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user-2-electric-boogaloo · 3 years

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A Comparison of RTD and Steven Moffat: Saving The Day

So for this analysis I’m going to compare when Moffat and RTD save the day well and when they save it poorly. There are a few bits of criteria I need to explain.

First I will only be including main series, no Torchwood, no spin-offs, and no mini episodes.

Second, I have to define what makes a good and a bad ending (my examples will come from episodes written by neither of them):

Bad endings include when the sonic saves the day (see The Power Of Three) (there are exceptions, see below), when a character spouts some useless technobabble that doesn’t make any scientific sense/when it doesn’t make logical sense in general, when the Doctor invents/presents a machine/equipment that miraculously stops the baddy and is never referred to again (see Journey To The Centre Of The TARDIS), and any other ending I deem to be bad (see The Vampires of Venice)

Good endings include when the sonice activates a device that has been well established to save the day, when technobabble is used that actually makes some scientific sense, and just generally when the baddy is destroyed in what I deem to be a creative manner that makes sense with all the things that had been set up in that episode (see The Unquiet Dead).

There will also be cases where there isn’t really a day to be saved, however this happens more often with Moffat.

Let us begin (obviously there will be spoilers but the last episode in the list aired nearly 4 years ago so what you doing with your life).

RTD:

Rose: Bad

What even is anti-plastic?! Like seriously, he’s faced the Autons loads of times and has never thought to use it any other time.

The End Of The World: Bad

The Doctor just goes up to the appearance of the repeated meme (ha meme) and rips its arm off. He then just summons Cassandra back by twisting a knob which apparently everyone can do if “you’re very clever like me”.

Aliens Of London/World War Three: Good

Just nuking them all was a bit dodgy but I’ll give it to him purely because it had been set up earlier in the episode and it is a genuine option that could have been taken.

The Long Game: Good

The heating issue was set up within 2 minutes of the episode starting. It’s always good to see the Doctor using his enemies weakness against them.

Boom Town: Good

Only just. It’s technology that hadn’t been showcased ever before and came out of nowhere, but I’m allowing purely because it was setting up The Parting Of The Ways.

Bad Wolf/The Parting Of The Ways: Good

See above. It was set up the story before so it works.

The Christmas Invasion: Bad

This was so close to being good. If RTD had just let the Sycorax leader be honourable then everything would have been fine. Instead he had to let him be dishonourable and then the Doctor through the Satsuma at a random button that for no apparent reason caused a bit of floor to fall away.

New Earth: Bad

It only makes sense if you think about it for less than 10 seconds as just pouring every cure to every disease ever into a giant tub and then spraying said supercure onto them all, then having them hug each other to pass it on. That is suspending my disbelief just a bit too far.

Tooth And Claw: Good

Everything is set up in the episode so I’ll allow it but I fail to see how Prince Albert had the time to ensure that the diamond was cut perfectly.

Love And Monsters: Bad

It’s Love And Monsters. Need I say more?

Army of Ghosts/Doomsday: Good

It was very clearly set up throughout the episode.

The Runaway Bride: Bad

I don’t like how a few bombs can supposedly drain the entire Thames.

Smith And Jones: Good

All the events were well established

Gridlock: Good

It’s a fairly bland way to save the day, just opening the surface to all the drivers. But how else could he have done it?

Utopia/The Sound Of Drums/Last Of The Time Lords: Bad

As much as I like the idea that he tuned himself into the archangel network, he basically turned into Jesus. It is arguably the least convincing ending in modern Doctor Who history.

Voyage Of The Damned: Bad

Why was he the next highest authority? If he’s the highest authority in the universe why didn’t they default to him in the first place? If not then why not default to Midshipman Frame? And if he’s somehow in between them then why? Also Astrid killed herself for no reason when she easily could have jumped out of the forklift.

Partners In Crime: Good

It works in the context of the episode, but I don’t see why they needed two of the necklace things.

Midnight: Good

It’s human nature, you can’t get more well set up than that.

Turn Left: Good

It works logically

The Stolen Earth/Journey’s End: Bad

Donna just spouts a load of technobabble whilst pressing buttons and then the Daleks are magically incapacitated.

The Next Doctor: Bad

Why do the infostamps sever Hartigan’s connection with the Cyberking? As far as I remember it ain’t explained.

