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beccatoriaRight, so I was planning to rewatch some of S5 of Doctor Who for a project I'm helping a friend with. But for some reason, instead, I watched one of the few RTD-written Who episodes I really enjoyed and found myself noticing, well honestly noticing differences I know damn well are there and why I prefer teh Moff to Rusty, and that's news to no one who knows me even a tiny bit, so I don't mean to beat a dead horse. But I did think it was interesting that the differences in style are clearly present even in an episode I really like. Which is sort of why I thought I'd write a bit about it. At ridiculous, rambly length.
The episode in question is The Fires of Pompeii, which is the second episode of the fourth season. It's super interesting to compare it with the second episode of the fifth season - The Beast Below. One by Davies, one by Moffat; both second episodes, the first solid "standalones" of the series, both featuring the new companion coming face to face with a side of the Doctor they're not sure they like, and an impossible moral dilemma about the good of the many versus the good of the few (with different ultimate resolutions - both of which I like in the context of their tales). Both feature the Doctor being a little more righteous and stuff than I'd like, though in an entertaining turnabout, I actually feel more uncomfortable with the Eleventh than the Tenth in this instance (caveat being, of course, that this is mild for Ten and as bad as Eleven ever gets and a lot of my discomfort was due to - when I first watched it - not quite trusting the show yet, again, ever). But; I like both episodes.
I think one of the reasons I like Pompeii more than most Davies-penned episodes is the atmosphere. The stone and prophecy are remarkably atmospheric and creepy. The Cult of the Sibylline slowly turning to stone. The building mystery of the volcano - these are all very imagery-heavy, mythology-heavy ideas. In many ways, it has a lot of what I often enjoy about the atmosphere of Moffat episodes. (For a Moffat episode that looks like a Davies episode, see The Eleventh Hour). It's this atmosphere that keeps me engaged through what would otherwise be a very pat "alien refugees trying to take over the world," Doctor Who staple. In typical Rusty style, the actual cause of the prophecy is "I'll explain later"d in like...half a sentence I didn't really understand that was basically technobabble and fairly disappointing, but the dilemma faced by Donna and the Doctor is genuine and moving.
Similarly we have Moffat's episode - The Beast Below - also atmosphere heavy; the idea of Starship UK, this piece of space-faring Victoriana, the mystery of the voting and the Smilers keeps us engaged until we get to the secret - the ultimate horrifying dilemma faced by the Doctor and Amy. As I'm a Moffat-fan I'd say that this isn't usually a weakness of his, but I do think that TBB is the weakest of Moffat's episodes in S5 and that's largely because, like Pompeii, it uses atmosphere to cover for its plotholes and parts that don't make sense. Normally Moffat episodes have just as much "it was technobabble!" as Rusty episodes, he just...does better at breaking up and slowly feeding us that technobabble so by the time the answer's revealed it feels more like a perspective shift than, well, Tennant expositing for thirty seconds. At least, you know, to me. But in this instance, the corresponding issue isn't thirty seconds of technobabble (for which I'm grateful) but rather simply a non-explanation for things such as the Smilers and what they are and why they look like creepy clowns and why children are given grades at school by them and what on Earth was the point of that rhyme. Essentially Davies falls back on blather while Moffat apparently just decides to leave you wondering if you were actually watching Sapphire & Steel this whole time...
Hell, both episodes even have feisty redheads to add comedy and refuse to be pushed around by the Doctor. Moffat's humour is a little more surreal, Davies' a little more blatant, but in this instance, well, I still find, "I'm Spartacus," "And so am I," one of the more hilarious introductions on Who.
So...probably I should get to the point.
For the reasons listed above, these are, I think, an interesting pair of episodes to compare. With that in mind, let's look at how they handle both the Doctor's personality and also their place in anchoring future development for said Doctor. Both are about what the Doctor sees as his role, what choices he makes, is able to make, and whether he can see to make them alone.
What struck me, enormously, about Pompeii, was how I had totally forgotten how visually messianic the Doctor's return was. After Donna convinces him that he needs to go back and save someone, anyone, we see him reaching out of the TARDIS, completely backlit in white, grabbing Peter Capaldi's hand in slow motion. Donna, who urged him to do this, who was so emotionally desperate for him to do this (and later confirmed to be right to be so), is not shown: the moment is about the Doctor coming back as an angel to save this family.
Now, I feel I need to add here, that I think this episode is one of the better examples of handling the Tenth Doctor's "godlike" personality (which honestly, I loved the Seventh, so I was never going to be against that in principle I just think most of the execution makes him look hypocritical in a way that's never addressed). I like how the show gives us Donna's side even as it proves the fixed point to be fixed for a reason. It's more complex than I find this era of the show to be, usually, and I think it works well as a way to underscore Ten's continuing loneliness and reaction to the loss of his own planet - a time he physically, literally cannot return to and cannot change - with...all right a few cringeworthy lines about his "burden" but...so few that if it weren't an issue I had with his run overall, I probably wouldn't have minded and might even have wibbled a bit.
