A few thoughts on Moffat’s writing.
A note before we start: This is, essentially, meta on Moffat’s writing - trying to study how and why it does what it does. It has nothing to do with RTD, so no comments comparing the two, please. And for anyone wanting to talk about representation or sexism or similar, please see this awesome post by such_heights, which echoes my thoughts precisely.
A few thoughts on Moffat’s writing.
Timey-wimey.
The Doctor: People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint, it's more like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff.
‘Blink’
~
The Doctor: Because that's how I see the universe. Every waking second, I can see what is, what was... what could be, what must not. That's the burden of the Time Lord, Donna.
‘Fires of Pompeii’
~
Amy: Time can be re-written
River: Not all of it.
‘The Impossible Astronaut’
Now, my thought is that Moffat is constructing the show so as to teach the audience to think like Timelords. Look at S5 and 6 so far, and they really are ‘a big ball of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff’. Cause and effect are... *waves hands* nigh on impossible to trace. (Just see this diagram outlining The Big Bang - for the whole series it would be... painfully complex.) But the thing is, we get lines thrown at us like ‘The TARDIS can archive things that have not happened yet’, and we understand what that means. (‘The only water in the forest is the river...’) The other side to this is that everything is connected. This is rather delightful, except for the fact that it makes writing meta rather complicated...
Which brings me to:
Moffat tells his stories backwards.
I’ve already touched on the timey-wimey-ness, but this particular feature adds another dimension to the show. I ‘grew up’, fandom wise, with Joss Whedon, and I very quickly learned that if people were happy this meant that horrible things would soon befall them and everyone’s heart would get trampled. And, generally speaking, this is how stories work. We watch to find out 'what happens next', as the stories progress in a linear fashion, although we sometimes get curveballs thrown in. (The Doctor meets Rose, the Doctor and Rose have adventures, the Doctor loses Rose FOREVER. Oh no wait! There she is again. How? Why? Will they be happy *this time*?... Experience says: No.)
Moffat, in his role at the helm of Doctor Who, has done the opposite. He began his story with a tragic death, except we didn’t quite understand it at the time, and we were more puzzled than sad. (Well a lot of people were just annoyed.) But with every reveal of who River is, and what she means to the Doctor, that final separation gains new layers and becomes more painful. All Moffat has to do is write the story, and the tragedy takes care of itself...
Also, moving further out and looking at the whole show from a distance, many moments gain new significance as we go on. We watch a story unfold, but with every reveal, every new understanding, the past gains more weight, more layers. For example, the interactions between River and Amy and Rory. Or - the story of the Pandorica. In the light of AGMGTW the Alliance no longer seems so strange, their actions not so surprising. Because who is the Doctor, really?
What I mean is - re-watch S5 or what we have of S6 so far in the light of AGMGTW, and we are in many respects watching a different story. Like... Oh, looking at a picture through coloured film or similar? Do you know what I mean? You look at something through a red lens and you can only see parts of the picture and it looks complete, but then you look through the blue lens and you see lots of other things - Moffat is slowly adding colours, and when he's done we'll see the whole picture!
Another aspect to getting our story in the wrong order is... We get it in the wrong order. S6 being the prime example of course. We start of with the Doctor's death, and the whole season is about finding out WHY he dies. Filling in all the blanks. It tilts everything, but I rather like it.
Amy's skirt
OK, I'm going to stick my hand in a hornets' nest with this one, but please try to understand that I am merely attempting to understand what he was doing, not whether it was a good thing...
I never wrote about the Comic Relief Special at the time (I was too cross with fandom), but I just rewatched it and yeah, I remember. It's all about the circles. I'll go into how it all fits into the show in another post, for now I just want to walk about the skirt.
I can understand why some people found the whole concept offensive, but I think they're overlooking the meta. Why did Moffat write a whole mini episode about Amy's skirt? Answer: Because it's something that people have talked about incessantly ever since the first filming pictures appeared. Are her skirts too short? Is she too sexy? If she wears short skirts, clearly she is a slut and/or a stripper (this one's still around - no really. She was called a strip-o-gram in The Daily Mail two weeks ago, I kid you not).
Basically, a LOT of people have ~issues~ with how Amy dresses. (A lot of those people are in fandom.) And Moffat is sexist for making her wear them.
So, what Moffat did was tackle these things head on: Amy's too sexy. She shouldn't wear those skirts. She's a distraction to all around her - certainly to that driving instructor. Not to mention to her husband (nevermind that she's a happily married woman, and Rory is entitled to find her attractive)!
(Plus there's the glass floor. Endless fun to be had with that if you have a dirty mind. And fandom does, and Moffat knows it does.)
