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Doctor Who Series 7 and beyond (may contain spoilers)

Started by biggytitbo, January 07, 2012, 12:39:31 PM

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gatchamandave

What is the panel's view on River Song?

Personally I find her an enormous fun-killer. I can see what they were trying to do, create a Brigadier style semi-recurring character with a different approach but the same moral compass as the Doctor. Alas, due partly to casting but mostly to some hideous retconning attempting to make her mysterious rather than the straightforward character she needed to be, given that one already has a mysterious traveller in time and space to play with, she's become a drag. Your mileage may differ though and I'd like to know why.

biggytitbo

I like her in older adventuress incarnation (Pandorcia, Big Bang, Imposible Astronaut) but the 'younger' version seen in Lets Kill Hitler and Wedding of River Song was pretty horrible and annoying.

Talulah, really!

I like her when she is an active character less so when she is simply a plot device. I don't have any problems with what Alex Kingston does, only with the material she sometimes has to work with. The acting in Let's Kill Hitler is very good I think, it serves what they are trying to do, it's just that the actual story and situation isn't for me.

Quote from: gatchamandave on January 24, 2012, 09:06:57 AM
attempting to make her mysterious rather than the straightforward character she needed to be,

I'll disagree with this, to be the Doctor's one true love, the constant companion he comes back to again and again to share the universe with, she should be as multi-faceted as he is, clever, enigmatic, resourceful, tender, cruel, etc but too many times now the character is being reduced to a sterile checklist of cliches and catchphrases on each outing.

biggytitbo

I'd say the only times she's reduced to a plot device is Let's Kill Hitler and Wedding of River Song. She's an active participant in the stories of all her other episodes.

gatchamandave

Hmn
#64
Is she convincing as the Doctor's one true love, though? I have a problem with the idea with someone so prone to waving weapons about being the one for him. To me, she seems the sort who, back in the Tom/Lalla/K9 period would have been regarded with contempt, if not as outright baddie. I'm thinking of the likes of Cessair of Diplos or Adrasta here.

Now, maybe that's an insecurity on my part regarding powerful women, but Moffat is a Davison fan, and a core text of that era, Kinda, has much to say on gender identity and weapon abuse as the resort of deluded minds.

Maybe The Moff prefers Earthshock, though, where the gun is good ?

To me, she's one of those girls you meet at a party who only talk about how deep and interesting they are but never seem to be. River talks big, but doesn't do much. She may yet, of course

phantom_power

Isn't part of his attraction to her how they met and got to know each other? She knew him but he didn't know her, which he found intriguing. Then she sacrificed her life for him, which has to be a bit of a turn-on. Their subsequent meetings were full of adventure and intrigue, in which she was a fully active part, being just as clever, brave and inscrutible as him. Seems like ideal Dr Who love interest material to me

Dusty Gozongas

Quote from: gatchamandave on January 24, 2012, 02:49:50 PM
Maybe The Moff prefers Earthshock, though, where the gun is good ?

It comes across to me as simply knowing their transatlantic target audience.

mycroft

The River/Doctor relationship reminds me of Plinkett's summing up of Obi-Wan Kenobi/Anakin Skywalker: we only know what brilliant friends they are because we're repeatedly told they are, rather than seeing it for ourselves. Although I did warm to her slightly when she was a psychotic killer, I generally found River to be an annoying Mary-Sue who sucked all the coolness and fun out of the Doctor.

Serge

As one of possibly two members of this forum who would take Alex Kingston over Karen Gillan any day, I have no critical distance from this discussion, so shall now bow out disgracefully.

BritishHobo

I think the whole thing was almost perfect. Though she annoyed me the first time I saw the library episodes, being too familiar and smug for my liking, I thought they managed to do an excellent job revealing her past with the Doctor, her confidence lowering a little each time (making her always interesting to me) and his growing, and by the opening two-parter of series 6, they seemed to be on pretty much equal footing, the dynamic between them working brilliantly. Over the first half of series 6, it seemed like they were really working at portraying the Doctor as someone who is realizing that maybe love isn't so bad, with his loneliness in the otherwise-generic pirate episode, and of course the excellent Doctor's Wife, so when Let's Kill Hitler came around, I personally loved how their relationship had been written so far. That episode gets a lot of complaints, but I will always defend it for filling out so much of her backstory, and some excellent moments between them. His line to Melody Pond that only River Song gets to call him 'dear' . At that point they could just have gone on to more adventures, River knowing him less and less each time, until he tragically has to say goodbye, and I think it would have been one amazing way of giving the Doctor a romance: by giving it an expiry date, Moffat guaranteed it wouldn't drag out and would have an ending that doesn't lower the Doctor to a soap opera character. His backwards-running story even worked so well that the library episodes that first irritated me are now a tragic two-parter where the ending retrospectively becomes tragic.

