New Who and “emotional depth”

iank wrote:Emotional incontinence was the term I used.
To be fair, I don't this was as bad in the Moffat era. I don't think the soap was quite as much in evidence there either, although it's certainly more a New Who thing than it ever was before. It was still there a bit on occasion but not to the extent it had been under Davies.
I can't speak for Chinballs as I saw 10 minutes of ep 1 and that was enough...

iank wrote:Emotional incontinence was the term I used.

Ronnie wrote:It's one of the biggest flaws in NuWho. Not just the mawkishness, but the pandering to modern day generations that think they need it.
It's part of what has made it mundane and ordinary, because that's the level that they're aspiring to reach, instead of trying to inspire an audience to reach beyond the everyday things that you see not just in soap operas, but most modern day tv.
Dr Who was once unique unto itself, but now so much of the content, tone, style, and lack of vision, is what makes it so much like everything else that's on tv these days.
Once, it ventured out on its own and dared to be just what it was. Nowadays, it's just desperate to fit in.

Ronnie wrote:It's one of the biggest flaws in NuWho. Not just the mawkishness, but the pandering to modern day generations that think they need it.
It's part of what has made it mundane and ordinary, because that's the level that they're aspiring to reach, instead of trying to inspire an audience to reach beyond the everyday things that you see not just in soap operas, but most modern day tv.
Dr Who was once unique unto itself, but now so much of the content, tone, style, and lack of vision, is what makes it so much like everything else that's on tv these days.
Once, it ventured out on its own and dared to be just what it was. Nowadays, it's just desperate to fit in.

iank wrote:Emotional incontinence was the term I used.

Bernard Marx wrote:

iank wrote:Emotional incontinence was the term I used.
To be fair, I don't this was as bad in the Moffat era. I don't think the soap was quite as much in evidence there either, although it's certainly more a New Who thing than it ever was before. It was still there a bit on occasion but not to the extent it had been under Davies.
I can't speak for Chinballs as I saw 10 minutes of ep 1 and that was enough...

That’s true enough- it was there during Moffat’s era, though wasn’t as pronounced or sickening. This mainly came to mind due to my revisiting prior eras of New Who recently, and was stunned at how poorly handled these scenes were. Do you think Moffat’s reducing of abundant soap conventions early on in his era was a key factor in why quite a few Tennant fans stopped watching? Nothing in Moffat’s era comes close in terms of ‘emotional incontinence’ to the last 20 minutes of The End Of Time, anyway, even if Moffat’s era royally fucked up in other ways (though the Christmas specials weren’t far off in terms of mawkishness, especially The Doctor, The Widow and the Wardrobe).

I semi-watched episode 1 of Chinballs’ era, and sat through Arachnids in full. The soap conventions were certainly there, though just seemed half-arsed as opposed to overdone as with RTD. It was hardly series 11’s biggest problem anyway, given how profoundly awful it all was.

UncleDeadly wrote:

Bernard Marx wrote:

iank wrote:Emotional incontinence was the term I used.
To be fair, I don't this was as bad in the Moffat era. I don't think the soap was quite as much in evidence there either, although it's certainly more a New Who thing than it ever was before. It was still there a bit on occasion but not to the extent it had been under Davies.
I can't speak for Chinballs as I saw 10 minutes of ep 1 and that was enough...

That’s true enough- it was there during Moffat’s era, though wasn’t as pronounced or sickening. This mainly came to mind due to my revisiting prior eras of New Who recently, and was stunned at how poorly handled these scenes were. Do you think Moffat’s reducing of abundant soap conventions early on in his era was a key factor in why quite a few Tennant fans stopped watching? Nothing in Moffat’s era comes close in terms of ‘emotional incontinence’ to the last 20 minutes of The End Of Time, anyway, even if Moffat’s era royally fucked up in other ways (though the Christmas specials weren’t far off in terms of mawkishness, especially The Doctor, The Widow and the Wardrobe).