Result: Amy, put some trousers on!
'But oh we can't have that!' shouts fandom. 'That's sexist too! How dare you!'
So here's the catch-22: You can't have it both ways. Plz make up your mind. Moffat has kindly provided you with both sides of the argument. Either Amy's an inappropriately dressed slut and she should cover up, or she's not. Take your pick.
(This was an example of the show causing RL ripples which rippled right back into the show. Circles, see? Should Moffat poke fandom with a pointy stick? Probably not. But I can understand why he does it, even if his methods might be too tongue in cheek for his own good. Personally, I don't care.) Moving on...
How to re-tell old stores anew
I know that there are probably a lot of people complaining that the whole show is centred around River now, and you know what? They’d be absolutely right. The whole show *is* about River now. And I think this makes Moffat pretty much a genius.
Let me explain: Doctor Who, as everyone knows, is a very, very old show. We know... pretty much everything there is to know about the Doctor, as we’ve watched him for nearly fifty years. And this is a problem, because how can you tell new stories when you’ve already told every story there is twice or thrice or ten times over? (See The 45 deaths of Doctor Who. Notice all the 'X leaves, breaking the irreplaceable magic between companion and Doctor...')
What RTD did was invent the Time War, destroying the Time Lords, and then deal with the fallout from that. This was a very good way of generating a story, and breaking the Doctor was certainly new. He gets big props for that (and for bringing the show back, full stop. *squishes RTD gratefully*). The only drawback is that once you’ve taken someone apart all you can do is put them together again.
So what Moffat has done is introduce River. River is an enigma. River has layers upon layers upon layers of secrets. River can help spin storylines for as long as Moffat wants - she is, quite simply, a goldmine, storywise. And the brilliant thing is of course that she’s deeply tied into the Doctor’s life, so her story is his too.
Which is why it's so important that River isn't a companion. Don't get me wrong, companions are important and wonderful, but they have a clearly defined role, and generate particular kind of stories.(Just look at School Reunion and the mirroring of Rose and Sarah Jane.) River's story is vastly, vastly different, and so is River herself. She always knows more than the Doctor, one way or another, and she is his equal, and so her arc is a completely different shape.
It’s essentially just a difference in focus, because she, like the Doctor, is a Trickster character. But since she part of the story told, it makes her stand inside it, as a character, and outside, as someone propelling it forward - essentially telling her own story...
And how clever is that?
Finally owlsie complied a giant post of Moffat Quotes which is totally awesome!
A few thoughts on Moffat’s writing.
Timey-wimey.
The Doctor: People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint, it's more like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff.
‘Blink’
~
The Doctor: Because that's how I see the universe. Every waking second, I can see what is, what was... what could be, what must not. That's the burden of the Time Lord, Donna.
‘Fires of Pompeii’
~
Amy: Time can be re-written
River: Not all of it.
‘The Impossible Astronaut’
Now, my thought is that Moffat is constructing the show so as to teach the audience to think like Timelords. Look at S5 and 6 so far, and they really are ‘a big ball of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff’. Cause and effect are... *waves hands* nigh on impossible to trace. (Just see this diagram outlining The Big Bang - for the whole series it would be... painfully complex.) But the thing is, we get lines thrown at us like ‘The TARDIS can archive things that have not happened yet’, and we understand what that means. (‘The only water in the forest is the river...’) The other side to this is that everything is connected. This is rather delightful, except for the fact that it makes writing meta rather complicated...
Which brings me to:
Moffat tells his stories backwards.
I’ve already touched on the timey-wimey-ness, but this particular feature adds another dimension to the show. I ‘grew up’, fandom wise, with Joss Whedon, and I very quickly learned that if people were happy this meant that horrible things would soon befall them and everyone’s heart would get trampled. And, generally speaking, this is how stories work. We watch to find out 'what happens next', as the stories progress in a linear fashion, although we sometimes get curveballs thrown in. (The Doctor meets Rose, the Doctor and Rose have adventures, the Doctor loses Rose FOREVER. Oh no wait! There she is again. How? Why? Will they be happy *this time*?... Experience says: No.)
Moffat, in his role at the helm of Doctor Who, has done the opposite. He began his story with a tragic death, except we didn’t quite understand it at the time, and we were more puzzled than sad. (Well a lot of people were just annoyed.) But with every reveal of who River is, and what she means to the Doctor, that final separation gains new layers and becomes more painful. All Moffat has to do is write the story, and the tragedy takes care of itself...
