"A Christmas Carol" reviewed

[ed_rex]

Collateral Damage: The Problem With Steven Moffat

There are (at least) two kinds of cheating common in the writing of popular fiction. One is when a plot doesn't make sense, where an apparently intricate tapestry is revealed to be only a bunch of holes where the logic fell through; another is when a story's human logic is lacking, when long-established characters betray their readers' or viewers' previous experience of them.

25 minutes into the 2010 Doctor Who Christmas Special, "A Christmas Carol", I was having a wonderful time, and thinking that the Steven Moffat I'd once loved — the Steven Moffat who gave us the intricate yet humane chills of "Blink" and "The Doctor Dances — had come back to us at last.

But still, I had misgivings, and by the 30 minute mark, they had re-emerged full-blown. The Steven Moffat who concocted last season's "crack in the universe" story-line, and who had first shown his true colours with the popular but hollow and inhumane "The Girl in the Fireplace" was still in charge.

Moffat can be an excellent writer, whose plots are complex and who can create intriguing and believable characters with a few deft strokes of the auctorial keyboard. But as a dramatist, he has one honking big flaw, and it takes centre stage here. "A Christmas Carol" is a grand, meticulously-constructed romp, but a romp with a monstrous emptiness at its fairy-tale heart.

My full review is at Edifice Rex Online. Minor plot spoilers ahead, but unless you've never heard of Charles Dickens, not too many.

Comments

False immoratlity

[ed_rex]

Abigail Pettigrew, stuck in her coffin-like freezer, could be an older version of Cal, the dying little girl trapped as the computer's core in "Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead" grown up.

I hadn't quite consciously made that connection before, so thank you for sparking it. Moffat does seem to have a penchant for presenting any kind of "immortality" as being better than life lived until death, doesn't he?

When you started to talk about Moffat giving women particularly "special" treatment I was going to point to Rory and suggest that 2,000 years spent as a plastic guard over a tomb is a similar fate — and it is — but your nubmers do suggest there might be something sexist as well as simply uncaring going on.

I wasn't comfortable with Kathy Nightengale's happy acceptance of her fate, but at the time I could accept that Kathy herself really did. The character was written well enough that I didn't disbelieve it. More often though, as you've reiterated, Moffat's women (and his men! I still want to add, but I don't remember the previous series well enough to back it up (which is kind of saying something right there, I think) simply don't exist as anything but stock characters, so we never know what they might or might not want or like.

Problematic indeed.

Re: False immoratlity

[gehayi]

I'd agree with you on the subject of Rory spending 2,000 years as living plastic guarding the Pandorica to protect Amy...except for one thing.

Rory chooses to do so.

And, in fact, chooses in direct opposition to the Doctor's advice. It's dangerous; he's made of plastic now so he can't heal if he's damaged; he can't sleep; he'll be completely alone for thousands of years; he'll almost certainly go mad; and honestly, the universe is in danger, and Rory's girlfriend isn't nearly as important as the universe--

And Rory socks the Doctor. HARD. And says four words that make him the best fictional boyfriend ever:

"She is to me."

So Rory chooses the trap, the prison, the possible madness. And he chooses it out of love.

The odd meeting ground between Rory and Moffat's women is, oddly, Craig, the frustrated fellow in The Lodger, has an unsatisfying life in a boring town. He would love to leave--but he chooses not to, because by staying, he remains in the same town with the girl he loves but who he believes doesn't love him. He chooses the trap--but he also chooses not to speak of his feelings or to ask her about her own. He has agency...but he doesn't allow the woman he loves any, for fear that he'll lose her.

Which is the motive for Cal's father, the Tenth Doctor, Liz Ten's male employees, and Kazman. "I'll miss this and I'll miss that and DON'T LEAVE ME! And for God's sake, DON'T CHANGE."

Re: False immoratlity

[ed_rex]

You've just about convinced me. I'm clinging (yes, a little desperately) to Nancy, to Sally Sparrow and to the fact that we're dealing with a really small sample size. But the bloody pattern is getting awfully hard to ignore.