I loved the RTD and Tennant era. I even enjoy The End of Time. But goodness me I hadn't read that awful Lawson article before. Talk about selective memory! And comparing TEOT to Hamlet! Pseuds corner should have had his name on it. No comedy or camp in Tennants Doctor? Farewell to Rose in a shopping centre? What a hack.

It was quite a funny read eh, i love EOT, I never saw it confirmed that it was the Doctors mom in the episode as Lawson says, to quote one of your other threads salad, mysteries like that are sometimes better left unknown. ..

I actually enjoyed listening to the today show on R4 when i used to drive home and Lawson was quite an entertaining and intelligent host. These two articles are quite poor though.

Well I agree with Lawson that there is a family resemblance but given the excellent viewing figures, which have been sustained despite the existence of iplayer, his suggestion that the general audience has been alienated seems like a non-sequitur.

One influence that nobody mentions is screwball comedy. See for example the frantic speed of exposition and wittiness of His Girl Friday and there are a lot of formal similarities to Who/Sherlock. The content is of course rather different.

Yep. I don't mind him generally. A bit awkward when it comes to interviews. But on R4 and NN Review he was very watchable. But both those articles seem like someone trying to capture the zeitgeist and failing. The most recent one in particular seems like a parroting of social media whinging which is ironic all things considered.

Agreed. But you should address this to one Stephen Moffat, not to me.

Don't disagree with you on this!

I did, at the time, on here, compare the Ood's "sing you to your rest" with the similar line in Hamlet, so Lawson wasn't the only one to think that. I wouldn't compare RTD with Shakespeare, however.

And I'm surprised that Lawson missed the campness and comedy in Tennant's portrayal of the Doctor. It was brilliantly done!

I've never quite understood this idea of Tennant as being an always intense misery guts as the Doctor. Its just not true! There were lots of funny moments and camp ones. He didn't spend four series crying and scowling non stop.

One of the things I loved about Tennant was the way he could turn from high comedy to tragedy and back again effortlessly - a gift he shares with Matt, who could also do both in the same sentence.

I think Capaldi has it, too, from what I have seen.

So 99.9% of the people don't care about plot holes, unresolved storylines or things making no sense? I bet they do care. They might not care in the same way a fan would but they expect stories to make sense, they expect plots to lead somewhere and to have rewarding resolutions. I don't think you need to be a fan to expect plotlines to be resolved. If they don't like what they see then they will turn over.

Plus the whole thing about the 12 regenerations wasn't down to fans, Moffat simply used it as a plot device to tell a story (I didn't think it was a particularly good story but hey ). I'd actually argue that New Who is targetted at anyone other than fans. The fan-service we get is largely because Moffat and RTD before him are fans themselves and think like fans. I seriously doubt they ever thought "I'm going to do this because the fans demand it". Heck if that were true it would have been "The 12 Doctors" in November with guest cameos from 15 different companions

Articles like this give fans way more power than they actually have.

Finally saw Sherlock today (using my PVR Mulett ). I'm not going to give my opinion on it in this forum but feel like I can now comment specifically on Lawsons recent article in the OP now. I think what Lawson may not realise, but I think RTD, Moffat, Gatiss, Tennant, Smith et. al realise is that as Doctor Who fans we are quite different to fans of other shows. In the lead up to the 50th there was a lot of "speculation" on the plot, but no one who saw the trailer on at Comic Con in America well in advance recorderd or leaked videos or snippets on youtube (that I know of) . There were very few (if any) leaks of McGann returning, on this forum we all try to stick to spoiler tags where we can, the Daily Star leaks cameos and plot rumours, not the fans generally. There are some of us (myself included) who read spoilers but we're not the type to go posting it everywhere to spoil the surprise.

Anyway, my point is, we may bicker with each other, we may moan with poor stories or plot explanations, but on the whole we are respectful of the show and try not to spoil things as perhaps happens in other shows. If the writers 'tip their hat' so to speak to give us 5 mins just for us then I say we deserve it

Anyway, just my opinion.

The fact that we had to wait for so many years to understand who blew up the TARDIS in series 5 is a great symbol of all that is wrong with Moff and his trail of destruction.

We deserve far better drama than borderline fanfic which carries on for as many years as the self-satisfied writer feels he can get away with. It's not good drama, it's masturbation.

Fancy seeing you here! Have you watched Doctor Who recently? It's hard to tell.

Don't worry, ladies and gentlemen, this poster knows some REAL PEOPLE who can share their thoughts. As opposed to all the fake people. Like most of us here.

Probably saw the first three minutes of series 5…...

If only I'd switched off after the first three minutes of Series 5, then I would just have memories of how great Who was before Moffat.

Or "humanity," as people call it!

(Not that I agree with the article particularly - Time of the Doctor good, The End of Time good too. Think TEoT had marginally more clout, but generally prefer Steven Moffat's era to Russell T Davies', so I really don't have a horse in this one. Just a silly quip.)

Never too late to stop watching, which is something you really should have done so you wouldn't be putting yourself through watching something you don't enjoy. You know. It's basic common sense. And yet, 4 years later here you are. STILL watching something just to complain and exclaim your hate about it/vendetta towards Moffat.

The Guardian is offering up a fair poll.



Okay, maybe they tried.

Not heavily invested in Sherlock, although I do enjoy it and haven't missed one, so this all seems a bit OTT to me. It's when people start bandying around 'Hate' regarding a TV programme or one of it's makers that I think "Aw, come *on* now." It's just entertainment, and you're either entertained or you're not.

Doctor Who is an exception of course. It's life and death...



Edit: Or do I mean life or death...sorry, tired. I blame the Sherlock thread for keeping me up. Couldn't help 'rubbernecking'...

The last two episodes of Doctor Who left me a little flat and I'm not impressed with the direction that Sherlock seems to have taken but I can't help feeling sorry for Moffat. Looking at these threads and the Sherlock forum he really does seem to be public enemy number 1 at the moment. The level of hatred being directed towards the man seems disproportionate to his supposed crimes. After all he is one of three execs on Sherlock and one of three people to write last nights ep yet the others involved barely get a mention.

The first 3 minutes of Series 5 are some of the best...or they would be if they weren't eclipsed by the following 57 minutes.

I live in eternal hope that it will get better, which I'm sure it will once Moffat goes. I shouldn't have to stop watching my favourite programme because of one hack writer. But I have stopped watching Sherlock because of him. No idea what you mean about a vendetta.

To be fair, the first 60 (or so) minutes of Series 5 aren't all bad - pathetic plot, but some good set pieces, especially when the Doctor first sees his new face. But it all came crashing down with a bang with "The Beast Below" and never recovered.

It's statements like that that make it sound like you have a vendetta against Moffat. I believe you stopped watching Sherlock after the first episode this series that was written by Gattis not Moffat. We've actually yet to see the episode yet solely written by the 'hack writer'.

I have no "vendetta" against Moffat, I just think he is a very poor writer and show runner, that's all.