the S.S. Madame de Pompadour

[Deleted]

Jan 24, 2024 12:30:18 GMT @theyakemperor said:

Jan 24, 2024 11:33:03 GMT @kengrubshaw said:

There's only one alien planet in the first two series of NuWho and ironically it's called New Earth. He doesn't care about science fiction as much as he thinks he does. I reckon he just watched Doctor Who as a kid and that was it.

We had Krop Tor and the S.S. Madame de Pompadour

Ah, I forgt that one. The latter was a ship. Neither story was written by him either.

[burrunjor]

Jan 24, 2024 11:33:03 GMT @kengrubshaw said:

There's only one alien planet in the first two series of NuWho and ironically it's called New Earth. He doesn't care about science fiction as much as he thinks he does. I reckon he just watched Doctor Who as a kid and that was it.

If I can play Devil's Advocate for a minute, I'm not sure RTD just doesn't like sci fi. I think it's more he ironically doesn't like the type of sci fi DW is. 

He is genuine in his love for Buffy, and Marvel comics and Angel, and the X-Files etc. He is clearly someone who likes earthbound sci fi, fantasy, where you mix the paranormal with everyday occurrences. That's fine. Different writers work for different sub genres. Douglas Adams obviously wasn't capable of doing dark and scary stories like Bob Holmes, at the same time Bob Holmes wasn't as good at doing surrealist stories like Douglas Adams, Terry Nation and Malcolm Hulke could do political stories really well, whilst other writers have obviously struggled with them. (To be honest I don't think Bob Holmes was very good at doing political stories. The Sun Makers is too on the nose, as is The Two Doctors where the Doctor actually becomes a vegetarian.)   

That's absolutely fine, but the problem is that RTD had too big a presence. He may have been fine if he was just the producer who said do more earth based stories like Jon Pertwee, and contributed the odd script, but left the bulk of the series up to other writers, and had a script editor that he could talk things over with, who might handle the alien side of things, with both holding back each others excesses. 

His problem is he is too much of an egomaniac and wants to do it all himself. 

I will say though ironically RTD's five best scripts, Tooth and Claw, Utopia, Midnight, The Next Doctor and Waters of Mars that range from brilliant to classics, are all out of his comfort zone and set on alien planets, other time periods etc, so maybe even he doesn't know his own strengths. Smith and Jones is probably his best every day script. That's a great, straight forward, imaginative, campy (in a good way) romp, whilst the season 2 finale is good as a bit of television in its own right, even if it's not DW. 

Many of his worst scripts are the modern day ones ironically. Rose, a bland retread of the Pertwee Auton stories, all the Slitheen episodes, with those monsters being among the worst in DW's history, the Christmas Invasion is absolute boring, unimaginative bollocks, the Runaway Bride which apart from the wonderful Sarah Parish gloriously hamming it up, is old hat for RTD era Who at that point, Last of the Time Lords is utterly abysmal, End of Time is self indulgent nonsense (sorry Rushy it is. It manages to be both miserable and dreary so there's no fun to be had, and camp and silly so you can't take the drama seriously, a rare feat.) The season 4 finale whilst fun in a shoot em up kind of a way, is still utterly nonsensical, and Partners in Crime is another story that feels like a parody of DW, coupled with some fat shaming thrown in for good measure. Don't even get me started on Love and Monsters meanwhile. 

Also worth noting that his worst other world script, New Earth is as you say on a planet that basically is just earth anyway. 

Hilariously enough, maybe he'd have been a better DW writer if he had not listened to his own advice. To be fair that is a common problem. Terry Nation for instance wanted to be a comedy writer, but he apparently stunk at it, (just look at the bit in the Chase with the American tourist) but obviously he later found his niche as a sci fi writer. Again though this gets back to RTD and the showrunner problem. Someone should have been able to take RTD aside and say to him that actually when he's forced to move the setting to another world, he ends up focusing on the things that matter in the story, like the monsters (such as the Midnight entity, or the flood) and doesn't get a chance to indulge in his usual soap opera crap, but that his greater focus on characters in those instances like in Midnight can actually enhance the plot. 

However again because he is arrogant and allowed to get away with it via the showrunner position, he is NEVER told that and gets to set all of his stories on earth, where all of his worst excesses can be indulged in from his Heat Magazine interests, his obsession with soap opera, and his ham fisted attempts at comedy like Donna saying hello through the glass, which go down about as well as Terry Nation's did. 

