(Okay, sometimes my subject-lines are more cutesy than informative. Onwards.)
So what can you possibly use as a base-line between say "Doctor's Wife" and "End of the World"? Unless you're planning on comparing Doctor Who to everything else out there, which is a bit silly, considering the history and breadth that DW has.
As you do seem to appreciate, for me it all starts with the writing; directing, acting, etc, all can cover a lot of holes, but unless you're talking about improvisation, without a script you've got nothing.
I think if you go back to my recent posts, you'll see that I most am comparing Moffat to Moffat; I've been deliberately shying away from the RTD era simply because so many people will interpret anything I say about him (good or bad) as proof that I'm a hater (or otherwise).
Which I know, doesn't directly address your point.
That's because I think you're missing mine. You suggest I compare Series 5 to Series 6, but I really do see them as a whole, changes of producers or not. With a few exceptions (the Dalek episode, the first part of the Angels diptych, "The Lodger" and "Vincent and the Doctor") I think Series 5 suffered from more or less the same flaws that are ruining Series 6 for me. And honestly, of the episodes I mentioned, only the last one holds up in my restrospective mind's eye..
To make a long story short, I think Moffat is calling the shots more than anyone else and so, if you like what you're seeing on-screen, he deserves the credit and, if you don't, the blame.
You ask how I can tell which elements are the good and which the bad when critiquing a particular production. And there's some truth in that. But when the script makes no sense, when it's characters take stupid or improbable actions simply to serve the plot, and when dialogue intended to be clever or witty just lies there like a stunned cow on an abattoir floor, then I don't need to make excuses for it by blaming a change in the production team or a budget cut.
I have very explicitly compared these episodes with Neil Gaiman's about which I don't think I had anything bad to say, and surely you're not telling me the production department was responsible for the success of "The Doctor's Wife"?
I think I am in fact doing what you're asking me to do (though not only that), and much of Moffat's (or rather, the Moffat-headed) productions simply don't stand up as well-crafted works of drama.
(I recently saw Titanic for the first time, and I agree that the script was pretty bad — maybe not as bad as you thought it was, but pretty bad — and I didn't read it. It was a passable entertainment, though and, you're right, that's because Cameron really knows his way around a Camera, the production values were pretty good, and the principal actors sold their lines very well indeed. But what does that have to do with the crap scripts that are getting made by the Doctor Who gang?)
The script remains the same
So what can you possibly use as a base-line between say "Doctor's Wife" and "End of the World"? Unless you're planning on comparing Doctor Who to everything else out there, which is a bit silly, considering the history and breadth that DW has.
As you do seem to appreciate, for me it all starts with the writing; directing, acting, etc, all can cover a lot of holes, but unless you're talking about improvisation, without a script you've got nothing.
I think if you go back to my recent posts, you'll see that I most am comparing Moffat to Moffat; I've been deliberately shying away from the RTD era simply because so many people will interpret anything I say about him (good or bad) as proof that I'm a hater (or otherwise).
Which I know, doesn't directly address your point.
That's because I think you're missing mine. You suggest I compare Series 5 to Series 6, but I really do see them as a whole, changes of producers or not. With a few exceptions (the Dalek episode, the first part of the Angels diptych, "The Lodger" and "Vincent and the Doctor") I think Series 5 suffered from more or less the same flaws that are ruining Series 6 for me. And honestly, of the episodes I mentioned, only the last one holds up in my restrospective mind's eye..
To make a long story short, I think Moffat is calling the shots more than anyone else and so, if you like what you're seeing on-screen, he deserves the credit and, if you don't, the blame.
You ask how I can tell which elements are the good and which the bad when critiquing a particular production. And there's some truth in that. But when the script makes no sense, when it's characters take stupid or improbable actions simply to serve the plot, and when dialogue intended to be clever or witty just lies there like a stunned cow on an abattoir floor, then I don't need to make excuses for it by blaming a change in the production team or a budget cut.
I have very explicitly compared these episodes with Neil Gaiman's about which I don't think I had anything bad to say, and surely you're not telling me the production department was responsible for the success of "The Doctor's Wife"?
I think I am in fact doing what you're asking me to do (though not only that), and much of Moffat's (or rather, the Moffat-headed) productions simply don't stand up as well-crafted works of drama.
(I recently saw Titanic for the first time, and I agree that the script was pretty bad — maybe not as bad as you thought it was, but pretty bad — and I didn't read it. It was a passable entertainment, though and, you're right, that's because Cameron really knows his way around a Camera, the production values were pretty good, and the principal actors sold their lines very well indeed. But what does that have to do with the crap scripts that are getting made by the Doctor Who gang?)