Ten Little Chances to be Free (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
tenlittlebullets) wrote2011-10-07 10:44 am
tenlittlebullets) wrote2011-10-07 10:44 am
Entry tags:
*meta flail*
Everyone with any feelings at all--positive, negative, mixed, whatever--about the Doctor Who finale needs to run, not walk, to elisi's Wedding of River Song meta. Hell, if it left you cold and you're wondering why people have feelings about it, click the link.
I don't know if I agree with everything in there (still not sold on the elaborate River-kidnapping-astronaut-suit-Lake-Silencio plot to kill the Doctor, the Buffy stuff flew right by me, and some niggling part of me still wishes Moff had done it all differently) but I wholeheartedly approve of the whole post. And there is not enough "YES, THIS" in the world for:
- Anything about River being the Doctor's mirror
- akl;jskdfafd of course it's River's "anything you can do I can do better, backwards, in heels" applied to Timelord Victorious
- I was so bored of the Ponds when it felt like the show was trying to hold them up as anything close to a model relationship (or at least Rory as a model boyfriend--yawn), but now it's pretty clear they are fucking insane in ways they passed down to River and then she actually had the power to stop time for love like Rory would've done a thousand times over, and she almost made EVERYTHING GO BOOM because the Doctor wouldn't listen to her or trust her and doesn't this sound like Amy? And now the Ponds are not being held up as well-adjusted people I like them so much more.
- Really that is Moffat's technique ever since Season Fnarg--no, ever since Silence in the Library. Introduce something as a Good Thing, or at least as an Epic Thing that is fodder for a billion approving tumblr gifs; have the narrative encourage people to high-five Ten for opening the TARDIS with a snap of his fingers or Eleven for defending the Pandorica with a microphone and his reputation or Amy for putting make-believe over reality every single time or Rory for punching the Doctor out because his girlfriend is more important than the whole universe. Ramp it up, then ramp it up some more with a straight face, until people start breaking off and going "um, the direction this show is headed makes me uncomfortable" or "FFS, 'time can be rewritten' is turning into a cheap trick that messes up the whole underpinnings of the narrative" or "wow, we're being encouraged to cheer for Eleven when he's being really dark." And then Moffat goes "trololololol, I knew how fucked-up this was all along, I was just setting them up for a fall." And I do a dance of GLEE because I love fucked-up as long as the narrative acknowledges it.
- All that said, he still needs to be better at showing his work. Someone said that Moff Tiem, especially season 6, is the story equivalent of eating frosting with no cake, and I can't really disagree.
- RIVER RIVER RIVER RIVER is like all the most gloriously fucked-up and compelling parts of New Who, only with the author acknowledging that they are insane and fucked-up. River/Eleven is like getting canon Doctor/Master, and canon Ten/Rose presented as "delightful and unhealthy" rather than "ISN'T THEIR TWU WUV PERFECT," wrapped up in Timelord Victorious wrapping paper, with a side helping of "seriously, I love you and it's kind of sweet that you're ready to tear the universe apart, but it's also really scary and would you please just stop now and possibly grow up a little." And a pony. On Christmas. Which is also your birthday, because River made everything go wibbly-wobbly. And the pony breathes fire and can turn into a Batmobile.
- And I just love that not only does the Lonely God persona have to die, Eleven has to be over that shit to the point where he can be the responsible adult in this relationship when young, headstrong, reckless River is angry and in pain and doing exactly the sort of thing he would've done when he first met her.
- Seriously, am I reading too much into it? Is it my imagination that Moffat is taking all the baggage that RTD left him and giving it a nice proper loving sendoff? The "build it up with a straight face, then drop all the loads of bricks at the same time" approach is such a good way to deal with that shit, because it's not a slam on RTD for introducing those themes in the first place or for being a bit too fond of playing with them--starting out approving means Moff knows how compelling all these tropes are and knows why the characters got that way and he loves the hell out of them. And then he drags it out long enough to make you uncomfortable and long for some confirmation that this is not actually model behavior, and then he delivers in spades.
- All of the above is subject to the usual caveats about Moffat being more frosting than cake, and trusting the audience to handwave and fanwank the foundations of the story into place instead of building them properly. Yes, we can, he doesn't have to spoonfeed us backstory and explanations or give us a solid Watsonian buildup to why the Doctor's death is inevitable, because we know from a Doylist POV why the Lonely God has to die. But it would've made for a more satisfying and substantial story if he had. The meta is delicious, but there's only so much frosting you can eat straight out of the can. And RTD, for all his flaws, no matter how dodgy the quality of what he was serving you, was really good at getting that balance right and making you sit down for just one slice and then look up two hours later to an empty cake pan and go "Oh god, what have I done?" I want Moffat to get the hang of that, because his meta is tasty and I want to be able to binge on his stories without compunction.
