I meant to pop into this discussion last week and then forgot but I do want to pick up on this point to wonder why you level this criticism as Moffat specifically.
Doctor Who, like a lot of sci fi shows, usually depicts planets as being defined by one culture/city/race etc. The Sense-Sphere, Vortis, Manussa, Frontios, Refusis II, Uxaerius, Peladon, Skonnos, Tara, Zanak - the list goes on. Skaro doesn’t even do it!
The only real exception is Marinus. Audio Club Extra has highlighted to me how the Excelis trilogy paints a world of more than one country. But these really are rare cases.
So criticising Moffat for not understanding what a planet is, does really mean you have to criticise all the other writers in Who as well.
extremely curious how? i view chibnall era as pretty much exactly informed by its time, not necessarily in a good way, and i’m genuinely curious what about it makes you think this.
Oh, I absolutely think it’s bad when other writers do it. It’s something that bothers me as a whole in sci fi. I should have made that more clear.
I pin the treatment of Gallifrey in this episode on Moffat because he wrote it. Every writer has the opportunity to change the status quo. Again, I think this episode, in concept, should have been rewritten. I’m not against an idea if you can execute it properly, and the handling within the frame of the episode of an entire planet being destroyed is done bad.
That’s another continuity detail I like from The Day of the Doctor, when the Daleks blast each other to pieces after the Doctors have made Gallifrey a Cup-a-soup, you can see the Emperor Dalek’s ship flying off the screen. Love such little details
I’d rather not know the exact reason or moment when Liz leaves The Doctor and UNIT it should just be “oh yeah she was done passing you test tubes and she’s going great guns at Cambridge”
But it’s a status quo for a reason. If the episode was to give time to exploring the variety of life etc on Gallifrey that would detract from the actual plot. It’s the sort of thing that novels might have the luxury of doing but a TV show, especially one like Doctor Who which flits from planet to planet from story to story, doesn’t really have unless we want to sacrifice something which, to be honest, is probably more important like plot or character.
The Keys of Marinus does it but the different places and societies are only very roughly sketched with enough detail to differentiate but not enough to actually build a cohesive picture of the planet - do Millenius’s citizens know about Morphoton? Are the Voord native to the planet and if so where do they come from?
I still don’t agree that it is a legitimate criticism of Moffat when he is merely continuing what other writers have done in the show - and even specifically with Gallifrey. How much of Gallifrey do we see in The Invasion of Time? Or Arc of Infinity? Or The Deadly Assassin. Arguably less than we see in The Day of the Doctor.
Big Finish doesn’t need to slavishly recreate older eras of the show with earlier Doctors. It’s nice for the nostalgia, but trying to break new stories into four parts of roughly 25 minutes each often just serves to slow the narrative down. Cliffhangers are fun, but we don’t need three per story, especially as there’s no longer any need to use them to keep us listening; there’s no “tune in next week to find out”, the resolution is literally two curtailed versions of the theme away. Do away with them and tell the story in 45 or 60 minutes with a little less padding.
I’m not wedded to this opinion, but sometimes I’m listening and thinking “just get on with it” whereas the spin-offs and audios based on the new series provide an easier listening experience.
This is the controversial opinion I forgot a few days ago!
I do agree to some extent, but it’s also good to know I can stop listening to something with a definite cut off point and pick it up the next day rather than having to just stop between scenes.
I bet that when they began they also did it that way so each episode would fit neatly on one side of a cassette. (Cf. “The Great Cyber-War” being split into two parts because it wouldn’t have fit on one CD.) But I agree; I’ve often wished the previous doctors’ adventures would just be CD-length like 8 and 10’s.
But then, I suppose another controversial opinion (it baffles me why) is that I prefer watching TV stories in omnibus form. If I’m going to watch the whole thing straight through, why would I want to skip through the credits multiple times, and rewatch multiple scenes?
The original VHS releases were in omnibus form. The BBC assumed that people would prefer watching the stories like TV movies. Pressure from fans ensured that they changed to releasing complete, unedited stories with cliffhangers and credits. In the old tape swapping days, I used to edit out cliffhangers so I didn’t have to sit through the credits etc and it had the advantage that I could often squeeze two four parters onto a 180minute tape. But I was told that doing this meant that I wasn’t a serious fan, and so I stopped.
I understand why keeping a record of the show as broadcast is good, and I think everyone should have the option to see it complete and unedited. But, secretly I prefer omnibus form and it would have been a great option if the DVDs could have enabled that as a viewing choice.
I absolutely get why fans want the unedited episodes because it’s an historical artefact and we want every last snippet of footage of our favourite show. Some people also really enjoy the credits (Toby Hadoke waxes lyrical about how important they are to him).
But equally, some fans just fast forward those bits anyway (I know I used to) so an edited version is perfectly reasonable when it isn’t being watched episodically.
Both ways have merit.
Anyone who calls you ‘not a serious fan’ is not someone who you should be paying any heed to.
They should put out edited versions of the episodes, maybe even add a little extra fun content to the starts and ends as a framing device for older fans as well so there’s more than just the edited eps…
…hang on a minute
In all seriousness, Tales of the TARDIS good. Give us more of it BBC
People need to stop saying “Gallifrey is a boring concept and we shouldn’t go back there” when what they really mean is “I would not be capable of writing anything interesting about Gallifrey because I lack imagination or skill.”
Extending from that, killing off the Time Lords isn’t “economical” or “subversive”, it’s lazy.
I used to watch in omnibus form as a teenager but (and I talked about this with Jay at the meet up) these days I don’t really have the time or focus to do that with Classic Who, and only really got back into it in the past few months by realising it’s totally fine to watch a part or two a day and pace it out. Which took a lot of getting used to after binging them as a teen
