An Open Letter to Steven Moffat

WARNING!!! This post contains spoilers for "The Snowmen," as well as previous episodes of Doctor Who. I don't care if River Song would disapprove.

Dear Mr. Moffat,

I say this with all the respect in the world, but still, it must be said: you're doing it wrong.

Now, I know that you are a many times BAFTA winning television person, and I am just a writer who hasn't yet finished her undergrad degree, but the point still stands. The last season and a half, at least, of Doctor Who has derailed a bit. And it makes my nerdy heart incredibly sad.

I was introduced to Doctor Who while I was in high school. And I loved it. I loved how zany it was. I fell in love with the Tenth Doctor a little bit (okay fine maybe a lot). I loved that it could be both funny and sad in the same episode. And I loved that it was thoughtful. Yeah, it was silly, and in the Russel T. Davies era I despaired wildly of the overly dramatic series finales, but there were so many episodes with something more at the heart of them. The idea that humanity is imperfect and yet wonderful, that no one is unimportant, really struck me. The episodes were cohesive, they were imaginative, and I loved them.

And then something happened. I was initially super psyched that you were taking over as the head writer for the show. Your one-off episodes in the Eccleston and Tennant eras remain some of my favorites - the "Empty Child/Doctor Dances" episodes are sheer brilliance, and "The Girl in the Fireplace" is probably part of the reason I am now obsessed with French history. But for the past season and a half or so, so many of the episodes have lacked that spark of something more. After watching - well, all right, sitting on the sofa - not behind it - and shouting at the television while it played - "The Snowmen," I asked my friend Sarah (side note: her name is Sarah Jane. She was named after Sarah Jane Smith. Seriously) what she thought of the episode. She said that it was "cute" and that she had learned not to expect anything more out of Doctor Who any more.

Yeah.

I don't know what exactly happened - and as a writer myself, I know just how hard it is to turn out quality things time and time again when the pressure's on (and pleasing a fandom must be some pressure). But it seems to me that the problem is that everything has gotten BIGGER in the last few seasons. That same ridiculous over-dramatic quality that I'd come to hate in the RTD series finales? It's seeped into the whole of the series, with the arcs hammered home repeatedly, sometimes for more than one series (The Silence, anyone? Why was it necessary to spread that arc out so long?). I think another thing that happened was that American television discovered this British phenomenon - after all, the characters have visited America what, four times in two seasons now? I get the sense that the show is now pandering to the American audience. Well, this American does not like being pandered to, thanks very much. Isn't the point of liking a British show is that it's, well, British? We don't want it to be like American television. We want it to be cleverer than that.

The other thing that has derailed is a sense of continuity. You, Mr. Moffat, enjoy making the rules and then changing them. Sometimes within the same episode. And it is infuriating.

The thing about writing science fiction and fantasy is that, essentially, there are no rules. That's the fun part. You don't have to stay within the established bounds of reality. You can do WHATEVER YOU WANT and it's fine. That's the point! You create the world.

Except it's not exactly that simple. Yes, you can do whatever you want. Yes, you create the world. But in creating that world, you also create the RULES of that world. And the one and only rule of writing science fiction and fantasy is this: create the laws of your world, and then abide by them. Otherwise the entire premise falls apart.

For example, I have a novel that puts werewolves in Revolutionary Paris. Obviously this did not really happen, but in my version of events, it did. That's cool. I can do that - that's the point of fantasy, to do things that aren't real. If, however, I suddenly added in a random dragon on page 200 of my book, without setting up any precedent for this dragon's existence, that would make absolutely no sense and would destroy the credibility of the rest of my book. If one random thing like that could happen, well, why can't there be unicorns and people who can fly too? If that random dragon appears just to ravage a town, why can't an equally random sorcerer magic the dragon away?

It turns into a ridiculous, weird mess.

I understand that Doctor Who is a little bit different - you're dealing with an entire universe, where there very well may be random dragons on different planets. Okay. I'll buy the idea that there's psychic snow if you want me to. But it's the other stuff that doesn't follow.

For example: when can you and can't you take the TARDIS across its own timeline? If the idea is that you can't move the TARDIS once you are part of events, then why is it that the TARDIS keeps crossing its timeline? If, in "The Angels Take Manhattan," Amy wants to take the TARDIS back at the end to rescue Rory (again) why can't she? They have already, within that episode, taken it somewhere the time stream didn't really want it to go, and everything was fine! It didn't explode. Besides, the paradox they set up wiped out everything that had just happened. If it never happened, why would going back in time again be crossing that timeline?

And in "The Snowmen," why did Clara fall to her death? It has been shown before that the Doctor can catch people with the TARDIS (River Song in "Day of the Moon," for example), so why in heaven's name can he not catch Clara? Also, if you establish that it is highly unusual for a character to die multiple times (Rory Williams), that is fine. It irked me a bit that Rory died all the time, but that was kind of what happened to Rory (my favorite part of "The Angels Take Manhattan" was that he acknowledged that he always came back to life, miraculously). To have that miraculous regeneration happen to another character, however, smacks of nothing more than a lack of creativity. I want to like Clara, I really do. I think given a good storyline she could be really interesting. But right now, she just strikes me as more of the same. She's young and cute and in love with the Doctor (see also: Rose Tyler, Martha Jones, Amy Pond, any number of one-off companions); she talks a mile a minute and can outwit the Doctor sometimes, and banter right back at him (see also: River Song, Captain Jack Harkness); she can die once per episode and still manage to come back and keep going (see also: Rory Williams, Captain Jack). I was SO EXCITED for Clara to be a person from the 1800s traveling in the TARDIS - that would have been new and different and really cool. But then she died, again, in what seems to me to be nothing more than an overly dramatic and unnecessary push for people on tumblr to make sad gifs and tag them with "MY FEELS," and came back as a young woman from the present day. Sigh.