[Deleted]

Jan 24, 2024 12:54:52 GMT burrunjor said:

Jan 24, 2024 11:33:03 GMT @kengrubshaw said:

There's only one alien planet in the first two series of NuWho and ironically it's called New Earth. He doesn't care about science fiction as much as he thinks he does. I reckon he just watched Doctor Who as a kid and that was it.

If I can play Devil's Advocate for a minute, I'm not sure RTD just doesn't like sci fi. I think it's more he ironically doesn't like the type of sci fi DW is. 

He is genuine in his love for Buffy, and Marvel comics and Angel, and the X-Files etc. He is clearly someone who likes earthbound sci fi, fantasy, where you mix the paranormal with everyday occurrences. That's fine. Different writers work for different sub genres. Douglas Adams obviously wasn't capable of doing dark and scary stories like Bob Holmes, at the same time Bob Holmes wasn't as good at doing surrealist stories like Douglas Adams, Terry Nation and Malcolm Hulke could do political stories really well, whilst other writers have obviously struggled with them. (To be honest I don't think Bob Holmes was very good at doing political stories. The Sun Makers is too on the nose, as is The Two Doctors where the Doctor actually becomes a vegetarian.)   

That's absolutely fine, but the problem is that RTD had too big a presence. He may have been fine if he was just the producer who said do more earth based stories like Jon Pertwee, and contributed the odd script, but left the bulk of the series up to other writers, and had a script editor that he could talk things over with, who might handle the alien side of things, with both holding back each others excesses. 

His problem is he is too much of an egomaniac and wants to do it all himself. 

I will say though ironically RTD's five best scripts, Tooth and Claw, Utopia, Midnight, The Next Doctor and Waters of Mars that range from brilliant to classics, are all out of his comfort zone and set on alien planets, other time periods etc, so maybe even he doesn't know his own strengths. Smith and Jones is probably his best every day script. That's a great, straight forward, imaginative, campy (in a good way) romp, whilst the season 2 finale is good as a bit of television in its own right, even if it's not DW. 

Many of his worst scripts are the modern day ones ironically. Rose, a bland retread of the Pertwee Auton stories, all the Slitheen episodes, with those monsters being among the worst in DW's history, the Christmas Invasion is absolute boring, unimaginative bollocks, the Runaway Bride which apart from the wonderful Sarah Parish gloriously hamming it up, is old hat for RTD era Who at that point, Last of the Time Lords is utterly abysmal, End of Time is self indulgent nonsense (sorry Rushy it is. It manages to be both miserable and dreary so there's no fun to be had, and camp and silly so you can't take the drama seriously, a rare feat.) The season 4 finale whilst fun in a shoot em up kind of a way, is still utterly nonsensical, and Partners in Crime is another story that feels like a parody of DW, coupled with some fat shaming thrown in for good measure. Don't even get me started on Love and Monsters meanwhile. 

Also worth noting that his worst other world script, New Earth is as you say on a planet that basically is just earth anyway. 

Hilariously enough, maybe he'd have been a better DW writer if he had not listened to his own advice. To be fair that is a common problem. Terry Nation for instance wanted to be a comedy writer, but he apparently stunk at it, (just look at the bit in the Chase with the American tourist) but obviously he later found his niche as a sci fi writer. Again though this gets back to RTD and the showrunner problem. Someone should have been able to take RTD aside and say to him that actually when he's forced to move the setting to another world, he ends up focusing on the things that matter in the story, like the monsters (such as the Midnight entity, or the flood) and doesn't get a chance to indulge in his usual soap opera crap, but that his greater focus on characters in those instances like in Midnight can actually enhance the plot. 

However again because he is arrogant and allowed to get away with it via the showrunner position, he is NEVER told that and gets to set all of his stories on earth, where all of his worst excesses can be indulged in from his Heat Magazine interests, his obsession with soap opera, and his ham fisted attempts at comedy like Donna saying hello through the glass, which go down about as well as Terry Nation's did. 

But even some stories that aren't set on Earth exactly (but are set on a ship or station above it) are still filled with dated pop culture references (most notably in Bad Wolf) and self-obsessed caritaures like Cassandra.  I prefer ships and planets that have their own culture. That's more interesting to me.

