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Elizabeth Sandifer

Elizabeth Sandifer created Eruditorum Press. She’s not really sure why she did that, and she apologizes for the inconvenience. She currently writes Last War in Albion, a history of the magical war between Alan Moore and Grant Morrison. She used to write TARDIS Eruditorum, a history of Britain told through the lens of a ropey sci-fi series. She also wrote Neoreaction a Basilisk, writes comics these days, and has ADHD so will probably just randomly write some other shit sooner or later. Support Elizabeth on Patreon.

36 Comments

  1. Jack Graham
    March 27, 2014 @ 12:41 am

    Perhaps I should also do a video blog on the Eleventh Hour.

    Reply

  2. peeeeeeet
    March 27, 2014 @ 1:35 am

    Both well done. Jane made several points I wanted to make last night but was too tired. Always nice when that happens!

    Reply

  3. Bennett
    March 27, 2014 @ 1:37 am

    Wow. The promotion from comment to content was…unexpected. Thanks for the kind words, Phil. The pleasure was all mine.

    And bravo jane! Your video managed the tricky feat of being both impressively in-depth, and unflaggingly engaging. I think the best compliment I can give is to say that you've substantially increased my appreciation of The Eleventh Hour – something I would not have thought possible beforehand.

    Reply

  4. Anton B
    March 27, 2014 @ 2:17 am

    This comment has been removed by the author.

    Reply

  5. Anton B
    March 27, 2014 @ 2:24 am

    Both are excellent presentations, offering an intriguing way forward for the interactivity of this blog. Oh and Alan Moore is a humourless old curmudgeon? I think we've exploded that myth.

    Reply

  6. Ozy Jones
    March 27, 2014 @ 3:40 am

    Thanks, Jane and Bennett for these brilliant vids. Very much enjoyed them and your look into the SM era of visuals. Your time and effort is appreciated.

    And Phil, this blog has become a powerhouse of insight into the media arts and how televisual story telling works, as well as a source of entertainment that transcends anything I've experienced previously on line. Especially with the regular group of wonderful contributors that gather to dissect and peck over the bones of each story, and argue, ever so politely, for their readings.

    Also… your books have arrived down-under, safe and sound and I'm preparing to start the journey again, this time in good old retro paperback.

    Reply

  7. jane
    March 27, 2014 @ 6:53 am

    I think you made the better, more compelling point — Moffat's inclusion of the audience as a part of the story is the biggest motivator for kinds of differences we see in the visual construction of the two eras.

    Reply

  8. Pen Name Pending
    March 27, 2014 @ 8:34 am

    Wonderful guys, I really wish there was more of this analysis on YouTube. It's not only interesting and intelligent, but fun.

    So just for future reference, how do I upload video from DVD and Blu-ray to use in such a way? Does it even work for Blu-ray?

    Reply

  9. Froborr
    March 27, 2014 @ 11:30 am

    Ooh, Jane's video was excellent. Only thing I question: are mirrors really that common in mythology? Most mythologies predate mirrors… the only myth I can think of that prominently features a mirror is Amaterasu in the cave.

    Bennet's video is also excellent. Moffat's collapsing of diegetic and extradiegetic spaces ties in with the whole "fairy tale" aesthetic quite well. The whole idea of Faerie is that it's a world on the fringes of our own; the characters in a fairy tale start in what, for their times and places of origin, are familiar settings and roles, and then stumble into another world. The implication is that Faerie is everywhere, lurking in all the nooks and crannies, in shadows and cracks in walls and behind your blinks. For Davies, the Doctor lives in a world that is most definitely not our own (specifically, he lives in Television). For Moffat, the Doctor lives in a world that's rolled up inside our own.

    The funniest part of that last video for me? Alan Moore explaining that magic is more of a mental thing, more ethereal than physical, and the interviewer responding, "So you can't, then?" What can I say, I love when blunt practicality smashes through mystical claptrap.