I love Doctor Who. I love what it can be. I love that it's a chance to explore what humanity is capable of on a landscape that stretches across the stars.

But the most important part of storytelling is, of course, the story. The greatest premise in the world, Mr. Moffat, doesn't make up for a story that's patched together, or that simply doesn't make sense. Fancy sets or locations or special effects don't make up for it either. Continuity matters in order to keep that story held together. Characters who can hold their own and hold our interest matter, because they drive that story.

The story is the most important thing, Mr. Moffat. Everything else falls away.

Best wishes,

Caitlin, a sad and disappointed fan who may have to stick to just the Neil Gaiman episodes for now

Excitement

Good morning, blogsphere! (says I at 1 o'clock in the afternoon. I have been up for half an hour. But it is summer. Also, even if it was an accident, staying up till 3 am watching vlogbrothers videos is never a good idea.)

So because my mom is an awesome and wonderful person and answered my question, this blogpost is based on her idea. Because she has good ideas.

What sorts of things are you irrationally excited about?

And I mean REALLY OVERLY EXCITED, the JUMP UP AND DOWN AND SQUEAL kind of excitement. The EVERY TIME SUCH AND SUCH HAPPENS I GRIN LIKE A MANIAC kind of excitement.

There are many things that excite and amuse me (in fact, when the aforementioned awesome mom was driving me home from college last week, I noticed that the most common phrase in my conversation was probably "it amused me" or "I was amused").

But amusement is not what I mean. I was excited to go see Robin Hood the other night. That's not what I mean - I was excited, yes, because I was going to go see what looked like a pretty good movie with my wonderful friends. But I wasn't bouncing off walls or grinning like a maniac.

I mean the kind of excitement that leads two grown men (read: my awesome dad and our very lovely neighbor) to lean over our slightly-new kitchen stove and proclaim about BTUs (which I think is the right term? I can barely boil water, so...). It was like watching guys talk about cars... but with cooking. That's my dad's exciting thing. And I think the three girls in the house - me, my mom, and my sister - were definitely very, very amused to see those two getting all excited about the stove.

So if "excited over going to see Robin Hood" doesn't count, what does? Here are a few things that I am, rationally or irrationally, really really excited about.

1. Tomorrow! Tomorrow I am going into NYC to visit my best friend on the planet, Ella! We are going to do awesome things and I am going to distract her from her homework (can you say role reversal?) and run around the city in tomorrow's supposedly very hot weather and be silly and probably take lots of pictures, which she will hate but which I will do anyway. I AM SO BLOODY EXCITED FOR THIS.

2. Peanut butter and jelly. Trust me, when you only have access to college pb&j for the past few months, you get very excited when there is very good raspberry jam that actually reaches to the edge of the bread for a change.

4. This is where we get into the irrational excitements. The other night, I found out that Neil Gaiman is going to write an episode for next year's season of Doctor Who. Had it not been in the vicinity of midnight when I learned this, I definitely would have squealed and jumped up and down and done silly things. Because Neil Gaiman is amazing. And Doctor Who is amazing. But seriously... that's a whole year away! Talk about irrational excitement.

3. Music. I get very irrationally excited over music. I definitely did squeak a little when my Tale of Two Cities musical cd arrived, and my poor family has had to suffer through me playing it on a loop ever since (sorry guys). I definitely spazzed about it to my friend from college over AIM (although this led to me forcing her to listen to James Barbour sing... you're welcome, Katrina ;P). But I had been waiting for a CD of this since... er... November of 2008? Wow.

But to put my irrational excitement into true perspective, you guys get to see just how dorky (and overly analytical) I am. If you did not already know just how dorky I am, prepare to understand, and I apologize for the extreme levels of dork-ness.

Have you seen Disney's Hunchback of Notre Dame? Heard the song Heaven's Light/Hellfire? It is the transition between the two parts of that song that have me thoroughly convinced that Alan Menken is a musical genius. It uses a theme that has already appeared in the movie, but in the Heaven's Light portion it is sweet and light. In the Hellfire portion, it is dark and heavy and ominous. And how does the musical genius achieve this transition? A drumroll. Just one drumroll. That's it. And it works perfectly. In literally the space of two seconds, the entire tone of the song changes, and it is absolutely amazing. I literally grin like a maniac every single time I hear that - which, let me tell you, is often.

Now that you have written proof of what a dork I am, and I have rambled for quite some time about it, I shall stop and ask you what things you are irrationally excited about.

DFTBA

(ETA: Blogger, you're mean. Why can't I post an exclamation point in my title?!?)