It's super effective.
"he has been quoted as saying that women are constantly searching for husbands, there is a "huge, unfortunate lack of respect for anything male" in modern fiction"
I've heard this a few times. I've also heard that many more times this is a misquote describing how one of his characters on Coupling feels.
"and that the most important question to ask when inventing a companion is "Who will have a crush on the Doctor?"
Flirting and having a crush is not inherently sexist. And even then, this question is clearly asked for male companions (though he didn't create him, he only wrote his debut two-parter and helped shape him) like Captain Jack Harkness. This almost comes off as a stealth insult for daring to portray the Doctor as anything other than asexual, as if that's a radical thought among the production team and the fandom 17 years after Grace Holloway, 8 years after Rose, Jack and the Forest of Cheem, and 7 years after Madame de Pompadour, who's much less ambiguous and under interpretation a romance than Rose and the first couple of years of River Song.
"His female characters, particularly in Doctor Who, have also come under fire for all tending to follow the same mold."
River's similarities to Amy are because she inherited them. In other cases, beyond a very broad ideal of "sarcastic, tells jokes and feisty" (which could, in scripts both written and not written by Moffat, apply to characters as apart as Rose and Donna), I don't see it. And even that isn't especially accurate as describing Madame Vastra. I especially don't understand the complaints of Clara as being a plot device moreso than a character.
"Other controversies include his failure to invite any classic Who actors to appear in the 50th anniversary special, saying that he didn't want the episode to focus on the show's past."
Even if I agreed with this, I think it's stupid to spoil the cast for the 50th anniversary for people casually browsing the site.
This isn't the 1990s any more. Doctor Who is based around the present, and it can't survive as a fanfest and as a flagship prime time drama on the BBC. Old enemies and characters can come back, but not for the sake of it. And we also can't diminish the emotional effect of "School Reunion" by doing it several times over in a short space of time. On top of that, according to the Twitter feed for Anglophenia, at this year's Comic Con, Moffat, when asked why a character wasn't in it, asked back, "How do you know who's in the 50th?
". On top of that, one of Steven Moffat's defining traits is to promote his episodes through lying and misleading to keep the audience guessing. I mean, look how you could interpret that last quote.
That's a good cut. While I certainly agree that mentioning controversies, the way those were worded were just plain whiny. And don't sound particularly valid.
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"Flirting and having a crush is not inherently sexist. And even then, this question is clearly asked for male companions (though he didn't create him, he only wrote his debut two-parter and helped shape him) like Captain Jack Harkness. This almost comes off as a stealth insult for daring to portray the Doctor as anything other than asexual, as if that's a radical thought among the production team and the fandom 17 years after Grace Holloway, 8 years after Rose, Jack and the Forest of Cheem, and 7 years after Madame de Pompadour, who's much less ambiguous and under interpretation a romance than Rose and the first couple of years of River Song."
The original quote did not say flirting and having crush is inherently sexist, just that Moffat is focusing on it with his female characters. And Jack really is the only example of his male companion having crush/flirting with the Doctor and all of it was in episodes that were not written by Moffat.
Forest of Cheem wasn't romantically involved with the Doctor and the only time it was stated was in a throwaway line written by Moffat. The episode with Madame de Pompadoure was also written by Moffat.
And I really don't get what it has to do with Doctor not being asexual.
"I especially don't understand the complaints of Clara as being a plot device moreso than a character."
I understand them perfectly. I don't hate Clara but Moffat really did very little in developing her as a person.
Not saying you were wrong for removing it, just arguing with some of your reasonings.
Edited by 89.176.195.133
All I was saying is that people are really against the Doctor being anything other than asexual or not attracted to non-Time Lords even though he's reciprocated or appreciated tons of examples of flirting, even if they weren't always on the level of romantic interest.
And in the case of Clara: ugh, here goes. Wanting to travel but stuck looking after her late mum's children, having to deal with being a "control freak" while with the Doctor, philosophies that the Doctor sees everyone as "ghosts", actually agrees to the "don't wander off" sentiment that Nine complained about in "The Empty Child" and Ten in "The Girl in the Fireplace", instead of just being along for the ride she has her responsibilities with the Maitlands and only travels on Wednesdays, her relationship with the TARDIS warms over the course of the series (to the point she can do the click thing by "Name"), shows a lot of caring for children like Merry (possibly as a result of her job as nanny and later teacher), in constrast to Amy being a bit bewildered by a crying child in "The Beast Below".