    Reply

  10. Marionette
    March 27, 2014 @ 1:06 pm

    It always fascinates me, and by "fascinates" I mean "annoys", how much effort in the Moffat era is put into detail and symbolism when the actual story doesn't seem to be quite finished, or properly thought through. I can't help wondering if the Moff gets so caught up in his own cleverness that he fails to spot that the plot doesn't make sense, has massive holes in it, or involves a lightning rod to catch sunspots after dark.

    Reply

  11. jane
    March 27, 2014 @ 1:13 pm

    @Froborr: "Only thing I question: are mirrors really that common in mythology? Most mythologies predate mirrors… the only myth I can think of that prominently features a mirror is Amaterasu in the cave."

    Good question. I don't limit my definition of Mythology to the ancient ones, so this list will include some other references, too.

    Perseus uses a mirror to defeat the Medusa.
    Vampires don't have reflections in mirrors.
    Narcissus falls through his reflection in the water. And drowns.
    In Jonathan Strange, a mirror is a portal.
    So too for Alice going Through The Looking Glass.
    Congolese fortune-tellers use mirrors to interrogate spirits.
    In Sufism the heart is a mirror that, when polished, reflect divine light.
    The Egyptian glyph for "life" — the ankh — is also a word for "mirror."
    Mirrors were placed in Egyptian tombs to allow the transition to another life.
    The Etruscan word for soul means "image reflected in a mirror."
    Early Christian books (early 2nd millenium) used the mirror as a metaphor, and often as book titles.

    The mirror is a symbol of clarity, perception, and consciousness in Buddhism. Yama, the God of Death, holds up a mirror to reveal your karma.

    Reply

  12. Aaron
    March 27, 2014 @ 3:13 pm

    Jane, have you ever read Borges' "Hakim, the Masked Dyer or Merv," or, more famously, "T'lon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius"? If not, they're very short, and I'd highly recommend them to you. Your interest in mirrors always reminds me of Borges' Veiled Prophet, who bans all mirrors, proclaiming that "mirrors and copulation are abominations, for they multiply the number of man."

    Reply

  13. David Anderson
    March 27, 2014 @ 3:36 pm

    I suspect there are few fans of the Moffat-era who wouldn't also like Borges.

    Reply

  14. jane
    March 27, 2014 @ 6:47 pm

    It always fascinates me how much effort in the Moffat era is put into bringing up "plot holes" when the actual critique doesn't seem to be quite finished or properly thought through. I can't help if such critics get caught up in their own cleverness that they fail to spot that the critique is often blind to what the story's actually doing.

    Reply

  15. Bennett
    March 27, 2014 @ 6:49 pm

    Here's my method for DVDs (I only own two Blu-Rays, and my computer can't read them):

    If I'm going to be using a substantial portion of one episode (like The Eleventh Hour) I use a free program called DVD Shrink. This can backup the video/audio of an episode as a .vob file, which can either be put directly into a video editor (like the one I used from the free Blender package) or converted into a compatible video file (using the free Any Video Converter). [Incidentally, this setup can also allow you to rip audio commentaries to mp3 files – a feature I never fail to find useful.]

    If I only need a brief clip then I would use the, also free*, VLC Media Player. If you choose View -> Advanced Controls while playing a DVD a 'Record' button appears which allows you to take short excerpts from the episode in .mpg format. Just make sure to leave a few seconds either side of the scene you want.

    It's a technical, convoluted process at first; but it does get much easier with practice.

    Are you detecting a pattern?

    Reply

  16. Marionette
    March 27, 2014 @ 9:38 pm

    Are you assuming I don't know what I'm talking about, or do you have an explanation for the one example I gave? Because if the latter, I'd be interested to know.

    I'm not denying anyone their enjoyment of stories that I personally find flawed, but your enjoyment of them doesn't make them any less flawed, and suggesting I am the one at fault when Moffat's shortcomings are so well documented seems a little disingenuous.

