So I’m home sick and caught Turn Left on repeat and it just made me miss the earlier days of Who, when the risk was real, when the characters and their hopes and their dreams and their wonder and awe at being companions and seeing the whole of time and space laid out before them was all so much more real and true.
Who hasn’t felt like Rose, stuck in a rut with a dead end job? Or like Martha, too smart for her own good? Or Donna, precious Donna, a failure as an adult, stuck on the ‘wrong’ side of 30, too loud, too unmotivated, still living at home? Compare with Amy or Clara, two young, pretty girls, whose characters were practically blank slates with ‘cool’ approved snark and wardrobes. Women who could’ve been brilliant – who could’ve been real. Even River, who begins as a woman who sacrifices herself for love careens wildly from states of cartoonish behavior to a heartbreaking portrayal of a woman aging in society.
These were real people with real fears and real hopes, and real joys and loves and goals and ambitions. The character and the world were specific – which allowed them to be universal because in these characters and in these worlds we could see our own, our own wardrobes, our own insecurities, our own fish and chip shops and department stores. The effects were cheesy and low budget, but it felt more real than the new series, with all the money and none of the heart. We can’t go back, but I hope with Steven Moffat’s departure, they’ll be a return to Russell T Davies’ sense of heart, empathy and compassion. He loved his characters, he loved their flaws and their quirks and their neuroses and their half-empty cups of cold coffee and their leftover sandwich wrappers and the dirty laundry on the floor.
And so did I.
Because in loving them, it showed me that it’s ok to be stuck in a dead end retail job, because it’s a job and you are not your job. And that it was ok to be too smart for your own good, because you can use that to pull yourself out of whatever it is you’re stuck in. It’s ok to be living at home with your family, to be a disappointment, to be loud and obnoxious because you can still be loved. You can still be valued. You can look outside of yourself, outside of your pain, your selfishness, your ego and become something more. You don’t become worthy of love You have and will always be worthy of love. You just become aware of the fact that you deserve love.
You know, there’s a lot of great sentiment in your post. But I take issue with your claim that the RTD era was somehow more “real” or had more “heart” than the Moffat era, because I identify more with the Moffat era. I see more aspects of myself and my life reflected in his characters and his stories than I did with the RTD era. And I know I’m not alone in that.
Moffat’s stories and characters are not less real or less risky, and their wonder, awe, empathy, and compassion are not less true or beautiful. Remember that time Amy gave hope to Vincent Van Gogh, and every viewer who struggles with trauma, loss, or mental illness? Remember how heartbreaking it was when Amy realized that they ultimately didn’t save Van Gogh’s life, but the Doctor helped her to see that what they did was still a good thing and it mattered? Remember that time Moffat made you feel pity for Davros, and Missy, and you thought, wow, yes, compassion is that important, even for your worst enemy? Remember how many different ways Moffat illustrated that relationships, both romantic and friendly, are hard and we screw them up all the time but they’re still worth fighting and dying for? Remember how he spent two whole seasons exploring what heroism means–that it’s not about being good, because we’re all just idiots, but that when we try to be good, we can make the whole universe better? Remember the time he gave us one of the most compelling speeches ever recorded about war, which spoke directly to real events happening in the real world? Remember when Clara taught you that an ordinary schoolteacher, not by being inherently special but by being a teacher and choosing to be brave and kind and never giving up, and teaching others to do so as well, can profoundly affect another person, and another, and another, and maybe also the whole universe–even though she also still screws up a lot? Maybe you don’t; maybe those messages didn’t resonate with you like they did with me.
You’ve said some beautiful things about the power of RTD’s stories. I
adore “Turn Left” and I love Donna and Martha and Rose and I really
enjoy a lot of the RTD era and I love the man forever for bringing
Doctor Who back. It’s fine that the RTD era resonates more with you, and that the Moffat era resonates more with me. We’re different people and we have different lives and different tastes. And I’d be happy to talk more about the creative merits and failings of RTD’s soap-opera take on Doctor Who vs. Moffat’s dark fairy-tale approach. But we’d have to agree to talk about it in other terms, because don’t tell me that my life, and my heroes, and my stories, are less “real” or valuable than yours.
Who hasn’t felt like Rose, stuck in a rut with a dead end job? […] Compare with Amy or Clara, two young, pretty girls, whose characters were practically blank slates with ‘cool’ approved snark and wardrobes. Women who could’ve been brilliant – who could’ve been real.
I seriously resent being told I identify with Rose Tyler having a dead end job more than Amy, Clara, or River. It’s BS. Amy Pond, Clara Oswald, and River Song are some of the most complex–and wildly different–female characters and I am very proud to find myself to some degree in them. But if I was forced to choose just one, there’s no doubt I’m Clara. It’s almost mind boggling how accurately Clara Oswald represents me as a woman, as an English/book nerd who idolizes the power of stories, as a dress/skirt lover, as a 20-something in the 21st century who sucks at hooking their laptop up to the Internet, as someone who enjoys recognizing social conventions so I can use them or subvert them to my own ends, as … you get the idea.
I am not a “blank slate” and neither are of my friends who are Clara Oswalds, Amy Ponds, River Songs, or any combinations thereof. Let’s not pretend otherwise.
Who hasn’t felt like Amy Pond, disbelieved by the world for so long that you’re not entirely sure you believe yourself, full of emotions that you don’t know what to do with, struggling with the suicidal moments, desperate not to be abandoned—
Well, actually, not everybody. Me, I relate to her in part because I have an invisible disability, a chronic pain condition, and I really, really get being disbelieved. And then there’s the depression angle. I mean, it’s very possible that Amy Pond is much more relatable to people with mental or physical conditions than she ever will be to people who are able-bodied and mentally healthy.
But that doesn’t mean that she’s impossible to empathize with. People can understand and connect to all sorts of characters that aren’t like them. And honestly, if you take a look at a character, see that they’re not like you, and declare them an empty shell—well, please think about what that says to people who do relate to that character. When you say that Amy is not “real” and that nobody can relate to her, what are you saying to disabled people? When you object to River having a fun and funny side in addition to her struggles, what are you saying to abuse victims, or older women? When you say that Clara is a blank slate, what are you saying about women who invent masks to deal with family, or society, or their own sexuality?
You don’t have to like characters, or relate to them, or even empathize with them, but don’t tell us that we don’t exist. Personally, I’ve had a lifetime of being told that I’m not experiencing what I’m experiencing, and I can do without that.
The moment in which I related to Amy possibly more than I’ve ever related to a fictional character is that bit at her wedding when she stands up and starts shouting out for the Doctor, sounding like she’s having a mental breakdown (and for all she knows, she is.) And you see her family members react: her aunt Sharon puts her face in her hands, her mother winces “The psychiatrists we sent her to!…”
