I’ll preface this by saying I don’t actually care if other people like this episode. I get why people do, and I don’t hate it completely. There were parts that made me smile, I simply think the story was sort of dumb.
My opinion on Hurt, the Zygon plotline, and the more fluffy bits (which I also didn’t care for) is entirely a matter of my taste, and I admit that my taste goes against the grain, especially for a sci fi fan. What I will argue is poor writing is Moffat’s handling of the Time War.
When I say Moffat doesn’t understand what a planet is, I mean we have never seen anything more from Gallifrey than one city. We don’t see other nations. We don’t see other biomes than the desert, hell, we only see one Gallifreyan species, and we don’t have names for any of these things. I am not asking for all these things to be fleshed out, but I am asking that scale be understood when cultures are being written.
Let’s take this criticism and apply it to the Time War. The Time War was a genocide. What else do you call the wiping out of an entire species?
The idea of a planetary genocide is terrifying. Hell, it’s very easy to make Dalek terrifying, when you remember there’s meat inside that pepper shaker. How do they make new ones?
The thing is, however, the answer of “what happened during the time war” was always between the lines for me. Ecceslton’s preformance has always been someone with severe survivor’s guilt to me. He does not give the preformance of someone with blood on their hands. He gives the preformance of someone shaking their fist at the sky, asking “Why me? Stupid, unimportant me?” And that is how I enjoy the Doctor being written. Stupid, unimportant Doctor, when compared to the rest of the culture they come from, and yet, they are important to the people they meet and they help. They don’t need an overblown reputation. And pinning a genocide on them, layered on the fact that they come from the culture being genocided… Do I have to spell that out…?
(Also, I think when presented with a trolley problem, their resolution would be to find out who the hell was tying people to the tracks in the first place, not to kill everyone so more people don’t get killed.)
And then, taking Gallifrey and sticking it somewhere else… What a terrible way to resolve grief. Thematically, what does that say? “If you lose literally everything, don’t worry, just stick it up in the attic, come back to it! Don’t try and move on, or proccess it! It’ll come back to you!” Well, thanks, but I lost all my stuff and that attic when the house burned down.
Does anyone remember in series 1 when the show firmly established you can’t bring back the dead? I remember. And frankly, I don’t think necromancy is a good suggestion to someone grieving.