...I quite liked the Wedding of River Song.
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...I quite liked the Wedding of River Song.
and my axe
D
Deleted member 231381
Unconfirmed Member
There's a few episodes I'm always shocked people actually liked - I just have to raise an eyebrow at anyone claiming any great things about Gridlock or Turn Left.
A Good Man Goes to War > The Wedding of River Song
I actually wasn't aware that there were people who didn't like Turn Left.
I actually wasn't aware that there were people who didn't like Turn Left.
aHebrewMenagerie
Member
Wedding of River Song was so disappointing. It suffered from Moffat yet again writing himself into a corner. The payoff ended up being extremely dissatisfying and lazy. The only good parts in my opinion is the ending which has been leading up to this upcoming episode.
I felt like the Wedding of River Song's main problems were a 1 episode running time, overly predictable resolutions to what were supposed to be interesting mysteries, and the terribly-executed Series 6 plot it had to wrap up.
So basically, I didn't like it, but it was a victim of its circumstances.
So basically, I didn't like it, but it was a victim of its circumstances.
(Also, it was stupid how there was no point to River's exo-suit looking like an astronaut suit.)
I remember showing Midnight to my family after they had watched many episodes from Series 3 and 4 and they were just shocked. It's like the anti-Doctor Who, in a good way.
No, not at all! Series 5 is great, Series 6 has some great episodes but a lousy continuing plot, and Series 7... I'm not sure how to feel about it. It's almost split into two different series.
I HATED Turn Left, and I think a lot of that had to do with the fact that I couldn't stand Donna. I decided to rewatch it awhile back, and while I still can't stand Donna, I no longer hate Turn Left. It's up there with Midnight and the Waters of Mars as being one of RTDs best.
D
Deleted member 231381
Unconfirmed Member
To watch Turn Left is to experience a brutal assault via blunt, rusty and conspicuous allegories. The whole episode is trying far too hard to be meaningful and edgy.
EDIT: Midnight and The Waters of Mars are legit amazing, though. Midnight is up with Blink for best episode of the revival.
BocoDragon
or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Realize This Assgrab is Delicious
I think Moffat's era is much better.
acheron_xl
Member
Turn Left is fantastic. I personally think Tate gives the single best acting performance by a companion in the show's history in that episode.
My favorite over RTD's seasons, although his series were proper great as well.
Worthintendo
Member
I think Series 7 as a whole was really good. The first half were all fantastic episode including the best Dalek story since Dalek, a great western adventure, Rory's Dad and an amazing Angles story. The second part was abit more hit and miss, I think they just tried to do too much in not enough time. I think Clara's story needed a full season to develop to be as amazing as it could have been. That said you still had Bells of Saint John, Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS and The Name of the Doctor as stand outs. The rest from the second half were all still pretty good though, but some of them should have been better than they were such as Cold War and Nightmare in Silver.
That all said, I enjoyed Love and Monsters and everyone else hates that, so my opinion might be moot.
There some nice moments and bits of dialogue in it, but overall, The Wedding of River Song was just poorly conceived from top to bottom. Never mind the deus ex Tesselecta, just the whole idea of placing the entire conflict in an alternate reality is a huge waste of everyone's time. Amy and Rory getting together for the first time again, Doctor and River getting married (but not really), Kovarian dying (but not really), River does it all to show the Doctor the universe loves him but we don't see any of that it and it doesn't even matter anyway, etc etc etc. It's just a total waste.
Moffat's era is by and large better than RTD's, even with its all flaws. RTD's seasons have way more mediocre-to-bad episodes.
That's explained in the two parter at the beginning of the series, the entire reason for the Apollo program was that the Silence needed a suit that could keep a human alive in extreme situations. The Doctor outright says that IIRC.
Admittedly it is a bit dumb a time travelling space faring race would need 1960s NASA to build them a spacesuit. And I still don't see why they really needed River at all to be inside this suit that seemed perfectly capable of killing him itself. Maybe they wanted him to not just run from the suit and banked on his personal history with River keeping him there.
What makes no sense is how Amy (and presumably Rory) suddenly remember the events of TWORS after they get left behind in the God Complex rather than at the very beginning of the series when it would make sense for them to. They definitely didn't know it then, they didn't know they were River's parents, but Amy can remember killing Kovarian at the end of the series.
Still it's a fun episode even if it is a bit convoluted.
EDIT: Also, people calling the Tesselecta a Deus Ex Machina are being a bit unfair. The Tesselecta was introduced well in advance, and it was widely predicted he'd use some sort of copy of himself to cheat death, most people just thought it would be a ganger instead. When a character solves a problem using a previously introduced concept in a way that was well established that's the opposite of a Deus Ex Machina.
Whatever Doctor Donna and Meta Crisis Doctor did to defeat the Daleks, now that was a Deus Ex Machina.