Planet Of The Dead (co-written with noted transphobe Gareth Roberts): Good

A good couple scenes are dedicated on getting the anti-gravs set up.

The Waters Of Mars (co-written with Phil Ford): N/A

The day isn’t really saved cause everyone still dies anyway.

The End Of Time: Good

Using a gun to destroy a machine is much better than using the sonic to destroy it.

Summary for RTD:

Out of 24 stories written by him, I deem 10 to be bad endings with 1 abstaining. That’s 41.7% of his episodes (43.5% if we don’t count any abstaining).

Steven Moffat:

The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances: Good

You’ll see this a lot with Moffat, he knows how to explain things without stupefying levels of technobabble. “Emailing the upgrade” is a perfect example of this.

The Girl In The Fireplace: Good

Some basic logic, the androids want to repair their ship, but they can’t return to it, they no longer have a function so they shut down.

Blink: Good

Always loved this one, getting the angels to look at each other, however they do look at each other sometimes earlier in the episode.

Silence In The Library/Forest Of The Dead: Bad

This is more of a problem with the setup of the episode, I don’t like that he can negotiate with the Vashta Nerada. I’d rather see them comprehensively beaten, but I guess it’s good for the scare factor that they can’t be escaped from.

The Eleventh Hour: Good

He convinced the best scientists all around the world to set every clock to 0 all in less than an hour. In the Doctor’s own words “Who da man!”

The Beast Below: Good

The crying child motif pretty much ended up saving the day (well for the star whale, life went on as normal for pretty much everyone else).

The Time Of Angels/Flesh And Stone: Good

The artificial gravity had briefly been set up earlier so I’ll allow it.

The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang: Good

Everything had been set up perfectly, the vortex manipulator, the Pandorica’s survival field thingy, the TARDIS exploding at every moment in history.

A Christmas Carol: Good

Literally the entire episode is the Doctor saving the day by convincing Kazran not to be a cock.

The Impossible Astronaut/Day Of The Moon: Good

The silence’s ability to influence people is their whole thing, so using it against them is a good Doctory thing to do.

A Good Man Goes To War: N/A

The day isn’t really saved, Melody is lost, but River shows up at the end so is all fine? I love the episode it’s just the day isn’t really truly saved (yes I know Amy was rescued but she still lost her baby).

Let’s Kill Hitler: N/A

There isn’t really a day to be saved. They all get out alive but no one is really saved other than maybe River but we all knew she was gonna live anyway.

The Wedding Of River Song: Good

Whilst opinion is divided on the episode, the ending still works. the Tesseracta was established in Let’s Kill Hitler, and the “touch River and time will move again” was established well in advance.

The Doctor, The Widow And The Wardrobe: Bad

I don’t like how the lifeboat travels through the time vortex for no reason but to rescue the dad. It don’t make no sense and I don’t think it’s explained

Asylum Of The Daleks: Good

Oswin had access to the Dalek hive mind so of course she should be able to link into the controls and blow everything up.

The Angels Take Manhattan: Good

Paradoxes really do be something powerful, and they even acknowledge how nobody knows if it’d work so I’ll let it slide.

The Snowmen: Bad

Lots of people cry at Christmas, why are the Latimers anything special?

The Bells of Saint John: Good

The whole episode is about hacking so why shouldn’t the Doctor be able to hack the spoonheads

The Name Of The Doctor: Good

It was the story arc for the season pretty much, so of course it was explained well in advance.

The Day Of The Doctor: Good

Both the storing Gallifrey like a painting and the making everyone forget if they’re Human or Zygon works in the context of the episode.

The Time Of The Doctor: Bad

Since when were the Time Lords so easily negotiated with?

Deep Breath: Good

I like the dilemma over whether the half-face man was pushed or jumped.

Into The Dalek: Good

It’s set up well with this new Doctor’s persona of actually not being too nice of a guy (at first).

Listen: N/A

There isn’t a day to be saved. It’s just 45 minutes of the Doctor testing a hypothesis and I low-key love it.

Time Heist (co-written with Steven Thompson): Good

It works logically so I’ll allow it however it isn’t very well set up at all.

