Doctor Who - Series 8 (Part 3)

[Replies From View]

I still don't feel like we've properly seen 12. It's odd, and I can't put my finger on it, he's there on screen, doing stuff, but something's not there. Something hasn't clicked.

True but this isn't necessarily a bad thing (as long as we have plenty of series with the 12th Doctor for things to even out); it's just a different approach to the one we've generally had.  I'm sure it's deliberate rather than an oversight; the lack of an instantly recognisable "12th Doctor's Theme" in Murray Gold's music, for example, suggests that on many levels they've wanted to keep this Doctor less pinned down than usual.

[Mister Six]

Let's lighten it up for S9 too, lighten the Doctor up, stop every episode been about everyone acting like dicks to each other all the time.

The grumpy Doc is fine; the problem is the world around him. Clara's an awful, unsympathetic person who's not impressed by anything; Danny is even worse;[nb]Remember when Cyber-Danny toyed with the idea of shooting Clara because she said she trusted The Doctor, but instead elected to knock her out and drag her to a graveyard, then let her wander around confused and scared and surrounded by other Cybermen for no reason other than he's a cunt?[/nb] children get shot dead in Middle Eastern wars; the 'souls' of the dead are trapped in a hellish Blade Runner-esque purgatory in which they are taunted by their failures until the delete their emotions...

The worlds of the 11th Doctor and (especially) the 10th and 9th Doctors were equally dark, but they were generally jovial and playful enough to offset that. And god knows they all had their moments of darkness and moral ambiguity (to the point where Matt Smith murdering that bloke in Dinosaurs on a Spaceship remains a far darker event than anything Capaldi's Doc has done).

What they need to do is keep The Doctor dark and unpredictable, but team him up with a companion (or companions) that's likeable and enthusiastic about the world around her. If The Doctor isn't showing us how awesome it is to zip through space and time in a magic box then give us someone who will, and will maybe soften him up a little bit in the process. Remember how lovely Rose's teasing and enthusiasm brought out a warmth and paternal quality in Eccles? That example - and the example of how fucking infuriating she was when she got into that Tennant smug-fest - show the importance of balancing your Doctor with a contrasting companion.

So here's hoping for a massive fake-out, and Clara pissing off at the end of the next episode.

[Mister Six]

It's a possibility that he's just exhausted everything he had planned. All that stuff about the Doctor's name and what it comes to mean, and him stepping out of the spotlight, that was stuff he'd been thinking over for decades as a Who fan.

...

With that all out of the way, he stick around for another series but he doesn't particularly have any burning ideas left

This rings true when I think of him inexplicably keeping Clara around. No ideas for a more compelling companion? Really?

[Replies From View]

Maybe he wants to resolve the leaf continuity.

Seriously though they could have done with some indication in series 8 of why Missy thought Clara was such a brilliant "choice" - why she put them together and kept them together, and whether Missy was manipulating Clara, Turlough-style, for her own ends.  I wish they'd wrapped all that up in series 8 and given us a new companion now, but as they didn't there remain some loose ends or things to explore further in series 9.

[biggytitbo]

They can keep him grumpy, dark, unpredictable etc, just make him less of a dickhead, and everyone else stop being twats to each other. Maybe that's Moffat"s idea of drama now, make everyone a cunt? Being around the Doctor is now such a miserable place you'd wonder why anyone bothers anymore.

[Replies From View]

They can keep him grumpy, dark, unpredictable etc, just make him less of a dickhead,

Which specific moments are you thinking of?  The time when Danny snuck into the TARDIS uninvited and spied on him, before making presumptions about his character and mocking him?  I would have told him to fuck off out of my house too; nothing unreasonable about his reaction there.

Personally I'm more disarmed by moments of inexplicable warmth, like when he says in 'Dark Water' that he would continue to take care of Clara even if she knocked him unconscious and threw all his TARDIS keys into a volcano.  So much so that I hope that in series 9 it turns out this was a manipulative gesture from him, and that there are others like it, as he explores how Clara is being hypnotised/controlled by Missy.

[biggytitbo]

Which specific moments are you thinking of?  The time when Danny snuck into the TARDIS uninvited and spied on him, before making presumptions about his character and mocking him?  I would have told him to fuck off out of my house too; nothing unreasonable about his reaction there.

Personally I'm more disarmed by moments of inexplicable warmth, like when he says in 'Dark Water' that he would continue to take care of Clara even if she knocked him unconscious and threw all his TARDIS keys into a volcano.  So much so that I hope that in series 9 it turns out this was a manipulative gesture from him, and that there are others like it, as he explores how Clara is being hypnotised/controlled by Missy.

His attitude to pretty much everyone - Clara, Danny, Courtney.

And no, the 'moment of inexplicable warmth' was one of the few moments where 12 really started to work - arguably the single best, and most Doctorish, moment in the whole of S8. I can imagine any previous Doctor saying it and it sounding right.

[Replies From View]

Yes, I thought you'd think that.

