I agree there is a fair amount of coasting, but I think this does deliver in terms of gun battles, the clone, all the sneaking around the Sontaran ship Donna does. It's all at a fairly "mindless entertainment" level - and the Hinchcliffe era demonstrates you can do this kind of thing more intelligently without having to be "deep and meaningful". However I think this season overall has more of a sense of direction and purpose than seasons 2 and 3 did and so less of a sense that stories are just there to fill in the gaps.
It surprises me, given the regular accusations of misogyny thrown Moffat's way, that people so rarely raise the issue that an awful lot of Davies' run features one, increasingly bitter, mother-in-law joke. Obviously that doesn't exonerate Moffat for his mis-steps, but placed in context of the rest of UK genre TV, it is difficult to see him as uniquely bad - and at least his stereotypes tend towards women who are brash, determined and fun-loving (even if they often end up having to be rescued by a man) rather than women who are suspicious, over-protective and controlling.
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dancing_serpent
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Date: 2015-03-06 09:03 am (UTC)It surprises me, given the regular accusations of misogyny thrown Moffat's way, that people so rarely raise the issue that an awful lot of Davies' run features one, increasingly bitter, mother-in-law joke. Obviously that doesn't exonerate Moffat for his mis-steps, but placed in context of the rest of UK genre TV, it is difficult to see him as uniquely bad - and at least his stereotypes tend towards women who are brash, determined and fun-loving (even if they often end up having to be rescued by a man) rather than women who are suspicious, over-protective and controlling.