I semi-watched episode 1 of Chinballs’ era, and sat through Arachnids in full. The soap conventions were certainly there, though just seemed half-arsed as opposed to overdone as with RTD. It was hardly series 11’s biggest problem anyway, given how profoundly awful it all was.

Sorry guys, but I really have to disagree on this one. Not only is the OTT emotional manipulation still present in Moffat's era but, if anything, its even worse.

UncleDeadly wrote:

Bernard Marx wrote:

iank wrote:Emotional incontinence was the term I used.
To be fair, I don't this was as bad in the Moffat era. I don't think the soap was quite as much in evidence there either, although it's certainly more a New Who thing than it ever was before. It was still there a bit on occasion but not to the extent it had been under Davies.
I can't speak for Chinballs as I saw 10 minutes of ep 1 and that was enough...

That’s true enough- it was there during Moffat’s era, though wasn’t as pronounced or sickening. This mainly came to mind due to my revisiting prior eras of New Who recently, and was stunned at how poorly handled these scenes were. Do you think Moffat’s reducing of abundant soap conventions early on in his era was a key factor in why quite a few Tennant fans stopped watching? Nothing in Moffat’s era comes close in terms of ‘emotional incontinence’ to the last 20 minutes of The End Of Time, anyway, even if Moffat’s era royally fucked up in other ways (though the Christmas specials weren’t far off in terms of mawkishness, especially The Doctor, The Widow and the Wardrobe).

I semi-watched episode 1 of Chinballs’ era, and sat through Arachnids in full. The soap conventions were certainly there, though just seemed half-arsed as opposed to overdone as with RTD. It was hardly series 11’s biggest problem anyway, given how profoundly awful it all was.

Sorry guys, but I really have to disagree on this one. Not only is the OTT emotional manipulation still present in Moffat's era but, if anything, its even worse. How many times was the day saved by the "Power of Love"? How many times were we goaded to gush floods of tears by the the overwrought mourning over the "death" of a character only to find them brought back again five minutes later? ( itself a glaring and infantile flaw in Moffat's writing. How can there be any dramatic stakes if no-one is ever truly at risk and the same card is played over and over again as if we, the audience, are so stupid we won't see it coming? Is Moffat, the writer, idiot enough to think this effective or does he just think we are?)

Bracewell deactivating the bomb inside himself by recalling memories of his first love (huh?), the constant blubbing over Rory's multiple "deaths" (how many timeas are we supposed to fall for this?), the appalling, crass exploitation of Vincent Van Gogh's depression and suicide for effect (no, I don't think it was profound or sincere, bring on the power ballad, folks!), the guff about Amy's disappearing and re-appearing family, the milking of Idris' departure, Craig's love for his baby son making the Cybermen's heads explode (Oh COME ON!), the mawkish "leaf" drivel of the Rings of Akhaten and the Doctor's subsequent appalling speech (moved yet?), the misunderstood monsters whose true motivation is really love (Hide and Time Heist both), the Doctor's hysterical blubbing over Amy and Rory's departure (even here, Moffat doesn't have the guts to kill them off, they've merely been transported back in time and lived full lives there, some tragedy), the prolonged hysteria over Clara's death in Face The Raven (is it even worth mentioning that I predicted she'd be back in two episodes' time..?), Bill's death also being undone by her magical puddle girl in yet another "emotional" scene.

And, yes, The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe, with its gutless resolution in which the lost father is restored to life by some more magical gubbins. I recall watching at the time as the children are re-united with their mother, yelling at the television "Cut it here, Moffat!" and thinking "Don't go any further; you have the potential to communicate something meaningful here about how love can overcome loss, that the mother and her children will find the strength to overcome together", but NO, he had to bring the father back in a Disneyesque resolution that teaches the children watching nothing about how to deal with real life and death and insults those who actually lost loved ones in the war into the bargain. "Humany Wumany" (WHAT?? SHUT UP!! What the hell kind of writing is that?)

