From "The Writer's Tale" extended remix

[dreamer_easy]

"I received Typo of the Week this morning, a letter asking me to talk at the Oxford Student Union. 'Your work, including Queer as Folk and The Second Coming, confirms you as one of the television writers working in Britain today.' Do you think they meant to put an adjective in there? Sexiest? Tallest? Welsh-est?"

Comments

[alawston.livejournal.com]

Much as I remain a staunch RTD fan in spite of (or possibly even because of) all the hate, a sizeable portion of my soul hopes that the student official in question will speak out and say that no adjectives were omitted after all.

[dreamer-easy.livejournal.com]

One of the tragedies of "The Writer's Tale" is that RTD-bashers will never pick it up and read about his doubts, difficulties, fears, and regrets. For that matter, they won't learn anything about the process of writing and TV production and how those shape what we eventually see in an episode: anything they dislike is therefore the result of his personal incompetence, bigotry, arrogance, etc etc etc. But then, mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself.

[alawston.livejournal.com]

ISTR it was Tom Baker who responded to fan criticisms of the series during his era by saying: "What these people are conceding is that they know nothing at all about making television."

I also remember Andrew Cartmel's epic DWM interview where he pointed out that when people say they don't like an episode, they're generally talking about a very specific element of the production that they don't have the critical faculties to pin down. He suggested that it was often the lighting or set design (but then so would I if I was a Script Editor). I find myself wondering if this isn't why some of modern Who's episodes receive little love. The production standards may be higher in general, but I do think The Long Game in particular might have received better reviews from fans if it hadn't been for the Saward era lighting in many of Satellite 5's sets. I'm not a huge fan of Fires of Pompeii, but I know that's mostly because the shot of the Pyroviles marching down the side of Vesuvius jolts me straight back to the Mentiads from The Pirate Planet.

But of course RTD is incompetent, bigoted, racist, misogynistic and also so homophobic that he personally invented AIDS.

[dreamer-easy.livejournal.com]

they're generally talking about a very specific element of the production that they don't have the critical faculties to pin down

Oh yes! And that's not necessarily saying they're stupid, either - we're not born knowing this stuff. I can identify simple problems in The Mysterious Planet 1, which we watched last night, but I couldn't tell you how to fix the lighting setup or where to put the cameras to fix them, and I'll bet anyone with a little film-making experience could point out a dozen flaws and fixes. OTOH I could go on at tedious length about what's wrong with the script. Johnson was right that you don't have to be a carpenter to criticise a badly made table, but it's not much use calling the furniture maker a cunt.

[qthewetsprocket.livejournal.com]

While I've definitely seen some h8ers out there who only see the world through 'OMG RTD is teh EVAL' glasses, please don't tar us all with the same brush. Trust me, it's perfectly possible to understand the restrictions a writer has to deal with in order to produce a television programme, and STILL see patterns in his or her writing that are offensive and upsetting (which might have nothing at all to do with said restrictions, and everything to with the writer him or herself).

One of the things I find so interesting about the whole RTD fandom debate is that many times, the valid criticisms that fans point out in an episode - and which some of the more fanatical RTD apologists reflexively and vehemently deny could ever possibly be anything remotely like a flaw - are things that the man himself would be the first to admit that he didn't get quite right. And when that actually happens, I often wonder if the apologists suddenly have to change their minds and think the criticism is somehow magically more valid now that the man himself has admitted it. :/

tl;dr - Pointing out valid criticisms in an episode doesn't mean Uncle Rusty is a bad person; it just means he's got some room for improvement. :)

*ponders lowering my ethical standards and giving some of my hard-won scratch to the evil that is Amazon.com for The Final Chapter, as Powell's will almost certainly have it at full list price*

[dreamer-easy.livejournal.com]

Yah, but you're not an RTD-basher or a h8er, Q! You're just a vehement critic of his work. It's only Internet math which would group you with the envious and virulent - same as it would group me with the coffee-baggers because I blubbed like a big girl's blouse over Ianto. Here, at least, you don't have to defend yourself, 'cos Internet math is BANNED.

There is stuff in WTFC which I think would interest you, though. "Apparently, the Sunday Times refers to Donna's age, twice, and her lack of athleticism. Here it comes: the hate of a strong woman. God, 13 weeks of this!"

[qthewetsprocket.livejournal.com]

Here, at least, you don't have to defend yourself, 'cos Internet math is BANNED.

:D

I think the thing I'm most interested in with that book (assuming it's got all the text from the first book too, yeah?) is the rewriting stuff: "I was going to do this, but then we had to spend the money on something else / an actor became unavailable / Auntie Beeb wouldn't let us say that, so I had to do this instead." That's what I mainly admire about television writers; their ability to think on their feet and scramble to come up with new things to fit the changing story demands.

[dreamer-easy.livejournal.com]

That describes about three-quarters of the book's content! :D

And yeah, it's the original book, which starts in Feb 2007 as they're planning S4, plus at least as many pages of new stuff, dating from March 2008 to RTD's last day on the show. Just tons of insight into how everything happened, plus a million lols, as when the letter "a" breaks on Russell's keyboard and he has to cut-and-paste it into words. So fascinating reading even for folks who are not exactly Mr Davies' greatest fans. :)