The Caretaker (co-written with noted shithead Gareth Roberts): Good

The machine to tell the Blitzer what to do was set up well in advance so I’ll allow it.

Dark Water/Death In Heaven: Good

The fact that Danny still cares even as a cyberman is set up fairly early on after his transformation.

Last Christmas: Good

He does use the sonic to wake up Clara but he convinces the others to wake up through talking so I’ll allow it.

The Magician’s Apprentice/The Witch’s Familiar: Good

It’s set up well with that little scene from actually inside the sewers.

The Girl Who Died (co-written with Jamie Mathieson): Good

IDK why the vikings would randomly keep electric eels but they’re set up well so I’ll ignore it.

The Zygon Inversion (co-written with Peter Harness): N/A

Not including this one as it’s only the second part and I’d argue the ending is most likely Harness’.

Heaven Sent/Hell Bent: N/A

Again there isn’t really a day to be saved, yes Heaven Sent really is amazing but it’s only the first part and, being completely honest, he dies several billion times before finally getting through the wall.

The Husbands Of River Song: N/A

Again there isn’t really a day to be saved here.

The Return Of Doctor Mysterio: Good

He gets Grant to catch the bomb which is good. But he does just sonic the gun out of Dr Sim’s hand and says UNIT is on its way which just sort of wraps it up very quickly.

The Pilot: N/A

No day to be saved here.

Extremis: Good

You could technically call it the sonic saving the day, I consider it to be the Doctor emailing the Doctor to warn him of the future.

The Pyramid At The End Of The World: Good

The fire sanitising everything makes sense and it’s in character for Bill to love the Doctor enough to cure his blindness in return for the world

World Enough And Time/The Doctor Falls: Good

Yes it is the sonic just blowing the cybermen up, but it’s blowing them up with well established pipelines so I’ll allow it (also the story is amazing).

Twice Upon A Time: N/A

No day to be saved here. Just Doctors 1 and 12 getting angsty about regenerating.

Summary for Steven Moffat:

Out of 39 stories written by him, I deemed 4 to be bad with 7 abstaining. That’s 10.3% of his episodes (12.5% if we don’t count any abstaining).

Conclusions:

Moffat was much better at saving the day than RTD

Moffat liked telling stories where the day didn’t actually need to be saved

I’ve spent way too long on this and I need to sleep

If I spent as much time on this as my coursework I’d probably pass

If you’re still reading this, you probably need to get a life

#doctor who #steven moffat #rtd #in case you can't tell I really don't like RTD #Remember the Superwholock days when everyone ripped the shit out of Moffat #what am I doing with my life #tardis #rose tyler #martha jones #donna noble #amy pond #rory pond #rory williams #river song #clara oswald #Bill Potts

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amtrak12 · 4 years

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I should add that while my Doctor/Rose WIP does indeed show a bias to Nine, this bias also serves a purpose. Because Rose’s character arc is about understanding her place in the Doctor’s life and taking ownership of it. Even defending it when need be. And to do that, she needs to face some old fears and ghosts.

Nine represents a ghost. He’s the first Doctor she met, the first one she traveled with, the first one she fell in love with. She fought with Nine sometimes, rather big fights too (Unquiet Dead and Father’s Day), but Nine never betrayed her. Nine never abandoned her.

Until he died.

But that betrayal gets placed on Ten’s shoulders. Because he’s the new Doctor. He’s the impostor, the stranger, the one she has to get used to and learn all over again. And she does it, of course, but that betrayal still happened. The regeneration still left behind a scar.

And then reality comes knocking on the door before Rose and the Doctor can firmly reestablish their happy bubble. Rose is confronted with the Doctor’s past (Sarah Jane’s return). She’s confronted with his future (which is what actually happened in Girl in the Fireplace, not the story the episode gave us. fight me). And whether the Doctor is being confronted by this reality too or he’s reacting to Rose’s reactions - or possibly he’s still feeling the scars of Rose’s initial rejection of his regeneration. Whatever it is, Ten has walls up. Different walls than Nine ever had up, because Nine’s walls were around the Time War, around Gallifrey, his culture, his people. He honest to god had no walls between him and Rose. That dude was toast from the second he took her hand. But Ten has walls between him and Rose. Big, huge emotional walls. (Or maybe it was the doses of reality, and not Ten intentionally, that placed walls between them.) In any case, neither of them knew how to address these walls, and the happy, isolated bubble they were in before the regeneration disappeared long before Doomsday brutally ripped them apart.

