Secrets of the Stars, Part 1

Rather better than I expected, actually. Though I’m starting to question the point of stories like this. What’s it trying to say, exactly? Why write something like this?

Next week, hey, another near-cataclysm that everyone will forget about the week after. More hypnotized people wandering out into the streets, more chaos.

Is Mr. Roberts just doing this because Davies has done it a few times, and he’s seen that it worked before? Or is this all crucial to some profound original thought that he’s trying to get across?

What’s the point in writing fiction if it’s just fiction for the sake of fiction? Isn’t fiction supposed to be metaphorical? Isn’t it supposed to be a framework to illustrate your observations about life?

Maybe I’m just grumpy today.

* *

The only two Roberts-related things that have impressed me are Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane? and, somewhat, Invasion of the Bane. One of those was co-written with Davies, and I think Davies basically rewrote the other from scratch.

As I said earlier, I guess I don’t understand why he writes what he writes. He doesn’t seem to have anything of his own to say. The only motivation I can detect is a certain fetishism. Of Doctor Who, of Agatha Cristie, of Shakespeare, of certain pop culture references. It’s like his scripts are a collection of objects, that he points to as if it’s self-evident that they’re wonderful. Because, look! See!

You get that in his Agatha Cristie episode. “Awwwooh, you’re wonderful! You know why you’re the best writer ever? Because you’ve had your heart broken, so you understand people!”

What?

* *

If you were to hire the Comic Book Store Guy from The Simpsons, I imagine his scripts would be pretty much like this.

It’s weird how I feel patronized by his writing, considering it does little but emptily ape Davies’ mannerisms. I guess that’s it — all the froth of Davies without any of the lager?

“Whatever Happened” is the best Sarah Jane to date, and it really does not feel like Roberts’ other work. There was an aside a while ago — I think an excerpt from The Writer’s Tale — where Davies mentioned that he was about to go write those two episodes. So maybe that explains something.

I think the reason they keep him around is that Roberts gets the house tone down pat. If you don’t look too close, he does a very passable imitation of Davies. He would perhaps make a decent editor of some sort.

I should say that neither has he written anything really poor, exactly. It all passes the time genially enough. Sort of.

It just all seems a bit irrelevant.

Secrets of the Stars, Part 2

Aohhhhh, blood control?! I haven’t seen blood control in yeeeeeaaaaars! Weelll, three years to be precise. Well, thirty-four months. Give or take.

Hum.

The Temptation of Sarah Jane Smith, Part 1

That was pretty good, though I’ve a few problems with it. Most of the acting was off the mark. Sarah Jane’s parents were played a notch too broadly, for instance. Also, it didn’t do quite enough in tone to distinguish the past from present.

More importantly… um. Okay, they did hang a bunch of lampshades on it, but golly was Sarah Jane written poorly. Her behavior here doesn’t at all fit her character, and the script (and show to date) hasn’t done enough to really justify her boneheaded decisions. If anything, the fact that she and everyone else keeps talking about how dumb she would have to do to do what she did just underlines how bizarre it is that she did it anyway.

This is a classic example of a writer coming up with a plot, then trying to justify the actions the characters need to take for the plot to work. The commentary on those actions just comes off as the author saying “Yeah, I know this doesn’t work — but I’m doing it anyway, because in a battle between plot and character, plot wins. Especially my plot, because it’s brilliant.”

It’s, you know, a better than usual episode. That’s mostly a factor of its ambition, though. Its basic concept is fine. I still remain unconvinced of Gareth Roberts’ skill as a writer. He seems to have little understanding of or interest in the way people work outside of film and TV cliche — which is maybe a problem in a script that depends entirely on character motivation. I’d like to see what would have happened if he’d handed this idea over to Mr. Lidster, for instance. James Moran might have been interesting.

I’ll admit also that I have extreme prejudice against stories that require a character to act like an idiot. So given that, it’s of some credit to the story’s ambition that it carries my attention nonetheless.

Also see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiot_plot
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/IdiotPlot

The Temptation of Sarah Jane Smith, Part 2

So this episode it’s Rani’s turn to randomly act like a dolt, because they need (rather weird) exposition and a false emotional note with her mother to complete the dramatic arithmatic. Ho hum. At least it doesn’t lead to head-slapping consequences; just to tedium.

It’s becoming all the more clear to me how much of “Whatever Happened” Davies must have written.

Sort of interesting that the Graske is becoming a character now, rather than a random monster-thing.

You can tell that the Trickster is played by the head Futurekind fellow — such distinctive body language. I like the job he does, though he doesn’t have much to work with. Mostly growling and doom declaration. Lots of talking about doing.

Actually, this story is a lot of talking about doing. Talking about plot. Flatly directed, at that. Lots of medium shots.

The theme they’ve given Sarah Jane in high-drama moments — it’s very similar to a Danny Elfman cue, that’s on the tip of my mind. Is it from Edward Scissorhands?

Mind, it’s nice in principle to have stories that explore Sarah Jane’s backstory.

I assume the idea behind the police box is that the new TARDIS has been established as not looking exactly like a real police box? Except neither does this one.

That jogging UNIT fellow in the trailer — have we seen him before?

* *

it seems Gareth Roberts’ perspective as a writer rarely verges outside the experience of a fan. In his Tennant episodes (Shakespeare, Wasp) the Doctor becomes a dribbling fanboy of some public figure and spends the whole episode bursting with quotes and references to prove his affections for that person’s work. Story structure and thematic content hew to genre conventions, inasmuch as events happen because they tend to happen in shows and stories like this rather than because of a higher necessary function like character or conceptual development. Roberts just doesn’t have much to say as a writer except “I enjoy pop culture; here is what I enjoy”.

All that nonsense about the witches and the recitation of words being a science; it’s only there as a self-conscious reference to Logopolis. At no point does he use the notion to illustrate an actual theory or observation about life. It’s a throwaway reference to an old episode of a TV show, that didn’t really make sense then beyond a metaphorical reading of Buddhism, to explain why something that you’d expect to see in a Shakespeare play is happening then and there — as convention dictates that it must in a show like this, because this episode deals with Shakespeare.

And then it’s gone; he never explores it further, unless you count Tennant’s froth about Shakespeare’s brilliance with words. Even that is insisted in a reverent manner, rather than shown. When it comes time for Shakespeare to prove his brilliance, instead Roberts just quotes from Harry fucking Potter. And then the Doctor dribbles about J.K. Rowling’s genius, for the second time in 45 minutes.