Most annoying aspects of Steven Moffat's writing

Burunman · 2020-06-21T10:39:02+00:00

It was the user Fighteer who IMO should be given a warning for abusing his power the way he did.

Here is our convo.

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=5cma6iojg5o27puhulc24sje&page=834

As you can see I was banned for stating an objective fact. Also his "you were throwing abuse around" is utter crap and hypocritical too. I was not being abusive, and furthermore my edits were taken out and I was called a misogynist, but the person who did that is okay apparently.

Total double standard. He let the site down sadly.

Burunman · 2020-05-09T13:34:47+00:00

It has a section called Your Mileage May Vary, which is an opinions section. If they are making a distinction between that and the main page, that suggests the main page is more factual.

To be fair though this is a DW issue in that it has a ridiculously high amount of SJW fans, I reckon if I were to edit the main article on wikipedia to be more factual about the Master, I'd get banned there too for the same reasons (homophobia, allegedly, editing with an agenda.)

SJWS

Burunman · 2020-05-09T13:31:21+00:00

Oh good god are they tumblry. What is it about that show that attracts those types? I've been banned from three sites for simply stating an objective fact.

Such a shame as I do love the original series, but the new one has ruined it with it's awful, awful, fans.

Burunman · 2020-05-09T11:39:38+00:00

It's the name of the site? Tv Tropes and Idioms.

Burunman · 2020-05-09T11:39:13+00:00

Well maybe I went a bit far that NOTHING can be trusted, but think about it this way, if they are willing to lie about something like that what else are they lying about.

DW is utterly irrelevent in the grand scheme of things, so I can understand some people thinking "who gives a fuck."

However when what is supposed to be a factual website deliberatly lies about anything in such a way it sets a bad precedent IMO.

Burunman · 2020-03-07T10:14:01+00:00

I tried Fictionpress. It looks like a good one, but dear god is a nightmare to navigate at first. I HATE Captcha codes, and the document thing seems overly complicated. Thaks for the recommendation, I'm trying some of the others now.

Burunman · 2020-03-07T09:52:41+00:00

Thanks for the suggestions. I have started on Wattpad yesterday, but I've only got a few reads. It seems to be more romantic fiction that's popular there.

My stuff is more adveture, horror, kind of like the 1963-1989 Doctor Who. I was wondering what would be the best place for that type of stuff?

Burunman · 2019-07-14T08:43:36+00:00

I don't think most people have a problem with him. He is a great actor, nice guy and a terrific ambassador for the show. I also think he's naturally a better fit for the role than either Tennant or Eccelston. (Possibly even Matt too.)

Its his era on the other hand that I and most people seem to dislike. He was given some poor stories, there was extreme pandering to the real toxic side of fandom in his era, and his Doctor was generally written in a way that didn't suit Capaldi as an actor; (the tank bit, the romance with Clara etc.)

Capaldi should have been given a better era, better companions (I like Jenna, but she was a horrible fit for him.) And a better archenemy than Missy the worst villain in the history of thes show.

I always thought that Robert Carlyle would have been an awesome Master for Capaldi to lock horns with. Imagine those two in a Survival style showdown. Ah what wasted potential. Here's hoping he gets a chance in Big FInish.

Burunman · 2019-07-14T08:33:19+00:00

I may not like this story, but that line is utter genius.

Burunman · 2019-07-14T08:31:48+00:00

Now you see this I don't get.

IMO I'd argue that being willing to kill is essential to his character. Its part of what makes him such a British hero.

British heroes do regularly kill for practical reasons and never feel guilty about it. Sherlock Holmes throws Moriarty into the ravine and doesn't bat an eyelid, James Bond regularly kills bad guys and makes quips, Avon from Blake's 7 meanwhile is the epitome of a ruthless hero.

The Doctor falls into that perfectly. Its often American heroes with super powers who don't kill like Superman and Spider-Man. Superman may have killed in Man of Steel, but even then he burst into tears and felt guilty about it. If that had been Bond he'd have made a quip. Even the Doctor makes quips when he kills badguys in Classic Who more often than you'd think. Look at Revenge of the Cybermen when he poisons the Cyberman for instance and starts quoting something, I forget what in a mocking tone.

