ed_rex

Doctor Who: Trial of the show-runners

All right, I've done it. I've watched "A Good Man Goes to War". Twice. And scanned through it a third time, all the better to take note of every twitch and quiver of the unsightly mess.

Quite a lot to my surprise, it's been worth it.

"A Good Man Goes to War" starts with its pretentious and falsely portentous title and then goes ... pretty much nowhere at all. As with most of Moffat's efforts since "Blink", the most recent episode is self-contradictory, visually static and burdened by huge amounts of expository dialogue, improbable monologues and capital-P profundity with all the depths of a sheet of glass.

Worst of all, I don't believe any of it. Not in the Eye-Patch Lady, not in the Penitent Sontaran, not in the Fat and the Thin Ones or even in the Knitting Marine.

But I think I get it. Not just what has gone wrong with Doctor Who, but why something that (re)started so well in March of 2005 has gone so badly off the proverbial rails since 2007 came to a close.

Here's a clue. Steve Moffat didn't make the mess, he inherited it.

Click here for the full review, with snark, spoilers and digressions galore. Be further warned: it's very long.