#moffat salt

[sallysellsseashellssundays]

I hate to keep being so salty about Moffat’s era b/c RTD’s first era did have some things I didn’t like but man RTD was a freaking genius at weaving so much emotion and heart into his stories while still keeping it sci-fi

I mean we had arcs for soooo many characters it’s actually kind of crazy when you think about it, and I’m not just talking about Nine, Ten/Tentoo, Rose, Martha and Donna

The companions families as well--positive and negative b/c I’m still not over how difficult it must have been for Martha’s family after their year with the Master. But Jackie and Pete had their happily ever after (and a baby), Mickey grew so much, Sylvia seemed to have a bit of a change of heart regarding Donna at the end, Wilf was fabulously Wilf (we saw their families so many times on screen!!)

Like think about how wild it is that I know Mickey was raised by his gran, I remember Martha warning her brother Leo and he was walking with a gf/wife/partner? pushing a baby stroller, Martha’s dad had a gf who I think was called Annalise and there was drama about that cheating scandal...I know so much about characters that aren’t really the main companions in comparison to, for example, Amy and Rory

We had arcs for “minor” characters like Cassandra, Harriet Jones, Adam, The Face of Boe, the Slitheen that took over Margaret, even Jake from Pete’s World

We had a connection between Gwyneth and Gwen with the explanation as to why they look the same, same for the explanation as to why Tosh was there in S1

We had what was essentially like an origin story for the Ood in S4 when they had first been introduced in S2

Jack had his own spinoff, I haven’t watched Classic Who but Sarah Jane was incredible in what I’ve seen of her own spinoff too

Even though there’s some things I don’t like about Journey’s End the reason it was so exciting to see was b/c of the culmination of so many characters that had so much backstory coming together. Come on we even had a reference to Mr. Copper from the “Voyage of the Damned” special since he funded the Sub-Wave Network! Incredible, just incredible. 

#doctor who #rtd era #anti moffat #moffat salt #ninth doctor #tenth doctor #tentoo #rose tyler #martha jones #donna noble #my ramblings

[doctorhoe]

one thing I genuinely dislike so much about the moffat era is the use of the sonic screwdriver as a weapon.

#bad writing decision every time its done. #dw #moffat salt

[god-tier-bastard]

foaming at the mouth trying to pay attention in class and not start writing an essay about how the girl in the fireplace's plot and character dynamics predict a hilarious amount of the eleventh doctor/amy pond's story and why the story elements they have in common are why i hate steven moffat so much

#dw #doctor who #moffat salt #so ur telling me the doctor on two separate occasions: #accvidentally dropped in on a little girl's timeline #left her for years and then came back after she'd written him off as an imaginary friend #they both at some point kissed/fell in love w him (bc moffat needs every woman in the universe to want the doctor for some reason) #ended up acquiring a weird nickname from the now woman #both women came to pretty much worship him like their own personal angel or deity #both women had some sort of window/door to somewhere else (time windows/crack in the wall) following them their whole lives #both women die of old age after the doctor fixes their door problem (idk how to phrase this but theres def parallels between their deaths) #also theres frsr something tying mickey and (at least season 5) rory together in this episode but i can't describe it properly

[twelfthdoctorwho]

I’m still really sad about the 60th anniversary specials being more of a celebration of rtd’s era than of the overall show. the 50th was so fun bc it brought together rtd’s and moffat’s eras along with the fandom’s beloved eighth doctor (the minisode!!) and introduced the war doctor all to help us understand why the doctor has become what he has in nuwho. the glimpses of all the classic doctors! a peek at the twelfth doctor! the return of the zygons from classic who in their first nuwho appearance! the 60th specials just felt like regular rtd episodes. tennant as the doctor, donna and her family, and unit. I guess we got mel but not very much screen time. the episodes aren’t terrible or anything and ncuti’s doctor is delightful!! but the specials just don’t feel like an appreciation of what came before them :(

#doctor who #rtd critical #rtd salt #edited to remove kate bc I forgot she was a moffat era character

[lilydvoratrelundar]

On the one hand Moffat coming back makes sense in the same way rtd and tennant returning does because getting back old shit is always good for publicity. On the other hand. The reason chibnall took the job was to diversify the production and allow people who historically didn't get a chance to write for dr who very often (women, people of colour, women of colour) to write, direct, etc their version of the show, and apparently spent a lot of time creating the writers room process which wasn't really a thing in the UK before. Rtd taking a step back from that by hiring all his cis white men from pre 2018 Who (or at least, hiring back this very notorious cis white man from pre 2018 Who) feels like a step in the other direction from that. Moffat's been writing televised Doctor Who since 1999. We can give other people a go now.

