Charlie Jane Anders has a Wish List for the Fall Doctor Who Season and I basically agree with all of her suggestions.
I’ve been thinking about the first part of Series 6 in anticipation for the beginning of part two (which I’ll have to watch through iTunes). I’ve liked the storyline about Flesh Amy and Constantly Dying Rory and Who is River Song. On the whole I think the Steven Moffat era has been high quality and overall has contained more interesting episodes than the RTD era. But … I do miss the high emotion of the RTD era and I find myself wishing for slightly less complicated puzzling and a touch more emotion.
I’m not really complaining because on the whole I love the Steven Moffat era. RTD era plots were often silly in ways that Steven Moffat episodes are never silly. And during the RTD era there was too much emphasis on the attraction that some of the companions felt for the Doctor. I like that Moffat had the Doctor emphatically reject the idea of any canoodling with Amy Pond. But … the RTD era regularly had episodes that brought tears to my eyes and/or smiles to my face. I don’t find myself tearing up and/or smiling as much these days. Mostly my face has a screwed up look as I try to figure things out.
The thing is, I really like Matt Smith’s Doctor. I like that he is a young actor who plays the Doctor like an absent minded, eccentric old guy. I like that he can pull that off. But I don’t think he’s given enough to work with in terms of emotions. It isn’t that I think he can’t do emotion, I think that he isn’t given enough emotion to do.
The last episode, A Good Man Goes to War, was supposed to contain moments where the Doctor reached his highest high only to be plunged to his lowest low. But the way it was written, things happened so fast that there was no time to feel a high or really to feel a low. I was too busy trying to just figure out what was going on. Highs and lows are emotions. Emotions take time. There just wasn’t enough time. It’s odd that the Flesh story was a two=parter when the whole story could have been told in one episode but A Good Man Goes to War, which could have used 2 parts, was crammed into one episode.
Maybe the problem is that I’ve seen the RTD series. Maybe for those who haven’t seen it, they aren’t missing anything. But compared to the highs and lows that David Tennant (or even Christopher Eccleston) reached during the RTD series, I didn’t feel that this episode was the character of the Doctor’s highest high or lowest low. It’s almost as if Moffat never saw the RTD series. Ten would get angrier and/or sadder during any average episode than Moffat has ever allowed Eleven to be at his very angriest or saddest. And nobody could possibly be higher than Ten at his most manic. Even Nine had that wonderful moment of happiness when the nanogenes figured out that Nancy was the mother of the gas mask child -- which in retrospect makes Nine seem happier than Eleven has ever been. And that was a Moffat script – so he can write highs if he has to. But notice that he built that up for Eccleston to act over a two part episode.
So I’m waiting to see how the second half of the season works out. I trust that most of the loose ends will be tied up and we’ll find out the answers to most of our questions. But I’m still waiting to hit the emotional heart of this season.
I do think we saw what Smith can do with emotion in the Doctor's Wife. But it seems to have taken a guest scriptwriter to do it and a plot that was largely removed from the ongoing story arc.
ReplyDeleteI've been really torn about the 11th doctor because I've loved so much of it but I don't love the "all" of it. I blame the fractured nature of this very long story. The characters and the viewers are getting jerked around so much that we all have to be so involved in where and what and why and how that there's just not much left for caring about the inner lives where an emotional core is built. The story is just too much hat and not enough people.
I see this even more reflected in Amy than in the Doctor -- she's become less of a character and more of a McGuffin. The companions are the always the key to unlocking doctor's heart(s) and as long she's lacking in emotional heft and humanness so will he.
My theory this season has been that the story isn't really all about Amy but all about Rory. I really liked the quiet little scene where the Doctor asked Rory if he remembered the 2000 years. I'd like more of that.
ReplyDeleteI think Smith can do it if it is given to him. But I also constantly think that a more experienced actor might have been able to pull off emotion even with these scripts. Or pethaps it isn't so much experience but an actor with more facial expression range. The old man interpretation does limit facial expression sometimes.
And then sometimes I think it is the director because some of Smith's facial acting is lost in shots where there is too musc else going on.
I realize that above comment shifts blame from Moffat and I don't really want to do that. In TV you have to write for the actors you HAVE and can't just write the character any way you want and hope you can later cast an actor who is appropriate. Moffat gave Alan Sepinwall a great interview and in it he says he doesn't write to the actor he just writes the Doctor. I think he's lying because he also says that when he sat down to write the Eleventh Hour he basically wrote it for Tennant and then waited to see what Smith wpuld do. But I think he needs to admit that he needs to write for the actor. Tennant was an actor who cpuld tell a story with his face. I don't feel Smith has as much of that ability so Moffat needs to WRITE him scenes with emotion because it isn't going to come across as clearly by relying on actor facial expressions.
ReplyDeleteSmith seems to me to be a very physical actor -- he needs and uses his whole body to communicate with the viewer. I wonder if he might be better suited as stage actor than a TV actor.
ReplyDeleteHe is a very physical actor, I agree. I'd have to see him on stage. Tennant is a stage actor but is also able to do all the "face acting" that TV requires.
ReplyDeleteThe more I think about it, the more I think it's partly a directing and editing problem.
Moffat should demand that the director and editor for Girl in the Fireplace and the Library duo ALWAYS come and do his shows. They were beautifully filmed and edited and reaction shots were never rushed through.
Hope iTunes has the new episode available tomorrow so I can watch it and we can talk about it :)
Are you watching The Hour on BBC America? I've watched the first two episodes.
Not watching the "The Hour" because I haven't heard of it. What's it about?
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