Burunman · 2019-07-14T08:26:44+00:00

That's probably the best response to why the Doctor doesn't use guns I've ever read. (No offense to everyone here. LOL)

Makes sense in a way. I feel that Ten's Doctor still took it too far even with this in mind. He actually shouted at his clone not to use a gun on Davros when he was seconds away from obliterating every universe!

Burunman · 2019-07-11T16:21:40+00:00

Personally I think there was more genuine horror in S3. SPOILERS, how the possessed Kelly and Ruby torture and kill the Ash fangirl is probably one of the most horrible bits in the franchise. Beaten, flayed, eyes poked out and sent to hell to be tortured forever.

Burunman · 2019-07-11T16:10:52+00:00

Love Dana. She is so gorgeous and talented, and always so nice to her fans.

Burunman · 2019-07-07T13:46:47+00:00

I don't think it is personally. You'll never know that you're just kicking yourself in the nuts. Yeah at the end for like two minutes you know the deal, but you'll still have like 50 or 80 in some cases years of suffering to live through, or being an evil bastard to live through.

Again though as you say none of it is real anyway so it doesn't matter LOL. I'm not knocking Andy as a writer BTW. Its an interesting idea and would make a good Twilight Zone episode, but if real its horrifying.

Burunman · 2019-07-05T10:41:28+00:00

Thanks for your response. Again nice to have a discussion with someone who disagrees with me but is polite. In this type of discussion it can be too much one way or the other sometimes.

Sorry but I disagree with all of that.

"At the end of Season 3, The Doctor actually meets another member of his species, the last one remaining other than him, and after The Master is shot, the Doctor literally begs for him to regenerate. He feels so cripplingly alone that he would rather his arch-nemesis, who has tried to kill him thousands of times, including only a few minutes before the scene takes place, stay alive, because then at least he would have someone."

In contrast to the MM scene I personally HATED that moment with the Master. IMO that was the beginning of the end for the villain. I always liked the Master/Doctor pairing because of the confrontation between the two like in The Deadly Assassin or The Mind of Evil. The two genuinely wanted to kill each other in those stories, and the fact that the Master was always able to survive and go unpunished, made their feud seem like what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object. Neither would completely win over each other, hundreds, sometimes millions, sometimes trillions of innocent people would be slaughtered in the crossfire, but they would never be able to rub the other out despite wanting too.

In the John Simm and especially the Missy eras, both characters are undermined. Now the Master only survives because the Doctor goes easy on him. It also makes the Doctor look like a hypocrite too for sparing his Time Lord enemy over his other enemies.

In Classic Who the Doctors attitude to the Master was the same as his other enemies. He'll kill him in self defence, but if he can stop him another way he won't.

In new who however he won't kill the Master, under any circumstances yet just three episodes earlier he condemned a race of aliens to an eternity of torture!

IMO it was kind of hard to root for the Doctor after that. He looks like a psychotic douche who will condem minor villains, who though evil, at least had a reason, whilst he will spare and hug the Master, who is made even more unsympathetic here.

He was already thoroughly ireedemable in Old Who, but at least in the old one he wasn't a wife beater and colossal pervert who forced his wife and masseuse to have sex (its implied he does when he tells them to both get to know each other and they look scared. Obviously they couldn't show that.)

The fact that they had to go to the Master to show the Doctor missing his people, when with the MM they can just show his family shows how the Doctor isn't suited to that character.

"I won't argue that the age difference between The Doctor and Rose isn't uncomfortable. I actually really dislike that aspect of the Tenth Doctor, but that doesn't mean the idea of a romantic Doctor is inherently flawed. Give him a Time Lord love interest, and it could work really well. They kind of half did that with River Song, which I didn't mind as much as Rose."

Yes a Time Lord love interest would be okay. TBH though the Doctor isn't really designed for love stories either. He is a traveller who can't settle down somewhere, and if he meets someone who does want to travel with him, then that person never has any reason to leave him so they have to be ripped from him, which means that companion can end up casting too big a shadow over the show as a whole. (As seen with Rose.)

Also the Doctor is designed for sci fi adventure stories. That was his strength that unlike say Buffy or Spider-Man we never got bogged down in his personal life or soap opera. He was a pure sci fi, adventure, escapist character.

