#and my fondness for the other characters has grown on subsequent rewatches

[feng-huli]

Shen Jingzhou’s Blizzard Sword ❄️🗡️💚

[isagrimorie]

The Doctor Who showrunner wars is still in full swing despite the three Doctor Who showrunners being friends IRL, and some things they’ve done and implemented can all boil down to preference.

I wanted to weigh in with my thoughts on this.

I like some things RTD did in his time in Doctor Who, I am very grateful to him for bringing the show back from the war but I also remember slowly getting disgruntled with his writing.

He is a drama writer, and one of the best; RTD has a way of turning a phrase that just fires up the imagination like:“Skaro Degradations, the Horde of Travesties, the Nightmare Child, the Could-Have-Been-King with his army of Meanwhiles and Neverweres.”

He has also written and help re-write my favorite two-parter of Revival!Who Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit, Midnight, Turn Left, and Children of Earth. The problem is as much as he loves both camp (sometimes the results can work, sometimes it doesn’t), RTD’s cynicism does leak through.

He tried to fight against those instincts in Doctor Who but you can see the strain show as he struggled to keep that cynicism away from the show.

There’s also the part where his frequent joke targets are middle aged women. And TBH, I was tired of Ten’s God Complex (“I am the final authority!”) and how the narrative rarely call him out on it. Unlike Nine, he started to believe his own press and the press of other people

I wasn’t keen on the way he joked about appearances of women above thirty, and tbh, I was tired of Ten’s God Complex (“I am the final authority.”) and how the narrative refused to call him out on it.

Ten believing his own press could have been interesting if the narrative didn’t think he was right. For example, The Water of Marscould have been interesting but I thought WoM resolved Ten’s Time Lord Victorious moment far too soon and easily.

I thought they could have explored more about the ‘Time Lord Victorious’ moment for at least another episode, or have The End of Time comment on it.

Apart from series 1, all of RTD’s series finales were heart-wrenching; each finale I ended up feeling like I was going twenty rounds against a meat grinder.

It was why I loved and will continue to love series 5 and how refreshingly happy the ending was.

No one was trapped in another dimension! No one had to single-handedly stop an apocalypse and have their family enslaved, or mind-wiped.

In the scheme of things, I think in certain aspects, Moffat’s storytelling style is more on line with my tastes. The fairytale seasons. Even Twelve becomes a fairytale Doctor, and I wager that his arc in series 8 is remembering the joy and becoming the fairytale Doctor again.

Another reason why I love series 5, coming directly from Ten’s Lonely God thing, was that a lot of people called out the Doctor on their God Complex and made their self-loathing a lot more text. I also loved the fairy tale aspect of his seasons.

But like with RTD not everything Moffat’s done is my favorite, there were some stories that had missteps, and one of those missteps was Moffat trying to out clever himself. Credit to him for swinging for the fences but he also started to spread himself too thin working on two shows, and the seams showed.

One of the criticisms about Moffat’s writing is character work, and he had no interest in the Companions’ families.

I’m in the middle. I have issues but also (especially after rewatching) I was more forgiving, as an example, in the end I didn’t care as much about the state of Amy’s parents.

No, that’s wrong, I did care.

I cared the first time I watched Angels Take Manhattan, I cared so much that when Amy and Rory disappeared I was so angry because all I could think about was Amy’s parents and Brian (Rory’s dad). I cared to the point that it was one of the reasons why I stopped watching.

On subsequent rewatches, I’ve reconciled with the idea that Companion families and family dynamics (the Companion’s parents) isn’t something Moffat was interested in. It took Chibnall to give Rory a dad (interesting that parent-child dynamic is really something Chibnall is drawn to).

Honestly, if family dynamics isn’t something he is interested in, that’s fair. Also, Amy’s parent’s weren’t a factor since series 6 and Amy’s parents might have well fallen back into the Crack for all we know.

Rewatching also helped me come to terms with some narrative choices I wasn’t fond of. Binge (re)watch tended to sand down any rough parts and I find rewatching can help me hold the shape of a story more.

Still, it took a while to realize Eleven acting big and bombastic was deliberate. Moffat needed Eleven to be big and loud, and full of himself so he can also go crashing down. It falls in line with what River describes the Doctor she knew: “Now my Doctor, I’ve seen whole armies turn and run away. And he’d just swagger off back to his Tardis and open the doors with a snap of his fingers.”

One of the things I wasn’t satisfied with Moffat’s writing (and there were plenty) was how series 6 dealt with child loss. Or, how s6 initially didn’t deal with child loss. The writing would eventually address it, and most prominently in The Wedding of River Song in a fantastically chilling scene between Amy and Kovarian.

