Several years ago one of my new college friends introduced me to this hilarious sci-fi show called Torchwood. I watched a whole season of it before my friend informed me that it was a spinoff of the famous Doctor Who (it’s also an anagram!). So I watched a season of that, and there were these great episodes called “The Empty Child” and “The Doctor Dances” (in which the main character of Torchwood is introduced). Really, they were brilliant. Creepy, for sure, and he’d written Rose (the Doctor’s companion) as a boy crazy twat, which was annoying, but easily overlooked, for the rest of it was great. And the Doctor dances. It’s a thing.
When I reached the third season of Doctor Who, I saw “Blink,” which is regarded by many as the best episode of Doctor Who ever. Or at least during that season. Again, creepy, but also really well-written, even though the Doctor was hardly even in the episode at all. Carey Mulligan before she was famous is the star of the episode, and her Sally Sparrow is fantastic.
Somewhere in all of this, I discovered Coupling, which is now my go-to sitcom. It’s like the British version of “Friends.” It’s hilarious in its absurdity, and the rapid escalation of seemingly normal situations. My favorite clip, which sums up the show pretty well, is Steve’s “Cushion Rage.”
There is also this really great new adaptation of Sherlock Holmes on BBC called “Sherlock,” starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman. It’s brilliant, only 6 episodes, you should check it out before the new series starts in November.
So, what do all these things I like have in common?
Steven Moffat.
In light of all these things I like that he has created or was very much involved with, I was absolutely THRILLED when I heard he’d be taking over from Russell T. Davies as showrunner for Doctor Who. After all, RTD liked to rip my heart out, toss it through a shredder, and then stomp on it at least once a year (at least twice a year when Torchwood was around).
But then… series 5 of Doctor Who began, and I slowly began to realize that Steven Moffat is a sexist douchebag. He also goes a bit insane when all of time and space are available to him. And he’s kind of an asshole to his fans.
Let’s start at the beginning. While I loved the plots of those Doctor Who episodes, Moffat turned Rose (my personal favorite companion, especially when she was traveling with Nine) into a boy-crazy airhead. He reduced her personality in a way that seemed out of character and boring. At the time, though, I was able to overlook this, because Sally Sparrow was such a great character. I got it into my head that maybe Moffat just didn’t like Rose. Ok, fine, whatever.
But then I started critiquing “Coupling.” When you get down to it, the male characters are great. They are each hilarious in their own ways – Jeff is just really strange and awkward, Steve has strong opinions about very silly things and tends to rant about them when he reaches his limit, and Patrick just wants to have sex with all the ladies. The female characters, on the other hand, are mostly annoying. Sally is obsessed with her appearance (I choose to laugh at her for this, rather than take her as a representative of my gender), Jane is just straight-up crazy, and Susan is inconsistent. When the three of them are together, their conversations can get really petty and annoying, but I can at least relate to Susan as a person most of the time. However, she chooses random things to get really mad about. In fact, all three of the Coupling women appear to have wild mood swings. All the time.
In general, I find the show more interesting and funny when we’re hanging out with the guys, or everyone is hanging out together. Moffat’s brand of sexism is the kind where he thinks men are oppressed by women. Many of the jokes in Coupling play of the male characters being afraid of or intimidated by the women. The best jokes, though, are when the situation escalates into absurdity, and blows up in the end, and THAT is why I love this show so much.
I am a fan of criticizing what you love because it’s healthy. I have no qualms about saying how much I love Coupling. No other sitcom makes me laugh as much as that one. But I am well aware of its flaws. If I don’t think about them too hard, I find them easy to ignore. Not sure if that’s a good thing, but you know what? I don’t care. Coupling makes me laugh.
Then, of course, there is Sherlock, which is absolutely brilliant. The acting in that show, especially on the part of Benedict Cumberbatch, blows me away every time. This show magnificently fails the Bechdel test, of course, because Moffat. Irene Adler’s character starts out pretty awesome, but in the end she becomes a damsel in distress, per Moffat’s habits. Again, I am willing to overlook the flaws of this show because overall it is brilliant. Mark Gatiss is co-showrunner, which I think helps quite a bit as well. My favorite incarnation of Moriarty is in this show.
But now, Steven Moffat is the showrunner of Doctor Who, and he is running it into the ground. He was given all of space and time to play with, and now he tries to do ALL THE THINGS ALL AT ONCE. His plots are insanely convoluted and most of the time don’t make any sense. Then of course there’s Amy Pond, whom he plays off as being in love with the Doctor even though she’s engaged to Rory (who is THE BEST COMPANION SINCE WILF). It gets old REALLY fast. But there are a million and one problems with the Pond storyline, and I can’t get into it now, because it just makes me angry. Once their storyline ended, I gave up on Doctor Who. Moffat decided to break all the canon (he changed the Doctor’s costume! That DOESN’T HAPPEN. Sure, colors change slightly sometimes, but the key elements DO NOT). He is obsessed with giving the Doctor a love interest, or getting him into love triangles. It’s SO annoying. Give me another Donna Noble companion any day. The Doctor and the TARDIS are the OTP. Someone please drill this into Moffat’s head. Perhaps brainwashing would work?
If I met Moffat on the street, I would probably punch him, but not for all the things described above. I would punch him because he is a complete asshole to his fans. He’s been giving us teasers for months about the 50th Anniversary in November, and then at SDCC he says that he’s been lying the whole time. He straight up doesn’t care about the people who have made him successful and famous, and that bothers me. Why couldn’t he have just said nothing at all? I’ve never heard of any other showrunner doing this to their fans. He’s just a mean, self-centered, sexist douchebag, and I hate that I have such conflicting feelings about his work.
His latest grievance, unsurprising that it is, is that he has chosen yet another white male to play the Doctor. Those of you who don’t know, whenever the Doctor “dies” he regenerates into a whole new person – their personalities are essentially the same, but they look totally different. Since the departure of Tennant as Ten, fans have been begging for a female Doctor, or Chiwetel Ejiofor (because he is just so great). But Moffat is in charge, and he sucks, and can’t we have RTD back? He may have tried to destroy my soul several times, but at least he wasn’t a sexist asshole…
There is a scene in a non-Moffat episode of Doctor Who in which the Doctor is talking to the Prime Minister after she’s done something he thinks is horrible. He tells her he can take her administration down with six words. Just six. Then he walks up to her aid and says “Don’t you think she looks tired?” I am hoping that by spreading this image around the internet (it originated on tumblr, of course) we can accomplish the same goal. #wishfulthinking
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