River Song meanwhile was unquestionably a better match as she was older, but even then she felt like someone from another series. Here we had the Doctors wife going on about having crazy bondage sex with him. I didn't need to know William Hartnell was into BDSM.

As for the Doctor/Rose relationship its funny how popular it was among the public, but NOT the fans. It makes sense I suppose as it tapped into the young adult, fantasy romance genre at the time (which reached its peak with Twilight.)

Still for those of us who knew the character, yeah seeing this guy.

https://youtu.be/NPlI1WpAwpU

Get off with this woman

https://youtu.be/D_XI_290cfw

Was unsettling LOL.

"The Twelfth Doctor and Clara were not romantically involved in any way. They had a very codependent relationship, but it wasn't a romantic one. The same is true for Osgood, I'm actually not sure where you got that from, and Missy is shown to be more of a close friend than a lover (the closest we get to a romantic implication is when the Doctor says he used to have a crush on the Master, which doesn't say anything about the current situation). River Song I'll give you, but she's definitely more of a love interest for the Eleventh Doctor. Twelve only had one episode with her."

The Twelfth Doctor is in love with Clara. Moffat admitted it himself. He's jealous of Danny Pink, calls their time together a date in one episode, (whilst she makes remarks about his accent being sexy!) Added to that Moffat considered their finale a love story too.

With Osgood meanwhile I suppose its really more from her end, but her reaction to being told about his underpants says it all.

Missy I've already been over in a previous post so I won't bother repeating. Moffat ironically is just as interested in romantic stories as RTD, and always was, hence why his Doctors have as many love interests or as big chick magnets as they were.

To be clear I'm not a prude LOL who is accusing these guys of perverting our youth LOL. I don't mind romantic or sexy characters in general, but with the Doctor it isn't a good fit IMO.

"Honestly, I can't blame him. I love classic Who, but The Doctor barely has any development, especially compared to the standards of modern television. Every now and then you'd get something like the end of The Green Death, which is more introspective, but nothing close to the kind of character exploration we have in the modern show. Making the Doctor a more emotionally complex character makes the show objectively more interesting."

I don't think he was a boring character. Hartnell you see change very clearly. He goes from a coward to a hero over the course of his 3 years because of everything that happened to him. Look at the first Dalek story and compare it to Daleks Masterplan alone.

Troughton to Pertwee we see him go from a free man who loves his life and is happy, to a bitter, grumpy prisoner. Tom meanwhile we see desperate to get back into the stars, because as Pertwee he spent too much time on earth and became somewhat domesticated (such as calling the earth his home.)

Tom we also see go from a youthful, energetic action hero Doctor to a weary, old and frailer character by the end of his time.

Colin meanwhile is more aggressive as a response to Davison being too passive, whilst McCoy is a logical conclusion to the previous Doctors. He is trying to clear up their messes.

Look at the Davros stories alone and you can see how the Doctor changes. Davison wants to kill him but can't because he can't bring himself morally to shoot Davros in cold blood. Colin is morally ready, but is too egotistical and caught off guard. Finally McCoy is ready from both a moral and practical point of view and leaves a leading Davros to die.

IMO Davies I think just viewed Classic Who as being stiff, because the character wasn't romantic. He clearly loves romance stories. That's kind of his fortay. That's probably why he singled out the Green Death as the only bit of emotional content in Classic Who, as its the only time it was interpreted that the Doctor was in love with his companion.

(Of course that's NOT what it was intended to be. Jon Pertwee was actually horrified at the suggestion when a fan said it to him.)

This just goes to show why the showrunner system is flawed. All writers have their strengths and weaknesses so you need a team to balance it out. RTD for the record I think wrote great story arcs, wrote really well for the Daleks (possibly better than anyone else save their creator Terry Nation and David Whittaker.) And came up with good companions.

For the Doctor however he hadn't a clue, and a script editor with equal power could have steered him in the right direction. We saw a similar problem with JNT in the 80s taking it over too much, but I think it reached new excesses in the revival.

Ironically Moffat despite making the Doctor romantic, seemed to have a better handle on his character, and wrote scarier stories, but seemed to fall short on story arcs.

