On Fri, Jan 3, 2014 at 9:48 PM, mark.r.hancock <[email protected]>wrote:
> I just kept thinking that maybe Moffat's time bad been taken up with > working on the new Sherlock series and he had no free time to develop > decent material for Dr Who. then I remembered, unlike the rest of us poor > writer schmucks who have to find the time between paying the rent and going > to the day job, most likely late in the evening, he gets a handsome reward > for this shizzle! > So true. Plus with Sherlock he is free to re-imagine and adapt to his creative hearts content, whereas with Dr Who the weight of the Dr Who Canon/thread completion/dealing with the Regeneration retcon makes him stumble. > > great review. > Thx. > poor series ending. > I was disappointed with it after the dangling potentials offered in the 50th Anniversary special, but can also see the complexities involved. Thanks for taking the time to read it, Mez :) > m > > Sent from my Simian monkey butler > > > -------- Original message -------- > From: mez breeze > Date:03/01/2014 03:05 (GMT+00:00) > To: NetBehaviour for networked distributed creativity > Subject: [NetBehaviour] The New Who vs Oldskool Timey-Wimey Whovians > > —–[“The Time of The Doctor” SPOILERS (Sweetie) Alert]—– > > > On the 25th December 2013, Doctor Who received 12 new lives. In the > episode “The Time of The Doctor”, the current series showrunner, producer > and lead writer Stephen Moffat imbued the once-labelled as 11th [and now > redubbed the 12th, or even > 13th<http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/12/25/doctor-who-review-matt-smith_n_4501917.html>] > Doctor a new regeneration cycle. In this episode filled with heavy-duty > retconned <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retcon> plot threads, we see the > New [old] Who emerge. > > > From a traditional Whovian perspective, there’s been substantial trouble > with Moffat’s version of a character who, like his regenerations, has > undergone substantial re-jigging as part of the entire franchise reboot, > many of which have been largely controversial. When Moffat plucked the Who > writing mantle from Russell T Davis, there was substantial concern that his > [then] largely episodic inflected story style wouldn’t be able to > adequately extend beyond flashy emotion-inducing viewer bait, complete with > thrill laden plot segments and incomplete long arc shifts where > foregrounding, consistent character development and plots worthy of the > previous writers were/are [mostly] abandoned. > > > In this pivotal episode, Moffat attempts to disassemble and reassemble > elements of the Who Canon in an effort to extend the longevity of the > franchise beyond the Doctor’s accepted and restricted Regeneration cycle. > The episode contains all the benchmarks we've come to expect from Moffat: > companions posited as disposable tools or eye-candy mannequins, story gaps > you could drive a TARDIS through and plot-hole-construction-gloss thrown > about almost randomly by the shiny bucketful. The result creates a type of > standard willing Suspension of > Disbelief<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suspension_of_disbelief>that only just > lightly grips the edges of believability. Emotional key > points fall cheaply and wantonly [like the death of his handy > Cyberman-head-pal “Handles”, or the Doctor's promise to Clara that he'll > never abandon her again]. The rushed passage-of-time markers rub the viewer > in any manner of annoying ways, and flimsy self-referential exposition > becomes paramount when the contrived CGI effects fail to impress. > > > And yet, given all of the failings of this crucial episode, the emotional > reefing that Moffat does best still manages to evoke a type of stretched > wonder-thrall. Moffat discards [and has now for many, many episodes] > conventions that traditional Dr Who fans hold dear: Joseph Campbellesque > hero > variables<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hero_with_a_Thousand_Faces>and > crucial sci-fi story elements are bypassed in order to cater for more > incrementally-oriented audience members used to absorbing their story > snippets through 2 minute YouTube blipverts or Tumblr-emulated focals. > Moffat knits together these contemporary absorption points via a method > that, instead of catering for narratives comprising sequential beginning, > middle and ends, seeks to harness the power of discrete narrative units. > These units merge techniques drawn from graphic novel variable truncation > to story-board framing, resulting in staggered story-time acceleration and > retconned plot explosions designed for nonlinear attention spans. > > > Moffat may not be the great grand hope for old-timey-whiney Whovians > [ahem] who yearn for believable extensions to Who chronology beyond an > established and pre-mapped regenerative timeline. But through the New Who > incarnation, Moffat instead offers us an extension of a well-worn and > much-loved character, one that at least utilises the very methods that a > contemporary audience regularly deploys to maintain a narratives beyond > standard story knitting. > > > -- > | facebook.com/MezBreezeDesign <http://www.facebook.com/MezBreezeDesign> > | twitter.com/MezBreezeDesign > | en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mez_Breeze > > > > _______________________________________________ > NetBehaviour mailing list > [email protected] > http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour > -- | facebook.com/MezBreezeDesign <http://www.facebook.com/MezBreezeDesign> | twitter.com/MezBreezeDesign | en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mez_Breeze
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