Some tales of two writers

[selenak]

As the big Blink versus Human Nature showdown at the Hugos approaches, long interviews with Stephen Moffat and Paul Cornell were posted these recent days, and I found both interesting to listen to. Our future Scottish overlord gets quizzed here.

There is the usual American/British culture clash when they keep asking him about the children's show label with the implication that this is something to get over and Moffat is all "family show yay! Of course we write for children, we always have, we always will!", and when asked whether now that there is a sizable American audience the style/writing of the show will change to take said American audience and its viewing habits into consideration reacts with a polite version of ?!?!!!. But it's all good natured. Most of what he says is nothing new if you've been following previous interviews, but it's put in concise form. For example, no, there won't be any depiction of the Time War; he loves the hints RTD kept including as something that fires the imagination of the audience but says any actual depiction would be a let down, pointing to the Gallifreyan scenes in the days of olde (somehow I don't think Moffat is a fan of the Fourth Doctor onwards depiction of Gallifrey and the Time Lords) as a proof why. Something I found both interesting and amusing in the lights of the silly feuding going on in parts of fandom, where "Moffat is sexist!" charges are immediately countered with "Rusty is so much more sexist!" or vice versa (instead of, you know, discussing either gentleman based on his own works instead of the other guys) is what he replies when asked about his favourite characters in New Who. He says that of RTD's characters, he loves Donna best, and Yvonne Hartman, the leader of Torchwood 1, and explains that to him, Yvonne Hartman is a wonderful creation and a great example of a character who is an antagonist but from her perspective a heroine and who indeed tries her best according to her own ethical code. Given that Yvonne usually makes it into the list of characters cited as proof for Rusty having it in for middle-aged women, this neatly illustrated how different one can watch shows. Of his own New Who characters - i.e. Nancy, Jack, Reinette, Sally Sparrow and River Song - he named River as his favourite (definitely not the choice most of the audience would make, again, different view point), which promptly led to questions whether she'd be back (to which he said that while the Doctor will see her again, obviously, he's not sure yet the audience will) and whether she knew Ten or later Doctors (mostly later Doctors, but she has met Ten before, and Moffat also jokes about River running across Eight as well and considering him the dishiest; he's quite nice about Eight in general, saying the tv movie wasn't that bad and Paul McGann was fabulous).

The most interesting thing he says about the Doctor is that in his eyes, the Doctor really doesn't know how old he is anymore, because short of marking each day with a nob in the TARDIS, which he wouldn't be the type for, how would he know? And he wants to address that element in s5 specifically, the different perspective on time of a time traveller, that everyone is equally alive or dead to him.

Paul Cornell's interview can be downloaded here, in which he talks as much about his comics work for Marvel (especially Pete Wisdom) as about his Doctor Who stuff, and reminds me again that most of the writing staff of New Who really are utter and complete fanboys, as he mentions writing his first DW stories for a fanzine. (I'm old enough to remember fanzines and fandom long before the internet. Those were the days, kids.) He also mentions being a Stephen King fan, which doesn't surprise me (I once said Moffat and Cornell are the Thackeray and Dickens of DW, but you could also say they are Peter Straub and Stephen King and make the same point; my third comparison pair would be Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin), during some great discussion about being a writer and how the process of writing works. Asked that if he could create the Eleventh Doctor, how he'd go about it, he suggests - as I think he did in his blog before - Ray Stevenson, based on Stevenson's performance as Titus Pullo in Rome. Not because Eleven should be like Pullo but because Pullo proved that Ray Stevenson can convey a lot of personal warmth, and the juxtaposition of a thuggish exterior with the Doctor's great intellect and with said personal warmth would be, Cornell argued, an interesting new variation of the Doctor. I must say, this is by far the most intriguing casting suggestion I've heard in the Eleven speculation game, but alas Cornell also adds that ideas like this were why he'll never be in charge of the show.

Lastly, a fanfic rec. Two of the fandoms you'd consider least likely to be crossed over with each other are surely Torchwood and C.S. Lewis' Narnia chronicles. Well, Threads that are golden don't break easily pulls it off. In which Captain Jack Harkness recruits Susan Pensieve, who can't go back to Narnia again. Expect some fantastic twists which make sense in both fandoms!

