Dînadan wrote:Totally agree with you. And as I said, it'd be nice if she were brought back to explore how she's grown during her time away. And although she'd now be more of an equal to the Doctor, just as I don't want to see River become like her, I wouldn't want her to be written like River, so if they were to do that, they must make sure that that doesn't happen.
I don't think she'd be much like River. River was playful, coy, and flirtatious; I'd expect Romana, having just gone through an incredibly shitty war, to be a lot more serious, no-nonsense, perhaps grim. Also, Romana was never a romantic interest for the Doctor (even if one of the actors that played her was ), so that whole angle wouldn't be there.
As for newer fans not having seen any Romana episodes; that's an excuse for the Beeb to rerun those episodes and shill the dvds for them
Hey, look, I don't want to watch reruns of those episodes. (Except for the ones by Douglas Adams; those were pretty good)
My argument with this episode isn't so much the inconsistencies that crop up. ( I mean are we supposed to believe now that any statue can be an Angel? )
Its more that its a sign of the falling standards of Moffats writing skills.
I see it as a three fold problem, he's the head writer on two shows, lead director on two shows and the creator of two of the creepiest enemies Who has seen in a long time.
I think Moffat is spreading himself way too thin and should honestly drop one of the two things he's on. It would ultimately lead to a better show for both things really. Who and Sherlock alike.
The tone of the episode is very well done imo, we have a lot of things going on that probably would have been better suited for a 2-parter. But it works well as a goodbye to Rory and Amy.
If I truly do get under your skin and piss you off, I'm at least doing my job by offending the right people.
And yes...I do not care if that offends
lightningbarer wrote:( I mean are we supposed to believe now that any statue can be an Angel? )
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Actually yes, that's been a part of them from their first episode. Go back and watch Blink; it ends with a montage of various statues played as the Doctor gives his closing 'Don't blink' monologue. If the intention wasn't for those to be Angels (or potential Angels), there'd be no point in having them in the montage.
IMO the implication of that original outro wasn't that any statue could potentially transform into and Angel, rather that any random statue you don't know the origin of could potentially be an angel all along for all you know.
The Statue of Liberty's construction is world famous. It being an Angel implies that the Weeping Angels work like demonic possession or a body-snatcher invasion; that they can take over or replace any pre-existing object as long as it's statue-shaped. A misc. statue on a street corner, while it does have a history that someone knows, is to most people just an anonymous bit of decoration that showed up one day, and thus paranoia fuel for that original outro.
Personally, I feel like the Weeping Angels always worked best as a one-shot story. Revisiting them would be possible, but would have to be done thoughtfully, otherwise it would only deflate their impact. Unfortunately the latter is what happened: they got reused stupidly repeatedly, and now they've lost a bunch of their former creepiness and are just anther cheesy Dr. Who villain.
I dunno, there are some sci-fi franchises that try to be "harder" in terms of everything being plausible and making sense in some way, and... Doctor Who ain't it. If you have to know how they eat and breathe, and other science facts, this probably ain't your show.
Nothing to do with hardness or plausibility, or the exact "hows" of the details, just with intent.
For that matter, I don't care if it's a retcon either. Doctor Who has always had a very... permeable continuity. That bugs some people, but not me, because, well, it's a show about time travel. Of course continuity's always changing: the Doctor's not the only one who meddles, and his species isn't even the biggest fish at it.
No, when I say "stupid", I mean the writing is less competent on a basic level. "Blink" is a great, tightly made little self-contained horror story. The Angels episodes since (that I've seen) have been muddled, slightly below average affairs. Seeing the angels move on-screen, for example, was dumb not because of in-universe nuts and bolts, but because purely as a matter of visual presentation it's just plain way creepier when they move during the instants you can't see them. Actually seeing them in motion takes away some of the creepy (and the sense of mystique) and replaces it with goofyness.
It's the same thing that tends to happen to horror movies when they become a franchise. You get a great stand-alone feature that kicks things off, maybe one decent sequel if you're lucky, then a sharply descending conga-line of arglebargle. Because the people making that first movie were actually trying, but the people in charge of the franchise that came after weren't interested in the actual product, only in getting every last scrap of peanut butter out of the bottom of the jar.
Nessus wrote:...It's the same thing that tends to happen to horror movies when they become a franchise. You get a great stand-alone feature that kicks things off, maybe one decent sequel if you're lucky, then a sharply descending conga-line of arglebargle. Because the people making that first movie were actually trying, but the people in charge of the franchise that came after weren't interested in the actual product, only in getting every last scrap of peanut butter out of the bottom of the jar.
I completely agree with everything else you said in that post but I also really liked how you worded it there, although I hafta confess I had to look up that word in bold. Only posting this reply to thank you for expanding my vocabulary.
I did like what they were going for, but it fell short of the mark.
Power creep in regeneration was inevitably going to happen (Davies did it when Tennant got to regrow his hand), but at least by doing it with River it may be constrained to "Time-Lord"-esque people. It's not like (using the shows own logic) she couldn't have just used the Temporal Manipulator & buzzed away to get healed and buzz back again.
Of all of Moffats stories, this is the one I like least. Comparing that to the depths that R.T.D. descended, that's not too bad.
I'm looking forward to series 10, to one last hurrah with Peter Capaldi & a new companion. I'm almost sad series 9 wasn't Moffat's last run, as that would have been a great time to step back with everything rounded off.
"We are what they grow beyond. That is the true burden of all masters."
), so that whole angle wouldn't be there.