[burrunjor]

Agreed, again why Utopia tops shit like Parting of the Ways.

[rushy]

Jan 24, 2024 13:16:32 GMT burrunjor said:

 Utopia tops shit like Parting of the Ways.

Lies!

Deception!

[Deleted]

Tbh there weren't really any alien planets in series 3 apart from Utopia.

[rushy]

yeah but as I said, alien planets aren't some kind of necessity for good Doctor Who, or an indicator that a story is more original. That's a very shallow way of looking at it

[burrunjor]

Jan 24, 2024 16:20:32 GMT rushy said:

yeah but as I said, alien planets aren't some kind of necessity for good Doctor Who, or an indicator that a story is more original. That's a very shallow way of looking at it

True, the Jon Pertwee era famously got a lot out of the old Yeti sitting on your loo in Tooting Bec idea. 

However the difference is that the Pertwee era writers still wanted to do sci fi and horror even when they were on earth, and simply used the earth setting to make those aspects more effective. RTD meanwhile used the earth setting to indulge in all of his other interests beyond the sci fi elements which were pushed to the back, or tossed in at the last minute. Soap operas, reality tv, chasing fads, the gay scene in clubs in Manchester in the 1980s, shallow neo liberal politics etc, those were all he was interested in and in fact the only reason he wanted to do modern day earth stories in the first place! 

The five stories, Tooth and Claw, Utopia, Midnight, The Next Doctor, Waters of Mars he personally wrote that were set in other times or planets, almost all came about simply by accident. Midnight was a last minute replacement he was forced to do on the cheap because a Gatiss script was cancelled, and so were Waters of Mars and The Next Doctor after series 5 was cancelled. 

Again the great irony is that clearly when writing those stories, he was forced to actually think as a genre writer, because he couldn't reference the X-Factor on Mars and therefore he actually looked to old horror/sci fi stories for inspiration rather than Heat magazine and ironically in all cases he actually did a good job of being a sci fi/horror writer! Other aspects of his style suited the genres.

For instance all of stories are quite dark and dare I say push the boundaries more than a lot of other DWs at least in the modern era. Utopia features a truly nightmarish future for humanity, and one that can't be undone as ultimately no species can last forever. It's something that we don't like to think about, never mind put it on Saturday tea time LOL. Next Doctor tackles the darker underbelly of Victorian society, in a way that honestly a lot of other Victorian DW stories from Talons to the Paternoster Gang stories don't. They tend to show off a more romantic idea of Victorian London from Sherlock Holmes stories, rather than children slaving away in factories and satanic milles like The Next Doctor, whilst Midnight tackles the mob mentality, fear of outsiders aspect of humans in quite a frightening way, and shows how when pushed people don't always rise to the occasion. 

Ironically had RTD written all of his stories like this he could have been seen as a brilliant, dark, imaginative DW writer, but again he didn't have anyone to hold him back, tell him to focus on this, that worked, but don't do this. Nope everything he wrote was genius, and he was able to indulge in all his whims regardless due to the showrunner position. 

Whilst I do think the showrunner position is awful as put anyone in it and they will end up becoming self indulgent, RTD still should have known where his strengths were as a writer by that stage. It wouldn't surprise me if he looks down on the stories he wrote like Midnight as being silly, sci fi fare unlike Journey's End. 

[rushy]

Well, to be pedantic, his flaw then isn't in wanting to connect everything to humanity, but to the mundane.

[rushy]

Jan 24, 2024 17:07:15 GMT burrunjor said:

Whilst I do think the showrunner position is awful as put anyone in it and they will end up becoming self indulgent

True that. I think I'd last maybe a year before I let myself do a musical episode with the Cheetah People from Survival

[Deleted]

Musicals are okay as long as the music is good. Music however is a dying art. No one knows how to write it anymore. The song in the Goblin episode was shocking.

[burrunjor]

Jan 24, 2024 18:19:21 GMT rushy said:

Jan 24, 2024 17:07:15 GMT burrunjor said:

Whilst I do think the showrunner position is awful as put anyone in it and they will end up becoming self indulgent

True that. I think I'd last maybe a year before I let myself do a musical episode with the Cheetah People from Survival

In no way would that ben a millionth as bad as Death in Heaven.