Nope, no traits at all. Undeveloped. Just a cypher. Indistinguishable from Amy. Just a plot device. And the Doctor seeing her as a mystery to solve definitely wasn't portrayed negatively by the writers.
And in terms of focusing on Clara fancying the Doctor? Not really. It's understated, beneath the surface, and I'm not even sure if it's directly acknowledged until the truth field makes her admit that. Plus, she said something along the lines of she ran off with the Doctor because she was attracted to him, but that definitely could have changed to "it would be weird now if I was close to him" by "Journey" and "Nightmare in Silver".
Edited by 151.230.205.36
You were saying that the original quote was meant to be a "stealth insult" for it which I think is completely baseless.
And yeah, all those traits you are pretty shallow and meaningless IMO. I agree that she was more developed in some episodes but in those written by Moffat, she always just came across like a walking snark fest to me.
Also, OP said returning ACTORS not returning characters.
Again, developed or not, she is NOT cut from the same cloth as Amy unless you're diluting and simplifying this to say that all of the modern post-2005 companions have this tendency. (Donna's most defining trait was snarking and shouting at people.)
So, they wanted the original actors back, but not as the characters, but in a role similar to Billie and the Moment? That seems...unlikely. I have always interpreted that complaint as "the 50th should have Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten and Eleven meeting one another just like The Three and The Five Doctors". Is that not the case?
Edited by 151.230.205.36
It's clear you don't agree with these criticisms, but tv tropes is surely meant to be balanced? No one is the arbiter of opinion here. The fact is that there are a lot of people unhappy about these issues,and that point should therefore be referenced in a page describing Steven Moffat.. This in't meant to be a Moffat puff piece, but a balanced overview of his work and the cultural place he occupies.
If you're interested in informingyourself about these criticisms and complaints, there are many places you can see these criticisms explained and explored elsewhere on the web. I'd provide a couple of links but you make it clear on the YMMV discussion page you're not interested in this kind of outsude research. However, the TV Tropes discussion pages are hardly the place for an extended debate on tese issues and there is in in fact no need for one school of thought to convince the other: all we need to know is that these are the feelings of a significant number of fans a thereby worth mentioning when describing Steven Moffat. The page would be remiss in not including reference to discussions that have become a major part of the conversation around Moffat.
"all we need to know is that these are the feelings of a significant number of fans a thereby worth mentioning when describing Steven Moffat. The page would be remiss in not including reference to discussions that have become a major part of the conversation around Moffat."
Why is this still being followed up on? Comments akin to a review on works pages are frowned upon by the guidelines and the mods. This site is not Wikipedia, a news article or a blog.
From the Home Page: What is this about? This wiki is a catalog of the tricks of the trade for writing fiction.
From the review index: We figured we had better give folks a place to talk about those opinions, since we don't want that sort of judgement in the Main articles. So here we are. This is a list of the most recently edited reviews. Opinions belong to the writers. TV Tropes itself obviously doesn't have an opinion about good or bad storytelling. We leave all that to these folks.
From How To Create A Works Page: Things not to include: quality judgements (don't say how much it sucked/how awesome it was), critical reception (that's just a specific variant of quality judgements), recommendations (don't tell us whether or not we should check it out), plot spoilers.
From the Tips Worksheet: We are not interested in whether or not something is or was popular. Whether or not it was liked has nothing to do with tropes.
I will apologise for the bit about "daring to portray the Doctor as anything other than asexual". That bit was a bit dumb and maybe even stereotyping. But his female characters, whether this means Doctor Who, Sherlock or Jekyll, do not follow some "same mold". That is literally wrong, stupid and the result of not paying much attention. And the bit about the 50th anniversary, you know, because I removed it in July of 2013, is outdated and untrue now due to, as it turns out, Moffat lying and misleading to keep the audience guessing. Funny that. And as I've said, several people have determined the bit about "anything male" to be a misquote (or possibly a quote mine), and a really OLD misquote too.