But even then I felt it wasn’t enough. Emotional continuity during this time was very low.

This brings me to River. I loved her the moment she stepped on screen in Silence in the Library but my love for her character cooled because of series 6. My theory is Moffat wrote himself into a corner trying to out grand series 5.

For those taking notes at home, I watched Doctor Who sporadically during series 7 and then stopped watching at Angels Take Manhattan. I stopped watching until Day of the Doctor happened.

**DotD* reignited my love for Doctor Who! So much so that I went back and binged series 7.

I liked s7 well enough except for how Amy and Rory left, that still sticks in my craw. I would have been okay if the Ponds left at the end of the Power of Three. Unfortunately, for Revival!Who, there’s an expectation now that Leaving Stories should be hard and tragic, and breaks your heart. I don’t always need grand leaving stories.

TBH, with the exception of The Day of the Doctor, Series 7B is one of my least favorite Moffat seasons.

One of the many factors was the way the writers kept giving Matt Smith big speeches. The writers know he can do big speeches so they kept writing big speeches for him. It was their default.

Also, as one podcast speculated series 7B could have been where the writers realized (belatedly) that Smith was actually quite hunky. This and Moffat being too busy to manage the next half of the season because of The Day of the Doctor can explain the disaster that was the Time of the Doctor.

TotD remains as one of my least favorite Doctor Who episodes ever. (Well, not ever, there are some series 2 and 3 episodes that stand above it).

And then the Capaldi era.

This was the turn around where I started loving Moffat’s work again. It wasn’t easy to get to that point though, and like the previous series, there was a time I fell off the Doctor Who wagon because the first half of Capaldi’s season didn’t click with me.

I found him far too mean and unlikable which broke my heart since I loved Capaldi.

But a binge, again, sanded down all sins (well, notall) and now the difficult and prickly series 8 is something I really enjoy because knowing where Twelve ended up in his character journey helped.

This is why, I don’t mind getting spoiled about a show, as long I only get the broad strokes but not the details. I love finding out what his journey was and I don’t think I would have come back if I didn’t know where he ended up.

I think I saw snippets of Zygon Inversion speech on YouTube, and then I decided to give Husbands of River Song convinced me to finally watch all of Twelve’s run.

And now Twelve is my favorite Doctor.

Moffat’s writing didn’t magically become perfect (to me) but I loved the themes he chose to tackle for Twelve. Twelve is another PTSD!Doctor but unlike Nine, he had an opportunity to grow from that trauma. (And get fresh ones — thanks Time Lords!).

I love that Moffat used Twelve’s stories as a way to interrogate Ten’s stories culminating in Heaven Sent/Hell Bent.

IMO, Twelve’s relationship with Clara is similar to Rose and Donna. Twelve and Clara developed quite a co-dependent relationship by the time series 9 rolled around. They never quite achieved the height of smugness that was the first minutes of Impossible Planet nor have they ever been as obnoxious as Ten and Rose were in Tooth and Claw. Possibly because the Doctor’s older at this point and knows the perils, and similar to Donna because of how Donna kept Ten grounded. And, of course, because of the mindwipe argument that was definitely Moffat’s answer to the mindwiping of Donna, and as Moffat said in the War Games commentary, to the mindwipe of Zoe and Jamie.

And then we have Bill with Twelve, showing the very final form of the Twelfth Doctor. Twelve as a grown-up, feeling settled with himself, finally. He learned a lot of lessons and committed himself to stay in one place.

I love the relationship he built with Bill and while I do love, love, love Jodie Whittaker, I was sad to have only one season of Bill and Twelve. Especially since after Lie of the Land Missy’s story began to have more prominence over Bill’s.

(And there’s the whole Missy thing which tbh would make this a longer post than it already is!).

TLDR. Both showrunners aren’t perfect, sometimes their views don’t align with mine. I loved series 1 because it was my entry point into Doctor Who but there are also things about RTD’s run I wasn’t happy with. Same with Moffat there were things I adored and things that really didn’t sit well with me.

There were points during both showrunner’s time on the show I had to take time off.

Now with Chibnall, the same thread runs through: I like most of his stories in series 11 but it also isn’t perfect and has a lot of room for improvement.

/EDITED

[elizbethweir]

what is your favorite and least favorite season of the originals and why?

I’m terrible at making decisions so we’ll seehow this goes! I can only answer in paragraphs so I hope you were looking for along answer haha.

