Less the heroes of our stories than the villains of some other bastard’s

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Daniel Harper

7 Comments

  1. Jane
    July 24, 2016 @ 7:00 pm

    Okay, now I have to go see Ghostbusters.

    Reply

  2. Jack Graham
    July 24, 2016 @ 7:47 pm

    It was a compliment, yes.

    Reply

  3. dm
    July 25, 2016 @ 11:47 am

    OK. Finally listening to the Moffatt chat…

    AT LAST! Someone else who doesn’t like Blink. As a character drama, it’s just… dramatically inert. As a puzzle box it’s just simple and dumb. To paraphrase Lawrence Miles on Stephen Fry, it’s a stupid person’s idea of what a clever piece of television is. Coupling is politically abhorrent, but its plotting was often infinitely more complex and interesting than Blink’s. And, depressingly, the character drama was too. I adore a lot of Moffatt’s writing, especially post 2010- Wedding, Name, Day, Time, Listen, Heaven Sent, Hell Bent are all utterly brilliant. But Blink? Perhaps it was a brave attempt to reclaim the territory of City of Death and the like at the time. But, if that came out today, it would would be derided as a basically incompetent attempt to do something clever. The idea that people cling to that fluff as a masterpiece when so much that is infinitely more interesting has come since, much of it from the same pen, really baffles me.

    Reply

    • dm
      July 25, 2016 @ 11:58 am

      Ugh, that sounds like such an awful rant. What I’m trying to get at is, I’m sick of Moffatt haters who praise Blink. I’m a reformed Moffatt hater, as I’ve said here before. So I guess, with all the stuff I’ve found to love in Moffatt’s writing (through the murk of gender essentialism, incidental homophobia etc), it’s particularly frustrating that people point to that as some sort of ideal of Moffatt’s talents and abilities.

      What won me over to Moffatt (specifically as a Who writer, I’ll always have respect for his work on Press Gang), eventually, was “time travel has always been possible in dreams.” In isolation, an utterly twee line. In the context of a science fiction series with a contingent of lizard brain fans, it seemed weirdly defiant, and gave me a new perspective on all of his work. Blink still feels like one for the lizards in its neat, tidy, puzzle box nature. Moffatt’s talent shines through most in the mess, the magic and the loose ends. Heaven Sent could have been an awful, direct analog for grief, but he left just enough room there for it to be about everything.

      Reply

  4. dm
    July 25, 2016 @ 12:02 pm

    Also, the Moffatt chat is a great podcast. As with Moffatt’s best work, the brilliance here is in the loose ends. It’s refreshing to hear you both not checking yourselves or second guessing things (I’ll listen to the other podcasts later).

    Reply

  5. Kevin Burns
    July 25, 2016 @ 10:42 pm

    Ghostbusters Kevin is the Second Best Kevin!

    Reply

  6. ViolentBeetle
    July 26, 2016 @ 8:29 pm

    What is it with the left and their love for big corporations that exploit them to shill for their cashgrabs this year?

    Reply

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