I think people are confusing the words complicated with currently unexplained. Half of the things people on here on stating as "Confusing" is things like where is the futue Doctor's TARDIS? Why doesn't the 200 year younger Doctor go the beach? Most of the stuff hasn't even had an explanation or even been attempted to be resolved.

Some people cannot seem to grip time travel/non-linear stories.

I absolutely love the two-series arcs, and more 'timey wimey' stuff than we've had before (although Turn Left was just about the perfect example of how that stuff could be done, imho).

I also love plots that work at various levels and can keep the hardcore intrigued without detracting from things for the masses and/or the younger viewers.

However I don't necessarily think the new showrunner's succeeding for a lot of the masses or even the older fans.

My Dad was glued to series 1-4 and would never miss an episode. It was the highlight of his week. Even the duff ones (in my eyes) which for me was about a third of series one and two. I'm not his biggest fan but RTD had a wonderful sense (despite however many sub-par episodes) of on the whole playing to the masses, successfully.

My Dad (almost 70) gave up last series after almost a half of it. He couldn't follow from week to week about the cracks. The River stuff got too convoluted, so many rule changes about the Angels, etc etc etc. He just couldn't follow the way the series went.

I don't spend much time on here, and no time on GB anymore, and just drop in, but it seems to me that the consternation/satisfaction with the resolution among the fans who follow closely and posted last series was a fairly equal split.

It's nice when you think about something so much to be able to grasp that it happened beyond 'it happened because it happened', But we've had it three or four times now (TBB, Timecrash, the last CiN special, and all those awful paradoxes in the Christmas special, which I otherwise adored).

I also feel uncomfortable with how much Moffat's messing around with time on Earth. The Doctor's antics throughout the past 150+ years trying to get Amy and Rory's attention would have rewritten time. Jack would have been searching and searching, as would so many other former companions and allies, and they would have come across him. New face, but unmistakably the doctor.

I think all these hi-jinks on Earth are leading us to a place (or have already led us) where we can't trust anything on screen. Correction - we can. If any of the companions or the Doctor himself die we can trust they will come back in some magical fashion. Until it suits the showrunner not to do it (and being fairly spoiler free, I do think we can expect something like that this series - because we have to, because otherwise nothing seems at stake anymore). At which point they won't (come back). And at that point, I'll be screaming at my TV screen 'well, why not THIS time'?

It's not SF, it's pure fantasy now. And that's lost people that loved it as a family drama show with some magic and fantasy elements already (like my Dad), and if it carries on much further it'll lose a lot more.


I think you've missed the point. Why should casual viewers have to remember two years' worth of events to get the pay-off from the end of THIS series? People like my Dad were already lost three or four episodes into the last one. When that pay-off comes it's got to work on so many levels to keep everyone happy it's untrue. Can the Moff do it? I have incredible respect for the man, but I can't see it's humanly possible. TBB tried to do that, and I loved it at the time, but after multiple rewatches I still can't swallow the paradox (because, convention or not, it's beyond the cusp of what I'll accept in SF).

Having said all that, I'm very much hoping to be proven wrong, and will be the first one to admit if I am - in fact, no-one would be more delighted to do that than me, because Moff is just about the only person I know to hope to trust to rescue things from where I fear they're going

I disagree. In almost every regard, it's much closer to sci-fi than it was before. S1-4 was almost entirely fantasy romp, things happened because they needed to happen to keep things moving, there was little attempt to present a rhyme or reason.

S5 attempts to fit everything into some kind of structure, things aren't left dangling, there is more strictness in how the pieces fit together. And yes, the proper use of time travel mechanics in a show about time travel is more sci-fi.


And yet what they did is one of the most fundamental elements of time travel stories.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predestination_paradox
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bootstrap_paradox

It's weird really, Moffat is one writer that has gone out of his way to avoid stories that involve changing time - Christmas Carol is the only one I can think of.

Thought I'd posted on here earlier, but the post doesn't seem to be there. I must have messed it up somehow.

Anyway, my point was that I think Moff needs to be careful with this kind of complicated story line. It's easy for the plot to overwhelm the relationships between the characters, which is ultimately why people enjoy the show. Time travel has the additional problem that nothing that's going on seems to matter as there's always the likely prospect of a reset.