    Reply

  17. Bennett
    March 27, 2014 @ 10:36 pm

    The way I read it, jane's comment wasn't about claiming that Moffat's writing is flawless, but about highlighting the hypocrisy of critiquing a work for not being "thought through" when the critique itself is facile – a pedantic take-down based on plot hole tunnel vision.

    But I shouldn't speak for jane, so instead I will tackle the one example you gave. The cockerel acts as a "lightning rod", but that's not what it is designed as. Cleaves refers to it as a "solar router" and says its function is to supply the facility with solar energy. There is no mention of "sunspots" but of a "solar tsunami" ("a huge wave of gamma particles") which interferes with their solar router technology until the lightning damages it. I don't have the educational backing to say whether this is valid science…but it's feasible enough for a teatime adventure story set in the near-future. And the solar storm happens during the afternoon, not "after dark" (the storm scene is explicitly stated to take place an hour before the dusk/night-time scenes when they regain consciousness).

    …which all goes to show that explicating plot holes is about the dullest commentary one can make on an episode.

    Reply

  18. Jenda
    March 27, 2014 @ 11:58 pm

    I absolutely loved this, both were excellent – more please down the line, at whatever points you feel warrant them 🙂

    Reply

  19. Ross
    March 28, 2014 @ 2:14 am

    It always fascinates me how defenses of Moffat seem less interested in defending the content and more interested in insulting his detractors. When the defenders do deign to address the material, they seem to be appealing to some kind of Moffat-of-the-gaps, his genius revealed not in what he actually puts on-screen, but in what he doesn't: Isn't it brilliant, they say, how his compressed storytelling leaves so much untold, how he trusts his viewers to work out the rest on their own.

    I used to be of this camp, for so long. After all, it's easy enough to focus your defenses on saying what shitty people the detractors are when it's rec.arts.drwho and all. But then Day of the Doctor happened and it became impossible for me to keep pretending that Moffat actually had some brilliant secret plan being cleverly revealed in the gaps between what was being shown on-screen.

    Reply

  20. David Anderson
    March 28, 2014 @ 2:56 am

    Very few people defend Moffat on the grounds that he has some brilliant secret plan. Compared to 'Rose uses magic TARDIS powers to send messages to herself from her future' or 'the Doctor uses his hand to regenerate without regenerating() and then his hand grows a whole new Doctor and then turns Donna into a half-human half-time lord but not until Davros zaps her' I think Moffat's plots are watertight. Ok – if you're criticising them by the standards of Blink they can be a bit wobbly. But really that's an impossible standard for anyone to maintain over a series.
    The main thing we enjoy about Moffat is the things he has to say about life and stories and death.

    As for Rebel Flesh – a solar flare makes futuristic technology malfunction would be a perfectly routine plot device in Star Trek and as sf hardness goes Star Trek is like quartz to Doctor Who's talc. If you're going to treat that as a plot hole, Doctor Who has far worse to offer. It would be like rejecting Gridlock because there's nowhere for all the petrol to come from. (The vehicles are clearly using combustion engines; the plot turns on it.)

    () This bit makes no sense.

    Reply

  21. Bennett
    March 28, 2014 @ 3:43 am

    Ross – "It always fascinates me how defenses of Moffat seem less interested in defending the content and more interested in insulting his detractors."

    I freely admit to having little interest in defending the content of Moffat's stories. Guilty as charged. I'd much rather discuss the content of Moffat's stories, but when so much of the discourse is an attack then defenses have to rise.

    I also do not wish to insult any of his detractors; but I sometimes want to challenge their assertions and probably don't take enough care to make sure my words don't come across as insulting or patronising once they're compressed into a string of ASCII characters. So if I have insulted, or will insult, apologies. Feel free to call me up on that – it's the only way I'll learn.

    But here's what it boils down to for me. I see two types of media criticism – constructive (where the text is used as a foundation from which meaning and understanding is built) and destructive (where the text is pulled apart, and individual elements argued over). The latter feels too much like squabbling children pulling apart their favourite toy – all the pieces are still there, but something holistic is lost. The former is what I want to read, and what I would rather participate in. It is also, quite literally, the reason why I've been an avid reader of the TARDIS Eruditorum since Kembel – because constructing new understandings is, the way I see it at least, Phil's default modus operandi.