So back to the character arc in my fic. Rose - set in S4, pre-Turn Left - finds Nine while dimension jumping. She has her guard up, taking appropriate time travel precautions, but he’s Nine. He’s her Doctor. Of course, she relaxes while they talk. Of course, she allows herself to slip back into that happy bubble they had back then. And you know what? It’s nice. She needs it. And then Nine is helping her find the right timeline, where to go to reunite with him properly, and Rose believes. She believes in him again. The Doctor will always put her first. The Doctor will always help her. The Doctor will never ever abandon her. It’s so easy to believe these things again, because she so desperately wants things to be as easy as they were when she was nineteen and they had just met.

But then the coordinates don’t take her to the Doctor. She waits and searches and waits some more for a whole week. Because the Doctor had sent her here specifically so this has to be the right place, right? But Ten is no where to be found.

Then she discovers that this Jenny Smith person who’s been roaming town this entire time is actually the Doctor. A future regeneration with new friends, A Doctor who’s moved on. A Doctor who’s lied to her for a week and now refuses to help her.

It is every one of Rose’s fears, both spoken and unspoken, come true. This is the worst kind of threat to her beliefs and her hopes. Her defenses go up and she retreats hard into her faults.

Now, Thirteen is legitimately trying to protect a timeline that included a literal, actual REALITY BOMB. Rose, in Thirteen’s memories, never made any mention of running into other regenerations of her, therefore this meeting now between Thirteen and Rose never happened. It was never supposed to happen. And if Thirteen interferes in any way, however minuscule, it could alter events so that they lose, the Daleks win and all of reality is destroyed.

The threat of the past, present, and future in every universe that’s ever existed being wiped out is enough to quell Yaz and the fam’s arguments to help Rose. But Rose isn’t in a position to hear these fairly reasonable arguments. Remember, her own personal reality - the one where the Doctor never ever abandons her - has been threatened. Any growth that’s she’s experienced goes out the window and she defaults to being selfish. Because that’s who Rose Tyler is. She’s selfish.

So she lashes out. Says Thirteen is all the worst parts of the Doctor. Retreats deeper into the Tardis to sulk so she can’t be sent away. It’s not pretty. It’s Rose at her lowest point, her breaking point, and it hurts.

And in that darkest hour, she wonders - is this such a surprise? Would Ten have done this too? She wants to say no, but there’s this niggling doubt. (if we’re sticking with full S1-2 canon and not my mental rewrite, then this is where the aired version of Girl in the Fireplace and all That Nonsense would come into play.)

I feel like I’m losing the plot of this meta while revealing the entire plot to my fic. So to skip ahead a bit. Thirteen and Rose do work things out. Thirteen finally remembers Rose’s encounter with Nine and is like ‘Oh wait that’s new’. Then the Tardis confirms the timeline Thirteen remembers, the one she was trying to protect, is completely gone. Changed. Never happened. What is currently happening right now is the new timeline and Thirteen has no idea what will happen next. And if she has no idea what will happen next, then that means anything can happen next. So why not? Why not take Rose to reunite with Ten about 2 weeks earlier than Thirteen remembers? Why not try?

Things remain tentative between Thirteen and Rose during these discussions even after Thirteen apologizes. But there’s glimpses. Hints that if given more time together or if this was their first meeting instead of a wrong, out of order meeting, then the connection between them would still form. They would still be the Doctor and Rose. And Rose, when she’s not reeling from a week of lies, can see that Thirteen isn’t all the worst parts of the Doctor. She’s actually amazing. Thirteen is different in all the familiar ways. She reminds Rose of both Nine and Ten while being nothing like either. Rose is still unmoored by Thirteen’s existence (and the two THOUSAND years separating their timelines is mind-boggling) but it’s also comforting in a way. And when Thirteen’s face lights up to talk about Yaz and Ryan and Graham, Rose doesn’t feel that bitter, sick fear of meaning nothing to the Doctor. She’s just... relieved. Happy even that the Doctor seems so happy. Grateful the Doctor isn’t alone.