Well, then we must ask ourselves why we watch Doctor Who! Is it because of the tenseness of the peril or baecause we want to see our three best mates fight monsters and have fun while doing it?

The way I see it, Doctor Who isn't like any other TV show.

Every other TV show has a beginning a mystery and an end. This doesn't. It's just week after week fun in different places, different times with different people. Which means it doesn't really matter if doesn't make any sense. It's there to be enjoyed as it is.

Red bow tie Dr!

It's good to agree to disagree

Time being rewritten is the case-in-point for me. It simply must be later on, having seen just one episode of the new series, or the Doctor will be either dead, or yet again 'magically' revived, or the series will have to finish...

It's the ultimate 'cheat code' - and it seems to be used as default now.

I don't care if predestination paradoxes are 'staple' for time travel. I've been reading and watching SF for 25+ years, and I think they're lazy, rubbish, and make no sense. And now they seem to be the main thrust of Doctor Who...I'm not unhappy (yet) but am concerned.

Challenging - like it - better than challenged. Moff is good, except when he gets sentimental and morally simplistic preachy; which he was last series from time to time. But this episode had none of those faults; just a complicated but accessible story told well. Keep it up, Moff.

Not exactly saying this myself but I do sometimes miss the days when you had independent adventures where the Doctor had an enemy, defeated that one and went on to the next.


I have no trouble - okay, not much trouble - with the stories, but I do find a progression of adventures preferable to a series arc, let alone a several-series-arc. Not that it isn't being brilliantly done and I'm enjoying it, I just like stand-alone sometimes.


I don't quite get what you think is so different about Who (apart from it's inbuilt uniqueness and the space and time travel aspect), it has a beginning, a mystery and an end, whether over a single episode or a series or more, and it's a succession of tense adventures with the Doctor and friends fighting monsters of all kinds and moving on to the next.

I wasn't on about people being confused about the arc being carried over I was on about the people moaning about unexplained events in The Impossible Astronaut and expecting questions there and then not giving it time to grow. As for your Dad and anyone else that saw more than a couple of episodes it was pretty obvious that a story arc was occuring throughout and should people who pay close attention to the show and enjoy coming up with theories be denied a finale linked with clues spread throughout to series due to casual viewers? Sorry don't mean to have a go but anyone who noticed the `cracks in time` arc could be smart enough to realise that it may all be resolved in the finale.

As someone else recently said Moffat usually goes out of his way to explain sometimes to the point where it is actually obvious that he has written parts of dialogue where the character just explains stuff (possibly most obviously in the Big Bang where Rory says "nope to fast still not getting it" to get The Doctor to explain again which leads to the part that always makes me cringe as its clearly just a big block of dialogue they may as well just break the 4th wall and say it directly to the audience .

I really don't see how one could label any troy arcs Moffat has done as "confusing" with enough attention its easy like someone else said these arcs are very well thought out and layered. They are (IMO) vastly superior to RTD's arcs which just gave the odd "bees are disappearing" and "vote Saxon" in every other episode. In S5 it began with 3 seperate arcs that gradullay intertwined (Amy's Wedding, "The Pandorica will open, Silence Will Fall" and the cracks in time" However the cracks in time wasn't firmly established as an arc until episode 2 (IIRC not many people predicted its return). Almost every episode significantly increased the arc -
Episode 1 - Amy's wedding reveal, "The pandorica will open, Silence will fall" quote
Episode 2 - Return of crack
Episode 3 - Proof of the crack following The Doctor and Amy through time
Episode 5 - The Doctor noticing crack, Amy tell The Doctor about wedding
Episode 6 - Rory joins from stag, Main villain explains world was taken by crack, Mention of Silence
Episode 7 - The dark side of The Doctor
Episode 8 - Rory, Amy see future selves
Episode 9 - Rory erased from time through crack, Amy only sees her future self, Doctor hides ring box, TARDIS part found in crack
Episode 10 - Vincent Van Gogh dies - Time can't be rewritten, Amy cries doesn't know why, couple of refrences to Rory
Episode 11 - The cracks begin to open, Amy finds Ring box, New Tardis
Episode 12 - Pandorica Opens, Rory returns, World by exploding TARDIS, Silence falls (arguably depends on what your meaning of Silence Will Fall is), Amy remembers wedding.
Episode 13 - Pandorica restores universe, Amy has wedding, Silence continues to next series.