I would also contend that the soap opera elements remained, with all the carry on about Amy and Rory's marital woes (their yelling at each other about being unable to have children thuds like a lead brick in the middle of Asylum of the Daleks, a narrative non-sequitur to most viewers that brings events screeching to a halt due to the fact that you had to have watched an online "mini-sode" to understand where all this had come from), the Clara and Danny Pink rubbish and all the dropping off and picking up of Clara that the Doctor has to do precisely so that Moffat can access the family/romantic drama crap whenever he wants to (the fact that this all seems so half-arsed is no improvement, in my view; it merely makes the writing seem poorer and more cynical). Ultimately, this all ends up with Bill and her lesbian relationship and the Doctor playing Dad/dogsbody as she moves into her student digs, at which point Bill lectures the Doctor about the boundaries between her relationship with him and her actual "life". Marvellous.

Davies undoubtedly started this stuff and he has to carry the can for it but Moffat is guilty of carrying it on and the fact that in his hands it all seems so insincere (Moffat always comes over in interview as a deeply cynical man who couldn't possibly buy into this stuff) actually makes it worse. The "emotion" merely being a shoehorned in element with no integrity designed to suck in the simple and reactive audience Moffat clearly thought he had. I certainly don't buy that it was ever his intention to turn back in the direction of the original series. Not for a minute.

Tanmann wrote:I.... quite liked Rings of Akhaten

BernardMarx wrote:
Without intending to sound overly flexible, upon reflection, you’re not wrong about any of this. What the fuck was I saying? I forgot about the “humany womany” fucking twee bollocks, probably because I haven’t watched the thing since broadcast and have since repressed any memory of it due to its inexcusable shiteness (and I mainly rely on my own personal nostalgia for series 5 these days when thinking back to the era as it was the season that kick-started my interest in the classic series- I’m not sure why I choose to look back at Moffat’s tenure that way, as it clouds my objective analysis of the overall era rather considerably). The example from Asylum is just inexcusable as well- it not only has zero set up prior to the episode (bar a bunch of minisodes written by Chinballs), not only intruded the narrative at hand and added nothing necessary or consequential to the episode, not only had the lousiest resolution conceivable, not only could have been resolved via simply turning to adoption etc, but ended up baring no weight on any future events at all. The ‘power of love’ endings occurred at least seven times in series 7 alone, let alone the Capaldi era, by which stage the tweeness of it all became insufferable to bear, and how did I forget fucking Closing Time? An ending which renders the body horror and staying power of the Cybermen completely absent via one of the most cheaply conceived attempts at “emotional depth” ever seen on the programme, where Craig’s child somehow caused Craig to revert back (if it’s as easy as that, the Cybermen must be fucking awful at the conversion process, and without sounding cruel, how did Craig even fit in the suit?). Both RTD and Moffat are renowned for bringing back alleged dead characters, though this turned into a running fucking joke during Moffat’s era (as in The Wedding Of River Song “The man who dies and dies again”, and other moments of cheap bathos in the era in relation to the lack of death).

I think the reason I assumed the Moffat era wasn’t as heavy on it was due to how passionless and half-arsed it was by design, as you say. In the RTD era, countless episodes go out of their way to contrive the narrative in order to nail such moments of maudlin mawkishness on the head, whereas in the Moffat era, they aren’t strung together by contrivances so much as by nothing at all (as with stories like Asylum of the Daleks and The Rings Of Ahkaten, where Clara is given some sort of redundant backstory concerning a fucking leaf, which eventually culminates in nothing but a passing mention by the season finale), which probably explains why general audiences didn’t buy into most of it, as opposed to RTD. Even the superficial emotional logic doesn’t gel due to, as you say, Moffat’s overarching cynicism. I think such an audience disconnect briefly gave me the impression that Moffat’s era wasn’t reliant on such tropes- even though it was, albeit lazily.

Pepsi Maxil wrote:
Ian is an obvious Moffat fanboy. I still adore him, though. Apparently Aussie men don't wear anything under their kilts. I reckon Ian has the Series 5 box set strapped to his ballsack underneath his.