#dw #doctor who #lily dot tee ex tee #Everyone go listen to chibnalls interview with radio free skaro its really interesting #Obviously im taking the moffat news with a grain of salt idk how reliable the mirror tends to be on these things #But if it IS true.

[aq2003]

rtd's finales are badly stacked conflicts that are suddenly solved by deus ex machina (but that doesn't matter bc it's filled with genuinely beautiful & heartwrenching character writing that will make you forget about everything) and moffat's finales are convoluted nonsense that make you confused as to what the fuck you're even watching. technically neither of these are good but between these two poisons i will pick the former every time

#disclaimer im biased and you should all take my media criticism with a grain of salt #bc i genuinely do not care how well constructed a thing is if the character writing is good enough. #like that's all im there for. my senses are honestly kind of primed to enjoy rtd's style over anyone else's #dr who #the real question i ask myself is 'will moffat get better at writing finales in twelve's run' #and the answer i have for myself right now is 'hopefully it does in s10 bc i want it to be good' #but i am so absolutely not sure of this. #bc i can definitively say that inside man (2022) by moffat is like. by far the worst thing of his ive ever seen #so i cant use the 'he probably got better with time' reassurance. i think something is wrong with him #misc

[theoncomingdoo-dah]

#the doctor shitposts #dw #dw salt #anti moffat

[roadimusprime]

I saw someone say that Simms!Master written under Moffat is "not fun" and is "just mean" and I feel like you could use those words to describe 85% of the characters he has ever written.

#Loon.txt #Anti Moffat #It's a salt kind of day

[re-reclass]

Goddamn The Eleventh Hour still holds up.

#say what you will about Moffat this is still a great introduction to both his era and the show in general #Doctor Who #The Eleventh Hour #Matt Smith #Steven Moffat #reclass.txt #the Matt Smith seasons are probably my comfort show though so take that with a grain of salt lol

[everymlmhybrid]

Inside Man is like if Sherlock was good and also wasn't Sherlock

#can't believe I'm complimenting Moffat in 2022 #.txt #I am not kidding though it's so insanely good #literally every fourth scene is just me going ''what!!!! WHAT!!!!'' #take this all with a grain of salt bc I Do have bad taste. but also. I liked it idk!!!

[thebibliosphere]

I just read a post quoting Steven Moffat saying Sherlock couldn’t be asexual because there’d be “no fun in that”. I was wondering why Somerton’s “only the boring gays survived AIDS” sounded familiar. I remember how you talked about Moffat on the Ayesphere and was curious if you had any thoughts on this? The idea that people need to be ‘exciting’ always left a bad taste in my mouth.

From what limited interaction I’ve had with the man -- which included him making inappropriate comments about my underage bridesmaids who just happened to be wearing TARDIS blue dresses -- I think Moffat is a mediocre writer who draws almost exclusively from his own experiences, which are far more limited and not so nearly clever and worldly as he thinks.

He also completely misunderstands and mischaracterizes the characters of Sherlock Holmes and John Watson as pertains to the original source material, so anything he says about Sherlock Holmes needing to fuck to be exciting can be dismissed not only with a grain of salt but chucked full heartedly out the window.

You can create “exciting” stories that aren’t about fucking. To claim otherwise is to show your hand, not only in terms of your lack of skill as a writer but also in terms of your own emotional depth.

Yes, sex is essential for some people. It is a driving factor of their existence. It's a fairly large part of mine. But if you cannot grasp the need as a storyteller to examine the emotional and psychological aspects of sexuality beyond “person pretty, want smash” and belittle other people for wanting to explore other types of intimacy or exploration, you’re just a bit shit, both as a writer and a person.

There is more to life and human intimacy than sex. And I say that as the walking, talking stereotype of the greedy polyam bisexual kinkster constantly being driven to distraction by pretty people.