I don't know if I agree with everything in there (still not sold on the elaborate River-kidnapping-astronaut-suit-Lake-Silencio plot to kill the Doctor, the Buffy stuff flew right by me, and some niggling part of me still wishes Moff had done it all differently) but I wholeheartedly approve of the whole post. And there is not enough "YES, THIS" in the world for:
- Anything about River being the Doctor's mirror
- akl;jskdfafd of course it's River's "anything you can do I can do better, backwards, in heels" applied to Timelord Victorious
- I was so bored of the Ponds when it felt like the show was trying to hold them up as anything close to a model relationship (or at least Rory as a model boyfriend--yawn), but now it's pretty clear they are fucking insane in ways they passed down to River and then she actually had the power to stop time for love like Rory would've done a thousand times over, and she almost made EVERYTHING GO BOOM because the Doctor wouldn't listen to her or trust her and doesn't this sound like Amy? And now the Ponds are not being held up as well-adjusted people I like them so much more.
- Really that is Moffat's technique ever since Season Fnarg--no, ever since Silence in the Library. Introduce something as a Good Thing, or at least as an Epic Thing that is fodder for a billion approving tumblr gifs; have the narrative encourage people to high-five Ten for opening the TARDIS with a snap of his fingers or Eleven for defending the Pandorica with a microphone and his reputation or Amy for putting make-believe over reality every single time or Rory for punching the Doctor out because his girlfriend is more important than the whole universe. Ramp it up, then ramp it up some more with a straight face, until people start breaking off and going "um, the direction this show is headed makes me uncomfortable" or "FFS, 'time can be rewritten' is turning into a cheap trick that messes up the whole underpinnings of the narrative" or "wow, we're being encouraged to cheer for Eleven when he's being really dark." And then Moffat goes "trololololol, I knew how fucked-up this was all along, I was just setting them up for a fall." And I do a dance of GLEE because I love fucked-up as long as the narrative acknowledges it.
- All that said, he still needs to be better at showing his work. Someone said that Moff Tiem, especially season 6, is the story equivalent of eating frosting with no cake, and I can't really disagree.
- RIVER RIVER RIVER RIVER is like all the most gloriously fucked-up and compelling parts of New Who, only with the author acknowledging that they are insane and fucked-up. River/Eleven is like getting canon Doctor/Master, and canon Ten/Rose presented as "delightful and unhealthy" rather than "ISN'T THEIR TWU WUV PERFECT," wrapped up in Timelord Victorious wrapping paper, with a side helping of "seriously, I love you and it's kind of sweet that you're ready to tear the universe apart, but it's also really scary and would you please just stop now and possibly grow up a little." And a pony. On Christmas. Which is also your birthday, because River made everything go wibbly-wobbly. And the pony breathes fire and can turn into a Batmobile.
- And I just love that not only does the Lonely God persona have to die, Eleven has to be over that shit to the point where he can be the responsible adult in this relationship when young, headstrong, reckless River is angry and in pain and doing exactly the sort of thing he would've done when he first met her.
- Seriously, am I reading too much into it? Is it my imagination that Moffat is taking all the baggage that RTD left him and giving it a nice proper loving sendoff? The "build it up with a straight face, then drop all the loads of bricks at the same time" approach is such a good way to deal with that shit, because it's not a slam on RTD for introducing those themes in the first place or for being a bit too fond of playing with them--starting out approving means Moff knows how compelling all these tropes are and knows why the characters got that way and he loves the hell out of them. And then he drags it out long enough to make you uncomfortable and long for some confirmation that this is not actually model behavior, and then he delivers in spades.
- All of the above is subject to the usual caveats about Moffat being more frosting than cake, and trusting the audience to handwave and fanwank the foundations of the story into place instead of building them properly. Yes, we can, he doesn't have to spoonfeed us backstory and explanations or give us a solid Watsonian buildup to why the Doctor's death is inevitable, because we know from a Doylist POV why the Lonely God has to die. But it would've made for a more satisfying and substantial story if he had. The meta is delicious, but there's only so much frosting you can eat straight out of the can. And RTD, for all his flaws, no matter how dodgy the quality of what he was serving you, was really good at getting that balance right and making you sit down for just one slice and then look up two hours later to an empty cake pan and go "Oh god, what have I done?" I want Moffat to get the hang of that, because his meta is tasty and I want to be able to binge on his stories without compunction.