That's not the case at all. Moffat just gets everyone's ire because he's the man in the hot seat at the moment. RTD got it just as bad, if not worse, in his day. Doctor Who has been around for so long and it means different things to so many different people. There's always going to be someone to complain about.
What I really liked about Turn Left was how they took the more ridiculous episodes of the series, and then showed us what would've actually happened if the Doctor hadn't intervened.
That scene with Donna's family huddled around the television, watching the Adipose kill millions in the United States provides a perfect contrast between the silliness of the original episode versus what was supposedly at stake. It was very memorable for me. It's still probably the best deconstruction of the series yet, rivaled only by The Night of the Doctor.
Agreed on Midnight and The Waters of Mars though.
It has its problems but I wouldn't say it's bad overall. Some of it is really good. The biggest complaints tend to be production related.
paradox121
Member
I think people using the term Deus Ex Machina in that case is shorthand for 'not being clever enough'. The resolution kinda feels like something a fan would suggest and in that way it feels unfulfilling somehow. People probably throw the term around to seem clever. Plus its a term that gets associated with eeeevery Doctor Who finale whether its appropriate or not.
I've always found it a kind of difficult thing to apply to anything. For instance, would you consider what Rose does to become Bad Wolf a Deus Ex? She literally pulls God-like powers from the centre of a machine, but the argument against that is the mentions of Bad Wolf through the series. In fact, come to think of it, it's the exactly same thing as Clara does- she becomes all powerful by using a machine to fulfill her previously seen prophecy. You know what, all Doctor Who resolutions suck, thanks a lot RedShift
Future Foundation
Member
Turn Left coming after Midnight always felt, to me, really heavy. One emotionally tense bottle episode, followed by one in which the Doctor dies and the world goes completely to shit.
Gridlock was average, but looks better when compared to that Dalek two-parter.
Very true. Both Moffat and RTD have their flaws, but I remember during series 4 RTD was getting absolute vitriol flung after him from a lot of the fanbase, and said fanbase went mad with glee when it was announced Moffat would be taking over. Now I see plenty of people talking about how good it was in RTD's era!
I think maybe Moffat's flaws stand out more because they seem to be issues with long-term stories, whereas RTD tended to have trouble with individual eps but usually turned out satisfying arcs.
That's true; his RTD-era stories do seem to be higher quality in general. But my point is more just that whoever's in the hot seat at the moment gets the worst of it.
This is ridiculous.
A episode or two a year where he can dedicate his time and effort into the happenings of the story
versus
An entire season in which not only does he have to write said stories, but has to make most of them all mesh together somehow (a staple of nu-Who) and manage everyone else's stories, -and- take care of another show as well (Sherlock).
Even after all of this, some of Showrunner Moffat's episodes arguably stack up to Silence in the Library/Girl in the Fireplace.
This applies to any contributor-turned-showrunner.
My two cents, for what they are worth:
Turn Left is great. The ending, especially. I freaked out when I saw it for the first time.
I liked Wedding of River Song, but I also acknowledge that it's not a very good episode. I still love it, though.
Conversely, Midnight is an amazing episode, but I don't like it. It's incredibly well written and well acted, but it freaks me out, and not in a good way.
EDIT: Oh, and I like End of Time, but I do think that the Master race pun was dumb, and Tennant's breakdown before saving Wilf didn't work for me. I do like the "victory lap" though, which I know a lot of people cringed at. I think it's sweet.
Turn Left is great. The ending, especially. I freaked out when I saw it for the first time.
I liked Wedding of River Song, but I also acknowledge that it's not a very good episode. I still love it, though.
Conversely, Midnight is an amazing episode, but I don't like it. It's incredibly well written and well acted, but it freaks me out, and not in a good way.
EDIT: Oh, and I like End of Time, but I do think that the Master race pun was dumb, and Tennant's breakdown before saving Wilf didn't work for me. I do like the "victory lap" though, which I know a lot of people cringed at. I think it's sweet.
Spring-Loaded
Member
there's a DW comic I saw a while ago that I'm looking for. I don't follow this series, so I'm not sure how to describe it: it starts with one doctor with a bowtie, in the next panel he changes into the next incarnation of the doctor, then puts on another bowtie...? I think. Then at the end, it has the current doctor with multiple bowties saying "you guys fucked it up" or something. it's simply drawn with some sparse color.
Quick Mustard
Member
I remember that. It's going to be buried in the 50th anniversary and/or series 7 threads shortly after Capaldi was announced. I'm on a mobile at the moment so hopefully someone can help you further.