Comments

[wee-warrior.livejournal.com]

I'm mostly nodding along, as usual, but this caught my eye

because Pullo proved that Ray Stevenson can convey a lot of personal warmth

I really am the only one who hated that character, right? I mean, I could totally imagine Stevenson as Eleven, and of the suggestions so far, I'd certainly prefer him over Nesbitt and that 20something kid whose name I can't remember, but Pullo is not who I envision when thinking of personal warmth.

Also? Eight is *totally* the dishiest. And that's not my completely irrational affection for Paul McGann talking...

[selenak.livejournal.com]

I think you probably are. Vorenus has his share of enemies, but everyone and their laptop love and adore Pullo.

I think Eight probably wins that competition in most polls.*g*

*uses utterly random new icon*

[wee-warrior.livejournal.com]

I think you probably are. Vorenus has his share of enemies, but everyone and their laptop love and adore Pullo.

Well, given my usual track record with genuinely beloved characters, that's got to be a first. Finally, I have an entry for that Unpopular Opinions in Fandom meme.

*uses utterly random new icon*

*duely admires*

(I must really continue watching Three's adventures on Youknowwhere. They are so adorable. I recently saw Sarah Jane's first one! Does she ever meet the Brig?)

[selenak.livejournal.com]

So you have! Although, as I recall you only watched the first few episodes, and Pullo doesn't get to exude that personal warmth big time until later, when he's busy comforting Vorenus, being nice to Octavian and chatting up Eirene. (Before he bashes her fiance's head in, but that's another matter.)

(Personally, I like Pullo, but Vorenus the difficult interests me more, plus of course I have a soft spot for those scheming Roman aristocrats.)

Sarah Jane meets the Brig quite a lot. Invasion of the Dinosaurs, which is her second adventure with Three, has quite a lot of UNIT stuff (and the "Three drags the Brig in a closet" scene the other icon is from) and is wonderful all around. But isn't the Brig actually the one to introduce her to "Dr. John Smith" at the start of The Time Warrior to begin with? Be that as it may, they definitely interact in Invasion of the Dinosaurs.

[wee-warrior.livejournal.com]

But isn't the Brig actually the one to introduce her to "Dr. John Smith" at the start of The Time Warrior to begin with?

I think he introduced the loopy scientist, but I could be wrong, it's been a while. Dinosaurs, huh? Awesome.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

The dinosaurs are fun, though actually only a distraction of the villains' to get London evacuated and under emergency rule. This makes for some genuine spookiness at the start, as Sarah and the Doctor come back from the middle ages and the city appears to be empty (Sarah Jane, somehow having deduced the Doctor's driving skills, thinks he didn't bring her back to the right time, and he's insulted)... until a brontosaurus shows up. They also meet a pterodactyl, which I think must have flown off to Wales since Torchwood keeps one as a pet. And then, after having reunited with UNIT, they meet a T-Rex and the Doctor is entranced. The Brigadier less so. And then the Doctor tells the Brig he wants one of the shiny beasties captured to geek out about find out why on earth they ended in this time, and the Brigadier's reaction to this is just so very him. Meanwhile, Sarah Jane, being a good reporter, has the right idea to follow the money (necessary to finance machines that produce dinosaurs from the wrong time). You must watch it!

[bats_eye.livejournal.com]

Man, I adore both Invasion of the Dinosaurs and the Time Warrior. As much as I love Jo, I do wish we'd got more Three and Sarah Jane.

Mind you, I think fans of Mike Yates probably have cause to complain about the former. We never really saw anything that convinced me he was capable of that.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

What I found a bit hard to believe was that all this resulted for him in was being made to resign quietly from UNIT. (And going on a trip to find himself, leading us to the last Three adventure.) Since Mike Yates was ready to accept the deaths of a lot of people for his Utopia here, and only balked because they were suddenly people he knew.

As for whether or not this was ooc for him: I would say we didn't see enough previously to know whether or not he harboured an inner radical revolutionary just begging to be awakened, because I don't recall conversations about his views. But as these were the 70s, they might have gone for an RAF parallel (that's Rote Armee Fraktion, not Royal Air Force), to people like Ulrike Meinhof and Gudrun Ensslin, as one of the most common reactions was "but with their background, who'd have thought?")