Then The Wedding of River Song gone fucked it all up for me. I gave that episode a lot of probably quite over-exaggerated hate on here, especially because at heart it is just a fun little romp in a family sci-fi show, but to me he managed to screw up quite a believably-growing relationship by forcing in a fake-marriage where River is a glorified obsessive who the Doctor has genuine disdain for, and only marries so that she'll listen to him explain why her plan is ruining his. Where they could have gone for taking the relationship to the ultimate level before it has to die out, Moffat just mucked about and dragged it down to such a low point, seemingly tossing it in thoughtlessly in a jumble of other alternate-universe ideas, the same way he did with the 'ending' to the Kovarian/Doctor dies arc.

I'm hopeful that in series 7 we can just go on as if that episode never happened, given that most of it didn't, and I genuinely am still looking forward to seeing how they wind down the relationship. If I just never ever watch that finale again, the River Song romance will be one of my favourite things that happened in new Who.

gatchamandave

Nice post, BritishHobo. Just the food for thought I was seeking.

biggytitbo

Apparently, a big
Spoiler alert
yank star
[close]
is filming soon.

Replies From View

#72
Quote from: gatchamandave on January 24, 2012, 09:06:57 AM
What is the panel's view on River Song?

Don't know about "the panel's view"; I'll give you my own.

I thought she was great until they wrapped it up in such a farcical manner.  The open-endedness of her being part Time Lord was brilliant; it seemed possible that she'd be the Doctor's future love in unscreened episodes, with her being hundreds of years old as well and not always Alex Kingston.  It opened up the possibility that River could come back seven or eight or twenty years from now in different guises, just like the Master has lasted.

But for me the whole thing fell apart not at The Wedding of River Song, but at Let's Kill Hitler.  Moffat couldn't resist just tying the whole thing up, making her only about as old as the actress Alex Kingston, and therefore diminishing the sense of them having any meaningful future together.  The way her sense that she was losing the Doctor was beautifully done.  Everything worked as long as there was a meaningful future between her and the Doctor that we hadn't seen yet, and was responsible for her being playfully aloof.  Take that away, and presto - she's just being smug because she's smug.

Rumour has it that
Spoiler alert
Alex Kingston isn't done with Doctor Who yet, and River Song will be back in the next series
[close]
, so perhaps we'll yet get what many of us feel is missing of the relationship itself rather than being told about it.  I do hope so, but to be honest I want it to remain platonic, not be a romantic thing.

Replies From View

Quote from: phantom_power on January 24, 2012, 03:52:01 PM
Isn't part of his attraction to her how they met and got to know each other? She knew him but he didn't know her, which he found intriguing. Then she sacrificed her life for him, which has to be a bit of a turn-on. Their subsequent meetings were full of adventure and intrigue, in which she was a fully active part, being just as clever, brave and inscrutible as him. Seems like ideal Dr Who love interest material to me

Yes, if it hadn't all happened within the same time span that the Doctor has known Amy Pond.  The problem is that this has all been rushed within two seasons; I think for the Doctor all these "subsequent meetings" would feel like the blink of an eye, mostly falling within two years not just for us but for him.

biggytitbo

Since we already saw her die, he couldn't make her an ongoing part time lord could he?

Replies From View

Quote from: biggytitbo on January 25, 2012, 10:44:22 AM
Since we already saw her die, he couldn't make her an ongoing part time lord could he?

Why not?  With the young girl regenerating, and us not knowing what filled that gap between the young girl and Alex Kingston, it seemed possible that Alex Kingston would be the last body of many.  Making her hundreds of years old would have left open the possibility of the years and years of her and the Doctor knowing each other, and made the "true love" (even if it turns out to be just platonic) sentiments that were always being expressed resonate far more strongly than they now possibly can.

gatchamandave

Good stuff chums. Thanks for it all.

I don't rewatch much of modern Who, but my good lady does. She has the view that the problem with River is that the first story heavily hints that she is indeed his one great love, and future wife, and there are even suggestions that at some point she wounds him deeply, to her regret.

However, Moffat in her view either changed his mind or decided that he'd thought he had come up with something even better, and so started down the path of her being Amy's daughter. So he needed to do a bit of retrofitting.

The real problems arose when Moffat started claiming that we'd all be startled by where she originated, and much of fandom replied "...as long as it's not something lame, like her being Amy's daughter."

Cue desperate attempts to ramp her up as the centre of everyone's life.

The Roofdog

Yes, I think that River being Baby Pond was a misstep, not just because it was lamely predictable but because it necessitated the whole "she was conceived on the TARDIS" hand-wave (an idea that even Amy & the Doctor preemptively take the piss out of with the whole "time-head" discussion) and the massive fudge of the kidnapped baby subplot. She should've just been a hidden Time War survivor, smuggled off Gallifrey as a baby by Marlon Brando before it was destroyed.

biggytitbo

River as Amy's baby was only lamely predictable to those who'd explored every single possibility as to who she was on messageboards. The average viewer would have had no idea.

Ballad of Ballard Berkley

Quote from: biggytitbo on January 25, 2012, 12:44:51 PM
River as Amy's baby was only lamely predictable to those who'd explored every single possibility as to who she was on messageboards. The average viewer would have had no idea.

