Daleks To Be Given 'A Rest' From Dr. Who 332
donberryman writes "Steven Moffat told the BBC 'There's a problem with the Daleks. They are the most famous of the Doctor's adversaries and the most frequent, which means they are the most reliably defeatable enemies in the universe.'" And so, 400+ encounters later, both the Doctor and the daleks will take a break from each other.
Re:because the redisigned daleks look stupid (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:spolier:The sonic screwdriver seems to be gone (Score:4, Insightful)
i think a lot of this comes down to the quality of the writers not the tools at the disposal of the characters. A bad/mediocre writer will wave the magic wand to get past the problem the writer has put the character in. To create tension they'll have the magic wand not work. This is fine and an audience will put up with this provided the rest of the story is enough to keep them interested.
A good writer won't need a sonic screwdriver or a deadlock seal, the traps and problems will be those of circumstance, character traits and morals. But like any tool they can be overused too, there's only so many times the lock of the doctor being a pacifist being opened by a companion sacrifice can be used; but we're back to the good vs bad writer stage again...
So I've no problems with the Daleks being used a lot, used in every episode even as long as they are used well. That does seem to worry me about the new Dr Who that they're not being used because they have a good story but used like the sonic to up the tension and that just doesn't work long term.
Re:spolier:The sonic screwdriver seems to be gone (Score:5, Insightful)
This was a big problem with the Russell T Davies episodes. He used spectacle as a substitute for plot. Huge fleets of Daleks or Cybermen as a substitute for character interaction. In contrast, the best episodes have been things like Blink, that have kept the atmosphere with relatively little emphasis on special effects.
The original problem with the sonic screwdriver was that, after being used a few times, writers either had to use it, or have the audience thinking 'why didn't he use the sonic screwdriver?' With the deadlock seal, good writers can just say add a line of dialog saying 'oh, doesn't work', and move on. Imagine 42, for example, without the deadlock seal. Either there would have to be some contrived way of losing the sonic screwdriver at the start, or the audience would have sat there saying 'why don't you just use the sonic screwdriver on the doors?!?!?' Just mentioning the word 'deadlock' meant that we all knew that the magic wand wouldn't work, so there was tension that didn't seem artificial.
With a good writer, the sonic screwdriver is a substitute for technobabble. Put on the glasses, wave the magic wand, and something involving technology that the audience doesn't need to care about just happened and you can return to the plot. No need to go into long explanations. We all know the sonic screwdriver does complicated things with technology, and we don't need to know the details.
Re:The Doctor needs a break too (Score:2, Insightful)
Wow. It's amazing how two people can watch the same thing and get something completely different from it.
Since Moffat has taken over, I feel the quality is the best it's ever been. I love the season spanning sub-plots, which are built up with plot hints and subtle clues over months. They're always surprising, yet for me have been logical and obvious when revealed.
I could go on, but I've made my point. I'm not saying I'm right, 'cos there's no such thing with matters of taste, obviously, but I do find it fascinating how I disagree with every single one of your points about as strongly as I could.
The human brain. Infinite possibilities :p
Re:The Doctor needs a break too (Score:5, Insightful)
The plots, and the Doctor himself, are so incoherent that even I barely know what the hell just happened at the end of an episode, and I'm normally the guy in the room who is explaining the plot twists to others.
I haven't had any problems understanding what happens in each episode. In fact, I find the two new series by Steven Moffat to be considerably better than the old Russel T. Davies series.
Russel T. Davies was infamous for "Doctor Ex Machina" plots, in which the Doctor would pull technobabble solutions out of his ass at the last minute. His villains were either re-introduced monsters from old Doctor Who episodes, or extremely uninteresting evil aliens who were entirely interchangeable.
Steven Moffat actually attempts to write science fiction, in that the Doctor's solutions are based on rules set up earlier in the episode, rather than rectum-derived technobabble. The viewer gets all the information the Doctor gets, so when he reveals the solution there's a genuine feeling of "Oh, now that's quite clever". Moffat's monsters also typically have some kind of interesting gimmick and often have some relation to the real world, giving them a certain scare factor that's not present in Davies' generic aliens.
Re:I guess (Score:4, Insightful)
The Daleks went from being a feared nemesis to being a laughing stock.
Exactly as what happened to The Borg in the Star Trek universe. It got so bad on Voyager that I wouldn't have been surprised to see The Borg beaten in an episode by cream pies in the face as Captain Janeway spun around on the floor yelping "Woop woop woop!" like Curly.