(Later, when it’s time to say goodbye, Rose gives Yaz a hug. Because Yaz was the one who pointed Rose towards the Tardis (against the Doctor’s orders, companion solidarity am I right?) and because Rose recognizes in Yaz a similar attachment to the Doctor. Rose tells her to not let the Doctor push her away.)

In turn, Thirteen points out how much Rose has changed too. Uses her memories as Nine as proof. Because Nine had the unique chance to see both 19 year old Rose and 23 year old Rose in the same day, and the differences were striking. She sees the differences as a good thing. Yes, there were rough times, yes there are scars, but how much Rose has learned and changed is incredible. Awe-inspiring. Thirteen is so proud of her.

So after surviving the Darkest Hour, we have Rose discovering for herself that what she’d always feared happening wasn’t terrible after all because she’s changed since meeting Sarah Jane, and maybe the Doctor moving on isn’t her deepest fear anymore. And then we have the Doctor immediately affirming this discovery by explicitly saying that Rose has changed just as much as the Doctor has. The affirmation gives confidence to Rose’s inner thoughts*, and that confidence is the last key Rose will need for the story’s climax.

(*the positive reinforcement that the Doctor started minute 1 when Rose asks if the autons were students dressed up and he told her that was a smart guess and then just never stopped praising her logic skills is just, UGH. I love it so much and it played a massive, massive role in Rose developing into the person we see in Doomsday and Season 4.)

Thirteen is the first one to say I love you to Rose. She does it sneakily while Rose is distracted and scanning a crowded marketplace for Ten. She stands behind her and leans forward to murmur it in her ear. Because she knows her past self too well, knows he can talk and talk and talk and never say the most important things - but also she’s still the Doctor and whew, boy! How the hell do humans casually say “I love you” to people’s faces all the time? That’s... hard.

It’s enough, though. Between the (finally) admitted ‘I love you’ and risking another crossed timeline to ensure Rose reunites with Ten, Rose has more than forgiven Thirteen for their rough introduction. And Thirteen has more than proven that Nine wasn’t some ideal, perfect version of the Doctor. He was just... the Doctor. Just like Thirteen is the Doctor, and Ten. And Rose is important to the Doctor, to every Doctor, even if she only belongs with one of them.

The Rose Tyler that finally - finally - finds the Tenth Doctor and leaps into his arms for a never ending hug is still selfish and loyal and stubborn and kind and everything she was before. But she’s also older and wiser and a bit more comfortable with this life she’s returning to. A bit more healed, a bit more prepared. Understands that her promise of forever doesn’t literally mean forever, but by god is she going to make it last as long as she can.

And when Ten cuts the happy reunion short after two minutes to instead fret about the stars goings out and universes collapsing and to interrogate Rose for details about what she saw despite Donna’s best efforts to get him to just Not for two seconds - Rose has both the certainty and confidence to take control of the situation and tell him no. No, the crisis is two weeks away; we’re not doing this today. No, things are going to be different between us this time. We’re not doing walls. We’re not leaving things unsaid. You’re never sending me away again. When I say forever, you’re not going to argue impossible. Because nothing Ten can do or say in an attempt to spare either one of them from future heartbreak will do anything but make them both miserable in the present. Because Rose has seen the future and the Doctor’s happy. Nothing they do in the present will change that, so why not choose to be happy too?

There’s a little more emotions and fighting in that climax plus a whole running thread about Rose’s bedroom on the Tardis being untouched in Thirteen’s timeline that provides the foundation to Rose’s “our present isn’t going to change the future” argument, but you get the gist.

Rose Tyler grows up. Ten gets a hundred extra years out of his regeneration. And I give myself the fan service I deserve to replace Journey’s End. :)

but Nine is still the best Doctor

#Doctor Who #Doctor x Rose #Rose Tyler #my meta #(just write the damn fic instead of essays about the fic wtf)#(I AM! I SWEAR! The meta helps me write it though!)#(cause I can organize my justifications for my plot choices better since very few of these justifications will get explicitly mentioned #within the story itself)#(and outlining out of order in a notebook has its uses but doesn't allow me to get a big picture view of my story easily)#(meta does and I can confirm I'm being consistent throughout)#(also I just have a lot of feelings and I won't apologize for that)

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