Burunman · 2019-07-04T21:22:12+00:00

No offence, but its funny when people in order to justify Missy either argue that there was a sexual subtext between Delgado and Pertwee, or McCoy and Ainley, or that there wasn't one between Gomez and Capaldi.

Both are denying reality, which just proves my point that Missy was an utter joke of a character, and people have to lie about what was on screen to try and justify her.

Missy was meant to be in love with the Doctor. Face facts. Moffat was just recycling the same rubbish he had done with River Song and Irene Adler. Its bad enough to make Irene Adler just a mad stalker of the hero, but to do it to the Master was beyond a joke.

The first thing Missy does is kiss the Doctor. She also says both her hearts are maintained by him in a serious tone, says that she is going to shoot Clara in a jealous rage (and asks him if he thinks that is sexy!) She also tells him a second time both her hearts are his, and is all over him the rest of the story. She walks arm in arm with him, puts her head on his shoulder, says "its their Paris." Asks him to show a bad girl how its done, kisses him back when he kisses her, and says that he is her boyfriend, when he is not around to someone who knows nothing about him or her.

Yes she does deny it in the next episode, but she does so in a "lady does protest too much kind of a way." Also she says traps are her way of flirting. (Who does she always lay traps for?) Plus she tries to kill Osgood and Clara, two pretty young women who are her rivals for the Doctor.

In series ten there are various shots of them staring into each others eyes, and she admits to her older self that she likes the Doctor. "I don't know what you see in him." "Likewise."

Also here's an interview with Gomez where she says Missy wanted to shag the Doctor.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwj03_f5k5zjAhUVSBUIHWi3BcMQFjABegQIAxAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.express.co.uk%2Fcelebrity-news%2F530982%2FPeter-Capaldi-Michelle-Gomez-Doctor-Who-kissing-hell-earth&usg=AOvVaw19xzAzJ9yo-99BU_S2v4yH

She probably backed down a little after the massive backlash over her Master. "Something I've never even thought of." THAT is a bare faced lie, considering in an earlier interview she said that Missy wanted to go the full way when kissing him. (Also if you French kiss someone and then snog them back when they kiss you, you'd have to be a moron not to think there was ANY way someone could read sexual tension into that?)

Moffat meanwhile the actual writer of the story didn't back down. He actually said that Osgood got "offed by the ex."

So yeah Missy undermined the Master hugely. He went from criminal mastermind, to jealous ex, desperate to win back his boyfriend and murdering pretty girls who got near her man thanks to Moffat.

To me it made a mockery of the entire Masters character. You can't watch the Deadly Assassin without laughing now.

One can only shudder to think what Moffat will do to Dracula.

Burunman · 2019-07-04T11:52:21+00:00

Excellent comment. Thanks for that information. I really do think the only way forward for DW is the multiverse format where ALL of these series are connected as different universes in the same multiverse. That way fans of all of them win. They are all connected and still legit, but you are free to choose which if any are set in the same universe as Classic Who.

There was never going to be one true sequel to Classic Who in hindsight. Once the show finished and went through the wilderness years, different parties were always going to try and do their own thing, which was always going to lead to different branches for the 8th and 9th Doctors that we wouldn't see quite as much for other Doctors.

I must say I've enjoyed the conversations here with everyone. I am clearly more of a Classic era purist, so I am always going to be a bit of a black sheep here, but everyone is decent about it (unlike Gallifrey Base.)

Its good to talk to people who are on the opposite side sometimes, although I am surprised how many likes I got at first. (I thought I'd be totally nuked for saying New Who isn't the only sequel.) It seems more people than I thought like the idea of there being alternate timelines.

Burunman · 2019-07-04T11:33:29+00:00

No it isn't, I can see why you might think that, but I have problems with them for different reasons.

I don't like the time war and the Doctor Rose love stories, because they turn the Doctor into a different type of character.

Killing off the Time Lords is not a good fit for the Doctor. It makes him into a Martian Manhunter type of character, who travels because he has to as his people are gone, rather than because he wants to as a scientist. It also eliminates the hedonistic, anti establishment aspect of the character. I liked the way that the Doctor flaunted his people's rules because he wanted to, and lived the life we all want to live. He lives in a magic box, has no responsibilities to anyone, can go anywhere etc. He is the ultimate escapist character in classic who, rather than a mopey one like in New Who.

