burrunjor
Scooby
- Joined
- Nov 13, 2018
- Messages
- 1,002
- Age
- 35
I will say that in all honesty I think RTD ironically works better when he does stories set on other planets or other times. All of his worst stories are set on modern day earth. In fact he's only personally written two good stories on modern earth. The season 2, two parter which is a good bit of tv, but not a good DW story if that makes sense, and Smith and Jones which is a fun romp.
Everything else that he wrote set in modern day is either absolute crap, bland and unoriginal, or stupid fun at best like Journey's End.
However the five stories he wrote that actually are all either classics or brilliant are Tooth and Claw, Utopia, Midnight, The Next Doctor and Waters of Mars, set in other times and planets.
Now I'm not saying you can't set DW stories in modern day. The Jon Pertwee era famously got a lot out of the old Yeti sitting on your loo in Tooting Bec idea.
However the difference is that the Pertwee era writers still wanted to do sci fi and horror even when they were on earth, and simply used the earth setting to make those aspects more effective. RTD meanwhile used the earth setting to indulge in all of his other interests beyond the sci fi elements which were pushed to the back, or tossed in at the last minute. Soap operas, reality tv, celeb culture, chasing fads, the gay scene in clubs in Manchester in the 1980s, shallow neo liberal politics etc, those were all he was interested in and in fact the only reason he wanted to do modern day earth stories in the first place!
Tooth and Claw, Utopia, Midnight, The Next Doctor, Waters of Mars meanwhile almost all came about simply by accident. Midnight was a last minute replacement he was forced to do on the cheap because a Gatiss script was cancelled, and so were Waters of Mars and The Next Doctor after series 5 was cancelled.
Again the great irony is that clearly when writing those stories, he was forced to actually think as a genre writer, because he couldn't reference the X-Factor on Mars and therefore he actually looked to old horror/sci fi stories for inspiration rather than Heat magazine and ironically in all cases he actually did a good job of being a sci fi/horror writer! Other aspects of his style suited the genres.
For instance all of those stories are quite dark and dare I say push the boundaries more than a lot of other DWs at least in the modern era. Utopia features a truly nightmarish future for humanity, and one that can't be undone as ultimately no species can last forever. It's something that we don't like to think about, never mind put it on Saturday tea time LOL. Next Doctor tackles the darker underbelly of Victorian society, in a way that honestly a lot of other Victorian DW stories from Talons to the Paternoster Gang stories don't. They tend to show off a more romantic idea of Victorian London from Sherlock Holmes stories, rather than children slaving away in factories and satanic mills like The Next Doctor, whilst Midnight tackles the mob mentality, fear of outsiders aspect of humans in quite a frightening way, and shows how when pushed people don't always rise to the occasion.
Ironically had RTD written all of his stories like this he could have been seen as a brilliant, dark, imaginative DW writer, but again he didn't have anyone to hold him back, tell him to focus on this, that worked, but don't do this. Nope everything he wrote was genius, and he was able to indulge in all his whims regardless due to the showrunner position.
Whilst I do think the showrunner position is awful as put anyone in it and they will end up becoming self indulgent, RTD still should have known where his strengths were as a writer by that stage. It wouldn't surprise me if he looks down on the stories he wrote like Midnight as being silly, sci fi fare unlike Journey's End.
Everything else that he wrote set in modern day is either absolute crap, bland and unoriginal, or stupid fun at best like Journey's End.
However the five stories he wrote that actually are all either classics or brilliant are Tooth and Claw, Utopia, Midnight, The Next Doctor and Waters of Mars, set in other times and planets.
Now I'm not saying you can't set DW stories in modern day. The Jon Pertwee era famously got a lot out of the old Yeti sitting on your loo in Tooting Bec idea.
However the difference is that the Pertwee era writers still wanted to do sci fi and horror even when they were on earth, and simply used the earth setting to make those aspects more effective. RTD meanwhile used the earth setting to indulge in all of his other interests beyond the sci fi elements which were pushed to the back, or tossed in at the last minute. Soap operas, reality tv, celeb culture, chasing fads, the gay scene in clubs in Manchester in the 1980s, shallow neo liberal politics etc, those were all he was interested in and in fact the only reason he wanted to do modern day earth stories in the first place!
Tooth and Claw, Utopia, Midnight, The Next Doctor, Waters of Mars meanwhile almost all came about simply by accident. Midnight was a last minute replacement he was forced to do on the cheap because a Gatiss script was cancelled, and so were Waters of Mars and The Next Doctor after series 5 was cancelled.
Again the great irony is that clearly when writing those stories, he was forced to actually think as a genre writer, because he couldn't reference the X-Factor on Mars and therefore he actually looked to old horror/sci fi stories for inspiration rather than Heat magazine and ironically in all cases he actually did a good job of being a sci fi/horror writer! Other aspects of his style suited the genres.
For instance all of those stories are quite dark and dare I say push the boundaries more than a lot of other DWs at least in the modern era. Utopia features a truly nightmarish future for humanity, and one that can't be undone as ultimately no species can last forever. It's something that we don't like to think about, never mind put it on Saturday tea time LOL. Next Doctor tackles the darker underbelly of Victorian society, in a way that honestly a lot of other Victorian DW stories from Talons to the Paternoster Gang stories don't. They tend to show off a more romantic idea of Victorian London from Sherlock Holmes stories, rather than children slaving away in factories and satanic mills like The Next Doctor, whilst Midnight tackles the mob mentality, fear of outsiders aspect of humans in quite a frightening way, and shows how when pushed people don't always rise to the occasion.
Ironically had RTD written all of his stories like this he could have been seen as a brilliant, dark, imaginative DW writer, but again he didn't have anyone to hold him back, tell him to focus on this, that worked, but don't do this. Nope everything he wrote was genius, and he was able to indulge in all his whims regardless due to the showrunner position.
Whilst I do think the showrunner position is awful as put anyone in it and they will end up becoming self indulgent, RTD still should have known where his strengths were as a writer by that stage. It wouldn't surprise me if he looks down on the stories he wrote like Midnight as being silly, sci fi fare unlike Journey's End.
