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Hasn't been good since Series 4 |
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#26 |
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Join Date: Dec 2015
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I do admire the fact that both showrunners so far have managed to take their own approach somewhat, whilst also making the show relatively uniform - we've gone from 13 to 12 episodes per series in the Capaldi era, and the placing of Christmas specials has become erratic, but aside from that the show has remained quite tidy and it's left each individual series to explore new approaches in different ways.
I don't think RTD was as experimental as Moffat, but then he was for all intents and purposes working with a "new" show back in 2005. He needed it to be uniform from series to series so that people had an idea of what they were getting. The show can jump genres from episode to episode, so the consistency that binds it into being one show comes from the approach to the series itself. Moffat was always going to have to reinvent the wheel at some point. Few shows last half as long as Doctor Who has lasted in its C21 years alone, and success and longevity come from adapting and changing. The show remains largely the same in structure as always, but Moffat has undeniably mixed the formula up a lot more each year - it then means it's been a lot more hit-and-miss, and sometimes it feels much more fragmented... with two two-parters at its start I felt Series 9 was needlessly top-heavy, for example. Series 4 is particularly strong because it is the ultimate culmination. RTD was a sucker for a big bombastic finale, as his finales showed every time they upped the ante. Series 4 was very much the series-spanning finale to his era, and it was at its peak. Confidence in the show, a well-established lead backed up by a well-known comedienne and a backlog of relatively new continuity to make new, young viewers feel like they were part of something greater...just as had been the privilege of older Doctor Who fans for several years. Series 5 is quite strong because it opted for a clean slate, and nowhere was that going to work better after such a sentimenal 'return' series. The sheer tonal change and lead cast overhaul meant a more divisive turning point for some viewers, but it wasn't damaging overall. Series 6 began to play with the formula more...as a whole it shows that Moffat is getting comfortable, but being relatively early on in his tenure the stories are still very ambitious and fresh. The messing with the formula didn't pay off and the story arc lets the series down in the end, but there are some fantastic and notably strong standalone stories in there. Series 7 messed things around again - standalone stories throughout and the first time lead cast members were departing outside of a finale-scale event. Again this meddling with structure didn't quite pay off... the standalone stories weren't quite as strong, their abundance devalued them as well, and there was a bit of a contrast between the series opting for massive mid-series changes but not having anything other than standalone self-contained episodes to deliver it. To add insult to injury it has to pay lip service to the subsequent 50th anniversary...which was also a very divisive story. Series 8 saw Moffat maybe get the structure right a lot more... bringing back the two-part finale, but not entirely looking backwards by returning to the S1-5 format. He maintained the standalone story structure, but there was a more serialised nature to the Doctor and Clara's relationship that made the whole thing feel much more confident and connected than Series 7 had. Unfortunately it's also when the creative well began running dry a bit, and ideas were either poorly realised or there were some crazy leaps in logic/canonity. Series 9 messed with the structure again, perhaps enabling a different kind of storytelling that paved the way for what felt like a second wind of creativity. But it ended up feeling top-heavy, the episode order wasn't quite right feeling (Dalek story could have been a one-parter, also making room for an additional standalone script, Viking story should have been earlier on to space out the Ashildr story) and it felt very fragmented until near the end. Each series has had its strengths and its weaknesses, and there's no perfect series. I maintain that Series 4 likely had the most strengths... somehow the stories hadn't grown stale at that point, and the show had a great structure too. It's since gone stale, bounced back, had poor structure and improved upon it too. Each series has really been its own, and perhaps the problem is that each individual series is starting to become less comparable to what came before. A more recurring, routine structure for a few years might be good for it. Moffat for me initially knew what he wanted to do in S5 and S6 thematically and in tone however since then every season or even episodes are so vastly different. This has then resulted in inconsistent character behaviour to suit the script of the episode. One episode Capaldi is this dark doctor, the next he is acting like Matt Smith. I just feel from the characters and the show the past few seasons, Moffat just doesn't know which direction to take the show, he keeps changing his mind even in the same episode at times and it has taken people out of the moment. |
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