Yes, I know the definition of drama, however we are talking dramatic writing are we not and not how long a series runs? Classing a drama because it runs for more than one episode and features a character/s that have a prominent family around as being more akin to soap than drama is frankly wrong.

Just because soaps also have families in them it does not make other shows, especially drama that feature family/families soap.

Is The Sopranos a soap then?

What makes something veer towards 'soap' when applied to dramatic writing , is the unlikely events that happens to the protagonists, so taking out the sci-fi , again I ask you which of my basic character synopsis veers more to 'soap'

It really is a simple question but you have not once addressed it.


Young girl growing up on a London estate finds herself in a rut and yearns to escape. She has a nice boyfriend but not really husband material. She has a mum that loves her and a father that passed away when she was young. She meets another man and goes traveling with him. Are her emotional attachments to this new guy one of love or the need of a father figure. Eventually she and her boyfriend grow apart. She and the person she is traveling with loose contact with each other and they reunite years later.


Young girl living in a quiet village, she has a nice boyfriend but is unsure about getting married to him and at times treats him with embarrassment and distain, until she eventually realises how much she loves him and they marry.
In the meantime she meets another man and goes traveling with him.
She becomes pregnant by her boyfriend but the baby is kidnapped and swapped with another 'baby'. The real baby turns out to be the wife of the guy she is traveling with, and as it turns out this wife/Amy ponds baby originally wanted to kill the guy our protagonist is traveling with. And also it turns out to be a long childhood friend of our companion.
Eventually she and her husband divorce and then get back together.




Now don't get hung up on where the characters are from, it is what happens to them that veers towards 'soap'
Also bare in mind I am not saying either are soap but if one is said to have soap elements because the protagonist has a family around her then surely the other must have soap elements because of the characters story.


Simples. Which one would you put the Eastenders drums at the end.

We really are talking a different language here, or at least at cross purposes. You keep trying to force my words into your false dilemma. I don't accept your selection criteria.

I'm not the one "hung up" on location. You introduced the village and the council estate. I actually pointed out the opposite. Location doesn't matter. You can have a soap set on a space station if you wish (and there actually was one too).

You could have set your storylines in the same physical setting without affecting the crux of them. You didn't because you were drawing the parallels between Rose's tale and Amy's tale.

Perhaps there was some misinterpretation of "setting"? I meant just the location, not the (for want of a better word) scenario.

Soaps are (generally) soaps because they feature 'ships and the mundane and they're designed to be constantly ongoing. They don't have a beginning, a middle and an end. They don't (generally) feature a weekly, separate jeopardy. Hence soap.

Other TV series (generally) are ongoing, feature a weekly jeopardy and focus less on 'ships.

The Sopranos (I've not seen but) from what I gather, is rather good. It is not a soap. It has a beginning a middle and an end. It features a family of gangsters which is not (for most people! ) a mundane scenario. It's in the modern style of TV series with an ongoing arc.

They way you describe your two scenarios, omitting almost everything that's remotely imaginative, both would sit well as soaps. Except that you've given them a beginning, a middle and end. Some of it reads like a daytime soap at that!

In an attempt to resolve this discussion then: Let's try to use different words and avoid apparently "problematic" ones like "soap" and "drama" and "character" which seem to mean slightly different things to each of us.

Analysing a little more: For me "soap" is probably code for "mundane" (=boring), "drama" is probably code for "entertaining" (=interesting).

Here's a restatement of my thoughts, as direct and as unambiguous as I can make it:

There's more of the mundane as background in RTD's era than in SM's era.

Simples!

Season 4 yeah thing started things on a better footing but your glazing over the Dross of Fear Her(I still have nightmares of the doctor running with the Olympic torch again), the stupidity of the farting Slithreen, the constant revisiting of some council estate in London, the horrifically poor Master(Simm) which was made worse with the amazing portrayal by Jacobi, The lets all wish for the Doctor resolution for S3 and they do a similar lets all ring the Doctor for S4... Oh Tennant's stupidly long I've been exposed to lethal radiation farewell tour.

Season 5 onwards has been a massive step up in quality IMO, slight dip at the beginning of S7Pt2 but that didn't last long

That doesn't make it necessarily a soap. One of the key movements in drama is the kitchen sink drama, which is defined by its mundane settings and action. Also, Chekhov focuses a lot on the mundane.

