How to make The Doctor
Mar. 30th, 2017 12:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethI was reading a string of Moffat quotes on the topic of recasting the Doctor as a woman. He maintains that you never cast just A Woman, because you never cast A Man, you'd only do it if you had someone specific in mind. Which I maintain is how we get more straight white men everyone has seen before, and never enough of the rest of us, so it's dangerous bollocks.
But. His other point was to wonder if we, the audience, are ready yet. His question is Would the viewer accept her as The Doctor?
And, wrong.
That is the wrong question.
The question is, How do we make them accept her as The Doctor? Better yet, how do we make them love the Doctor?
And the answer to that is the same as every other time.
You have them walk on and Be The Doctor.
Twelve climbing out the window because 'Me', listening to a dinosaur, being so so sorry, caring so much, and being brilliant. Eleven rolling up all faster than light travel with two diagrams and a joke, whoever I am I'm a genius. Is this world protected? (Ten has declared it so.) I'm the Doctor. Basically, run. (Run for your life, says Nine to Rose.) And every other time we meet him for the first, eighth, seventh, so on and so forth times, though I think Eleven did it with the most style.
Every single time, every single episode, every time you meet you've got to sell two things: This is The Doctor, the definite article, and the Doctor is the most amazing being you will ever meet.
So you bring on the new cast, sure, and to sell the transition you have someone who already knows him, and to sell the Doctor you have someone falling for him for the very first time. Not romantically, at least not until recently and I don't consider it an improvement. That feeling that this is the single most interesting person in any room, and you could follow them anywhere. All of time and space, yeah, but it's who you travel it with who matters.
So there's the new Doctor and the old Companion and the new audience identification figure companion the second, bewildered but bewitched.
And there's not one word of that that changes if you change her gender. Not one line.
I'm the Doctor, I'm a genius, and this is defended.
If you can't sell that you've no business writing Doctor Who.
... and we had Clara selling that, which was interesting. But you don't get the structural shift in center until you move the white man out of it, so, it has to be the Doctor.
Soon.
And the thing is, every writer, every fanfic writer, but novels and audios and episodes too, has to sell us the same thing every single time. Or else fail to convey why this is Doctor Who and not some other thing with the serial numbers swapped.
And funnily enough they do it pretty frequently.
So I just don't see the argument. I don't give a monkeys if you think the audience won't swallow it cold. Cook the blooming banquet and serve it to them at such a pace they're asking for it by the time it gets to table. Make us feel it, and we'll believe. That's what writing is about.
But. His other point was to wonder if we, the audience, are ready yet. His question is Would the viewer accept her as The Doctor?
And, wrong.
That is the wrong question.
The question is, How do we make them accept her as The Doctor? Better yet, how do we make them love the Doctor?
And the answer to that is the same as every other time.
You have them walk on and Be The Doctor.
Twelve climbing out the window because 'Me', listening to a dinosaur, being so so sorry, caring so much, and being brilliant. Eleven rolling up all faster than light travel with two diagrams and a joke, whoever I am I'm a genius. Is this world protected? (Ten has declared it so.) I'm the Doctor. Basically, run. (Run for your life, says Nine to Rose.) And every other time we meet him for the first, eighth, seventh, so on and so forth times, though I think Eleven did it with the most style.
Every single time, every single episode, every time you meet you've got to sell two things: This is The Doctor, the definite article, and the Doctor is the most amazing being you will ever meet.
So you bring on the new cast, sure, and to sell the transition you have someone who already knows him, and to sell the Doctor you have someone falling for him for the very first time. Not romantically, at least not until recently and I don't consider it an improvement. That feeling that this is the single most interesting person in any room, and you could follow them anywhere. All of time and space, yeah, but it's who you travel it with who matters.
So there's the new Doctor and the old Companion and the new audience identification figure companion the second, bewildered but bewitched.
And there's not one word of that that changes if you change her gender. Not one line.
I'm the Doctor, I'm a genius, and this is defended.
If you can't sell that you've no business writing Doctor Who.
... and we had Clara selling that, which was interesting. But you don't get the structural shift in center until you move the white man out of it, so, it has to be the Doctor.
Soon.
And the thing is, every writer, every fanfic writer, but novels and audios and episodes too, has to sell us the same thing every single time. Or else fail to convey why this is Doctor Who and not some other thing with the serial numbers swapped.
And funnily enough they do it pretty frequently.
So I just don't see the argument. I don't give a monkeys if you think the audience won't swallow it cold. Cook the blooming banquet and serve it to them at such a pace they're asking for it by the time it gets to table. Make us feel it, and we'll believe. That's what writing is about.