I just need to vent a little
Firstly, I know the writing credit for this ep goes to Chris Chibnall. But an awful lot of what I'm gonna say is seen primarily in Moffat's episodes and a lot of it is from last week - in fact leaving aside The Doctor's Wife I'm pretty sure Chris Chibnall is pretty much a faux-Moffat in this sense. The few rare episodes that bear hallmarks of this stuff that aren't Moffat are generally Chibnall. Moreover, Moffat is in charge. He has creative influence even when he's not the main writer for a particular episode. So post season five, this falls in his court too.
There were some things I loved about this episode. Most of them involve Amy. I also kinda like the robots, and I liked that the Silurians were, you know, mentioned again after the Doctor set them up to wake up when the Earth had become a big ball of death.
Then there were things I did not love. Hoooooo boy I could not even list them all. They paid lip service to the idea of Nefertiti being awesome but didn't follow through. Egyptian queens do not sacrifice themselves. They might pretend to sacrifice themselves and then straight up kill a dude, but... she didn't. She just stood around until the Doctor turned up. She was cool through the middle of the episode, but the start and the end? Shit no. Though at least there were no boxes - if there had been, after last week's All New! Girl In Dalek-Box!, I would have lost it. I'm pissed enough that there was no mention of River, like when Nefertiti asked if the Doctor had a queen, or at the end when they were talking about how he'd always come back for Ponds. And I'm going to say it, the pterodactyl scene was stupid. The pterodactyls didn't deserve that. I'm tired of seeing people who we're told are smart being really stupid. It's like they wrote it, then showed it off to someone and that person was like, "well they just teleported there, why are they running away?" and they had to put a line in somewhere to explain it so they could still have their cool pterodactyl scene. It would have felt less awkward if they'd had the Doctor, while they were still at the computer, even before they noticed the pterodactyls, say, "oh damn. the teleport has shorted out." Mention the excuse first so your viewers aren't going "this is stupid why are they so stupid!" during the scene you're trying to make really cool. Also make it clear why the teleport isn't working there, but is working later. Is it only that one broken? Does it need time to recharge? Put some effort into your fucking pterodactyls, guys. My oldest sister put it like: they put all this cool stuff in, and then decided that would be enough. Which is totally true.
Anyway, after it ended, we were talking about the various grossnesses of Nefertiti and past grossnesses and we discussed what exactly Steven Moffat's fucking issues are. Then we decided that we Must Know. So my oldest sister looked him up on Wikipedia and read bits out and boiled it down. And you know what? We were pretty much right about all of it. For those who don't know: his first wife left him for another guy while he was working on Press Gang. He then introduced a character to be a stand in for this guy so heaps of unfortunate things could happen to him like a typewriter falling on his foot. Later he was pitching a sitcom and apparently spoke so passionately about his divorce that some stupid fool suggested he write a show about that, so he wrote a show about a sitcom writer whose wife leaves him and reused his own dialogue that he actually said in actual real life, eg on finding out that the other guy was a fan of one of his shows, "Did he have to fuck my wife? Most people just write a letter." (Also the character of his wife is described on Wikipedia as "the adulteress, [name]" as though that's the only facet of her entire being, so there's that.) In an interview he said of the show that it lasted slightly longer than the marriage (two seasons) which seriously pings my "this guy has hangups" sensors in a way I can't quite articulate, and he's bragged that between his relationships he shagged his way through tv studios like a mechanical digger. He apparently is still with his second partner, but is still bringing his woman-issues to his tv writing, so many years later - I think it said he met his current partner in the 90s, so I can only imagine how inadequate she must feel sometimes.
Now clearly the adultery itself isn't blatantly reflected in Dr Who. But the abandonment issues and neediness still show. It very perfectly explains the putting of women in boxes for men to get out at their convenience. It heavily colours Rory's line last episode, "We both know that I loved you more than you loved me." and Amy's reaction was obviously a little bit of wish fulfillment there.
The really fucking sad (or gross, or sadgross) thing is that these guys, not just Steven Moffat but so many others, really think they want badarse women who are fierce and capable and strong and can stand up for themselves... but when it comes down to it, they don't want that to follow through. They don't want the rules and boundaries and self-defense to apply to them. Nefertiti not straight up killing a dude. Amy hiding at Demon's Run while Rory charged into battle. You can argue that she was protecting Melody, but that's how the situation was written. Too often a man has to swoop in and save a woman who should be able to do it herself. And women don't get to make their own choices - the Doctor does. River sacrifices herself, he brings her back just enough to stick her in a virtual reality. (Because when you think of River, you totally think she'd be happy trapped in a computer.) He saves Nefertiti. He decides to kill older Amy. I don't even know how to word how he handled Amy's pregnancy or Oswin's Dalekness - yeah, you have a humanised Dalek, and you want to... stop that? You want it to become a consciousless killing machine again? Especially before she's taken the shield down? These women are just being constantly undermined, both in universe and on a Doylian level, and it's so. fucking. wearing.
One day I would love to see mainstream media where trans people are shown as normal. But right now, it's so hard just to find good portrayals of women that I can't imagine when that could possibly happen. Not when even so much of fandom, who are normally if not good than at least better than the general population at analysing problematic themes, is busy worshipping guys who are creeps by stealth like Moffat and Whedon.
