Rate "The Wedding of River Song"

Dave Webb wrote:

barnaby morbius wrote:i'm starting to think that moffat's version of doctor who is a bit marmitey to be honest...

I think that's true of any era and any season, to an extent. It strikes me that Moffat and Davies have something in common, which perhaps was not true of Doctor Who before. They have far more direct control over the scripts than any previous script editor and they are using that control to tell some very specific stories. It feels like they're much more in touch with the impermenancy of the TV world at the moment, so they're not sure how long their run will be. Moffat might have told the BBC that he'll do three seasons, maybe four, and then he's off to Hollywood. In that time, he's going to want to tell every Doctor Who story he's ever wanted to tell. This seems to be pretty much what RTD did.

I'm also wondering if both men were very conscious of leaving a legacy behind them. How can you not, when you're working on a show that's nearly fifty years old? You know the show will live on long past your contribution, so you don't want that contribution to be anything less than the full on You experience.

There's no guarantee you'll like an entire body of work. There's no reason that fans of Press Gang will also be fans of Coupling or Jekyll. Over his time on Doctor Who, The Moff gets to explore all of those styles and ideas with the best toybox in British TV. So he will. The result will be that some stories, like this one, will fall a bit flat for some of us and leave some of us bouncing with glee.

So it goes.

i dunno-feels a bit different this time.

some people who i normally agree with(including some on this very forum)seem to have taken against moffat's take on the show very strongly. which didn't really happen with russell's stuff....

FWIW, I've enjoyed the 2 recent Classic DVD releases (Day & Colony), which have spanned the transmission of series 6b), more than what Moffat has served up. And I'm really excited about the UNIT Box Set, which can't be said of the Christmas Special.

Really not sure where I go from here with Nu Who. Maybe my expectations are too high? Hopefully the near 12 month break (excluding Christmas Day) and a shift in emphasis and storytelling will turn things round.

The Co=Ordinator wrote:
The things like the pterodactyl and centurions on the street were just throw away and, as such, irrelevant. The dramatic finale left me feeling meh. The very end with Dorium's head doing a name dropping exercise for series 7 actually annoyed me. And as for "Doctor Who?", bloody hell Silver Nemesis did it better 23 years ago - definite minus point for that. Will Andrew Cartmel be looking for a credit?

You know, even though I've seen frothy-mouthed insults fly for every episode, I don't think I've ever seen one more crushing than "Silver Nemesis did it better"...

I've got to disagree that the pterodactyl and centurions were pointless. It was a way of showing all of history happening at once on a huge visually-entertaining scale...

stanmore wrote:You know, even though I've seen frothy-mouthed insults fly for every episode, I don't think I've ever seen one more crushing than "Silver Nemesis did it better"..

I've realised that the end of this episode did something very, very rare indeed Tom. It made me angry.

At least answer the bloody questions you've raised over the past 2 years before asking more.

The Co=Ordinator wrote:[

I've realised that the end of this episode did something very, very rare indeed Tom. It made me angry.

At least answer the bloody questions you've raised over the past 2 years before asking more.

Which questions didn't get answered?

I'm not certain, but I have the feeling that Moffat is writing a trilogy and that anything that wasn't addressed to date might be later. But that's only because I have a nagging feeling that he did miss something this year. I'm not certain, because I was sort of counting off on my fingers the bits and bobs that I was waiting to have answered.

We still need to know more about the Silence, but we've been waiting to hear about that since The Eleventh Hour. I think we might see an end to it all next year.

I'd like to know what questions you don't feel have been answered, too, C=O. I come away from Series 6 much happier with the individual stories and the overall direction of the narrative arc than I was at the end of Series 5.

I'd say the big unanswered question is what caused the TARDIS to explode last year?

I think some of the standalone episodes have been good this year, it's just been the arc ones that have been weak for me. The problem, I think, is that when you integrate something like 'the Doctor is going to die' so heavily into the series, even though we know the Doctor isn't go to die, we expect that there'll be some price to be paid for it, Having the resolution be done the same way as Hustle reveals how they did it ('here's a scene from earlier, with the bit we didn't show you') feels distinctly underwhelming, especially when there's no real price paid for that resolution.

The point about RTD's finales was that the Doctor always paid a lasting price for solving the problem - regeneration, losing a companion, losing the only other Time Lord in existence - but under Moffat, everything's free and the only price to pay is listening to Dorium setting up the next arc.

I've also had enough of Amy, Rory and River Song. Let's move on please.

Dave Webb wrote:
I know I'm only a fan, but here's what's not working for me: I'm burned out on the whole prefigured future history of the Doctor thing. I don't much like prophecy as a narrative device at the best of times, so having another set of ominous words delivered that are to do with the Doctor's future is now just annoying.

I am getting tired of it being about The Doctor. Yes, know the series is called Doctor Who, but in the past, The Doctor has always been the catalyst for events, rarely the cause. I have a horrible feeling that despite Mr Moffat saying there will be no arc next year, the underlying theme will still be all about The Doctor's ongoing struggle with the Silence, who seem to have appointed themselves as the new Time Lords.

barnaby morbius wrote:
some people who i normally agree with(including some on this very forum)seem to have taken against moffat's take on the show very strongly. which didn't really happen with russell's stuff....

I'd very much agree with that observation.