Like, c’mon, ace Sherlock Holmes using sex like trapping someone under a glass to get a better look at them is practically canon in Moffat’s own interpretation of him. He’s just so mad that the character could be read as anything other than heterosexual and meanly-clever like him to realize it.

[sallysellsseashellssundays]

Nine and Ten going absolutely insane every time Rose, Martha, Donna were in danger

vs

River having to break her wrist to get out of the angel’s grasp b/c Eleven wouldn’t help her  😭 😭 😭 😭 😭 😭 😭

#anti moffat #moffat salt #ninth doctor #tenth doctor #eleventh doctor #rose tyler #martha jones #donna noble #anti river song #justice for river song #my ramblings #i don't care how much regeneration energy he transferred over to heal her #he's such an asshole #matt smith pulling off miracles acting wise to get me to like eleven #b/c the way he is written is not it ok #every episode i watch just makes me appreciate it nine and ten more #i was legitimately very upset by that #why would you ever love a man like that?!? #i really want to watch all of dw so i'm caught up for dt and ncuti #but this man tests me #he tests me every damn episode i watch

[doctorhoe]

I think we all go through a phase of hating either moffat or rtd. and if you grow up you'll also grow out of it and come to realise that both are competent writers. and that rtd is better.

#i'm sorry i had to #and i cannot stress enough that this is a joke #dw #rtd salt #moffat salt

[unnamedmedicalprofessional]

There are problems with how Steven moffat writes women but (and I'm a man so take this with a grain of salt) I think there's maybe something weirdly feminist about how willing he is to make his female characters be assholes sometimes and still expect the audience to root for them anyway like they do numerous asshole male characters.

#doctor who #dw #steven moffat #pro moffat #moffatera #clara oswald #amy pond #bbc sherlock #mary watson #mary morstan #river song #press gang

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

Doctor Who, but Chronologically: 47

Fortunately there is no time jump, so we return to World Enough and Time's final part, The Doctor Falls. This is good for answers, because sometimes two-parters jump around - we're still waiting to find out how Matt Smith got out of that cube and whether River blew up. But not this time! Here we are on a Cyberman infested ship again.

Also, here is something I genuinely enjoy about Steven Moffat's writing: he does very good and fun and engaging pre-credit cliffhanger resolutions to his two-parters, and this one is no exception. We are treated to an idyllic farm house with adorable innocent children and salt-of-the-earth rustic folk in a green countryside a few floors up in the ship, with Cybermen crucified as scarecrows all around them; a child feels an earthquake, and suddenly a space shuttle bursts up through the floor and crashes. And out of the wreckage walks Cyber-Bill, carrying the Doctor in her arms.

VERY FUN (the Doctor gets Cyber-shot like eight times in this episode, he does need carrying)

Anyway, this is a fairly straightforward episode plot-wise. After Missy and Master attack the Doctor, he changes the parameters the Cybermen are following to identify humans - now they will target 1 or 2 hearts, so suddenly the Gallifreyans are also at risk (I will admit this is one of those "Seems clever but is actually dumb as hell" twists that Moffat is so good at. "I only had time to make one small change!" says the Doctor. "I added a 2! Now they will also chase people with two hearts!" Okay but that is not how coding works. Either you change the number 1 to a 2 - in which case they would now EXCLUSIVELY track Gallifreyans and leave humans alone, problem solved - or you added an operator like AND or OR or what have you, in which case you used up extra precious seconds to deliberately ensure that these Cybermen would still track humans.)

(And actually, they don't track the blue man. And the Doctor takes pains in this episode to point out that the Cybermen still have easily fooled monkey brains. So like. At any point, everyone could have painted themselves blue and been fine. Hmm.)

ANYWAY

The change means Missy and the Master escape upwards with the Doctor, Nardole and Cyber-Bill, so we exchange Cardiff University and Bute Street the grime of the Cyber conversion level for the pastoral wilds of Abergavenny floor 507, a solar farm that therefore has a holographic sky and simulated weather. And then it's basically a village under siege story - the Cybermen are coming, and are upgrading as they go, a process that is happening in what appears to be days to our hero but is in fact years at the bottom of the ship. This also means they can't all go up in the lifts to escape more than a few floors now - the Cybermen will upgrade to stop them too fast.