Also, moving further out and looking at the whole show from a distance, many moments gain new significance as we go on. We watch a story unfold, but with every reveal, every new understanding, the past gains more weight, more layers. For example, the interactions between River and Amy and Rory. Or - the story of the Pandorica. In the light of AGMGTW the Alliance no longer seems so strange, their actions not so surprising. Because who is the Doctor, really?
What I mean is - re-watch S5 or what we have of S6 so far in the light of AGMGTW, and we are in many respects watching a different story. Like... Oh, looking at a picture through coloured film or similar? Do you know what I mean? You look at something through a red lens and you can only see parts of the picture and it looks complete, but then you look through the blue lens and you see lots of other things - Moffat is slowly adding colours, and when he's done we'll see the whole picture!
Another aspect to getting our story in the wrong order is... We get it in the wrong order. S6 being the prime example of course. We start of with the Doctor's death, and the whole season is about finding out WHY he dies. Filling in all the blanks. It tilts everything, but I rather like it.
Amy's skirt
OK, I'm going to stick my hand in a hornets' nest with this one, but please try to understand that I am merely attempting to understand what he was doing, not whether it was a good thing...
I never wrote about the Comic Relief Special at the time (I was too cross with fandom), but I just rewatched it and yeah, I remember. It's all about the circles. I'll go into how it all fits into the show in another post, for now I just want to walk about the skirt.
I can understand why some people found the whole concept offensive, but I think they're overlooking the meta. Why did Moffat write a whole mini episode about Amy's skirt? Answer: Because it's something that people have talked about incessantly ever since the first filming pictures appeared. Are her skirts too short? Is she too sexy? If she wears short skirts, clearly she is a slut and/or a stripper (this one's still around - no really. She was called a strip-o-gram in The Daily Mail two weeks ago, I kid you not).
Basically, a LOT of people have ~issues~ with how Amy dresses. (A lot of those people are in fandom.) And Moffat is sexist for making her wear them.
So, what Moffat did was tackle these things head on: Amy's too sexy. She shouldn't wear those skirts. She's a distraction to all around her - certainly to that driving instructor. Not to mention to her husband (nevermind that she's a happily married woman, and Rory is entitled to find her attractive)!
(Plus there's the glass floor. Endless fun to be had with that if you have a dirty mind. And fandom does, and Moffat knows it does.)
Result: Amy, put some trousers on!
'But oh we can't have that!' shouts fandom. 'That's sexist too! How dare you!'
So here's the catch-22: You can't have it both ways. Plz make up your mind. Moffat has kindly provided you with both sides of the argument. Either Amy's an inappropriately dressed slut and she should cover up, or she's not. Take your pick.
(This was an example of the show causing RL ripples which rippled right back into the show. Circles, see? Should Moffat poke fandom with a pointy stick? Probably not. But I can understand why he does it, even if his methods might be too tongue in cheek for his own good. Personally, I don't care.) Moving on...
How to re-tell old stores anew
I know that there are probably a lot of people complaining that the whole show is centred around River now, and you know what? They’d be absolutely right. The whole show *is* about River now. And I think this makes Moffat pretty much a genius.
Let me explain: Doctor Who, as everyone knows, is a very, very old show. We know... pretty much everything there is to know about the Doctor, as we’ve watched him for nearly fifty years. And this is a problem, because how can you tell new stories when you’ve already told every story there is twice or thrice or ten times over? (See The 45 deaths of Doctor Who. Notice all the 'X leaves, breaking the irreplaceable magic between companion and Doctor...')
What RTD did was invent the Time War, destroying the Time Lords, and then deal with the fallout from that. This was a very good way of generating a story, and breaking the Doctor was certainly new. He gets big props for that (and for bringing the show back, full stop. *squishes RTD gratefully*). The only drawback is that once you’ve taken someone apart all you can do is put them together again.
So what Moffat has done is introduce River. River is an enigma. River has layers upon layers upon layers of secrets. River can help spin storylines for as long as Moffat wants - she is, quite simply, a goldmine, storywise. And the brilliant thing is of course that she’s deeply tied into the Doctor’s life, so her story is his too.
Which is why it's so important that River isn't a companion. Don't get me wrong, companions are important and wonderful, but they have a clearly defined role, and generate particular kind of stories.(Just look at School Reunion and the mirroring of Rose and Sarah Jane.) River's story is vastly, vastly different, and so is River herself. She always knows more than the Doctor, one way or another, and she is his equal, and so her arc is a completely different shape.
It’s essentially just a difference in focus, because she, like the Doctor, is a Trickster character. But since she part of the story told, it makes her stand inside it, as a character, and outside, as someone propelling it forward - essentially telling her own story...
And how clever is that?
Finally owlsie complied a giant post of Moffat Quotes which is totally awesome!