This entry was originally posted at http://keieeeye.dreamwidth.org/202966.html. Feel free to comment there instead because LJ is a poo.
There were some things I loved about this episode. Most of them involve Amy. I also kinda like the robots, and I liked that the Silurians were, you know, mentioned again after the Doctor set them up to wake up when the Earth had become a big ball of death.
Then there were things I did not love. Hoooooo boy I could not even list them all. They paid lip service to the idea of Nefertiti being awesome but didn't follow through. Egyptian queens do not sacrifice themselves. They might pretend to sacrifice themselves and then straight up kill a dude, but... she didn't. She just stood around until the Doctor turned up. She was cool through the middle of the episode, but the start and the end? Shit no. Though at least there were no boxes - if there had been, after last week's All New! Girl In Dalek-Box!, I would have lost it. I'm pissed enough that there was no mention of River, like when Nefertiti asked if the Doctor had a queen, or at the end when they were talking about how he'd always come back for Ponds. And I'm going to say it, the pterodactyl scene was stupid. The pterodactyls didn't deserve that. I'm tired of seeing people who we're told are smart being really stupid. It's like they wrote it, then showed it off to someone and that person was like, "well they just teleported there, why are they running away?" and they had to put a line in somewhere to explain it so they could still have their cool pterodactyl scene. It would have felt less awkward if they'd had the Doctor, while they were still at the computer, even before they noticed the pterodactyls, say, "oh damn. the teleport has shorted out." Mention the excuse first so your viewers aren't going "this is stupid why are they so stupid!" during the scene you're trying to make really cool. Also make it clear why the teleport isn't working there, but is working later. Is it only that one broken? Does it need time to recharge? Put some effort into your fucking pterodactyls, guys. My oldest sister put it like: they put all this cool stuff in, and then decided that would be enough. Which is totally true.
Anyway, after it ended, we were talking about the various grossnesses of Nefertiti and past grossnesses and we discussed what exactly Steven Moffat's fucking issues are. Then we decided that we Must Know. So my oldest sister looked him up on Wikipedia and read bits out and boiled it down. And you know what? We were pretty much right about all of it. For those who don't know: his first wife left him for another guy while he was working on Press Gang. He then introduced a character to be a stand in for this guy so heaps of unfortunate things could happen to him like a typewriter falling on his foot. Later he was pitching a sitcom and apparently spoke so passionately about his divorce that some stupid fool suggested he write a show about that, so he wrote a show about a sitcom writer whose wife leaves him and reused his own dialogue that he actually said in actual real life, eg on finding out that the other guy was a fan of one of his shows, "Did he have to fuck my wife? Most people just write a letter." (Also the character of his wife is described on Wikipedia as "the adulteress, [name]" as though that's the only facet of her entire being, so there's that.) In an interview he said of the show that it lasted slightly longer than the marriage (two seasons) which seriously pings my "this guy has hangups" sensors in a way I can't quite articulate, and he's bragged that between his relationships he shagged his way through tv studios like a mechanical digger. He apparently is still with his second partner, but is still bringing his woman-issues to his tv writing, so many years later - I think it said he met his current partner in the 90s, so I can only imagine how inadequate she must feel sometimes.
Now clearly the adultery itself isn't blatantly reflected in Dr Who. But the abandonment issues and neediness still show. It very perfectly explains the putting of women in boxes for men to get out at their convenience. It heavily colours Rory's line last episode, "We both know that I loved you more than you loved me." and Amy's reaction was obviously a little bit of wish fulfillment there.
The really fucking sad (or gross, or sadgross) thing is that these guys, not just Steven Moffat but so many others, really think they want badarse women who are fierce and capable and strong and can stand up for themselves... but when it comes down to it, they don't want that to follow through. They don't want the rules and boundaries and self-defense to apply to them. Nefertiti not straight up killing a dude. Amy hiding at Demon's Run while Rory charged into battle. You can argue that she was protecting Melody, but that's how the situation was written. Too often a man has to swoop in and save a woman who should be able to do it herself. And women don't get to make their own choices - the Doctor does. River sacrifices herself, he brings her back just enough to stick her in a virtual reality. (Because when you think of River, you totally think she'd be happy trapped in a computer.) He saves Nefertiti. He decides to kill older Amy. I don't even know how to word how he handled Amy's pregnancy or Oswin's Dalekness - yeah, you have a humanised Dalek, and you want to... stop that? You want it to become a consciousless killing machine again? Especially before she's taken the shield down? These women are just being constantly undermined, both in universe and on a Doylian level, and it's so. fucking. wearing.
One day I would love to see mainstream media where trans people are shown as normal. But right now, it's so hard just to find good portrayals of women that I can't imagine when that could possibly happen. Not when even so much of fandom, who are normally if not good than at least better than the general population at analysing problematic themes, is busy worshipping guys who are creeps by stealth like Moffat and Whedon.
This entry was originally posted at http://keieeeye.dreamwidth.org/202966.html. Feel free to comment there instead because LJ is a poo.