Moffat now claims, perhaps disingenuously, that every child watching would've easily predicted that River was Amy's daughter, and that the eventual reveal wasn't really the point. Instead, it was all the fun and drama surrounding this plot-line that mattered. I don't necessarily believe that, but that's what he says.

biggytitbo

Does he? I know a couple of casual watchers who had no idea about the reveal and there were plenty of people on twitter for whom it came as a big surprise. I guess with Who there are big variances in the level of engagement of the audience though.

BritishHobo

For me it genuinely always comes back to Moffat's hype: he should just stop ramping it up so much, in-show and out. Okay, so it's easy to ignore his (admittedly lovable) excitement on Twitter, but when he feels the need to have his every character point out how bloody important and huge the next big arc plot point is going to be, it invariably leads to speculation and anticipation and inevitably disappointment.

He's doing it again at the moment, really hammering it home that
Spoiler alert
the end to Amy and Rory's story is going to be heartbreaking.
[close]
Show not tell, man, surely that's an absolutely basic rule of writing.

Replies From View

Quote from: biggytitbo on January 25, 2012, 12:44:51 PM
River as Amy's baby was only lamely predictable to those who'd explored every single possibility

It was my first guess.

It's lamely predictable only in the sense that it's the sort of thing that somebody trying too hard always does.  If he'd gone with something more obvious, like letting River Song be a rogue Time Lord who'd escaped the time war, then it'd have been both more satisfying and more original.

Replies From View

Quote from: Ballad of Ballard Berkley on January 25, 2012, 01:10:23 PM
Instead, it was all the fun and drama surrounding this plot-line that mattered. I don't necessarily believe that, but that's what he says.

This must be what he means by "slutting it up".  He means it's about the excitement on internet message boards as people wonder what might be going on.  Okay, fair enough, as long as he doesn't forget that the school playground is the most important internet message board of all.

I'm deeply sorry, but something is soon going to lead to speculation and anticipation and ultimately disappointment.

Quote from: BritishHobo on January 25, 2012, 01:31:33 PM
For me it genuinely always comes back to Moffat's hype: he should just stop ramping it up so much, in-show and out. Okay, so it's easy to ignore his (admittedly lovable) excitement on Twitter, but when he feels the need to have his every character point out how bloody important and huge the next big arc plot point is going to be, it invariably leads to speculation and anticipation and inevitably disappointment.

I told you.  I hope that was brilliant.

biggytitbo


Replies From View

Quote from: biggytitbo on January 25, 2012, 03:22:25 PM
That's you.


There were loads of people who didn't guess it.

We were asked for our own opinions, if I haven't gone completely mad.

biggytitbo

Quote from: Replies From View on January 25, 2012, 03:31:53 PM
We were asked for our own opinions, if I haven't gone completely mad.
Depends whether we're talking predictability in a purely subjective sense. It was predictable for you, but not for many casual viewers. So charging Moffat with predictability is problematic.

Replies From View

Quote from: biggytitbo on January 25, 2012, 03:42:11 PM
Depends whether we're talking predictability in a purely subjective sense. It was predictable for you, but not for many casual viewers. So charging Moffat with predictability is problematic.

I was answering you.  You said "River as Amy's baby was only lamely predictable to those who'd explored every single possibility" and I was saying that "it was my first guess".  It was my first guess means that I was speaking about myself.

To me, Moffat was being predictable, in the sense that people who are trying too hard usually conjure up the same kinds of unoriginal ideas.  Sometimes being more "obvious" is exactly what works better, and is more original.

I'm sorry but I'm someone who doesn't use IMO and IMHO in his posts.  I never have and I never will; I hate it.  And I was replying to a generalisation anyway.

gatchamandave

Oh, no getting away from it, there were as many suggesting she was Romana, The Rani, or The Terrible Zodin, and many points in between. Nevertheless, a number did make the whole River/Pond connection - quite a few on Outpost Gallifrey for a start. Many were the pointings and the laughings at them. As if Moffat would be so obvious to signpost a plot twist as old as Oedipus Rex, eh?

Me? I reckoned it the moment we discovered Amy was pregnant.

The missus then told me I was "slow on the uptake"

biggytitbo

Quote from: Replies From View on January 25, 2012, 04:06:38 PM
I was answering you.  You said "River as Amy's baby was only lamely predictable to those who'd explored every single possibility" and I was saying that "it was my first guess".  It was my first guess means that I was speaking about myself.

To me, Moffat was being predictable, in the sense that people who are trying too hard usually conjure up the same kinds of unoriginal ideas.  Sometimes being more "obvious" is exactly what works better, and is more original.

I'm sorry but I'm someone who doesn't use IMO and IMHO in his posts.  I never have and I never will; I hate it.  And I was replying to a generalisation anyway.


Fair enough, but I stick to my point that it wasn't predictable in a pejorative sense for most casual viewers. It was predictable in the sense that it was possible and logical within itself and thus guessable. But either way he can't win. He can't make it so complex and elaborate that nobody can predict it. River could just have pulled her mask off to reveal she was Scooby Doo, nobody would have predicated it but it wouldn't make any sense or be any good.