#i cannot imagine in 2034 many people will care that much about ruby sunday

[faeleven]

7B - which had good ideas but suffered because Moff was too busy with the anniversary to edit - managed the revelation that the companion the Doctor believed was supernatural was actually an ordinary woman much much better, because the narrative was constantly pointing out that the Doctor’s fixation was both incorrect and unfair to Clara.

This was more like if Neville was revealed at the end to be the chosen one after following Harry Potter for seven books. You can’t lead the viewers to a conclusion, pull the rug from under them and then laugh at them for not getting it when they were never provided the dots to join.

happened to see this ask right after rewatching the bells of st john but yes exactly! 7b wasn't moffat's best work but he clearly had the conclusion planned out from the start and that was reflected in how the narrative treated clara and the doctor, whereas rtd was setting up something totally different from what he ended up doing. with clara, the doctor (and the audience to an extent) go in thinking she's some crazy, weird, impossible thing, but in 7b itself all the signs continually point to her being an ordinary human and the doctor just ignores that because of his fixation on her "mystery". the exact opposite of s14 where no one thought ruby was anything but human until RTD started surrounding her with weirdness and specifically drawing attention to it. the message he's sending to fans is "don't try to analyze my writing or predict* where I'm going with things, because I don't care about thematic consistency and will just pull plot points out of thin air"

*caveat that I don't necessarily think a twist should be predictable, but I do think that looking back after everything is revealed, you should be able to feel that it was done with intention and not by spinning a wheel.

it's hard to have any real analysis of this series because it doesn't have that sense of being crafted intentionally. some episodes in it were good, but as a whole it's incoherent. any discussion of its themes or ruby's character is necessarily either extremely shallow or driven by fan theories that have taken what little the writing gave us and run with it.

RTD says he wants to provoke reactions, and I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing, but I do think he's going about it all wrong. if he made something that had genuine depth and was thought-provoking, fan discussion would naturally follow AND would keep going for a long time. instead he's chosen to chase after moment-to-moment shock value and soundbite reactions, and as a result I don't see this new version of doctor who having much lasting popularity.