    Note that by my (admittedly self-held) definitions, criticism can be constructive without being praise – take Jack Graham's recent guest post as a good example, which I did enjoy reading. I have no wish to silence negative criticism of the Moffat era. But there are times where, just once, I'd like to be able to read through a thoughtful discussion of my favourite programme without having someone brazenly declare it to be "fucking terrible."

    Reply

  22. jane
    March 28, 2014 @ 4:37 am

    @Marionette: I'm not assuming that you don't know what you're talking about — I'm pointing out that the critique you just offered was pretty much of empty of content. I found the "lightning rod" example so obscure (or rather, devoid of reference) that I took it as rhetorical flourish; thanks to Bennett and David for illuminating that for me. I'd genuinely thought you'd made a plot-hole critique without offering up a single plot hole.

    So, the example. Regardless of the scientific silliness of the cockerel, it's not a plot hole, not anywhere close. In fact, no kind of scientific silliness qualifies as a plot hole. Such conceits don't prevent the proper functioning of the plot itself, or the central characterization therein.

    Which rather begs the question, what is the proper function of a plot? And I would off this: to present the characters with an inevitable dramatic choice. That's it. RF/AP does this quite well — each of the characters has to decide on whether to grant "humanity" to the clones (and, conversely, whether to grant it to the originals), including themselves. Amy recognizes that the consciousness of the Flesh Doctor is completely valid; in the end, Jennifer fails to overcome her base emotions and denies the humanity of everyone, including herself.

    The lightening strike of the cockerel doesn't interfere with the dramatic choices at all. It facilitates it. The "logic" behind that inciting incident isn't "scientific" but "literary" — this is a trope from Frankenstein, and should be easily recognizable to fans of Who's genre. The fact that the events take place in a church also point towards the central dramatic conceit, which is one of interiority (which is also the point of Frankenstein). To point to the cockerel as a "plot hole" is to fail to grasp or accept the given terms of the story. Which, in the end, ends up being a critique of the viewer, not the story itself.

    By no means do I think Moffat's writing or showrunning is "perfect" — no one's is. Conversely, it's equally facile to say his work is "fucking terrible." To have a meaningful conversation about it, we have to start by understanding the terms that have been laid out, the overarching conceits, themes, techniques, and execution thereof. Once we identify what he's actually doing we can then look at what values that approach embodies — and now we're in a place where we can really get into whether we're served well or poorly by that approach.

    Reply

  23. Froborr
    March 28, 2014 @ 6:42 am

    Hmm, I'd reject Jonathan Strange and Alice as examples of mythology, since they're presented as fiction and thus fall firmly on the tale end (heh) of the legend-myth-tale spectrum,* but otherwise, yeah, point taken. Mirrors are pretty common mythological symbols.

    *Yes, I know these three categories don't necessarily apply in all cultures. But the Germanic-descended cultures is where the categories were first identified, and they fit English culture quite well.

    Reply

  24. jane
    March 28, 2014 @ 7:56 am

    "the tale end"

    Those categories are so blurry, I have a hard time distinguishing them. In most of Western culture today, for example, mythology is presented as fiction. Not to say that all fictions are mythic — The Time Traveler's Wife really isn't, but surely Star Wars is? Anyways, a few more:

    — Mirrors are "gateways" in Charged Vacuum Emboitments
    — Mirrors are believed to capture the soul in Kinda
    — Mirrors decorate the halls outside Xoanon's lair (identity)
    — A circle of Mirrors defeats the Mara in Kinda
    — A mirror behind the Doctor defeats the Borad
    — Waterfield's time machine is made of mirrors (Evil of the Daleks)
    — Rose's time machine is made of mirrors (Turn Left)
    — Adric communicates from an "other" place through a mirror (Castrovalva)

    And, of course, there's the famous sequence when Neo's release from the Matrix is depicted as becoming "one" with a mirror. Star Trek's "Mirror Mirror" episode uses the mirror as a metaphor (rather than a magic object) to describe an alternate universe, an "other side." In "Mirrors," a 2008 Kiefer Sutherland film (released on 8/15) the protagonist gets lost in the "other side" of a mirror when he dies. In LOST, Hurley sees a vision of his dead friend Charlie through a two-way mirror.

