Bullshit Doctor Who article
 

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critic...urrentPage=all

I cannot even count the ways in which this article misunderstands classic Doctor Who.

Please proceed to tear it to shreds and leave nasty comments.

Ta.

As moronic as the rest of this article is, this is the part that annoys me the most:

"The show’s strength, however, is not its one-off stories but its longer arcs, a structural breakthrough of “The X-Files,” which modelled the notion that episodic TV could be woven together with powerful, season-long themes, inspiring the more complex breed of modern shows, both sci-fi and regular-fi."

WRONGGGGG

Episodic story format ftw

QFT

Old Doctor Who consisted almost entirely of arcs, the most episodic anything got was five episode long serials that more often than not tied directly into the serials that followed. One of the best seasons they had involved that Key to Time that was a long ass arc that would give Lost a run for its money.

Standalone episodes are a purely new-Who thing and they are usually some of the suckiest episodes they have.

You're right about the writer being wrong, arcs aren't new to new Who. But you're wrong about why the writer is wrong.

You must be drunk Danny if you think that's QFT. Though I supposed given the dearth of anything to quote you might technically be correct.

I prefer classic Who (even RTD's Who) over Moffat's Who. He writes good episodes, but they get so goddamned predictable after a while.

Are you high? Multi-part stories do not count as arcs. Stories leading into other stories do not count as arcs. That's just realism. The TARDIS leaves one place and lands somewhere else. Also, The Key to Time was a bunch of barely-connected mostly-independent stories, some of which just had the key segment tacked on awkwardly to make it fit in with the rest of the season (The Androids of Tara, for instance).

I could not agree more.

I try not to drink while I'm at work.

Well, first off, I mostly just take issue with her preference for "powerful, season-long themes." What she means by "arc" is not multi-parters connected by some form of continuity (TARDIS flying to other location), but an entire season connected by some larger overarching plot or emotional development (since she holds the romanticism of new-Who so highly). What I like about old Doctor Who is the ingenuity with which it ran through a variety of different adventures and scenarios--spanning many alien planets and encountering all the classic Who-villains. It had a science fiction meets Sherlock Holmes feel, and was very endearing.

My love for episodic format is something that extends beyond Doctor Who, and it was mostly her stance that it is inferior which annoyed me. Overarching themes and greater plots have their place, but I feel Doctor Who is most creative and at its best (for example, "Blink", a rare good standalone new series episode) when it can devise a compelling story in 45 mins without having to fall back on allusions to the "themes" of the new series. The short story is a difficult format, which is why long-winded RTD fails so miserably at it. But when it's done well, the best television is always a focused microcosm of events, compressed into a single episode or series of episodes.

For non-Doctor Who examples of this, see Lost's "The Constant" (despite the Desmond loves Penny overarching theme, the whole episode exists in a bubble), Sherlock's "A Scandal in Belgravia" or even the most recent Game of Thrones episode, "Blackwater."

Also RV, isn't your avatar Ed? Cowboy Bebop is about as episodic as it gets. "Mushroom Samba" anyone?

Hocus Pocus <3

I know, right? Love Hocus Pocus.

I just kinda shrugged at the article, ignorant people will be ignorant. Old who was my favorite way of doing who episodes, despite the new stuff having great episodes as well.

But anyways, I think DS9 exemplifies how I feel a series should go.. it had a ton of arcs, going through the seasons and series both, with a consistent sort of feel due to it taking place on a space station. But, it had plenty of one shot episodes that were amazing as well. DS9 is really the best Star Trek series and one of the better television shows in general because of this.

Amen to that.

To me, the biggest strength of Deep Space 9 was how character driven it was, just how much development and diversity you could get over so many primary, secondary and background characters. (Morn, anyone?) It not only made Star Trek feel more diverse. It wasn't afraid to explore darker aspects of the series alongside the idealistic vision Roddenberry had developed.

You are right in that,. It felt consistent and got better over time, rather then suddenly everything feeling different episode to episode unlike Voyager. DS9 was happily able to make up season-long arcs, as well as the entire show telling the story of the gradually developing hostilities between the Federation and Dominion. But also able to show off single story episodes which were light-hearted in tone and helped break things up. To me it sits proudly alongside TNG as some of the best that Star Trek has ever offered.

Agreed. I preferred Classic-Who's approach to stories. Key to Time being a nice example. Genesis of the Daleks also springs to mind. The individual episodes seen in new-Who easily range from horrible to really good..

I'm reminded of Tennant's first season, where we went from the excellent Impossible Planet/Satan Pit to the utterly dire Love and Monsters and Fear Her and then back to Army of Ghosts/Doomsday. I find the multi-part stories of New-Who to be much better, they have a lot more more time to set things up, develop it and reach the climax in a natural way.

Then again individual episodes like School Reunion and Blink are superb, but they also stand out lot better compared to other episodes during RTD's tenure.

Nice to see you and me still have this bond of awesome after all this time. :cool:

I would honestly love a season of nothing but two-parters. Give us a three-parter sometime!