Tanmann wrote:I.... quite liked Rings of Akhaten

Bernard Marx wrote:

Ronnie wrote:It's one of the biggest flaws in NuWho. Not just the mawkishness, but the pandering to modern day generations that think they need it.
It's part of what has made it mundane and ordinary, because that's the level that they're aspiring to reach, instead of trying to inspire an audience to reach beyond the everyday things that you see not just in soap operas, but most modern day tv.
Dr Who was once unique unto itself, but now so much of the content, tone, style, and lack of vision, is what makes it so much like everything else that's on tv these days.
Once, it ventured out on its own and dared to be just what it was. Nowadays, it's just desperate to fit in.

Agreed. Alongside the overwrought mawkishness, one of the most disappointing things about New Who is just how conservative it all is.  

Cunnus Maximus wrote:

Tanmann wrote:I.... quite liked Rings of Akhaten

Fuck me.

"Take it! Take it all baby!"

Cuntiest shit ever.

UncleDeadly wrote:

Bernard Marx wrote:

Ronnie wrote:It's one of the biggest flaws in NuWho. Not just the mawkishness, but the pandering to modern day generations that think they need it.
It's part of what has made it mundane and ordinary, because that's the level that they're aspiring to reach, instead of trying to inspire an audience to reach beyond the everyday things that you see not just in soap operas, but most modern day tv.
Dr Who was once unique unto itself, but now so much of the content, tone, style, and lack of vision, is what makes it so much like everything else that's on tv these days.
Once, it ventured out on its own and dared to be just what it was. Nowadays, it's just desperate to fit in.

Agreed. Alongside the overwrought mawkishness, one of the most disappointing things about New Who is just how conservative it all is.  

Precisely, and you cannot make a series like Doctor Who with that attitude. How can a science fiction and fantasy series possibly thrive when it cleaves to the mundane to try desperately to appeal to an audience that it believes is fundamentally not on its wavelength? And that is what we see Moffat doing throughout his tenure; blandly and cynically going through the motions of carrying on Davies' soap and sentimentalist tropes whilst his own writing reverts to his bad sitcom roots. Where is Doctor Who in all of this? Anything promising is always immediately dragged down by the baggage of unidiomatic "mainstream" television that they deem necessary for success.

I've often seen the argument put on gallifrey base that Doctor Who was always a mainstream show. It was meant for the general audience, yes, but it seems pretty clear that the BBC's estimation of the intelligence of the general audience back in the 60's, 70's and 80's was a good deal higher than it is now. But then, the BBC really is pale shadow of it former self at this point.

Bernard Marx wrote:All these nuances made the classic series one that transcended the popcultural trappings of its zeitgeist into something far more endearing and unique, and one that adhered less to pop culture and more to inspired counter cultures (hence the LSD adhering traits of The Web Planet, The Mind Robber, Claws Of Axos etc, as I discuss on another thread).

Tanmann wrote:

Bernard Marx wrote:All these nuances made the classic series one that transcended the popcultural trappings of its zeitgeist into something far more endearing and unique, and one that adhered less to pop culture and more to inspired counter cultures (hence the LSD adhering traits of The Web Planet, The Mind Robber, Claws Of Axos etc, as I discuss on another thread).

To my mind, it depends. I think the counterculture years inspired some of the best of Doctor Who, but also inspired some of the worst. The pacifist ethos of the hippie movement taken to its most moronic, nihilistic extreme got us Warriors of the Deep. The impact of the feminist movement is perhaps the one part of New Who that does revel in yesteryear's counterculture, but again often for the worse.

I suppose I would say the show was at its best when it had a good balance. The greats of Doctor Who were Terrance Dicks and Robert Holmes who skewed rather conservative and their tastes were for old Victoriana, but could still inject their stories with an element of class struggle (Horror of Fang Rock, State of Decay), critiques of the corrupt old order and the importance of societal progress (Brain of Morbius, The Deadly Assassin), and could allow for more left-leaning works too, and in a sense wielding swords through fire.

The problem today is that, of course, everyone is the same politically like-minded yes-men fanboys who either want the Doctor to represent everything 'right-on', or feel trapped and unable to write any other message.