EDIT: and there it is
Quick Mustard
Member
I think people using the term Deus Ex Machina in that case is shorthand for 'not being clever enough'. The resolution kinda feels like something a fan would suggest and in that way it feels unfulfilling somehow. People probably throw the term around to seem clever. Plus its a term that gets associated with eeeevery Doctor Who finale whether its appropriate or not.
I've always found it a kind of difficult thing to apply to anything. For instance, would you consider what Rose does to become Bad Wolf a Deus Ex? She literally pulls God-like powers from the centre of a machine, but the argument against that is the mentions of Bad Wolf through the series. In fact, come to think of it, it's the exactly same thing as Clara does- she becomes all powerful by using a machine to fulfill her previously seen prophecy. You know what, all Doctor Who resolutions suck, thanks a lot RedShift
It's not referring to it that makes it not a deus ex machina, it's the world-breaking nature of it. Bad Wolf is definitely a god in the machine. The rules of the universe are rewritten in ways you could never predict and Bad Wolf being scrawled everywhere doesn't really help you to the conclusion in any way.
The tesselacta is just a Chekhov's Gun. It doesn't do anything surprising at all, it's just a surprise that it happens to be there at that moment, but its powers and capabilities are well established.
The real problem is applying a value judgement to Deus Ex Machina. It's a literary device just like any other and it can be used well or poorly. In the Greek plays the name comes from it was sometimes used as a means to express the idea of the universe having values and sitting in judgement of the character's actions. This is not inherently a bad thing, though it's certainly uncommon to express it so directly in current literature.
Makes me laugh every time.
paradox121
Member
That's far more eloquently put than I could ever have done. I personally still feel you can argue for Deus Ex vs. Chekhov's Gun in a few cases. For instance, with Clara, she's specifically told a) other versions of her have met the Doctor before and b) jumping into the Doctor's timeline will split her into multiple copies, but I can't help but feel she's no better educated than Rose is with Bad Wolf. Maybe I should just spend more time on TV Tropes.
SERIES 6 SPOILERS
The problem with the Tesselecta was that it was incredibly predictable. Same with Ganger Doctor. It was going to be either one of those, and "fake Doctor gets shot and River Song lied about it" is much less interesting than other work-a-rounds.
That was my point. There is no reason it needed to be a 1960's spacesuit. It was a 1960's spacesuit because Moffat thought that visual of an astronaut coming out of the water would look great and inspire wonder in audiences, but he wasn't able to come up with a convincing reason for why it was a 1960's spacesuit.
The Doctor faces a conundrum which (to him unknowingly) stems from the problem of him dying (TIA/DotM), discovers that the TARDIS is both more autonomous than he realizes and will take him to places that he needs to be (TDWife), both finds out what the problem is (but not the details), a potential solution yet at the same time discovers both his enemies and that they are using just that (Flesh 2 part), attacks his enemies head-on and fails but at the same time realizes both the full extent of the situation and the catalyst to it (aGMGtW), to which the TARDIS helps in both reuniting the Doctor with the catalyst and the solution (LKH), is faced with his impending fate (TGK), so is forced into action utilizing everything he has learned after lollygagging a bit as he does and messing things up, in this case the timestream, in the process (tWoRS).
And this is part of the problem with applying a value judgement to a trope like "Deus ex Machina is always lazy/cheap/stupid." It tempts you to believe the reverse is also true. All cheap plot devices (I disagree this is one, but can see why people feel it is) are not deus ex machina and there's really no need to trot out that particular trope to lend credence to the idea that they are.
Yep. And Deus Ex Machinas aren't always entirely bad. I enjoyed the end of Parting of the Ways a lot, even though Rose becomes a literal god out of the machine.
The ending of Avatar The Last Airbender was very satisfying as well even though
the Lion Turtle teaching Aang energybending
aHebrewMenagerie
Member
The Doctor, The Widow, and The Wardrobe is on BBC America right now!
So avoid the channel at all costs.
So avoid the channel at all costs.
APZonerunner
Member
Probably won't be around tomorrow until well after the deed has been done, so Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays WhoGAF peeps, and I'll see you with a New Doctor...!
Jedeye Sniv
Banned
Finally caught up with season seven this month ready for tomorrow, just finished off with the last two tonight. The Name of the Doctor in particular was pretty disappointing, lots of arm waving and not much else, didn't really have the epic impact of other finales. Still, enjoyable enough and Clara is just lovely to watch so it's not exactly time wasted.
infiniteloop
Member
End of an era today!
End of an era today!
why does he look so different in this photo?
It was taken over four years ago?
Shorty11857
Member
Looking forward to this tomorrow can't say I've been a fan of the Moffat era overall but excited for a new Doctor will hopefully change things up.
Finally caught up on the last season as well entertaining enough episode by episode with a pointless arc so standard Moffat era.
Finally caught up on the last season as well entertaining enough episode by episode with a pointless arc so standard Moffat era.
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