[kalypso-v.livejournal.com]

Well, I suppose Pullo was included in my contempt for the entire series, to which my reaction was "They took some of the most fascinating and charismatic characters in history and made them really boring. And then they made up some new boring characters to go with them."

I gave up halfway through the first season, so people occasionally try to persuade me it got more interesting later.

My One True Candidate for the Eleventh Doctor is Paterson Joseph, as per the icon. I seem to remember Neil Gaiman agrees with me!

ETA: And as I wrote that, Gaiman appeared in icons downpage! It's a sign!

[selenak.livejournal.com]

He agrees with you, and said in the Neverwhere audio commentary he modelled the Marquis on the Doctor. Given that Paterson Joseph has already appeared in New Who in a minor role, and that this is true for a lot of actors who went on to play more important characters (Freema Aygeman, Naoko Mori, Julian Bleach, etc.), he's got a good chance.

[kalypso-v.livejournal.com]

I'd forgotten that Carabas did sort of regenerate! I've had a weakness for Paterson Joseph, anyway, since I saw him in Ibsen's The Pretenders, which must have been about 1990. Oh, and he was in Moffat's Jekyll last year, wasn't he? So he's showing up in the right places to register.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Team Cardiff is definitely aware of him, oh yes.

(Wouldn't know about Jekyll, though, because I only saw the pilot.)

[kalypso-v.livejournal.com]

He was in four episodes out of six - probably two to five, I remember he was killed before the end.

Fell asleep during a BBC Four Worlds of Fantasy documentary in the early hours of this morning, and woke up to see the Marquis of Carabas striding towards me. An even better sign! Perhaps I should write to Moffat.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Couldn't hurt. Oh, I've been meaning to ask: did you write any Ashes to Ashes reviews I could look up?

[kalypso-v.livejournal.com]

No, sorry - it took me a year to get round to doing the second season of Life on Mars, and I think I was writing that up while Ashes to Ashes was on. I suppose I could still do it if I've got the episodes on my V+ disc - can't remember whether I knocked them off when I was deleting something else last month - but although I quite enjoyed it I wasn't emotionally engaged in the same way. (Of course, I wasn't quite as emotionally engaged in the second season of Life on Mars, because I felt they'd diminished Gene's character, and that was why it took so long to work myself up to finish it. I'm a very slow writer, and it generally takes me about three hours to construct a review of that length.)

But I'm very flattered you would have wanted to read them.

[wee-warrior.livejournal.com]

Rome: truth be told, I don't know much about the historical period, so I wouldn't have caught the mistakes, but I found the insertion of what amounted to a typical buddy cop movie duo as POV characters pretty annoying to say the least.

I gave up halfway through the first season, so people occasionally try to persuade me it got more interesting later.

Funnily enough, both are true for me as well!

Paterson Joseph: looks like a very good choice indeed. Much approval.

[astrogirl2.livejournal.com]

That Moffat interview was great (even if the video/audio quality wasn't). Thanks for the link! Man, the more I hear that man talk about his attitude towards the show and his approach to it, the more delighted I am with the idea of him taking over.

[aralias.livejournal.com]

oh, i *love* the idea of river meeting eight so much. and also that moffatt know this, or has thought about it but will never EVER show us. good for him.

interivews both sound great, so thanks you for linking them :)

[aralias.livejournal.com]

hmm. not sure why my lockhart icon is here. i'd really meant it to be, you know, eight - given that that's who i was talking about in my comment. lj madness strikes again.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

LOL. That sometimes happens. And I quite like Lockhart. Kenneth Branagh had so much fun with the role.

Eight: meets companions of other incarnations who rip his clothes off ALL THE TIME, clearly. (There is that precedence with Bernice Summerfield...)