    As above, so below.

    Reply

  25. Froborr
    March 28, 2014 @ 10:09 am

    I don't think the distinction is that blurry, at least in Western culture. It's a matter of social function. Legends are presented as having happened in this world at a historical time. Myths are presented as being true, but regarding some other world or outside normal time.

    A tale can borrow elements of mythology heavily, even to the point of being structured like a myth, and Star Wars is a good example of that. But it doesn't serve the social functions of mythology the way that, say, stories like the Crucifixion, Manifest Destiny, or the Dialectic of History do.

    Reply

  26. jane
    March 28, 2014 @ 12:07 pm

    How myths are presented depends on which social group you're in. The Crucifixion is presented as true to Christians, but to atheists it's obviously fiction, and of course the story of Pandora's Box isn't taken as true by either group. So I'm very hesitant to take "myths are presented as true" as a defining function.

    Especially because, as a polyphrenic who is partly atheist, I still want to partake of myths and get some value from them, without sacrificing my intellectual integrity. If there's truth in a myth, I think that truth is primarily metaphorical; it's a transcendent truth, not a material one.

    Such a position is decidedly postmodern, but I think it offers much value. First, there's no argument about one myth being "right" and all the others being wrong; in fact, it opens the door to all kinds of mythologies. Second, it grants the possibility of mythopoesis, the possibility of making "modern myths" that can serve the same (social and individual) functions as the ancient ones, without concern for their overt fictionality. And finally, it retains the value of myth in an increasingly secular, skeptical, cynical world, where science has pretty much dismantled supernaturalism and accessible "other worlds" with a wrecking ball.

    Reply

  27. Anglocat
    March 28, 2014 @ 3:47 pm

    Jane and Bennett, thanks for two very interesting, complementary looks at The Eleventh Hour. I don't have anything to add but that thanks…and the fact that I agree that a mythic storytelling approach is very much a part of the Moff's Doctor Who, and that I always enjoy how Jane's comments have kept the alchemical resonance of the show as a part of the discussion–David Whitaker is still very much a part of the show's DNA.

    Reply

  28. Marionette
    March 28, 2014 @ 5:57 pm

    Sorry, it didn't occur to me that Moffat would use the same plot device enough to cause confusion when discussing it. I was talking about Daleks in Manhatten, wherein the Daleks somehow (never explained) build the Empire State Building to catch sunspots.

    My original comment wasn't intended as any kind of in depth critique. It was simply the thought that occurred to me upon viewing the video and understanding how much effort had been put into details that the average viewer wouldn't even notice. It reminded me of George Lucus micromanaging the Star Wars prequels while failing to spot that the basic plot had some obvious flaws.

    It may be that within the episode there is some technobabble explanation, but watching the episode I was left with the impression that they were planning to catch sunspots at night, with a lightning rod. But then I find it out of character any time the Daleks go for some subtle infiltration plot rather than frontal attack.

    I'm left imagining board meetings where Daleks unveil their latest game show strategy or Weeping Angels discuss the janitorial rota at the hotel they run over the intercom so they can avoid looking at each other (if that's one of the rules this week).

    Reply

  29. Bennett
    March 28, 2014 @ 6:16 pm

    Marionette – "Sorry, it didn't occur to me that Moffat would use the same plot device enough to cause confusion when discussing it. I was talking about Daleks in Manhatten,"

    I have seen Steven Moffat be blamed for many things, but Daleks in Manhattan is a new one to me.

