Rusty needs to work a little harder if he wants to pass this grade.

[spatch]

In my previous Doctor Who post, nathanw just commented:

We're 3 for 3 of season finales with nigh-infinite armies of hostile robots. Keep your eyes open for next year's robots of choice.

Yes! How astute! Rusty has demonstrated that he can indeed write cliffhangers that involve a nigh-infinite army of hostile robots.

What else can Rusty write?

1. Humongous crowds looking up at things in awe and surprise
2. Slightly less-humongous crowds running and screaming in terror as shit blows up around them (slightly less because we're on a budget, don't you know)
3. Campy villians who love to prance about and cackle maniacally
4. Touching montages of small clusters of people, friends or families, all huddled around their individual television sets or monitors, watching and waiting
5. Touching montages of the same clusters of people happily embracing or otherwise celebrating survival of some sort
   Though we will concede Rusty a small creative victory for writing one scene in which those small clusters of people get zotted out of existence instead. But that's a rare occurrence.

All right, but what can't Rusty write?

1. Women
2. Resolutions
3. Well.

This concludes the lesson for today. This may be on the test.

Comments

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

I think he's done some good work, on episodes that were not supposed to be plot-heavy: the series pilot "Rose", "Tooth and Claw" and this season's "Gridlock" were all solid popcorn entertainment, and even "Army of Ghosts/Doomsday" and the ever-reviled "Love and Monsters" had their moments. He's got a good ear for dialogue. He still does not entirely understand how good science fiction works, but lots of people in TV don't.

I hear rumors that he's looking for a replacement post-S4 please let it be Steven Moffat.

[spatch]

He's great with dialogue.

Story and science-fiction know-how, not so much.
Which is a shame, since this is a show which requires not only dialogue but decent stories and good science-fiction.