Soaps are anything but mundane. They bear a faint enough resemblance to real life in order for us to engage with them but they are overblown, extravagant, scandalous. I think that soaps have to bear some faint resemblance to real-life set-ups, which is why I wouldn't call Moffat's stuff a soap. Melodrama would perhaps be a better term.

I'm not hung up location. In order to give a basic character synopsis I included where the characters are from. They could be from Buckingham Palace and the slums of Africa for all I care. It is just you chose to ignore the rest of my character synopsis in favour of just focusing on location.


Of course I'm drawing parallels, how do you expect me to ask why one is deemed more soap than the other.

They are not my story lines,I didn't not create them. They are however the basic character arcs of two of the shows companions, one you deem had soap elements yet not the other, as if 'soap' just applies to something being 'family and mundane' and only that.


'Soap' is also a style of writing that stretches wider than if the protagonist has a family or not.



Both eras have focused strongly on relationships. Would you not say Amy and Rory's relationship featured far more heavily than Rose and Mickey's But of course that isn't soap is it, they didn't have a family around them, well most of the time.
You do seem to be picking and choosing what to throw one way but not the other.




Neither is a family that contains a girl that goes traveling through space and time, taking her Mum and boyfriend with her mundane, regardless of their actual 'mundane' scenario.




Exactly. So why do you deem one more 'soap' just because one has a prominent family especially considering the other(without the family) has far stronger soap elements to the characters personal story arc. You seem to be cherry picking what to class as soap down to just family and mundane setting (although it isnt about location..right)

Here you go, another example.
Young man is raised by his uncle and aunt, in a backwater middle of nowhere place.
He never knew his parents.
He goes to fight in a war.
He finds out that the leader of the bad guys is the Father he never knew.
He finds out that his friend is really his sister.

You see basic character synopsis. I've taken out all the sci fi and the imaginative stuff, how does it effect the basic character arc. It doesn't. So I stand by my basic synopsis of two characters in Doctor Who.


The term 'soap' can also be how something is written for, out of the blue shock value for example, an almost inconceivable and unbelievable twist. Did Eastenders not have a baby kidnapping story, does Eastenders not deal in 'this person who you thought was so and so is really your daughter, or insert character at you own will'

So for example.

After establishing the character of Rose we later found out that her father was really the vicar at the local church and her mother was not her real mother but her elder sister, would you deem that as soap if that had happened, after all it is pretty soapy isnt it.

Soap operas do those things all the time. So why do you deem the RTD era for having a family in a mundane setting soap but not Amy Ponds story arc of love, marriage/break up, having twists like baby kidnapping and shocking family revelations.

But one is soap the other not because one had a family that lived in a block of flats, yes

I think you are picking and choosing.

Again I am not saying using these in drama makes them soap as they are classic drama staples, that have been going long before soap operas were invented, it is just soap opera use these styles of storytelling constantly to grab viewers.


So if you are classing a character for simply having a family as 'soap' then surely you must class elements of Amy Ponds story arc as soap also.

agree with you overall on fear her (except for doctor running with olympic torch which was cool) but other wise.. liked the slitheen, love john simm's portrayal of the master, thought series 3 & 4 were and still are two of the best finale's weve had from 2005 right up till now, and thought the farewell tour was one of the better part's of the end of time. just difference of opinion I guess.

The Russell T legacy has been exterminated by what came after him.
I just hope the damage Smith and Moffat did can be reversed.

At least we have an actor now so if we can just get Moffat away from the controls, we stand a slight chance of getting it back.

If not, then giving it a break for 14 years would be better than it dying a death of the puerile children's TV it has become.

I agree with pretty much everything you mentioned in your post, however this one little bit is one thing I could never hold against RTD. Introducing a whole new alien planet and making it look convincing has got to be extremely difficult, and I imagine that during RTD's time on the show that there were far greater constraints to the budget and the resources that made the show. As RTD's era went on you began to see more of those alien planets, so I think he would have loved to have explored them some more to begin with. But I'm glad they were up front about sticking to Earth early on, rather than making Eccleston and an early-on Tennant run around an unconvincing set where the ambition exceeded the budget.