Sorry about the history lesson just wanted to get my point across that Moffats arcs are a huge step up from RTD and IMO are much better and far more intriguing.

Whether Moffat's arcs are better depends on how you like your arcs. I must admit I prefer the arcs not to take over as much as Moffat's did, and therefore prefer RTD's less instrusive arcs.

As to complexity, it's hard to judge when it's a two-parter and we've only seen part 1. However, I will say that my nephew, who is a huge fan, said today that he was confused by last night's episode and "didn't get it". And that's a first from him.

Personally, I felt the opposite. I thought they hammered home the explanation for the complex parts a bit too much. Amy came across a little bit thick in that she wasn't able to work out how the Doctor was alive after they'd just seen him die. That was clearly there to make sure anyone who didn't get it, had it explained in detail to them.

What didn't he get exactly?


Exactly! Moffat usually gives out all information needed. I don't know if I'm just lucky but I wasn't really confused by anything last night.

I think they could be complicated for the casual viewer. Hell, I'm a major sci-fi fan, and I had to look certain things up on the Doctor Who Wiki to remind myself.

This review from the Mirror doesn't bode well.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/tv-entertain...5875-23081954/

He didn't say. I didn't ask, just said maybe all would become clear next week.

I think they're the confused ones! 960? Where'd that number come from?!

Besides the Mirror? That's as bas as the Daily Mail! I think Doctor Who can survive without those readers who take the Mirror's views and adopt them as their own.

I didn't find it confusing in the slightest.

Yeah I agree. It seems that the press do have it in for this series of Doctor Who though. A lot of negativity about.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/t...al-viewer.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz...ent-slide.html

I don't take notice of the press and prefer to come to my own conclusions, but sadly, lots do.

Not being funny, but that guy is well known for hating Doctor Who. he almost never has a good word to say about it. There have always been segments of the media that will knock the show, some of them, like the Mail, because they have an anti BBC agenda. It's been this way since the show returned in 2005. It's because the show is SO successful that it does become a target for some.

There were plenty of positive reviews on that episode. Ironically, the Telegraph story you link down thread ran a positive review of the episode in addition to that piece. Actually the show the media really seem to have it in for at the minute is BGT.

As for the story here, there was nothing complicated about it. A future version of the Doctor gets murdered in what could be seen as a prologue to the series, the current Tardis team plus River investigate mysterious phone call that President Nixon has been receiving. Thee others don't tell The Doctor that they witnessed his death. How is that even remotely complex?

It has a mystery within Episodes or within Seasons but not over the Entire History of Doctor Who (which admitedly would be impossible) which means once one mystery is over and resolved, audiences are satisfied and don't necesarily tune in When the next series comes on.

When did mystery and confusion become bad things? Do people read halfway through Agatha Christie novels and then give up because they don't know who did it yet?

Have we really lost any sense of curiosity and wonder that we expect everything to be handed to us up-front, or that every single detail of every aspect has to explicitly expounded upon?

I love not knowing what's going on when I watch a film or TV programme.

If you actually read the review in the Mirror quite a lot of it was positive about Doctor Who, particularly the one in Monday's paper.

" It is probably still the most impressive, innovative British show on television capable of delivering moments that are genuinely exciting. "

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Back to my opinion
A lot of the problems relating to Moffet is that he is trying to be too clever by half, and the danger of having arcs too long over a season takes away the enjoyment of individual episodes. Did this really impact last season, probably not to a great extent, and hopefully it is not overdone this year.

IMO last years first episode was far better as an opening episode, self contained and really set up the new doctor. I'm not sure that two parter work at the start of a series. The obvious trouble with 2 parters is that, you have to see both parts to see if the pay off at the end is worth the set-up in the first part.

A rather strange attitude to say the least.

Personally I dont find the ones Ive seen too complicated - I understand the vast majority of what is going on. But I do think they can verge on boring - I remember by the end of Forest of the Dead I really didnt care who River Song was anymore, it had been dragged out too long with too many hints (I know thats now been carried into Series Five and Six but in terms of the original two parter). I agree with some of what the reviewers say based on Saturdays episode - a lot of it you have to watch closely to pick up clues which come later on - which is great for a more niche sci-fi market but Im not sure it appeals as much to the main stream drama audience, especially when you have to also know whats gone on before.