Calum
Crabbit Minger
Perhaps greatest weakness of the current iteration of Doctor Who is its tendency to make Sesame Street look like the Sopranos*.
I was really getting into the latest episode of the show. It was a tense, macabre little slice of the gothic. But halfway through I began to sense a cop out brewing when it was pointed out that the bloke who got sucked into the wall wasn’t quite dead, giving the writers an opening to reverse everything by the end. Despite this I persevered, clinging to the hope that for once they’d stick to their guns and deliver a proper horror story. But alas, the monster is once again defeated by the power of love, Bill’s friends are magically undigested and all is well in the world. And in the world of Doctor Who death has become a slap on the wrist.
In retrospect it wasn’t a good sign when my reaction to a child dying in Thin Ice was not shock and horror but a dejected, ‘About bloody time this show grew a backbone’ (At least that’s what my psychiatrist tells me).
One of the aspects that made Doctor Who old and new so gripping was that for a family show it could be a ruthless little bugger that slaughtered innocents with glee not seen outside the fever dream of George RR Martin. The entire guest cast of any given story was often wantonly butchered by the end, creating a tense suspenseful universe where anyone could die at any time, which made the stories a lot more involving as the danger felt decidedly real (The Doctor could spend a whole story saving the planet Traken only for it to be blown to bits one episode later).
However ever since the 2010 series the show has developed a tendency to minimalize, downplay and sugar coat death to a point where all sense of drama and suspense has been neutered. As the above example demonstrates the show will often double back on death and resurrect everyone (Curse of the Black Spot and The Doctor the Widow and the Wardrobe are good examples of this). When death does occur it usually only sticks with very minor guest characters, as the show usually tends to blunt and sugar coat any actual deaths. Amy and Rory get taken back in time, live happily ever after and die of old age in the past, Danny and River are sort of dead but mostly alive inside a computer (for good measure Danny gets to bring back that kid he felt guilty about killing, solidifying the feeling that there are no lasting consequences to dying) Clara, Dorian and Strax are brought back to life almost immediately after snuffing it and Osgood’s demise is diluted when it turns out it may or may not have been her Zygon double who croaked. The frequency of this habit of diminishing the impact of death makes it hard to fully invest yourself in show, as it now feels that any time someone dies they’re only one wave of a magic wand away from coming back. The sense of threat and danger no longer feels credible, making it hard to get swept up in the danger of the stories.
Many of these forced happy endings come at the expense of the show’s themes and natural trajectory. One of the main points of The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe is that Madge needs to confront her kids with the reality of their father's death and stop pretedning that everything is ok. But this is blatantly stepped over as the ending brings him back for a clumsy feel good finale that comes at the expense of the story’s central theme. (The episode also had the cheek to mention Androzani, reminding me that I could be doing much more enjoyable things like watching The Caves of Androzani or feeding myself to a Boa Constrictor).
There’s rather peculiar joke making the rounds that, ‘George RR Martin, Joss Wheadon and Steven Moffat walk into a bar and everyone you know and love dies.’ I can understand the first two but can only guess Moffat was added to that line up by whatever person decided to nominate Hitler and Stalin for the Nobel Peace Prize. Indeed, Russell T Daives, his tendency for fluffy soap opera notwithstanding, was downright cut throat compared to the current management of the show. Granted that’s damming him with faint praise. RTD’s habit of hyping the audience that Donna or Rose would die only to weasel out through some loophole or other was something of a predecessor to Moffat’s everybody lives every single week shenanigans.
Still, RTD was the man who chose to bump off Rommana, Susan, K9 Mk1 and all the Time Lords and Gallifrey while Moffat was the one who brought them back. When death struck in an RTD story it tended to be brutal, unsentimental and more to the point real. Episodes like The End of the World and The Parting of the Ways whittled down their supporting casts via electrocution, suffocation and burning while two out of four of his surrogate companions in the specials wound up blowing out their brains or plunging into fiery pits. The Doctor saves New Earth from a pandemic only for it turn out a virus killed most of its population a few years later anyway. Even his infamous camp fests like Voyage of the Damned and Love and Monsters took out most of their sympathetic supporting characters in ghoulish, cruel ways. For all its cheesiness the RTD era captured the cut throat edge of old Who in a way that she show has failed to more and more in recent years.
However, this isn’t to say that it should veer in the opposite extreme. Indeed Marin’s overuse of shock deaths and downbeat endings has pushed things to a point where it’s become the new cliché in his work. During Eric Saward’s tenure, especially in series 21 the show attempted to pile on multiple episodes where most of the characters are killed (Including Warriors of the Deep, Resurrection of the Daleks) but dues to lacklustre writing and an overuse of shock deaths they failed to make an impact. Davies and Philip Hintchcliffe were savvy enough not to overuse bloodbath endings, reserving them only for particular stories like Pyramids of Mars and The Caves of Androzani, as their overuse would diminish their impact.
There is a place for everybody lives moments. The ending of The Doctor Dances stands out as one of the most powerful scenes in the show’s history. However, it gained its potency because it was the exception, not the rule. That for once, after all the horrors of the Time War and everything he went through in the first series things went right, no one was hurt and everyone got a happy ending. Now that it’s becoming the new norm it’s robbing the show of a lot of its power. The scene works only as a contrast, not the status quo. If Doctor Who is to remain involving TV they need to reinvigorate that sense of genuine danger and menace that once made it so gripping. (Truth be told it’ll take them hiring Quentin Tarnintino to ghost write the Christmas Special to allay my doubts).