(Except. There's about 50 things wrong with that as a concept. I can think of one previously noted plot point that proves that wrong and about five possible workarounds right off the top of my head - as I say, "seems clever but is actually dumb as hell." But this is an era finale and so the focus is not on the plot - a mere skeleton to prop up the actual star of the show - but the story. What matters here is the characters, and what they think and feel and say, and what choices they make.)

Ultimately, it turns out that Missy genuinely does want to change, and become a good person. This is genuinely poignant, because the Master therefore kills her to stop her. I'm not wild about that as a twist, actually - long franchises with recurring villains never like to allow true growth, but I think "villain trying to atone" is actually a super valuable narrative, and I always feel sad for characters who aren't allowed to do it. But I will admit that it's played relatively nicely, as a tragedy.

Fortunately, it's juxtaposed with one of the best monologues any character in anything has ever given; namely, Peter Motherfucking Capaldi turning his Acting skills up to over 9000 to explain why we should choose to do the right thing. It's beautiful and moving and timeless and true and I love it, wholeheartedly and unironically. I mean it's also bullshit from this particular Doctor, given that we have in the past watched Clara have to force him to even try to save people if they don't do what he likes (Christ she deserved a better Doctor T_T), but regardless, it's a fantastic speech delivered by one of the greatest actors of his generation.

So what does happen?

Well! Bill is Cyber-Bill now, and the process is written off as permanent. She retains her memories through force of will, but will slowly succumb. "I can feel the programming," she sobs at one point, and fuck me Pearl Mackie is also a phenomenal actor. "It's like a hurricane in my head, and I'm hanging on, but I can only hang on for so long."

This episode literally started with the Doctor altering the programming of the Cybermen.

"Alas," he tells her. "There's nothing I can do to fix this."

Well then.

The Doctor and Bill ultimately decide to stay and fight Cybermen off while Nardole is given the task of leading the humans up five floors to the next solar farm in the lifts; the Doctor then blows up the floor they're on with the Cybermen on it, and go out in a blaze of glory. This is... certainly a choice, isn't it? Every story with Nardole so far has shown him to be the plucky comic relief, and I include in that THIS EXACT STORY WHERE MISSY CALLED HIM COMIC RELIEF TO HIS FACE. We even got more Weird Nrdole Stuff this episode - apparently he's some sort of reformed con-man and a computer whizz. And yet!!! And yet he gets the Proper Companion Ending!!! This is such a tonally strange choice. The Doctor even convinces him to do it by telling him he's stronger than the Doctor, a claim for which we have seen zero evidence, and is actually the sort of thing that gets said to Proper Companions after they have been through two series' worth of character development. By rights, this should surely have been Bill's job? Lead the survivors in a post-apocalyptic world?

Instead, Bill dies as a Cyberman, and then suddenly, from our perspective, THINGS GET REAL WEIRD, because an unnamed water faerie with a star in her eye who apparently once cried on Bill turns up and goes "You're like me now," and they magic the Doctor back into the TARDIS that two minutes ago he said he couldn't reach, abandon Nardole in a Cyber-infested ship, and then fuck off to explore the cosmos together and have hot lesbian sex, I assume.

What the fuck.

And then to round off, the Doctor wakes up, cries that he doesn't want to regenerate, and staggers out of the TARDIS into snow and also the arms of David Bradley's First Doctor. Which brings us nicely to that story we've already seen! We've seen Capaldi's regeneration. That was a good one.

So! Let's update the board.

“She” (an unknown person) is returning (Suspects: River, Missy, Me, Clara)

There is something on Donna’s back

An entire planet, Pyrovilia, just… disappeared, somehow. (Maybe because the TARDIS is exploding??? Saturnine was also lost, and that WAS because of the TARDIS exploding. The lion man’s planet was also lost but he was a bit of a knob about it if I’m honest. The Thijarian planet was destroyed by some sort of impact). Is this the Flux?

Amy is maybe dead (she’s not)

The Doctor has been cubed (he’s out, but how?)

River is possibly blown up  (Nope: she is definitely not blown up)

The TARDIS has blown up  (It’s fine now. Except it’s sort of melting now because it’s corrupted, but it’s fine again. NOPE, back to not working.)