*uses shiny new icon with you as well, though it has nothing to do with the subject*

[kalypso-v.livejournal.com]

That really is very shiny.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

*displays more Brig and Three shinyness*

[aralias.livejournal.com]

i *really* like lockhart. he's one of my favourite minor characters and one of the best parts of CoS (though i don't understand why everyone is so down on the book in general. lockharts one of the best parts of a really great book which is definitely not the least exciting in the series)

and at least eight is one of the ones who does the kissing thing. companions trying to rip five's clothes off him would undoubtedly be hilarious.

also, having watched the moffatt video i report back saying moffatt is one of life's most charmingly dorky men. i love his talk about being the best boy in the world, and explanation of how the clone wars were really rubbish, though - alas, no time war. i do wish we could see it though i know it's wrong and it would be just as disappointing as thousands of new zealand men marching around killing thousands of robots.

good completely irrelvent icon btw. i have no idea what's going on in it though... is three telling the brig a story of murder and intrigue?

[selenak.livejournal.com]

One of my favourite CoS scenes: when Lockhart is telling everyone how they could prepare for Valentine's day - ask Snape how to brew a love potion, and I regret that didn't end up in the film since Alan Rickman playing Snape's look as described would have been priceless.

and at least eight is one of the ones who does the kissing thing. companions trying to rip five's clothes off him would undoubtedly be hilarious.

It's the one thing that never happened to Five when everything else did. OR MAYBE IT DID HAPPEN. In 100, there is a scene in Paul Cornell's 100 days of the Doctor where Six and Evelyn, unnoticed, observe Five, Evelyn comments he looks like a pretty young man, and Six somewhat sorely replies "everyone always says that. You have no idea what it was like, being him".

Completely irrelevant icon: actually, Three has just dragged the Brig into a tiny dark closet and tells the Brig just to trust him. Yes, you read that right. It's one of many adorable scenes in Invasion of the Dinosaurs. At this point, everyone thinks the Doctor is nuts (again), but the Brig investigates with him the sinister goings-on in an abandoned part of a goverment building anyway. This is nothing to later, when Three insists on driving the two of them right under the belly of a T-Rex.

[aralias.livejournal.com]

"everyone always says that. You have no idea what it was like, being him".

that's so wonderful i want to go out and buy 100 right now maybe i will just trawl the internet.... not that i would do that it probably was continually trying to be five - please stop trying to hug me, please. i don't want to be hugged!

and why does the brig/unit always think the doctor's nuts? he's always right. it's like when scully says 'don't be silly mulder, there's no such thing as aliens'. what about all those times it was aliens, scully/brig? there were lots of those times.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Now that's unfair. In this particular story, the Brig does believe the Doctor (hence the going on investigation with him). So does Benton (the rest of UNIT, otoh...). And in general, the only time the Brig outright refused to consider the Doctor's theories was in The Three Doctors, when everyone was exaggarated, usually he takes what the Doctor says into consideration, acts on it and has a hell of a time trying to sell this to the local authorities.

(I'm not as fond of The Daemons as most people are, but it contains a scene which is typical for the Doctor's attitude re: Brig.
Doctor: argues with Brig on the phone, complete with bickering about military narrow mindedness
Jo: makes critical remark about Brig once the Doctor has hung up
Doctor *complete turnaround*: "The Brigadier is trying to do an incredibly difficult job under terrible circumstances, Jo. Show a little respect.")

[aralias.livejournal.com]

also is that the john sessions in the mozart story, because that would be almost to cool for words.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

*teasing* Are there more than one John Sessions about?

[aralias.livejournal.com]

weeeeeell, i don't know, perhaps there are, but clearly they aren't important. yay! more things should have john sessions in them.

also, i apologise to you and the brigadier for my horrific and unfair generalisation viz. his willingness to believe the doctor. you're right (though i haven't seen dinosaurs, so here i am just assuming you are not lying),

and i'm very meh-ed by the daemons actually, despite the amusement that is three tied to a maypole and pretending to be a wizard. but why do the doctor and the master hardly speak? why are the master's robes so unnecessarily embarrassing? why does he feel the need to disguise himself with a pair of glasses when no one knows who he is apart from the doctor/UNIT who would surely see through even a disguise as cunning as that? i do not know the answers to these things.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

I don't, either, and those are some of the reasons why I never rewatched The Daemons and don't recommend it to anyone. It as some nice scenes, but the Master's Alastair Crowley stick is really deeply embarassing, the whole serial feels overlong and stretched (not in terms of minutes - I'd say Mind of Evil is probably at the same length, but wow, what a difference!), the Daemons themselves are silly and not in a fun way (Star Trek did this better), and the lack of shared screentime is really a crying shame. No biscuit for you, Daemons. All the Whovian needs to see from that serial are the final ten minutes with the Master's capture and the dancing, and before that the Brig's famous "chap with wings, five rounds, rapid" line.