    As for the Weeping Angels and their 'rules of the week', well, as the Doctor once said: "Tell me the truth if you think you know it. Lay down the law if you're feeling brave. But never, ever tell me the rules! "

    Reply

  30. jane
    March 28, 2014 @ 7:10 pm

    "I have seen Steven Moffat be blamed for many things, but Daleks in Manhattan is a new one to me."

    It's a drive-by hit job, not an actual critique. The desperate attempt to swerve to Daleks in Manhattan is a tacit admission of failure in the face of earnest engagement on the part of the regulars here. I feel much more justified in my original response.

    Drive-by critique, by its very nature, doesn't take the time to pay attention to details. This is why it's so very often the most dubious of commentary.

    Reply

  31. Ross
    March 28, 2014 @ 7:32 pm

    And yet, again the counterargument is a criticism of the person who made the critique rather than the critique itself.

    Reply

  32. Iain Coleman
    March 29, 2014 @ 2:35 am

    Having spent eight years doing solar-terrestrial physics research, I can't resist coming in on this even though the conversation has moved on…

    The cockerel acts as a "lightning rod", but that's not what it is designed as. Cleaves refers to it as a "solar router" and says its function is to supply the facility with solar energy. There is no mention of "sunspots" but of a "solar tsunami" ("a huge wave of gamma particles") which interferes with their solar router technology until the lightning damages it. I don't have the educational backing to say whether this is valid science…but it's feasible enough for a teatime adventure story set in the near-future. And the solar storm happens during the afternoon, not "after dark" (the storm scene is explicitly stated to take place an hour before the dusk/night-time scenes when they regain consciousness).

    When I was watching the episode, I didn't have a problem going along with all this. It's not quite right, but it's close enough for rock and roll.

    Solar storms can and do disrupt electrical systems on Earth. The root cause of this is an event on the Sun called a Coronal Mass Ejection, which is when the Sun's magnetic field interacts explosively with its outer layers, shooting a great ball of magnetised plasma out into space. Something like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHWYtzcYYTM

    If this happens to hit the Earth's magnetic field, the field within the CME interacts with it, causing large electric currents to travel down the magnetic field lines through space to the Earth's surface. The last major event like this, in 1989, disrupted various communications satellites and knocked out the power grid in Quebec. We quite recently had a near-miss that might have been rather more damaging.

    As this affects the Earth's magnetic field as a whole, it an affect both the nightside and the dayside, but the geometry of the magnetic field means the effects are strongest at high latitudes. High-energy particles and radiation can be associated with these events, but they do not have significant effects at the Earth's surface due to the shielding properties of the Earth's magnetic field and atmosphere.

    So although one could criticise details of how this kind of thing is presented in the episode, it gets the sense of it basically right and is vague enough about the details that one can happily skate over or handwave away any technical problems. Which is the way to handle scientific concepts in a mainstream family sci-fi adventure show.

    It's certainly far superior to the awful rubbish about black holes in "The Impossible Planet", which is categorically and unambiguously wrong, which makes sure in both script and direction to bash you over the head about how wrong it is, and which even puts the fundamentally wrong point in the title of the bloody episode.

    Reply

  33. Iain Coleman
    March 29, 2014 @ 2:36 am

    And I do want to say something more general about this issue of scientific accuracy in Doctor Who and other sci-fi shows.

    First, it's not actually about getting the science right. It's about having a general sense of how to make things seem right at the time so that they serve the story and maintain the world of the drama. Let me explain with an analogy.

    We all know, as we sit down to watch "The Impossible Planet", say, that the events we are watching are in fact happening on a set in Wales, that the skinny guy in the suit is not a Time Lord from Gallifrey but is in fact a Scottish actor called David, that the words everyone is saying have been written down for them in advance, and that just out of the field of view are a bunch of cameras, technicians and so on led by a director.

    We know all that, but provided the show is smoothly made we can immerse ourselves in the story and its fictional world while it is going on.

