More of the same

Something I've been thinking about for a while now is the concept that the writers of Doctor Who are concentrating more on elements of fan service than writing good episodes. This can rear its head in several different ways, and although it doesn't automatically mean the episode will be bad, it can certainly limit the potential.

A few of the things that I would classify as fan service have broader implications and I have discussed or will discuss in greater detail. Things like the sexualisation of The Doctor and forced inclusion of certain fan-favourite monsters where they don’t really fit. Others are minor quibbles, but when stacked together indicate to me there is a strong desire to pander to the fandom.

"And why not?" you may ask. The fans are the audience. Who are you writing for if not them? Yes, the fans are the audience, but a writer should never let the nebulous "them" dictate direction. Just ask George R R Martin. Fans may love a particular aspect, story or monster, but forcing in more of it doesn't automatically make things better. More often than not it retroactively makes the original thing seem worse.

Sexy Doctor

During Season 2 the relationship between The Doctor and Rose was edging towards platonic. Around this time we got The Girl in the Fireplace, which showed The Doctor's sexual side. This episode was very well received critically and by fans, which may have opened the door to more of these sexual antics from The Doctor, particularly under Moffat's tenure as show runner. He did write that episode, after all.

The beginning of the end.

This all came to a head for me during the 2013 Christmas Special and Matt Smith swan song, The Time of The Doctor. We open that episode with The Doctor prancing about naked and offering to be Clara's boyfriend for realsies, and progress to hyper-sexual innuendos with the leader of the Space Catholics whilst sitting on an alter-shaped bed.

I won't go on about this one, as I've covered it more thoroughly in my article about Hunka hunka burning Doc.

Steampunk Tendencies

I've noticed that Steampunk / Doctor Who mash-ups are a strikingly abundant cosplay theme out there. The crossover between the two subcultures of Steampunks and Whovians is significant. I don't know why it exists, but I'm sure it is the reason for the seeming increase in Steampunk influences in the show of late. Seasons 1-6 each saw a single episode that could fall under the broadest banner of Steampunk, either due to the time period, or the general style. The only season in this time that didn't was Season 4, where the closest is The Unicorn and the Wasp set in 1926.

At the same time, some people may be tempted to include Season 2's The Girl in the Fireplace because clockwork also features heavily in Steampunk. Add to that the three Christmas Specials across this time with Steampunk influences, and you've got eight or nine Steampunky episodes across six seasons. Season 7 then added half that number again with a total of three Steampunky episodes and the 2012 Christmas Special. Of course, it's entirely possible that this is purely coincidental, but I don't think so.

Possibly the Steampunkiest picture you can get without cog wheels.

With the advent of Season 8, however, we saw only one Steampunk episode, which combines the not-quite-Steampunk Clockwork Men with the definitely Steampunk Victorian London setting and, yet again, the Paternoster Gang. Perhaps this was the last hurrah for this particular theme. Time will tell, I suppose.

Another explanation lies in the fact that the Paternoster Gang appear in the last four Steampunk-themed episodes. In that case, it's not so much playing the Steampunk angle as it is trotting out Vastra and company at every opportunity. I've said before, I love the Paternoster Gang and if they had a spin-off, I'd watch the crap out of it, but much like the Needlessly Recurring Monsters, pulling these sorts of supporting characters out too much does lessen their impact.

Rockin' Doctor

And now we enter the Capaldi Age, and we are seeing these kind of things drop off a bit. Twelve is not the heart-throb Ten and Eleven were, and as noted, the Steampunk thing seems to have run its course. But now we are seeing something I can only think of as "Fan Bait", giving the fans something else tangible to focus on as a defining feature, rather than the already different and, in my opinion much more interesting, coldness and moral ambiguity he's been displaying since regenerating.

They are setting The Doctor up with some kind of rock and roll image, complete with electric guitar and those damned Sonic Sunglasses. Now it was fun to see The Doctor ride into that scene on a tank with his sunglasses and guitar. It worked in the context of his strange state of mind at the time. But now it seems we will get treated to a bit of a riff every other episode. And those glasses. I can't say enough how much I hate those glasses. They are probably going to be the equivalent of his Annoying catchphrase.

How did playing the guitar add to his explanation of a Bootstrap Paradox?

The main bit of evidence I have to suggest this is planned comes from the regular feedback surveys the BBC sends out to their Doctor Who Consumer Panel members. Each survey this season has asked respondents to pick two words from a list that describe The Doctor in the episode. One of the listed words is "Rock and Roll." I suppose it could have been there because of the scene in the first episode, but it has remained there in the ensuing three episodes, even the ones where he did not play the guitar. The Marketer in my kinda understands the need to have consistent survey structure, but it also knows that including it as an option was very leading. I feel like any results they get with that ticked will somehow support the Sunglasses, and I can't accept that.