[skywaterblue.livejournal.com]

My favorite quote was what his objective for Doctor Who is:

"Overarching goal? There's no overarching goal to Doctor Who, other than to write 45 minutes of awesome every Saturday."

[selenak.livejournal.com]

May he make it true!

[kalypso-v.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm with him if he feels like that about the post-Three Gallifrey... but it would take a lot more work to make me believe in Yvonne. In fact, I'd forgotten her and initially thought that he must be talking about the Victorian Cardiff Torchwood boss, Emily, who I liked much better. I could just about believe Emily and Alice spouting stuff about the patriotic ends justifying the means, but when Yvonne did it a century later it just seemed phoney - like the Bond film where I immediately concluded his colleague was the villain because he kept shouting things like "For England, James!" with a perfectly straight face. It could be done, and if Moffat wants to write middle-aged women I can believe in I'll be very pleased.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Personally, I saw Yvonne as a satire on a Thatcherite (though she did get an heroic ending, true), which is part of the reason why it surprised me he picked her, as opposed to, say, Harriet Jones. (If you want to demonstrate RTD is more layered about his middle-aged ladies. Also Harriet is as purely and entirely a Rusty character as they come - she never appears in any episodes not written by RTD.) But points for originality, and it does illustrate the difference in viewer perspective.

[kalypso-v.livejournal.com]

Oh, absolutely. There have been assorted impressive middle-aged women along the way - I'm also a big fan of Tom MacRae's Mrs Moore and was rather disappointed they never took the opportunity to bring her back in our universe (now, if her alter ego had been running Torchwood One - or found herself rallying the resistance once the Cybermen arrived...) And RTD's Professor Docherty, though she eventually fell into the traditional forced-to-treachery-by-family-hostage role. But the more [Moore?] the merrier.

PS Love the Doctor's volte-face on the Brigadier. That's so John "No one but me can be rude about Paul" Lennon!

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Oh, I loved Mrs. Moore. Also Ida in Impossible Planet, and yes, Professor Docherty (Martha giving her the flowers at the end of LotTL was a lovely touch of grace).

That's so John "No one but me can be rude about Paul" Lennon!

Bwahahahaa. It truly is, though now that you've cast the Doctor as John and the Brig as Paul, I have to ask whether this makes Benton Ringo and Liz Shaw George?

[kalypso-v.livejournal.com]

The young Lethbridge-Stewart...



Then, Jo & Sarah Jane as Cynthia & Yoko?

[selenak.livejournal.com]

You realise this makes Leela into May Pang? Or would Harry be May Pang?

[kalypso-v.livejournal.com]

I was wondering about May Pang. I suppose Harry comes closer to someone who's around during the Sarah Jane era but not later. Unless she's a one-off character the Doctor hangs around with for a couple of episodes while Sarah's running a subplot?

[meret.livejournal.com]

now that there is a sizable American audience the style/writing of the show will change to take said American audience and its viewing habits into consideration reacts with a polite version of ?!?!!!.

That's interesting. I was watching the ep with Anthony Stewart Head in it last night as the school head master, and at one point it shows a sign above the school that says - Welcome to High School. Which confused me since I didn't think they called it that in the UK.

He says that of RTD's characters, he loves Donna best

Me too! :)

[kalypso-v.livejournal.com]

There did used to be High Schools - in fact, there still are, there's Manchester High School for Girls up the road from me - but I'm a bit vague about what exactly the term signified; it may not have been the same as the American phrase. (I know Manchester High was Direct Grant until the 1970s when the grant was withdrawn and it turned independent.)

I suspect the term has re-entered UK consciousness through saturation in American teen television. I've heard that some schools have started having proms now.

[londonkds.livejournal.com]

My secondary schools were having US-style proms as early as the mid-1990s.

[meret.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the information! I wasn't aware of that. I wondered if they'd made two different shots of the school. One for US and one for UK release.

