Doctor Who: The Satan Pit

[altariel]

Poor Jefferson. Poor Ooooooooooooood (again).

What is it about this story that doesn't quite hang together? Even Mr A can't see what's wrong with it. The viola music is great, the lovely images of the Doctor suspended in the void - it should be brilliant.

SNIFFLECOUNT: A: 21, Mr A: 25

Comments

[terri-osborne.livejournal.com]

Oh, I agree entirely. Something about that 2-parter didn't quite work for me, either, but I can't put my finger on the reason to save my life.

[jhall1.livejournal.com]

The first part was perfect, but somehow the resolution in the second part didn't quite work for me.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

And I should love it to bits: remote space station, religion-and-science as belief systems, great ensemble... I think it hasn't quite decided on its major theme, and so it feels all over the place. Like it's been half-baked.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

See above, but I think it might be that it's not quite sure exactly what the storylines are that it's tying up.

[ex-lark-asc.livejournal.com]

For me, it's either a case of the writers not understanding the frame of reference they're working in and failing to get it right, or it's a case of falling between two stools.

Either (a) they haven't worked out that messing about with Christian mythology and Universal evil means that you've essentially got a story where good cannot triumph completely if you want a satisfying ending, because you're dealing with the archetype of the evil that lurks within the human heart;

or (b) they had two people writing the episode with totally different opinions - one who wanted to write a dark and brooding story of moral ambiguity and latent evil and one who wanted to write a whizzbang monster-killer story - and because they couldn't agree the result was this horrible lame unsatisfying compromise.

Also, this ep would have worked *way* better with Eccleston, because he can actually play latent evil and moral ambiguity, unlike Popcorn Boy.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I think you may well be right with both those things. On point (a), I think they got to "ah, science can be thought of as a belief system", and then weren't able to construct a model of faith upon which to prop up the rest of the narrative. It all ends up feeling a bit undergraduate essay.

[kalypso-v.livejournal.com]

[Snort] It's got the Tenth Doctor and Rose in it.

I did quite like an attempt at trad Who, and I suppose even my complaint fits in with that; I've always thought Genesis of the Daleks would have been a lot better without the Doctor and his companions in it.

[ex-lark-asc.livejournal.com]

... well if you will try to solve the essentially unsolvable problem of faith versus evidence-based belief (which is what lies at the core of the science/religion debate) in 80 minutes of mid-budget television...

[altariel.livejournal.com]

'Genesis of the Daleks' would certainly be better if it was three episodes shorter *snoozes in the middle*

[iainjcoleman.livejournal.com]

But the religion wasn't real religion, and the science most definitely wasn't real science. Maybe that's part of what's wrong with it. Compare and contrast with "The Masque of Mandragora". That too is religion vs science, or at least superstition vs science, but it works much better because the writer understands the point he's making and the context in which he's chosen to make it. "Mandragora"'s version of the Renaissance may be a simplified caricature, but Louis Marks had studied the period and he knew what he was simplifying, and to what effect. "The Satan Pit" would have worked better if it had done a more careful job of establishing a human world of rationality and machines, which is then ripped open by something terrifyingly, irreducibly other. If it had been more like Alien, basically, and maybe a bit less like Aliens.

[iainjcoleman.livejournal.com]

DO NOT BLASPHEME! DO NOT BLASPHEME!

[altariel.livejournal.com]

You know it makes sense.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Louis Marks had studied the period and he knew what he was simplifying, and to what effect

This gets to the heart of it, I think: in TIP/TSP you can sense the uncertainty about what the themes are supposed to me, what the resolution is meant to be about.

[iainjcoleman.livejournal.com]

It would certainly cut down the time spent waiting for Lis Sladen to get into her memorably well-fitting camouflage trousers...



...sorry, drifted away for a minute there. OK so there's a certain amount of traditional Doctor Who padding in the middle, but there's a lot you'd miss if you cut the story down to its bare essentials. Like the way the Thals are as brutal in thei way as the Kaleds, or the way Davros manages to twist everyone, including his own government, round his grey, decaying little finger. You could trim an episode's worth of material out of it, sure, but you couldn't cut it in half.

[kerravonsen]

The second part didn't hang together for me because the author doesn't understand Christianity. I kept on getting irritated by their "Oh no, maybe there really is a devil!" wonderings, because the Beast is so obviously NOT Satan. Sure, it's an evil and powerful creature, but the mythology about Satan being something with horns and a pitchfork is just that -- mythology; it isn't based on the Bible at all.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I felt exactly the same way. Maybe solved mysteries just aren't as satisfying as unsolved ones.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

*snaps fingers* Come back to me, Iain!

It's Sarah-Jane's plotline that really goes nowhere, and that's what I'd cut back to nothing. But I appreciate that others may have different reasons for enjoying the story, so I'll grant you a full episode's worth of camouflage-perving and cut it back to a four-parter.