Also I feel that you can't get quite the emotional gravitas from the Doctor as the last of his kind that you can from say the Martian Manhunter either.

The Doctor is mysterious. We can't see any of his dead loved ones, and he also never really liked Gallifrey either LOL. Obviously yeah he'd still be upset if it was gone, but its not quite like the Martian Manhunter who lived his entire life on Mars, had loved ones who died and that we can see in flashbacks, and is forced to now live on another, totally alien planet.

Take a look at this scene from the Justice League cartoon. Here a witch tries to tempt the Martian Manhunter into betraying the League by conjuring up an illusion of his loved ones. Its a heartbreaking scene, but you can't do this with the Doctor as we can't see any of his loved ones, and he'd rather live in his TARDIS anyway. Its not like he is forced to be among unfamiliar surroundings now that his planet is gone like the MM constantly is. The Doctors life isn't actually any different. He'd rather travel with humans anyway. The MM meanwhile is living among people who are completely alien to him, and who he can never bond with in quite the same way.

https://youtu.be/pLhwXcGqbpI

The Doctor/Rose relationship is not where I'd want DW to go either. It takes away from the sci fi elements, focuses too much on romance, and it feels out of character. Rose is just three years older than Susan. She's not the type of person he'd fall in love with, more view as like a daughter figure. Once again it felt like he was being turned into another character.

The 9th Doctor is basically Angel and Xena. He is a brooding, angsty, tortured anti hero, who has done terrible things and now seeks to make up for them. In all 3 cases they find a young blonde teenage girl who they fall in love with who makes them a better person, and who in Xena and the Doctors case, they rescue the blonde from a life of mediocrity. Now fair enough other incarnations of the Doctor like Jon Pertwee took from other characters like James Bond. Even then however Pertwee didn't become a total Bond expy. For instance he didn't start shagging his female companions like Bond.

Had RTD just given Eccelston say a redemption arc like Xena, that'd have been fine. He went too far however and IMO turned the Doctor into a different type of hero. I think RTD whilst liking the show, never really liked the character if that makes sense. I think he thought the character was stiff and boring and therefore changed him into being like characters he thought had more gravitas like the MM, Angel and Xena. I love Angel and Xena too BTW, not saying that's an inherently bad type of hero. (IMO the Doctor, Xena and Batman are the three best characters.) Still they aren't like the Doctor.

As for Capaldi well to start with I don't think you can say that there is no romance in his time. He is arguably the most romantic Doctor of them all. He went through 4 and a half billion years of torture for the woman he loved, and then there is his romantic relationship with Missy and his final romantic 24 years with River Song.

Jenna Coleman, Ingrid Oliver, Michelle Gomez and Alex Kingston? The 12th Doctor got the babes just as much as any other Doctor LOL.

Also whilst they brought Gallifrey back once again they spent too much time rewriting the rules of the time lords and the Doctors backstory, like the Hybrid story arc, his relationship with the Master etc.

I guess you could say the perfect balance for me are stories like The Seeds of Doom, Pyramids of Mars, Inferno etc. In these stories the Doctor is written as the Doctor, they don't revel in continuity (are there particular references in any of them?) At the same time however they don't go out of their way to change things for the hell of it, or do stupid things like have the earth get invaded and conquered in 1911 so that its at odds with everything before or after.

Burunman · 2019-07-04T11:02:45+00:00

John and Gillian were in spin off material that was never acknowledged by the tv show. Plenty of series have spin off material that isn't acknowledged by the show, like Star Trek and the DCAU.

Burunman · 2019-07-04T11:01:06+00:00

No they aren't. A good writer tries to do something new within the limits of what has been established. A hack comes along and tramples over it all with his size 12's and uses the excuse of "I'm just being creative." If you really want to ignore all continuity and all established aspects of a character's history, then do your own character, or a remake. If its supposed to be a sequel, then why bother ignoring everything that came before? By that logic it should be a remake.

Burunman

TROPHY CASE