[neutralalienist.livejournal.com]

Ooh, I look forward to seeing Moffat exploring time and the perception of it on the show – his episodes have been some of the few that really used it, and that was always something I liked. (Even if, sometimes, the concept was better than the execution, but we'll always get that sometimes.)

I knew about his aversion to Gallifrey, but it still makes me sad - sometimes I feel quite alone in always liking it. (Well, in a 'grim fascination' sort of way.) I've seen people complain the Time Lords were reduced, as time went on, but - well, I rather liked that. I want real societies, not just epic legends. It's similar to why I hate the 'Lonely God' thing, I suppose.

As for Yvonne - again, concept vs execution, I think. A lot of villains think they're right - give us a reason to think that a little, too.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

My problem with post-Three Time Lords and Gallifrey was the utter lack of alien-ness. (I'd argue they were bloody scary and plenty alien in War Games for Two, and while more approachable and with quirks still alien all through Three's era.) I'm all for real societies, but I'm also for an alien species being actually alien. While Gallifrey, to quote Helen R. in the Five Doctors easter egg commentary, from Deadly Assassins onwards struck one as the scriptwriters venting via a satire of the BBC staff meetings. And while things like Runcible as the galaxy's worst reporter were undoubtedly mildly amusing at the time, there is no way I can buy that a planet with TARDIS technology has BBC late 70s style reporting. It was like Terry Prattchet without any subtlety, the whole Time Lords = Just Like Us, Or Rather Just Like Human Bureaucracy thing. Say what you want about New Who, but they really made the Time Lords alien again, from Nine's "I can feel the earth moving..." speech in Rose onwards. And I love that.

(BTW, arguably this started in Seven's era, because Andrew Cartmel was way more into re-mythologizing and re-alien-izing the Doctor than RTD ever was, what with "The Other" this, Merlin that, and pointedly no other Time Lords but the Master in one single serial showing up. But New Who took another route, the blowing up Gallifrey one, which I still think was one of the best decisions ever when it came to relaunching the show and simultanously making it accessible for people unaware of the previous continuity AND the fans familiar with it.)

I'd also argue that the Time Lords and Gallifrey are still presented as flawed in New Who, only you have to pay more attention because of the Doctor's survivor's guilt to notice. But it's there. Vide "your people always struck me as passive to the point of indolence" in School Reunion, "they (i.e. the Time Lords, and given what we know about the Raccnoss disappearing around the creation of Earth, presumably the pre-Rassilon ones) murdered the Raccnoss" in "Runaway Bride", and of course Sound of Drums with "it all sounds so beautiful" (Jack re: Gallifrey) and the Doctor replying "oh, it was - beautiful to look at" and then getting into his facing the vortex at eight "some get inspired, some go mad, some run away" story, which hardly paints Gallifrey as a nice utopia and more as harsh, and well, very alien.

[neutralalienist.livejournal.com]

*nods* I can definitely see that, yeah. There are things I love in Deadly Assassin, but I...tend to forget about the reporting. Forcibly. I think it was better in Five's era – they're not mythic, but they are alien, their society so very, very removed from our own. And in the end, there's still a hell of a lot of blanks you can fill in yourself.

(Honestly I hate Cartmel's Master Plan with the fire of a thousand suns, but I do like that no one ever forgot that the Doctor was an alien. I'd just rather he was...'just' an alien, not, well, the Other. LOOOOMS. And Nine's 'turn of the Earth' speech was bloody amazing, yes.)

As for Gallifrey's destruction - I'd like it more if they explored more of its affect on the universe, instead of just pointing to the Time War whenever it's convenient. And while I did enjoy it with Nine - partially, I'm sure, because he was my first - I think it's got a tad stale by now. I'm tired of the angst, frankly. And, were Gallifrey ever to appear again, it could easily be reimagined. (I also miss the Doctor being a rebel, a renegade, rather than 'the highest authority'.)

I think it would help if those who criticised the Time Lords...weren't villains? And yes, they destroyed the Racnoss, but then...so did the Doctor. So unless you already know how screwed up Gallifrey was, I don't think you get much from it. The Sound of Drums did help, though. Especially the ritual traumatising of children.

...Wow, that got...long and rambly, sorry.