The universe appears to have ended  (the universe is back again)

The Doctor has employed(?) Nardole

(And Nardole was “reassembled???” Nardole had glass nipples and invisible hair?? He used to be blue, and could apparently go back to it??? NEW INFO: he's some sort of helplessly criminal con-artist??? WHAT THE FUCK IS HE)

There’s an immortal Viking girl now. Her name is Me and she’s now looking after the people the Doctor abandons

Why was Rory entirely unconcerned by the entire world suddenly going silent when that is Not Normal and should have been, at the very least, extremely disconcerting?

What did the Doctor do to Queen Lizzie One?

Why is Amy seeing a one-eyed woman in a vanishing window? (She’s with the Silents, but we don’t know why Amy saw her)

Why is Amy’s pregnancy inconclusive? (Maybe because the baby had Time Lord DNA?) She’s deffo pregnant and the baby becomes River, but why inconclusive?

Who is Sarah-Jane Smith?

How is the Doctor Bill’s teacher and why/where does he have an office?

What is going on with the Cyber War and the Cyberium???

What happened with the Other Cyber War?

What happened with the Third War that deleted the void?

Why does Rose seem particularly important?

What order do these Doctors go in? (Eccleston, Tennant, uncertain, Smith, Capaldi, Whittaker)

Which companion just… forgot the Doctor, and how?

Yaz and Vinder are about to die as Mori/Mwri/Muuri (Not anymore, somehow)

There is a Lupari shield around Earth.

What’s a Time War?

What’s the Rift?

What’s Bad Wolf?

In which war did the Doctor become a war criminal, and how?

Why has Amy forgotten Rory? How did she forget a Dalek invasion?

Is Rory plastic or not? Yeah, must be, he couldn’t possibly remember being plastic otherwise

Why is the Doctor sulking on a cloud?

How exactly does the Doctor have a cloud?

What exactly happened with Strax to, uh, tame him?

Which friend killed Strax?

Which friend brought Strax back?

Where did this lesbian lizard and human couple come from?

What happened with Clara as Souffle Girl and the Daleks?

How does Clara actually join?

Why so many Claras? A psychic midwife says she’s just normal human

Why is Missy apparently in robo-heaven? NEW INFO: Is this because she's now dead?

Why is probably!Missy pushing Clara and the Doctor together?

What is Trensilor and what happened there?

Who is Handles?

The Doctor is about to be dissolved by a beautiful geode man

The universe is being crushed by the Flux

Will the Doctor open the fobwatch?

Sontarans are invading Earth again

Who is Kate?

Who is Osgood? Another name of Clara’s again?

The fuck is the deal with the Grand Serpent

Does Martha get to go to an ice cream planet with 12-fingered massage aliens?

How did the Doctor forget Clara?

Who is Bill’s puddle girlfriend Heather? NEW INFO: This is presumably the star-eyed water faerie

How did Nardole die?

When does the Doctor shrink and enter a Dalek called Rusty?

Whittaker is falling to her death rn

Was that ring relevant?

Does anyone know the Doctor’s name? NEW INFO:  Missy says it's "Who"

When did Yaz talk to Dan about fancying the Doctor?

When did Dan talk to the Doctor about fancying Yaz?

What’s happening with the bees?

What happened with Donna’s ex and a giant spider?

What war wiped out the Daleks, and is it one of the ones already mentioned?

What did the Doctor mean when he said “The (Daleks) always live, while I lose everything?”

If Dalek Caan is the last Dalek left why are there more now?

How did the rest of the Time Lords die?

How and why did Amy melt?

What’s the question that will make silence fall?

Why do the Silents… want silence to fall?

How and why are Silents at war with the Doctor when he… hasn’t even heard of them?

How does Hitler get out of the cupboard?

What’s the significance of fish fingers and custard?

Why does the Doctor feel guilt about Rose, Martha and Donna?

What happened with the space whale?

When does Rory defend Amy for 2000 years? Since Roman times, it seems

How does the Doctor survive River? He doesn’t, apparently

How does he erase himself from history

Did Captain Jack lose his memories to the same people as the Doctor? What did he lose?

When did the Doctor send the Daleks into a void to save the universe?

What’s with the weird crack in the wall and is it affecting memories?

Why do Amy and Rory think the Doctor is dead? Is it because of River as an astronaut?