That said, let's contrast with the Eleventh's ending in his second episode. Instead of pleading with the Doctor to follow the correct course of action, and then getting heroic shots of him doing so, Amy is instead rebuffed by the Doctor and left to puzzle out the solution on her own, which she does, and the camera sticks with her the whole time. Because of that it's hard to directly compare the visuals of the Doctors, but verbally, all talk of the Doctor is about how old he is - to steal a line from later in the series, the daft old man who stole a magic box and ran away. The last of his kind: mythic.
To move on to the "friends" scene that follows, again, I like them both, but the Tenth Doctor talks about how he needs Donna to keep him in check; Eleven and Amy hug, and one of them whispers, "gotcha." They're both basically about the exact same thing, same as the whole episodes are, same as they're both about who the Doctor is as the last, lonely one of his kind, and what he does when faced with impossible dilemmas about the many versus the few, and about the Doctor realising he has a friend.
I don't draw any particular conclusions from the fact that Rusty went for the gut with the necessary sacrifice while Moffat went for everybody lives, because I think both writers could have gone for either conclusion, and they're both good stories that are needed at different times. But I do think that differing emphases throughout the episodes re: everything else are...really interesting.
Davies takes a mythology-rich setting and turns it into a story about external, evilaliens demons and salvation in the form of a messiah, literally enshrined at the end of the episode as a god by those he saved.
Moffat takes a story about Victorian England and the evils of men and turns it into a mythology-rich setting about humanism and magic and a crazy wizard.
They're both about saving people, about saving oneself, about the big and small pictures, about faith in friends, and about loneliness. Writ large, both series deal with the Doctor and self-sacrifice. In each case, the Judeo-Christian metaphors about Ten's messianic death, or the ever-increasing fairytale quality of Moffat's series where the Doctor as an imaginary friend was eventually literal trufax, the metaphor builds and the Doctor goes willingly to his end.
And for Ten, I hated it. So overwrought and manpainy I literally laughed out loud during The End of Time when the TARDIS explodes to that scenery-chewing orchestral score. But for Eleventy it was one of the most moving things I saw during that season of telly.
And...it's not like I really have much of a point beyond that. Just that...the difference between the two styles is really stark, even when it's really similar. Trace it back to two episodes I like, and I'll probably still always prefer The Beast Below to Fires of Pompeii, even though I think that, honestly, in a rare turnabout, Fires of Pompeii is probably the better episode, but it's just so much less my style.
I like the Doctor so much better when he's a good wizard instead of Jesus, and I was surprised to see the difference so obviously clear even in episodes I never thought of as strong thematic arc episodes for the respective showrunners.
The episode in question is The Fires of Pompeii, which is the second episode of the fourth season. It's super interesting to compare it with the second episode of the fifth season - The Beast Below. One by Davies, one by Moffat; both second episodes, the first solid "standalones" of the series, both featuring the new companion coming face to face with a side of the Doctor they're not sure they like, and an impossible moral dilemma about the good of the many versus the good of the few (with different ultimate resolutions - both of which I like in the context of their tales). Both feature the Doctor being a little more righteous and stuff than I'd like, though in an entertaining turnabout, I actually feel more uncomfortable with the Eleventh than the Tenth in this instance (caveat being, of course, that this is mild for Ten and as bad as Eleven ever gets and a lot of my discomfort was due to - when I first watched it - not quite trusting the show yet, again, ever). But; I like both episodes.
I think one of the reasons I like Pompeii more than most Davies-penned episodes is the atmosphere. The stone and prophecy are remarkably atmospheric and creepy. The Cult of the Sibylline slowly turning to stone. The building mystery of the volcano - these are all very imagery-heavy, mythology-heavy ideas. In many ways, it has a lot of what I often enjoy about the atmosphere of Moffat episodes. (For a Moffat episode that looks like a Davies episode, see The Eleventh Hour). It's this atmosphere that keeps me engaged through what would otherwise be a very pat "alien refugees trying to take over the world," Doctor Who staple. In typical Rusty style, the actual cause of the prophecy is "I'll explain later"d in like...half a sentence I didn't really understand that was basically technobabble and fairly disappointing, but the dilemma faced by Donna and the Doctor is genuine and moving.
Similarly we have Moffat's episode - The Beast Below - also atmosphere heavy; the idea of Starship UK, this piece of space-faring Victoriana, the mystery of the voting and the Smilers keeps us engaged until we get to the secret - the ultimate horrifying dilemma faced by the Doctor and Amy. As I'm a Moffat-fan I'd say that this isn't usually a weakness of his, but I do think that TBB is the weakest of Moffat's episodes in S5 and that's largely because, like Pompeii, it uses atmosphere to cover for its plotholes and parts that don't make sense. Normally Moffat episodes have just as much "it was technobabble!" as Rusty episodes, he just...does better at breaking up and slowly feeding us that technobabble so by the time the answer's revealed it feels more like a perspective shift than, well, Tennant expositing for thirty seconds. At least, you know, to me. But in this instance, the corresponding issue isn't thirty seconds of technobabble (for which I'm grateful) but rather simply a non-explanation for things such as the Smilers and what they are and why they look like creepy clowns and why children are given grades at school by them and what on Earth was the point of that rhyme. Essentially Davies falls back on blather while Moffat apparently just decides to leave you wondering if you were actually watching Sapphire & Steel this whole time...
