David’s Reviews > TARDISbound: Navigating the Universes of Doctor Who > Status Update

Chapter 7 is a waste. It asserts a distinction between ethics, morals, and politics, but never articulates it. It dismisses the 26 years of the classic series, contradicting the book's central interest in completeness. And it ultimately argues that individual stories can have interesting ethics rather than whether the vast narrative does, again running counter to the purpose of the book.

Well-deserved attention paid to the superlative Grimm Reality.

Another good reading of a Moffat-era story, sensitive to these stories' revisions of Davies' material.

'the sometimes turgidly self-important NAs' :-)

'At their best, Doctor Who narratives renew familiar problems of defining and understanding emotional states and ethical choices by a process of vertiginous shift in perspective.' (Somewhat belied by his disinterest in realism or politics.)

Chapter 6 asks 'What kinds of beauty can be seen in Doctor Who?' It disappoints by being somewhat haphazard and tentative, but it is nonetheless intriguing. Key beauties: surreal apposition, the epic vignette, and the harlequinade motif.

Excellent point about clockwork men in a story about time ('The Girl in the Fireplace').

'[C]haracter [conceived quite specifically in terms of psychodrama] has become much more important, if not central, to storytelling [in the new series].'

'[T]he stylistic differences between the old and new Doctor Who series are less marked than current hyperbole suggests.'

'It seems to me that, far from being useful indicators of aesthetic value, picture standard and technical sophistication are at best red herrings and at worst fodder for specious hierarchisation.'