Bad Fan Sam

[ravenbait]

I want to talk Who.

But first I want to remind everyone that I am a Bad fan. I don’t just love the things I love: I hold them to high standards, and am willing to express my disapproval when they fail to meet them, because the high standards are what made me fall in love with them in the first place. I don’t like falling out of love with things. It

Comments

[theafaye]

I have a theory that they're deliberately sabotaging, just as they appeared to do towards the end last time around so they had an excuse to ditch it. I think this time they want to sell it to the Americans, just as Torchwood's gone across the pond, so they don't have to take responsibility for something so beloved. Because let's be honest, that's really what Who has been coasting on for a while - the fact that lots and lots and lots of people are very fond of it and for many of us there's a whole heap of nostalgia thrown into the mix as well. I missed an episode last season and haven't bothered to go back and watch it and that says it all - in the past, that would NEVER have happened. I would even have considered rearranging going out so I wouldn't have to miss it in the first place. Now I can take it or leave it and it's solely because of the writing - I like Matt Smith and much as I hated the Amy/Rory dynamic (those two stuck in a room for eternity?? They'd kill each other within five minutes, right after they ran out of

[ravenbait]

I really don't know what's going on. I suspect complacency rather than deliberate sabotage. There's a degree of nepotism amongst the crew -- the same people do the writing all the time. There's a little cabal of them, presided over by Mark Gatiss (overrated as a horror writer, IMO) and Moffatt. I miss RTD's firm hand at the helm and his insistence on continuity. I think Moffat doesn't care in continuity because it's a fairy tale for children, and he underestimates the intelligence of his audience because the fanboys and fangirls are responding in a fannish way rather than remembering that the reason they are fans is because it used to be good.

[thudthwacker]

Nay -- *good* fan. If the folks who have loved the show forever won't hold the writers' feet to the fire, who will?

And, yes, the Angels in the space ship episode confused me deeply when they had great huge mobs of Angels all (as best I could tell) in each others' view. And they can crawl out of video screens? I guess that's another example of Moffat having an image he *really liked* in his head, and putting it in the episode regardless of how daft it is.

[ravenbait]

Yeah. I don't want to be too spoilertastic because I know you haven't seen all of them yet, but that was only a hint of the mess that was to come.

I think fan means something different now. If I were to voice these opinions in person at a convention I'd worry that I'd be lynched. There's a whole other essay in how fandom is now a tribal culture that has its own rules and requirements. Being a fan now means having tattoos and defending one's fandom, or at least ignoring bad writing in order to stay in with the crowd.

I don't want to be part of the Who fangang. I just want to have my 45 minutes of pleasure.