Comments by "Ronin Dave" (@RoninDave) on ""The Timeless Children" - The End of Doctor Who" video.

  1. Messing with canon is like one of the greatest sins in fandom. Throughout the show's history they would do some modifications but they were usually very careful how it was done especially in the older series. To suddenly throw out the idea of the first doctor being the first doctor is a slap in the face of the fans. If ever this shows gets revive they'll have to pretend this whole Whitaker doctor never happened.
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  2.  David Renton  There's a difference between tweaking canon and outright changing it completely. Having women play male roles in Shakespeare is not an example of changing canon or having black actors play the Founding Fathers. Not anymore than setting Richard III in a WWII-ish setting. Those are not changing the fundamental aspects of the story in terms of plot and character. I think you are not familiar with what canon exactly is because your examples don't fit especially not with Doctor Who. Canon is the established story elements within the fictional universe ie a character's backstory and origins, the political situations, the history of the world, the history of characters, the character of the characters, etc... Basically think lore. For example with Doctor Who it was never really stated where the First Doctor and his granddaughter were from. This allowed the writers freedom to eventually create whole Time Lords and Gallifrey story elements which they added to gradually over the years careful not to give too much while not contradicting themselves too much. For a long long time the Time Lords and their history was the established canon of the show with occasional tweaks. This episode completely rewrote that history throwing out the original origins for something completely different and not offering up much of a reason as to why the established lore was incorrect. It also changed the Doctor's origins from being from Gallifrey into some strange entity making the Doctor far more important in the Doctor Who universe that he/she ever was throughout it's 50 year run. And a big change was making William Hartnell's doctor not the first doctor. When the writers first established the regeneration concept at the end of Hartnel's run it was not messing with canon as they had left the Doctor a mysterious character to whom they could add elements to as they went along such as a way to change the face of the character but make it part of the established lore. For decades it was established about the number of doctors, the number of regenerations, how the time lords came about then along comes Chibnail rebooting the show within the original show's framework changing this established lore that writers had been building on for half a century. Since he did not create the character and universe, it's not really his right to completely do so which is why people are angry. Previous writers might tweak here and there but they were careful not to do something that would throw already established canon out the window. One simple reason for this is that changing canon betrays the trust between writer(s) and audience. If Harry Potter suddenly became hard science fiction and that Voldemort was a cyborg the whole time, fans would be pissed as everything they had been told up to that point has been rendered moot and they essentially had wasted their time on a story that completely changed direction and character.
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  3. yeah Moffat was like watching someone copy the formula of LOST but not understanding it because as LOST eventually revealed the writers were making it up as they went along and they had no grand narrative they had been building when they started. I still have no idea what the season finale of the first season of Matt Smith actually meant because Moffat left so many things unanswered because he didn't know at that time why the Pandorica was built or the Silence or who was manipulating the Tardis until 2 or 3 seasons later nor how Amy Pond was able to wish the Doctor back into existence. Old Doctor Who used basic story elements to tell a story. when a crisis was resolved they made it clear how and why it was done rather than letting it be resolved two seasons later.
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