    Now imagine if the camera pulled back just a little so we could see the edges of the set, the other cameras, the busy crew. Imagine if the Doctor stumbled half-way through a sentence, turned and said in a Scottish accent "sorry, I lost the line", someone reads the line to him from a script and then he starts the sentence again, this time repeating the words he has just heard.

    This would annoy quite a lot of viewers. It would be a forcible reminder of the contrived nature of what they are watching, when they would rather immerse themselves in the drama as if it were real and immediate.

    That's what happens to scientifically literate viewers when the science is poorly handled.

    Everyone has their own thresholds of course, just as some people are oblivious to boom mike shadows while others can't help but notice them. But the point is, it's not about choosing to be pernickety. It's about being involuntarily jerked out of an engaging dramatic experience by a failure of craft.

    As Doctor Who fans, of course we can enjoy stories despite these failings, even when they are as egregious as a Zarbi crashing into a camera or the Doctor breathlessly declaring the impossibility of an entirely possible and indeed mundane planetary orbit.

    Reply

  34. jane
    March 29, 2014 @ 4:40 am

    "And yet, again the counterargument is a criticism of the person who made the critique rather than the critique itself."

    No, Ross, it's a denunciation of the "tactics" in the so-called critique: its refusal to acknowledge the earnest rebuttals given, the lack of substantive examples, and indeed reorienting itself to a Davies-era story written by Helen Raynor. The critique is all snark, no substance.

    Note that this doesn't constitute a criticism of Marionette. I could say that Marionette displays wit (which is true; the snark is deliciously barbed) or that Marionette is lazy (unfounded; it's obvious there's no desire to engage the particulars of the argument, which could be due to any number of factors) but this is not what I'm saying. I'm saying the critique itself is practically worthless — because it doesn't address the subject in any depth.

    Such depth does not constitute tacit acceptance of the work. Jack Graham, for example, has almost nothing good to say about the work, but at least he buttresses his argument with examples, details, logic — you know, substance. And he still snarks with the best of them, so it's not like thoroughness abrogates his voice.

    Marionette's critique, in the end, doesn't reveal anything about Moffat's work, it only reveals Marionette's reaction. It's mere opinion, not critique.

    Reply

  35. jane
    March 29, 2014 @ 4:59 am

    @Iain: "That's what happens to scientifically literate viewers when the science is poorly handled."

    Thank you for the wonderful explanation, Iain. I'd like to point out, however, that such moments do not constitute "plot holes." To get back to the point of drama, it's function is not to keep us seamlessly immersed in a fictional reality. (That is the function of entertainment, which is something completely different.) The function of drama is ultimately about exploring the human experience.

    Even in Evolution of the Daleks, the lightning strike is not a plot hole. It's bad science, to be sure, but to read Doctor Who with an eye towards scientific literacy is a mistake. Rather, the strike should be read in terms of symbol, metaphor, and alchemy. Again, there's an invocation of Frankenstein, of taking on the role of a Creator. This time, though, the dramatic point (in addition to killing the pig-men through simply electricity) is to present the new "Dalek soldiers" — who are resurrected dead people — as Dalek/Doctor hybrids. Which is to say, to make a point that the human experience is a combination of being a Monster and being an Angel, and how that internal battle ultimately resolves.

    Not to say that dramatic conflict is well-executed, but I think that has more to do with the direction of the final scene at the Opera House than it does with the alchemy of the lightning strike proper, or the poorly chosen exposition that described what that strike entailed.

    Reply

  36. Marionette
    March 31, 2014 @ 4:14 am

    Marionette's critique, in the end, doesn't reveal anything about Moffat's work, it only reveals Marionette's reaction. It's mere opinion, not critique.

    Yes. Thank you. At last you get it. As I already stated once, it was the feeling I was left with after watching the video. My opinion of a general working practice. Had I wanted to give a critique I would have written an essay. I was giving a personal reaction to a video I had just watched.

    I don't entirely understand why you thought it was anything more, but criticizing me for doing something I didn't do so badly that it was merely what I actually did do seems like a lot of effort.

    Reply

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