Re: Smith and Jones science (Was: Doctor Who progressive or interlaced?)


On 4 Apr, 18:57, "Agamemnon" <agamem...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

"Astrobiochemist" <CCSBey...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1175698476.383433.259750@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

and they are not asking her to solve their problems

They're expecting her to be, at the very least, somebody to listen to
their whingeing, and possibly someone to offer a solution. That's why
they keep ringing her at the beginning of the episode.

Rubbish. They are ringing her to see if she is ok.

Not at the beginning of the episode. At the beginning of the episode,
the different members of Martha's family are calling her to act as a
mediator in their arguments.

All of which is totally irrelevant to the non-existent "plot".


Do you now accept that they _were_ asking her to solve their problems?


You seem to be missing the importance of the family aspect to the
character. Maybe you don't like it since you think of it as "soap"
but the writers are trying to make a fully developed character and as
such, she has a family with issues that she is trying to get away
from.

Rubbish. It is totally irrelevant who her family are and what their
relationship are between themselves

It may be irrelevant to _you_ but that doesn't make it irrelevant to
everyone.

Totally irrelevant. They can be completely dispensed with without affecting
her character or the story in any way. It makes no difference whatsoever
that her father is having an affair with a blonde bimbo.

Obviously details likw the bimbo's hair colour aren't important.

What is important is that there always seems to be one minor family
crisis after another, and that _Martha_ is the one who's always
expected to solve them.


It's not quite that we were told that she planned, we were told that
she had foreknowledge of people coming after her and we saw the
results of her planning.

HOW did she gain this foreknowledge?

She killed popular and important figure on a world where there are
ruthless law enforcers like the Judoon. She didn't need to be a
genius to work out that someone would come after her!

And while you are bringing up the importance of "show, don't tell,"
that is the reasoning behind showing Martha's family. The writers are
trying to show us Martha's character, rather than telling us about
Martha's character so they have included the family scenes.

HER FAMILIES AFFAIRS AND ARGUMENTS BETWEEN THEMSELVES HAS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING
TO DO WITH HER CHARACTER!

Shouting won't make it true.


They are nothing of the kind. They tell us nothing about the non-existent
"plot" and they have nothing to do with Martha. They are totally irrelevant
soap for the sake of soap.

They tell us a _lot_ about Martha, if you're smart enough to work it
out.


That is not a plot. Its reacting to unplanned events.

No, the episode was actually written. No reacting to unplanned events
there. ;)

The episode might have been written but it is was not planned.

Wasn't it? Any evidence that RTD didn't at least work out a rough
outline when he started writing?

Not only that
but the events within it did not reveal any planning being carried out be
the villain.

She'd created the slabs and booked herself into the hospital. That's
about as much planning as most DW villains ever do.

While I am just being silly there, having characters react to events
that occur is still a plot. In fact, that seems to be most Doctor Who

No it isn't. Its open ended writing, in other words SOAP.

plots, especially in the classic series.

No it is not.


Really? Can you give us some examples of strong plots from the
classic series? There aren't that many.

"Doctor travels somewhere, runs into something unexpected and has to
quickly solve a problem caused by the unexpected thing."

Wrong. In the classic series we are shown the reasons for the villains
motivation (not told them in a one liner at the end) and we are shown the
development and progress of the villains plan and the clues and
investigation carried out to expose and counter it.

Let's go right back to one of the very earliest DW villains: Tegana.

For most of the story we don't know why he's trying to disrupt Marco
Polo's mission; we only know that he is. It's only explained at the
end that he's trying to start a war to get rid of Kublai Khan, and
even then, it's not really made clear why.

Now, let's try a slightly more famous villain: the Master.

It's never explained why he wants to invade the Earth. Not even a
throwaway line at the end to give us his motivation. And his plans
are poorl thought out, leading him to switch sides at the last minute
and help Pertwee & UNIT defeat the Nestenes, the Axons, etc.

Such as what? We were never shown that anything was strange about it in
advance, only told it looked strange, but not how later on. Just imagine
a
Sherlock Holms novel starting off this way. Its a joke, not a serious
script.

While most Sherlock Holmes stories involve someone coming to him for
help, "The Adventure of the Final Problem" is an example of Holmes
finding something that looks odd (in the story, Holmes notices an odd
series of connections in the underworld and goes to see what is going
on, which is how he finds Moriarty) and examining it.

So where do we see the Doctor noticing something odd and connecting things
together in Smith and Jones. NOT ONCE.

Well, where do we see Holmes noticing something odd and connecting
things together in 'The Final Problem'? NOT ONCE.

Like the Doctor, he's already done it before the story starts.

Except that "reacting to the unexpected" is the plot behind most
Doctor Who episodes, especially in the classic series. How do you

No it isn't. The Doctor investigates and follows leads and questions people
and makes scientific deductions and expects the unexpected like Sherlock
Holmes.

You really don't know much about Sherlock Holmes, do you?

.

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