I recently watched the BBC America documentary A Farewell to Matt Smith on the 50th Anniversary Special Edition box set of Doctor Who. In it, Steven Moffat spoke of the character River Song (Alex Kingston) and said “Trouble always follows her, like any great woman.”
The word ‘great’ in that sentence does not alleviate the tone of his misogynistic remark, nor does his sly grin. It epitomises the general attitude toward women throughout his current shows (both Doctor Who and Sherlock) where he depicts them as smarmy sexual predators, arrogant aggressors or baffling enigmas. It puzzles me greatly why people are convinced that he is a good writer (I might add that I thought his Press Gang was an excellent children’s television drama, but lately, his writing leaves a lot to be desired.)
For a brief bit of exposition, let me explain that I am a huge fan of Doctor Who and have been for many years. When it returned to our screens in 2005, Russell T Davies did a superb job, although he was not without his detractors. Sure, RTD made the series more accessible to a larger viewing public by making it more “domestic”, but I deny that this “ruined” the series as some seem to believe. Russell is capable of writing real characters in a fantastical realm. I find Steven’s characters to be nothing more than caricatures and stereotypes. When Russell said he was stepping down as showrunner and Steven was taking over, I thought the show (and its audience) would be in safe hands because Steven had previously written two terrific stories; season one’s ‘The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances’ two-parter and ‘season three’s ‘Blink’. Little was I to know that he would favour the sort of drivel he wrote in season two’s ‘The Girl in the Fireplace’ – two-dimensional characters behaving bizarrely with little integrity and no adherence to the show’s internal logic.
Another thought: When RTD had gay characters in his show, they simply were. They existed without clumsy signposts or, worse still, jokes. When Captain Jack Harkness (John Barrowman) kissed the Ninth Doctor (Christopher Eccleston), it was treated in exactly the same way he kissed Rose Tyler (Billie Piper). When the Cassini sisters mentioned they were married in the episode ‘Gridlock’ it was just a throwaway line, unlike in Moffat’s deeply flawed season eight opener ‘Deep Breath’, the relationship between Vastra (Neve McIntosh) and Jenny (Catrin Stewart) was laboured and beaten home with a Thor’s hammer!
Worse still was the depiction of a gay couple in Moffat’s season six mid-season finale ‘A Good Man Goes to War’ who even joked about their not needing names because they are labelled by their sexuality, colour and political leanings. This should have been a clever indictment of our culture and society, but instead it came across as a cheap gag at the expense of the characters.
RTD managed to include characters of race, gender and sexuality without making a huge issue about it. (It reminds me of an episode of Victoria Wood’s dinnerladies in which Twinkle’s mother (Jackie Downie) is in a wheelchair. Nowhere in the script is it explained why… because it doesn’t need an explanation!)
dinnerladies
In Russell’s season four episode ‘Midnight’, Sky Silvestry (Lesley Sharp) mentioned her female partner so subtly. If Steven had written this episode, she would possible have remarked; ”My wife left me. Yes, a woman! SHE is my wife. We are married WOMEN. Four boobs! Imagine that! Oo-er!” or words to that effect.
Russell is extremely good at getting a point across without dumbing down the script. In his superb season four script ‘Turn Left’ just three simple words from the lips of Wilfred Mott (Bernard Cribbins) - ”It’s happening again” - was enough for the viewers to understand the impact and horror of the situation (I won’t spoil it for you if you haven’t seen it). This is because Russell values the talent of the actors speaking his lines. He knows their abilities and writes to those strengths with confidence. Steven Moffat oars in lines that treat the audience like morons. HOWEVER, when it comes to explanations of the actual plot, he is sorely lacking. Long-standing fans of science-fiction know that technobabble (as it is known) is a common tool by science fiction writers to explain the more preposterous side of the genre. This is why it is “science fiction”. It’s a conceit and it is acknowledged and approved. Witness it throughout all series of Star Trek. Moffat, however, doesn’t bother. If something is inexplicable, it must be magic or just weird. When confronted with this annoyance, his response is “make something up to suit yourself”
This is NOT good writing. If the writer doesn’t believe in his world, how the hell can we?
On a number of occasions, I have shuddered with embarrassment and with a pained heart as I have witnessed the Eleventh Doctor (Matt Smith) himself make derogatory remarks about women. See ‘The Wedding of River Song’ and ‘The Bells of Saint John’ as examples below.
Churchill: What happened? Explain to me in terms that I can understand. What happened to time?
The Doctor: A woman.
or
Monk: Is it an evil spirit?
The Doctor: A woman.
(The monk crosses himself.)
Heaven forbid!
Basically, women fuck things up or do "impossible" things and the Doctor has to fix it.
And his obsession with calling women “girls” – ”The Girl Who Waited” and ”The Impossible Girl” - it's actually more disturbing than anything.
What bemuses me is this new hoard of fans who have become obsessed with the show, lapping up this kind of brutally offensive misogyny and not engaging their brains with the errors and nonsensical drivel we’re being bombarded with.
Some people seem to think that the worst thing that can happen to Doctor Who would be if the Doctor regenerated into a woman (which is frankly bollocks – pardon the expression!)
The real death knell of the classic TV series would be if a female Doctor was written by Steven Moffat.
The sooner he leaves the show, the better…
I miss the RTD years...