[Mango Chimes]

Seriously though they could have done with some indication in series 8 of why Missy thought Clara was such a brilliant "choice" - why she put them together and kept them together, and whether Missy was manipulating Clara, Turlough-style, for her own ends.  I wish they'd wrapped all that up in series 8 and given us a new companion now, but as they didn't there remain some loose ends or things to explore further in series 9.

They did wrap that up, it was just unconvincing.  "Ah, I needed someone who was SO STRONG WILLED that you'd GO BEYOND DEATH for her. (Granted, you actually just went to a building in London which had a sort of computer in it, and there's no real reason why I needed you to do that anyway as it's not like I was trapped there. BUT ANYWAY.)"

But yes, maybe they can retcon a better reason.  Especially with the 2D monsters episode, it seemed they were setting her up to be a Bad Companion – she starts acting like the Doctor, meaning the Doctor loses his conscience and does something awful.  So maybe they can do that and say it was the plan all along.  OR MAYBE IT WAS THE PLAN ALL ALONG AHhhhhhhh, eh.

[Mister Six]

Seriously though they could have done with some indication in series 8 of why Missy thought Clara was such a brilliant "choice"

They did - Clara's relationship with The Doctor means that she's the only person who'd be able to click her fingers and have him running; handy, when you want to ensure The Doctor is summoned to a specific time and place, so you can present him with your Cyber army.

Now you might or might not find that convincing and satisfying, but it was explained in the final episode.

[Replies From View]

That's a nonsense argument, though.  That describes basically anyone the Doctor trusts enough to have as a companion.  Nothing made Clara unique on that level.

She should have been hypnotised by Missy and sometimes, without knowing it, doing Missy's bidding, leading the Doctor into a trap.  A Turlough-esque dynamic.  And it would have made the whole volcano/keys fantasy situation fit better, too.

[Mister Six]

Nevertheless - it was explained.

[Replies From View]

Nevertheless - it was explained.

Not as far as I'm concerned.  Why Clara?  What did Clara especially do to merit Missy rubbing her hands together and saying "it's working!!!"

It's just a missed opportunity really.  Maybe if for series 9 Clara becomes hypnotised/controlled by Missy it could become more interesting, but there's an awful lot of retrospective "fixing" going on with Clara.

To be honest if they don't do something like this I'm really going to wish they'd dropped her after series 8.  The only worthwhile justification for keeping her is if there are loose ends to tie up.

[HappyTree]

The real justification for keeping her on (I know for a fact) is that Moffat is doing Sherlock and it's so much easier just to keep the same people doing the same things. So he gave the option to Coleman to decide herself if she was going to be in the next series. She tried to find something else, failed and stayed. Moffat said, "Ok cool, that makes things easier!" and ran off into the sunset clicking his heels as he made his way to yet another PR event to talk pompously about writing Doctor Who rather than actually writing it.

[Replies From View]

The real justification for keeping her on (I know for a fact) is that Moffat is doing Sherlock and it's so much easier just to keep the same people doing the same things. So he gave the option to Coleman to decide herself if she was going to be in the next series. She tried to find something else, failed and stayed. Moffat said, "Ok cool, that makes things easier!" and ran off into the sunset clicking his heels as he made his way to yet another PR event to talk pompously about writing Doctor Who rather than actually writing it.

This is how Biggy manufactures "facts" too.

[HappyTree]

Is that a fact?

[Replies From View]

Is that a fact?

Fact up beyond all recognition.

[HappyTree]

I think it's way too late to try to make out that Clara is so unresponsive because of something weird going on. The real weirdness is that after 2 series of her massacring every script she's still there. Surely the writers and directors have noticed. These are dark days indeed.

[BritishHobo]

If Moffat does decide to go deeper into Missy picking Clara (which I doubt, that seemed like him washing his hands of the whole thing), I wonder if he'll draw any kind of link between that and Danny's death. The assumption was that she orchestrated it, but that was never even hinted at, so you end up with Missy gently nudging Clara towards the Doctor and then waiting around in St Paul's Cathedral for a loved one of Clara's to die - occasionally popping back in time a hundred years to  reunite them via tiny advert in massive newspaper if they were going through a little bit of a spat[nb]which, given how aggressively hostile they were to each other throughout all of series 8, means she must have been hovering a few feet away the whole time, just in case[/nb].

[biggytitbo]

S9 filming in Spain again - https://mobile.twitter.com/BlogtorWho/status/554667599519555584?s=17

[Mister Six]

Not as far as I'm concerned.

I agree that it's shit, but as far as Moffat's concerned, he seems to think the job's done. There's nothing to 'wrap up', only retcon, so don't expect him to return to the Clara/Doctor manipulation again.

I do wonder whether he's going to bring Danny back whenever he sends off Clara, just so that he can explain how whatsisface Pink came to be in Listen. Unless he's going to say that she had a baby and left it with her parents to run around the universe with The Doctor, making her an even shittier person than she already is.

[Replies From View]

as far as Moffat's concerned, he seems to think the job's done.

I haven't read this interview; do you have a link?

[Mister Six]

Yes, it was speculation on my part. But it's speculation based on what's actually there on screen (ie. that plot element being addressed directly and then moved on from, however clumsily and unconvincingly) and just on my own wishful thinking.