Sonic Doctor said:
If the TV Movie was so bad, why did the BBC adopt McGann as the 8th Doctor and use him in the audiobooks and such. Doing so made the movie at least partially canon.
I never said it was bad. I actually enjoyed it. But it just wasn't Doctor Who. I mean it was, but it was too Americanised. It lost that very British flavour and sensibilities, and just became any other American sci-fi TV movie. Seriously, take that movie by itself, change the names "Doctor, TARDIS, and Master" and you essentially have a pretty generic TV movie there.
The BBC didn't have to do that. Look at the Cushing movies, for obvious reasons they weren't accepted as canon.
You know why they weren't made canon? Because they were movie remakes of episodes that had already happened. Specifically "The Daleks" and "The Dalek Invasion of Earth". So making them canon would make no sense, you'd have a new Doctor reliving the exact same events.
The 1996 American written movie had part of that reason, but the BBC still made McGann part of the canon, so the Americans must have done something right.
They did do something right: casting Paul McGann. For all the shit I can throw at that film, Paul McGann is a fucking diamond! I love the guy and truly wish he'd had a proper TV series to really shine.
Also the steampunk TARDIS interior was fucking bad-ass.
If any writing here is a crime to Doctor Who, it is Moffat's. As an American and a writer, if I had the chance to erase what Moffat has done, I would and I would keep the show in the area of what the old series and new series(Davies) were like.
I need to make one thing clear here: Moffat is a good writer. I just think his one flaw is getting too caught up with his high-concept ideas and bending the world and character's actions just to allow those ideas to happen. But he does do good work. He's definitely a better writer than Davies was.
Don't get me wrong, I love Davies writing, but he has just as big a "pulling stuff out of his arse" problem as Moffat does.
I would keep Smith, because he is great at the part, though if I kept Amy and Rory, they would be written as proper companions that actually listen to The Doctor and tend to actually be surprised by what's going on instead of acting like it is business as usual. Amy wouldn't be some kind savant like Moffat has written her to be(being able to solve pretty much everything without The Doctor's help). I would also remove the absurd idea that two humans making a baby in the TARDIS makes a Time Lord baby. River Song would be someone from the Doctor's past that he met again in the future, the going backwards in time thing would still happen for her, because I actually liked that explanation from "Silence in the Library". I would rewrite the series 5 finale, The Doctor would find a way to fix the TARDIS and keep it from exploding, so none of that wished back into existence by Amy bull crap.
You know what, I can't really argue with any of this. I like where it's gone but you are right, it could be much better. I will concede these points to you sir, with one extension:
The show needs to put less emphasis on the companions. It seems like every series of the new run, it's always pulled a "the companion can god-mod and do shit they shouldn't be able to do all of a sudden" out of nowhere in the finale. Often with flimsy justification. I mean come on, look at Series 3. Using only the words "Use the countdown", Martha spends a year avoiding detection and death, telling people the Doctor's history and shit, and is able to get herself on board the Valiant at just the right time, despite her not knowing when the countdown was going to happen?
I call Davies' bullshit on that one, particularly. The others haven't been as bad.
Moffat's writing is sloppy, instead of writing beginning and then and end first, it is like he just starts with an idea and writes it till the ending, which is a very very hard and risky thing to do as a writer.
Believe me, I know. I'm kind of an aspiring writer (though one with an irritating swirling vortex of potential ideas and no focus).
Very few writers can pull it off. Moffat obviously can't; it seems like he writes himself into a corner and then has to create some bull crap resolution that has no logic because anything logical isn't plausible to work, or as he has done, he ignores logic and goes for the messed up explanations.
I think Moffat is right in his wheel-house when he's writing smaller stories. "Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead" was excellent; one of the best stories in Series 4. Same with his Series 5 Weeping Angels story.
He can write, he just needs to focus on the smaller-scale. When he tries to go too big, he just loses control of his thought process and throws in whatever he might think of. Which can work out, but rarely does. And results in the kind of stupid moments that get people annoyed with him.
I can give him the benefit of the doubt most of the time, but I would be lying if I said I didn't get a little bit pissed when I sit through 44 minutes of what, in my mind, is a great story only for the entire emotional weight of the narrative to be sold short by a quick hand-waving before everyone continues happy as a clam.
Having the Doctor use his hindsight knowledge to alter history to escape his own death is good... but it needed to have more emotion to it. The entire episode he didn't seem to care too much. I don't want him emo, but they needed to sell the emotional weight of that story for him. They needed to set up more clues than they did for what he was going to do. And they need to make it happen slower, not just cram the revelation in at the last minute.
Thomas Parker said:
*cough* torchwood *cough*
Okay seriously, why do people hate Miracle Day so much? It wasn't as good as Children of Earth, but so what? Children of Earth was phenomenal, I never expected Miracle Day to top it. But I love Miracle Day.
And as far as my knowledge goes, Miracle Day was still written by the usual British talents. It just partially funded by and produced in America. I might be wrong though.
But I still don't get the hatred for that series. I loved it.
