close call
Tuesday, September 16th, 2008 02:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
caddymanThere is a feature in today’s Times - in the T2 insert – where in Russell T Davies is pimping his forthcoming book about his time on Doctor Who. A book which, incidentally, appears to be made up entirely of emails to and from someone called Benjamin Cook, who it seems is a journalist and sometime writer for Doctor Who Magazine. The link is here.
Two things spring to mind.
Firstly, we get a view of Rusty’s writing process, which boils down to: a) think of rough plot, b) think of a few scenes, c) have no idea how to link them, d) write nothing until deadline, e) panic furiously after deadline and write like mad, f) trust the ideas to gel into a coherent story.
I begin to see why his episodes are the weakest and why f) so rarely happens. Dear, oh dear, oh dear.
The second point that occurs to me is that even those who don’t like David Tennant’s version of the Doctor should be grateful that he vetoed one of Rusty’s stupider ideas. Apparently he (Rusty) had wanted JK Rowling to script an episode, but she politely declined. It then occurred to him that having landed Kylie for the 2007 Christmas Special, they would be hard pressed to get another guest star of a similar or greater level of fame. Well, B follows A, so it occurred to him that if JK Rowling wasn’t up for writing an episode, maybe she’d appear in one. A story where she is done over by a psychic alien and all her thoughts become reality. The Doctor then materialises on Earth in this JK Rowling world of magicians and sorcerers and has to sort it out.
Tenant, it seems, put his foot down and said ‘no’ – it would come across as a spoof, so the idea was shelved (worryingly, not ditched; just shelved.).
I sympathise with the thought of finding writing difficult, but really. I don’t do it for a living.
Doctor Who meets Harry Potter. Good grief.
Two things spring to mind.
Firstly, we get a view of Rusty’s writing process, which boils down to: a) think of rough plot, b) think of a few scenes, c) have no idea how to link them, d) write nothing until deadline, e) panic furiously after deadline and write like mad, f) trust the ideas to gel into a coherent story.
I begin to see why his episodes are the weakest and why f) so rarely happens. Dear, oh dear, oh dear.
The second point that occurs to me is that even those who don’t like David Tennant’s version of the Doctor should be grateful that he vetoed one of Rusty’s stupider ideas. Apparently he (Rusty) had wanted JK Rowling to script an episode, but she politely declined. It then occurred to him that having landed Kylie for the 2007 Christmas Special, they would be hard pressed to get another guest star of a similar or greater level of fame. Well, B follows A, so it occurred to him that if JK Rowling wasn’t up for writing an episode, maybe she’d appear in one. A story where she is done over by a psychic alien and all her thoughts become reality. The Doctor then materialises on Earth in this JK Rowling world of magicians and sorcerers and has to sort it out.
Tenant, it seems, put his foot down and said ‘no’ – it would come across as a spoof, so the idea was shelved (worryingly, not ditched; just shelved.).
I sympathise with the thought of finding writing difficult, but really. I don’t do it for a living.
Doctor Who meets Harry Potter. Good grief.