5 Responses to New MindlessWho post

1. Hal says:

   March 20, 2012 at 6:43 pm

   Reading this Mindless Ones post and discovering the disparaging things Grand Moffat Tarkin has said about Robert Holmes, you’ve somehow made me dislike him (Moffat) and almost all of his work even more. Now that’s an achievement! It says something that one of the few interesting things about that over-rated raging egomaniac is his resemblance to Jock McClaren from Porridge (or Dempsey and Makepeace’s Chas, if you prefer). I find it interesting that he sees Holmes as a bad hack because of the extremely “convincing” Talons-rat do you think he would say the same of Douglas Adams because he expected the BBC to be able to bring the trickier elements from his scripts to life on-screen even after working on Doctor Who and was then – rather stupidly – disappointed when they couldn’t? Do you know I bet he wouldn’t. Ha. That isn’t to attack Adams but merely to point out the smug idiocy of Moffat who is himself guilty of far more hackery than Holmes.
   Well as this entire comment/rant is only tangentially related to your post I may as well finish what I started ;). At least Holmes could usually tell a story properly and didn’t stoop to drawing things out like a string of hot cheese or perform the hack-act of abandoning logic completely because “hey, it’s Doctor Who it doesn’t have to make sense”. Bah! Moffat, hack be *thy* name.
   Um. By the way I liked your post. Very persuasive argument.
   • Tilt Araiza says:

     March 20, 2012 at 8:09 pm

     I assume whoever it was that labelled Holmes a “good hack” had managed to obtain samples of his work on Emergency Ward 10, Honey Lane and Public Eye et al. Y’know, just to be sure he was a hack through and through and it wasn’t just Who he was treating as hack work.

     Don’t worry, I know I’m not being entirely reasonable. Just had to get it out of my system.
     • Andrew Hickey says:

       March 20, 2012 at 9:09 pm

       It was Paul Cornell. Who is a huge cheerleader for the work of one Terrance Dicks. Draw your own conclusions.
       (Though in fairness to Messrs Moffat and Cornell, I should point out that the conversation in question was seventeen years ago. I am very, very glad that nothing *I* said or did that long ago is permanently recorded…)
       • Tilt Araiza says:

         March 20, 2012 at 10:39 pm

         If I thought that kind of blindness was peculiar to one man 17 years ago, I’d be OK, but I think that kind of thing is going to be the default in the future. I’ve had people report breathlessly that they saw Obi Wan in an old film and, get this, he looked and sounded really different from how he did in…I can’t even type its title. Choking on my own snobrage.
2. Hal says:

   March 20, 2012 at 9:57 pm

   Yes, but to be equally fair Moffat has continued to say irritating things… Heh.
   It’s interesting, the word “hack” is thrown around a lot but too often it’s used when “craftsman” would work equally well. Holmes surely wrote some things that were mediocre or worse but his better work is not only imaginative but just as importantly has its own distinctive voice. It should be noted that Moffat has had control of his own work but that hasn’t stopped him from turning in stuff that could be termed hackwork when hackwork is just a euphemism for crapwork and that’s even with his dominant “voice” (man, I suppose James Patterson can be said to have a “voice”). Gah, I’m just tired of the hosannas Moffat receives for even his worst piffle. I think my rant quotient is filled for today.

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