Least favourite season is the easy question. That wasdefinitely season 4. It was very plot-heavy, and for me, plot is onlyinteresting insofar as it is character-driven, or insofar as it services thecharacters and their relationships. That season felt like they started with theplot and just stuffed everyone inside of it. I also don’t like the Hollow, atall. I still barely even know what the Hollow is supposed to be, but my memoryof that season is also not that great. Normally I would always watch a lot of scenesover and over again after I had finished an episode. In season 4, I didn’t feelthat urge as much, so I don’t quite remember all of the details as strongly as Inormally do.

There were still some good things though – SummerFontana is an amazing Hope and I absolutely adore her. She’s really the bestthing about season 4. But before season 4 began, what got me the most excited wasthe idea of Hope just interacting with everyone…and so what we got was disappointing. We saw her with Klaus and with Hayley andthat was really nice, but I wanted her to develop interesting relationshipswith everyone. The writers simply dropped the ball on a lot of the characterstuff. I feel like they always think they need to make it exciting by introducinga “scary” plot and constantly-looming death, but I personally get the mostexcited about characters interacting, and I know I’m by far not alone in that.(And some of the character-focused things we did get still don’t really makesense to me, for example in the case of Elijah in s4.) Season 5 didn’t have a greatplot either, but it did spent more time on the relationships (with a fewnotable exceptions) and gave us some really good, emotional, gutwrenching familymoments that I basically live for. That’s really all I need. I don’t askfor much.

My favourite season is more difficult. I’m going to place it under a cut because this post is getting quite long.

I spent quitesome time going back and forth between the first three seasons. I think I have settled on season 2,because that season actually had a very character-driven plot. It was focusedon the entire family, not just Klaus/Elijah/Rebekah. We got Freya, and saw moreof Kol, Finn, Esther and Mikael. Dahlia was an amazing villain; probably theonly villain that really worked in TO. I still remember how much I freaked out whenshe and Klaus began to work together (granted, I freak out at the end of almostevery season). We even got introduced to Ansel – too briefly, but we learnt ofhis existence. The entire family was expanded on and developed. Thebodyswitching was a little annoying at the time, because it seemed like there’dcome no end to it, but the replacing actors were all actually really good, andI don’t mind it anymore. I also loved all the in-fighting and distrust in thefamily. I’m really attached to how they’ve grown into a slightly morefunctional and loving family, but I’m still fond of when the family screwedeach other over and it was all a little more volatile. I truly love all the upsand downs.

Season 1 was really nice too. I especiallyliked the politics of all the different factions and individual people runningaround town with their own agenda, making alliances and destroying them. (I wishthat had continued into the other seasons as much, because the factionssometimes just disappeared later on and then popped up again whenever it suitedthe writers.) It gave us some really interesting stuff without us having to pretendthat the Mikaelsons were in mortal danger every episode. The factions also gaveNew Orleans a really vibrant city-feel. Season 1 laid down the atmosphere ofthe place really well. It was definitely the most consistent season, I think,but it also contained less “omg”-moments. It doesn’t get me superexcited, but it also wasn’t bad. Itwas just… consistently nice. It was a really good built-up of the series, butI think I prefer season 2 because by then everyone had already gone through alittle change. I’m not sure I’m explaining myself properly but I think that’sthe best way to put it. I do need to give an honorary mention to the dynamic ofKlaus/Elijah/Rebekah, especially in 1x16, which is a pretty iconic episode. That was definitely a “omg”-moment. 

Season 3 got me excited in a lot of ways butalso disappointed me in some ways. I loved the Trinity and their whole dynamicwith the Mikaelsons, but the way they ended was really anticlimactic. Yes, Iknow it was rather silly that they weren’t just killed immediately and thelonger that would’ve gone on the sillier it would be, but I liked the Trinityand I wish we got to keep them around longer. There was still so muchunexplored in their relationships, so much potential. The Trinity really held the most excitement for me in this season and so when that wasn’t delivered on… idk, I felt robbed. I also really didn’t likeCamille’s storyline and subsequent death. It was a disservice to her character.On the other hand, the prophecy was a great way to keep viewers engaged and onthe edge of their seat with all kinds of hypotheses, and Marcel ending up as theone who fulfils it was really good. And there were more nice things, like Klaus, Hayley and Hope actually turning into an actual family. Also, one of my favourite episodes is 3x09. Istill often think about what an amazing episode that was.

I should do a rewatch and seewhat my opinions are then, because now I might just be selectively remembering. Anyway, these are my choices for now. This post has made me really nostalgic, thinking about the good ol’ days. We had some good times.