Subject: UGH, YES!
Author:
Posted on: 2014-02-20 13:29:00 UTC

So many of Moffat's ideas could have been so awesome if he'd just had someone else around to look over his work and offer suggestions or tell him what makes no sense at all. Everyone needs a beta-reader(though I believe in television they call it a script editor or script doctor), but Moffat either has a sycophantic one or feels that he's above them. In fact, if I had one reaction to Day of the Doctor, it would be "So much wasted potential!" I mean, they end the previous episode trapped in the physical manifestation of the Doctor's timeline, for crying out loud! I cannot think of a better way you could kickstart an adventure between New and Classic Doctors than that! Well, I can, but they would all require bogged-down exposition and ludicrous hand-waving to explain why everyone is here and why they are so much older than they were back when they were the Doctor. This was practically handed to the crew, and they just dropped the idea entirely, starting the next episode with Clara teaching an Inspirational Quotations class at, what, her third job? Not only is that a waste, it opens a plot hole the size of Kansas. How did they get out of there when the Doctor had lost access to his TARDIS? At least the whole "throwing people into the Doctor's timeline" thing might potentially create a future story arc for the Great Intelligence, since as a disembodied consciousness he would have no restrictions in the time funnel, which could potentially lead to him having enormous power over or absolute knowledge of time itself, coupled with information on the Doctor's entire history, even the parts he can't or doesn't want to remember. But that would be interesting, so I doubt it will happen until Moffat leaves the show.

And the bloody Tower of London door scene! It opens yet another plot hole because those were not all the same sonic screwdriver; 8-10's was destroyed and replaced in an episode that Moffat wrote himself, and for the scene to work otherwise would imply that sonic items have some sort of hive-mind processor, it adds 400 years to the Doctor's lifespan just to make the scene work, and it ended up being completely pointless just for the sake of a cheap gag. And all of the deus ex machinas, the other ten Doctors showing up out of nowhere despite not being told where to go being only the biggest! How did Day of the Doctor get such rave reviews? At least Time of the Doctor tried to wrap up Eleven's plotlines in a way that made sense, though the effectiveness of that ranged from "really quite good" to "absolute nonsense", and it wasted the potential Twelve plotline of the Doctor trying to find a new source of regenerations by having the Amazing Teleporting Spacial Rift give him a few extra lives for free. But at least that episode tried!

I wish I could get mad at some Sherlock stuff, too, but I've never been to into it. I've never liked shows where the protagonist is an absolute jerk but is treated in-universe as the unequivocal best at what he does to the extent that he is the only one that can be right about pretty much anything. That might have gotten better later on, but I didn't try finding out.

Reply Return to messages