more specific today's DW writing thought

[beccaelizabeth]

Those three words at the start of the episode, One Year Later, they pretty much mean 'don't care about any of this it gets undone'. I mean for a myriad of outside-the-story reasons we can know that for sure. And since we didn't see how things got that bad then we aren't particularly into the new setup. And all sense of urgency has been lost. They have to invent a new one. And all sense of consequence in general is just gone.

This is why I hate 'all a dream' episodes.

Granted, they frequently head off into time and space and places where we don't see the consequences and aren't invested up front.
But that would be why the finale is on Earth, right? Because Earth is the one we'll be returning to, that has continuity, and we care about it already? So why strip that out yet still set the story here?

Yet everything that happened to named characters stayed done because of that thing where the Valiant stayed happened.

... what happened to Leo? Did he and his wife and kid spend a year in hiding despite the world being covered in more Toclafane than people? Because that's a bit hard to believe.
Did I miss what happened to him or did they?

So all the family except him have shared trauma.

All he knows is the bit where Martha was on the news as a terrorist.

And that stuff never got sorted out. Not on screen. Jack is going back to Torchwood after being linked publicly with the Doctor - very publicly, on worldwide TV wasn't it? I'll have to rewatch to get the exact timing. So, anyways, linked with the Doctor and called a terrorist and declared an enemy.

And Jack is running home with a grin.

I tell you, if they pick up the first episode with him having been back a while, they've thrown away plot *gold*. There's so many ways that first episode could be made of awkward and set up conflicts that'll take a dozen episodes to detangle.

It gave Jack a year to go through any number of emotional reactions without us watching. But apparently he had about a century without us watching already. Makes it a bit odd he hasn't done character development, really. I mean, you watch Highlander and compare the centuries of Duncan's life. Compare versions of Methos! Dude can change in that time. But he just keeps going.
Well, so does the Doctor, until he regenerates, so I guess that's consistent.



I think if I wrote it I'd not have one-year-latered. I mean there has to be a way to keep the plot momentum up, to keep it going, to use the fact the Master was broadcasting live to bring in the same magic fairy moment if they had to (we do believe in Doctors! we do, we do!), to let people see for themselves and think for themselves and... I really hate that there was a year and hardly any resistance. I just do. I mean, that isn't humans as we know them. They had to technobabble that to make it true. Damn annoying. And underscores the difference between 'believe in them' and 'believe in her', really rather big time.

I think you could tell this story without the one year later, get rid of the Martha walks the Earth year without trashing her character, give everyone something to do, put some emotion in it...


There's so much about this episode that irritated me. Yet if I pull it to pieces for parts I want to keep quite a lot.


The thing is, the story about the Doctor was a lie. Until they believed it. I mean, he'd got his arse kicked and wasn't doing anything. And then humans believed in him and he was strong again.

I hate that.


What should have made the difference was the other plan - cancel out the Master's lies, show people they've been fooled, let them make their minds up, *then* let them decide between the Doctor and the Master based on plain fact. I mean, what if it was like with Chameleon, where they have a willpower battle? What if *both* the Master and the Doctor were plugged in to that Archangel network (look, turns you into an angel, wow!)(:eyeroll:) and they had to compete for the minds of humanity? The Master would use force, try and bully them into obeying his will, while the Doctor would offer them a choice, and a free will choice would be stronger than any measly energy you could obtain through slavery.

Then you'd have a Story.



What we have in the episode is so damn simplistic. It empties out everyone except the Doctor and Martha... hell, even Martha, she only saves the world in a believe-in-the-Doctor-and-make-him-look-shiny way, we don't see her save a single life elsewise, or obtain any information the Doctor didn't already have. It empties out everyone so they do nothing useful to make way for that ending.

Bugger that.



Believe in the Doctor because the world is hell already? It's the Giles in Wishverse rationale, believe because there's nothing left for you. It doesn't *mean* anything. It shouldn't have been strong.


Believe in the Doctor because he tells you the truth? Now that would work.



The story doesn't seem very well constructed.