* Clara, Amy and Rory all got a reprieve from the Reaper. Mr Hooper wasn't so lucky.
I was really getting into the latest episode of the show. It was a tense, macabre little slice of the gothic. But halfway through I began to sense a cop out brewing when it was pointed out that the bloke who got sucked into the wall wasn’t quite dead, giving the writers an opening to reverse everything by the end. Despite this I persevered, clinging to the hope that for once they’d stick to their guns and deliver a proper horror story. But alas, the monster is once again defeated by the power of love, Bill’s friends are magically undigested and all is well in the world. And in the world of Doctor Who death has become a slap on the wrist.
In retrospect it wasn’t a good sign when my reaction to a child dying in Thin Ice was not shock and horror but a dejected, ‘About bloody time this show grew a backbone’ (At least that’s what my psychiatrist tells me).
One of the aspects that made Doctor Who old and new so gripping was that for a family show it could be a ruthless little bugger that slaughtered innocents with glee not seen outside the fever dream of George RR Martin. The entire guest cast of any given story was often wantonly butchered by the end, creating a tense suspenseful universe where anyone could die at any time, which made the stories a lot more involving as the danger felt decidedly real (The Doctor could spend a whole story saving the planet Traken only for it to be blown to bits one episode later).
However ever since the 2010 series the show has developed a tendency to minimalize, downplay and sugar coat death to a point where all sense of drama and suspense has been neutered. As the above example demonstrates the show will often double back on death and resurrect everyone (Curse of the Black Spot and The Doctor the Widow and the Wardrobe are good examples of this). When death does occur it usually only sticks with very minor guest characters, as the show usually tends to blunt and sugar coat any actual deaths. Amy and Rory get taken back in time, live happily ever after and die of old age in the past, Danny and River are sort of dead but mostly alive inside a computer (for good measure Danny gets to bring back that kid he felt guilty about killing, solidifying the feeling that there are no lasting consequences to dying) Clara, Dorian and Strax are brought back to life almost immediately after snuffing it and Osgood’s demise is diluted when it turns out it may or may not have been her Zygon double who croaked. The frequency of this habit of diminishing the impact of death makes it hard to fully invest yourself in show, as it now feels that any time someone dies they’re only one wave of a magic wand away from coming back. The sense of threat and danger no longer feels credible, making it hard to get swept up in the danger of the stories.
Many of these forced happy endings come at the expense of the show’s themes and natural trajectory. One of the main points of The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe is that Madge needs to confront her kids with the reality of their father's death and stop pretedning that everything is ok. But this is blatantly stepped over as the ending brings him back for a clumsy feel good finale that comes at the expense of the story’s central theme. (The episode also had the cheek to mention Androzani, reminding me that I could be doing much more enjoyable things like watching The Caves of Androzani or feeding myself to a Boa Constrictor).
There’s rather peculiar joke making the rounds that, ‘George RR Martin, Joss Wheadon and Steven Moffat walk into a bar and everyone you know and love dies.’ I can understand the first two but can only guess Moffat was added to that line up by whatever person decided to nominate Hitler and Stalin for the Nobel Peace Prize. Indeed, Russell T Daives, his tendency for fluffy soap opera notwithstanding, was downright cut throat compared to the current management of the show. Granted that’s damming him with faint praise. RTD’s habit of hyping the audience that Donna or Rose would die only to weasel out through some loophole or other was something of a predecessor to Moffat’s everybody lives every single week shenanigans.
Still, RTD was the man who chose to bump off Rommana, Susan, K9 Mk1 and all the Time Lords and Gallifrey while Moffat was the one who brought them back. When death struck in an RTD story it tended to be brutal, unsentimental and more to the point real. Episodes like The End of the World and The Parting of the Ways whittled down their supporting casts via electrocution, suffocation and burning while two out of four of his surrogate companions in the specials wound up blowing out their brains or plunging into fiery pits. The Doctor saves New Earth from a pandemic only for it turn out a virus killed most of its population a few years later anyway. Even his infamous camp fests like Voyage of the Damned and Love and Monsters took out most of their sympathetic supporting characters in ghoulish, cruel ways. For all its cheesiness the RTD era captured the cut throat edge of old Who in a way that she show has failed to more and more in recent years.
However, this isn’t to say that it should veer in the opposite extreme. Indeed Marin’s overuse of shock deaths and downbeat endings has pushed things to a point where it’s become the new cliché in his work. During Eric Saward’s tenure, especially in series 21 the show attempted to pile on multiple episodes where most of the characters are killed (Including Warriors of the Deep, Resurrection of the Daleks) but dues to lacklustre writing and an overuse of shock deaths they failed to make an impact. Davies and Philip Hintchcliffe were savvy enough not to overuse bloodbath endings, reserving them only for particular stories like Pyramids of Mars and The Caves of Androzani, as their overuse would diminish their impact.
There is a place for everybody lives moments. The ending of The Doctor Dances stands out as one of the most powerful scenes in the show’s history. However, it gained its potency because it was the exception, not the rule. That for once, after all the horrors of the Time War and everything he went through in the first series things went right, no one was hurt and everyone got a happy ending. Now that it’s becoming the new norm it’s robbing the show of a lot of its power. The scene works only as a contrast, not the status quo. If Doctor Who is to remain involving TV they need to reinvigorate that sense of genuine danger and menace that once made it so gripping. (Truth be told it’ll take them hiring Quentin Tarnintino to ghost write the Christmas Special to allay my doubts).
* Clara, Amy and Rory all got a reprieve from the Reaper. Mr Hooper wasn't so lucky.
