Female Doctor Who

[Ann_Sulu]

He started off great but in a similar way to how he took Sherlock downhill from an amazing start he was quickly doing the same with Doctor Who. The last few seasons have had a few highlights but a lot of low points too.

A friend and I actually watched Sherlock together, and had a game of guessing which episodes/parts of episodes were written by Moffat. We'd get genuinely surprised if an episode we found rather good had the name Moffat tacked onto it. We didn't find many hah.

 

[Always_Tim]

I believe that one of the main writers from Broadchurch, Chris Chibnall, will be both head writer and executive producer for the next Doctor Who season, which is also encouraging. He has written episodes for both Torchwood and Doctor Who in the past.

Some of his Torchwood episodes in Series 1 were pretty bad but he made up for that with a string of excellent episodes in Series 2. His Doctor Who episodes so far have been kind of average. Nothing wrong with them, but not great either. He does have some good experience as a head writer and executive producer though, so as long as he recruits some good writers and directors I think the show is in good hands.

 

[Always_Tim]

A friend and I actually watched Sherlock together, and had a game of guessing which episodes/parts of episodes were written by Moffat. We'd get genuinely surprised if an episode we found rather good had the name Moffat tacked onto it. We didn't find many hah.

Gatiss and Moffat have similar problems with their writing. They try too hard to be cleverer and end up with something that doesn't work out when it's actually filmed. And they both like the whole "if you believe/love hard enough, then the monster who is programed to blow everyone up will instead save the day" plot line that has been used so many times during the Moffat era of Doctor Who. It's no surprise to me that they enjoy working together.

On the whole I prefer Moffat's writing over Gatiss's on Doctor Who. (Moffat has written some episodes I love, plus some blah ones. Gatiss has written some of my least favorite episodes, and a lot of filler.) On Sherlock I don't know whose episodes are better… I don't think I've paid that much attention to who wrote which ones. (But I do absolutely love Gatiss's portrayal of Mycroft Holmes.)

 

[Ann_Sulu]

Gatiss and Moffat have similar problems with their writing. They try too hard to be cleverer and end up with something that doesn't work out when it's actually filmed. And they both like the whole "if you believe/love hard enough, then the monster who is programed to blow everyone up will instead save the day" plot line that has been used so many times during the Moffat era of Doctor Who. It's no surprise to me that they enjoy working together.

On the whole I prefer Moffat's writing over Gatiss's on Doctor Who. (Moffat has written some episodes I love, plus some blah ones. Gatiss has written some of my least favorite episodes, and a lot of filler.) On Sherlock I don't know whose episodes are better… I don't think I've paid that much attention to who wrote which ones. (But I do absolutely love Gatiss's portrayal of Mycroft Holmes.)

I don't think I've ever paid attention to Gatiss as a writer on anything aside from Sherlock, but admittedly I only paid attention due to disliking Moffat's style. I think they usually wrote together on Sherlock, so it'd likely be hard to tell.

Agreed though that Mark Gatiss made a wonderful Mycroft. His ability for portraying microexpressions was definitely impressive in that role.

Other than Moffat writing lines for say a dramatic psychopath, his writing usually reminds me of a college student adding extra words to a paper that a professor told him it had to be at least so long. Maybe Gatiss also does that, but no clue. The feel goods will always triumph theme has annoyed me in some Who episodes too.

I suspect them each trying hard to be the more clever one only helped write the script between Sherlock and Mycroft, but I can see how it wouldn't nessecarily work for Who.

On a whole, I loved the show, but the last episodes I felt were somewhat meh other than the last episode. I think they must have wanted to put all they had for the end.

 

[fandango]

This was the whole problem I found with the writing that none of the storylines ever had consequences. In their attempts to be overly clever they became stupid and so whenever someone dies they don't really die or they do it in some ridiculous way that the other characters just shrug it off and aren't changed or affected by it. If they are affected it only lasts for a short while and then there is some forced reset and everyone carries on as before. If the characters don't care then why should we as the audience care about anyone and it makes the shows feel numb.

I never looked into it enough to find out if it was a Gatiss or Moffat thing but in Doctor who I can kind of let it slide because time travel, regenerations, aliens and whatever so normal rules go out the window. I still end up feeling that an entire season of development was made pointless though but when they did the same thing in Sherlock it just went too far.

Agreed that Gatiss was excellent at playing Mycroft though. I'd never even heard of him before that.

 

[Ann_Sulu]

@fandango agreed, but the books did that too due to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle trying to appease his own fans of the time, so I feel I can't get too upset at them for it.

 

[JessaBella]

I've seen her in "st trinian's"
but that was a long time ago...
I am excited now... at first, I wasn't

 

[Logan469]

What a great thread. I've watched almost all of the new Dr Who. Liked Tennant a lot... loved Smith, and then Capaldi came... i dont know why but i can barely sit through one episode of him. Im curious to see how this actress does with the character and what her take is on it. I personally would have loved to see Ms Pond as the doctor but i digress.

The new Battlestar got me through a pretty dark time in my life... i had no idea that character was originally laced with sausage.

 

[IsabellaSnow]

I've seen her in "st trinian's"
but that was a long time ago...
I am excited now... at first, I wasn't

Oh my god! That's who it is! "red ones bring you up, and blue ones bring you down".

I haven't personally seen anyone getting bothered about a female doctor who, but I have been told that there are people who were genuinely upset. Which is funny as it actually makes less sense in the doctor who universe that he were to regenerate as a male human yet again. I didn't like doctor who growing up, the darlics freaked the fuck into me. And then as a teenager it became popular again but I didn't watch more than a few episodes. I am not going to lie, that was due to it being a very male show with a male lead where the female sidekick was just a sidekick/girlfriend character. It's not that I am opposed to watching those shows, but there are so many of them and they weren't particularly relatable to me. I guess to me that made it pretty boring. Whether I will watch the new one I don't know, but I am far more likely to get into it as it's branded less as a "guys only" area. Kind of like the gym, I used to always feel really scared of the weights section because all these guys would crowd around and make it their area, which made it clear to me that I was not invited and would just be perved on or treated like I was impinging on their space. When weightlifting became more common for women men stopped looking at me weirdly and making me feel pushed out and I started to feel completely comfortable going into those areas. I think anything where you tear down gender roles is a good thing, it's like inviting other people to enjoy something. I feel like that about starwars as well. While I liked it as a child, I didn't have any strong female characters to relate to who weren't sexualised or treated as a side character. I really love that they've been trying to change this as the newer star wars films are much more interesting for me to watch now.

 

[H0twife420]

I'm glad to see Moffat go, I love the show and hate that feeling of being disappointed by an episode. That first one with Bill, jesus, we got it, she's gay. You don't need to remind us a million times the first episode. Any Who, haha, I don't see what the fuss is about a female doctor. Who cares as long as she's quirky! The Master regenerated into Missy, after all.

 

[Neorulez]

A female doctor who would be interesting! I wish I could watch it but no cable and I am way behind episodes so whenever I get chance I will watch it again.