Is Matt Smith’s Doctor a tree racist?

Why is the beautiful geode woman stealing people into a Passenger form?

River says she’ll die one day when the Doctor doesn’t remember her, let’s hope she doesn’t mean it

Why doesn’t the TARDIS like Clara?

When was the Master Prime Minister?

When will the Doctor go and rescue Nardole and the colonists?

#doctor whom #and yet we are continuing

[roxannepolice]

Masters, coyotes and reset buttons

Ok, so this has been going after me for a few months now and probably won't end up as coherent as I'd like it to, but this is also a warm up for finally fixing that stupid article that everyone tells me is good but has been halted by journal paperwork since 2020, so... As always, because there be salt, putting everything under a cut.

There's been this debate on whether the Master should be given a break from appearing for a while and, as always, it's usually taken somewhat hostile as an attack on the character or a particular actor (which. look if this was about acting skills BBC should have never moved from sir Derek Jacobi, period). And I would say the problem lies entirely elsewhere. Namely, circularity vs. linearity.

There has always been a mythical or commedia dell'arte element to the whole concept of regeneration, an archetypal thing in characters going by titles as names and having a certain set of characterisics and narrative functions that go along with those. Hell, commedia dell'arte even has a literal "Il Dottore" whose whole thing is embodying science and education - more often than not mockingly. When you employ Zeus rather than Poseidon in your story that's probably because there be weird sex rather than disproportionate fury. When you choose a paladin class in your rpg that's because you're going to have different skills and make different choices than if you were a rogue. Galahad and Lancelot will go on completely different journeys of nunnery/brothel and rescuing a prince from forced marriage even while they both seek the Holy Grail. When you want your children to have different properties you'll use your mantra to invoke four different gods.

The thing about archetypes, though, is that they are, literally, timeless. Or better yet, outside of time. But stories, narratives are, by nature, linear and timed. There's the beggining, the middle and the end. And of course, the whole fun is toying with the archetype, tweaking and reinterpreting them in specific contexts and stories. And DW has been doing a phenomenal job of it throughout its history, even if occasional nitpicks can be made. Classic Who was perhaps more circular and repeating in its storytelling and - sorry, posession by Marshall McLuhan - this makes sense in a medium where a story airs just a couple of times. There were arcs for each Doctor, though significantly more so for companions. NuWho became much more clear in this, but still mostly managed to keep a neat balance between the timelessness and timeliness.

Take the Saxon's story, which is what kickstarted me spilling here. Not to come off as a canon snob, but I think if he was an introduction to the character it may not be clear just how shocking him dying on the Valiant was. This is the character that was a skeleton, a gooey body snatching snake and a cat to go on living, and has been the Doctor's prisoner, in fact begging them to save them. Ten is 100% justified in his assumption that he'd never kill himself. His death introduced a major shift to their dynamic, especially when framed as fuelled by hatred. The finale in EoT is largely a return from this shift. No, the Doctor didn't only care for the Master because he wanted another Time Lord. No, the Master doesn't wholeheartedly hate the Doctor. They can and will always cooperate when there's a common enemy. As has been the case throughout all of Classic Who.

Enter Moffat era. Now, it's a bit of a cliche to say Moffat is a better episode writer than showrunner, but it being cliche does not make it incorrect. His poetic definitely works better when there's an ending, a specific goal in sight. In singular episodes this works like a charm. It worked terrifically in season 5. But later on there definitely came this element of "keep watching, because this is all heading somewhere, trust me". And all too often the answer was proving less interesting than the question. This was particularly clear in seasons 7-9, with return to Gallifrey being hyped up repeatedly, only to fianlly fall flat. And I guess Moffat realised that and decided to go for a soft reboot in season 10.