Sometimes we get brilliant alien planets in the show. I feel that New Earth was nicely done in Series 2 and 3, the Ood-Sphere was very well realised in Series 4, as was Alfava Metraxis in Series 5 and Akhaten in Series 7. But we still get those alien planets that are just too-Earth-like and it creeps in a little too intrusively - Malcassairo in Utopia was clearly nothing but a Welsh quarry at night, complete with contemporary trucks and guns. Shan Shen in Turn Left had a great landscape moment, and wasn't that important in the greater scheme of things, but it really was just an any-old-Chinatown. Examples like these are wonderful to add a bit of alien exposition, but aside from that would not lose anything much if they were a future Earth either.

agreed. in doomsday you could just feel the overwhelming agony of both character's as rose was forever(seemingly) parted from the doctor.what made this more prominent was that there relationship up until this point had felt real and quite intimate(in term's of closeness) and so it really was like the end of the world for both of them (and it no small part this was helped by billie piper and david tennant's wonderful acting. Billie was all blubbing and snot nosed in the way you get when you dont care about keeping your composure, you really could believe that she was in bits). In comparison, when amy and rory left I didn't really feel anything. I acknowledged that they tried to make a big deal about it and make both amy and the doctor sad, but for some reason it just didn't have the same effect on me. Just felt fake.

But I thought you liked Moffat!

Some of his writing was OK, some brilliant, when handled by RTD but it's been nothing but a tragically slow death since he took control.

When it returned it became a true drama for all ages, bloody good TV even outside of being Dr Who, not it's a silly kid's programme. Smith lovers say that he can act but then put him against CE and see the blinding difference. It needs someone with balls and Smith didn't have any.

Just quoting the end of your long posting rather than all of it: nicely argued.

I would also add that one of the key differences is that a drama often highlights the extraordinary in the framework of everyday life, whereas soap often makes the 'drama' out of unrealistic situations themselves, using increasingly bonkers events to generate interest - and consequently also creating a storyline that is exclusive to those that follow it intensely and understand all the history and the nuances. Then pressing the 'reset' button every so often as though that same history had never happened. So I'd go with the Amy story being somewhat more soapy that the storylines that went before.

Stories about relationships of themselves are not at all soapy just because the relationship is at the core. I don't call "King Lear" a soap and family relationships are at the centre of the play.

I'm quite the opposite Donna was the only RTD companion I felt anything for, and while I've felt sad for Rose(Father's Day) and Ten, the feelings I had for Amy and Eleven... I've been in tears repeatedly, and my the end of the Time of the Doctor is so Powerful. Even Rory somebody I originally thought got in the way of the Doctor and Amy's relationship became somebody I rooted for and wanted to win out in the end, I think Amy's Choice was very important in the development of all the characters in the Moffat era.

Clara... I think she has been a too happy a passenger so far, I think she needs so hardship, going through this regeneration with the Doctor could be the kick she needs.

Absolutely: often said that many a good writer needs someone else to bring out the best in them.

I don't think there's any one particular way a character should be acted, particularly one so constantly adaptive as The Doctor. Eccleston is my favourite Doctor, with Smith a close second. I think they're both terrific actors and offer up something completely different respectively.

have to agree here. Not saying all of moffat's writing is bad, and definitely wouldn't personally blame smith, in factI think he's done well with the script's he's had to work with, but it definitely feel's true that it used to be an all inclusive thing which had gone from being seen as a geeky show in the 80's to being a mainstream show watched by many of all age's,now though, in the non inclusive, 'watch and remember every detail I give you and if your lucky I might give you an answer in three years' style of moffat, I think, despite rating's still being okay, it's more being seen as that wierd geeky show once again. people say moffat can't win when people moan about a big arc(series 6) or moan about lack of one(series 7) but thing's like bad wolf, mr saxon, torchwood, were both simple and non intrusive to individual episodes and was a big worthy, come together end on the last ep, so show's there's a middle ground and it can be done

I hear what you saying and you're probably right. However, visiting alien planets was such an integral part of the Classic Show(Pertwee Era aside), it just felt a lot of that had been taken away.

This is exactly what I think.

The difference between the relationships of Tenth/Rose and Amy/Rory, is that the latter relied on twists and turns (i.e. River Song) to get us to 'care', whereas the Tenth/Rose one developed naturally.