Same Ol' Same Ol'

The thing to remember is that there is a law of diminishing returns at play here. What is awesome the first time becomes good the second time, okay the third and so on. To maintain the same reaction, you need to keep making the thing bigger and better until eventually you get so ridiculous that it becomes a bit of a joke. First we get The Doctor letting a woman into his hearts, but before long he has a list of conquests a mile long. Fans lock into a particular character or monster enough for them to see significant representation amongst cosplayers and BAM! Weeping Angels everywhere!

As the saying goes, "All things in moderation." The Doctor blasting out a couple of songs on an electric guitar whilst wearing sunglasses and riding a freaking tank it pretty awesome. By the end of the season it's just going to be boring.

So essentially, what I'm getting at is that the show has been bogged down in this regurgitation of the same old stuff over and over in an attempt to please the fans, but in the case of this fan, all it is doing is making the show feel stale. Whilst the Capaldi Era appears to be trying to shake things up, it also seems to be falling immediately into the same traps. I hope we can find the balance of keeping things fresh without just turning the show into a procession of memes.

The "Steampunk" episodes

For reference, here's a list of the episodes I was including in my count of Steampunk influenced episodes:

• Season 1 - The Unquiet Dead (1869)
• Season 2 - Tooth and Claw (1879)
• Season 3 - Human Nature/The Family of Blood (1913)
• Christmas 2007 - Voyage of the Damned (retro-futurist steam liner)
• Christmas 2008 - The Next Doctor (1851)
• Season 5 - Vincent and the Doctor - (1890)
• Christmas 2010 - A Christmas Carol - (retro-futurist Dickensian)
• Season 6 - A Good Man Goes to War - (Madame Vastra and Jenny)
• Season 7 - A Town Called Mercy (Wild West, late 1800s); The Snowmen (1892); The Crimson Horror (1893); The Name of the Doctor (some time in 1893, plus the look of the Whispermen)
• Season 8 - Deep Breath (Victorian London and the Paternoster Gang)

Needlessly Recurring Monsters

Doctor Who is no stranger to the return of existing monsters. There have been quite a few monsters and enemies that have appeared multiple times, but when you've been running for as long as Doctor Who has, you need to expect to re-tread old ground at some point. How it is done, however, is a fine art. Sadly, to me it seems many recurrences of monsters are rather ham-fisted, ranging from simple fan service to forced inclusion that requires changes to established canon.

If a particular monster resonates with the fandom, there's a very good chance it will return, even if that means changing the background of the monster. The big danger here is diluting what was a great one-off monster by making it essentially over stay its welcome.

The prime example of this is the Weeping Angels. They were great in Blink, but continual appearances made them boring. Their nature also needed to be expanded, because we already knew how to counter the threat, meaning some of what made them scary was diminished. So the Angels get new and increasingly silly powers in each appearance until they are every statue on earth and can throw people back in time, as well as be colossal, hollow, and made of copper rather than stone.

No. Just no.

Asylum of the Daleks is another example of this one. Daleks were changed from hugely xenophobic creatures so certain of their genetic superiority that they simply exterminate anything non-Dalek, to suddenly being cool with using alien corpses to make pseudo Daleks. This simultaneously flies in the face of established Dalek background and steals one of the scariest aspects of the Cybermen, all for some new monster type that is essentially a person with a Dalek eyestalk.

Seriously now?

If you have to change or add to the established rules for a monster to make it fit or make it threatening, why are you using that monster? Could you not create some new monster that has the powers or motivation you require? On the other side of the coin, if you've been asked to do a story featuring a specific monster, can you not (aside from asking why) stick to the established canon for that monster?

This is also a rather selfish act, as it often strikes me that an attempt is being made to build a pantheon of New Who monsters over the old classics like Cybermen and Daleks. It's clear from the marketing materials that the focus is on these new monsters that often appear more than they should. Angels, Ood, Silence, all could have been left at a single appearance without subsequent outings.

I include the Ood tentatively, as out of all the returned monsters their subsequent appearances were best integrated without feeling too forced or piling on additional powers. What is helpful in that case is that the Ood in their natural state aren't threatening. They are just a fairly normal alien race that requires external forces to make them malicious.

Luckily they're easy to spot

Sometimes monsters reappear as nothing more than a self-referential nod to previous episodes. This can work well, such as some of the brief appearances of Judoon after their introduction in Smith and Jones. If it’s just a subtle “remember these things exist in a wider universe” kind of reference, it works, but it can easily turn into a farce, such as much of The Time of The Doctor.

It's a big universe out there, and unless a monster is part of some kind of galaxy-spanning empire out for conquest such as the Daleks, Sontarans or Cybermen, bringing them back every season limits the scope of the Whoniverse with the only benefit the fleeting feeling of familiarity for fans to find... felicitous.