Which brings me to Missy and redemption arcs. Now, in our completely not puritan era there's way too much talk of whether characters deserve redemption, and what would account for a redemption, and how that differs between different legal systems, and too little appreciation that redemption narrative is as linear as they get. You get the starting point of sin and have a clear goal of that sin being repaid or undone. Sure, you can dig into that, and question that, and reinterpret that, and cynically cut that, but it always relies on that clear line. And it's obvious that Moffat was aware of how linear he wanted Missy, and indeed the Master in general, to be. The fucking text says that: "where we've always been going". The disagreement is only what that where is. Now, if the story was meant to be lieanr, then it really does make infinitelly more sense to view the events of EoT as a turning point in the thoschei relationship, but the story explicitly shuts that down. Nah, it was more infitely more important to have the initial sin embodied to be killed in the ultimate act of redemption. #symbolism

A slight tangent here. I know that the original plan for Delgado!Master was to have a redemption arc where he sarcifices himself for the Doctor, so I guess it can be argued this was indeed where the story was going all along. But things turned out how they did and people generally don't introduce Moriarty into their sherlockiana to have no actual screentime (literal or metaphorical), as was the original plan.

Aaaand then there's Spymaster. I've seen dozens of explanations of why he is the way he is, and whether that follows logically from Missy's story or not, and whether he might be before her, and whether he undoes her redemption, and blah blah, but the bitter truth is: Chibs hit the reset button. He hit it hard. No, we are not meant to keep in mind the events of s10 when we analyze the spydoc relationship. Again, a comparison to Moffat explicitly bringing up the events of EoT with Saxon, if only to brush them aside as meaningless for both parties. More importantly, if those were meant to affect Thirteen's hostile attitude towards the Master, then she shouldn't have been so shocked with his appearance. She might be surprised he regenerated, but like the whole reason for bitterness over being abandoned would go along with the expectation the Master did survive, that's why they left Twelve in the first place ffs. So, it would look like Chibnall tried to go back to a circular status quo after a linear redemption, and that's certainly what the writing thinks it's doing. Except now that the whole TTC can of worms has been opened, the relationship is deeply imbalanced. Imbalanced in a way that cannot be easily undone. Like, I know the fandom is trying to frame the Master's sense of inferiority as somehow mistaken and fanon!Thirteen certainly thinks so, but that's not what the text is saying. There is a misundertanding going on here, but a misunderstanding that goes on unresolved gets tiresome and frankly masochistic pretty fast. Either the Master should get to the point of understanding that the Doctor is not inherently superior to them because of past or magic of friendship and that they're Kenough, or accept the Doctor as their lord and saviour and martyred god who died so they may live and spend the rest of their days as a lapdog. Which, I understand the fandom may enjoy, but doesn't make for a very exciting story. So yes, there's definitely a linear narrative going on here. One that does need some time in a fridge and exposition of how the Doctor themself feels about their relationship before the character is brought back. Right now we are not in the The clown always gets up again, no matter how often he has been knocked down paradigm only No clowns were funny. That was the whole purpose of a clown. People laughed at clowns, but only out of nervousness. The point of clowns was that, after watching them, anything else that happened seemed enjoyable. It was nice to know there was someone worse off than you. Someone had to be the butt of the world.

Butbutbut, of course, what about Ainley!Master being brought back again and again seemlessly? That's just the thing - Ainley!Master existed in a completely different poetic. He was purely circular. He was the most circular of the Masters. He was as circular as you can get without actually being a cartoon coyote who only falls down when he realises he's midair. I'm not entirely ironic here - there is an inherent trickster element to the Master as a character! Perhaps more Goethe's Mephistopheles that Native Americans' Coyote, but between constanct scheming, shapeshifting and falling into the pits they've dug the elements are all there. And a trickster either endlessly travels between Olympus, Earth and Hades or gets killed by Heimdall.

And before a gotcha of me insanely hoping for a Saxon cameo either in the 60th anniversary or, that being off the table, somehow meeting Fourteen - yeah, in an anti-linear bubble. I've seen speculations that RTD wants to do another soft reboot, hence there's no knowing what Master will pop out of that tooth. As far as I wouldn't like it to be one of pre-Delgado Masters and for the record I wouldn't mind if it is Spymaster!, there's definitely something to the idea there's a soft reboot in The Giggle, with the Doctor "going home". Because you don't necessarily want to know what Odysseus' tax policies were once he reached Ithaka, but you do want to know that he's been a year on Circe's island.

#ok down to the article #doctor who #doctor who meta #dw meta #the master #the doctor #thoschei #philosophy in doctor who #have i come across as praising rtd in comparison to moffat and chibnall? #yeah maybe i generally think he did have the best grasp on what he was saying #tw: negativity #minor? yeah i'm critical