Hell, both episodes even have feisty redheads to add comedy and refuse to be pushed around by the Doctor. Moffat's humour is a little more surreal, Davies' a little more blatant, but in this instance, well, I still find, "I'm Spartacus," "And so am I," one of the more hilarious introductions on Who.
So...probably I should get to the point.
For the reasons listed above, these are, I think, an interesting pair of episodes to compare. With that in mind, let's look at how they handle both the Doctor's personality and also their place in anchoring future development for said Doctor. Both are about what the Doctor sees as his role, what choices he makes, is able to make, and whether he can see to make them alone.
What struck me, enormously, about Pompeii, was how I had totally forgotten how visually messianic the Doctor's return was. After Donna convinces him that he needs to go back and save someone, anyone, we see him reaching out of the TARDIS, completely backlit in white, grabbing Peter Capaldi's hand in slow motion. Donna, who urged him to do this, who was so emotionally desperate for him to do this (and later confirmed to be right to be so), is not shown: the moment is about the Doctor coming back as an angel to save this family.
Now, I feel I need to add here, that I think this episode is one of the better examples of handling the Tenth Doctor's "godlike" personality (which honestly, I loved the Seventh, so I was never going to be against that in principle I just think most of the execution makes him look hypocritical in a way that's never addressed). I like how the show gives us Donna's side even as it proves the fixed point to be fixed for a reason. It's more complex than I find this era of the show to be, usually, and I think it works well as a way to underscore Ten's continuing loneliness and reaction to the loss of his own planet - a time he physically, literally cannot return to and cannot change - with...all right a few cringeworthy lines about his "burden" but...so few that if it weren't an issue I had with his run overall, I probably wouldn't have minded and might even have wibbled a bit.
That said, let's contrast with the Eleventh's ending in his second episode. Instead of pleading with the Doctor to follow the correct course of action, and then getting heroic shots of him doing so, Amy is instead rebuffed by the Doctor and left to puzzle out the solution on her own, which she does, and the camera sticks with her the whole time. Because of that it's hard to directly compare the visuals of the Doctors, but verbally, all talk of the Doctor is about how old he is - to steal a line from later in the series, the daft old man who stole a magic box and ran away. The last of his kind: mythic.
To move on to the "friends" scene that follows, again, I like them both, but the Tenth Doctor talks about how he needs Donna to keep him in check; Eleven and Amy hug, and one of them whispers, "gotcha." They're both basically about the exact same thing, same as the whole episodes are, same as they're both about who the Doctor is as the last, lonely one of his kind, and what he does when faced with impossible dilemmas about the many versus the few, and about the Doctor realising he has a friend.
I don't draw any particular conclusions from the fact that Rusty went for the gut with the necessary sacrifice while Moffat went for everybody lives, because I think both writers could have gone for either conclusion, and they're both good stories that are needed at different times. But I do think that differing emphases throughout the episodes re: everything else are...really interesting.
Davies takes a mythology-rich setting and turns it into a story about external, evil
Moffat takes a story about Victorian England and the evils of men and turns it into a mythology-rich setting about humanism and magic and a crazy wizard.
They're both about saving people, about saving oneself, about the big and small pictures, about faith in friends, and about loneliness. Writ large, both series deal with the Doctor and self-sacrifice. In each case, the Judeo-Christian metaphors about Ten's messianic death, or the ever-increasing fairytale quality of Moffat's series where the Doctor as an imaginary friend was eventually literal trufax, the metaphor builds and the Doctor goes willingly to his end.
And for Ten, I hated it. So overwrought and manpainy I literally laughed out loud during The End of Time when the TARDIS explodes to that scenery-chewing orchestral score. But for Eleventy it was one of the most moving things I saw during that season of telly.
And...it's not like I really have much of a point beyond that. Just that...the difference between the two styles is really stark, even when it's really similar. Trace it back to two episodes I like, and I'll probably still always prefer The Beast Below to Fires of Pompeii, even though I think that, honestly, in a rare turnabout, Fires of Pompeii is probably the better episode, but it's just so much less my style.
I like the Doctor so much better when he's a good wizard instead of Jesus, and I was surprised to see the difference so obviously clear even in episodes I never thought of as strong thematic arc episodes for the respective showrunners.
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no subject
Date: 2010-10-25 11:38 pm (UTC)I may not always agree with your opinions on certain shows, but you always do interesting commentary, which I tend to prefer.
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Date: 2010-10-26 08:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-26 02:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-26 08:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-02 06:32 pm (UTC)