Edited by 151.230.134.121
all we need to know is that these are the feelings of a significant number of fans a thereby worth mentioning when describing Steven Moffat. The page would be remiss in not including reference to discussions that have become a major part of the conversation around Moffat.
Yes, this is exactly what we don't want on a Main page. That sort of thing goes to YMMV pages and YMMV pages only. And creators don't get those because it'd go on the YMMV page of whatever work people are bitching about today.
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I agree that the main page should be neutral. I'm not suggesting that Moffat be criticised on his own page. As you say, it's for the YMMV page to cover the main schools of thought on a subject/creator.
In fact, I myself have no problem at all with either page as they stand, they seem to efficiently cover the points of criticism that people have raised without venturing a definitive opinion either way. The main page reads as neutral/positive int one to me, as if it has been written by a singular detached observer - that is as it should be, I think? And the YMMV page seems to cover everything of significance - I realise I didn't make it clear in my comment that when I said 'the page should reflect this school of thought' I meant the YMMV part of the page, not the main page. And it does.
My comment was not intended as a critcism of the page/s as they stand, but to respond to Old Man Ho OH and answer his points. It seems to me that he/she feels that he/she is unconvinced by the opinion and it is therefore dismissable and not worthy of reference on the (YMMV) page. In reply, I was making the point that it doesn't matter whether one troper is personally convinced by the arguments or not. It merits being summarised on the page by dint of being a popular opinion within the fandom. No one wants a debate on the page itself, but TV tropes provides balance, not consensus.
As I say, I think things are fine as they are, for exactly these reasons.
P.S. I'm not quite sure what you mean about creators not getting a YMMV page, Larkmarn? Steven Moffat certainly has a YMMV page. And no, they certainly they shouldn't be the forum for 'bitching'.
Edited by 89.248.55.167
Well then, we should probably cut that, then. Creators explicitly aren't supposed to have YMMV pages. Thanks for the heads up.
You may want to move some of the items to the appropriate work YMMV pages, then. Though I think that Uncanny Valley can go on his main page, as he intentionally invokes it in a lot of his monsters.
Found a Youtube Channel with political stances you want to share? Hop on over to this page and add them.
There were some good points in there, sandwiched between the ridiculous hardcore stupidity of most of those points.
Found a Youtube Channel with political stances you want to share? Hop on over to this page and add them.
Also, complaining about his work is not quite what this page is for.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
It’s not complaining. It’s not, ‘Ugh, his works suck,’ but more, ‘His works convey dangerous messages.’
... no, it's complaining.
Leading with "is a queerbaiting hack" isn't inviting discussion or trying to raise awareness, it's saying his work sucks. Not to mention the second one was talking about plots not making sense.
Don't try to make a claim that is anything but complaining.
Edited by 156.33.241.9 Found a Youtube Channel with political stances you want to share? Hop on over to this page and add them.
I just had to delete more Word Cruft and straight-up misinformation, but it seems like I'm not entirely innocent myself, as I added another YMMV entry. I don't know how to create a YMMV tab for a page, but I'm starting to think this page needs it or else it will turn into an all-out Flame War.
EDIT: Never mind, I didn't know creators weren't allowed to have YMMV pages. Deleting YMMV entries now.
Edited by 130.203.161.35
It's super effective.
Is The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot strictly a parody? I mean, it has parodic elements, but Peter, Colin and Sylvester are playing themselves trying to get a ROLE (reprising the Doctor) in the "real" show for the 50th. Sylvester is even directly associated as "the actor who was in The Hobbit" in this film.
Why does he keep making his characters use the word "psychopath"? It's embarassingly obvious he doesn't know what it means.
Edited by 89.176.195.133
This entry claims that Moffat set up plot threads in Doctor Who in 2006 that weren't resolved until 2013. What, exactly, is this meant to be referring to? The only episode of Doctor Who in 2006 that Steven Moffat wrote was The Girl in the Fireplace, and I can't think of anything from the 2013 finale that confirms that. Unless it means that he wrote the episode in 2006 for the 2007 season, but even then, the only episode from the 2007 season is Blink, which, again, I can't remember having any relevance to the 2013 season.
Not looking to start a fight or edit out that line, I'm just not 100% on what is implied by this sentence and I think it's probably going to throw more readers than just me.