I've enjoyed Moffat's Who as much as Davies, albeit for different reasons. I very much like Moffat's way of throwing out so many ideas, even though part of me gets whiplash from trying to follow them as they go past. But wasn't that also a criticism of Davies writing as well? And I do feel emotionally invested in Moffat's characters, but in a way that's different from Davies. Most of all, Moffat's arc for the series is incredibly novelistic, which may be alienating some of the Old School fans. Therefore instead of directly addressing Amy's emotional fallout from missing bringing up her daughter, it's dealt with thematically in Night Terrors (a parent coming to terms with a child who is "different") and The Girl Who Waited (Rory's reaction to Older Amy isn't to do with her age, but that he missed out on sharing those years with her).

Moffat's Who is possibly some of the most sophisticated writing we've seen in the show in its entire history, but the downside is that some viewers feel excluded by that. Davies' cleverness was in grounding his sophisticated storytelling with archetypal characterisation: Rose and Donna, two women with so much potential who fail to quite see a way in which to reach it; or Martha and her unrequited love. Moffat, meanwhile, is far more interested in showing the hand of the author: we've now had (including young Amelia) six variations of the same character (the aforementioned Young Ameila, The Amy Who Waited, Series 5 Amy with no parents; married Amy with Parents, Ganger Amy and alternate timeline Amy with an eyepatch). And each of these portrayals show different aspects of her, which all combine so we see a multilayered representation, which is something few writers in television can pull off (off the top of my head, Dennis Potter has come closest in using this sort of technique: see the Singing Detective as an example), and he's using the medium of Doctor Who as a tool to show these things (see also Rory and the Doctor as examples of multiple interpretations).

Other things that strike me as elegant writing are how the traditional season structure (a fun beginning, several stand alone stories, a couple of two parters and then all of it coming together in an exciting two part finale) was reversed this year: The Wedding Of River Song was essentially the first episode of the season, as it introduced all the elements that would climax in the Impossible Astronaut two parter. And he subverts expectations in stories like Let's Kill Hitler (a slapstick comedy in the style of Davies' New Earth) that hides an emotional core and rids the story of its title character within five minutes).

And I think that some people, for all their espousal that it's is sophisticated, really want to see the Doctor Who from when they were eight years old but made for their adult selves. Which is really what we're getting... but not necessarily in the way they'd like. Personally I'm feel I'm getting it-- I also felt I got this from Davies as well, but in a different way.

Having said all this, I have to admit to preferring last years two part finale to this years, mainly because I felt a greater emotional connection to it. However, I'm very much looking forward to buying the boxset and watching all 13 episodes before evaluating this episode further.

But for all I've written, in Moffat's words (or at least to paraphrase them), The Wedding of River Song did things that only Doctor who can do, which is what it should do. And it was fun.

Nuff said.
4/5

barnaby morbius wrote:some people who i normally agree with(including some on this very forum)seem to have taken against moffat's take on the show very strongly. which didn't really happen with russell's stuff....

I'm not sure if you either are or ever have been a member of GB, but that was happening on there to RTD's take on the show in great excess, which is one of two reasons I left it about 18 months ago.. People would not only write constructive criticism of his work, but would literally rip him apart.. Now on some forums, and also social networking sites too, the same seems to be happening to Moffat..

Maybe it's the same people who used to slag off RTD then proclaim the Moff as the upcoming messiah. I hope it is.

Why have we still not had an explanation for this?

The Co=Ordinator wrote:Why have we still not had an explanation for this?

A cock-up from the art department.

John the Vic wrote:

barnaby morbius wrote:some people who i normally agree with(including some on this very forum)seem to have taken against moffat's take on the show very strongly. which didn't really happen with russell's stuff....

I'm not sure if you either are or ever have been a member of GB, but that was happening on there to RTD's take on the show in great excess, which is one of two reasons I left it about 18 months ago.. People would not only write constructive criticism of his work, but would literally rip him apart.. Now on some forums, and also social networking sites too, the same seems to be happening to Moffat..

i'm still there john(for my sins)

i ignore most of the posters on there- they seem like very strange people.

but some posters on there who i tended to generally agree with seem to dislike the direction the shows taken recently. including nick, tony and doc filth amongst the wrinklies

Lee Carey wrote:A cock-up from the art department.

Nah, I don't go for that.

RTD's second season was his weakest IMO. Will history repeat itself?Meanwhile, this made me chuckle - clearly not a lover a Series 6.

Lee Carey wrote:

The Co=Ordinator wrote:Why have we still not had an explanation for this?

A cock-up from the art department.

yup something definitely wrong there - I can't get the barcode to scan.

The Co=Ordinator wrote:

Lee Carey wrote:A cock-up from the art department.

Nah, I don't go for that.

I, too, suspect a change of plan. There are all sorts of unanswered questions relating to the development of the last two seasons; I'm not surprised that the recording break is happening.

The Co=Ordinator wrote:RTD's second season was his weakest IMO. Will history repeat itself?

It hasn't, as there were more decent episodes in series 6 than in series 5.

IMO!

Indeed.

It will be interesting to see how the Wrinkly AI compares between the 2 series.

The Co=Ordinator wrote:Why have we still not had an explanation for this?

Perhaps Rory the Plastic Centurion got it, during his 2,000 year wait for Amy to emerge from the Pandorica.

Not even Moffat could be so obscure - and did NHS ID cards in 1990 really have barcodes? I don't think so......

yea, and since when are there 30 months in a year?




*(mm/dd/yyyy around here)

Did they use 4 digits for the year back then? or just assume the "19" in front of the year digits? (only been recently round here to get the 4-digit year on stuff)