I was listening to part one of the Big Finish audios (The Stones of Venice) and assuming that the others parts are as good, I'd far rather that the TV episodes were like this. It takes a real location and makes it seem magical.

As I recall, the Ninth and Tenth had a lot more sight-seeing type of adventures. Surely the whole appeal of the show is the sight-seeing, with a bit of danger thrown in? Simple.

I'm not sure the point of the show should be sight-seeing plus danger. We still get those episodes in the Moffat era interspersed with the arc ones as we did with RTD. While I like the core idea of the Doctor being something of a hapless time traveler going from planet to planet and time to time and think this is much closer to the core of the show than any kind of 'Protector of the Universe' heroics I do think the show needs a bit of drive and purpose which the arcs give it.

It would look a bit silly and outdated if every week it was just a repeat of 'Hey! Lets go here!*insert random vaguely unpronounceable Alien planet name* its great! Oh no. We've landed right in the middle of some massive trouble. Something's terribly wrong! Lets solve it neatly and then leave! Same again next episode!'


I do love those sorts of episodes! They are classic DW. But not every week.

Its why I also liked the aspects written in by RTD and then further emphasised by Moffat that while the Doctor may have thought he was just going from place to place as time went on a legend built up. As it would do. So he became celebrated and feared in equal measure.

Also with regards to other posts rehashing the 'its childish now' argument which is quite frankly bizarre.

I wonder what show people were watching from S1-4. It wasn't exactly Breaking Bad. Watch Partners in Crime. So apparently the Moffat era is too niche and complicated and alienates the wider audience but at the same time its childish? Yes. That makes sense. And when I say sense I mean no sense at all.

Maybe 'sight-seeing' is the wrong word; 'travelling', as you said, is a better one. There can still be an arc to it; maybe a nice bit of backstory. I liked the whole thing with Nine being a sort of outcast from his people and I kind of miss that interest on a dramatic level.

Easy, That would be a Moffat cliffhanger

Whereas with a Davies episode the Eastenders drums would need inserting about 10 minutes before the end
...sort of like if they left them in the omnibus edition

I haven't read all of this thread but i think one of RTD's biggest legacies will be the whole regeneration sequence(especially now the whole time war will become quite irrelevant soon or at least mentioned very rarely). As opposed to the classic series where every regeneration was completely different, I think everyone's pretty much agreed now that all time lords should regenerate in the same way- a bit of a build up, lots of gold light and then a new doctor checking himself out and acting a bit hyper. I think this has basically become standard because it works, and I don't see it changing any time soon

I liked the different types of regenerating. The TVM and first regeneration are my favourite ones

Hi Abomination I read your post this morning and just wanted to respond as it got me thinking all day ( haven’t caught up with the rest of the thread yet) that you captured really nicely a lot of how I feel about RTD’s legacy.

He did and can write some beautiful character moments which I think allowed an audience to understand his characters motivation and the success of the series in his era was partly due to the appeal to the ‘everyman’ . I don’t mean this in a derogatory way at all ( and I know others in this thread have discussed soap versus drama to interpret his era) but I think he was able to connect with the audience. So for instance Jackie’s reaction in ‘Aliens in London’ to seeing her missing daughter after a year or Rose’s understandable desire to see her dead father in Fathers Day are very real emotions and I did invest in the characters. I enjoy Doctor Who far more when I’m getting an emotional response and invested in the characters. And I talking as a fan of the classic series when the only time you had an emotional reaction was when a companion left. I remember the 5th Doctor’s sadness when Tegan declared she had enough of the killing and left and he couldn’t even hug her goodbye but I cried.#

I think that most of his stories ( written by him)are rewatchable over and over and as an audience member you can re-feel those emotions and go through the story and invest in the characters. I still get moved watching Boom Town ( discussion in the restaurant) And when he does do an action finale well such as Doomsday ( when Rose and the Doctor are parted) or the Master trilogy in Series 3 it is fantastic. Seeing Donna lose her memories in Series 4 still gets me when she doesn’t even recognise him anymore or knows what she did.

He seems very flexible in themes and styles so you get adventure yarns such as Tooth and Claw, thoughtful stories such as Gridlock or psychological dramas such as Midnight.
Of course not saying he was perfect as there were times when he just overdid it ( Gollum Doctor) and the End of Time ( Skeletor master) but the emotional moments when they come were very satisfying.